Hero Idea - Changeling, A horror-themed shapeshifting creature

[SingularityMaw]

This is a departure of how I usually do this kind of thing, starting with a thematic making a kit instead of the other way around. Also is the one that took the longest due to a lot of iterating and re-considering. Feel free to criticize any part of it, as I gave it a lot of thought and want to see if it holds under scrutiny. Have a great rest of your October. Here it is:

Background:
During a Norse expedition into Greenland, a small contingency of outlanders found themselves in an unnaturally frigid cave, the ice so clear as to see the preserved remains of many once-living creatures. Within the deepest chamber of this cavern, there was a mass that absorbed all light effortlessly and, despite being completely entombed in frost, seemed to somehow still be shuddering, still living. Careless curiosity moved them to investigate, thawing it free for their own investigation. There was but a single survivor, even as the creature was burned in a great pyre not long after. That is how the story is told, but the reality was not quite over. The entity had fashioned itself as the supposed survivor's battered form, masking it's escape. Ever since then, it would act as a human for decades at a time, taking on many roles, names and even body plans as it sought to fully grasp it's new environment. But when the supernatural became part of the mundane, it could not resist sampling the newcomers and testing it's design upon old Adversaries. After all, it is not quite there, not yet.

TL;DR: Someone made a mistake a long time ago, everyone else still suffers for it. This time it just so happens to be almost person-shaped, but not quite. It probably ate Bigfoot or Nessie.

Appearance: At game start, is a recolored, but otherwise identical copy of their lane opponent. If in a duo lane, is a copy of their gun's owner. After unlocking their ultimate ability, reveals it's preferred form; a pitch-black silhouette, a myriad of colors moving over it's oscillating flesh while it's right arm is twisted into a strange, cannon-like mechanism.

Gun: Gun functions exactly as it's lane opponent's for the rest of the match. If in a duo lane, gun is a copy of the one with the shortest range, and then the highest damage.

1 - Predation
Three Tendrils break out of your body that lock on to the nearest enemy, prioritizing targets in your crosshair, dealing Spirit Damage. Has a Damage Penalty per tendril striking the same target. Number of Tendrils scales with Spirit Power.

Notes: You can dodge out of this by breaking line of sight, but it is still supposed to be a good amount of consistent damage. Also has the added benefit of looking very strange when coupled with your starting appearance and later your Ultimate. Also, it originally was supposed to slow, but I thought it was a more annoying version of Artic Beam. Tier 3 carries over and still works during your Ultimate.

Spoiler: Upgrades

[Tier 1: Reduced Cooldown]
[Tier 2: Adds more Tendrils, Damage Penalty is reduced by Spirit]
[Tier 3: Tendrils grant a stacking buff, causing the next ability cast to release Tendrils for each stack]

2 - In Plain Sight
Select a target in range, then lunge. If the lunge target is an NPC, Hide within them for a duration. At the end of the duration, you exit and Light Melee them if they are an enemy. If the lunge target is an object, occupy their space and Hide as that object. If an enemy Hero interacts with you in this state, you lunge once more at them from a longer range, dealing Increased Spirit Damage, massively Slowing their Move Speed and Dash Speed. If the lunge target is an enemy hero, they only take Spirit Damage.

Notes: You can still shoot it if it's hiding, but the damage has no feedback, so it can probably hold out a few shots to make it look more convincing. NPC does include Guardians and Walkers, but those should be made very clear if it's hiding inside them, even more so if it's inside the enemy team's Guardians. Objects are the obvious boxes and golden statues, but also include ropes, Sinner's Sacrifice and air vents. Should make the losing team very paranoid, specially underground or indoors.

Spoiler: Upgrades

[Tier 1: Longer Range, further increased when you are Hiding]
[Tier 2: Lunging at an enemy hero reduces Cooldown, massively increased if you were Hiding]
[Tier 3: High Damage increase, further increased when you are Hiding]

3 - Chromatic Flesh
Passive: gain a Health Shield to the damage type you have received the most during this match.

Active: Restore all your Health Shields and start Regenerating Health, based on the current Health Shield values.

Notes: No good horror monster is easy to take down, this one shouldn't be any different. Passive portion is very simple, if you're getting gunned down or blown up, it changes to match what you're facing. As for the active, it's a powerful regeneration effect that incentivizes trying to stop it, as reducing the Health Shield slows down the healing. As for the Tier 3, imagine Mid Boss' shield.

Spoiler: Upgrades

[Tier 1: Increase Health Shield Spirit Scaling]
[Tier 2: Lowered Cooldown, gain Sprint Speed if you have a Health Shield active]
[Tier 3: Health Shields benefit from Health Regen and don't go on Cooldown]

4 - Mimicry
Choose an enemy hero within line of sight to copy. After a short transformation, you gain access to all of their basic abilities, base attributes and upgrades. Each ability will have one charge and are Reverted to your own upon use, while passives have a duration until Reverting. When all abilities have been Reverted, this effect ends and you return to your original form.

Notes: I can't imagine a good shapeshifter in any game without an effect similar to this, so I added it with a more unique flavoring, it uses the ability and discards it, since it likely won't need it again so soon. Could maybe have a per target cooldown, so you're not just turning into Dynamo every fight? As an aside, the first draft of this ability included using their Ultimate ability with the Tier 3, but it looked extremely clunky how I had implemented it, so I threw it away. Ironic.

Spoiler: Upgrades

[Tier 1: Add a small portion of your base statistics to your transformed form]
[Tier 2: Reduced Cooldown]
[Tier 3: Using your Reverted abilities while transformed change them to your copy, once per transformation]

 

[silverclaw2]

I feel being shot whilst hiding is not the ideal way to handle it. Most objects you'd impersonate are breakables that would normally break in one shot. I think instead of "interact with" it should be that the lunge is triggered by breaking the object. It's simpler that way, and a nasty surprise when you shoot a pot and suddenly this creature jumps at you.

 

[SingularityMaw]

I feel being shot whilst hiding is not the ideal way to handle it. Most objects you'd impersonate are breakables that would normally break in one shot. I think instead of "interact with" it should be that the lunge is triggered by breaking the object. It's simpler that way, and a nasty surprise when you shoot a pot and suddenly this creature jumps at you.

That is how I intend it to work, so you misunderstood. How do you interact with boxes and golden statues? You break them. In effect it's the same thing, the wording just implies the lunge also triggers on interacting with other, non-destructible objects that you can still shoot without damaging it. like trying to climb a rope, punching a Sinner's Sacrifice or jumping on an air vent. Flaw in the wording, should have made it more clear.

 

[TokenNoob]

I like the idea. But I feel the passive is mechanically awkward. I feel it would make more sense if there was a delay before the shield pops up and should only pop up when out of combat for a bit. But even then, I might be wrong, but I feel bullet damage is the most prevalent damage because that's everyone's automatic attack. So it might as well be a bullet shield. Or maybe you can have it alternate periodically, idk.

 

[SingularityMaw]

I like the idea. But I feel the passive is mechanically awkward. I feel it would make more sense if there was a delay before the shield pops up and should only pop up when out of combat for a bit. But even then, I might be wrong, but I feel bullet damage is the most prevalent damage because that's everyone's automatic attack. So it might as well be a bullet shield. Or maybe you can have it alternate periodically, idk.

Good points, and yes, bullet damage is the most common around the early and late game, specific heroes non-withstanding, so the original thought was that it would mostly swap depending on the heroes it's facing and time of the game. However, there are ways it could be simplified, such as being based on Changeling's end instead of the enemy's.
Example; whichever items it has bought, such as going a bullet build giving a Bullet Shield and vice versa, or whichever of the two resist types is currently higher. Or even making a weaker, more narrow version of the Tier 3 the passive instead. Those have their own flaws, such as tying an important defensive passive to the item system, limiting build variety by needing to include shield items and still being too large for my design goals. Flaw in aligning theming and mechanics, too much complexity on an ability that needs to be straight-forward.

 

[TokenNoob]

Good points, and yes, bullet damage is the most common around the early and late game, specific heroes non-withstanding, so the original thought was that it would mostly swap depending on the heroes it's facing and time of the game. However, there are ways it could be simplified, such as being based on Changeling's end instead of the enemy's.
Example; whichever items it has bought, such as going a bullet build giving a Bullet Shield and vice versa, or whichever of the two resist types is currently higher. Or even making a weaker, more narrow version of the Tier 3 the passive instead. Those have their own flaws, such as tying an important defensive passive to the item system, limiting build variety by needing to include shield items and still being too large for my design goals. Flaw in aligning theming and mechanics, too much complexity on an ability that needs to be straight-forward.

In the spirit of simplicity, maybe the hero should have a bullet shield. Then when it depletes they gain a spirit shield. And when that depletes it reverts back to a bullet shield, rinse and repeat. If that's a little unbalanced then perhaps it should be bullet and spirit resist instead. And the active switches between the two at will. idk

 

[SingularityMaw]

In the spirit of simplicity, maybe the hero should have a bullet shield. Then when it depletes they gain a spirit shield. And when that depletes it reverts back to a bullet shield, rinse and repeat. If that's a little unbalanced then perhaps it should be bullet and spirit resist instead. And the active switches between the two at will. idk

I do believe simple is mostly better for purely defensive abilities, so yes, that first one could definitely work. It fits well with the way abilities revert during the Ultimate that adds a form of mechanic consistency, kind of like how Shiv has a bleed for enemies on his knives and bleed for himself on bloodletting passive, while still fits the idea of an adaptable threat that is always changing. Would likely need an alteration to how the Tier 3 functions, but the upgrades are by far the thing I'm least attached to, so not much of a loss there.
This is a design flaw purely due to a holdover from past iterations, this ability was even more complex originally and it kind of bled through into this version.