In Heroes of the Storm comes Chromie this week for the first time in the free hero rotation. But how does the little gnome with the gigantic firepower play? We took a look at the hero and prepared a guide for you.

Chromie came in May and initially impressed little. Because the little gnome, who is actually a dragon, was designed by Blizzard to be too weak and initially had less than 30 percent win rate. However, this has now changed and Chromie has more to offer now. Nonetheless, according to Blizzard, she is not a beginner hero and requires a good amount of skill. But don’t worry, with our guide you’ll quickly get the hang of it.

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Chromie in Brief:

 Heroes of the Storm – Chromie – The Sudden Death!

Chromie is a heroine who requires some foresight from the player. All her attack skills are skill shots that only go off after a certain time. If you shoot blindly, you usually miss. Therefore, CC is particularly useful for Chromie players, as it allows you to focus all your firepower on helpless enemies.

Chromie’s Q ability is “Sand Blast“. This is a projectile with a high range that travels in a straight line and deals 400 damage. The special thing about it: Sand Blast only hits heroes; neither minions nor walls or towers can be hit by the projectile. Although this is ideal for picking off opponents from a crowd of minions or shooting through walls, unfortunately you can’t besiege fortified positions with it. Also, note the casting time of one second!

Chromie’s most important ability is “Dragon Breath“. This is a powerful area attack that rains down at any point in the quite high range and deals 480 damage. The casting duration is annoyingly 1.5 seconds, but the opponent cannot see where the attack will land and thus cannot evade it in time. This attack can also hit minions and buildings.

To ensure that all these skills hit, Chromie has a useful, albeit cumbersome control ability called “Chrono Trap“. This allows you to place a small hourglass that only becomes invisible and active after 2 seconds. Before that, it is merely cannon fodder, and it can still be destroyed by area attacks afterward. But whoever falls into the trap will be stunned for 2 seconds. This makes them completely immobile, but also invulnerable. The trick is to coordinate Sand Blast and Dragon Breath so that you hit the respective attack as soon as the stun ends.

As an ultimate, especially “Time Warp” is interesting for us. This is essentially the reverse version of Tracer’s “Time Loop”. Instead of rewinding time for herself, Chromie does this for her enemy. The enemy is teleported back to the point where they were at the time of the spell after 3 seconds. This way, you can optimally prevent fast and agile heroes from escaping, and ideally, you should already cast your attack skills in advance exactly at the point where the opponent will reappear.

By the way, note that Chromie has a very cool passive ability called “The Fourth Dimension“. This allows her to receive her talents each one level earlier, which can be a decisive advantage, especially with the ultimate.

Build for Chromie – How to skill Chromie in Heroes of the Storm

With Chromie, you always stay in the second row and shoot your devastating attacks into the fray when your team has already attacked the opponent. The fragile gnome has no business in the front! Especially with heroes that use CC, Chromie harmonizes excellently. Because then her hard-to-aim attacks become much more precise. With the following talents, you can enhance Chromie even more:

• Level 1 – Take a Deep Breath: This talent enhances Dragon Breath when we hit a hero. Then there is permanently 2 points more damage, up to a maximum of 25 hero hits and 50 bonus damage. If we manage this, the damage increases by another 150 and we see twice as far. An enormous advantage, but we have to rely heavily on Dragon Breath as a primary attack.
• Level 3 – Sand Blast: We now hit up to two enemies with our Sand Blast, massively improving our damage output. Therefore, this talent is a must if you like to engage in team fights.
• Level 6 – Möbius Loop: Although this talent reduces the damage of Dragon Breath by 25%, it reduces the cooldown by fully 40%! And more Dragon Breath is better than less Dragon Breath, even if you do a little less damage.
• Level 9 – Time Warp: This ultimate skill is optimal in team fights because it allows us to disrupt enemy hit-and-run tactics.
• Level 12 – In the Distant Future: A no-brainer, as we gain 25% more range for our Sand Blast and Dragon Breath. Since Chromie cannot take much damage, it’s only fair she stands far away.
• Level 15 – Sand Storms: Our ability power increases by 8% for 10 seconds when we hit a hero with Sand Blast. The duration resets with each subsequent hero hit and increases cumulatively up to a bonus of 40%.
• Level 19 – Earlier Self: When you use Sand Blast, an image of Chromie is created that also casts a blast on the next use of Sand Blast. It is a basic version with half damage, but that’s still a considerable chunk. Ideal for knocking opponents away!

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Heroes of the Storm will adjust the survivability of the heroes. There are quite drastic design approaches.

Regeneration Orbs will become more powerful, wells will have a longer cooldown

The developers of Heroes of the Storm are constantly working on fine-tuning the game to better manage balance and certain issues. In the official forum, developer Matt Cooper took the time to show the community some issues and design ideas that are currently challenging Blizzard.

The problem with health

The regeneration of health is quite a problem for Blizzard. Heroes that rely on “poke damage” lose usefulness quickly. Even if it’s possible to hit with some skill shots, it doesn’t feel like a success because the passive health regeneration nullifies that after a short time. For many heroes, it’s thus difficult to truly drive the opponent away, even if they play well.

Abolition of passive health regeneration?

Internally, they experimented with quite an extreme measure. They simply completely disabled passive health regeneration so that only supporters, regeneration orbs, healing wells, and the own base could heal. While Blizzard describes the experience as “interesting,” the outcry from fans in the forum was significant. However, they quickly calmed down – this was merely an internal test and Blizzard often tries extremes to quickly determine if the development is heading in the right direction.

Actual potential for change is seen mainly in the healing wells and regeneration orbs. The well is to be provided with a 20% longer cooldown – thus, heroes could only drink from them every 120 seconds and would have to return to base more often. The regeneration orbs are to become more significant. Currently, they restore 8% health and 32 mana – this is to be increased to 12% health and 8% mana, while also ensuring that the orbs disappear faster. It should be made easier to withhold the orbs from opponents.

However, none of these changes are set in stone yet. Much is being discussed, and they wanted to involve the community in this discussion.

All contributions from Cooper can be read in the original English in our sources.

More news and articles about Blizzard’s MOBA can be found on our Heroes of the Storm game page. Also, check out how the latest hero Medivh plays.

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