Game News
Heroes of the Storm
With Blizzard’s crossover MOBA game, Heroes of the Storm, having recently launched, there has been a big push to get it into the public eye and the latest example is the announcement of the Eternal Conflict event. Eternal Conflict will be a number of content updates for the game based around the Diablo franchise, including new maps and new heroes taken from the series. One new map and character have been revealed so far, but much more has been hinted at for the event. The first new hero to join the roster will be The Butcher, one of the most iconic boss fights from the first Diablo game and the first boss in Diablo III. In Heroes of the Storm, The Butcher is a melee assassin based around high damage and lifesteal. He can charge opponents down with Ruthless Onslaught, debuff them with Butcher’s Brand, and deal a massive blow with Hamstring. His special trait, Fresh Meat, lets him collect blood droplets left behind by any defeated enemy and gradually increase his attack power. He is certainly a major threat made to capture the sense of fear that he invoked in the Diablo games, but he is more fragile than he appears and his entire Fresh Meat buff will be wiped upon death. Finally, his heroic abilities are Lamb to the Slaughter and Furnace, with the former chaining a single opponent to a spot for a short period and is good for snaring tanky or evasive characters. Furnace is an AoE burst that takes some time to fire off but surrounds The Butcher with a powerful, 360 degree blast.
The next map to be added will be Battlefield of Eternity and it will capture the war between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells that features so prominently in the Diablo series. This two-lane map will be aesthetically divided between heaven and hell with the two teams each taking a side in the conflict. Every now and then, two Immortals will begin fighting in the center of the map and each team will need to work to ensure that the Immortal on their side wins the struggle. There are four different spots that the Immortals can randomly appear at when they start fighting and, while they’re all in close proximity of each other, preemptive positioning for these events will be tricky. The Immortals will also change their positions when one of them reaches half health. Once one of the Immortals falls, the other will start pushing against the stronger lane of the enemy team. Siege giants also work differently on this map, dealing large damage to a single target rather than the splash damage of giants on other maps. Battlefield of Eternity and The Butcher are set to enter the nexus and kick off Eternal Conflict on June 30th.
