As stated in my recent article, Blizzard Entertainment should scrap the Heroes 2.0 lore agenda now that a large portion of the development team has been moved to other games after announcing Heroes of the Storm has entered maintenance mode.
It is not realistic to expect a handful of developers to carry out the Heroes 2.0 agenda — designed and settled before March 2017. It was an ambitious plan, but Activision Blizzard pulled the plug.
For Heroes of the Storm to survive, the shortened Developer team should focus on the core IPs: StarCraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Warcraft, Classics, and… maybe Hearthstone. Once the new games are announced, then add those as well; and focus on new Heroes and Maps, ability rework, and life-quality enhancements.
The newest announced hero hails from the Raven Lord universe. While some fans enjoy the comics and Orphea, I’m certain the majority has bigger expectations. One of those is Deathwing.
Blizzard Entertainment released a teaser image late Saturday evening, showing a necklace. Most of the image is darkened in shadows putting the spotlight on the necklace.
That didn’t stop image editors from using brightness and contrast tools to reveal what’s hidden in the dark areas of this image.
Blizzard Entertainment added Anduin to the Heroes of the Storm PTR, as new playable hero, on April 22, 2019.
The hero model uses the exact face of the voice actor, Geordie Holibar, as seen in the BlizzCon 2018: Faces of War (Behind The Scenes of Battle for Azeroth cinematic).
In this incarnation, Anduin is a Healer of medium difficulty.
His kit is dominated by healing and assist abilities with Flash Heal and Divine Star as the main healing sources. However, Divine Star initiates as a linear damage dealing ability that returns back to Anduin as a much larger wave of healing that affects friendly players in the path of return.
His trait is Leap of Faith, which pulls friendly players to Anduin, negating enemy damage and incapacitation.
The Resistance event is now on the PTR with new skins and mounts. Some people got confused with the white bearded hero alongside a mechanical pet. It was not Rexxar. It was not Malfurion with his staff. It was actually Deckard Cain in his new Desert Ops Deckard Pain skin. One of the new mounts is the mechanical Commando D.E.R.P.A.
New Bundles
The following new bundles are only available for a limited time!
Join the Resistance Bundle
Viper Returns Bundle
Firestorm Blaze Skin Pack
Deckard Pain Skin Pack
Delta Hanzo Skin Pack
New Skins
Firestorm Blaze
Red Hot Firestorm Blaze
Atomic Firestorm Blaze
Deckard Pain
Infiltrator Deckard Pain
Desert Ops Deckard Pain
Delta Hanzo
Blackout Delta Hanzo
Veteran Delta Hanzo
Badlands Imperator Stukov
Badlands Sidewinder Ana
Badlands Deathfang Genji
Cryo Imperator Stukov
Cryo Sidewinder Ana
Cryo Deathfang Genji
Paramour Pajamathur Abathur
New Mounts
D.E.R.P.A.
Commando D.E.R.P.A.
Desert D.E.R.P.A.
Badlands Viper Dominator
Flirty Cloud
span style=”font-size:14px;”>New Portraits, Sprays, and Emojis
Several new emoji packs and portraits have also been added to the game.
Blizzard Entertainment announced via Tweet the next hero coming to Heroes of the Storm. Hailing from the Diablo III universe, the Archangel Imperius is the current leader of the Angiris Council.
“Imperius, the archangel of Valor, is the greatest warrior in all of creation. He revels in war and combat and has led the hosts of the High Heavens to innumerable victories. With Malthael’s absence, it is Imperius who now rules over the Angiris Council, seeking always to defend the High Heavens from any foe.”
According to the tweet, Imperius will come to the Heroes of the Storm PTR on January 2.
Blizzard Entertainment developer Kaeo Milker issued a new content update shortly after the HGC cancelling post to announce a new Hero will be revealed soon, and it is expected to be on the PTR by January. A second Hero will be announced afterwards.
The team will continue to do hero reworks, skins, and quality of life adjustments to the outside-of-gameplay aspects of Heroes of the Storm. Even with the smaller team, they wish to continue working on the features announced at BlizzCon 2018. Read his post below.
Heroes of the Storm Patch 40.1 introduces Call of the Nexus (as discussed during the BlizzCon 2018 Heroes of the Storm: What’s Next panel — read the transcript).
Call of the Nexus rewards 50% XP to players who choose a role reqired for a match. This new sytem will end the aweful Quick Play queues with 3 Specialists, or 3 Warriors. Now the Queue system will always pick a Warrior, Healer, and fill in the gap of the other three slots with a combination of Assassins and Specialists.
Parties also have a minimum requirement of roles that will be enforced before that party can queue up, ensuring that the Quick Play roles are optimized.
This patch also includes balance changes for Abathur, Alarak, Ana, Azmodan, Blaze, Deckard, Genji, Hanzo, Kerrigan, Mal’Ganis, Nova, Orphea, Stukov, Tyrande, Whitemane, and Yrel. As well as three minor bug fixes.
Heroes of the Storm 40.0 introduces the new hero: Orphea, the new Raven Runner mount, new bundles, a Guldan buff for his level 16 talent: Rampant Hellfire, new art for the Dragon Knight, bug fixes, Stim Packs have been replaced by Boost packs, Mercenary camps have an XP overhaul, and other quality of life changes.
During our recent visit to BlizzCon 2018, Blizzplanet members Danny Perschonok and Handclaw interviewed the Heroes of the Storm developers: Alex Klontzas and Joe Piepiora, to discuss details of the newest hero: Orphea. We coverered questions spanning from her concept design stage to her Basic Abilities and Talents. What she is strong and weak against.
