Characters / Heroes of the Storm: Diablo Universe

Main Page | Diablo | Overwatch | Starcraft | Warcraft Assassins | Warcraft Warriors | Warcraft Support | Other Universes | Realm Lords | Other | Skin ThemesThis page is for how Diablo heroes appear in Heroes of the Storm only. For how the characters act in their own universes, see the pages for those games.

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Diablo Universe Heroes

Melee Assassins

The Butcher, Flesh Carver

Voiced by: Steve Blum (English)^note Other Languages: Vladislav Kopp (Russian)

*roars*

A type of fiend found in Sanctuary, the demon known as 'The Butcher' carries a bloody cleaver and excels in carving up human flesh like a butcher cutting up animal meats, liking it fresh. Its first sighting was under the chapel of Tristram, where Archbishop Lazarus lured several Tristram townsfolk to his lair under the pretense of rescuing the missing Prince Albrecht, only for the Butcher to slaughter most of them. He was eventually killed by a group of adventurers as their first major obstacle to reach and defeat Diablo. Years later, Coven Mistress Maghda employed another of these Butchers to stall the player; although that Butcher had some new tricks up to his sleeve, he was still felled by the might of the Nephalem. Even so, to this day, any adventurers from Sanctuary feel fear whenever they hear the only thing that these Butchers say: "Ahh... fresh meat!"

The Butcher is a Melee Assassin hero, characterized by an all-in combination of high damage and sustain, but no way to disengage. His trait, Fresh Meat, lets him collect the remains of slain enemies, increasing his Basic Attack damage. Minions drop 1 meat while heroes drop 20, but dying costs him 15 meat. After collecting 200 meat, he gains more damage and attack speed, no longer drops meat on death, and continues to gain 10 meat from heroes. His active abilities include Hamstring, an axe slam that damages and slows all enemies in a line and lets his next Basic Attack strike immediately, a Butcher's Brand that deals some damage to an enemy and grants The Butcher's attacks massive lifesteal against them with the duration refreshing every time The Butcher hits them, and Ruthless Onslaught, letting him target an enemy and begin an Unstoppable charge towards them, damaging and stunning them on arrival.

His first heroic, Furnace Blast, creates a fiery field around The Butcher that explodes after a few seconds, dealing massive damage to all enemies within it. His second choice, Lamb to the Slaughter, creates a post at a target location that chains onto a nearby enemy hero a moment later, silencing them and making them unable to move more than a certain distance away from the pole.

His current skins are Executioner Butcher, Iron Butcher, The Butcherlisk, Cyber Oni Butcher, and Tristram Butcher.

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• Achilles' Heel: Any form of crowd control, including Blinds. The majority of the Butcher's damage and sustain comes from his Basic Attacks. The Butcher's crowd control is also telegraphed and easy to counter with any kind of Unstoppable effect. If Lamb to the Slaughter or Ruthless Onslaught are on cooldown, it's remarkably easy to get away from him. Since he has to commit to a fight, as he has no escape, outside of Bolt of the Storm, shutting his damage down with Blinds or Stuns will quickly allow everyone to take him down.
• Ax-Crazy: The Butcher is only interested in two things: chopping up the flesh of sentient creatures or hunting sentient creatures to add to his pile of fresh meat.
• BFS: Wields one in The Butcher's Cleaver, his unique knife.
• Big Red Devil: One that looks like he's sewn together from different demonic corpses.
• The Butcher: This is his title and name, in case it wasn't obvious.
• Catchphrase: "Ah... Fresh meat!"
• Covered with Scars: In his original character model. The updated model shown at Blizzcon 2014 shows that the damage has been upgraded, and now his scars include large pieces of metal jutting out of his flesh.
• Death or Glory Attack: The entire concept behind Ruthless Onslaught. The Butcher charges at an enemy and stuns them, delivering his massive burst damage to their face. At the same time, he puts a giant warning and also rushes directly at the enemy team, and has no way to escape once he's in. If he succeeds, it's an easy kill and some Fresh Meat. If he fails, it's an easy death and some meat lost. You can cancel the charge early, but doing so puts it on a lengthy cooldown and gives the opponents some time to breathe.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Blizzard stated that with the presence of Stitches, they don't want to make The Butcher too much like him, as a tanky warrior with a hook-drag skill. As a result, The Butcher was remade as an Assassin, and has a very different playstyle.
• Dual Wielding: In addition to his iconic Cleaver, he now wields it with the Hook Chain he gained in Diablo III.
• Dumb Muscle: The Butcher is very big and powerful, but all he speaks of are just either grunts and "Fresh Meat!", like he knows nothing else.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Nope. No name at all. Just "The Butcher".
• Evil Laugh: Not very frequent, but sometimes he can let a very sinister chuckle.
• Fat Bastard: He's put on some weight as of his most recent character model, putting him more in-line with the girth he had in his home games.
• Feral Villain: Though he knows how to use tools like meat cleavers and hitching poles, he acts like a starved, enraged animal in all other respects. The only hint he even knows what he's doing is when he takes active joy in killing things.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Virtually everyone makes it clear that they're not happy about having him on their team. Even Kel'Thuzad, an undead lich, doesn't like him.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: His starting stats are below average, he's got very little mobility outside of his charge attack and he's easy to take down. Once he gets to 200 meat and hits level 10, his self-sustain improves dramatically, his damage output becomes absolutely colossal, and Lamb to the Slaughter provides crowd control for potentially the entire enemy team with its level 20 upgrade.
• Glass Cannon: The Butcher is a big, hulking melee fighter that can potentially have the highest Basic Attack damage in the game thanks to his passive and a couple of talents, but he has a hard time getting away if things suddenly turn sour, and his above average HP will only buy him a few extra seconds at most.
• Hated by All: Whether it's cutthroat assassins, undead sorcerers, the Queen of the Zerg or the Angel of Death itself, nobody has anything positive to say about the Butcher.
• Hell Is That Noise: Players who are about to be attacked by The Butcher using Ruthless Onslaught, will quickly be warned by him screaming "FRESH MEAT!"
• I'm a Humanitarian: Naturally.
• Interface Spoiler: Before Blizzard confirmed he was appearing in the game, his character model was seen in several Blizzcon videos showcasing skins and playable characters, and data mining leaks revealed in-game files for him.
• Life Drain: Plenty of characters have access to lifesteal, but the 'Butcher's Brand' skill and Butcher's huge auto-attack damage make him the most extreme example. It's not unusual to see The Butcher taking no damage in the middle of a fight even if the enemies are focusing on him, so long as he keeps on his branded target.
• Lightning Bruiser: If he gets fed. He has one of the highest base HP among Assassins, along with huge damage and mobility options to chase down and catch escapees. Once he gets started, not many heroes can survive going toe-to-toe against him.
• Mad Libs Catch Phrase: During the times he was datamined, if he killed someone, he'd remark about "X meat" depending on who he kills, as a variation of his "Ah, fresh meat!". Unfortunately, those did not make it in his release.
• Magikarp Power: Like the archetypal carry in most MOBAs, the Butcher starts out relatively weak and gains strength by farming minions and getting kills. Early on, he's not the most powerful hero, but with maxed out Fresh Meat stacks, his damage output is positively frightening.
• One-Word Vocabulary: Downplayed; he almost exclusively speaks in grunts, roars, and the phrase "fresh meat!", but he can also mutter some other words like "kill" and "slaughter".
• Scare Chord: The sound effect for his Ruthless Onslaught. If you hear that noise, RUN TO YOUR TEAM.
• Skill Gate Characters: The Butcher combines a simplistic playstyle with huge damage potential, making him relatively easy to use and nightmarish to face once he maxes out on Fresh Meat; if the enemy can't keep him under control, he'll simply become too powerful to deal with. However, his kit is almost entirely geared towards picking off lone, out-of-position enemies in order to collect Meat and is extremely unsafe. A coordinated team can avoid getting picked off and easily punish The Butcher's attempts to charge in, making it much harder for him to snowball out of control, and a Butcher that can't snowball is mostly dead weight.
• Spell My Name with a "The": The Butcher.
• Unskilled, but Strong: For all his power, the Butcher's skillset is painfully simplistic, making him vulnerable to being out-maneuvered. This is especially true given that Ruthless Onslaught often puts The Butcher in a spot where can be easily killed. Of course, if The Butcher does make his attack, there's very little you can do to stop him.
• You Are Already Dead:
  • Downplayed; there's nothing stopping you from fighting back under his Lamb to the Slaughter heroic, but considering you won't be able to run away from him or use any of you skills during it, getting hit by it is almost always a death sentence. If your teammates are nearby, they might be able to subvert this, but if Butcher's teammates are nearby and he has the upgraded version of the heroic...
  • Same goes for Ruthless Onslaught to a certain extent. If you get within its range, the only way the charge will stop is if The Butcher cancels it^*With a few exceptions, such as Tracer's Recall, Tassadar's Dimensional Shift, and Murky's Safety Bubble. If you don't have any nearby teammates or a fort to hide behind, he will catch you. And considering The Butcher's raw damage, there's a pretty big chance that he'll kill you once he gets there.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Trying to run while being chained with Lamb to the Slaughter is pointless, The Butcher's victim will simply be yanked back by the chain.

Ranged Assassins

Azmodan, Lord of Sin

Voiced by: David Sobolov (English)^note Other Languages: Frédéric Souterelle (French), George Martirosyan (Russian)

"So it begins..."

Azmodan, Lord of Sin, is one of the four Lesser Evils and the ruler of the Fifth Circle of Hell. A cunning and ruthless being, Azmodan was the last of the Great Evils to attempt to take over Sanctuary on his own during his debut in Diablo III. Azmodan saw the plan to seal him and the other Evils within the Black Soulstone and attempted to seize it from the grasp of our heroes, sending his demonic army to Bastion's Keep where the heroes were residing. Azmodan is a feared Four-Star Badass for a reason, as his armies nearly overwhelmed the defenders. It was Azmodan's own pride that became his downfall however — his underestimation of humanity undid him as he gloated his plans to the heroes.

Azmodan is a Ranged Assassin, designed to obliterate lanes and heroes with powerful spells and an army of summons. His trait summons a Demon Lieutenant on a friendly minion or summon anywhere on the map; the demon is not only tough with reasonable damage, but will occasionally cast a Demonic Smite attack that instantly kills an enemy minion. His first ability is Orb of Annihilation, hurling a massive fireball with extreme range. Every hero it hits and minion it kills permanently increases the damage it deals. Summon Demon Warrior creates a Mook that can add extra punch to a lane or fight. All Shall Burn is a channeled beam of destruction on a target that deals a burst of extra damage if the channel completes.

His first Heroic ability, Demonic Invasion, calls a meteor shower at the target location that spawns several Demon Grunts to fight for him which explode on death. His second Heroic ability, Tide of Sin, empowers Azmodan's next Globe of Annihilation, granting it a heavy damage bonus and making it cost no mana.

His current skins are Sinlord Azmodan, AzGul'dan, Azmodunk, and Dominus Vile Azmodan.

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• Acrofatic: Azmodunk skin is quite an adept basketball player despite the considerable bulk.
• Adipose Rex: While slimmed down slightly from his appearance in Diablo III, he's still the picture of opulence and greed.
• Anxiety Dreams: Poke dialogue indicates he's now suffering from nightmares about the Nephalem.
• Ascended Meme: The common "Azmodunk" invokedFan Nickname has been turned into a skin for the character.
  Azmodunk: "DOOM SHAKALAKA!"
• Badass Boast: Delivers one... when dead:
  Azmodan: They cannot kill me for good. No one can.
• Bling of War: His Sinlord skin, described in-game as such: "The Demon Lord Azmodan is no stranger to opulence and grandeur. In fact, greed and pride are among his favorite sins."
• Cast as a Mask: The AzGul'dan skin appears to be Gul'dan horribly mutated by Azmodan's blood.
• Catchphrase: "You thought you were so clever..."
• Damage-Sponge Boss: His high health is just about his only real defensive asset. It's not uncommon for a single hero chasing him off their fort to chase him all the way back to his base landing blows all the while, only to have him slip away with a silver of health remaining from his gargantuan health pool.
• Deal with the Devil: His AzGul'dan skin explains he repeated Mannoroth's trick and offered his blood to Gul'dan and the Old Horde, which at least one orc drank (guess who). This implies an Alternate Universe version of Azmodan stopped trying to conquer Sanctuary and turned to the Warcraft universe instead.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: As one of the Great Evils, though unlike Diablo, Azmodan is in the lower tier — the so-called "Lesser" Evils. As noted under Insistent Terminology, he's not happy about this.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Voiced by David Sobolov and as dark and chaseural as ever.
• Extra Eyes: He has four eyes on his head.
• Fantastic Racism: Still hates all Nephalem, especially since they beat him at Bastion's Keep.
• Fat Bastard: Also counts as Kevlard, considering his Mighty Glacier status.
• Flunky Boss: His General of Hell, Summon Demon Warrior and Demonic Invasion abilities all summon new Demons to fight at his side, befitting a militant general. Several of his talents increase the number of minions that can reinforce him, and make his army even more powerful.
• For the Evulz: Obviously, seeing as he's a demon, but Azmodan actually spells it out in one of his generic kill quotes.
  Azmodan: Wickedness is its own reward.
• Four-Star Badass: He's still infamous for being one of Hell's greatest generals, even in spite of his failure at Bastion's Keep and his ultimate defeat at the hands of the Nephalem.
• General Failure:
  • He arrived in the Nexus sometime after the events of Diablo III, so not only have several military actions he's taken in the last while blown up in his face, he's now very well aware of it and has developed something of a complex about it.
    Azmodan: I haven't felt this overconfident since Bastion's Keep.
  • Of course, he's been doing a little better for himself since coming to the Nexus. After all, he has the player's help this time.
• The Hedonist: Implied to be just as much as in Diablo III. when complaining about the difficulties each of the Sins pose, he only mentions that Lust is "distracting". He even has a level 13 talent called Hedonism that reduces the mana cost of his Globe of Annihilation.
• I Know Madden Kombat: In his Azmodunk skin, he throws Globe of Annihilation like a giant basketball.
• In the Hood: His AzGul'dan skin.
• Insistent Terminology: Azmodan tends to be rather touchy about his status as a Lesser Evil.
  Azmodan: I prefer the term "evilly challenged".
• I Shall Taunt You: His tendency to grow over-confident and mock his foes is still present, if toned down — he still mentions his love of "giant floating head taunts".
• Jack of All Stats: Whether clogging lanes with summons to put a lot of pressure on them, lobbing fireballs over a huge range to siege structures or assist in fights from a distance, or blasting things up close with a Death Ray that demolishes structures and still hits everything else fairly hard, Azmodan has many different ways to ruin your day.
• Kill It with Fire: Take your pick: a huge fireball he can chuck across the screen, or a channeled Death Ray that can deal massive damage over time?
• Lead the Target: His Globe of Annihilation spell throws a slow moving fireball over a very long range. Skillshots of this spell at extreme range are dubbed the Azmodunk.
• Magic Carpet: Normally can't use usual mounts, using his own custom "flame feet" mount which makes him run faster. If you purchase the aforementioned carpet in the store, however, Azmodan can select that mount, complete with custom animation where he draws his feet in to ride it.
• Mighty Glacier: For a non-physical combat hero, he has the highest base and HP growth, and can deal insane damage if ignored. However, he lacks any kind of escapes or stuns, and has absolutely no way to shake off pursuers; on top of that, the vast majority of his damage requires him to move very slowly, making him a sitting duck if he wants to deal his full damage. Good Azmodan players thus tend to throw fireballs from the backline and fall back on his demon minions.
• The Minion Master: Many of his abilities summon demon mooks to fight for him. A talent for his trait also allows it to buff nearby allied minions.
• Mook Lieutenant: His Demon General trait summons a minion that's reasonably tough and can be talented to provide buffs to friendly lane minions.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: We only know about him revealing his plans to the enemy during a battle in one instance — admittedly, several times in the same battle, but even so — yet he's still haunted by it, not only due to the complex discussed under Self-Deprecation (resulting in him obsessing over geting his own back at the Nephalem to almost Sitcom Arch-Nemesis levels) but also both Johanna and Li-Ming reminding him about it (and warning him not to do it again now) in their intro quotes with him.
• Palette Swap: Aside from the standard palette swaps available to each skin, his AzGul'dan skin features this in a clever way. His abilities and demon minions are, like him, recoloured green; his magic becomes luminescent green much like fel magic from World of Warcraft, while his minions become pale green-skinned to make them resemble orcs. Azmodan's commanding his own little mini-Horde in the Nexus!
• Run or Die: All Shall Burn often results in this for the target. To break the beam and thus stop Azmodan from burning away their health, an enemy hero will have three options: stun or silence Azmodan to break the channeling, kill him outright, or get out of range. This makes him great at harassing squishy heroes with no disables, as he can usually burn down that hero faster than they can wear down his massive health bar, forcing them to try and run away...
• Self-Deprecation: After the events of Diablo III, Azmodan has developed something of a complex about his military history, his pathological need to taunt his foes, his inability to stop the Nephalem and the fact that he's only a Lesser Evil.
• Sibling Rivalry: Azmodan and Diablo really don't get along very well.
• Silliness Switch: Azmodan, the Lord of Sin is a demonic overlord who leads the armies of hell. Azmodunk, Lord of the Court is the star basketball player that is still a giant spider-demon.
• Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: Both examples in a single character. His fireballs have incredible range, while his beam melts anything at close range; on top of that, his Demon General has global range. No matter where he is on the battlefield, Azmodan is a threat.
• Spider People: He possesses an arachnid-like lower body, with massive spider legs.
• Weaksauce Weakness: His own bulk, his large hitbox makes him quite easy to bodyblock away from any potential escape routes and an easy target for enemy skillshots.

Cassia, Amazon Warmatron

Voiced by: Jessica Straus (English)

"The wait is over."

Cassia is one of the amazons of the Askarri tribe on the Skovos Isles. Following a prophecy from its oracles about the rise of the Prime Evils, Cassia departed from the isles and joined with several warriors (including Xul) to pursue the Dark Wanderer from the Rogue Monastery to Lut Gholein to Kurast and eventually to the Pandemonium Fortress and Harrogath, where they ended up killing all three of the Prime Evils, but had to witness the destruction of the Worldstone by Tyrael to prevent the essence of Baal corrupting it and also the world itself. With her mission done, Cassia returned to the Skovos Isles, changed but still normal, training future amazons to fight against oncoming darkness.

Cassia is an anti-basic attack Ranged Assassin based on the Javazon build, who depends on movement and blinds to reduce damage taken. Her trait, Avoidance, gradually increases her Armor while she's moving, reducing all damage she takes. Her first ability is Lightning Fury, of which she has two charges. Cassia throws a lightning-empowered javelin that damages the first enemy it hits, also firing two new projectiles perpendicularly if an enemy was hit. Her second ability, Blinding Light, blinds all enemies in a small area and also passively increases the damage Cassia deals to blinded targets. Her final basic ability is Fend, which charges her towards an enemy and unleashes a flurry of attacks in a conical area of effect. Avoidance remains active during Fend.

For her heroic abilities: Ball Lightning launches a projectile that bounces between enemies (or Cassia herself) up to six times, dealing damage every time it hits an enemy. Valkyrie summons a Valkyrie that flies towards Cassia and takes the first enemy hero it hits with it while also knocking other enemies out of the way.

Her current skins are Warmatron Cassia, Pirate Queen Cassia, Lunar Cassia, and Thunder Goddess Cassia.

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• Action Girl: Like Xul, she's not a nephalem, but still kicks ass and can go toe-to-toe with Diablo himself.
• Amazonian Beauty: A journey with other heroes to beat down the Prime Evils apparently made Cassia gain some muscles that she is nearing Sonya-level of buff.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Cassia has a late-game talent called Titan's Revenge, which is the first talent in the game that allows her Basic Attacks to ignore Armor.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Despite the mobility option and damage, Fend was often too dangerous to use outside of as a Finishing Move, as she would stay still while attacking and thus deactivate Avoidance. It was addressed in her rework in 2020, by allowing Avoidance to remain active while channeling the attack.
• Bash Brothers: With Novazon!Nova, and Xul, both of whom she is eager to fight alongside.
• Blinded by the Light: Her Blinding Light is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Combos: All of Cassia's damage is increased by 20% against any enemies that are blinded...and Blinding Light, of course, blinds enemies. The Ring of the Leech talent can further improve Cassia's synergy with the Blind status effect as it makes her heal for 15% of all damage done to blinded enemies with Lightning Fury or Fend.
• Counter-Attack: Surge of Light deals damage to all enemies within a certain radius around Cassia. The catch is that it can only be activated once Cassia has taken a certain amount of damage while Avoidance is active.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Cassia was a nightmare to Basic Attack melees, as she not only gained a massive amount of Physical Armor with her trait, but also a Blind effect, as well as talents that could trigger Blinds when she was put under crowd control effects. However, due to her shorter attack range and no protection against spell damage, she was not a suitable choice against Long Range Fighters, especially mages. To address her polarizing role in the game, her rework in 2020 gave her a slightly increased attack range, as well as giving earlier access to a range-increasing talent, and her trait now gives her both Physical and Spell Armor (albeit at much lower values).
• Critical Hit Class: Her Blinding Light ability has the passive effect of increasing the damage she deals to blinded targets.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Fend has her lunge and deliver a lot of close range stabs in a cone, with extra damage on heroes. Cassia in general mostly tends toward damaging her enemies over time with Lightning Fury's quick cooldown, Blinding Light stopping enemies from trading Basic Attacks with her, and Avoidance reducing damage against her to further aid her ability to come out on top of an extended fight, though the Valkyrie heroic can be used to single out and pick off an enemy, if her team is better suited to that strategy.
• Developer's Foresight: Long before Cassia's release, Nova got a skin which made her an Amazon. Cassia has special quotes for interacting with a Nova wearing said skin.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Cassia's passive trait receives maximum benefit from her player moving between her Basic Attacks, a lot of her damage comes from hitting the low-cooldown Lightning Fury repeatedly with very little crowd control in her base kit to help a player set the ability up. Her lack of defensive mobility means only careful positioning and dodging will protect her against a lot of enemy abilities, and using Fend at all is frequently quite dangerous aside from a Finishing Move... but if you can work with Cassia's drawbacks, she will be able to put out some of the highest amounts of damage out of any heroes in the game.
• Does Not Like Men: As an amazon, she thinks rather poorly of most male heroes.
• Energy Ball: Her Ball Lightning heroic lets her fire an electrically-charged sphere that bounces between enemies and/or her up to six times.
• Expy: Kit-wise, Cassia can draw similarities with Pantheon, as their passives were damage mitigations against normal attacks, their first skills are spear tosses, their second skills are a ranged debuff/crowd controls and their third skills are Death of a Thousand Cuts in a cone that get more effective against other heroes/champions. Irony also abound that Pantheon is based on the father of Amazons, Ares.
• Finishing Move: Fend doesn't have any inherent effects that make it specialized for this, just that it does a lot of damage and it causes a Glass Cannon hero to throw herself into an enemy, so Cassia players should really avoid using Fend aside from against retreating enemies low on health. Her level 1 talent Impale does increase the damage against low-health targets, though. Combine Fend with Ball Lightning on the target first for additional sheer-but-risky damage.
• Glass Cannon: While her trait makes her durable while on the move, she is just as vulnerable as any other ranged Assassin when she cannot move. ^note For reference, Cassia's effective health pool with full Avoidance up roughly equals the Butcher's health pool after her rework. Before her rework, she had around 50% more hp against Basic Attacks. The damage she can deliver is on par with one of the highest dps monsters in the game, though.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: All of her abilities can damage multiple targets to some extent.
  • Lightning Fury can "chain" to other targets with the secondary missiles when the primary missile hits a target. Cassia can also upgrade the primary missile to pierce all targets but only split when it hits heroes, which can lead to her wiping out an entire team with one or two well-placed missiles.
  • After an update, Blinding Light now also damages enemies for a small amount, though the damage is negligible.^note This was added to compensate for a fixed bug where Blinding Light dismounted and unstealthed heroes despite not being a damage skill, dealing with the bug without taking the functionality away.
  • Fend hits all targets in a cone.
  • Ball Lightning will chain to a new enemy hero (or to Cassia if no other hero is in range). At level 20, this can potentially go on forever.
  • Cassia has access to Charged Strikes, which increases her attack speed and causes every third attack to also hit nearby enemy heroes.
  • Surge of Light is an Area of Effect talent that can be triggered once Cassia has taken enough damage while her trait is active.
• Hunter Of Her Own Kind: A meta-example; Cassia is a strong Basic Attack-focused Assassin hero whose entire kit specializes in crippling other Basic Attack heroes.
• Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball: The Ball Lightning heroic. It bounces randomly between clustered enemy heroes to deal damage (but can also bounce harmlessly off Cassia herself if needed). Its talent upgrade at level 20 lets it bounce indefinitely, only stopping when there's only one target left in range.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Her Valkyrie Heroic impales the first hero it hits, dragging the enemy hero towards Cassia.
• Interface Spoiler: Shortly before Cassia's announcement, Nova's Novazon skin suddenly received a change of color palette to accommodate with Cassia wearing red and having blonde hair.
• Javelin Thrower: Styled on the Javazon build, Cassia usually throws her spear, except when channeling Fend where she gets stabby.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Her Blinding Light also increases her damage to Blinded enemies.
• Large Ham: She can get quite hammy in battle, especially when she uses her heroics.
  Cassia: (when casting Ball Lightning) Zerae's vengeance upon you!
  Cassia: (when casting Ball Lightning) Suffer the might of the storm!
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Her ready quote ("The wait is over!"). She is happy to finally get to fight, but fans clamoring for more Diablo II representation in the game can certainly relate as well.^note Due to Nova receiving a "Novazon" skin some believed there would never be a proper Diablo II Amazon in Heroes of the Storm—Cassia's release ended both the waiting and the discussion.
• Leeroy Jenkins: The most obvious indicator of a Cassia player who doesn't quite get how to play Cassia well is one who uses Fend way too often. With Fend putting a Glass Cannon hero directly next to its target, it should pretty much only be used as a Finishing Move against fleeing enemies on low health or for pushing waves while an enemy hero isn't close to her.
• Life Drain: Her entire talent tier at level 4 addresses her lack of healing in her basic kit, with Ring of the Leech allowing her Basic Attacks (as well as her basic abilities when enemies are blinded) to heal for an amount of damage she deals.
• Martial Pacifist: For Cassia, War Is Hell and she admonishes people who think it's fun.
• Mythology Gag: Many of her Stop Poking Me! lines are references to Diablo II, like finding keys and gold under rocks, managing her messy inventory and being pleased that she no longer has a stamina bar.
• One-Hit Kill: Cassia has a talent that allows Lightning Fury to pierce enemies and trigger its splitting effect whenever it hits an enemy hero. With a well-placed hit, she can instantly delete the entire team, especially if they are stuck in a choke point.
• Pinball Projectile: one of her heroics Ball Lightning bounces between enemy heroes or Cassia herself up to 6 times, normally or indefinitely with its upgrade at level 20, Infinite Lightning.
• Power at a Price: In a way. Cassia's damage output is one of the highest in the game, but she pays for it with a far shorter range (20% less) for a Ranged Assassin.
• Properly Paranoid: Cassia has kept up with her training, even after she defeated the Prime Evils, and has trained the Askari to remain ready when the demons of Hell return.
  Johanna: It's been a long time since you were in the fight. Are you ready?
  Cassia: And what do you imagine I spent that time doing, sleeping?
• Punny Name: Crossing over with Mythology Gag as well. The name Cassia is pronounced similarly to 'Kashya', the Mercenary-Recruiter NPC in Rogue Encampment who has a special introduction with the Amazon class.
• Required Secondary Powers: Stutter-stepping. This is a technique that involves ordering a character to move during the pauses between their basic attacks. Invented for StarCraft, it has since spread into any game where the "Do Not Run with a Gun" trope is prevalent. It is absolutely necessary for optimal Cassia play, because her Trait runs out faster than she attacks.
• Shock and Awe: Cassia's playstyle is based on the Javelin Amazon build, where most of her skills are lightning-based.
• Some Dexterity Required: With her rework in 2020, losing Avoidance has become much more punishing, as, while now also gaining Spell Armor from her trait, her Armor needs to build up and is quickly lost if she stops moving. Stutterstepping thus has become even more important to stay alive and still deal damage, not to mention that she now has access to two charges of Lightning Fury.
• Spam Attack:
  • With only a 5 second cooldown and two charges, Lightning Fury is an excellent spammable poking tool. A level 16 talent can give her two additional charges.
  • At level 7, Cassia gains the option to reduce the cooldown of Blinding Light with each Basic Attack.
• Temporary Blindness: Her Blinding Light utilizes this and passively grants Cassia bonus damage to her Basic Attacks and abilities to blinded targets, including enemies blinded by other abilities.
• True Companions: The journey to defeat Diablo made the group Cassia traveled with become good friends. Xul became one of the few men she'd tolerate, and she apparently still kept in touch with Isendra (Sorceress), since she recognized that Li-Ming would be Isendra's student even after Cassia returned to Skovos.
• Valkyries: Calls one for one of her Heroics. Cassia's redesign also had her wear a winged helmet which is a common helmet for Valkyrie motifs.
• Vocal Evolution: Jessica Strauss returned to voice Cassia, but compared to her time in Diablo II, she made Cassia sound deeper, to show that Cassia is now Older and Wiser.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Valkyrie will pull Cassia's target right to her.

Li-Ming, Rebellious Wizard

Voiced by: Grey DeLisle (English)^note Other Languages: Laura Blanc (French), Irina Kireeva (Russian)

"This realm needs me."

A prodigy rogue mage of the Vizjerei clan, Li-Ming was born in the Xiansai region and grew up in Caldeum, dubbing herself a 'wizard'. Li-Ming dabbles in forbidden magic, believing that it should be used for good deeds as opposed to being shackled by rigid rules. This mindset was shared by her master, the Sorceress, Isendra, who participated in the battle against the Prime Evils years ago. Li-Ming eventually lost Isendra when she was assassinated by a Viz-Jaq'taar assassin, and later came to learn about the prophecy of a falling star to Tristram. Against the judgment of her other teacher, the Vizjerei councilor Valthek, she travelled to Tristram after defeating him in magic combat. Eventually she found out about her heritage as one of the nephalem and participated in the battle against Diablo.

Li-Ming is an Arcane-based Ranged Assassin, utilizing the forbidden arcana to lay destruction to her foes. Her trait, Critical Mass, resets the cooldowns of her basic and heroic abilities whenever she scores a takedown. Her first basic ability, Magic Missiles, fires several bolts of energy, with the trajectory of each missile being determined by where the cursor was when the skill is cast. Her second ability, Arcane Orb, launches a sphere in a direction that grows in size and strength as it travels, exploding on contact with an enemy. Teleport, her third ability, allows Li-Ming to shift herself a short distance.

Li-Ming's first heroic ability, Disintegrate, allows her to channel a devastating beam of magic that she can quickly rotate. Wave of Force, her other heroic option, hammers a target point, damaging enemies and knocking them away from the center.

Her current skins are Archon Li-Ming, Star Princess Li-Ming, Striker Li-Ming, Lunar Li-Ming, Star Queen Li-Ming, Tal Rasha Li-Ming, Templar Li-Ming, and Zann Esu Li-Ming.

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• And This Is for...: Just like Sonya, she will dedicate a blasting to a certain demon lord for Leah.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Her Archon talent, which lets her transform into an Archon and cast Disintegrate indefinitely. Infinite use of a heroic? Pretty cool. Disabling all of your other skills and forcing you to stand still, while actually dealing less burst damage than said skills, while also defeating the point of her trait? Not so much.
• Black Magician Girl: All about offensive magic and notably uses the purer element Arcane instead of the usual Fire, Ice, Lightning. And still the youngest of the Nephalems, and even younger than other mages like Jaina, Kael'thas or Medivh.
• Blood Knight: Oh, she actually enjoys a good battle and thinks it's fun, which gets her a Disappointed in You from Cassia.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Critical Mass gives her a full reset on every cooldown she has every time she scores a takedown. As soon as one enemy falls in a teamfight, Li-Ming can threaten more kills. On a less spectacular level, she has talents to reduce the cooldown of Teleport outside of combat and instantly reset its cooldown if she gets hit with high burst damage.
• Deadpan Snarker: Many of her quotes drip with sarcasm.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Many of the Magic Missiles talent push her toward this playstyle, which also makes it the most effective talent build with regards to PvE damage.
• Death Ray: Her heroic ability, Disintegrate. Worth noting is that it hits a ridiculous amount of times per second.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Said to be a high risk/high reward hero, especially with a teleport-based build. She relies heavily on skillshots and mana, and players need to utilize positioning and her teleport ability well, if they don't want to instantly die, but like Kael'thas and Jaina, she is said to blow up everyone if you don't stop her.
• Disaster Dominoes: Her Critical Mass trait resets her abilities anytime she's participated in an enemy hero kill. Which means she gets to cast her highly-damaging abilities again, very likely to cause the death of another enemy hero, which means she gets to cast her abilities again... Keep this up and she will eventually run out of mana. But by that time, probably there won't be anyone left in your team.
• Energy Being: At level 20, she can turn into her Archon form with a talent, which disables all her abilities and only gives her a special Disintegrate which costs no mana and can be cast indefinitely.
• Evil Laugh: An unusual case, as she is basically a good Wicked Witch, but she does do a rather evil laugh when she proceeds to reduce her enemies to nothing with Disintegrate.
• Expy:
  • Her Star Princess skin is meant to be expying two characters at once: both Sailor Moon and Princess Leia Organa-Skywalker (as Space Leoric is meant to stand in for Darth Vader).
  • East Asian-looking face and dress, Playing with Fire (in her Lunar Festival skin) and voiced by Grey DeLisle? Yup, sounds like Azula.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: It's not noticeable at first, but her jacket in her base and Archon skin doesn't have a sleeve on her left arm, instead, she has a clawed gauntlet.
• Foreshadowing: Right after Blizzcon 2015, Blizzard promoted a new battleground named Arena with this picture.◊ On the bottom of the page is a Magic Wand which resembled Chantodo's Will, except purple colored, which was revealed to refer to Li-Ming as the Arcane Mage.
• Fragile Speedster: despite being a Squishy Wizard, Li-Ming qualifies. She has the most quintessential Flash Step in the game in the form of Teleport, and the cooldowns on her abilities are swift; even Disintegrate and Wave of Force refresh after 30 seconds or less. But what do you get when you combine a Squishy Wizard, a Fragile Speedster and a Glass Cannon? The fifth-lowest HP total in the game, ahead of only Abathur, Murky, Fenix, Probius and some of the Lost Vikings.
• Glass Cannon: Li-Ming deals tremendous amounts of damage with very short cooldowns, but like all mages is very squishy.
  • The Disintegrate heroic does a bunch of damage over its duration from a great distance while rendering her immobile as she channels it.
  • She actually retains her passive skill, that is even called Glass Cannon, in the form of a talent, which increases her damage while decreasing her maximum health.
  • The Archon: Pure Power talent lets her go into a form that can cast Disintegrate without it having a cooldown, and makes her unable to cast anything else, meaning she can put herself in a form that can do little else than stand still and do lots of damage.
• Idol Singer: Well she's not exactly, but her hearth animation had her put her source orb as a light ball and she transformed her wand into a mic as she started singing like an idol. Considering her attitude, this somewhat fits.
• Ignored Epiphany: One of her respawn quotes makes her look like she's going to ignore danger again, going with her more reckless and rebellious nature.
  Li-Ming: I should try to be more careful... Or not!
• Insufferable Genius: Still as prideful as in Diablo III. She would love to see the faces of her masters in Caldeum after witnessing her power. Her voice actress even recorded lines where, instead of the announcer, she herself announces it when she gets multiple kills in a row; unfortunately, this was patched out.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Li-Ming is still a prideful, conceited, cocky teenager. However, she still puts herself on the side of good, opposes demons out of altruism, and shows utmost respect to forces of good like Tyrael.
• Lady of Black Magic: A bit younger than usual (a teenager) but, she's a Ms. Fanservice that deals a lot of damage with arcane magic and every kill resets her cooldowns.
• Large Ham: Her Star Princess skin only has one unique line, but it consists of her using all the hamminess one would expect from Sailor Moon.
• Magical Girl: One of her skins turns her into one.
• Magic Missile Storm: Downplayed by her Magic Missiles at first, but played straight when upgraded with either of the two late-game mutually-exclusive talents Fireflies, which allow her to spam it more effectively or Mirrorball, which fires two additional missiles.
• Magic Wand: As it's the Wizard's main weapon in the original game, she carries it in one hand, and the source orb in another.
• Magikarp Power: In the beginning, Li-Ming is very squishy and minions are literal obstacles to her: her spells are skillshots that do not pierce minions. Once she has talented a lot of her spells in the latter levels and also the battle shifts beyond lane battles to objective contests, that's when she'll start massacring her oppositions with supreme firepower.
• Ms. Fanservice: A lot of Li-Ming's skins reveal her cleavage (either completely or more subdued), midriff, thighs, or all of the aforementioned three.
• One-Winged Angel: A level 20 talent allows her to turn and stay indefinitely in Archon form. She can only use Disintegrate in this form, but considering it means she can channel her heroic ability nonstop...
• Playing with Fire: Usually not in this game, unlike in Diablo III, but her Lunar Festival skin makes it look like she is using fire magic.
• Pure Energy: Li-Ming specializes solely in Arcane Magic in this game.
• Purple Is Powerful: She uses predominantly purple. All of her skills are purple (except on her Lunar and Templar skins) and the Archon talent turns her into a purple Energy Being.
• The Rival: For the other mages at Azeroth (Jaina and Kael'thas). Of course, because Li-Ming considers herself 'Wizard', she pretty much looks down on mere 'mages'.
• Spam Attack: Li-Ming is designed to be a rapid-fire caster with low cooldowns. However, this means that she will run out of mana quick.
• Sphere of Destruction: Her Arcane Orb is a variation. It's a skillshot that fires a sphere which explodes on contact and increase in damage and size as it travels.
• Squishy Wizard: Very squishy. She can talent into her teleport though, to get her Diamond Skin, which makes her tougher.
• Super Mode: The Archon: Pure Power talent, available at level 20, puts in a form that lets her cast Disintegrate without it having a cooldown while making her incapable of using any other ability.
• Teleport Spam: Has the Teleport spell, which works like Zeratul's Blink, except because of her nature of rapid-fire casting, Li-Ming can teleport more, but in shorter range for each cast. Aether Walker sets the mana cost to zero if she hasn't taken damage for a while, and once she picks Illusionist, she actually becomes faster than mount speed.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Her hair is done up like this.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Li-Ming is all about raw damage at the expense of all utility. Every single one of her abilities is a nuke aside from Blink, and even that can deal damage with a talent, but she doesn't have any way to set them up or lock enemies in place.
• You Will Not Evade Me: If Li-Ming takes Wave of Force's upgrade, Repulsion, she can knock her enemies right back to her and her team.

Mephisto, Lord of Hatred

Voiced by: Paul Eiding (English)

*growls*

Dul'Mephistos, the Lord of Hatred, is the eldest and most cunning of the Prime Evils. Known for his intelligence and manipulative nature, the leader of the Burning Hells waged a war on the High Heavens that would last for all eternity. This was until the Worldstone, the goal of their conflict, mysteriously disappeared. After the discovery of the human realm of Sanctuary and the ensuing war, Mephisto suggested another truce with the Heavens, swearing to not interfere with Sanctuary and humanity again. When he revealed to his brethren that he had no intention to keep his word, the Lesser Evils banished the Primes to Sanctuary, where they were trapped within soulstones by the Horadrim. However, this was part of Mephisto's plan. Over the course of centuries, Mephisto corrupted his guardians, the priests of the Zakarum faith, and manipulated them into doing his bidding. He eventually sent Archbishop Lazarus to the west to corrupt King Leoric and awaken Diablo, placing the pieces for all three brothers to return.

Mephisto is a sustained-damage Ranged Assassin that places himself into the frontline to deal damage before making a sudden getaway. His trait, Lord of Hatred, lowers his basic ability cooldowns each time his abilities hit an enemy hero. His abilities are Skull Missile, an ethereal skull attack that flies in a straight line to damage and slow enemies; Lightning Nova, creating a ring of lightning around Mephisto that deals increased damage for each enemy caught inside; and Shade of Mephisto, teleporting to a target area and leaving behind a shade at the original cast position, which Mephisto returns to after a few seconds even if under crowd control.

Mephisto's first heroic, Consume Souls, channels for a moment to reveal all enemy heroes on the map, then damages and slows them once the channel completes. His second heroic is Durance of Hate, which unleashes a group of demonic fiends that damage and root the first enemy hero they hit. Once they've attacked, they spread out, rooting any other heroes within a large area.

His current skins are Star Wraith Mephisto and Tickle Mephisto.

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• Arbitrary Weapon Range: Mephisto's Lightning Nova only surrounds a specific ring with a fixed size, creating a huge blind spot in melee range where the majority of his damage is hard to stick.
• Arch-Enemy: He is Johanna's. Mephisto is the source of corruption that plagued the Zakarum faith since his imprisonment. Bizarrely (and hilariously), they duke it out in Snark-to-Snark Combat and rib off each other rather than engage in outright hatred.
• Ballistic Bone: Skull Missile conjures an ethereal skull for Mephisto to fling at his enemies.
• Close-Range Combatant: At least in terms of ability assassins. Aside from Alarak (who brings the fight to him), Mephisto has the shortest attack and skill range out of all other mages. He uniquely works best throwing himself directly in the middle of the enemy team, where his medium-range skills can get some serious impact.
• Composite Character: He's a blend of both his Diablo II incarnation and his depiction from the Book of Cain. He has the general skull and body shape of the illustration, but keeps the upward horns and two-fingered upper hands from his sprite. Mephisto even lampshades that he doesn't look like he did in Diablo II.
  Mephisto: Yes, I look a little different than you last saw me. I put a little meat on Sankekur's bones. ^*Sankekur is the Zakarum priest Mephisto possessed in Diablo II, and whom he still seems to possess in the Nexus.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Mephisto's interactions with Tyrael and Auriel reference the truce between Heaven and Hell. For instance, when Auriel and Mephisto are on the same team, Auriel suggests to put their differences aside temporarily.
    Mephisto: A truce, then? And who shall you grant to me this time, Auriel? ^ExplanationThis is a reference to the truce Mephisto made with the Angiris Council at the end of the Sin War trilogy. To seal the deal, Mephisto was allowed to take Inarius, the archangel that stole the Worldstone and created Sanctuary, with him to the Burning Hells and torture him for eternity.
  • If Mephisto is on a team with nephalem heroes, he expects them to serve him. He, as the Burning Hells' leader, allowed humanity's existence, because he wanted to corrupt the Worldstone and recruit an army of nephalem against the High Heavens.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Lord of Hatred reduces his Basic Ability cooldowns whenever he hits an enemy hero with his spells, and he can also improve its effectiveness through talents. This means he thrives in teamfights, where he can hit multiple enemies at once and spam his spells with reckless abandon to annihilate everything within his range.
• The Corrupter: The in-lore explanation for Demonic Auriel's skin is that Mephisto corrupted her spirit and put it into the body of a demonic mistress. Mephisto is also the source of the Zakarum's corruption and is very happy to see a Zakarum warrior like Johanna, as his current host is decaying, and he eventually needs to corrupt and possess a new body.
• Deal with the Devil: He offers to strike a bargain with beings who are filled with hatred or have a demonic past, like the orcs. Alarak is interested. Garrosh is not. Additionally, if you purchase Mephisto, he makes it sound like you just sold your soul to him.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Lightning Nova rapidly damages enemies several times per second.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: Well, he is a Prime Evil, after all.
• Didn't See That Coming: He is genuinely surprised if he is resurrected. And since the only hero who can currently resurrect others is Auriel...
• Difficult, but Awesome: Mephisto's damage output comes from two abilities that are very hard to make stick: Skull Missile is a slow projectile with a visible wind-up, while Lightning Nova has an extremely thin damage area and as such forces him to constantly move in order to keep enemies in contact. Shade of Mephisto likewise has the potential to help him nab kills that would be difficult or impossible for other mages, but if used poorly, it essentially paints a bullseye on his back for enemy skillshots. As such, good positioning is essential for making Mephisto work, moreso than most other mage characters.
• Doppelgänger Attack: The Storm talent Mimic gives his Shade of Mephisto the ability to mimic his Lightning Nova.
• Enemy to All Living Things: He absolutely hates working together with someone like Alexstrasza, the Life-Binder. On the other hand, he doesn't have many issues with an angel like Malthael, as Malthael is now the Aspect of Death and Mephisto can feel his hatred.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • Similar to Diablo, he will utter such a line if he kills a Lesser Evil.
  • If he gets a kill on Illidan, this is what he tells him.
    Mephisto: Feel the hatred of INFINITE years!
• Evil Is Hammy: For a being of pure hate, Mephisto sure takes a lot of joy cackling madly while obliterating puny mortals.
• Evil Laugh: He has a select few of these.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Eighteen years and some Vocal Evolution have given Mephisto a notable rasp on his voice.
• Fantastic Racism: Mephisto hates everyone, as is his nature as Hatred manifest, but he especially hates angels and humans/nephalem, calling the latter the "misbegotten spawn" of his daughter. The only people he doesn't seem to hate as much are his brother, Diablo, and the Aspect of Death and Hope respectively, Malthael and Auriel.
• Fog Feet: His unique mount surrounds his spine with a sickly layer of fog.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Mephisto knows.
  Mephisto: Hard to believe this form was once human, isn't it? I think I'm missing a finger on each hand...oh, and legs.
• Ghostly Chill: Mephisto can upgrade his Shade, causing it to slow enemies around it.
• Hope Spot: Just got out of a teamfight with a smidgen of health? Well, it'd be a shame if Mephisto hadn't used Consume Souls already...
• Instant Runes: A set of demonic circles appears behind him while channeling Consume Souls.
• It's Personal: He really doesn't like Deckard (as a Horadrim who imprisoned him) and the Diablo II heroes, who defeated him and his brothers. If he gets a kill on one, he promises to kill them again and again.
• Lean and Mean: He's literally meat and bones, and also one of the sinister Prime Evils.
• Manipulative Bastard: This is central to his gameplay. While Mephisto pumps out plenty of sustained damage, he lacks any kind of long-term escape and doesn't have the tools to trade blow-for-blow. He needs to use his cunning to abuse the battlefield and his foes' position in combat.
• Mecha-Mook: Star Wraith Mephisto is a robot mook that the Eternal Empire uses to conquer planets.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Mephisto has four skinny arms, the bottom two of which end in bone.
• Mythology Gag:
  • He doesn't like getting left-clicked by the player (as the only reason Diablo II players left-clicked him was to kill him in his boss encounter).
  • In one line, he references the fact that Diablo II's expansion, Lord of Destruction (featuring the final Prime Evil, Baal, as the main antagonist), came a year later.
    Mephisto: Where Hatred and Terror tread, Destruction is sure to follow! (Beat) A year later. In the expansion!
  • Mephisto references the "purity of essence" concept of the protoss bestowed by the xel'naga, if he interacts with a protoss hero.
  • His Boyfriend-Blocking Dad joke line is actually a reference to what eventually happened to Inarius ^*the archangel that eloped with his daughter, Lilith, created Sanctuary with the stolen Worldstone, mated with her to create the race of the nephalem and humanity, and who was given to Mephisto as part of a truce after Mephisto took him to the Burning Hells.
    Mephisto: I tell everyone who dates my daughter the same thing: While my daughter and I may not see eye to eye, if you hurt her, I will impale you with barbed hooks for all of eternity! So, it's Inarius's fault really.
  • When on a team with Prime Evil Diablo, they have a special interaction.
    Prime Evil Diablo: Lend me your power, brother.
    Mephisto: Strange...it feels as if I already have, somehow. ^ExplanationDiablo in Diablo III became the Prime Evil by absorbing the Black Soulstone, which contains the essences of the other six Great Evils, including Mephisto's.
  • If Mephisto kills Valla, he will note how her "discipline is just a droplet in the sea of my hatred". The Demon Hunter's resources in Diablo III are Hatred and Discipline, with Hatred being the main resource.
• Non-Indicative Name: Lightning Nova is not a nova in the traditional gaming sense, it's just a ring. Unlike the ability in previous Diablo games, enemies between the caster and the ring will not be hurt by it.
• Passion Is Evil: Lampshaded in a joke when Mephisto is asked (like in a job interview) what his biggest weakness is. He responds with a stereotypical job interview answer.
  Mephisto: What's my biggest weakness? Hmm...well, if anything, I'd say I'm too passionate. I really get into my work.
• The Power of Hate: His domain. His power is fueled by the burning contempt he feels for all life, and that others feel for him.
  Alexstrasza: How I loathe to work with demons like you!
  Mephisto: Oh? Tell me more about what you 'loathe'. Hahahaha...
  
  Whitemane: Are you a demon or undead? Hmph, I'll just have to hate you twice as much.
  Mephisto: Hahahaha... all the better.
• Pet the Dog: He is not going to thank a healer, but he will at least offer recognition.
• Puny Earthlings: His opinion of humanity is so low, they're barely worth his contempt. He makes it known.
  Mephisto: The strongest mortal is no more threatening than the strongest ant!
• Ship Tease: With Auriel, of all people. As a Continuity Nod to previous works, Mephisto has several interactions with her that further imply some tension between them. His interaction with Demonic Auriel also makes it sound like the two of them are an item.
  Mephisto: Hope, the only virtue with purpose. For without it, what meaning has suffering?
  Mephisto: (to Demonic Auriel) Auriel, you are the envoy of my enmity. Together, we shall bring Hell to all worlds!
• Shock and Awe: He's constantly covered in crackling lightning and his Basic Attack takes the form of an electric jolt. Lightning Nova also surrounds him with lightning.
• Sibling Team: With his fellow Prime Evil brother, Diablo. Not so much with Lesser Evils like Azmodan. Even if Mephisto and Diablo are on opposite teams, their discord is just a ploy.
• Spam Attack: Lord of Hatred significantly lowers his cooldowns, so long as you make your abilities land. Lightning Nova in particular is deadly, able to grab cooldown reductions from multiple enemies with consistent damage.
• Squishy Wizard: Mephisto doesn't have any bulk and little sustain power, instead relying on Shade of Mephisto to stay unpredictable while blasting the enemy apart with a barrage from his other spells. And although his health pool is actually fairly high for a mage^note Excluding Greymane, Mephisto has the highest health pool for a ranged Assassin, he needs to throw himself directly at the enemies, making the extra hit points count for little.
• Stealth Pun: Durance of Hate was Mephisto's lair in Diablo II. A durance is another word for prison, and here it appears as an ability that roots enemy heroes.
• Teleport Spam: Key to playing Mephisto correctly is to position himself with Shade of Mephisto in a way to hit as many enemies as possible with Lightning Nova, so he can quickly teleport in again and repeat this until the enemy goes down. The catch is, Mephisto has to teleport from a position where he can't be reached easily, as it's easy to prepare a counterattack, once he is forcibly sent back to his original position.
• This Cannot Be!: His reaction when he sees Archangel Diablo.
• Villainous Friendship: He forms one with Alarak, as the two mutually respect each other's hatred.
• Weaponized Teleportation: Shade of Mephisto deals area damage around Mephisto after he teleports. It's weak enough that it barely threatens most enemies, but it does trigger Lord of Hatred and can finish off enemies that are fleeing with a sliver of health.
• You Are Already Dead: Consume Souls provides an unlimited-range burst of damage to the entire enemy team. The damage isn't great, but the utility is astounding, especially since it's also a global reveal. It gets even scarier with the level 20 upgrade, dealing extra damage based on the enemy's missing health and activating it a second time if it kills a hero. The only way to stop it is to interrupt Mephisto while he's channeling, but since there is no range restriction, he can simply cast it from a safe location.
• You Are Too Late: This is literally one of his lines, which he also said in his boss encounter in Diablo II.

Nazeebo, Heretic Witch Doctor

Voiced by: Carl Lumbly (English)^note Other Languages: Alexander Dzyuba (Russian)

"I hear de call."

From within the Torajan jungle lies the Umbaru tribe, a group of unique spell casters that utilize voodoo magic accompanied with summon magics, the witch doctors. They stabilized their region by eventually defeating and spreading out the Khazra clan. Over time, however, the Umbaru tribe fell into a tribal war when a certain witch doctor, Nazeebo, accused the elder priest succumbing to corruption. For that, he was branded heretic and banished, but several other witch doctors took Nazeebo's accusations at heart, and one of them, Benu, would resolve to spread his words to save his people. And as of Nazeebo, he had a greater calling: The spirits he communed with warned him about the falling star at Tristram, and off he went, eventually entangling himself to the battle against Diablo and discovering his ancestry as one of the nephalem.

Nazeebo is a Ranged Assassin hero that summons various creatures with his spells, dealing fantastic sustained damage. His trait is Voodoo Ritual, which causes his attacks and abilities to poison non-heroic targets. Nazeebo's health and mana pools are permanently increased if minions die while poisoned. His active abilities include Corpse Spiders, throwing a pot that deals damage in a small area and creates spiders that chase and damage enemies if an enemy was hit, Zombie Wall, summoning a ring of zombies after a delay that function as a wall but can be destroyed, and Plague of Toads, a skill with two charges that unleashes three forward-marching toads that explode when they hit an enemy to deal damage over time.

His first Heroic ability, Gargantuan, summons a massive, lumbering zombie at a location that attacks independent of Nazeebo and can be commanded to do a stomp attack. His second Heroic ability, Ravenous Spirit, has him channel to conjure a high-damage spirit that can be directly controlled, swiping nearby enemies for heavy damage.

His current skins are Hellflame Nazeebo, Grimskull Nazeebo, Harlequin Nazeebo, Gingerdread Nazeebo, and Diesel Speaker Nazeebo.

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• Bad Powers, Good People: Has necromancer powers and wields blood magic, but is one of the heroic Nephalem responsible for defeating Belial and Diablo, killing Azmodan and saving Sanctuary and the High Heavens from the forces of Hell.
• Battle Trophy: Implied. In his default outfit, Nazeebo has a zergling's skull built into his clothes, and carries the decapitated head of a troll witch doctor. His Hellflame skin swaps out the troll head with the Black Soulstone. It also seems Zul'jin doesn't approve of this. If he kills Nazeebo, the troll growls that he should carry his head around in kind.
• Bears Are Bad News: The Gargantuan, like in Diablo III, is Nazeebo's powerful zombie-bear companion.
• Creepy Good: He's a nice guy, to be sure; it's just that he also uses the necromantic arts and other dark magics in battle.
• Damage Over Time: This is what his Voodoo Ritual trait does, dealing such damage to enemy minions at first, but upon gathering enough stacks and choosing the Vile Infection talent, the trait's effects will not only be applied to enemy heroes, but its effects are also doubled. Plague of Toads also applies a fairly potent damage over time effect, stacking with each toad that hits.
• Dark Is Not Evil: One of the kindest characters in the game, despite his scary appearance and dark magic powers. Also, in the original game he was the Nephalem who defeated Diablo. Subverted in his Hellflame Skin, which leads to him keeping the Black Soulstone, leading to him also being corrupted.
• Death by a Thousand Cuts: Or more like "Death by a Thousand Spider Bites". This is especially the case if Nazeebo upgraded his Corpse Spiders with the appropriate talents.
• Every Man Has His Price: One of his unlockable traits allows him to bribe enemy mercenaries.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: The majority of Nazeebo's spells in this game are built around using zombies and various other undead monsters.
• Gathering Steam: Tying in with Magikarp Power; his trait allows him to increase both his HP and Mana when he kills minions. This means Nazeebo starts off weak, but he gradually gets more powerful as he continues clearing minion waves.
• Glass Cannon: Hits like a ton of bricks at later levels, especially with the right Talents. However, barring certain upgrades, he's not very durable.
• The Heretic: If we follow Diablo III's lore, his people see him as this, but he insists that he's not.
  Male Witch Doctor: (from the original game) [My people] say I defy the spirits. But I say no. I follow them.
• Hollywood Voodoo: Naturally.
• Magikarp Power: More than most other heroes. Nazeebo's spells are expensive and not very powerful at the start of the match, and his poison doesn't do enough damage to make up for what's lost. As the battle goes on, his damage, and his health pool improve dramatically, and with the right Talents, he can become a complete terror, capable of dealing insane amounts of damage, shrug off everything thrown at him. One of his late game talents, Vile Infection, turns this up to eleven. This talent requires Nazeebo to gather 175 stacks of his Voodoo Ritual trait and if he does, the Damage Over Time effect of Voodoo Ritual will affect enemy heroes and its overall damage is doubled, on par with Lunara's trait. As such, it's not uncommon to see Nazeebo spending the entire game farming minions whenever the objective isn't active just so he can start murdering things at level 20.
• Mask of Power: All three of Nazeebo's current costumes use one of the Witch-Doctor's magic masks.
• Monster Clown: His Harlequin skin, which doubles as an Evil Counterpart of himself, since he uses his necromantic powers for Countess von Kerrigan's entertainment. Even his mask looks like something The Joker would wear for Halloween. This skin applies similar aesthetics to his Gargantuan and Ravenous Spirit heroics.
• Nice Guy: Even at his worst, Nazeebo's taunts are fairly good-natured jabs. When he kills an enemy Arthas, he even claims that he hopes the fallen king can finally find peace.
• Ornamental Weapon: He carries a big knife but he exclusively attacks with magic.
• Shrunken Head: Carries around the shrunken head of a Troll Witch Doctor from Warcraft III. The Grimskull skin replaces it with a demonic skull.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: All of Nazeebo's current costumes use this to some varying degree, adorned in plentiful bones and skulls.
• Spiders Are Scary: Can summon spiders to fight for him.
• Token Good Teammate:
  • Seems like his designated job in scripted events. He's amongst Diablo's allies during the tutorial, and he is alongside Sylvanas and Stitches to be swatted away during the reveal video of Johanna, who is a fellow Nephalem like him.
  • Averted in the Thrall reveal video, though, as he's seen fighting side-by-side with Thrall, Raynor and Zeratul.
• Weaponized Animal: True to form, Nazeebo weaponizes spiders, toads and bears in his powers.
• Witch Doctor: Let's just say...
  Nazeebo: I got friends on the otha side...
• Zombie Apocalypse: Some of his abilities summon small zombie hordes.

Valla, Demon Hunter

Voiced by: Laura Bailey (English)^note Other Languages: Lyubov Germanova (Russian)

"I stand ready."

Several years after the destruction of the Worldstone, tragedy befell a family originating from Westmarch, in which a woman named Valla lost not only her family, but her little sister, Halissa, by the hands of demons. Consumed with hatred against demons, Valla started training in the way of demon hunters under the tutelage of the veteran demon hunter Josen, eventually becoming one of its top hunters. When news arrived that a special fallen star fell upon Tristram, Valla volunteered to investigate, though this led to a quest heavily linked with the end of Sanctuary and the return of the Lord of Terror...

Valla is a Ranged Assassin hero whose damage output increases the longer she stays on the offensive. Her trait is Hatred. Each Basic Attack generates a stack of Hatred, to a maximum of 10, with each stack boosting attack damage and movement speed, but all stacks are lost if she goes too long without attacking. Her basic skills include Hungering Arrow, an arrow skillshot which automatically homes into nearby enemies for several hits if the initial shot lands; Multishot, damaging all enemies in a cone in front of Valla; and Vault, a combat roll that grants bonus damage on her next Basic Attack for each Hatred stack she possesses.

Her first Heroic ability, Strafe, lets Valla unleash a whirling barrage of arrows, striking all surrounding enemies in a large area. Rain of Vengeance, her other choice, is a skill with two charges that calls down Shadow Beasts to stun enemies in an area in front of Valla.

Her current skins are Vengeance Valla, Angelic Valla, Vampire Slayer Valla, Deputy Valla, Ordermaster Valla, Winter's Helper Valla, Mecha Valla, and Shadow Stalker Valla.

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• Action Girl: Valla is one of the most aggressive heroes in the game, as she constantly has to attack to keep up her damage. Consequently, she also has one of the highest DPS in the game.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The duration of Hatred does not tick down while Valla is channeling Strafe, as she cannot attack to maintain Hatred stacks while doing so.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: The basic philosophy behind Hatred is for Valla to keep attacking for as long as possible to build up her damage, making her increasingly lethal as a fight drags on. Additionally, many of her Hatred-based talents grant certain bonuses at 10 Hatred stacks, encouraging constant aggression.
• Automatic Crossbows: Guns Akimbo even.
• Blood Knight: Some of her kill quotes indicate this.
  Valla: A pity, I was starting to enjoy myself.
• Boring, but Practical: She can be kitted to be nothing but a Basic Attack machine... but those Basic Attacks become pain incarnate; anything she shoots for more than a couple seconds is dead.
• Combat Stilettos: While her bootheels aren't all that pointy, Valla's poke dialogue includes a dismissal of people questioning the practicality of her footwear.
  Valla: How do I run in heels? Faster than you, that's for sure.
• Continuity Nod: Quite a few of these to Hatred and Discipline, the Diablo III short story where the name Valla for the female Demon Hunter originated, and established her mentor as Josen.
• Cleavage Window: When equipped with her Deputy, Winter's Helper, or Shadow Stalker skins.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Her abilities are based on Casting a Shadow and The Power of Hate, but she's still one of the good guys and a basically decent person besides.
• Demon Slaying: Valla's basic job description.
• Death from Above: Her second heroic, Rain of Vengeance. It uses Shadow Beasts instead of an actual Rain of Arrows.
• Expy: Of Vayne, the Night Hunter. Both are auto-attack favoring hero who wield crossbows, have a tumble based mobility ability that enhances the next Basic Attack. Also, they both have some means of accessing a three-hit passive that deals damage equal to a percentage of the target's max health. The main difference appears in the form of their kit: Vayne's Fixed Damage Attack passive comes from an ability, while Valla's Manticore is a completely optional talent. Finally, Valla's kit gives her wave-clear and area of effect capabilities by default, which can be improved through traits. Vayne is entirely reliant upon her auto-attacks, and has no means of striking multiple targets at once without building appropriate items.
• Fragile Speedster: She has low health, but a large number of mobility options. As long as she has Hatred stacks, she moves quickly enough to catch fleeing heroes.
• Gathering Steam: As most of Valla's damage comes from her Basic Attacks, she has to build up Hatred stacks to gain her full damage and speed. A few talents give her additional benefits when she reaches full Hatred stacks.
• Glass Cannon: One of the glassiest in the game: She is the only Basic Attack-focused Assassin in the game who has even less health than Tracer (and Fenix, but he has Deflector Shields for Regenerating Health). But she also exemplifies the Cannon aspect as well: She packs so much damage that "hypercarry" compositions where she is the sole assassin are not uncommon.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Her Angelic skin recolours her outfit to resemble an angel's armor.
• Good Is Not Nice: She may be blunt, cynical, coarse and fairly rude to everyone around her, especially her teammates and the player, but she's sworn to protect the innocent and stop demons from killing anyone else the way they killed her family, and was instrumental in killing Diablo and saving Sanctuary and the High Heavens.
• Gun Kata: Miniature hand-crossbow kata, rather. She uses acrobatic and dynamic shooting in several powers and traits.
• Guns Akimbo: Same deal as Gun Kata with the crossbows. Her Deputy skin gets a revolver and a Sawed-Off Shotgun.
• Hunter of Monsters: Besides her obvious job to hunt demons, Valla can talent into her Hungering Arrow ability, which allows her to do increased damage to Monster-classified enemies.
• In the Hood: Her default costume covers her face with a cowl; her Angelic skin gives her the standard angelic hood, but her face can still be seen. Her Deputy skin comes with a cowboy hat.
• Jack of All Stats: For a ranged Assassin, Valla boasts a decent amount of versatility. Strafe and Multishot give her access to area damage and waveclear, Hungering Arrow and Vault give her access to burst damage, Hatred pumps up her basic attacks, Rain of Vengeance lets her control enemies or follow up an ally's initiation, and Vault gives her mobility. As such, depending on the build, she can become a high-octane right-clicker, an AoE-focused teamfighter, or a bursty ganker.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She can say plenty of nice things when motivated; she addresses the player as "friend" if they select her from the in-game shop after purchasing her, and readily thanks a healer who heals her.
• Life Drain: Her talents contain options to apply lifesteal to basic attacks, Hungering Arrow, Multishot, and Strafe.
• Magikarp Power: Valla's abilities are relatively mediocre by themselves, but she gets a lot of mileage out of her talents. Early on, she doesn't have much to stand out from the crowd, but fully talented, she can deal tremendous damage with either her abilities or attacks.
• More Dakka: What do you expect from someone who wields 2 automatic weapons? Can be upgraded for even more dakka with certain talents.
• Multi-Directional Barrage: Her first heroic, Strafe deals massive damage over time to any hero caught in its circular area of effect.
• Multi Shot: Literally. Her Multishot does damage to people in a cone in front of her.
• Mythology Gag If poked enough, she complains that the player never touches the Night Elf Demon Hunters like that. ^note This is a throwback to Warcraft II, where Alleria complained that the player never touches the other elves like that.
• Our Angels Are Different: Her Angelic Skin. In an Alternate Universe, Valla is one of the Disciples of Inarius, the rogue angels who joined forces with rogue demons to create the world of Sanctuary and bred with each other to create the nephalem. What kind of life she led or whether she bore nephalem children by a male demon was left unspecified, although it is likely she did; it was, however, explained that she was moved to hatred by the death of Inarius and became a Demon Hunter analogue of sorts to make her hatred useful.
• Percent Damage Attack: Has access to the talent Manticore at level 16, which deals 5% of an enemy Hero's max health if Valla hits them with three consecutive Basic Attacks in a row. This is of course extremely lethal to high health heroes, especially Cho'Gall.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: When she activates her heroic, Strafe.
  Valla: Death awaits.
• The Power of Hate: Her attacks grant her stacks of Hatred, which give bonus damage and move speed. Can be further upgraded by talents to give attack speed, healing, even more movement speed, or even spell resistance.
• Red Is Heroic: She is thoroughly on the side of humanity and hates demons with a passion, though this does not exclude being a case of Red Is Violent, as Valla is a Blood Knight.
• The Rival: With Illidan, considering both are demon hunters.
  Valla: [upon killing Illidan] Foolish is the hunter who consorts with prey.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Her default skin has one, which doubles as a Cape.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Valla's main strategy is to Attack! Attack! Attack!, use her abilities to attack some more, and then use Vault to escape when/if things go south. It's so effective that she's routinely used in tournament play, and may even be the only damage-dealer on her team.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: In a way. Demon hunters need to temper their aggression/hatred with discipline in order to survive, just like Valla players have to.
• Spin Attack: Strafe makes Valla spin around and fire bolts in all directions, though technically she is limited to 8 targets in her range.
• Take Up My Sword: Her Vengeance skin, which claims that it is a demon hunter tradition to carry on the armor of the fallen mentors and prestigious hunters before them. Valla takes up the armor and crossbows of her mentor, Josen.
• Teleport Spam: If Valla takes "Death Dealer" at Lv.4, she suddenly becomes absurdly mobile during the late game. "Death Dealer" increases the bonus damage on Vault to 15% per Hatred stack, for an ungodly maximum, and refreshes the cooldown on Vault if she kills any target — any target, even a Minion with 3 HP — within the next 1.5 seconds. By Lv.20, she can One-Hit Kill minions using this bonus damage. This gives her essentially infinite Vaults, making it very hard for anyone to catch her. (Add on "Acrobat" at Lv.20, which gives her two more charges of Vault and causes her to drop Slowing caltrops each time she uses one, to lay down a veritable minefield.)
• Vampire Hunter: One of her skins, which comes from an alternate universe where she's part of a resistance group in Raven Court battling Countess von Kerrigan, the realm's bloodthirsty, vampiric ruler.
• Wings Do Nothing: The wings of her Angelic skin are purely for show. At least Tyrael hovers with his.

Tanks

Diablo, Lord of Terror

Voiced by: Abraham Benrudi (English)^note Other Languages: Frédéric Souterelle (French), Igor Staroseltsev (Russian)

Prime Evil Diablo voiced by: JB Blanc and Jennifer Hale (English)

"Tremble before me!"

Al'Diabolos, the Lord of Terror, is the youngest of the three Prime Evils. Diablo and his siblings were created from the seven heads of the original Prime Evil, Tathamet. After an eternity of war, the Hells and the Heavens discovered a hidden world, Sanctuary, which led to a new conflict over the newfound territory. Indeed, Diablo had frequently plotted over the years to conquer Sanctuary and enslave or butcher its inhabitants, whether through force of demonic arms or the subversive machinations of his mortal servants; even when not, he helped his older Prime Evil brothers with their own attempts. Although every attempt has thus far been thwarted, his ability to possess humans and the use of the Black Soulstone has allowed him to cheat death and avoid permanent defeat. Diablo maintains a sore spot against those who slay him and has been known to drive such people to evil in revenge. His possession of the Warrior who killed him and corruption of the Rogue and Sorcerer are a testament to that.

Diablo is a melee Tank hero with a great deal of versatility, powerful crowd control, and the potential for immense toughness, coupled with the ability to revive near-instantly under certain circumstances. His trait, Black Soulstone, causes him to steal the souls of minions and heroes that die near him, granting him higher maximum health for each soul, up to a cap of 100 souls; if he dies with the maximum, his revive timer is cut to five seconds but he loses all of his souls. From Level 10 onward, he keeps 25 souls when reviving this way. His active abilities are Shadow Charge, a charge that knocks the target back and stuns them if they collide with terrain, granting Diablo a movement speed boost; Fire Stomp, sending out five waves of fire in a cone shape that then retract back to Diablo for triple damage and heal him for damage dealt to heroes; and Overpower, grabbing a target and slamming them down behind him.

His first Heroic ability, Apocalypse, creates runes where every enemy hero on the map is standing which explode a moment later, dealing damage and stunning any enemies caught in the blast. His second Heroic ability, Lightning Breath, makes him Unstoppable while he channels a cone of high-damage fire and lightning that slows enemies more and more the longer they stay in the area, which can be aimed with the mouse.

His current skins are Hell Iron Diablo, Kaijo Diablo, Lurkablo, Archangel Diablo, Prime Evil Diablo, and El Chamuco Diablo.

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• The Alliance: He puts villainous versions of this together twice outside of gameplay. In the opening cinematic/trailer, he joins forces with Arthas and Kerrigan against Raynor, Nova and Tyrael; in the tutorials he puts together a villainous version of The Team with himself as The Leader, Arthas as his right-hand guy, Stitches the abomination as Dumb Muscle, Illidan Stormrage as The Sneaky Guy and Nazeebo as the Token Good Teammate.
• And I Must Scream:
  • Prime Evil Diablo has a Stop Poking Me! line, where Leah is seemingly still somewhere trapped inside her body and asks for help. Thankfully subverted, as mid-sentence her voice is distorted and turns into Prime Evil Diablo's voice. She's gone and Diablo is using her voice to give people hope, only to crush it and turn it into despair to terrorize them.
    Leah: Can anyone hear me? I need you. I need you to (turns into Prime Evil Diablo's voice) give in to terror! It's the only way!
  • Played straight when Prime Evil Diablo says that the mouths on his shoulders do not speak. They scream. And they won't stop.
• Arc Villain: He serves as the overarching antagonist of the tutorials, leading the Big Bad Ensemble against Raynor and his team of heroes.
• Arch-Enemy: To the Nephalem and angels, for obvious reasons; Diablo remains bitter about them defeating him.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Diablo is a pretty poor choice of hero for getting out of trouble - at best, he can Shadow Charge at the enemy hero closest to him and a safe place and gain some movement speed and Overpower to get an enemy hero out of his way but even these take some critical escaping time to perform which makes positioning with Diablo more difficult than many other tanks - but he's excellent at putting enemies in trouble once their backs close enough to both a wall and him. Diablo is uniquely a tank that can virtually stunlock and damage a squishy hero to death all by himself after enough talents with Apocalypse, or burn down an enemy team's health at the right moment with Lightning Breath. Diablo also has a fair amount of talents which can improve his survivability...while usually also requiring that he be positioning aggressively and attacking enemies to take good advantage of them.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: One of the Prime Evils, the major rulers of the Burning Hells.
• Badass Boast: Rather prone to these.
  Diablo: Kneel before the Lord of Terror!
  Diablo: Terror stalks your world!
  Diablo: Not even death can save you from me!
  Diablo: I am Fear Manifest!
  Diablo: I'll see you in Hell!
• Big Bad Wannabe: Tries to play the role of the Big Bad. Too bad he's only in it for a Tutorial and ends up more as a Butt-Monkey than anything else.
• Big Red Devil: Naturally.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Adopts Tychus' if he scores a kill against him.
  Diablo: Burning Hells... It's about time! *Evil Laugh*
• Breath Weapon: One of his heroics, Lightning Breath, has him breathing fire and lightning, dealing massive damage over time in a straight line.
• Combos:
  • Ideally, you want to either Shadow Charge an enemy hero into a wall or structure, or stand close to an enemy hero while having said wall or structure behind you. The second case offers for more potential damage, as you could Overpower the enemy target hero putting him towards the wall, then rapidly cast Shadow Charge ramming him into the wall to stun him, then following up with either Fire Stomp or a heroic (preferably Lightning Breath) if you have it ready for use. Otherwise, the most common way is to simply walk up to an enemy, and use Overpower then Shadow Charge to push him into your allies, and then simply following up with a Fire Stomp.
  • Fire Stomp is easy for enemies to mostly or even entirely avoid if not next to and directly in front of Diablo, but Diablo can force them to be there by using Shadow Charge or even doing a well-timed Overpower just as the flames reach Diablo.
  • Another heavy stun combo exists, where Diablo casts Apocalypse, then Shadow Charges in and immediately flips his victim over with Overpower, which will put his target on the Apocalypse rune, stunning them the whole time. He can do a similar combo at level 20, when he blinks in with Hellgate and then flips his target over to the rune. If there is a wall nearby, he can also Shadow Charge his target into the wall for additional stun duration and damage.
  • He can do another devastating combo when Diablo picks up the Devastating Charge talent and finishes the quest (giving 50% more collision damage and causing a target stunned by Shadow Charge to lose 20 armor respectively) and has the Domination talent, which resets Shadow Charge's cooldown when he uses Overpower. Diablo first smashes you into the wall, then flips you over and smashes you into another wall, chunking away a large amount of your health pool, while stunning you the entire time.
  • Lightning Breath is a far scarier ultimate after he's got the Hellfire talent improving his spellpower.
• Composite Character: He uses his Diablo II appearance and mentions the other Prime Evils being separate entities (the plural is important, since he came back as the singular Prime Evil in the third game), but knows who the Nephalem are and that they defeated him. He used his Diablo III appearance when fighting against Raynor in the first trailer, and the Diablo III version of Diablo was finally released as a Legendary skin alongside the game updating to Heroes of the Storm 2.0.
• Creepy Good: Archangel skin. He's an angel, so he's undoubtedly one of the good guys, but still looks like a towering, hulking brute. The description lampshades this:
  Bringing a whole new meaning to "Holy Terror".
• Cycle of Hurting: With the help of walls and terrain, Diablo is particularly capable of stunning an enemy for a long period of time. With the right talents, positioning and very good timing on his part, Diablo can stun an enemy for a whole 6 seconds (and probably kill much squishier heroes long before those 6 seconds end).
• Deal with the Devil: Jokes that the player should make one with him.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Zig-Zagged. His soulstone trait sometimes allows Diablo to resurrect much faster than normal, if he accumulates enough souls before dying. However, as he just lost all souls after resurrecting, his health pool is significantly smaller. During the late-game, however, the reduced death timer can be huge: if Diablo and an enemy kill each other, Diablo is back up in 5 seconds while the enemy has to sit out for another 70, and his presence can be enough to turn a fight around.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: The seven Great Evils are the rulers of the Burning Hells, the Prime Evils being a trio of demons who are collectively the most powerful of the lot. Diablo is one of those three.
• The Dreaded: He's known as The Lord of Terror for a reason.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Whatever Murky is saying or thinking, it's obviously bad enough to freak out Diablo.
• Evil Laugh: Has quite his share, unsurprisingly.
• Eviler than Thou: He considers himself a bigger villainous fish than other evil characters in the wings, especially Azmodan, which seeps into his kill quotes against the latter.
  Diablo: [upon killing Azmodan] Now we see why you are a Lesser Evil!
• Evil Sounds Deep: As always, Diablo's voice is one of the deepest in the game.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Most of his Stop Poking Me! quotes are threats directed to the player.
  Diablo That's a nice soul you've got there. It'd be a Shame If Something Happened to it!
• Geo Effects: Walls and terrain are more than just something that prevents heroes from moving past them with Diablo around - they're where Diablo is at his most lethal after he charges you into them and hits up the rest of his abilities.
• Gender Bender: His description says that his gender is "malleable", which is probably a reference to how he chose Leah, a girl, as his host in Diablo III. His Prime Evil skin lets him become the gender-bent Diablo.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Keep poking him and he'll eventually yell, "Soy Maléfico!" ("I am evil!") — presumably a joke about how his name (or nickname rather) is the Spanish word for "Devil".
• Heal Thyself: Following his rework in the Nexomania patch, Diablo has become terrifyingly good at this. To start, his Fire Stomp heals him for the damage it does to heroes, which is further augmented by talents. Then, combining the Eternal Flames talent, which causes Fire Stomp's cooldown to be reset whenever Diablo stuns a target with Shadow Charge or Overpower, with either Domination (Using Overpower resets the cooldown of Shadow Charge) or Overpowering Nightmare (Overpower has two additional charges) allows Diablo to throw out Fire Stomp after Fire Stomp in a teamfight, siphoning ludicrous amounts of health if he's allowed to run wild. Do note though, that these require him to actively attack heroes to benefit from them.
• I Am the Noun: A variation, see Badass Boast above.
• In-Series Nickname: Raynor addresses him as "Red". The name "Diablo" could also be this, as his proper full name is Al'Diabolos.
• Kaiju: One of his alternate skins, Kaijo, turns him into one.
• Kick the Dog: In his Prime Evil skin, a handful of quotes have some especially cruel lines regarding Leah - even going as far as to impersonate her.
• Kill It with Fire: Summons waves of fire as one of his spells.
• Kneel Before Zod: See the quote under Badass Boast.
• Knock Back: Both Shadow Charge and Overpower allow him to forcibly re-position enemy heroes.
• Lean and Mean: His Prime Evil skin. Reducing his bulk to a fraction of normal, but making him nastier if anything.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Prime Evil Diablo is much less bulky and muscular than his base form, but can throw people around all the same.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He's second in likely death rate to only Murky and Leoric, thanks to his hyper-aggressive moveset, lack of an actual escape, limited sustain, and respawn-reducing passive, which also forces him to lane more often to recharge it and thus leave himself vulnerable to ganks. Unlike Murky, he counts as a full hero every time he gets his rear handed to him.
• Non-Indicative Name: His fire breath heroic is called... Lightning Breath. On closer look though, one can see that he actually channels lightning through it.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: He claims he's really not such a bad guy once you get to know him.
• Not the Intended Use: Lightning Breath is often taken on maps where you need to occupy control points. It's not because Lightning Breath does enough damage to enemy characters that they'll be forced to flee (you want Deathwing for that): it's because it makes Diablo Unstoppable. Once he picks a spot and uses his Heroic, he stays there, and there are times when a massive HP bar which can't be dislodged is exactly what you need.
• Our Angels Are Different: One of his skins is a Good Counterpart of himself as an archangel instead, no doubt to contrast with Tyrael's Demonic skin.
• Our Demons Are Different: He appears as a Big Red Devil and is also one of the Prime Evils.
• Playing with Fire: Uses fire-based magic in several abilities and traits.
• Power Up Letdown: Getting 100 souls. Sure, you come back in five seconds if you die, but it also means that you'll lose all the health, armor, regeneration bonuses that you had. The June 2018 update saw to rectify that, by giving him level 4 talents making the gathering of souls easier.
• Red Is Violent: His entire body is demonically red and he mercilessly slams you over and smashes you against the walls.
• Resurrective Immortality: Diablo's ability to continue to survive in the forms of mortals is referenced in-game with his Soulstone trait that allows him to resurrect much more quickly.
• Running on All Fours: His default mount. Prime Evil Diablo changes this to a spider-like scuttle reminiscent of a Xenomorph.
• Sea Monster: His "Lurkablo" skin makes him one, and doubles as a crossover with Warcraft since he swims in Stormwind's moat and resembles a Deep Sea Murloc. Humorously, it also gives him a murloc-like voiceset.
• Shame If Something Happened: Uses this on the player's soul as a subtle threat to stop poking him.
• Shock and Awe: Possesses Lightning Breath, which he uses for one of his heroic abilities.
• Sibling Rivalry: He doesn't like Azmodan. The feeling is mutual.
• Sibling Team: On the other hand, Diablo is one of the few Mephisto does not seem to hate. He encourages Diablo to spread his terror into the world. Ironically, they don't especially synergize in gameplay since Diablo is an aggressive all-in hero that seeks for his team to lock down and burst away at enemies' health while Mephisto prefers to chip away at them from range over time. Additionally, Mephisto is very dependent on good positioning to make his abilities land, which Diablo is very good at screwing up.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: To Raynor and Uther. Their rivalry in the tutorials even carries over into regular gameplay!
  Raynor: [after killing Diablo] That's another one for me, Red!
  Diablo: [after killing Uther] Perhaps you require more training, Uther.
  • The Uther quote is actually a direct quote from Arthas after he kills Uther in Warcraft III.
• Subliminal Seduction: Referenced in his poke dialogue, some of which is actually recorded backwards. Parodied by one of Prime Evil Diablo's lines, which is "Reversing backwards messages is a waste of time. Trust me." recorded backwards.
• Super-Toughness: He uses the souls he collects to increase his health, his regeneration and his ability resistance. After a massive rework, it can get increasingly frustrating to try and kill him if he gathered enough souls, if the player chose defensive talents that increase Diablo's durability. The healing fountain or a regen globe can be thrice as effective should he gather the maximum amount of souls, making him nearly unkillable.
• Taking You with Me: Dying Breath, the Storm talent upgrade that allows Diablo to cast his Apocalypse heroic ability for free when he dies.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Prior to his rework, despite Diablo's high health, his actual durability is just a massive chunk of HP, as he lacks self-sustain or mitigation abilities in his kit.
• Unwanted Assistance: With an interesting side of something on the Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration. Diablo, as a Big Bad, primarily cares about doing what matters to him, regardless of what his teammates want or need. This is reflected in his Basic Abilities: both his Q dash and his E suplex are really good at yoinking enemies out of the line of fire.
• Villainous Friendship: He addresses people he gets on with as servants in his intro quotes, making it clear that his positive interactions are, from his point of view, a master-servant relationship at best. However, he definitely has this with his brother Mephisto. Outside his host universe, he also seems to get along well with Ragnaros.
• Voice of the Legion: Prime Evil Diablo is voiced by two people, including Leah's voice actress, as Diablo took over Leah's body when he fused her with the Black Soulstone to become the Prime Evil.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Implied if he's forced to team up with a nephalem hero.
  Diablo: Do not become a liability, Nephalem!
• Your Soul Is Mine!: He collects souls to empower himself and speed up his resurrection.
• You Will Not Evade Me: His Overpower is a deceptively simple skill: deals minor damage and flips your position behind him. Think you can just walk away? Good luck doing that with the Big Red Devil body blocking your way. It also comes with a mini-stun, so don't think you can use your channeling ability with impunity.

Johanna, Crusader of Zakarum

Voiced by: Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (English)^note Other Languages: Louise Lemoine-Torres (French), Tatyana Shitova (Russian)

"The crusade calls!"

At the age of twelve, a young girl left her home and family to join the crusade to cleanse the Zakarum faith of its apparent corruption. Sworn to live as a crusader and die as a crusader, the girl was taught the primal powers of the Light, until one day her master perished. The girl took up her master's armor, weapons and even her name, Johanna, and took on her mission to bring honor back to the name of Zakarum.

Johanna is a Tank hero who is adept at surviving fights and disabling her enemies. Her trait, Iron Skin, can be activated to grant Johanna a shield and protection from crowd control effects while the shield holds. Her active abilities are Punish, a shield swipe that hits multiple targets and slows them, Condemn, which charges up then briefly stuns nearby enemies and pulls them towards her, and Shield Glare, a ranged blast of light that temporarily blinds enemies.

Her first heroic ability is Falling Sword. Johanna leaps into the air, becoming untargetable and granting allies beneath her Unstoppable before plunging to the ground to stun and damage enemies in the area. Her other option, Blessed Shield, hurls her shield in a target direction, stunning the first enemy hero it hits. It then ricochets on up to two more enemies, inflicting a shorter stun.

Her current skins are Sacred Oath Johanna, Centurion Johanna, Spellbreaker Johanna, Enforcer Johanna, Warsong Johanna, and Peacekeeper Johanna.

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• Action Girl: Like Sonya, but Johanna is more about protecting her team than dealing raw damage.
• Aerith and Bob: Her name, aside from being based on Joan of Arc, sounds more mundane than other names in the Diablo-verse, compared to the crusader in the Short Story: Anajinn.
• Ascended Meme: Warsong Johanna references the Warsong Commander Hearthstone card and its Nerf ("Some stuff went down... and we became less popular").
• Blinded by the Light: Shield Glare deals minor area damage, but causes Temporary Blindness to the targets, which makes them miss their Basic Attacks.
• Blood Knight: Warsong Johanna. Oh so very much—from advocating Aggressive Negotiations (see: bashing in faces) to cheering bloody battles or crowing in triumph over "elf heads" obtained in combat, this lady loves a good brawl.
• Commanding Coolness: Her Centurion skin is a very Byzantine-looking armour set which states she served under Emperor Severus of a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Ancient Rome in Diablo lore.
• Composite Character: The female Crusader in Diablo III has loose hair with a small braid by her forehead, but Johanna instead has half her head shaved bald and the side with long hair is tied up in three braids which resemble dreadlocks. This was likely done to make her a composite with the male Crusader, whose head is shaved entirely bald.
• Continuity Cameo: A crusader named Johanna appears in Diablo IV, who is heavily implied to either be this Johanna or her apprentice. She's found dead, and her current apprentice takes up her armour and carries on the name Johanna.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Johanna's greatest strength is that she is Nigh-Invulnerable. In return, her damage is relatively low and while she does have crowd control at her disposal, her abilities lack impact. Punish is very short-term for a slow and wears off over time, Condemn applies a short stun and drags the enemies to her; Shield Glare lasts for only 2 seconds; Blessed Shield, though a very effective 1.5 second stun, is on a 60-second cooldown, which looks pretty inefficient when you consider that Muradin's Storm Bolt stuns for almost as long (1.25s) on a 10-second cooldown; and, as mentioned previously, her DPS in teamfights is negligible. Additionally, Johanna's Iron Skin makes her impossible to effectively pin down and kill, but she's technically less capable of withstanding damage than the likes of Mal'Ganis, Muradin or Varian. This can be her downfall when forced to contest an important objective point against another such tank, who would outlast her and force her to back off, even if she won't die in the attempt.
• Crosshair Aware: Falling Sword paints a very large, very obvious glowing circle on the ground to show where it will land. It can be moved by mouseclicking, but not very quickly.
• Deadpan Snarker: She tends to give the Diablo villains more sass than outright vitriol, even when her fellow nephalem prefer to toss standard threats or boasts. Even when she's paired with her Arch-Nemesis Mephisto, her dialogue consists of Snark-to-Snark Combat.
• Death from Above: Her Falling Sword heroic has her jump and land down with great impact and damage.
• Defeat Means Friendship: If suggesting to take a mercenary camp, she'll say "Let's befriend these mercenaries." Which is exactly what happens once you defeat them and capture their camp. This is also something of a reference to the Crusader's tendency in Diablo III to refer to defeating (see: brutally slaughtering) enemies as "having words" with them. As a meta note (see point below), her Condemn does increased damage to mercenaries (and minions).
• Developer's Foresight: Warsong Johanna has a line for killing her human self ("Did that human have my face? I must be seeing things!") Keep in mind that actually having a mirror match is rather rare^note Quick Match attempts to find unique heroes for both teams (but will break the rule if a hero is extremely popular/the role is underpopulated), while draft modes disallow mirrors entirely, never mind actually matching with that skin equipped.
• Epic Flail: The Crusader's weapon of choice is a ball-and-chain whose ball is larger than her head. Despite this, her auto-attack DPS is negligible.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's not quite as much of a Nice Girl as Jaina, but Johanna's blonde tresses are still a testament to good character.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Specializes in this. All of her abilities affect multiple targets.
• Holy Hand Grenade: As a crusader, she wields the power of the light to smite her foes.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Johanna gets a takedown on Deckard, she suggests that he should talk less. Never mind that she often wants to "have words" with others...
• Invulnerable Attack: While airborne during Fallen Sword, Johanna is fully invulnerable.
• Jack of All Stats: While Johanna isn't necessarily the best Tank at anything, she makes up for it by being able to do a bit of everything. She has good durability from Iron Skin, decent initiation from her Heroics, respectable waveclear and a reliable interrupt from Condemn, a Blind to mess with basic attackers, good teamfight presence because all her abilities are area-of-effect, a Heroic that lets her make her team Unstoppable... just about the only things she doesn't have are burst damage and mobility (the former of which isn't a priority for Tanks, and the latter of which is partially compensated by Iron Skin).
• The Juggernaut: Johanna's trait, Iron Skin, makes her Unstoppable and grants 25% of her max HP as a shield for 4 seconds. This allows her to shrug off crowd control attempts and continue fighting.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Implied by some of her voice files.
• Lady Legionnaire Wear: Averted. Her Centurion skin's armour is fairly monogender.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Warsong Johanna is quite confused during her Poke Quotes about orc questgivers speaking common, being an "orc paladin" ("I'm pretty sure that's not a thing!"), thinking a crusader is just a paladin, then deciding to give up understanding it.
• Legacy Character: As noted above, Johanna took the name of her mentor after she became a crusader proper, which is standard practice. She seeks an apprentice to take up the mantle in turn when she dies. Hilariously, she seems to consider Murky a good choice, which is likely a reference to the Murkalot pet (a murloc garbed in crusader outfit) in World of Warcraft.
• Light 'em Up: She wields holy magic, both in her abilities and her trait, which uses the Light as a protective barrier.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Wields a shield in tandem with her massive flail and uses it both offensively and defensibly.
• Made of Iron: One of the toughest heroes in the game, especially against physical damage, possessing a good chunk of Physical Armor as a baseline and able to gain a large shield with her trait.
• Magic Knight: Uses the power of the Light to infuse her attacks.
• Master of None: No other hero in the game packs as many disables as Johanna: she comes with a slow, a blind, a displacement skill that also ministuns, and depending on her choice of Heroic, she can add either a large area slow or a full stun. The trade-off is that all of Johanna's disables are relatively weak.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Her name may be derived from Joan of Arc, which might explain her half-bald head — Joan of Arc is often depicted with short, boyish hair.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Johanna's greatest strength is that she is basically invincible. Though every other Tank in the game exceeds her in pressure and most have greater disruption, few can rival her for sheer survivability. Her Iron Skin trait, making her immune to crowd control, makes it impossible to "catch" her without specific terrain-altering heroic abilities, it also gives her a temporary shield (i.e. extra Hit Points). She pays for this by having relatively low impact on battles.
• Odd Friendship: Finds Murky endearing, and may or may not somehow be able to understand him.
• Our Orcs Are Different: As Warsong Johanna. Like Dreadlord Jaina, all of her voicelines are replaced.
• Rage Breaking Point: Johanna shows an example of how poking a hero many times can get on their nerves greatly. All of her annoyed quotes seems to be spoken normally, but in the very last one, it's clear that she's been thoroughly annoyed and pissed off judging from her tone, and resorting to threats:
  Johanna: Click me one more time, and by Akarat, I'll cut off your finger! Or whatever else you use to work that little mouse!
• Real Men Love Jesus: She's very devoted to the Light and the Church of Zakarum.
• The Rival:
  • To Uther. Johanna, as a crusader, scoffs at any paladin, as the paladins of the Zakarum were corrupted by Mephisto. Uther is not a Zakarum paladin though and brushes off any attempts of Johanna to rile him up.
  • For the same reasons above, to Yrel. Yrel is also too nice to be offended by Johanna. She would prefer for the both of them to be Smash Sisters.
• Shadow Archetype:
  • To Uther. They are both their own universe's version of The Paladin and both heroic, holy warriors, but they're fairly different otherwise. Johanna protects other players by drawing in enemies and disposing of them, whereas Uther chooses between going primarily offensive or taking a support role healing and buffing his allies; Uther is a Knight in Shining Armor who saves his harshest quotes for the villains, while Johanna is a Knight in Sour Armor with a cynical streak; they even have very different colour schemes on their armour (black and white vs. gold and white). All of these differences are products of the vastly different worlds they live in; after all, Azeroth is a more complex world than Sanctuary. And despite them both being heroes they don't get along. For some reason Johanna gets great mileage out of riffing him and apparently looks down on him for being a paladin rather than a crusader, as shown by her kill quotes. Uther's reply can be likened to an old man scolding a child for her arrogance.
    
    Despite this, one of Johanna's talents is the Blessed Hammer, a skill used by the Paladin from Diablo II with the extremely potent build 'Hammerdin' (and Crusaders already have this skill in Reaper of Souls). The implication is that Johanna did not see the paladins of Azeroth in the same light as the paladins of Akarat and Zakarum (at least those who haven't been corrupted by Mephisto), likely compensating for the fact that the majority of them were corrupted, as opposed to the small splinter faction (the Scarlet Crusade), which were corrupted by Mal'ganis.
  • In a way, to the other paladin, Yrel. Yrel was originally advertised as a Stone Wall, but she actually favors a far more aggressive style, and serves more as a secondary frontliner than as a tank for her team.
• Shield Bash: Punish is exactly Johanna doing this.
• Skill Gate Characters: How to beat Johanna, step 1: Just ignore her and kill the people she's (theoretically) protecting. Her peeling and set-up is outclassed by Muradin and ETC, and her waveclear by Arthas, Dehaka and (especially) Blaze; one HeroesHearth blogger is of the opinion that Johanna is basically the worst tank in the game because she can't actually help you win, only help you lose more slowly. Downplayed, as Johanna continues to see top-level play because she can handle anything you need a main tank to do with some effectiveness, whereas other tanks are lacking in certain areas.
• Stone Wall: Her Basic Attack is the weakest of all Tank heroes, and her abilities aren't much better. She relies on her team to do serious damage by taking advantage of her displacements/slows. Unfortunately those aren't that good either. Her main benefit is that she's hard to actually focus down or stop from waltzing into your backline.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Her second heroic ability is Blessed Shield which is a skillshot and hits up to three targets stunning them.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Her Condemn ability drags enemies within its range back towards her and stuns them.

Tyrael, Archangel of Justice

Voiced by: Jonathan Adams (English)^note Other Languages: Sylvain Lemarié (French), Alexander Golovchansky (Russian)

"Reckoning is at hand!"

One of the members of the Angiris Council ruling the High Heavens, Tyrael is the Aspect of Justice. He witnessed the true potential of humanity in Sanctuary when he witnessed the sacrifice of the nephalem Uldyssian ul-Diomed, and saved humanity from extinction by voting against its destruction when the Council held the vote. From that point on, Tyrael kept his eye on the Prime Evils' actions in Sanctuary and helped stave them off to protect humanity by forming the Horadrim, a group of mages with considerable knowledge of the Burning Hells and its inhabitants. He helped a group of seven heroes vanquish the Prime Evils, but made the sacrifice of destroying the Worldstone to save it from corruption, losing his angelic form. He reformed 20 years later, but as he tried to help humanity again, fellow archangel Imperius did not approve of him helping mortals — which was a problem, as Imperius was, and still is, the de facto ruler of the High Heavens. Adamant in his belief that the innocents must be protected, Tyrael renounced his angelhood and became mortal, falling from the sky to New Tristram.

Tyrael is a melee Tank who excels in diving into the enemy's backline while supporting allies that do the same. His trait, Archangel's Wrath, causes Tyrael's soul to persist for a few seconds after he dies, letting him move and reduce the damage nearby enemies deal before he explodes to deal heavy damage and lower his respawn timer for each hero hit. His basic abilities include El'druin's Might, throwing an image of his sword at an area to slow and damage enemies, which Tyrael can be re-activate to teleport to that location, Smite, a sweep attack which leaves an impact that increases him and his allies' speed if they walk over it, and Righteousness, shielding Tyrael and all allies around him.

His Heroic abilities include Judgment, an unstoppable dash which stuns his target and knocks away other enemies upon impact, and Sanctification, creating a field of holy energy that renders Tyrael and his allies invulnerable while they remain inside.

His current skins are Archangel Tyrael, Demonic Tyrael, Seraphim Tyrael, and Mecha Tyrael.

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• Action Bomb: Tyrael becomes one when he dies.
• Adaptational Badass: While Tyrael is never a wimp in his home franchise, he did suffer greatly from Cutscene Incompetence and The Worf Effect: getting imprisoned by Baal, getting duped by Adria, being shoved aside by Malthael and although he couldn't die when he was a party member assisting the player, he didn't earn much of a kill streak either, mostly softening them up for the player to do the work, but incapable of giving them a much needed crowd-control support, for instance. In this game, Tyrael can be a legitimate threat to his enemies' team and comes with a lot of new tricks, while he might not always make a kill streak, he can make the game by tanking damage and disrupting the enemy team. A bad playstyle and inexperience using him are the only real threats to his badass credentials.
• Affably Evil: Demonic Tyrael uses regular Tyrael's voice lines except pitched down, making him relatively friendly for an Aspect of Sin.
• Barrier Warrior: One of his basic skills shields himself and nearby allies and can be improved by various talents.
• Badass Boast:
  • In his trailer.
    Tyrael: I am the archangel Tyrael and I will defend this realm from all who would defile it. For I am Justice itself!
  • Has another one when he kills Uther:
    Tyrael: You merely wield the light. I am the light.
• Bash Brothers: Outside of Auriel and the Nephalem heroes, his intro quotes for Rehgar, Uther and (Mecha) Tassadar heavily imply (if not, outright confirm) that he's also this with them. His relationship with Malthael is obviously strained because of the latter's Face–Heel Turn; they clearly don't get along with each other, and are outright Cain and Abel when they oppose each other.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's very friendly towards heroes who are more aligned with good and expresses remorse for those who fell from grace like Malthael and Leoric, but this is someone whose calling is eliminating evil wherever it might be. Just because he's nice, it doesn't mean he won't beat you into next week if you're evil (especially if you side with demons). He is the Archangel of Justice, after all.
• Big Good: The Seraphim skin is based on an alternate universe where Tyrael sits at the head of the Angiris Council and rules over and defends Sanctuary from the wrath of Imperius.
• Cain and Abel: The Abel (alongside Auriel) to Malthael's Cain. Because Tyrael in this game is still the Archangel of Justice, and thus still a member of the Angiris Council, as well as the fact that he's more powerful than he is in the Diablo universe, being able to oppose and even kill Malthael (however temporary his death may be).
• Composite Character: He appears in his hooded angel form from Diablo II, is called the Archangel of Justice and talks all about it in his unit quotes, but he also knows who the Diablo III Nephalem are and addresses them as friends; he never even met them in canon before he renounced his archangel status — and then afterwards he became the Aspect of Wisdom instead, not to mention that he's no longer an angel.
• Cool Sword: El'druin. In addition to raw damage, the teleport skill is based on this sword as well.
• Counter-Attack: Downplayed by his Reciprocate talent which causes his own shield from Righteousness to explode and cause damage to nearby enemies after it is destroyed, though it can also just explode if the shield's duration expires.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Santcification requires a good amount of prediction for both your own teammates and enemies to use effectively. The benefit for having this is your team being literally invincible for three seconds while your enemies helplessly get killed by them.
• Fallen Angel: Becomes one in an alternate universe, where he became one of the Aspects of Sin, assuming the title Lord of Pride.
• The Faceless: Tyrael is still a seraphim in this game and thus actually has no face under the hood.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Tyrael's Judgment heroic has him charging at a target to stun it, flinging everyone else around them aside.
• Fragile Speedster: For a Warrior, his durability is rather lacking, and his damage is only average at best, while his mobility is one of his greater traits. He even hits faster for less damage. Of course, he's still a Warrior, and squishy for a Warrior still makes just as, if not more, durable than most every non-Warrior hero in the game.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He can be played like this with his trait. Fighting against a tougher and more dangerous enemy (a completely fed Butcher, for example) can get him killed, but he may do this for the sake of keeping his more fragile teammates alive; still, if he damages his enemy enough before he dies, and if the enemy cannot avoid the explosion in time, he might be able to take his foe down along with himself.
• Holy Ground: Some of his abilities cause this; El'druin's Might can create one that blocks enemy passage, Smite creates an area that boost ally speed, and Sanctification creates a small one that turns all friendly heroes invulnerable while it lasts.
• Humans Are Special: Still believes this, even when the conflicts in the Nexus (and players incessantly poking him) take their toll and wear on the viewpoint.
• I Am the Noun: Justice, naturally.
• Immortal Hero: As an angel, Tyrael is immortal, and as the Archangel of Justice and a believer in humanity, he's absolutely a hero — one of his heroic skills, Sanctification, temporarily makes a zone that turns his teammates immortal and invincible too.
• In the Hood: Like every other angel, his face is cloaked by his hood.
• Justice Will Prevail: He's the manifestation of Justice. His time in the Nexus seems to have exaggerated this somewhat...
  Tyrael: I'm sorry, did you say something? I was busy thinking about Justice.
• Knight in Shining Armor: In his default, Archangel and Seraphim skins, he positively glows.
• Light Is Good: His glowing wings, shining armor, and bright powers are meant to invoke this as heavily as possible.
• Lightning Bruiser: Late-game Tyrael will be teleporting in (and perhaps back out), smacking squishies up and quickly moving most of the while to chase and dodge the enemy's reprisal attempts.
• Mage Killer: He doesn't deal heavy damage, but his chase potential against squishy mages is undeniable, and he was often listed as a counter against mages like Jaina and Kael'thas. Later on, Blizzard considered emphasizing this by giving him basic Spell Armor though it was later removed.
• Magic Knight: Tyrael's most powerful abilities involve manipulating the light of the High Heavens. He doesn't deal that much damage with his basic attacks, but his spells make him great at getting in the enemy's face, enabling divers on his team, and being a general nuisance.
• Magikarp Power: His basic abilities and their damage won't seem to have the same oomph as the punchier stuns and slows other Tanks will be tossing out immediately, but his ultimates are some of the best in the game for their purposes and the later talents past that can give him some combination of nearly-unprecedented damage pressure, zone control and mobility for a Tank.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Tyrael is noteworthy for starting with absolutely no hard crowd-control unlike other Tanks - even Arthas can at least root enemies still (though he can't interrupt channeled abilities). Similarly, unlike the rest, he may shield and speed up allies. This makes him particularly dependent on predicting the flow of the battle so he can speed up allies to where they should go and bodyblocking the enemy away from their desired direction for much of the game, because Tyrael is usually unable to simply stun enemies whenever they head to where your team doesn't want them to.
• Odd Friendship: One of the few people who can understand Murky, who is apparently quite eloquent.
• Our Angels Are Different: He's a standard Diablo angel, and a high-ranking one too. One of his skins even turns him into a Seraphim, which means full-on feathery wings and a new coat of paint.
• Our Demons Are Different: The Tyrael of his Demonic skin is an Evil Counterpart of himself from another universe, in which he is a high-ranking demon presiding over the sin of Pride. In turn, Diablo has been given a skin that turns him into an archangel.
• Stone Wall: Low damage output, as with most Tank heroes, but his various abilities and talents can synergize to make him very durable. That said, he still shouldn't be taken lightly, as he has talents that dramatically improve his damage output, and he can be tough enough to outlast you in a direct fight.
• Support Party Member: Downplayed - he's hardly helpless, but he really stands out from other Tanks in that he demands playing in a particularly team-based manner with his shields and speed boost because he cannot simply stun enemies without his Judgement ultimate. Even his "waveclear" is notably more based around the fact that he can shield his minions rather than quickly kill the enemy's minions.
• Taking You with Me: His trait, when he dies he explodes dealing damage to nearby enemies after a short delay.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Has this dynamic with the Prime Evil and with other evil guys from other universes, such as Gul'dan.
  Tyrael: Make one mistake, and I will end you.
• Teleport Spam: Can do this with his talent, Sword of Justice that lets him teleport to El'druin and then teleport a second time back to his original position; further emphasized with Horadric Reforging which lets him reduce drastically the cooldown on El'druin's Might.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The first time you cast El'druin's Might, Tyrael does this. With good aim, it can also be used as a pseudo-throwing knife to pick off very low health enemies when you can't get into range.
• Travel to Projectile: Casting El'druin's Might a second time teleports Tyrael to wherever he threw El'druin, slowing down enemies in his wake.

Bruisers

Imperius, Archangel of Valor

Voiced by: Rick D. Wasserman (English)^note Other Languages: Radik Mukhametzyanov (Russian)

"I yearn for battle!"

Imperius is the Archangel of Valor, and has led the Angiris Council since Malthael's absence. Known for his unshakable bravery, he and Tyrael led the Heavenly Host to countless victories against the Burning Hells. When the human world of Sanctuary was discovered, Imperius voted for humanity's eradication, viewing them as demonspawn, but was outvoted by Itherael, Auriel and Tyrael. Since the truce between Heaven and Hell robbed Imperius from further opportunities to prove his valor in battle, he grew legalistic and tyrannical over the years. When he tried to punish Tyrael for interfering with Sanctuary and destroying the Worldstone, Tyrael defied Imperius' judgment and renounced his angelhood. Powerless to stop Diablo's assault on the Crystal Arch, Imperius witnessed the Nephalem defeat the Prime Evil and save the High Heavens. When Malthael, now the Aspect of Death, attacked the High Heavens, he reluctantly asked the Nephalem to put an end to the archangel's madness.

Imperius is a melee Bruiser who excels at bullying his enemies. His trait, Valorous Brand, marks enemies he hits with a basic ability, empowering his next Basic Attack against them to deal more damage and heal himself for a small amount. Each enemy can have up to three marks, one for each ability. His first ability, Celestial Charge, lunges forward and impales heroes he hits on his spear, stunning them. Solarion's Flare sends out a wave of fire which slows and deals extra damage to enemies hit by the very center. Molten Armor surrounds Imperius in fire, damaging nearby enemies and healing Imperius for the damage dealt.

His first heroic ability is Angelic Armaments, surrounding Imperius with holy swords and granting him a large shield for a duration. If the shield is unbroken when the ability ends, Imperius can use the ability again to fire the swords at his enemies. His other option, Wrath of the Angiris, allows him to charge at an enemy and carry them into the sky. Imperius then has a moment to reposition before crashing down to earth, stunning his target.

His current skins are Demonic Imperius and El Bandito Imperius.

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• Arch-Enemy: As the Aspect of Valor, his natural enemy is the Lord of Terror, Diablo.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Attacks on marked targets can deal percent damage attacks with Burn the Impure. Molten Armor can also be upgraded to reduce the Armor of enemies.
• Barrier Warrior: Angelic Armaments summons a ring of swords that grants Imperius a large shield. He can later upgrade and use it to protect his allies around him as well.
• Blood Knight: As evident on his above quote.
• Cool Helmet: Has an ornate metal helmet over his "face" instead of a hood.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Imperius' trait gives him very impactful damage against heroes, but this is balanced by giving him absolutely bad PvE damage, especially compared to almost every other Bruiser. He wins the solo lane by bullying his opponents out of the lane. This can be mitigated by picking Holy Fervor on level 7, but locks him out of other strong talents that are useful in team fights.
• Death or Glory Attack: The nature of Imperius' playstyle makes hitting enemy heroes with Celestial Charge a crucial part of his potential. If he misses, he is out of position, cannot engage for 10 seconds (outside of wrath of the Angiris), and cannot deal much damage. If he hits someone, he will deal huge burst damage and can obliterate almost everyone.
• Evil Counterpart: Like Auriel and Tyrael, Imperius has a Demonic skin. In another universe, Imperius is a Sin Lord, representing the aspect of Wrath.
• Fantastic Racism: While he obviously hates demons with a passion, he views humans/nephalem as their spawn (ignoring that they are the spawn of angels, too) and a pest that must be exterminated. He goes as far as to insult Leoric as typical for his kind and even hates humans from the other franchises who have no demonic heritage.
• Foil:
  • To his fellow archangel, Tyrael, both mechanically and character-wise.
    • While both are heavy frontliners who can bully enemies well, Tyrael is mostly focused on supporting his allies, while Imperius is out for himself. Tyrael favors a lighter weapon and hits often, while Imperius uses a heavy weapon and is a Mighty Glacier. Tyrael can provide shields and protection for all friendly heroes with Righteousness and Sanctification, while Imperius only protects himself with Angelic Armaments^*Subverted with its Storm talent upgrade, though. Celestial Charge and Wrath of the Angiris also bear similarities to Judgment.
    • Character-wise, Tyrael has nothing but respect for Diablo heroes, and heroic characters in general, Imperius is extremely proud and hates nearly everything that isn't an angel (or Yrel), viewing humans as deserving of extermination.
  • To his other fellow archangel and Bruiser hero, Malthael.
    • At level 1, Imperius can upgrade his trait with Burn the Impure, which allows him to do Percent Damage Attacks for each Brand on the target, which contrasts Malthael's Reaper's Mark trait. However, Malthael's damage is sustained, while Imperius' damage comes in bursts.
    • Malthael and Imperius were or are both the leaders of the Angiris Council, but while Malthael was considered a wise, uniting and calm leader, Imperius is a known hothead, his leadership is seen as tyrannical and his decisions split the Council apart. Both passionately hate demons and their spawn (which includes humanity in their eyes) and want to get rid of them forever, but while Imperius would never harm his fellow angels and respects rules and truces, Malthael is not deterred by anything and will kill anyone who gets in his way.
  • With the Balance Update in July 2019, Imperius' trait Valorous Brand was buffed in a way that his trait works almost exactly like Orphea's trait, Overflowing Chaos. The main difference is that Imperius is a melee Bruiser with limited mobility, while Orphea is a squishy mage. Orphea also gains additional Chaos stacks regardless of which ability she hits heroes with, while each of Imperius' Brands is tied to one of his abilities for each target.
• Frontline General: Imperius is the leader of the Heavenly Host, but he is a difficult case of I Work Alone.
  Imperius: I fight alongside no one. I lead, and others follow.
• Good Is Not Nice: And depending on the view, Light Is Not Good. Imperius fights the forces of evil and is a pillar of the Light. He also is a major Jerkass and couldn't care less if humanity was eliminated. He would even do it himself, if he didn't have to abide by the Angiris Council's decision to leave them alone. As you can imagine, his definition of "evil" is quite broad.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Every one of his abilities, except for his trait and Wrath of the Angiris, can hit multiple enemies. He also can temporarily make his Basic Attacks cleave with the Holy Fervor talent.
• Holy Halo: A large metallic halo hovers above him.
• Jerkass: He belittles his own brother, mocks Uther for merely "adopting the Light"^*While praising Yrel for doing the same, lambastes Leoric for falling into corruption, and even hates humans from other universes. An easy runner for biggest jerk in the entire game (and when you're competing with Garrosh and Alarak, that's saying something).
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He's quick to shouting if insulted and frequently gives into the wrathful side of valor.
  Imperius: I ALWAYS KEEP A LEVEL HEAD!
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Celestial Charge impales all enemy heroes hit, and the ability's stun animation shows Imperius lifting the target(s) off the ground after skewering them.
• Magic Knight: Though imposing and having a pretty decent chunk of Hit Points, both his battlefield effectiveness (which involves Comboing all of his buttons onto a single target) and his Regenerating Health are reliant on his Mana Meter. An Imperius with low MP is essentially useless to his team.
• Meaningful Name: Imperius is derived from the Latin words imperiosus or imperium, which mean "powerful" and "command/authority" respectively. He is the strongest warrior of the High Heavens and the leader of the Angiris Council and the Heavenly Host. It also sounds very similar to imperious, the English word for taking authority with arrogance, referencing his short temper and Blood Knight tendencies.
• Menacing Stroll: Imperius's walking animation leaves absolutely no doubt what's going to happen to any enemy that gets into range of his spear.
• Meteor Move: Wrath of the Angiris has him bring his opponent up to Heaven before crashing them into the ground.
• Mighty Glacier: Between his abilities' damage and Valorous Brand, Imperius can seriously put the hurt on anyone that gets within range of his spear. The catch is actually getting there, as Celestial Charge is mediocre at best for repositioning and the rest of his kit has very little mobility. He also has one of the slowest attack speeds in the game, but his Basic Attacks hit harder in return. However, a certain talent subverts this and turns him into a Lightning Bruiser, potentially tripling his attack speed.
• Mythology Gag: Imperius insists that he is the only one with Wings of Valor, and asks you to ignore the mortals that pre-ordered the Reaper of Souls expansion.
• Named Weapons: He wields Solarion, the Spear of Valor.
• No-Sell: Impervious is a talent that makes Imperius Unstoppable and lets him shrug off nearly all ability damage for a short moment.
• Not the Intended Use: Though Imperius is a Bruiser (and has always been, as he was introduced after the class system rework), his devastating initiation and single-target burst damage make him better suited to the role of either main tank or assassin — not just in the Heroes of the Storm sense of "That's our name for the character class that does damage," but in the sense of, "Pick a target, I'll make them dead." In fact, he is arguably better at these things than at bruising, as he has relatively deficient waveclear and can be out-soaked by most others in the class.
• Odd Name Out: Lampshaded by Auriel. Unlike his fellow archangels, his name doesn't end with "-el".
• Pet the Dog: Despite his disdain for most heroes, he has a positive interaction with Yrel since she's a non-human who wields the Light^*Ironically, Yrel is much closer to being a demon than any Warcraft humans. He also has a surprising nice comment for Whitemane, being impressed by her zeal, and encourages Murky in his quest for vengeance.
• Playing with Fire: Solarion's Flare, Molten Armor, and Angelic Armaments involve holy fire.
• Punny Name: The game makes it a point that his name sounds similar to "impervious", as this is the name of a Storm talent, which makes him Unstoppable and gives him 75 Spell Armor.
• Puny Earthlings: Unsurprisingly his outlook on humanity, given his Fantastic Racism. He even has a talent called "Pathetic Mortals".
• Spam Attack:
  • Celestial Charge has a Cooldown Manipulation talent that reduces its cooldown by 12.5% for each Brand on the targets when the stun finishes. This means that the cooldown is reset if he has at least 8 Brands on his stunned enemies, allowing him to immediately use Celestial Charge again.
  • The Storm upgrade of Wrath of the Angiris drastically reduces its cooldown when a Brand is consumed.
• Storm of Blades: Angelic Armaments has a secondary effect that allows Imperius to rain down swords of fire on his enemies if his shield is not broken.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Along with the stun, Celestial Charge can be upgraded to deal heavy area damage, slow the enemy and reduce their damage, as well as increase Imperius' movement and attack speed. A player who solely focuses on Celestial Charge can almost single-handedly wipe out the enemy team with one or two well-placed attacks.
• Teleportation: A late-game talent gives Imperius the ability to teleport to a Branded hero.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Tyrael and Malthael. For Tyrael, his responses are mostly anger towards him for interfering with Sanctuary. For Malthael, he genuinely sounds sad to be fighting his brother, asking him why he had to attack the Heavens.
• World's Best Warrior: Imperius is hailed as the greatest warrior in all of creation.

Leoric, The Skeleton King

Voiced by: Joe J. Thomas (English)^note Other Languages: Mikhail Sushkov (Russian)

"All shall suffer!"

Once a mighty king of Khanduras, Leoric was a just and beloved ruler. However, his downfall began once his aide, Archbishop Lazarus, suggested he moved his rule to Tristram, where Diablo tried to possess him. Leoric managed to resist him, but the experience pushed him into madness. He sent his army to invade Westmarch, believing them to be responsible. His son Albrecht then went missing, pushing him further towards insanity. What he didn't realise was that Lazarus was the one responsible, having pledged himself to the Lord of Terror. In the end, his loyal guard, Lachdanan, ended Leoric's life, but after his burial, Diablo brought him back as the Skeleton King. Leoric was later felled by his other son Aidan and his allies. During Diablo III, he once again returned as the first boss that the Nephalem fought to reach the recently fallen Tyrael; it seems the angel's fall disturbed his spirit and those of his servants.

Leoric is a highly aggressive Bruiser who never truly leaves the battlefield. His trait has two parts. Wrath of the Bone King causes his Basic Attacks to strike in a 3-hit pattern, with the first two cleaving to damage nearby enemies, while the third hits a single target for double damage. Undying, the second part, allows him to remain on the field as a ghost after he's killed. While he cannot deal damage in this form, Leoric can still scout, slow enemies with Ghastly Swing, and reduce his death timer with Drain Essence. Once his death timer has run out, Leoric will respawn at the location of his ghost. His active abilities include: Skeletal Swing, a heavy mace swing in a large arc to slow and damage enemies; Drain Hope, draining the health of the first hero hit as long as they remain in range while also healing Leoric; and Wraith Walk, leaving his body to become a wraith, moving faster and becoming Unstoppable before snapping his body to the wraith's location once the ability ends or is cancelled.

Leoric's first Heroic ability, Entomb, creates three walls in a corridor shape in front of him, trapping enemies inside. His second Heroic ability, March of the Black King, makes him Unstoppable while he walks in a straight line, swinging his mace three times to injure anything in his path and gaining massive lifedrain from any Hero hit.

His current skins are Zakarum Leoric, Vykrul Leoric, God-king Leoric, Space Lord Leoric and Janitor Leoric.

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• Affably Evil: Space Lord Leoric is quite well-spoken, and his praise actually sounds genuine.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Space Lord Leoric is, obviously, not the same person at all.
  Kharazim: Is there no rest for you, mad king?
  Space Lord Leoric: I am not who you think I am, human. Consider yourself fortunate you do not know me.
• Ascended Meme: Janitor Leoric is based on a concept that won a drawing contest back in 2016. After years of requests, Blizzard brought the skin into the game.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: March of the Black King invariably leaves him either in the middle or behind the enemy team, and relatively far away from his when done right. It's not uncommon to see Leoric brazenly charge through an enemy team, then beat a hasty retreat through them again.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: While it may or may not have been true in life, as the Skeleton King, Leoric is an undeniable force to be reckoned with.
• Awesome, but Impractical: March of the Black King certainly looks and feels quite impressive, and allows Leoric to potentially cleave his way through the enemy team while massively healing himself. But given how slow it is, the inability to change directions while casting it, and Leoric's lack of hard crowd control, enemies can usually just get out of the way... at which point Leoric will probably be stuck behind enemy lines with nothing to show for it. Not to mention it has to compete with Entomb, which tends to be much better at getting things killed when Leoric has backup.
• Back from the Dead: His trait. Whenever he dies, he becomes a wraith that can still slow enemies. He also has a variant of Drain Hope that lets him latch onto an enemy hero, not damaging them but speeding up his respawn; some talents also give him other ways of respawning faster. When he respawns, he does so at the wraith's location, rather than the base. (Of course, if that location happens to be "right in the middle of the enemy team," it can quickly become a Back for the Dead instead.)
• Beard of Evil: Maintained even in death.
• Carry a Big Stick: He carries the Wrath of the Bone King mace from Diablo III.
• Church Militant: His Zakarum skin gives him what's basically a cross between a helmet and the Pope's hat, complete with cross.
• Deadpan Snarker: He does say some snarky things, when he kills a Nephalem. Also, when you keep poking him with your mouse, see What the Hell, Hero?.
  Leoric: (to Kharazim) A thousand and one gods, and none could save you.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Sort of. Late-game Leoric can be quite tough to kill thanks to his multitude of self-healing options and natural tankiness befitting of a Bruiser hero. Depending on various factors, taking him down will become a chore on its own, and when you do kill him, he will remain on the battlefield to support his allies with vision and slows. And depending on various factors again, he can reduce his death timer by so much he will be back in the fray in less than 30 seconds and then you're back to square one. However, unlike Murky, Misha or the Lost Vikings, his death grants the enemy team full xp.
• The Dog Bites Back: In his kill quotes he makes sure to let Diablo know just what he thinks of him, citing revenge/justice for driving him insane and what he did to his sons, Aiden and Albrecht.
  Leoric: Justice for my sons! Oh, and for driving me insane!
• Fallen Hero: A long-standing Blizzard tradition. Leoric was once a heroic and wise king, but Diablo tried to possess him, and resisting him cost Leoric much of his sanity; after he barely recovered, he was torn apart by the (supposed) death of his eldest son and kidnapping of his youngest, which were the final nails in the coffin. Archbishop Lazarus whispered corrupting thoughts into his ear, which, combined with the aformentioned Trauma Conga Line, reduced him to the sorry state he's now in.
• Hearing Voices: He used to hear Diablo's voice, which drove him insane. He apparently still hears voices.
  Leoric: Does anyone else hear these voices? What? No? Yes? Huhahaha! Yes! Yes! Soon, they all will!
• Heel Realization: He is aware of his own insanity and how his kingdom was ruined. He rightfully blames Diablo for all this, but also those who just let it happen (the archangels). If he kills Arthas, he will state that There Can Only Be One corrupted king.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Skeletal Swing, March of the Black King and the first two of his Basic Attacks in its pattern cleave to hit multiple enemies.
• Horny Vikings: One of his skins is him as a vrykul, a viking-analogue race native to World of Warcraft — specifically, a warrior from the Winterskorn Clan. No doubt a Mythology Gag, as this wouldn't be the first time the Vrykul were associated with The Undead. Its palette swaps make him a kvaldir and a frost vrykul.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He once trusted the corrupt Archbishop Lazarus, which led to all of his suffering and madness and him committing the Darkening of Tristram. In his trailer, it looks like this trait did not go away; he declares that he will choose allies that will never betray him, but his team consists of people who have done exactly that: Kerrigan (betrayed and played the other races for chumps in Brood War), Arthas (killed his father and destroyed his kingdom after losing himself to Frostmourne, outplayed his demonic masters alongside Ner'zhul, then betrayed Ner'zhul and took over), Zagara (planning to betray Kerrigan at least) and Illidan (The Betrayer, already betrayed the night elves for magic lust, then betrayed the demons for regular lust, then betrayed the night elves again out of magic lust), who accordingly gave him a funny look.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: Thanks to his Drain Hope, Leoric is a Bruiser hero who's pretty good at shaving off other Tank or Bruiser heroes' hp. Stitches, Cho'gall, and Diablo are hit especially hard with this, as their durability largely relies on a massive health pool instead of active self-healing or damage resistance.
• Insistent Terminology: He's the Skeleton King, not the "King of Skeletons".
  Leoric: It is a small but important distinction.
• Intangibility:
  • Leoric cannot be harmed in his ghost form. However, he can still interact with others by slowing them, although he is unable to deal damage.
  • While his wraith form is invulnerable, his actual body during Wraith Walk can be attacked and Leoric can still be killed this way. On another note, his wraith form can be upgraded to reduce the damage from all enemy heroes it passes through by half.
• Interface Spoiler: He was leaked in several ways before his official confirmation: his character models were shown ahead of time in several videos, datamining found several folders of files relating to a character named "SkeletonKing", a list of dialogue for various hero interactions included him on it, and he appeared in the crowd shot at the end of the BlizzCon 2014 trailer.
• The Juggernaut: Wraith Walk grants Leoric the Unstoppable status. March of the Black King also makes him Unstoppable and has him running forward and swing his mace for massive AOE damage. It also heals him for 12% of his max hp per enemy hero caught in the way, so it actually works as an incredibly powerful healing tool as well.
• Kick the Dog: He is fond of trashing the Nephalem heroes when he gets to kill them. For instance, if he manages to kill Valla, he tells her to send his regards to her dead little sister.
• Kneel Before Zod: Rather Kneel peasants.
• Laughing Mad: He's rather fond of this.
• Life Drain: Drain Hope deals percentage-based damage to a hero and heals Leoric for a percentage of his own health as long as the target stays in range, and March of the Black King heals him massively for each enemy hero he manages to hit. Its upgrade also applies Drain Hope to all nearby enemy heroes. It gets even worse with the quest talent that boosts his attack speed by 50% at completion (bringing him to 1.08 attack per second, which is about average but considering he hits like a truck...), which when combined with Spectral Leech means Leoric will be healing himself for 2.5% of his target's health every second.
• Lightning Bruiser: Can subvert his Mighty Glacier status by taking a quest talent that increases his attack speed by 50% at completion, which pairs incredibly well with the Spectral Leech talent.
• Locked in a Freezer: Entomb locks the enemy in a corridor with Leoric blocking the only way out. While many heroes can still escape him with mobility abilities, its upgrade Buried Alive silences all enemies inside, ensuring that there is no escape.
• Magikarp Power: Besides tank-on-tank, he isn't much good in-lane, thanks to relying on having targets to hit with Drain Hope to heal and do damage. Late game, Leoric can easily force fights and is one of the hardest heroes to be mano-a-mano thanks to Spectral Leech and an upgraded Drain Hope.
• Meta Guy: Despite playing only a small role in the main series, he appears to have gained a vast knowledge of events he was not around to see since coming to the Nexus, including the personal backgrounds of the Nephalem who came to fight him and a knowledge of their pact with the High Heavens going south in Reaper of Souls. His expression of this knowledge stops short of Breaking the Fourth Wall, though.
• Mighty Glacier: He hits like a truck with his abilities and his Basic Attack damage is up there with some of even the most powerful assassin heroes, and he can be nigh unkillable in later levels. But that's all paired with the second slowest attack speed in the game and limited mobility.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: One of the cardinal rules of Heroes of the Storm is that dying is bad, because you can't affect the battlefield while you are dead. Leoric is one of a very small number of characters to subvert this.^note The others are: Tyrael, who becomes an Action Bomb, and Uther, who can heal during an eight-second ghost form. Murky, the Lost Vikings, and — after Lv.20 — Malthael also should be noted: while it's still bad for them to die, they have ways of respawning rapidly. His ghost can peel for his allies by slowing enemies with Q, and he can follow the enemy team around, granting valuable intelligence.
• Not the Intended Use: Entomb is supposed to create a corridor that Leoric blocks with his own body, effectively making an arena. However, it's entirely possibly to use it as a normal wall in an emergency, blocking enemies away from a retreating ally — or, with great positioning, creating an actual tomb by using it from behind a pre-existing wall and trapping an enemy inside.
• Out Of Body Experience: Wraith Walk releases his spirit from his body, to which his body teleports to once the duration is up. The spirit moves quickly, so it can be used as chasing or escape tool, but it also makes your body Unstoppable and there's a talent to grant damage resistance while out of body, so it can also be used as tanking tool to avoid the big crowd controls.
• Papa Wolf: He never gets a chance to do so in the original universe, but in the Nexus, he certainly has a chance to give Diablo a mace to the face for messing with his sons. Indeed, Leoric is especially effective against Diablo!
• The Paranoiac: In life and in death.
  Leoric: The peasants called me mad. Paranoid. Is it paranoid to think everyone around you wants to kill you? Is it? Is it?!
  (Beat) Oh, it is...? Well, what about when they actually do it?!
• Percent Damage Attack: Drain Hope is both this and an Inversion. It shaves off a hero's max hp while healing Leoric for a percentage of his max hp. He can add another pile of this to his normal attacks with Spectral Leech.
• Power Parasite: Most of his abilities and talents consist on slowing his opponents and steal their life.
• Pungeon Master: He pulls off three bone jokes in quick succession when clicked-on enough.
  Leoric: Why so sternum? I'm only ribbing you. What? Do you not find this bone-punnery humerus?
• Taking You with Me: Sort of. Leoric's passive makes him stay on the battlefield even after death, unable to deal damage, but he can still use his mace swing to slow down enemies and cost them their lives when they escape from his allies, thus sharing his fate. In a way, this is the inversion of Uther's passive, who stays on the battlefield to further help his friends, Leoric stays on the battlefield to ruin his enemy's day and make them die with him too.
• Required Secondary Powers: Leoric is a character where facility with skillshots becomes central. His primary method of self-sustain, Drain Life, is very easy to miss, even if you prepare the victim with the slow off Skeletal Swing; and if you miss it, the fight (whatever fight that is) is basically lost. Leoric is all-or-nothing on this one button.
• The Rival: To Arthas, each being a king with power over the undead. Leoric sees Arthas as a wannabe whelp.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Entomb creates a 3-section wall like the Elite Waller enemies in Diablo III without dealing damage (aside from a lategame talent). But it has a mere 60-second cooldown, lasts for 4 seconds (in a game where 1-second stuns are king), and can be used to block and separate enemy team or to prevent escapees. And if your team packs some mean Area of Effect attacks from heroes like Kael'thas or Jaina, catching the enemy team in it may very well end in a Total Party Kill.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Leoric can be a bit tough to play, even against the slowest tanks in the game which logically should grant him lots of health from Drain Hope because they usually still can use their crowd-control abilities to help escape it. Against Deathwing however, Leoric will be having the time of his unlife, with Deathwing's large size and weak mobility (Deathwing's Onslaught will basically only get him out of a following Leoric's Drain Hope's range if he's already very close to the outside of the circle) making it easy for Leoric to hit and maintain Drain Hope on him (and a Drain Hope that doesn't make its full duration can still hurt Deathwing significantly since he can't be healed by allies) and the Entomb ultimate is one of the only forms of "crowd control" that can hamper Deathwing's movement.
• Three-Strike Combo: Wrath of the Bone King makes his Basic Attack into one of these, with the first two hits cleaving enemies in an area and the third hit dealing bonus damage. March of the Black King also hits in three parts, with his level 20 enhancing the third hit.
• The Undead: Naturally.
  Leoric: You cannot kill that which has no life!
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Played for Laughs in a Stop Poking Me! line.
    Leoric: Heroes? Hehehe, you mean those vagabonds who illegally enter my home, smash my jar collection, bring me to life just to kill me again, and then leave white items all over my floor? Oh yes, how very heroic.
  • Played for Drama when he interacts with Tyrael and Auriel.
    Leoric: Ah, so you do know me, angel... and yet you stood by when Diablo shattered my kingdom!

Malthael, Aspect of Death

Voiced by: Paul Nakauchi (English)^note Other Languages: Alexander Hoshabaev (Russian)

"Death is beyond your reach."

Malthael was a member of the Angiris Council and the leader of the archangels as the Aspect of Wisdom, fighting alongside his brethren in the Eternal Conflict. When humanity - the spawn of angels and demons - was discovered, Malthael chose to abstain in voting on their destruction. After the shattering of the Worldstone, Malthael grew uneasy and eventually left the High Heavens. Years later, he returned as a mad angel hell-bent on exterminating anything with a demonic taint, including humanity. Everything, including his former brethren, became mere obstacles to him. In his words, no one can stop death.

Malthael is a Bruiser who specializes against multiple Tank teams, ripping them apart with high sustain and percentage-based damage. His trait, Reaper's Mark, causes his Basic Attacks to cleave an area in front of him, and also mark all non-structure enemies hit, revealing them and causing them to take an additional percentage of their max health in damage every second. His basic abilities include Soul Rip, sucking life from enemies afflicted with Reaper's Mark to heal Malthael; Wraith Strike, allowing Malthael to teleport through an enemy affected by Reaper's Mark, dealing damage and refreshing his trait's duration; and Death Shroud, unleashing a wave of mist that inflicts Reaper's Mark on enemies it hits.

Malthael's first heroic ability is Tormented Souls. Malthael refreshes the cooldown of Wraith Strike and becomes surrounded by a mist of souls that continuously applies Reaper's Mark, allowing for liberal use of his skills. His other heroic is Last Rites. Malthael applies a death sentence to an enemy Hero. After 2 seconds, the targeted hero takes 50% of their missing health in damage. Additionally, if the target dies between the initial cast and a short time after the damage is dealt, the cooldown of Last Rites will be reduced by 5 seconds permanently, to a minimum of a 15 second cooldown.

His current skins are Grave Warden Malthael, Season's Reapings Malthael, and Xenotech Malthael.

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• Anti-Frustration Features: Last Rites is basically Necrophos' Reaper's Scythe, sans the stun. Here, they add a helpful Skull icon when the Heroic will finish off the target for sure. The ability received a further buff to make the cooldown reduction more lenient: instead of needing Last Rites itself to kill the target, Malthael gets credit as long as the target dies in any way within a certain time of the initial cast (including a short grace period after it connects).
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Most of Malthael's damage is percentage based, which isn't affected by Armor.
• Apologetic Attacker: Heavily downplayed. Despite his otherwise negative intro quotes to Auriel and Tyrael, his quote if he kills them makes it seem that he feels guilt for doing so.
  Malthael: This was not my desire.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Initially, this was Last Rites. An ability that can score near-guaranteed kills on low-health enemies and permanently reduces its cooldown for doing so is definitely scary on paper, but it's only good as a Finishing Move on a low-health target that's probably beaten and fleeing anyway. Additionally, it has a short cast range, meaning that Malthael's hard-pressed to pick off a low-health target in a teamfight without getting focused down himself, and it can easily be foiled by burst healing, shields, or abilities that negate damage. By contrast, Tormented Souls gives him much more presence in a fight by tearing chunks out of multiple enemies' health bars with the area-of-effect Reaper's Mark while massively improving his staying power through Soul Rip. Consequently, Blizzard buffed Last Rites by increasing the range, and gave the quest more leniency by removing any potential Kill Steal scenarios.
  • After Malthael's rework, the trend is reversed for his Heroics; with Last Rites being buffed and his Basic Attack gaining the ability to cleave, Tormented Souls is now left in the dust since it no longer gives armor and Malthael no longer needs to rely on it to spread Reaper's Mark in an area.
• Badass Boast: Match him with Diablo in the same team, and Malthael will tell him the following:
  Malthael: Even terror fears death.
• Black Cloak: Essentially his entire body, thanks to him being made of light.
• The Bus Came Back: From a development perspective. Malthael's original kit was given instead to Leoric, and Malthael himself was put on the backburner. The Aspect of Death himself finally arrived in the Nexus two whole years after the debut of the Skeleton King.
• The Blank: As with all angels, he has no face.
• Cain and Abel: He is the Cain to Auriel, Imperius and Tyrael's Abels. In a strange turn of events from their home universe, because while Malthael has openly abandoned (and betrayed) the Angiris Council, Tyrael in this game is still the Archangel of Justice, and thus still a member of the Council along with Auriel and Imperius (who had never left at all), and all three of the Council members are more powerful than they are in the Diablo universe, to the point where either of them can kill Malthael if he is on the opposing team. In their "meet ally" quotes, Malthael still addresses them as siblings, but it's quite clear that's in a mocking tone and that their relationship with him is not on the same grounds as it was back when they were all members of the Council.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Malthael can be pretty dominant as an offlaner because his exact combination of mobility and Life Drain allows him to win duels with most Bruisers. What he can't duel is anyone who isn't a Bruiser: Fragile Speedsters can kite him, Glass Cannons can out-DPS his Life Drain and Stone Walls can out-HP his DPS.
• Damage Over Time: His trait slowly whittles away at his targets. If he can stick to them, they'll be losing a percentage of their maximum life every second until they die.
• Dark Is Evil: Black cloak? Check. Sinister sickles? Check. Ghostly fog wings? Check. Is it any surprise this guy's a villain?
• David vs. Goliath: This is Malthael's teamfight use in a nutshell. While his Unskilled, but Strong opponents might have a lot more Hit Points than he does, Malthael's Life Drain and Fragile Speedster maneuverability allows him to dance around them, putting the hurt on while avoiding reprisal.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: He has a level 20 talent that allows him to instantly respawn, at the cost of increasing his next death timer by 25%.
• Enemy to All Living Things: Subverted. He's the Angel of Death and death is inevitable, but he only wishes to target demons and humans, and specifically states that he has no quarrel with angels.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Has a deep reverberating voice.
• Expy: Kit-wise, he bears something of a resemblance to Necrophos, due to his focus on sustain and percentage-based damage. Last Rites, in particular, is basically Necrophos's Reaper's Scythe minus the stun.
• Face–Heel Turn: He was once a member and leader of the Angiris Council and the Archangel of Wisdom. He disappeared after the destruction of the Worldstone and returned as the Aspect of Death with the explicit purpose of annihilating humanity.
• Fallen Angel: See Well-Intentioned Extremist below.
• Fantastic Racism: Malthael loathes demons above all. This extends to humans, who are partially descended from demons.
• Fog of Doom: Death Shroud, which spreads his trait to his enemies. Tormented Souls also looks like this, although judging by the name, it's not fog.
• Finishing Move: Last Rites is intended be used this way, as it deals more damage if its target is at low health - if they're below 1/3 of their health when it triggers, it will kill them.
• Full-Name Basis: He calls the Prime Evils by their full names (Al'Diabolos, Dul'Mephistos, and presumably Tor'Baalos once Baal is added) as a threat. Keep in mind, the Primes usually refer to themselves by their shorthand.
• A God Am I: Many of his quotes, including his interactions with other heroes who deal with death (like Xul and Arthas), hint at a god complex, who has sentenced humanity to death. Malthael views himself as the embodiment of death.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: The evil to Auriel and Tyrael's good. While theirs are made of strands of light, Malthael's are made of wispy tendrils of mist.
• The Grim Reaper: Became this, though he wields dual sickles instead of a scythe.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Patch 30.0 gave Malthael's Basic Attacks a cleave effect, letting him more reliably inflict Reaper's Mark on multiple targets. Wraith Strike can also be applied to all nearby enemies around the target, helping him further spreading Reaper's Mark.
• Humans Are Bastards: Because humans in the Diablo universe are the descendants of angels and demons, Malthael thinks of humanity as a whole as this.
• Injured Vulnerability: Last Rites deals a large portion of the target's missing health as damage. The more hurt they are, the more damage they're dealt. If they're at 33% or lower, it's an instant One-Hit Kill, no matter the hero.
• Jack of All Stats:
  • Malthael comes with a little bit of everything: he has decent sustained damage, good wave clear, good sustain, mobility with Wraith Strike, and a potential burst-damage Finishing Move. However, he's not the most damaging, mobile, or tanky hero ever.
  • Malthael is also versatile within the Bruiser class. Just compare him to the others from the Diablo universe: Xul and Sonya dominate the macro game because of their ability to quickly clear waves; Imperius and Leoric are decisive winners of teamfights. Malthael does both, being able to consistently put his team ahead both in EXP and in brawls.
• Kick the Dog: Will bluntly deny Stukov's plea to put him out of his misery, should he ask at the start of a match.
• Kill Steal: Mercifully averted, in standard Heroes of the Storm fashion. Last Rites will trigger its cooldown reduction as long as the marked target dies, regardless of who landed the killing blow. That prevents allies from taking your cooldown reductions away by killing your marked target.
• Kneel Before Zod: Malthael demands everyone to bow when he activates Tormented Souls.
• Life Drain: The healing from Soul Rip in combination with ways to give himself armor makes it so Malthael is surprisingly hard to kill without any other heroes nearby, and even then it might still be a chore. Doubly so if fighting him near minions, since he can mark all of them with his trait via Death Shroud or basic attacks and proceed to heal even more.
• Light Is Not Good: A being of pure light who murders innocent humans to fuel his war effort against the Burning Hells.
• Magic Knight: Perhaps appropriately for a supernatural being, Malthael is deeply dependent on his Mana Points: without them, he can't use Soul Rip, and without Soul Rip he's basically just a target. Even though he's a melee-ranged Bruiser, you play him like a Squishy Wizard, in the sense that you don't even bother fighting without MP.
• Magikarp Power: Every time Last Rites scores a kill, its cooldown is permanently reduced by 5 seconds. It can get as low as 15 seconds if Malthael and his team play well.
• Man of Kryptonite: Malthael excels against most melee heroes, who tend to have high health but low damage output. Between Soul Rip healing him for a percentage of his enemy's health, Reaper's Mark dealing percentage-based damage and properly-timed use of Wraith Strike to dodge counterattacks, he can easily outlast them while grinding away their health constantly.
• Odd Friendship: With Murky, who is apparently so bloodthirsty and omnicidal that it actually impresses Malthael.
• Poor Communication Kills: zigzagged. When it comes to laning phases, Malthael needs his team to know that they should just go somewhere and focus on something while he takes care of the rest of the map; a Malthael who is stuck with teammates who ignore him trying to do this is being held back. But during teamfights or objectives, it turns around entirely. That lack of communication can lead to Right Hand Versus Left Hand situations where everyone charges into battle randomly and a bunch of enemies escape with low health... Which is precisely the moment Last Rites is waiting for. There's ways in which Malthael is hampered by Pick Up Groups, but also ways in which he is completely immune to them.
• Not the Intended Use: Despite being a Bruiser — theoretically an off-tank — Malthael was an Assassin under the old class system, and is sometimes still played that way. Notably, he has no hard crowd control (stuns or roots) whatsoever, and can only get soft crowd control if he takes a Lv.7 Talent which causes Soul Rip to apply a bit of a slow.
• Percent Damage Attack: He's entirely based around this. His trait drains percent-based health from affected enemies every second, and Last Rites deals a percentage of your target's missing health. Wraith Strike can also be upgraded to deal a percentage of the target's maximum health.
• The Quiet One: Malthael is sparse with words. His words weigh heavily, though, adding to his imposing and frightening presence.
• The Rival: The Lich King.
  Malthael: You are no god of death, boy.
• Shout-Out: Malthael's dance is the headbob from Night at The Roxbury.
• Skeleton Motif: Like in Diablo III, Malthael's infamous stance with his sickles (which he will also take when he uses Soul Rip or Last Rites) is supposed to resemble a skull◊.
• Spam Attack: Soul Rip and Wraith Strike both have extremely low cooldowns, with the only downside being their reliance on Reaper's Mark to use.
• Terse Talker: Even before his Face–Heel Turn, he rarely spoke, preferring to maintain silent. This is reflected in the game that often times his "yes" replies are merely grunts of acknowledgment and his "pings" are words rather than sentences.
• Walking Wasteland: His trait represents his status as this in Diablo. Anything he touches (read: damages) slowly starts to whither away. Tormented Souls lets him briefly become this as an even straighter example.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He wants to eliminate everything tainted by demons. Unfortunately, this includes humanity.
• Yet Another Christmas Carol: His Season's Reapings skin makes him into the Ghost of Winter Veil Yet-To-Come, who offers people a glimpse into their future. Unsurprisingly, their future is always death.
• You Are Already Dead: Last Rites is this if the target has less than a third of their max health remaining. Reaper's Mark can have a similar effect if they're below 7% and there's no healing.
• Weaksauce Weakness: He can't place Reaper's Mark on buildings. While it's appropriate that you can't drain the soul of a soulless object, it means he just can't siege well, which places sharp limits on his macro.
• We Used to Be Friends: He has no quarrel with angels, yet every angel opposes him, including Imperius who actually hates humans just as much.

Sonya, Wandering Barbarian

Voiced by: Athena Karkanis (English)^note Other Languages: Marie Zidi (French), Inna Koroleva (Russian)

"My blades are yours!"

The Barbarian tribe has guarded the sacred grounds of Mount Arreat, guarding the Worldstone from evil, for ages, and finding pride in their battle prowess, worshipping the ancient warrior Bul-Kathos and styling themselves as his children. However, at one point, with news of the Dark Wanderer appearing in the world and holding a great amount of evil, a Barbarian was sent to pursue him along with several other heroes. That turned out to be a distraction, as the Dark Wanderer was Diablo, and his brother, Baal, took on Mount Arreat while these heroes fought Diablo. The heroes pursued Baal but while the Prime Evil was defeated, the Worldstone had been corrupted, forcing Tyrael to destroy it and turning the summit of Mount Arreat into a huge crater.

The Barbarian tribe scattered that day, turning into a more nomadic lifestyle. Twenty years later, from one of those scattered tribes, one of these Barbarians, Sonya, witnessed the falling star towards New Tristram. Seeing it as a way to redeem the honor of Barbarians, she headed there and would become entangled to the prophecy that marks the end of the world and the return of a great evil.

Sonya is a Bruiser hero who thrives in the middle of combat, dishing out burst and sustained damage in melee. Her trait is Fury. She uses Fury instead of mana, gaining Fury whenever she inflicts or suffers damage. She also gains a temporary movement speed boost after using an ability. Her active abilities include Ancient Spear, throwing a harpoon-like blade and pulling herself towards the target if it lands a hit, Seismic Slam, damaging a nearby enemy and enemies behind them on a short cooldown, and Whirlwind, a Spin Attack which heals Sonya as long as she hits enemies with it.

Her first Heroic ability, Leap, has Sonya jump to a location, damaging and stunning enemies on arrival. Her second Heroic ability, Wrath of the Berserker, is a self-buff that boosts her damage and reduces the duration of disables on her. The duration of the Heroic increases whenever Sonya gains Fury.

Her current skins are Valorous Sonya, Wrath Sonya, Super Sonya, Legion's Wrath Sonya, Death Knight Sonya, Deathbringer Sonya, and La Pantera Sonya.

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• Action Girl: Like Johanna, but with more emphasis on doing damage.
• Aerith and Bob: Similar to Johanna. In spite of being a Shout-Out to Red Sonja, 'Sonya' is a very common name on Earth.
• The Ahnold: Even as a woman, she has something of Arnie's accent, and has several quotes based on Conan the Barbarian.
• Amazonian Beauty: She's a huge muscular woman who fights in a Chainmail Bikini.
• And This Is for...: Delivers one of these for Leah when killing Diablo.
• Art Evolution: They updated Sonya's original portrait to make her less Brawn Hilda and more Amazonian Beauty. Compare before◊ and after.◊
• Badass Boast: "I am too much for you, it seems."
• Barbarian Hero: A member of the Barbarians of Harrogath.
• The Berserker: Once again, Sonya's skills require Fury instead of Mana, and she has numerous abilities based on getting more and more angry.
• BFS: She wields two of them.
• Blasphemous Boast: Played for Laughs. In a Shout-Out to the Conan movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sonya admits that for all her praises to Bul-Kathos, she has never prayed to him before. But if he does not improve her MMR after the match, then to hell with him!
• Blood Knight: Oh, yes! To wit, where most Nephalem heroes hope against their enemies becoming more powerful due to there being more than one of them together, Sonya actually wants that to be the case.
• Call-Back: The female Barbarian's face back in the original game had no face paints. Sonya sports a face paint which is pretty similar to the Diablo II Barbarian's.
• Dual Wielding: With 2 BFS, no less!
• Friendly Enemy: When she's on the opposing team of Valla or Nazeebo, Sonya treats her fights with them much less seriously or aggressively than her other enemies.
  Sonya: Hah! I love a good brawl!
• Gender Flip: While Barbarians are mostly represented by the male ones, Heroes get the female version, Sonya. Furthermore, there has been datamining that one way or another, the male Barbarian (named Kronan) is going to be included, though still unknown if he will become a separate character or a skin for Sonya.
• Glass Cannon: Sonya is relatively squishy and should be played with more of an Assassin mindset, relying on offense to keep her safe. She is absolutely a Warrior in the sense that she can put her enemies in an exposed or vulnerable position, but in no way is she capable of tanking damage.
• Healing Factor: She might not be as durable as Tanks, but she pairs high damage with high lifesteal.
• In a Single Bound: Sonya's Leap heroic, taken from Diablo 3.
• Kiai: Both of her heroics has shouting a distinct battle cry.
• Lightning Bruiser: Tends to become this at later stage of the game. She's still squishier than most Warrior heroes, but she's tougher than other Assassins, deals a lot more damage than most Warriors, and is quite mobile. Also see Magikarp Power.
• Magikarp Power: Early game, Sonya's survivability is low and her abilities deal little damage for their Fury cost. But take a few talents^note Shot of Fury, Battle Rage and Wrath of the Berserker, and she becomes a tanky killing machine. And her power goes up from there.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Her kit isn't especially bizarre, but the fact that Sonya has no Mana Meter changes a lot of how she plays. She gains Fury when she deals or takes damage, a little similar to the standard Limit Break model. Where mana users can run dry after extended fights, Sonya can just keep on going. Add to that the self-healing from Whirlwind and you have someone who can stay in the fight for very long periods of time (not to mention solo bosses).
• Ms. Fanservice: Sonya's costume is pretty skimpy for a warrior. It actually covers most of her breasts, but still offers the player a more than generous view of her long, muscular legs and toned belly. Combined with her barbarian tattoos and untamed mane of wild red hair... That said, it bares mentioning that Sonya doesn't like this, and makes it clear that if she ever finds the inventor of the Chainmail Bikini, God help them.
• Poisoned Weapons: One of Ancient Spear's upgrades coats it with poison that does extra damage over time.
• Red Is Heroic: A long mane of fiery red hair and no less heroic than the other Nephalem.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl: As noted above, Sonya is is fairly bitter about her costumes being so skimpy.
  Sonya: Ever had that nightmare where you are at work in your underwear? That's me. Every day.
• Screaming Warrior: Her heroic abilities aside, many of her attack quotes are screams of fury.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Sonya gets overlooked sometimes because she isn't a Mighty Glacier the way most Warriors are. But for players skilled at reading the game state, she's incredibly dangerous. Whatever needs doing — Objectives to fight over, experience to soak, lanes to push, camps to seize, buildings to defend, teamfights to win — Sonya can do it, and in many cases can do it solo. There is never a moment when she can't be productive and help her team. Just... don't use her to tank damage.
• Spam Attack: Seismic Slam is a Ground Pound that deals good area damage at 1 second cooldown. Spamming this can boost her damage through the roof. It costs a lot of Fury though, so she'll need to either keep up Basic Attacks inbetween swings or else be taking enough damage to keep her Fury up to spam it.
• Spin Attack: The Whirlwind skill. Herd-Hitting Attack with decent damage, plus she heals from it.
• Unstoppable Rage: Her Super Mode, Wrath of the Berserker, grants bonus damage to her attacks and abilities, and reduction to crowd control effects. It also extends whenever you gain Fury. At level 20, she can talent it to be literally unstoppable, with the Storm upgrade giving her an activatable skill while Wrath of the Berserker is on that makes her Unstoppable.

Xul, Cryptic Necromancer

Voiced by: Michael McConnohie (English)

"It is time..."

A priest of the Rathma sect, necromancers are tasked with preserving the Balance of the world. Xul was one of several heroes who heard news about the Dark Wanderer and the chaos he brought, travelling to places the Wanderer visited including the Rogue Monastery, Lut Gholein, Kurast, Pandemonium Fortress and Harrogath, helping Tyrael along the way and staving off the overwhelming evil presence, protecting humanity. Eventually, the group succeeded in defeating all the Prime Evils and two of the Lesser Evils, Andariel and Duriel, and finally witnessed the destruction of the Worldstone by Tyrael. After the group disbanded, Xul returned to his sect and taught a new generation of necromancers to continue preserving the Balance even after he passed, one of them being Mehtan.

Xul is a Bruiser capable of swarming lanes with skeletons and crippling his opponents. His trait, Raise Skeleton, summons a skeleton warrior every time an enemy minion dies near Xul which lasts a limited time and pushes down the lane. When a skeleton dies, it explodes, dealing damage to nearby enemies. Spectral Scythe summons a scythe at a target location that flies back to Xul, damaging enemies in its path and summoning a skeleton for each hero hit. His second ability, Cursed Strikes, temporarily empowers his basic attacks to hit enemies in a wide area while slowing their attack speed. His third ability is Bone Prison, which roots a target hero to the spot after a delay and commands his skeletons to attack that target. Finally, he possesses a fourth basic ability, Bone Armor, which gives Xul a temporary shield.

Xul's first Heroic summons a group of Skeletal Mages that rise in a line to attack nearby enemies and slow their movement. His second Heroic, Poison Nova, unleashes a torrent of poison bolts in all directions that afflict enemies with crippling damage over time.

His current skins are Necromaster Xul, Serpent King Xul, Scarecrow Xul, and Bone Visage Xul.

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• Action Bomb: With his rework in 2020, his skeletons were given the ability to deal area damage when they die.
• Animate Dead: His basic trait reanimates dead minions as a skeleton to aid in a push.
• Badass Normal: At least compared to the other Diablo heroes. He is not a nephalem and he'll point that out when he kills a Nephalem hero.
• Badass Preacher: We know him as one of the necromancers, but in-universe, their order is officially called "The Priests of Rathma". He preaches about balance. And death. Mostly death.
• Bad with the Bone: Utilizes his bone magic to a great extent.
• Ballistic Bone: Xul can access his old Diablo II skill, Bone Spear as a late-game talent.
• Black Mage: Xul's abilities are all about either disabling enemies or area damage. Even his one defensive ability, Bone Armor, can be talented to either deal area damage when it expires or slow nearby enemies while it's active.
• Cool Old Guy: He's quite old by now, but he's still able to hold his own with the rest of the Diablo heroes, and unlike them he's not even a nephalem.
• Creepy Good: Talks about death an awful lot... but it's okay, because he fights to uphold balance and protect Sanctuary.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Thanks to Art Evolution, Xul looks quite the terrifying old man who is more ripped and gained some muscles that makes him look more intimidating. But he's still the dedicated protector of balance.
• Damage Over Time: Poison Nova is the single strongest DoT in the game, and can hit squishier heroes for more than 70% of their health if allowed to fully tick down.
• Dual Wielding: Poison Dagger in the right hand, scythe in the left.
• Foreshadowing: Likewise with Li-Ming and the Arena picture above, there's also a strange looking green dagger on the ground, in a different shape than what belonged to Valeera Sanguinar, and on the side, a dagger with a spider, which belonged to Nazeebo... but eventually it led to Xul and his green-tinted Poison Dagger. Additionally, around Blizzcon, the announcer of the Haunted Mines changed his name from 'The Necromancer' to 'The Grave Keeper', just to make sure Xul is the one and only Necromancer.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: He swings his scythe in really big arcs during Cursed Strikes, allowing him to quickly clear waves. It also slows attack speed of those caught in it. With the proper talents, Xul deals a scary amount of Area of Effect damage. A Xul built for damage, with talents such as Backlash, Poison Nova, Rapid Harvest or Executioner and Bone Spear, can melt badly positioned enemy teams almost as quickly as the likes of Jaina and Kael'thas.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: In-universe, the Priests of Rathma have never been known to fall to the temptations of Hell as they recognize their role as keepers of balance.
• Jack of All Stats: Wanna be a hardcore pusher that clears waves in seconds and adds skeletons to the push? Sure! A frontline Assassin, relying on damage-boosted Cursed Strikes and multiple crowd controls to keep hitting the enemies? Why not? A supportive caster who slows, roots, and otherwise debuffs the enemy team? You bet! His Master of All tendencies made him the game's worst Game-Breaker by far at the time of his release, with a win rate that started somewhere at 55%, reached over 60% in a few weeks, and showed no sign of slowing down until Blizzard nerfed him down to an only slightly above-average level.
  • His placement as a Bruiser in the new role system speaks volumes for just how versatile he is. He was designed as an off-lane pusher, but evolved to the point where teams would occasionally draft him as their main tank and win.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: In the original game, he's a spellcaster specializing in summoning minions, bone and poison spells, and curses. Here, he takes a more hands-on approach with his scythe but he's still primarily a spellcaster.
• Mythology Gag: One of Xul's quotes after killing an enemy hero is a mocking "I've got your ear", a reference to Diablo II PVP. He also reuses some of his Diablo II quotes: "Lord Diablo, I have bested you" to Diablo himself^*just as he did back in Act IV, "What a waste of undead flesh"^*after killing Radament in Act II when he kills an undead hero, and "All who oppose me, beware"^*his starting quote, now said to Uther, with whom he shares a voice actor.invoked
• Necromancer: Natch.
• Nightmare Fetishist: While other characters express relief at not being dead anymore or eagerness to fight when they respawn, Xul has a.. different reaction:
  Xul: So that was death? I already miss it.
• Poisonous Person: Aside of the Poison Dagger, one of his heroics is one of his final skills from Diablo II, the Poison Nova. The former is merely decorative though.
• Sinister Scythe: Literally, as he wields it in his left hand. In the original game, you wouldn't usually give scythes to Necromancers, but Xul came equipped with one and it plays part on two of his skills. ^note Scythes are the signature weapons for Necromancers in Diablo III, likely inspired by Xul.
  Xul: Huh, the scythe is new to me as well, but I'm starting to like it.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Xul's Bone Visage skin has him dressed from head to toe in the bones of demons.
• Snakes Are Evil: The Serpent King skin. Unlike the default Xul, who is heroic while looking creepy, Serpent King Xul is instead a traitorous vizier to Pharaoh (Crypt King) Ta-sadar, serving the Spider Queen Neithis.
• Status Infliction Attack: Hands these out liberally: attack speed slows from Cursed Strikes, a root from Bone Prison, a massive damage-over-time from Poison Nova and slows from Skeletal Mages. With talents, he can apply even more, such as making Bone Prison also reduce armor.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: He can upgrade his Spectral Scythe with a late-game talent Mortal Wound, which drastically reduces the amount of health gained by targets hit by that skill by 75% for a few seconds, which is devastating to a target being healed by an ally or heroes with incredible Healing Factor like Murky or Dehaka.

Healers

Auriel, Archangel of Hope

Voiced by: Cree Summer (English)^note Other Languages: Nathalie Homs (French), Elena Solovyova (Russian)

"There is always hope."

The Aspect of Hope, Auriel is said to be the most kindhearted of the archangels. For eons, she fought alongside her angelic brethren in the Eternal Conflict. Eventually, the angels discovered Sanctuary, a world filled with the cross-breed between angels and demons, humanity. The five archangels voted on its fate. While Imperius voted to obliterate the humans and Malthael abstained, Auriel showed compassion and was the first to vote against its destruction. Years later, Diablo staged an all-out attack on the High Heavens. His first act was to capture and imprison Auriel, sapping hope from mankind and angels alike. Only after the Nephalem destroyed her jailer, Rakanoth, the Lord of Despair, was Auriel once again able to spread hope. But this unlikely rescue ended up being a case of Save This Person, Save the World, as Auriel's influence was instrumental in dealing Diablo his third defeat.

Auriel is a Healer who pairs well with high DPS heroes, providing strong teamwide healing and utility. She doesn't use mana; instead her Bestow Hope trait converts a portion of the damage she deals into Energy. She can also activate her trait to mark an ally as her champion, turning their damage into Energy as well as long as they remain near her. Her basic abilities are Sacred Sweep, a Herd-Hitting Attack in a large arc that deals extra damage in the center; Ray of Heaven, spending all of her Energy to heal all allies in a small area for the amount spent; and Detainment Strike, a whip of her cloth that knocks the first enemy hero it hits away and stuns them if they collide with the terrain.

Her first heroic ability, Crystal Aegis, places an allied hero or herself into Stasis, preventing them from moving or taking damage, and deals damage to all nearby enemies in a large area on expiration. Her second heroic ability, Resurrect, allows her to see the spirits of fallen allied heroes. Auriel can select one to bring back to life, resurrecting them at full health after a delay. Auriel can also cast it after dying to resurrect herself.

Her current skins are Archangel Auriel, Demonic Auriel, Sakura Auriel, and Spirit Healer Auriel.

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• Adaptational Badass: Of course, Auriel was pretty badass on her own as seen in the Wrath video, but game-wise in Diablo III, she just appeared as a Damsel in Distress for the Nephalems to rescue, though she's still pretty steadfast after rescue, and serves as an NPC. In this game, the player can experience Auriel's combat capabilities as shown in Wrath.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Before it was reworked, Auriel's Resurrect heroic had to be channeled for three seconds and she needed to be very close to the target. It was very difficult to use during team fights, which is when you need it most. It could of course be used if you had already won the team fight, but if so, the team won without needing a heroic from Auriel and Auriel was almost certainly needed elsewhere, not twiddling her thumbs for three seconds while her (remaining) allies try to push the advantage without her. Most analysts wrote it off as a "winmore" ability—something that only helps you if the Unstable Equilibrium is already on your side. After its rework — the channeling component was removed, but the spell takes 5 seconds to cast, and the enemy team knows it's happening — it still is considered impractical, as guaranteeing the revived Hero can escape safely is a sticky business.
• Back from the Dead: Her Resurrect heroic allows her to revive a fallen allied hero.
• Bash Brothers: With Tyrael if they're in the same team.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While 98% of her quotes towards her allies are filled with nothing but kindness and encouragement, she's (reasonably) harsh towards characters like Gul'dan and, of course, towards demons.
• Cain and Abel: She is the Abel (or rather, one of the Abels, along with Tyrael) to Malthael's Cain. While in the Diablo universe she would not get involved into direct confrontation against Malthael, in this game she can directly oppose him and even kill him if she's lucky enough. The tone of their "meet ally" and "kill enemy hero" quotes makes it clear that Malthael is opposed to both Auriel and Tyrael; being the villain he is, he's barely tolerated by them as an ally, and rightfully disposed of as an enemy.
• Charged Attack: Charged heal, at least. Ray of Heaven takes any energy you gained from Bestow Hope and uses it to heal allies in an area.
• Cloth Fu: Her weapon of choice is Al'Maiesh, a holy sash.
• Clothing Combat: While not actual whips, the wraps on her arms serve an identical purpose, lashing at enemies and entangling them.
• Combat Medic: Even more so than basically any other healer in the game. She cannot heal without first doing damage (be it by herself or from an ally who is wearing the Bestow Hope crown). This can result in corner cases where, because she and/or her team cannot stop to deal damage, Auriel cannot heal anyone.
• Combination Attack: Auriel forms a particularly nasty combination with Cho'gall: as Cho'gall is treated as a single hero, putting Bestow Hope on them effectively allows Auriel to gain energy from two high-damage heroes at once, letting her spam Ray of Light as frequently as its cooldown allows. For extra fun, Auriel can take a talent to gain energy for damage taken by her Bestow Hope target, which has obvious synergy with Cho'gall's massive health pool. If you thought Cho'gall was hard to kill before...
• Death from Above: Ray of Heaven can be talented to damage enemies as well as healing allies.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Even for a Healer, Auriel is dependent on her allies, and using her well requires you to understand which of your teammates is the best target for Bestow Hope to build your energy quickly. Otherwise, you won't have enough energy to keep the team healed up. A good Auriel partnered with an effective damage dealer, on the other hand, can keep her entire team in the fight with massive bursts of healing every 4 seconds.
  • Also, her Resurrect heroic falls under this. Auriel is vulnerable to stuns and some disables, but not slow, root, or Basic Attacks while channeling this heroic, so knowing when to revive a fallen ally is essential. Using Resurrect wisely will grant your team significant advantage, especially in the late game.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She's actually in a promotional image during the Eternal Conflict event.
• The Faceless: Well, there is No Face Under the Mask...
  Auriel: What are you looking at? Do I have something on my face? (Beat) Oh. No, of course not.
• Fallen Angel: Similarly to Demonic Tyrael, Auriel also has a Demonic Auriel skin. Unlike his, her skin is based on her angelic essence being stolen by the demons and fused into a she-demon's body.
• Gemstone Assault: Her Crystal Aegis heroic seals an ally in a crystal for two seconds, locking them in stasis, before the crystal explodes and damages all enemies around it.
• Hope Bringer: She is the physical embodiment of hope. Bonus points as one of her quotes is Hope Springs Eternal, word for word.
• In the Hood: As with Tyrael and all other angels in the Diablo series.
• Light Is Good: Potentially even more than Tyrael.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Instead of using mana like most other heroes, Auriel stores energy (that does not regenerate) which is acquired by dealing damage to the enemy, or by the ally who has Bestow Hope dealing it. Also, her healing ability consumes all of her energy stored; it's essentially a Limit Break. Used properly, it can turn the tides of battle.
• Our Angels Are Different: Like Tyrael, her wings are made of light.
• Required Secondary Powers: Teamwork. Auriel's efficiency goes down wildly if you don't have a DPS character nearby. In the game's ideal state, where players understand their roles and how those roles affect where they ought to be, she can be quite effective... but in the game's actual state, where Quick Match is the most-played mode and Chaotic Stupid is expected behavior, she can be kind of useless.
• Squishy Wizard: despite qualifying as a Combat Medic, Auriel is better thought of in terms of this trope. She is most efficient behind a strong front line, swinging her shawls around and dropping heals without having to worry about being outmaneuvered.
• Wings Do Nothing: She hovers over the ground, like Tyrael, but she isn't actually flying over large distances until she picks up a talent at level 20 that allows her to do that. It's Played for Laughs in a poke line, as she points out that the wings are actually not necessary.
  Auriel: Angels don't actually need wings to fly, you know. We just need to think some happy thoughts. (sighs) ...And that's why we ride horses.

Deckard, The Last Horadrim

Voiced by: Michael J. Gough (English)^note Other Languages: Andrey Yaroslavtsev (Russian)

"So it begins!"

Deckard Cain is the last of the Horadrim, an order of scholars formed to combat the Great Evils. Old and wise, he can come off as a bit rambling due to his eagerness for learning truths. Aside from Adria, he was the only survivor of the fall of Tristram, having been trapped in a cage. He was rescued by adventurers, and aided them through their journey. After the destruction of the Worldstone, he traveled the land for twenty years with his niece Leah, searching for the Prophecy of the End of Days. While in the Tristram Cathedral, he nearly solved the puzzle before the Fallen Star plunged him into the cathedral's depths, leading into the events of Diablo III.

Deckard is a melee Healer based on long-term setup and crowd control. Deckard's trait is Fortitude of the Faithful, which grants him 10 armor and greatly increased cooldown speed as long as he's near an ally. His first ability, Healing Potion, throws out a healing potion that stays on the ground indefinitely and heals the first ally hero who picks it up. He can have up to five potions. Horadric Cube throws his cube outwards, which damages and slows enemies in a large area. His final basic ability, Scroll of Sealing, unfurls a massive triangular scroll on the ground, which roots and damages enemies in the area when it's complete.

Deckard's Heroics are Stay Awhile and Listen, channeling a "riveting" story that puts all enemies in a large area in front of Deckard to sleep, with the sleep broken if they take damage; and Lorenado, summoning a swirling tornado of books that travels in a targeted direction and pushes enemies away.

His current skins are Wastewalker Deckard and Deckard Pain.

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• Adaptational Badass: In his home games, Deckard was a scholar and didn't get involved in battle. While he's certainly not a mighty warrior here, he can now throw down with the best Blizzard heroes.
  My name is Deckard Cain and I'm in the Nexus, our enemies are many but they'll never best us. If I find ol' Diablo even I might take him down! You should always remember that we're in a different town! <beatboxing> Ho-Horadrim, Ho-Ho-Horadrim in the house! <beat> Where's my staff?
• Added Alliterative Appeal: To back up the inherent silliness of the spell, Lorenado's effect is described in-game as "a twirling tome tornado that travels towards the targeted direction".
• Ancient Keeper: Keeper of the ancient Horadric secrets.
• Anti-Regeneration: The Emerald talent applies a debuff that drastically reduces the healing enemies receive that are hit by Horadric Cube, making it a powerful tool to secure kills.
• Ascended Fanfic:
  • The level 20 upgrade to Stay Awhile and Listen is called "Respect the Elderly", which is what Carbot called his own version of Deckard Cain's trait in a "what if" video. Likewise, the mechanics of throwing healing items onto the ground and gaining buffs when near allies were also derived from the video.
  • In a sense, like Probius, the whole character might qualify since Blizzard challenged the community to come up with Deckard Cain concepts way back in 2016. Many suggestions made it into the real character in some form.^DetailsThe majority of community concepts made him a Support, referenced a Horadric Cube, included a weaponized "Stay Awhile and Listen," and contained an "Identify" mechanic.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Ruby talent spawns three Lesser Healing Potions around enemy Heroes hit by Horadric Cube. The Lesser Healing Potions only give around 8% less healing than the full Healing Potion, so grabbing them all will be over double the value of a Healing Potion - however, these are spawned around an enemy Hero (e.g. something your team usually wants to avoid while they need healing) and are arranged around enemies with some randomness, meaning even for when your team just wants to stick around and fight with the enemy, moving to grab the Lesser Healing Potions can prevent them from chasing the enemy, making the talent a tad unlikely for most teams to be able to take advantage of fully. It is a very powerful burst heal talent for Deckard's melee allies though, and is thus a viable choice when facing multiple melee-ranged enemy heroes.
  • Lorenado is a way harder heroic to use than Stay Awhile and Listen, though it may be Deckard's best bet if his team has a plethora of damage-over-time effects that are liable to inadvertently end the latter's sleep effect prematurely.
• Blow You Away: His Lorenado creates a whirling tornado.
• Brick Joke: Similar to Cho'gall being an April Fools' joke that eventually became real in Heroes, the Archivist class was an April Fools' day joke from 2009, coming with skills like Lorenado.
• Cane Fu: He whacks people with his walking stick as his basic attack. Although, it's meant as a last resort (and potential humiliation) given that Deckard is not built for direct combat. He can, however, take a talent that makes his cane periodically stun enemies, giving it some degree of use.
• Catchphrase: "Stay awhile and listen!"
• Combos: The 2.25 second delay to Scroll of Sealing means no one should get caught in it unless they try to run from one edge to its opposite vertex...unless another enemy's hampering your movement, Deckard's slowed you with Horadric Cube or worse yet, he's made your entire team completely still with Stay Awhile and Listen. The Sapphire talent may be necessary to truly guarantee this as enemies on the ball may manage to walk out of it by heading toward a nearby side of the triangle even while slowed Horadric Cube's weaker slow. Both of his ultimates are also handy tools to keep enemies inside the triangle, Stay Awhile and Listen usually being the easier and more applicable option.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Literally stand or walk nearby an ally, and Deckard's abilities will cooldown 50% faster (i.e. every second while on cooldown will make the abilities on cooldown actually take 1.5 seconds off of the cooldown)! Grab the Safety in Numbers talent and stand by two more allies to cooldown twice as fast!
• Cool Old Guy: He might be a bit more mild-mannered than the usual examples, but it takes chutzpah to walk onto the battlefield with little more than a walking stick and a bag of magical items while you're of very advanced age.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • In the Alpha build, he appeared in one of Nazeebo's Stop Poking Me! quotes, asking him to 'stay awhile and listen', much to Nazeebo's dismay. (It was a joke about how his name sounds like "cane", which is what Nazeebo actually wanted.) That quote was removed once the game hit beta.
  • He appeared as a special announcer during the Eternal Conflict event.
• Full-Name Basis: Averted on the shop screen. He's almost universally referred to as "Deckard Cain" by players and NPCs alike, but the naming convention in Heroes of the Storm shortened his name to just Deckard. In-game, however, the interface refers to him by full name, for instance when he's being played by an AI or if he appears (AI or human) on the endgame commendation screen.
• Healing Potion: Literally the name of one of his abilities. He can even upgrade them into other potion types with talents, or throw them everywhere with the Ruby gem on his Horadric Cube.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Deckard's ability to toss Healing Potions at his team is limited by his mana pool, not any kind of actual inventory. His actual bag look more like it can hold, say, five potions when judged against the three on his belt. Indeed, due to the low mana cost of his potions, as long as he's getting a regeneration globe from one side's minion wave, he can pretty much literally toss out Healing Potions forever if that's the only thing he's casting.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Tries to encourage Leah (stuck inside Prime Evil Diablo) to do this in his game opener with a Prime Evil Diablo. It doesn't work.
• Instant Runes: Scroll of Sealing paints the ground with a large glowing set of runes in a triangle shape.
• Item Caddy: Deckard isn't explicitly depicted with magical powers, with all of his abilities being the work of the artifacts and potions he's carrying around.
• Last of His Kind: His title, "The Last Horadrim".
• Lethal Joke Item: No one really expects the hobbling old man to do any sort of significant damage to them, but building him around his Scroll of Stone Curse talent at level 16 means he'll be able to do over a thousand damage to heroes hit at that level with a Horadric Cube & Scroll of Sealing combo - a good chuck of the more-normal squishier heroes' health.
• Mr. Exposition: Parodied. Poke Deckard often enough and he'll give you some lore about the Nexus and its Realm Lords, except most of it is stuff you can tell just by looking at the maps themselves.
• Mundane Utility: After researching for years to uncover the Horadric Cube's secrets, Deckard Cain also uses it as a foot rest.
• Mythology Gag: One of his Stop Poking Me! lines is him rapping a re-arranged Nexus version of the song Blizzard made many years ago.
• Nap-Inducing Speak: He can literally bore enemies to sleep thanks to Stay Awhile and Listen.
• The Narrator: He narrated the promotional video of Eternal Conflict and also became a temporary announcer if a Treasure Goblin appeared.
• Non-Action Guy: He has basically no significant damaging abilities, instead focusing on healing and crowd control.
• The Power of Friendship: Being nearby Deckard will give himself armor and cooldown reduction to let him survive way more than would be expected and close out kills on enemies.
• Power Up Letdown: His Gem talents, aside from Emerald which provides a large amount of the rare reduced-healing-received effect, are largely considered "trap" talents due to providing far too little value over the time of a match and also being unable to affect Horadric Cube with multiple effects at once (further making it harder to get value out of the talents consistently). Perfect Gems at level 20 does make the build work very well by then letting any gem affect any Horadric Cube tossed out while allow halving the cooldown of Horadric Cube, but level 20 is a rather long time to wait for the build to finally come together... That being said, Sapphire and Emerald do tend to see play for giving straightforward and strong bonuses to his main offensive ability (Sapphire makes Horadric Cube a potent slow while Emerald shuts down enemy healers) while being easier to get value from than the alternatives in their tiers, while Ruby (as mentioned above) is Awesome, but Impractical.
• Power Crystal: He has different magical gems for talents he can use to customize his Horadric Cube skill. They are a reference to the Socketed Equipment trope popularized by Diablo.
• Silliness Switch: There's definitely something inherently funny about an old man hobbling about just tossing health potions at his friends and putting his enemies to sleep by reading to them or summoning a big book that makes a tornado while also blowing a bunch of other smaller books. He even humorously grumbles wordlessly at being interrupted if you choose to prematurely end his reading.
• Spam Attack: Deckard's abilities recharge faster while his trait is active, and a talent can reduce the cooldown of his Scroll of Sealing, if he hits enemies with Horadric Cube. At level 20, Deckard has Storm talents that reduce Lorenado's cooldown when hitting enemy heroes or permanently reduce the cooldown of his Horadric Cube and his gem talents respectively.
• Spell Book: His Lorenado is conjured from a magical floating book.
• Stronger Than They Look: Pretty downplayed since it's just him running away and surviving, but many enemies will be surprised to see the hobbling old man is quite able to escape from an enemy trying to kill him just by moving away from them and chugging Healing Potions. As long as Deckard's got an ally with him, using the talent Field Study along with Cube Mastery and Scroll of Stone Curse can make Deckard's Scroll of Sealing ability do over a thousand damage in an area-of-effect while hitting at least two people, have another one very quickly follow behind that one, and Stay Awhile and Listen can make it all pretty easy to set up.
• Support Party Member: Deckard doesn't deal damage. At all. His abilities deal minimal amounts, his Basic Attack is melee-only and might as well be him swinging a pillow for all the damage it does, and both of his Heroics are purely crowd control. He backs up his complete lack of solo power with efficient and deadly crowd control effects and strong healing. This is emphasized by his Trait, granting him cooldown reduction and armor so long as he's close to and thus supporting someone else.
• Tap on the Head: The Horadric Staff talent can do this, causing a stun effect with his basic attack every 5 seconds.
• Weaksauce Weakness:
  • Deckard provides one to poke-damage heroes. Those flashy, skillshotting, projectile-slinging heroes are easily shrugged off by an old man tossing health potions repeatedly, which he can do pretty much forever if he doesn't use his mana on something else.
  • That said, Deckard also has one, and it's really annoying: what if his allies just don't pick up the goddamn potions? At this point, Deckard becomes a high-skillfloor healer who must successfully throw potions at his teammates in order to heal them... and, as any Ana player can tell you, this is more challenging than it sounds.
• Wizard Beard: Downplayed, since as he embraced his role as the Last of the Horadrim rather late in his life and thus always remained more of a scholar rather than a mage or wizard that the preceding Horadrim were, but his scholarly temperament is similarly fitting to his long, white beard.

Kharazim, Veradani Monk

Voiced by: Jamieson Price (English)^note Other Languages: David Kruger (French), Sergey Chikhachev (Russian)

"Ytar, guide my path!"

A member of the Monks of Ivgorod and one of the heroic nephalem who stopped Diablo. The second male Nephalem hero, Kharazim loyally serves the thousand-and-one gods celebrated by his order.

Kharazim is an aggressive Healer, combining potent single target-focused attacks with capable area-of-effect healing. He chooses between one of three traits the start of the game, augmenting every third Basic Attack with an effect: Transcendence heals a nearby ally, Iron Fists deals extra damage, and Insight restores his mana and, after using his trait 100 times, reduces his ability cooldowns. All of them also grant a temporary movement speed boost. His basic abilities include Radiant Dash, a targeted dash with two charges that can leap to either friend or foe, Breath of Heaven, which heals and speeds up all nearby allies, and Deadly Reach, granting himself bonus attack speed and attack range for a short time.

His heroic ability choices are Divine Palm, placing a temporary buff on an ally that activates if they take fatal damage, preventing it and healing them for a huge amount; and Seven-Sided Strike, which puts Kharazim in an invulnerable meditation state as he strikes the highest-health enemy hero in the area up to seven times for max health-based damage.

His current skins are Patriarch Kharazim, Jade Dragon Kharazim, Bronze Tiger Kharazim, Berserker Kharazim, Winter Veil Kharazim, Dropkick Kharazim, and Street Cyborg Kharazim.

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• All Monks Know Kung-Fu: Shouldn't be any surprise.
• Artistic License – Martial Arts: Naturally, martial artists can't ever do the stuff Kharazim can do. Even outside of his fantastical abilities which can be assumed to be explained by him channeling divine power, his basic attacks are doubtlessly overly-showy and has him move himself far too much to be practical for actual fighting.
• Auto-Revive: His Divine Palm heroic is an excellent example if it's timed right.
• Baritone of Strength: Look at his voice actor, really. Is that really surprising?
• Badass Boast: In his trailer.
  Kharazim: I am Kharazim, Monk of Ivgorod. The gods speak through me... and they want a word with you!
• Bare-Fisted Monk: No weapon, no staff, just his fists and feet. His alternate skins use variants of brass knuckles, katars, or metal claws.
• The Champion: To the 1,001 gods of Ivgorod.
  Kharazim: When they wish to strike, I am their iron fist!
• Combat Medic: Exaggerated Trope. Because Heroes is a game about chaotic, explosive team-fights, a number of Assassins were hidden in other classes. Kharazim is one such. Out of 16 healers, his average healing per match is 13th; even with Transcendence, he simply lacks the throughput to sustain a team through a teamfight. What he is good at is just killing the enemy victim — and thereby winning teamfights — in two seconds, at which point his (lack of) healing is no longer a concern.
• Crutch Character: Kharazim is extremely powerful in the early-game, with self-sustain and ally healing, mobility, and damage letting him oppress other more talent-reliant heroes and dominate his lanes. Later in the game, he's still powerful, but with more talents available, other heroes can keep up with him more easily. Furthermore, Kharazim's kit is based on him landing basic attacks a lot and nearly everything he does is at close range. As such, a lot of his power is lost in late-game fights, which are far too bursty for him to be going around punching things, and he'll have to play much more cautiously to avoid getting his squishy self killed. This is especially the case if he takes Transcendence or Insight, which can easily proc during the laning phase by just punching minions, but are of little use in teamfights since a Kharazim that tries to make use of them will inevitably get bursted down or zoned out long before he squeezes a respectable amount of healing out of them (meanwhile Iron Fists still gets value by helping him finish off weak opponents).
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Of course, every heroes in Diablo does so, but Kharazim in this game is the first amongst Diablo heroes to directly deliver several punches to the Lord of Terror's belly, then an uppercut to the jaw (Johanna just had an off-screen fight). And he's supposed to be the healer.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Divine Palm is surprisingly hard to use productively: it will only proc for three seconds, and dying players often instinctively run away. (Not to mention that, even if it procs, the enemy team could potentially just re-kill them.)
  • Seven-Sided Strike is also deceptively difficult to use, even though you just press R and it fires: it automatically targets the healthiest enemy in its range for its Seven Percent Damage Attack strikes, which means the fact it can hit multiple enemies is usually a disadvantage to work around (unless all of the enemies within its circle are truly just about to die) rather than a benefit. It is guaranteed to kill a single target who has 48% or less health; it will fail to kill two targets who each have at least 29% health.
  • And finally, there's the fact that he's secretly a DPS character. Kharazim's highly particular mix of damage and mobility (both for himself and nearby allies) rather than healing in general makes him a very challenging Healer to play as and with.
• Flash Step: His Seven-Sided Strike Heroic, a holdover from Diablo III. His first basic ability is similar.
• Fragile Speedster: Between Breath of Heaven and Radiant Dash, Kharazim is fairly mobile and he attacks quickly too. However, he's not all that durable and can't stand up to heavy damage.
• Glass Cannon: Kharazim is really more of a Melee Assassin that happens to have a healing skill rather than a typical Healer, especially if he picked the Iron Fists trait to bump up his considerable damage even further. However, like your average Melee Assassin, he has low HP and can be easily killed when cornered or out of position.
• Healing Hands: Breath of Heaven heals all allies close to Kharazim while Divine Palm can save an ally from death when used correctly.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Though not to the same extent as Johanna.
• Ice-Cream Koan: Click on him enough, and Kharazim gives us this gem. Doubles as a Shout-Out to Bruce Lee.
  Kharazim: Be like fire.
  If you put fire in a cup, the fire burns through the cup.
  And the table.
  And eventually the entire house.
  Be like fire, my friend, not the cup.
• Invulnerable Attack: Kharazim is fully invulnerable while using Seven-Sided Strike.
• Levitating Lotus Position: Kharazim assumes this stance when he uses his Seven-Sided Strike heroic (while no enemies are in its radius) or when he rides a floating mount such as a Magic Carpet.
• Loophole Abuse: Seven-Sided Strike is vulnerable to this. Because targets the target with the highest HP within its radius, one of the best ways for the opponent to spread out its damage is for them to simply step into that radius. Characters who spawn clones of themselves, like Nova and Samuro, can cause it to diffuse further.
• Percent Damage Attack: Seven-Sided Strike ignores Armor and will deal damage equal to 7% of the target's maximum health. Anyone caught in it alone is going to be dying fast with a bit of allied help to finish them off.
• Nonindicative Name: He stresses that the use of the Exploding Palm technique should always be of this, rather than your palm exploding.
• Not the Intended Use: If someone uses a heavy-damage nuke on Kharazim — say Nova's Triple Tap or Kael'thas's Pyroblast — Divine Palm has very obvious applications. What's less obvious is that Seven-Sided Strike can actually be used for the same purpose: it takes 2 seconds to fire and during that time Kharazim is completely immune to all damage and crowd control. If you pop 7SS right before the attack lands, he'll go into Levitating Lotus Position and the attack will do nothing to him.
• Oddjob Gods: One of his Stop Poking Me! lines is to remark that he sees you serve Soveat, the god of poking people without end... he's probably just being snarky though. He also is thankful he was born under the sign of Ytar rather than that of a lesser god, for example, the gods of idleness or slovenliness.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Deadly Reach doubles Kharazim's attack speed giving him this effect, although interspersed with kicks, while the Way of the Hundred Fists talent is a more standard version where he rapidly punches the target in front of him from a variety of front-facing angles. Even his Basic Attacks count, as he hits 2 times a second, faster than even Illidan. Exaggerated if he gets the combination of Insight and Blazing Fists as the mana regeneration, cooldown reduction, and increased duration allow him to have Deadly Reach active indefinitely as long as he keeps punching.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Kharazim is a follower of the Sahptev faith, and with it, worships 1,001 gods and goddesses, though his chosen patron is Ytar, the god of sun and fire.
• Religious Bruiser: As a Monk of Ivgorod he worships 1,001 deities, each of them representing a single aspect of ... well, everything.
• Rule of Seven: His Seven-Sided Strike Heroic hits 7 times, dealing 7% of a target's max health per hit, and has a mana cost of exactly 77 (one of the few in the game that isn't divisible by 5). It can also be upgraded at level 20 to hit four more times, allowing it to remove up to 77% of a single target's health. See the theme going on?
• Roundhouse Kick: Kharazim performs a reverse roundhouse kick when landing the third attack while he has the Transcendence trait.
• Skill Gate Characters: Despite being a Healer, he's actually a really good introduction to Melee Assassins. Kills typically require three ingredients: an enemy out of position (either by allied crowd control or misplay), someone to whittle down most of that enemy's HP, and someone to finish off the last bit, confirming the kill. Melee Assassins are designed to provide the last part, featuring gap closers and good damage but lacking self-sustain and/or escape options. Kharazim can confirm kills and keep himself alive if you overextend, making him a forgiving hero to make mistakes on. By the time you get impatient with his restricted damage output, you'll already have a good sense of when his replacement Melee Assassin should or should not go in, something you may not learn if you just plunge straight in on, say, The Butcher.
• Supernatural Martial Arts: The crux of all his abilities work this way.
• Teleport Spam: Seven Sided Strike is one, striking vanishing and striking enemy heroes seven times. He rapidly punchs or kicks the highest-health enemy with its circle from many different angles, no matter how far apart the potentially-switching-highest-health enemies are from each other within the circle. If no enemies are within its circle, they walk into it, or walk out of it, then Kharazim sits in the center in a Levitating Lotus Position until an enemy is within its circle. It also makes him invincible for its duration.
• Three-Strike Combo: Every third Basic Attack will trigger Kharazim's trait.
• Warrior Monk: He is the iron fist of his 1,001 gods.

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