For everyone who missed the first day of Gamescom, here is the full recap of all things Heroes of the Storm.
The first day of Gamescom is over and Blizzard didn't hold back. Kharazim was expected, but Rexxar, Artanis, and a new battleground was more than anyone could have hoped for. For anyone who missed all the reveals when they happened, or for people who enjoy theory crafting, here is the comphrensive re-cap:
Let’s start with the least surprising unveil of today, Kharazim
Kharazim will be the first Diablo support in the game, and a melee support at that. As with the Monk class in Diablo, Blizzard wants to give players the ability to customize their Monk experience and focus either on defensive or offensive capabilities. The biggest mechanic that enforces this is the picking of a trait. Instead of a level 1 talent, you get the choice of 3 potential traits for the Monk, allowing you to build him in different ways from the start of every game. We can speculate that these traits are each of slightly higher quality than other traits, seeing as you are not given a level 1 talent.
The first trait is called Iron Fists, and provides bonus damage to at least his basic attacks. This might be the go to pick if double support with Kharazim becomes popular. The second trait is called Transcendence, which heals the Monk a small amount also through his basic attacks. A good trait that can potentially be strengthened by auto-attack based talents. The third trait is called Insight, providing Kharazim with more mana restoration again through his basic attacks.
Kharazim’s main abilities offer a variety of mobility, healing and DPS potential. His Q, Radiant Dash, teleports the player a short range. Unlike other similar abilities, this one is linked to charges and thus allows for more flexible use. Players will be able to chain this ability to effectively double (or possibly triple) the distance to either pick off that last escaping opponent, or to escape their pursuers if the opposite situation were to occur. A big limitation, however, is that the Monk is only able to teleport to either an ally or opponent in range. So unlike Bolt of the Storm, the Monk will require other players to act as stepping stones to maneuver to his target.
Seeing as this abilities relies on charges, there is a very high possibility of talents that increase the maximum amount of charges. Probably starting at two charges, I am expecting a Monk build that will expand that number to three or four.
Breath of Haven is the W ability, healing both himself and allies within range. This ability seems to be untargetable, which might be a big flaw if the heals do not scale up to significant amounts. Positioning will be keen, to keep as many allies within reach while also guaranteeing that your most important targets will receive the heal no matter what. On top of the healing, talents should be expected that add a movement speed increase to this ability to increase survivability.
As his third ability, Kharazim can increase his own reach and damage through Deadly Reach on E. This buff is active for a short period of time and might help him lane a bit better. It is not yet known if this ability also boosts the reach for his other abilities, but this would be an interesting dynamic.
As with the other supports in the game, Kharazim gets both a defensive and an offensive choice of Heroic at level 10. His defensive, support heroic is called Divine Palm, which provides a target ally with a form of life insurance: if the targeted ally dies while under the temporary ‘stasis’ effect of Divine Palm, he will not die but instead be healed for around 80%. This can be compared best with Rehgar’s Ancestral Healing, requiring key timing but providing a big swing in a team battle.
Seven-Sided Strike is his offensive heroic, zoning out an area sized similar to Tranquility and striking multiple or a single opponent in that area seven times. As seen in the video below, a special animation is shown only when the Monk runs out of targets with strikes left. There may be a reward (in the form of a buff or heal) involved if this situation happens. It is also important to note that Kharazim is invulnerable during the timespan of this heroic's execution.
Kharazim can dish out damage too. Grubby seems pretty excited about it
Monk's dmg Heroic is awesome taking 49% of someone's max health off if they're in for full solo duration. RT for visibility
— Manuel Schenkhuizen (@followgrubby) August 5, 2015
As for other potential talents, because the Monk is a support hero we can expect him to have the choice of several defensive talents like Protective Shield and Cleanse.
The next new hero is Rexxar along with his companion Misha. We reported on a teaser Blizzard put on their website a few days ago, and speculated that it was either a hint for Rexxar or a Diablo Druid. It ended up being the former, and we got a lot of information on Rexxar today.
Rexxar is classified as a Warrior, and will be the first ranged Warrior in the game. Rexxar will be permanently accompanied by his magical bear Misha, only leaving his side for a short period whenever Misha's dedicated lifebar depletes. Comparing Rexxar to The Lost Vikings, Rexxar and Misha will together deal a good amount of damage while being below average on their own. Unlike The Lost Vikings, Misha does not seem to be controllable by the player, only reacting to player input through the use of Rexxar’s abilities.
Rexxar’s Q is called Spirit Swoop, and is a skillshot that throws out a hawk that damages and slows targets.
His W makes Misha charge at an target and is called Misha, Charge! This ability will stun any targets hit by Misha, and can make Misha actually run through the target when possible. This means that Misha can be effectively used to body block escapes. Lastly, his E (Mend Pet) is used to keep both himself and his companion alive, self healing and filling up roughly 40% of Misha’s lifebar.
His first Heroic is Misha focused and is called Beastial Wrath. When used, this ability makes Misha even more terrifying and deadly, boosting her size and damage by significant amounts for an unknown period of time. Considering the warrior role of Rexxar, along with his ranged attacks, the goal must be to always keep Misha between your opponents and your own team (or at least yourself).
The other possible heroic choice is aptly called Unleash the Boars, doing exactly that. Rexxar is shown summoning boars (it’s always Huffer) that target opponent heroes within reach. When hitting their targets, the boars will reveal their targets for a short period as well as deal a bit of damage. In the video below, it is shown that 3 boars are summoned for three enemy heroes in range, so it might be that the amount of boars directly correlates with the amount of nearby opponents. This ability might even be capable of hitting stealthed heroes such as Zeratul or a shadow wolf Rehgar. As such, this heroic can be a good means of initiating team fights on maps where estimating the opponents positions is easier.
Rexxar also has a level 1 talent called Flare. Using past Warcraft abilities as a refference point, Flare will most likely give vision of a targetted area, revealing cloaked units as well.
A little bit is already known of Rexxar's talent choices and it is clear that, just like with the latest version of The Lost Vikings, the player has to choose between boosting either of the involved entities (Rexxar and Misha). Here is to hoping that Blizzard has done a great job balancing all the talent choices, resulting in a healthy variation of viable Rexxar builds
A third Hero was finally announced in the form of Artanis from the StarCraft universe. Not much is known at this point, beside the fact that he will be the first SC warrior and that he will have some very heavy hitting abilities. Shown below is the only ingame model we have of him so far.
Last but not least, we also got a whole bunch of information on the second (and probably final) map from the Eternal Conflict event. Called Infernal Shrines, the new map is a medium sized three lane battlefield making use of the same graphics as Battlefield of Eternity. The objective of this new map focuses on three unique shrines spread out in the middle of the map.
Each shrine is associated with a different type (Arcane, Frozen and Mortar) and summons an onslaught of skeletons at timed intervals. Teams are awarded for killing these skeletons by summoning a type-specific Punisher from the Diablo universe for their side after killing 30 skeletons on one of the shrines. It is still unknown whether the other shrines will deactivate at this point, or if it is possible for all three of the shrines to summon a Punisher during the same phase.
Considering that we know that the different typed Punishers have different strengths and weaknesses, different priorities will most likely be put on the various shrines during the different phases in the game. We can speculate that the Frozen Punisher will be good at pushing lanes, possibly deactivating defenses with his ice attacks; while the Mortar Punisher might be better at burning the flesh of your opponents when participating in team fights. It is important to note that while these Punishers will push a lane, they seem to favor aggressively hunting down enemy heroes instead.
Alongside these new featured, a number of cosmetic additions were also shared to imgur by a user named Lnksilver5.
Besides the initial skin designs for the Monk and Rexxar, a number of older heroes also got some extra attention. Earthbraker Thrall and SGT. DoomHammer are just two of the cool new skins planned for the next big patch. On top of that, players will soon be able to mount up their personal treasure goblin for battle. Insanity.
And that's what Blizzard had for us today. But don't forget there is still the official panel planned for Friday August 7th, starting at 9:00 a.m. PDT (18:00 CEST).
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