CDC#12: Hogger: Savior of Azeroth

Hero and Skin Suggestions
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It is on the edge of a blade, that fate all too often hangs. A blade that strikes true in one timeline might not be fated so in another. So was the story of Hogger, that fateful day in Elwynn Forest. It was just another common squire facing a mere gnoll chief. There was no hint that the winner of this battle would one day hold Azeroth’s fate in his hands. But so it was. And in this one, fleeting instance, a blow struck true. The Gnoll, Hogger, struck his foe down and was captured in turn in the Stormwind Stockades.

There, his story would have ended, alone and forgotten, if it were not for the Scourge. The Alliance, desperate for more warriors, offered the Gnoll King his freedom, if he would gather an army and fight for them in Northrend.

They say war has a way of changing those it touches. And Hogger was no different. Somewhere, between those desperate scrambling battles on the shores of the Borean Tundra, the terror of the Wrathgate, the cheering crowds in the Grand Tournament, and that final battle, high above Icecrown Citadel, Shadowmourne against Frostmourne, something in Hogger shifted. And the Savior of Azeroth was born.

Playstyle: Tank

Strengths

  • Durable
  • Resistant to Crowd Control
  • Anti-mobility lockdown
  • Excellent peel and body-blocking

Weaknesses

  • Poor sticking power
  • Unreliable stun
  • Poor waveclear/laning
  • Reliant on stacking quests

Hogger is a strong defensive tank that grows stronger in the late-game and by fighting alongside his team. Use Shield Charge to displace enemy heroes away from your team or to intercept enemy attacks, then follow up with Wake of Ashes to negate their mobility tools and keep them far away from your team, or divide the enemy and force them to stand still in the face or your team’s oncoming attack.

Trait: The Heart of Azeroth:

Hogger gains 1 Artifact Power for each regeneration globe he picks up and 3 Artifact Power every time he takes down an enemy Hero, gaining one more for each takedown made in rapid sucession (3, 4, 5, 6, 7). At 25, 50, 75 and 100 Artifact Power, Hogger’s abilities are upgraded.

In other words, teamfight it out you coward. Hogger’s level 1 talents should grant him alternate methods of gaining Artifact Power, but the point here is to incentivize Hogger to pick fights and win them.

Q: Wake of Ashes

Hogger lashes out with Ashbringer, sending out a wave of flame that slows enemies and heals him. Enemies hit by Wake of Ashes cannot use mobility skills for some time (an effect I would call Dazed)

At 25 Artifact Power, Hogger gains Ashes to Ashes, causing Wake of Ashes to do additional damage over time and heals Hogger for a portion of the damage burning targets take.

Ashbringer and the flames from Wake of Ashes turn blue once Ashes to Ashes is unlocked.

While the slow is relatively minor, Hogger’s Q is an excellent tool to isolate single evasive targets or to ensure an assassin you peel off someone stays off them.

W: Shield Charge

Hogger surge forwards, knocking aside enemies that he hits. During Shield Charge, Hogger has 75% Armor. Enemies hit by the end of Shield Charge are bashed in the face directly with Hogger’s Shield and are instead knocked back slightly and stunned for 1.25s

At 50 Artifact Power, Hogger gains the Strength of the Earth Aspect granting him Invincible during Shield Charge, and causing enemies hit to be stunned for 0.5s

Hogger’s shield and the effects of Shield Charge turn blue once Strength of the Earth Aspect is unlocked.

Shield Charge has three uses. Either as part of Hogger’s excellent peel, as an engage, or rarely, to simply face-tank enemy projectiles, running straight through them. As Shield Charge’s defenses do not actually last past the short charge itself, a player seeking to use it to help tank will have to have excellent timing

E: Heroism

Hogger draws his strength from his friends. For each unique hero (TLV, Samuro, and Rexxar only count as one) around him, Hogger gains increased attack speed and crowd control resistance. Taking and dealing damage during Heroism reduces it’s cooldown.

At 75 Artifact Power, Hogger gains Iron Heart, causing Heroism to grant him armor and reduce the cooldown of Shield Charge and Wake of Ashes when he lands basic attacks.

The Heart of Azeroth around Hogger’s neck glows once Iron Heart is unlocked.

A somewhat “Filler” ability that most tanks typically have, that doesn’t directly link to their main “Combo”. For Hogger, Heroism gives him a pseudo-passive in that in pitched fights, he can reliably loop it back onto itself. Keeping Heroism up and taking advantage of it is key to Hogger’s bruiser builds.

Heroic 1: Salvation

Hogger targets an allied Hero and channels for 3.5s, granting them a Shield.

At the end of the channel, Hogger teleports next to the ally, prefering to land between them and the nearest enemy Hero, and knocks all nearby enemies back a short distance.

At 100 Artifact Power, Hogger gains Champion of Azeroth, causing Salvation to have an increased knockback radius, which now slows, as well as reducing the Ability’s cooldown.

It is literally Shen’s ult from League of Legends. I suppose Athena also has the same ult in Smite. More or less a reverse Hunt.

Heroic 2: Ravager

Throws out a whirling blade, dealing damage, slowing and dazing all enemies in it’s path.

Once the blade reaches its target destination, it will stay there, spinning in place until Hogger moves too far away from it or reactivates Ravager. Upon ending, the blade returns to Hogger, repeating the effects of it’s first trip. While spinning, the blade continuously deals light damage inflicts a minor (10~20%) slow, and dazes enemies in it’s area of effect.

At 100 Artifact Power, Hogger gains Thoradin’s Might causing Ravager to also reduce the damage of afflicted targets, and increasing it’s area of effect.

Based on Timbersaw’s ultimate from DOTA 2. This ability allows Hogger to zone enemies out and deal some minor damage. Ultimately more a utility tool than a damage one, but quite deadly when used in conjunction with Hogger’s other moves to keep a normally slippery opponent stuck in place

Talents

Tier 1

Treasures of the Ages Regen orbs grant doubled artifact power. Capturing a mercenary camp grants additional artifact power based on the difficulty of the camp (Doubloon = 0, Siege/Sapper/Turret=1, Bruiser/Samurai/Regen =3 Boss =5).

Conqueror of the Storm: Takedowns on Enemies with no allies near them grant additional Artifact Power. Only triggers on the first kill of your “Streak” (So you can’t just get it by finishing the entire enemy team off in a fight).

Glory of the Nexus Raider: You gain 1 Artifact power every time you daze an enemy you have recently struck with Shield Charge using Wake of Ashes, and landing Shield Charge’s sweetspot, and for landing three consecutive auto-attacks on the same enemy hero.

The Entire tier is built around Artifact Power farming. Conqueror of the Storm is by far the most potentially rewarding, if you manage to sologank an entire enemy team. Glory of the Nexus Raider is the middle-ground option that rewards you for playing with your team. Treasure of the Ages allows you to gain AP without being in teamfights, but is intentionally very slow.

As a sidenote, I tried to come up with a method to farm Artifact Power by comboing abilities or doing something else of the sort, but ultimately gave it up because it just felt like too obvious a must-pick.

Tier 2

Ash Eater: Wake of Ashes marks enemies. Auto-attacking marked enemies will deal some bonus damage and heal Hogger, consuming the mark.

Timeless Azerite Shard of Stamina: Hogger regenerates a portion of his maximum health every second. His maximum health is increased by a small amount every time he gains Artifact Power.

Heroic Resurgence: Heroism heals Hogger and restores mana when cast.

Tier 2 is Hogger’s “Sustain tier”. Rather than having an obvious mathematically correct answer, my goal here is to ask the player what kinds of situations he feels like he will be in.

Ash Eater is your standard, very reliable baseline option for most fights. Hitting Dazed targets is easy. The free damage is really just gravy on top.

Timeless Azerite Shard of Stamina, implicitly, is a literal gem Hogger sockets into his gear that raises his max health. The situation here is a “poke/mage meta” one. Hogger has to heal outside of combat and survive large bursts, but this isn’t all that good against Sustained Damage in comparison to the other options.

While on the surface, Heroic Resurgence is simple, the fact that Hogger can rapidly reset Heroism’s CD to recast it, thereby gaining the heal and mana refund more rapidly the more damage you take and the more damage you deal. This is an option meant for pushing on in extremely high

Tier 3

Gladiator’s Resolve: Shield Charge’s sweetspot damage is increased.

Quest: Stun enemies with the end of Shield Charge. Once completed, Shield Charge’s sweetspot reduces armor by 15~25

Into the Fray: Hogger gains movement speed after using Shield Charge

Heroic Fury: Heroism purges debuffs from Hogger on activation.

A more utility/whatever tier. Gladiator’s Resolve gives you straight-up blowup power. Into the fray is good for bodyblocking or escapes, and Heroic Fury keeps up with Hogger’s theme of being a semi-deathwing in terms of throwing off CC.

Tier 4

It’s the Heroics. Duh.

Tier 5

Ashbringer’s Rage Baseline burning rage a Muradin-style heal effect. Hitting enemy heroes with Wake of Ashes increases the area of effect and damage of Ashbringer’s rage, up to a cap. Self-refreshes.

Crushing Blows If Hogger’s maximum health is higher than his opponents by 10~20% (Not sure how much should be required) his auto-attacks deal an additional 50% damage and reduce the target’s damage dealt on hit.

Eye for an Eye: When Hogger takes %Hp damage, he stores the damage he takes as a burning marker over the hero that did it to him. Hogger’s auto-attacks consumes this to do additional damage and heal himself.

I’ll be honest, Eye for an Eye is just me making unrealistic things up to counter a mechanic I really despise. It lets Hogger turn %hp damage back on it’s source, which is just pure gravy.

As for the rest, this is a clear damage/bruiser tier. Ashbringer’s Rage is well-suited for in-the-thick-of-it moshpit brawls where it’s large area of effect that both heals and hurts can turn the raw numbers war in Hogger’s favor, while Crushing Blows is better suited to Hogger’s primary job…bullying divers that dare try to go after his team.

Tier 6

Echo of the Highlord Heroes hit by Wake of Ashes will burst into flame 1s after being hit, re-applying it’s affects to themselves and other nearby enemies.

Double Time Shield Charge can be recast after two seconds. (Recast is lost after four seconds)

Will of the Valarjar If competely alone while activating Heroism, it acts as if you have two allies. Heroism now grants Lifesteal.

This talent tier is built around finalizing what you want Hogger to be. Echo of the Highlord is potent boost to his ability to slow and neutralize enemies, Double Time is gloriously effective that disrupting and diving, and if you just want to turn your tank into a solo bruiser for some reason, Will of the Valarjar can do just that.

Tier 7 (Storm Tier)

Stand United While Hogger is channeling Salvation other heroes can channel on him to be taken along for the teleport. Salvation now channels for up to 7s, and can be recasted to perform the teleport after 3 (to give your team more time to reach you).

Touch of Zakajz Ravager pulses upon reaching it’s target and every few seconds afterwards, dealing damage in a wider area and slowing (possibly reducing armor instead? Not entirely sure on the effect yet) affected targets. When recalled to Hogger, one last pulse is released when it reaches him.

Will of Azeroth: Sets Hogger’s Artifact Power to 100

Shield Wall: grants Hogger 75% armor for 6s but reduces his movement speed to 80% during this time.

Gladiator’s Medallion: Activate to make Hogger Unstoppable. Can be used while disabled.

Skins:

  • Valajar Hogger
  • Gnoll King Hogger
  • Argent Hogger
  • 8-bit Hero Hogger
  • Star Champion Hogger
  • Action Hogger
4 Likes
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Week 1 Judgement
Hogger Savior of Azeroth

Catagory Rating
Creativity 4/5
Cohesiveness 4/5
Thematic 3/5
Interaction 4/5
Overall 16/20

Creativity
4/5
I really like the ramping Artifact Power mechanic here, (even though it sucked in Legion lol) and I also like what you’ve done with all the abilties, especially Wake of Ashe’s Dazed effect making those pesky Tracer’s easier to catch up with. You lose a point here for missing your second heroic though.

Cohesiveness
4/5
He certaintly feels like a tanky tank. I love if Kael’thas has the nerve to throw a Pyroblast at you, you can just face it with Shield Charge, completely nullifying it. Heroism increasing CC resistances also helps. Again you lose a point for missing a heroic.

Thematic
3/5
The first time reviewing this I was gonna dock you some major points, but then I remembered that AU’s were allowed. I really like the direction of Hogger being a palading however it REALLY doesn’t follow the character. For example, an AU that would fit would be Arthas resisting Ner’zhul’s influence and going on a redemption arc after struggling with Frostmourne’s corruption.

Interaction
4/5
It feels great to watch your artifact power climb, and to get off some great charges. However if your team isn’t much for teamfighting, you’re gonna have a bad time. Playing against him might feel a little cheap at times especially if he’s paired with Butcher, depending on how severe the CC resistances are. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Additional Feedback
While I love this concept, if you keep to it without a good reason why, you’ll continue to lose points for thematic during later weeks. If you plan on reworking the concept, I’d do it sooner rather than later.

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Honestly, I wasn’t so much intending for Hogger to be a Paladin. Note that he has no actual “holy” abilities. The closest he has is Wake of Ashes, which is more just a result of the Ashbringer itself, than Hogger.

I just wanted to play with the comedic angle of Hogger being the “Savior of Azeroth” and being decked out in multiple artifacts (with his shield implicitly being the Scale of the Earth-Warder). I could very well have given him a different artifact sword, but Ashbringer just has more meme value.

The “Altered Fate” has Hogger, someone who, all memes aside, is a level 10 mini-boss, instead rising to be the Hero of WoW.

As an aside, I do plan on giving him other ways to build Artifact Power by his level 1 quests, but ultimate, Hogger will be focused on winning teamfights. As a Tank, one really is supposed to be at the forefront of every fight. I don’t want to encourage Hogger to have Nazeebo/Butcher Syndrome, and incentivize him to avoid his own team.

4

More farming artifact power except now in moba form? Blizzard employee detected.

2 Likes
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Hey DarthWalrus! Since Week 2 is supposed to include a full talent tree, I’m going to be holding off on your review until you add talents to your concept. As long as you can get them out before Week 3 judging, you’ll be fine, though there will be a point penalty for being late. If you still intend to participate, please don’t wait too long; you’ll be leaving yourself less time for Week 3 changes.

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My apologies, I thought I had another day left. I will be posting them shortly.

And of course there had to be a blackout in my way.

EDIT: Tallent Etymology listing for those of you who haven’t played WoW

Treasures of the Ages is a rare drop in Legion that granted huge amounts of Artifact Power.

Conqueror of the Storm and Glory of the Nexus Raider are named after achievements. The former is based on the Conqueror of Azeroth Achievement from Battle for Azeroth, which is rewarded for World PvP Content, while the latter is based on the “Glory of the ____ Raider” line of achievements, which are awarded for various Raids and occasionally multiple raids in a single expansion.

Timeless Azerite Shard of Stamina is named using the same general pattern as actual gems created by Jewelcrafting players.

Gladiator’s Resolve is a talent from Warlords of Draenor for Protection (Tank) Warriors, that gave them the Gladiator Stance ability to perform DPS without swapping out of their sword and shield. Notably, this ability turned the Warrior’s Shield Block active defense into the offensive Shield Charge

Into the Fray is a current talent for Protection Warriors, albeit one that increases Haste passively. I just liked the name.

Crushing Blows is a callback to a classic-era mechanic where higher-level enemies, such as bosses, could inflict a “Crushing Blow” on their targets with their basic attacks if they were 4 or more levels higher than their target.

Eye for an Eye is a pre-Mists Paladin talent, which causes them to automatically reflect a portion of magic damage dealt back to their attacker.

Echo of the Highlord is an Artifact Trait of Ashbringer, which repeated certain attacks (Divine Storm and Templar’s Verdict) for additional damage.

Double Time is a recurring Warrior Talent that grants a second charge to…well, Charge.

Will of the Valarjar is a part of the Warrior Class Hall campaign in Legion. The name was just really spiffy.

Stand United is me being silly and outright naming the talent after Shen’s ultimate from League of Legends, which is the original inspiration for Salvation

Touch of Zakajz is an Artifact trait of Strom’kar, the Warbreaker, the Arms Warrior Artifact and implicitly the weapon Hogger is throwing around with Ravager (Note that Ravager’s Artifact Power upgrade, Thoradin’s Might is also another such trait)

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Total Score - 11/20

Scoring note: 5 points have been deducted from the total score (16/20) as a late penalty.

Creativity - 4/5
Starting with The Heart of Azeroth, a secondary progression isn’t groundbreaking but it’s an interesting way to build a character with extra scaling. I’m a little torn on the condition, though - hero kills for progress isn’t very exciting, but I do think that chaining kills for more progress could be satisfying and definitely elevates the condition. Wake of Ashes is straightforward but solid, and even though your Dazed effect isn’t unique it would be new to HotS and I think it’s sorely needed. Its upgrade is basic, but the healing overall makes it a nice tool for Hogger to sustain in fights. I think Shield Charge is a good ability, bundling mobility, hard crowd control, a little damage, and a small window of huge Armor on one ability. It could be overloaded, but it’s straightforward in functionality and not confusing to contend with; plus, with most of these effects only being on this ability for Hogger’s base kit, I’d say it stays fairly balanced. Heroism is the least interesting ability, but powering up on nearby allies and offering built-in CDR for continuing to fight saves it from being bad. The crowd control resistance on it is also something not unique but would be new to HotS and much appreciated. As for heroics, I appreciate that you wear your influences for Salvation and Ravager on your sleeve, but even though they’re mostly derivative of other MOBA abilities, I like the specific implementations that add some interesting factors: Salvation’s landing location as well as bonus Protected/healing on landing, and Ravager’s crowd control focus.

On to talents, Tier 1 is immediately a hit to Creativity; none of the talents are very innovative, though I appreciate that they give Hogger differing methods to build Artifact Power faster based on playstyle. Treasure of the Ages just looks like a handicap for when Hogger can’t earn takedowns, Conqueror of the Storm encourages ganks (less interesting condition but more interesting playstyle change), and Glory of the Nexus Raider is just solid for teamfights (more interesting condition but less interesting playstyle change). Tiers 2 and 3 are pretty bland but an improvement over 1; Timeless Azerite Shard of Stamina definitely stands out as the worst creatively, while I think that Ash Eater stands out as more interesting and the Heroism talents gain extra interest due to Heroism’s inherent CDR. Tier 5 is much stronger, with Ashbringer’s Rage being a generic talent but implemented interestingly and the other two being really unique and interesting. Tier 6 feels pretty average, and I dislike all of Tier 7 except for the Stand United talent (since it adds a new utility to Salvation with much more varied usage). Even though I was negative on a lot of talents just at a base level, I think they’re pretty decent. Gladiator’s Resolve is simple but solidifies a specific usage of Shield Charge for Hogger, Heroic Fury makes Hogger plan out when he’ll use Heroism instead of wanting to spam it on cooldown like Heroic Resurgence encourages, and Double Time makes Hogger think about his positioning and distance to land the sweet spot on both Shield Charges. Creativity shines though here in how talents encourage Hogger to play, even though many of the effects themselves are less creative. Somehwat off-topic comment, but since Hogger has a talent that encourages him further to land the end effect of Shield Charge, I’d like to see one that improves the usage of its dash area.

To conclude, Creativity is solidly above average in many elements of the concept: Basic abilities are simple but with interesting uses and effects, starting with very high marks, and even though most talents are basic in their effects, a fair amount of them change how Hogger thinks about using his abilities without being overly complex. I think that both heroic abilities being so derivative is the greatest mark against Creativity and drags it down just a little bit (though the mild effect additions are appreciated), and a handful of talents that are just too plain push this a little further.

Cohesiveness - 4/5
Base kit cohesion is fairly strong overall. Hogger is a tank, and one who really wants to teamfight at that; The Heart of Azeroth pushes and rewards this playstyle, Wake of Ashes gives him some AoE and sustain, Shield Charge gives him an engage and disable, and Heroism explicitly awards Hogger with buffed stats if he’s around more teammates. Salvation lets Hogger quickly arrive to a teamfight he’s missing, while Ravager allows him to provide extra zoning and light crowd control in a teamfight. I think Cohesiveness is near perfect in the base kit; my only complaint is that Artifact Power farming feels like it could do with being a little more nuanced baseline.

Tier 1 of talents do start by adding a degree of nuance to the trait that I would like, though I think putting it in talents hurts overall build potential. Eye for an Eye is incredibly situational and has many matches where it’ll be unpickable; only having two other talents on the tier feels like a mistake that hurts cohesion. I’m iffy on Will of the Valarjar and Will of Azeroth, since they each invalidate parts of Hogger’s base kit in some ways. In terms of builds and talent synergy, I think your tree is actually strongly above average, though definitely not perfect. Hogger has a damage path (Ash Eater, Gladiator’s Resolve, Crushing Blows, Double Time) where he can shield bash people and get chunky basic attack damage on follow-up. Heroism build is a thing, and while a build that only exists because the talents all buff the same ability is usually mediocre, Heroism’s specific mechanics with built-in CDR makes it more interesting since it becomes more of a constant brawler/pressure build than a Heroism one. These two builds are a little railroaded, though, as damage Hogger has a clear option on every tier after 1 and Heroism Hogger has a clear option on every tier besides 1 and 5. Hogger does have some sustain build options, but I feel like that’s just a consequence of sustain healing being a theme of the character, with all of Wake of Ashes’s baseline sustain and multiple tiers with multiple sustain talents on them. Timeless Azerite Shard of Stamina and Into the Fray kind of feel isolated from builds; Eye for an Eye does too but kind of gets by as a tech option.

Overall, base kit cohesion is very high and gives the concept a solid starting point. Talent cohesion is also fairly high; however, Tier 1 being isolated from builds, a couple of odd talents, sustain Hogger being more of a character mechanic than a build path, and the only two synergy/build paths options I see being railroaded all come together to keep talents at a solid above average instead of going higher.

Thematic - 4/5
Thematically, this Hogger is a little hard to define because he’s clearly not a paladin, but instead feels like a parody of WoW’s recent progression mechanics and story. Hogger has received a copy of several of the legendary weapons that were mass-produced during Legion, and has become one of many chosen ones of Azeroth. I definitely consider this to be a redemption in-theme for the contest and all of the abilities follow from this, though the change feels like a bit of a stretch for Hogger. Even though most things line up, the fact that this is more of a meme redemption than a plausible character change drops the Thematic score a bit.

An additional note, backstory for your character’s change is being considered Week 3 fluff, so your Thematic score is at particular risk for next week unless you strengthen Hogger’s redemption arc.

Interaction - 4/5
Mechanically, Hogger rarely steps out of bounds for interactivity. Salvation probably provides too much survivability for one person on demand for a tank, with a Shield plus Protected plus a huge heal when Artifact Power is complete; besides this, no one ability or talent in Hogger’s kit screams out as uninteractive. Despite this, I see two problems with Hogger’s kit that knock this score down a bit. First, Hogger’s survivability feels overtuned just because of how many sources of tankiness he has: multiple layers of healing on Q, anti-burst Armor on W, overall Armor on E, and a lot of extra sustain healing in his talents. Second, Artifact Power is dangerously close to Butcher’s Fresh Meat as a mechanic that makes or breaks the hero’s performance depending on how the game goes. I think that overall, none of the Artifact Power effects make Hogger broken when he gets them but leave his kit lacking without them, so you avoid this (contrasting how Butcher can sweep a game with a fast quest completion, but can flounder uselessly if he can never get enough progress; I think your Hogger isn’t as polarized, though is just a little too close). Making Artifact Power more consistent in progression would help to avoid this.

8

Bingo! I must admit this was as much a joke as anything else. If I had to make it deeper, I’d over-do the importance of Hogger’s level 10 fight in Elwynn forest, have him arrested, then used as cannon fodder in the Wrath of the Lich King, where he distinguishes himself and goes on from there to slowly turn into the bland, artifact-laden protagonist he is here.

Maybe somewhere along the line, between leading his Gnolls through those first harrowing days on the shore to the tragedy at the Wrathgate, to being crowned Champion at the Tournament and facing down the Lich King high above Icecrown Citadel, something changed Hogger.

True enough. My original plan was to add multiple different options for gaining artifact power, ala WoW itself, but I couldn’t think of how to properly balance it to avoid the issues of people going full Nazeebo.

It depends. Ultimately the closest ability I’d compare it to is Anub’arak’s Burrow Charge. The armor is powerful, but extremely short-lived. Once the dash is over, it’s gone.

Aheh…would it be bad if I admitted Salvation’s landing mechanic was also based on another League of Legends character (Braum)?

Fun fact. That was the original design intent behind Into the Fray, (You’d gain some kind of benefit for each person you hit with a charge) but it ultimately overlapped too heavily with other mechanics.

Also a result of my phobia of Hogger potentially favoring to farm by himself rather than fight with his team. I’m a rather straitlaced guy when it comes to what is and isn’t the MT’s job. And clearing waves while your team needs you at the front is most definitely not my PoV of what a MT does.

Fair enough. I’m too much of a WoW nerd who wanted to add a gem socket talent at some point. (Fun fact, one talent that was left on the cutting room floor was a weapon chain that made him unblindable. Because Blind is effectively WoW’s disarm with a different name).

Probably. I’m already thinking up potential options for that tier. Here’s one I threw away because I was worried it’d overload his kit.

Dragon Roar: Channel for 0.5s, then unleash a powerful roar that knocks enemies back and heavily damages them. Dragon Roar’s cooldown is reduced every time Hogger uses a basic ability.

Fair, although I’d like to point out that very few of Heroism’s buffs actually stack over eachother in meaningful ways. You don’t multiply the benefits of one effect if you gain another. So while you can choose to go all-in on Heroism, you don’t really get “locked into” Heroism if you don’t take some talents.

As a sidenote, this is also why Echo of the Highlord is turned into a Living Bomb style effect rather than Thunder Burn…I didn’t want people to feel obligated to take it alongside Ashbringer’s Rage. (Although I should probably clarify it doesn’t re-trigger Ash Eater either).

The former is probably a bit contradictory, but being able to fight by yourself can be valuable too. Will of Azeroth on the other hand, is me trying to add a “catch-up mechanic” to offset a bad game where you don’t get the Artifact Power you’d normally want. Thematically, I based it off Arthas in the last mission of Warcraft III’s The Frozen Throne, where Ner’zhul gives Arthas as much power as he can spare in the final hour.

True enough. I’m debating removing the Protected. Just leery of the “jump them when they get out of the predictable TP” issue, which an extremely short defensive buff is supposed to help solve.

Guilty as charged. He’s got a lot of tools to tank things. It’s always been one of my flaws that I keep thinking up active defensive tools.

Indeed. Outside the first buff (Ashes to Ashes), none of them are truly that big a deal. But given your concerns I will definitely be looking into reworking Artifact Power.

9

Just a quick followup:
(I have weird definition of quick with how much time I’ve spent on this)

I want to add this because I thought about it when I saw this concept in Week 1 but just completely forgot to put it in my review, part of what makes you strong on Thematic points is that gnolls are traditionally pack fighters, and Heroism + Salvation both take the pack fighter mentality Hogger has and make it more of a heroic thing with his redemption; I really like that theme-wise and it helps out your score.

Just want to clarify, I said Shield Charge could be overloaded but the fact that everything it offers is lacking in the rest of Hogger’s kit makes it fine. Additionally, giving one ability so many uses makes you pick which ones you want to get out of each cast; very rarely will Hogger get value out of every part of Shield Charge in one cast. I really like the ability for that reason and have designed similar things myself, and I think Shield Charge is perfectly fine.

I don’t think it changes much; the “damage” is done in the abilities already being so functionally close to what they’re inspired by. Inspiration isn’t bad, but it’s good to go a step beyond and make something really yours; I think that you fall a little short with these abilities which drags your Creativity score down a bit, though honestly in my number consideration it’d balance to a 4 with or without them (if talents were a little stronger, though, the heroics would have made the difference).

You can still tie progression exclusively to teamfights, but make getting takedowns only part of the progression. There’s multiple ways to give Hogger some Artifact Power just for participating in teamfights and doing his job even if the game isn’t going his way (up to you how you want to approach this), while locking the majority of his gain behind takedowns so that you continue to award good performance more than just being there.

This is definitely true, the problem is just that I don’t see many synergies between Heroism talents and non-Heroism talents (Will of the Valarjar + Crushing Blows is the only one I see); this kind of leaves the only synergy they have as an arbitrary “Heroism is better when I have all the talents for it” which I think is cohesive enough to define as a build, and slightly better than a generic ability build because of what Heroism represents in Hogger’s playstyle.

You can definitely protect Hogger himself on landing without adding even more defense on his target. That being said, if Hogger puts pressure off of Salvation’s target with the initial shield then convinces his enemies to jump him after he lands while ignoring Salvation’s target, I think he’s doing a really good job as a main tank xD

If I missed anything important let me know. Heading to bed for now but I can respond tomorrow.

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Overall Score

Category Rating
Creativity 4/5
Cohesiveness 5/5
Thematic 5/5
Interaction 3/5
Overall 17/20

Creativity

4/5

Overall there’s some solid creativity behind this idea. I don’t know if I could call anything about the idea of Hogger going on to become the Savior of Azeroth anything less than creative(and memey). With 6 Skin ideas thrown in, albeit a little less fleshed out than I would have liked, I think the fluff of this Hogger concept is relatively well done. However, there are still some notably bland talents(Will of Azeroth, Into the Fray, and Heroic Resurgence stand out in this regard), and the heroics continue to have only side effects seperating them from their inspirations. Solid overall, though.

Cohesiveness

5/5

A Main Tank with some Bruiserish tendencies is a theme well sold throughout this kit, and the abilities and the talents all come together to make this work. There are some things to be said about railroaded builds, but I actually think there is some variance allowed in both the Damage and Heroism builds without necessarily performing outright worse, depending on circumstances, so I’m more willing to let the talent tree slide. However, I will also say that Will of Azeroth feels bad for the reasons already mentioned, though I’m not quite as upset with Will of the Valarjar.

Thematic

5/5

Everything works together to fit the established theme, and I just feel like I shouldn’t find this redemption arc so possible and fitting in the theme but I just can’t find a way to fault it. It feels unlikely, desperate, and yet possible for that origin to happen for Hogger. Placing it during Wrath makes decent sense, the desperation being the reason for his assistance makes decent sense… The idea of Hogger going through and becoming the champion of the Argent Tournament(I can’t recall what its name was for certain) meshed with all the other conflicts just causing this “click” in Hogger’s mindset just feels… Somehow reasonable, and I hate it. Just take your good score and move along. (.-.)

Interaction

3/5

Overall, Hogger seems well done on interaction, though the previous concerns of his Salvation being an extremely huge amount of survivability on demand to a single target does remain. That, combined with concerns with a bit too much sturdiness on Hogger through every basic ability being survivability plus a decent number of survivability talents feels like enough to warrant off a point here. On top of that, I have some additional concerns with Hogger in higher level play; Whereas low to highish-mid levels of play feature some higher death games, you typically never see the highest level games go quite that heavy on deaths, severely gimping Hogger’s Artifact Power progression and making him feel bad to have on your team. I definitely think the addition of a baseline option to assist Hogger in gaining Artifact Power without relying solely on takedowns would help with this issue, as having an entire tier of play the character doesn’t really work in feels like a glaring concern that feels most accurately taken from here.

Additional Feedback

Nothing else to add.

11

Updated and slightly reworked Artifact Power mechanics.

Nerfed Salvation’s power and re-directed some of it towards CC rather than straight protection.

EDIT: Here’s some Dev Notes on Hogger: Savior of Azeroth

Why Hogger?

Hogger, as should be clear to literally anyone in this forum, is a cultural phenomenon. With everything from level 1 “Hogger Raids” to the “Deaths to Hogger” stat tracked, Hogger’s status as a supposedly difficult opponent who was in fact, just a level 10 mob that happened to used to be Elite is one of WoW’s oldest and most enduring memes. Turning him into the “Hero” was an obvious choice (even if I had tried to make things like a redeemed Arthas that wielded the Light in one hand and the Shadow in the other, Warchief Lo’gosh, Velen the Corruptor, and Raganaros, Lightlord, Hogger spoke to me).

Can’t just be a generic Warrior

The problem then, would be how to define this Alternate Universe Hogger, as the Hero, rather than just the Generic Warrior Gnoll, and make his kit indisputably something that could only happen in this supposed AU.

And it took me longer than I’d like to admit to go with the solution of just giving him Artifacts and the Artifact Power gimmick, which meshed perfectly with the existing Quest system. Equipping Hogger then, with Ashbringer and the Heart of Azeroth, were the obvious picks, with Doomhammer, Gorehowl, Shalamayne, and Frostmourne being the runner ups.

Also, [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]

But what does he do exactly?

With the kit’s theme out of the way, it came time to actually decide on how Hogger should operate. While WoW-logic dictated most every hero wield a two-handed weapon (Seriously, look it up), I felt making Hogger a defensively oriented Tank that specialized in peeling just felt more “Heroic” in a sense. So with that out of the way, I set to work on actually building his kit and how Artifact Power would work with it.

Drawing inspiration from Kel’thuzad, as well as characters like League of Legend’s Viktor and Khazix, I decided that Artifact Power would unlock a series of talent-like effects that improved each of Hogger’s abilities in turn, starting with his Q and ending with his Ultimate. With that decided, came one of the biggest hurdles in designing Hogger, how exactly to collect Artifact Power.

The Grind

As a Main tank, I could hardly expect Hogger to be out there farming Minions while his team needed him on the objective, and personally, I dislike perverse incentives such as those. So I went with making Kills one of the main methods, and added further incentive to group up instead of chasing solo kills by rewarding Hogger more if he got his hands on multiple kills at once. Originally this pattern went 1-2-4-8-16, which I later swapped to the less intense 3-4-5-6-7 (still debating on whether or not 1-3-5-7-9 should replace 3-4-5-6-7).

I had in fact planned for other methods to be baked in and for the quests to be more varied, but ultimately time constraints and a hectic home life made those impossible to finish. Even now, I feel like the level 1 talents could use additional polish.

Well yes, but what does he actually do?

He Dazes people. That’s the first thing I decided when making Hogger, so that he can lockdown mobile enemies and keep them off his team, without making his lockdown gank too oppressive. In the first iteration, this was simply attached to an ability that my WIP file at the time simply described as “gap closer”, with one early implementation being Heroic Leap, which knocked enemies back on impact.

The decision to instead put the Daze on Wake of Ashes, which was clearly going to be his “projectile” ability and main ranged poke/damage tool, no matter what form it took, actually took me some time. This let Hogger have two different peel tools rather than just one.

On the subject of finalizing his movement ability, this was also the time I finally decided to change Hogger from two-handing his weapon to wielding a shield along with his sword. And as conservation of detail demands, if he has a shield, he has to use it in some important manner.

No I didn’t think of using it in his dash first. I thought about some spell reflect or WCIII style Defend ability that made him take less damage from the front to help him face-tank things would be useful. Which is the inspiration for Shield Charge’s defensive utility.

As a sidenote, Shield Charge originally didn’t have that sweetspot. That was a relatively last-minute addition. Adding that primarily served to increase Hogger’s skill ceiling and give him some form of lockdown for offensive use, as well as the more typical defensive peeling knockback that formed the core of Shield Charge.

And the Filler

As mentioned before, Heroism is Hogger’s “Filler” ability. Muradin’s combo is to jump into position and stun someone to start a gank. Blaze stuns people with his charge and then oils them to keep them there, Johanna pulls people together and slows them, and none of these combos ultimately are reliant on their “third” ability. This is a common theme in Tank and Bruiser heroes that I decided on for Hogger, with his “filler” being some form of defensive steroid.

Named, of course “Heroism”. That actually came before I figured out how Heroism would work. And the first part of it I put together was that it grew stronger the more people were around Hogger, to further encourage his teamfight-centric identity.

The first mechanic added to Heroism, was the innate CC reduction, as outside of Johanna and Deathwing, few tanks could really be said to be particularly resilient to crowd control/capable of eating stuns for their team and shrugging them off.

After that, the decision to give it resets and attack speed/CDR came in that order. The former to make it more interesting than a maintainence buff/pre-emptive “shield”, and the latter because Heroism is named after a Bloodlust clone and I wanted to encourage Hogger to trade blows when and where he could.

The Ultimate

I knew as soon as I thought about Ultimates, Hogger’s was going to be some kind of reverse-hunt. Originally it would have simply swapped Hogger’s position with the targeted hero, which I scrapped as being too easy to exploit/misuse by trolls. Another early iteration put more emphasis on the dynamic entry than the defensive utility, but was shelved because rather than using it to save people, Hogger would end up using it on someone like Illidan who’d dive in, and enable Hogger to land a big, meaty ult on the entire enemy team.

Regressing from these high-concept ideas to a more basic one was not a decision I made easily, but given that the “teleport/shield ally” was a common MOBA standerby like the Meat Hook clone and Wrath of Heaven clone, adding one would seem, atleast to me, fitting.

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DarthWalrus - 81/100

Creativity: 7/10
Cohesiveness: 9/10
Thematic: 10/10
Interaction: 8/10

(+2 Thoughtfulness, +1 Game Fluidity)