Auriel’s abilities pin her as a pocket healer

Finally, a new Support is coming to the Nexus. After nearly nine months without any new Support heroes (the last was Morales), the Support game was certainly feeling stale. But soon that will change as Diablo hero Auriel joins the mix with a kit designed around being a pocket healer — which also includes the game’s first-ever resurrection ability.

Auriel won’t be live for another week or two, but the Heroes team has gotten an early jump on posting Auriel’s hero page and abilities. It makes me think we’re likely to see Auriel on the PTR soon — possibly as early as today — for a release next week. However, there’s no fixed release date for her just yet. So while we wait, let’s check out Auriel’s abilities.

Bestow Hope (Trait): Bestow an allied Hero with Hope. While they remain near you, damage they deal causes you to gain energy. You can only have Bestow Hope on 1 ally at a time. 40% of damage dealt to Heroes and 8% dealt to non-Heroes is stored as energy. You can store up to a maximum of 505 energy.

Sacred Sweep (Q): Sweep the area with sacred power, dealing 80 damage to enemies and an additional 160 damage to enemies caught in the center.

Ray of Heaven (W): Consume your stored energy and heal allied Heroes in the area for the amount of energy consumed.

Detainment Strike (E): Deal 100 damage to the first enemy Hero hit and knock them back. If they collide with terrain, they are also stunned for 1.25 seconds and take an additional 100 damage.

Crystal Aegis (Q): Place an allied Hero into Stasis for 2 seconds. Upon expiration, Crystal Aegis deals 270 damage to all nearby enemies.

Resurrect (Q): Channel on the spirit of a dead ally for 3 seconds, bringing them back to life with 50% of their maximum health at the location where they died.

All-in-all, this makes for an interesting new Support build. While Auriel’s damage with Sacred Sweep and Detainment Strike may be good enough to let her go solo, healing requires her to stick close to an ally with Bestow Hope on them.  As that hero does damage, Auriel gains energy to convert to healing via Ray of Heaven.  Though Bestow Hope can be moved,  an Auriel will want to stick close to a heavy damage-dealer to maximize healing… and if the enemy team catches her on her own, she may not even be able to heal herself.

We’ll have to wait for the PTR to come up to see just how these abilities work in action (and whether Resurrect’s 3-second channel time kills its utility). But in the meantime, feel free to make your own guesses on how Auriel will play.