I've come to realize something important about Deadlock. As of now, almost every group mentioned in lore has a representative in the Ritual. OSIC, Baxter Society, Blackmore Academy, the Patrons themselves, the Vatican, and even the military industrial complex. And who's the only thing that's being left out of the ritual? The Adversary.
Indeed, only from the propagandist POV of Viscous do we get any idea about The Adversary. And so to resolve this I have come up with an idea (in the spirit of mermay): An evil ass mermaid that is representing the Adversary in some way in the ritual. In this essay, I will give points for what kind of moveset this mermaid should have and WHY this character would be super cool to add to Deadlock.
First, what kind of character is this? How does her personality impact her abilities, and how does that impact the game? She is an oceanic predator who fulfills the food pyramid to the best of her ability. Inspired mainly by siren myths, she's on her side before anyone else's, but is willing to get perfectly saccharine if it means getting her desired outcome. Because of this (and because it'd be funny if she synergizes well with Viscous) her kit is focused on luring in enemies, capitalizing on faulty dives, and synergizing with movement slow.
To best show this, I might as well just fully create her kit (a vague idea of one, she might intersect with other heroes and some stuff might be op/garbage, idk I'm not a dev) and explain each ability:
Base Stats: Mid/Low Health, 3 Stam, Balanced bullet/spirit scaling
Weapon : [Siren's Song: Spreadshot, Close range]
A1: [Remora's Kiss:
Description: Sends forward a suckerfish to attach to enemy, dealing tic damage, and revealing hit enemy through walls (increased x-ray duration from stalker). Suckerfish attaches on hitting a surface as well, with an activation wakeup in exchange for longer attach and faster tic rate.
Charges: 2, 16s charge up, 8s cooldown, charge+(charge*1/2) number of remora can be placed on ground before oldest is removed.
Attach: 1m radius (3m grounded), 10m range thrown before projectile gravity. 5s attach duration (8s from grounded)
Damage: 10 spirit (x0.5 spirit scale), 1.2s (0.8s ground) tic rate (x0.2 fire rate scale)
X-ray: Ability duration+Ability Duration*1/4 seconds
Upgrades: +3 charges, increased duration (+2s hit & +3s ground) and increased weapon damage on x-rayed enemies (teamwide), sucker damage scales to move speed debuffs and suckerfish jumps to nearby enemy heroes (returned to full duration from it's original state) or returns and fills 1 charge if no enemies nearby. ]
This is kind of the main punishing focus of her kit. The idea is that she can use these to punish overconfident divers, slapping them with several at once (both those she placed beforehand and one she hits them with afterwards) and turning the chase around on them. Because this would be broken if they were just placed at the guardians feet, they can be destroyed with bullet fire before they're attached.
A2: [Hookline:
Description: Singing out a siren song, minor healing is applied to an ally, with the bonus effect of falsifying their health UI to the enemy team, making the teammate appear weaker than they likely are. Alt-fire allows self use, though with a reduced UI effect duration.
Cooldown: 55s
Healing: 15/s (x0.45 spirit scale) health restored, 3s duration, 25m range
UI Effect: UI only shows damage applied, not healing, starting at the activation of the ability, for a total of 20s before returning to true value. UI health minimum is 5%. Ability ends if ally dies.
Upgrades: -12s cooldown, +20s UI Effect duration and +8% bullet resist for ally during duration, Increase your fire rate 3% and move speed by 0.25m for every 20dmg ally takes while under UI effect to a maximum of 10 stacks, stacks reset after 8s without damage limit being reached.]
I figured having the siren just have enemies forced walk towards her would be super lame, so a better 'siren song' would be have yourself or an ally appear to be at very low hp. The healing doesn't do that much, but should be enough for the enemy to realize they were in for a tougher battle then they realized and let the target get out of sticky situations alive. Mostly meant to punish inattentive divers, it also makes it harder for an enemy to judge whether to push or retreat, making it useful as a support item, as well as powering up the siren at the final upgrade level as she prepares to ambush the chasing enemy.
A3: [Punishing Lunge
Description: Bursts forward, biting enemies that are passed through and dealing movement slow to them.
Cooldown: 22s
Damage: 75 (x1.2 spirit) with a 12m lunge range at 24 m/s, -15% movement speed 3s duration
Upgrades: -10s cooldown, regen (damage dealt*0.02) and 30% evasion proc 3s duration, -20% movement speed debuff and 2nd upgrade duration both increase by 2s ]
This one's pretty straightforward, its mostly meant to cut in front of an enemy escape (or as an escape itself), but can also be useful when large swathes of enemy heroes are bunched together. Should be used quickly after Remora's Kiss to maximize its value.
A4: [ Frenzied Feeding
Description: Creates and swims around a whirlpool, which drags enemies to center, drains stamina and removes movement abilities. Enemy heroes that die in whirlpool are devoured and give health and permanent buffs. Whirlpool does not move, but has invulnerability status during whirlpool.
Cooldown: 240s
Radius: 6m radius, pulls enemies in at 1.5 m/s
Damage: 25 (x1 spirit) at a 1.2s tic rate (x0.4 fire rate scale) for 6s, -0.35 stam bars per tic, -35% move speed in radius, movement abilities canceled
On death gain: health gain (enemy max*0.08), +3% fire rate, +4% bullet dmg
Upgrades: +2m radius, +5 dmg and pull-rate increased by 1 m/s, Each enemy hero killed in whirlpool gives -30s cooldown and and stam drain increased to -0.75 bars per tic.]
This is the gnarliest one imo, let's say theoretically your teammate's been killed, you're facing three enemy heroes, and you have to retreat to your walker. If you have only like two remoras set up on the bridge above the walker entrance and they both hit, activating this ability on the enemy heroes will be pretty grisly if A1 and A4 are maximized.
This took way too long to make, I hope anyone that reads it appreciates it!
Indeed, only from the propagandist POV of Viscous do we get any idea about The Adversary. And so to resolve this I have come up with an idea (in the spirit of mermay): An evil ass mermaid that is representing the Adversary in some way in the ritual. In this essay, I will give points for what kind of moveset this mermaid should have and WHY this character would be super cool to add to Deadlock.
First, what kind of character is this? How does her personality impact her abilities, and how does that impact the game? She is an oceanic predator who fulfills the food pyramid to the best of her ability. Inspired mainly by siren myths, she's on her side before anyone else's, but is willing to get perfectly saccharine if it means getting her desired outcome. Because of this (and because it'd be funny if she synergizes well with Viscous) her kit is focused on luring in enemies, capitalizing on faulty dives, and synergizing with movement slow.
To best show this, I might as well just fully create her kit (a vague idea of one, she might intersect with other heroes and some stuff might be op/garbage, idk I'm not a dev) and explain each ability:
Base Stats: Mid/Low Health, 3 Stam, Balanced bullet/spirit scaling
Weapon : [Siren's Song: Spreadshot, Close range]
A1: [Remora's Kiss:
Description: Sends forward a suckerfish to attach to enemy, dealing tic damage, and revealing hit enemy through walls (increased x-ray duration from stalker). Suckerfish attaches on hitting a surface as well, with an activation wakeup in exchange for longer attach and faster tic rate.
Charges: 2, 16s charge up, 8s cooldown, charge+(charge*1/2) number of remora can be placed on ground before oldest is removed.
Attach: 1m radius (3m grounded), 10m range thrown before projectile gravity. 5s attach duration (8s from grounded)
Damage: 10 spirit (x0.5 spirit scale), 1.2s (0.8s ground) tic rate (x0.2 fire rate scale)
X-ray: Ability duration+Ability Duration*1/4 seconds
Upgrades: +3 charges, increased duration (+2s hit & +3s ground) and increased weapon damage on x-rayed enemies (teamwide), sucker damage scales to move speed debuffs and suckerfish jumps to nearby enemy heroes (returned to full duration from it's original state) or returns and fills 1 charge if no enemies nearby. ]
This is kind of the main punishing focus of her kit. The idea is that she can use these to punish overconfident divers, slapping them with several at once (both those she placed beforehand and one she hits them with afterwards) and turning the chase around on them. Because this would be broken if they were just placed at the guardians feet, they can be destroyed with bullet fire before they're attached.
A2: [Hookline:
Description: Singing out a siren song, minor healing is applied to an ally, with the bonus effect of falsifying their health UI to the enemy team, making the teammate appear weaker than they likely are. Alt-fire allows self use, though with a reduced UI effect duration.
Cooldown: 55s
Healing: 15/s (x0.45 spirit scale) health restored, 3s duration, 25m range
UI Effect: UI only shows damage applied, not healing, starting at the activation of the ability, for a total of 20s before returning to true value. UI health minimum is 5%. Ability ends if ally dies.
Upgrades: -12s cooldown, +20s UI Effect duration and +8% bullet resist for ally during duration, Increase your fire rate 3% and move speed by 0.25m for every 20dmg ally takes while under UI effect to a maximum of 10 stacks, stacks reset after 8s without damage limit being reached.]
I figured having the siren just have enemies forced walk towards her would be super lame, so a better 'siren song' would be have yourself or an ally appear to be at very low hp. The healing doesn't do that much, but should be enough for the enemy to realize they were in for a tougher battle then they realized and let the target get out of sticky situations alive. Mostly meant to punish inattentive divers, it also makes it harder for an enemy to judge whether to push or retreat, making it useful as a support item, as well as powering up the siren at the final upgrade level as she prepares to ambush the chasing enemy.
A3: [Punishing Lunge
Description: Bursts forward, biting enemies that are passed through and dealing movement slow to them.
Cooldown: 22s
Damage: 75 (x1.2 spirit) with a 12m lunge range at 24 m/s, -15% movement speed 3s duration
Upgrades: -10s cooldown, regen (damage dealt*0.02) and 30% evasion proc 3s duration, -20% movement speed debuff and 2nd upgrade duration both increase by 2s ]
This one's pretty straightforward, its mostly meant to cut in front of an enemy escape (or as an escape itself), but can also be useful when large swathes of enemy heroes are bunched together. Should be used quickly after Remora's Kiss to maximize its value.
A4: [ Frenzied Feeding
Description: Creates and swims around a whirlpool, which drags enemies to center, drains stamina and removes movement abilities. Enemy heroes that die in whirlpool are devoured and give health and permanent buffs. Whirlpool does not move, but has invulnerability status during whirlpool.
Cooldown: 240s
Radius: 6m radius, pulls enemies in at 1.5 m/s
Damage: 25 (x1 spirit) at a 1.2s tic rate (x0.4 fire rate scale) for 6s, -0.35 stam bars per tic, -35% move speed in radius, movement abilities canceled
On death gain: health gain (enemy max*0.08), +3% fire rate, +4% bullet dmg
Upgrades: +2m radius, +5 dmg and pull-rate increased by 1 m/s, Each enemy hero killed in whirlpool gives -30s cooldown and and stam drain increased to -0.75 bars per tic.]
This is the gnarliest one imo, let's say theoretically your teammate's been killed, you're facing three enemy heroes, and you have to retreat to your walker. If you have only like two remoras set up on the bridge above the walker entrance and they both hit, activating this ability on the enemy heroes will be pretty grisly if A1 and A4 are maximized.
This took way too long to make, I hope anyone that reads it appreciates it!
