25
NovemberHeroes of the Storm Gets First Update of 2025
Not all would be resolved with this one change, though. There still is the fact that the title is woefully light on content. With no customization, outside of cosmetics, there is no true feeling of ownership over a hero and how they play. With no perks to tweak, no loadouts to worry over, and no sense of player investment, the game lives and dies by its modes. Sadly, these are currently lacking.
Reinhardt's first ability, Charge, is quite tough to control, but can basically guarantee you a kill when used properly. As the name suggests, this ability propels Reinhardt forward a great distance, but it also allows him to do damage to everyone in his path. What's more, any enemies that you pin up against a wall with charge will receive massive damage, usually resulting in a kill. His other ability, Fire Strike, allows him to launch a flaming projectile in the direction of the reticle for large close-to-medium range damage. Using Charge and Fire Strike in combination with his ultimate, Earthshatter (which stuns all enemies in a straight line) makes for a wonderful opportunity to get multi-kills. Still, you're going to want to choose Reinhardt for his shield and its benefits for objective play over everything else.
Now, nearly five years later, it seems Heroes Brawls are finally returning to the Blizzard MOBA, albeit under a slightly different name. Heroes of the Storm recently implemented a new update on the Public Test Realm featuring some hero balance and bug fixes. However, the most interesting part of the update is Brawl Mode, a new version of the Heroes Brawl that will be added back to the game in the next upd
Mercy also boasts a slightly passive perk known as Angelic Decent, which allows her to fall slowly when in the air by holding the jump prompt. This not only allows her to hide in plain sight, but it will also allow for moments of healing without being right in the thick of the action (survival is the name of the game with Mercy). Finally, Mercy's ultimate seems simple to use, but it's a wonderful way to frustrate your team if you're careless. Resurrect gives Mercy the power to revive fallen teammates, which is exceptionally useful when trying to take over an objective or win in overtime. However, simply spamming the ultimate button whenever a teammate dies isn't the most effective use of this ability, as it can often mean causing a swift second death. We recommend waiting for either multiple teammates to be down, or timing it for a massive push on an objective. As always, remember that Mercy is there to help, so in order to play this character effectively, you need to be committed to the success of others, which might not be your style if you're always seeking your next triple kill.
While this tweet has become the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to criticizing Battleborn, it's completely emblematic of a game that doesn't always feel like it knows what it is. Whereas Overwatch esports maintains its laser-focus on providing the best multiplayer arena shooter experience possible, Battleborn often feels like it wants to be everything at once. While this provides a great deal of content for players to dive into, it also makes it feel like there's far too much present for any given mode to succeed. The campaign, which is widely considered to be the weakest portion of the entire package, is loaded with fairly mundane combat encounters and a story that feels a bit too bare-boned for its own good. Combine this with a standard point-capture mode, a straight up MOBA playlist and a MOBA-like twist mode, and Battleborn begins to lack the focus that Overwatch is priding itself on. Granted, if Overwatch wasn't so damn replayable, one could argue that it's lacking in content, but the sheer dynamism of its combat more than makes up for this.
The first Brawl Mode, the holiday-themed Snow Brawl, is currently available for testing on the Heroes of the Storm PTR . The game mode will officially come to Heroes of the Storm when the patch goes live, likely in about a month. Considering the in-game interface says the PTR version will last for three weeks, Heroes of the Storm could be planning to start Brawl Mode at the beginning of Febru
Besides the size of this update, the rate at which this Heroes of the Storm update arrived is particularly noteworthy. Since they resumed in 2022, most of these updates have had two to three months between them, and about a month between the patch's arrival on the Public Test Realm and the live release. Not only did this patch arrive faster than usual – less than two months after the last Heroes of the Storm update – but it also came the same month as it hit the PTR. While this could mean nothing, Heroes of the Storm ’s 10-year anniversary is on June 2, leading many fans to wonder if the increased attention could herald something big in store for the MOBA's big milest
Of course, no Heroes of the Storm update would be complete without some balance changes . Chromie and Tracer all saw buffs and nerfs to a few of their talents. Johanna and Zul’jin did as well, though the former’s Shield Glare had its mana cost increased, while the latter’s You Want Axe? trait was improved. Auriel, on the other hand, received buffs to her Bestow Hope trait and several of her talents that will aid her healing, damage, and survivabil