[fanmade hero] Saluman, The venomous creature

Saluman
Role: Carry, Melee/Ranged
Range-adjusting hero who poisons enemies

Heroic Perk: Venomous scales
If Saluman takes damage from an enemy hero’s basic attacks or abilities, that hero will become poisoned. Poisoned heroes take 11-35 (+20% crystal ratio) damage per second. The poison status ends 4 seconds after the affected hero last dealt damage to Saluman. In addition, Saluman has two forms, pure form and venomous form. Each form has its own separate perk. Saluman begins the game in pure form.

Pure form: Saluman gains +3.5 range and increased damage against poisoned targets.

Venomous form: Basic attacks against poisoned targets deal damage in a 2.8 radius around Saluman.

Base stats
Health: 699-2319
Energy: 445-661
Armour: 20-60
Shield: 20-60
Weapon Power: 77-163
Attack speed: 100-136.3%
Range: 2.8
Move speed: 3.2

A Ability: Luring thorns
Saluman shoots out thorns in every direction around him, damaging all enemies hit and taunting them for a short duration. Upon using this ability, Saluman will switch to venomous form, if not already in this form.
Overdrive: Poisoned enemies will deal no damage to Saluman for the duration of the taunt.
Damage: 100/130/160/190/220 - 60% crystal ratio, 40% weapon ratio
Taunt duration: 0.6/0.7/0.8/0.9/1.0
Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/10
Energy cost: 65/70/75/80/85

B Ability: Intense Hallucinations
Saluman fires a poison dart in the target direction, Damaging the first enemy hero hit. If this enemy is poisoned, they will be feared away from Saluman. After using this ability, Saluman will switch to pure form, if not already in this form.
Damage: 80/100/120/140/180 - 60% weapon ratio
Fear duration: 0.8/0.8/0.8/0.8/1.2
Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/6
Energy cost: 70/70/70/70/70

Ultimate: Searing poison
Saluman channels his poison, increasing its damage per second and blinding all affected enemies. Blinded enemies have their vision range decreased to 3.0 for the duration of the ability.
Damage increase: 50%/70%/100%
Duration: 3.5/3.5/5
Cooldown: 60/55/50


Some pictures of how I imagine his two forms. Venomous form on top, Pure form underneath. The artist is Will Warburton.

That’s it from me today! Although I’ve already done one with Gaius, I wanted to show that there are much more possibilities to form-change heroes than Malene. The idea here is that he’s a 1v1 hero in his ranged form, and his melee form is better at teamfights. As always, please leave feedback, and make it honest!

5 Likes

Thank you for giving me a new friend I can see in my nightmares.

2 Likes

He isn’t that bad is he? He’s goota portray something poisonous…

1 Like

Your hero is not as overloaded as mine are usually however, this hero still is very problematic in that you cannot fight him/her/it at all. Any attempts to fight Saluman will just be detrimental to the enemy.

The main issue I have with the hero is not the amount of CC you gave him but how his passive interact with enemies. And the amount of CC.

By making him poison enemies simply for damaging him even with abilities it makes it too easy to get an entire enemy team poisoned without any real effort especially with the amount of AOE. I would instead suggest that you have him apply poison in another manner.

The current poison mechanic offers very little counterplay.

Secondly, his first ability is too powerful as its just an AOE taunt with no windup. Overdrive is also too powerful with no damage taken.

Other than that my biggest issue is just that as a hero Saluman doesn’t bring too much to the table that makes him stand out. He doesn’t really feel like a form change hero. His heroic perk is more like enhancement or empowerment.

Okay, I’ll have another think. My idea was that his pure form is a long range, 1v1 hero who easily gets destroyed in a teamfight, while his venomous form is good against many enemies but gets beaten by range.

Originally I was going to have him only apply poison in Venomous form, but I felt his pure form would then be too weak. I may change the taunt so it only affects poisoned targets as well.