Necromancer hero concept

[ahhpple]

This game needs a necromancer character so I made this concept.

Name: Necromancer
Role: Caster/utility/support/pusher

Ability 1: Reanimator

Target an enemy to raise a zombie at your location and cause it to chase them, attacking in melee range. Alt cast to redirect all active zombies to a new target. Zombies start losing a % of their health each second after a while, increasing over time. Zombies move faster the lower their health is.

Tier 1: +1 charges
Tier 2: Zombie attacks reduce bullet resist
Tier 3: + Zombie health

An ability meant to fulfill the necromancer fantasy. The cooldown between charge uses should be low enough that you can get a couple of zombies active at a time. Zombies should deal just enough damage to make it dangerous to ignore them, but just tanky enough that it's annoying to have to focus them. You can always outrun them because zombies are slow, but committing to a fight when they're around should be difficult. Good for pushing objectives or jungling too.

Ability 2: Banshee

Send a slow ghost forward. When a hero enters its detection radius it locks on and chases them at an increased speed, exploding on contact for aoe spirit damage and slow. The ghost phases through terrain and can detect enemies through terrain.

Tier 1: + Ghost chase speed
Tier 2: Affected enemies are revealed for a few seconds
Tier 3: On hit, creates a stationary ghost after a delay

It's kind of like Arc Warden ghost, except it's a projectile instead of spawning the ghost at a point. Even the tier 3 is an Arc Warden upgrade. I thought it would be cool if an enemy was jungling and suddenly they hear a ghost scream and it bursts through the wall and gets them. Not sure if revealing enemies through walls is something the Deadlock team wants to do, but it synergizes with the zombies - reveal a hidden enemy and sic zombies on them without exposing yourself.

Ability 3: Bone armour

Target ally gains bullet resist and weapon damage. Can also be cast on self, zombies or objectives.

Tier 1: + Duration
Tier 2: Restores +1 stamina
Tier 3: Even more weapon damage

Average support-ish ability. I looked for stats that no heroes currently grant to allies. Bullet resist only appears on Ivy ultimate and weapon damage isn't covered by anyone. Use it on zombies and objectives to accelerate or repel a push.

Ability 4: Entomb

Bury a hero alive, making them invincible and untargetable, but they can't take any actions. When the hero returns they inflict a fading snare on enemies in an aoe and its max health is temporarily increased/decreased for allies/enemies.

Tier 1: - Cooldown
Tier 2: Increased snare duration
Tier 3: Increased max health buff/debuff

I'm a fan of save abilities in Dota, like Shadow Demon and Ringmaster, so I wanted to add one to this concept. There are no saves that are ultimates and nothing gives +max hp to allies yet, so it's a bit unique. Since this is an ultimate ability, I thought giving it even more utility with a snare and targeting enemies was justified. You can also use it on yourself to stall for time while zombies kill the guy trying to kill you.

This is more of a support hero that excels in long fights and pushes. Zombies threaten you in a war of attrition - either you shoot the hero and the zombies start tearing you up, or you shoot the zombies and give the hero more space to do what they want. The ghost is hard to avoid in buildings and around objectives and the tier 3 upgrade limits the number of places you can hide. Bone armour discourages enemy heroes from dueling your team and synergizes with the zombie t2 upgrade. The ultimate is a strong save when the enemy finally gets fed up and dives someone - or you can use it to initiate a gank. The biggest weakness of this hero would be in wide open areas, where you can easily dodge the ghost and the zombies can kited. It's especially weak against flying characters or anyone with a significant height advantage. Buy items like Heroic Aura, Hunter's Aura and Healing Nova to increase the effectiveness of your zombies and allies, or just go full zombie apocalypse with Rapid Recharge, Reduced Cooldown, and Refresher. With no natural mobility, items like Heroic Leap, Warp Stone, and Slowing Hex should be useful.

I also attached some helpful and beautiful concept art.

Hopefully Valve realizes there is demand for a necromancer in the game. Please add one soon!

 

[Tavish]

I think his ultimate should spawn a bunch of corpses in addition to its other effects. The purpose would just be to allow him to use his Reanimate ability outside of lanes, perhaps during teamfights at midboss for example.

I am not too keen on adding abilities sorely for buffing allies. I fear that will develop a carry meta, which I do not want to see happen to this game. I also think people generally dislike tanky enemies, so placing this ability on Abrams or Shiv would yield some massive results. But it's only my concern on the ability.

I like this hero.

 

[ahhpple]

I think his ultimate should spawn a bunch of corpses in addition to its other effects. The purpose would just be to allow him to use his Reanimate ability outside of lanes, perhaps during teamfights at midboss for example.

I am not too keen on adding abilities sorely for buffing allies. I fear that will develop a carry meta, which I do not want to see happen to this game. I also think people generally dislike tanky enemies, so placing this ability on Abrams or Shiv would yield some massive results. But it's only my concern on the ability.

I like this hero.

Thanks for the feedback.

The first ability as written doesn't require an enemy to have died near you to use it. You basically just spawn the NPC out of nowhere. I wanted to add a corpse mechanic but the ability just had way too much text no matter how much I tried to simplify it. The closest I got to making it readable was making it like Wraith cards, except instead of dealing damage to get charges you collect souls. That didn't seem different enough to add.

I'm not sure if you're talking about the ult or the armour. Maybe you could dispel the buff by dealing enough damage to the enemy - a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. That's pretty close to just being Combat Barrier though. An alternative would be to make the armour/hp buff very low duration, but the target can increase the duration by dealing weapon damage. That way you can disable/kite the target as counterplay. Still, that's a lot of text and I wanted to keep things simple.

 

[spacebear87]

This game needs a necromancer character so I made this concept.

Name: Necromancer
Role: Caster/utility/support/pusher

Ability 1: Reanimator

Target an enemy to raise a zombie at your location and cause it to chase them, attacking in melee range. Alt cast to redirect all active zombies to a new target. Zombies start losing a % of their health each second after a while, increasing over time. Zombies move faster the lower their health is.

Tier 1: +1 charges
Tier 2: Zombie attacks reduce bullet resist
Tier 3: + Zombie health

An ability meant to fulfill the necromancer fantasy. The cooldown between charge uses should be low enough that you can get a couple of zombies active at a time. Zombies should deal just enough damage to make it dangerous to ignore them, but just tanky enough that it's annoying to have to focus them. You can always outrun them because zombies are slow, but committing to a fight when they're around should be difficult. Good for pushing objectives or jungling too.

Ability 2: Banshee

Send a slow ghost forward. When a hero enters its detection radius it locks on and chases them at an increased speed, exploding on contact for aoe spirit damage and slow. The ghost phases through terrain and can detect enemies through terrain.

Tier 1: + Ghost chase speed
Tier 2: Affected enemies are revealed for a few seconds
Tier 3: On hit, creates a stationary ghost after a delay

It's kind of like Arc Warden ghost, except it's a projectile instead of spawning the ghost at a point. Even the tier 3 is an Arc Warden upgrade. I thought it would be cool if an enemy was jungling and suddenly they hear a ghost scream and it bursts through the wall and gets them. Not sure if revealing enemies through walls is something the Deadlock team wants to do, but it synergizes with the zombies - reveal a hidden enemy and sic zombies on them without exposing yourself.

Ability 3: Bone armour

Target ally gains bullet resist and weapon damage. Can also be cast on self, zombies or objectives.

Tier 1: + Duration
Tier 2: Restores +1 stamina
Tier 3: Even more weapon damage

Average support-ish ability. I looked for stats that no heroes currently grant to allies. Bullet resist only appears on Ivy ultimate and weapon damage isn't covered by anyone. Use it on zombies and objectives to accelerate or repel a push.

Ability 4: Entomb

Bury a hero alive, making them invincible and untargetable, but they can't take any actions. When the hero returns they inflict a fading snare on enemies in an aoe and its max health is temporarily increased/decreased for allies/enemies.

Tier 1: - Cooldown
Tier 2: Increased snare duration
Tier 3: Increased max health buff/debuff

I'm a fan of save abilities in Dota, like Shadow Demon and Ringmaster, so I wanted to add one to this concept. There are no saves that are ultimates and nothing gives +max hp to allies yet, so it's a bit unique. Since this is an ultimate ability, I thought giving it even more utility with a snare and targeting enemies was justified. You can also use it on yourself to stall for time while zombies kill the guy trying to kill you.

This is more of a support hero that excels in long fights and pushes. Zombies threaten you in a war of attrition - either you shoot the hero and the zombies start tearing you up, or you shoot the zombies and give the hero more space to do what they want. The ghost is hard to avoid in buildings and around objectives and the tier 3 upgrade limits the number of places you can hide. Bone armour discourages enemy heroes from dueling your team and synergizes with the zombie t2 upgrade. The ultimate is a strong save when the enemy finally gets fed up and dives someone - or you can use it to initiate a gank. The biggest weakness of this hero would be in wide open areas, where you can easily dodge the ghost and the zombies can kited. It's especially weak against flying characters or anyone with a significant height advantage. Buy items like Heroic Aura, Hunter's Aura and Healing Nova to increase the effectiveness of your zombies and allies, or just go full zombie apocalypse with Rapid Recharge, Reduced Cooldown, and Refresher. With no natural mobility, items like Heroic Leap, Warp Stone, and Slowing Hex should be useful.

I also attached some helpful and beautiful concept art.

Hopefully Valve realizes there is demand for a necromancer in the game. Please add one soon!

Love this idea, but what if the ult could "revive" a dead hero as a zombie? They would be spawned in as a bot version of a hero, not the real one.

 

[ahhpple]

Love this idea, but what if the ult could "revive" a dead hero as a zombie? They would be spawned in as a bot version of a hero, not the real one.

It would be cool but probably not that practical. Bots are pretty weak atm without Valve adding special AI for each hero. Imagine getting a Viper bot or Wrecker bot for example. Wrath King has a way to "revive" heroes in Dota by raising them as a ghost when they die. The dead player can attack and use abilities for a few seconds before they begin respawning. That's the closest thing to what you suggested but the Necromancer's ultimate is already a great way to extend someone's life.

 

[lesa959]

Love this idea! I was just thinking about how I miss multi unit heroes from Dota. My fav character was Chen in Dota. I would love to get an army of some sort built up, sounds so fun.