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Thoughts on the Heroes I played at Blizzcon

by - 10 years ago

While at Blizzcon I had a chance to play Heroes a few times. I played three live games against other players and two bot games against very easy bots on the press computers upstairs. I will get into the Heroes I played, how I felt about their abilities, and overall impressions.

VS real people

 

Valla – Demon Hunter (Assassin)

Demonhunter sub featured

Demonhunter is one of my favorite classes from Diablo III (Monk #1) so I was pretty excited to try out the AD carry-esc type hero in Heroes. Sadly she felt really slow compared to how quick she feels in Diablo III. Every time a talent came up I would pick up attack speed to make her feel more quick in that regard; but I still felt slow at moving and unable to buy something like boots. Her vault skill made movement feel okay. But once you dropped out of it you felt like you were back in mud.

Abilites

(Q) Hungering Arrrow – Valla fires an arrow that pierces her target enemy to hit 2 other targets. If her target is the only enemy in range, the arrow will hit her main target twice.

I didn’t utilize the ability to hit multiple targets much, but I spammed this as much as possible when trying to kill people.

 

(W) Multishot – Valla quickly fires arrows towards target direction dealing damage in a cone area.

Good for clearing out minions, but just an extra attack for taking out Heroes

 

(E) Vault – Valla summersaults towards the target direction.

Great for getting you into position or out of trouble in a jam; but it does feel like you are back to walking in mud once you are out of it. It may be because I am so used to the tactical advantage passive in Diablo III.

Diablo 3 Demopn Hunter Tactical Advantage

Heroic abilites

(R) Strafe Heroic – Valla spins around, shooting arrows at targets around her. She can still move while spinning around.

(R) Rain of Vengeance – Valla summons a shadow beast to fly down into the area, dealing damage and knocking enemies down.

Sadly, I never got to try either of these as the game was over either right when I got it or a little before.

 

Closing thoughts: I feel Valla’s abilities are a little boring compared to her Diablo III counterpart. They could take some of the runes that are in the game and come up with some really fun concepts that will allow people to really customize their Demon Hunter to the way that they play. Considering we got dominated though, I feel that my views may be a little distorted as Valla is one of those heroes that carries games; and if your team is not doing so well then she will fall behind with them as the XP is shared.

 

Tyrael (Warrior)

Tyrael  sub featured

Love him! His abilities felt very close to the character Tyrael represents in the Diablo universe. I feel like that unlike Valla, the Dev team didn’t have set abilities already made for Tyrael (such as hungering arrow and multishot). They got to go crazy on what his skills would get to be and nailed it. My views are not biased because I happened to dominate this game.

Abilities

(Q) Punishing Blade – Tyrael throws his sword to the target location, dealing damage. He can then teleport to the sword instantly.

Great ranged harass and mobility skill for getting in and out of the fray. Also really good for getting to your allies when you need to help them.

 

(W) name missing – Tyrael shields himself in light. When the shield is destroyed, removed or expires, it explodes and deals damage to enemies around Tyrael.

Come on, hit me! You know you want to.

 

(E) Hand of Sacrifice –  A link is created between an ally and Tyrael. All damage taken by that ally is redirected to Tyrael.

Every time a talent would pop up that was +health I would always take it because of this skill alone. When using this I would also pop his (W) and then teleport in with his (Q) to put me inbetween who I am saving and the enemy. It is a really good synergy of skills for keeping your team alive while also screwing with the enemy team.

 

Heroic abilites

(R) Judgement – Tyrael charges at the target enemy, stunning it and dealing damage. Other enemies near the target are also knocked away.

(R) [Ability 4] – Tyrael channels for a short time, if he completes the channeling – he and allies near him are immune to damage for a short period of time.

I ended up taking Judgement simply because we were already ahead. Every time we won a fight they would be high tailing it out of there; but with a nice stun you are able to stop one of them and slowly their team starts to crumble. If our team is behind the next time I play him, I think I will end up taking the other one simply to help my team win more team fights over a single stun.

 

Abathur (Specialist)

Abathur sub featured

This was the last hero I played a live match with. His abilities really intrigued me and figured I would close out Blizzcon with him.

Main Abilites

(Q) Symbiotes – Abathur infests an ally, leaving his own body behind. While within an ally, he has new abilities in order to assist them.

Pretty fun ability, it’s not like Life Stealer from Dota where you are a part of the hero and you can pop out next to them. You infest someone and Abathur stands where you last were while you are infested, so you really don’t want to leave him in a bad place. Below I will list his Infested abilities which are shot out of the hero you infested.

(W) [Ability 2]- This ability can hold up to three charges. Abathur can spend one charge to throw a creep tumor at target location. If an enemy walks onto a creep tumor, it explodes, dealing damage.

I think these could be fun and useful. I literally just placed them everywhere I could. Since I didn’t understand the meta behind where people would be running, or the quest objectives, I was at a loss on where to put them.

(E) Deep Tunnel – Abathur burrows into the ground to travel to any location his team has sight of.

This will be absolutely critical since you are leaving him behind when you are infesting someone. It will also be a huge bonus ability as it allows you to get a quick watch tower and just map control in general. It will be really interesting to see how this works with quest objectives. I can imagine seeing someone picking Abathur on the other team and having everyone on my team make a painful *groan*

Heroic Ability

(R) [Ability 4] – Abathur creates a clone of one of his allies under his control. The clone has access to all of the abilities the original did.

As soon as I got this we were already about to lose. However, I really saw the potential if you cloned a really key hero such as a tank when you need more beef or dps when you need more deeps.

Infested Abilites

(Q) [Ability 1] – Abathur fires a short range spine in the target direction that damages enemies it hits.

Simple skill shot — pew pew

(W) [Ability 2] – Abathur protrudes spikes from within an ally, causing enemies around them take damage.

Can see this being great being on someone who is getting hit a lot or is able to control the enemies

(E) [Ability 3] – Abathur shields the ally he has infested.

Gotta protect the squishies or give the enemy team the illusion of winning an outcome.

(R) [Ability 4] – Abathur withdraws back to his own body, granting him control of himself again.

Self explanatory

I felt that Abathur was pretty fun to play and shouldn’t be too hard to learn. I feel his infested skills are a little bland and typical pew and shield. I think it would be really cool to have infested abilites that are based on the classes archetype. For instance, if you infest an assassin then you will get assassin type infestation abilities. I am not too sure how well his mines worked as I was probably really bad about placing them in the right spots; and we were obviously against a team that were all friends and knew exactly what they were doing.

 

Very Easy Bot games

On the press computers upstairs they had computers able to play Heroes. Unfortunately they were bots and set on very easy difficulty. They probably haven’t even got much into coding the bots yet as they are working more on making a fun game for live players. I agree 100% agree with this decision, but as a warning my views may be construed a bit since it was very very hard to lose.

 

Gazlowe – Tinker (Specialist)

Gazlowe sub featured

Abilites

(Q) Ability 1] – Gazlowe builds a turret at the target location. It will attack enemies within range. Gazlowe can have a maximum of 2 at a time. When the turret dies, scraps are dropped on the ground.

Great for lane control. I can see Gazlowe just chilling in bottom lane (really depends on the map though) just constantly stopping any pushes while the rest of the team goes off and completes the map quest.

(W) [Ability 2] – Gazlowe charges his laser. When he releases the laser, it fires, with its range and damage depending on how long Gazlowe charged his laser.

This ability looks really cool. I love how the charge builds up and it makes it feel really powerful. I am sad that even when I was super ahead I never really one hit anyone but was able to at least do a significant chunk of damage. It will take some nice timing but you are able to unleash the charge early when someone is in your sights.

(E) [Ability 3] – Gazlowe throws a time bomb at the target location. After four seconds, it explodes to damage and stun enemies.

This was really fun. I am not sure how much the enemy can see what is happening, but if people see the bomb they will absolutely not stand there. However if you are good at timing (kinda have to be with this guy) you can drop one behind someone while they are running away and it’s either get stunned by a mine or face your team and die.

Heroic abilites

(R) [Ability 4] – Allied creeps and monsters will deal increased damage.

(R) [Ability 4] – Gazlowe throws an electro ball towards the target location, after a short delay, it explodes dealing damage and pulling enemies to the center.

In a bot game, with a hero I never played, I of course took the electro ball heroic ability. Pairing this with your turret massing and timed bombs could make for a very good time. The other heroic would be good for lane pushing, which while sounds boring can easily win games.

Naziba – Witch Doctor (Specialist)

Witchdoctor sub featured

Abilites

(Q) [Ability 1] – Tosses a vial that shatters at the target point, creating a wave of spiders. Enemies hit by the vial or spiders take damage over time.

(W) [Ability 2] – Summons a hoard of toads that fly outward in a cone, exploding and dealing AoE damage to enemies on impact.

(E) [Ability 3] – Summons a circle of mummies after a short delay that prevent enemies from passing through them and attack nearby foes. Mummies can be killed by damaging them.

Mixing all of these together worked pretty well. You hit them with your Q to dot them, then trap them with your E. If you get lucky enough to catch them you toss them some Toads.

Heroic abilities

(R) [Ability 4] – Summons a monstrous golem under Naziba’s control that can attack enemies.

(R) [Ability 4] – While channeling, Naziba manifests a voodoo doll that constantly deals damage in an AoE around it.

I took the gargantuan because I wanted to see what it looked like. It would be good to have someone beefy to tank tower hits and create some chaos in the mix, but I think the AoE one would be better in more situations. Your tank will hopefully be the one taking the hits and you want to kill the enemies as fast as possible.

I feel the Witch Doctor lacks in the same area that the Demon Hunter does. The skills feel a little too like their vanilla counterparts. They could do some really fun stuff with the rune variants that are in Diablo III to make them a bit more interesting. As I said earlier though, against very easy AI it is very, very hard to tell in a hero brawler type game as things come down to teamwork and you simply don’t have that with your team derping off and the enemies feeding you kills.

Closing thoughts

The hero I enjoyed most has to be Tyrael. It’s not just because of the hero but also because that game was insanely fun as I feel I played him how he was meant to be played. Unlike Abathur where I think I was looking more for things I shouldn’t have been and leaving him behind too much. I was being less useful than if I played say, Tyrael again. I noticed that the games I lost horribly (both against the same group of people), while they were obviously a group of people who knew each other and synergized well, they also focused on the objectives of the map. Before I knew it the ghost captain was blowing up our towers and we were simply getting destroyed. I really can’t wait to sit down and learn more about the map quest system (something I should have done in the press games). I feel I was too focused on things I have learned from previous MOBAs. I like this new system though, as it throws a wrench into the machine that has been built so high that a little variety is exactly what we need.

All Hero abilities and names were grabbed from http://heroesofthestorm.gamepedia.com


JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


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