Senior Game Designer Discusses Malthael

by JR Cook - 7 years ago     show comments

The Heroes team conducted a special Anniversary Stream today to celebrate Heroes 2.0 and the two-year anniversary of the official launch of Heroes of the Storm. Much of the stream was focused on interesting stories and reminiscing on how the game has progressed, but there was also a segment focusing on the newest Hero to enter the Nexus, Malthael.

Senior Game Designer Matt Villers, the person responsible for developing Malthael, sat down with Community Manager Spyrian to talk about the newest Hero. Here are some of the more interesting tidbits from that conversation:

• One of the first considerations when designing Malthael was determining what he would do in Heroes.
• Matt wanted to focus on the horror aspect of Malthael as a character and capture the feeling that this was a Hero that enemies would want to stay away from. His Trait, Reaper’s Mark (D), came from trying to capture this fantasy.
• Malthael is a Hero who isn’t as scary from far away, but if he catches you…
• Tormented Souls (R) changed quite a bit during the design process.
• The original idea of Tormented Souls (R) was inspired by Archimonde destroying a sandcastle version of Dalaran, which you can see here. Malthael would pull out the spirit of an enemy Hero, which Malthael and his teammates would need to destroy. They felt like this mechanic didn’t really fit since Malthael isn’t a burst Hero and it also created confusion on which target players should be attacking.
• Last Rites (R) is an execute style Heroic and it is Malthael’s only real burst.
• Originally they were scared to put Last Rites (R) in the game as they thought it might break the game, but it turned out okay.
• The Quest mechanic on Last Rites (R) was originally intended to be a Level 20 Talent, but they didn’t think it provided enough value given how quickly games tend to end after Level 20.
• Matt thinks Malthael will appeal to players who like to skirmish but still get out if the situation gets bad. Players who like Genji or Samuro will probably like Malthael.
• Malthael should be a strong pick against teams with heavy front lines or several melee Heroes.
• Since Malthael has such strong self-healing he does well when paired with Heroes who can extend his sustain. Examples include the Armor that Uther can provide and Varian’s Banner.
• Malthael is a strong solo laner, so he is a good fit on solo lane focused Battlegrounds like Braxis Holdout and on maps with good ambush spots where he can engage onto enemy Heroes easier.
• Matt pointed out several possible builds for Malthael including an aggressive burst build centered around Wraith Strike (W) and Last Rites (R) that allows Malthael to really stick to enemies, a more sustain build focusing on Soul Rip (Q) to really take advantage of Reaper’s Mark (D), and a Death Shroud (E) build built around Talents that increase the damage and duration of Reaper’s Mark (D).
• Other Heroes that Matt has worked on include Samuro and Probius.
• Hero Designers work on both Abilities and Talents and they tend to keep possible Talents in mind while working on a Hero’s core kit.

Malthael is currently playable on the PTR and he is expected to be released to the live server next week along with a special Diablo cross-promotion event known as Malthael’s Bargain. You can find out more Malthael, the Event Quest, and everything else included in the PTR Patch here.

If you missed the Anniversary Stream, which is still going on as of the time of this writing, you should definitely check out the VODs. It is an entertaining stroll down memory lane for long-time Heroes players and an insightful look at how the game has evolved for new players.