furnace/engine themed hero with flame aoe primary

[Kazink]

here's an example kit for a hero that explores some of the ideas I was talking about here.
The mechanics are more the point than their design/vibe, but I'm imagining a robotic/mechanical design with a furnace/engine theme going well with their abilities (a little tanky, fast but heavy, use of heat). Their kit focuses on area control and comboing abilities.

the specific numbers aren't my strong suit, I'm mostly just including rough cooldown times.

primary fire
shoot flames in a short, wide cone. very close range but aoe. uses an overheat mechanic instead of consuming ammo. Lowish dps.
(overheat mechanic encourages cycling primary fire with other cooldowns.)

secondary fire
hold to charge up a molten glob projectile and release to fire. Charging for longer will deal more damage. The projectile will burst after traveling a certain distance or colliding with an enemy or obstacle, limiting range but splashing damage to a small area.
(This softens the edges of the hero's kit by giving them some poke options, is usable in ability combos in short range duels, and still enforces the hero's identity of aoe/area control in an engaging way)

ability 1
circle of the keeper - 40 second cooldown, 6 second duration - deploy a protective wall in a 15 ft radius around yourself, blocking bullets and LOS abilities from enemies for the duration. The wall is transparent and can be moved through, and is not bound to the caster (it remains where it is deployed on the ground, as opposed to following the player).
tier 1 - reduce cooldown by 20 seconds
tier 2 - temporarily slow enemies inside radius when deployed
tier 3 - increase duration by 6 seconds

ability 2
leap and slam idk - 12 second cooldown - hold to charge, release to leap forward through the air in the direction you are facing (it doesn't give much verticality unless you look up), and damage enemies in a wide cone in front of you when landing. Deals critical damage and briefly stuns enemies hit very close to the player. Charging the ability increases the leap distance, but damage when landing is constant (makes it slightly harder to use as an escape tool, but enables short-range combos more).
tier 1 - gain a second charge(or maybe just reduce cd, idk)
tier 2 - displaces enemies, moving them towards the center of the cone and in the direction you are facing
tier 3 - temporary increased weapon damage against affected enemies

ability 3
forced induction - passive - using stamina heals you
tier 1 - increased stamina recovery
tier 2 - Colliding with an enemy while dashing or sliding will damage and knock them back
tier 3 - additionally heals 5% of max health

ability 4
reforge - 90 second cooldown, 2 second cast time - recover all health and stamina, and reset weapon heat and other cooldowns.
tier 1 - reduce cooldown by 30 seconds
tier 2 - remove cast time
tier 3 - become immune to CC for 3 seconds after casting

 

[Rank 1 Slork]

You should look at Tokamak in game btw.

 

[Chilla9001]

Interesting concept
I think this kit is a great showcase of why valve I think arent making primary attacks that fancy and different from others, when you have a primary that's so different it can be compared to a skill, you have to balance it out by removing some of the power and complexity from abilities, and you end up with an unbalanced kit. Particularly Ability 3 and 4 feel tacked on as they dont really stand out much or seemingly synergize with the characters kit, other than reset weapon heat on his ult which I would've rathered if you'd attempted to work the heat mechanic into the kit's abilities

 

[Kazink]

Interesting concept
I think this kit is a great showcase of why valve I think arent making primary attacks that fancy and different from others, when you have a primary that's so different it can be compared to a skill, you have to balance it out by removing some of the power and complexity from abilities, and you end up with an unbalanced kit. Particularly Ability 3 and 4 feel tacked on as they dont really stand out much or seemingly synergize with the characters kit, other than reset weapon heat on his ult which I would've rathered if you'd attempted to work the heat mechanic into the kit's abilities

i see how they could seem like that, especially ability 3, maybe I should've explained more why they are both in the kit.

for ability 3, I was following the same formula of many of the other brawly heroes having a self sustain/heal ability on their 3 (abrams, yamato, lash, so on).
I could have just done an aoe lifesteal like one of theirs, but it felt a little played out and i wanted to experiment with how I could encourage a more tempo-focused playstyle instead.
I thought of it as putting "lifesteal" on the character's mobility. this lets them weave it into their combos and ability cycles in a fight to stay in it, or have a much shorter downtime before their next engage if they use the stamina to escape.
when a hero's role is to command the enemy's attention, some kind of sustain is really important. When you force enemies to spend those resources on you, some of it should get mitigated.
the tier 2 is to lean further into their strong suit of close, tight fights by letting them move more freely through them, as well as giving them another tool to add to combos, and also making their presence command more attention from the enemy.

as for ability 4, this is also pretty central to the hero's identity. When they cycle through their kit to force and absorb resources from the enemy, eventually their own resources get worn down. Ulting will instantly stabilize them and reset their cycles, rewarding the player for having absorbed all of those resources. It also lets them re-commit their whole kit into comboing aggressively, if they've leaned more into that part of their identity. think about how abrams, yamato, and lady geist ults work in their kit, its similar.

as for the heat mechanic, I think that it works quite well with the hero identity. making reloading a more passive activity makes it more fluid to work it into their cooldown cycles, and rewards thoughtful timing of other abilities.
Yamato feels similar with how she can start reloading before casting ability 1 and by the end of the long cast time she is almost done, but it is pretty 1-dimensional.
Abrams also does this a little because he has rounds reload, but its still an active activity that generally pauses when you do other things.
with the overheat mechanic, no ability's cast time would have to go wasted in your kit, and it would feel more like another cooldown getting weaved into your combos.
on top of this, the primary fire being aoe really lends itself to adding effects to it with items. whether you are using slowing bullets, silencer, bullet lifesteal, spirit resist shredder, etc, having it against multiple enemies will be a huge part of the kit.
This means that your primary fire's place in your cooldown cycle would feel very meaningful, whether you are using it for lifesteal, to disable enemies, or set up follow-up (from your allies or your own combos).

As I see it, there are plenty of abilities in the game right now that feel more tacked-on than these, and I don't think that this will be a fundamental challenge of having a different primary fire.
I'm very open to being wrong about this, though, and I really appreciate the feedback! Let me know if you think I'm missing something, or if I misunderstood your point

 

[Chilla9001]

i see how they could seem like that, especially ability 3, maybe I should've explained more why they are both in the kit.

for ability 3, I was following the same formula of many of the other brawly heroes having a self sustain/heal ability on their 3 (abrams, yamato, lash, so on).
I could have just done an aoe lifesteal like one of theirs, but it felt a little played out and i wanted to experiment with how I could encourage a more tempo-focused playstyle instead.
I thought of it as putting "lifesteal" on the character's mobility. this lets them weave it into their combos and ability cycles in a fight to stay in it, or have a much shorter downtime before their next engage if they use the stamina to escape.
when a hero's role is to command the enemy's attention, some kind of sustain is really important. When you force enemies to spend those resources on you, some of it should get mitigated.
the tier 2 is to lean further into their strong suit of close, tight fights by letting them move more freely through them, as well as giving them another tool to add to combos, and also making their presence command more attention from the enemy.

as for ability 4, this is also pretty central to the hero's identity. When they cycle through their kit to force and absorb resources from the enemy, eventually their own resources get worn down. Ulting will instantly stabilize them and reset their cycles, rewarding the player for having absorbed all of those resources. It also lets them re-commit their whole kit into comboing aggressively, if they've leaned more into that part of their identity. think about how abrams, yamato, and lady geist ults work in their kit, its similar.

as for the heat mechanic, I think that it works quite well with the hero identity. making reloading a more passive activity makes it more fluid to work it into their cooldown cycles, and rewards thoughtful timing of other abilities.
Yamato feels similar with how she can start reloading before casting ability 1 and by the end of the long cast time she is almost done, but it is pretty 1-dimensional.
Abrams also does this a little because he has rounds reload, but its still an active activity that generally pauses when you do other things.
with the overheat mechanic, no ability's cast time would have to go wasted in your kit, and it would feel more like another cooldown getting weaved into your combos.
on top of this, the primary fire being aoe really lends itself to adding effects to it with items. whether you are using slowing bullets, silencer, bullet lifesteal, spirit resist shredder, etc, having it against multiple enemies will be a huge part of the kit.
This means that your primary fire's place in your cooldown cycle would feel very meaningful, whether you are using it for lifesteal, to disable enemies, or set up follow-up (from your allies or your own combos).

As I see it, there are plenty of abilities in the game right now that feel more tacked-on than these, and I don't think that this will be a fundamental challenge of having a different primary fire.
I'm very open to being wrong about this, though, and I really appreciate the feedback! Let me know if you think I'm missing something, or if I misunderstood your point

Tacked on was the wrong word, I meant to say that they kinda stand out, because they're kinda boring compared to his primary. I still can''t really see why his primary has to be the flame thrower when it could just be an ability and he could have a normal shooting primary. Like I said earlier, I think the game right now is balanced around the characters having equally powerful abilities and primaries, I think your kit lacks the former.
Another thing I realized is balance wise, how does the overheat mechanic work with reload/ammo items? does it scale differently? does it scale at all? Having such a different primary is fine in a game like overwatch where you cant affect it in any way (other than buffing its dmg if someone on your team has that capability) but in Deadlock you can buy items that directly add on effects to your weapons, the devs would have to balance every single item that procs on weapon hit specifically for this character for some semblance of balance, and that's just to make 1 aspect of the character balanced, and hey, if valve devs were to decide that the effort put in was worth it, that's completely fine, but as it stands, your character is "furnace/ engine themed" in only one way, and that's their primary attack, so I'd still like it if you were to make their kit synergize together instead of synergizing around their primary.

 

[Kazink]

Tacked on was the wrong word, I meant to say that they kinda stand out, because they're kinda boring compared to his primary. I still can''t really see why his primary has to be the flame thrower when it could just be an ability and he could have a normal shooting primary. Like I said earlier, I think the game right now is balanced around the characters having equally powerful abilities and primaries, I think your kit lacks the former.
Another thing I realized is balance wise, how does the overheat mechanic work with reload/ammo items? does it scale differently? does it scale at all? Having such a different primary is fine in a game like overwatch where you cant affect it in any way (other than buffing its dmg if someone on your team has that capability) but in Deadlock you can buy items that directly add on effects to your weapons, the devs would have to balance every single item that procs on weapon hit specifically for this character for some semblance of balance, and that's just to make 1 aspect of the character balanced, and hey, if valve devs were to decide that the effort put in was worth it, that's completely fine, but as it stands, your character is "furnace/ engine themed" in only one way, and that's their primary attack, so I'd still like it if you were to make their kit synergize together instead of synergizing around their primary.

Yeah i definitely agree with some of this. there are some things that will take figuring out, and theres a version of this design where the flamethrower is just one of the abilities instead of the primary fire. I would also enjoy that design and be excited to play it, but the idea with this kit as it is now is to try to explore primary fires that feel drastically different from others in the game bc that area feels kind of flat right now.

As for figuring out the details of the overheat mechanic, there is an unreleased hero called tokamak that you can play in the sandbox who has an overheat-based gun already, and it seems like they've already figured out most of how it works with reload/ammo and all that.
I don't think that the balance will be anything crazy compared to other heroes, though. The flamethrower's base uptime can be adjusted pretty easily, as well as its range and the tickrate of its damage.
I hope this doesn't come off as too defensive, I definitely see how there will be some balance problems to tackle but I don't think that they are anything too crazy is all

Also I'd like to hear more on how you say the kit isn't synergizing. As I see it the hero has a pretty distinct identity of applying area control around their position (the protective ring) in a burst of pressure, and using the skill expression of their mobility tools to have control of when and where that burst of area control happens.

 

[Chilla9001]

Hey, I'd like to keep this convo going, but I didn't know about that unreleased hero, could you please give me the console command/ tell me how to play him xd? I really wanna try him out. I'm not on the discord so I dont have anyone else to ask.

I hope this doesn't come off as too defensive

It doesn't, I worry about sounding defensive too when I'm arguing but you're fine mate

 

[Kazink]

Hey, I'd like to keep this convo going, but I didn't know about that unreleased hero, could you please give me the console command/ tell me how to play him xd? I really wanna try him out. I'm not on the discord so I dont have anyone else to ask.

It doesn't, I worry about sounding defensive too when I'm arguing but you're fine mate

Of course, yeah!
so when you are in the sandbox or a private bot match, press f7 to open the console and type

selecthero hero_[whatever the hero is named]

So for tokamak, that would be 'selecthero hero_tokamak'
He's got an overheat gun and a flamethrower ability and you can see how they work a bit, but like no animations or descriptions on his abilities lol.
It won't be as related to our conversation, but u should also use the command

dump_hero_names

to get a list of all heroes, and try some more unreleased ones (a lot of them are more finished than tokamak is lol). My fav of the unreleased is one called 'Viscous,' they're a slime guy

 

[Chilla9001]

Of course, yeah!
so when you are in the sandbox or a private bot match, press f7 to open the console and type

So for tokamak, that would be 'selecthero hero_tokamak'
He's got an overheat gun and a flamethrower ability and you can see how they work a bit, but like no animations or descriptions on his abilities lol.
It won't be as related to our conversation, but u should also use the command

to get a list of all heroes, and try some more unreleased ones (a lot of them are more finished than tokamak is lol). My fav of the unreleased is one called 'Viscous,' they're a slime guy

whaaaaaaaaat theres more than 1? thats awesome thanks for the help mate

 

[Chilla9001]

Also I'd like to hear more on how you say the kit isn't synergizing. As I see it the hero has a pretty distinct identity of applying area control around their position (the protective ring) in a burst of pressure, and using the skill expression of their mobility tools to have control of when and where that burst of area control happens.

That's on me again, what I meant was that, when there's such emphasis on the Primary, I'd like to see the abilities directly interact with it, like maybe an ability that switches it from a cone to a longer but narrower line, just more stuff that plays around with the idea of the character having such a different primary than others, it feels like his abilities should be similar in nature to that (like how the ult interacts with the overheat)

 

[Chilla9001]

Of course, yeah!
so when you are in the sandbox or a private bot match, press f7 to open the console and type

So for tokamak, that would be 'selecthero hero_tokamak'
He's got an overheat gun and a flamethrower ability and you can see how they work a bit, but like no animations or descriptions on his abilities lol.
It won't be as related to our conversation, but u should also use the command

to get a list of all heroes, and try some more unreleased ones (a lot of them are more finished than tokamak is lol). My fav of the unreleased is one called 'Viscous,' they're a slime guy

the slime guy is awesome, the way you can still move while incased in his 3rd ability if you had prior momentum is really sick, but my favourite has gotta be Slork, not only for their unfathomably creative name, but also because they seem to play like a real piece-of S**t, he can stick to someone like a parasite and has permanent invis with his ult's passive.
Thanks again for telling me about this stuff

 

[Kazink]

That's on me again, what I meant was that, when there's such emphasis on the Primary, I'd like to see the abilities directly interact with it, like maybe an ability that switches it from a cone to a longer but narrower line, just more stuff that plays around with the idea of the character having such a different primary than others, it feels like his abilities should be similar in nature to that (like how the ult interacts with the overheat)

mm yeah i see what you mean, i will think about this

 

[Chilla9001]

My fav of the unreleased is one called 'Viscous,' they're a slime guy

You checked the patch notes yet?

 

[Kazink]

You checked the patch notes yet?

oh yeah im hyped that hes in, and it was some good timing with our convo lol

 

[driftcalculus]

the slime guy is awesome, the way you can still move while incased in his 3rd ability if you had prior momentum is really sick, but my favourite has gotta be Slork, not only for their unfathomably creative name, but also because they seem to play like a real piece-of S**t, he can stick to someone like a parasite and has permanent invis with his ult's passive.
Thanks again for telling me about this stuff

unfathomably creative, you say. So creative that its quite different from a certain one in Dota 2. I'm impressed and can't wait to try an fps version.