We all know that Dota is a spinoff of Warcraft 3 and it gave birth to a whole new game genre that Blizzard was unable to foresee. But because of Dota's unprecedented success, Blizzard decided that it needed a piece of the MOBA pie. Today, we take a look at Heroes of the Storm.
For all you seasoned Dota 2 players, there's a few things you might find different with Heroes of the Storm. For one, the characters you can play with are very limited at the beginning. You might say that this follows the same business model as League of Legends, but the similarities end there. You start with five heroes:
- Tychus - a marine from Starcraft; ranged DPS
- Li Li - a healer from WoW's Wandering Isle; ranged support
- E.T.C. - a Tauren rock god wielding an axe/guitar; melee DPS
- Falstad - a gryphon rider from WoW; ranged (magic) DPS
- Diablo - not the female version of Diablo 3; melee tank
You can purchase Raynor from Starcraft with the gold you earn when profile reaches level 2. There's still an ongoing debate as to which roles these characters fall into but one definitive difference between Dota and Heroes is your character's overall contribution to enemy kills. There are no individual kills and teams level up as one. There are also in-game events that you need to participate in to turn the tide of the battle. Depending on the map, it may ask you to kill or collect stuff from native creeps which you then submit to trigger the event which either summons a huge beast to your side or weaken/destroy enemy encampments. There are also no hero items, which means you have to go back to base to heal yourself or hope that healing orbs drop when you kill creeps. There are daily tasks you can perform to earn gold or you can just keep winning your AI and player matches.
If you want to unlock the other characters (and the cool skins they come with) quickly, they can be purchased through your Battlenet account. It's too early to compare it to Dota but it has the potential to be great. Tell us what you think in the comments section!
