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november 06, 2017 - Blizzard Entertainment

Heroes of the Storm: what's new at BlizzCon 2017

Heroes of the Storm is a free-to-play MOBA that defies genre conventions and reshapes how the battle arena is played. In the game , noble warriors and nasty villains from the Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, and Overwatch universes enter the Nexus, the crossroads of Blizzard’s multiverse, and compete in epic, no-holds-barred combat.


At BlizzCon 2017, we’re welcoming two dragons to the Nexus: Warcraft’s Alexstrasza and Overwatch’s Hanzo!


  • New Hero – Alexstrasza: The Life-Binder is a versatile ranged Support who manipulates life energy to heal her allies. When her life—or those of her allies—is threatened, she can transform into a mighty dragon.
    • Go full dragon: Using her Dragonqueen trait, Alexstrasza can transform into her massive red dragon aspect form for 15 seconds, gaining a health boost and the power to breathe fire on her enemies—while healing any allies caught in the blast.
    • Through the fields of flame: Set your enemies ablaze with Flame Buffet, dealing damage over time and slowing those already on fire. Or unleash Cleansing Flame, where Alexstrazsa takes to the sky to rain down fire to sear enemies and heal allies.
  • New Hero – Hanzo: One of the Shimada Clan’s deadliest assets, Hanzo is a nimble, long-ranged Assassin who can pick enemies off from afar and scout for his team.
    • RYUU GA WAKA TEKI WO KURAU! Unleash the fury of Hanzo’s iconic Dragonstrike ultimate from Overwatch, or opt for a powerful snipe with global range in Dragon’s Arrow.
    • See through the dragon’s eyes: Hanzo’s Sonic Arrow allows him to gain vision of hard-to-reach areas. His trait Natural Agility lets him jump over terrain, making him an adept scout for any composition.
  • 2018 Gameplay Update: The crossroads of Blizzard’s multiverse is always evolving! We’d like to take this opportunity to give you a sneak peek at some of the changes coming to the Nexus.
    • A New Perspective: We’re tweaking the game’s camera perspective to give you a better view of the battlefield, allowing for more clarity when it comes to big moments like teamfights.
    • Updating Stealth: Stealth mechanics will see some updates, with the aim of making sneaky Heroes more to fun to go up against. In addition, Stealth Heroes will receive updates to their kits to make the most of these changes!
    • Refining the Early Game: We want to make laning more meaningful and give individual players opportunities to shine, so we’re introducing some changes to help us achieve that without increasing overall game length.
    • Mercenary Updates: We’ve taken a look at Mercenary Camps with the goal of making their role more strategically impactful during a match.
  • Voice Chat: Effective communication is crucial to victory in the Nexus, so we’re integrating Blizzard Voice Chat into #heroesofthestorm. Players in a party will automatically use Voice Chat (unless they opt-out) and teams will have the choice to opt-in.
  • Performance-Based Matchmaking: We’re further increasing the accuracy of our matchmaking system by taking players’ individual performance and contributions into account after each match, rather than relying solely on victory or defeat.