He wrecks and does it in style
We’re about to hit the 20th anniversary of StarCraft, which in most circles, is a big deal. StarCraft is coming back in a big way, with a full-on remaster on top of a bigger push for StarCraft II, as well as a Blizzard initiative to just give out the original StarCraft and Brood War for free.
Two decades later and its initial shockwave is still felt — even in other games like Heroes of the Storm.
As a general rule I’m a fantasy man, and thus prefer say the world of Warcraft over StarCraft, but for some reason I just really enjoy playing as StarCraft characters in Heroes of the Storm. Maybe it’s the technological edge juxtaposed to the traditional swords and sorcery angle the game generally leans upon, but seeing blue lasers dance around the screen is just plain fun. Fenix lets me do more of that, and I love him for it.
For those of you who aren’t caught up with the inner workings of StarCraft‘s lore, Fenix is a respected warrior of the Protoss that fell in battle, and was reborn as a Dragoon. You know those little spider crawly things? That’s what Fenix is housed in, and outside of an avatar and a Protoss vocal performance, you’re going to be playing a tank.
An assassin tank that is; not a traditional warrior “tank,” and damn what an assassin he is. It’s just PTR but right now I find myself topping the damage meters in every game, mostly due to the fact that players don’t know how to deal with his kit — which involves relentless damage nearly every second.
On paper Fenix seems easy to play. He has an area-of-effect circular beam that you can control the circumfurence of, the power to swap his auto-attack from a machine-gun burst to a longer, more deliberate splash attack, and a teleport. But it’s how players use these abilities that counts — and I think we’re going to be seeing some pretty incredible team takedown videos soon enough. This isn’t even taking his full-screen laser blast or missile heroics into account.
I immediately took to Fenix’s playstyle and started scooping up damage numbers within the first skirmish. He doles out a deceptive amount of pain, especially if you can nail two or more foes in one laser, but the kicker is that he can continue to auto-attack while the laser is going off. Add in constant ammo management to ensure that you can always hit someone whether they’re near or far, an ultimate that can finish someone off no matter how far their escape takes them, and a teleport that can act as a chasing mechacism, and your opponent is going to have a bad time if you know what you’re doing.
Fenix also seems to just wreck a lot of PVE matchups too. With his splash cannon he can take out a minion wave in roughly three attacks, and he has a decent amount of siege too if he can aim his laser to hit walls, towers, and gates. I don’t think there’s any doubt that Fenix will be tooled, mostly damage-wise, before his official release. But in the meantime I’m going to enjoy playing as a mecha-Godzilla, blowing up structures in my wake.
With another great hero, I’m almost willing to call Heroes the most consistently quality MOBA to date when it comes to character releases. Lord knows any given MOBA has its own mark on the genre, but I’m constantly looking forward to new heroes in HotS.
