Hero Idea: Shape-shifting Adventurer (Undying, M. King, Natural Selection)

[Sarus]

Hero design: A pulp 1930's adventure hero in the style of Indiana Jones or Doc Savage wielding a mysterious eldritch artifact. When I first heard about the new setting, I was already sort of expecting a pulp adventurer or even a lovecraft-ish hero, but was surprised to see either hadn't been cooked up yet. So here's my shot at marrying both concepts. This is an updated/completed version of this concept

Gameplay design: Triple Transformation hero. Transformation heroes in dota are very cool, but it occurred to me more could be done with the archetype in the context of deadlock's mechanics...so why not add two more? The first two transformations offer unparalleled mobility for a steep price - heavy spirit/bullet resist reductions in each form. These are meant to be supplemented by taking advantage of the shield mechanics in the game via items
and his passive. Although the two base kit abilities are not available in each transformed state, they are useful enough to offer plenty of tactical plays with de-transforming; hopefully encouraging an endless variety of play-styles. Each transformation plays differently and even have their own unique abilities and movement, very much inspired by the classic goldsrc mod Natural Selection. Other concepts are inspired by Dota's Monkey King and Undying.

Ability 1: Stone of A'ja
30s CD, 0.7s stun duration, 3s amp duration, 20m range

Channel to fire a piercing ray that damages and stuns all enemies caught in its path. Casting this in the air, you will float and maintain horizontal momentum. Applies a team-wide 10% damage amp to all struck enemies for the debuff duration."

1. +3s amp duration
2. + beam width/+ bonus damage
3. Press (1) again to teleport to the tip of the laser/+0.5s stun duration

Concept: Basically 3D Monkey King's boundless strike. If you love MK's new tree-hopping facet in Dota 2, one of the playstyles I would love to encourage is using the extreme mobility afforded by one of the transformations to get into position and pull off good ganks/stuns with this. Upgrade 3 is meant to even emulate MK's Agh upgrade, giving the hero some critical mobility when caught out in base form or for combos to encourage up-close tank transformations. Mechanically, it's a close-to-mid range skill-shot. Visually, the hero points the artifact and essentially fires an eldritch rail-gun. For the initiated among us, yes, it's yet another jojo reference


Ability 2: Soul Drain
12m AOE radius, 30% movement slow, 6s health and movespeed buff/debuff duration, 35CD

Drains a flat 10% health percentage from all nearby enemies to temporarily empower your health and charge the stone. Cast again to expel the drained life-force in an AOE to damage and slow enemies."

1. + damage bonus
2. CD reduction
3. Now additionally drains 10% of m/s from all struck enemy heroes and empowers your move-speed for the duration or until expelled.


Concept: Inspired by Undying's soul-rip/decay and visage's grave shift. Weaken enemy tank front-lines or a minion wave to either bolster yourself or use the stone to cast an AOE damage/slow around the hero. Visually, he holds the cursed artifact overhead as it drains or expels enemy (or allied minion) life-force. Getting into the middle of an enemy team via a mobile transformation form and popping this is the general idea, with refresher
can carry over the HP and M/S buff back into transformations, particularly the Shambler form. Also designated lane/jungle farming ability.


Ability 3: Eldritch Phylactery (passive)
60s CD, 5s duration, 30% reduction to movement speed debuffs while activated

Reaching critical health generates, or adds, a temporary 150 bullet and spirit shield in all forms. 30% reduction to movement speed debuffs.

1. +3s duration
2. +200 to critical health bullet and spirit shield
3. Transforming via Unnatural Selection refreshes all shields.

Concept: Designed for lane survival/aggressive dives and to encourage reliance on the shield mechanic to succeed with the steep resist reductions on the first two forms. Shields in this game are actually pretty cool and I like the general gameplay flow of timing veil walker with plays, so the idea behind this is a shield passive that complements that playstyle. Natural combo with refresher, veil walker, point blank, etc. The final upgrade is to reward the active play-maker (likely equipped with a refresher) with a mini veil walker.


Ability 4: Unnatural Selection (ult)
15s duration, 45CD

Transmogrify into alternate forms that offer unique abilities. Press (4) again to transform back into human form.

Transforms into the Beast, press MOUSE 1 to bite, press MOUSE 2 to leap. Using alternate MOUSE 2 abilities cost 1 stamina."

[Beast: -40% bullet resist, -40% spirit resist, +15% melee, abilities: BITE, LEAP]
[Flying Horror: -20% bullet resist, -20% spirit resist, abilities: SPIKES, SCREAM]
[Shambler: +60% bullet resist, +60% spirit resist. -30% movement slow, abilities: POUND, PULVERIZE]

1. +5s duration
2. Press (2) to transform into the Flying Horror.
3. Press (3) to transform into the Shambler.

Concept: Initial unlock gives the hound form, while the other forms are locked behind subsequent point upgrades. The idea here, is to let the player decide how they're going to play this character via the upgrade route, people addicted to melee and are obsessed with juking might simply take the first duration upgrade and build into the passive for survivability, while someone looking to take to the air and play the aggravating disabler might only reach (2) here and then max out the laser. Or focus straight on the tank if they're team-fight obsessed sickos - you get the idea. Each form has a unique ability that costs stamina, so spammy players may find themselves in a bad position if they're not thinking ahead, or get caught out. Of course, they are not able to use standard movement mechanics or even use the zip-line in their transformed state. Late game, I definitely imagine some interesting plays available centered around using refresher and other items like phantom weave (item usage only available in base form).


This completes the basic kit, second post substantiates the three forms.

 

[Sarus]

-Form 1 The Hound -
Ground mobility, wall-crawling, high risk melee
+3 m/s, +15% melee damage, -60% bullet and spirit resist.
Mouse 1 enables Bite, a simple light melee attack with no movement speed penalty.
Mouse 2 enables leap, a sort of mini-majestic leap that will allow them to weave in and out of position.

Concept: Inspired by the Skulk from Natural Selection, the hero becomes an eldritch hound-like creature that is able to traverse any surface possible and would be difficult to shoot at with a reduced model/hurtbox. All of this comes at a heavy price with a very steep resist penalty. Sneaking up on prey with a bite or two and then transforming back to human to finish off with a laser (or, dota 2 monkey king style, simply get in position to stun) would be a core playstyle for this form. No ranged attack at all, simply a close range melee attack.



-Form 2 The Horror-
Aerial mobility, disabler.
Mouse 1 - Spikes, ranged attack that applies slow stacks, a full six to eight stacks result in a 1.5s stun.
Mouse 2 - Deafening Scream, a close-range silencing AOE for 1.5s.
LEFT SHIFT - speed up, LEFT CTRL - slow down.

Concept: Inspired by the Lerk from Natural Selection. Morphing into the horrible form of a winged beast, the Hero gains amazing aerial mobility for a limited time. Has a health and defense decrease to compensate, but not as steeply as the first form. Gains ranged spikes that stack slow, a full stack will result in a 1.5s stun. The second form is a silencing 5M AOE attack, which would encourage actual offensive actions, combo into base form laser/soul drain, refresher, etc etc, all that good stuff.

-Third Form: The Shambler-
Taaaaaank! What else?
10m +40% movement slow aura, +60% bullet and spirit resist, -3 m/s movement speed.
Mouse 1 - Pound, an old fashioned L4D Tank punch that knocks back and stuns enemies who collide into walls/surfaces for 2s.
Mouse 2 - Pulverize, an inheritance from Dota's primal beast, for 3 stamina the Shambler snatches and channels a poor victim into the ground for 2.5s seconds, stunning them and enemies around them with a 15m radius AOE mini-stun all around him.

Concept: Inspired by the Morlock of H.G. Wells, Undying from Dota, and named after the Shambler from Quake. For a time he becomes a shambling beast with extreme durability and a slowing AOE from his disgusting visage. Moves very slowly.
Big 'ol tank, what else. I'm a fan of the Tank from Left 4 Dead, but there's already a hero in the works that likes to chuck rocks, pulverizing gray talons into mush with pulverize would be a very fun alternative .