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Branalia
12-08-2009, 01:32 PM
Bloodmage
Speed: 300
Range: 450

Legion


Stats
STR: 32+3.6
AGI: 14+1.9
INT: 10+1.0


Gameplay

The Bloodmage is a very unique hero with unparalleled strength and strength gain... and with good reason: he does not use mana for his spells. Instead, all of his spells siphon from his health. Thus each time you cast one of his abilities you must be sure that the health you use is worth it to do what you need to do or that you'll be able to regen it quickly. His role is that of primary nuker as well as support.


Background


The Bloodmage was once a proud member of the Legion forces until during one battle he was captured by the Hellbourne and brought back to their demonic realm. While imprisoned, the demons experimented on him with different demons attempting to shatter his will and infuse him with various runes and tattoos of power over his entire body... until their experiments met with wondrous and terrible success. Over the months of torture and experimentation the Bloodmage had gained the ability to tap into his own life as a source of power and shower his captors with his own crimson death. He has since manged to escape from his captors and despite his horrific visage, fights alongside his Legion brethren once again to exact revenge on the foul creatures that made him what he now is.


Visual


The Bloodmage looks like a well built and muscled man with ragged pants and no shirt. Over his entire body are etched bloody tattoos. He has no hair and his arms and chest are terribly scarred from the practicing of his blood magic. His human hands have been removed and have been replaced with dark claws made for rending flesh.


Attack Animation

The Bloodmage is a ranged hero but he does not fire any projectiles to attack. Instead his attack animation is simply him reaching out his hand as if to grab a far off object and then after a few moments he clenches his fist and causes some of his target's blood to expel violently from its body. This will look especially good with the lifesteal provided by his third skill.



Crimson Slash
http://www.guildwars.com/images/professions/skillicons/elementalist/breathoffire.jpg
The Bloodmage rakes one arm down the other tearing off his flesh and unleashing a torrent of boiling blood upon his enemies, causing them to hemmorage temporarily as they burn.
The spray shoots out in a small frontal cone similar to Pyromancer's Phoenix Wave but a little less wide.
Skill Type: Active
Damage Type: Magic
Cooldown: 12 Seconds
Health Cost: 90/105/125/140
Cast Range: 700
1. Deals 75 Magic damage to each target in a line along with 5 damage a second for five seconds as the blood boils on the target's skin. While the target is burning it leaves behind a bloody trail.
2. Deals 135 Magic damage to each target in a line along with 7 damage a second for five seconds as the blood boils on the target's skin. While the target is burning it leaves behind a bloody trail.
3. Deals 185 Magic damage to each target in a line along with 9 damage a second for five seconds as the blood boils on the target's skin. While the target is burning it leaves behind a bloody trail.
4. Deals 230 Magic damage to each target in a line along with 10 damage a second for five seconds as the blood boils on the target's skin. While the target is burning it leaves behind a bloody trail.
In game: This is a standard caster AoE nuke that has the added bonus of having a small DoT and position reveal for a short period.
Balance: The spell does overall the same damage as every other spammable AoE nuke but in a smaller radius than Pyromancer. The tracking is to help offset the fact that the Bloodmage spends health to fuel his spells.
Visual: The Bloodmage grabs his left inner forearm with his right hand and rips his now clawed hands along his arm tearing his flesh off to his wrist but unleashing a potent spray of boiling blood ahead of him.
Revision: Instead of revealing stealthed enemies hit by this ability, it instead just draws a path as to where the victims walk for a few seconds similar to the reveal caused by the Bloodhunter's Blood Sense ability. This doesn't allow the unit to be targeted but it would show where they run to.

Bloody Gateway
http://www.guildwars.com/images/professions/skillicons/elementalist/searingheat.jpg
The Bloodmage violently claws himself in the chest and literally rips himself apart... and then transports himself to the blood of another nearby creature and either carefully (if allied) or violently (if an enemy) expels himself from his target's chest.
A targeted blink that requires a destination creature that's visible. Can be used on friendly or enemy targets but only an enemy takes damage.
Skill Type: Active
Damage Type: Magic
Cooldown: 25 Seconds
Health Cost: 70/100/130/160
Cast Range: 500/700/900/1100
1. Blinks a short distance to a target creature. Does no damage if the target is friendly and 75 damage if hostile.
2. Blinks a short distance to a target creature. Does no damage if the target is friendly and 150 damage if hostile.
3. Blinks a short distance to a target creature. Does no damage if the target is friendly and 225 damage if hostile.
4. Blinks a short distance to a target creature. Does no damage if the target is friendly and 300 damage if hostile.
In game: Both an offensive and defensive blink spell that does damage half of the time. Similar to Pebbles' Chuck ability except that the Bloodmage is the bullet and it only does single target damage.
Balance: The spell does the same damage as any other single target nuke and the long cooldown means it will only be able to be used once per fight at best.
Visual: The Bloodmage drives both of his clawed hands into his chest and rips himself apart. But instead of just falling apart the tear seems to keep going as his outer body folds into the back of himself as he eventually compresses into a ball of blood which falls to the ground and splashes like a water baloon on the ground. Meanwhile the Bloodmage jumps out of his target diving headfirst and either leaving no damage or causing a bloody explosion on the target's chest.

Sanguine Feast
http://www.guildwars.com/images/professions/skillicons/elementalist/rodgortsinvocation.jpg
The Bloodmage constantly requires more blood to replenish that which he has lost in the field of battle and thus has grown adept at leeching it from his foes.
A channeled lifedrain ability to help offset the fact that his spells use health to cast.
Skill Type: Active
Damage Type: Magic
Cooldown: 30 Seconds
Health Cost: 5% of the Bloodmage's max health.
Channel Duration: 6 Seconds
Cast Range: 700
1. Drains health from the target stealing 5% of the target's max hp per second if a neutral unit or 1% if an enemy hero.
2. Drains health from the target stealing 10% of the target's max hp per second if a neutral unit or 2% if an enemy hero.
3. Drains health from the target stealing 15% of the target's max hp per second if a neutral unit or 3% if an enemy hero.
4. Drains health from the target stealing 20% of the target's max hp per second if a neutral unit or 4% if an enemy hero.
In game: Just lifesteal to provide the Bloodmage with energy.
Balance: A channeled ability that can be interrupted by any normal means with a semi-long cooldown to prevent spam or massive health regeneration.
Visual: The Bloodmage's reaches his arm out to his target and causes blood to flow out for the duration of the channel which enters his body.
Revision: Changed the ability from passive lifeleech on damage to an active use skill with a decent cooldown but with endgame scaling.

Heartstopper (Ultimate)
http://www.guildwars.com/images/professions/skillicons/elementalist/teinaisheat.jpg
The Bloodmage has mastered control over the lifeblood that flows through all creatures and harnesses it to temporarily halt that flow, stunning all of his enemies for a short time.
A global stun which that it's duration is based on the distance from the Bloodmage.
Skill Type: Active
Cooldown: 180 Seconds
Health Cost: 200/300/400
Cast Range: Global
1. Stuns all enemy heroes on the map based on their distance from the Bloodmage based on the following metric:
0-200 = 2 second
201-350 = 1.25 seconds
351-500 = .75 seconds
501-650 = .5 seconds
651-800 = .25 seconds
>800 = .1 seconds
2. Stuns all enemy heroes on the map based on their distance from the Bloodmage based on the following metric:
0-200 = 3 second
201-350 = 1.75 seconds
351-500 = 1.25 seconds
501-650 = .75 seconds
651-800 = .5 seconds
>800 = .1 seconds
3. Stuns all enemy heroes on the map based on their distance from the Bloodmage based on the following metric:
0-200 = 4 second
201-350 = 2.25 seconds
351-500 = 1.5 seconds
501-650 = 1.25 seconds
651-800 = 1 second
>800 = .1 seconds
In game: A global ability that lends itself to team fights.
Balance: While the stun is global, the need for targets to be practically on top of him to get full duration makes it dangerous too.
Visual: The Bloodmage buries his arm in his chest and grabs his own heart, letting out a horrific scream as he stops the blood flow in his enemies.
Revision: Based on many suggestions and yyr_'s revised band metric updated the skill to be a bit more balanced. Kept the cooldown at 180 seconds to prevent excessive Homecoming stone channel killing.


And that's all I've got for now with this guy. Oh and please don't think I have an unhealthy obsession with blood... I played another DotA like game called Tides of Blood back in the day and it had a hero that used his health as his "mana" as well and I ran with the concept.

fmlftw
12-08-2009, 01:42 PM
Love the concept.

1. Lifesteal as a skill doesn't mean it should grant more than your average lifesteal items. 25% seems a bit too much at level 4 ... I would say 20% at most.

2. The ult is really strong, though with tweaking it wouldn't be OP. I'd say keep the cooldown as a constant 180 seconds, considering at level 16, Homecoming stones would be rendered useless every 2 minutes.

Seala
12-08-2009, 02:12 PM
Great concept, looks great overall, but the lifesteal feels abit out of place, considering his skillset I doubt he'd be played as a carry, so his lifesteal would be pretty weak since he won't be dealing to much physical damage, I'd rather see him get an activatable lifesteal skill or some other clever solution to his health problems.

docterj208
12-08-2009, 05:52 PM
I feel you copied my idea sir!

g0dAri3s
12-08-2009, 06:55 PM
Lifesteal seems a bit high imo. Max lifesteal of 15%

yyr_
12-08-2009, 09:02 PM
strength gain of 4.0 is too high. excuse my mathing (please say if i error, doing it in my head, cant be bothered to open calc).

lvl 25 x 4.0 gain x 19 hp =1900 hp
10 passive attribute x 2 per bonus x 19 hp = 380
Base: 32 x 19 = 608.
At 25 = 2880. without items

Okay, im assuming youd start with about +4 strenth worth of crowns or what not, so your looking at 700 life at level 1.... and with 1 bracers, about 3k life base... 3k with 1 bracers... Now we get you a heart and satanic... 4k+ with 50% lifesteal, and hp/sec over 50. You also have an agi gain of 1.9 which is decent for a strength carry. and id assume a hyperstone, so when you pop you satanic for the monster lifesteal... anyway, this hero is borderline unkillable.

Im assuming you werent ganked alot, you'd have a heart before 30 minutes, and now if your not ganked by 2 or more disables you could probably juke until your team comes to rescue you. that or drown them in your blood because you just have that much regen and hp.

I hadnt read the skills till now, you have blinkstrike, albeit a 30c/d but it means you will survive if you juke and team creep blink or blink to teammates saving you.


Sorry about the rant, but i really feel this hero has potential if the strength gain is dropped alot, this hero reminds me of "huskar" (hurting myself to be effective) and "Skeleton King" or "Leoric", who was a tank with lifesteal. Check out both of them and try rescale your skills a bit. I strongly feel there is a big opening for a hero of this design so i T-up'd it. back onto the skills

1st skill, its great, but the sight is a bit imba, every nuke that gave sight in beta was dropped except arachna's ulti. The thing to keep in mind is that everytime you try to gank early your losing around 200 life for casting, and it will hurt if they got nukes as well. Maybe if you made if (50 + %) this would increase its early game viability to harass, whilst balancing out your massive hp in lategame.

2nd skill: drop down the damage a bit, the benefit of a blinkstrike is that it doubles as an escape and an intiation. Id suggest looking at krakens rush for a good indicator of damage, or possibly a skill similar to "double edge" on "Centaur Warchief" on dota.

3rd skill: the scaling of this is very dependant on skill synergy, so wont comment.

Ulti: essentially a kraken ulti but global and does no damage. 4 seconds i believe is too long for a large radius, 300 radius is a diameter of 600 which isnt as small as it sounds, i like the idea of a diminishing stun based on radii from center, so how about:

If you dont enjoy math skip down to the coloured bands

50 + 150n = 800/stun where n is an integer greater than 0, sigh needed calc.

where "n" creates your radius from the hero on the LHS, eg: if your 250 away, your n value would have to be 2. as 50 + 150n = 250, n=1.3, as n rounds up. Now you have n=2 sub this back into your equation to find stun duration.

This creates stun bands, round to the nearest 0.25 second we have:

0-200 = 4 second
201-350 = 2.25 seconds
351-500 = 1.5 seconds
501-650 = 1.25 seconds
651-800 = 1 second

and it very slowly tends towards 0, but as its denomiator cannot be 0, it will be a global micro stun at worst.


Anyway, i wish you the best of luck, and im sorry if i sounded flamey =) i hope the indepth feedback helps

Hannibal
12-08-2009, 09:58 PM
Yeah considering how much health he will have, those health costs for his abilities seem quite low. He may as well have 0 int and no mana bar.

LindsayLoha1
12-08-2009, 10:03 PM
I vote yes only if the model is the original bloodmage kel'thas :D

Branalia
12-09-2009, 08:09 PM
Numbers can always be tweaked. I originally had a much higher cost of health for a number of his abilities (including his ult which used to eat 600 health at 16).

I've been thinking of perhaps changing his third skill to not be straight lifeleech but instead a passive regen buff based on how many nearby units there are. If he's in a lane with many creeps he would have a sizable regen but if he's alone he wouldn't have any. That might just be overpowered when he's in a lane and terrible when he's solo though.

yyr_
12-09-2009, 08:32 PM
another thing, try to keep your total stat gain on 6.2ish if you have good skills.

Numbers also give a certain feel to a character

docterj208
12-09-2009, 11:08 PM
to be honest, I am not particularly happy about the no mana cost. Its like, what does this guy need mana for? Why bother giving him any mana points except for items. So he needs like 150 mana max.

the answer to anti-mage?

EroticMonkey
12-09-2009, 11:14 PM
zomg initial str,lolwut str gain,rolfmao dont need mana,ding lin dong this guy lose 500 of hp to combo at level 6

docterj208
12-09-2009, 11:19 PM
even though I T-downed, you should make his 3rd ability be able to syphon some life back from spells since they are magical damage and not physical. And if they are physical you lose.

Hannibal
12-10-2009, 01:51 AM
I think the main problem would be his immense str gain, a heart + other essential tanking items would make this guy OP more so than the other Str heroes we have...Bloodmage wouldnt even need to use abilties, he would simply be one colossal tank.

Branalia
12-10-2009, 08:52 AM
to be honest, I am not particularly happy about the no mana cost. Its like, what does this guy need mana for? Why bother giving him any mana points except for items. So he needs like 150 mana max.

the answer to anti-mage?
First off, I didn't steal any part of your ideas... heck, I even looked through all of your ideas once you made the accusation to see which one used HP for spells and found none.

Second, yes, the reason I gave him mana at all was so that he could use items. It would kinda suck to be unable to use any item with a mana cost unless the devs would be able to make him siphon HP to fuel his items as well... in which case his int gain could be at 0 and it wouldn't matter what it started at for anyone but Vindicator to munch stats from.

I also considered making his third ability a health siphon from spells as well... but that would have the problem of negating the health loss from casting the spell in the first place if it was a substantial leech based on targets... or make it completely worthless if it wasn't enough.

We could give him a little less Str gain to put him in line with Keeper of the Forest and knock him down to a base of 27 (+3.4) to match or a little more to offset his health costs for spells... and then give him a little more agi to make up for it. Bottom line is that Int is a wasted stat aside from items for him though. And Keeper also has a total stat gain per level of 7.4 points. Even right now his stat gains are only 6.9 per level and one point goes into int. I do see the problem with the massive tanking ability though. Lots of things to think about... he is a very unique case similar to the Invoker in DotA.

xSky
12-10-2009, 10:31 AM
The skill ideas are great. However, there's one thing of concern to me.

His starting Strength and Strength gain seem really powerful. He would gain massive amounts of base damage as well as Health very quickly. I suggest that the Strength gain be lowered, as well as adding an additional casting cost of % life to all spells. Current life cost casts seem very low as of right now. It can easily be nullified with a healer on the team, decent regen items, or even just a few pots.(Mana pots are useless, but health pots gain double benefits, and work a hellava lot better than mana ones). Something like +4/6/8/10% current(or 2/4/6/8% of max?) health to cast Skill1. +3% additional for his blink(it's like 90 extra health with 3k hp). Otherwise he's a spamming machine late game, imo.

As an additional note, his starting base damage should be lower to account for his ridiculous starting Strength and gain.

Also, I think his life leech skill should grant him a bit of true sight. Something like 200/250/300/350 range true sight. Just because he should be able to 'feel' blood that close to him. Lol.

Otherwise a truly awesome hero to have implemented. I just think because he no longer uses mana, he has a double use for the Strength stat, heals, and hp regen items. Heart would totally be a core item with that awesome regen bonus.

MindBender
12-10-2009, 11:31 AM
Change the lifesteal to a life drain skill rather.
Then you can blink nuke, ulti, life drain = gg

Branalia
12-15-2009, 08:36 AM
Updated the hero with many of the suggestions made.

-Removed the stealth reveal from the first ability and changed it into temporary position reveal like Blood Hunter's third ability. Stealthed enemies can't be targeted directly but can still be hit by AoE.

-Changed the third skill from lifeleech to a health drain ability. May need to be tweaked down a little but at max level it shouldn't be able to restore much more than 500 health in a single channel. Ancient creeps would obviously have to be immune and the effect vs neutral creeps will probably need to go under hero rules. Perhaps if a target has more than 600 hp it falls under "hero" rules for the draining.

-Ultimate scaled back a bit in terms of the massive stun and cooldown nerfed. New metric added thanks to yyr_'s suggestion.

Comments on the changes?

SlemmeMannen
12-15-2009, 09:22 AM
Cool concept. Have you considered letting one of your skills (perhaps #3?) turn your mana regen into hp regen?
This could be passive or active or in addition to the channel thing...just brainstorming a bit here..

That way mana regen isn't totally wasted as it is now.

xSky
12-16-2009, 05:08 AM
I don't think you should mess with the mana portion of the hero. Let him have his mana, and let it affect him normally. That way he can still use activate-able item abilities and be drained for mana. He'd make a perfect candidate for Hakron's Blade and stuff.

yyr_
12-16-2009, 08:03 AM
I like what you have done with it, good job mate =)

DarkBullet
12-17-2009, 12:06 AM
The biggest problem i have for this hero is that all the skill have Health Cost, in stead of Mana Cost, which means Intelligence and Mana are COMPLETTELY USELESS. So inother words, this takes away a huge part of the game, but it is a good idea, and its unique.

xSky
12-17-2009, 05:55 AM
The biggest problem i have for this hero is that all the skill have Health Cost, in stead of Mana Cost, which means Intelligence and Mana are COMPLETTELY USELESS. So inother words, this takes away a huge part of the game, but it is a good idea, and its unique.

You can still use activated items, and Hakron's blade. Not useless, imo.

DarkBullet
12-17-2009, 09:55 AM
All activated items that require mana give you mana or intelligence, and this hero does not need it, so, in reality, if this ever got made as a hero, most people wouldnt be stupid enough to get mana items. Which means it is completly useless.

Grimsteel
12-17-2009, 10:18 AM
He has no hair and his arms and chest are terribly scarred from the practicing of his blood magic.

Emo-mage without hair.

Bonryu
12-17-2009, 03:55 PM
I love the concept! Reminds me of the blood mages from Dragnon Age.

Branalia
12-18-2009, 02:25 AM
Well the whole point of the hero is that he uses health instead of mana for his spells. Taking that away would just make him like every other hero in the game. It's not only for balance, it's also for flavor.

yyr_
12-19-2009, 02:50 AM
All activated items that require mana give you mana or intelligence, and this hero does not need it, so, in reality, if this ever got made as a hero, most people wouldnt be stupid enough to get mana items. Which means it is completly useless.

i think you forgot that Boots of Travel is an activatable item as are they new tanking boots, shiv's etc. Also port's need 75 and wards need 5

Branalia
12-19-2009, 09:35 PM
Which is exactly why he needs some baseline of mana unless he's going to convert all mana costs into health costs.

lKhain
12-20-2009, 08:50 AM
i feel dragon age influences :D

Branalia
12-21-2009, 09:10 AM
Well, got an extra six T-downs with no one saying what's wrong with the hero. Guess he's headed to the scrap heap.

Nemonin
12-21-2009, 09:24 AM
A good idea I think. Perhaps it would make sense to add a little mana cost to each ability rather than none. I feel like anything magical should require SOME mana to activate and then the mage can use his blood to substitute the rest.

Qe
03-19-2010, 07:42 AM
This will be INCREDIBLY hard to balance and given S2s balancing and hero creating skills I firmly say please.. please no. If it was IceFrog then it sounds nice but S2, no.

FiskOgHon
03-19-2010, 08:56 AM
The base concept is cool, but i really think you want a bloodMAGE rather than a bloodtank/mage/melee killer.

Although it's rather well thought out there are some severe flaws of this hero. Mainly the whole mana issue that needs to have more thought put into it.

There are some things that you could have done.

Make the hero int, but have int do something to his health/health regen/lifesteal.

Make all spells have mana AND health cost, with health being the real limiting factor.

Maybe just give a huge strength gain like you have and make him int.

These are just random brainstorming ideas. Cool concept, but i think it needs to be completely redone.