(CDC 13) Zeraq the "Blood God" (work in progress)

"Oh Qhira, if only you and your knights could have seen the folly of protecting the council before it was too late." - Zeraq

"For all their faults, your followers... your cult... is not an alternative I would ever abide" - Qhira

Cinematic Trailer

A storm is going on around them and the screen fades into a scene of water showering down on a concrete walk, and a figure walking slowly but deliberately. As the screen pans upwards it’s revealed that it’s Qhira with her chain blade on her back, as the scene around her indicates a small town, what seems like houses around her, as she walks into a church building

Scene changes to inside the church where a man in over the top gold plated outfit that is a halfway point between a military outfit and a religious outfit is standing in front of a crowd. the crowd seem to all be dressed in a similar colour scheme to him and several of them seem to have weapons. “And among my journey’s I nearly gained control of my realm of gods… were it not for my prodigal daughter.” The man says to the crowd, enchanted and hanging on his every word. “With power I myself gifted her she stood in my way, foolishly thinking she knew better the poor girl, Both of us were injured and forced to retreat as our home collapsed from the sheer might of our battle.”

The scene shifts away from Zeraq as Qhira steps into the hall and two cultists armed with futuristic rifles approach her Qhira doesn’t make any moves and glares at them,

“As if she heard our disdainful prayers, my children, your lost sister graces us with her presence.” Zeraq would say making a calm gesture towards Qhira,

The camera will shift between Qhira’s eyes and Zeraq’s indicating the two staring into each other’s eyes, Qhira with utter hatred and Zeraq with an almost emotionless look as if he’s above her. at the same time, a piece of music begins to play softly at first but grows steady, a rock tune building up to hit a chorus when battle4 begins.

“Have you come seeking forgiveness my dear?” Zeraq asks.

Qhira glares for another moment, and then the camera will shift slightly a shaky movement to indicate power as she unclips a knife and dives towards the nearest Cultist, cutting him down and dodging around several shots as she unclips her sword from her back, the camera zooms in on the Chain Blade as it comes apart and begins to whip around, blocking an incoming barrage of bullets. “I’m going to finish what I started in the royal palace!” Qhira yells. as the sword lights up a brighter hue, indicating she’s about to activate a power, then the scene shifts to a smirking Zeraq who raises his hand and clenches it into a fist.

The camera cuts again to above Qhira so the viewer see’s on the ground something forming, and then a second later she’s engulfed by several streams of energy, seeming to dull the hue of the blade. at the same time, one of the Cultists would shoot her in the lower leg getting past her defence and causing her to fall over.

Before the cultists can converge Qhira shoots out her grappling hook and yanks herself towards a pillar ducking behind it just in time.

“No use hiding you wench!” One of the three most noteable cultists yells as the three begin walking slowly towards the pillar

Qhira grimaces at the wound on her leg before the camera zooms in on the hilt of her weapon revealing her pressing a button, immediately we zoom in to a stream of red energy moving through the blade into her wound healing it instantly.

“Strike in my name my children!” Zeraq yells, and as he does he blasts an orb of energy, the camera follows it as it moves towards the cultist at the front before engulfing him in what looks like blood red flames, the cultist’s eyes open with power as the energy flows into his gun and he begins shooting, the projectiles going right through the pillar Qhira is hiding behind.

The camera shifts back to Qhira who takes off running, her sword in its standard form as she blocks several more attacks from both CUltist and Zeraq alike,

The music shifts to a deeper more triumphant theme as the Qhira’s necklace begins to glow vibrantly and the blade begins to come apart again.

“Mother crystal guide my blade!” She yells as she skids to a halt and,

The camera will immediately skip back to Zeraq who will make a two-handed gesture as if he’s rising something, as a red barrier forms in front of himself and the cultists beside him just before the Final Strike hit. A large explosion and a gust of dust and debris cover the screen.

The music will die down to nothing as Zeraq walks out of the simmering dust to find that Qhira is gone looking around there’s no trace of her.

“Should we follow her?” One of the cultists said as the camera pans slightly to the side to show the cultist walking up beside him.

“No… She can move much faster then we can, we won’t find her tonight, She will come to us and then you can assist me in my revenge.” Zeraq explains dusting off his arm with a slight note of anger.

The camera will shift back to Qhira who is panting And leaning tiredly against a wall and as she begins to hold the mother crystal hanging around her neck Zeraq’s voice can be heard through distant and echoey, a ghostly sound “Iresia will live on.”
“But in what twisted form?” Qhira’s voice also ghostly says as the scene fades to black.

Hero Spotlight

“Listen up, if you get killed because you went into battle unprepared that’s on you!” Qhira says talking to the Camera, the camera has a view of someone sitting across from her at a table as she sits next to a laptop of some kind showing a screen

Good, now then, our target is a man named Zeraq, or as his followers call him the Blood God, spooky I know." she adds the last part sarcastically before gesturing to the screen. As the camera pans it shifts to a gameplay perspective,

“Zeraq’s effectiveness in combat stems from his Cyber Blood technology, every time he attacks you he will apply a dose of it, you may only notice minor discomfort but the person he gives his blessing too will receive twice the damage of all Cyber Blood on the field of battle as healing instead.”

The screen will show his trait and an example of Zeraq applying it via auto attacks., it will also show a target being given the blessing of the Blood God

“Now the Divine Bloodstorm, on the ground, he draws a star, if you are inside it once the sigil is complete it will dose you three times, four if you are in the centre.”

The scene shifts to showcasing Zeraq casting Divine Bloodstorm on a group of enemies from an in game angle.

“Next up is his primary defence, Crimson Polarity, he can maintain this shield for a single second and when he can’t maintain it the energy will blast back, the more damage the barrier stopped the more devastating the pushback will be.”

The scene shifts to Zeraq blocking Gul’dan’s fel flame and zul’jin basic attacks, it will knock zul’jin back and kill Gul’dan

“Now he will not be in battle alone, he has mindless followers foolishly heeding his orders, three of them are at his beck and call, they have weapons that deal more damage per dose of Cyber Blood their target has and siphon energy and healing from their target directly into Zeraq.”

The Scene shifts to showing Active 1 and the cultists moving around and attacking

“These cultists are not a mere thorn in our side, at least not when empowered, Zeraq’s final standard technique involves throwing an orb of power at his minions, once empowered they shoot faster and somehow gain the discipline to shoot while moving, if this energy remains within them for 3 seconds it explodes outwards hindering the movement of their foes around them.”

As she’s talking the effect is going off on screen with the cultists attacking Tracer, Johana and Varian before hitting them with the slow.

“Alternatively he can pull the energy back, in doing so healing all allies and himself as it returns”

Showing the secondary effect of the wave of energy returning to zeraq, healing ally Arthas, Jaina and Kerrigan.

“Not convinced of his danger yet?” Qhira says angrily to the Camera before gesturing to the screen, “Good because we’re just getting to the actual danger.”

“He has an option of two ultimate powers, the first his Suppressing Recoil, I am… personally familiar with this one.” Qhira said sounding a bit angry now as the screen shifts back to a gameplay view. “after a short wind up energy erupts from the ground, reducing your ability to output damage for a time,” she explains and as she does so the scene is a Zeratul getting hit by suppression pulse and then trying but failing to kill Zeraq despite hitting his full combo.

"His other Option, an unnamed ability I personally call his “Lackie Augment,” as she says this the scene shifts and the screen properly identifies the spell as "strike in my name, as he empowers a Chromie with it, the CHromie shoots several targets and shows the effect of Cyber Blood on them before exploding

“This empowerment makes all the output of the target also apply a special variant of his Cyber Blood, the devastation of this Cyber Blood is dependant on how much damage the Lackie does, this variant has artificial intelligence and seeks out the most injured of Zeraq’s allies within range to heal.”

As the screen shifts to a screen with Zeraq on it, listing his strengths as “impeccable sustain healing,” “Moderate survivability” “Damages as he heals” and weaknesses as “Limitted answer to Burst Damage, No increased Mobility.”

“Put simply the best way to beat this… this target.” qhira said taking a breath visibly trying to stop herself from losing her composure. “is to get in and hit fast, trying to stall with him is not a game we can win.”

With that, the scene shifts to Qhira talking to the camera “Now are you with me in this?”

The Camera nods, and a tiny grin forms on Qhira’s lips, very tiny but noticeable. “Then let’s get to work hunter!”

and with that the scene shifts to the HOTs logo

Throughout this scene foreboding and deep music is going off, trying to capture the feel of a secret meeting going on about something Perilous.

Overview

Zeraq is a healer and supportive power who thrives on poke battles, with an ability to gain mana and healing based on potentially no mana, however being limited to a single target heal most of the time. he struggles against AOE damage dealt the whole team and his power can be cut partially by destroying his far more fragile Cultists.

Appearance

Zeraq is a black man sporting a buzzcut and a mustache and beard, he wears a black and gold uniform that resembles a high ranking military man. he will be found standing with his hands behind his back and moves around by floating on a levitation device that looks like a disk

Story

(Melke Note: Story will be defined and more intensive detail will be given in weeks 2 and 3 this is a synopsis for now.)) Zeraq an Iresian Scientist responsible for his realms greatest achievements... most notably in their war machines, Leading an insurgency against the current realm lord and his council, it seemed he was winning until in the final battle in the capital the last knight standing made a mistake, as he and Qhira fought their combined power fragmented the Singularity. Qhira would escape with one final fragment and Zeraq would retreat in his mechanical machine going off world as their realm began to fall apart.

The scientist’s lust for power and conquest was not quelled by the sobering experience of losing his home realm, however, as he would find himself on one of the many more minor realms destined to fall to the void within weeks or months… the world primitive to any of the primary realms looked upon the man who arrived in a metal flying machine as a god, and that is when Zeraq’s new plan of conquest emerged.

Base Stats

Health: 1650
Mana: 500
Attack Range: Raynor Range
Attack Speed: 1.3 per second
Attack Damage: 30 plus Cyber Blood application

Abilities

Trait: Cyber Blood

Basic attacks apply 1 stack of Cyber Blood to enemies.
Cyber blood deals 8 damage per stack (up to a max of 5) damage per second for 3 seconds duration is reset when a new stack is applied.

Active: Blessing of the Blood God
No-Cooldown
Instant Cast

Target Ally Hero will be healed for 200% of the damage dealt by Cyber-Blood
only one ally can be effected at any given time.

Q - Divine Bloodstorm

Cooldown: 14 seconds
Mana:65

Draw a five-pointed star over 1second (all 5 l lines are dawn at the same time)
when the star is complete all enemies inside it are instantly affected by 3 stacks of Cyber-Blood. enemies at the centre pentagon Get 4 stacks and Take 25% extra Cyber Blood damage for 2 seconds.

W-Crimson Polarity

Cooldown 13 seconds
Mana: 40

Zeraq summons a small shield in front of him slightly bigger then his body. he and every ally in a triangle shape behind him gain 60% armour for 1.5 seconds
Once 1.5 seconds are up Zeraq blasts the energy outward in the direction he was facing when the ability is cast. Enemies are knocked back for 1 unit per 10% damage blocked gain 1 stack of Cyber Blood per 7% and take 30 damage per 8% health (where percent equals a percent of Zeraq’s max health)

E Gift of Power

Cooldown 15 second Cooldown
Mana: 50
Zeraq launches an orb of energy towards his cultists, once the energy ball reaches them all currently living cultists become empowered gaining 50% movement speed and an extra 25% damage output until the effect subsides they can also attack while moving while buffed
This effect has a 3-second duration and if it runs it’s full course the energy is blasted outward in a medium-sized AOE around the cultists for 50 per cultist damage and a 50% slow for 2 seconds (the radius is bigger the more cultists are alive)
Pressing E before the 3-second window is over will have the energy return to Zeraq, all heroes caught in the wave back receive 15 health per Cyber Blood stack active instantly

Active 1 Cultists

3 Cultists who move as a unit, activating this ability allows the player to direct this unit of Cultists
When Cultists aren’t moving they deal 5 damage plus 5 additional damage for each Cyber Blood Stack (they favour attacking heroes with the highest if there’s a tie it’s closest) per second.
They have 600 health each
Their attacks return 5 mana per attack to Zeraq and when a Cultist is killed the will spawn back at the group in 30 seconds. if they all die the next one to spawn will spawn at Zeraq’s current location

Active 2 Crimson Haste

> >Every attack a Cultist deals to a target with 5 or more stacks of Cyber Blood gives a stack of Crimson Haste. After a single cultist gathers 20 stacks this ability can be cast. Activating this ability will reduce cooldowns on ALL of Zeraq's basic abilities by 4 seconds, if an ability is off cooldown reduction will be divided amongst the abilities that are on cooldown. >all charges a cultist is storing are lost upon the death of the cultist.

Heroics

R1: Crippling Recoil

Cooldown 80 seconds
Cast range: Siege Range mage spell
effect Radius: Precision strike

after a .75 second wind up spears of energy bursts out of the ground at target location, enemies hit are marked with a debuff. after 2 seconds ALL damage they dealt will be healed back to the targets over 3 seconds

R2 Strike in my Name!

Cooldown 80 seconds
Mana:80

Target ally hero gains a power-up for 5 seconds
While this hero is affected by this power-up all enemy heroes they deal damage to have a damage-over-time dealing additional damage equal to 20% the damage dealt over 3 seconds. This damage over time will also heal for 100% the lowest health ally hero within a reasonable radius of the affected enemy.

Talents

Level 1

Strength of Faith
Cultists Gain 25 armour and damage blocked is redirected to the nearest enemy.

Ocular Enhancement
Increase Zeraq’s basic attack range by 1.1, every second basic attack against the same target also deals 20% extra damage and is classified as Cyber Blood Damage.

My storm
Quest
Hit targets with Divine Bloodstorm
Reward: After hitting 20 targets with Divine Bloodstorm the radius is increased by 25%
Reward: after hitting 35 targets, after the star is complete a circle will be drawn around the star over 1 second, once the circle is complete the spell is cast again with all the effects Divine Bloodstorm would apply.

Defence of a God
If the Damage blocked by Crimson Polarity is equal to 20% of Zeraq’s damage the Basic attacks from Cultists now heal Zeraq for 100% the damage dealt for 3 seconds.

Level 4

Reflective Darts
When a target with maximum stacks of Cyber Blood is hit with an auto-attack, that auto-attack will bounce to a nearby target, the primary target will still have the duration refreshed.

Strike with Conviction
When a cultist attacks the same hero at max stacks of Cyber Blood 3 times gains an extra charge of Crimson Haste.
After 5 attacks on the same target an extra laser based attack bursts out of the cultist reducing outgoing damage on the target by 15% for 2 seconds

Blessing of the Blood God when being given to a new hero will also explode outward granting the target 15% move speed for 1 second, this effect has a 15-second cooldown.

Symbiotic technology
If the target of Blessing of the Blood god is inside the effect radius of Divine Bloodstorm when it’s complete they gain 15% armour for 3 seconds
If a cultist is inside the Divine Bloodstorm when it is complete they are healed to full health

Level 7

Don’t Sleight a God!
If more then 2 heroic targets are hit with Divine Bloodstorm the bonus from being hit in the centre is applied to the whole spell.

Unwavering Devotion
When Cultists die they explode stunning all hostile targets around them for .2 seconds.
While holding a full charge of Crimson Haste the cultist will also apply 25 healing per second to all nearby allies in a small radius, this effect is per cultist.

Shell of Might
The aura of Crimson Polarity is now a full circle around Zeraq and the blast occurs the same.

Scarlet crush
Once Gift of Power lands on the Cultists it explodes outwards instantly healing the cultists to full and granting a shield to all allies near the Cultists for 5% of their health for 3 seconds.

Level 13

Delieverance Through Suffering
Heroes hit in the Center of the Star of Divine Bloodstorm have their armour reduced by 10% for 2 seconds, this is increased to 20% if they are already at max stacks of Cyber Blood

Support your betters
When a charge of Crimson Haste is used the nearest ally hero to the cultist also gains a bonus, if the target is above 50% health they gain 10% spellpower If they are below 50% health they gain a barrier worth 10% of their health for 3 seconds

Stand your Ground
The armour granted from Crimson Polarity persists on allies for an extra 1.5 seconds after the knockback occurs.

Overclocked launcher
Every 3rd basic attack against the same target now launches a volley that applies the effect of a basic attack to all targets near the main target.

Level 16

The True Storm
If Divine Bloodstorm would apply more stacks of Cyber Blood then the maximum of 5 the target receives a Damage over time. the damage is equal to 1.5% of their maximum health per stack over the cap of 5. This Damage over time DOES count as Cyber Blood damage and occurs over 3 seconds.

Gift for the Faithful
Heroes inside the defensive range of Crimson Polarity when it knocks back are marked with static energy. 3 seconds later all of them explode in a small area around the targets applying 1 cyber blood stack and stunning the effected for .2 seconds.

Cyber Blood 3.0
Increases the max stacks possible with Cyber Blood to seven per hero

Suppressing Divebomb
Active 60 second cooldown

Order the cultists to dive at target location at least 5 units away from them, once they reach that location they blast outward dealing 100 damage to all enemies around them and knocking them back for 4 units.

Level 20

Purge the Frail
When Crippling Recoil is cast a second Crippling Recoil is automatically cast at the location of the last Divine Bloodstorm.
50% of the damage dealt is healed instantly after the 2 second window.

Strike for your comrades
R2 Upgrade: The healing from Strike in My Name is now given to two allies (without reducing the healing either would receive)
Targets who take damage from the recipient of Fight in my name now also take an additional 2% damage instantly per Cyber Blood Stack on them.

Supreme Excellence
Every 10 attacks from cultists on the same target reduces their armour by 5% up to a max of 25% lasts 1 second.

Nano machines my child!
When Cyber Blood deals damage to a target ABOVE 50% health the healing it applies to “Blessing of the Blood God” target is increased by an additional 75%

when a target below 35% health has max stacks of Cyber Blood basic attacks against them grant the dealer 1% spellpower and 1% attack speed up to 10% for 1 second

Skins

The master Skin will feature bigger shoulder pads (gold like a military outfit) and a bigger more impressive looking hat, his levitating device will also change into a more bulky looking item.

Senator: Politicians create cult followings too, this will feature a bald headed man in a suit, this will also feature options to make his mount different flags like American or Canadian etc etc.

Voice Lines

Nothing will stand in my way
How do I do it? Nano machines my child.

Those who don’t make themselves gods are destined to be ruled by gods

Kill Fight Die, that’s what a follower does!

ahem, the smart people are talking here.

Interactions

Qhira: You!
Zeraq: Well your wit hasn’t improved that much is clear

Qhira: You’ll pay for what you did to Iresia
Zeraq: Considering how that transpired… I should be the one saying that.

Murky: Murky SPeak
Zeraq: You’ve got spirit I’ll give you that little one

Zeraq: Mercenaries, the expendable hounds of war
Tychus: Best watch your mouth little man

Alarak: Spare me your sermons fool
Zeraq: Spare ME your inane pride

Obligatory link

2 Likes

There’s a lot of mixed themes on this character, and while it’s cool design, the abilities seem to fragment this character from a Whitemane-style healer, a bruiser, and even a lane pusher with the Heroics. As a whole, W: and R1: probably need redesigns to be more, idk, supporty? More on that after my specific gripes.


A better way of stating this would be “Cyber Blood deals 24 (+4% per level) damage over 3 seconds. Stacks up to five times, and the duration refreshes whenever a new stack is applied.”

I assume this is like Deckard’s Scroll of Sealing?

This should probably be a different effect. The amount of armor reduced is negligable, and for a short duration. Maybe something like “And deal additional damage” or something along those lines?

DOTs aren’t effected by armor.

This whole ability makes Zeraq VERY tanky. He’s healing for ~200 per target he’s got stacked up (which is pretty easy to stack more than one at once due to the high attack speed), which combined with the high amount of armor (45% reduction is pretty insane on a character like this) means the eHPS of this ability is more around ~400, not even factoring the passive. I’d rework this ability.

This is fine.

seems weird that a healer gets a more powerful macro tool than characters like Rag or Aba. The fact that it SPECIFICALLY dosen’t grant XP to the enemy means it’s much more dangerous than conversion or Lava Wave.

Good. Maybe have the hero also apply Cyber Blood? Not sure


If you want this character to have self-sustain, I’d recommend forcing him to sacrifice healing output (similar to Moira in OW, if she shoots out DPS Orb she isn’t using Healing Orb). A suggestion for W: Maybe make it a heal that consumes all stacks of Cyber Blood to heal Zeraq? Not sure.

As for R1: This needs a full redesign. Just another support ult (or maybe a DPS Ult, like maybe a rain of blood that does high spell damage in an area and applies Cyber Blood to all enemies hit? Whatever)

The reason the number is so small is because of the 200% effectiveness of the healing, 12% increase is a bit more an extra 10 ish healing for a single target and to lay the ground work for a few talents that said with the second comment about DOTS and armour I’ll be rephrasing this.

While Ican see what you mean about this making him too tanky I think it’s worth noting this is meant to replace CC or self peel, without this armour he has les self peeling then even Deckard who’s got a slow and zoning root.

Also I’m trying to figure out how you came to the number 200 for healing, a single target only heels a total of 80 per second on Blessing of the Blood God and on this it’s even less.
Or were you reffering to the ability as a whole.

I mean the thing is global presence IS this heroes niche, the Actives play into this as well as there’s going to be a cultist build that lets him push though that will mean his healing in team fights will wane in the late game as a result.
Ino ther words what I’m trying to say is the notion of this guy having global is because he’s not supposed to be as good as more dedicated healers over all his output is limitted to a single target at a time and even then he needs to be able to get full stacks on 3 people and maintain it before he can reach the HPS of Morales let alone heroes closer to the meta.

Just trying to explain some of my reasonings here I’ll definitely put this into consideration noetheless.
I admit though the idea of a “Oh it should be “just another support ulti” was kinda… urking me because of the global niche this hero has.

1 Like

3 seconds * 1.5 * 40 (5 stacks on a single target) = 180 healing. Which isn’t particularly high, but because of the passive part of this ability it’s more than likely that more than one hero will have more than one stack of Cyber Blood. I fear that this character could conceivably be VERY strong against dive character. When combined with Armor, which effectively increases his hitpoints by double, trying to eliminate this character would be very hard even for good duelist characters like Illadin or Varian.

Again, DOTs aren’t effected by armor. The Armor is quite pointless. I’d recommend saying something like: “Targets hit by the center of this take x% of extra damage from Cyber Blood for x seconds” instead. That way, it’d actually increase healing/damage instead of being a minimal DPS increase for allies (which btw could be a good talent).

Great! Again, I want to make sure you realize I actually do like this concept quite a bit. Thanks for answering some of my concerns!

1 Like

17/20

I may be a little bias here beacuse personaly, this is exactly the kond of hero I like to play :p.

Creativity: 4/5 (+0)
Unique and not stepping on whitemanes shoes and a healer that wants to stall as long as possible while he pushes another lane is a neat niche.
I do think the cultists could use a bit of a change tho they feel a bit genaric.
As promised, here are your free 0.4 (rounded down) bonus points for choosing healer.

Cohesiveness: 4/5
Everything is good accept the cultists again. They kind of have nothing to do with the rest of the kit. I think it would be neat if they regenerated your mana and health a small amount with each auto attacks. Gaining mana back is something an anti poke healer would very much like to have beacuse topping people off after every poke is a good way to go oom on most healers. Same goes to gaining back health.
Join Us! has simlar problems bit also has a simlar solution.

Thematic: 5/5
Looks good to me. Nice job making an OC still feel like a cultist with out any established lore.
Also plz have a “nanomachines son” refrence somewhere lol

Interaction: 4/5
Everything seems fine for the most part. Divine Bloodstorm Should probably be a bit easier to hit sense this is where most of your healing is gonna come from and it might make things a tad bit more interesting to play if it only applied 4 stacks of Cyber Blood. Plus that might give you more options when making talents.
I think the apm demand for Zeraq is to high. Trying to keep his 3 cultists (all in diffrent lanes if you wanna do it optimally) alive while also playing a half auto attacker while also moving your Blessing of the blood-god to heal those who need it is just so much to do.
I think a better way of doing this would be to have it be similar to azmodan’s Summon Demon Warrior but with a really long duration, really long range, and the cultist walks until they get to a lane at which point hed just act like a minion. That would also have the added benefit of more counterplay options by intercepting the cultist before he got to a lane.

1 Like

Total Score - 12/20

Creativity - 2/5
Starting with the idea behind the hero, a healer that uses damage to heal isn’t new in HotS, having similarities to Auriel (to a lesser extent) and Whitemane (to a greater extent); that being said, I think going for a DoT/HoT approach is unique enough compared to each of their burstier styles. Cyber Blood feels very similar to Lunara’s Nature’s Toxin, but I’ll give it a pass as the core element for Zeraq’s DoT/HoT style that you build on. Divine Bloodstorm is a nice ability, having some overlap with Cain’s Scroll of Sealing, but the different effects and spicier shape/effect scheme justifies it. Bask in Blood is fine as a way to switch from singe target HoT to team HoT for fight situations. Blessing of the Blood God, though, is very disappointing; looking at Auriel and Whitemane again, Auriel’s hat effect is on her trait for free and Whitemane’s heal tag effect comes with an extra effect and mechanic. Having just the base hat effect filling a basic ability slot feels very underwhelming. Moving forward, I’d advise taking one of these two approaches: make Blessing an active on the trait and give Zeraq a new E ability, or give Blessing a more interesting on-use effect. Also, Bask in Blood and Blessing of the Blood God essentially having the same effect (giving Cyber Blood damage as healing to allies) with slightly different targeting schemes is somewhat disappointing; it might be better if you only had one ability that played into this so that Zeraq could feel more fleshed out and nuanced as a hero.

On to the extra “actives”… REALLY not a fan. The Cultists don’t play into Zeraq’s basic abilities at all, have no implication on how Zeraq plays the game (seeing as how they have no active parts and Zeraq has no control), and they’re very uninteractive as just lane push bots. I’m preempting myself (the first 2 complaints belong under Cohesiveness and the last belongs under Interaction), but for this category, I’ll say that generic minions who walk down lanes and punch things with no effort from the hero is a boring and uninspired concept. On to heroics, Join Us! is another very boring ability. Sylvanas’s Possession is a gimmicky and uninteresting talent, so making it AoE and global doesn’t solve any of the base problems and leaves Join Us! still feeling gimmicky and uninteresting. Just to address a common element in Cultists and Join Us! that I ignored, they do give Zeraq free sustain as they fight, but I don’t feel that does enough to make the abilities interesting to “use”, and they’re still very bland and uncreative. Strike In My Name! is a little better, like a less good Stim Drone/Nano Boost that applies a faster-acting Auriel hat to the target.

As for talents, they’re not that great either. Every Cultist talent is automatically uninteresting because Cultists are already so flawed. Additionally, they will feel less impactful, since they don’t upgrade something that the Zeraq player does, they just affect something that occurs on the map outside of their control. Otherwise, talents are okay but not great; a few talents make abilities better at what they already do (My Storm, Weakness of Our Foes), some talents have an awkward overlap (Stand Your Ground and Stand As One are very similar effects on very similar abilities; Overclocked Launcher is just Reflective Darts but better), and Conversion is just a generic Bribe talent and not that interesting. Non-Believer’s Woe and Strike With Conviction are decent, offering some bonuses for hitting enemies w/ full Cyber Blood stacks and making Bask in Blood a little more aggressive (though they do have some awkward overlap, since they have the same effect on slightly different applications for the same ability). Symbiotic Technology is appreciated for adding cross-ability synergy. Cyber Blood Augment and Charged Shot are very straight forward but alright.

To conclude, Zeraq’s base playstyle and its supporting abilities are a fine start for Creativity, but Bask in Blood/Blessing of the Blood God’s essentially identical effects and a missing a basic ability leave him feeling lacking. Cultists (and all related talents) and Join Us! are unfortunately thoroughly uninteresting, and don’t do the score any favors. The remainder of the talents aren’t bad, but don’t really bring new effects or ways to change how Zeraq uses his abilities, and the quality of the tree overall is hurt by how much of it is committed to Cultists.

Cohesiveness - 2/5
Zeraq’s healer playstyle has solid cohesion in the base kit: Cyber Blood offers a basic element that Bask in Blood and Blessing of the Blood God build upon, and Divine Bloodstorm offers a more active component that helps in Cyber Blood application as well as giving Zeraq something to do outside of his trait’s mechanic. Strike In My Name! works as a higher-octane bonus for the healer identity to come out during teamfights. This has a problem, though, that goes back to what I said under Creativity. Blessing of the Blood God is a very minimal ability, and feels like it should have an immediate effect when used or should be an active part of the Cyber Blood trait with a different E ability. Zeraq’s global lane pushing identity, though, doesn’t play into his healer identity at all, and is barely supported through Cultists that exist essentially separately from Zeraq and one heroic option. I would advise completely dropping Cultists and Join Us! from the kit, and if you want to focus on a global presence, I’d advise going for a global fight/harass presence similar to what Abathur’s hat and mines provide. Adding the effects of another base ability to the kit (whichever of my suggested approaches you take) and opening up a heroic slot should give the options to start on this, and there are ways that you can tweak the existing abilities to fit more into this.

On to talent builds, the Cultist build technically works as “make my free lane push bots better so I can be better without effort”, though synergies aren’t really a thing. The basic attack build has some potential: while Overclocked Launcher just looks like better Reflective Darts, I’d imagine that they synergize for a powerful effect, and Charged Shot can play into that nicely. Unfortunately, Ocular Enhancement just looks bad for this build since losing attack speed means slower Cyber Blood application, less Charged Shots, and less Launcher/Dart combo shots. Otherwise, there are Divine Bloodstorm and Bask in Blood builds that lack an identity outside of “make the ability better”, with no overall playstyle implications and only one cross-ability synergy between the two builds. I think that interesting build potential for Zeraq himself was, again, hurt badly by having so much of the talent tree committed to Cultists.

In conclusion, I see the direction you were taking Zeraq’s healer identity and it definitely has a good start, but he feels lacking in abilities overall, leaving him feeling more like the healing from DoT concept than a hero that uses it. His split push identity is poorly supported and doesn’t even feel like part of his character, rather something that happens while he is on the map independent of him; needless to say, this doesn’t mark well for cohesion. Talent builds and synergies start to be average and go somewhere, but are cut off by how many talents are committed to Cultists. Each of these problems combine to leave Zeraq with weak cohesion.

Thematic - 5/5
Thematically, Zeraq is fine, at least for this week. I see from him a Nexus Original that uses some kind of nanomachines (son!) that attack enemies through their blood, and can then transfuse life from enemies to allies (which is a little iffy from a sci-fi lore perspective, but easily gets a pass “because video game”); afterward, he’s used his technological superiority to pass himself off as a magical dark god and build a cult following in the Nexus, competing with actual magical dark gods. I do see a theme clash with your story and kit (Zeraq’s engineering skill in creating war machines is touted as his #1 skill, not the biotech focus of his kit) that won’t play into this week but could cause a penalty in next week; I would advise making sure these things are more synchronized so that you don’t risk points. As for the contest theme, I believe Zeraq qualifies for the Cult theme, though that could be harder to nail without the Cultist part of the kit (which I believe is causing a lot of damage in other areas and needs work or removal); at least for now, full points here.

Interaction - 3/5
Zeraq’s healer identity definitely has no Interaction problems; I don’t see any of his DoT application or sustained healing being oppressive, and he doesn’t offer much utility besides (so you’re free of overbearing CC effects and the like). However, his global split push identity definitely brings problems here. I think there are two things to isolate that each justify a point off. First, split pushing has been identified by Blizzard as an inherently uninteractive and unfun part of the game, and they’ve been tuning it out over time. Heroes who split push do, in fact, generally try to avoid interacting with the enemy team, just dealing structure damage without confrontation, which fits the definition of uninteractive quite well. This wouldn’t be very bad if Zeraq were trying to clear lanes or hold defenses, but the fact that the Cultists are always pushing lanes is the problem. Second, Zeraq has no control over his Cultists, and all pushing they do is unaffected by how good the Zeraq player is. This makes it so that even when enemy heroes try to counter his split push, they aren’t interacting with Zeraq, they’re essentially fighting PvE. This is also bad because Zeraq is providing lane pushing and map control with no effort from the player; it’s always a frustrating thing when opponents can outclass you without requiring skillful or intelligent play.

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This should probably have a percent, maybe like, idk, deals x damage and applies 1 stack of cyber blood for every y damage blocked? idk, really cool design though.

I like the new heroics a lot.

I love this.

Does this bounce from target to target, like ricochet or Tass’s prismatic beam? Or is an AOE like Greymane’s heroic upgrades?

This is terrifying. Imagine Genji’s deflect with all talents taken, but on three heroes at once. This probably needs a nerf? 25% would be good?

I was aiming for Lunara’s AOE basic attacks hitting everyoen around the main target I’ll edit that

Wow did I seriously forget to add the metrics of damage, lol it’s supposed be a 1 unit knockback for every 7% of Zeraq’s health blocked and 1 Cyber Blood stack for every 5% of his health will add

Point very much taken, 25% is the max for sure I’m actually considering retooling it slightly into something more utilitarian rather then straight damage maybe a disruption stun (you know one of those stuns that’s only like .1 seconds) what do you think about that idea.

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Overall Score
Creativity - 4/5
Cohesiveness - 3/5
Thematic - 4/5
Interaction - 4/5

Total - 15/20 (5 points dedicated to the Week 2 penalty)

Creativity - 4/5 (2/2 for Week 2 penalty).
While there are some repetitive abilities and themes within the character (Nortin pointed these out already), I think the character does a good job of bringing together the abilities into a unique enough addition to the roster. The vague direction of summoning and cultists does diversify the character a bit, though I am concerned it feels a bit pointless and tacked on to cement the idea of a cult leader, more than an actual kit identity. Strike in my Name! Is definitely an interesting idea, but Crippling Recoil seems more like a unique talent take on Shrink Ray than an actual heroic. As for talents, I see some interesting talents and some less interesting talents. Most of the Cultist talents in particular do little to make them feel more engaging or carve out a unique playstyle with them. I think you should look for more ways to make them feel more like an extension of the character, like with his E, and less as basic attack bots to yeet at opponents. Some other talents seem like little more than number buffs, such as Cyber Blood 3.0 and Unwavering Devotion. As for the Week 3 elements, the skins seem a bit barebones, but the hero spotlight and cinematic trailer are both very fleshed out. The inclusion of musical cues and camera work match what I was looking for, and the spotlight matches moderately to what I would expect from the game devs.

Cohesiveness - 3/5
The character seems explicitly held together by Cyber Blood in many regards, which is very much alright, but I fear the kit has some elements that feel detached or too tightly constricted. Divine Bloodstorm doesn’t feel like its own ability in many regards due to its only purpose being to apply his trait, and talents do little to make it feel like it’s own, dynamic ability. Compare this to Lunara’s Q talents for example, and you will see what I mean. While the cultists technically offer elements to Zeraq, and his E is dependent on them, I still can’t shake the feeling that they act like tacked on bonuses rather than integral elements in his kit. They give him some extra damage to enemies who have Cyber Blood, but that’s not really Zeraq’s main goal. As for talents, I see the vague semblance of talent builds strewn around the tree, but I fear that there isn’t enough done to define these builds and make them all feel unique in how they perform.

Thematic - 4/5 (2/3 for Week 2 penalty)
From a thematic perspective, the character has had a lot of work put in to flesh out not only his own story, but that of Qhira’s. While the story and background still lacks a lot of the core elements that define a story, like the culture and environment, the climate and leaders of the Realm, the story does offer sufficient enough background to make the character feel worthy. The loss of a point is because the requirement for full recolors was not fulfilled.

Interaction - 4/5
Many of the elements within the character offer counterplay for enemies to react and punish Zeraq, besides his cultists. They feel far too much like simple basic attack summons you yeet carelessly at enemy Heroes or minion waves. Your E does little to make them feel more interactive; it more feels like Zagara buffing the attack speed of her Hydralisk than making Misha charge at enemies. I think that the cultists’ inherently uninteractive nature, the multiple nature of them adding a vulnerability to stray AoE’s, and that they aren’t punished enough for them dying is a large enough issue to dock a point on, considering an entire ability is dedicated to them outside her normal power distribution of having a new secondary ability.