Although Overwatch has been the center of attention lately, Blizzard decided to surprise the Heroes of the Storm fans as well. According to an announcement published mere hours ago, the next playable character in Heroes of the Storm is Malthael, the bad guy from Diablo III Reaper of Souls expansion pack. HotS fans defined him as a super powerful Assassin, which would be super helpful for dealing with high health enemies.
Due to his abilities, any non-structure target hit by his basic attack receives the Reaper’s Mark debuff for four seconds. Anyone with the Mark loses 2.5% health per second. Therefore, one basic attack can cause a 10% loss of enemy’s max health.
The best of all is that Reaper’s Mark is included in all his basic abilities. The Soul Rip makes the marked enemies nearby take an immediate damage. Malthael’s healing abilities depend on the number of hit targets. Malthael can also teleport through a marked enemy due to the availability of the Wraith Strike.
As far as the Heroics are concerned, Tormented Souls is among the available options. The latter provides Malthael with armor and enables him to shoot out all souls around thus inflicting the Reaper’s Mark to anyone he has hit.
The Last Rites causes a damage of 50% of the health enemies are missing in just two seconds. The repeatable quest reduces that ability cooldown by five seconds whenever someone dies after being affected by the Last Rites. The cooldown can be reduced to 15 seconds, though.
The publisher hasn’t specified a release date. At the time of writing, no teasers and trailers of Malthael’ arrival have been posted. However, information about new characters is usually revealed shortly before their launch. In this respect, players hope to see Malthael in action very soon.
Blizzard informed Heroes of the Storm fans that new skins, sprays and mounts are on their way. As seen from the video below, Malthael, Sylvanus, Zeratul, Murky, and Li-Ming will receive new skins. For the time being, the release date for the new skins remains unspecified.
Meanwhile, Heroes of the Storm turned two yesterday. To celebrate the second anniversary of one of its most successful MOBAs, Blizzard organized a special community event. The latter runs until June 12th and players will be able to get anniversary-themed accessories if they play three game matches regardless of the mode and the outcome. Players who log in during the festivities will also have the chance to enjoy daily loot chests. Blizzard is also planning a livestream event on HotS official Twitch channel. It is scheduled for June 5th, 10am PDT.
