BIO
Centuries ago Zayd Al-Kimiya discovered the legendary Philosopher's Stone, unlocking powers of alchemy and immortality. Now a mysterious figure in New York's criminal underground, he slips through the city, wielding his arcane knowledge for unknown purposes. No one knows why he's here, but his presence is impossible to ignore.
SYNOPSIS
With his mastery of the alchemical elements, Alchemist is a versatile force on the battlefield. By chaining his abilities together, he crafts potent combinations that can shift between offense, defence, and utility, adapting to any situation.
ABILITIES
Unique Passive: Alchemical Residue
Each of the Alchemist's abilities corresponds to one of the four alchemical elements: Mercury, Sulfur, Salt, and Aether. When an ability is used, it leaves behind a magical residue, imbuing the next ability used with that element and altering its effect. Each combination alters the functionality of the next ability, allowing for deep interplay and combo-building.
Alchemical Residue also imbues the Alchemist's magical attacks, passively altering the properties of his projectile:
- Mercury: Passively increases attack speed.
- Sulfur: Boosts projectile damage.
- Salt: Gain bullet lifesteal.
- Aether: Increases projectile velocity.
Mercury's Path
The Alchemist channels the properties of Mercury, surging forward in a quicksilver dash.
Alchemical Imbuement:
- Mercury + Mercury: Doubles the dash distance, leaving behind a shimmering trail of liquid mercury that slows enemies caught in its wake.
- Mercury + Sulfur: Transforms the dash into a blink, leaving behind a fiery explosion at the starting and ending point, scorching enemies in the area.
- Mercury + Salt: Dashing grants an all damage barrier to the Alchemist for a short duration.
- Mercury + Aether: The dash now phases through walls and other obstacles.
The Alchemist launches a fiery bolt, erupting in a volatile blast that deals AoE damage to enemies.
Alchemical Imbuement:
- Sulfur + Mercury : The projectile speed increases and the explosion now displaces enemies, knocking them back from the centre of the blast.
- Sulfur + Sulfur: A massive shot that ignites the ground on impact, leaving a burning field that inflicts damage over time.
- Sulfur + Salt: The blast also heals the Alchemist and his allies.
- Sulfur + Aether: Enemies are pulled into the center of the explosion.
The Alchemist conjures a shimmering shield around an ally or himself, absorbing damage for a short duration.
Alchemical Imbuement:
- Salt + Mercury : When the shield breaks, it bestows a move speed buff to its wearer.
- Salt + Sulfur: The shield absorbs all damage taken, returning it in an AoE upon breaking.
- Salt + Salt: The wearer of the shield's health cannot drop below 1 until it expires. Boosts healing.
- Salt + Aether: The shield now additionally grants invisibility.
The Alchemist creates a aetheric echo of himself, sending a perfect clone running forward ahead of him. The clone takes 300% damage and pops out of existence once it collides with an obstacle.
Alchemical Imbuement:
- Mercury + Aether: The clone immediately dashes forward, using the base version of Mercury's Dash.
- Sulfur + Aether: The clone will automatically fire at any enemy units it sees, dealing 30% damage.
- Salt + Aether: A percentage of damage done to the clone heals the Alchemist.
- Aether + Aether: This upgraded clone takes 100% damage and lasts twice as long.
- The Alchemist does not have an ultimate ability. For all intents and purposes, his passive is his ult.
- It would probably be overkill but I toyed with the idea of having his cooldowns scale down with spirit power.
- A variation would see Alchemical Residue increasing his base stats passively (move speed, damage, health, and spirit power), but as Deadlock is a shooter first and foremost, I thought it would be more interesting to alter his attack projectiles.
- I didn't come up with numbers for a reason: balance. A hero with many options like this definitely has something broken about him. If something sounds OP to you, imagine that the number is very small.
