Coping with a post holiday-weekend in this week’s hero rotation

Happy belated Canada Day to our Canadian readers and happy belated Independence Day to our American readers! The end of a long weekend is always rough, but at least we have a new free hero rotation in Heroes of the Storm to help us through this Tuesday. Also arriving today is the Heroes PTR, which will feature newbie Gul’dan. If we follow the regular schedule, this means he’ll be live next Tuesday.

The Public Test Realm returns July 5 – log in and try Gul'dan before he's officially released! pic.twitter.com/6twTgajttV

— Heroes of the Storm (@BlizzHeroes) July 3, 2016

So now let’s take a look at the week’s rotation alongside the team’s commentary!

Assassins

Greymane

Illidan (Unlocked at player level 12)

Li-Ming

Mitch: Xul is one of the best counters for Li-Ming. But I am a bit surprised that half the rotation is Assassins and one of the two healers is is a hybrid DPS.

Anna: Though conversely, hey, time to practice Li Ming’s skill shots if you’re rusty.

Liz: Gotta practice up to make those shots with her upcoming volleyball skin! Because smacking someone in the face with a volleyball is going to be amazing.

Matticus: Spiking.

Liz: Is it still spiking if your goal is to hit someone in the face?

Mitch: Yes.

Tracer (Unlocked at player level 15)

Liz: Tracer is one of those heroes I’ve tried and basically decided I should play Li Li more often. High skill cap heroes are just not for me.

Tychus (Unlocked at player level 7)

Specialists

Sgt. Hammer

Anna: I wonder how they choose these. Or if they ‘choose’ them, vs just using a randomizer or dartboard or whatever. Because the entire rest of the rotation except Li Li is a hard counter for Hammer. Deep diving burst DPS is kind of the whole reason Hammer is never played and obsolete, especially with skill-shotting Li Ming in play.

Liz: I’ll be curious to see if Hammer is really played this week.

Support

Kharazim (Unlocked at player level 5)

Li Li

Anna: Li Li is pretty decent for beginners

Liz: I’m not really a serious Heroes player, so Li Li is just my speed.

Mitch: There are so many heroes now, and so many like Li Li and Raynor that are on rotation ALL the time, it would be nice if they just came included so Blizz could get more diversity in each week rather than use the obligatory “easy character” slot on the same ol’ thing.

Liz: With this many characters on rotation, though, they’ve kind of got diversity down. Maybe they should make some more low skill cap characters so there’s more than three “easy” characters in rotation… though that’s not exciting for the players who’ve been playing and are really good at the game.

Warriors

ETC

Johanna

That’s all for this week’s post holiday rotation — though, as Mitch reminds us, if you didn’t play Stars N Stripes Raynor yesterday you’re a communist. Or a Canadian. (Though resident Canadian Matticus is a fan.) While we’re waiting for Gul’dan to arrive, there’s no thrill of anything new in the Nexus quite yet. Hang on for next week when we will be getting another hero… though by the week after we’ll likely be bored again and guesstimating when Auriel will join the lineup. (Our guess: the first half of August.)