blakehollows
New member
Haunted Armor - A Hero Concept
I'm blown away by some of the artwork other people make for their hero concept posts, I hope my scribbles convey the idea I'm going for lol
I don't claim to be an expert on balancing or making sure a character's kit isn't "broken", truth be told I just want a really edgy badass character with a huge greatsword in the game.
I think a possessed set of armor would fit in the character roster perfectly; here's some cool details I think would make this character feel unique to play as / versus.
- This armor is actually possessed by the sword, and because the sword is the armor's power source, you have to shoot the sword instead of the armor's helmet in order to deal headshot/critical damage.
- Functionally, this wouldn't be that bad or OP since the sword is huge, it'd actually make it easier to hit so I'd assume there'd be a headshot reduction in place similar to characters like Seven.
- This would be another one of the small roster of characters that lean towards a more melee playstyle, like Abrams or Billy. I'm imagining a very large, bulky suit of armor that moves super slowly with very little stamina, so the abilities I've doodled down below should be enough to make his movement fit into the fast-paced matches of Deadlock.
- Yes I mained Magik in Marvel Rivals, how could you tell?
So one of the big things I wanted to make sure of is that despite being bulky and slow moving, this character had a means of traversing the map well. His 1 and 2 are kind of like if you split Abram's ultimate into two different abilities.
His 1, Upward Slash, functions as a means of scaling vertical terrain easier, as well as a damage-dealing combo starter.
His 2, Phantom Shift, is a movement tool as well as a displacement ability. You can reassemble yourself where the sword lands, and you can also use it to drag an enemy down with you, similar to Lash. Maybe also making the distance not go as far if you've speared an enemy with it, for balance sake.
These abilities are deceptively simple, with a lot more use cases than you'd think. A few examples:
- Slashing upwards to catch a Vindicta/Grey Talon, then slamming them down to the ground
- Slashing a Rem upwards as they're activating their ultimate, giving your teammates the space needed to escape Naptime's range
- Slashing a Seven using his ultimate upwards and then following up with your 2, Phantom Shift, to shove the Seven out of the sightline of your teammates
- Many movement use cases around the map, like being able to reach Bridge Buff with your 1, then using your 2 to reassemble yourself back to lane
The Sword Beam is very basic, but more importantly, fun and dynamic. Maybe it could pierce through enemies when you use your AP on it, or even more interestingly, it could power up the longer distance it travels, so you're rewarded for having the skill to predict where an enemy will be if you decide to try to cross-map snipe someone with it.
Dead Weight functions very similarly to Yamato's ultimate, however the difference between the two would be that this ability has more risk involved. Damaging your own teammates might be a questionable trait to give an ability, and understandably so. However, I do like the idea of it thematically for this character. The sword could be willing to complete the ritual at any cost, to the point of not caring if those helping it would falter. An "ends justify the means" outlook so to speak.
Obviously the idea of damaging teammates can be divisive, and despite not having any AOE abilities in this kit there's still griefing potential with a character like this. The ability would still be cool without the "damage teammates" part anyway, so I wouldn't bat an eye to that part of it being gutted.
In Summary
I really like the idea of a haunted set of armor being controlled by a sword, and that you have to shoot the sword to get the headshot multiplier. Hell, I'd even just take having a character that uses a greatsword in any capacity. The players yearn for a badass edgy character with a big ass sword. Think of how many weebs will be ecstatic about how they can play as a diet Guts Berserk in Deadlock, like lets just be honest here.
Last-Minute Design Notes
I probably could have made the sword look more like it's the thing possessing the armor, like adding eyes or something to it, but I didn't want to 1-for-1 copy Nightmare from Soul Calibur, which was one of my main inspirations when drawing this idea up. My other big inspiration was Alphonse from Full Metal Alchemist, because his armor design is super sick.
If you've read this far, thank you! That's pretty much it.
