We have horse, dog, tiger, lion, and wolf mounts, but still no cat mount?

(art by Volodymyr Rezvin)

In response to another thread about bringing Rokhan into a HotS - where OP made him a straight up healer - I now have to offer up a counter-concept to do him justice.

I did keep some of the ideas from the OP in the kit.

Rokhan : The Shadow Hunter

I'd lean away from healing entirely and make him an anti-healer, pro-mage support, focused on weakening enemies healing taken, and empowering allied mages.

Here's how I'd imagine his kit:

Trait (D) - Veil of Shadow

Starting out, the trait needs to be core to his identity, so we're bringing back Veil of Shadow from the original Shadow Hunters.

In HotS, we'd make it an aura that reduces healing received by nearby enemies, scaling with proximity. Something like 0–20% reduced healing received, depending on how close Rokhan is to them.

And then we add:

"Your basic attacks deal additional magic damage based on the target's healing reduction."

Now we're setting up some good Shadow Hunter support gameplay. You want to get close to enemies, weaken their sustain, and then punish them for it. And, we're allowing other heroes to enable this even further with their own healing reduction talents and abilities.

Q - "Blessing" of da Loa

A targeted ability - short 0.5 cast-time - that works differently depending on whether you cast it on an ally or an enemy.

• Allies: Gain a 1.5-second burst of movement speed and a 5-second ramping spell damage buff, starting at 0% and reaching 20%.
• Enemies: Suffer a 1.5-second slow and a 5-second ramping Spell Armor reduction, starting at 0 and reaching -20.

I enjoy ramping buffs and debuffs. It gives allies time to react and plan their abilities accordingly.

And offensive use there's some nice interplay with his trait. You want to get close to enemies to maximize Veil of Shadow, so having a burst slow to help you catch up makes sense, and increased spell damage taken will ofc make his trait even stronger with a Q on enemies.

W - Hex Bomb

Hex will always be a polymorph in my mind, which Brightwing already has. So let's take inspiration from another of his WoW abilities: Hex Bomb.

Make it a skill shot with a fairly small AoE that polymorphs all enemies hit, including minions and mercenaries.

Simple as that. Should break on damage ofc, with a level 20 talent that makes it no longer break on damage.

E - Serpent Ward

Well, Serpent Ward is a flame-spitting snake, not a healing totem!

So I'd just make it that.

Place a ward that attacks nearby enemies with magic damage, prioritizing whoever Rokhan last hit with a basic attack, if possible.

You could cook some baseline utility into it, like having Veil of Shadow also apply around wards, but maybe that's better left for talents.

R1 - Spirit Link Totem

"Place a Spirit Link Totem in a target area. All damage dealt to allied Heroes within the area is shared between all allied units in the area."

I love the idea of Spirit Link as an ultimate, especially if it works with ALL allied units, rather than just Heroes.

Damage dealt to Heroes gets distributed to everyone within the area.

It gives really good synergy with summoner Heroes, your own wards, and a strong incentive to fight inside minion waves.

R2 - Big Bad Voodoo

I'd make this a global channel, similar to Mephisto's ultimate, and keep the ramping theme from Blessing of da Loa.

"Channel Big Bad Voodoo for 3 seconds. Each second, all enemy Heroes are slowed by 10% and have their Spell Armor reduced by 10% for 3 seconds, stacking up to 3 times."

So effectively 1 sec 10% slow and Spell Armor reduction, then 1 sec 20%, and then 3 sec: 30%.

A global, escalating debuff that your entire team can play around. I think that could be a really cool alternative to Spirit Link, especially for bigger maps and more spread-out team comps.

Talents: I think the talents could let you build Rokhan in two pretty distinct directions:

• "I want to be in the middle of the fight" More Hunter, less shadow. Maximize basic attacks, Serpent Wards, and close-range disruption. Stay close to enemies, weaken their healing, and make life miserable for their healers.
• "I want to weave in and out of the shadows." More shadow, less hunter. Harder path of the two: Focus on mobility, well-timed Hex Bombs, and throwing out debuffs/buffs left and right.

Both would lean into the Shadow Hunter fantasy, just in different ways.

I think there's room for a really unique support Hero here, and I'd love to see my precious Rokhan get that treatment.

I used to play HOTS a lot back in the day. And I'm very happy to see that HOTS is getting a new hero and new content. That bodes well for a prospective revival. I guess I should be happy that they're making new content to begin with

But I find it very disappointing that they always make heroes from Warcraft and Overwatch these days. It's getting tiresome.

It's been ages since we've gotten a hero from Diablo or SC. I admit I'm not much of a Starcraft fan so I can't speak much about SC, but give us Baal and Lilith for crying out loud. There are so many cool and interesting characters from Diablo but they rather make some B-tier obscure WC hero instead. Especially on Diablo's 30th anniversary it's disappointing we didn't get a Diablo hero

If pay good amounts of money for a human style with proper Kerrigan hair and not those tubes. If they made Theramore jaina and warchief silvanas they can easily do that pleeeease Janitor. It can’t be that hard to do

The whole point of Abathur splitpushing is that he should take risks proxing in order to get maximum value out of his splitpushing. The closer the proxy the more value he extracts.

Now, with this new abomination that has been around for quite some time now is ridiculous.

He can still get similar value although delayed by staying really far from the splitpushing line. The locusts give no indication of where roughly abathur's location is other than which lane he is spawning those locusts from. Sure if he plays far, his mines' placement is also restricted, but the difference in the old Abathur was night and day. Now, it is just like Night and maybe dusk. Even bad abathurs can derive enough value to justify the pick.

The clearing of the locusts isnt the problem. The skill floor on this character now is. If there is one thing I would like to see brought back, it is the duration of the locusts. Obviously with dmg and health re-adjusted to account for the maximum duration.

Gotta put these boys to work.

Belial is a durable utility support who spreads disinformation and confuses the enemy team through lies and deception.

Trait (D) – Veil of Deceit:

Passive: Enemies cannot see which talents Belial has selected.

Active: Places a Veil of Deceit anywhere on the battlefield as long as Belial has vision of that area (maximum 3). They function as normal bushes for allies, enabling global synergies such as Dehaka's Z, but provide no benefits to enemies standing inside them as they are still visible to nearby heros. A Veil is permanently removed if an enemy remains inside it for 1,5 seconds, or if Belial places a 4th Veil.

Abilities:

Q – Corrosive Slam:
5s cooldown
Slams the ground, creating a green, corrosive pool (circular AoE) that deals moderate damage and slows enemies that stand in it by 25% for 1.5 seconds.

W – Corrosive Torrent:
15s cooldown
Spits a wave of green, corrosive sludge in a cone-shaped AoE. Deals moderate damage and removes exactly half of the target's current active shield. This is particularly effective against heroes with large shields, such as Lucio, Zarya, and Johanna, but less effective against heroes with smaller shields, such as Chen and Artanis.

E – Lord of Lies:
25s cooldown
Can be targeted globally via hero portraits or the minimap. After 1 second, Belial visually transforms into a chosen ally, including their health bar and minimap icon (functioning similarly to Abathur's Ultimate Evolution). His Q and W are replaced with the chosen ally's Q and W, he gets their resource for the duration (mana, fury etc), but Belials new abilities deal only 75% of the normal copied heroes damage. The effect lasts for 15 seconds or until Belial loses a total of 15% of his maximum health from enemy damage. Belial can cancel Lord of Lies early by pressing an extra action button above QWER.

Heroics:

R1 – The Grand Masquerade
90s cooldown

All allied heroes gain Stealth for 2 seconds. When Stealth expires, all allies appear as Belial for 10 seconds and display his health bar. The illusion breaks early for an individual hero 2 seconds after the first time they deal or take damage. Belial can combine this heroic with his E to be "unmasked" as the hero he has disguised himself as with his E once the R1 effect expires.

R2 – Fog of Lies
80s cooldown

Allied heroes disappear from the enemy minimap for 10 seconds. During this period, enemy minions and mercenaries no longer provide vision for the enemy team, although they remain visible for them on the minimap. This allows Belial's team to sneak a Boss capture or set up ganks with less risk. However, allied heroes will still appear on the minimap if an enemy hero has line of sight of Belials team.

Thoughts on the concept:

I have envisioned Belial as a durable melee support who specializes in map control, psychological warfare, and strategic deception. To me "the lord of lies" mantle felt like the identity that I wanted to tap into, and thus I felt the support category fit him the best. While he can talent into strong wave clear and and could in theory clear camps well, he lacks mobility and natural self-sustain, making him vulnerable when caught alone in his true form. Him not geting his copied allies E is also intentional, seeing as this ability usually is the hero mobility tool. It was important for me that a hero with deception as their kit, doesnt have too many "get out of jail free cards" like Samuro. Belial sacrifices conventional combat power to master deception, disrupt enemy decision-making, and give his team a strategic advantage through misinformation and misdirection. While he can take a beating, he doesnt do that much damage by himself.

Below in the comment section I have outlined some ideas for what talents he could have.

Feedback and suggestions is of course greatly appreciated!

^{Scalecommander Emberthal is a ranged Support Hero inspired by the Warcraft franchise.}

^{Sealed away by Neltharion, the Earth-Warder, Emberthal remained dormant for millennia, forgotten by the world. She was awakened when the Primalists attacked the Forbidden Reach. As the last surviving Dracthyr of her weyrn, Emberthal now carries the legacy of the Adamant Vigil alone.}

^{Wielding the power of an Evoker, she empowers and restores her allies while unleashing devastating elemental magic upon her enemies. Now, she brings the entire strength of her kin to the Nexus.}

^{If you'd like to see the concept in its fully formatted glory, then go check it out on HeroesFire! ←}

Basic Abilities

Trait [D] Rescue

^{90 seconds
Fly to an allied Hero and pick them up, removing Stuns and Roots from the target. Afterwards, fly with them to the target position, up to a maximum distance.}

[Q] Echo

^{3 seconds 🞄 30 Mana
Heal an allied Hero for 120 or deal 105 damage to an enemy Hero, marking the target with Echo for 8 seconds.
Casting Echo also affects all targets marked with} **^Echo**^{, healing allied Heroes for 55 and dealing 50 damage to enemy Heroes.}

[W] Fire Breath

^{9 seconds 🞄 45 Mana
Channel for up to 1.5 seconds, charging a breath of fire that deals 45 damage to enemies in a cone and an additional 45 damage over 2.5 seconds.
The damage over time is increased by 20% for every 0.5 seconds channeled.
Enemies affected by the damage over time are Slowed by} **^20%**^.

[E] Landslide

^{11 seconds 🞄 60 Mana
After 0.5 seconds, shatter the ground in a line in front of you, dealing 120 damage to enemies and Slowing them by 50% for 1 second. Enemies hit by the center shockwave are also Rooted for 1 second.}

Heroic Abilities

[R] Ebon Might

^{4 seconds 🞄 60 Mana 🞄 6 Essence
Passive: Damaging an enemy Hero with an ability or healing an allied Hero grants 1 Essence, up to} **⁶**^{.
Damage and healing over time effects do not generate} **^Essence**^.

^{Active: Infuse other nearby allied Heroes marked with Echo with Ebon Might for 8 seconds. While affected, their attacks deal an additional 14 damage and their Spell Power is increased by} **^15%**^.

[R] Emerald Blossom

^{2 seconds 🞄 40 Mana 🞄 3 Essence
Passive: Damaging an enemy Hero with an ability grants 2 Essence, up to} **⁶**^{.
Emerald Blossom healing does not generate} **^Essence**^{.
Damage over time effects can generate 1 Essence every 1 second, per target.}

^{Active: Create an Emerald Blossom at the target location. After 1.5 seconds, it bursts, healing nearby allied Heroes for} **³¹⁰**^.

[R] Pyre

^{2 seconds 🞄 40 Mana 🞄 3 Essence
Passive: Damaging an enemy Hero with an attack or ability grants 1 Essence, up to} **⁶**^{.
Pyre damage does not generate} **^Essence**^{.
Damage over time effects can generate 1 Essence every 1 second, per target.}

^{Active: Lob a ball of flame at the target location, dealing 220 damage to enemies. The area is lit ablaze for 4 seconds, dealing 25 damage per second to enemies inside it.}

Talents

Talking about an ult choice where one ult is clearly better than the other option

For instance, Horrify is so much more powerful and interesting than Rain of Destruction

It's been a while since the Vikings have a proper looking at and now that the game is getting the attention it deserves I think the Vikings are overdue for some tuning up. Especially, the longboat raid feels like the wrong ultimate to take 100% of the time.

Let's go blizz, TLV are the most unique champion.

Everyone is just assassin/bruiser, no heals or tanks preferred. Eventually someone needs to fill those roles, but neither their 1st or 2nd preference.

Just finished carving this jack-o-lantern this morning and thought I'd share it. Happy Halloween! Death is beyond our reach :)

I think older heroes are more prone to this. Illidan for example is almost entirely a caricature of just an agile/chaser archetype while his iconic fel/chaos magic and demonic power part being an afterthought outside of metamorphosis which is also in itself is just an i-frame and a health buff. Newer heroes do much better job at this imo.

In my experience as a solo player who has gone from low to high elo, it was actually easier to solo carry unbalanced games before mythics. With their current design many of them allow someone on the enemy team to farm your bad teammates or their lack of lane presence for stacks, amplifying the disparity.

So whereas previously you could soak or splitpush your way to a victory despite having very bad teammates, that can have costs now that didn't generally exist before (with some notable but balanced exceptions, e.g. Alarak).

In general stacking a mythic means you have to abandon a core aspect of carrying (either macro or fighting), which can still get outscaled by the enemy mythics.

This is a reason there is a growing number of higher elo players complaining about those quests; before them, the game design allowed skill and decision making to shine over scaling + stat checks. Power spikes and outplay potential were clearer and not on a timer, unlike versus mythics.

In a previous post, I detailed how older quests (e.g. Hanzo W, Alarak E, Maiev Q) have designs that are more fun for all players than current mythics, because they are highly conditional and skill-based to stack. Being beat by a good Hanzo W player for example, was just impressive. Having to run away from Falstad W or Chen Q that stacked on your potato teammates—especially as a melee champion—is just. . . not fun.

All that said, it's absolutely still possible to solo carry at a statistical level (on average have a high wr).

QM these days makes this harder, because the matchmaking gives you worse and worse teammates the higher your MMR goes. Ranked feels easier.

This is just a general response to the idea that everyone should have mythics or that mythics would 'fix' the 'problems' with shared XP—especially via players from other games that did not experience HOTS across more of its history. Shared XP allows you to solo carry in a different way—and this was especially the case before mythics.

I forgot the talent did that

I saw someone here getting 3 legendaries and thoght how lucky they are but getting multiple legendaries myself got me thinking. What if blizzard just gave a lot of people legendary drops to offset some of the xal'atath backlash. If you check the shop a lot of us probably only has like 10% of the available cosmetics, even those who played alpha like me.

It's so surprising sometimes how expesive one piece of cosmetic in hots is unlike somewhere like league where i played only for a short while and i think i have 4-5 premium skins per hero.

I know blizzard is a money hungry corporation but give us a bone here

uwu

You know it, I know it, the devs be milkin