Heroes of the Storm's New Hero - Imperius Announced

Not a lot is known about Heroes of the Storm’s next champion, other than he’s from Diablo 3 and was heavily featured in the expansion. We first met Imperius back in 2011’s Blizzcon, where the above concept art was introduced. It’s interesting that they’re moving for an Angel from Diablo 3 when we already have Auriel and Malthael. Andariel is a pretty popular request as she was the only female Evil until Diablo 3’s Diablo went and got a sex change.

640 — Andariel was the only female “Evil” until Diablo III.

Of course, Imperius is a fan favorite too so this isn’t a giant upset. It’s just interesting that they’re expanding Heroes with more angels on the heels of announcing the reorganization of the Heroes of the Storm support team.

Since we don’t know much about his abilities until January 2^nd, let’s talk a little about who he is. Imperius is the archangel of Valor. He’s basically the greatest warrior ever in the world of Diablo. Essentially, he’s someone who has rode into hell multiple times and killed so many demons that the blood flowed across the seven realms of the Great Evils. Which is a fancy way of saying that it flowed through a dead god’s body. That’s right, Hell in Diablo is actually the body of Tathamet, the Prime Evil. Diablo, Mephisto and Baal were the big heads and Duriel, Azmodan, Belial and Andariel were lesser heads (hence Prime Evils vs. Lesser Evils).

Imperius Heroes of the Storm HOTS — His Heroes of the Storm model.

So Imperius is a pretty bad dude to basically be a retelling of Broxigar from World of Warcraft’s lore (Broxigar killed so many demons he sat on a mountain of them as Sargeras approached). We can assume he’ll likely have some pretty strong spear based attacks, assuming he comes with his trademark weapon the Solarion, which he forged in a dying star. He could also come with the “Spear of Valor” and have Solarion as a summon / ultimate. You never know with Blizzard.

I’m excited for Imperius myself, he’s a great character and the fact Heroes of the Storm is getting love is great. However, what’s telling is that we don’t have the usual video to come before the PTR release introducing the hero. I guess the cutbacks are really starting to hit.

Imperius will be available January 2^nd on the PTR for playtesting.