Who’s the next hero coming to Heroes of the Storm?

With BlizzCon on the horizon, we’re definitely getting close to another character joining the lineup in Heroes of the Storm. Past years have seen some huge crowd favorites being held for the convention. In the last four years, we’ve seen Hanzo and Alexstrazsa, Ragnaros and Varian, Orphea, and Cho’gall with special guests Lunara and Greymane. So my expectations for this year are pretty high.

Deathwing has been the go-to dragon for quite some time now. Plus, who doesn’t want to be a giant fire-breathing force of destruction? Alexstrazsa has shown that it’s possible to sell the fantasy of being a huge dragon without being too overpowered or taking up an entire screen by herself. If Blizzard wants to include Deathwing — but not make him a character — they could also make a new Deathwing-themed map. He was big enough to have a raid fight on his back during Cataclysm, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine him big enough to fit a two-lane map on. But with Battle for Azeroth’s patch 8.3 on the horizon, I would put forward another Warcraft character as potential — N’zoth.

N’zoth the Corrupter

The Old God N’zoth is going to be taking center stage, so it would be the perfect time to let him worm his way into the Nexus. Now, he’s big — bigger even than Deathwing, so a map could be the way to go here, too. Or Heroes could take the opportunity to do something fresh and unique. Make N’zoth a hero that replaces the core. We know that Old Gods are used to working through minions and bestowing their gifts on mortals. It wouldn’t be the biggest stretch to build a kit around that. Think Abathur, but on steroids.

His kit could include things like spawning tentacles near allies to help with lane presence and team fights or changing your minions into Faceless Ones for extra pushing power. Now, the drawback with Abathur is that he has to be relatively close to the action and put himself in danger if he wants his Locust trait to get any value. So to make sure that N’zoth isn’t the hero that’s just plain can’t be killed, there’d have to be long cooldowns on the abilities or a major drawback if you kill one of his tentacles.

He wouldn’t be easy to balance, but boy would he make a huge impact in matches — and in Heroes in general. Plus, think of all the great skins he could get! Dress him up like the other Old Gods, C’thun or Yogg Saron — or give him the StarCraft treatment with an Overmind skin. Those are just the other franchise options, but why stop there? We could see N’zoth the Candymaker, where all of his minions are gingerbread, or fit him into the Scarlet Heist event by giving all of his abilities little bowler hats like Orphea’s minion got.

I didn’t even touch on other often requested characters like Diablo’s Lesser Evils, Andariel, Belial, or Duriel. There’s also the entire Overwatch roster who isn’t already in Heroes. Sure, some of them might be tough because of how much they move in three dimensions, but I’m sure that Blizzard can figure out a way to make them feel like themselves. Hopefully, whomever they release will be someone fantastic. I’m just happy that there are so many potential characters to add — they’ll be able to keep them coming for years.