New Hots Heroes anounced

[SteakofStake]

I want a firebat hero

short ranged tank that has strong aoe abilities and stuff

[IskatuMesk]

Dehaka?
Anub?

I mean almost all tanks are short ranged and have strong aoe lol

[SteakofStake]

I guess I should have explained it more, but I mean like a hero from a sc2 map. Say trait is so his auto attacks deal damage in a cone in front of him, he has a sprint ability that leaves a trail of fire behind him, small area denial ability that lasts like 2-3 seconds and deals small damage unless people stand in it for its full duration, stuff like that

also an ult that involves blazing it

[Zilla-]

urzael? his theme is badass enough, and the dude has a rocketlauncherflamethrower. \m/

[SteakofStake]

ALRIGHT we got here some big news today, but some news that was rumored to be in the making - the long awaited SC2 series of updates, Machines of War.

► Show Spoiler

[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhhaPVdG7fQ[/bbvideo]
[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAXqZIBeS40[/bbvideo]
[bbvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUZBAOmzBh8[/bbvideo]

Alright, so a quick summary of what is revealed so far - A Starcraft themed series of updates like the series of diablo updates we had a year or so ago. There are 2 new starcraft maps in development, Alarak, the tal'darim that helped artanis in LoTV (he's still an asshole), Zarya (doesn't fit starcraft theme but oh well, they probably want more overweight heroes in the game) and starcraft-themed skins.

So Onto the maps.
Both maps have sc2 themed creeps - Marines are archers, ghosts are wizards, and marauders are melee
Braxis Holdout - A 2 lane map where the objective is to hold cages long enough while they fill with zerg, and then release the zerg on the enemy teams base.
The merc camps are infested terran, but I would guess the siege are the goliaths and raven, while the siege is the firebats. This is neat, since we never have had siege camps that have had more than 1 type of unit in it, and ravens can cast hunter seeker drones. The boss is an infested viking, and looks like it will be the first ranged boss as well

Warhead Junction - A three laned map where the map objective is to collect warheads. From what it looks like in the video, whoever has picked up a warhead will be able to nuke anywhere on the map when they get within range. What happens if they die while holding one, I do not know. All I know is that we will need to take sacred emu missions to this extreme when given the chance.
Siege and bruiser camps are the same, except they don't look infested before you capture them like on the other map.
Bosses, however, are better. They are slivans. I have a love of slivan due to..reasons so I am happy, except I am dissapointed they dont hatch a million eggs while walking down lane, but atleast they still jizz everywhere.

Onto the new heroes announced.

Alarak, The douchebag who sort of helped you in lotv


It isn't said in the video, but I think he is going to be a warrior. It's possible that he may be an assassin, though, since he doesn't seem to have the qualities of the other warriors and more of an assassin like the butcher. I will probably pick him up since I like that he has a pull-in and a silence, so when he can get to mages he will probably be able to kill them. I think his one ult is also the first time we have seen a counter attack spell in the game, so I wonder if all damage he takes during the channel time is just absorbed or if he will actually take the damage, but if it does absorb the damage, it will be a great counter to trigger-happy limings, jainas, KT's, and if timed can probably 1 shot a chromie if in range and you take the full force of her combo.


Zarya, the character added to overweight to please the feminazis
(searching zarya came up with porn on the first few pictures.....)

Nothing really knew with her, since blizzard is determined to make overwatch characters in hots be carbon copies of them from overwatch. But they actualy didn't give her an ult pre-10 like tracer, so blizzard isn't absolutely stupid. She is a simple characer, and requires reflexes. Her q is her alt fire from overwatch, her w is a shield on herself, and her e is a shield on someone else. BUBBLES. But they gave her 2 ults, one is the same as overwatch, and the other is actualy the complete opposite, where enemies cannot actualy move through it, it pushes them away and out. They both seem good, but for most purposes graviton surge is probably going to be the better one. When I saw it I just thought of comboing it with gazlowe since it looks pretty easy to land, and you won't need grav-o-bomb on gazlowe if you want to combo it with gazlowe. In general, I think zarya would be good with gazlowe, or other AOE heroes, but with certain builds you can get gazlowe bombs to stun for ~5 seconds if timed correctly.


Also, ultralisk butcher, shitty kerrigan skin, robot bears.

[IskatuMesk]

so many fucking grabs/pulls in this game, blizzard really likes blitzcrank

[Krazy]

Finally, between medihv and Zarya we will be able to get a main tank abathur slapper!

[SteakofStake]

Finally, between medihv and Zarya we will be able to get a main tank abathur slapper!

Add morales to that and gg

/e
could have a chance of working if we did it with illidamn instead

[RazorclawX]

Alarak is an assassin and the Counter ability protects him from damage for 1 second. If anyone auto attacks him during that they get laser in the face.

His trait makes him do 100% more damage to Heroes, but all of his talents seem to have downsides or tradeoffs that make this go higher or lower.

He also has the option to get his other ultimate at lv.20.

He apparently has his own 'mount' where he's flying on a red cloud.

[SteakofStake]

So the new update hit the PTR, and I played on the zerg rush map, Braxis Holdout, last night. It is...odd and I think it could have been handled better, but I guess there will be changes before it hits the live servers.

Basically the objective is the same as dragon knight - hold 2 points, one top and on bot, and then your cage will fill with zerg. As you hold BOTH of them, the cages will fill, but if you only control 1, neither cage will fill. I kinda dislike this for certain reasons, but its not as bad as DK because it's a 2 lane map, therefore it being a smaller map and the points are closer to each other. Also, I noticed that if you were to get your cage 0% full, all you get is a pity zergling. I think the lanes that the zerg attack will just swap from top to bot for each team, and there will never be zerg vs zerg.
I just realized I didn't say this, but the objective doesn't pop until 1 team has a 100% full cage. One team could have 99% and the other have 99% full cages, but they won't release unless one hits 100%. The zerg units at 100% are this - around 10-20 zerglings and 10 hydrolicks (wasn't really counting), 3 ultralisks, and 3 guardians. The zerg units attack animations are kinda awkward looking.

The Camps are 2 hellbats on siege that are easy to kill (monk killed a camp solo within 10 seconds) and a 1:30 minute cooldown They seem like they are there for wave clear. I think that another use is to help kill off the bulk of the zerg attack, that being hydrolicks and zerglings.
The bruisers are silly, with a raven and 3 goliaths. The raven has a hunter killer cast every so often, and it will seek out heroes forever. I know this because I watched a valla run for their life for about 5 seconds before giving up and letting it kill her.
The boss is a mercenary viking that, when killed, will go to whatever lane has less structure damage, at least that is what I am guessing as it always went bot, which always had more siege done.
I like it, I guess?
Oh and they implemented those orb generators to this map, the ones that you see on the single-lane map, there is one at the very top and very bot.

/edit

It seems I have missed some other...pretty important part of this update
Well, for all heroes there is a change to imposing presence, that gives it an active ability along with the passive, and the active ability is basically an aoe around you that will slow the movespeed of enemy heroes hit by it by 20% and lower their attack speed by 75% (might be 50%)
The monstrosity and misha creep bug was fixed.
Spell shields are now toggle-able on and off, to use it when you want to
All of the talents that reduces the amount a CC effect will affect you have basically been nerfed. They no longer reduce CC durations, which is a horrid change to the game, even though they give them different effects like taking less damage when you are stunned. Oh boy, I get to die slower as I am stun locked.
Mount speeds are being reduced from 40% bonus speed to 30% movespeed. blizzard says they are also applying this to heroes that have no mount but a speed bonus, like falsedad, to reduce the roaming gank squads

Onto Specific heroes, Valla and Butcher are getting talent reworks. I don't know the specific for valla since I don't really like playing her, but for butchers rework, he has a different trait basically. It now has minions drop 1 meat while heroes drop 5, giving 1 bonus damage per meat. You lose 10 stacks of meat on death. You can get a max of 125 meat, and when you do, you get another bonus 100 damage, and no longer lose stacks of meat.
The only real major change to the base abilities that his brand lasts a shorter amount of time, but every time you hit a target that is branded increases the amount of time they are branded by .5 seconds.

[Krazy]

So you're saying it's time to dust off my Uther?

[IskatuMesk]

if they nerf lunara to 10% or whatever movespeed that is really going to hurt her ability to fight mages like she currently does...

[SteakofStake]

if they nerf lunara to 10% or whatever movespeed that is really going to hurt her ability to fight mages like she currently does...

From what I can tell, they either overlooked lunara, or they understand how much of a nerf that would be to her, and she will still have 20% movespeed, basically making that change an outright buff to her trait. I might play her a little more since that movespeed will have a little more impact on extended chases/escapes.

The other things that are also affected by the mount speed changes is novas movespeed talent (from 30% to 25% while cloaked, proportionately it is better) Rehgar's wolf form (from 30% bonus to 20% bonus)

[IskatuMesk]

It would help her a lot in some maps because navigating areas or disengaging vs mounts is basically impossible for her atm.

[RazorclawX]

I've played Alarak a bit on the PTR and he is really weird to use, but very satisfying when you can pull off the shit.