Heroes of the Storm receives the update “Machines of War” with two new maps in the StarCraft theme and two new heroes. We were able to try out the new features live at Gamescom!
When I learned that my favorite Overwatch hero Zarya was coming to my favorite MOBA Heroes of the Storm and all of this was garnished with two new StarCraft maps (my favorite universe from Blizzard), I was totally thrilled. Therefore, I was looking forward to the presentation of Heroes of the Storm at Gamescom 2016 like a Zergling, as not much was known about the peculiarities of the heroes and maps so far.
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Hard and Harder
The two new heroes are the Russian weightlifter and soldier Zarya and the Protoss tough guy Alarak. So, two tough characters who won’t take orders and dominate the battlefield. Zarya was modeled closely after her original version from Overwatch, just like Tracer.
She dishes out decent DPS with her particle beam and can fire a kind of grenade up to four times, dealing good AoE damage. She can protect herself and allies with shields, and damage absorbed in this way increases her energy and thus her damage output, just like in Overwatch. As an ultimate, she can either hold enemies in place or create a zone that no one can enter.
Alarak, on the other hand, is a rough Protoss who pushes his enemies around like a schoolyard bully. He can do this from a distance using telekinesis, which allows for some nasty crowd control effects. Additionally, he can hit hard, silence enemies, and roast his opponents with red lightning, which looks as cool as in Star Wars and heals Alarak. He also deals double ability damage to heroes. His ultimates give him a deadly counterstrike or a devastating storm attack.
Nuke’n Zerg!
The two new maps, Braxis Holdout and Warhead Junction, both come from the StarCraft universe and are thus the first maps to come from this Blizzard franchise. In Braxis Holdout, we unleash a devastating Zerg rush when we capture enough points and continue to fill our Zerg pen with nasty alien critters. Once the pen is full, the swarm charges and rolls over everything in its path! A beautiful sight!
In Warhead Junction, nuclear warheads are regularly generated that we can pick up. From then on, we can fire a single atomic rocket at any time, but if we go down, the bomb is gone. The nuclear strike is particularly effective when we team up with multiple bomb carriers and trigger a nuclear firestorm!
Mein-MMO says: As I said, I always found Zarya cool, and at Gamescom I could try her out. The gameplay strongly resembles her playstyle in Overwatch, and those who were already good with Zarya there will have no trouble here. The new map Braxis Holdout is a lot of fun, and once the big Zerg stampede is unleashed, an undefended base dissolves into smoking ruins faster than you can say “Kerrigan”! Therefore, I am really excited about Machines of War!
