Cairne Bloodhoof by Ranorack

Heroic upgrade - Earthmother's Blessing - When reincarnated, Cairne's damage resistance is further increased, and Plainsrunning is immediately triggered. Plainsrunning cannot end whilst the damage resistance effect is active.

Heroic upgrade - Call to Arms - The Braves Cairne summons are now permanent, and gain an additional ability each. Additionally, the Braves can be individually controlled, as opposed to only being able to focus targets Cairne indicates. The cooldown of the ultimate begins when either Brave dies, when recast the Brave's respawn at Cairne's side. If Cairne dies, the Braves remain only for a few seconds before despawning.

Hamstring - Heroic Strike now induces a rooting effect on the target for a few seconds.

Heroic Throw - Heroic Strike now has a moderate range, and induces a silence on the enemy target.

Cut them down! - Heroic Strike now deals significant damage to mercenaries and bosses, this damage is spread evenly to nearby enemy targets.

Imploding Earth - War Stomp now has a wider radius, and pulls affected enemies in towards Cairne.

Shattering Stomp - War Stomp now deals significant damage to affected targets.

Earth's Protection - War Stomp grants Cairne three stacks of Block.

Spirit Bulwark - Will of the Ancestors reduces ability damage taken for it's duration.

Nomadic Will - Will of the Ancestors now prevents Plainsrunning from having it's wind up reset or movement speed increase reduced by damage.

Inspiring Presence - Endurance Aura, when activated, now grants allied heroes two stacks of Block.

Swiftness of Spirits - Plainsrunning can now be manually activated, and shortly after being activated, it cannot be impeded by damage.

Cairne, in this design, is intended to be capable of pushing into the frontline, and laying down crowd control amidst the enemy team, without worrying too much about his own demise. His damage overall isn't anything to write home about unless he is talented for such. Heroic Strike is intended to make him a decent enough threat on his own, but if outnumbered and repeatedly CC'd himself, he can be taken down.

Plainsrunning is his gapcloser, even when taking damage he still moves quicker than most heroes, and when talented correctly it's potentially a manual version of the Butcher's charge. However, if stunned or rooted long enough, Plainsrunning ends. And Cairne needs several seconds to get going. In this case I'd recommend being wary of hard CC to keep your speed buff up, at least long enough to enter the fray and put his toolkit to good use as your team mops up.

Endurance Aura, particularly when given a few talent buffs, is a central piece of Cairne's toolkit. It won't help stave off burst, but it'll act as a weaker form of Muradin's Second Wind that can be granted to the whole team. In the early game, this enables Cairne, his lane partner and mercenaries to absorb more damage safely even without a dedicated healer. This can free up the team's support to instead dedicate themselves either to another lane, or aid Cairne in a different way.

His two heroics embody different warrior characteristics. Honour guard leans more towards being a bruiser type, or lane pushing potential, as overall this heroic allows Cairne to deal far more damage and add additional bodies to a team fight. But this comes at a cost to his own survivability and tankiness. Reincarnation meanwhile enables Cairne to make riskier plays than even more durable warriors. As an example, Cairne could engage with two enemy heroes, killing one whilst wounding the other before dying. But upon reincarnating, Cairne can chase down and finish off the wounded enemy. Though reincarnated deaths still grant the enemy with XP, in the late game map presence is more important, Reincarnation in this way could force the game to become a 3v5, whereas another warrior in the same situation result in the match turning into a 4v4. While even a Johanna with her lv20 shield can still be killed outright, Cairne can absorb most of an enemy team's burst, die, let the worst of it soar over his head before getting back up for round 2.

His talents would offer two routes, much like his heroics, at the very least. One leaning more towards pushing, besieging and dealing damage, but another for being the damage sponge in a team fight whilst laying down crowd control into the enemy team.

Plainsrunning would initially seem very potent, but the start up time could make it harder to pull off, especially in the midst of a fight. It's worth noting that mounting takes two seconds, Plainsrunning would require more time than that. Additionally, stutter stepping your auto attacks and abilities would be borderline required if an expert Cairne player wanted maximum up time on the speed boost. But as mentioned, an enemy team with any amount of stuns (Unless you have a support with Cleanse with extremely good reaction times) could put an end to his sprinting around. To aid in this, several talents and one of his heroics compensates and allows Plainsrunning more freedom in activation, allowing it to be used similarly to a charge during a fight, or used as an escape. Though if the enemy is chasing you for more than five seconds, uhm, well... they shouldn't be anyway if they can't catch you by then!

Cairne could potentially be great for taking mercs, particularly with a near permanent honour guard healing him and soaking damage for him. Speaking of mercs, the Heroic Strike trait 'Cut them down!' is my, probably vain, attempt at making a merc orientated talent potentially good VS heroes as well. If they happen to be near one of their own minions or mercs, rather than hitting the hero with HS, you would do well to instead hit the nearby minion/merc for extra damage! A bit fiddly to pull off, and situational, similar to Kael's Living Bomb combo, but potentially deadly, or just a great poking tool in lane.

And speaking of lanes; Cairne would be a hard target to budge with so much damage reduction, high health and regeneration. But if he overextends and is caught out without support, he doesn't have much in the way of escape tools in the early game. Particularly if he's being pinned from the front and back between enemy heroes. But in reverse, if the enemy pushes too hard against Cairne, his war stomp and heroic strike, coupled with the aid of towers, can cause some very real damage. Though his abilities are very mana hungry, encouraging sparse but potent use.

If Call to Arms is taken, you could even play the Braves akin to Lost Vikings, soaking XP from other lanes, harassing enemy heroes. The Sunwalker in particular, with it's heal and damage bonus, acts as a beefier version of Azmodan's Demon General, in a manner of speaking, and could enable a hard push in one lane, whilst the enemy is occupied by Cairne, the Archer and the rest of your team.

However, the Braves do not remain around for long if Cairne dies. So his safety must still be prioritised above the Braves. Taking Call to Arms does not entirely change Cairne into a different version of the Vikings after all.

That's hard to say. I designed Cairne here based on what I know about the game and the overall design other warriors go by, that is; enemy disruption, damage soaking, and on occasion being a bruiser-type. But compared to other heroes, Cairne is built significantly more so around his talents. Whilst Sonya, in my experience, makes an 'eh' tank even with talents, Cairne excels at being a tank -or- a bruiser, but he cannot be both. Alternatively, one could build him entirely around being a roamer. A buffed Plainsrunning could allow him to be very mobile and more difficult to pin down when he appears, zipping into a lane to lay CC before booking it back into the jungle, perhaps allowing an ally a kill if they take advantage of the stuns/slows provided.

Cairne's speed also could make for great positioning plays, also known as 'body blocking'. Running ahead of a fleeing enemy before turning around to deck them in the face.

His War Stomp initially appears similar to Johanna's Conviction. However, War Stomp has no charge time, meaning it's easier to catch enemies off guard. However, it's base radius is much smaller, almost within melee range of Cairne. Though a talent makes it akin to Conviction in radius and effect, it still has no charge time. but picking this talent gives up the potential for extra damage, defence or other bonus effects of War Stomp, ensuring it does not become strictly better than Conviction.

I've mentioned a few already, but I'll reiterate.

First, Plainsrunning has a long wind up compared to mounting up. If caught out, Cairne's gonna go straight back to the spawn point. For example, his team are fleeing a fight. They all have the benefit of quickly mounting up, but Cairne needs more time to get to the same speed. This could potentially get him killed if the enemy is able to mount up and catch up to him before Plainsrunning kicks in.

Second, his personal damage isn't particularly high, even with the appropriate talents he's just about on par with, say, Muradin. A damage-orientated Cairne will more than likely rely on his Braves rather than his own abilities. And his Braves, akin to the Viking's, are not very durable as individuals (Outside of Cairne's Endurance Aura, more so with it's various talents that synergise with Cairne being surrounded by allies, both heroes, minions and Braves), and are succeptible to being blown apart by AoE if they remain bunched up. And unlike Vikings, the time it takes for a Brave to return is fairly long, and if Cairne dies the Braves do not remain on the field past a few extra seconds before they retreat. Meaning you can't just suicide Cairne whilst microing the Braves to push another lane.

Third, he lacks any 'sudden' gap closers. Such as spears, leaps, teleports and what have you. Plainsrunning is his only gap closer, and it's either delayed or it can be seen coming. That said, do watch he doesn't sprint straight up to your support(s), that'll probably happen, so be ready to peel him off before he starts laying the smack down! A potential tactic for Cairne would be to deliberately move around in the fog of war, triggering Plainsrunning before engaging, as even a halved move speed buff could make him a tricky target to dislodge from the fray.

Positioning is critical for Cairne. As said he lacks any sudden mobility or dashes. An extremely poorly positioned Cairne with Reincarnation could end up providing the enemy team with two kills instead of one!

I feel Cairne would be a great addition to the roster. Characters like Varian and Garrosh don't have much thematic difference beyond "I am a warrior, rawr" but Cairne could bring a very spiritual, wiser form of Warrior compared to other potential characters. Particularly I am keen on his war stomp and Plainsrunning, which I feel is a unique enough mechanic by itself. The closest we have to that is Lunara's hopping mechanic, but that's a constant passive that doesn't really require much thought or tactical planning besides using the hopping to juke skillshots.

I initially did my best to just translate Cairne from Warcraft 3 into Heroes, but as seen below in 'Dropped Concepts' some of his base abilities didn't fit properly within the game, in my opinion anyway. And I felt like there was so little for him to possibly work with unless I gave him new abilities and an alternate heroic ability that sets him apart from other warriors.

Shockwave (Replaced by Heroic Strike) - Cairne in Warcraft 3 had Shockwave, however, this would be functionally identical to Sonya's slam. As both abilities deal high damage to one target and to the enemies behind that target. It could perhaps be an aimed cone instead, but that then shares functionality with several abilities in the game already, such as Stitches's Slam.

Endurance Aura (Attack speed replaced by regen) - Attack speed buffs are very potent in Heroes, and as such I didn't think it would be an overly good fit as a constant, passive, aura effect. It would nullify the need for Raynor's Inspire or Morales's Stim Drone. Not entirely of course, but stacking attack speed can already reach silly levels. Maybe it'd work as a talent, but not an inherent part of the ability.