Warcraft III Goliath Preview

An early feast for Thanksgiving, Gamers.com unleashed their herculean preview of Blizzard’s role-playing strategy game in-the-works, Warcraft III. It’s not your banal everyday rehash either, it’s full of new information from their visit, and peppered with 21 intensely-colorful screenshots.
Here’s a heaping helping of fascinating info:

Auras:
One of the most important abilities of the heroes is their auras. When one of your heroes levels up, you can choose an aura instead of a spell. Warcraft III hero auras are similar to those of the Diablo II Paladin – they are abilities that bestow bonuses on the caster as well as nearby regular units. The types of auras available depend on the type of hero. A combat-oriented hero like the Orc Warlord features a command aura that gives a damage-amplifying bonus to nearby units. The Warlord would therefore be most effective leading a group of combat units like Grunts. The Human Archmage is a spell-caster, so his aura, Brilliance, increases the mana recharging capability of units around him. Naturally, you’d want the Archmage escorting your spell-caster units like the Sorceress and other heroes (auras will give benefits to heroes as well as regular units). Some heroes are more of a lone wolf type, and don’t have auras to choose from at all, like the Orc Blademaster.

And two heroes’ auras, at this time anyway, can stack. What an impressive Diablo II twist! Even though this game has gone up and down in my mind, it has been a long while since it was down (mainly due to them taking out the major elements of role-playing), but to tell you the truth, from how it sounds I won’t be missing much.