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Hello,
I had some ideas this morning that I felt were good enough to develop into full concepts, so I decided to flesh them out (no pun intended) and share them here. I lifted inspiration from DotA, which DotA players will probably recognize easily, but hopefuly iterated upon enough to set them apart as their own thing. I also made it a goal to incorporate as little slowing/stuns/instant dashes as possible, because I think it's more fun to play against heroes without them (or at least limited amounts of them). I'm no good at art so I'll do my best to conjure up the imagery I have in mind with words alone. Hope you enjoy!
For starters, we have
Van Helsing, Vampire Hunter
Abraham Van Helsing is an imposing, yet staunchly human tracker and hunter. His skills enable him to not only hold his own against paranormal forces that should be greater than himself, but also hunt them down and eliminate them. He is adorned in a heavy leather overcoat with large, thick collars that cover his neck. In his experience and line of work, it's more helpful than you'd think. Various tools of the trade hang off of his belt and the insides of his coat, including phials of holy water, wooden stakes, a personal copy of the Bible, and a pouch of silver bullets that jingle together softly when he walks. A prominent silver cross hangs from his neck. Despite his rough, worn appearance, his demeanor is quiet and composed. A model professional, even, and a gentleman. He derives no joy from his work, but understands he is the only one suitable to the task of bringing down his rival. He comes equipped with a...
Repeater Crossbow for a weapon. It fires small wooden bolts via primary fire that have a slower projectile speed than most other weapons, but deal strong damage and scale well to compensate. Alt-fire consumes additional ammo to fire a heavier and faster bolt with improved damage falloff. Van Helsing's weapon is the main source of damage in his kit. On melee attack, he produces a wooden stake to make a stab at a foe, enabling him to have slightly improved base melee damage.
His skills are as follows:
Silver Bullet — Quick draws a single-shot flintlock pistol from his waist, firing a magicked hitscan silver bullet. On hit, deals low to moderate Spirit-scaling damage and reveals the outline of the hit enemy hero to all allies within 40m for 7 seconds. Base cooldown of 19 seconds.
Mark Target — Places a bounty on an enemy hero within vision/range (hero outlines revealed via Silver Bullet count as being in vision) for 15 seconds. Allied heroes receive a movement speed bonus of 2m/s while within 25m of the target. If the enemy hero is successfully hunted within the duration, Van Helsing receives 50 bonus souls for the kill, and participating allied heroes receive 25. Base cooldown of 55 seconds, cast range 25m.
Holy Water (PASSIVE) — Van Helsing's weapons are imbued with Holy Water, granting them special properties. Base effect reduces enemy health regen/lifesteal by 25% for 6 seconds on hit from either his basic attack or Silver Bullet.
Blessed Hunter — Filled with divine purpose, Van Helsing's abilities become greatly enhanced. Doubles all numerical values/bonuses innate to his other skills, for Van Helsing only if applicable and excluding durations. Base cooldown of 130 seconds, 8 second duration.
(Doubled effect example: Van Helsing shoots an enemy with a max-level Silver Bullet. They then receive a 30% movespeed slow, and Van Helsing deals 10% bonus damage to them for 7 seconds. Other enemies still only deal 5% bonus damage. Holy Water's anti-heal effect becomes doubled, and the amount of bonus souls Van Helsing receives from Mark is also doubled — his allies assisting still receive the base amount. If Holy Water is maxed, the flat damage bonus becomes doubled.)
The goal behind this kit is to make Van Helsing a formidable threat to his prey once his talents have been fully realized. Possessing no inherent area of effect, crowd control, or mobility tools, he is incentivized nonetheless to participate in the hunt early game to see his potential realized as quickly as possible. Once he achieves his endgame, he specializes in tracking down his opponents one by one.
But what is a vampire hunter without a vampire? Besides, you know, a miserable little pile of secrets. To give him an opposite, we have...
Alucard, Terror of the Night
Known simply as "Alucard", the patriarch of all vampires is as elegant and timeless as he is shrouded in mystery. A primordial creature of the night, Alucard found power in the astral plane long before its existence was revealed to the world. His methods are unknown, and his existence has been kept secret for decades, written off as legend or conspiracy. Alucard maintains an air of sophistication at all times, choosing to take on a clean, youthful form. He wears somewhat antiquated, fancy clothing, most notably the billowing black cloak that intimidates his foes. As a hunter of the night, he specializes in isolating and eliminating his targets with unnatural abilities that make him difficult to put down. His weapons of choice are...
Dual Pistols, drawing heavy inspiration from those depicted in the Hellsing anime. Because if we're doing paranormal with guns, how can you resist? They possess a moderate base rate of fire and standard aim-down-sights, but have aggressive damage falloff.
To compliment these, his skills are:
Bite — Melee-ranged, unit-targeted. Alucard unleashes his vampiric nature to leech from his enemies, dealing moderate Spirit-scaling damage and healing for the amount of damage dealt. Heals for only 30% against non-hero entities. Base cooldown of 25s. Counts as a light melee attack.
Shapeshift — Dissipates his form to better suit his needs. After a brief cast animation, Alucard becomes a swarm of bats with flying movement, possessing 40% bullet evasion. The swarm is unable to attack, but can cast spells. Duration scales with Spirit. Base cooldown of 40 seconds, 5 second duration.
Bloodlust — Hungry for blood, Alucard enters into a vampiric frenzy. Gains 30% fire rate bonus, and 50% lifesteal on hit for 5 seconds. Lifesteal is limited to 20% against non-hero entities. Base cooldown of 50 seconds.
Darkness — Night falls over the city, enabling those that thrive in the dark. Enemy vision is reduced to a 40m radius around their hero. Base 180s cooldown, 7s duration.
I'm going to be honest, the more I worked on this kit, the more I fell in love with it. As with Van Helsing, his kit is lacking in terms of AoE, CC, and the like, but enable him nonetheless to become an unkillable monster worthy of the name. His extremely powerful suite of spells is also meant to be balanced against basic weapons that start out weak, and have poor long-ranged ability. The intent is to create something that thrives between life and death, forced to posture close to his enemies to get the most return out of his lifestealing kit. When timed correctly, an unanswered Bloodlust will allow him to turn a fight to his advantage with incredible sustain and constantly refilling ammo. To beat him, a team will need to bring the right vampire-hunting tools for the job, namely silences that prevent him from partaking in his feast. The synergy between the spells is the icing on the cake, and I sincerely hope that even if the concepts get passed over, these spells alone or their interactions can be repurposed into something similar. I'm really proud of them and hope they'll be appreciated by you, the reader, too!
I had some ideas this morning that I felt were good enough to develop into full concepts, so I decided to flesh them out (no pun intended) and share them here. I lifted inspiration from DotA, which DotA players will probably recognize easily, but hopefuly iterated upon enough to set them apart as their own thing. I also made it a goal to incorporate as little slowing/stuns/instant dashes as possible, because I think it's more fun to play against heroes without them (or at least limited amounts of them). I'm no good at art so I'll do my best to conjure up the imagery I have in mind with words alone. Hope you enjoy!
For starters, we have
Van Helsing, Vampire Hunter
Abraham Van Helsing is an imposing, yet staunchly human tracker and hunter. His skills enable him to not only hold his own against paranormal forces that should be greater than himself, but also hunt them down and eliminate them. He is adorned in a heavy leather overcoat with large, thick collars that cover his neck. In his experience and line of work, it's more helpful than you'd think. Various tools of the trade hang off of his belt and the insides of his coat, including phials of holy water, wooden stakes, a personal copy of the Bible, and a pouch of silver bullets that jingle together softly when he walks. A prominent silver cross hangs from his neck. Despite his rough, worn appearance, his demeanor is quiet and composed. A model professional, even, and a gentleman. He derives no joy from his work, but understands he is the only one suitable to the task of bringing down his rival. He comes equipped with a...
Repeater Crossbow for a weapon. It fires small wooden bolts via primary fire that have a slower projectile speed than most other weapons, but deal strong damage and scale well to compensate. Alt-fire consumes additional ammo to fire a heavier and faster bolt with improved damage falloff. Van Helsing's weapon is the main source of damage in his kit. On melee attack, he produces a wooden stake to make a stab at a foe, enabling him to have slightly improved base melee damage.
His skills are as follows:
Silver Bullet — Quick draws a single-shot flintlock pistol from his waist, firing a magicked hitscan silver bullet. On hit, deals low to moderate Spirit-scaling damage and reveals the outline of the hit enemy hero to all allies within 40m for 7 seconds. Base cooldown of 19 seconds.
Mark Target — Places a bounty on an enemy hero within vision/range (hero outlines revealed via Silver Bullet count as being in vision) for 15 seconds. Allied heroes receive a movement speed bonus of 2m/s while within 25m of the target. If the enemy hero is successfully hunted within the duration, Van Helsing receives 50 bonus souls for the kill, and participating allied heroes receive 25. Base cooldown of 55 seconds, cast range 25m.
Holy Water (PASSIVE) — Van Helsing's weapons are imbued with Holy Water, granting them special properties. Base effect reduces enemy health regen/lifesteal by 25% for 6 seconds on hit from either his basic attack or Silver Bullet.
Blessed Hunter — Filled with divine purpose, Van Helsing's abilities become greatly enhanced. Doubles all numerical values/bonuses innate to his other skills, for Van Helsing only if applicable and excluding durations. Base cooldown of 130 seconds, 8 second duration.
(Doubled effect example: Van Helsing shoots an enemy with a max-level Silver Bullet. They then receive a 30% movespeed slow, and Van Helsing deals 10% bonus damage to them for 7 seconds. Other enemies still only deal 5% bonus damage. Holy Water's anti-heal effect becomes doubled, and the amount of bonus souls Van Helsing receives from Mark is also doubled — his allies assisting still receive the base amount. If Holy Water is maxed, the flat damage bonus becomes doubled.)
The goal behind this kit is to make Van Helsing a formidable threat to his prey once his talents have been fully realized. Possessing no inherent area of effect, crowd control, or mobility tools, he is incentivized nonetheless to participate in the hunt early game to see his potential realized as quickly as possible. Once he achieves his endgame, he specializes in tracking down his opponents one by one.
But what is a vampire hunter without a vampire? Besides, you know, a miserable little pile of secrets. To give him an opposite, we have...
Alucard, Terror of the Night
Known simply as "Alucard", the patriarch of all vampires is as elegant and timeless as he is shrouded in mystery. A primordial creature of the night, Alucard found power in the astral plane long before its existence was revealed to the world. His methods are unknown, and his existence has been kept secret for decades, written off as legend or conspiracy. Alucard maintains an air of sophistication at all times, choosing to take on a clean, youthful form. He wears somewhat antiquated, fancy clothing, most notably the billowing black cloak that intimidates his foes. As a hunter of the night, he specializes in isolating and eliminating his targets with unnatural abilities that make him difficult to put down. His weapons of choice are...
Dual Pistols, drawing heavy inspiration from those depicted in the Hellsing anime. Because if we're doing paranormal with guns, how can you resist? They possess a moderate base rate of fire and standard aim-down-sights, but have aggressive damage falloff.
To compliment these, his skills are:
Bite — Melee-ranged, unit-targeted. Alucard unleashes his vampiric nature to leech from his enemies, dealing moderate Spirit-scaling damage and healing for the amount of damage dealt. Heals for only 30% against non-hero entities. Base cooldown of 25s. Counts as a light melee attack.
Shapeshift — Dissipates his form to better suit his needs. After a brief cast animation, Alucard becomes a swarm of bats with flying movement, possessing 40% bullet evasion. The swarm is unable to attack, but can cast spells. Duration scales with Spirit. Base cooldown of 40 seconds, 5 second duration.
Bloodlust — Hungry for blood, Alucard enters into a vampiric frenzy. Gains 30% fire rate bonus, and 50% lifesteal on hit for 5 seconds. Lifesteal is limited to 20% against non-hero entities. Base cooldown of 50 seconds.
Darkness — Night falls over the city, enabling those that thrive in the dark. Enemy vision is reduced to a 40m radius around their hero. Base 180s cooldown, 7s duration.
I'm going to be honest, the more I worked on this kit, the more I fell in love with it. As with Van Helsing, his kit is lacking in terms of AoE, CC, and the like, but enable him nonetheless to become an unkillable monster worthy of the name. His extremely powerful suite of spells is also meant to be balanced against basic weapons that start out weak, and have poor long-ranged ability. The intent is to create something that thrives between life and death, forced to posture close to his enemies to get the most return out of his lifestealing kit. When timed correctly, an unanswered Bloodlust will allow him to turn a fight to his advantage with incredible sustain and constantly refilling ammo. To beat him, a team will need to bring the right vampire-hunting tools for the job, namely silences that prevent him from partaking in his feast. The synergy between the spells is the icing on the cake, and I sincerely hope that even if the concepts get passed over, these spells alone or their interactions can be repurposed into something similar. I'm really proud of them and hope they'll be appreciated by you, the reader, too!
