Blizzard has launched a new game mode that’s sure to mix things up in their popular Heroes of the Storm MOBA. Brawl Mode pretty much “breaks all the rules,” as Blizzard puts it, and offers arenas, mutators, and single-lane battlegrounds.
The first arena to debut in Brawl Mode is the Punisher Arena. A single-lane battleground, your Punisher fights against enemy heroes and the enemy Punisher with your help. The first team to score 100 points in this best of 3 match arena wins. Scoring is simple, your team gets 4 points for an enemy hero kill and 10 points for an enemy Punisher kill.
Sounds pretty simple, but here’s where things get really interesting: hero selection. When entering the match, you’ll have 30 seconds to choose one of three heroes to play before each match. You can even select the same hero as someone else on your team if it’s available as a choice, and there’s even a slim chance that all players will automatically be tossed into the match as the same hero! All in all, it makes for some unexpected fun. Once you start the match, you don’t level up like you normally do, instead you just pick your Heroic ability and it’s game on.
Once you’ve participated in three Brawls for the week, you’ll pick up 1,000 gold and a Brawl Portrait.
In addition to adding the new Brawl Mode, Blizzard also introduced a new hero: Samuro The Blademaster. A melee assassin, Samuro uses Mirror Image, Wind Walk (stealth), Critical Strike, Bladestorm, and Illusion Master on the battlefield.
Another change that was made was to bonus XP. Friend bonus is now 25% extra XP, while playing in a party also adds bonus XP based on the number of party members — 25% for 2 players, 33% for 3, 42% for 4, and 50% for 5, as well as XP bonuses of 25% for playing in ranked Hero League games and 50% in Team League ranked games.
Three new skins and a new mount are also coming soon, including Cyberhawk Kael’thas, Scarecrow Xul, Deputy Valla, and the Eyepad Mount — all of which will be available starting October 25th as part of the Hallow’s End 2016 event.
What do you think about Brawl Mode, the new hero, and new skins? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
