Necromancer

[[BETA]Warchamp7]

If you like this hero, please vote here:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...ad.php?t=20644

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Been fiddling with this for a little while now, time to finally post it. Rip this apart folks, find the broken and weak abilities and help me adjust them accordingly.

Death Mage
formerly Necromancer
Changed due to lack of a summon not fitting the theme of a Necromancer. Other name suggestions are welcome


Speed: 305
Range: 575
Affiliation: Legion
Primary Stat: INT

Who says a user of the dark arts has to be Hellbourne?


Sound and Visual Design
A cloaked figure, face barely visible, if at all. Glowing green eyes. A book is held in an almost skeletal hand. Shadows/Smoke spill out from the base of his cloak.

Story
Although a user of the dark magics, the Death Mage has offered his grim services to the Legion. His motives unknown, his allies are always cautious of him. There is one thing the Legion knows for sure about this mysterious figure. For reasons they dare not question, he has a deep rooted hate for the daemons of Newerth and is committed to purging them from this world.

Stats
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Base Armor: 1.54
Move Speed: 305

Strength: 18 + 1.6
Agility: 16 + 1.7
Intelligence: 19 + 3

HEY KIDS, IT'S SPELL TIME

Playing on my old concept which was rather well received but barely fleshed out. The Death Mage has a very unique skillset. He specializes in three different types of spells. Death, Poison and Curses.

When the Death Mage levels one of his first three abilites, he must choose which of the three types of spells it will be. After selecting a type for an ability, the other abilities cannot be that type. Thus when the Death Mage has leveled all 3 initial skills, he will have one of each type.

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Spell 1

Death
Corruption


Skill Type: Active
Target: Single
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 17/15/13/11
Mana: 140
Damage: 150/180/210/240


Poison
Decay


Skill Type: Active
Target: Area of Effect [250]
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 15/14/13/12
Mana: 130/140/150/160
Damage: 60/90/110/130
Effects: Slows units in the area by 7%/14%/21%/27%
Duration: 3 Seconds

Curse
Grave


Skill Type: Active
Target: Area of Effect [200]
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 16/14/12/10
Mana: 110
Damage: 10/25/40/55 for every enemy unit in the area



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Spell 2

Death
Deaths Grip


Skill Type: Active
Target: Single
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 30/25/20/15
Mana: 155/140/125/110
Effect: Pulls the target unit towards the Death Mage. The Death Mage will teleport and meet the target halfway


Poison
Acid Shell


Skill Type: Active
Target: Single
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 15
Mana: 140
Effect: Places a shield on the target, any units that attack the unit will take 10/20/30/40 damage a second for 2 seconds [Constant, not ticks]
Lasts 5 seconds

Curse
Unholy Boost


Skill Type: Active
Target: Single
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 20
Mana: 125/115/105/95
Damage: Increases Attack Speed by 5%/10%/15%/20% and Movement Speed by 4%/8%/12%/16%



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Spell 3

Death
Spirits of the Damned


Skill Type: Passive
Effect: The Death Mage has a 6%/9%/12%/15% to be protected by the spirits of his victims to block incoming attacks [Dodge]


Poison
Crippling Pulse


Skill Type: Active
Target: Area of Effect [200 Radius]
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 22/18/16/12
Mana: 150/140/130/120
Effect: Deals 100/140/180/220 to all units in radius

Curse
Fate


Skill Type: Active
Target: Single
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 25
Mana: 110/120/130/140
Effect: Reduces the target's armor by 2.5/5/7.5/10 and reduces the unit's attack speed by 10%/15%/20%/25%



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Ultimate

Mastery


Target: Self
Mana: 200
Cast Time: .5 [Uninterruptable]
Cooldown: 180
Duration: 30
Details: This is a three pronged ability much like the others however it stays this way, you do not choose a 'type' in the same fashion.

When you learn it, it grants you three spells, Death Mastery, Poison Mastery and Curse Mastery. Using one of these three ults switches your first three spells to the type of mastery you used temporarily. After the 30 second duration, your spells revert to the standard 3 you picked.

Ex. Using Death Mastery will switch your spells to the three Death spells

While you are using Mastery you can switch between which Mastery you are using at the cost of an additional 50 mana for every switch (On top of the base 200 mana cost)

As well, each Mastery gives you a particular bonus


Death Mastery: Increases damage of all Death spells by 100.
(Death Grip deals 100 damage to the target, Spirits of the Damned deal 100 damage when they block an attack)


Poison Mastery: All Poison spells decrease enemy move and attack speed by 5% [Spells do not stack with themselves but they do with each other]
(Decay slows an additional 5%, Acid Shell slows upon being attacked, Crippling Pulse slows on hit.)


Curse Mastery: Increases the area of effect of all Curse spells by 150.
(Grave becomes 350, Unholy Boost and Fate both become AoE spells with a 150 area)


Synergies


I decided to come up with a few combos with his skills

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+

Deal damage and slow your enemy's move speed and speed up your own move and attack speed.

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+ +

While fighting in a lane against a ranged hero with proper positioning, Deaths Grip will pull you and your enemy on top of the creeps. At Level 4 with 5 creeps around, Grave will deal 275 damage. Follow up with a Level 4 Crippling Pulse for another 220 damage.

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+ + + + +

A powerful combo. First pulls your enemy beside you to hit them with an easy decay, thus slowing them. Then if done with creeps around, hit them with Grave. Chase them down with Unholy Boost and Fate lowering their armor and increasing your own attack and move speed.

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+ + + + + + + + +

Now we're entering crazy land. Start off with Death Mastery, use Deaths Grip to pull them close and nuke them with Corruption. Switch to Poison Mastery and shield yourself from a counter attack, then slow them with Decay. Hit them with crippling pulse and then switch to Curse Mastery. Reduce their armor with Fate and chase them down with Unholy Boost.

Total Mana Cost with Maxed Abilities: Need to recalculate
Total Spell Damage: 240 + 130 + 150 = 520 Add 80 if they attack back due to Acid Shell as well as attack damage against -10 armor


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There's bound to be a few (a lot of) wonky numbers here and there so please, give some feedback so I can balance this out

[FrEEz902]

Very nice. The hero is very unique and is somewhat reminiscent of invoker from DotA.

Anyway here are my comments. The 3rd spell, Crippling pulse, might be better if you did not have to target it. it encourages you to go in a little taking a risk, and is also easier to combo with if you choose poison mastery (targetting 2 AoE skills might be a bit frustrating to some people)

Also, the 'Fate' curse is a little useless. It's only useful early game and leveling it to max before anything else will cause you to miss out on the other skills which can be much more helpful early game (acid shell and corruption)

I'm not a super-pro or anything, just an average player. But these are my observations anyway. I would like to see you explaining some strategies

[Zuika]

Idea is great. Opens up for all these combinations and possibilities, making every game even more different from the other.

However, imo a Necroomancer HAS to be Hellbourne, since he controls dark magic.
Legion however, with Jereziah use Light Magic, Blessings etc.
Necromancer could be a good counterpart to Jereziah I voted good.

[megacannibal]

Seems a tad weak, especially the last spell fate. -3 armor at level 4? Really? Plus I think the spot of necromancer should be given to necrolyte. Hoorah! Make it something along the lines of 4/6/8/10 armor and -5/10/15/20% attack and move speed for maybe 3/4/5/6 seconds on a 25 second cool down seems fair enough. For poison there's no reason to get anything other then decay. A 40% slow and a small 140 damage in a aoe means HUGE CC potential, combined with grave you've got a nice combo. Add Earthshaker for additional damage. Also shouldn't the masteries give a boost to all spells in that category since you've "mastered" it? Spirit of the damned is pretty worthless considering at most a 16% chance to dodge and his grip is pretty much electrcians except without the damage. And I demand white ghosts! We lack white ghosts! It's racism towards whites!(wait what?!)

[[BETA]Warchamp7]

Thanks for the input guys. And FrEEz it is indeed intended to be a little reminiscent of Invoker, he was my favorite hero.

I've made a few tweaks to what you guys mentioned. Decay's slow has been dropped slightly along with the damage.

Spirits of the Damned and Fate got a bit of a buff

Also Freez, Crippling Pulse is not targeted unless you count where you're standing as targeting :P

Think Necrolyte's Death Pulse without the healing. After I made the skill and was icon searching, I realized how close it is, heh

[Timewalker]

So I take it you like tech trees?
Anyway, cool hero, I had a bit of trouble figuring out how he worked, but overall not as complicated as I first thought.
However, this would still take a lot of skill micro.
I'll try to give my impression by chains.
Death - Nuke, very interesting pull, I like it, dodge, and superdodge, 30% chance to dodge.
The nuke is decent, and the pull is interesting, but for an int hero? I guess you would want to be able to keep attacking someone while curse mastery is up, but pulling halfway to you would depend on the situation. If you are behind your team, you'll pull them into the team, making it very useful. If you are too far forward, you'll destroy yourself I guess the dodge is there to stop that from happening.

Poison - Aoe slow, poison shield, aoe nuke, slow attack speed?.
This seems to be more for variety than anything else, you have a ton of nukes in total. The slow is nice, but how long does it last for? (I would say 8 seconds) That will be useful later. The slow attack speed from the mastery seems a bit off, I would change it to something else. The poison shield would just protect from agi heroes, (would the damage stack?) if yes, it's very strong.

Curse - Woh. Nuke, +AS and MS, - Armor and AS, +Attack speed.
If you upped the numbers a little bit, this could be really strong.
32% overall attack speed increase including the mastery, it could be raised a bit... I remember Lina's ability giving +200% attack speed, (though that wasn't an aura and it didn't buff ms as well) The Nuke here reminds me of Earthshaker, and has the potential to be the strongest nuke. The -Amor and attack speed is, a bit too strong now (-12 armor then nuke nuke nuke is kind of evil)

Anyway, together. I would probably go with death mastery->teleport in->poison mastery-> shield->curse mastery->whack whack whack->death mastery->nuke->run away
You have a ton of nukes, 3 to be exact (yeh I know pyromancer has a bunch)
but as none of them stun, and none are in a line, you are basically choosing between single target, aoe, and situational aoe.
The slow is useful (it needs a duration and a range, unless the range is self, in which case it's not so useful) and anything even close to the cooldown is going to make him really annoying. Add to that his nukes, attack speed aura, and int hero squishyness, he will probably be needing to use Death Aura for that dodge a lot. I'm not seeing too many cases where that teleport would be useful for him, unless you want to nuke bomb them, though you would need lightning fingers and no mistakes.
Anyway, sorry for my rambling, if you can sort through ll this stuff I said, maybe it can make some sense to you.

[[BETA]Warchamp7]

I was considering having a stun somewhere but I thought this guy was pretty evil as it was. I definitely appreciate your feedback a lot

Anyway, together. I would probably go with death mastery->teleport in->poison mastery-> shield->curse mastery->whack whack whack->death mastery->nuke->run away

Keep in mind those Mastery Switches alone will cost you 750 mana, not to mention the .5 wait while you switch (May remove that, dunno)

This guy is very mana heavy but if he has it, he's a monster

As for Deaths Grip, I originally thought of it simply pulling the target towards the Necromancer without the Necro moving but I felt that was far too overpowered. Right now I'm considering having Death's Grip stun for 1 second.


I will agree I may have been a bit hasty with my buff to Fate, I'll lower that a bit.

[[GR]Rentaromon]

to complicated, useless ulti aside from giving you more spells to use, and no summon skills.

A interesting idea but i dont like him at all.

[Bugglez]

One of the problems I see is it looks like this hero would have a lot of hotkeys. How many extra's does HoN provide?

[Namu1]

Yeesh, a lot of Hotkeys would be needed.

Nonetheless, I like the idea of a Necromancer. I agree with Rentaromon. A Necromancer should have some kind of summoning skill, no?

[[BETA]Warchamp7]

It would use a total of 6 Hotkeys, the exact same as Soulstealer

[[BETA]Warchamp7]

Eh, it's been a day

Gonna bump this

[[GR]Rentaromon]

i voted no, you give to defence to your hero even thow we say he is bad.

He has nothing good and just a bunch of weak spells to spamm with, boring stupid and lame.

[[Somb]Kynth]

I like him better than your previous suggestion.
+1

EDIT: Oh ran through the skills just to double check, Fate, how long does the effect last, if it doesn't last long I think a slow is in order. Also, how exactly will the skill picking at the beginning work, without your ult i see it hard using just 3 hotkeys to pick from 9 skills.

[[BETA]Warchamp7]

I like him better than your previous suggestion.
+1

EDIT: Oh ran through the skills just to double check, Fate, how long does the effect last, if it doesn't last long I think a slow is in order. Also, how exactly will the skill picking at the beginning work, without your ult i see it hard using just 3 hotkeys to pick from 9 skills.

For fate, how long do you think it should last?

As for how it works, say you level the first skill. This gives you a triple skill much like Soulstealer's first skill. However, using one of those three skills isn't a spell, it just 'selects' the type and then changes it to just a single skill. Then you level the second skill and you have the same option but between the two remaining types. Then when you level the third skill it just gives you the remaining type.

Edit: Some rough pictures to explain it

So first off you pick your abilities as per normal


So I level the first ability.

Now I have a three pronged ability but none of the three spells actually cast anything. These three spells will be the three 'Spell 1' spells from my main post. Selecting one will give me that spell.


So after selecting the first 'type' of the three pronged skill, I have that spell for casting.


Now I've leveled the second ability and I only have a choice between the two other types.



As for Rentaromon, I can barely understand what you're trying to say, not to mention I doubt you actually read the whole thing. If you did you'd bother to give some actual feedback.

[WizOfOz]

I love the idea. Necros are my favourite faction in any game I play and I was wondering if they have been brought up here (but because I'm a noob and don't know all the heros I kept my mouth shut).
That said, no Necro is complete without some summoning spells

[rofflewoffle]

Good idea, but I hate that you're using a necromancer for this concept. Necromancers are supposed to be summoners of the dead and there are no skills here that give you summons =\

[Samsam1]

Finnaly! I have always them to Port Invoker, but know we have this hero! Lot's of ability, need a lot of skills to pull all his tricks right! I think the numbers are great. I would LOVE to play him. Thank for your great sugestion. I won't go into detail of each spell and says what I think about them like I would normally do because you have so many spells that it would take me forever. But the numbers seem right. Good job!

If you have some time, plz review my heroes too! Thank you!

Edit : I just saw that he has 2 different starting movement speed. The 320 one under the image, and the 305 one in the Stats section. You might want to check this.

[RenoFox]

Wow this is cool and something different. Buy dosn't it sound kind of OP that he can cast a 7 different skill chain combo not including items? I mean even the invoker couldn't do something like this lol.

Ohh and after reading the Visual Design I was just thinking Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell lol

[[BETA]Warchamp7]

Edit : I just saw that he has 2 different starting movement speed. The 320 one under the image, and the 305 one in the Stats section. You might want to check this.

Fixed. And thanks

Wow this is cool and something different. Buy dosn't it sound kind of OP that he can cast a 7 different skill chain combo not including items?

For 1720 mana, which under most circumstances would be nearly all of it. That was really just an over the top example to show that although he has many skills. He's not gonna be running around spamming them.


As for all the gripes about a summon, I'll think about tweaking something. Maybe have Spirits of the Damned have a chance to summon a skeleton instead of blocking