Heroes of the Storm Forums

A team of Heroes of the Storm developers held a questions and answers stream earlier today. The panel consisted of:

• Nicholas Slough, Lead User Interface Artist
  
• Kent-Erik Hagman, Game Designer
  
• Matt Cooper, Game Designer
  
• Kevin Johnson, Senior Manager, Community Development

The team of developers talked about Murky and previewed a few of his abilities. From what I was able to tell, Murky will be a split-pushing king. His Pufferfish ability allows him to place down a fish that explodes after a couple seconds. The Pufferfish deals quadruple damage to structures which means that he will be a real struggle for the opponent when he is pushing.

So, pressure him and kill him a bunch in the early game right? Actually no, they previewed his bubble ability which basically makes him invulnerable and allows him to escape. He can slime (his other ability which puts applies a DoT and slows you) and bubble out of your range.

His ultimates are either the March of the Murlocs, which is exactly like it sounds, or Octograb. The Octograb ability summons an octopus to lock an opponent in place for 3 seconds and Murky hits the opponent with a fish for like 1 damage. However, at level 20, Murky will hit the trapped enemy with a shark, dealing significant damage.

The developers announced some major changes to talents that we will be able to understand more of when the patch notes are released --- Soonâ„¢. There will be changes to Muradin that sounded like a strong buff for the dwarf. Also, some changes to Stitches are coming which will allow him to hook allies out of danger or hook two enemies at once. Also, Sgt. Hammer's Siege Mode and Spider Mine abilities have been switched because they felt that Siege Mode on Q confused too many people that would use it at terrible times. Hammer will also have a new talent that will increase her range the longer she is in siege mode.

During the Q&A the developers said that they are continuously looking at talents. The goal is to make every talent viable but admit that a few are situational.

The UI is getting a major overhaul too. The talent selector will no longer have the talent drawer. Instead, you'll be able to select talents by clicking on the portrait or holding down ctrl. Below you will see what the new UI looks like with the new minimap and hero ring.


Another aspect of the UI that will be changing is showing individual kills and kills streaks. In fact the devs said that they are also working on a bounty system and kill streak meters. The end game stats screen will also get a huge overhaul.

There is a hero overhaul coming for Illidan. They are changing him to be more mobile in battle. The intention is that he will be able to be right in the mix, jumping from enemy to enemy. Also, his auto attacks will decrease his cooldowns by 1 sec. There are going to be changes to Arthas and Tyreal but not that much information was given out.

There will be clan support and a better party system soon. However, they haven't started to experiment with an in-game party frame UI which tracks ultimate cooldowns and the health/mana of allies, they haven't started experimenting with anything. They want to do something that doesn't add clutter to the UI.

What do you think about what the Devs talked about today? Anything you are excited for?

i really like the new HUD