Santoro [PUNISHER, DISABLER, MARTYR] - My Take on Priest/Venator

[robo the god]

While we all loathe leaks and the false ideas the community gets from them, they are a fact of reality and modern game development.
When a large number of upcoming heroes were leaked, I misunderstood the upcoming character codenamed Priest as a much more gothic and old fashioned design than 'Venator' seems to be (with his shotgun and short sleeve shirt.) This new concept is my own interpretation of a disgraced and vengeful priest, with the goal of being an anti-tank punisher, a take on the Venator we will see soon!

GOALS:​

1. Create a kit that has tools to disable high sustain and high damage enemies without being a 1v1 machine.
2. Give opportunities for counterplay, especially with teammates.
3. Create a dynamic gameplay loop that doesn't let you be a nonstop no-fun machine.
4. Keep the theming of a vengeful priest, obsessed with retribution (both on himself, and his enemies.)

With those goals in mind, I present you with..​

Art by @RRan6er on twitter!

Santoro is finally back from his 20 year exile to the Outer Planes, and he comes to relieve us of our sins personally.

A stern and stubborn brawler, Santoro is ready to create a situation where his team is protected and any enemy bold enough to push forward is swiftly punished with Penance and anti-heal. Unfortunately, he lacks sustain or much resistance of his own, and thus relies on his team as much as they rely on him to deal with the powerhouses of the opposing team. When Santoro's bitten off more than he can chew, his ultimate Punisher can turn the tables quick. Now, lets start the breakdown!

First, his weapon.



The Exodus is a rapid fire mechanical crossbow that shoots 1 bolt every 0.125 seconds. It's on par with the weapons of Haze and Infernus, very usual considering we have a stacking debuff for each bullet hit (We'll see that soon.)

Now to the abilities.



Santoro grabs and rolls with his off hand a long coil of chain. As it rolls across the ground it works similar to Dynamo's Kinetic Pulse, albeit much smaller and a little faster. Any minions or neutrals hit by the chain take the provided spirit damage, but don't stop the chain. The chain only stops when it makes contact with an enemy hero.

The chain quickly rolls back up, wrapping around the enemy hero. For 0.5 seconds, the enemy cannot move, but can still shoot/use abilities. The chain falls off but leaves a few sharpened metal coils wrapped around the enemy, especially the gun. This is the Penance effect.

For the duration of this effect, any damage dealt by that hero to enemies or neutrals is dealt to them as well. This can cripple overzealous enemies who can quickly aid their enemies by shredding themselves. And although a skilled player can avoid the damage of Penance, they still must retreat or otherwise abandon their position. This is Santoro's main tool for taking down powerful carry heroes like Haze or Wraith, disabling their primary ability to cause trouble. Unfortunately, Penance is not a free win against an enemy with a large soul lead. With enough resistance, the self damage can be bothersome at most, not to mention debuff removers.

Additional notes:

• Penance reflects all damage, both weapon and spirit.
  • Penance would not reflect damage from NPCs or deployables, like McGinnis' Mini Turrets.
• The reflected damage counts as damage from Santoro, and it can be mitigated by resistances.
• Penance has a maximum amount of damage to be returned per hit. Since AoE abilities could possibly trigger massive hits from Penance, it can only return 10% Max HP in a single hit. (This number could be adjusted.)
  • As another option, we could make Penance only calculate one target per ability.
• Over the last 50% of the duration, the percentage returned lowers steadily to 75% of it's original calculated damage.
  • This is to not overly punish players who decide to tank the penance damage whilst using high fire rate guns.
• This is a frustrating ability, yes. It's long cooldown and skill shot requirement should alleviate that, but this is a key tool to shut down solo carries that are running wild.

Santoro can manipulate the battlefield with his shields, giving him ways to control areas while he waits for his cooldowns to return. They function as physics props (like Kelvin's Frozen Shelter) and can serve as cover. They are a little smaller than Paradox's Time Walls, and lower to the ground as they must have ground contact to be deployed. This ability uses charges, so Santoro can customize his battleground to his benefit. The enemy must either find a good angle, destroy the shields, or maneuver around them.

If the enemy begins to reposition around them, Santoro can melee the walls to rotate or move them slightly. Light melee will rotate the shield towards Santoro's facing direction, with a maximum of 30 degrees per hit. Heavy Melees will move the shield around 3m (slightly more with melee distance items) and will rotate the same as light melees, but with a maximum of 90 degrees. Only Santoro can rotate his shields.





Here is Santoro's key reason to stay in the fight. Holy Wrath is a stacking debuff built up by successful hits with The Exodus. It comes in two parts, the anti-heal and the execute.

Each stack of Holy Wrath decreases the target's ability to grant and receive healing. To a maximum of -12% and -20% with the first AP upgrade. This mechanic rewards continuous fire on key targets with high regen, like Shiv, Abrams, or Victor. Since this passive doesn't give any damage bonus, it encourages use against tanks specifically. Enemies with high mobility or better positioning can avoid Holy Wrath by staying out of the 30 meter range required to even trigger the passive, or avoiding his shots for 6 seconds, where the stacks begin to decay.

However, when you're caught up close with Santoro and can't escape, you're in danger of his execute. A heavy melee from Santoro while under the 10% health threshold and with at least 20 stacks will instantly kill you. The visual effect would be visible to both Santoro and the hero in danger. A red cross would appear on top of the hero, with a heartbeat sound and shaking. When the execute is activated, the cross would shatter.

Minor note, the heavy melee animation I imagine for Santoro would be an overhead slam with his crossbow. This would feel especially dramatic, bringing the hammer down on an enemy after building up enough stacks.





So, a skill shot disabler, a malleable but immobile defense, and a upclose tank shredder. Seems like a very defined set of strengths and weaknesses. Very well rounded. Now it's time for the spice. It's time for a completely out of left field ultimate, that will force players to use Santoro's kit in new ways.

Punishment transforms this mid-range strategic gunner into a furious ball of damage, barreling into the enemy. Perhaps this is what Santoro uses when backed into a corner, without his Penance or Shield. Maybe it's what he uses in a teamfight where there's no clear frontline, like a fight over the Spirit Urn.

Now here's a wrinkle I haven't decided on yet. With his 2nd AP upgrade, Santoro gains the use of his other abilities during Punishment. Now there are two choices for how Holy Wrath can interact with this ultimate.

1. The punches count as 'primary fire' and build stacks of Holy Wrath, reducing incoming healing. However, these punches don't actually activate the execute. This sticks to the theme of Santoro as a team player, giving the utility needed to properly disable "unkillable" characters.
2. The punches only count as melees and activate the execute without building stacks. This means Punishment requires strategic use, building up stacks of Holy Wrath on enemies before using the ultimate to get free unparryable executes.

What do you think?

Additional notes:

• Santoro loses the ability to normally melee. Inputting either melee or primary fire will use this new Haymaker attack. There aren't light and heavy variations. The punch comes out quite fast and has a much larger hitbox.
  • Punishment Punches deal 80% of Heavy Melee damage.
• His fists will glow red, and release large red bursts when punching.
• Parries can block the damage, but maybe they still go on cooldown? This is a question for somebody smarter than me.

Why Santoro?
I believe a kit like this is what Deadlock needs. A strong anti-tank to counteract the "numbers game" many Deadlock matches turn into. His high versatility would encourage lots of builds and different ways to play. Obviously Venator is on his way to Deadlock already, bringing his own anti-tank methods, but I suggest taking a look at this kit for fresh ideas!

Thank you for reading!
Many more hero concepts coming soon!
-Robo The God​