Heroes of the Storm has been updated to bring the latest hero into the Nexus. Qhira is the second original character in HotS following Orphea, a character that was released last year.
Qhira is a melee assassin who uses a “deadly Iresian Chainblade” to close the gap between her and her opponents. Blizzard has said that she’s the perfect hero for those looking for “lightning-fast engages” and who prefer high damage characters.
“A former knight of her now shattered homeland, Qhira’s battle prowess is unmatched on the battlefield. With Iresia destroyed, Qhira has become a Bounty Hunter with an array of abilities adept at both beginning fights, and more importantly, ending them.”
In addition to Qhira’s arrival, players will also find a number of new skins available. Nazeebo, Diablo, Raynor, and Nova all have new skins that can be purchased from the in-game shop or earned through gameplay. There is also the new Daredevil Helldorado Mount.
For those who prefer Heroes of the Storm Ranked Play, there are some big changes coming ahead of the debut of the Storm League. When Season 1 kicks off, it will come with many community-requested features. These include Ranked Points being applied to each player’s Storm League MMR; a Ranked Season questline; and fewer matches needed to determine Placement.
Most notably, players will also find that the Storm League will feature a whopping 11 maps during Season 1 with an additional 4 maps available via Quick Matches. This is a big change from previous Ranked play when just a few maps were placed on rotation.
“Due to player feedback about their favorite Battleground being removed or least favorite added, and also us questioning the value that we were gaining by having a Battleground rotation, we’ve decided to get our Storm League pool to 11 Battlegrounds and probably leave it there for the immediate future. The original idea behind a rotation was to facilitate a different metagame and make the game feel fresh and different, but we found that this wasn’t really panning out this way and in fact created more confusion and volatility than enjoyment.”
