Xilixilyl the Cosmic Crawler (Bringing Lovecraft into Dota)

I wanted to design a hard carry, but one that was very unconventional and carried in a different way. I also wanted a lovecraftian horror as an available hero, not like small chunks of it like Slardar, Outworld Devourer, or Faceless Void. I wanted a hero that literally scaled with time, so I made this hero my most thematic one yet, and this thing likely ranks up in the late game tier with Medusa and Void. The Warcraft III icons and models are placeholders.

Dota 2 Model: A medium sized squid-like creature with a heavy shell that crawls around on all its tentacles (floats with a haste). It has several mouths in place of a squid face it would have, and several eyes surrounding said mouths. Its tentacles glow at the tips and the character model is semi-transparent. And it reaches its max size from ultimate, it grows from about Sand King sized to about the size of a fully grown Tiny by minute 60.
15 + 1.416 + 1.3*19 + 2

Armor: 6.3
Affiliation: Dire
Damage: 49-56
Attack Animation (frontswing/backswing): 0.3 / 0.3
Cast Animation (frontswing/backswing): 0.1 / 0.4
Base Health Regen: 2
BAT: 1.9
Range: 500
Missile Speed: 1200 (about Drow Speed)
Missile:

Movespeed: 275
Sight Range: 1800/800
Voice Actor: Frank Welker (This hero does not talk, only makes creature noises)

Lore:
Xilixilyl saw the formation of the universe from the other side, a side of darkness that no one could see. When the early magic users of the world saw it, it was called the Cosmic Crawler, a creature from another dimension that only observed from behind the looking glass. It was alone on its side, living in an empty universe with an unspecified age. Now it turned its eyes towards a new universe, with an unknown objective. Eventually, Xilixilyl gained sorcerer followers and was summoned in a new form to this brand new dimension. The new body is still weak, but the Cosmic Crawler is highly adaptive, and before long, every creature may be in danger of absolute annihilation. Not even its followers know what it wants with this universe, but it cannot be safe for the inhabitants.

Abilities:


Dimension Shift

Note: This skill is innate.
Allows you to shift the side effect of Dimensional Rip. This skill has no cooldown, no cast point, and no mana cost. The order of the effects is Reduction (Reduces base armor and magic resistance by 25% [like a Level 1 Natural Order]), Inflation (Increase mana cost of skills by 30%), Atrophy (reduces base attack damage by 30%) and Blind (40% miss rate)
With Aghs Scepter, replaces these with: Break, Silence, Weaken (reduces all damage dealt by 50%, including from spells), and Disarm.

Flavor Text: Powers can be suppressed when the world's fabric is torn.

Stellar Shift

Note: This skill is innate.
Allows you to shift the side effect of Cosmic Bind. This skill has no cooldown, no cast point, and no mana cost. The order of the effects is Reduction (Reduces base armor and magic resistance by 25%), Inflation (Increase mana cost of skills by 30%), Atrophy (reduces base attack damage by 30%) and Blind (40% miss rate)
With Aghs Scepter, replaces these with: Break, Silence, Weaken (reduces all damage dealt by 50%, including from spells), and Disarm.

Flavor Text: Powers may also be suppressed when the very being is locked down by Crawler
Dimensional Rip

An area is ripped to another dimension. It deals damage proportional to your Intelligence. Opponents hit will all be affected the same. You can shift its side effect with Dimension Shift. Effects are blocked by magic immunity. Damage Type: Magic. 500 cast range. Removes 50% of the current hp of non hero units before damaging them. The effects are purgable.
Level 1 - Deals 3.6x Int in damage. 230 Radius. Lasts 1.4 second.
Level 2 - Deals 4x Int in damage. 260 Radius. Lasts 1.8 seconds.
Level 3 - Deals 4.4x Int in damage. 290 Radius. Lasts 2.2 seconds.
Level 4 - Deals 4.8x Int in damage. 320 Radius. Lasts 2.6 seconds.
Mana Cost: 115/130/145/160
CD: 4
Flavor Text: The Cosmic Crawler can open a portal to a new dimension with new rules and laws that no mortal can comprehend, creating only a special kind of chaos.

Cosmic Bind

When activated, deals damage over time to an area based on Cosmic Crawler's Str for heroes. For enemy units, it deals a percentage of their health along with the damage from your strength. Units and heroes below a certain threshold have the Stellar Shift debuff applied to them every 0.25 seconds. Slows by 12%. 500 AOE Radius. Ability automatically ends if Crawler gets farther than 1000 distance from the AOE. When the effects are applied they go through magic immunity. Damage type: Magical
Level 1 - Deals 1.8x str to heroes + 16% of max hp to creeps. 26% hp threshold.
Level 2 - Deals 2x str to heroes + 18% of max hp to creeps. 29% hp threshold.
Level 3 - Deals 2.2x str to heroes + 20% of max hp to creeps. 32% hp threshold.
Level 4 - Deals 2.4x str to heroes + 22% of max hp to creeps. 38% hp threshold.
Mana Cost: 85/90/95/100 + 3% of max mana pool to activate. 11/22/33/44 + 2% of max mana pool per second.
HP
CD: 7/6/5/4
Flavor Text: Those without the stamina to resist it will soon find themselves crushed under the cosmic field of Xilixilyl, dominated by the superiority of the powerful beast.

Spirit Touch (Autocast)

When attacking, the Cosmic Crawler applies a debuff that deals damage to health and mana based on his agility and deals bonus damage to creeps if it hits them. If Cosmic Bind is active this ability will cause Cosmic Crawler to attack all units in the Bind, damaging all of them. When using this skill, the missile speed increase to 1700. Effect lasts 4 seconds and stacks fully with itself. Damage Type: Magical.

Level 1 - Deals 0.4x Agi damage and mana removal per second. Deals an additional 40 damage per second to creeps.
Level 2 - Deals 0.5x Agi damage and mana removal per second. Deals an additional 60 damage per second to creeps.
Level 3 - Deals 0.6x Agi damage and mana removal per second. Deals an additional 80 damage per second to creeps.
Level 4 - Deals 0.7x Agi damage and mana removal per second. Deals an additional 100 damage per second to creeps.
CD: 3
Mana Cost: 3% of max mana
Flavor Text: Xilixilyl shows how rudimentary the minds of these mere collections of stardust are. With a spectral arm, a touch for these souls will be in for a shock.
Inevitable Adaptation (Passive) (Ultimate)

Gains stats and movespeed based on how long the timer has been running, and passively causes faster respawn based on amount of time it has been. Stat gain is uncapped. Movespeed bonus capped at 100 (will be maxed at 68/50/42 minutes). Respawn time reduction is capped at 80 seconds (which will take 94/80/67 minutes). Respawn reduction will stack with Bloodstone. This skill is retroactive, meaning it counts based on total time. Also reduces cooldowns on abilities and items per level. Every 5 minutes, the hero's model grows a little larger with the learning of this skill.
Level 1 - Adds +1 to all stats, +2 to movespeed and -1 second respawn time every 70 seconds of game time. Reduces cooldowns by 15%.
Level 2 - Adds +1 to all stats, +2 to movespeed and -1 second respawn time every 60 seconds of game time. Reduces cooldowns by 25%.
Level 3 - Adds +1 to all stats, +2 to movespeed, and -1 second respawn time every 50 seconds of game time. Reduces cooldowns by 35%.
Flavor Text: As time passes, the Cosmic Crawler grows stronger, adapting to its new environment. It is only a matter of time before everything ends.


Talents:
Level 10: A- +5 MP Regen, B- 15% Evasion
Level 15: A- +60 Damage, B- +125 Cast Range
Level 20: A- + 10% Spell Amp, B- + 10 Armor
Level 25: A- Dimensional Rip deals 20% damage to buildings, B- +35% Magic Resistance


Pros and Cons:
+Fairly Disable Resistant
+Massive Teamfight Presence if farmed
+Can adapt his abilities for many lineups
+Very good at turning a losing game around
+High Base Armor, Damage, and Regen, especially for a ranged hero, making it difficult to harass
+Almost Unmatched Power in very late game
+Spends minimal time dead late game
-Mana Problems
-Low Stats and Gain that takes a while to remedy and come online
-Literally requires time to get momentum
-Slow early in the game, easy gank target
-Entirely Item Dependent


Role:


Story Stuff:
Personality:


Interaction with Other Heroes:


Relative Power Level: Cosmic Being. At max power: 4 Fundamentals, Weaver, Outworld Devourer

In light of the new update of Dota 6.82 taking out Universal damage, the basis of which this hero was based, all the values of it's spell damage was reduced and now it uses pure. Also, I changed the top artwork to fit more how I imagine the hero looking.

Any thoughts would be nice.

Hero was semi-remade to be more interesting to play if it was ever imported. Added Gamma Twist so there is more skill and less luck in using the hero. Changed the mechanics of Foolish Whisper, rebalanced numbers of ult so Crawler comes online faster, and added a new, simpler Aghs upgrade.

Interesting idea. If I had been more awake right now, I would have read the whole thing. I'll get back to you in the morning. Good night :).

Thanks for your interest.

Reading it again, I still do not understand how I am meant to play this hero. It is supposed to be a carry, I know, but I just cannot picture his playstyle. Could you explain it to me?

(This hero is genderless, but I will use male pronouns for simplicity)
This hero is a carry, but it is done in a very odd means. Crawler wins fights kind of like a Zeus or Necrophos, specializing in teamfights, and gradually becoming more dangerous the longer the fight goes, but focuses more on farming than snowballing off kills. His item build is limited only to mana regen and attribute items, because all of his skills scale into late game, mostly based on his stats.. He spams Dimensional Rip to deal lots of damage later and to place powerful debuffs on opponents based on who he's fighting. Cosmic Bind is an activation DoT that scales with his stats, and the effects of Gamma Twist are applied on low health opponents (until they either die or leave the area) to make it so that the longer he is fought, the less likely it is to win. Foolish Whisper lets him autoattack every enemy in his bind increasing all damage dealt, mainly for his two AOE spells. Foolish Whisper lowers attributes by a percentage as well to further boost up Cosmic Bind (it's a double amp for this spell, which is why you want to stack up Whisper). His ultimate allows him kite enemy heroes with the increased movespeed, gain the stats he needs, and effectively have several lives in games that go on. Many carries have access to an ability passive, like Bash or Crit, Crawler has a Bloodstone. The Aghs effect of absorbing stats from attackers is to punish focusing him down first by increasing damage of Cosmic Bind whiling granting him some tanking power.


Basically, if you need to imagine, most of early and midgame, there is some fight contribution, but lots of farming (which should be fairly simple with the side effects his abilities have towards creeps), late game, this hero stands in the middle lines behind his initiators and in front of his supports, maintaining his bind and spamming all his spells to amplify their damage as the fight goes on, but avoiding manfighting with other carries. Even if you kill Crawler, he'll be back quite soon and needs to die again, so he kills the late game disadvantage of long respawn times.

To make up for this late game power, stats and stat gain is weak, and he is vulnerable to ganks, with a disgusting 275 movespeed.

This is by far the coolest hero idea I have seen, but isnt it a bit overpowered? I mean, having an innate Bloodstone is just amazing.

The fact that he's a timebomb is great.

One question, how does Black King Bar affect his damage output?

I'm glad you like it Metabee. The hero is designed to be a timebomb type ala Medusa to fit in with themes of fate and stuff.

The idea is one that seems overpowered in theory, but in practice, would likely come out as balanced. He has early game vulnerability, and his late game is not entirely unbeatable, after all, if you teamwipe, then your Crawler comes back in 10 seconds, he still won't win a 1v5, 1v4, or maybe even 1v3 against the enemy carry/carries. However, the main advantage of his ult late is so that if he gets picked off at minute 60, the game is not lost in any way as opposed to if a Lifestealer or Spectre suffers the same fate. Also, he has no real means to damage towers and no global mobility like Ember Spirit or Spectre, so he can be beaten by splitpushers such as Terrorblade or Naga Siren.

As for BKB, it does little to his damage output. All his abilities go through Magic Immunity except the Gamma Twist effects from Dimensional Rip. There are not reduced my magic resistance either (in an earlier version of this hero, he was built around Universal Damage, but that was removed in 6.82, so I converted the values and made it pure, piercing magic immunity). If he buys it, it adds little damage, but there are probably some circumstances where he would buy it, like a permahexing Tinker.

My beloved Crawler has been updated (read:nerfed) again, I don’t know why, but he felt too powerful late:
Removed +3 to all stats attribute bonus (This eventually stopped fitting for me)
Changed Gamma Twist so it’s durations are not all different, and are bound to the current level of Dimensional Rip.
Weakened the Slow from Cosmic Bind (so you would need to set Bind to Slow in order to have a strong slow), and gave a percentage activation cost.
Stat Reduction removed from Foolish Whisper (now it’s just damage amplification). Unique values for first amp removed and is now consistent like Warpath.
Aghs Ult was buffed, so it steals stats for longer, so slightly better manfighting options.