Gazlowe

Gazlowe, the Boss of Ratchet, is a Bruiser Hero from the Warcraft universe. Few would consider the diminutive goblin tinkers fighters, but what they lack in height they more than make up in mechanical cunning. Gazlowe's mechanical exoskeleton is an especially effective war machine - whenever it's working.

Prior to patch 52.0, Gazlowe was a Melee Assassin hero.

Background
"Time is money" is a saying all goblins live by, and Gazlowe is no exception - or is he?

As a youngster, was a thief but he managed to make enough coin through his adventures to start his own legitimate business. That business boomed into one of the world's most successful trading ports. Gazlowe manages the trading operations on Kalimdor in the town of.

After the events of the Third War, Gazlowe was approached by Thrall to be the chief engineer in the building of. He was tasked with finding a reliable water source in the dry, harsh climate of Durotar. Digging tunnels outside the city in search of an underground well, Gazlowe and his team ran into a den of kobolds, who flooded the tunnels and drove the goblin miners out. Gazlowe sent Rexxar to deal with the nuisance.

Years and profits went on without much trouble. There was the occasional 99-Year Old Port stolen by and pesky pirates to the south but nothing questing adventurers couldn't handle. It wasn't until upset fire elementals laid blaze to Orgrimmar that Gazlowe was again asked by Thrall to rebuild the city. Settling on a price, which was lowered several times, the former Warchief departed for Outland.

Following the death of the beloved, the treacherous Grimtotem tribe rose up to take control of the tauren city,. Cairne's son, Baine, sent a trusted ally named to ask Gazlowe for aid in their fight to take back the city. The plan called for outrageous amounts of explosives and weaponry, as well as zeppelins to transport troops. Demands were met and Gazlowe received an enormous sum of money and, very, very rare of a goblin, he gave most of it back as a gesture of respect to Cairne and his son. Gazlowe is keen to remain neutral for profits sake, but retains strong relations with the Horde.

Gameplay
Gazlowe is a Bruiser hero, who excels at guarding a location. Instead of Mana, Gazlowe uses Scrap, which is passively generated by his trait Reduce, Reuse, Recycle over time or salvaged from his destroyed turrets. His trait can also be activated to instantly dismantle a turret.

Scrap is consumed by Gazlowe's first Basic Ability ''Rock-It! Turret'', which allows him to place a stationary turret in a target location. The turret fires at enemies, prioritising enemy Heroes, if they were in its range when it was created. Gazlowe's other abilities do not require Scrap, and are fully cooldown based. Deth Lazor fires a laser, which after a delay damages enemies and heals him for a portion of the damage it dealt. Xplodium Charge places a bomb that explodes shortly after to deal damage and stun enemies caught in the blast. Gazlowe also has a fourth ability called Focus Turrets!, by which he orders his turrets to focus on the chosen target, if in range.

Gazlowe's first Heroic is Robo-Goblin. It passively adds a stacking Damage over Time to his Basic Attack and can also be activated to temporarily grant Gazlowe Unstoppable, making him immune to crowd control. His second Heroic Grav-O-Bomb 3000 pulls in enemies after a delay, dealing heavy damage, and causes his Basic Abilities to deal more damage for a short while after casting this.

Abilities

 * See Data page for a table of scaled values at key levels.

2020 Rework
When the Heroes of the Storm development team first designed Gazlowe (or Tinker, as he was initially called), the game was completely different than it is now. What heroes could do, how maps were designed, and how the game was "meant" to be played has changed dramatically over the years. So when Gazlowe was introduced back in 2014, his kit worked well for that time period. He could split push lanes, clear mercenary camps efficiently, and even his team-fighting ability wasn't that bad. Fast forward to the year 2020 (and two reworks later), the development team felt it was time to give his kit another look after his most recent overhaul in 2017.

The developer in charge of bringing the goblin's kit into 2020 was Senior Game Designer Kevin Gu. But as Gu was on paternity leave, Senior Game Designer Adam Jackson (who was heavily involved in the process) stepped up and spoke with Inven Global recently about how the team tackled the project. When Gazlowe was first created, there was a role he slid into called "Specialist." Specialists were heroes who could act as lane bullies, clear mercenary camps effectively, control key objective points, and had unique playstyles compared to the more "traditional" roles. They couldn't team-fight well but their impact was felt in other areas of the map. Once the role was removed in the spring of 2019 and replaced with more defined playstyles (Ranged Assassin, Healer, etc.), the development team knew they had to find a spot for the goblin.

"I think we've learned a lot since we were designing him way back in the day about how our game works and about the role that we want him to play in our game," said Jackson. "Our players have learned a lot about how our game works. And as designers, we've learned a lot about both how our game is played and how kind of we want it to be played."

As for what the development team wanted to him to be, they went off what he did well and how that could translate into one of the six new roles going forward. In 2020, that role was Bruiser. Gazlowe could hold his own in lane, use his turrets for zoning purposes, and threaten stunning or slowing enemies with his abilities — a perfect fit. But once the development team settled on a Bruiser as the new role for Gazlowe, how were they going to turn him into one?

When Gu and the team began work on making Gazlowe feel like a more complete hero, they ran into a fundamental issue that they needed to address: What to do with his turrets? "One thing with Gazlowe specifically that always made him difficult to design around is that (and, not only is it true for him, but for any turret hero) in any game, turret heroes tend to be very difficult to design in a healthy way because they tend to be fairly polarizing. When you have a lot of power that's in another unit that's not the hero and that is automatically doing damage, it tends to be very, very powerful or not at all," said Jackson. By taking power out of his turrets early in the game so the opposing laner has more things to do other than worry about constantly killing his stationary cannons and dodging his skill shots, the development team was able to put more power into this other abilities. Enabling the element of counterplay not only helps provide a healthier game experience for the opposing laner but for the player piloting Gazlowe. Jackson compares going up against and playing as Gazlowe to a traditional fighting game where: "I have a goal, he has a goal. I'm trying to prevent my opponent from doing what they want and they're trying to prevent me from doing what I want." With Gazlowe having a more defined role in a team composition going forward, the development team believes that he'll be a lot more embraced by those who want to play as him or around him.

Trivia

 * Gazlowe first appeared in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (July 2003), after Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans was cancelled in 1998.
 * His book debut was seven years later, in (October 2010).
 * Gazlowe is voiced by Travis Willingham.
 * Gazlowe was one of the 18 heroes revealed at BlizzCon 2013.
 * Gazlowe is the first and only Goblin hero in the game, with Junkrat getting a skin that replaces his body with a mech and a Goblin operating it where his torso is.
 * The machine on Gazlowe's back features a licence plate with his name on it.
 * One of Gazlowe's gag quotes references the song Gin and Juice by Snoop Dogg.