On Friday’s Paladins stream showing off the OB42 patch, Hi-rez showed off their newest hero, Torvald. He’s a tank who can give out shields and shoot laser beams, and fits in perfectly with the other champions of Paladins . Just based on his looks, he’s an old man in a scholarly robe, with a giant rock fist. “He’s a little bit older than our usual champions, but he’s big, impressive and has a huge personality” Drybear said on stream.
Like Zarya in Overwatch, Torvald’s main ability is an energy beam that shoots in a straight line in front of his model. Like Symmetra, his beam will lock onto an enemy if caught in the cross hairs of his weapon. While he’s channeling, Torvald moves very slowly, so it’s easy to escape.
Torvald has a personal shield that works differently than other abilities in Paladins. It starts off at 6000 health and drains every time he gets attacked. The shield will not generate back on its own, you need to recharge the bubble by using his right click, called Recharge. Torvald becomes immobile while his rock hand regenerates his shield. If he looks at an enemy shield while he’s using Recharge, he will steal that shield and charges twice as fast.
Be the front line for an engage and then run away once your shield breaks down. Take a few seconds to Recharge in cover and then head straight back into the fight. It will take a few uses of Recharge to get your shield to max, so getting caught while you are vulnerable is totally possible.
His Q is a shield he puts on allies, whichthat lasts for two seconds. That’s extremely short amount of time, but according to the Hi-rez developers on stream, they kept it that short so that the game wouldn’t devolve into a “tank meta.” The F ability creates a small shockwave in front of him that silences and disarms enemies for 1.5 seconds.
Hyper Beam is Torvald’s ultimate and it looks stupidly powerful. He shoots a large beam directly in front of his model, damaging and knocking enemies back. It doesn’t just tap them, it shoots them a ridiculous distance away. The only comparison I can make to a similar ability in a MOBA is Poppy’s Devastating Blow from League of Legends . Torvald does root himself while shooting, but it’s not like any enemy can stay close enough to him for it to matter.
PVE was also announced for the first time in Paladins. It will be a queue mode available in the Casual area and will be really hard. “Tortoise Power” was the first one showed on stream and has a group of five players trying to knock a bunch of AI Makoas off the map.
Patch OB42 will hit the Private Testing Server this weekend and the patch will (hopefully) roll out next week.
How do you like Torvald in Paladins? Tell us in the comments.
