[HotS Contest] [Hero] Nightmare.Lassara

[Simoneon]

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CHANGELOG:

• ​2014 January 3
  
  1. Added an excel sheet.
     
  2. Fixed image links.
     
  3. Regret [Q] Energy Cost decreased to 60/65/70/75 (from 60/80/100/120).
     
  4. Regret [Q] Cooldown decreased to 20/18/16/14 (from 20/19/18/17).
     
  5. Souls Release [W] Energy Cost changed to 80 at all levels (from 50/75/100/125).
     
  6. Souls Release [W] effect improved - now gains debuff immunity while channeling.
     
  7. Strength of the Shadow [E] attack speed increased to 15/30/45/60% (from 10/20/30/40%)
     
  8. Strength of the Shadow [E] effect improved - now gains AOE immunity.
     

• 2013 November 18
  
  1. Regret [Q] lasts 4/5/6/7 (instead of 5) seconds.
     
  2. Souls Release [W] range changed to 5.5 (up from 4).
     
  3. Strength of the Shadow [E] tooltip has been modified.
     

Nightmare.Lassara

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HERO INFORMATION:

Nightmare makes entire teams scream in fear. This hero has good crowd control abilities and deal with the enemy carries faster than they can react. Very good secondary initiating skills -- you will most probably win massive team fights with Nightmare in your team!

 

Role: fighter, anti-carry, melee;

Theme: powerful fighter with mechanics that can deal with auto-attackers;

Model: Lassara (or any cool-looking protoss) with pulsating violet blade in his hand;

 

Base Health: 290

Base Damage: 27

Base Armor: 3

Strength: 25+4

*Agility: 39+6

Intelligence: 26+5

 

 

 

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HERO ABILITIES:

 

Heroic Passive: Nightmare's Gaze

Nightmare is genius at manipulating dreams and that makes him see further than others. Furthermore, he gets additional 6% movement speed for every enemy hero that he can see.

 

Skill Explanation: Nightmare gets +2 sight range, can see up cliffs. For every enemy hero in sight range he gets a 6% movement speed buff (30% when 5 enemies are present). Very useful in huge team fights as well as chasing single enemy who needs just one hit to be dead. The other portion of the passive serves as a scout and anti-gank purpose. Basically, you can see the enemies faster than they would want.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Q] Regret

Energy cost: 60/65/70/75

Cooldown: 20/18/16/14

Range: 6

Nightmare makes his enemies regret the dreams they saw. Casts a cloud on a target point, which lasts 4/5/6/7 seconds. While in the cloud enemies get a 10% movement speed reduction, have their sight range reduced to [4/3/2/1] and receive [10/20/30/40] (+10%INT) spell damage per second.

• - AOE radius of 4;
  
• - cast time 0.1 second;
  
• launch model: energytransferlaunch.m3;
  
• cloud model: purifierpowerup.m3.
  

Skill Explanation: Shoots an AOE debuff on the ground which lowers all enemies sight range and movement speed and deals damage per second. Can be used to farm and in combination with his ultimate. Damage is not as important as it is mainly used for its utility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[W] Souls Release

Energy cost: 80/80/80/80

Cooldown: 15

Range: 5.5

Nightmare has slain a lot of innocent people, which now spurt for vengeance. Over 5 seconds channeling time, in which he has debuff immunity, Nightmare releases [4/10/16/22] souls, which separately travel to random enemy heroes in a small radius around him. Each soul deals 10 (+15%INT) spell damage and causes a 3% movement speed reduction, which stacks and lasts for 5 seconds. If full duration is channeled, Nightmare gets [5/20/35/50] (+30%DMG) attack damage for 5 seconds.

• instant cast, 5 second channel;
  
• searches in radius of 5.5, follows infinitely;
  
• channel can be interrupted by stuns, etc. - will not give attack damage afterwards;
  
• while in channel, Nightmare gets a white-blue tint;
  
• soul model: violet orb.
  

Skill Explanation: Nightmare channels and releases amount of souls which damage and slow random enemy heroes, and afterwards gives an attack damage buff. If kept untouched it can deal a lot of damage, plus the latter effect will give a lot of hurt. Counter with simple CC. If, for example, there're two enemy heroes standing, and Nightmare has level 4 Souls Release, each of them should receive 11 souls in a perfect scenario. The slow afterwards is supposed to have a long time, because the slow amount is not as huge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[E] Strength of the Shadow (Passive)

Energy cost: -

Cooldown: -

Range: -

Nightmare gains strength when he is untouched by the enemy weapons. He gains [15/30/45/60]% attack speed and ignores any area of effect damage if he has not been attacked by an enemy's regular attack for 5 seconds.

• only regular attacks count;
  

Skill Explanation: One of my favourite skills, because it makes Nightmare unstoppable when he's not touched. Enemies always have to keep track of him, even if he's behind in strength.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[R] Allure of Darkness

Energy cost: 100/150/200

Cooldown: 85

Range: self

Nightmare is an adept of chaos and panic, thus making his enemies scream in fear. Releases a ring of darkness, which traps everyone in it and lasts [3/5/7] seconds. The trap disables regular attack for enemies and allies for the duration of the spell. If an enemy touches a border of the ring he gets stunned for 1.5 second; allies can move freely. Nightmare does not receive any limitations. Takes [1/0.75/0.5] second to cast.

• AOE radius of 6;
  
• takes time to cast, but after that can move freely and attack enemies;
  
• teleporting/blinking out of the ring will not trigger the stun;
  
• stuns the enemies entering from the outside, too;
  
• model: hard to tell, simple black ring would work.
  

Skill Explanation: The skill that puts everything together. A hard isolation mechanic, that debuffs allies too. Allies and enemies can still cast spells, so CC'ing Nightmare while he's in his ring is the best idea. Really good combination with his [E] passive, because he automatically gets the attack speed if no one from the outside focuses him. Also gives time to charge up his [W] souls and get the attack damage buff when combined with the [Q] blind effect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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FURTHER COMMENTS:

 

Combos

While in teamfights it is best to use the following, when you caught up with the enemy (perfect situation - 5 enemies): R -> Q -> W -> AA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last words and confessions

I am going to update this thread with the excel sheet and maybe recommendations on item choices. Comments and reviews would be nice. Especially on balance (don't criticize, but rather give better examples of the numbers that are not balanced), because that's my weak point (really lost track of AoS damage and attribute values, because I was a SotIS player...). Also any in-depth analysis of the design itself is hugely appreciated.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Simoneon

[Skydie]

Last time I visited your profile page was on 15th November 2012. Welcome back, and although I haven't read this suggestion fully there are some nice graphics here! Good work!

Edited November 17, 2013 by Skydie

[Simoneon]

That's not even correct, because I've been in the old SotIS forum as well. But hey, thanks! Be sure to comment on the hero himself :))))

[Moo]

Do play a certain children's card game which possesses a card with the name "Allure of Darkness"? Anyways, nice hero, the only problems I see is that he has no gap closer except his passive, which isn't a true gap closer. The skills synergize quite well.

[Soundwave]

My toughts :

Heroic passive: I like it, and helps the team too.

Q: I think it will be used only to save some time. What I mean by that is: enemies siegeing a tower, u put down the Regret in a good location and you won 5 seconds. I think radius could be a bit bigger or the duration could be longer cause I enemies wont be staying in the aura, so you can secure a certain location, but not for long.

W: I like the aspect of the full time channeling however it feels very similar to bio trons ulti, but it attacks random heroes and deals spell damage. I might missunderstand someting, but the souls can go only 4 units far? If yes than I feel like that is very small for me. If a melee hero comes to close he will get killed quickly (have to test it out if it is balanced or not) but ranged abilities might hurt this caracter too much.

E: So you get attack speed if ur not attacked . But you also mention gaining strength if they dont see you. How much do you get, for how long? Will you instantly lose it if the enemy sees you?

R: AAA. Well I like the concept but isnt it like 100% death for somebody who is dps hero and does not have teleport?

I like your hero you were very creative. :)

[Moo]

My toughts :

Heroic passive: I like it, and helps the team too.

Q: I think it will be used only to save some time. What I mean by that is: enemies siegeing a tower, u put down the Regret in a good location and you won 5 seconds. I think radius could be a bit bigger or the duration could be longer cause I enemies wont be staying in the aura, so you can secure a certain location, but not for long.

W: I like the aspect of the full time channeling however it feels very similar to bio trons ulti, but it attacks random heroes and deals spell damage. I might missunderstand someting, but the souls can go only 4 units far? If yes than I feel like that is very small for me. If a melee hero comes to close he will get killed quickly (have to test it out if it is balanced or not) but ranged abilities might hurt this caracter too much.

E: So you get attack speed if ur not attacked . But you also mention gaining strength if they dont see you. How much do you get, for how long? Will you instantly lose it if the enemy sees you?

R: AAA. Well I like the concept but isnt it like 100% death for somebody who is dps hero and does not have teleport?

I like your hero you were very creative. :)

The Q would be huge in zone control in teamfights also. The w does summon minions I don't think. It basically turns your hero into a turret that has X amount of ammo (the souls) for the duration if I am understanding it correctly.

 

Replace the "does" in my second sentence with "doesn't".

[Simoneon]

Do play a certain children's card game which possesses a card with the name "Allure of Darkness"? Anyways, nice hero, the only problems I see is that he has no gap closer except his passive, which isn't a true gap closer. The skills synergize quite well.

I'm not sure, an older member, named Wraith. came up with this name, props to him :)

Hm I considered a gap-closer at first, when I started making this hero, but I thought that so many heroes already have a hard gap-closer like teleports, blinks, etc. That's why I wanted something unorthodox.

My toughts :

Heroic passive: I like it, and helps the team too.

Q: I think it will be used only to save some time. What I mean by that is: enemies siegeing a tower, u put down the Regret in a good location and you won 5 seconds. I think radius could be a bit bigger or the duration could be longer cause I enemies wont be staying in the aura, so you can secure a certain location, but not for long.

You're right. Maybe something like "Lasts for 4/5/6/7 seconds"?

W: I like the aspect of the full time channeling however it feels very similar to bio trons ulti, but it attacks random heroes and deals spell damage. I might missunderstand someting, but the souls can go only 4 units far? If yes than I feel like that is very small for me. If a melee hero comes to close he will get killed quickly (have to test it out if it is balanced or not) but ranged abilities might hurt this caracter too much.

Hm, the ability basically makes you immobile for the duration and spawns little balls that follow and explode at the enemies. Yes, the searching range is 4, and that is pretty narrow, I agree. Although, this ability as well as [Q] was made with the purpose to be used together with the ultimate. However, when I think of it now, I really don't want them to be only functioning when an ultimate is cast... Will have to redo that. But what would be the best solution? Increasing the range, or maybe letting him move at a slow rate (still maintaining the channel concept of interruption with stuns)?

E: So you get attack speed if ur not attacked . But you also mention gaining strength if they dont see you. How much do you get, for how long? Will you instantly lose it if the enemy sees you?

Ah, that was just an artistic description, it has little to do with the gameplay... I will have to redo the description.

R: AAA. Well I like the concept but isnt it like 100% death for somebody who is dps hero and does not have teleport?

The purpose is to make the DPS'ers not functional for the duration. However I made countering this ability easy, and to me it looks underwhelming, because some DPS'ers have stuns and other CCs so it's easy to fire back. Ultimately it makes the team focus on defending their carries by splitting some of their CC on Nightmare when he attacks.

I like your hero you were very creative. :)

I like you for giving such details on my design. I appreciate your input very much, thank you! :)

The Q would be huge in zone control in teamfights also. The w does summon minions I don't think. It basically turns your hero into a turret that has X amount of ammo (the souls) for the duration if I am understanding it correctly.

 

Replace the "does" in my second sentence with "doesn't".

Yeah, it should serve this pretty well, but that's intended. The other purpose of it is to completely disable the ones caught in the ultimate.

The W, yes, you understood correctly. The ammo changes when you level up, but the duration is kept the same. That means that only the frequency at which you fire the souls out changes.

 

Thank you all!

Edited November 17, 2013 by Simoneon

[Figgonson]

Couple of questions about the mechanics -

 

Question 1: Does the w fire out orbs constantly during the channel ordoes it fire them all out at once in a burst effect thing? It seems like a burst effect would be too easy to counter with the amount of stuns in the game. Also, is he immobile during this channel? That would make it too easy to dodge imo.

 

Question 2: Is nightmare able to move during ulti or is he stationary? Also, is it possible to leave the ring as an enemy hero if you take the stun? Or will it be more like LZ's w ability where you can just drag them around in the ring.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Figgonson

[Simoneon]

Couple of questions about the mechanics -

 

Question 1: Does the w fire out orbs constantly during the channel ordoes it fire them all out at once in a burst effect thing? It seems like a burst effect would be too easy to counter with the amount of stuns in the game. Also, is he immobile during this channel? That would make it too easy to dodge imo.

 

Question 2: Is nightmare able to move during ulti or is he stationary? Also, is it possible to leave the ring as an enemy hero if you take the stun? Or will it be more like LZ's w ability where you can just drag them around in the ring.

Thanks for the reply :)

@1: It fires them at a frequency of one soul per 1.25/0.5/0.31/0.22 second. So the channel time is always 5 seconds, but the amount of souls differ. So yea, it's not a burst effect, if I understood you correctly. Yes, he's immobile, but I'm considering changing that to either a bigger range or giving him some movement speed during the channel.

@2: He takes some time to cast the ability and afterwards can move around as he want, can even go out of his ulti and run away, if he so desires. If an enemy receives the stun then he can leave the ring and no more stuns will occur to the same enemy. (works just like jacksons E, or veigar E from LOL)

[NoWaterJustIce]

I really like this hero, seems well thought out and fun to play. The only thing i could say is what moo already said and it seems like he might have a hard time closing the gap but that might just be part of what makes the hero challenging to play.

[Soundwave]

I'm not sure, an older member, named Wraith. came up with this name, props to him :)

Hm I considered a gap-closer at first, when I started making this hero, but I thought that so many heroes already have a hard gap-closer like teleports, blinks, etc. That's why I wanted something unorthodox.

 

You're right. Maybe something like "Lasts for 4/5/6/7 seconds"?

 

Hm, the ability basically makes you immobile for the duration and spawns little balls that follow and explode at the enemies. Yes, the searching range is 4, and that is pretty narrow, I agree. Although, this ability as well as [Q] was made with the purpose to be used together with the ultimate. However, when I think of it now, I really don't want them to be only functioning when an ultimate is cast... Will have to redo that. But what would be the best solution? Increasing the range, or maybe letting him move at a slow rate (still maintaining the channel concept of interruption with stuns)?

 

Ah, that was just an artistic description, it has little to do with the gameplay... I will have to redo the description.

 

The purpose is to make the DPS'ers not functional for the duration. However I made countering this ability easy, and to me it looks underwhelming, because some DPS'ers have stuns and other CCs so it's easy to fire back. Ultimately it makes the team focus on defending their carries by splitting some of their CC on Nightmare when he attacks.

I like you for giving such details on my design. I appreciate your input very much, thank you! :)

 

Yeah, it should serve this pretty well, but that's intended. The other purpose of it is to completely disable the ones caught in the ultimate.

The W, yes, you understood correctly. The ammo changes when you level up, but the duration is kept the same. That means that only the frequency at which you fire the souls out changes.

 

Thank you all!

Q: Yes it should lats around 7 seconds or 8 at level 4. OR you can increase the damage a bit to force enemy heroes more to go out of that smoke. I would suggest the first one.

W: I would increase the range because if an AGI without stun would be really hard countered, however if they have stun/pull or sg like that they would hard counter you. Increaseing the range to 5/6 would help you secure larger territory, would be safer for you because it has bigger range and would not hard counter AGI because there might be another hero in this circle so they would only recieve 50% of the damage and not 100%. This should be more balanced but Raynor, Maar or any other ranged hero could hard counter you, but if you have your team (and this caracter needs team support) you won't have much trouble.

Well you are wellcome. :) I like helping in designing. AAA 1 more thing. I don't understand why you write "he" in the descripton cause Lassara is a protoss girl :). Btw have you seen my Arkath design? :) I need to hear as many oppinions about his abilities as possible to make him more fun caracter. :)

Edited November 18, 2013 by Soundwave

[Simoneon]

I really like this hero, seems well thought out and fun to play. The only thing i could say is what moo already said and it seems like he might have a hard time closing the gap but that might just be part of what makes the hero challenging to play.

Thanks for the kind words :) Well, as I said, gap-closers are too mainstream

Q: Yes it should lats around 7 seconds or 8 at level 4. OR you can increase the damage a bit to force enemy heroes more to go out of that smoke. I would suggest the first one.

W: I would increase the range because if an AGI without stun would be really hard countered, however if they have stun/pull or sg like that they would hard counter you. Increaseing the range to 5/6 would help you secure larger territory, would be safer for you because it has bigger range and would not hard counter AGI because there might be another hero in this circle so they would only recieve 50% of the damage and not 100%. This should be more balanced but Raynor, Maar or any other ranged hero could hard counter you, but if you have your team (and this caracter needs team support) you won't have much trouble.

Well you are wellcome. :) I like helping in designing. AAA 1 more thing. I don't understand why you write "he" in the descripton cause Lassara is a protoss girl :). Btw have you seen my Arkath design? :) I need to hear as many oppinions about his abilities as possible to make him more fun caracter. :)

Done and done.

Uh, because I thought Nightmare is a "he", and at first the model was the Preserver, but I think it is used already so I had to find something from HotS, too.

I'll check him out as fast as I can and will give my in-depth analysis if the time lets me :)

[Moo]

I just remembered something, stun knife is in this game, so you need to buff the W hard, since it won't even get a chance to channel most of the time. That or you could rework it, or give him debuff immunity during the channel. If you don't do any of this, that ability won't do anything, since it will get 100% countered by an extremely popular 1650 mineral item that aa's get early into the game, so W would only work in your ulti and only for a little while until an aa gets outside of the circle.

[Lios]

I just remembered something, stun knife is in this game, so you need to buff the W hard, since it won't even get a chance to channel most of the time. That or you could rework it, or give him debuff immunity during the channel. If you don't do any of this, that ability won't do anything, since it will get 100% countered by an extremely popular 1650 mineral item that aa's get early into the game, so W would only work in your ulti and only for a little while until an aa gets outside of the circle.

 

*1550 mineral items

[Simoneon]

I just remembered something, stun knife is in this game, so you need to buff the W hard, since it won't even get a chance to channel most of the time. That or you could rework it, or give him debuff immunity during the channel. If you don't do any of this, that ability won't do anything, since it will get 100% countered by an extremely popular 1650 mineral item that aa's get early into the game, so W would only work in your ulti and only for a little while until an aa gets outside of the circle.

Ah, that seems like a problem. Well then, I hate that item, because it gives me the only choice of workaround - give him debuff immunity, but that makes the ability to be sort of a clone of the Q of Boros... (and that I really don't like)

Maybe I'll think of something that will solve this problem. Worst case scenario, I will completely rework this ability

[Moo]

 

Ah, that seems like a problem. Well then, I hate that item, because it gives me the only choice of workaround - give him debuff immunity, but that makes the ability to be sort of a clone of the Q of Boros... (and that I really don't like)

Maybe I'll think of something that will solve this problem. Worst case scenario, I will completely rework this ability

Its very dissimilar to boros' q, since boros move and do other things while this hero just stays in one spot shooting souls, and you aren't immune to spell damage either.

[Lios]

How about just let the soul go around Nightmare, they will hurt anything in their radius by touching them, means the less creeps there is the more damage heroes will take.

[Simoneon]

How about just let the soul go around Nightmare, they will hurt anything in their radius by touching them, means the less creeps there is the more damage heroes will take.

Oh that's a great idea, indeed! Thank you.

But wouldn't that take out the skill? You would only need to press W to just get a soul on yourself? Argh this aspect really bugs me.

Oh and how about making a mechanic that would let Nightmare to stack multiple souls to travel around him? Hm, nice thoughts, I will have to think about them!