Known in the ancient tongue as Al’Diabolos, the Prime Evil of Terror, the Demon Lord Diablo seeks to claim the world of Sanctuary for the Burning Hells. His victims are innumerable, his schemes unknowable.
Youngest of the three Prime Evils, the red demon Diablo was born from one of the seven heads of the great dragon Tathamet in a great battle with the creator. After the beast fell, his body decayed into what would become the seven Planes of Hell. It is here in the Plane of Terror where Diablo holds dominion over the fear created by mortal and supernatural beings alike. Often said to be the most cunning and farsighted of the three brothers it was he who sent in motion a plan to destroy all of creation, and one that would take thousands of years and countless lies to unfold from the shadows…
Before there was Illidan and Jim Raynor, Blizzard’s most famous character was the massive fire-breathing demon Diablo, whose popularity has spawned an entire genre of Diablo-styled hack and slash games. Thankfully, he has shed his feminine, almost serpentine form seen in Diablo 3 for his appearance in Heroes of the Storm and returned to his classic monstrous form from the original Diablo games. Diablo is a warrior type hero who uses his charge ability and massive amounts of health and armor to imitate combat and wreak havoc on unsuspecting souls.
Indeed Diablo is incredibly hardy, more so than other warrior types we’ve played so far as he is imbued with the mystical powers of The Black Soulstone. The stone grants him the ability to absorb the souls of creeps and heroes that he kills - heroes grant ten souls and creeps give one per kill. For every one souls the stone absorbs, Diablo will gain an additional five points of health and extra regeneration. Should you be killed with 100 souls in the stone your resurrection time will be shortened to 5 seconds. This passive trait can also be buffed through talents to hold up to 200 souls, extra health, and a quick heal that consume souls on use.
Since Diablo fills the role of being a tank-type hero, your role on any team will be to initiate combat and displace enemy heroes while soaking up tons of damage. Diablo’s Shadow Charge ability is one of the better charging abilities that we’ve encountered in the game with quite a long range, damage, and stun effect. Through talents the range can be noticeably increased, and you’ll soon be charging around the battlefield as enemy heroes run from your intimidating health pool.
Once you’ve charged an enemy, you’ll be can further displace them with the Overpower ability that has Diablo picking up opponents and slamming them down behind you for massive amounts of damage. Overpower is a great combo breaker that can stop channeled abilities and prevent actions for about a second while you’ve got someone in your grasp. Combined, Charge and Overpower can create a good one-two combo that can break an assassin or support-type hero’s health bar in half.
To assist with clearing lanes of creeps Diablo can use Fire Stop, a reasonably strong area-of-effect ability that sends waves of fire out from your feet. The wave of fire damages every enemy it moves through and with talents it will bounce back into you to cause even more injury. While not entirely an amazing ability when compared to some of the AOE damage that other heroes are able to pump out, it is extremely cheap on mana and works well with Diablo’s other abilities.
Finally there are Diablo’s two ultimate abilities – Apocalypse and Lightning Breath, both of which are original abilities that he’s famously used in all of his self-entitled games. Apocalypse creates large burning runes under every enemy hero regardless of where they are on the map. After a short duration if they’ve not moved to safety the rune will explode, stunning and damaging those caught in the blast.
Unfortunately any good player will quickly move away from the runes and this ability works better when timed with large team battles, which require skill and communication to execute properly. When teamed up with other random players you may be better suited off by picking up Lightning Breath, a high damage directional blast of pain. With the ability to make the breath last up to eight seconds it has the potential to deal out more damage than any ability we’ve seen, and can easily rout the enemy team.
It is a lot of fun playing the lord of terror in Heroes of the Storm, and it is important to remember to play into his strengths. Diablo is meant to be up on the front lines and works well with a ranged class backing him up to quickly burst down enemies. The longer you stay alive the harder you are to kill and at the end of the game it will take the whole enemy team popping all of their abilities on you to bring you down. If you are lucky you’ll have a healer on your team and you’ll be virtually unstoppable.
Remember: only fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Brian Kale
@brianwkale
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