Janus the Shadow Ranger

JANUS THE SHADOW RANGER

"My arrows soar into their souls."

STRENGTH: 19 + 1.75
(Primary Attribute) AGILITY: 27 + 3.5
INTELLIGENCE: 22 + 2.35

Bio

"Some say the Shadows once had a name. Lost in the carnage that ensued within its outstretched arms. Prowled by vicious hunters and fiends, the Shadows waned and grew larger as did the cycles of the moon. When they would wane, all under its protection would cower. When it would strengthen, however, the Shadow Ranger would strike. Born of darkness and the flesh of the Dead God, the creature known as Janus was born screaming into this world. He was raised in the darkness, and there he learned to fear and to exploit it. Bending the shadows to his will, his rising power lead to a confrontation with the Night Stalker himself. After a glorious battle, Janus was thrown into the Underscape, beaten and utterly broken, never to return again. His arrows, black as night, would never again fly out into the skies again. But now, as the Nemesis Stones dawn upon the world, the Shadows have spat out its liberator. And the Shadow's name was Janus."

Overview

Janus' skill set can roughly describe him as a DPS glass cannon, dishing out massive amounts of damage before he is taken down. His first skill, Splinter Blast, deals damage in a cone-like fashion, damaging enemies within its radius. His second skill, Shadow Ward, creates a powerful ward with a powerful offensive buff generated within its radius. Scry, his third ability, allows him to open up vision into a radius for a certain duration. His ultimate, Blackthorn, is an armor-melting orb effect (much similar to the one carried by Invoker's Forge Spirits) that stacks both with itself and other armor reducing abilities. (Medallion, Track, Meld, Amplify Damage, etc.)

Skills

SPLINTER BLAST

"Janus launches a destructive arrow that explodes into shards, dealing damage and slowing all units in its path."
RANGE: 650
RADIUS: 175 (starting radius)/650 (distance)/ 300 (final radius)
DAMAGE: 75/100/125/175
SLOW: 25%/27.5%/30%/35%
MANACOST: 115/135/155/170
COOLDOWN: 14

NOTES

Similar to Dragon Knight's first skill, but has an increased radius and a slow at the cost of less damage and higher mana costs.

SHADOW WARD

"Summons a enigmatic ward at the location. The ward provides allies with a percentage of their primary attribute as damage as well as increased attack speed."
RADIUS: 425
PRIMARY ATTRIBUTE AS DAMAGE: 20%/30%/40%/50%
ATTACK SPEED BONUS: 25%/30%/37.5%/40%
MANACOST: 165
COOLDOWN: 45/40/35/30

NOTES

Provides an orb similar to Glaives of Wisdom and adds an attack speed amp. The ward has 1 hp and is roughly the same size as Juggernaut's Healing Ward. The effect of the ward stacks with Blackthorn.

SCRY

"Janus uses his otherworldly knowledge to scout his surroundings, granting him vision of the target area for a set duration."
RADIUS: 500/600/700/800
DURATION: 4.5/5/5.5/6
MANACOST: 130/140/150/160
COOLDOWN: 60

NOTES

Practically allows you to scout Rosh, fountain, incoming ganks, etc. with ease. High mana cost and CD makes usage of skill rather scarce. Not sure if allies should have the vision or not.

BLACKTHORN

"The Shadow Ranger's arrows are imbued with the power of pure darkness, demolishing enemy armor with ease. Passively grants True Strike at all levels. Blackthorn is an Unique Attack Modifier, and does not stack with other Unique Attack Modifiers."
ARMOR REDUCTION PER HIT: 1/2/3
DURATION: 10

NOTES

A strong Orb in my opinion. Since it's an Orb Effect, people won't be able to stack it with Desolator, but will be able to stack armor reduction with Medallion, Cuirass, etc.

SUMMARY

Overall, Janus is a hard-hitting Agility DPS Hard Carry, who completely destroys enemy armor and synergies perfectly with other armor melting heroes, (Slardar, Lanaya, Dazzle, etc.) but is extremely mana intensive early game due to the high mana costs of most of his skills. He is able to scout for his teammates, provide them with a powerful attack amplifier, and give his increased damage from all sides due to their armor being reduced to shreds, as well as demolishing evasion-based heroes. (save for Faceless Void, who really should be nerfed) I hope he isn't too imba.

ITEM IDEAS

So, for starters, Janus will need some form of mana management, so a Bottle is not out of the question. I think he can be played mid, so going for Bottle is pretty viable. Ring of Aquila would help out, too, in terms of mana regen as well. As for boots, Power Treads will suffice, (and it will for all carries).

Midgame his ideal set should be: Bottle, Power Treads, Magic Wand, Medallion of Courage and Ring of Aquila. After that he should just work towards Agility based items. Manta Style would synergize like crazy with his ult, burning over 9 armor per second with all illusions on one target. (Once again, it sreams imba) This allows you to reduce their armor by 36 in just 4 attacks, which is to say, completely ridiculous.

As for luxuries, a Butterfly and a Daedalus are prime choices for offense, but a Heart of Tarrasque could be taken to make up for his lowly strength gain. Other possibilities are Mjolnir, Assault Cuirass, Black King Bar, etc.

The ultimate has no reduction cap?

I didn't even bother to read anything about the topic name. No more fu**ing rangers. No. We have enough alredy.

It lasts 10 seconds and is reducing 3 per hit, its cap is dependent on the max attack speed.

Your ult idea is simply stupid. Towards the late-ish portion of the game it would be obscenely OP. With the good AGI growth your hero would probably do about 1.5 attacks per second. Multiply that by 3 for manta illusions and 3 reduction per hit and you have 13.5 armor reduction per second. Multiply that by 10 seconds (Assuming you were focus firing one person) and you could keep somebody at about -135 armor. Just a tad bit OP.

A agility hero can make 20 attacks in 10 seconds. That amounts to 30 armour reduction within 10 seconds. That's a lot for a no-cooldown orb effect. Feels a bit overpowered.

Also, you might want to list durations for Splinter Blast's slow and Shadow Ward.

Depends on the hero, every hero has different backswings/attack animations/base attack speed.

Ultimate is overpowered but I suggest you heavily nerf it by making the duration of the armor reduction become 4-6 seconds and revamping the armor reduction itself to 1/1.5/2 if it were to work on manta clones, otherwise 1/2/3 seems ok. If you really want to balance everything, nerf the agi growth to a healthy 3 on top of all that

We have 3 rangers: Clinkz, Drow, and Windrunner


Orb should cost mana on par with that of Enchantress' ult. This way, he has to build MP to spam it.
It should not be passive like AM's orb, but castable like Drow's.

His Scry does not fit in with anything. It doesn't fit with his carry role or his lore.

How long does his slow last? How long does his ward last?

Fair enough.