quiescentrabbitt
Active member
[Appearance]
I've seen requests in the community for more monstrous heroes, and that inspired me to create a concept for The Lich. While I am an artist, I don't have experience drawing anything like this, so instead I'll reference the two designs from above. The Lich would have the unnatural stature and imposing size of Slave Knight Gael, but rather than carrying a greatsword, would instead hold a large ethereal spear, similar to Kalista. It would be an undead battle mage, flesh and bones that are rotting and yet remain animate nonetheless. Very unsettling and creepy compared to most Deadlock heroes.
[Story]
I wanted to make The Lich an unambiguously evil character, something that would disturb even the most immoral heroes in Deadlock. Whether it's intelligent or just a force of nature is left up to interpretation.
Ever shambling forward, The Lich travels between small communities, draining life and rotting people to their bones, until even those don't remain. Despite efforts from world renown exorcists, it always seems to reassemble itself. When it showed up in New York City hundreds of thousands of residents had to be evacuated.
[Gameplay Concept]
There are three significant kit archetypes I'd really like to see in Deadlock. First, a hero that needs to manage another resource beyond just health and stamina. Secondly, a hero that plays akin to a mage/caster, and primarily deals their damage through skill shots at a moderate range. Lastly, a hero which deals consistent (not burst) spirit damage without relying on their primary attack. All three of these ideas were the basis for The Lich.
While initially I considered giving Lich an entirely unique resource called "Lifeforce", tying it into the existing set of items and concepts in Deadlock was too much of a challenge. Instead, I'll be taking inspiration from Path of Exile, and how you can "reserve" your own maximum life. The Lich applies an uncleansable debuff to itself called "Rot", and each stack of it temporarily lowers their maximum health. That is the main resource their kit is built around.
Lastly, I'll take this opportunity to say that the ability names are just placeholder. They aren't creative and would need to be renamed to be less literal in an actual design. Also, all image mock-ups show the values for the ability as if it has been fully upgraded! You'd need to subtract the values of the upgrades to get the base ones. This is to show how the values of the upgrades are displayed.
[Soul Spear]
Soul Spear is The Lich's primary damage tool, and the basis for how they fit each of the archetypes mentioned earlier. Rather than being limited by cooldowns, the primary limit to prevent The Lich from pressing this constantly is that they steadily lose max health (They apply "Rot" to themselves). You have to be more considerate and intentional with how you use it despite the low cooldown.
This would have a brief charge up time similar to Grey Talon arrow, but you'd be able to dash freely while charging it. The projectile speed would be slightly slower, but with a larger hitbox to compensate. Unlike GT though, these embed in the terrain, which is important for Lich's next ability. Lastly, the final upgrade rewards being able to hit them very precisely on targets, potentially hitting someone twice should it land right at their feet and pierce through them. I really like upgrades that add another layer of flavor to an ability.
Visually, The Lich would physically toss the spear its holding for this ability, then summon a new one.
[Recall Spears]
Recall Spears adds another layer of how you use Soul Spear, as your goal isn't only to hit targets, but also set yourself up to return them for bonus damage and some soft CC. This adds some depth in the form of needing to position precisely and have an awareness of where your spears are. It also gives The Lich the ability to peel itself, as if you chase after it, you'll be in the return path of any spears it threw.
The maximum recall distance prevents The Lich from being played like Grey Talon and sitting very far away. In order to improve visual clarity, The Lich would have a circle under itself with lines that point towards all active Soul Spears. These lines would fade away after a short distance to reduce visual noise. This is to make it more evident for someone fighting The Lich where its spears are currently and how they would return to it. The spears would return through terrain so this is important.
The projectile speed would be considerably faster compared to the throw, so that you cannot react and dodge easily to them returning. Instead, you need to position to avoid the damage, not just react to it.
[Necrosis]
Necrosis is The Lich's passive, it explains the functionality of Rot, how it's removed, and allows you to upgrade the removal of it. It also grants The Lich spirit scaling for their maximum health, something very important for a caster designed to build a lot of spirit and then remove their maximum health through ability usage.
The active component is a long channel that forces The Lich to be immobile for awhile. Like all other channels, stuns or interrupts would prevent the effect from occurring. In exchange for those trade-offs, its point and click, and gives The Lich a way to turn a lot of rot accumulation into a benefit for themselves. Thematically, this is meant to be a terrible curse that the Lich has to spend awhile chanting uninterrupted to afflict onto you.
Let me also take this moment to explain more about how Rot would work.
Rotted health would be displayed on your healthbar like this. Unlike Siphon Bullets, which actually removes your maximum life, Rot only "reserves" it, preventing you from healing it. The distinction means that sources of maximum life %, or missing life % remain entirely effective, and would be one of the main ways to counter The Lich. Additionally, when Rot is cleansed, you do not get back the health that was reserved, it stays missing. However, it also does not damage you if you are already missing health. You can think of it as "taking space" in your health bar.
Lastly, enemies that are afflicted with Rot would be able to cleanse it with debuff remover or divine barrier, as they do not have the line in this passive that specifies that it cannot be cleansed by items. Only The Lich has this restriction of being unable to cleanse it through those means. Otherwise, enemy heroes have the default rate of 5 Rot cleansed per second that The Lich does with no scaling/upgrades.
[Devourer]
Devourer is The Lich's ultimate, and serves to give them high play making potential through resetting their Rot with takedowns. It's also very thematic that a Lich consumes the souls of the living, making themselves stronger in the process. With each takedown you're able to gain back your max health and more, snowballing through the fight. However, if the enemies coordinate and deny you any takedowns, you'll lose so much max health that you'll be very easy to kill.
At maximum upgrades, it gains the resetting capability that Shiv's ultimate does, but unlike Shiv, you do not get the entire CD back. Instead, you need to complete each cast within 10 seconds or else it expires, and goes onto the full cooldown. This upgrade would be high risk for high reward, as it only matters in fights that you get at least two takedowns in, but when you do, you can snowball very effectively and accumulate a lot of stats.
[Dark Dreg]
The Lich's primary is a weak magic bolt shot from their left hand. Same projectile speed as Kelvin, but a slow firing rate. Very low damage m1 overall to prevent The Lich from stacking maximum health without rotting itself to deal significant damage.
[Final Thoughts]
Thank you for reading my hero concept! I hope this can serve as a potential inspiration for future hero designs. This is my second hero concept, you can read my first here: Anathema - Cursed Outcast. Although I don't make these frequently, I hope they hold up to a high standard of quality. I'd like to make heroes with a lot of depth and intrigue to them. Let me know what you think!
Slave Knight Gael from Dark Souls 3 | Kalista from League of Legends
I've seen requests in the community for more monstrous heroes, and that inspired me to create a concept for The Lich. While I am an artist, I don't have experience drawing anything like this, so instead I'll reference the two designs from above. The Lich would have the unnatural stature and imposing size of Slave Knight Gael, but rather than carrying a greatsword, would instead hold a large ethereal spear, similar to Kalista. It would be an undead battle mage, flesh and bones that are rotting and yet remain animate nonetheless. Very unsettling and creepy compared to most Deadlock heroes.
[Story]
I wanted to make The Lich an unambiguously evil character, something that would disturb even the most immoral heroes in Deadlock. Whether it's intelligent or just a force of nature is left up to interpretation.
Ever shambling forward, The Lich travels between small communities, draining life and rotting people to their bones, until even those don't remain. Despite efforts from world renown exorcists, it always seems to reassemble itself. When it showed up in New York City hundreds of thousands of residents had to be evacuated.
[Gameplay Concept]
There are three significant kit archetypes I'd really like to see in Deadlock. First, a hero that needs to manage another resource beyond just health and stamina. Secondly, a hero that plays akin to a mage/caster, and primarily deals their damage through skill shots at a moderate range. Lastly, a hero which deals consistent (not burst) spirit damage without relying on their primary attack. All three of these ideas were the basis for The Lich.
While initially I considered giving Lich an entirely unique resource called "Lifeforce", tying it into the existing set of items and concepts in Deadlock was too much of a challenge. Instead, I'll be taking inspiration from Path of Exile, and how you can "reserve" your own maximum life. The Lich applies an uncleansable debuff to itself called "Rot", and each stack of it temporarily lowers their maximum health. That is the main resource their kit is built around.
Lastly, I'll take this opportunity to say that the ability names are just placeholder. They aren't creative and would need to be renamed to be less literal in an actual design. Also, all image mock-ups show the values for the ability as if it has been fully upgraded! You'd need to subtract the values of the upgrades to get the base ones. This is to show how the values of the upgrades are displayed.
[Soul Spear]
Soul Spear is The Lich's primary damage tool, and the basis for how they fit each of the archetypes mentioned earlier. Rather than being limited by cooldowns, the primary limit to prevent The Lich from pressing this constantly is that they steadily lose max health (They apply "Rot" to themselves). You have to be more considerate and intentional with how you use it despite the low cooldown.
This would have a brief charge up time similar to Grey Talon arrow, but you'd be able to dash freely while charging it. The projectile speed would be slightly slower, but with a larger hitbox to compensate. Unlike GT though, these embed in the terrain, which is important for Lich's next ability. Lastly, the final upgrade rewards being able to hit them very precisely on targets, potentially hitting someone twice should it land right at their feet and pierce through them. I really like upgrades that add another layer of flavor to an ability.
Visually, The Lich would physically toss the spear its holding for this ability, then summon a new one.
[Recall Spears]
Recall Spears adds another layer of how you use Soul Spear, as your goal isn't only to hit targets, but also set yourself up to return them for bonus damage and some soft CC. This adds some depth in the form of needing to position precisely and have an awareness of where your spears are. It also gives The Lich the ability to peel itself, as if you chase after it, you'll be in the return path of any spears it threw.
The maximum recall distance prevents The Lich from being played like Grey Talon and sitting very far away. In order to improve visual clarity, The Lich would have a circle under itself with lines that point towards all active Soul Spears. These lines would fade away after a short distance to reduce visual noise. This is to make it more evident for someone fighting The Lich where its spears are currently and how they would return to it. The spears would return through terrain so this is important.
The projectile speed would be considerably faster compared to the throw, so that you cannot react and dodge easily to them returning. Instead, you need to position to avoid the damage, not just react to it.
[Necrosis]
Necrosis is The Lich's passive, it explains the functionality of Rot, how it's removed, and allows you to upgrade the removal of it. It also grants The Lich spirit scaling for their maximum health, something very important for a caster designed to build a lot of spirit and then remove their maximum health through ability usage.
The active component is a long channel that forces The Lich to be immobile for awhile. Like all other channels, stuns or interrupts would prevent the effect from occurring. In exchange for those trade-offs, its point and click, and gives The Lich a way to turn a lot of rot accumulation into a benefit for themselves. Thematically, this is meant to be a terrible curse that the Lich has to spend awhile chanting uninterrupted to afflict onto you.
Let me also take this moment to explain more about how Rot would work.
Rotted health would be displayed on your healthbar like this. Unlike Siphon Bullets, which actually removes your maximum life, Rot only "reserves" it, preventing you from healing it. The distinction means that sources of maximum life %, or missing life % remain entirely effective, and would be one of the main ways to counter The Lich. Additionally, when Rot is cleansed, you do not get back the health that was reserved, it stays missing. However, it also does not damage you if you are already missing health. You can think of it as "taking space" in your health bar.
Lastly, enemies that are afflicted with Rot would be able to cleanse it with debuff remover or divine barrier, as they do not have the line in this passive that specifies that it cannot be cleansed by items. Only The Lich has this restriction of being unable to cleanse it through those means. Otherwise, enemy heroes have the default rate of 5 Rot cleansed per second that The Lich does with no scaling/upgrades.
[Devourer]
Devourer is The Lich's ultimate, and serves to give them high play making potential through resetting their Rot with takedowns. It's also very thematic that a Lich consumes the souls of the living, making themselves stronger in the process. With each takedown you're able to gain back your max health and more, snowballing through the fight. However, if the enemies coordinate and deny you any takedowns, you'll lose so much max health that you'll be very easy to kill.
At maximum upgrades, it gains the resetting capability that Shiv's ultimate does, but unlike Shiv, you do not get the entire CD back. Instead, you need to complete each cast within 10 seconds or else it expires, and goes onto the full cooldown. This upgrade would be high risk for high reward, as it only matters in fights that you get at least two takedowns in, but when you do, you can snowball very effectively and accumulate a lot of stats.
[Dark Dreg]
The Lich's primary is a weak magic bolt shot from their left hand. Same projectile speed as Kelvin, but a slow firing rate. Very low damage m1 overall to prevent The Lich from stacking maximum health without rotting itself to deal significant damage.
[Final Thoughts]
Thank you for reading my hero concept! I hope this can serve as a potential inspiration for future hero designs. This is my second hero concept, you can read my first here: Anathema - Cursed Outcast. Although I don't make these frequently, I hope they hold up to a high standard of quality. I'd like to make heroes with a lot of depth and intrigue to them. Let me know what you think!
