You're my Hero

News of the day:
This will be the final weekend of 'Beta 2' in Wrath of Heroes. Hopefully we can look forward to some more nice changes in 'Beta 3' in a couple weeks? ... A new map or two? Even more bad-ass new skins? Perhaps I'll be able to play the Troll finally, so I can live out my dream of killing a whole slew of you twats to death by vomiting on your heads. I will make you drown in my projectile-puked troll bile. Mark my words.

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There was no word of any changes to the game since last weekend, so one could assume that both the Shaman and Bright Wizard remain benched while the Warrior Priest and Assassin remain playable. (Double BOO).


You can play this weekend at what appears to be the new regular times (Thurs 4-8pm, Fri 10-10pm, Sat 12-6pm, Eastern).


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Here's a few helpful resources from BioWareFans.com - Full Tactics and Abilities lists.
Please note that both those lists are subject to very violent changes (especially if you're Volrik).

I also remember promising to do a quick write-up of each Hero to explain their roles and viability, so I'll knock that out now, in order of my personally perceived potency.

#1. Ilyana the Dark Elf Sorceress
Walking death. She is able to maintain a steady stream of damage from afar and still has some self-defense in the form of her knock-up attack.

#2. Glowgob the Goblin Shaman
The group-healing machine. Not really overpowered, but being the only real healer makes him a game-changer.

#3. Bax the Black Orc
The king of the melee classes, Bax now has no real weakness. He can move in and out of trouble well with his sprinting, he can pin targets to the ground with a long knockdown, he builds up to have good burst damage and combines excellent durability with a self-heal attack. Oh, and he debuffs your damage. Prime candidate for some form of nerfing since he combines too much into a single Hero right now.

#4. Felicia the Bright Wizard
The Queen of Leaderboard ePeen. No other class comes close to pumping out the total damage Felicia deals. She's not the best burst finisher in the game, she's someone who softens up clusters of enemies with her AOE attacks. Has some useful stuff in her toolbox (ranged root, snare and knockback), a very popular and easy-to-pick-up Hero.

#5. Korith the High Elf Shadow Warrior
Some of the best burst in the game, he's a really deadly sniper that doesn't have the steady face-melting of Ilyana or the pure fire-storming of Felicia, nor does he have any real utility or survivability. His one real saving grace now is that he deals physical damage, thus he can burn down characters that the casters cannot.

#6. Nethys the Vampire Countess
Her value is more as a tank than a real damage-dealer. Her strength isn't as a dropper of bodies but as a bad target, someone who can stay alive while taking her licks. An absolute nightmare to fight 1-on-1 for many Heroes.

#7. Zathis the Dark Elf Assassin
A lot of mixed reviews on this one. I'm putting him here because he definitely can hit hard and can do it coming from out of nowhere. His movement speed while stealthed is just a huge drag though.

#8. Korelei the Witch Elf
Combines decent bursty damage with decent survivability (she has such ridiculously high agility that she dodges virtually everything you use on her unless you're a caster). Pretty much an afterthought with the way Bax is playing now - but still useful for her burst and slipperiness.

#9. Ikkrik the Skaven Gutter Runner
Another Hero that Bax has made irrelevant now. His strengths are that he has an escape stealth and mid-ranged attacks, neither of which provide much value compared to the stronger Heroes. He still excels at stealing deathblows though, for whatever that's worth.

#10. Thagison the Dwarven Slayer
Getting solidly into the "Don't even bother" portion of this list. Thaggy actually deals some nice spike damage, his problem is that he sucks at getting and staying in range to Grudge-hump you. He has some value here as he has a ridiculously high resistance to magic, so he makes for a kamikaze killer of casters.

#11. Volrik the Chaos Marauder
A Viking berserker infused with hellish otherworldy strength, hits like a sleepy Girl Scout. His one and only real role to me appears to be a Shaman-smasher, blowing his load of abilities to take out one of the other team's healers.

#12. Conrad the Sigmarite Warrior Priest
While he was supposed to be the frontline version of the Shaman, he healed for much lesser numbers and required a melee target to put them out. Entirely useless unless he was hiding between a bunch of Black Orcs who didn't really need him there. Might be slightly more valuable if his silence is taking out the other team's Shaman. Still needs serious buffing.

#13. Kaelin Blackthorn the Dryad
A neat idea (toggles 'seasonal' stances to play more as a tank or a DPS) but still woefully unfun. "The Tree" exists to provide ho-hum aura buffs to teammates that don't ever want to stay together and crowd control abilities that you can find using much harder-hitting classes.

#14. Durrig Blackbeard the Dwarf Engineer
A ranged AOE DPS that differs from Felicia in that he deals physical damage and, oh yeah, does about half her damage and none of her crowd control. Putting him at the bottom of the list because he just serves no real purpose beyond being kind-of cool in a weird Dwarfy, gun-shootin' way.

#??. Amenadresh the Tomb King Lich Priest
Another fairly unexciting support Hero that revolves around buffing and debuffing. He could complement a team of casters well, but he's a lot like the The Tree in that he's just not that fun to play -- you might as well just bring another of the stronger Heroes.
(Note: Ol' Dusty Nuts here was benched last week, I'm assuming it was to get his ranged snare-bomb off the field (same as Felicia) to better see how melee were performing.)