Prime, the Churnguard Sniper

Note: I created this hero idea in May 2016 on the old forums, therefore I had to tune certain things. Even if I did so, there is a good chance that I might didnt catch all things. If you realise something like this please let me now with a comment.

Prime (Hero Description)

The Churnguard Sniper reaches the Halcyon Fold. Weapon items make him to a powerful Sniper while crystal Items unlock powerful abilities.

Hardcore (Perk)

Prime always fortifies 10 HP per seconds up to a maximum of 2% of his maximum HP.
Prime’s first and last 10% of his maximum HP are always fortified (0%-10% and 90%-100%).

Whenever Prime gets under 10% of his maximum HP, his Core starts to heat up, and he receives 10% Lifesteal, 10% Pierce, 10% Critical Damage, 10% Critical Chance and 1 Movement Speed.

STATS LVL 1-12

HEALTH 800 - 2600
ENERGY 150 - 450
ARMOR 20 - 64
SHIELD 20 - 64
WEAPON 60 – 120
ATK SPEED 100% - 100%
PROJECTILE SPEED 20
RANGE 6
MOVE SPEED 3.5
HP REGEN 3
ENERGY REGEN 3

Mode Switch (A)

Prime is able to switch through many modes, depending on the current situation.
While switching, Prime cannot move, deal auto attacks or activate abilities.

Mode A - Heal Mode
Prime’s auto attacks heal prime and have a higher range, but deal 15% less damage.

Mode B - Pierce Mode
Prime’s auto attacks have additional Pierce, but Prime loses 2% of his current HP per second and 2 HP per auto attack.

Mode C - Scout Mode
Prime cannot deal auto attacks and cannot activate abilities while this Mode is active.
He receives additional Movement Speed and is invisible.
However, he loses 5% of his current HP per second.

Level 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / CP / WP
Energy Cost 5 / 5 / 5 / 5 / 0 / - / -
Switch Duration 1 / 0.8 / 0.6 / 0.4 / 0.2 / - / -
Switch Cooldown 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 0.5 / - / -

Mode A Heal 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 20 / 5% / 1%
Mode A add. Range 0,2 / 0,4 / 0,6 / 0,8 / 1 / 1% / 1%
Mode B Pierce 3% / 6% / 9% / 12 % / 15% / - / -
Mode C Movement Speed 1 / 1.4 / 1.8 / 2.2 / 3 / 1% / -

Churn Blast (B)

Active: Prime’s next auto attack deals additional bonus CP damage. However, the projectile speed is 10% of his normal projectile speed.

Passive: Every few seconds, Prime releases a pulse, which damages enemies.
Investing points in this ability increases range, frequency and damage of the pulse.
The Pulse is invisible for enemy heroes if Prime is in Mode C, but the enemies will still receive damage.
Base damage is crystal damage.
Deals only damage against enemy heroes and 50% damage against lane minions.
No damage against jungle minions and bosses.

Level 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / CP / WP
Energy Cost 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 100 / - / -
Cooldown 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / - / -
Bonus Damage 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 100 / 200% / -
Pulse Damage 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 5% / -
Pulse Frequency 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / - / -
Pulse Range 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 2% / -

Ray of Doom ©

Prime activates two independently firing laser cannons over his shoulders.
Each laser cannon targets a enemy hero within range.
If only one hero is in range, both lasers target and slow the hero, but only deal 150% damage instead of 200%.
If there are two or more enemy heros in range,
the laser cannons will target the weakest enemy heroes.
The laser cannons automatically focus the enemy hero with the lowest health and armor.
Prime can deal auto attacks during Ray of Doom.

During Ray of Doom, Prime temporarily loses all effects of his heroic perk.
Additionally, he can not use Mode Switch during Ray of Doom, which means that he is stuck with his current mode for the duration of this ability.
This ability cannot be activated if Mode C is active.

Level 1 / 2 / 3 / CP / WP
Energy Cost 50 / 80 / 110 / - / -
Cooldown 100 / 80 / 60 / - / -5%
Duration 15 / 15 / 15 / 2% / -
Range 5 / 6 / 7 / 2% / -
DPS of one cannon 10 / 20 / 30 / 25% / 25%
Slow if 2 lasers hit same hero 15% / 30% / 45% / - / 2%

Thanks for reading! Let me now what you think!

Not a very good idea in my opinion… Let me sum up here.

Description: doesn’t say anything useful :unamused:. All heroes in Vainglory has that description so that doesn’t count (in the past, WP Carry was called Sniper, while CP Carry was called Mage). Next time, let it be like… “a hero who can deal sufficient damage from afar” or “a hero has various range to suit the combat”.
Perk + stats + range: show that he should build WP.
A: 3 modes: invisible mode but can’t attack, heal mode for safe fight, pierce mode for going all-in. However, since invisible mode consumes health, the order must be heal-scout-pierce. Why? Because for safe farm, you will use heal mode, when ganking/combat, you need to position yourself first so you will use scout mode and then… pierce mode -> going all in.
B: completely useless. Right the time the enemy knows that they have been received DPS, captain will automatically throw a flare. Why bother using it? And why a range carry need to play like a melee hero? And projectile = 10% normal speed? So you meant the active will deal damage = x2 Celeste’s damage and have its speed same as Celeste’s AA’s?
C: well, now I admit I don’t know what this hero’s specification is. This ultimate… neutralized the ability of Prime to deal AA? So… you don’t want people to build WP? Or not throw point in ultimate? But if people build CP… they can only use Ultimate?
Skill Combo: …

Pretty messed up to me, IMHO :thinking:

P/s: just give feedback, doesn’t mean harm or insult. Bad english, sorry

1 Like

Yoo, thanks for the Feedback, now I somewhat see what I could have done better. Yes, the hero description is very lazy indeed. And I might rework his B too.

This will be a response to both @Xelioz and @mq003at because I’m lazy to separate between both and I feel like going down the ability list is more natural.

Perk:
I’m a bit iffy on the amount of fh he gains since it might be too much. Based on your description of “always fortified”, I’m assuming it means 10% in front and end will instantly become fortified. I think that a guaranteed 10% fh, occasional 12% fh, and situational 20% fh is way too much, even if prime has low base health. For heroes that don’t have high alpha damage (damage on a single tick of damage), which is more or less every hero to an extent, prime could have 40%-70% fh over an entire fight. Any wp hero that doesn’t build crit or high alpha builds (probably a shred build, sustain build, or attack speed build) will have to plow through all of that fh since each damage tick is so small. Some cp heroes like skye, petal, and poke mages will also have the same problem. I may be exaggerating cause I don’t have any real numbers to make sure it’s correct, but the general idea of having to go through 10% fh every attack gives a lot of survivability. I think you should remove the “always fortified” part and switch it with something else or make it more friendly toward heroes that deal less damage per attack. Or just nerf the 10% to some smaller number.

A:
There is a ui problem with your design that you did not address and mq003at assumed. The ability talks about being able to switch between 3 modes, but you never specified how to switch to a desired mode - if that was your intention. mw003at assumed that you would switch modes in increasing order from 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 1 every time you tapped the ability. But based off of the mode descriptions and the switch channeling which highly punish going in sequential order, I’m assuming that you meant for any mode to be accessible from any other mode: 1 -> 2 or 3; 2 -> 1 or 3; 3 -> 1 or 2. With one button, this is impossible unless you have certain conditions or introduce swiping, double-tapping, or something of the sort.

I think the pierce mode needs a pierce nerf (although I don’t think you’re really concerned with the numbers) because 25% pierce at 10% health (20% effective health cause of guaranteed fh) is a lot of natural pierce. Couple that with lifesteal (which will steal more health due to more pierce) and you (probably) can linger around 10% health a lot until you get bursted. Idk if this is a loaded kit problem, a number problem, or I’m just overthinking the entire problem.

B:
I don’t think mq003at’s opinion that it’s unless is true. I do agree that mode c’s invis is nullified with this ability. In my (totally unbalanced) opinion, I’d say that when in mode c, the enemy gains an invisible stack instead of being dealt damage. When prime unstealths or is spotted while stealthed, the stacks denonate and each stack deals damage equivalent to a pulse’s damage.

Due to the pulse’s massive range, I think it enables prime to take advantage of this ability. If it weren’t for the miniscule base damage and longish time between each pulse, it would’ve actually argued that this ability would be too strong. It has massive range, it is guaranteed to hit all enemy heroes within range, and it requires no manual attention or (in-game) energy needed to operate this function. It slowly punishes dive comps or many close-mid range heroes in general.

I’d say the active is fine. It’s not bad on wp (although the 200% cp ratio sounds kinda scary), and the slow travel time is kinda counterable since the enemy could heal or put up fh/damage reduction in anticipation.

Ult:
to ma003at: the ability says that prime CAN use autos, so it doesn’t hinder his wp side.
The ability is pretty nice in that it deals damage and has utility that prime can take advantage of. It isn’t overwhelming nor underwhelming with the low wp ratio.

2 Likes

Yeah, I didn’t read the details quite well, I have read again and understand some of his point.

  • Perk: you stated that the fortified health is too much, yeah now I found it a little bit off. I understood he want to make an ability that ensure the safety for wp path and become a tank in ultility path but maybe those stats are too much. I think it should get nerfed either.

  • B: I didn’t read the range, woa, but now 9 range with 2% CP Ratio is a little far. Building full SG may lead to walk around in base and kill everyone in the enemy team (since his range now even furthur than Celeste’s A now - RITO).

  • C: i misunderstood about it (sorry). Hmm, if now I think about it, it can combos very good with his A to become 3 types: Assassin type with pierce, DPS type with range + healing, chasing type with invisibilty. But this leads to too much mobility for this hero.

In the end, I still not understand the aspect this heroes has (he exceed every other heroes in every aspect :unamused:). So IMO, this still need rework, nerfing him a little bit, and find the purpose for him.

@Xelioz you can find the purposes in the Meta Wiki in Heroes Build section.

1 Like

mmmmmmmmmm

I think there are too many ideas here.

A strange tankiness, Form switching, Pulse damage, and DAMAGE damage. This kit has too many ideas and is spread much too thin.

This kit is based more on the aesthetic theme than a mechanical theme, which is a problem. Most heroes have both themes down perfectly. For example, Reim mechanically is a dude who catches you and then never lets go, who is hypertanky and does lots of damage if he can manage to grab you. His kit works with this theme because of his with fortified health, CC and literally no mobility. For a more out there theme, you need to cut down as much of the other stuff as possible. For example, let’s say I made a form switcher myself. If I had to sum it up, it would be like this; A character who can switch to ranged and melee, who can deal damage by comboing these forms. Using this, I can create my kit from the ground up with some sort of vague template in my mind.

Reim also nails the aesthetic side too. Slow, but tanky as hell, tons of CC and good damage? Ice mage. Your kit leans on this more. I can imagine a real military dude having these abilities, but that doesn’t necessarily make a fun and interesting kit to play as against.

Sorry for the text dump.
Basically I’m saying you need to cut down on the ideas and focus on 1-2 at a time.

1 Like

Very complicated and “thrown in” ideas. I suggest cutting lots out and you may have a good idea

I will probably rework this soon. This idea was made a long time ago when I didnt fully understand what a real hero idea needs.