[Hero Concept] Chariot, Controls spacing, initiates and peels. (Artwork)

[arcsymus]

Hey y'all. Nearly twenty years ago I entered a Model to Hero Contest on the old DotA Allstars forums under the alias of Vodoun, where my concept which placed 3rd was implemented as Puck the Fairy Dragon, with an accompanying initiation ability inspired by another applicant. I wish I could say that I'm an amazing Puck player, but I am proud to see Puck perform well in DotA and proud to have my ability, Illusory Orb, incorporated as a staple of MOBA abilities.

The idea for this character popped into my head recently, and I didn't know what direction I was going to take with it until I studied all of the characters in Deadlock more closely. My goal with this character was to create a stunning visual character that fits into the setting of Deadlock, while also incorporating at least one very unique ability with a lot of potential for skill expression. I think Polarity Beam satisfies this goal fairly well. It's a complex ability that may require the integration of new or complex systems, or at least benefit from new systems. I considered adding the idea that different characters possess different weights, but that's not essential to the core concept of the ability, so I left it out. I'm not great at Deadlock, but I tried designing around some of the items in the game, and more or less succeeded in this goal.

My biggest concern with this design revolves around Meteor Punch, and whether it's too similar to the normal heavy punch, or if it's occupying the same space as Abram's punch skill. (I'm also concerned that Chariot occupies Abram's space where it pertains to smoking cigars, as well as Pocket's space where it pertains to wearing a snazzy jacket.) While it doesn't come across very well in text, my hope is that this ability differs in the extended mobility that the ability offers (higher range, omnidirectional, free movement during charge).

Ideally Chariot would be an excellent melee hero, while it seems that Chariot's design possibly suffers from a lack of incentive to utilize Gun Damage. It may be possible to leverage the balance around Chariot's gun damage by forcing him to have substantially slower projectiles than other characters, hindering his laning potential and incentivizing him to jump into the fray, while significantly increasing his base gun damage output, making him more effective in close-quarters combat.

Chariot

Chariot Pitch: Controls spacing, initiates and peels. Chariot decides when and how he gets in and gets out, and loves to exert control over his enemies. Whether his enemies want to be far away or up close and personal, Chariot is going to give them a hard time getting there. Gun: Chariot sucks...

docs.google.com

Pitch: Controls spacing, initiates and peels. Chariot decides when and how he gets in and gets out, and loves to exert control over his enemies. Whether his enemies want to be far away or up close and personal, Chariot is going to give them a hard time getting there.

Gun: Chariot sucks down a cigar to reload, then spits a rapid salvo of fire bolts (from where his head would be) that have a slow (relative) projectile speed. High ammo capacity.

Hitbox: Chariot does not have a head, and can only be headshot by targeting the large gem on the front of his abdomen. Chariot is huge.


1) Shockwave: Target an enemy to send a shockwave traveling towards them that picks up in size and damage the farther it travels, before cutting off at max range traveled. Deals area damage at point of impact, slowing targets hit by 20% for 1.5s. The shockwave can be intercepted by other enemy heroes.

2) Echo Slam: Damage enemies in an area around Chariot, stunning enemies for 0.8 seconds, and repeating the effect with 50% damage and duration for every enemy hero in the area.

3) Meteor Punch: Begin charging up a punch attack that sends Chariot flying in the direction of his cursor, dealing damage to all units caught in between and area damage at the point of impact (both count as one single source damage), stopping at the first enemy hero hit, dealing bonus damage to that hero. Charge for up to 2s for full damage and full range (long range, lose charge over 2s). Chariot can move as normal while charging.

4) Polarity Beam: Activate with either the right or left mouse button to determine polarity. Project a beam originating from Chariot’s abdomen. Right clicking will pull enemies and allies caught in the beam towards Chariot, as well as pulling Chariot towards allies, enemies and terrain. Left clicking will send enemies and allies hurling away from Chariot, while pushing Chariot away from allies, enemies and terrain.

The beam is constant and allows for full movement (with a gravitational pull), lasting for up to 7 seconds or until it is canceled or if Chariot becomes stunned or silenced.

Target items: Warp Stone / Spiritual Overflow / Melee Charge / Return Fire / Life Strike/ Majestic Leap / Colossus / Phantom Strike / Unstoppable / Mystic Reach / Spirit Strike / Cold Front / Mystic Slow / Torment Pulse / Knockdown / Escalating Exposure

 

[Reapeon]

This character design seems pretty neat, actually. But personally, that abi4 seems kinda odd. I can see how it'd be useful in some situations, but it can become easy to misuse it and accidentally kill your team, if I'm envisioning how it works. Nevertheless, whole character seems hella cool, just needs a comically large blun- jk.

 

[Sarus]

this is a big package

 

[arcsymus]

This character design seems pretty neat, actually. But personally, that abi4 seems kinda odd. I can see how it'd be useful in some situations, but it can become easy to misuse it and accidentally kill your team, if I'm envisioning how it works. Nevertheless, whole character seems hella cool, just needs a comically large blun- jk.

Yeah, you're right. I think his 4 ability needs to be pruned down until it has a really coherent identity and use case. There are a lot of ways I could handle this, but to start with, I think not being able to affect allies will help. There are some other considerations I'll bring up in a revision.

 

[arcsymus]

I can't edit my OP, but I did edit my Google Doc, and I'll include the changes here. After a moderate amount of thought, I decided that simple is better for Polarity Beam, and that the character's name, while cool, needs more significance. Meteor Punch didn't really feel like it fit, so I decided to make Polarity Beam a normal ability and changed the ultimate to something like Tusk's Snowball.

I also made this meme. A serious accomplishment.

3) Polarity Beam: Activate with either the right or left mouse button to determine polarity. Project a beam originating from Chariot’s abdomen. Right clicking will pull enemies in the beam towards Chariot. Left clicking will send enemies hurling away from Chariot.
The beam is constant and allows for movement with a 50% self-slow, lasting for up to 4 seconds or until it is canceled or if Chariot becomes stunned or silenced.

There's still a debate in my mind about what's best for this ability. Not working two ways (Chariot being pulled towards the target) and giving it a self-slow seems like a very standard approach. The idea of pulling yourself towards terrain (or, buildings, rather) seemed like a cool idea, but it's probably too janky. In theory we're losing skill expression, but the core mechanics in Deadlock are so central to the game that it's important not to overshadow them.

4) Blazing Chariot: Transformation (onto a chariot) that enhances movement speed and enables flying. Crashing into an enemy hero causes an explosion and cancels Blazing Chariot.

While out of combat, allies may be absorbed into the chariot while standing in proximity (charging to full, like picking up urn). While in the chariot, allies are phased out, and may leave the charity by pressing any button.

The chariot lasts for up to 20 seconds; taking damage reduces this duration. The chariot can be canceled.

I haven't thought too much about how this might work in practice, but I think this works okay. It gives Chariot himself extra mobility and another attack angle in the middle of combat, and out of combat in theory serves as team-wide mobility and possibly a gank tool. The idea that the long duration can be reduced by taking damage seems like it could make for adequate counter-play.

this is a big package

Yeah--you gotta represent the bulge.

 

[Chilla9001]

Cool art, nice kit too, I think the first iteration is more interesting personally, it has too many dmging abilities tho, so I'd make his 3 more of a utility spell myself. As for the ult (Polarity Beam), I feel a good way of balancing/simplifying it would be to make it just affect enemies, while forcing Chariot to stand still while casting it (it wouldn't pull chariot towards them). Considering enemies could just dash out of it tho, I'd also make it slowly drain stamina from opponents caught in the beam

 

[arcsymus]

Cool art, nice kit too, I think the first iteration is more interesting personally, it has too many dmging abilities tho, so I'd make his 3 more of a utility spell myself. As for the ult (Polarity Beam), I feel a good way of balancing/simplifying it would be to make it just affect enemies, while forcing Chariot to stand still while casting it (it wouldn't pull chariot towards them). Considering enemies could just dash out of it tho, I'd also make it slowly drain stamina from opponents caught in the beam

Interesting perspective. Having the beam drain stamina would be really interesting. I like that a lot. I don't know how I feel about which version I like more. If I were to change ability 3, I would likely try to tie it into the theme of Chariot's name, because Chariot is a really cool name.