Zerox

[KingKrow88]

Zerox​

Zerox is the name of an individual of an alien-esque insectoid race, with the alien like features being more prominent. Members of his race are all born with different roles, along with different body chemistry and dna makeup to perform each individual role, individuals with the same role will look more similair to others of the same role, but every individual has their own unique characteristics. So while they all have a general distinction, their appearance may widely vary from role to role. And with everyone performing their parts, they have turned a large part of their planet into a hive. Sharing it amongst other Genus of the Cerox. The race of Xeroxians are made up of various sub species some much more rarer in numbers than others, some with more important jobs, while some are lesser important but still needed to survive. Zerox role is that of what the Xeroxians call Creators which makes him one of the rarest sub species of his kind, and is also the reason he was aptly named Zerox to signify his importance in the survavability of his race. The role of the creator is to create the Xerathites, a minor sub-species of Xeroxians. They also take on the role of genetically modifying creatures both of their own species and of others. The Xerathites are fairly small in height and stature, but are large in numbers and like the Xeroxians serve their purpose in the hive with a role. They do not require food in the traditional sense the gain sustenance from the byproduct of gases released from the breathing of the major species of Xeroxians. Nor do they take much maintience and are born to fulfill their role to the Xeroxians. Different creators tend to have signature traits to their own Xerathites, but there is limits to how far they can be modified, too much and they'll need to be feed, or need to sleep or potentially even drink. But since they serve as an expendable force, their creators limit their modifications. they can be used for quite a few things such as large scale hunting, cleaning, gathering, scouting, but are generally used a frontline in war, they swarm in large numbers and they keep attacking till they die. Usually in war the large swarm thins out the numbers in the frontline allowing for more combat orientied sub-species of Xeroxians to go in. However the Cerox Genus are now fighting to survive, and while the Xeroxians numbers are still fairly healthy, various important sub-species that are necessary especially for defense have been thinned out by planet invading creatures, Zerox is trying to prevent his races eventual extinction. Zerox direly needs to learn of a way to genetically modify the Eggs of the queens of his species, despite all his and others efforts the Eggs will produce but the individual born don't live long enough to fulfill enough of their role.

Zerox will play a laning pressure/support type character. The longer the game lasts, the more pressure that'll happen. He has tools to make clearing lanes, and keeping things pushed up consistent if the enemy isn't watching. He will have a unique playstyle that we don't really see in Deadlock, and I think he'd be a great edition, following this general format, it might need to be tweaked, numbers changed, etc. Some hero lab testing. To make sure he can be played and feel like a good part of a team, given his lack of offensive options. I'm sure he'd be considered one of those "annoying" characters to play against, but not in the sense that he can just come in and wipe the entire team type of annoying, but a "we need someone to go to yellow and clear those waves" annoying. Or there is "A clutch somewhere in that lane, if its somewhere you can get to kill it" annoying.


1. Xetharite Mine.
Plants a sentient mine on the ground. After a 2 seconds the mine will camoflauge becoming invisible. When it senses hostile life nearby, it'll erupt doing a small amount of damage, but leaving a pool of Acidic Blood and Ooze. Causing damage over time to enemy that stand in it, and applying a debuff that makes them take more damage from all sources. Only six mines can be out at once. Placing a 7th will replace the first one placed. 12 seconds cooldown. Duration: 30 seconds.

1. Gain 2 Charges and Maximum Limits of the Mine.
2. Increases the radius of the Mines pool and apply a 30% debuff.
3. The mine will gain a secondary radius, if someone enters the secondary radius the mine will run towards them and explode.

Zerox created The Xetharite Erupter where they were released to live freely around the outskirts of various hives, and as a defensive barrier around their center hives. With the only condition to be to give their life if any hostile creatures were to enter that they deemed a threat.

2. Genetic Enhancement.
Passive: Minions around you will have their fire rate, damage increased by 10%.
Using this skill will release a large cloud of vapor around Zerox. Zerox and any allies will gain 10% Fire Rate, and deal 10% more damage, and gain a 10% shield of their max health that lasts 6 seconds. 18 Second Cooldown.

1. The Passive effect is increased to 15%
2. The shield now also reflects 50% of the damage it takes.
3. While the shield is on an ally they heal 1% of their maximum hp a second.

Zerox created a few Xetharite so small they were unable to be seen without the proper tools. These Xetharite lived on and inside him, they were given the task to release a pheromone and eggs of another tiny shortlived Xetharite that when inhaled would cognitively enhance the individuals that breathe the phermone, shortly after the eggs would hatch on them with the task to defend the new host shortly before withering away. Zerox also tried to make it negatively impact hostiles that breathed it in, but could only manage to make the new Xetharites counter act any of the positive effects to hosts of hostile nature.

3. Xetharite Swarm Clutch.
[Xetharites have 75% of the stats of Ranged Wave Minions.]
Xetharites will always attack players in their aggro range, but they won't chase if their is anything else to attack. . If a Xetharite is not in a lane it will walk to the nearest lane and continue it's journey. If it happens to run into an enemy on the way it'll attack the enemy until they are out of range, if it runs past a camp that is attacking Zerox it'll attack the camp.
You'll get souls only from creatures that died that had been attacked by a Xetharite, not the souls of creatures around the Xetharite.]

Passive: Every 30 seconds you will spawn a Xetharite behind you. The Xetharites that are spawned directly from you last until they die.

Using this skill will allow you to place a clutch, these clutches can be destroyed by enemy players and minions, and have 100 health. Every 30 seconds it will spawn a Xetharite, that will walk down the lane just like a wave minion. The nest will last until it's destroyed. Xetharites spawned by the nest will only last for 25 seconds. If the nest is destroyed it'll have a 80 second cooldown. If you use it again and place it down somewhere else it'll will spawn where you placed it after 15 seconds.

1. When a minion dies within six seconds that had been attacked by a Xetharite this skill gains a stack. Players that die within six seconds after having been attacked by a Xetharite gain 3. Camp minions are 1/2/3 depending on size. Each stack increases subsequent Xetharites stats that are spawned by 1%.
2. Increases Xetharites Duration by 3 seconds per 10 stacks.
3. Xetharites now apply a stacking poison to creatures they attack. The damage scales based on the Xetharites stats.

Xetharite Swarmers were another creation, and Zerox's first. These are the main offense of the Xeroxian's. In the right conditions Swarmers can live nearly aslong as the majority of Xeroxian's. In lesser conditions they don't live long, but they do adapt and evolve to new habitats fairly fast. Zerox's created these Xetharite during the Hive Wars. When the Xeroxians, the Xeroxoriles, the Xeroxedeos and Xetharoids were constantly fighting, before they all agreed to a peace treaty, and splitting up the planet in four before the Xeroxedeos decided to inhabitat one of the barren moons around their planet Ceroxazeth.

4. Xetharite Parasite.
Infect a Minion, Camp, Guardian, Walker or Enemy player with a parasite. This parasite can not be removed except by death[Debuff Remover doesn't work.] This skill goes into cooldown after the creature/player effected dies. The creature/player emits pheromone and scent that is slightly toxic. Causing anyone near the host to take small amounts of damage every second for aslong as they are around. 240 second cooldown.

1. Enemies damaged by the AoE effect will take increased damage from all sources by 20%, this lasts 4 seconds after exiting the radius.
2. Enemies damaged by the AoE effect will also have their healing reduced by 20%, this lasts for 4 seconds after exiting the radius.
3. Increases the radius by 25%. If the host is below 7% HP, Zerox can activate the skill causing it to sacrifice itself to kill the effected user, and leave a large cloud of toxic pheromones.

Xethasite Worm, designed originally for hunting, after the hive wars ended, food was scarce. Most of the smaller creatures lost their original homes, making it a contest between the more deadly creatures of Ceroxazeth. With one species absolutely dominating the food chain, even too dangerous for the inhabitants. Large razor sharp antlered creatures towering multiple times over the intelligent life. Originally primarily hunted only by a certain sub-species of the Xeroxedeos before they moved. After studying them, Zerox came up with the idea for this Xetharite Worm. It'd infest the alpha of the pack, and cause them to secreet a gas from their body. The worm was hardy, but also very territorial, making it impossible to infect more than one creature in the same pack. When a non-alpha creature was infected by the worm, the worm would alter the weak mind of the creatures, and convince them they had to become the alpha, and if they failed the worm would build up a large amount of the toxins it secreets and explode, not only killing the host, but usually also the alpha of the pack, and also often any other creatures nearby. Making it very ineffiecent way to hunt without potentially exterminating the entire pack. Realizing if an alpha is infected, then is challenged and lost the fight this would happen again Zerox redesigned the worm to only explode if given permission. Now the Parasite infects the host, and the toxin it secreets slowly weakens and eventually kills the ones near it. Allowing the Xeroxians to either come hunt the smaller weakened ones or, to scavenge the larger ones. After the ones start to die the pack moves from their den to find someone else to sleep, allowing them to recover from any toxins that had already built up. Given the size of the creatures this often allows the Xeroxians to gain a huge portion of food every few weeks, in addition to the food sources other Xeroxians gather.


Other Stuff.

I don't know how Zerox's gun would fire, I was thinking a 3 round burst fire would be good. Maybe like a burst of three glops of acid or stingers. I did design him with the playstyle of Abathur in mind from Heroes of the Storm, with his locust build. Then I was like well lets give him some lore, and stuff for fun. Basically the character is gonna be more so an annoyance, a majority of the time. Adding extra pressure in lanes with extra minions, being careful for Mines, Able to kinda split farm albeit in very small amounts using his Clutch. At first the minions wont feel like much but after getting some stacks, and their dot attack, they'll start pushing waves easier causing more pressure in lanes, and the dot will make it feel more threatening if any enemy charges through the minions chasing you, it won't kill you by itself if you get hit once, but if you ignore it and let it hit you enough it's not gonna be something you'll want to ignore again later in the game.
I also thought about making his gun also applys stacks of that poison so he feels more of a threat, but didn't feel like it was worth losing an ability for that, and there are other characters that inflict dots with their gun. So if it was just baseline instead of his gun doing gun damage, it hits them and just does damage over time, and can stack. Possibly also make it so the mines also apply stacks instead of doing damage. That might round him out. Though he's more of a laner with the ability to buff his player allies and the minions, clear out waves fast with mines, and apply constant pressure to lanes late game, to try and split the enemy team up.


As for his ult it isn't designed to kill people fast, it's also meant to be an annoyance. You can't get rid of it, it'd doesn't do damage to the person that has it, but the person that has it has to remember if they are close enough it's doing damage to their allies, not a significant amount in a short amount of time. It's more meant to be an annoyance. You put it on someone they run past their own waves and now there waves are low health, or you place it on the enemies guardian when you first get it, and now if the lanes pushed up far enough that the waves drop behind the enemy guardian and come walking up they are getting killed by the aoe. Basically it just applies alot of pressure, but isn't really gonna be murdering anyone unless they are already close to death and run into it. When it does get the third upgrade it becomes an activatable execute, where it does give you the choice if its late enough that lanes and stuff are already pushed up if one of them gets below 7% you can guarantee the kill, and also debuff the enemy team if they are close.

I also thought maybe making his ult be a bit different and instead you can ult someone, if they weren't paying attention they could easily miss that you ulted them. Then once every few minutes you can use your ult to take control of their character for like 6 seconds. If they die it goes into a long cooldown before you can use it on someone again. So it'd still be annoying, but I felt like the parasite was much more unique.