We have played the latest heroine from Heroes of the Storm (HotS). For whom Valeera is suitable and whether she is fun, you’ll find out in this post.
Last week, Heroes of the Storm introduced a new heroine from the Warcraft universe. Valeera Sanguinar was mostly absent in World of Warcraft, but she is indeed a historically significant character. Cortyn has taken on the new assassin and played some rounds of the nasty killer.
New HotS heroine Valeera is a lot of fun
Fundamentally, I have quite a hard time with melee assassins in Heroes of the Storm. I can manage Kerrigan, but as soon as it comes to more complex positioning, like with Illidan or Samuro, I prefer to stay away.
And what can I say? Wow, Valeera is fun!
If you’ve already played a rogue in World of Warcraft, then getting started with her is very easy. The abilities correspond quite exactly to their counterparts in the MMO. Okay, Shadow Strike has a movement component, and instead of 5 combo points, she has a maximum of 3 in HotS.
We will take a closer look at Valeera’s individual abilities in this post.
All abilities are intuitive, and even with the talents, one can already guess what they do by their names.
Autoattack and Waving
Valeera is a lot of fun – just like rogues in World of Warcraft – against “squishies” – meaning vulnerable assassins. Especially extremely soft targets without large escape mechanics – like Kael’thas or Chromie – will find themselves on the ground faster than they can type “WTF” in the chat. Choke, Shadow Strike, Shadow Strike, Gut, Autoattack, and wave.
It becomes significantly harder when the opponents have more health points and can withstand Valeera’s attacks longer. Especially “damage warriors” like Varian or Sonya can give us a harder time than we would like. It’s often better to use Vanish not before the fight, but during the battle as an escape mechanism.
Particularly noteworthy is her Ultimate “Cloak of Shadows”. It is basically a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, which also has a cooldown of just 18 seconds. Being unstoppable for one second and removing all DoTs is so powerful that many assassins run back to the Nexus crying when they hear Valeera’s Stealth sound. Starting from level 20, it gets even crazier – then she can use the cloak every 8 seconds, as it activates automatically with every “Vanish”.
Valeera: The balancing is completely fine!
With hardly any character was it so easy to transition from “I cautiously venture close” to “I fully dive into battle” like with Valeera. After a few rounds, you quite confidently figure out what you can dare and where you quickly meet your end.
Sure, in the end, one could also say that Blizzard made it particularly easy for themselves by simply copying existing abilities from another game almost “1:1” and only slightly adapting them to MOBA needs. But even so: It worked. As Valeera eloquently puts it: “This is not a “Dirty Trick”! The balancing is completely fine! Maybe the problem lies between your ears?”
Actually, I wanted to leave HotS for a while until Blizzard brings a few new specialists – but it has once again filled several evenings. Well done.
Besides that, the Moon Festival is currently active in Heroes of the Storm.
