It turns out the mysterious Heroes of the Storm release Blizzard teased on June 9 is indeed a new event! It will be a sequel to the popular MechaStorm event, and it comes with another cool anime-style short.
Valla is indeed getting a mecha skin, as are Yrel and Malthael. Fulfilling thematic quests during the event will unlock a slew of cool, limited-time cosmetics. More importantly, a long-awaited Chen redesign will hit alongside the event!
Most Heroes of the Storm tanks get a face-lift on a regular basis. Anub’arak seems to catch one every year like clockwork, whether he needs it or not. Chen hasn’t been so lucky. The Nexus’ resident kung-fu panda has not felt the tender touch of balance changes in a very long time. In MechaStorm II, Blizzard is remedying that with a ground-up rework which include a new ability, trait adjustments, and much more.
Less drinking and more plays
According to the patch notes, the goal with this rework is to create “more opportunities for Chen to make plays and for his opponents to interact with him.” Heroes of the Storm is not a game with many wasted opportunities for play-making. However, Chen’s design sometimes incentivizes static tanking through this trait, Fortifying Brew.
The rework aims to change that, by lowering the amount of shields Fortifying Brew generates by roughly 10 percent and doubling the amount of time they persist after canceling the ability.
Keg Smash and Breath of Fire are now combined, opening up his E for a new ability. Stagger is a very unique frontliner ability which essentially allows Chen to instant damage sustained from his enemies into damage-over-time. This can be incredibly useful and will indeed make for some plays with good coordination from Chen’s healer. Stagger will be on a very long cooldown, however, so Chen users should be careful when they use it.
Chen’s Storm, Earth, and Fire ultimate is also getting a pretty big redesign, making it much more interesting and tactical. Each of the three micro-abilities Chen’s clones can use can now only be used once. However, the last one used is empowered with bonus effects. This would allow Chen to customize his ultimate to best deal with the situation at hand.
If you want to give the new Chen a try, you can do so right away. The changes are currently live in the Heroes of the Storm public test server.
