Grizllyy
New member
I'd really like to see more healers and defensive supports in this game, but I know that passive healing doesn't have a place here. With that in mind, I set out to create a healer that works from the front, patching allies up through emergency situations and healing through combat.
At first I was just doing it for idle fun, but then I had some design ideas that I thought were actually kinda novel, and also possible to balance and iterate such that they might have a possible place in the game, and decided I would like to show them.
I've put a fair bit of thought into it now, and I appreciate other peoples' thoughts in turn.
>>Design
A werewolf Catholic sister. Wears a (slightly) tattered nun's habit. She looks serious and dangerous, stoic and tense.
>>Playstyle
Frontline support with strong heals and defensive buffs, counter-initiator, or tanky frontline bruiser (depending on your itemization).
The initial idea for the hero was “someone who jumps in and saves a guy”.
>>Strengths
Very versatile; can be itemized to focus on emergency healing, counter-initiation, or just raw damage
Strong saves
Thrives against lethal situations and sustained damage alike
Unique mechanics, synergies and build options, but still intuitive at a glance
Decent farming tools
>>Weaknesses
Mostly ineffective outside close range
Requires good situational judgement and careful positioning
Loses effectiveness when dispelled or focus fired, even if she survives the damage she takes
Weaker without allies
>>Lore
She's a nun who got bitten and became a lycanthrope, but through miracle or magic, she kept her sanity. Whatever the case, she took it as a sign from God, and her faith only deepened. Her convent is kinda scared of her now, for obvious reasons, but she still has a place there for the present moment.
After realizing the strength granted to her by the werewolf curse, she has turned to moonlighting as a dispenser of justice against the wicked. She likes other do-gooders, but loathes criminals and evildoers; she has to constantly stop herself from telling them that she's basically planning to use her wish from the Patron to get the power to kill them.
(Honestly I didn't want to go too in-depth here because there's lots you could do with this concept.)
>>General Notes
Supports in this game are pretty noticeably not meant to be backliners. Thus the intention is to create a healer that works from the frontline, taking risks and engaging with the enemy players to do its job.
A werewolf holy woman would be pretty novel (both for that specific purpose and as a general concept), I thought. It would also be something that fits into Deadlock’s occultic world in an interesting way. Although I don’t know much about what might be planned for any other possible religion-based heroes, a fervently religious hero from a common person’s background could offer some interesting contrast with the primarily occult-based roster, particularly one who's suffering from some of the strange magic that's now a normal part of the world. It could be a bit of an opportunity for the audience to see how organized religions like Catholicism might still fit into normal people’s lives in the Deadlock world (as the church building’s presence and various items like Divine Barrier implies it still does), despite the Maelstrom turning everything topsy-turvy for how spiritualism is understood and perceived.
The idea was to stay fairly simple, intuitive and comprehensible, despite the contradictions throughout the design. She’s a werewolf so of course she’d be strong in melee, but she wears a religious habit and stands tall and proud so she feasibly also has some archetypal faith-based healing powers. Her skills have some nuances and can be applied creatively to various situations, but still ultimately boil down to simple use concepts like a point-and-click heal or an AoE melee swing. Her stats are mostly average, but each of her skills requires investment in a particular set of stats in order to shine, which presents an opportunity for players to itemize into stats that will help them play the role they choose.
Personality-wise, as a good guy who rides the line bordering on ‘too aggressive for a good guy’, she could also clash with some of the unethical or villainous heroes in a way that not many heroes do at the moment except Holliday (and sometimes Abrams, Ivy and a few others).
>>Weapon
“Shepherd’s Purview”
One-handed shotgun pistol, like a slightly lower DPS but longer range version of Abrams' gun. Maybe slower fire rate, but higher damage and a little more accurate bullet spread – the intention of the gun is to encourage the player to be in close range, but to also work from a little further off in case you want to build for counter-initiation and hide just behind the frontline.
>>Stats
Fairly tall model, bit thinner and lankier than Abrams though.
Stands up straight, but maybe head bounces or sways slightly while moving (like Ivy's kinda does) to make her a bit harder to headshot? Maybe people wouldn’t like that when playing against her though.
Average melee damage
Above average health
Slightly below average move speed (slightly higher sprint speed though to compensate)
3 stamina
Dash speed: Bucket 3 (the heavyweight one with -15% speed)
>>Abilities
>Stained Hands
Takes a heavy swipe with her offhand. Struck enemies are dealt heavy melee damage and knocked back horizontally (maybe 7 – 10m assuming level ground).
Swipe has a 7m semi-circle shape hitbox in front of her (larger than Bebop’s uppercut, but shorter than Mina’s umbrella).
Low cooldown (10-ish seconds maybe, and when charged has 4 second recharge)
-1: Struck enemies have 35% less Damage Dealt for 4 seconds
-2: On hit, gain 20% increased Movement Speed for 4 seconds
-5: Deals additional +40% of Heavy Melee Damage, Enable Ability Charges and +1 Charge
“This 'curse' is often a blessing! Not many people dare bar my path for long.”
>Body of Work
Passive. Grants 14% Bullet and Spirit Lifesteal, and Bullet Lifesteal now also applies to melee damage, but she takes 50% reduced healing from Lifesteal sources.
If she has a nearby ally whose health is at a lower percent than hers, her Lifesteal healing is instead given to them without penalty.
-1: +20% Dash and Air-Dash Distance
-2: Half of Lifesteal healing received or given to allies is also dealt as non-Lifestealable Spirit damage to a nearby enemy hero
-5: +26% Bullet and Spirit Lifesteal, +10% Healing Effectiveness
“I am not just a monster. I am in God’s image, and ever will be!”
>Charity
Infuses an ally or self with a small burst of holy light, providing moderate upfront healing and a small heal over 6 seconds.
While the healing buff persists, arcs of light periodically radiate out to strike a nearby enemy hero for low Spirit damage (less base damage than Torment Pulse but maybe better Spirit scaling). When Charity is self-cast, these arcs deal double damage.
30m cast range (roughly same as locket and rescue beam). Fairly long cooldown, 2 charges (45-ish second cooldown, 2 second recharge).
-1: +2 seconds duration
-2: Healing buff provides +50% Healing Reduction Resistance
-5: Grants Barrier equal to 50% of upfront and periodic healing, lasting 10 seconds
“It’s our calling to give more than we receive on this earth.”
>Divine Intervention
All nearby allies and self gain 80% Bullet and Spirit Resistance, tapering off to 20% over a 3 second duration.
15m radius (roughly 1.5x of Kelvin dome). Ignores line of sight.
Long-ass cooldown, like 180s+ maybe
-1: -40 seconds cooldown
-2: Tapers off to 40% Resistances instead
-5: +1.5 seconds duration
“Lord, save us all!”
>>Breakdown and Reasoning Behind Abilities
>Stained Hands
Intended to be a “get off my friend” kind of move, and to provide some small burst healing via Body of Work, but also adds some flexibility by giving the hero a source of solid burst damage.
Since it pushes enemies away, it makes it harder to follow up with more melee, but in some circumstances this could also potentially push enemies a little out of position if used to gank from behind (or if the enemy is already out of position).
The first rank upgrade is intended to secure its position as a crowd control and/or duelling spell; the latter two ranks specialize into it as a source of raw DPS instead, by allowing the hero to keep up while spamming it and hit harder (which will also increase its effective healing by proxy).
>Body of Work
Intended to provide small passive AoE heals and enable some decent healing bursts via melee damage (particularly Stained Hands), but to only function properly in the thick of a fight. The lifesteal mechanic seemed like a natural fit for doing this job to me, but I thought giving the hero that much lifesteal for free would be too OP, so it should also have a big drawback like the hero receiving reduced lifesteal herself.
The primary idea I was working off is that the main hero uses direct heals to keep itself healthy in a fight, thus reserving lifesteal to be given to allies. This is where the Charity spell (and direct heal items like Melee Lifesteal, Health Nova, Locket et al) come into play.
The rank 1 upgrade is intended to simply increase the hero’s mobility and remove some dependence on getting items for that job, while the final rank pumps up the numbers on the skill’s main function by a decent margin (as I’ve noticed a lot of other rank 5 upgrades for passives tend to do, Abrams’ in particular).
The rank 2 upgrade, however, is notable as a novel way of adding scaling Spirit damage to the hero’s kit, which it largely lacks. As an example, if you have 60% total Bullet Lifesteal, this adds 30% of your bullet/melee damage as Spirit damage when your lifesteal is given to an ally, and 15% when it goes to you. Thus, this gives the added bonus of still working in a way that rewards players for going with allies and being a healer. The numbers on it would probably need a lot of tuning, as magnifying all damage the hero deals might end up being too strong… or it might not, given that she has fewer sources of base damage, and Infernus as an example has like 40% magnification in his kit. Would have to see it in action to actually balance it I suppose, but either way it offers another unique way to interact with the Lifesteal stat beyond just sharing it.
>Charity
Intended to be the hero’s main source of healing akin to Dynamo’s aura and Kelvin’s grenades, but to function better in emergency situations rather than when used for sustain. It’s versatile, and has different synergies depending on who it’s cast on.
On allies, it’s intended to be a temporary rescue tool to shore up an ally’s situation against medium fire (or at least delaying their death a little if they’re really in the shit) while you arrive. With access to healing reduction resistance and even giving some barrier if specced into hard, it should be a reliable tool for that. Its small Torment Pulse-like effect can also be used to remotely proc your spirit effects (if you have any) to help your ally. However, its damage when cast on allies is low, so that it can’t become mad oppressive with no effort when used on highly mobile/tanky in-your-face heroes like Billy, Abrams, Shiv, Viscous ball, etc, especially considering they can just buy regular old Torment Pulse to stack with it.
When self-cast, the idea is that you directly heal yourself, allowing allies to get given your lifesteal via Body of Work as you will (theoretically) remain at a higher HP than them. It can do some decent damage (but not a huge amount) even with no upgrades, so that solo queueing supports aren’t completely at the mercy of pubstar teammates during the early game.
The spell being charged allows the player to leverage both of its strengths at once if needed, though they’ll probably need Rapid Recharge to do the job with the speed an emergency situation requires. This also opens up an interesting synergy for that item – it’s good on the hero for crowd control, raw DPS, burst healing and small sustain healing alike, but not mandatory for any of those jobs and will require good player management to get mileage out of even if you do choose to use a slot on it.
>Divine Intervention
The big save, basically. The one that a support dreams of seeing, where they completely screw up the enemy’s big teamfight ult and their allies go “aw shit that was a sick save well played” on voice.
However, it demands that the player be in the right position to counter the enemy’s ult properly. This would be a big ask against something like Lash ult (which has a wide grabbing range and pulls your prospective save targets away from you, and has a long delay before dealing damage so you can’t try and pre-cast to save people from it), and so the player might choose to itemize for high mobility to leverage it properly. Even without investment, however, it could still be used to check slower or more obvious spells like Dynamo or Wraith ults, if you can space properly. For that reason it should also have a cooldown similar to if not greater than those big teamfight ults.
Its upgrades are pretty simple and just meant to kind of mirror Dynamo ult upgrades, but instead of a sicknasty damage one there's a sicknasty duration one (the rank 2 and rank 5 upgrades together would make for a fuckload of blocked damage).
At first I was just doing it for idle fun, but then I had some design ideas that I thought were actually kinda novel, and also possible to balance and iterate such that they might have a possible place in the game, and decided I would like to show them.
I've put a fair bit of thought into it now, and I appreciate other peoples' thoughts in turn.
>>Design
A werewolf Catholic sister. Wears a (slightly) tattered nun's habit. She looks serious and dangerous, stoic and tense.
>>Playstyle
Frontline support with strong heals and defensive buffs, counter-initiator, or tanky frontline bruiser (depending on your itemization).
The initial idea for the hero was “someone who jumps in and saves a guy”.
>>Strengths
Very versatile; can be itemized to focus on emergency healing, counter-initiation, or just raw damage
Strong saves
Thrives against lethal situations and sustained damage alike
Unique mechanics, synergies and build options, but still intuitive at a glance
Decent farming tools
>>Weaknesses
Mostly ineffective outside close range
Requires good situational judgement and careful positioning
Loses effectiveness when dispelled or focus fired, even if she survives the damage she takes
Weaker without allies
>>Lore
She's a nun who got bitten and became a lycanthrope, but through miracle or magic, she kept her sanity. Whatever the case, she took it as a sign from God, and her faith only deepened. Her convent is kinda scared of her now, for obvious reasons, but she still has a place there for the present moment.
After realizing the strength granted to her by the werewolf curse, she has turned to moonlighting as a dispenser of justice against the wicked. She likes other do-gooders, but loathes criminals and evildoers; she has to constantly stop herself from telling them that she's basically planning to use her wish from the Patron to get the power to kill them.
(Honestly I didn't want to go too in-depth here because there's lots you could do with this concept.)
>>General Notes
Supports in this game are pretty noticeably not meant to be backliners. Thus the intention is to create a healer that works from the frontline, taking risks and engaging with the enemy players to do its job.
A werewolf holy woman would be pretty novel (both for that specific purpose and as a general concept), I thought. It would also be something that fits into Deadlock’s occultic world in an interesting way. Although I don’t know much about what might be planned for any other possible religion-based heroes, a fervently religious hero from a common person’s background could offer some interesting contrast with the primarily occult-based roster, particularly one who's suffering from some of the strange magic that's now a normal part of the world. It could be a bit of an opportunity for the audience to see how organized religions like Catholicism might still fit into normal people’s lives in the Deadlock world (as the church building’s presence and various items like Divine Barrier implies it still does), despite the Maelstrom turning everything topsy-turvy for how spiritualism is understood and perceived.
The idea was to stay fairly simple, intuitive and comprehensible, despite the contradictions throughout the design. She’s a werewolf so of course she’d be strong in melee, but she wears a religious habit and stands tall and proud so she feasibly also has some archetypal faith-based healing powers. Her skills have some nuances and can be applied creatively to various situations, but still ultimately boil down to simple use concepts like a point-and-click heal or an AoE melee swing. Her stats are mostly average, but each of her skills requires investment in a particular set of stats in order to shine, which presents an opportunity for players to itemize into stats that will help them play the role they choose.
Personality-wise, as a good guy who rides the line bordering on ‘too aggressive for a good guy’, she could also clash with some of the unethical or villainous heroes in a way that not many heroes do at the moment except Holliday (and sometimes Abrams, Ivy and a few others).
>>Weapon
“Shepherd’s Purview”
One-handed shotgun pistol, like a slightly lower DPS but longer range version of Abrams' gun. Maybe slower fire rate, but higher damage and a little more accurate bullet spread – the intention of the gun is to encourage the player to be in close range, but to also work from a little further off in case you want to build for counter-initiation and hide just behind the frontline.
>>Stats
Fairly tall model, bit thinner and lankier than Abrams though.
Stands up straight, but maybe head bounces or sways slightly while moving (like Ivy's kinda does) to make her a bit harder to headshot? Maybe people wouldn’t like that when playing against her though.
Average melee damage
Above average health
Slightly below average move speed (slightly higher sprint speed though to compensate)
3 stamina
Dash speed: Bucket 3 (the heavyweight one with -15% speed)
>>Abilities
>Stained Hands
Takes a heavy swipe with her offhand. Struck enemies are dealt heavy melee damage and knocked back horizontally (maybe 7 – 10m assuming level ground).
Swipe has a 7m semi-circle shape hitbox in front of her (larger than Bebop’s uppercut, but shorter than Mina’s umbrella).
Low cooldown (10-ish seconds maybe, and when charged has 4 second recharge)
-1: Struck enemies have 35% less Damage Dealt for 4 seconds
-2: On hit, gain 20% increased Movement Speed for 4 seconds
-5: Deals additional +40% of Heavy Melee Damage, Enable Ability Charges and +1 Charge
“This 'curse' is often a blessing! Not many people dare bar my path for long.”
>Body of Work
Passive. Grants 14% Bullet and Spirit Lifesteal, and Bullet Lifesteal now also applies to melee damage, but she takes 50% reduced healing from Lifesteal sources.
If she has a nearby ally whose health is at a lower percent than hers, her Lifesteal healing is instead given to them without penalty.
-1: +20% Dash and Air-Dash Distance
-2: Half of Lifesteal healing received or given to allies is also dealt as non-Lifestealable Spirit damage to a nearby enemy hero
-5: +26% Bullet and Spirit Lifesteal, +10% Healing Effectiveness
“I am not just a monster. I am in God’s image, and ever will be!”
>Charity
Infuses an ally or self with a small burst of holy light, providing moderate upfront healing and a small heal over 6 seconds.
While the healing buff persists, arcs of light periodically radiate out to strike a nearby enemy hero for low Spirit damage (less base damage than Torment Pulse but maybe better Spirit scaling). When Charity is self-cast, these arcs deal double damage.
30m cast range (roughly same as locket and rescue beam). Fairly long cooldown, 2 charges (45-ish second cooldown, 2 second recharge).
-1: +2 seconds duration
-2: Healing buff provides +50% Healing Reduction Resistance
-5: Grants Barrier equal to 50% of upfront and periodic healing, lasting 10 seconds
“It’s our calling to give more than we receive on this earth.”
>Divine Intervention
All nearby allies and self gain 80% Bullet and Spirit Resistance, tapering off to 20% over a 3 second duration.
15m radius (roughly 1.5x of Kelvin dome). Ignores line of sight.
Long-ass cooldown, like 180s+ maybe
-1: -40 seconds cooldown
-2: Tapers off to 40% Resistances instead
-5: +1.5 seconds duration
“Lord, save us all!”
>>Breakdown and Reasoning Behind Abilities
>Stained Hands
Intended to be a “get off my friend” kind of move, and to provide some small burst healing via Body of Work, but also adds some flexibility by giving the hero a source of solid burst damage.
Since it pushes enemies away, it makes it harder to follow up with more melee, but in some circumstances this could also potentially push enemies a little out of position if used to gank from behind (or if the enemy is already out of position).
The first rank upgrade is intended to secure its position as a crowd control and/or duelling spell; the latter two ranks specialize into it as a source of raw DPS instead, by allowing the hero to keep up while spamming it and hit harder (which will also increase its effective healing by proxy).
>Body of Work
Intended to provide small passive AoE heals and enable some decent healing bursts via melee damage (particularly Stained Hands), but to only function properly in the thick of a fight. The lifesteal mechanic seemed like a natural fit for doing this job to me, but I thought giving the hero that much lifesteal for free would be too OP, so it should also have a big drawback like the hero receiving reduced lifesteal herself.
The primary idea I was working off is that the main hero uses direct heals to keep itself healthy in a fight, thus reserving lifesteal to be given to allies. This is where the Charity spell (and direct heal items like Melee Lifesteal, Health Nova, Locket et al) come into play.
The rank 1 upgrade is intended to simply increase the hero’s mobility and remove some dependence on getting items for that job, while the final rank pumps up the numbers on the skill’s main function by a decent margin (as I’ve noticed a lot of other rank 5 upgrades for passives tend to do, Abrams’ in particular).
The rank 2 upgrade, however, is notable as a novel way of adding scaling Spirit damage to the hero’s kit, which it largely lacks. As an example, if you have 60% total Bullet Lifesteal, this adds 30% of your bullet/melee damage as Spirit damage when your lifesteal is given to an ally, and 15% when it goes to you. Thus, this gives the added bonus of still working in a way that rewards players for going with allies and being a healer. The numbers on it would probably need a lot of tuning, as magnifying all damage the hero deals might end up being too strong… or it might not, given that she has fewer sources of base damage, and Infernus as an example has like 40% magnification in his kit. Would have to see it in action to actually balance it I suppose, but either way it offers another unique way to interact with the Lifesteal stat beyond just sharing it.
>Charity
Intended to be the hero’s main source of healing akin to Dynamo’s aura and Kelvin’s grenades, but to function better in emergency situations rather than when used for sustain. It’s versatile, and has different synergies depending on who it’s cast on.
On allies, it’s intended to be a temporary rescue tool to shore up an ally’s situation against medium fire (or at least delaying their death a little if they’re really in the shit) while you arrive. With access to healing reduction resistance and even giving some barrier if specced into hard, it should be a reliable tool for that. Its small Torment Pulse-like effect can also be used to remotely proc your spirit effects (if you have any) to help your ally. However, its damage when cast on allies is low, so that it can’t become mad oppressive with no effort when used on highly mobile/tanky in-your-face heroes like Billy, Abrams, Shiv, Viscous ball, etc, especially considering they can just buy regular old Torment Pulse to stack with it.
When self-cast, the idea is that you directly heal yourself, allowing allies to get given your lifesteal via Body of Work as you will (theoretically) remain at a higher HP than them. It can do some decent damage (but not a huge amount) even with no upgrades, so that solo queueing supports aren’t completely at the mercy of pubstar teammates during the early game.
The spell being charged allows the player to leverage both of its strengths at once if needed, though they’ll probably need Rapid Recharge to do the job with the speed an emergency situation requires. This also opens up an interesting synergy for that item – it’s good on the hero for crowd control, raw DPS, burst healing and small sustain healing alike, but not mandatory for any of those jobs and will require good player management to get mileage out of even if you do choose to use a slot on it.
>Divine Intervention
The big save, basically. The one that a support dreams of seeing, where they completely screw up the enemy’s big teamfight ult and their allies go “aw shit that was a sick save well played” on voice.
However, it demands that the player be in the right position to counter the enemy’s ult properly. This would be a big ask against something like Lash ult (which has a wide grabbing range and pulls your prospective save targets away from you, and has a long delay before dealing damage so you can’t try and pre-cast to save people from it), and so the player might choose to itemize for high mobility to leverage it properly. Even without investment, however, it could still be used to check slower or more obvious spells like Dynamo or Wraith ults, if you can space properly. For that reason it should also have a cooldown similar to if not greater than those big teamfight ults.
Its upgrades are pretty simple and just meant to kind of mirror Dynamo ult upgrades, but instead of a sicknasty damage one there's a sicknasty duration one (the rank 2 and rank 5 upgrades together would make for a fuckload of blocked damage).
