Arash'ruin, the Psychomancer

Arash'ruin the Psychomancer is a melee Intelligence Hero. His abilities focus on a stacking debuff called Madness, which is applied by Mind Spike (his Q), his autoattacks (when his W has points in it), and Psychosis (his ultimate). Levels of Madness empower his E, Thought Shear. He fulfils the role of the hard carry within a team, although he also has potent nuking and counterinitiation abilities.

Backstory
In a peaceful town on the Outskirt Mountains, Arash was a minor conjurer, a wizard of little power yet well-respected. Business eventually called, and Arash left briefly for the city to find some reagents.

He returned to a ruin. Whilst he was away, a dark mage had laid waste to the town, slaughtering its inhabitants for the summoning of a great demon. Infuriated, Arash began to track this mage, eventually killing him upon the Black Peaks.

Yet, after the deed was done, he still felt emptier than ever. It was then that the summoned demon, Nevermore the Shadow Fiend, appeared to Arash and offered a deal: his soul for the lives of his kin. Without a second thought, Arash accepted.

It is unknown what went wrong with the process, or if the Shadow Fiend intended this result, but the souls of Arash and his townsfolk fused together, along with their minds. Sanity shattered beyond belief, Arash'ruin now roams the world, seeking a new vengeance on Nevermore. What he will never accept, is that in his quest for vengeance, he has become that which he most despises.

Stats
Faction: The Dire
Role: Carry, Counterinitiation
Strength: 17 + 1.7 per level (57.8 at level 25)
Agility: 16 + 2 per level (64 at level 25)
Intelligence: 19 + 2.4 per level (76.6 at level 25)
HP: 150 (473 at level 1, 1252 at level 25)
Mana: 0 (247 at level 1, 1001 at level 25)
Armour: 3 (5 at level 1, 10 at level 25)
Attack Speed: 1.6
Range: Melee

As you can see, he is quite fragile although he has decent armour. His stat gain is mediocre but oddly for an int hero he gets more bonuses from Agility than Intelligence.

His abilities are all very synergistic and work with each other. Bear in mind the numbers are not at all final as it's really hard to balace a debuff that stacks up really high lategame yet still is useful in the earlygame.

Mind Spike (Q)
Arash'ruin splits his target's mind, dealing magical damage and reducing the target's magic resistance briefly. Also applies two instances of Madness.
Each instance of Madness reduces the victim's movement speed by 4%. Madness stacks last for 13 seconds.
Damage: 120/160/200/240
Resistance Modifier: 8%/12%/16%/20%
Cooldown: 20/17/14/11

Lucid Strikes (W, Passive)
The Psychomancer's autoattacks apply one stack of Madness to the target, then deal magical damage per stack of Madness.
Each instance of Madness reduces the victim's movement speed by 4%. Madness stacks last for 13 seconds.
Damage per stack: 7/10/13/16

Thought Shear (E)
The Psychomancer combusts the target's sanity, dealing area affect damage around them based on the number of Madness stacks. The Psychomancer gains bonus attack speed per stack for 4 seconds.
Area of effect: 225/300/375/450
Damage per stack: 10/17/24/31
Increased attack speed per stack: 2/3/4/5%
Cooldown: 30/25/20/15


Psychosis (Ultimate)
The Psychomancer unleashes his power to blot out all lucidity on the map, turning all enemy units hostile to each other for a brief duration and applying stacks of Madness to each.
Each instance of Madness reduces the victim's movement speed by 4%. Madness stacks last for 13 seconds.
Duration: 3.5/4.5/5.5
Madness stack applied: 3/4/5
Cooldown: 150



I guess it says about how much I like to play hard carries, but this one's basically about quickfarming a Linken's, Rod of Atos and Mjollnir and going on a murderous rampage. As he is very squishy, he needs survivability and also lots of Attack Speed and Movement Speed. So Manta Style also works. Don't hesitate to leave comments :)

Balance Changelog

V1.0: Created.

V1.1: Psychosis duration rescaled to 3.5/4.5/5.5 (was 4/5.5/7), and number of Madness applied reduced to 3/4/5 (was 5)
Base agility reduced by 2.
Thought Shear completely reworked.

First of all, it's a great idea! I love how you put in stackable effects in this guy, he could be a great carry like harbringer. The only problem would be that he is not reliable, but well... his ult takes care of that.

Just sone questions, how much Madness can you stack up on a single target? Can units under Psychosis be attacked? If can, do the killer get bounty? And really, 7 seconds is way too long

Madness stacks indefinitely, so you *can* slow people by 100% a la Meepo. With Psychosis, it basically means that all enemy heroes are put on a separate team to each other and your team (so for the duration there are 6 teams, one being your 5 and the others each having 1 player, with teams being hostile to each other). I was thinking that all 'friendly fire' kills are credited to Arash'ruin, as is the bounty. On duration, it was hard to think of a good duration, because they can just choose not to attack their allies. It's mainly for when Engima drops a Black Hole, or Magnus pulls off an RP, or essentially just an initiation of your own similar to Spectre's Haunt.

I really think that's a tad bit OP if it stacks indefinitely, I mean you can use ult + Q and have 7 points for free, then attacking just 3 times and have 10 stacks. This means: 40% slow, 160 bonus damage, and potential 70% as and ms, and 3 seconds reliable stun that is sheer OP. I'm being generous here by saying it is 3 attacks, you can go indefinitely and probably get a free Divine Rapier damage + haste rune + countless hyperstones + free active Rod of Atos

As of the ult, when you say "all enemy units" I assume that it means that all the creeps and towers will attack heroes, do they? Also, if you say they can just not attack each other, it means that for 7 seconds they HAVE TO NOT cast any AOE spells, which is crazy.

Really, I love the idea but I think it needs some balancing works on it.

Mmm. Point taken. What if the E was changed to:

The Psychomancer combusts the target's sanity, dealing area affect damage around them based on the number of Madness stacks, as well as gaining bonus attack speed per stack.
Area of effect: 225/300/375/450
Damage per stack: 10/17/24/31
Increased attack speed per stack: 2/3/4/5%
Cooldown: 30/25/20/15

This means it works kind of like Antimage's ult - some setup required but deadly if charged up. It also means that the longer the game goes the more you need to attack before using it, but if it goes ultra-lategame you can use it constantly to devastating effect.

One thought... there's no such thing as something that stacks indefinitely... It breaks games.

Don't know man... Legion Commander has a single target spell that brings enemies to attack her for like 6 seconds maximum. This spell makes people attack allies for 7, providing 6 times the utility. I doubt that it is balanced. For the concept, I would rather have the changed thought shear instead, at least there is a clear cooldown and does not randoml activate when attacking an enemy with Madness stacks.

Also, just to be fair, Madness does not have to have limited stacks to be balanced - look at Sticky Napalm, it is the spell that makes Batrider OP in the lane, and it can only go up to 10 stacks. If you want to balance this hero, in my opinion,
1. Reduce starting agility (starting armor stays the same).
2. Reduce duration of Psychosis and the number of Madness stacks it applies.
3. Slightly reduce Mind Spike's damage.
4. Reduce attack range to be more manageable for enemies (since his attacks also apply madness).

Even when balanced, its gonna be a pubstomper, but it's the concept that matters the most in the end, I guess.

My thoughts and questions about each skill is in italics

Mind Spike (Q)
Arash'ruin splits his target's mind, dealing magical damage and reducing the target's magic resistance briefly. Also applies two instances of Madness.
Each instance of Madness reduces the victim's movement speed by 4%.
Damage: 120/160/200/240
Resistance Modifier: 8%/12%/16%/20%

How brief is the magical resistance reduction debuff?
if Madness can be stacked indefinitely, shouldn't there be some kind of limit on how much movement speed reduction you can put on the enemy?

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Lucid Strikes (W, Passive)
The Psychomancer's autoattacks apply one stack of Madness to the target, then deal magical damage per stack of Madness.
Each instance of Madness reduces the victim's movement speed by 4%.
Damage per stack: 7/10/13/16

Kind of like Batrider's Sticky Napalm but stacks are indefinite which means you can reach to the point where your attack on an enemy (let's assume that it's a beefed up Pudge) would reach to GIGANTIC proportions.
Might I suggest turning it to an Autocast skill instead of Passive? With mana requirements and also making it a Unique Attack Modifier.

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Thought Shear (E)
The Psychomancer combusts the target's sanity and absorbs it, gaining increased attack and movement speed per stack of Madness and stunning the target based on Madness.
Increases A&MS per Madness stack: 4%/5%/6%/7%
Stun Duration per Madness stack: .1/.15/.2/.25

This might be one of the most OP skill in your Hero. With patience, and a heavy amount of stacks, you can stun someone for a long time, have IAS that would make Ursa look stupid and MS like Spirit Breaker

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Psychosis (Ultimate)
The Psychomancer unleashes his power to blot out all lucidity on the map, turning all enemy units hostile to each other for a brief duration and applying 5 stacks of Madness to each.
Each instance of Madness reduces the victim's movement speed by 4%.
Duration: 4/5.5/7

Wow, it's like Winter Wyvern's Winter's Curse, but every enemy is in a way the target and kill each other with AoE spells.
A split second is already enough to make a change in the game and 7 seconds is like an eternity in DotA.

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conclusion: I am not saying I don't like your Hero. I'm just saying that maybe if you put some limit and/or duration for the Madness debuff, you would likely have some balance issues fixed on this Hero. Let's say... that you can stack Madness indefinitely but the debuff should have some duration before disappearing.

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It's a bit confusing though, do the enemies get the IAS?




I'd like to say that yes, Batrider is powerful with ten stacks but that is nothing compared to a Hero that can stack something (like Sticky Napalm) indefinitely!

He's melee? How can you reduce the range of that? Also, the reason Madness doesn't have a cap is because to my knowledge neither does Geostrike, and that also deals damage.

Reduce starting agi - can be done.
Reduce ult duration - already done, just trying to decide what it should be. Reduce the applied stacks, guess so.
Reduce Mind Spike's damage - it does very little damage at the moment, just a bit more that Spectral Dagger, which is what it is supposed to be compared to.

And the new Thought Shear increases Psychomancer's attack speed, not the characters it deals damage to. Better make it clearer.

Oops, didn't read that he was Melee, makes a lot more sense now.