Home Gaming Try the Machines of War event early with the latest Heroes of the Storm PTR patch

Try the Machines of War event early with the latest Heroes of the Storm PTR patch

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Heroes of the Storm Machines of War header

At Gamescom earlier this month, Blizzard announced the Machines of War event for Heroes of the Storm. It’s identical to the Eternal Conflict goodness we saw last year, except instead of focusing on the Diablo franchise, the MOBA is taking inspiration from the StarCraft universe instead this time around.

For the most part anyways. Zarya from Overwatch will make her Heroes of the Storm debut compliments of the event too. Apart from her though, every bit of upcoming Machines of War content will draw exclusively from Blizzard’s space RTS.

And some of it is already playable now, thanks to the latest Heroes of the Storm PTR patch. The update features Alarak, the High-Lord of the Tal’darim, one of the two new battlegrounds, Braxis Holdout, and more for you to test out. Here’s a quick overview…

Alarak

Not all heroes are born of altruism. . . some, like Alarak, simply desire vengeance. As the new Highlord of the Tal’darim, Alarak leads his people to a destiny free of the corrupt influence of the fallen Xel’naga, Amon.

Alarak Heroes of the Storm

Braxis Holdout

The Dominion used the remote and hostile planet Braxis to conduct experiments on ways to turn the Zerg swarm into a weapon they could unleash on their enemies. Though the Dominion’s main psi disrupter was destroyed, this space platform’s beacons remain fully operational and ready to be used. Capture the beacons and watch what happens when a flood of weaponized Zerg ravages the battlefield

  • Capture the Beacons: Two Beacons will periodically spawn near the center of the Battleground. Capture both to fill your team’s Holding Cell with Zerg over time.
  • Fill Holding Cells: The longer a team holds both Beacons, the stronger and more numerous their Zerg army will become. Once either team has completely filled their Holding Cell, both will open, unleashing Zerg forces into each lane.
  • Unleast the Swarm: Each team must decide whether to defend against the opposing Zerg rush, or push with their own to lay siege to all who stand in the way of the Swarm.

Braxis Holdout Heroes of the Storm

Xel’naga Artifact Hunt

Xel’Naga artifacts have begun to appear all across the Nexus, and SCVs are being deployed to collect them. Terminate these interlopers with extreme prejudice and collect artifact pieces to earn some sweet new rewards!

  • Daily Quest: Collect 12 Artifact Pieces during a single game.The reward is a 1 Day Stimpack.
  • Event Quest: Collect 150 Artifact Pieces before the Machines of War liftoff from the Nexus on October 18, 2016. The reward is a Xel’naga Artifact Portrait.

Xel’naga Artifact Heroes of the Storm

Naturally, there are a ton of hero changes too. Be sure to check out the PTR patch notes if you’d like read up on all of them in more detail.

All the content in this update should be added to the main Heroes of the Storm client on September the 12th – two weeks from now. As for Zarya and the other battleground, Warhead Junction, well, I’m sure we’ll see them added shortly after (probably around the end of September).

It’s been a good long time since I played Heroes of the Storm. The last time I did in fact, was shortly before Overwatch launched, way back in May. All this new StarCraft content has me itching to go back to the Nexus though. I think I just might, but only when it has all been patched into the main game.

Last Updated: August 31, 2016

2 Comments

  1. Look forward to trying out the new maps, but it’s kinda hard to justify taking time out to try and save one building in the Nexus when all of Azeroth is at risk

    Reply

    • hairyknees

      August 31, 2016 at 10:01

      Fair point 😛

      Reply

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