This week we wanted to talk a bit more about the heroes in Artifact. These have been viewed as one of the strengths in the original game, but also as one of the missed opportunities. The most common concerns we hear are about underwhelming signature cards, lack of abilities, or heroes that fictionally don’t fit with their kit. Our philosophy this time around is different, so we’d like to go over some of the factors we use when evaluating hero designs.

• All heroes should have at least one ability.
• You should be excited to draw a hero’s signature cards.
• Signature cards should avoid being situational.
• Signature cards should generally be at their best when their corresponding hero uses them.
• Bonus if a hero has a small self-synergy.
• It’s fine to have two abilities on a hero if at least one of them is a passive.
• It’s fine to have strong active and passive abilities on the board. They create interesting threats to play around.

Let’s take a look at the basic heroes and see how they’ve changed. Keefe the Bold

• This big body can absorb a lot of punishment.
• Reckless Charge can put this bulk to use, letting him redirect damage from soft targets.
• His active ability, Stop Hittin’ Yourself, lets him turn his attackers' strengths against them.
• Notes: His health was recently increased, and might be a bit too high.

Farvhan the Dreamer

• Green units tend to stick around in lane, so don’t be surprised if you see Farvhan getting up to a big bonus from Pack Leadership.
• Prowler Vanguard makes it easy to create a creep imbalance, keeping your tower safe.
• Placing Prowler Vanguard in slot 2 with Farvhan in slot 3 is an easy way to build pressure in a lane.
• Prowler Vanguard has been feeling a little too expensive, and is likely to decrease to 3 Mana.

J’Muy

• Runic Instigation has been a fan favorite. One of our favorites was watching Mirana leap in, get refreshed, then leap back to her original slot!
• Runic Instigation lets you refresh creeps and also items on heroes. This makes J’Muy great to splash with any color.
• Wisdom of the Elders can keep your hand full, and is a nice choice for an early runic instigation to start getting the cooldown to 1.
• J’Muy is pretty hefty for a blue hero, giving you good deployment options.

Our feedback alias also had many requests for new heroes. We hashed out a few designs based on these requests and figured we would let you decide which one we add to the beta. Note that the color or abilities might change from those listed here based on testing. Anyway, here’s the list we have so far. Huskar, Red Active: Life Break Passive: Berserker’s Blood Signature: Inner Fire Snapfire, Green Active: Mortimer Kisses Signature: Snapfire Cookie Arc Warden, Blue Active: Tempest Double Signature: Spark Wraith Nyx Assassin, Black Active: Vendetta Signature: Spiked Carapace Please select the one you want from This Poll. We’ll close the poll on Thursday, then get to work on that sweet temp art!