Heroes of the Storm is eliminating Brawl and making ARAM an official mode

3 years 8 months ago

Once again, huge changes are coming to the very much alive Heroes of the Storm.

Amid reworks for D.va and Gazlowe, the game is also eliminating Heroes Brawl (RIP and replacing it with ARAM (All Random All Middle). In case you forgot, Heroes of the Storm introduced "Brawl" (in the same vein as Hearthstone) several years ago. While it was decently received at first it never really stuck, as Blizzard seemingly ran out of resources to support it; over time, it stopped producing new Brawls and just recycled old ones.

ARAM, on the other hand, has been thriving. Up until this month it hasn't been an official mode, so folks have either been waiting for it to randomly arrive in that week's Brawl or play it unofficially via private games, using Discord servers to meet up. Now all you need to do is click a mode and go: just like several other high-profile MOBAs.

The game itself is also getting a huge mechanical shakeup with the Nexus Anomaly "Gladiator's Medallion." Taken from the classic WoW item nomenclature, the idea is that everyone (except Deathwing and Gall) now have a baseline item that can be activated to provide unstoppable (a self-cleanse): countering things like roots and stuns. This powerful ability will run on a 300 second cooldown for balance purposes.

The ripple of this anomaly will be felt throughout the game. Players have been complaining for a long while that certain supports don't have a cleanse and that the game is too stun/crowd-control (CC) heavy; but the jury is out on whether or not this is a long, or even short-term solution.

You can take a look at the full patch notes for the alterations below. In other balance news, Alarak is getting a small buff, Cassia is getting a small level seven talent nerf, Chromie is getting a small nerf, Deckard's Ruby ability is being toned down (the cooldown is now 20 seconds), Stitches will gain a small buff for slam (10% more bonus damage to minions and mercenaries) and E.T.C., Imperius, Orphea, Tassadar and Yrel are all getting small nerfs. You can find those changes here.

Heroes of the Storm is eliminating Brawl and making ARAM an official mode screenshot

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Author
Chris Carter