iyabiya
New member
I don't know if the ghost of Catherine the Great leading a Soviet Empire is still canon, given the fact that Raven has been scrapped, but the lore concept made me think of which other historical figures could come back to haunt the world of Deadlock. Hence, Nefertiti. A mummy hero would be cool, but I was mainly picturing her as a statue given life, based on the famous bust of her.
Also, I don't think anyone's even found her remains?
Aside from that, I was thinking she would be themed around Atenism, the possibly monotheistic religion that she and her husband, Akhenaten, made official during their reign in Egypt. Aten is a sun god, so lots of gold and light might be part of her visual design and abilities, coupled with the tan, black and red stone of her statue.
For her kit, I was partly inspired by Medusa and Leshrac from Dota 2, maybe you can tell. I'm not gonna put any numbers on this because I have no idea how to balance it, but here's what I got:
1: Sun Disc
Target an enemy hero to throw a homing disc of light at them. Once hit, the enemy takes damage and is briefly slowed. The disc then bounces to nearby targets, applying the same to them, before returning to Nefertiti. Nefertiti gets a barrier depending on the number of heroes hit.
T1: Slow duration increased slightly. - T2: More barrier per hit. - T3: More bounces, and can bounce on the same target more than once.
2: Curse of Vengeance
Whenever Nefertiti takes damage, this ability gains stacks. When activated, she releases several pulses of low damage, in accordance with the number of stacks.
T1: Cooldown between activations decreased. - T2: Cooldown between stack gains decreased. - T3: Max stacks increased.
3: Earthen Exterior
Passively reduces incoming damage by a small flat amount. Can be activated to briefly make Nefertiti immune to movement slows and roots.
T1: Also grants passive slow resist. - T2: Flat damage reduction increased. - T3: Active duration increased, and gives her bonus movement speed.
4: Light of Aten
Nefertiti raises up the disc of Aten, and its resplendent light blinds enemy heroes if they look at her. The longer they look at her, the more weapon accuracy they will lose, and if they look at her long enough, they will be disarmed and slowed.
T1: Cooldown decreased. - T2: Duration increased. - T3: If the disarm is triggered, enemies take damage and are rooted instead of just slowed.
So she's a tanky frontliner with some good CC, and counters for gun carries, but her ult and damage reduction do diddly squat to spirit nukers like Geist or Bebop. Maybe one of her abilities could also reduce fire rate, if she's gonna be specfically anti-gun focused? Probably on the 1 if so. Also, maybe the flat damage reduction on her 3 needs a minimum amount of damage that must go through, otherwise you just can't deal chip damage to her? Not sure.
In a way, she's ended up being quite similar to Victor. Maybe too similar? But Deadlock already has a few heroes that have sort of matching kits, like Grey Talon and Vindicta, Holliday and Doorman, and (in my opinion) is a better game for it. She mainly differs from Victor in not being able to heal herself (besides with barriers, which I imagine would fall off late-game) and not being able to resurrect herself, but would hopefully be able to make up for that with the rest of her kit, and the fact that she's not dealing damage to herself all the time. Again, no idea how this would all balance out. Tell me if anything sounds outrageously busted to you.
Lore-wise, I imagine the first maelstrom woke her up, and seeing not just that her religion had been abandoned immediately after her death, but that Egypt had fallen and tombs had been robbed and so on and so forth, she possesses a statue of herself, or compels a craftsman to make one for her, something like that, and sets out to show people the light of Aten, by force if necessary.
If not Nefertiti, I would also love other stony/statue/earthen heroes. Not to step on Ivy's toes, of course, but there's so much potential. Jewish Golems, Chinese Terracotta Soldiers, Babylonian Lamassu, the list goes on. Anyway, if you read this far, hope you liked the idea, and let me know what you think. And to Yoshi, if this gets added to the game, you owe me a job writing visual novels for Deadlock.
Also, I don't think anyone's even found her remains?
Aside from that, I was thinking she would be themed around Atenism, the possibly monotheistic religion that she and her husband, Akhenaten, made official during their reign in Egypt. Aten is a sun god, so lots of gold and light might be part of her visual design and abilities, coupled with the tan, black and red stone of her statue.
For her kit, I was partly inspired by Medusa and Leshrac from Dota 2, maybe you can tell. I'm not gonna put any numbers on this because I have no idea how to balance it, but here's what I got:
1: Sun Disc
Target an enemy hero to throw a homing disc of light at them. Once hit, the enemy takes damage and is briefly slowed. The disc then bounces to nearby targets, applying the same to them, before returning to Nefertiti. Nefertiti gets a barrier depending on the number of heroes hit.
T1: Slow duration increased slightly. - T2: More barrier per hit. - T3: More bounces, and can bounce on the same target more than once.
2: Curse of Vengeance
Whenever Nefertiti takes damage, this ability gains stacks. When activated, she releases several pulses of low damage, in accordance with the number of stacks.
T1: Cooldown between activations decreased. - T2: Cooldown between stack gains decreased. - T3: Max stacks increased.
3: Earthen Exterior
Passively reduces incoming damage by a small flat amount. Can be activated to briefly make Nefertiti immune to movement slows and roots.
T1: Also grants passive slow resist. - T2: Flat damage reduction increased. - T3: Active duration increased, and gives her bonus movement speed.
4: Light of Aten
Nefertiti raises up the disc of Aten, and its resplendent light blinds enemy heroes if they look at her. The longer they look at her, the more weapon accuracy they will lose, and if they look at her long enough, they will be disarmed and slowed.
T1: Cooldown decreased. - T2: Duration increased. - T3: If the disarm is triggered, enemies take damage and are rooted instead of just slowed.
So she's a tanky frontliner with some good CC, and counters for gun carries, but her ult and damage reduction do diddly squat to spirit nukers like Geist or Bebop. Maybe one of her abilities could also reduce fire rate, if she's gonna be specfically anti-gun focused? Probably on the 1 if so. Also, maybe the flat damage reduction on her 3 needs a minimum amount of damage that must go through, otherwise you just can't deal chip damage to her? Not sure.
In a way, she's ended up being quite similar to Victor. Maybe too similar? But Deadlock already has a few heroes that have sort of matching kits, like Grey Talon and Vindicta, Holliday and Doorman, and (in my opinion) is a better game for it. She mainly differs from Victor in not being able to heal herself (besides with barriers, which I imagine would fall off late-game) and not being able to resurrect herself, but would hopefully be able to make up for that with the rest of her kit, and the fact that she's not dealing damage to herself all the time. Again, no idea how this would all balance out. Tell me if anything sounds outrageously busted to you.
Lore-wise, I imagine the first maelstrom woke her up, and seeing not just that her religion had been abandoned immediately after her death, but that Egypt had fallen and tombs had been robbed and so on and so forth, she possesses a statue of herself, or compels a craftsman to make one for her, something like that, and sets out to show people the light of Aten, by force if necessary.
If not Nefertiti, I would also love other stony/statue/earthen heroes. Not to step on Ivy's toes, of course, but there's so much potential. Jewish Golems, Chinese Terracotta Soldiers, Babylonian Lamassu, the list goes on. Anyway, if you read this far, hope you liked the idea, and let me know what you think. And to Yoshi, if this gets added to the game, you owe me a job writing visual novels for Deadlock.
