So ok, hear me out, or in this case, Read me out before you make jokes.
No, this is not a joke, however it DOES refer to one of Blizzards jokes from their April Fools over 10 years ago.
https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Bard
I figured it would be the PERFECT new Hero for HotS.
Lets figure out the Hero shall we ?
Some of his talents and resource handling will be at the bottom.
Ranged Specialist: Nathaniel the Bard.
Trait: Chords
-Nathaniel’s basic attacks (Auto-Attacks) do not deal physical damage, Nathaniel deals Spell Damage using sound waves.
-Nathaniel plays his [instrument] nearly all the time (pretty much like Lucio) but only when attacking, using abilities or standing still. Depending on his current action he will be getting a different benefit.
Active [D]:
Play a chord to change your Bard mode.
Before we go into this too deeply, I apologize to anyone actually playing a lute, guitar or anything of the sort.
Modes (passive):
Arpeggio: Auto attacks splash and deal more damage to the main target and a lingering resonance (bleed) damage over time (57 damage over 3 secs) to every enemy hit with splash.
Debuff: Arpeggio lowers Nathaniel’s armor by 10.
I don’t see a sensible way to debuff Nathaniel on this mode, perhaps you guys will give a good one.
Ostinato: Nearby Allied Heroes will gain 15% movement and attack speed for 3 secs decaying over 3 secs.
The Buff lasts only 3 secs but decays quickly and I think it’s fair.
Debuff: After using an ability on an enemy Hero you get stunned for 1 sec and gain shield in the amount of 100% damage dealt with that ability (AOE abilities will stack) for 2 secs, if the shield is broken by damage it explodes and deals 50% of total damage absorbed to enemy Heroes.
I feel like I need to explain that stun, I think a hero like this would be great as support, but I want this to be a specialist that will fall in the support role after the overhaul changes, however Nathaniel will not be a healer, his role is a buff and debilitate mostly, so his abilities, while dealing damage only to enemies, will in some specific way empower his allies, but none of them will heal. Hence he is exempt of most of his own buffs and his stronger abilities will give him a pause rather than pushing him to be a strong ally to constantly rely on.
Tremolo: All Nathaniel’s abilities gain a static charge slowing the targets by 25% and dealing 37 damage every 3 secs over 9 secs. Enemy Heroes suffer only 17 damage every sec over 3 secs and have a 10% to get stunned for 0,25 sec.
The stun can only happen ONCE per cast.
Also increases cooldowns of all his abilities by 1 sec if they affect enemy Heroes.
Does NOT stack.
Okay, another explanation. Keep in mind I want Nathaniel to be a Debilitation Specialist. For that I decided that one of his Passive Chords should work for it. Ostinato is a buff ability booster, and not his own but his allies so players should be careful about what they do at all times.
However with Tremolo Nathaniel will be very useful if he uses his abilities in order and will have a chance to really mess with enemy team, but giving him a penalty, rips his OP capacity away, those are some serious debuffs there, but it’s not like he is without flaws. I want him to be strong, but not without a solid counter, without those debuffs he suffers, he would easily be one of the most devastating heroes to deal with. This is clearly more useful for wave clearing.
That’s all for the trait.
I expect the talents for the trait will allow focusing on one of the three modes to make those modes more powerful in fights.
Abilities:
I don’t have knowledge that good about guitars so I will leave this to commenters or Blizz Employees, I’ll simply describe the effects of the abilities in general and what Talents should focus on for each ability.
Active [Q]:
Vibrate sound in front of Natahniel in a long slim cone over 1,5 sec dealing 48 damage ever 0.5 secs.
In general this ability would be 4 units long and at the end 2 units wide, so I think it would be around half of a full Li-Ming Arcane Orb or at least 3/4 of it. It’s fairly long but it doesn’t deal that much damage but very useful for wave clearing.
Active [W]:
Nathaniel slowly spins around once while playing his Guitar, dealing 47 damage to every enemy currently in front of him (while spinning, his front moves).
Ability continues until it completes a full circle or Nathaniel is stunned or otherwise interrupted with a CC (forced displacement, stun, silence, polymorph, hex, timestop, stasis, knockback). When interrupted, his auto-attack damage is increased by 10% for 2 secs but his movement is lowered by 35% for the time being.
Another seemingly OP ability I decided to stamp out from being OP already, if this ability keeps hitting some heroes, especially ones that need to retreat by passing near him while he performs, will get multiple hits which will keep stacking up and this will end up dealing massive damage if unchecked, interrupting this ability should become a priority for any team, and in draft modes countering Natahniel is really easy since he is so weak to CC abilities, I think the buff on his attack damage while being debuffed somewhat is a fair exchange.
Active [E]:
Nathaniel slams his Guitar in a target area dealing 157 damage and causing 93 RESONANCE damage (bleeding) over 3 secs if it hits enemy Heroes.
Notice: Reuse the ability to pull it back to Nathaniels hands.
!CAUTION!
Nathaniels Guitar takes damage with each use of this ability, depending on how much damage it deals, each use can break the Guitar. When that happens Nathaniel has to retreat to safety and rebuild his Guitar.
Basically I decided to put a risk on this ability, and I think it will be great, the damage it deals is severe, but the drawback is also severe, the Guitar can break instantly after using it once, which will disable Nathaniel from fights, but talents can prolong his usefulness in combat, especially as time goes, a specialist like him will be needed more in the game, if a single use of his ability can kick him out he would be useless, therefore talents for this ability will, mitigate if not remedy the frailty of his weapon, notably Guitar.
At lvl 4 Nathaniel should be able to pick a talent that will make his Guitar harder.
I’d call it “Custom Made Guitar”, basically the material will be harder, recovering the guitar will take 1 sec longer but it will be sturdier and make it impossible to break it on the first use of the ability.
At lvl 13 Nathaniel can pick a talent to bring a backup Guitar for the time he needs most, post lvl 10 fights can be really intense so a change of weapons would be necessary.
Passive: Creates a small sound bauble that reveals stealth enemies.
Specialist with sound should be able to do this, it’s only fair and expected.
Heroics:
Active [R1]:
After 0.5 secs Nathaniel starts violently playing his Guitar and swipes 3 Chords in a large cone in front of him, sending 3 waves of damaging sound every 0,75 secs one after another over 2,25 secs.
This is something that might be very useful in team fights over objectives or bosses, it also could deal a decent amount of damage and with the right mode it can severely help his team to deal with the enemies in a solid team fight, of course all Modes passive cons apply, however they will init when the ability is over to not automatically stun if you use arpegio, so Nathaniel can use the full ability before it hits him. Would be unfair, otherwise the rest of the debuffs placed on him after ability use still apply.
Passive: Hardens Nathaniel’s Guitar by 25%.
This is one way of countering the guitar breaking issue, the player can rely on this passive instead of other talents, but this only hardens the guitar by 25%, which doesn’t have to mean much if the ability hits all 5 enemy heroes it will break entirely, but giving it even 25% durability boost, it should last one hit more at least.
LVL20
Lowers cooldown by 25% and adds a fourth wave that deals only 50% damage already dealt with this ability to enemy heroes, but hits everyone, allies gain Ostinato buffs even if it’s not currently enabled.
Passive: further increases Guitar durability by 25% (to a total ability stack of +50%)
He still gets debuffed by whatever his current mode is on.
Active [R2]:
Artistic Stage is what I would call it.
It’s an active ability similar to Sonya’s Berserker, and LiLi’s Tea for everyone.
Unlike those however, over the duration of 20 secs, Nathaniel can use his abilities without being debuffed (his guitar can still break but is much more durable and takes less damage) and every auto-acttak he makes on enemy heroes lowers his ability cooldown by 0.25%.
It doesn’t have to be 20 secs but his abilities can wreak havoc and mayhem for the duration without any penalties during that time and he can cast more abilities over time, this in combination with Ana’s Heroic can be really deadly for enemy team in crucial teamplay.
He still gets hit by double the Mode effect after this ends, but if he takes no damage for the normal debuff duration the debuff will be cut by 50%, whichever mode was active.
I think leaving it entirely free of penalties that are all over this hero would be unlike it’s design, I put this here in hope it fits the bill, if enemy heroes during a team fights forget about Nathaniel for even 2 secs after his ability wears out, he can get back in the fight without much of an issue, but he should not be neglected anyway, if the enemy team retakes the advantage quickly he should simply retreat to some safety before the ability wears out or rely on his team to push when he is down for the count.
LVL20:
While this ability is active, Nathaniel boosts allies resource restoration by 50% and his auto-attacks bounce off enemy heroes.
Nothing much to explain here, the main ability is strong already as it is, making too many improvements like removing the debuff would simply be unfair.
Some talents to keep in mind:
at lvl 1 Nathaniel should decide which modes to focus on mainly.
-Talented Shocker
will enhance Arpeggio and Tremolo while weakening Ostinato
This will also lower Ostinato debuff.
-Ready For Music? (active)(hotkey1)
Will give Nathaniel a backup Guitar with 50% of the main Guitar durability.
After breaking the Guitar, press 1 to equip the backup, works just the same, but breaks easier, it’s a backup.
-Sounds of Music!
Auto-attacks against enemy Heroes create a resonance stack, at 10 stacks the next auto-attack against an enemy Hero will place a RESONANCE stack on them causing 37 bleeding damage over 3 secs.
At lvl 7 Nathaniel can pick his Resource enhancing talent quest.
-Taming the Beasts!
Dying nearby enemies grant a stack of Notes. 0.5 stack per minion, 5 stacks per enemy Hero. Every 25 stacks allow to bribe a single Mercenary.
Max stacks: 100.
In addition picking up Globes will improve Harmony Generation by 0.4%.
Reward:
After gathering 25 globes the Harmony Generation improves by an additional 1% per second. (up to 2% per second)
Nathaniel’s Resource:
Nathaniel, as you may have figured it out, uses a resource called Harmony for his abilities.
Harmony is not a resource that disables the use of abilities if he runs out of it.
Harmony stacks up to 100% and does not have a numeric cycle like Mana or Energy. It only affects ability use but doesn’t disable their use with lack of Harmony. In fact Nathaniel is never without Harmony as every second he recovers 5% Harmony, each ability use will consume 25% of his Harmony and Heroic abilities will completely deplete it no matter what level it is on.
Harmony increases the damage dealt by abilities by up to 25% depending on the Mode active at the time.
Arpeggio increases Damage dealt by abilities by up to 25% (this amount doe not improve)
Ostinato increases the shield threshold by up to 25% (amount depends on Harmony consumed)
Tremolo increases the buffs duration up to 5 secs (If the ability used does not consume 25% Harmony the buff is at it’s default state of 3 secs of Resonance damage)
When standing still, Nathaniel generates Harmony very quickly.
Recovering a broken Guitar:
I think some of you reading this already asked yourself: “How is he recovering the broken Guitar ?”
Simple:
After breaking the guitar, all his abilities become inactive and his basic abilities are replaced with active [Q][W][E] Chords, using these abilities in any order will restore the broken guitar, however each use of any of those 3 abilities will cause all abilities to go on 1,5 secs cooldown. When using the third Chord Nathaniel recovers all of his Broken Guitars.
if Nathaniel has a backup it will instantly replace the broken Guitar so he can use his abilities until all his backups break.
Guitar Durability Bar:
Nathaniel can track his Guitar Durability at his portrait. There will be an indicator showing how damaged his Guitar is in %. Once the durability hits 0% Nathaniels Guitar will become unavailable until he replaces it, if he has Backups the Durability will be showing 50% for each Backup.
Certain talents will improve the durability of his Guitars but the durability status doesn’t change, only the damage taken from the use of abilities will lower the durability damage.
Resonance:
Resonance is like bleeding, but unlike bleeding it can be canceled by any healer that outheals the Resonance damage.
Resonance deals a moderate damage amount and a healer can nullify it simply by healing, however the healer cannot heal properly until Resonance is not dealt with, for that the healer has to heal the damage that will be dealt by Resonance.
I think everyone knows this debuff from somewhere ? yeah, I think it’s a Mortal Wound from some of the Boss encounters in WoW and some other MMOs. It’s a fairly intense healer alert, and if left alone it can severely damage anyone suffering from it. in that regard Resonance is just like that, and since Nathaniel is a debuffing and debilitating Specialist this effect fits him well.
So ? what do you think ?
Comments below.