Blizzard just released the hero spotlight for Heroes Of The Storm’s next healer, Auriel. The angel of hope in Diablo brings a strong combination of healing and crowd control to the rift, easily controlling the pace of the fight with her strong disengage potential. If Taric and from League of Legends became a floating, angelic deity, he’d play a lot like Auriel.
Auriel’s passive is Bestow Hope. Unlike other mages, Auriel doesn't use mana but instead has a resource bar that fills up whenever she, or a marked ally, attack. You gain more stacks from attacking enemy heroes than minions. The larger the bar she has, the more healing she does with her second ability, Ray Of Heaven. Don’t be afraid to get into a fight when Auriel’s on your team; the more damage you can output, the more health she can give back.
Sacred Sweep is Auriel’s first ability, which swings her two tendrils in front of her, dealing extra damage to those in the middle. It’s great for wave clear and giving her passive stacks. Her third ability, Detainment Strike, pushes enemies away from Auriel and stunning those that collide with terrain. If an ally is trying to get out of a sticky situation, use Detainment Strike to help your buddy live another day.
Auriel’s heroic abilities take a lot of inspiration from one of Blizzard’s other games, Overwatch. Crystal Aegis is a lot like Mei’s Cryo Freeze, it freezes an ally in a crystal cocoon, making them immune to damage for a few seconds. Then, the crystal explodes dealing damage to any enemies caught in the blast. Hopefully, players don’t troll their teammates to much with this ability. Getting frozen in the middle of a fight when you should be dealing damage is the quickest way to get a whole team killed.
Resurrect brings one ally back from the dead with half health. If Auriel upgrades this ability, she can restore allies to full health and give them a temporary speed boost. It’s not as good as Mercy’s team-wide resurrection, but it’s still an amazing ability to have. Spending all of your resources to kill an enemy damage dealer just to have them come back to life isn’t fun, there’s a reason people pick Zilean in League Of Legends.
Auriel is an amazing healer, who combos well with teams with strong engages. Look for her on the Rift today.
