HCC - Zeiss, the Mantis

Abandoned as a child in a long-forgotten forest where the sun rarely breaches the canopies, Zeiss grew up in an unforgiving environment where the rule was simple: The strong devour the weak. Though she too lived by this rule as she forged herself as the top predator of the food chain there by hunting everything that moved, she always held a certain kindness in her heart. A kindness that might make her miss a meal for choosing not to end a beast’s life, a kindness that would ultimate change her life. Upon making contact with civilisation, Zeiss discovered her hunting talents were best served as an assassin. After disposing of over a dozen political figures and business rivals, her heart gave way and so she decided to leave the life of killing behind for good. A road of hermitage eventually led her to a monastery where she decided to embrace monkhood as a nun. To enter, her vicious past had to be concealed as the monastery did not welcome those with a history of violence. However, the head nun knew immediately of Zeiss’ dark history and cursed her on the spot. Taking on a monstrous form that reflected the inner monster she tried her best to suppress, she became the Mantis: The monastery’s swiftest and deadliest guardian.
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Role: Carry, Escape, Durable

Strength: 20 + 2.00
Agility: 26 + 2.60
Intelligence: 15 + 1.50

Base Damage: 26 – 40
Base Armor: 0
Attack Range: 150
Movement Speed: 315
BAT: 1.5
Vision Range: 1800/900
Turn Rate: 1.2

A giant praying mantis, Zeiss is an Agility carry who has the potential to obliterate health bars in the blink of an eye after a bit of planning, positioning and patience. Deathbringer is a powerful steroid for an assassin, but only if she can remain close to her prey for long enough. Luckily, Skitter gives the Mantis near unmatched mobility with enough finesse. For continually being on the offensive, Pray rewards her with defense and even more offense if timed well. The Mantis’ final killing tool is Sharpen, an assuming feint of a blow that sets up enemies for their eventual demise. While she requires skill to make the most of her blades, few heroes can survive a well-timed slash from the Mantis.
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Q - Sharpen

The finest whetstone can be far deadlier than the sharpest blade.

Slice enemies in a frontal cone, slowing them for 3 seconds. Mantis’ next 3 attacks within 6 seconds gain bonus damage for every enemy hit. The 3rd attack gains range and causes her to blink onto her target.

Ability: No Target
Mana Cost: 60, 65, 70, 75
Cooldown: 6
Range: 600
Angle: 180
Damage: Physical
Move Slow: 35, 40, 45, 50%
Bonus Damage (Hero): 16, 24, 32, 40
Bonus Damage (Creep): 4, 6, 8, 10
Bonus Range: 350



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W – Skitter (Left)

A frenzied Mantis can be frighteningly difficult to pinpoint and pin down.

Perform a spinning dash to the left. While dashing, Sharpen and Skitter have their angles increased to 360.

Ability: No Target
Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 12, 9, 6, 3
Range: 600

E – Skitter (Right)

A frenzied Mantis can be frighteningly difficult to pinpoint and pin down.

Perform a spinning dash to the right. While dashing, Sharpen and Skitter have their angles increased to 360.

Ability: No Target
Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 12, 9, 6, 3
Range: 600



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D - Pray

Zeiss’ battle stance mimics the final act most of her prey perform.

Take reduced damage from the front. Upon casting a spell, that damage will also be reflected for 1 second.

Ability: Passive
Angle: 120
Damage Reduction: 16, 24, 32, 40%



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R - Deathbringer

Vital points become all too obvious to the most seasoned of hunters.

Unleash an aura that reveals nearby enemies and continually applies a Death stack on them. Mantis can attack an affected enemy to consume its marks and critically strike.

Ability: No Target
Mana Cost: 75
Cooldown: 30, 25, 20
Radius: 600
Duration: 6, 8, 10
Base Critical Damage: 200, 225, 250%
Critical Damage per Stack: 40%



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Talents

10: 25 Damage or 15% Sharpen Move Slow
15: +6s Sharpen Damage Duration or 350 Health
20: +150 AoE Deathbringer or 8% Pray
25: -1s Skitter Cooldown or 75% Lifesteal



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What stands out the most is Deathbringer's critical strike can potentially put Coup de Grace to shame. However, it's not so extreme as the Mantis cannot attack the target while the critical damage builds up whereas Phantom Assassin can continually attack the target for roughly the same amount of damage, if not more once enough attack speed is reached. The draw of Deathbringer is not a critical strike that boosts DPS per say, more of a potential one-shot burst that enemies have less chance to respond to.

Skitter has the potential to cross large distances rather quickly and rather often, but sometimes you might overshoot your target and fly off too far. Activate the ability again to control better or use the second Skitter to return to your location. Sharpen may be a simple mix of a regular slow and Astral Spirit but is a cornerstone spell that really synergizes with the rest of her kit. The third empowered attack means that you have to keep track of your hits and not just keep striking. The duration talent for this ability is interesting in several ways. For one, it allows you to stack up damage in exchange for not attacking in the first 6 seconds. You can also prime elsewhere and hold the blink attack for longer. This will also allow you to combine the blink attack range of the third attack range to 850. Alternatively, you can attack once before the second cast to be able to rapidly blink from target to target.

For this contest, my dream hero is an attack based carry that preferably takes skill and game sense to win rather than simply right clicking and point click mobility. The Mantis is an attempt to bring that to life. She has strong manoeuvrability but actually employing it quickly will require a lot of micro ability while precise usage takes quick reflexes. She still relies on pure attacks to kill rather than a certain spell like Ember Spirit, but has to time and pace herself to achieve high damage instead of continually attacking. She has a defensive mechanic to stay alive but like Bristleback, has to play around the spell to earn it rather than passively taking less damage. To aid in all this, you might have noticed that the Mantis has really good turn rate. This is all also my personal march against RNG in general, really emphasizing player expression to do well instead of rolling some dice. Hopefully I hit the nail on the head when trying to make this dream a reality, so feel free to let me know if I did or not.

Strengths Extremely high critical damage Great mobility Durable from the front Potent burst potential Good chase and stickiness Scouting power

Weaknesses Takes time spent not attacking to achieve this Not the easiest mobility to use Rather squishy otherwise Not the strongest in attack trades No hard disable Not much other team utility

Quality

On paper, she admittedly looks boring, like the majority of attack based carry heroes in DotA if you could never playtest them. I acknowledge that while that doesn’t mean my dream carry can’t be more interesting, these abilities serve their purpose in her kit well enough. If you disagree, I do implore you to provide suggestions for changes that still keep in line and contribute to her intended playstyle. All her abilities were designed in mind to achieve this goal and play off each other, none of them being separate or acting as filler. Zeiss is primarily designed around her ultimate, Deathbringer. Sharpen’s bonus damage will be further boosted by the critical strike while the slow ensures she can land that decisive blow. Skitter allows her to constantly zip around fights, in and out and side to side, to place stacks while remaining out of danger. It can also be used to dash into a crowd to Sharpen them and then dash over to her priority target to unleash the bonus damage upon them. Pray might seem like filler but it gives her a unique way of dealing damage, relieving the need to attack so that Deathbringer can build up. As the reflection only functions after casting a spell, making the most of the situation will require her to get up close to her target and face them to prevent wasting the spell in question, so the damage reduction bolsters this offensive approach. Lastly, Zeiss’ abilities play to her central themes. One of being a praying mantis, with Skitter portraying insect movement while Pray symbolizes the defensive stance the species famously takes. She is also a patient assassin who readies her blades, displayed by Sharpen and Deathbringer that focus on lethal blows after some preparation instead of repeatedly attacking.

Originality

While her basic abilities are noticeably based on existing abilities, a lot of their implementations are different. In terms of memorability, I’m sure the potential 1000%+ critical damage is more than enough to stand out among the crowd. The concept of a hero that builds up damage by refraining from attacking is so far only explored by the recent Dark Willow. Though while she is a ranged support, Zeiss is a melee carry and while the way Shadow Realm’s damage works is uninteractive, Deathbringer can be played around by both sides. These variations in playstyle, in addition to the nature of flat bonus damage versus critical damage, should hopefully still make Zeiss original. As far as most carries go, she is similar to Ember Spirit in that she does not auto attack all too often and places a greater emphasis on player skill and expression. However compared to Xin, she is in the end more of a traditional attack carry than his more caster-focused nature, so she doesn’t intrude too much on what he offers. By virtue of being a praying mantis, I would say her character design alone is quite unique among the cast.

Play Style

I’ve described some of the ways I visualize she will use her abilities as part of her intended play style the Quality section. I would say her difficulty for a right click carry is very high, with the need for frequent micro movements and the lack of any point click potential. This shares similarity with Slark, except that she has more emphasis on facing the right directions and isn’t rewarded for mindlessly attacking. As she lacks a proper passive combat steroid, she doesn’t just keep auto attacking and has to find the right moments to land her strikes by waiting for Deathbringer after Sharpening on as many heroes. Skitter is the most difficult mobility tool in the game as it is A) it is not point click or target unit and B) requires frequent input from the player, thus it rewards those who can properly use it with some of the most powerful and frequent maneuvarability. Pray’s mechanic may seem mindless on any other hero but for Zeiss’ 'fewer attack' playstyle, it encourages her to still be aggressive instead of keeping her distance while building up Deathbringer stacks. Overall, I wouldn’t say that she is the most skill intensive hero like Invoker or Earth Spirit due to the lack of skillshots, predictions and combos, but I would liken her to the upper category alongside Bristleback and Pangolier that require finesse in handling and controlling the hero itself, but as an actual damage core instead of being a tanky offlane so the reward and punishment is much more impactful.

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Thanks for reading my submission for the latest content.

Can Skitter be used when rooted? And if so, do you remain rooted at the end of the Skitter or does it break the root?

Like almost every other mobility spell, I would presume Skitter cannot be cast while rooted.

Skitter allows you to travel 2000 range if you turn Mantis in opposite direction before activating second Skitter. Is this true?

Also how long is Pray's damage reflection last?

Yes, that's the gist of it.

1 second, though I guess I can go and word that better.

Got to say this but, he feels like a league Champion (a hero design upon which a hero is slightly dependent on low cooldown abilities or on the abilities in general and are fairly bad when said abilities are on cooldown). Also, gotta ask do the W and E provide invincibility frames? also for me the fact that he is a mantis how about a special unique mechanic to it, maybe if you are rooted you can cast it, breaking yourself from the root but severely damaging you and maiming you at the same time, hey the guy is an insect anyways soo yeah. Also nice yey for a new bug hero

Q - Sharpen:
Is a basic, but perfectly functional ability. It's nothing special, but not every ability needs to be. For every enemy hit, does the number of attack increase or does the damage of those 3 attacks increase? I assume the latter. This could be clarified.

W – Skitter:
Way to much distance gained considering the cooldown and mana cost (I assume the cooldown is independent for the 2 of them). It's also highly impractical in combat if the intent for the ability was to side step attacks. Consider lowering the leap distance significantly.
But even if you do that I feel that there is too much overlap with Mirana's Leap ability. I think that her ability is much better than yours since leaping in the direction you're facing is much more intuitive. Other that what direction you need to look in to aim the leap both abilities are basically the same.

D - Pray:
What makes Bristleback's passive interesting to use is that you have to choose whether you need to attack or defend against a unit, controlled by the direction you're facing. Making the damage reduction apply from the front completely destroys what made the passive interesting in the first place. The only practical effect this passive has is discouraging you from fleeing from a disadvantageous battle. The damage reflection part isn't significant nor interesting enough to consider.

R - Deathbringer:
This one is actually rather interesting, though I do feel that the radius is a bit too big. The big radius makes it practically impossible to counter since staying outside of that massive radius is infeasible in most situations. If you significantly reduce the radius and instead have the stacks applied not disappear until the end of the duration, thus focusing its power, it would make the ability much more interesting to play around for both parties involved in a battle.

Overall:
W and E feels very uninspired, though I definitely like the ultimate. I usually don't comment on balance since it's usually difficult to accurately identify on paper alone.

Bristleback exists, just saying.

For invicibility, I'm going to have to say no. Makes it so that her only pure defensive tool is Pray.

I could add that anti-root component, but I'd personally rather leave the root mechanic be. It feels a little too niche for me.

Q: The latter.

W: I've only had to clarify that there is no invulnerability on the dashes, so sorry that that part was missing. I'll also have to specify that I won't want it to disjoint projectiles like most other mobility spells nowadays. With all that said, both Skitters are now just a mobility tool and nothing else (Aside from proccing Pray), so do you still think it's too strong considering that that is all it does?

On the Mirana point, I don't believe that they're the same as one gives a speed buff upon landing while the other does not. Leap has higher recharge time so must be used sparingly while Skitter has a far lower cooldown so constant aggressive and defensive usage is discouraged.

D: Dispersion is a thing, an even more inferior damage reduction tool mechanically than Pray. Also, I wasn't trying to make a second Bristleback. I just mentioned that it uses arcs like Bristleback to make it easier to understand and envision. Yes the reflection isn't the most interesting thing in the world, but boiling it down like that makes nothing in this game interesting in my opinion. I'll argue that while it doesn't make you say "Oh wow that's Invoker 2.0", the intent of the ability is for you to say "INHUMAN REACTIONS" as a Mantis stands their ground and casts a Q to reflect some damage instead of panicking and running, but make of that what you will.

R: Personally after playing a lot of DotA, a 900 centered radius really isn't the biggest thing in the world. That said, I do like your suggestion of changing the stack drop mechanic in exchange for reducing the area, so I'll do that.

Overall I agree, Zeiss' spells on paper aren't the most creative. But when put together, her kit creates a carry playstyle that is rather unique in the current landscape, and that was my goal here because that is my dream. If my dream doesn't tickle your creative bone, then I do apologize.

Nature's Prophet Teleport exists, so OP it's not. The main point is that it's mostly useful for moving across the map and very awkward to use effectively in battle. I feel that to reduce the leap distance would actually make the ability better in combat, not worse. I imagine that the intent behind the ability was to use in battle and not to traverse the map, but perhaps that's not the case.


Fiddly little differences are irrelevant. The primary purpose of Mirana's Leap is to leap and the same is the case for Skitter. As for the difference in cooldown, I think the cooldown of Skitter will need to be increased significantly for balance purposes, otherwise its simply provides way too much mobility. It's basically Storm Spirit level of mobility for practically no mana cost. If such a change is made, which I feel is required, your point about difference in cooldown becomes mute.


I never said that Pray was UP, so comparing its usefulness to other abilities makes no sense? I wasn't saying that the reflection part should be removed or anything. What I meant was that the only significant part about Prey is the damage reduction and that I only commented on that part.
So to try an better formulate my point, you are pretty much always going to face you enemies in battle, so the directional condition for the damage reduction to apply is mostly pointless. You might as well just have Prey give a flat passive damage reduction without the directional condition. When designing an ability you have to ask yourself, what's the purpose of the ability and how can I achieve that purpose in the simplest way possible? The directional condition is irrelevant since even without it you'd still face your opponent anyway, thus the condition might as well be removed to make the ability simpler.
How is Pray interesting? All I see is a flat health multiplier. You might as well just increase its Strength gain instead. If the purpose if Prey is to fit a theme then I simply cannot agree with you. Gameplay is a million times tore important than theme, Dota is not a spectacle fighter.


No need to apologize. Critique is supposed to be harsh. There's no intent nor hard feeling behind it.