Azura

RANGED 500 18 + 2.00 50 - 58 * 22 + 2.50 295 19 + 2.30 1

Black Ethereum Releases black lightning that deals 100/150/200/250 damage to enemy units in a cone and replenishes 1 Bolt Charge for each unit hit. Shadowform Azura slips into the Nothl Realm, becoming Ethereal and gain Hasted movement speed for 2/3/4/5 seconds. Any unit she passes through becomes Ethereal for the remaining duration of Shadowform. Multi-shot Crossbow Gives Azura a BAT of 0.5 seconds, but limits her attacks by Bolt Charges. She has 2/3/4/5 Bolt Charges and generates one Bolt Charge every 1.9/2.0/2.1/2.2 seconds, modified by attack speed. One Bolt Charge is consumed for each attack launched by Azura and she cannot attack while her Bolt Charges is at 0. Gaze of Exile Azura's piercing gaze isolates the target, causing it to become Untargetable by its allies for 10 seconds. Any unit gains 100% accuracy and an additional 200/300/400 attack & cast range against the target. If the target dies before the duration ends, all of Azura's Bolt Charges and cooldowns are replenished.

25: +1 Max Bolt Charges or -30s Gaze of Exile Cooldown 20: +40 Attack Speed or +5s Shadowform Duration 15: +100 Attack Range or +150 Black Ethereum Damage 10: +25 Damage or +15% Magic Resistance

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Black Ethereum Releases black lightning that deals 100/150/200/250 damage to enemy units in a cone and replenishes 1 Bolt Charge for each unit hit.

Mana Cost: 90 / 100 / 110 / 120 Cooldown: 15 / 14 / 13 / 12

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Shadowform Azura slips into the Nothl Realm, becoming Ethereal and gain Hasted movement speed for 2/3/4/5 seconds. Any unit she passes through becomes Ethereal for the remaining duration of Shadowform.

Mana Cost: 120 Cooldown: 24 / 21 / 18 / 15

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Multi-shot Crossbow Gives Azura a BAT of 0.5 seconds, but limits her attacks by Bolt Charges. She has 2/3/4/5 Bolt Charges and generates one Bolt Charge every 1.9/2.0/2.1/2.2 seconds, modified by attack speed. One Bolt Charge is consumed for each attack launched by Azura and she cannot attack while her Bolt Charges is at 0.

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Gaze of Exile Azura's piercing gaze isolates the target, causing it to become Untargetable by its allies for 10 seconds. Any unit gains 100% accuracy and an additional 200/300/400 attack & cast range against the target. If the target dies before the duration ends, all of Azura's cooldowns and Bolt Charges are replenished.

Mana Cost: 200 Cooldown: 80 / 60 / 40

Hero Introduction

The main mechanic of this concept is her passive, Multi-shot Crossbow. It might be hard to understand it at first, so to explain it more intuitively: Practically speaking, at max level Azura has a Base Attack Time of 2.5 seconds (slower than the regular BAT of 1.7) but in turn is allowed to save up attacks over a period of time and then release them all at the same time. The ability description explains the details of how this is accomplished.

Black Ethereum is a regular aoe nuke which all carries need and also replenishes Bolt Charges. Beauty in simplicity.

Shadowform is an obvious addition to the concept as Ethereal Form simply works so well with her passive. It acts as both protection and mobility at the same time, but comes at the cost of taking amplified magical damage. While it does synergise with other magic damage dealing heroes, it doesn't work too well with other right-click cores as you might accidentally them or the target they attack.

Gaze of Exile makes a target very vulnerable in a unique way. Since the target becomes untargetable by its allies it can no longer receive heals or protection (unless it's untargeted, like Mekansm). It makes for a proactive counter towards abilities such as Shallow Grave and False Promise. It also increases the attack range of anyone attacking the target, making it hard to avoid taking damage.

Gameplay

I imagine her being played in the mid lane. She can efficiently double-hit creeps for easy last hits and denies, though limited by her bolt replenish rate. She has an aoe nuke to clear creep-waves and generate more bolt charges, better allowing her to contest the runes and continue to last hit. When in trouble she can make herself immune to physical damage, making her resistant to gank attempts. In the general case she's undoubtedly a carry and should be played as such.

In team fights she'll alternate between Shadowform and attacking her target, making her slippery and threatens to pick of squishy supports. When using Shadowform, make sure to run over the enemy right-click heroes in order to prevent them from attacking. Alternatively, you can use it to make allies ethereal instead. The obvious weakness of this hero are tanky heroes and supports. If she can't bring a hero down with the initial burst she's just kind of left hanging, allowing for Mekansm and other sustain items to kick in for her opponents. This is unless her ultimate is up, which allows her to isolate a target for 10 seconds preventing any help from reaching it.

Items

In the Early Game the most important thing for you is to maximize per attack damage. Increasing attack speed does increase the rate of which bolts replenish, but it's simply more efficient to let your abilities generate bolts instead.

Phase Boots compensates for her low base damage.
Ring of Aquila gives overall good stats and mana regeneration.
Bottle if you're going to the mid lane. Allows you to farm more efficiently by spamming Black Ethereum.
Infused Raindrops protects you against magical damage, something you are susceptible to when ganked.

In the Mid Game you need to have some more impact with a more serious damage item. You also need to address your weakness to magical damage if needed.

Black King Bar to protect against magical damage and stuns.
Maelstrom is amazing for farming. 8 bolts and a Black Ethereum clears most camps instantly.

In the Late Game your item build will start to look like that of most other carry builds. Let the game decide what's necessary.

Balance

The very nature of her innate passive makes any small changes to numbers have a huge impact on the effectiveness of the hero. So much so that it's pretty much impossible to balance on paper alone, it has to be tested in practice. I've designed the concept to be balanced easily in both the early and late game by changing the value of two variables: Black Ethereum and Multi-shot Crossbow. Bolt Charges generated from Black Ethereum is always constant throughout the game thus impacting the early game most, whereas changes to the Bolt Charge Replenish Time of Multi-shot Crossbow scales heavily into the late game. By changing these two variables you can modify the power-curve of the hero to be on par with other heroes throughout the game.

For the rest of the concept, I'm not too fussy about the details. If an imbalance can be fixed simply by tweaking numbers than that's that. It's hard to determine what's properly balanced on paper alone, thus it's my belief that balance should be accounted for mostly when a concept is implemented and can actually be tested. This is especially true for the Talent Tree. For the moment it's mostly suggestions for what's possible/interesting.

Lore

Azura was once a powerful hero revered by many and her forces was tasked with vanquishing the Black Temple and the surrounding plains of the scourge that infested it. Upon defeating their leader she came across another powerful artifact, the Shadow Veil. Against the advice of her companions, she decided that this artifact would be of great help for their cause. However, unknown to them, the Veil had been cursed by beings of the Nothl realm and upon the acquisition of this Veil she was thrown into the Nothl realm, never to be found again.

She managed to escape the clutches of Nothl and returned to this realm, but she was changed beyond recognition. She had escaped the Nothl realm, but not its curse. In this ethereal dimension of the Nothl Realm, the properties of light and dark are inverted and so, her benevolent soul and divine appearance had invert in nature. While this did not affect her intent and devotion, others began to fear her for the demon she seamed to have become. Her rightful heart still guides her actions, but by the embrace of the Nothl realm, turns her shining light into pitch black darkness. In the eyes of others she was no longer the benevolent hero she once was, but rather the incarnation of evil and destruction. A presence colder than night pierces the bones of those around her.

As she walked among man terror swept over the lands. She tried to explain her circumstances and what have befallen her, but no one gave her the time of day. No one dared to approach her. Rumors started spreading of this new evil and eventually the nations united to rid the world of the crisis that had befallen it, but again she was nowhere to be found. She had walked into exile. Confused by the circumstances, not wanting to hurt the ones she loved, she simply walked away.

She means no harm, but others cannot see past the veil of the Nothl realm and cannot help but to judge her for her imposed appearance. No matter what she does she will forever be feared for whom she is not, forever exiled for whom she is not.

Credits

Template images such as for the attributes, movement speed, mana cost, etc, as well as the layout of the page comes from / is inspired by:
https://www.dota2.com/heroes/

The talent tree image is from:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trenchwarfaredota.talenttreefordota

The Aghanim's upgrade image is from:
https://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Aghanim%27s_Scepter

The ability icons are from the game Guild Wars:
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gallery_of_high_resolution_assassin_skill_icons
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gallery_of_high_resolution_elementalist_skill_icons

I'd like to enter the Hero Creation Contest. Instructions of how to participate is not very specific, so I assume bumping the post is fine?

I think so, the concept is original and it's your past concept anyways you just want to make use of it again...so I guess it's fair game

As one of the judges, I'll go ahead and say this is fair game, yes. If it all possible can you just add an [HCC] tag at the front so we know to include it when the time comes? If not in the post title, somewhere near the top of the post.

Shadowform should make her phased.

Added it at the top of the post, as I don't know how to edit the post title.


That was the intended behavior. Added it to the notes.

Hey!

Yes, you're correct. Make sure to keep updating your hero concept to be in the best form. :)

Good luck! :D

Holy **** this is some godlike formatting.

I was gonna comment on balance but it isn't one of the categories so whatever.

Well done!

Is the contest application ended today? Around what time , or I missed it already? Someone please tell me.

I've answered your question through private messages. It's 1st of January, entries are now closed.