I had an idea for a new trait or basic attack passive come to me recently, but I couldn’t really think of any characters it’d fit (aside from maybe a HERC).
This character has an attack speed of roughly 1/sec, but can “store/charge” each attack they don’t make while holding their fire, storing up to 3 attacks at a time.
It’d read something like this for the storing mechanic:
After not attacking for 1 second, store 1 basic attack per second, up to 3. Your next basic attack unleashes all currently stored attacks against the target.
Or this for the charging mechanic:
After not attacking for 1 second, gain 100% basic attack damage every second, stacking up to 300%, on your next basic attack.
I was thinking this would work best on a ranged hero. Any ideas for what Blizzard character, unit, or class this might fit?
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Any random death warden should work —> import thresh from LoL
Yeah. Any random death warden that may appeared in a blizzard game
No idea but I gave the idea of what would fit. If there was an unnamed one somewhere then just slap thresh’s kit and bam it works
Zenyatta in Overwatch could do something similar with his orbs. Would be a neat trait.
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What would be the point of holding back?
While not functionally the same it’s similar to Focused Attack, and I get that they removed it to make talents more unique and diverse but at the same time I’m pretty sure they were trying to move away from giving every hero a strong form of burst damage. It was a really good talent on Zeratul so he could instagib people he jumped on from what I can remember.
Being able to just unload on someone at the first opportunity is a big plus for trying to get picks as fast as possible.
A neat concept but I don’t like the idea of rewarding people for not attacking since it’ll just make the hero stronger in the hands of players who miss out on a lot of AA windows.
While it isn’t canon to any Blizzard character that I am aware of, thematically it could fit a feral druid.
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It’d work on an early game bruiser who pokes down The solo laner before going in for the kill. Late game it’s a small bonus but generally falls off
You know who could benefit a lot from this? Nova’s lvl 7 (anti-armor shells).
She gains lots of power, but can’t longer attack at normal speed, instead she has to wait for the charge, but this method could “fix” that, so to speak. Allowing you to keep attacking at normal speed and damage, but allowing for that super extra powerful shot if you want it.
Edit: Looked for the talent’s name.
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Thing is that this new charged up effect isn’t that good. It works in LoL because thresh has the adc to counterpush the lane and laning in general is emphasized in LoL. The bonus damage would fall off late game unless the devs here intentionally made the bonus so strong it doesn’t fall off and then you’d get the playerbase angry that there’s an op burst hero running around.
Hots emphasizes continual fighting which would also diminish the use of this new feature. At least LoL has laning. In its teamfights it falls off too
But what would be the difference with how Nova’s Anti-armor Shells work right now? I mean, is the exact same thing, just better, as far as I’m concerned, since you could choose not to charge and instead attack faster at normal damage.
That’s a good thought, though I think his volley would work better as a channeled ability like it is in Overwatch.
There are 2 advantages to having an effect like this.
- You wouldn’t lose the damage from AAs you can’t make while walking or stunned. It would be stored, and you could use them at a later time. This would make this hero very good at kiting, since you’d only have to stop once every 3 seconds to unload your damage
- You could front-load up some burst going into a fight. It would basically make it so your first attack of a fight would deal significant bonus damage. This could also work as poke, since you can drop 3 AAs worth of damage in one, then back off.
Units and classes work too, thank you for bringing that up.
I’m not familiar with feral druids, how would this fit one?
Feral druids have two resources in WoW, energy and combo points. Energy works pretty much the same as in HotS, like on Valeera or Morales, in that you spend it to do stuff, and have to wait for it to recharge naturally to do more stuff. So in that sense, you have to hold your attacks to pool up energy.
Combo points are generated by using the abilities you are spending energy on, and can then be spent on a finishing move.
So in essence, the whole feral druid play style is storing up charges of something, whether it be energy or combo points, then spending that in a burst of damage.
Edit: That is a bit simplistic, as you can also use combo points for a bunch of self-buffs, that you want to maintain throughout extended periods of combat, especially in PvE. In PvP, you tend to go for burst instead.
So you’re suggesting somthing similar to Thrall’s Windfury or Artanis’ Double Strike (minus the mobility), except it’s automatically recharged when not fighting?
It’s also (if you squint at it the right way) similar to Sylvanas’ Black Arrows, except it gets used “on next attack” instead of when you press the button.
I think maybe A Goliath from Starcraft could work for this?
Like you attack normally with your machineguns and store rockets over time (There was an upgrade for Goliaths that let them shoot both their weapons at the same time).
But I suppose there’s no reason why you’d have to be out of combat to store rockets, plus D.Va has a goliath skin that might make it hard to add one and make it visually distinct… So, maybe not, after all? 
This feels like an inverse zarya, and has a few issues that i think would hinder:
Idealy you would want to attack as much as possible. So in most fights not a lot of charging will happen unless its poke based. Plenty of heroes already have such thing talented in that a damage boost can be used once every x seconds.
The damage cant realy be timed much towards certain heroes, as the first hero you attack takes the burst, and after that you need to wait several seconds again for recharging.
I think this feature therefor sounds more suitable for abilities. Charging up 10 charges every second, and upon usage uses this charge value on the next AA. And each charge then could be like 25%. You can spam it every 3 seconds, or once every 10 seconds.
You could even give this ability a charge bonus the longer its charging with it, and make it visible (similar to zarya’s percentage you could display a charge rate). And in that, you can decide to make it use the triangular numbers as charge values: 1+3+6+10+15+21 etc (each next step has a +1 compared to its previous)
And then cap it to 100% (which takes about 15 seconds then)
And yes, with ability here i do still mean a trait ability.
I rather avoid an out of fight mechanic here though. Its not going to provide better playstyles as you are essentialy reducing damage for a temp boost. Muradin trait works for out of combat since his healing is there to ensure he can get back in faster. Its beneficial to sometimes retreat because of that.
Not sure how much strategy there would be in it. You’d almost always have charges without really having to manage them.