Warcraft's Zul'jin is The Next Heroes of The Storm Hero

[Steven Bogos]

Warcraft's Zul'jin is The Next Heroes of The Storm Hero

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Zul'jin will be the newest assassin hero to join Heroes of The Storm's nexus.

While Ragnaros [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/168981-Heroes-of-The-Storm-Ragnaros-Preview#&gid=gallery_6659&pid=1] and Varian have just been added to Heroes of The Storm, Blizzard is already hard at work finishing up its next hero: Zul'jin, from the Warcraft universe. Zul'jin will be an assassin type hero and will see release some time in January. Here's a quick preview of his abilities:

Trait: Berserker
Activate to increase Basic Attack damage by 25% but consume 2% of your maximum Health per attack.
Passive: Zul'jin attacks 1% faster for every 1% of maximum Health missing.
Grievous Throw (Q)
Zul'jin throws an axe forward, dealing damage to the first 2 enemies hit and marking them for 8 seconds. Marked enemies take 50% bonus damage from Zul'jin's next 3 Basic Attacks against them.
Twin Cleave (W)
Throw 2 axes in a large circular arc, dealing damage and slowing affected enemies by 15% per axe for 2 seconds.
Regeneration (E)
Channel Zul'jin channels to regenerate 25% of his maximum Health over 4 seconds. Moving or taking damage while channeling will interrupt this effect.
Taz'dingo! (R)
Zul'jin is Unkillable for the next 4 seconds, and cannot be reduced to less than 1 Health. Taz'dingo!
Guillotine (R)
Zul'jin throws a massive guillotine blade into the sky that crashes down on enemies in the targeted area. The lower Zul'jin's Health, the more damage it deals.

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[Hawki]

"...its next hero: Vol'jin, from the Warcraft universe. Vol'jin will be an assassin type hero and will see release some time in January. Here's a quick preview of his abilities:"

It's Zul'jin, not Vol'jin. I mean, come on, you got the title of the article right, but not the body of work.

And on a related note, yay...another Warcraft hero...one might say we're being "trolled."

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Vengeance for... Vol'jin? Damn Zul'jin, people are forgetting about you in the articles they write on you, poor bastard.

"...its next hero: Vol'jin, from the Warcraft universe. Vol'jin will be an assassin type hero and will see release some time in January. Here's a quick preview of his abilities:"

It's Zul'jin, not Vol'jin. I mean, come on, you got the title of the article right, but not the body of work.

And on a related note, yay...another Warcraft hero...one might say we're being "trolled."

To be fair, that's largely since Warcraft has like... 500 more major characters than Starcraft and Diablo, many of whom are a lot more popular/well known than the SC and Diablo characters that aren't already in the game. Plus they tend to have more obvious skill-sets than someone like, say, Edmond Duke or Aldaris.

...that said, kinda weird that Zul'jin is getting in - he's not exactly the most well-known Warcraft character these days. Hell he hasn't even been in WoW since Cataclysm, so... yeah.

 

[Hawki]

Vengeance for... Vol'jin?

Well, after Legion, I suppose many members of the Horde would want vengeance for him.

To be fair, that's largely since Warcraft has like... 500 more major characters than Starcraft and Diablo, many of whom are a lot more popular/well known than the SC and Diablo characters that aren't already in the game. Plus they tend to have more obvious skill-sets than someone like, say, Edmond Duke or Aldaris.

...that said, kinda weird that Zul'jin is getting in - he's not exactly the most well-known Warcraft character these days. Hell he hasn't even been in WoW since Cataclysm, so... yeah.

I'm not disputing any of that, but we're at the point where Warcraft already accounts for more than 50% of the hero roster, so Zul'jin is only going to send that upwards. Coupled with a lacklustre StarCraft event (with a grand total of 1 StarCraft hero actually released), and, yeah. I don't think it's fair to demand parity between the franchises in terms of roster, but I can't help but feel a bit disgruntled.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Vengeance for... Vol'jin? Damn Zul'jin, people are forgetting about you in the articles they write on you, poor bastard.

I laughed at that far more than I should've. Anyway as I know they had Zul'jin in mind for this game when it was first announced. I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to put him in, All that is left from those early previews is Gelbin Mekkatorque and Kel'Thuzad.

...that said, kinda weird that Zul'jin is getting in - he's not exactly the most well-known Warcraft character these days. Hell he hasn't even been in WoW since Cataclysm, so... yeah.

Blizzard seems To really like going for the obscure characters for the WoW representatives. Some of their first wow heroes were E.T.C, Gazlowe, and Stitches. Not exactly the heaviest hitters of that franchise. I kinda like they go back and forth Between well-known and obscure characters.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

"...its next hero: Vol'jin, from the Warcraft universe. Vol'jin will be an assassin type hero and will see release some time in January. Here's a quick preview of his abilities:"

It's Zul'jin, not Vol'jin. I mean, come on, you got the title of the article right, but not the body of work.

And on a related note, yay...another Warcraft hero...one might say we're being "trolled."

Wow Bogos named him Vol'jin?

This is Vol'jin:

THIS IS ZUL'JIN:


VENGEANCE FOR ZUL'JIN!!!!

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I'm not disputing any of that, but we're at the point where Warcraft already accounts for more than 50% of the hero roster, so Zul'jin is only going to send that upwards. Coupled with a lacklustre StarCraft event (with a grand total of 1 StarCraft hero actually released), and, yeah. I don't think it's fair to demand parity between the franchises in terms of roster, but I can't help but feel a bit disgruntled.

I think their biggest fear is running out of characters. World of Warcraft is a pretty infinite stream. But Starcraft and Diablo are pretty extinguishable. Besides, the weight of the characters matters a lot, too.

Zul'jin was one of the first heroes teassd for this game, we've literally no trolls in the game, he has relatively high fan demand, and they pretty much had the framework from Huskarr.

Pretty much all of the recent Warcraft heroes, aside from arguably Samuro (who has his own reasons), have all been major iconic characters with lots of requests. I've been particularly impatient foe Varian and Ragnaros.

Granted, at this current juncture, I'd like them to implement another non-Warcraft hero, for a refreshing setting. Possibly another non-bipedal character, like a Helion. I would have also preferred the far more distinguished 1 eye/1 arm Zul'jin from WoW. But hey ho.

There are still plenty of Heroes Blizzard can pick out from Diablo and Starcraft, For Diablo:

Spoiler: Mephisto

Spoiler: Baal

Spoiler: Maltheal

For Starcraft:

Spoiler: Stukov

Spoiler: Tosh

Spoiler: Fenix but in a Protoss Dragoon

And there are others I have not mentioned like Deckard Cain, Valerian Mengsk, etc.

 

[Hawki]

I think their biggest fear is running out of characters. World of Warcraft is a pretty infinite stream. But Starcraft and Diablo are pretty extinguishable.

StarCraft. yes, Diablo, not so much.

The reason I say that is that in both Warcraft and Diablo, power tends to operate on the individual level, i.e. you can tie specific abilities to specific characters, and where success or failure is often down to the individual (almost exclusively in Diablo's case, per it being a PvE-focused RPG. StarCraft, not so much, in that success or failure is often down to armies, and personal power is rarely innate. Zerg rely on numbers rather than heroes, terrans rely on technology rather than personal prowess, etc. The protoss are an exception with their psychic abilities though.

There are still plenty of Heroes Blizzard can pick out from Diablo and Starcraft,

And yet they're not here yet...

personally I want more heroes based on units. Like Morales and Hammer.

Eh, no thanks. It's bad enough we got Hammer instead of Duke or Warfield. It's only slightly less annoying that they created a medic character rather than using a pre-existing medic character. Granted, Morales is a UED medic, which is something that we haven't seen before, but I've yet to see a good excuse for Hammer.

That said, I think there's a lot of StarCraft units that could be good heroes (the Firebat springs to mind), but it seems redundant to create original characters for them.

 

[Hawki]

[

Not sure what your point is here? Try grabbing a list of key characters and class roles from any of the games. The one for Warcraft will always come out about 4-5x bigger. It's a far more established universe than Diablo and Starcraft. Not that they're running short for either of those.

As in while Warcraft is bigger than Diablo, I don't Diablo is really a universe that's exactly lacking in options for a MOBA either. This is different from something like StarCraft, where a lot of the big names (Arcturus, Valerian, DuGalle, Overmind, Aldaris, etc.), don't really have an in-built skills or take to the battlefield directly.

 

[sagitel]

so we are getting an article for every new HoTS hero? is blizzard sponsoring this?
anyway lets look at the abilities

Trait: Berserker
Activate to increase Basic Attack damage by 25% but consume 2% of your maximum Health per attack.
a nice enough trait. there is just one question. can it kill you? it gives you an option to go ham but have to manage it. i like it

Passive: Zul'jin attacks 1% faster for every 1% of maximum Health missing.
goes well with the whole berserker thing it has going on. a straight rip-off from olaf's passive (who is probably a ripoff from Dota. i dont know) so no points for originality. this and the trait makes him really dangerous to fight

Grievous Throw (Q)
Zul'jin throws an axe forward, dealing damage to the first 2 enemies hit and marking them for 8 seconds. Marked enemies take 50% bonus damage from Zul'jin's next 3 Basic Attacks against them.
standard enough. nothing special. until we get numbers there is nothing about this

Twin Cleave (W)
Throw 2 axes in a large circular arc, dealing damage and slowing affected enemies by 15% per axe for 2 seconds.
30% slow. combine this with the Q passive and D and yeah. you cant run without any stun, mobility

Regeneration (E)
Channel Zul'jin channels to regenerate 25% of his maximum Health over 4 seconds. Moving or taking damage while channeling will interrupt this effect.
again standard ability thats a rip-off from rejuvenation with minor tweaks. gives him a good sustain. the only problem is mana

Taz'dingo! (R)
Zul'jin is Unkillable for the next 4 seconds, and cannot be reduced to less than 1 Health. Taz'dingo!
took long enough for one of these to be in HoTS.

Guillotine (R)
Zul'jin throws a massive guillotine blade into the sky that crashes down on enemies in the targeted area. The lower Zul'jin's Health, the more damage it deals.
without having the numbers there is nothing to talk about. its somewhat original with the sole twist of being based on your own HP

decree: this guy has one problem. being kited. and thats a big problem. a slow is worth shit if the enemy has 1 stun and 1 mobility buff. be it a dash/ movement speed buff/ what have you. he will run into mana problems. because to fight you need to use Q and W a lot. E is a nice little abiltiy. the trait has a question mark. that is how much damage does he do? is that 25% a lot or a little? if its 250 per attack then thats a lot. if its 100.... but that problem with being kited to hell and back is a big one. over all i give him a 6/10

 

[Newage]

decree: this guy has one problem. being kited. and thats a big problem. a slow is worth shit if the enemy has 1 stun and 1 mobility buff. be it a dash/ movement speed buff/ what have you. he will run into mana problems. because to fight you need to use Q and W a lot. E is a nice little abiltiy. the trait has a question mark. that is how much damage does he do? is that 25% a lot or a little? if its 250 per attack then thats a lot. if its 100.... but that problem with being kited to hell and back is a big one. over all i give him a 6/10

Considering he's a ranged hero, he'll usually be the one doing the kiting, not the other way around. He even has a talent to increase his AA range at 1, so that he can kite better :

[Passive] You Want Axe?

Every 5 Basic Attacks used against Heroes increases your Basic Attack damage by 1.5. Upon reaching 24 Stacks, permanently gain 20% Range.

 

[sagitel]

decree: this guy has one problem. being kited. and thats a big problem. a slow is worth shit if the enemy has 1 stun and 1 mobility buff. be it a dash/ movement speed buff/ what have you. he will run into mana problems. because to fight you need to use Q and W a lot. E is a nice little abiltiy. the trait has a question mark. that is how much damage does he do? is that 25% a lot or a little? if its 250 per attack then thats a lot. if its 100.... but that problem with being kited to hell and back is a big one. over all i give him a 6/10

Considering he's a ranged hero, he'll usually be the one doing the kiting, not the other way around. He even has a talent to increase his AA range at 1, so that he can kite better :

[Passive] You Want Axe?

Every 5 Basic Attacks used against Heroes increases your Basic Attack damage by 1.5. Upon reaching 24 Stacks, permanently gain 20% Range.

he is ranged? that serves me right for not going to the wiki. or watching a video. but i guess the article should really say that

 

[Newage]

he is ranged? that serves me right for not going to the wiki. or watching a video. but i guess the article should really say that

Apparently. I have not find anything confirming it, but he's supposed to be based on a unit from Warcraft 2 that is ranged. I assumed it was shown in the reveal stream, and so far only ranged heroes have had range upgrade talents (which is why I posted it). It also makes sense, as it is an archetype that doesn't have that much representation in HotS right now (AA ranged assassins).