Ruk Sha Goluzib, The Form-Shifter

Birthed in a universe without name, Ruk Sha Goluzib�known to many as simply The Form-Shifter�emerged into this plane through means that she likely does not understand or even recollect. Regurgitated out into the wilderness, her earliest memories consisted of feeling about her surroundings blindly, trying her hardest to make sense of what her tendrils and amorphous body grasped. Alas, she found nothing that felt quite like herself, and so she wondered silently in vain: what could she possibly be? Quite by accident, she one day discovered that her body was capable of taking the forms of other things. There were many ways, in fact, that she could change her body. Was it possible that there was a specific form that she was designed to take, a particular shape she was meant to be? Perhaps she had simply forgotten how to mold her body to the way it was meant to be.

Over time, she took on many forms and molded to her body many senses, but ultimately, only disappointment filled her heart. What was wrong? What was she missing? For a long time, she sought the shape and form that would fill this void, or for some knowledge or perspective that would give her the answer of identity she so deeply craved. Alone in the wilds, however, her only option was introspection, and unfortunately, that quickly lost its novelty. It wasn�t until a battle broke out between nearby tribesmen almost a decade later that she experienced the kind of violence that accompanied warfare. She was horrified. Panicked after she had wandered too far out into the center of the butchery, she mimicked as best she could the movements and actions of those around her in a hysterical attempt at survival.

And survive she did. Yet it was much more than merely surviving. Somewhere, some part of her�perhaps an instinct, or some words left her from birth�knew exactly what to do. Her tendrils lashed and writhed about with almost precognitive efficacy, and her body morphed and rippled into the exact shapes needed without her even thinking about it. It wasn�t until after the carnage had ended�until after the last stragglers had either fled or been cut down by her�that she knew what she was. She was Ruk Sha Goluzib. She Who Sculpts Flesh. The Carnal Mold. The Form-Shifter.

STRENGTH HERO: RUK SHA GOLUZIB THE FORM-SHIFTER

Strength: 22 + 2.5 || Agility: 15 + 2.0 || Intelligence: 23 + 2.0
Hit Points: 150 + 418 (568) || Mana: 299 || Damage: 15-21 + Strength (37 - 43)
Armor: 0 + Agility (2) || Base Attack Time: 1.7 || Movement Speed: 320 || Turn Rate: 0.5
Attack Range: Melee / Ranged || Missile Speed: 1300 || Vision: 1200/1200
Attack Duration: 0.4 + 0.4 || Cast Duration: 0.35 + 0.35

Q: REFORM

The Form-Shifter reshapes her body, granting her access to a second form with a ranged attack. Passively upgrades her auto-attacks in both forms, as well as increasing her vision range. When this ability is cast to change forms, an AoE effect is triggered based on the form she currently is in. Entangled units are unable to move and have channeling interrupted, but otherwise able to act normally. Units suffering from Pull or Knockback are moved at a speed of 600 toward or away from the center point and have channeling interrupted.

Bonus Vision: 150/300/450/600

Melee Form
Disarm Chance: 10%/15%/20%/25%
Disarm Duration: 0.75/1.0/1.25/1.5
AoE Radius for Activation Effect: 200/250/300/350
Pull Distance for Activation Effect: 200/250/300/350
Damage for Activation Effect: 25/50/75/100
Mana Cost: 15/25/35/45
Cool Down: 4/3/2/1

Ranged Form
Entangle Chance: 10%/15%/20%/25%
Entangle Duration: 0.75/1.0/1.25/1.5
Attack Range: 200/250/300/350
AoE Radius for Activation Effect: 200/250/300/350
Knockback Distance for Activation Effect: 200/250/300/350
Damage for Activation Effect: 25/50/75/100
Mana Cost: 15/25/35/45
Cooldown: 4/3/2/1

W: AMORPHOUS SURGE

Ruk Sha rushes madly to an area in front of her, damaging all enemies in her path and either slowing or blinding them in the process. If there are enemy heroes in her origin or destination area, they take double damage.

Range: 800/1000/1200/1400
Speed: 600/700/800/900
Damage: 25/50/75/100
Attack/Move Slow (Melee Form): 20%/30%/40%/50%
Miss Chance (Ranged Form): 30%/45%/60%/75%
Slow/Miss Duration: 2
Mana Cost: 90/100/110/120
Cool Down: 10/8/6/4

E: SAVAGE TENDRILS

Ruk Sha uses one of her tendrils to ferociously devastate a nearby target, either pulling it toward her or knocking it backward in the process. Pull (melee form) and knock back (ranged form) occur at a speed of 600 and interrupt channeling. If it�s an enemy, it takes damage.

Range: 600/800/1000/1200
Damage: (25 + 15%)/(50 + 15%)/(75 + 20%)/(100 + 20%) of distance moved
Mana Cost: 110/130/150/170
Cool Down: 17/14/11/8

R: HER SHUDDERING, VISCOUS RADIANCE

Form-Shifter briefly fragments herself into several pieces of the true Ruk Sha Goluzib, rendering herself invulnerable and unable to be targeted. After channeling for some time, she splits apart into two separate halves, each capable of utilizing her original powers. Each half has half her original hit points, mana, attributes, and damage. They are unable to use items. At the end of the duration, both halves recombine, and Ruk Sha Goluzib is reconstituted back at her full attributes, damage, and max mana and hit points, with current levels being calculated as the sum of the current hit points and mana of her weaker halves. If one half dies, this ability ends immediately. Both halves gain the sub-ability �Merge�, which forces the remaining half to merge with the currently selected half and ends the ability prematurely.

Max Channel Time: 1/2/3
Duration: 20/25/30
Mana Cost: 200
Cool Down: 60/30/15

Aghanim�s Upgrade: Reduce Cool Down to 20/10/5 and change attribute, damage, mana, and hit point reduction to 75% instead of 50%.

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Comment and critique, if you like.

What a lore, so long!

It's a very creative idea, and I can't really critique you much. It's very neat and well written and the idea is very interesting. Hope to see more ideas from you soon!

Oooooh! Aaaaaah!


VERY nice! and there's so much pushing and pulling, it'll be so confusing for enemies unfortunate enough to face this hero! I do think that Amorphous Surge shouldn't do damage and have a longer cooldown, in enchange for an increased slow/blind duration. Since your ultimate lets you cast it twice, it potentially deals 400 damage in an area! Plus, her other skills already deal damage and disable them greatly, so it I think it is understandable to nerf the damage on this skill.


Love the lore too! I'm expecting more great ideas out of you :D.

the ultimate is like one of the unreleased heroes. except that the unreleased hero can also use the items *purchase dagon, use dagon, split, congo now you have 2 extra dagons :D)

edit:name of the hero is arc warden.

But unlike the ark warden, her ult is active 66% of the time at level three. With his in mind, you have to look at all her disables permanently times 2. Of course this comes at the cost of not being able to use items, but I assume stat items and auras will still work. From the surge, a 50% move slow one a 4 second cooldown, on top of the savage tendrils, lets this hero control others extraordinarily powerfully in fights, at least on par with a tinkerer, without Goluzib having to get a single item. The real trouble is while split, this hero would be at half intelligence. and for a hero that has multiple spammable and high mana cost abilities, these halves will run out of mana way before the duration ends, when I guess you can manually join them back up. Overall, very interestingly done and balanced.

^^^ Exactly. Additionally, the two halves having half of whatever HP she currently had (while not devastating, considering her Strength growth) means that she is more susceptible to AoE effects. The offset to that, of course, is her high maneuverability and increased overall potential to control the battlefield while split.

Interestingly enough: she has no actual stuns. Just lots of debuffs that make life very difficult for auto-attackers. Even more than heroes like Puck or Slark, I wanted to build a hero that operated on a hit-and-run premise, to the point that their entire playstyle was movement. And more than a Phantom Lancer or Meepo, I wanted to create a scenario for opponents in which there's no obvious target. Ruk Sha fares very well against right-clicks once she hits level 6 (a lucky crit only kills half of her), but is quite susceptible to nukes and silences. I think that's very much something that late-game DotA lacks, and is an idea I wanted to toy around with.

I'm glad this idea has left at least a couple people smiling, though. Maybe someday after I've finished out my Software degree, I'll get around to modding her in for myself to see if this was actually a good idea :P

EDIT: I'm now considering, rather than splitting attributes, just making it so that the halves are exact copies that deal half damage, take double damage, and spend double the mana when casting abilities, as I just realized that halving all attributes doesn't take into account flat bonuses to HP and mana, and it also messes with armor and attack speed values.

I think the attribute based system is pretty good. Sure, you might not get flat bonuses, but with a 15 second cooldown on his ult you are ready to go at any time with a short burst of spells. The ult basically makes two spell-using illusions, and you can build the hero accordingly. If the recombine was not there, maybe that would be good. Since it is attribute based right now the halfs cannot get very good mana regen, but you can still build a massive mana pool to work with and make the most out of the duation.