Heroes of the Storm screenshot of Malthael

After a couple of Overwatch characters it would appear that Heroes of the Storm developers are now once again looking towards the Diablo universe for inspiration. As such, I am very glad to say that the highly popular and much-requested Malthael, the Aspect of Death from Diablo 3's Reaper of Souls expansion, will be the next character joining the Heroes of the Storm roster!

Unsurprisingly he will be a melee assassin that's all about draining the souls of his enemies in order to empower and heal himself. If you're wondering what this might look like in gameplay terms, here's the recently posted character spotlight video:

If you don't feel like watching the whole video, don't worry as the concept is fairly simple. Malthael's basic attacks apply Reaper's Mark to the enemy, a damage-over-time effect that is based on the opponent's maximum health, so the stronger they are the more damage they will take. Once you have an opponent marked you can use Soul Rip, a spell that only affects marked targets and deals percentage damage to them, while also healing Malthael for a small amount. In order to assist with this Malthael also has the Death Shroud spell - a slow-moving wave that simply applies Reaper's Mark to all enemies it hits, drastically increasing Soul Rip's effectiveness. Add to this Wraith Strike which is a medium-range teleport that lets you chase down marked targets and you've got yourself an extremely persistent duelist that is equally capable against tank and squishies.

As for the ultimates, they are both useful yet tricky to use. Tormented Souls gives you 20 armor and continuously applies Reaper's Mark to nearby enemies for 4 seconds, essentially dishing out tons of damage and allowing you to go completely wild with your abilities. Last Rites on the other hand applies a death sentence to an enemy hero that, after 2 seconds, deals damage equal to 50% of their missing Health. In other words, its a great way to kill tanks or self-regenerating heroes without them being able to do much to prevent their grizzly fate. And as an added bonus, Last Rites also has the very first quest on an ultimate ability: enemies killed while under the effect of Last Rites permanently reduce its cooldown by 5 seconds, to a minimum of 15 seconds.

How exactly Malthael will work in-game when your opponents aren't just waiting around to get smacked in the head, I don't know, but you won't have to wait for long in order to find out as he's coming to Heroes of the Storm in the near future. While this isn't officially confirmed in any way, rumor has it that the "near future" is going to be June 13th, so take from that what you will.

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