Heroes of the Storm free hero rotation and sales for September 1

Every week Heroes of the Storm has some heroes you’d usually have to pay for that you can play for free in the free hero rotation, plus a number of heroes and skins on sale in the weekly sale. It’s a great way to try out new heroes without committing to buy, as well as grabbing new heroes, skins, and mounts at bargain prices — so without further ado, let’s take a look at what this week’s rotation brings.

For this week, I’ll just start off with a haiku Mitch wrote to express his feelings about this week’s rotation:

Muradin, he leaps.

Muradin, he throws hammers.

Muradin haiku.

Now, let’s get on to the actual rotation, shall we?

We’ll start out this week’s free heroes:

• Raynor
• Muradin — check out our guide to Muradin
• Jaina
• Uther — check out our guide to Uther
• Zagara
• Illidan (Available after you reach player level 12)
• Azmodan (Available after you reach player level 15)

If you need a starting point, check out our guides to Uther and Muradin and then move on to our more general assassin guide, specialist guide, support guide, and warrior guide for quick rundowns on each hero.

If you’re in the market for new heroes or skins, here’s what’s on sale this week:

• Sgt. Hammer — Sale Price: 4.24 USD / 4.19 EUR / 3.19 GBP
• War World Sgt. Hammer Skin — Sale Price: 4.99 USD / 4.99 EUR / 3.69 GBP
• Magic Carpet Mount — Sale Price: 4.99 USD / 4.99 EUR / 3.69 GBP

I polled our team of Heroes players to get some thoughts on what the rotation means for players this week:

Mitch: AzmooooooDUNK! Or if that’s gotten old, you can always point out his nipple rings.

Dan: While many people go for the Azmodunk build on Azmodan (choosing talents that maximize the damage on his AE Globe of Annihilation), don’t forget he can also work as a hybrid tank in a pinch with his enormous health pool and healing traits or can go full structure demolition build as well.

Anne: Azmodunk sounds like a delicious cookie and I’m not sure how to feel about that, knowing what I know about Azmodan.

Anna: Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like most of the heroes on rotation lack escapes, with the sort-of exception of Muradin’s dwarf toss.

Mitch: Illidan can sort of hop around with his one thing. The others have stuns or pushbacks but Muradin is fairly unique in the actual “jump away to a targeted location” thing.

Anna: Uther is a strong traditional healer, and can really help secure kills with his stuns.

Mitch: Alex hates Raynor because his one real active ability is either a kill shot or an escape mechanism but is often used willy-nilly and totally screws up positioning for your teammates. But he’s a fairly simple hero otherwise. [Editor’s note: Alex is not currently in the office to offer his own opinions, so we are compelled to fill in.]

Mitch: Jaina is one of my favorite assassins but you need to know how to stay back because she melts faster than the ice she uses to hurt others.

Dan: Jaina is one of most popular heroes according to hotslog.com and that’s because she’s damn fun. Tons of damage output, but watch out as she has very few escape options when being chased.

Dan: Zagara has a very unique playstyle, but she can 1v2 a lane by herself so she’s a great choice.

Mitch: Zagara is also incredibly strong early game.

This week’s freebies and sales should go live on Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 PST / 5:30 EST — until then, we’ll see you in the Nexus!