Aquinas, the Sigil Priest

I've had an idea for a hero for a while that I thought would be worth posting here. While the concepts of the spells I think are fairly thought out and balanced, the values of their effects I'm a little less certain about and am still open to tweaking. I also did not post stat values for the hero since I couldn't estimate what constituted good values or not, though I would estimate that none of his stat gains would be spectacular and he would start with relatively high intelligence. If you would like to make suggestions on such values or balance ideas, please go ahead and comment. Without further ado, I present Aquinas, the Sigil Priest.


Aquinas, Sigil Priest
"Do not interrupt my meditations!"

Bio:
A hermit priest and friend of Lanaya who devoted his life to a solemn vigil to a sacred temple deep within forests hidden from the rest of the world. He guards this temple at all costs, using his deep meditation to inscribe seals of great power as defenses should any evil try to breach its walls.

Overview:
Sigil Priest is a ranged intelligence hero who makes up for his mediocre stats with his variety of aoe traps (similar in usage to TA's familiar ultimate) known as seals. A different type of seal is placed by each of his skills sans his ultimate. These seals last for 8 seconds, have a large radius, and provide an effect to appropriate targets that stand on them for their duration, but can be destroyed by four physical attacks. Aquinas's ultimate, which I will get into, buffs the seals in a new way each level. Because it has such a large impact on his spells, I will describe it first.


Ultimate Spell: Enhanced Meditation

Aquinas channels his thoughts and will into his seal projections, renewing their strength and potential.

Level 1: All seals can be detonated (done by hitting the hotkey for the spell a second time after the spell is cast) following a one second arming time upon being cast and another half-second cast time. Detonation of each spell destroys the seal and at first affects only the appropriate target closest to the center of the seal, giving a varying effect depending on the seal detonated; all seals now take an extra hit to destroy and last 2 seconds longer.

Level 2: Seal detonation now affects all appropriate targets within the seals aoe; all seals now take an extra hit to destroy and last 2 seconds longer.

Level 3: Seals receive a large increase in radius (350 up from 250) and the cast range of each is doubled (1400 up from 700); all seals now take an extra hit to destroy and last 2 seconds longer.

Aghanims Scepter Effect: All seals become invisible following their detonation arming time, and will become visible for their casting duration if detonated.

Explanation:
Sigil Priest's seals get buffs throughout the game to maintain effectiveness to the changing metagame. Detonation starts out only at level 6 to prevent incredibly powerful super-early strats that could result from such strong spells, and even then its potential is only fully unlocked at level 11 with all heroes in the aoe affected to prevent him from being an unstoppable ganker at level 6 as a mid hero, because he is intended to be played as a lane support. The last buff at 16 is to increase his survivability while casting as at this point many enemy heroes could kill him before he could place the seals; the extra area is to ensure that the seals now actually have to be dealt with instead of ignored, as they now occupy a significant area and cannot be killed without suffering their effects. Lastly the additional hits required ensures that these vital aspects of his gameplay are not just easily batted away by attack speed buffed carries; these seals should be a threat. The increased time is to make up for the lack of a cooldown decrease as the seals are leveled. Aghanims should be considered an important pickup if no other invisibility is used on the team due to the strain it will put on the enemy and the tactics that open up because of it; I originally thought of switching the aghs effect with the level 3 buff, but if there were too many invis heroes on your team it would seem to make the invis on the seals useless due to them likely already having detection anyway. This makes aghs a more situational pickup instead of a critical core item, which is what I view aghs should be like anyway.



Spell 1: Seal of Restraint

Aquinas meditates his thoughts on an area to slow down the progression of time within it.

Provides a scaling attack speed and movement speed slow to all enemy units in the aoe. Upon detonation, appropriate enemy hero targets will receive a scaling stun.
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Radius: 250 units
Cast Time: .5 seconds
Level 1: 20% slow, 1 second detonation stun (mana cost: 90)
Level 2: 25% slow, 1.5 second detonation stun (mana cost 100)
Level 3: 30% slow, 2 second detonation stun (mana cost 110)
Level 4: 35% slow, 2.5 second detonation stun (mana cost 120)

Explanation:
This spell is meant to be picked to support an aggressive lane partner, especially if it used as a deterrent to running away in a particular direction. Having the function of reducing attack speed on top of movement speed also makes this the tankiest seal, ensuring it has a far higher likelihood of lasting long enough for its intended purpose as opposed to his other aggressive seal. The low cooldown also ensures that it can be constantly used to make the enemy anxious in lane, as well as make it difficult to last hit, forcing them to choose between killing the seal or compensating for the attack speed reduction. Overall, if the current game is looking to be aggressive, this seal should be maxed first to ensure easy kills.


Spell 2: Seal of Protection

Aquinas focuses his meditation to strengthen the resilience of those in an area as he would to the walls of his own temple.

Provides a scaling armor and magic resistance increase to all allied units in the aoe. Upon detonation, appropriate allied hero targets will receive a scaling heal.
Cooldown: 40 seconds
Radius: 250 units
Cast Range: 700 units
Cast Time: .5 seconds
Level 1: 5 armor, 5% magic resistance, 75 point detonation heal (mana cost 50)
Level 2: 10 armor, 10% magic resistance, 150 point detonation heal (mana cost 60)
Level 3: 15 armor, 15% magic resistance, 225 point detonation heal (mana cost 70)
Level 4: 20 armor, 20% magic resistance, 300 point detonation heal (mana cost 80)

Explanation:
Seal of Protection is certainly more iconic of a support ability, providing decent defense boosts for those that stand in its area. As such, it is a useful tool against heavy harassment, a ample aid to anyone jungling or attacking a tower, and an insurance policy in a teamfight to minimize losses. Due to its incredibly defensive potential, this spell works wonders as an pushing or anti-pushing spell, and can also be used to somewhat jungle Aquinas once he gets his level 6 detonation should he max it first. The low mana cost ensures that it will always be available to assist heroes in these tasks, balanced by the long cooldown which makes the player use judgment as to whether or not he wants to use it now as opposed to possibly needing it later.


Spell 3: Seal of Neutralization

Aquinas concentrates on a meditation to weaken rival magics that would attempt to defile his temple.

Provides a scaling manaburn per second through the first 3 levels that gives damage equal to mana burnt; level 4 gives a silence to all standing on the seal. Upon detonation, appropriate enemy hero targets will have all beneficial effects placed upon them purged.
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Radius: 250 units
Cast Time: .5 seconds
Level 1: 20 manaburn/second, purge upon detonation (mana cost 120)
Level 2: 40 manaburn/second, purge upon detonation (mana cost 120)
Level 3: 60 manaburn/second, purge upon detonation (mana cost 120)
Level 4: 60 manaburn/second, silence within aoe, purge upon detonation (mana cost 120)

Explanation:
The most situational of the seals, seal of neutralization is Aquinas's only source of damage beyond his auto-attack, but provides a lot of utility in the form of preventing spell casting. In lane the seal is a good harassment tool that provides the dual purpose of area denial and prevention of enemy spell use. It is also the most vulnerable of the seals compared to the other two to compensate, and should be followed up with auto-attacks to prevent the seal from being easily destroyed. The mana cost is static compared to the other seals due to its non-scaling detonation. For this reason it gains much of its utility at level 6 and can be afforded to have only one level in it by then. However, as manaburn in teamfights won't work fast enough to prevent them from having mana to cast, Sigil Priest should look to have this skill maxed before said teamfights to utilize the silence effectively. Overall this would usually result in this skill being maxed second, regardless of the other skill maxed first.


Note for refresher orb: using the item will reset the cooldowns as normal (which are longer than the max duration of each seal), but Sigil Priest can only have one seal of each type up at once. Because of the abusable nature of stacking any of the seals effects and the incredible aoe that can be covered by having so many up at once, placing a seal after using refresher will remove the other one of the same kind WITHOUT detonating it.


Item Suggestions:
Despite the disclaimer on refresher, its usefulness should not be overlooked due to the power potential of so many detonation effects in a teamfight. Aghanims as mentioned before, while situational, for the most part can be considered a highly useful addition to his spells' utility. Being a support hero other items Sigil Priest should utilize are arcane boots, mekansm, and pipe of insight. Beyond that, Sigil should look to buy items that allow the best placement of his seals or ensure his survivability to be last long enough to detonate them when most effective.

Gameplay:
I view Sigil Priest as a sort of secondary initatior. He does not initiate well himself as his seals can be easily fled from or quickly killed by the enemy, but with a lockdown they can enact their full potential. With aghanims, the seals can be used far more aggressively, placing them as traps for oncoming enemies, which if well placed could in fact then be used as primary initiation. Sigil Priest should not approach the enemy too closely himself as he has no power in close combat on top of being squishy; he should be played from the back rows of fights manipulating his seals as effectively as possible. Overall, Sigil Priest should look to always be assisting another hero on the team with their job, whether it be a pusher, a ganker, or to ensure the safety of an allied carry while they farm. Aquinas should NOT be a solo ganker, a carry, or even viewed as someone with great harassment potential or off-lane potential. His power comes from utilizing effects that combine well with other heroes, and always looking to delay the detonation of his seals until the very last moment possible to maximize their total utility.


Please tell me what you think; this is my first post on this forum and I made an account specifically to share ideas like this. I am happy to listen to critique and could possibly modify suggestions into this post. I hope you enjoyed my hero idea.

~Naxela

Majorly edited from when this was first posted, so to any of you that looked at it then, I would recommend you reread to see what I've updated before commenting. I've also renamed the term "glyph" to "seal" due to the use of glyph of neutralization being used in the Dragon Age series.

Edited again for grammar.

Edited values for cast range and seal radius (radius greatly nerfed after I did some testing ingame to see how large 600 radius is; turns out it's quite large)

Honestly, this hero looks like she could use some arcane boots and, she looks really underpowered. He seems like he couldn't be approached, but he can't approach or even weaken for ****. Also, I think the ultimate would be a lot more helpful if rather than becoming better, it scaled. Ex. range/radius: +200/400/600, targets: +1/1/2, or something like that because he looks like he could use weak buffs over time rather than getting big buffs. He looks like the ultimate babysitter, but would lose a lot/all effectiveness late game, maybe you could replace the ward of neutral to a unit target disable, kinda like Windrunners Shackleshot, but stuns them, and slows a certain number of people near them.

I've vastly updated my post since your comment, but you make some good points. I think a lot of that might change the function of the hero though, which I have very well set in mind. Also seal of restraint at level 11 already functions as a very powerful aoe disable, and at level 16 has a size rivaling some initiator-type hero spells, so I don't think he needs another.

Hope to see this hero in dota

Hope to see this hero in dota

I like the idea! +1

Here's a tool to take it to the next level :D

http://www.playdota.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1087551

You know, I like this guy. He has great potential for control and support in teamfights. I'd play him, he looks quite fun!