Close quarters/Assassin type character

[PoppyPolkaDotty]

Primary: Sawn-off Shotgun, 2 shell burst.

1 Ability, Fan of blades: Throws 5 daggers in a short ranged 70 degree cone in front of the player character, damaging enemies in front of them, damage is dealt as a flat amount and not per dagger.
Damage: 125
Cooldown: 20
Upgrades:
1* -10s cd
2* +50% range
5* Each dagger deals a single instance of damage, multiple daggers deal multiple instances of damage. Damage reduced to base 50

2 Ability, Backstab: Throws an enchanted dagger in a straight line. If the dagger hits an enemy hero, the ability can be pressed again within a window of 1.5s to teleport the player character behind the target, dealing a single fully charged melee attack as damage.
Cooldown: 18s
Upgrades:
1* +25% projectile speed
2* deals +50 damage on-hit
5* teleporting behind a player increases melee damage by 40% for 3s

3 Ability, Out of sight: When line of sight is broken, after 3 seconds the player character becomes invisible. Once in line of sight of an enemy, this affect lingers for 2s before the player character is revealed. If the player character uses an attack or spell, the invisibility ends prematurely.
Units that reveal the player character are: Enemy heroes, enemy non-heroes, enemy hero units/summons, enemy buildings, aggro'd neutrals.
Cooldown: 0
Upgrades:
1* Movement speed while invisible increased by 10%
2* Linger duration increased by 1.5s
5* Using abilities no longer reveals the player character

4 Ability, Contract Killer: When activated the player character's abilities are enhanced for a short period of time. Killing an enemy hero in this time frame increases the buff duration by 4s and refreshes basic ability cooldowns.
Duration: 15
Cooldown: 80
Fan of blades: slows movement by 30% for 2s
Backstab: on-hit reduces enemy bullet and spirit armour by -20%
Out of sight: Time required to become invisible reduced from 3s to 0.5s
1* Time required to become invisible reduced from 0.5s to 0s
2* Fan of blades dagger number from 5 -> 8
5* Activating Backstab causes your next attack to critically strike for 140%

 

[Tavish]

Backstab upgrade 2 should extend the teleport window to 5 seconds instead. That would allow for some impressive plays.

I don't like Out of Sight's upgrade 5. Getting damaged from an invisible source does not sound fun to play against.

Other than that, it sounds like a good concept.

 

[night33ngale]

1. Potential increased damage:
- Fan of Blades deals solid constant damage in a cone, which can be increased.
- Backstab deals significant flash damage when used correctly.
- In combination with the effects of the “Contract Killer” ult, the character may have too high a single lethal force.

2. Issues with mobility and positioning:
- Backstab provides teleportation, which can give a serious advantage in maneuverability.
- However, this ability can be difficult to use and requires a good lock.
- There is a risk that the character will become a very “bouncing” target that is difficult to track.

3. The need for careful balancing:
- All abilities require careful calculation of damage, radii, duration and cooldowns.
- Skill upgrades should make thoughtful and balanced improvements.
- It is necessary to take into account the "peak" points in progression when the character becomes too strong.

4. Issues with visual style and coherence:
- Despite the interesting visual ideas, there is a risk that the character will look too “stereotypical killer”.
- It is important that his image and animated effects fit into the artistic style of the game.

 

[PoppyPolkaDotty]

Backstab upgrade 2 should extend the teleport window to 5 seconds instead. That would allow for some impressive plays.

I don't like Out of Sight's upgrade 5. Getting damaged from an invisible source does not sound fun to play against.

Other than that, it sounds like a good concept.

I think making a mechanic like invisibility in a game like this is really hard to balance. But I believe the other ability upgrades are too good to pass on that the invisibility mechanic is something to get at like the 30+ minute mark where this kind of thing is less abusable. My intention was that the fully upgraded 3 ability would help you to land your 2 ability rather than anything else, or move around the map a little quicker. Note that you are only able to activate abilities without braking invisibility, so your 1, which requires close range, and your 2 (with the second activation of the 2 ability requiring you to "melee attack" the target, thus breaking the invisibility).

How broken this kind of invisibility would be, I don't know. It would just require testing lol

 

[PoppyPolkaDotty]

1. Potential increased damage:
- Fan of Blades deals solid constant damage in a cone, which can be increased.
- Backstab deals significant flash damage when used correctly.
- In combination with the effects of the “Contract Killer” ult, the character may have too high a single lethal force.

2. Issues with mobility and positioning:
- Backstab provides teleportation, which can give a serious advantage in maneuverability.
- However, this ability can be difficult to use and requires a good lock.
- There is a risk that the character will become a very “bouncing” target that is difficult to track.

3. The need for careful balancing:
- All abilities require careful calculation of damage, radii, duration and cooldowns.
- Skill upgrades should make thoughtful and balanced improvements.
- It is necessary to take into account the "peak" points in progression when the character becomes too strong.

4. Issues with visual style and coherence:
- Despite the interesting visual ideas, there is a risk that the character will look too “stereotypical killer”.
- It is important that his image and animated effects fit into the artistic style of the game.

1. So my intention with this character was always to make them pick-off/single target heavy since they offer no other types of utility in the forms of cc/vision/heals. I think with this hero I'm looking to try and make a late game carry/menace which is why their kit is really not great for the start of the laning stage with a less than mediocre primary. Perhaps the teleport aspect of the 2 ability should be locked behind a 5* upgrade to really nail the uselessness of the hero in the first 10 minutes.

2. I guess point 1 kind of covered this a little. This character is definitely what I think runs along the lines of "high skill ceiling" where the risk/reward of landing the spells is the ability to bounce around. Like an inexperienced or bad player wouldn't be able to bounce around easily. Perhaps to help with tracking, on the 2nd cast of the 2 ability the player hero becomes a slower moving projectile akin to Dynamo's teleport ability. Something you can track easier.

3. Yeah I wanted to make this specific hero something like a low impact hero in the early game, high impact hero in the late game. I won't pretend like I know balance and I can see why something invisibility has no place in a game like this. I will say however that there is at least a tradeoff to some of the max upgrades. Like the 1 ability actually loses range depending on how many daggers land on the target. Perhaps the damage should be dropped from 50 -> 35 so it takes at least 4 daggers hit to do more damage than the non-upgraded ability?

4. I'm not artistically inclined so I didn't want to give an art direction for this kind of hero since so many people here are very gifted artists. But the kit is pretty generic to the point I think you could slap any theme on it to make it work. Like, idk, for example.

The hero is a type of Meranth (I don't know if the game is canonically linked to Dota). In appearance they are slim framed fish/mer/like character. You change the abilities to something like, say:
1 - Fan of blades -> Spine array (you replace the daggers with poisonous spines, the types found on lionfish/stonefish)
2 - Backstab -> Harpoon
3 - Out of sight -> Deep Blue (would be cool to get an almost swimming like animation while moving invisibly, something like Pyke W in League)
4 - Contract Killer -> Apex Predator