Railroad Baron

[milesmason96]

Despite railroad barons being a more late 19th century concept, I feel like a hero based on this concept would still fit this setting really well. Mix in some supernatural stuff and you've got a lot of possibilities.

Here are the abilities I have in mind:

1. Spirit Locomotive (Attack / Utility)

• Send a locomotive out in a straight line. As it travels, it will pick up any heroes (friendly or enemy) and carry them away until the train collides with a wall or object.
• Functions similarly to bebop's hook.
• Explodes upon impact with a wall. Damage dealt is proportional to the distance traveled. (Friendly heroes are not damaged)

Essentially the opposite of a bebop hook, instead of pulling people close it takes them away, so attack angle is crucial. It also incentivies control of long sightlines to maximize damage.

2. Mystic Railroad (Movement)

• Set down a piece of mystic railroad track. Any heroes (both friendly and enemy) that step on this will have their movespeed increased for a short duration. The speed boost will immediatly expire if a jump or dash is performed before the duration ends.
• This ability also has multiple charges.
• Tracks expire after a minute.
• Track can be destroyed by attacking it.

The idea for this is that you essentially set up fast routes for rotating your team inbetween lanes via stringing the tracks together using seperate charges. It also means you need to be careful not to dash or jump so creates interesting pathing restraints (and to pretend you are a train ).

3. Tickets please! (Passive)

• Steal souls from enemy players whenever they are grabbed by the Spirit Locomotive or utilize your Mystic Railroad.
• Any unsecured souls the enemy is holding are immedately dropped upon impact/usage.
• Stolen souls are all considered unsecured, allowing the enemy to get them back if they act quick enough and kill the Baron in time..

4. Steam Explosion (Ultimate)

• Set off an explosion from a steam locomotive, removing visibility in a large AOE for the enemy team. (Acts similar to CS2 smoke grenades. Friendly heroes maintain full visibility inside and outside the smoke.)

The overall gameplay concept behind this hero is that they maintain strong map control via their Mystic Railroad, to control the flow of combat through effective gankswith their Spirit Locomotive , and are incentivied to go after farm heavy heroes such as haze, infernus, Seven etc. while in the mid game in order to syphon their souls. However, if they are not careful their Mystic Railroad may be used against them. the ultimate can be used in either a teamfight, or to obscure an objective or creep wave in order to secure souls.