by JR Cook - 8 years ago     show comments

Now that BlizzCon has ended all of you hero fans must be frothing at the mouth for the upcoming changes to the game. I got a chance to play everything new on the way announced with the exception for Tracer so I can give you a little bit of insight on what to expect. First lets hop into the three heroes I did get a chance to play.

Greymane

Greymane looks amazing and super unique. He is the hero I had the chance to play the least of but from what I saw versatility was the name of the game. Never has there been an assassin that can so freely change from range to melee and be so effective at both. Since I only played him once I tried out his Marked for the Kill ultimate which seemed like the better choice to me. Having the ability to fire off a very long range shot that added Vulnerability and then being able to leap into melee range of that target to finish them off seemed very strong. The name of the game will for Greymane will end up being all about knowing when you need to be range and when you need to change for a kill. He seems perfect for filling that flex spot that is sometimes needed when you are trying to decide if another melee or range would compliment the team better.

Lunara

Lunara is probably the hero that I enjoyed playing the most. She cannot mount up but instead hops everywhere she goes giving her 20% faster movement than all other heroes in the game. Her trait gives all of her basic attacks and abilities a 3 second poison that is highly effective. One of her abilities is Wisp which acts as a vision ward that can be moved to another location. A well place ward can be key when it comes to saving allies from a gank and that fact that it can be moved by itself rather than having to put Lunara in a risky spot makes it all the better. Both of her heroics seemed like strong choices but since it seems like playing in the back line was going to be key to success with Lunara I preferred Thornwood Vine because of its massive range in a straight line  and it have 3 charges that recharged fairly quickly at 15%. Her level 20 choice will be tough because buffing Thornwood Vine not only gave you more range and damage it also provided Lunara with a flat 35% increase to her vision radius which would make her see much farther than any other hero in the game. She also has a storm skill called abolish magic at 20 which you could cast on an ally that would remove all stun, root, polymorph, slow, and damage over time effects on both that ally and herself. The ability to cleanse two for one and also remove Kael’thas’s living bomb is a pretty major deal.

Cho’Gal

All of the hype for heroes of the storm definitely that came out of BlizzCon definitely centered around Cho’gal and the ability for two players to play as one hero. It’s not actually as complicated as it sounds. When starting a match one player will pick Cho or Gal and a message will appear that says a player is requesting that someone pick the other half. The player who is playing Cho will be the player who is responsible for moving the character around. The Gal player will have some low cool down spells that they can spam during the fight. Their tandem attack is E Runic Bomb for Cho and Runic Blast for Gal. Cho can throw the ball with E and Gal can detonate it by pressing E again. With his high health and strength teamwork will be the name of the game but, even so I’m not convinced that giving up two players to control one hero is going to be worth it unless you build your entire team around his strengths. Both Cho and Gal get separate talent choices and Ultimate choices so they do each have their own distinctive strengths and feel. Regardless of my thoughts on his effectiveness in competitive play I will say Cho’Gal is one of the most unique heroes ever released and was probably the most fun I’ve ever had working in with one specific teammate in Heroes of the Storm.

Towers of Doom

This map was so cool to play! It is by far the most unique objective based map I’ve ever seen and the strategies for winning that evolve should be interesting to watch. Each team gets three forts protected by a wall with two towers. The unique thing about this map is that neither team has a normal Core that needs to be destroyed by hero damage but the cores have a set life total on each side which I believe started at 36. During the course of the map shrine objectives would appear which a hero would need to channel and once a successful channel happens the raven lord would fire off shots equal to the amount of forts your team currently controlled. The other unique aspect of this map was that when your destroy an enemy fort it would be rebuilt under your control meaning you could theoretically control all 6 forts on the map and a channel of one of the shrines would do 6 damage to the enemies Core’s health pool. There are 4 mercenary camps of goblin sappers that when giving a clear path to a building run towards it full speed and explode doing large amounts of damage to forts. Also in the center top of the map is the lair of the headless horseman boss. Successfully beating this boss will have 4 shots fired at the enemy Core’s health pool making successful boss runs key in the strategy of staying ahead on this map. My early estimate of the map is that each team will need a certain kind specialist with quick pushing power such as Azmodan or Sylvanas to have the edge on this map because the ability to do more core damage per shrine cap will be key.

Arena Mode

Arena mode was a ton of fun to play with a large feeling of fast moving combat sprinkled with complete randomness. The setting is a one lane best two out of three match series. before each map you get to pick one of three random hero choices. There are no talent choices and you get to just pick your hero and fight the enemy team for the objective. The two objectives available at BlizzCon were Sky Temple and Garden Terror themed. In Sky Temple its your job to hold the temple points long enough to kill the enemy’s core before they can kill yours and in Garden Terror the first team to collect 100 seeds from plant horrors and seedlings will be the winner. The modes are fast and furious and the teams can be interesting to say the least. As seen above the both teams were only given the choice of Gazlowe. Imagine the chaos of 10 different Gazlowe players fighting for control of 1 small area. While there I also saw 10 Zagara’s and participated in a 10 Thrall match. It was chaos and a lot of fun to say the least. This mode is fast and fun and seems to be the Heroes take on ARAM while not just being a clone. It will be interesting to see if tournaments pop up based around this mode or if this is something that will strictly be for casual fun. All I can say is either way Arena mode is an addicting welcome addition to Heroes that I think most players will have a great time with.

That’s all for now as far as new content I personally experienced at BlizzCon. I can say as of right now I’m excited for the future of Heroes of the Storm and cannot wait to see these changes implemented in the months to come. Take it from me that these new heroes, map, and mode will definitely shake up the way we all play the game we’ve all come to love over the last year.