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Ras'Egat, the Sound of Death

sneezing slug·12/14/2017, 6:59:36 AM·8 votes·1,551 views

https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/starcraft/images/0/05/Viper_SC2-HotS_Art1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140512023726

Art by Mr--Jack

"It began with the humming."

A Noxian footsoldier hurks a spat of blood across the white bandages coaxing a majority of his body. The reporter flinches, the nurses remain unfazed; they have seen far worse.

"Our battalion was stationed at Fort Rize- Just north from the barrier... Nothing special. Keeping our eyes on the frontier. Maintaining a grip on the toll roads.."

The grunt clenches his remaining eye shut, his face strained with an agony that surpasses the physical. It is the face of trauma. The face of one who has gone toe to toe with death herself and breathed again. His eye pries open as he continues his account.

"Towards the end of midday, men at the wall heard a faint noise. They said it was a low hum- distant and far out. We called them crazy. Minutes passed, and we all began hearing it. In the moment, everything else died out in silence. The hum deafened all else."

The soldier gulped. He was well decorated beneath his bindings in both irons and scars; He had served several tours- a seasoned veteran of the Noxian war machine who had fought countless battles, witnessed the razing of Rottholm and stormed the beaches of Ionia. And in his eye was terror: pure and unfeigned.

"And then we saw it," he raised his cast to gesture outward, envisioning the moments before, "a cloud, beyond the battlements and between the peeks of the barrier, a cloud denser than Zaunite smog and darker than the shadow of a demon. Our jaws hung and our eyes glued to its abysmal mass. We stood there petrified until we noticed it grow larger, and the quiet hum was no longer quiet or a hum, but the thunderous beating of ten million wings."

The reporter docked down every word as the warrior relived the adrenaline. He took deep breaths between each of his sentences, describing the scene in gruesome, vulgar detail. An endless brood of flesh eating bugs cut down the herd in seconds- not even bone remained for some. "I don't know how I lived, if we're being honest. I was a dead man. I should be mixed in with the bloodstained soil." His eye stoops its glance, observing his lack of an entire bottom half- legs and torso completely dissipated by the chittering swarm.

"The last thing I remember was a figure amidst the black mass; it was larger than the others and they almost seemed to be circling around it- buzzing ceaselessly and without pause. I only got a glimpse of it as I swung my head around mid escape. I hope I never see something like it again."

#Stats

|Base Stats----------------------------------------------|Growth per/level| |- |Health: 500| +65.5| |Mana: 250| +55| |AD: 61| +4| |AP: 0| +0| |HP/5: 3.55| +0.8| |MP/5: 7.5| +2| |Range: 475| +0| |AS: 0.585| +2%| |Armor: 35.21| +1.5| |Magic Resist: 30| +0| |Movement Speed: 335| +0

|Base Stats----------------------------------------------|Stats @ 18| |- |Health: 500| 1613.5| |Mana: 250| 1185| |AD: 66| 129| |AP: 0| 0| |HP/5: 3.55| 13.6| |MP/5: 7.5| 18.6| |Range: 475| 475| |AS: 0.585| 0.838| |Armor: 35.21| 60.71| |Magic Resist: 30| 30| |Movement Speed: 335| 335|

#Abilities

#Passive: Essence Extractor http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/1/11/Underlord_atrophy_aura.png

Ras'Egat can basic attack friendly minions and Locusts, returning 50% of damage dealt as health and 50% of damage dealt as mana over 3 seconds. These attacks cannot kill friendly minions and Locusts, only reducing their health to 1. If Ras'Egat attacks a friendly minion Locust at 1 health, tit does not replenish health nor mana.

#Q: Hatch Locust https://d1u5p3l4wpay3k.cloudfront.net/dota2_gamepedia/thumb/4/4b/Agaric_Flourish_Leech_Seed_icon.png/128px-Agaric_Flourish_Leech_Seed_icon.png?version=0225709ee1e13a2e3f69081f2cc91e50 Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 Mana Cooldown: 11/10.5/10/9.5/9 seconds Skillshot Length: 900 units Skillshot Width: 220 units Skillshot Speed: 1200 AOE Radius: 300 units Locust Attack Damage: 30/40/50/60/70 (+10% AP) Locust Attack Range: 450 Locust Attack Speed: 0.838 Locust Health: 100/125/150/175/200 Locust Movement Speed: 400

Ras'Egat launches a Locust egg at the target location, dealing 55/75/95/115/135 magic damage (+20/30/40/50/60% AP) in a small area on arrival or upon colliding with the first enemy hit and summoning a Locust that lasts for 10 seconds. Whenever you kill a unit, the lifetime of active Locusts is increased by 1.5 seconds.

#W: Black Cloud http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/1/1d/Riki_smoke_screen.png Cost: 70/90/110/130/150 Mana Cooldown: 17/15/13/11/9 seconds Casting Range: 800 units AOE Radius: 450/500/550/600/650

Ras'Egat summons a blinding fog in the target area for 4/4.25/4.5/4.75/5 seconds, blinding all enemy champions inside of it. As long as Ras'Egat is standing in the cloud, the cloud lasts indefinitely.

Locusts gain an additional 30%/35%/40%/45%/50% attack speed while inside the fog.

#E: Locust Swarm http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/5/51/Night_stalker_crippling_fear.png Cost: 90/100/110/120/130 Mana Cooldown: 15/13/11/9/7 seconds Casting Range: 750 units AOE Radius: **500/550/600/650/700 ** AOE Speed: 200

Ras'Egat summons a locust swarm for 5 seconds, dealing 15/25/35/45/55 (+5/10/15/20/30% AP) magic damage to each enemy within the cloud every 0.5 seconds. This ability can be re-activated any number of times while the AOE is still up to move it to the target area. Whenever Locust Swarm kills an enemy, it increases its duration by 1 second.

#R: Entangling Tongue http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/7/76/Dark_willow_cursed_crown.png Cost: 100/120/150 Mana Cooldown: 100/80/60 seconds Skillshot Length: 500-1500 units Skillshot Width: 300 units Skillshot Speed: 1500

Ras'Egat winds up for up to 5 seconds, launching his tongue forward and entangling it around all enemies hit, dealing 100/150/200 (+50/60/70% AP) magic damage and revealing them while his tongue is wrapped around them in a giant chain link in order of which was hit by the tongue first. They remain entangled for the the next 4 seconds.

Entangling Tongue can be reactivated once to pull all entangled enemies to Ras'Egat's location, immobilizing Ras'Egat until all enemies have been pulled.

That's all folks! Remember, feedback, critiques, suggestions and reviews are greatly appreciated!

15 Comments

Warlord Scrap12/14/2017, 8:16:02 AM2 votes

2 problems making this champ way 2 broken although 1 might be a misunderstanding his passive and q.
His passive needs a cooldown or else you could just basic attack all of you minions and actually perma freeze under tower and completely starve your lane opponent woth absolutely zero skill required. This would both be boring to lane against and broken because your lane opponent would never be able to do anything. Maybe start at 30 seconds so you could only use it once a wave and eventually scale to like 1 sec at 18.

Also for the q is the increase in duration when q kills a unit or just any unit death in general. If its the latter late game the locust would stay around for over 10 minutes. Even with just q kills counting 3 seconds seems a bit too high maybe 1 sec every couple of q kills.

I really like the duration of abilities scaling as you use them and the passive i just think they seem a bit too broken in your current iteration.

Timethief4912/14/2017, 2:12:11 PM1 votes

Isnt the picture just stolen fanart of a viper in Starcraft`?

sneezing slug12/14/2017, 6:30:27 PM1 votes

Added art credit.

CrazyBigfoot2812/14/2017, 7:43:42 PM1 votes

I just want another void champ soooooooooooo bad

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO12/14/2017, 8:38:39 PM1 votes

That attacking minions stuff seems crazy op. Imagine walking to the lane with minions and attacking them as you go. Crazy way to give your add a bunch of free farm under tower.

Nate GG12/18/2017, 8:50:11 PM1 votes

Can he move and cast over abilities during the 4 seconds that champs are entangled in his ult? Also what exactly do you mean by entangled? Are they rooted? Stunned? Can they move freely but can still be pulled back at any time? Is there a way to get out of the tongue once entangled?

Also the artwork for the abilities are awesome!

sneezing slug12/14/2017, 7:04:19 AM1 votes

The formatting is a bit bugged and I can't currently edit it out. It'll be fixed by morning. Sorry for the inconvenience!

ClownFury171/20/2018, 1:47:28 AM1 votes

I'm first gonna say that this champion looks really cool and fun to play. I love the idea of a void swarm-master whose swarm is his children, and the draw from the sky-blackening locust swarms of the real world is excellent. I've got a few questions and comments on him though.

First, where were you planning to have this guy play, for the most part? To me he seems like a mid lane mage who would bully lanes very hard and then fall off into the mid and late game, but I'd like to see what your initial intent was with his lane and play style since you didn't really mention it at all in your post.

Passive: For his passive, I really like the idea of him being able to steal his own minion's and locusts life energy, but it seems like it would be incredibly annoying to play against, especially if it doesn't have an internal cooldown, which it currently doesn't appear to. The sustain you could get from it alone would be hard to counter, especially since so much of it is mana sustain. For an in-game example, Cho'Gath at level 1 gets 20 HP and 3.5 Mana back from successfully last-hitting one minion, and his sustain is pretty significant. Ras'Egat, on the other hand, can simply auto-attack one of his own minions at any time and regenerate about 30 HP and the same amount of mana. You notice that that is about 50% more HP than Cho and nearly 10 times as much mana, all without actually needing to have proper cs skills. More irritatingly for the opponent, however, is the fact that you can mess up the timing of their cs'ing, and that timing is absolutely crucial for enemy mages especially. Obviously it doesn't prevent the enemy from being able to cs, but it does make their cs'ing much harder. And since it will ultimately cause the enemy minion wave to push and Ras'Egat's waveclear will be very strong and reliable thanks to his E, there isn't much counterplay if you are skilled with Ras'Egat other than attempting to trade (and failing to meaningfully do so because Ras gets so much passive sustain). So, overall, this passive allows you incredible sustain while also allowing you to essentially deny CS against the majority of champions who you would end up laning against. I think that it is a bit too strong, and probably the least well balanced part of the champion. I really like the concept though. I think lowering the percent of damage-to-mana would help balance it a bit, as well as giving it some sort of internal cooldown, or maybe putting it on a charge system to prevent him from auto-attacking his wave and infinitely healing while his locusts and his E kill his enemy for him.

Q: The ability itself, not counting the locusts, seems pretty simple. It makes for a nice poke tool, and could assist with long distance last-hitting, especially since it has a small AOE. I also really like the image of him spitting an egg at someone, and then the egg hatching when it arrives. I only have a few potential issues with the locusts, and one is really an issue with the fact that Ras'Egat can use them with his passive, and I have already mentioned that I think his passive is overly strong. The first issue is that the locusts are ranged, which makes them the only ranged pets that can move. Now, that by itself isn't really an issue, but might mean that their numbers need to be tuned down to keep them from being oppressive, especially since they can last so long if you farm efficiently while they are out (though I think their duration extension from killing things is a great application of the whole "I steal and eat your life essence" theme from the passive). The second issue is their damage, which isn't really that much of an issue since the numbers themselves can always be changed, but currently at rank 1 (and with Ras'Egat at level 1) they have twice as much base damage as Malzahar's voidlings do at level 1 with rank 1 in his w, not to mention .17 or so more attack speed and ranged attacks (see the first issue). This would make for some very potent level 1 harass, which paired with his passive's incredible level 1 sustain would make for a terrifyingly powerful first few levels. In addition, you currently have the locusts dealing physical damage, which is unique among mage pets and might end up making his mixed damage a little too strong. Finally, the locusts should have less HP than twice the cost of the ability -- in other words, Ras'Egat should not be able to use Q and then auto his locust down to 1 HP and regenerate all of the mana used in the casting of his Q. That way he has to expend some resource for the healing, and that is not how it would currently work for him. Overall I like the ability though, I just think the raw numbers need a bit of tuning. One other question that I have about the locusts is how do they prioritize targets?

W: This ability is really interesting, and reminds me a lot of Grave's smokescreen, albeit without the damage. It seems polarizing though. The AOE is fairly large, and I like the idea that its size scales with level since that's not really a mechanic that anyone else has (as far as I'm aware). The biggest issue is its duration, particularly the fact that standing in the cloud can make it never go away. This would be very powerful in teamfights, since so many champions rely on auto attacks for damage -- it would almost completely counter Yasuo, for instance. It would also be overly strong against melee champions in lane, since you could just drop it on your own wave and then stand in it and they would miss a lot of farm, particularly if you are attacking your own minions to make them die before they would be able to push out of the cloud. Yes the enemy could use abilities to last hit, but that forces them to choose either spending their resources on farming or trying to trade to punish you for staying in the cloud -- but again, with Ras'Egat's passive, trading against him is mostly ineffective. But once again, for the most part I like the ability, I just think that the duration extension for being in it is too much. As a side note, the locust attack speed steroid means that the cloud is useful even when your opponent is purely a caster, which I appreciate. It makes the ability feel less bad to have in matchups where its main effect isn't as useful.

E: Like I said about the W ability, I really like the AOE getting bigger with levels. Other than tuning numbers to balance it out a little (at the moment I actually think its numbers are too small, they are lower than Cassiopeia's W and that isn't really even supposed to be a strong damaging ability) I think this ability is pretty good. I also really like that you can command it to move, that is very unique and only seen otherwise on Viktor's ult. It might end up a little strong in combination with Rylai's, but I think that's fine. The only potential issue I can see is again the duration extender, which means that later in the game you will be able to clear the whole wave with just this ability since it gets 2 extra tics for every minion it kills. But mages should have decent waveclear and this is Ras'Egat's only good waveclear ability, so again I think it's pretty good.

R: This ult, while visually and conceptually very cool, raises a lot of questions. For example, while Ras'Egat is winding up, is he able to move or cast other abilities? Is it a channel like Fiddle's ult, meaning it could be interrupted? Once he's cast it, and has snared enemies, can he move then or cast other abilities then? What if he moves far enough that the last snared enemy is out of the normal ult range -- would that enemy be freed early? Since the tongue is chained between targets, could the targets attack the tongue to sever the link and free themselves? If a snared unit has tenacity and gets free early, does that break the chain? The description is wonderful, but without knowing its interactions with other mechanics it is hard to say how good it would actually be. The only thing I can say for sure about it is a snare of 4 seconds is probably too long -- that's 33% more than a Morgana snare, and those feel simply terrible to get hit by.

Thematically, I think you hit the mark pretty well. This champion would certainly feel like a locust swarm king to play with. However, you didn't incorporate anything based on the humming with the abilities, despite the focus on the sound in the little lore story and the fact that his epithet is "The Sound of Death." I think something based on sound would be welcome in his kit, although I'm not exactly sure where it would fit best mechanically.

Overall, I think Ras'Egat would look cool and feel good to play, but be oppressively difficult to play against early game in the hands of a reasonably competent player and so would feel very bad and unfun to play against.

I hope you find this helpful! I'm just getting into champion concept design myself, so I've been trying to think more critically about kit design and the potential effects it could have on the game. But I'm new at this, so I'd appreciate if you let me know what you think of these critiques! And good luck with the judges in the CCOS!