Greymane - Gameplay, First Impression, Release Date

UPDATE - Click here for Greymane Guide

Hello lads, our HotS boosting team has gathered some information on the upcoming hero Greymane and we'd like to show it to you, so far we have an ability list, his skins, some impressions and ofcourse the Greymane release date.

We wonder how will he rank on our HotS tier list, we shall see.

Who is Greymane

Greymane is the Lord of Worgen from Warcraft franchise. He is an upcoming hero that is both ranged and melee. He has a human, ranged form, and worgen, melee form. After many tragedies that happened to his town Gilneas, Genn Greymane embraced the inner beast within. He uses his shapeshifting abilities to help the Alliance instead of letting go and succumbing to the curse of Worgen.

Genn Greymane is the current King of Gilneas. During the Second War, Greymane met with the other human leaders at Capital City to hear of Stormwind's fall at the hands of the orcish Horde. Greymane joined the other leaders in forming the Alliance of Lordaeron to counter the Horde threat, but due to his pride he offered only token support. After the war's conclusion, Greymane chafed at using Gilnean taxes to help pay for the orc internment camps and Nethergarde Keep. Greymane decided that Gilneas could not and would not pay for the wars of other nations, so he withdrew Gilneas from the Alliance, ordered the construction of the Greymane Wall and isolated Gilneas from the rest of the world.

Around the time of the Third War, Greymane instructed Archmage Arugal, a Dalaran wizard loyal to Gilneas, to summon feral worgen to protect Gilneas from the Scourge threat. The plan backfired, and the worgen curse would eventually run rampant among the Gilnean population. Genn himself was bitten during a hunting trip, but managed to conceal his condition for some time. When the Forsaken invaded Gilneas, Greymane decided to let his people know that he too was afflicted by the curse - his people accepted him and rallied to him when he called for a united counter attack. During the battle to retake Gilneas City, his son and heir Prince Liam Greymane was killed by Sylvanas, and the Gilneans were forced to flee after learning that she was prepared to deploy the plague.

Humbled by his son's death and the devastation of his kingdom, Greymane accepted the aid of the night elves, who had offered to relocate Gilnean survivors to Darnassus. In a fit of stubbornness, Greymane was against formally rejoining the Alliance until he almost lost his wife and daughter during the crossing. After a short layover at Darnassus, Greymane decided to travel to Stormwind to speak with King Varian Wrynn.

Greymane's Ability List

TRAIT - Use certain Abilities to shapeshift between a Human and a Worgen.While Human, your Basic Attack is ranged. While Worgen, your Basic Attack is melee but deals 40% more damage.

Razor Swipe (Worgen Q) - Swipe towards the area in front of you for 349 damage. Gilnean Cocktail (Human Q) - Hurl a flask that deals 152 damage to the first enemy hit and explodes for 454 damage to enemies in a cone behind them.

Inner Beast (W) - Gain 50% Attack Speed for 3 seconds. Basic Attacks refresh this duration.

Disengage (Worgen E) - Roll away and shapeshift into a Human.

Darkflight (Human E) - Shapeshift into a Worgen and leap at an enemy dealing 193 damage.

Go For The Throat (R) - Leap at an enemy Hero and shapeshift into a Worgen, slashing 3 times for 822 total damage. If this kills them, the Ability can be used a second time within 10 seconds for free.

Marked For The Kill (R) - Shapeshift into a Human and fire a shot hitting the first enemy Hero for 149 damage. For 5 seconds, they are Vulnerable, taking 25% more damage, and you can re-activate this to leap at them and shapeshift into a Worgen.

Greymane Design

We initially expected that Greymane's shapeshifting will be tied to his Trait (D) but that's not true. It's tied to his E ability. For instance his Darkflight ability causes him to dash to an enemy from a pretty decent range transforming him into a Worgen. You become melee and more vulnerable but you do 40% more damage like the passive says. Now your E is Disengage and you can use it to dash back again with pretty good range and turn back into Human form.

Blizzard designed him this way to make you play both forms and not just one, you sacrifice range for more damage, and vice versa.

Gameplay

Greymane's gameplay is similar to that of Nidalee, if you ever played League of Legends, if you have, then you might understand the mindset of a player playing a hero that can change forms. You must know when is it time to go all in into Worgen form and do serious damage, and when is the time to stay back and poke in Human form.

You must be careful because using Darkflight can become very addicting, you just want to spam it and dash into people's faces dealing mad damage. He has limited sustaining abilities, pretty much none but still he can jungle pretty well, according to our Heroes of the Storm Boosting team

If we had to compare his Human form to another HotS hero, it would be Valla, you can deal some fair AoE damage and build up attack speed by attacking (Using Inner Beast W). His Worgen form is comparable to Butcher, very squishy but insane damage.

Sadly like many assasins, Greymane is low on CC abilities, you do not have any, not even via Heroics and this worries us and how will he place on our Heroes of the Storm Tier List.

Will Greymane Fit The Meta?

Like we said, having no CC abilities doesn't really allow you into the meta and we are genuniely concerned about this matter. Another downside in HotS is that Greymane is partially a go-all-in-and-kill or you die type of hero.

Currently heroes that are very flexible, have disengage and crowd control fit the meta, even the competitive meta. He also doesn't have absolutely any sustain and we are afraid Blizzard's designers will release yet another very fun to play hero for casual players but a very bad pick for competitive players. Our HotS boosting team believes that the only way this can be countered is that if they give him insane numbers on his damage to compensate for his lack of CC and sustain.

Greymane Release Date

After datamining Heroes of the Storm files, we found out that Greymane is scheduled to be released on 12th January, 2016. See you soon!