[Hero Concept] High Roller

[megamagicmonkey]

Wraith and High Roller definitely know each other.

Concept: Bring a certain amount of chaos and unpredictability into your games. High Roller dabbles in inconsistency and odds manipulation.

Primary weapon: One-Armed Bandit - A shotgun with a slot machine feature built in.

Ability 1: Dice toss - Toss two large dice in front of you that detonate when at rest and deal their base damage times the number rolled in an AoE around each die. Targets hit by multiple dice in a singe cast take extra damage. Base damage 20 per die (spirit scaling) in a 3 meter radius (spirit scaling). +50% bonus damage if hit by multiple dice. 40 second cooldown.

Upgrade 1 - Reduced cooldown.

Upgrade 2 - Heroes hit by the dice have their spirit and bullet resist reduced by the result on the die for 9 seconds.

Upgrade 3 - Roll 2 additional dice.


Ability 2: Lucky Mark - Curse or bless an ally with bad/good luck. Every second cursed enemies gain a small debuff to a random stat for two seconds. Blessed allies gain a small buff to a random stat every second that last two seconds. Lucky Mark can be a charged ability. Charge cooldown of 10 seconds, ability cooldown of 40 seconds, duration of 30 seconds (spirit scaling). Range of 12 meters.

Upgrade 1 - Reduced cooldown, becomes a charged ability with 2 charges.

Upgrade 2 - After affecting its initial target, bounces to the nearest hero (ally or enemy) within 20 meters.

Upgrade 3 - Enemies have a 30% chance of each bullet hitting them count as a headshot. Allies have a 6% chance to negate a source of damage.



Ability 3: (passive) Your magazine size changes within a certain range each time you empty it and the slots on the weapons spin. Larger magazines gain improved fire rate and smaller magazines gain increased damage proportional to the gap from its base stats. On a Jackpot, your magazine size becomes 1 and your next shot deals massive damage and inflicts the enemy hit with Lucky Mark.

Upgrade 1 - The variable range widens.

Upgrade 2 - The variable range widens again.

Upgrade 3 - Manually reloading your gun when it only has 1 shot left ensures the next reload results in a jackpot.



Ability 4: High Stakes - Spin a roulette wheel with you and each enemy in line of sight in front of you represented. Whoever it lands on gains a gradually fading debuff that lowers their max HP by half, their spirit and bullet resistance by 15%, and their move speed by 30%. Odds on all faces are even, except for the jackpot (initially 2% chance) which absorbs from High Roller's representation. Landing on Jackpot effects all enemy heroes on the wheel. Debuff duration of 15 seconds. Cooldown 190 seconds. Range 25 meters (spirit scaling).

Upgrade 1 - Reduces cooldown by 30 seconds.

Upgrade 2 - Bullet and spirit resistance lowered by another 15%.

Upgrade 3 - Jackpot odds increase to 5%.


As always, feedback is appreciated.

 

[BloodNoskie]

nice!

 

[LadiesMan217]

I want another gambling theme character. I know wraith is in the game, but she really only has the card. I would love to see something like this in game

 

[maxkaibarreto]

A challenger approaches!


Cuphead’s King Dice:
Gun is a midranger’s pocket pistol

1 - Ogre Magi’s multicast on a triggered cooldown multiplies weapon attacks (item procs intended) & basic abilities’ effect. 1p reduces the triggered cooldown; 2p increases weapon attacks’ possible multiplier; 5p increases abilities’ possible multiplier

2 - With medium range, target another hero to buff an ally’s movespeed or slow an enemy’s, this effect jumping to an enemy of that target in near range of them. Jumps repeat when multicast. 1p adds spirit to the ally buff; 2p reduces the cooldown; 5p slows enemies by more & their attack speed too

3 - Lob a bouncing explosive die whose light damage reduces spirit resistance until more damage is applied after a delay. Multicasting scales the delay & its damage. 1p reduces the cooldown; 2p increases the light damage; 5p reduces their spirit resistance by more

U - Riki’s Tricks of the Trade but styled as a roulette wheel which deals extra damage to a random slice of its effect. 1p increases the duration & adds a mirrored slice; 2p increases the minimum damage; 5p reduces the cooldown & adds a third slice

 

[Oleg-fav]

Pure luck-based abilities is a bad game design - what's the point of pressing buttons if you can't control outcomes. Luck is much better as a mechanic when you can control your odds and know the outcomes before making a choise. For example card games is a good form of random - the options are random, but you always know exactly what cards you play and can make choices.

Here are some ideas you can use to improve the concept:

1. If you have a chance-based effects, give this hero a gun passive ability that improoves your chances when you hit an enemy
2. Make him 6-7 different abilities that swap randomly when you play them - as a hand af cards
3. Give each of his abilities a risky version you can activate with an alt cast - upgraded with with a chance to lose health or trigger some other kind of "misfortune"
4. There are other ways to show "luck" without using random chances: Make his abilities cooldown faster when he is on a low health; give him a passive that lowers accuracy of enemies when they shoot him; make some kind of effect that happens when you or an opponent is at low health, like a deus-ex-machina. Maybe you can give him resistance to AoE abilities, and so on

 

[gunseeker]

Pure luck-based abilities is a bad game design - what's the point of pressing buttons if you can't control outcomes. Luck is much better as a mechanic when you can control your odds and know the outcomes before making a choise. For example card games is a good form of random - the options are random, but you always know exactly what cards you play and can make choices.

Here are some ideas you can use to improve the concept:

1. If you have a chance-based effects, give this hero a gun passive ability that improoves your chances when you hit an enemy
2. Make him 6-7 different abilities that swap randomly when you play them - as a hand af cards
3. Give each of his abilities a risky version you can activate with an alt cast - upgraded with with a chance to lose health or trigger some other kind of "misfortune"
4. There are other ways to show "luck" without using random chances: Make his abilities cooldown faster when he is on a low health; give him a passive that lowers accuracy of enemies when they shoot him; make some kind of effect that happens when you or an opponent is at low health, like a deus-ex-machina. Maybe you can give him resistance to AoE abilities, and so on

I agree with Oleg here, I feel like a lot of these abilities sound cool in concept but in practice unpredictability makes them just annoying to use. Think about how many people complain about random crits in TF2 now imagine a character relying on random chance to do good damage... It may be fun in street brawl but as a game that would eventually have competitive matchmaking a character as unpredictable as this wouldn't be desirable. If you do stick to random chance abilities, I do agree with Oleg's suggestion of ways of improving the luck, such as a passive ability like haze fixation stacks.

The ult especially, seems kind of terrible. Imagine waiting almost as long as Dynamo ult (190 seconds vs 230 seconds) just to have it backfire and reduce your own health by half. I dont think there is another character with a potentially worse ult. I get the idea is the more enemies there the less it affects you but to be honest it just seems finnicky, and even if it doesnt hit you it only hits a single target.

I think an alternate version of the ult could be the same roulette wheel but instead of "affects you OR the enemy" it could be "affects the enemies by spinning for a random effect". This way they enemy could get lucky and get a not-so-bad effect, but not an effect that directly harms yourself. For example, lets say you ult during midboss. Pocket rolls and gets silenced for 4 seconds, Haze rolls and gets her hp multiplied by 2/3, Mirage rolls and gets stunned for 2 seconds, and Warden gets Afflictioned. Maybe Lash gets lucky and he rolls the very rare "No effect" if you wish to have something like that.