Everyone else is doing it, so will I. The Guildford Strangler's first serious Demigod idea. The Shamaness.

from Demigod Forums

I'll skip the introduction here, it's really not needed. I had some ideas, and figured it's time to let them out. Sure, the chances of them being utilized are fairly small, but it's better then keeping them pent up forever.

Inspiration and appearance:

This demigod's premise, in terms of combat abilities, were inspired by the Guilty Gear character 'A.B.A,' seen below.

Anyway, onto the actual Demigod. For now, I'll just call her the Shamaness.

Here's a quick drawing I did a while back that basicly sums up the general idea of the appearance. It was a really rushed sketch done on a bus, so please forget the crappy quality of the drawing. If anyone wants, I can draw another one that isn't as bad. Also, if the idea of this character catches on, I'll draw up my idea of the actual Demigod itself:

In the case of this character, the Demigod is actually not the Shamaness, but the sword. The Shamaness only acts as conduit for its power. The Demigod himself had his physical form sealed into a sword, and now requires a medium to manifest its powers. Or some crap like that. I'm a good writer, trust me, but gameplay's more important.

 

Anyway, here's the basic idea:

She focuses on two forms. Standard and possessed. In standard form, she is overall fairly weak. She has some decent support skills, but doesn't have the raw power to have much impact. However, by releasing the power of the sword through a ritual(skill), she can give the Demigod a physical form for a limited amount of time(transforming the Shamaness into the actual Demigod). During this period, the Demigod's attack power, speed, and movement speed increase to very high levels, however, he must sacrifice health in order to attack(to represent the strain it causes on his physical form). By using a ritual to transform back into normal form before the time limit runs out, however, the Shamaness can regain much of the health lost.

Statistics and skills:

Assassin

The Shamaness has fairly average stats across the bored, with low attack speed and attack power, and high mana and mana regen. Short of her attacking abilities and mana pool, she's not weak or strong in any area. In order to explain her armour, remember that the Shaman herself is immortal so long as the sword is alive, and thus, so long as the sword is not broken, the Shaman cannot die.

What makes the Shamaness unique, however, are her skills. She has 7 active skills, similar to Queen of Thorns and Torch Bearer.

Active Skills:

Ritual of blades(4th slot): 3 second cast time, 0 mana cost, 15 second recast. The Shamaness/Demigod performs a ritual to transform itself into its alternate form. The Demigod has greatly increased attack damage, attack speed, and movement speed, but sacrifices health whenever it attacks. The Demigod also has a seperate active skillset. When this skill is used to return to the Shamaness form, she recovers 80% of the health sacrificed while in Demigod form. Any enemies within 5m of the Shamaness/Demigod during this skill's activation take 200 damage and are slowed by 10% for 2 seconds. When alternating between forms, all buff spells casted on the Shamaness/Demigod are removed. This skill cannot be interrupted, but it can be cancelled or stunned.

Dancing Swords(Shamaness): Toggle, uses up 125/175/225/275 mana per second while active, costs 300 mana to activate, 7 second recast. The Shamaness assumes a trance begins dancing in ritualistic fashion. While dancing, the Shamaness moves 30% slower. Attacking, using skills or items, being interrupted, or being stunned will end this skill. Any allies within 15m of the Shamaness do 10/15/20/25% more damage with their normal attacks. This ability does not affect the caster.

Dancing Shields(Shamaness): Toggle, uses up 125/200/275/350 mana per second while active, costs 400 mana to activate, 7 second recast. The Shamaness begins dancing in a ritualistic fashion. While dancing, the Shamaness moves 30% slower. Attacking, using skills or items, being interrupted, or being stunned will end this skill. Any allies withing 15m of the Shamaness regain 100/200/300/400 health per second, and have 10/15/20/25% higher mana regen(from base). This ability does not affect the caster.

Blood Ritual(Shamaness): Toggle, uses up 125 mana per second while active, costs 150 mana to activate, 7 second recast. The Shamaness begins dancing in a ritualistic fashion. While dancing, the Shamaness moves 30% slower. Attacking, using skills or items, being interrupted, or being stunned will end this skill. The Shamaness loses 75/150/225/300 health per second. All enemies within 10m of the Shamaness lose health equal to that that the Shamaness loses through this skill(Bulwark of the Ages reduces the damage that the Shamaness inflicts upon herself, and thus, the damage enemies recieve).

Sword Crush(Demigod): Costs 200/300/400/500 mana, instant, 10 second recastt. The Demigod leaps at his target and slams his sword into the ground, dealing 500/800/1100/1400 damage to a single target. The Demigod recieves 30% of the damage caused by this attack(even if it misses). This damage is counted when The Demigod changes forms.

Pheonix Strike(Demigod): Costs 300/400/500 mana, instant, 12 second recast. The Demigod ignites himself and the area around him, causing 400/600/800 damage to any enemies within 7m of himself, and sending smaller enemies flying. The Demigod loses 50/100/150 health per second for 4 seconds after using this skill. This damage cannot be recovered by switching forms.

Counter(Demigod): Costs 300 mana, instant, no recast time. If this skill hits an enemy demigod casting a skill, they are stunned for 1/2.5/4 seconds, If this skill hits an enemy who is not casting a skill, then it does 100 damage, and has a 18 second recast time.

 

Passive Skills:

Rhythm: While using dance skills, the Shamaness' movement speed is reduced by only 20/10/0%.

Ritual Master: When the Demigod reverts to the Shamaness, he regains 90/100/110/120% health instead. Also, the damage caused by ritual of blades is increased to 300/400/500.

Inherent strengths:

Ability to switch forms, allowing versatile builds.

Shamaness form allows for great support and AoE damage.

Demigod form allows for very high damage output with fast movement.

Inherent weaknesses:

Ability to switch forms limits abilities.

Lacks any reliable self heal.

Deals damage to self in Demigod form.

Thoughts?

2,015 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Demigod Forums Top

i think you have too many activatible abilities, if you swap stances  you only have 6 spells you can use.

and which stance can u use each spell in?

 

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

Sounds pretty awesome (I love the idea that the DG is the sword, trying to manifest itself), but the DG stance worries me. I think it'll get ppl killed really fast if a DG is stomping on them, and they also lose health because of the possession. You could make them totally awesome with dmg output in that form, but they the whole forum will be full of NERF!!one threads.

 

Good idea, still needs some finetuning. I'm looking forward to other posts in this thread.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

Skills:

Dance of blades: Crap. An ability that can be interrupted easily and gives horrible damage bonuses and keeps the caster out of the battle? Hell, even UB's rage is considered a horrible ability, and at max level it gives 65% increased damage and immunity to slow. My idea... I don't know, multiply the upgrade by 5 and it might be useful, though since she has so few good offensive options in any of her forms, this might just get better DPS.

Dance of the shields: Overpowered. Even if it's easily interruptable and she is slow, 400 health per second to her allies is an absurd amount... if she just stands in the FoW and casts it, her allies will benefit a ton. Maybe, just maybe, if it could be interrupted by being attacked, it would be useful. Basically.... this turns her into an on/off Heart of Life for everybody on her team, except she heals even faster! You slap an Oak shield on her and everybody on the team is healing faster than at the health crystal. Needs a serious nerf in either interruptability, recharge, or healing.

Blood Ritual: A skill that costs a ton of life in order to deal that damage to enemies with higher health than the shamaness? Underwhelming. I really don't have any way I could tweak it to be useful; taking damage to deal damage is bad when you can't attack but can be attacked and have a lower life pool than anybody else anyway. It could be useful with life stakcing, but that's it (and UB does that better.)

Sword Crush: A cheap move with bad damage and a long cooldown. As far as spike moves go, this is possibly worse than Pounce, because Pounce can get more DPS, interrupts, and doesn't hurt the caster. It's an interesting idea.... but taking 420 damage to use a skill with a longer recharge time than every other demigods spike move that does barely more damage than most of them per cast is not. My idea: Lower the damage on level 1 (500 at first is way too high; most skills have 200-350 damage), keep the cooldown at 10 seconds, but make it deal a lot more damage. Something like 400/800/1200/1800, if not more. Since it has no special effects besides hurting you, there is no reason not to pump up the damage.

Phoenix Strike: A bad AoE move with a mediocre recharge time that causes damage to you, and has a pretty bad range. And honestly, since when do Phoenixes burn themselves? Make it give a beneficial aura to allies and deal more damage. Something like 400/800/1200 with a + 10%/15%/20% movement speed and debuff cleansing aura (at level 3) for allies (with the -health aura for you) for a while (possibly increase the duration of the aura, but decrease the HP/s cost). It needs... something to be unique from other AoE attacks, honestly.

Counter: Pretty much the only reason this demigod is is useful... an instant skill that basically negates the use of ANY abilities, at all. I really don't see any way of tweaking this to make the skill not seem incredibly cheesy.

 

Also, instant casts are not used on any demigod skills; they always use .1 cast time, isntants are reserved for consumables.

 

Reply #4 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Milskidasith, reply 3
Skills:

Dance of blades: Crap. An ability that can be interrupted easily and gives horrible damage bonuses and keeps the caster out of the battle? Hell, even UB's rage is considered a horrible ability, and at max level it gives 65% increased damage and immunity to slow. My idea... I don't know, multiply the upgrade by 5 and it might be useful, though since she has so few good offensive options in any of her forms, this might just get better DPS.

Dance of the shields: Overpowered. Even if it's easily interruptable and she is slow, 400 health per second to her allies is an absurd amount... if she just stands in the FoW and casts it, her allies will benefit a ton. Maybe, just maybe, if it could be interrupted by being attacked, it would be useful. Basically.... this turns her into an on/off Heart of Life for everybody on her team, except she heals even faster! You slap an Oak shield on her and everybody on the team is healing faster than at the health crystal. Needs a serious nerf in either interruptability, recharge, or healing.

Duly noted.

Blood Ritual: A skill that costs a ton of life in order to deal that damage to enemies with higher health than the shamaness? Underwhelming. I really don't have any way I could tweak it to be useful; taking damage to deal damage is bad when you can't attack but can be attacked and have a lower life pool than anybody else anyway. It could be useful with life stakcing, but that's it (and UB does that better.)

It's an anti creep skill. Against other demigods, it would be very weak for obvious reasons. Perhaps reduce the HP lost while keeping the damage? or reduce enemy movement speed within the radius?

Sword Crush: A cheap move with bad damage and a long cooldown. As far as spike moves go, this is possibly worse than Pounce, because Pounce can get more DPS, interrupts, and doesn't hurt the caster. It's an interesting idea.... but taking 420 damage to use a skill with a longer recharge time than every other demigods spike move that does barely more damage than most of them per cast is not. My idea: Lower the damage on level 1 (500 at first is way too high; most skills have 200-350 damage), keep the cooldown at 10 seconds, but make it deal a lot more damage. Something like 400/800/1200/1800, if not more. Since it has no special effects besides hurting you, there is no reason not to pump up the damage.

Noted.

Phoenix Strike: A bad AoE move with a mediocre recharge time that causes damage to you, and has a pretty bad range. And honestly, since when do Phoenixes burn themselves? Make it give a beneficial aura to allies and deal more damage. Something like 400/800/1200 with a + 10%/15%/20% movement speed and debuff cleansing aura (at level 3) for allies (with the -health aura for you) for a while (possibly increase the duration of the aura, but decrease the HP/s cost). It needs... something to be unique from other AoE attacks, honestly.

That seems a little powerful though...

Counter: Pretty much the only reason this demigod is is useful... an instant skill that basically negates the use of ANY abilities, at all. I really don't see any way of tweaking this to make the skill not seem incredibly cheesy.

Also, instant casts are not used on any demigod skills; they always use .1 cast time, isntants are reserved for consumables.



The long recharge time if it misses is to stop the skill from being spammed. Also, since the game runs at 350ms anyway, the chances of actually hitting on a .1 cast skill would be stupidly small anyway.

Thank you for the skill opinions, I'll fix it when I have time.

 

Also, Stacked, each form has 3 skills, just like TB and QoT do. They do fine. Also, the form for each spell is noted in parenthesis.

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

I think that a speed debuff for enemies while using blood ritual would be useful (although, with the current setup, Phoenix strictly dominates it because it kills all creeps up to priests even at level one with the knockback and the damage taken is less).

Also, you can't spam counter, but with a skill that fast, you can also always counter enemy skills (that are slow) with it (as long as you have it out, which shouldn't be hard since your only spike skill is an instant as well, so you aren't ever at risk of being interrupted and you never need to be doing anything besides that and AAing.)

 

While yes, it would be pretty much impossible to interrupt .1 skills, it still allows him, as one demigod, to force an entire enemy team of 3 DGs to go without any slow skills. In a big battle, that ability is insane.

An idea I had would be to make it a buff on him/her (is the sword male or female? I know the shamaness is female.) instead of an attack. Basically, if you cast counter (which has a distinctive animation, or maybe changes your stance while active) if you get HIT with a skill within 3 seconds, you stun the enemy and deal damage (but it always has a cooldown even if you counter). That way, you can still shut down the enemies skills, but you can't do it consistently against multiple enemies.

Reply #6 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Milskidasith, reply 5
I think that a speed debuff for enemies while using blood ritual would be useful (although, with the current setup, Phoenix strictly dominates it because it kills all creeps up to priests even at level one with the knockback and the damage taken is less).

So blood ritual would need to be rethought considerably.

Also, you can't spam counter, but with a skill that fast, you can also always counter enemy skills (that are slow) with it (as long as you have it out, which shouldn't be hard since your only spike skill is an instant as well, so you aren't ever at risk of being interrupted and you never need to be doing anything besides that and AAing.)

While yes, it would be pretty much impossible to interrupt .1 skills, it still allows him, as one demigod, to force an entire enemy team of 3 DGs to go without any slow skills. In a big battle, that ability is insane.

So the skill needs a recovery no matter what.

An idea I had would be to make it a buff on him/her (is the sword male or female? I know the shamaness is female.)

Depends what gender I feel like drawing it as when I get around to drawing it. Right now, I'm thinking of making it a female deity. With the exception of Sedna and QoT... and whatever the hell UB is..., it's a bit of a sausage fest. Not to mention women are more of a challange to draw then men, and I really need to work on that.

instead of an attack. Basically, if you cast counter (which has a distinctive animation, or maybe changes your stance while active) if you get HIT with a skill within 3 seconds, you stun the enemy and deal damage (but it always has a cooldown even if you counter). That way, you can still shut down the enemies skills, but you can't do it consistently against multiple enemies.

That was the original idea, but the idea was that it would be used to stop careless support skills as well(and punish teleportation scrolls). Likewise, ranged skills that hit the Demigod would be kind of hard to deal with.

Reply #7 from Demigod Forums Top

sounds cool. needs tweaking. 

 

3 different "dances" is a bit repetitive. slightly more varied play for the Shamaness form would be good. the Dance of Shields seems like it has the best potential, after some rebalancing. the other two seem a bit boring. Blood Ritual just comes across as a strictly worse Ooze. sure it deals more damage, but at extravagant cost to self. Dance of Blades as an offensive buffing ability has better potential but needs to be more effective and less bland. 

 

i have a suggestion for Dance of Blades. I won't spell it out explicitly because you might not like my version and I don't wanna spoil the fun you're having coming up with this stuff on your own, so i'll just communicate the broad idea. i would love to see a version of this skill that summons swords in an area around the Shamaness that slash at enemies causing a Penitence like effect (direct damage and a vulnerability debuff). 

 

the Demigod form skills I think are alot better. Sword Crush seems like a great idea if done properly. the numbers need tweaking obviously. what i'm imagining is something a bit like a Charge or Leap Attack type of skills that instantly closes gaps while delivering a strong attack. thats always cool and something missing in the game now. closest thing to it would be Bat Swarm i guess. would be good if you could clarify the details of how this works. is it DG targetted or ground targetted? what's its range?

 

Phoenix Strike seems fine. a somewhat bland if functional and necessary creep blasting skill.

Counter is a great idea but needs to be carefully balanced.