CDC#7 Hero concept: Malkirr, Experimental Viper

Hero and Skin Suggestions
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Edit: Realized this fit the current CDC, so I’m retroactively making it an entry.

During the Swarm’s war with the Dominion, Abathur briefly toyed with the idea of a Viper with the brood lord’s siege abilities. The result was effective, but deemed too complex to be integrated into the Swarm and left to die as recycled Biomass, but the Nexus had other plans.

Malkirr is a ranged support hero who focuses less on supporting his allies and more on inconveniencing his enemies. He “supports” his allies by setting his enemies up for them. His damage isn’t stellar, but his tool-kit can make a fight much easier for the assassin or warrior he decides to help.

AA: Cosmetic broodling projectiles.

Trait: Consume. Malkirr has a reduced cooldown on healing fountains, and recovers more mana from them.

Note: I didn’t want to give him consume as it is in Starcraft, because it’s meant to punish overuse and you don’t want that on your team if the player behind the wheel can’t use it responsibly. Instead the “return to friendly territory to reecharge” gameplay is preserved by making healing fountains easier to utilize, encouraging you to head back to one more often.

Q: Abduct. Pulls the target to you and stuns them.

Note: Unlike Hook and Drag, Abduct deals no damage but can target a specific foe instead of the first one it hits.

W: Blinding Cloud. Creates an area that reduces the range of basic attacks from both heroic and non-heroic targets in the area for a short time. Placing a new cloud before the old one dissipates cancels the old one.

E: Parasitic bomb. Sends a swarm of Parasites to your blinging cloud. Clearing the cloud and placing a DoT effect on anyone it it’s area of effect.

Note: Parasitic bomb has infinite range. No matter where you are in relation to your blinding cloud, you can cast it to turn that blind into a DoT.

R1: Parasitic Brood. Unleashes a swarm of broodlings that target everything in the target area. The broodlings have timed life, and drop health globes equal to 50% of the damage they deal usable only by Malkirr upon death.

R2: Caustic Eruption. Sprays acid in all directions, dealing damage and slowing the first target each stream hits.

Note: I know I kinda stole a corrupter ability for the second ultimate, but I’ve always been interested in the idea of an AoE that you could shield your allies from and I ran out of Broodlord/Viper themed abilities.

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Total Score - 12/20

Creativity - 3/5
While the idea of a support that works through disruption instead of healing is nice, Malkirr’s kit feels like it relies on copy-pastes from Viper abilities. It would be nice if his basic abilities took Viper abilities as a starting point and built on them in some other way, rather than just being the same as in Starcraft 2.

Cohesiveness - 4/5
Malkirr’s kit does have a clear playstle to it, looking to inhibit enemies with blinding clouds and create room to pick key targets with Abduct. His heroics play into this somewhat, harassing enemies with summons or dropping an AoE slow/DoT. However, Parasitic Bomb feels counterintuitive, dropping crowd control for DoT on a disruption focused character. I think it should be reworked to some other useful effect.

Thematic - 1/5
Malkirr’s kit thematically matches a Viper, but I feel like there’s more you could have done with the Broodlord angle in his base kit; one heroics and a basic attack animation feels like a waste of calling him a hybrid. As for the contest theme, I don’t see much that makes him a game changer. You could argue that a purely disruption-based support qualifies, but most supports have disruption on top of healing, so I don’t think it’s enough in its current form.

Interaction - 4/5
Most of the kit has no real problems as far as interaction goes; Blinding Cloud can be annoying, but it has counterplay in a similar way to Stukov’s Lurking Arm. Abduct feels like somewhat of a problem, though; even though it has some weaknesses compared to other grabs in exchange for being a point-and-click, it’s frustrating to have a displacement with no counterplay from enemies.

Just a final note on your trait, while focusing Consume on healing wells is an interesting adaptation, it falls off in the lategame, essentially becoming a useless trait once your team has no more healing fountains. It might be a good idea to look at more ways to implement that mechanic.