Heroes of the Storm's New Character Moves Faster as He Attacks

The next character headed to Heroes of the Storm is Warcraft's Samuro, the orc blademaster who has some particularly interesting-sounding components in his kit.

Samuro is an Assassin-class character who is primarily distinguished by his trait, Advancing Strike. Landing a basic attack against an enemy hero increases his movement speed by 25 percent for two seconds. That sounds as if it'll make him ideal for chasing down characters, but it also opens the door for some intriguing decisions. For instance, does it make sense to temporarily stop feeling, land a hit on an enemy, and receive a speed boost to get away?

That trait plays nicely with his Wind Walk ability, which allows Samuro to enter stealth for eight seconds. This lasts until he attacks, takes damage, or uses an ability, and it both provides a 25 percent movement speed boost and lets him walk through other units. You could sneak up on an unsuspecting enemy and take advantage of Advancing Strike's speed boost to ensure they aren't able to get away.

Mirror Image creates two clones of Samuro, each of which has 50 percent of his current health and does 30 percent of his damage. These last for up to 18 seconds, and only two of them can be out at a time. Critical Strike causes your next basic attack within 10 seconds to be a critical (and guarantees every fourth basic by you and your clones is a critical). This effect applies to Mirror Image and doesn't break your stealth, so it's easy to imagine how these abilities can be combined together for maximum damage.

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On the Heroic side, Bladestorm turns Samuro into a whirlwind that continually does damage for four seconds. Illusion Master allows you to switch places with one of your clones, and comes with a passive that lets you control them "separately or as a group." They also deal an extra 15 percent of your damage.

Blizzard also recently revealed Heroes Brawl, a new mode that will mess around with the game's rules every week. Check out our interview with Blizzard for more about how it evolved from Arena mode.