Home Gaming Heroes of the Storm hero spotlight: Valla the Demon Hunter

Heroes of the Storm hero spotlight: Valla the Demon Hunter

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DemonHunterNewTristram

Don’t lie, I know you all missed this feature dearly! Last time I told you all about Zagara, the broodmother from StarCraft II who excels at sieging and being a general nuisance thanks to all the Zerg units at her disposal.

This week we shift over to the world of Diablo III. Valla is the Demon Hunter, and she specialises at leaping in and out of combat all while doing insane amounts of damage to enemies around her. She doesn’t have her own official Heroes of the Storm trailer, but she does have one from Diablo III.

Skills

Valla has skills which will be instantly recognisable to those who have played as the Demon Hunter in Diablo III (via Gamepedia)

VALLA SKILLS

First up is her trait called hatred. Attacking the creep wave a few times will keep your charges full, meaning you will attack and run just that little bit faster. Her hungering arrow is great for general harassment, as it does some decent damage and even seeks out additional targets. Multishot is a purely AOE ability. It doesn’t slow or stun, it just does a fair amount of damage in a cone in front of her. The last ability is Vault, which is perfect for either hunting down enemies or escaping when things get just a bit too heated. If you watch the video, you will see just how useful it was

Ultimate Abilities

VALLA ULTIMATE

Both these ultimate abilities have different uses depending on what you want to do. Strafe is the one you want if you are looking to single out targets for assassination. It fires off randomly at whoever is around. Simply put, more targets result in less damage output, as it is split between them. Try save this for when you are alone with an enemy. Keep in mind that it also grants you 10 stacks of hatred, meaning you will have some slightly better damage output.

The second ultimate, Rain of Vengeance, is best suited for team fighting. Not to say it doesn’t work for assassination purposes, it’s just far more effective when hitting multiple targets. It does a fair amount of damage, but more importantly, it has quite a large area for a stun. These two stuns only last 0.5 seconds, but it is more than enough to secure a kill or turn a team fight around in your favour. It certainly saved me in the video below.

Gameplay

Valla doesn’t have in real kind of slow, or even a stun (if you exclude her Rain of Vengeance ability). While she can be perfectly self sufficient in chasing and killing enemies, it really does help to have allies who can keep them rooted in place. There are talents which modify her abilities with either more damage, or cooldown reductions. For example, I took a talent which refreshed Hungering Arrow each time I used vault. There is also a talent which allows you to keep two charges of Vault. The result; three charges of hungering arrow if you use Vault twice. It means you do a whole lot of damage, plus still have the potential to leap in and out of battle.

From an enemy point of view, Valla is rather soft if she is focused. While she can escape with her Vault, rooting her in place usually results in an easy kill. Try not to be caught alone with her though, as assassination  really is her thing.

Keep in mind that the game is still in Technical Alpha, meaning that stuff can change as it develops. If you have any recommendations, questions, suggestions, or hero spotlight requests, please do leave them below. If I can afford them with my in-game gold, I will happily do a video for them.

(Header Source)

Last Updated: August 22, 2014

10 Comments

  1. How I picture Matty after writing this:

    Reply

  2. Kensei Seraph

    August 22, 2014 at 14:53

    I request a Nova spotlight next.

    Hope for Starcraft: Ghost.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Assassin

      August 22, 2014 at 14:56

      This comment receives the [Admiral Chief Stamp of Approval]

      Reply

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