I've seen other suggestions for things like Aganim's Scepter from DotA and this item falls somewhat in line with that, but has a slightly different focus.
While other people suggest that the abilities affected are simply enhanced, the goal of The Wildcard is specifically to alter the abilities in question to open up new playstyles for each character. This means that the way abilities will be affected will specifically go against how the character normally plays. Which abilities are affected by the Wildcard have a Card symbol on them, indicating which ones are altered.
Item: The Wildcard
Item Type: Vitality
Components: Health Regen
Cost: 3000 souls (Tier 2)
Passive Stats:
+3.5 Health Regen
+12% Ammo
Passive effect:
Activates Wildcard effects on Wildcard abilities.
List of potential Wildcard Effects:
Hero name: Ability Affected
- List of changed effects
-- Reasoning/effect
Abrams: Siphon Life
- Your Siphon Life ability now drops a page of the Infernal book you carry at a designated spot, has an additional Charge, and deals 30% additional Spirit damage and has increased Spirit Scaling (+.64 Spirit scaling to the DPS). Your Siphon Life area emits from the dropped page instead of around you.
-- Abrams is normally a strong melee tank/bruiser. His damage frequently comes mostly from punches/his gun along with Spirit damage items like Torment Pulse. This gives Abrams a useful area denial tool, and good Spirit damage ability which allows him to focus more on a Spirit bruiser build instead of his normal Melee build.
Bebop: Hook
- Your Hook now travels substantially faster, but no longer pulls targets to you. Instead, allies gain +1.5 move speed when moving toward the target for and the target is disarmed for the next 3 seconds.
-- Bebop is generally a high burst ganking hero who specializes in getting enemies out of place with his Hook. This alters his hook to help your team initiate together and lets Bebop lean more into a support role, keeping enemies from attacking allies and helping teammates focus fire on key targets.
Dynamo: Singularity
- Singularity deals 250% increased damage, but it's Channel duration is reduced by 40%.
-- Dynamo normally plays primarily as support. By changing his ult to deal 3.5 times as much damage but disable for a much shorter duration this makes him much more effective as a quick ganker with some team support.
Grey Talon: Charged Shot
- Your Charged shot deals 30% reduced damage, but also applies your Immobilizing Trap effect to the first target hit
-- This reduces Grey Talon's burst damage from his Charged Shot, but substantially increases his ability to control enemies which can lend him a play style more as a controller between his Ult, 1 and 3 abilities.
Haze: Fixation
- Fixation now triggers it's bonus Spirit damage every 12 stacks applied instead of every 20 and also reduces the cooldown on your Sleep dagger by 1.5 seconds, but the bonus weapon damage applied per stack is reduced by 50%.
-- Increasing the frequency that Fixation triggers it's bonus spirit damage along with increasing the rate you can throw sleep daggers makes it more possible to make a spirit build instead of only Gun builds on Haze.
Infernus: Afterburn
- Afterburn deals 65% reduced damage, but now builds up 50% faster and causes you to deal 30% increased Gun damage to the target. Additionally, your bullets don't suffer from fall-off damage when hitting an enemy already affected by Afterburn
-- Infernus is built mostly as a Spirit damage Skirmisher who works well in mid-short range. Picking up the Wildcard on him changes him substantially from a mostly Spirit damage build to a mostly Gun damage build that works better at Mid-long range.
Ivy: Watcher's Covenant
- Watcher's Covenant is now applied to enemies instead of Allies. Enemies receive the inverse of any benefits that Ivy receives, though Ivy still receives a portion of any healing connected enemies receive. Ivy gains 50% increased benefits from the effect.
-- Ivy is primarily a support character, and Watcher's Covenant plays a big role in that. Inverting it to be a more aggressive tool lets her be an effective bullet damage ganker and anti-carry/tank.
Kelvin: Arctic Beam
- Arctic beam now applies a stacking Spirit Resist penalty (10% penalty per second, max 40%), but the Move speed and Fire rate slows applied are reduced by half.
-- Kelvin is played primarily as a support via healing grenades, his ult, and some ok Spirit damage. While this reduces his ability to slow people to a crawl, it does significantly increase damage he deals particularly from Arctic Beam.
Lady Geist: Malice
- Blood Shards from your Malice ability no longer deal damage to enemies and no longer costs Health, but the damage amplification effect is increased by 50%, and they further amplify gun damage taken by the affected target from her by 15% per stack.
-- Geist is almost exclusively a Spirit damage dealer (effectively making her the most "mage" like hero). This causes her Malice to be more effective as a support tool while also adding a further option to allow her to make a Gun build.
Lash: (TBD)
- (TBD)
-- (TBD) Lash's Kit is bizarre, and changing it in any way would likely not fit well. Not sure what could work here to alter his playstyle in a satisfying way.
Mcginnis: Heavy Barrage
- Your Heavy Barrage ability now deals Gun damage, scales with bonus Gun damage, and benefits from any effects that apply to bullets.
-- Gun build Mcginnis is ok, but it's mostly due to the base strength of her gun in and of itself. The rest of her kit works decently well to support a Gun build Mcginnis, but Heavy Barrage is an active drawback. This allows her to make use of all of her kit on a Gun build, instead of her usually strong support or Turret builds.
Mirage: Traveler
- Your Traveler ability now teleports an ally to you instead of teleporting you to an Ally, applying any effects that would normally apply to you to them instead but the Channel time is increased by 1 second.
-- Normally Mirage can use his ult to give him a very strong map presence. By inverting the effect, he can still have Map presence though he has to think further ahead for it and he can use his ult to save allies in trouble.
Mo & Krill: Sand Blast
- Sand Blast now Silences instead of Disarms the target
-- Normally Mo & Krill are both a great tank and effective anti-carry/gun user. The simple change from Sand Blast being a Disarm to a Silence makes him much more effective against heavy Spirit builds vs. Gun builds.
Paradox: Pulse Grenade
- Pulse Grenade has a 50% reduced duration, but now has up to 4 Charges (Charges regenerate at 50% normal Cooldown rate, Cooldown between charge uses is 6 seconds)
-- Paradox is incredibly effective at a Support role with her Swap+Wall Combo. She can build into her grenades, but they lack significant scaling and damage to be an effective Spirit damage build. By allowing them to be deployed more regularly via charges and shortened Cooldown she can apply a lot of Spirit damage in large areas and can work well as an Area Denial hero.
Pocket: Enchanter's Satchel
- You can place allies in your Enchanter's Satchel instead of yourself. The person in the satchel can detonate it early the same way you can, or you can shoot the Satchel to cause it to detonate early. The Satchel will Teleport with you if you choose to Teleport with your Flying Cloak Ability.
-- Normally pocket is a solid poker and team fighter with his area abilities, immunities, escape and initiation abilities, and high damage long duration ult. This allows him to flex into a bit of a support role by being able to swoop in and save allies with his satchel and teleporting them away.
Seven: Storm Cloud
- Your Storm Cloud ability now spawns a cloud at your location from which emanates the damage effect. Damage dealt by your Storm Cloud is reduced by 50%, but enemies who take damage from your Storm Cloud have their Bullet Resist reduced by 35% for 3 Seconds. The Storm Cloud can be destroyed and has defensive stats equal to 85% of yours.
-- Lots of complaints have been made about Seven's Ult, and this makes a change to it with a Wildcard investment to let Seven lean more into a Gun build vs. straight Spirit.
Shiv: Killing Blow
- You gain the effects of being at full rage when your rage is at or above 60% and allies within 15m of you also gain half the benefits of your Rage, but the threshhold for instantly killing a hero is reduced by 50%.
-- Shiv is mostly about being in close range and staying in close range. This Wildcard effect gives him a lot less killing potential, but it dramatically increases the his benefits of being around his team.
Vindicta: Flight
- Flight no longer causes you to fly, but you can jump and dash an additional time in the air while the effect is active and Double jumps and Air dashes don't consume Stamina, it's Cooldown is reduced by 30%, and you deal an extra 40% additional Spirit damage on bullets while it is active.
-- Normally Vindicta spends a lot of time hovering about in the air. While flight let's Vindicta Stabilze in unusual sniping spots, this altered version allows her to move in quick bursts around the air and find good sniping points that are more stable. To compensate, she does more Spirit damage per bullet while the effect is active. While this doesn't much change her role, it does change how she plays.
Viscous: Splatter
- Splatter has a new passive effect: You can Alt-fire Splatter to have it fire instantly on your next Heavy Melee that hits an enemy. Splatter deals 30% reduced damage, but now also increases damage enemies take from melee attacks by 30%.
-- While Viscous is generally a mix of Spirit and support, this opens up more of a melee damage dealer playstyle for him similar in some ways to Abrams.
Warden: Willpower
- The bonus Spirit shield you gain from Willpower is reduced by 50%, but you also gain 20% increased Bullet damage, bullet size, and some Bullet Shield (30% of the total amount of Spirit shield gained).
-- Warden generally doesn't do very well when going weapon build. While Binding Word can help, it's not anything particularly special. This opens up Warden from primarily tanky Spirit builds to also do some solid Headshot and Gun builds (due to increased bullet size and damage).
Wraith: Card Trick
- Your Thrown Cards do 40% reduced damage, but they also grant allies hit by them Bullet and Spirit shield equal to 70% of the damage dealt.
-- Wraith is generally a strong character for picking off solo enemies and has some Ok support in the way of increased Fire rate. Having her cards provide some Bullet and Spirit shield opens up the potential to make a full support build for her, using her Ult to control high value enemies in team fights while she protects and buffs allies.
Yamato: Shadow Transformation
- Your Shadow Transformation no longer grants immunity to Status effects and the hasten effect on your abilities is reduced by half, but it instead provides a large amount of Resistance to Status effects (75%), reloads your gun, and causes your Alt-fire to fire at the same rate as your normal fire, deal additional Spirit damage, and causes enemies to deal reduced damage for 3 seconds when hit by it. Additionally, it lasts 60% longer.
-- This provides Yamato with a longer range alternative to being up in enemies faces at all times. While she loses some of her speed and Status immunity, she gains much greater range on her effectiveness and can debuff enemy damage making her even harder to kill.
Ok. That's a long list of abilities but the goal is that each hero has at least 1 ability affected by Wildcard that, in most cases, will open up new ways for them to be played and not just a special unique upgrade for a specific skill/build.
Also, I recognize that not all of my ideas will be popular or even that people would want those specifically in place if The Wildcard was implemented. I encourage people to think up ideas and post them if they occur to you, along with any criticism of the item itself.
While other people suggest that the abilities affected are simply enhanced, the goal of The Wildcard is specifically to alter the abilities in question to open up new playstyles for each character. This means that the way abilities will be affected will specifically go against how the character normally plays. Which abilities are affected by the Wildcard have a Card symbol on them, indicating which ones are altered.
Item: The Wildcard
Item Type: Vitality
Components: Health Regen
Cost: 3000 souls (Tier 2)
Passive Stats:
+3.5 Health Regen
+12% Ammo
Passive effect:
Activates Wildcard effects on Wildcard abilities.
List of potential Wildcard Effects:
Hero name: Ability Affected
- List of changed effects
-- Reasoning/effect
Abrams: Siphon Life
- Your Siphon Life ability now drops a page of the Infernal book you carry at a designated spot, has an additional Charge, and deals 30% additional Spirit damage and has increased Spirit Scaling (+.64 Spirit scaling to the DPS). Your Siphon Life area emits from the dropped page instead of around you.
-- Abrams is normally a strong melee tank/bruiser. His damage frequently comes mostly from punches/his gun along with Spirit damage items like Torment Pulse. This gives Abrams a useful area denial tool, and good Spirit damage ability which allows him to focus more on a Spirit bruiser build instead of his normal Melee build.
Bebop: Hook
- Your Hook now travels substantially faster, but no longer pulls targets to you. Instead, allies gain +1.5 move speed when moving toward the target for and the target is disarmed for the next 3 seconds.
-- Bebop is generally a high burst ganking hero who specializes in getting enemies out of place with his Hook. This alters his hook to help your team initiate together and lets Bebop lean more into a support role, keeping enemies from attacking allies and helping teammates focus fire on key targets.
Dynamo: Singularity
- Singularity deals 250% increased damage, but it's Channel duration is reduced by 40%.
-- Dynamo normally plays primarily as support. By changing his ult to deal 3.5 times as much damage but disable for a much shorter duration this makes him much more effective as a quick ganker with some team support.
Grey Talon: Charged Shot
- Your Charged shot deals 30% reduced damage, but also applies your Immobilizing Trap effect to the first target hit
-- This reduces Grey Talon's burst damage from his Charged Shot, but substantially increases his ability to control enemies which can lend him a play style more as a controller between his Ult, 1 and 3 abilities.
Haze: Fixation
- Fixation now triggers it's bonus Spirit damage every 12 stacks applied instead of every 20 and also reduces the cooldown on your Sleep dagger by 1.5 seconds, but the bonus weapon damage applied per stack is reduced by 50%.
-- Increasing the frequency that Fixation triggers it's bonus spirit damage along with increasing the rate you can throw sleep daggers makes it more possible to make a spirit build instead of only Gun builds on Haze.
Infernus: Afterburn
- Afterburn deals 65% reduced damage, but now builds up 50% faster and causes you to deal 30% increased Gun damage to the target. Additionally, your bullets don't suffer from fall-off damage when hitting an enemy already affected by Afterburn
-- Infernus is built mostly as a Spirit damage Skirmisher who works well in mid-short range. Picking up the Wildcard on him changes him substantially from a mostly Spirit damage build to a mostly Gun damage build that works better at Mid-long range.
Ivy: Watcher's Covenant
- Watcher's Covenant is now applied to enemies instead of Allies. Enemies receive the inverse of any benefits that Ivy receives, though Ivy still receives a portion of any healing connected enemies receive. Ivy gains 50% increased benefits from the effect.
-- Ivy is primarily a support character, and Watcher's Covenant plays a big role in that. Inverting it to be a more aggressive tool lets her be an effective bullet damage ganker and anti-carry/tank.
Kelvin: Arctic Beam
- Arctic beam now applies a stacking Spirit Resist penalty (10% penalty per second, max 40%), but the Move speed and Fire rate slows applied are reduced by half.
-- Kelvin is played primarily as a support via healing grenades, his ult, and some ok Spirit damage. While this reduces his ability to slow people to a crawl, it does significantly increase damage he deals particularly from Arctic Beam.
Lady Geist: Malice
- Blood Shards from your Malice ability no longer deal damage to enemies and no longer costs Health, but the damage amplification effect is increased by 50%, and they further amplify gun damage taken by the affected target from her by 15% per stack.
-- Geist is almost exclusively a Spirit damage dealer (effectively making her the most "mage" like hero). This causes her Malice to be more effective as a support tool while also adding a further option to allow her to make a Gun build.
Lash: (TBD)
- (TBD)
-- (TBD) Lash's Kit is bizarre, and changing it in any way would likely not fit well. Not sure what could work here to alter his playstyle in a satisfying way.
Mcginnis: Heavy Barrage
- Your Heavy Barrage ability now deals Gun damage, scales with bonus Gun damage, and benefits from any effects that apply to bullets.
-- Gun build Mcginnis is ok, but it's mostly due to the base strength of her gun in and of itself. The rest of her kit works decently well to support a Gun build Mcginnis, but Heavy Barrage is an active drawback. This allows her to make use of all of her kit on a Gun build, instead of her usually strong support or Turret builds.
Mirage: Traveler
- Your Traveler ability now teleports an ally to you instead of teleporting you to an Ally, applying any effects that would normally apply to you to them instead but the Channel time is increased by 1 second.
-- Normally Mirage can use his ult to give him a very strong map presence. By inverting the effect, he can still have Map presence though he has to think further ahead for it and he can use his ult to save allies in trouble.
Mo & Krill: Sand Blast
- Sand Blast now Silences instead of Disarms the target
-- Normally Mo & Krill are both a great tank and effective anti-carry/gun user. The simple change from Sand Blast being a Disarm to a Silence makes him much more effective against heavy Spirit builds vs. Gun builds.
Paradox: Pulse Grenade
- Pulse Grenade has a 50% reduced duration, but now has up to 4 Charges (Charges regenerate at 50% normal Cooldown rate, Cooldown between charge uses is 6 seconds)
-- Paradox is incredibly effective at a Support role with her Swap+Wall Combo. She can build into her grenades, but they lack significant scaling and damage to be an effective Spirit damage build. By allowing them to be deployed more regularly via charges and shortened Cooldown she can apply a lot of Spirit damage in large areas and can work well as an Area Denial hero.
Pocket: Enchanter's Satchel
- You can place allies in your Enchanter's Satchel instead of yourself. The person in the satchel can detonate it early the same way you can, or you can shoot the Satchel to cause it to detonate early. The Satchel will Teleport with you if you choose to Teleport with your Flying Cloak Ability.
-- Normally pocket is a solid poker and team fighter with his area abilities, immunities, escape and initiation abilities, and high damage long duration ult. This allows him to flex into a bit of a support role by being able to swoop in and save allies with his satchel and teleporting them away.
Seven: Storm Cloud
- Your Storm Cloud ability now spawns a cloud at your location from which emanates the damage effect. Damage dealt by your Storm Cloud is reduced by 50%, but enemies who take damage from your Storm Cloud have their Bullet Resist reduced by 35% for 3 Seconds. The Storm Cloud can be destroyed and has defensive stats equal to 85% of yours.
-- Lots of complaints have been made about Seven's Ult, and this makes a change to it with a Wildcard investment to let Seven lean more into a Gun build vs. straight Spirit.
Shiv: Killing Blow
- You gain the effects of being at full rage when your rage is at or above 60% and allies within 15m of you also gain half the benefits of your Rage, but the threshhold for instantly killing a hero is reduced by 50%.
-- Shiv is mostly about being in close range and staying in close range. This Wildcard effect gives him a lot less killing potential, but it dramatically increases the his benefits of being around his team.
Vindicta: Flight
- Flight no longer causes you to fly, but you can jump and dash an additional time in the air while the effect is active and Double jumps and Air dashes don't consume Stamina, it's Cooldown is reduced by 30%, and you deal an extra 40% additional Spirit damage on bullets while it is active.
-- Normally Vindicta spends a lot of time hovering about in the air. While flight let's Vindicta Stabilze in unusual sniping spots, this altered version allows her to move in quick bursts around the air and find good sniping points that are more stable. To compensate, she does more Spirit damage per bullet while the effect is active. While this doesn't much change her role, it does change how she plays.
Viscous: Splatter
- Splatter has a new passive effect: You can Alt-fire Splatter to have it fire instantly on your next Heavy Melee that hits an enemy. Splatter deals 30% reduced damage, but now also increases damage enemies take from melee attacks by 30%.
-- While Viscous is generally a mix of Spirit and support, this opens up more of a melee damage dealer playstyle for him similar in some ways to Abrams.
Warden: Willpower
- The bonus Spirit shield you gain from Willpower is reduced by 50%, but you also gain 20% increased Bullet damage, bullet size, and some Bullet Shield (30% of the total amount of Spirit shield gained).
-- Warden generally doesn't do very well when going weapon build. While Binding Word can help, it's not anything particularly special. This opens up Warden from primarily tanky Spirit builds to also do some solid Headshot and Gun builds (due to increased bullet size and damage).
Wraith: Card Trick
- Your Thrown Cards do 40% reduced damage, but they also grant allies hit by them Bullet and Spirit shield equal to 70% of the damage dealt.
-- Wraith is generally a strong character for picking off solo enemies and has some Ok support in the way of increased Fire rate. Having her cards provide some Bullet and Spirit shield opens up the potential to make a full support build for her, using her Ult to control high value enemies in team fights while she protects and buffs allies.
Yamato: Shadow Transformation
- Your Shadow Transformation no longer grants immunity to Status effects and the hasten effect on your abilities is reduced by half, but it instead provides a large amount of Resistance to Status effects (75%), reloads your gun, and causes your Alt-fire to fire at the same rate as your normal fire, deal additional Spirit damage, and causes enemies to deal reduced damage for 3 seconds when hit by it. Additionally, it lasts 60% longer.
-- This provides Yamato with a longer range alternative to being up in enemies faces at all times. While she loses some of her speed and Status immunity, she gains much greater range on her effectiveness and can debuff enemy damage making her even harder to kill.
Ok. That's a long list of abilities but the goal is that each hero has at least 1 ability affected by Wildcard that, in most cases, will open up new ways for them to be played and not just a special unique upgrade for a specific skill/build.
Also, I recognize that not all of my ideas will be popular or even that people would want those specifically in place if The Wildcard was implemented. I encourage people to think up ideas and post them if they occur to you, along with any criticism of the item itself.
