[HC] Antonidas, Archmage of Dalaran

[Damian-1581]

Alignment: Lawful Good
Roll: Ranged Support
Strengths:

• Burst Damage
• Strong Against Ability/Spell Damage
• Multiplying Damage

Weaknesses:

• Mana Cost
• Selective Support
• Fragile

Z: Gallop (30 second CD): Increases Antonidas’s movement speed by 15% for 4 seconds or until he is attacked, he is permanently mounted on his horse thus his movement is passively increased by 10%.

Trait: Glacial Spikes: Antonidas generates Glacial Spikes above himself in the air over time that boost his Avalanche ability when active, all 3 Spikes are on their own internal cooldowns of 10 seconds each before they manifest (they visually grow to alert allies and enemies), each Spikes cooldown reduces when Antonidas fights in certain ways.

• The first Spikes cooldown is reduced by 1.75 seconds whenever Antonidas deals damage with Avalanche (both with and without Spikes active) or Basic Attacks, it’s also reduced by 0.25 seconds for each damage generated by bonus projectiles from Mirror Gate, it cannot generate its own cooldown reduction if already active.
• The second Spikes cooldown is reduced by 1.5 seconds for every 5% of Prismatic Barriers shield is absorbed, is also reduced by 0.5 seconds for every damage reduction of Temporal Shield.
• The third Spikes cooldown is lowered the less mana Antonidas has, each 10% maximum mana missing increase the speed by 10% up to 100%.

Q: Avalanche (Requires Glacial Spikes): Target a small aoe area to launch a Glacial Spike towards it after 0.5 seconds dealing 255 (+4% per level) amount of damage to all targets in the area and roots targets hit on impact for 0.5-0.75 seconds, 0.5 seconds after the first Glacial Spike launches a second one will launch to where the mouse cursor is next within a small to medium range from the first launch spot or wherevers closest to it and then after 0.5 seconds a third will launch.

• Dualcasted: will launch a second free Glacial Spike with each spike launched dealing 50% of the damage only and will not benefit from talents.

W: Prismatic Barrier (8 second CD): Target an allied hero to wrap them in a Barrier for 15% of their maximum health for 5.5 seconds, the Barrier only blocks spell/ability damage allowing basic attacks to bypass it.

• Dualcasted: Increases the Barriers amount to 25% of their maximum health and lasts 0.5 seconds longer, doesn’t benefit from talents.

E: Mirror Gate (12 second CD): Click to pull a line along the air not far from Antonidas to create a Mirror Gate for 8 seconds or until 3 Projectiles have shot through it, when a skill shot or line based projectiles are shot through the Barrier they’re split into three with the original continuing down its path while the other two head diagonally to the originals sides dealing 50% of the originals damage, bonus effects do not apply (Vallas Hungering Arrow) and heroics do not split, Channeling abilities don’t work with it.

• Dualcasted: Mirror Gate will create a bonus 3 projectiles behind the initial 3 that deal 25% of the originals damage.

R1:Dualcast (0.5 second Intervals, Passive): Antonidas’s basic abilities will be Dualcasted instantly after use for lesser effect, see basic abilities for more detail.

R2:Temporal Shield (70 second CD): Antonidas gains unstoppable and begins channelling a shield that grows in size over 5 seconds then lingers for 4 more, for 9 seconds total, enemies hit by the shield as its growing require a pushing back slow effect that does not restrict their movement, attacks or ability usage, allied heroes within the shields radius receive a 80% damage reduction that reduces with each piece of damage they take down to a minimum of 20% at a rate of 10%, reduction drops are at their own 0.5 second intervals.

Talents:

Level 1:

• Prismatic Cloak: If Prismatic Barrier doesn’t break the target gains 20 spell armour for 4-5 seconds.

• Dampen Magic (Quest): Reduces Antonidas’s maximum mana by 30%, collecting regeneration orbs returns 1.6% to the cap up to 40% returned (granting him 10% more maximum mana), after returning his maximum mana cap he gains Dampen Magic which reduces the duration of all DoT abilities by 20% lessening the damage.

• Riding Crops: Gallops passive movement speed is increased to 25% when out of combat.

Level 4:

• Icicle Mastery: The cooldown on individual Glacial Spikes is reduced from 10 seconds each to 8 seconds.

• Cold Demeanour: Basically, a Relentless that only works for Roots and Slows at 25% reduction, Stuns also lower the cooldown of Gallop by 10 seconds.

• Ice Shield: Prismatic Barrier will now additionally absorb 25% of all basic attack damage.

Level 7:

• Structurally Sound Magic: The Barrier of Prismatic Barrier now absorbs damage done by Structures, procs with Omnicast.

• Splitting Ice: When Avalanche hits an enemy hero, it bursts launching 4 icicles around them dealing 2% of their total health in damage to enemies hit by them, the target that launches the Icicles cannot be hit by their own ones.

• Rapid Cast: The delay for the additional Glacial Spikes to be launched is reduced to 0.25 seconds.

Level 13:

• Counterspell: The first spell/ability to directly target and hit an allied hero with Prismatic Barrier is reflected to the caster, heroic abilities do not count.

• Brilliance Aura (Active, 45 second CD, Passive): Creates a pulsing Aura of Brilliance around Antonidas, allies and himself within range of the aura gain 10% Spell/Ability Power, can be activated at the cost of 35% of Antonidas’s maximum mana to increase the bonus to 30% for 5 seconds.

• Inspirational Archmage: When Antonidas’s support abilities are cast on allies and protect them fully he’ll cause nearby allies heroic abilities on cooldown to speed up by 5%, this can stack.

Level 16:

• Ebonbolt: Avalanche becomes a single target ability that launches all Glacial Spikes in a single Ebonbolt towards the targeted enemy hero, for each additional Glacial Spike its damaged is increased by 25% and its radius is increased by 15%, Dualcasting Avalanche will still launch a second bonus Glacial Spike.

• Enchanted Armour (Passive, 17 second CD): When Antonidas takes damage he’ll automatically cast Prismatic Barrier on himself for 60% of its effect and for 4 seconds, talents will apply to this shield.

• Arcane Empowerment: All Antonidas’s abilities cost 25% more mana to cast, this causes Avalanches spikes to deal 25% more damage, Prismatic Barrier is increased by 5% and a 1 second duration and Mirror Gates projectiles will deal 15% more damage.

Level 20:

• R1T Omnicast: Prismatic Barrier will spread to another allow when Dualcasted, Avalanche will shoot an additional spike for free and can now benefit from talent upgrades.

• R2T Aegis of Rapt Concentration: Temporal Shields shield grow speed is increased by 50%, its push back slow effect is increased by 10% and its maximum range is increased by 200% but its maximum damage reduction is reduced to 60% and its duration is lowered by 3 seconds.

• Expert Mentor (Upgrade): Requires Brilliance Aura, regeneration globes reduce the active cooldown by 10 seconds but makes it so they do not regenerate Antonidas’s mana anymore, after Brilliance Auras active effect ends Antonidas’s mana regeneration is increased by 5% for 3.5 seconds.

• Rewind: Like all other Rewinds.

Skins:

• Normal Skin: Resembles Antonidas from Warcraft 3 with better graphics (possibly Reforged graphics), he uses Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas as his weapon with his alternate colours being a redder caster, green caster and finally necromantic caster colours.

• Cult of the Damned (WoW, Alternate): Antonidas resembles Kel’thuzard in Warcraft 3 before he became a Lich with him using Necromantic Ice in theme over his normal ice as a recolor, his alternate colours would be a more grey/blue, black/red and red/green.

• Northern Tides (Blackhearts Bay): Antonidas becomes a sort of undead pirate that’s half decayed who wanders the seas with the Scepter of Neptune raising waters and ice from the northern reaches to drown any who dare travel his waters, themes his abilities to look nautical such as watery green ice, his appearance is like a drowned sea captain with admirals hat with the colouration being more green and black with barnacles around the overcoat, his alternates follow the same suit as Stukovs Blackheart Bay skin.

Quotes:

Deckard:

• Antonidas: It’s good to sit and exchange knowledge.
• Deckard: There is so much I could show you my friend, so sit awhile and listen.
  .
• Deckard: Does my old bones good to sit down occasionally
• Antonidas: Have you ever considered enchanting that Leia girl before taverns for travel purposes?.

Li Ming:

• Antonidas: Arcane Missiles? I learned that spell back in kindergarten!
• Li Ming: If you’re so smart old man show me something new.
  .
• Li Ming: Not another elder just telling me how I should use my magic again.
• Antonidas: Without discipline your magic will run rampant and destroy everyone around you just as much as those demons.

Voice Lines:

Line 1: You’d best stay clear of me, or I’ll turn you into a mindless sheep!
Line 2: I don’t waste my magic on just anything
Line 3: Don’t you have a strategy?
Line 4: Better behave else you’ll end up like my last apprentice “elderly laughter followed by a pat noise on his horse”.
Line 5: One advantage of riding a horse into battle, you don’t need to stop for a mana cake.

[Jindo-1246]

Very skill based hero, high rewards for high levels of play very nice. My one suggestion is to change the flavor of his Trait and his Q ability. We already have a Warcraft frost-mage in his apprentice Jaina.
So I suggest changing the Glacial Shards & Avalanche ability to an Arcane flavored one (and subsequent talents surrounding them).
Avalanche can instead be Arcane Explosion and rather than rooting the target, it can apply the Warcraft Arcane Mage’s iconic Slow (50% movement speed reduction).
Glacial Spikes can instead be Arcane Missiles or Arcane Familiar (from WoW) and then have the same effect.
Other than that, simply wonderful I would love to see this Hero implemented in HotS.

[Damian-1581]

Thanks for the feedback mate, i did initially think of that and i did again right before posting but given Jaina/Antonidas are both Archmages and frost aligned in Warcraft 3 i kept it the same cause i love the guy xP (plus it started off way back partially as a bet to prove another Frost mage is possible just by building it correctly).

Will keep it in mind though as Arcane Familiar was the actual replacement for the Trait so you got a great guess there even had talent name replacements like reusing Rules of Threes (i used it on Umbric lol).
For Avalanche though it was going to be Galvanizing Spark or Nether Tempest (even if they’re nothing like the WoW talent the names just fits oddly).

Will give it a think when i get home from birthday lunch tomorrow.

[Jindo-1246]

sounds great. Overall great suggestion regardless.

[Damian-1581]

Might save the more Arcane heavy design for another future hero concept, gonna leave Antonidas as a half Frost half Arcane hero for now, tried a full Arcane concept before in the past that later transformed into the Sheepmancer and Umbric concepts.