Blizzards MOBA, Heroes of the Storm may not be the juggernaut it used to be, but it certainly isn’t a dead game by any means. Fueled by a passionate fan base as well as community driven tournaments that even Blizzard is acknowledging, the company is rewarding them with the second original character to come directly out of the Nexus, and her name is Qhira.
Qhira is the newest Melee Assassin, which means she’ll bring a ton of damage and wave clear for her team. As we said earlier, she’s the second Hero to be born from the Nexus, meaning she isn’t from any existing Blizzard IP. Orphea, who was introduced to us at last years BlizzCon, was the first. With the exception of one talent, all of Qhira’s abilities stem from her intimidating one-armed weapon called the Chain Blade.
Her trait ability, Grappling Hook, pulls her towards anything it comes into contact with. This includes enemies which deals a slight 36 damage, but increases to 112 when Qhira lands on them. Her standard engage, Carnage, is a great poke attack as she lunges her blade forward in a single line. If anyone is hit by this it will cause 31 damage continuously as long as they are still standing in the line of fire.
Qhira’s second ability is where she becomes something of a wild card for her team. Blood Rage has two types of offensive capabilities. The passive way in which her basic and spell damage cause enemies to lose 46 health over 4 seconds and can stack up to 5 times. Qhira can then activate this ability manually, which will increase the damage given as well as heal her per hit on each enemy hero. As if that wasn’t enough, this ability stacks thanks to the passive aspect, as she will now heal an additional 50% for each hit on a hero.
Her third main ability, Revolving Sweep, is the ultimate chase technique. Qhira launches her blade at an opponent, which latches onto them. She then uses them as a post to spin around to move in front of them, preventing their escape. In addition, Qhira now avoids all standard attacks and is immune to any and all debuffs. You can reactivate this ability to automatically send Qhira to the original targets location to stun them for less than 1 second.
As always, each hero in the game has two Ultimate abilities call Heroic. Qhiras first one is called Unrelenting Strikes where she unloads a barrage of attacks from her Chain Blade dealing 46 every .5 second for just under 3 seconds. At the end, she’ll unleash a final strike that does 86 damage in the area as well as stunning enemies for just under 1 second. Her second Heroic, Final Strike, is much simpler, but can be absolutely devastating. Qhira lunges her chain into the ground where it strikes all enemies in a single line that deals 432 damage. This attack is amplified by 25% if anyone in range has less than 50% health.
Qhira’s ability to poke and stun will be an invaluable asset for any team composition. However, she also seems like a high risk. If any of her attacks miss, or if her Grappling Hook doesn’t land in the right spot, she’s left wide open for an attack. Playing Qhira with a big soaking Tank will ensure that she has all of the poke in the world, double that if there is a Ranged Assassin in the back lane dealing additional damage. It’s too early to tell how she’ll fare against the current meta, but for now, Qhira will be welcome to the game with open arms by the players.
Qhira is available to play in the PTR (Public Testing Region) for Heroes of the Storm if you want to check her out. New heroes are usually there for about two weeks before Blizzard deems them ready for the public servers, so don’t be surprised if she is ready to go by mid to late August. Heroes of the Storm is free-to-play for PC through Blizzards game launcher, Battle.net.
You check out Qhiras reveal video here:
