Eve of the Apocalypse: Twilight

I'll post this old thing here because it died along with ModForge, some people liked it, and Yak might be able to salvage some ideas.

I'm fixing it up a bit as well.

Hero Name - Ratrus Shamelancer
Hero Type - Phantom Artisan
Race - Undead
Primary Attribute - Agility
Model - Reskinned Blademaster (black and dead)
Element/Type - Storm and Illusion

Description - Once a well-known bard and swashbuckler, Ratrus was tricked into cursing his own spirit, changing him into the abomination he is today.

Spells -

Dancing Blade (Innate, Activatable like Immolation) - Gives a 6% chance that the hero will jump to a different target and deal 100 area damage to all enemies nearby.

Rising Storm - Channels on a target (similar to Degeneration) After X seconds (or if the target exits range), the Phantom Artisan will teleport as far as he can towards the target (within ~800 range), dealing line damage based on Int between the casting point and the target. The closer the units within the line are to the caster, the more damage they take (like Incinerate). If the original target of the ability is hit, they won't take the Int line damage, but another (higher multiplier) of Agi damage.

Shining Bolt - Targetable like Blink. Ratrus moves through enemy units like a chain lightning bolt to get to target position, dealing Int based damage. If no units are between Ratrus and his target, he is teleported halfway there. Range increases with level, reaching its pinnacle at about 1200.

Hopelessness - Activatable, duration like Keen Blade. When the Phantom Artisan attacks a target, it loses X% of attack damage for 3 seconds. The percentage stacks, so after a time the target will deal almost no damage. Not as effective on mages (they don't use normal attack much) If killed while under Hopelessness, a locust swarm casting-ward appears at the corpse. The locusts are instead ghosts (Spirit Tower projectile)

Ethereal Blade - Activatable, duration like Keen Blade. Ratrus' attack damage becomes 0. Instead of dealing it normally, he deals low Int modified Evocation damage (meaning it can be increased by the staff/gloves/whatever).

Distort Image - Target enemy hero. Creates two other 'images' of the Phantom Artisan that continually attack the target for X seconds. The closer the images are to the Bone Artisan, the more damage they deal (say, if they are within 300 units of him, they get critical strike). While these images exist, the Bone Artisan's attack damage is reduced by 50%. Images are dispellable, but can't be attacked normally or by spells.

Dirge of Rebirth - Channeling AoE buff (think Big Bad Voodoo) Nearby allied units gain a large life regeneration increase and bonus armor. Upon death, units will be revived with 30% life. Fairly short duration, say 10 seconds.

Song of Pain - Channeling AoE buff (also like BBV) All allies deal a small amount of additional damage in melee. Medium-long duration, say 30 seconds.

Chant of Humiliation - Channeling AoE debuff (BBV again). Enemies nearby take an additional 2-12% more damage from Evocation spells and have their armor reduced by a slight amount.

Canticle of Protection - Another Channeling AoE buff. Allied units (including Towers) gain a small amount of armor and damage reduction. Heroes gain resistance to Evocation damage. 15-20 second duration.

Luck - Passive. Increases Dancing Blade damage by 25/50/75/100/125/150. Upon killing a unit, Ratrus temporarily gains a Drunken Brawler-type ability (giving %evade and %crit) for 10 seconds as well as having 25% increased move and attack speed.

Sweeping Eruption (Ultimate) - Target point, channeling. Charges forward in a dash-like movement (dealing Agi multiplier damage) and flies into the air, causing a large storm. As long as the Bone Artisan stays aloft, lightning bolts will shoot out in random directions, dealing large Int damage. Each lightning bolt drains a portion of his mana. Hits buildings for 35% damage. Can be interrupted, and if so, the Bone Artisan falls to earth and recieves low-mid damage.

If this hero were to be implimented, I suggest either using only 1-2 of the 'song' abilities or making a seperate Spellbook ability with all of them.

Reborn

The abilities I DON'T comment on, I don't see any big problems with. That being said...

Hopelessness: Is this an autocast ability that modifies the attack or what? And a 'locust swarm type-ward', is that a locust-swarm CASTING ward or....Eh, please explain.

I like the Distort Image idea, I haven't really seen it done.

Sweeping Eruption: Hoo, um. Who would use this? If you deal large int dmg to allies AND enemies, then I can only see this being cast in a large horde of mostly enemy units, leading to the Phantom Artisan's quick demise. Also, if you're fighting the Elves, Mind Flay = GG ultimate.

Hopelessness is activatable and has a duration, much like Keen Blade, meaning you click on the icon and the effect is added for X seconds, and after the duration expires the ability disappears until you use it again.

I really haven't put much thought into the ultimate, it's more of a spacefiller than anything else ;P

Reborn

I'd...suggest a different ultimate, but I can't think of one...

Mind Flay working on heroes is a bug. I won't comment the skills though, apart from his Ult: I like it, and you can make your hero survive long enough to kill an enemy push with it (Knights Armor should be enough).

-Ham

Updated, added a bunch of new ability ideas and modified old ones.

Reborn

Meh, Dirge of Rebirth seems like a copy of Yggdrasil's ability, forgot what it's called, 'cept that Dirge of Rebirth grants extra armor.

The Ethereal Blade ability sounds really cool. Even if this hero isn't made, I'd love to see that ability on someone.

Me like.

Very well thought out.

AlienFromBeyond wrote:The Ethereal Blade ability sounds really cool. Even if this hero isn't made, I'd love to see that ability on someone.

Didn't read that one...

*Reads*

...Wow. That IS pretty cool.

You can only deal 1 damage, not 0 ^^. Would it be magic damage or normal (=hero) one? Magic=Imba on Gloom, but it would make most sense.

Apart from that, balancing it would be a bitch. I mean he can go massively for Intelligence (like naga) and evoc and deal... Dunno how many damage per strike.... :/ We also think that the naga is a bit strong, what would happen if there is a hero int +35%(staff) +20%(gloves) +66% (etheral) *2 (crit) damage?

But yeah, it sounds cool ^^

-Ham

Well, crit wouldn't affect it since it's evocation (trigger) damage. While it could be stronh, it would just need balancing to adjust the Int modifier.

I think this guy is cool. I also like "shopping for which skills I think are best ;p

Obviously, he'd have Dancing Blade as his innate.

Rising Storm is cool, but it is similar to Dash and he has cooler skills.

Shining Bolt is cool. Thats all I can say. I like it a lot more than Rising Storm. I would use this one.

Hopelessness is not my favorite, to say the least. It seems very strong against certain heroes, and very weak against others. Lots of people seem to like it, but I imagine myself being the victim of this skill and being very frustrated with it if my attack ever did reach zero. If you were to use it, it should not be strong enough to do that before the effect wears off.

Etheral Blade is much cooler and would be the one I'd suggest using, as he would probably only have this skill or the one above. This would be his second skill if I was calling the shots.

Distort Image is pretty cool, although it reminds me a bit of the Phantom Assasin hero in dota (the one that uses the vengeance model, not sure on the name.) And I must say, that skill is very frustrating, but maybe thats cause dota frustrates me. Still, I like this ability because of the range-damage modifier on it.

I'm running low on time, so I'll say that my favorite song is Canticle of Protection, by far. Reminds me of an opposite to the Scarab's ult, although not as powerful cause this isn't an ult. Plus, most of the other songs seem similiar to other skills, while this one is easily the most original.

Luck could and should just be a talent for Dancing Blade.

Sweeping Eruption is cool, although the dash at the beggining is very flashy for my tastes. Reminds me almost of an AotZ skill. However, the second part is very cool, and I like how he can fall from the sky for a little damage. Obviously, not all skills should hit him though. Incin shouldn't at least. Dunno about Rock Slide.

The BBV-like songs could be done through a spell-book, they would just have to be nerfed in effect and maybe have a shared CD (only logical because after singing a song you are a bit exhausted and need to calm down a bit before you can sing so great again)

-Ham