Graves

The mail with the pet you'll get ingame after reaching player level 20 in another Blizzard game, Heroes of the Storms.

From: [npc=28951]
Subject: A Grave Companion

<Character>

We found this little "thing" wandering
around the Duskwood Cemetery.
Collecting skulls. Being the Harbinger
of Death and Destruction that you are.
We thought you'd be the perfect owner
for this tiny macabre monstrosity!

--[npc=28951]

I finally reached level 20 with Heroes of the Storm and received my pet on March 4th, 2016. He came as level 1 rare with 163 health, 13 power, and 8 speed. I leveled him up to 25 where he has 1668 health, 314 power, and 211 speed. I have been facing him as an opponent in more and more PvP pet battles recently, and am still working on a team to beat him. At least now, I can have him on my team for a change.

I played HoTS game only to get my Graves pet, but found that I did enjoy the game in small doses. Especially when I found the hero I liked to play the most - Sgt. Hammer. I also liked to play Tychus and Raynor, but this is all up to your personal preference.

There is no need to spend any real money in this game in order to obtain your pet, because you will earn gold along the way and can use it to pay for your favorite hero so you can use him or her whenever you want.

If you want to speed up your progress you can pay US $4 for a 7 day "stim pack" which practically doubles your experience gained per battle.

I wanted to answer a few questions I have seen in here.

Q] When does this promotion end?

A] I do not know, but I imagine that if you have already started your effort to get to level 20 in Heroes of the Storm, that you will have plenty of time to obtain that goal. I also guess that even if you haven't played HoTS that you still have some time to do so.

Q] How long does this take to get to level 20?

A] It varies depending on how much you play and what method you use.

I took my time and it took 2 months. I would play casually a couple, 3 or maybe 4 times a week for 2 to 5 games per session. More than 5 games in a row and I got burned out. Two days in a row and I got burned out.

Play one game, then do something else for a bit, then come back for another.

The two primary methods of playing the game are:

1] You plus 4 other real people team up against 5 artificial intelligent opponents.

2] You plus 4 artificial intelligent team mates team up against 5 artificial intelligent opponents.

I started playing with method 2 at first because it allowed me to get comfortable with playing the game without having to cumber other people and to learn the basic mechanics. Later I only used method 1 because while playing with other people, we never lost a battle.

One big advantage to method 2 is that you can pause the game by hitting the escape key. It turns real time into pseudo real time. You can't pause using method 1. Another advantage is that you do not have to wait in a que, but that is almost trivial because even at the oddest hours of the day my que times were always less than 30 seconds.

Also to matter is your level of difficulty.

I always played this game in "Adept" level of difficulty. If you play at a higher level, you stand to gain more experience, but you also raise your chance of losing a battle.

A typical battle takes about 14 or so minutes. A quick battle can be completed in 8 minutes and a long battle could take more than 23 minutes. This has do do with skill and randomness.

You get more experience if you win a battle than if you lose.

It takes more experience to get to the next level than the previous level. This means that when you reach level 10, you are not half way to getting to level 20. You cannot reach level 10 and say "Cool - I'm half way there", realistically you are probably more like 1/3 of the way there.

Daily or weekly quests can earn gold and are for example something like this:

Win 3 games.
Play 5 games.
Play 3 games as a Specialist Hero.
Play 3 games as a Diablo Hero.

In this manner, the objectives can overlap, so you can, for example, play 3 games as a hero specialist, 3 games as a Diablo hero, win all 3, and played 3 of the 5 games. If the Diablo hero is a hero specialist it counts as both.

Q] Why bother to level a particular hero or several heroes while they are available during the free rotation?

A] Don't bother unless you find a hero that you like better than the one you like most. The only benefit to leveling a particular hero is that at key levels you can gain global benefits. For example, raising a particular hero to level 5 gives you 500 gold.

If you play a hero that is free to play during the rotation and like her a lot, then save up enough gold and pay to unlock that hero.

Good luck on getting your Graves pet, you are going to like him a lot!

As of 04/09/24 this pet is still obtainable for reaching level 20 in Hero of the Storm. I finally got mine today. :)