Item Idea: Anti-Gun Item

[pinoynac]

WARNING: A lot of text. If you want to skip my rambling, skip to the bolded, underlined orange text.

There are a good amount of silence/anti-cast items and abilities in the game. As of the time of writing, they DID just make silence glyph a lot harder to use (shoot a projectile rather than homing onto target). I noticed there are very few items that limit the ability to shoot. There’s Withering Whip, which reduces fire rate. As for disarm, there’s curse, which seems to be the “you don’t get to play the game” item, and phantom strike, which puts you right next to them. Neither of these things last too long, which is good. The most powerful disarm in the game is attached to a character in Mo n’ Krill’s sandblast, an AoE disarm.

As a player who likes playing heroes who press buttons (and I am bad at shooting), I was mad that there were so many ways to limit MY fun, and not the guys who shoot a lot.

But that sort of makes sense, right? What is the one thing that EVERY CHARACTER in deadlock can do with little variation? It’s shoot their dang gun.
So, I get it. We want people to be able to shoot their guns. But having few means of countering shooting favors the gun heavy characters (Haze, Wraith, Infernus, Seven kinda). I don’t want to have to buy a 6k item to make them stop. BUT I also see why easy access to disarm is bad for the game.

So here’s my concept:

It’s an AoE disarm. BUT WAIT, IT GETS WORSE (for the item; shooter guys rejoice). It’s also short range and centered on your character. Like Cold Front!

The way I see it, it’s a happy balance. A rare status effect that removes your consistent ability to do damage (shooting) but making it very hard to use by needing to get close to them. However, if used correctly, it can disarm a whole team–that you are now in the middle of, who are not silenced.

BUT WAIT you say. Cold Front isn’t that hard to use! You just press it and it hits people! And you’re right. That’s how it works. But because you shooty-types won’t let me break your guns that easily, I also had the idea of a delay before the “wave” goes off.

This led to my theming idea: It’s a camera! Or flashbang! Or something bright, I dunno it’s got bright lights and they stop shooting you.
In my MIND’S EYE: You hit the button. Your character has some flashes around them, like paparazzi taking pictures, signaling the big flash that comes up. After X amount of time, the BIG FLASH goes off and everyone in X AoE is blinded. With some damage maybe.

SO. Here is what I have to play around with.
Item that:

• Active item
• Stops/reduces shooting capabilities
• Short range AoE
• Some damage
• Delay
• Centered on character
  • SUB-IDEA: Centered on an area, like Pulse Grenade or Alchemical Fire

Okay neat. There’s a good bit that can be manipulated before it gets too complicated.
Here are some ideas:
(Stats are obviously subject to change for balance reasons, but the active is what I’m gonna be paying the most attention to)

VER. 1
T3 (3000 cost) Weapon Item: Prototype Flashbang

Stats:
+10 Spirit Power
+20% Slide Distance
+175 Bullet Shield Health

Active: After a short telegraphed* delay, a flash of light blinds enemies nearby, disarming them.
Cooldown: 25 seconds
Delay: 1.75 seconds
10m Radius
Spirit Damage: 45 + 0.5xSpirit
Duration: 3.5 seconds
*The telegraph would be some weak flashes to indicate the big flash coming up

Reasonings:
The stats are the stats, not too attached to them, but it seems reasonable for a 3k item to have those stats, plus I imagine a guy with a flashbang would have like body armor (bullet shield) and be sliding around like some kind of NAVY Seal/Marine/someone with combat training. The spirit power is because flashbangs weren’t invented until the 1970s (according to google), so I figure there has to be some kind of mystical powering aspect to it.
As for the active, I think the delay is reasonable; it’s half of Seven’s stun delay, which is generously reactable. The radius is shorter than cold front, but it comes out instantly instead of spreading to that length over a second. The damage is small, too small to ever realistically activate Improved Burst (if you have 260 spirit and this item, then by all means, go off king), but I wanted to give it some damage for cancelling leap and zip. And the duration is on par with Curse and Phantom Strike while being half the cost, a trade off for being so short ranged.

Here’s another angle:

VER. 2a
Same stats as VER. 1, but the active works differently.

Active: User emits many blinding flashes that each disarm for a short time.
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Delay between flashes: 0.6 seconds (first flash occurs 0.6 seconds after activation)
10m Radius
Disarm Duration (per flash): 0.25 seconds
Flashing Duration: 5.4 seconds (8 flashes for a total of 2 seconds of disarm if they are hit by every flash)

Reasonings:
Not as long as a disarm as VER. 1, but spread out over a longer period of time feels similarly disruptive. The pulses would happen like Paradox’s Pulse Grenade, and the radius of the pulses would be obvious. This version notably deals zero damage, as I feel it’s annoying enough as is, and I don’t really want the offensive capabilities to be too strong to reduce snowball potential. I feel like getting this early is good to dive gun characters, so giving it damage may be too much.

VER. 2b
A different take on VER. 2a

Active: Throw a prototype spirit grenade that emits many blinding flashes that inflict minor damage and a stacking miss chance. Deals 40% less damage vs. non-Heroes.
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Delay between flashes: 0.6 seconds (first flash occurs 0.6 seconds after activation)
15m Radius
Spirit Damage per flash: 20 + 0.25xSpirit
Miss Chance per Stack: 20%
Miss Chance Duration (per flash)*: 1.3 seconds
Flashing Duration: 5.4 seconds (8 flashes for a total of 6.7 seconds of reduced shooting capability if they are hit by every flash)
*Every new stack refreshes the duration and remains until the effect wears off and no more new stacks are gained (For you Dota players, it’s like Viper’s Poison Attack and NOT like Bristleback’s Warpath or Quill Spray).

Reasonings: Not as oppressive initially as VER. 1 or VER. 2a, but if you get enough stacks it becomes MORE oppressive than either in my opinion. This is why this version is a thrown item like Alchemical Fire or Pulse Grenade. Because of how the stacking works, you get 100% miss chance after 5 stacks (3.0 seconds of being within the radius) and the duration per stack is set to 1.3 so that if you leave the radius and come back before you lose your stacks, it will continue to build. Due to its stationary nature after it’s thrown, I also beefed up the radius and threw some damage back on there.

VER. 2c is VER. 2b that’s centered on your character (like the previous iterations) without damage and with a 10m radius. The reason VER. 2c exists is in case VER. 2b is too good of a low-commitment item given that it can be thrown.

All of these iterations are affected by Line of Sight.

General Musings/Random Thoughts:

• VER. 1 is definitely my favorite for simplicity's sake. Less moving parts, its effect is easily understandable, and I like the telegraphed delay that rewards players for paying attention.
• I’m not really sure how the VER. 2 iterations should interact with duration extending effects. Maybe they extend the flashing duration (so more flashes, like Pulse Grenade) AND the disarm/miss chance effect? It might be too powerful, but I’ll leave that one to the professionals.
  • The VER. 2b iteration also, based on its text, would stack with other versions of itself, which may also be too oppressive. But I think if that were the case, you could just make the stats really bad so it would feel horrible to buy except as utility.
• I toyed with making this an upgrade of Cold Front, but I specifically wanted it to do poor or no damage, which I feel is the main use of Cold Front as of the time of writing. So I scrapped that idea.
• It’s possible this type of limitation on shooting I’m trying to introduce could be similarly expressed with a fire rate slow, but I am not 100% sure on how fire rate slows interact with fire rate boosts vs. how evasion/miss chance interact with fire rate boosts (i.e., which counters fire rate more?).

Lastly, here are other ideas I had as mechanics that don’t exist in the game yet:

• A “facing” mechanic
  • In practice with this item, it would affect you if you are facing the source within a certain cone of vision, like 180 degrees in front of you or something (think Medusa ult in Dota). The reason I could see this not working is because it’s a third-person shooter where you aren’t penalized for backward movement, so while it effectively protects the source because you can’t face them, it doesn’t really stop others from doing just about anything else.
• Miss chance
  • I know I used this concept in my ideas above, but only because it’s easily understood how it works. I’m mentioning it here because it doesn’t exist in the game, and is functionally different from Bullet Evasion in that it’s sourced to the shooter and not the guy getting shot.
  • The presence of a miss chance mechanic may necessitate an accuracy mechanic–essentially a counter for evasion and miss chance–if it becomes too prevalent, so I hesitate to suggest it.
• Forced reload
  • Effectively a disarm that affects characters differently–even more so if they have items that reduce reload times (like Sharpshooter or Active Reload). Basically doesn’t affect Abrams as of the time of writing.
  • Another spin on the forced reload mechanic is the removal of ammo from your current clip, like removing 20% of your max clip per flash on the VER. 2 iterations, so it will eventually force a reload.

That’s all folks, don't forget to tip your servers.

 

[technicalwaffle]

Suppressor slows fire rate and can be upgraded to Mystic slow for universal value. Withering Whip and Phantom Strike are built to shut down specific carries.

Metal skin literally makes you immune to bullets if you're dealing with multiple carries.

There's quite a lot more counterplay against guns within items versus for spirit damage sources. The only items that specifically reduces spirit damage or hinder ability heavy heroes are silence glyph which is not longer point and click and spirit snatch which requires a heavy melee to even do anything.

I'm not sure what niche an AOE disarm fills. Item counterplay is readily available to anyone on the roster, so they're mostly relegated to either being more or less effective on certain heroes or should only be bought to deal with one threat in particular.

Putting a ten year long AOE disarm on a hero ability instead of an item makes more since as it carves out a niche for that one hero while still allowing you to counter guns to an extent through single target sources.

 

[pinoynac]

Suppressor slows fire rate and can be upgraded to Mystic slow for universal value. Withering Whip and Phantom Strike are built to shut down specific carries.

Metal skin literally makes you immune to bullets if you're dealing with multiple carries.

There's quite a lot more counterplay against guns within items versus for spirit damage sources. The only items that specifically reduces spirit damage or hinder ability heavy heroes are silence glyph which is not longer point and click and spirit snatch which requires a heavy melee to even do anything.

I'm not sure what niche an AOE disarm fills. Item counterplay is readily available to anyone on the roster, so they're mostly relegated to either being more or less effective on certain heroes or should only be bought to deal with one threat in particular.

Putting a ten year long AOE disarm on a hero ability instead of an item makes more since as it carves out a niche for that one hero while still allowing you to counter guns to an extent through single target sources.

I appreciate the feedback, so I'll try to address the points in order.

I don't know that anyone buys Suppressor except as a component of Mystic Slow. Not that this nullifies your point, but I think my point is that few (if any) get this to counter guns. Also maybe it's a skill bracket thing.

Metal Skin does indeed do what you're saying, and my suggestions are like the inverse to Metal Skin. However, many gun-heavy characters have a spirit damage aspect to their gun, reducing Metal Skin's effectiveness (by design, I assume, since it feels bad to have your entire kit countered by 1 item). My suggestions protect others as well since it's like giving everyone around an enemy Metal Skin at the potentially high price of making your positioning bad.

I don't know if I agree with your assessment of counterplay of guns vs. spirit; I feel like there's a similar amount, if not more things that counter abilities. But I can't deny I have bias as a guy who likes pressing buttons instead of shooting my gun, and the game IS a shooter. But to throw other anti-ability examples out there (and I'm not counting ones that have anti-gun counterparts, like spirit armor vs. bullet armor), there's Slowing Hex, Geist's maxed Siphon Life, Ivy's maxed ult (I forget the name). Looser examples could include Reactive Barrier, since I don't think bullets can activate it, and to a lesser extent Debuff Remover.

I think AoE disarm fills a disrupting niche. The telegraph on all the iterations of my idea allow for counterplay in splitting up/running away/avoiding the guy who is a living strobe light. VER. 1 I think is the least oppressive and most fair version of the item.

I think Mo & Krill still maintains his niche since Sand Blast has such a big range and AoE, and is quite safe when compared to a small AoE disarm centered on your hero.

 

[technicalwaffle]

I appreciate the feedback, so I'll try to address the points in order.

I don't know that anyone buys Suppressor except as a component of Mystic Slow. Not that this nullifies your point, but I think my point is that few (if any) get this to counter guns. Also maybe it's a skill bracket thing.

This is part of what makes it so strong. You get to apply a debuff that has detriments to any hero no matter their build, and the fire rate slow just gets tacked on for free at this point. And if you just want it for the fire rate slow you never need to upgrade it until you need Mystic Slow.

Metal Skin does indeed do what you're saying, and my suggestions are like the inverse to Metal Skin. However, many gun-heavy characters have a spirit damage aspect to their gun, reducing Metal Skin's effectiveness (by design, I assume, since it feels bad to have your entire kit countered by 1 item). My suggestions protect others as well since it's like giving everyone around an enemy Metal Skin at the potentially high price of making your positioning bad.

Spirit damage added to guns is only present on heroes that specifically rely on their guns alot. It would indeed be too oppressive to have your entire hero design by countered by a 3000 item, but if you were going something like say gun Dynamo who can output other forms of value even if they were not shooting, it makes a sense for it to be this one note and strong. The problem with making an item that lets you give value to your entire team is that it doesn't give space for actual heroes to fill that niche. Why pick Mo and Krill into a gun heavy team when an item gives you most of what they offer into that team for much less commitment?

I don't know if I agree with your assessment of counterplay of guns vs. spirit; I feel like there's a similar amount, if not more things that counter abilities. But I can't deny I have bias as a guy who likes pressing buttons instead of shooting my gun, and the game IS a shooter. But to throw other anti-ability examples out there (and I'm not counting ones that have anti-gun counterparts, like spirit armor vs. bullet armor), there's Slowing Hex, Geist's maxed Siphon Life, Ivy's maxed ult (I forget the name). Looser examples could include Reactive Barrier, since I don't think bullets can activate it, and to a lesser extent Debuff Remover.

Slowing Hex doesn't stop you from fighting back, so it's more situational than a fire rate slow which quite literally just makes you less effective at dealing damage. The other two examples are specific heroe abilities, which I said above I believe should be the ones to fill the truly "unfair" aspects of anti gun or ability sources. Reactive barrier and debuff remover are even more situational, and can't really be counted as universal ability hindrances since we're just getting into specific hero counters at this point. I'm saying this as a guy who can't aim to save my life and only plays spirit heavy builds, I feel like there is so much you can do against guns because of how much uptime they have while abilities only usually offer value in small bursts.

I think AoE disarm fills a disrupting niche. The telegraph on all the iterations of my idea allow for counterplay in splitting up/running away/avoiding the guy who is a living strobe light. VER. 1 I think i

I don't think the item is particularly OP, but I just don't really think it fits into the design philosophy of items. Items that offer you protection are selfish by nature, which is good because it means you can't just itemize for your teammates. But items that inhibit enemies are usually reserved for shutting down single carries instead of dealing with the entire enemy team at once. This is for good reason too, because honestly if you think about it what is the difference between this item being an ability versus an item? Items that inhibit enemies are designed to be purchased either as a fuck you button to a hero on the enemy team you are not equipped to deal with well otherwise, or a fuck you button to a hero that is causing your team trouble, and you are the member most suited to buy it either because your positioning puts you in an convenient place to use the item or your hero is not item reliant. An AOE disarm means your role just kinda warps around this item. You dive in and use this item and it just kinda becomes your identity.

s the least oppressive and most fair version of the item.
I think Mo & Krill still maintains his niche since Sand Blast has such a big range and AoE, and is quite safe when compared to a small AoE disarm centered on your hero.

But yeah the previous point kinda just goes into this one. If this is just a weaker version of mo kills sand blast, why is it an item and not just another ability?

 

[pinoynac]

This is part of what makes it so strong. You get to apply a debuff that has detriments to any hero no matter their build, and the fire rate slow just gets tacked on for free at this point. And if you just want it for the fire rate slow you never need to upgrade it until you need Mystic Slow.

I wouldn't call it free, it costs 4250 because Suppressor is required. I think my point was that people would much prefer a Mystic Slow that provides just the move slow for 3000.

The problem with making an item that lets you give value to your entire team is that it doesn't give space for actual heroes to fill that niche. Why pick Mo and Krill into a gun heavy team when an item gives you most of what they offer into that team for much less commitment?

But Alchemical Fire exists, which does DPS and increases bullet damage to those affected. Isn't that what Vindicta's crow does, and Mirage's scarabs?
Also, the point is that the item is far MORE commitment than Mo & Krill's sandblast. I'm not sure what about this item is low commitment, especially in comparison to Sand Blast.

Items that inhibit enemies are designed to be purchased either as a fuck you button to a hero on the enemy team you are not equipped to deal with well otherwise, or a fuck you button to a hero that is causing your team trouble, and you are the member most suited to buy it either because your positioning puts you in an convenient place to use the item or your hero is not item reliant.

I feel like this aids my point. Someone like Abrams or Lash or Pocket or Viscous or even Kelvin would benefit a lot from this item as characters that have the ability to dive deep into the enemy lines. I don't think this is too out of place for them. You're not buying Cold Front on Vindicta or Wraith, which requires getting close to the enemy (a case could be made for Wraith I suppose but that's probably dumb).

An AOE disarm means your role just kinda warps around this item. You dive in and use this item and it just kinda becomes your identity.

This is not something I considered, and a really good point. As I said earlier, the item could be easily bought as someone who goes in, but you may be right in that team comps may want to "save room" for a character who wants to buy this item. That's why I think making the stats not so good would make people hesitant to pull the trigger on this item, but then why make an item that always feel awful to buy? I will definitely think more on this.

But yeah the previous point kinda just goes into this one. If this is just a weaker version of mo kills sand blast, why is it an item and not just another ability?

I mean, it may happen. I'm suggesting this item at a stage in this game's development where few heroes exist (I think like 22), and only 1 has the ability to fully disarm. It's possible that more characters will be created with the ability to disarm, but as of now, there isn't. I think this item has enough counterplay built in to warrant a version of it to exist in the game.

 

[technicalwaffle]

I wouldn't call it free, it costs 4250 because Suppressor is required. I think my point was that people would much prefer a Mystic Slow that provides just the move slow for 3000.

My wording was a little confusing. I more meant that since Suppressor was the first bought, cheaper component, you can choose to only have suppressor but you can't choose to only have a mystic slow. If you're only looking for a fire rate slow you can get it for very cheap.

But Alchemical Fire exists, which does DPS and increases bullet damage to those affected. Isn't that what Vindicta's crow does, and Mirage's scarabs?
Also, the point is that the item is far MORE commitment than Mo & Krill's sandblast. I'm not sure what about this item is low commitment, especially in comparison to Sand Blast.

The difference between those items and abilities and ones that directly inhibit an enemy is exactly that. These items apply AOE debuffs that make YOU more effective instead of stopping them from being more effective. Reducing bullet resist still requires you to followup with actual meaningful bullet damage for the value to actually be used, but just slapping a fire rate slow on someone means they simply do less now with no further input by you.

I feel like this aids my point. Someone like Abrams or Lash or Pocket or Viscous or even Kelvin would benefit a lot from this item as characters that have the ability to dive deep into the enemy lines. I don't think this is too out of place for them. You're not buying Cold Front on Vindicta or Wraith, which requires getting close to the enemy (a case could be made for Wraith I suppose but that's probably dumb).

It would definitely be something they could use very effectively, but is it something players of that hero would WANT to use? Mo and Krill players pick the hero with the express intent to want to disarm people, but say this item became decently powerful and important. Would these players enjoy having their role relegated to diving in and disarming multiple people? In what situations would they want to make this part of their core hero identity as part of their ability rotation?

The difference between this item and other AOEs like cold front and alch fire is that those items make the users job easier, whatever that may be, while this item applies an effect that is valuable in a vacuum. You hit a bunch of people and now they are disarmed, and there's not much more interaction with the hero. That's why it sounds more fit to be an ability and already kinda is with Sand Blast.

 

[gibnewitems]

I noticed there are very few items that limit the ability to shoot.

That's because they all tend to be very polarizing mechanics, and there's already quite a lot of accessible strong counterplay to bullet builds from defensive items. Comparing the counterplay between spirit and bullet is like comparing apples to oranges. They play differently, build different items that scale differently, have different counter items, etc.