V for VanCleef
“Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
the Stonemasons’ treason and plot.
I know of no reason why King Wrynn’s treason
should ever be forgot.”
VanCleef is, in practice, an offensive Abathur. He must move unseen through the battlefield and avoid direct engagement, helping his allies with clever sabotage instead.
Q - Sleeper Agent/Propaganda
Turn an enemy minion into a sleeper agent, who switches sides when they come in contact with an enemy player, backstabbing them for 200 damage. If they reach an ally minion wave, they drop their cover and instigate all ally minions to prioritize a player instead if one is present. 2 charges.
W - Sabotage
Entrap an enemy building, triggering the trap when an enemy player touches it and inflicting 400 structural damage, plus 200 damage to any creatures within a short range. Furthermore:
Gates: The gates close to all enemy creatures, keeping them from passing the gate for 3 seconds.
Tower or keep: The tower is disabled for 5 seconds.
Well: The well does not heal, but triggers the cooldown.
2 charges.
E - Secret Tunnel
For 5 seconds, VanCleef becomes undetectable and protected, can move under walls and gains +20% movement speed.
Ulti1 - Paranoia
A single enemy player becomes suspectible, and causes, friendly fire for 6 seconds.
Ulti2 - Defias Thugs
Jeez, some ability should tie back to the Brotherhood, but I’m all out of good ideas. Maybe a gang of thugs appear from the bushes and beat everyone up and set things on fire, I dunno.
D - A passive stealth.
Much like Abathur, playing as VanCleef requires premonition and understanding of the enemy players’ movements.
Classic moves include grabbing a few minions from between a fort and a keep, which helps push the lane back a bit with an added ambush potential against solo laners.
Secret tunnel is mainly meant for him to be able to pass the gates of forts and keeps, and quickly plant the bombs therein. As he will be working behind the enemy lines half of the time, he could also have a talent for Q which allows him to convert a minion into an invisible “watch tower” (the minion could have detection and just stay on the spot it was recruited, giving some vision for a while on where the enemy is moving).
If a team fight occurs at the gates of a fort, VanCleef is able to either disable the towers for some quality time for his team members under the gates, or trap the players from fleeing behind the gate, only for them to notice that once they get in, that their well’s been poisoned.
As you can see, this is a character for the memes, so don’t take it too seriously.
Have fun!