quiescentrabbitt
Member
[Background]
Many of the heroes currently in Deadlock are motivated by a desire for vengeance, so I wanted to create a character who, rather than looking for revenge, is caught up in a disaster caused by others and is forced to discover how to put their life back together. I feel this is a lot more relatable than a desire for revenge. Thematically, I liked the idea of a cult's ritual sacrifice that went wrong and caused a curse. I think that ties well into the occult nature of Deadlock. I made a rough concept of a backstory based on that idea.
Anathema is a young girl that was kidnapped from her home by occultists. They use her in a ritual sacrifice towards an eldritch power they worship. This causes a curse that kills all of the cultists except for her. While she survives, the curse continues to linger on her. The cult is already gone from this event, there's nobody left to have malice towards. Instead, she must go on a journey to look for a cure, as her curse makes her outcast from society and deteriorates her body. She doesn't want to harm others, and her newly acquired psychic powers must only be used as a last resort.
[Appearance}
Her clothing and her curse are the most important to her appearance. She wears long robes to cover up signs of the curse, which creates an element of irony in her character, as she looks like a cultist herself. I also want her clothing to look practical in a different aspect. Maybe it's woven with special fabric, or she has various trinkets that help her cope with the curse. I had a hard time drawing this in my concept art. A more developed design could incorporate those aspects better.
When it comes to the curse, I thought it was important to avoid the trope where it just makes her powerful with no real downside. I feel that's an uninteresting power fantasy, and there's so much more design potential in a character who is seriously afflicted. Anathema is suffering, she should be an example of body horror. The curse is spreading over her body like a poison, and it's almost like it's alive, trying to turn her into something else. You should look at her, and feel very glad that you are not cursed in the way she is. Her face is half-infected, with the eye that is taken over having dark sclera.
As for her abilities, it should look like a manifestation of eldritch power, or the curse itself. Almost as if it's leaking from her body when she uses it. You really don't want to be hit by them.
[Design Philosophy]
Currently, most Deadlock heroes only have one sort of engagement distance they'd like to be from the enemy for their kit to work best. I decided to design this character in mind with two distinct "modes". Being in very close with high risk and high reward, or being distant with low risk and low reward. All of her abilities are designed to compliment playing at either of these two ranges, and reward Anathema for capitalizing on which is best in which situation. I feel this could be really fun and dynamic. I like heroes with a lot of depth to their micro gameplay and are rewarded in exciting ways for having a lot of mechanical skill. I also really like characters who gain stats from their kit that encourage them to build differently.
[Primary]
Anathema uses her primary by reaching out her hand. She unleashes pulses of dark psychic energy, which create unusual slithering tracer lines as they travel. Visually similar to Seven's empowered electric shots, but smoother, and less electrical in texture. Very high projectile speed and good range but low damage. This plays into Anathema's long range "mode", letting her stay in the backline and contribute from a safe distance. Since she's so vulnerable to being engaged on, she can play safe through using her primary, and typically will.
Anathema also has an alternative fire, which is a much shorter range, shotgun spread psychic blast with slower projectile speed and more fall-off. This has significantly better DPS than the primary at the cost of its poor range. This alt fire is intended to be primarily used in the short range "mode". This range is intended to be very risky for Anathema to be in typically, so she needs to start the engagement/get the jump. Given that she has a longer range primary, this can have much more spread or fall-off than any current shotgun in the game.
[Abilities]
Psychic Volley - Anathema channels, firing 3 waves of psychic energy over its duration. The third wave deals bonus damage, and heals Anathema for a portion of her health scaling with spirit. She can move while channeling. The channel duration becomes shorter the more health she is missing, making it more difficult to react and dodge, especially up close.
These waves will travel through the air a substantial distance in a straight line. It's a bit like Yamato's Crimson Slash, but as a projectile. Hitting the third wave for the healing bonus will be a key part of Anathema's gameplay loop, which'll become more clear with her other abilities. It's hard to dodge horizontally, but can be double jumped over if aimed directly at a hero. The heal is very significant against heroes, and greatly reduced against monsters.
Eldritch Grasp - Anathema sends out a telekinetic claw which flies through the air, passing through enemies and dealing damage. It then returns to Anathema at the end of its range, and any enemies hit by it are knocked towards Anathema and rooted briefly.
Enemies can avoid being pulled by the claw by hiding behind cover, but likewise, Anathema can move while the claw is traveling to change the angle it'll pull at, since it will always be towards her location. I think this adds a lot of positional depth to this ability, playing as Anathema and playing against her. This serves as Anathema's main way to get a favorable engagement on an enemy, letting her get into the distance for her alt fire to be effective. This can pull several targets if they are very closely grouped up when the claw returns and hits them. This can also serve as great utility to her team in general if she wants to continue to play from long range.
Malediction - Anathema loses a portion of her HP and gains the "Malediction" buff. This provides bonus % weapon damage and movement speed. This ability has very little cooldown like Mirage 3, and the Malediction buff stacks, but it costs greatly increasing amounts of health to use, depending on how many stacks she already has. Each use of the ability also refreshes the duration. Passive: Anathema has some base-kit bullet lifesteal against heroes, but cannot leech from creeps/jungle monsters.
This is really what makes Anathema's kit interesting, and plays into her desire to get the engagement on an enemy, rather than be engaged on. If she's already gotten a few stacks of Malediction safely, she'll be really strong and likely win a fight if she manages to get in close range. However, if she's jumped on with no Malediction up, she'll put herself at too much risk by sacrificing health. This is part of what rewards her for controlling the distance she plays at, and why she has several ways to do so.
This is a super exciting payoff to me for playing a character's micro well, and should make for some really hype moments when you manage to stack a ton of Malediction for hitting your abilities/shots to heal and avoiding enemy damage. In order to prevent Anathema from just stacking tons of Malediction off jungle camp leeching which would be quite cheesy, I made her passive prevent bullet leech from working on minions/jungle camps. Her current number of Malediction buffs is indicated next to her health bar.
Also, I want to make a brief comparison to Geist, and Blood Tribute (which was added after I almost finished this hero). Anathema is intended to sacrifice a lot of her HP all at once for a burst of power. Geist's abilities, and Blood Tribute, are both "Anti-sustain", in that they whittle down your HP over time. Anathema will have good sustain, but require damaging herself a lot at once to really take off. This differentiates her a lot from Geist and Blood Tribute.
Expel Evil - Anathema loses all stacks of "Malediction" immediately upon use, causing a psychic explosion around her. Each stack of Malediction increases the amount of damage this ability deals. Has high inherent lifesteal, and moderately slows any enemies caught in it. Its range and hitbox would be similar to Pocket’s Affliction.
I wanted Anathema's ult to serve as a way of letting her safely disengage and finish off an encounter she started, so she can return to the backline. This gives her another rewarding pay-off for managing her Malediction stacks well too. Ideally, you would get some Malediction, pull a target towards you, gain more Malediction as you dodge their abilities and heal off your 1, deal a lot of damage through the Malediction weapon damage buff and alt fire, and then finish off the target with your ult, healing back much of the health you sacrificed, and retreating back to safety.
[Final Thoughts]
Thank you for reading my hero concept! I'd be really happy to see any of my ideas implemented in some form. I'm very passionate about game design, and I love all the mechanical interactions and emergent micro gameplay that comes from a hero with an interesting kit. I hope I have succeeded in making just that, and conveying the ideas I had. I'm a huge fan of Deadlock so I put a lot of effort into this. More designs to come depending on the reception to this!
