Blizzard have revealed that the next hero to grace the Nexus in Heroes of the Storm will be the Dark Lady herself: Sylvanas. She’ll be a specialist hero, who can not only deal huge amounts of damage, but also excels at demolishing structures thanks to her terrifying passive trait.
Sylvanas found within the specialist role, which means she’s not your everyday hero. She can deal damage at an impressive rate, much like the assassin role, but her unique passive makes her, well, unique. As Sylvanas attacks a minion, mercenary or structure, it will be disabled completely, allowing her to slaughter it without retribution. Leave this hero in a lane to herself, and you can quickly find her knocking on your inner forts walls before long.
Lets take a look at her active abilities:
Withering Fire: a charge based ability – holding a total of five charges – this will quickly fire an arrow at the closest enemy target around Sylvanas. It can be used while on the move, and will prioritise heroes of minions when possible. If unloaded all at once, it can prove to deal a huge amount of damage in a short period of time. Perfect to deter would be chasing foes.
Shadow Dagger: this ability will deal light damage to the target, before dealing more damage over a short duration. As it deals damage, the effect will spread to other nearby foes, multiplying its effect. Target this at a clump of minions to quickly dispatch the entire wave.
Haunting Wave: sends forth a wave of banshees to the target location, dealing damage upon contact with an enemy. Sylvanas can then use this ability again to teleport to the banshees location. She can use this to traverse walls, chase enemies and even get out of sticky situations.
Wailing Arrow: her first ultimate ability, this will shoot a dark arrow at the target location, dealing heavy area of effect damage, and silencing all enemies hit by it for 2.5 seconds. Very useful when going against heroes with long and powerful abilities that have a channeled duration.
Possession: using Sylvanas’s dark and imposing will, she can convert an enemy minion or mercenary to fight under her command. The target will also gain bonus health and damage, but the more inherently powerful unit Sylvanas possesses, the longer the cooldown that will be inflicted in this ability.
No word has been given as to when we can expect Sylvanas to hit the Heroes of the Storm beta, but I would guess it won’t be too long after PAX East is finished.