Most of the info was already revealed in the press kit and official Heroes blog, but some behind the scene details were given about Probius and upcoming features.
Here are the juiciest bits from the IEM Katowice deep dive
Probius Defined:
- A high damage ranged specialist who uses potent area-denial abilities to keep enemies at a safe distance.
- The dev team started referring to Probius as "Beep, Boop -- You're dead" because of his incredible burst damage.
- Fragile and needs setup time. Also, very reliant on having a strong frontline.
- His spells cost extreme amounts of mana, but he rapidly regenerates mana when near a Pylon.
- Warp Rift damage is on par with Li-Ming Arcane Orb.
- He has multiple charges of Warp Rift, so you can get hit by 2 of them. Ouch!
- The Warp Rifts can’t be stacked directly on top of each other. and have to be offset, so hitting with one Q is a little difficult.
Cho'Gall
- When Cho activates his new trait, they get 25% Armor. When Gall has his trait active, they get 25% increased damage. This trait is available for both players so, per lore, they might find themselves fighting over it.
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Cho has a new level 20 talent upgrade to Upheaval: it roots for 1.5 seconds afterward.
- Gall has a new Level 20 talent: Death timer reduced by 50 percent.
- There are new Quest talents at level 20 that offer Cho additional 2 Armor per takedown and Gall 2% additional damage. These stack indefinitely.
Armor system rollout
- More armor is being added to the game to help balance and provide different armors new niches
- Most warriors will receieve some sort of armor.
This includes the armor we already knew about revealed in the UI changes Blizzard post. This includes
- Tyrael given Spell Armor
- Johanna given Physical Armor
- Varian and Cho'Gall given normal Armor
Arthas
- His kit will be based around being anti-basic attacks.
- Updated talents to provide better diversity.
- Frozen Tempest now provides movement speed slow AND attack speed slow.
- The slow stacks faster and harder so, every second, enemies have 10% reduced 10% movement and attack speed. Stacks up to 40% so potentially a very powerful debuff.
- Additionally, the functionality is more like an aura like Lucio's ability. This means when he is stunned or displaced, the ability doesn't end.
Anub'arak
- Further kitted his talents towards anti-spell caster.
- Burrow Charge cooldown is lower and enemies afflicted by it have their move speed reduced. Great for diving casters.
Gazlowe
- With Probius coming in and establishing himself as a builder, Gazlowe needed a change.
- He is more about basic attacks and sustained damage, where Probius is about spells and burst damage.
- Wanted to increase the skill potential for higher level players.
- Turret targeting is now baseline and Xplodium Charge range is increased.
- The goal is to make him more viable in competitive play without boosting quick match win rate.
- Robo-goblin should now make an interesting heroic ability decision.
- It now grants 100% basic attack + new activate for armor (30 armor) and speed boost. Can be used to chase heroes down or run away.
- Deth Lazor used to have different casting states and the final one was the most powerful and it fired.
- Now, you channel Deth Lazor indefinitely! You can right click Deth Lazor to cancel it and the cooldown doesn't go off.
- Deth Lazor feints and repositions possible and no need to waste the cooldown.
The rest of the information was general UI info and things already written about during the Probius reveal. However, the Arthas buffs and Gazlowe re-work is huge news and, from the sounds of it, are just what these forgotten heroes needed to be more relevant.
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