Drifter is an assassin/gun carry character with medium walk and sprint speed. He retains his gun, Crimson Grasp, and all its intricacies.
Drifter's 1 is being redesigned. Instead of Rend, now Drifter will have Feral Leap. Holding 1 will charge a lunge. The lunge can be charged for ~2 seconds. Uncharged, this lunge will go ~5 meters and deal ~95 base damage. Max charge Lunge will go ~15 meters and deal ~115 damage. Directly hitting an enemy with the lunge deals and additional 35 spirit damage. This damage scales with melee damage. Spirit power will decrease the time needed to charge the lunge by ~0.05%.
Tier 1 upgrade will increase the amount of extra spirit damage the lunge deals, from 35 base to 75, an increase of 40 spirit damage.
Tier 2 will decrease the cooldown of Feral Lunge from 30 seconds down to 22, a decrease of 8.
Finally, the tier 3 upgrade will apply a 30% movement slow to any enemy hit by Feral Lunge, as well as apply a blood scent trail regardless of if the opponent is isolated.
Drifter's 2 is being redesigned. Instead of being a projectile that causes bleed and allows teleports, Stalkers Mark now applies a new status to a target enemy within 100 meters of The Drifter, Dread. Drifter can apply this debuff to enemies within his LOS from ~35 meters away. Once marked, enemies will hear a non-directional whistle indicating Drifter's distance to them. The louder the whistle, the closer he is. Enemies will take an additional 15% gun damage, and an additional 30% melee damage when under the effects of Dread. This effect normally lasts ~10 seconds (scaling with spirit power), but if that enemy is isolated, the effect lasts until they are near an ally for ~5 seconds. This ability has a 30 second cooldown.
The tier 1 upgrade makes it so that enemies under the effects of Dread now produce heartbeats, indicating to The Drifter that he's closing in on his prey.
Tier 2 upgrade will apply a vision reduction in the opponent affected by Dread, putting a small red tint on their screen and limiting their vision to ~40 meters, as well as blocking vision from their map.
Tier 3 will prevent all item usage until Dread is cured.
Drifter's 3 is also getting an overhaul. Instead of Bloodscent, Drifter now sports a new ability called Vampiric Hunger. This ability makes it to where, upon melee damage, enemies now leave a blood trail until their HP is maxed out. Drifter can follow this trail, gaining +1.5 move speed while doing so.Upon activation, Drifter will enter a frenzy gaining +20% fire rate and 10% spirit and gun resistance. Upon an isolated enemy kill, gain +5% bonus weapon damage permanently, upon enemy kill, gain +2% weapon damage permanently. assists grant +2% and +1% respectively.
Tier 1 will increase the speed Drifer gains when following a blood trail by 1, maxing out at 2.5 additional sprint speed.
Tier 2 will restore 300 HP upon isolated enemy kill, and 100 upon regular enemy kill, with 150 and 50 for assists.
Tier 3 will make melee damage apply a bleed debuff (13 damage a tic, scaling 0.3x with spirit power), as well as slow enemies by 20%.
Drifter's 4 is now Nightfall. Drifter will apply an ult specific debuff to anyone within 100 meters of him called Terrify. This debuff will deafen and blind any enemy affected, muffling all in-game audio (save for Drifter's whistle), adding a red tint to the screen, and shortening the enemies cone of vision to just 20 meters. Drifter himself will gain +3 sprint speed while the ult is active, as well as dealing additional spirit damage (scaling with the damage he deals).with every bullet and melee until the ult is over. This ult lasts for 5 seconds guaranteed, or until an isolated enemy makes it to a teammate. This ult can affect 1 person at base and has a 120 second cooldown.
Tier 1 adds an additional 7 spirit damage per proc, regardless of what proced it.
Tier 2 reduces the cooldown of this ult by 30 seconds and shows terrified enemies through walls.
Tier 3 increases the max players affected to 3, and adds an additional 3 seconds to the ult.
Fun rework idea I had while bored at work. I wanted to change Drifter to feel a bit scarier and more like a predator hunting his prey, as well as an attempt to normalize him a little bit and make him less polarizing. Drifter, as it stands, is the most feast or famine character in the game, which is NOT a bad thing, but I feel like it makes him disproportionately good in ladder while he falls a tad short in more organized and coordinated lobbies. He's a noob stomper essentially. That sort of identity will never go away for a character like Drifter, but I think there are ways to help mitigate that slightly.
The first ability encourages unique and fun movement (think the hunter from LFD) while slightly upping the risk and reward for going in.
The second ability is a more unique take on stalker's mark. It's not a bad ability, but I feel like it could be so much more. As it stands, I'm not scared when I'm marked. I either just stand next to the tower or sit there with my hands off the keyboard waiting for the Drifter to teleport on me at 60HP. This new version is my attempt to make a more thematically cohesive version of stalker's mark. It makes you paranoid knowing he's near, and makes you seek out help. Imagine hearing that whistle loud and clear but having NO idea where Drifter is... until he jumps on you suddenly and starts shredding you. He makes you scared, he takes your options away (the final tier making it so that debuff remover can't stop this), he makes you scared and find help. While it may be over or undertuned (I can't say I'm not a designer), I feel as if it fits his character archetype and hero fantasy so much better than the glorified bleed he has.
Speaking of bleed, I wanted to give Drifter's 3 a more active role in his gameplay. It gives him a reason to leap and melee enemies with the blood trails needing to be caused by the player, as well as giving the player more options in an encounter. The fire rate and scaling may be overtuned, but a fed Drifter will ALWAYS be overtuned. It's a very fine line you have to walk with a character like this.
and finally, his ult. Not much changed. Just a few additions and a rename because I think Nightfall sounds cooler personally.
And... that's it! This is my first post on these forums, so please feel absolutely free to give your opinions and thoughts. I hope I'm posting this in the right chat too. I don't know for certain, but I figure a rework of this proportion qualifies. If not, please let me know! Have a good day!
Drifter's 1 is being redesigned. Instead of Rend, now Drifter will have Feral Leap. Holding 1 will charge a lunge. The lunge can be charged for ~2 seconds. Uncharged, this lunge will go ~5 meters and deal ~95 base damage. Max charge Lunge will go ~15 meters and deal ~115 damage. Directly hitting an enemy with the lunge deals and additional 35 spirit damage. This damage scales with melee damage. Spirit power will decrease the time needed to charge the lunge by ~0.05%.
Tier 1 upgrade will increase the amount of extra spirit damage the lunge deals, from 35 base to 75, an increase of 40 spirit damage.
Tier 2 will decrease the cooldown of Feral Lunge from 30 seconds down to 22, a decrease of 8.
Finally, the tier 3 upgrade will apply a 30% movement slow to any enemy hit by Feral Lunge, as well as apply a blood scent trail regardless of if the opponent is isolated.
Drifter's 2 is being redesigned. Instead of being a projectile that causes bleed and allows teleports, Stalkers Mark now applies a new status to a target enemy within 100 meters of The Drifter, Dread. Drifter can apply this debuff to enemies within his LOS from ~35 meters away. Once marked, enemies will hear a non-directional whistle indicating Drifter's distance to them. The louder the whistle, the closer he is. Enemies will take an additional 15% gun damage, and an additional 30% melee damage when under the effects of Dread. This effect normally lasts ~10 seconds (scaling with spirit power), but if that enemy is isolated, the effect lasts until they are near an ally for ~5 seconds. This ability has a 30 second cooldown.
The tier 1 upgrade makes it so that enemies under the effects of Dread now produce heartbeats, indicating to The Drifter that he's closing in on his prey.
Tier 2 upgrade will apply a vision reduction in the opponent affected by Dread, putting a small red tint on their screen and limiting their vision to ~40 meters, as well as blocking vision from their map.
Tier 3 will prevent all item usage until Dread is cured.
Drifter's 3 is also getting an overhaul. Instead of Bloodscent, Drifter now sports a new ability called Vampiric Hunger. This ability makes it to where, upon melee damage, enemies now leave a blood trail until their HP is maxed out. Drifter can follow this trail, gaining +1.5 move speed while doing so.Upon activation, Drifter will enter a frenzy gaining +20% fire rate and 10% spirit and gun resistance. Upon an isolated enemy kill, gain +5% bonus weapon damage permanently, upon enemy kill, gain +2% weapon damage permanently. assists grant +2% and +1% respectively.
Tier 1 will increase the speed Drifer gains when following a blood trail by 1, maxing out at 2.5 additional sprint speed.
Tier 2 will restore 300 HP upon isolated enemy kill, and 100 upon regular enemy kill, with 150 and 50 for assists.
Tier 3 will make melee damage apply a bleed debuff (13 damage a tic, scaling 0.3x with spirit power), as well as slow enemies by 20%.
Drifter's 4 is now Nightfall. Drifter will apply an ult specific debuff to anyone within 100 meters of him called Terrify. This debuff will deafen and blind any enemy affected, muffling all in-game audio (save for Drifter's whistle), adding a red tint to the screen, and shortening the enemies cone of vision to just 20 meters. Drifter himself will gain +3 sprint speed while the ult is active, as well as dealing additional spirit damage (scaling with the damage he deals).with every bullet and melee until the ult is over. This ult lasts for 5 seconds guaranteed, or until an isolated enemy makes it to a teammate. This ult can affect 1 person at base and has a 120 second cooldown.
Tier 1 adds an additional 7 spirit damage per proc, regardless of what proced it.
Tier 2 reduces the cooldown of this ult by 30 seconds and shows terrified enemies through walls.
Tier 3 increases the max players affected to 3, and adds an additional 3 seconds to the ult.
Fun rework idea I had while bored at work. I wanted to change Drifter to feel a bit scarier and more like a predator hunting his prey, as well as an attempt to normalize him a little bit and make him less polarizing. Drifter, as it stands, is the most feast or famine character in the game, which is NOT a bad thing, but I feel like it makes him disproportionately good in ladder while he falls a tad short in more organized and coordinated lobbies. He's a noob stomper essentially. That sort of identity will never go away for a character like Drifter, but I think there are ways to help mitigate that slightly.
The first ability encourages unique and fun movement (think the hunter from LFD) while slightly upping the risk and reward for going in.
The second ability is a more unique take on stalker's mark. It's not a bad ability, but I feel like it could be so much more. As it stands, I'm not scared when I'm marked. I either just stand next to the tower or sit there with my hands off the keyboard waiting for the Drifter to teleport on me at 60HP. This new version is my attempt to make a more thematically cohesive version of stalker's mark. It makes you paranoid knowing he's near, and makes you seek out help. Imagine hearing that whistle loud and clear but having NO idea where Drifter is... until he jumps on you suddenly and starts shredding you. He makes you scared, he takes your options away (the final tier making it so that debuff remover can't stop this), he makes you scared and find help. While it may be over or undertuned (I can't say I'm not a designer), I feel as if it fits his character archetype and hero fantasy so much better than the glorified bleed he has.
Speaking of bleed, I wanted to give Drifter's 3 a more active role in his gameplay. It gives him a reason to leap and melee enemies with the blood trails needing to be caused by the player, as well as giving the player more options in an encounter. The fire rate and scaling may be overtuned, but a fed Drifter will ALWAYS be overtuned. It's a very fine line you have to walk with a character like this.
and finally, his ult. Not much changed. Just a few additions and a rename because I think Nightfall sounds cooler personally.
And... that's it! This is my first post on these forums, so please feel absolutely free to give your opinions and thoughts. I hope I'm posting this in the right chat too. I don't know for certain, but I figure a rework of this proportion qualifies. If not, please let me know! Have a good day!
