This is probabely the most difficult arena. I strongly advise you to not play hero battles until you are sufficiently comfortable with other PvP forms (RA, TA, HA,...). Else you most probabely will get slaughtered deviously .

0) Required Skill
For this arena, you'll need to be capable of a couple of things

*Being familiar with builds and how they work
*Knowing everything about armor customization (explained on the "general pvp" page).
*Being able to micromanage ("micro") your heroes.
*Being able to multitask. You will have to fight, as well as capture shrines, as well as keep an eye on your opponent's moves.

1) General Setup
*Team = 1 player + 3 heroes
*Maps include shrines
*Points are scored by making kills and by holding shrines for a certain amount of time. (The more shrines you hold, the quicker you'll get a point).
*Capturing a shrine is done by standing near it with at least 1 more player/hero/npc than the opponents.
*Everybody is resurrected every 30 seconds.
*There is no Death Penalty.

2) Tactics - the team
Winning depends on the balance between killing your opponents and capturing/keeping shrines. Some builds are made to do 1, some the other, and some are made to do both.

Some teams stick together all the time. This is mostly the case for teams that will try to kill off opponents as fast as possible. This is mainly a good tactic on smaller maps, but against experienced players it will often seem insufficient.

Most teams have cappers and center units. Mind that which roll the player exercises depends on your team build and personal preference.

Center units are more or less the basis of your team build. They can include monks, shutdown units, high damage units, you name it . They are good at what they do, but they are not made to leave each other.

Cappers are units that generally have a good defence and speed, though they should be capable of making a kill. The ppb most used capper is a hero build called the R/P Feral Packer (http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:R/P_HB_Feral_Packer). This build exploits the great defence of a ranger with hero AI that will attack the ranger rather than it's pet (which is dealing all the damage in this build).

Team builds can be found on wiki or from snow and me.
Common builds usually consist of an assassin or warrior, a monk and 2 cappers.
You can also consider taking 3 R/P Feral Packers and playing monk yourself :p.

3) Tactics - the maps / the shrines
Not only the general act of capping shrines is of importance, WHICH shrine you capture is also of great importance.

Teams always have a team shrine (uncappable, kind of like the base in alliance battles), and there are 4 cappable shrines on the field. These shrines give a battle bonus when under your control.

There are 4 different maps.
3 of those maps contain a warsong/cultists/mystic's shrine. This is the most important shrine on these maps, as capturing it gives your team control over a mercinary. This mercinary is an NPC of great strength, who can also capture shrines (giving you a 1-man advantage over the ennemy).

The Bombardment map is different. The most important shrine there is the bombardment shrine. If it is under a team's control, it will frequently bombard the center shrine, dealing damage to the opposing team.