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The Hive Queen -- Champion Concept (V1.0)

Elite4Runner·9/7/2016, 12:40:22 AM·3 votes·696 views

There have already been several changes suggested in the comments. I will be releasing a V1.1, or depending on how extensive the changes turn out to be, a V2.0, here pretty soon.

PASSIVE: Dormancy -- Eggs will pause incubation when the Queen or an immediate threat to themselves or their queen are not within 300 units. Call to Swarm -- Incubation is significantly decreased when the Queen is within 150 units.

  • Neutral units who are not aggressive will not trigger incubation
  • Enemy units who do not have vision of the egg will not trigger incubation
  • Dormant eggs will remain indefinitely, or until destroyed (may place a maximum dormant egg cap)

Q: Biters -- Active: Places a Biter's Egg up to 600 units away Biters I imagine these would look very similar to Malzahar's Voidlings Primary assault unit. Lowest mana cost, shortest cooldown and incubation time, lowest health, no health regeneration, increased movement speed. Melee attack range with base physical damage scales by rank + Bonus AD scaling.

Hatch behavior -- The biter will attack the nearest target within vision based on priority or rush to the nearest lane.

W: Guardians -- Active: Places a Guardian's Egg up to 600 units away Guardians I imagine these would looks somewhat like Krug Defense unit. Largest mana cost, longest cooldown and incubation time. Health regeneration, Large base health + bonus health scaling (possibly damage reduction, depending on balance). The Guardian's melee attack physical damage increases based on % missing host's health.

Hatch behavior -- A hatched Guardian will attach to the Queen or Chrysalis (Prioritizing Queen over Chrysalis) within 1000 units. Only one Guardian may attach to each host. An unattached Guardian will chase it's attacker up to 500 units from where it hatched, then will return to it's origin, much like how a jungle camp resets. It's health will decay until it is able to attach to a host or until it dies. The Guardian will move to and attempt to remain within 300 units of it's host. The Guardian will attempt to remain directly between their host and the highest, then nearest threat based on priority within vision up to 1000 units. The Guardian will not chase or attack any unit other than the highest priority threat within 300 units of it's host. Guardians do attack independently of the Queen, but will cancel their attack animation if the Queen moves more than 300 units away.

E: Stingers -- Active: Places a Stinger's Egg up to 600 units away Stingers I imagine these would look a lot like flying bees or wasps Support unit. Medium mana cost, medium cooldown and incubation time. Low health regeneration, medium-low health. Stingers have ranged magic attacks scale by rank and AP, as well as slow targets that scale by rank. Attack speed scales on bonus attack speed.

Hatch behavior -- A hatched Stinger will attach to a Queen (will not attach to a Chrysalis) within 300 units, up to a maximum of 2 per host. Unattached Stingers will remain in place, granting vision to the surrounding area like a stealth ward with 800 range instead of 1100. They will automatically attack enemies who are within their attack range (800 units) who have attacked it or allied units, but will still remain in place. Attached Stingers will also attempt to remain within 300 units of the Queen, but will generally position themselves behind the queen to one side or the other (one on each side when two are attached). Stingers will prioritize attacks on the highest, then nearest threat based on priority within vision up to 800 units of the Queen. Stingers have their own attack animation, but will not cancel their attack animation.

R: Chrysalis -- Active: Places a Chrysalis up to 600 units away. While a Chrysalis is on the map, this ability will change to Rebirth. Rebirth -- Active: The Queen's current body will die and reemerge from the Chrysalis with the same health. Units that were attached to the previous Queen will be abandoned and behave as unattached. If a Guardian was previously attached to the Chrysalis, it will automatically become attached to the Queen.

Target Priority

  • Enemy Champions
  • Enemy Pets
  • Aggro'd Monsters (Epic, Large, Small)
  • Minions
  • Enemy Structures

General Overview So If you've actually read the abilities to now, you can tell that this is essentially a pet master, to the extreme. The Queen is very much intended to be very insect-like, alien, void spawn, or demonic. As such, it could have the traditional void-spawn name like Maw'Vex or something along those lines. I'm not good at making up names (You can tell) so I'm going to just leave it at The Hive Queen for now. If you want to recommend a good name I would be happy to consider it. I could see this champion being very strong as a Jungler, but I would like them to be viable in lane as well.

Egg/Pet overview Biters -- My thoughts for these pets is that they are meant to be very weak and easy to kill individually, but when sprung on an enemy, among minions, or in a large swarm, they will be overwhelming. I would expect these to be the main damage source along with auto attacks for AD builds. Guardians -- These are meant to be resilient shields that will need to be put down or avoided in order to get to the Queen. Failing to do so will be frustrating for ranged enemies, and dangerous for melee enemies. I see Guardians making a tankier build path more viable. Stingers -- These will be a more reliable damage support that will make the Queen have a mage option in her back pocket.

Chrysalis overview So if Rek'Sai' and Ekko had a baby (Try not to picture that) this would be it's ultimate. I think it is an interesting idea because the Chrysalis would be vulnerable to being destroyed if discovered by enemies. This would make it important for the player to place it strategically. The Guardian can also be placed nearby to guard the Chrysalis, and/or be available for when Rebirth is used. As for the cooldown on this ability. I'm not sure if it would be best to begin the full cooldown timer after Rebirth is used, or to begin the cooldown timer when Chrysalis is placed and have a minimum cooldown after Rebirth is used. For example, Chrysalis has a cooldown of 150 seconds. A Chrysalis is placed and Rebirth is used 60 seconds later, Chrysalis will have a remaining cooldown of 90 seconds. If Rebirth is used any longer than 130 seconds after the Chrysalis is placed, Chrysalis will have no less than a 20 second cooldown.

Balance comments I would hope that I don't really need to say this, but for some reason it never fails for someone to bring up the fact that some part of the concept is too strong or too weak. I have intentionally tried to avoid providing hard numbers at this point because I absolutely understand that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to balance any concept without extensive play testing. I do intend on trying to apply some rough numbers in the future, but right now I am looking for some concept feedback and suggestions. I did feel that some rough range numbers were important at this point because it helps to identify how the pet AI would work, which is really the main focus for this champion.

10 Comments

Alpha Samsuni9/7/2016, 12:52:49 AM1 votes

For the name, how about...

Zerg'ling

jk i has nothing else to do XD

Terakali9/7/2016, 4:18:56 AM1 votes

As for the name, my recommendation is Cal'Malmortius. The name not only has roots to an item likely core to the champion if the enemy has magic damage (Maw of Malmortius, which is also purple which could link to a void correspondence) but its also a name that just screams authority.

Elite4Runner9/11/2016, 1:06:28 PM1 votes

I've been asked about unit caps, health, and duration for some of the eggs/pets

Eggs will also begin/continue incubation if an allied unit, including eggs, within 300 units have taken damage in the previous 3 seconds.

I want to clarify that each egg hatches into a single pet and that pet then behaves according to their respective conditions.

Eggs can only be damaged by the same damage sources that damage wards

Biters Eggs have only 1 hit point. A maximum of 15 Biter Eggs can be placed on the map at a time. Placing a 16th Egg will destroy the oldest egg WITHOUT hatching a Biter or triggering incubation for any surrounding eggs. Hatched Biters have a very low amount of health but take damage from all damage sources. Their health is low enough to be easily dispatched in groups of 1 or 2, but in groups of 4 or more, will most likely be able to reach and deal a little damage the enemy. A group of 10-15 will overwhelm and most likely be able to hurt the enemy significantly, but will take a lot of time and mana to amass a swarm of this size. Biters are hyper aggressive, to the point of being suicidal. There would be no need to worry about a Biter living too long because they will most likely find an enemy to kill them fairly quickly.

Guardians Eggs have significantly more hit points. If I had to place a number on it, I would say 10 hit points. My goal would actually be closer to the lines of guaranteeing that a Guardian Egg attacked will hatch. However, once hatched, if they are not able to attach to a host, their health will decay and they will die within 7-10 seconds. This time would of course be cut down even less if they are further taking damage.

Stingers Eggs have 3 hit points A maximum of 4 Stingers may be unattached at a time. These do not count toward ward limits. If a 5th Stinger hatches, the oldest Stinger will die. Hatched Stingers without a host are pretty much a combination of wards and Shaco Boxes. They will stay completely still and will not chase an enemy. They will not attack an enemy unless they, are attacked, or an enemy who is within their attack range attacks an allied unit, including eggs. A hatched Stinger should also be roughly as durable as a Vision Ward, including it's ability to regenerate health. A Stinger will die 3 minutes after hatching.

FloRaider429/16/2016, 11:51:59 PM1 votes

As promised I am back to take a look summoner 31

Misc: I dislike the phrasing “will pause, when X are not” I think it could be worded differently (Will only incubate when X is nearby). I feel like that the eggs should have a shoot animation (and maybe even some splash damage) considering they have a relatively big range.

Passive: Only affects how the other abilities work and doesn’t have much impact on it’s own. Maybe add a secondary passive that helps with laning?

Q-Ability: Your cheap infantry, but the comparison with Malz voidlings can’t be overlooked, that said having 15 of them squirming around might cause visual clutter and pathing problems (maybe buff them, but reduce their amount). Considering that they seem to lack MS and you don’t have much CC in your Kit, you can’t really gang up on an enemy champion (as say Yoricks combo). They are also very hard countered by AOE, making them mainly useful for pushing/killing creeps.

W-Ability: Attach seems to be the wrong word, considering they just stay in range. I feel like their AI will feel kinda clunky, because of their behaviour, but apart from that they seem like a good idea for the kit.

E-Ability: Very similar to W in effect, but I like the fact that they are useful outside of “attachments” (might need to give W something to do)

Ultimate: I do dislike the concept of a “get out of jail card”, especially since it seems to have no delay and global range (place chrysalis in fountain), but considering the weakness of the kit in a fight scenario it almost seems fair. I feel like having a delay that increases with distance could make riskier placements more appealing.

Overall: The different scalings make building her weird, which is why I would add additional scalings (all pets scale with HP / Stinger and Biter scale with AD and AP etc.) I don't know if this is intentional (I assume it is), but you don't really add anything meaningul to a TF and in lane you aren't that much of a threat either (especially against long ranged champions with AOE), but you are very powerful as a splitpusher and taking objectives in general, which makes her a difficult champion to balance and discuss. Personally I dislike the fact that apart from laying eggs your kit doesn’t have much to do, but you have crafted an interesting concept nonetheless.

FloRaider out summoner 31

Elite4Runner12/28/2017, 7:18:34 PM1 votes

I just wanted to nudge this again.

I might simply make a new post as well because I really like this concept.