[HC] Baroness Generosity, The Loot Master [CDC #12]

One fateful day, as Baroness Greed was bathing in her piles of gold, a strange, yet simple, thing occurred. She asked herself “Why?” Why was she amassing all this gold and treasure? What did the stores of rare and valuable artifacts mean if they were secreted away, never to be used? At that moment, she resolved to find a use for her treasures. There were far too many to use herself, so she would search the world and find people who could make the best use of them. When she came across the vast, endless battlefield that was the Nexus, she knew she had found a place where her treasures would be needed.

Overview: Baroness Generosity is a beefy, frontline Support character who uses her treasures to increase the power of her allies. The boon granted by the treasure is based on the class of the hero that picks it up. Baroness must be actively attacking enemies and collecting treasure in order to empower the buffs and distribute them to allies.

Role: Melee Support
Health: 2292
Attack Speed: 1.00
Attack Range: 2.0
Attack Damage: 130

Trait - Amass Wealth: Damaging enemies with Basic Attacks grants the Baroness 1 Gold. 5 stacks of Gold give Baroness 1 charge of Wealth, max 3 charges. Some of the Baroness’s abilities consume charges to increase their effect. The charges are consumed automatically when available.

Q - Loot Drop: Baroness causes a Treasure Chest to drop at a target location, dealing 125 damage to enemies in a small area. Allies can pick up the dropped chests to gain a buff based on their class. When an ally picks up a chest, the heretofore unknown energy of Generosity feeds back on the Baroness, restoring 65 health.

Warriors & Bruisers: Gain 15% of their health as shield. For 2s the shield will regenerate to full, and it will persist for 3s after.

Melee & Ranged Assassin: Basic Attacks and Abilities deal 10% bonus damage for 5s

Healers & Supports: Abilities recharge 25% faster for 5s

Consumes up to 2 charges of Wealth to drop 1 extra Treasure Chest per charge.

Mana Cost: 70
Cooldown: 6s
Range: 8.0
Delay: 0.75s
Radius: 2.0

Notes: The radii of the extra chests can overlap, and enemies can be hit by more than one chest.

Treasure Hunter: Baroness swipes her claw in front of her, dealing 75 damage to all enemies and gaining 1 Gold for each enemy hit. For each enemy Hero she hits in close range, she deals them 75 bonus damage and gains an extra Gold.

Mana Cost: 40
Cooldown: 10s
Swipe Arc: 180
Arc Range: 4.0
Close Range: 2.0

E - Scroll of Cursed Weapon: Baroness enchants the target allies weapon for 3s, causing their next Basic Attack to deal 100 bonus damage to the primary target, and blind them for 1.5s.

Consumes up to 2 charges of Wealth to add another debuff effect to the attack. 1 charge adds a silence, 2 charges adds a 75% slow.

Mana Cost: 80
Cooldown: 7s
Range: 8.0

R1 - Collection Frenzy: Baroness channels for 1.5s, a circle of portals through which Treasure Goblins appear. After the channel, goblins continuously rush the field for 3s, attacking enemies within the circle and then leaving. The goblins deal 50 damage every 0.5s to all enemies within the circle, gaining 1 Gold per hit, 2 for enemy Heroes.

Mana Cost: 80
Cooldown: 90s

R2 - Legendary Treasure: Baroness summons a giant treasure chest for her allies for 10s or until all allies use it. They can channel on the chest to gain an activatable item on their F key based on their class. 1 per hero.

Warrior & Bruiser: A powerful, short range attack that deals 360 damage and restores that much health.

Melee & Ranged Assassin: Gain Unstoppable and Invunlerable for 2s

Healers and Supports: Reset all Basic Ability Cooldowns.

Mana Cost: 80
Cooldown: 120s

Talents

Level 1:

  • Empty The Purse - Every 3rd Basic Attack deals 65 extra damage and generates 2 additional Gold
  • Steady Income - Passively gain 1 gold every 5s. (Quest) Collecting Regeneration Globes reduces the interval by 0.15s, to a minimum of 2s. (Reward) Increase maximum Wealth by 1
  • Spirit of Giving - While at least one ally has the Loot Drop buff, Baroness regains 7 mana per second

Level 4:

  • Death and Taxes - Killing an enemy with Treasure Hunter reduces the cooldown by 50% and refunds 50% of the mana cost
  • Steal Armor - Hitting enemy Heroes with the close range of Treasure Hunter reduces their armor by 10 and increases your armor by 10 per Hero hit.
  • Valuable Loot - (Quest) Hit 25 enemy heroes with Loot Drop. (Reward) Increase the radius of Loot Drop by 50%

Level 7:

  • Scroll of Pursuit - Scroll of Curse Weapon increases the movement speed of the target Hero by 75% for 1s
  • Scroll of Efficiency - Reduce the Cooldown of Scroll of Curse Weapon by 3s
  • Scroll of Quantity - (Quest) Spend 15 Wealth on Scroll of Curse Weapon. (Reward) Increase maximum Wealth stacks by 1

Level 10:

  • Collection Frenzy
  • Legendary Treasure

Level 13:

  • Loot Upgrade - Hitting an enemy Hero with Loot Drop increases the effect of the buff from that chest by 50%
  • Heaping Chests - Using Loot Drop with maximum Wealth increases the damage of each chest by 25
  • Pay It Forward - When Baroness is affected by an ally’s beneficial ability, reduce the cooldown of her abilities by 0.5s

Level 16:

  • Full Refund - Activate Amass Wealth to consume one stack of Wealth and refresh your buffs and debuffs from Basic Abilities on all Heroes. 15s Cooldown.
  • Extended Warranty - Activate Amass Wealth to consume one stack of Wealth and cause the next use of Loot Drop or Scroll of Curse Weapon consume no stacks of Wealth, and increase the effect’s duration by 50%
  • Scroll of Suffering - Repeated attacks by Scroll of Curse Weapon’s target refreshes the debuff, to a maximum of 3s

Level 20:

  • Gold Hunt - At the end of Collection Frenzy’s duration, a Treasure Goblin will spawn for each Hero still in the area and continue to chase them for 3s.
  • Unloaded Armory - Legendary Treasure is now permanent and can be used multiple times. Casting it again removes the previous chest.
  • Old Habits - Baroness can now benefit from her own abilities
3 Likes

Week 1 Judgement
Baroness Generosity

Category Rating
Creativity 5/5
Cohesiveness 3/5
Thematic 3/5
Interaction 4/5
Overall 15/20

Creativity
5/5
Full points here for the creativity of the concept. I love the strategic value of the chests, and they feel like a Medivh portal interactable. Depending on how your team uses them they could turn the tide in a battle. I also really like the wealth system.

Cohesiveness
3/5
My big problem here is that besides the buff that allies can get by clicking on the chest, she feels much more like a melee assassin with her charge and her ABSOLUTELY INSANE damage numbers. More about the damage numbers in Interaction

Thematic
3/5
This is a really good starting direction, but a some of the abilities she has here feel more like a tone shift rather than a significant change to her powers due to her redemption. Giving allies gifts was a step in the right direction and I feel like with some work you could totally give her a whole new feel.

Interaction
4/5
Besides her obscene damage output the only other gripe I have with her is even though she’s frontlines I don’t feel like she has any real significant weaknesses at this time. Onto the damage that I mentioned in Cohesiveness, To put it in context I’m comparing Cursed Sword to Hanzo’s Q which does 290 non piercing damage with no other effects. E does 250 piercing, and on top of that with a 7s cooldown there is SO MUCH this ability can do. Loot drop has the potential of dishing out 175x3 damage if you overlap just right, or say if you drop it on a poor Deathwing.

Yeah, I’m bad at numbers. And Cursed Sword wasn’t meant to pierce, I’ll fix that description.

As for the “whole new feel”, in my head space, this is shortly after her change of heart, so she’s still learning. I’ll work on it though.

Total Score - 14/20

Creativity - 3/5
Starting off, Amass Wealth is an interesting mechanic to build the character around; secondary resources can allow for interesting character playstyles, even though this one’s generation is rather simple. Loot Drop is pretty interesting as a main ability, with some damage, a little sustain for Generosity, and buffs for allies; given Blizzard’s love of lootboxes, this would fit right into the game. Treasure Hunter is a little more basic, and I’m not sure that the rest of Generosity’s kit fits the up-close bonus of it, but it serves a decent function as a teamfight-focused Wealth generator. Since its themeing is stealing from enemy heroes, it might work with some more debuffs and possibly scaling buffs based on how many enemies were hit. I’m not sold on Scroll of Cursed Weapon, though; it definitely fits the Support role better than the previous Cursed Sword, but it feels very basic in usage, the Wealth spending effect is a little awkward, and it’s a little out of place thematically. Collection Frenzy is just a decent heroic, with an AoE DoT being fairly generic and the Wealth generation barely improving it (though the theming does help it be a little better than just an AoE DoT). Legendary Treasure is a little better, but I feel like it has too much thematic/functional overlap with Loot Drop, and between the two, Loot Drop feels like a better iconic ability for the kit.

Talents feel like a mixed bag from a Creativity angle. Spirit of Giving is pretty interesting, even though with only Mana sustain it might not feel worth it; Steal Armor is a strong step in the direction of what I’d like to see from Treasure Hunter overall; Loot Upgrade is an interesting way to push Generosity’s aggression as a support; and Full Refund is neat as a new way to spend Wealth. Talents like Heaping Chests and Scroll of Suffering are solid but not that interesting, and talents like Steady Income and Scroll of Efficiency are generally uninspiring.

Overall, I’m feeling average on the Creativity of this concept; some abilities and talents stand out as interesting and character-defining elements, while others feel like uninteresting-to-use filler. I think that pushing more elements like Loot Drop that play on the idea of the Diablo franchise’s iconic treasure drops would work for this character, and would stay in-theme because regular Greed would never willingly give up treasure. Some options could include “making it rain” on your enemies with a barrage of painful gold coins, or just haphazardly throwing a multitude of legendary weapons at your foes because Generosity doesn’t value them anymore. A couple more interesting things could be done with treasure chests too, such as having them function as pathing blockers that enemies can decide to “steal” from at the cost of a debuff, or inserting allies (or enemies) into treasure chests as a protection/Stasis effect.

Cohesiveness - 3/5
Generosity’s kit suffers somewhat in terms of Cohesiveness. Loot Drop is a good start for the kit identity, like I said above, and it gives her a decent range option that damages enemies, supports allies, and can sustain her health. However, Treasure Hunter becomes a lot more awkward as a close-range ability since Generosity isn’t very tanky and has no mobility options, struggling to find consistent usage. Amass Wealth suffers a similar problem, as Generosity will have a hard time getting to and sticking to enemies to basic attack for her Wealth generation. As for Scroll of Curse Weapon, despite all my other complaints, it works fine from a cohesion standpoint in this kit. I think that Collection Frenzy and Legendary Treasure both fit well enough in the playstyle, since they don’t make any demands on Generosity’s low durability and non-existent mobility.

Talents have many more problems as far as cohesion goes, though. There are only a couple of synergies between talents, such as Loot Upgrade giving Full Refund more value and Full Refund giving Spirit of Giving more value; outside of these, good build paths aren’t really there and I think you need more. Steal Armor is also decent, not for any synergies but because it covers one of Generosity’s weaknesses in close range; that being said, it still feels like too little, too late. Several talents are very awkward: Death and Taxes seems to belong on an Assassin’s burst skill rather than a Support’s resource generation skill (I think it also works on minion waves, though it still feels underwhelming given what Treasure Hunter’s effects are); Heaping Chests has negative synergy with Steady Income and Scroll of Quantity; Pay it Forward is incredibly situational with only two other options on the tier; and Old Habits somewhat invalidates the character’s Support focus and theme.

To conclude, Treasure Hunter and Amass Wealth are too awkward in the base kit, requiring Generosity to be very close-range without her having the support to do that. Additionally, a couple talents are awkward and conflicting, and build paths/talent synergies are lacking overall. A little more mobility and bulk might help Treasure Hunter and Amass Wealth be more consistent, or the abilities themselves can have a rework to rely less on Generosity sticking to foes in close range.

Thematic - 4/5
Generosity’s theme is mostly there. I think that the fact she’s switched from hoarding treasure to aggressively acquiring and giving it away works well enough for a “redemption” in terms of gameplay theme and for contest theme. That being said, her motivation shift is very flimsy, which could hurt you in future weeks where fluff is more important; it won’t count against you here, but keep it in mind. Overall, though, only Loot Drop and Legendary Treasure solidify the “giving” theme, and Scroll of Curse Weapon feels a little out of place for a treasure hoarder (only a little, but it’s still weird); I think these together drop you just below full points.

Interaction - 4/5
I think that Generosity is mostly fine in terms of Interaction, but there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned that suddenly becomes a problem here: the specific effects of Loot Drop, Scroll of Curse Weapon, and Legendary Treasure. I think that Loot Drop is mostly fine for balance, but Legendary Treasure’s effects are very concerning. The Melee & Ranged Assassin part offers Divine Shield on demand for multiple targets, and the Healer & Support effect is a pocket Rewind that is very concerning on any heroes with decent crowd control. The Warrior & Bruiser effect is tame in comparison, though it can drop an obscene amount of single-target burst if you have just two heroes who can grab it. Lastly, Scroll of Curse Weapon becomes concerningly good when it reaches full effects, as it disables its target so much it effectively becomes a Stun - and a 1.5 second point-and-click near-Stun is pretty scary, becoming downright broken when Scroll of Suffering can extend it to a 3 second near-Stun.

These concerns are limited to a handful of effects that are almost fine instead of core problems with the kit or playstyle, so I consider only a minor penalty to be warranted.

Aggressive Support is definitely the direction I’m trying to take her in. For no other reason than I think it’d be fun. Like a more fighty Zarya or something. I’ll see what i can do to make it all come together a bit more. I wasn’t really sold on Scroll of Cursed Weapon either, so I’ll see what i can do to replace that with something more fitting.

You’ve already mentioned to me that you’re going to be a little late on updating this concept. Just make sure to let me know when the changes are live and I’ll get right to reviewing it! (With the same late penalty applied to DarthWalrus on week 2.)