New Character: Vampire Bat (WIP)

[turbid ruin]

DPS/Support Hero – Vampire Bat

I wanted to do something with bleeding and give him a quasi-support role as well. I welcome any tweaks to the numbers to make it more balanced. I'll update this post as I figure out the rest of the Ascensions.

Health: 90

Primary Skill: Black Mantle

• Toggle: Enter the Black Mantle. While in Black Mantle, gain 33% lifesteal and your weapon damage has a chance to inflict bleeding (5% DMG/sec for 5 seconds) inversely based on magazine size (max 50%). Allies within a 12m radius receive 50% of your self-healing from lifesteal.
• Every second, gain 1 stack of Mantle Pact (1.5% HP/sec bleed for 20 seconds, +2% damage taken). At 50 stacks of Mantle Pact, become instantly downed. Clear all stacks of Mantle Pact upon leaving Black Mantle.
• CD: 30s

Secondary Skill: Jagged Trap

• Throw out a trap that pins a target to the spot for 3s, deals 200 normal damage, and inflicts bleeding (5% DMG/sec for 5 seconds).

Ascensions:
Vampirism – Enhances bleeding and lifesteal

• Blood Sport: Bleeding an enemy grants you +5%... 10%... 15% movement speed for 6 seconds (max 3… 3… 5 stacks)
• Savor the Kill: When an enemy dies from bleeding damage, instantly restore 5%... 7.5%... 12.5% of max health.
• Sated Predator: Healing gives damage reduction for 2 seconds equal to (0.10… 0.15… 0.25 * health restored)%. (CD: 3s)
• Carnage: When a non-automatic weapon inflicts bleeding, +2 projectiles to the next shot from that weapon.
• Eye Gouge: Critical hits inflict bleeding with 25%... 50%... 100% effectiveness.
• Blood Bank: Excess healing from lifesteal is added to Max HP at a rate of 0.1… 0.2… 0.5 per point of healing.

Black Magic – Enhances Black Mantle

• Sadomasochism: +20%… 33%... 40% weapon damage in Black Mantle for every stack of Mantle Pact. +100%… 50%… 0% effects of Mantle Pact.
• Enveloping Shadows: +4m... 8m... 14m radius for Black Mantle.
• Razor Mantle: Enemies that attack you in Black Mantle bleed (5% DMG/sec for 5 sec)… take instant True damage equal to bleeding 5% DMG/sec for 5 sec… take instant True damage equal to bleeding 5% DMG/sec for 5 sec, and normal enemies have a 10% chance to die instantly.
• Aura of Terror: Enemies within Black Mantle’s radius deal 20%... 33%... 50% less damage and move 20%... 33%... 50% slower.
• Gates of the Grave: Each stack of Mantle Pact that is cleared when leaving Black Mantle reduces Black Mantle’s cooldown by 0.25… 0.5… 1 second.
• Immortal Mantle: Any attack that would kill you in Black Mantle instead reduces you to 1 HP. (CD: 30s)

[steel viper]

Couple things:

1. When you say 5% DMG/sec, is that 5% of the enemy HP, or of the damage dealt on the initial hit?

2. The primary skill seems overly complicated. 90% of the fanbase can't handle that many words on a hero.

3. Mantle pact's bleed is too strong. At that point, you wouldn't need to die at 50 seconds, because at 50 seconds you would take 75% hp/s, which kills you in two seconds, assuming you're at full HP, which you won't be because of the 73.5%, 72%, 70.5%, etc HP loss prior.

4. No ascensions for Jagged Trap?

5. 33% life steal is WAY too much. For reference, sanguine relic is 3%. I get this is probably an attempt to counter the insane bleed that comes from Mantle Pact, but mantle pact still kills you in 2 seconds at 34+ stacks if you don't hurt any enemies.

6. Blood Bank is ridiculous early in Black Mantle. Say you hit raw damage cap immediately after using black mantle, 10 million damage. Thats an extra 5 million HP. How long does it stick around? 10 seconds? 5? Doesn't matter, 5 million hp is insane. The only thing that can kill you is mantle pacts insane bleed effects

7. 12m radius is big enough. with your 33% lifesteal, healing allies for 16.5% of all damage you do is already crazy, but it already has a huge radius, 26m is like, mapwide.

8. Again with the radius, 26m is enough to slow any and all enemies that are spawned in by a whopping 50%, and also reducing damage by 50%. Way too strong.

Oh dear I've become altanna with the massive text walls

[turbid ruin]

Alr bet

1. 5% of damage dealt, i based it on Bloody drill’s bleed
2. It’s one of those things that’s less complicated than it sounds. You bleed, but you can bleed enemies and life steal, and allies get healed when you do that.
3. Valid, I want to tweak the numbers so that a duration of about 15-20 seconds can be comfortably achieved and pushing beyond that is uncomfortable
4. I’m getting to it
5. Valid, more numbers to tweak. Can tune that down along with reducing Mantle Pact bleed
6. Valid. I’ve never dealt millions of damage so it didn’t even enter my mind. I’ll rework it.
7. Valid. Blame my Murica brain not knowing how big a meter is.
8. See 7

[steel viper]

Alright. I don't know the size of a meter very well either, especially in video games, but a good factor to go by is how big the radius of things like the corrosive bubble pop from enemies, which is 10 meters, so I guess I exaggerated the mapwide thing, especially on later maps like the Jokul, which is huge, but 26 meters is still really big, especially for a radius, meaning your bubble spans 52 meters

[timid tide]

Some things that weren't already mentioned:

1. Mantle Pact stacks only cause you to bleed for 20 seconds? Or stacks only last 20 seconds? In either case, the bleed effect could never go above 30% per second, so pushing beyond that won't get uncomfortable at all. If it's the latter case, it also prevents you reaching 50 stacks and dying instantly, making that part pointless.

2. Savor the Kill is virtually worthless. You heal from bleed kills, but the way GFR's lifesteal works is that even if it was only 1% lifesteal, mid to late run it would still be more than Savor the Kill.

3. Sated Predator is overpowered due to relying on healing, which would include lifesteal. Even at level 1 with 0.1% damage reduction for every HP recovered, that would mean you only need a little over 3030 damage (converted to 1000 healing) during Black Mantle to receive 100% damage reduction for 2 seconds every 3 seconds.

4. Carnage + Eye Gouge is a permanent +2 projectiles as long as you keep landing crits.

5. Unless you have Razor Mantle or Aura of Terror, Enveloping Shadows is useless when playing solo. It increases the radius of your lifesteal sharing effect... but you have no one to heal. An ascension shouldn't be useless until you get another ascension.

[turbid ruin]

Much appreciated. I’ll sit down a little later today and rework them, all the feedback is awesome (especially for an idea with 0 shot of implementation)

[turbid ruin]

@timid tide @steel viper Vampire Bat Patch 0.1. Tried to incorporate most everything y'all gave me

Primary Skill

Black Mantle: Reduced lifesteal and radius. Reworked bleeding effect. Mantle Pact now decreases max HP instead of inflicting bleeding. Mantle Pact does not immediately disappear upon leaving Black Mantle.

• Black Mantle: Enter the Black Mantle. While in Black Mantle, gain 4% lifesteal and your weapon hits inflict 0.1% weapon damage as bleeding for 5 seconds. Allies within a 6m radius receive 50% of your self-healing from lifesteal.
• Every second, gain 1 stack of Mantle Pact (-1% penalty to max HP, will not reduce HP below 1). Mantle Pact dissipates at a rate of 3 stacks/second upon leaving Black Mantle.
• CD: 30s

Vampirism

Savor The Kill has been removed.
Added Flechette Ammo.

• Flechette Ammo: Each weapon hit grants one stack… two stacks… two stacks of Flechette Ammo.
• For each stack, +1/(1.33*magazine size)% chance to inflict bleeding (5% weapon DMG/sec for 5 seconds). Lose all stacks… all stacks… 50% of stacks upon inflicting bleeding.

Sated Predator: Reduced damage reduction per point of healing and capped damage reduction at 66%.

• Sated Predator: Healing gives damage reduction for 2 seconds equal to (0.001… 0.002… 0.005 * health restored)% (max 66%). (CD: 3s)

Carnage is now Reckless Carnage.

• Reckless Carnage: For each bleeding enemy within 15 meters, +10%... 15%... 25% RoF and -12%... 8%... 2% accuracy.

Eye Gouge is now Mercy Kill.

• Mercy Kill: Gain +0.2… +0.5… +1 CritX against bleeding enemies.

Blood Bank: Reduced and capped max HP increase.

• Blood Bank: Excess healing from lifesteal grants (0.005… 0.01… 0.02 * excess healing) stacks of Blood Bank. For each stack, increase max HP by 1 (max 100% of base max HP) for 5 seconds.

Black Magic

Enveloping Shadows: Reduced radius, transferred damage reduction from Aura of Terror to give solo utility.

• Enveloping Shadows: +2… 4… 7m radius for Black Mantle, -5%... 10%... 25% damage taken from enemies within Black Mantle’s radius.

Razor Mantle: Clarified description.

• Razor Mantle: Enemies that attack you within Black Mantle’s radius bleed (5% DMG/sec for 5 sec)… take instant True damage equal to bleeding 5% DMG/sec for 5 sec… take instant True damage equal to bleeding 5% DMG/sec for 5 sec, and normal enemies have a 10% chance to die instantly.

Aura of Terror: Removed damage penalty and reduced move speed reduction.

• Aura of Terror: Enemies within Black Mantle’s radius move 15%... 25%... 40% slower.

Gates of the Grave: Adjusted to reflect Black Mantle changes.

• Gates of the Grave: Each stack of Mantle Pact reduces Black Mantle’s cooldown by 0.25… 0.5… 1 second upon leaving Black Mantle.

Trap Specialist

Added Ascensions for Jagged Trap.

• Crippling Bite: Jagged Trap reduces enemy movement speed by 33%... 50%... 66% for 5 seconds after they are pinned.
• Lockjaw: Jagged Trap pins enemies for 1… 2… 3 more seconds.
• Occult Trap: Enemies caught in Jagged Trap are considered to be within Black Mantle’s radius. (i.e. you benefit from Razor Mantle and Enveloping Shadows against that enemy whether you are using BM or not)
• Hair Trigger: +100%... 150%... 200% trigger radius for Jagged Trap.
• Savage Feed: You and your allies have +10%... 20%... 30% Lucky Shot chance and 0.5%... 0.66%... 1% lifesteal against enemies in Jagged Trap.
• Durable Spring: After killing a target in Jagged Trap, you have a 33%... 66%... 100% chance to recover a use of Jagged Trap and 50% to recover an additional use (level 3 only).

[steel viper]

alright

Looks good

Theres probably something I missed that Altanna will speak on

But for now, all I have to say is I'm sad there's no direct damage increases to jagged trap

[turbid ruin]

That’s the idea tbh. It’s a secondary skill with a freeze, it’s more like Explosive Grenade or Fatal Bloom than a strict damage skill

[steel viper]

Explosive grenade is a strict damage skill

[turbid ruin]

True, bad example. I was thinking like smoke bomb with less damage but more utility

Maybe having a secondary that requires you to follow up with a weapon (even if it gives you pretty good bonuses to do so) is a flawed idea

[steel viper]

ye

I just like skill builds

[timid tide]

Problems, round 2:

1. Not sure why you decreased the bleed damage for Black Mantle from 5% to 0.1%. That wasn't a problem, just extra damage over time and a good reason to use the skill. Now it's so low it's virtually worthless, like Burning damage when using a high RoF weapon.

2. I suggest putting Mantle Pact's penalty to -2% Max HP, since you expected Black Mantle to be comfortable up to 20 seconds, right? -20% Max HP isn't all that much. -40% Max HP is survivable but uncomfortable. 30 seconds with -60% is dangerous. 40 seconds with -80% is suicidal, and 50 seconds is outright lethal, like before.

3. Flechette Ammo offers a... 75% chance or 0.75% chance for a weapon with a magazine of 1, per stack? If it's 75% chance, then it becomes extremely powerful for stuff like Prism, Icy Spear, Golden Bow and Fire Tower, because their mag size is 1 (though it might be an acceptable niche).

On the flipside, 0.75% chance per stack best-case is pathetic. A Big Hippo would get 0.0093% chance per stack, and the weapons mentioned above would be similarly pathetic, despite the higher chance.

4. I mean, you can't get easy invulnerability from Sated Predator anymore, if my calculations are correct you'd need to deal 1,650,000 damage in Black Mantle to reach 66% reduction at level 1, or 330,000 at level 3...

But now it suffers from the opposite problem. It's virtually worthless early-game and on lower difficulties. Even just a 21% damage reduction at level 1 you'd have to do enough damage to instantly kill Lu Wu on R8.

Perhaps you should just make it X% damage reduction very briefly after healing, or something.

5. Reckless Carnage can shred your accuracy if you apply bleed to groups, intentionally or unintentionally. 4 enemies will halve your accuracy at level 1. Maybe it should just be a set penalty if you're near any bleeding enemy.

6. Why did you double nerf Aura of Terror? Moving the damage reduction to Enveloping Shadows was fine, but it didn't need a movement speed nerf to worse than Decay at level 3 as well.

Not that only movement speed against only close enemies is much good anyway.

7. Crippling Bite may be redundant, since Aura of Terror exists. I mean, 2 movement speed reductions might have a good use... if it could help you kill things in a reasonable manner that can't be copied by Decay.

8. Occult Trap fell for the same issue Enveloping Shadows did before. It's useless without other ascensions, but this time it doesn't have multiplayer to save it.

9. Why is level 3 for Savage Feed weaker than level 1? It's both weaker numerically and doesn't even give you any extra ability beyond what level 1 already did.

10. As Ewgene Jr. stated, Jagged Trap has no damage buffs. Black Mantle is also not a damaging skill, leading to a complete lack of skill builds with this hero.

Additionally, even Smoke Grenades and Energy Orb, 2 skills with pathetic base damage to have good utility, have strong damage ascensions in case you want to still use them for damage.

[timid tide]

Just one or two things. Minor things, really.

[steel viper]

Yeah yeah

I mean like

thats at least 1 thing

Also I hate the sound of Ewgene jr

I should really change my nick

boom

[timid tide]

Ok Ewgene Jrn't.

[steel viper]

Lets go

[turbid ruin]

All good points.

1. I wanted every shot in Black Mantle to bleed and felt I had to adjust the damage appropriately. Apparently not.
2. Good idea. I was vacillating between 1 and 2%.
3. 75% chance with magazine size 1. Big Hippo then gets 0.93% chance per stack, which is low but I feel is appropriate given the magazine size and RoF. I'll try and update the tooltip to reflect the math more clearly.
4. I'll give it some thought. Was hoping to make this idea work as is, but you're definitely right...
5. Smart. I'll look into that.
6. I wasn't sure if the prior comment was critiquing both the radius and the slow rate or both. I'll change that back.
   7, 8, 10. All true, I'll give the whole set of trap ascensions another look, I just wanted to have something down.
7. Not sure where you're getting this from. Level 1 Savage Feed is 0.5% lifesteal, 10% LS while Level 3 is 1% lifesteal, 30% LS. Maybe not a lot stronger than 1, but not weaker.

[timid tide]

9. I meant the level-based increase is weaker.
   • Level 1: +10% Lucky Shot. +0.5% Lifesteal (New ability!).
   • Level 2: +10% Lucky Shot (20% total). +0.166% Lifesteal (0.66% total).
   • Level 3: +10% Lucky Shot (30% total). +0.33% Lifesteal (1% total).

Level 3 gives you less than level 1 did and offers nothing unique. Level 3 effects almost always are the strongest bonus, either because they give something extra or are just a bigger boost.