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.
The Battleground Rotation for all Unranked modes has been adjusted to the following:
Alterac Pass
Battlefield of Eternity
Blackheart's Bay
Braxis Holdout
Cursed Hollow
Dragon Shire
Garden of Terror
Hanamura Temple
Infernal Shrines
Sky Temple
Tomb of the Spider Queen
Towers of Doom
Volskaya Foundry
Warhead Junction
Haunted Mines: Haunted Mines has been removed from all gameplay modes. It will still be available to be played in Custom Games.
Mercenaries: Sappers can no longer have their charge attack interrupted by a Silence effect. Silencing Sappers will still prevent them from starting to channel this ability
Cunning and intelligent, Mal'Ganis was chosen to bring Arthas Menthil into the Lich King's service. After manipulating the prince into purging Stratholme of life, he finally fell to Frostmourne as Arthas's first act as the Lich King's champion... yet a demon does not die so easily.
Trait
Vampiric Touch
Mal'Ganis heals for 45% of damage dealt to enemy Heroes and 15% of damage dealt to non-Heroes.
Basic Abilities
Fel Claws (Q)
Violently slash in the chosen direction, dealing 78 damage to enemies.
Reactivate to slash up to 2 more times. The third slash Stuns enemies for 0.75 seconds.
Necrotic Embrace (W)
Desecrate the air, dealing 119 damage to nearby enemies and gaining 25 Armor for 3 seconds.
Night Rush (E)
After 0.75 seconds, gain 50% Movement Speed for 2 seconds. While active, Mal'Ganis can move through enemy Heroes and put them to Sleep for 2.5 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
Carrion Swarm (R)
After 1 second, disperse into an Invulnerable swarm of bats for 3 seconds, dealing 74 damage per second to enemies.
Vampiric Touch heals for 100% of Carrion Swarm's damage to Heroes.
Dark Conversion (R)
Channel on an enemy Hero for 0.75 seconds, then swap Health percentages with the target over 3 seconds.
We've unified certain Support abilities to only work on Heroes (not minions or Mercenaries):
Alexstrasza
Gift of Life (Q)
Breath of Life (Q-Dragon Form)
Brightwing
Pixie Dust (E)
Li Li
Healing Brew (Q)
Rehgar
Healing Totem (Active - Level 4)
Earth Shield (W - Level 13)
Tyrande
Light of Elune (Q)
Uther
Holy Light (Q)
Developer Comment: We're unifying the vast majority of our heals for their intended purpose: healing allied Heroes. We're maintaining the ability for a few heals to affected Minions still where we think it's an important part of their gameplay: Lt. Morales Healing Beam (so that she can heal herself), Rehgar's Chain Heal (to allow bounces travel across Minions), Tyrael's Righteousness (because shielding Minion waves is part of the lane interaction with the ability), and Uther's Holy Radiance (to unify expectations, since it can damage Minions).
AI Heroes: Fixed multiple cases of AI-controlled Heroes incorrectly using their abilities.
Spell Power: Fixed an issue where Spell Power would no longer affect a Hero’s abilities after they died. (For example: Jaina’s Blizzard will now continue to deal bonus damage if she received increased Spell Power but died before the second and third waves.)
Statis/Time Stop: Fixed an issue where player created terrain could move Heroes affected by Stasis or Time Stop.
Battlegrounds
Garden of Terror: Fixed an issue where all three Garden Terrors could spawn in a single lane.
Minions/Mercenaries: Fixed an issue where Heroes could block the movement of Catapults, preventing them from passing through intact gates.
User Interface
Fixed an issue where a space would appear before the player’s name in a Whisper.
Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
Ana: Fixed an issue where Ana’s Shrike healing was not accurately reflecting her damage done (via Spell Power or her target’s Armor).
Chromie: Fixed an issue where Temporal Loop’s return location would appear incorrect if a movement ability was used by the target.
Diablo: Fixed an issue where Diablo would not be displaced by knockback and similar effects while casting Overpower.
Gall: Fixed an issue where not all cases of Damage Reduction would work on Gall.
Gul’dan: Fixed an issue where Darkness Within’s bonus Spell Power would not increase the healing of Drain Life.
Kharazim: Can now Radiant Dash to all allied units, including Mercenaries, Creep Tumors, and Toxic Nests.
Li-Ming: Fixed an issue where Tal’Rasha’s Elements would grant bonus damage to Calamity after being twice in a row.
Murky: Egg Hunt’s Slime no longer benefits from Slime talents.
Sylvanas: Targets of Mind Control will now clear their move orders when affected by the ability.
Uther: Fixed an issue where Holy Fire’s damage was affected by Spell Power.
