Agatha, Unbound Soul (Abathur/Yuumi-like)

[SaintYin]

Now before people freak out at the comparison, I still want her shootable. The idea is that she attaches to allies to use them as a body shield while being able to attack/cast over their shoulder, meaning she can be headshot from the front and her body is exposed if the attached target is running away.

Visual: Spooky transparent ghost lady. Missing lower half of body, causing her to float around. When attached to a target, I'd like to see it as similar to Miquella when he's attached to Radahn, but I can accept a Jojo Stand position if that causes too much overhead.

Possible unique factors added outside of abilities - Half of her maximum health is converted into bullet and spirit shields. She cannot slide, but her crouch puts her extremely low to the ground and she does The Ring crawl to get around.

Ability 1 - Soulshard
Throw a fast-moving, piercing projectile that deals damage. For each unit this hits, gain temporary bullet and spirit shield.
T1 - Cooldown reduction
T2 - Damage increase
T3 - Number of projectiles thrown increased

Ability 2 - Walk the Veil
Become invisible for 5 seconds and gain movement speed.
T1 - More movement speed
T2 - Cooldown reduction
T3 - Detection radius greatly reduced/removed

Ability 3 - Soul Link
Attach to a friendly hero or minion, adding your bullet and spirit shield to theirs. Ends if cancelled or either shield is broken. If used on a minion, you gain control of it. Ability 1 and 2 benefits also apply to attached target.
T1 - Healing effects propagate between you and the attached target.
T2 - You keep your bullet and spirit shield
T3 - Provides attached target 50% of your bullet and spirit resistances.

Ability 4 - Possession
Attach to an enemy hero, dealing damage per second to them and slowing their movement speed. They are unable to use movement abilities or dash. If the hero dies before Possession ends, Agatha gains some kind of permanent stat.
T1 - Cooldown reduction
T2 - Leeches damage dealt
T3 - You control movement and direction of enemy hero while attached

 

[arcsymus]

I like the concept of a bisected drowned ghost girl, ala The Ring, crawling around the map. I'm not really seeing Yuumi here, and definitely not Abathur. The second ability alone is pushing this concept away from Yuumi. Not only does she presumably not have a gun attack, her second ability slot is theoretically wasted on a movement enhancing ability that won't benefit her tethered ally, and even if it did, I think you're missing the opportunity to make use of a lot of potential in this design space.

The first thing I think is that a Yuumi needs to have a gun. Every character needs to have a gun--it's built into the foundation of this game, that every character needs to itemize to increase gun damage in some capacity. Not only that, but it's insanely fun to be a Yuumi with a gun.

Second, rather than buffing passive traits, like bullet shield or spirit shield, I want to see more active abilities on a Yuumi-like. For example, casting a directional body shield that absorbs projectiles, that only covers one side of a character's body--something like that would require a lot of skill in contrast to a bullet shield, or to a full body shield, while engaging the Yuumi player by having them utilize spacial reasoning.

As far as Possession goes, I think we're kicking our feet in the sand unless we're talking about full character possession. As a player, that's my interest in playing a character that can supposedly possess someone. The name of the ability here really affects my perception of it--I wouldn't feel as strongly if you had named it Haunt, for example. The ultimate, though, further departs from a Yuumi concept, which, again, I think would be fine, but you've sold me on a certain expectation, and I want what was promised to me.

 

[SaintYin]

Not only does she presumably not have a gun attack

She'd definitely have a gun attack, I'm just not sure what kind of form the gun should take. Could be a ghostly gun, or something more like Infernus where it's just a hand. I was thinking a barehanded beam attack that worked somewhat like Bebop's attack + Lady Geist's Life Drain, where there's some kind of soft lock-on that gets immediately broken by line of sight. Maybe look like she's pulling soul energy out of her target instead of the projectile originating from Agatha.

her second ability slot is theoretically wasted on a movement enhancing ability that won't benefit her tethered ally, and even if it did, I think you're missing the opportunity to make use of a lot of potential in this design space.

I included in ability 3 that the benefits from 1 & 2 apply to the attached target, but I'm open to hear alternatives. I thought it matched up pretty well with Yuumi's E in being a speed boost, and since Ability 1 provides shield, it gave space to provide utility that this game might like, such as not being seen on the minimap or being able to close the distance on a target.

With that said, I'm being conservative with the power budget, so maybe additional or more powerful effects are needed.

For example, casting a directional body shield that absorbs projectiles, that only covers one side of a character's body--something like that would require a lot of skill in contrast

Fair. I was thinking of a way to keep her squishy and give opponents a way to force a detachment without needing AoE stuns. A directional shield would indeed be an interesting way to contribute to a target's survivability and it makes use of not being in control of one's movement while having full directional control.

As far as Possession goes, I think we're kicking our feet in the sand unless we're talking about full character possession. As a player, that's my interest in playing a character that can supposedly possess someone.

I was initially thinking of making it "if the target dies while affected, Agatha becomes a copy of that hero for X seconds," but I thought that was too big of an ask. Dynamic skill-swaps tend to be rife with buggy interactions and it continues to get more complicated as other heroes are added or changed.