Heroes of the Storm adding Diablo's Monk, an Orc beastmaster and a new battleground

Blizzard announced three new heroes coming to Heroes of the Storm, one from each of its major established franchises, and introduced a new battleground for its fast-paced MOBA at Gamescom today.

Leading the pack of new heroes is Kharazim, based on the monk class from Diablo 3. Blizzard describes him as a support character and he'll play a bit differently from other heroes. With Kharazim, players can choose from one of three hero traits, Transcendence, Iron Fists or Insight, to customize the character to focus on health regen, attack damage or mana regen, respectively. He can dash and heal his teammates, using abilities that will be familiar to players of Diablo 3, like Seven Sided Strike and Divine Palm.

Kharazim's inclusion in Heroes of the Storm comes as part of Blizzard's Eternal Conflict promotional campaign, which is focused on Diablo-themed content. Blizzard is also adding a new Diablo 3-themed battleground called Infernal Shrines. The new map is filled with the titular shrines that, if players defeat, will spawn a monster known as Punisher that will hunt down enemy players.

Grid View

Joining Kharazim is Rexxar from the Warcraft universe. The orc is a ranged warrior and goes into battle with a trusty bear. Rexxar can command the bear to attack enemies from a distance, harassing them and stunning them with a charge attack.

Finally, Blizzard also confirmed that Protoss leader Artanis from the StarCraft universe will come to Heroes of the Storm at some point.

You can see Kharazim in action above and a preview of Infernal Shrines in the video below. For more on Heroes of the Storm, read Polygon's review of the PC game.