[HR] Zagara CDC#10

Hero and Skin Suggestions
1

This is my entry for CDC #10, reworking Zagara to have Abilities focused more on the powerful Swarm Commander she is, instead of copy-pasted Abilities from her Hero in SC2. Her role in HotS with this rework is to help push lanes, and to assist her allies in Teamfights.

Q: Baneling Barrage: mostly unchanged, but now travels 50% faster if cast from Creep.

W: Evolve Swarm: Zagara changes allied Minions in the target area into Melee Zerglings, Ranged Roaches, and Caster Swarm Queens. Zerglings Attack and move 20% faster, Roaches have 30% more health, and Swarm Queens heal nearby allied Minions with each attack. Evolved Minions benefit from Creep. Cooldown: 25 sec.
(I want Zagara to have more power when pushing Forts, so giving her an upgrade for Minions will help with that, but make her less effective in PvE maps, like the Punisher one.)

E: Frenzy: Zagara and nearby Allied Heroes gain 30% increased Basic Attack Range and Damage for 3 seconds. Affected allies gain +10% Movement Speed on Creep while affected. Cooldown: 13 sec.
(Zagara doesn’t really have much synergy with Basic Attackers like Raynor and Artanis, so I wanted to fix that. Zagara also loses Teamfight power through her new W, and this counteracts that. There will be Talents that give other Buffs, and Talents that affect Minions.)

R1: Devouring Maw: unchanged. Too many people like it :frowning:.

R2: Summon Swarm: Zagara summons 2 Aberrations and 2 Hunter Killers at her location, Hunter Killers have the same stats as when she summoned them with her E ability, and Aberrations have 574 health, 2 Basic Attack Range, 1 Basic Attack per Second, and move 50% faster than Hunter Killers. Cooldown: 90 sec.

D: Creep Tumor: mostly unchanged. Units from Summon Swarm move 30% faster on Creep instead of 20%.

Z: Mount: just a normal mount.
Talents:
Level 1:
(Q) Volatile acid: no longer increases Baneling travel distance, instead increases their size and damage by 35%.
(E) Burning Fury: Frenzy now lasts 1 additional second.
(1) Infest: unchanged.

Level 4:
(D) Envenomed Spines: unchanged.
(D) Medusa Blades: unchanged.
(D) Serrated Spines: unchanged.

Level 7:
(Q) Baneling Massacre: unchanged.
(Q) Viscous Acid: unchanged.
(E) Fury Of The Swarm: Frenzy also affects Minions.

Level 10:
(R1) Devouring Maw: Zagara gains the Devouring Maw ability.
(R2) Summon Swarm: Zagara gains the Summon Swarm ability.

Level 13:
(E) Transfusion: Heroes affected by Frenzy heal for 85% of their damage dealt with Basic Attacks.
(D) Protective Coating: unchanged.
(D) Spell Shield: unchanged.

Level 16:
(D) Unchallenged Champion: Zagara deals 50% more Damage with Basic Attacks.
(E) Our Vengeance: Frenzy’s benefits are doubled. This does not include duration.
(E) Broodling Strike: while Frenzy is active, Zagara has 2 more range.

Level 20: STORM:
(R1) Tyrant Maw: additional functionality: now also increases the cast range of Devouring Maw by 20%.
(R2) We are Unending: Summon Swarm now Summons a wave of Evolved Minions.
(D) Spore Drop: increases the cast range of Creep Tumor by 2000%, their duration to 600 seconds, and Zagara gains an extra 10% movement speed on Creep.

If the numbers seem too high or low, let me know!

1 Like
2

At least for visuals, i would see Evolve Swarm as more like a trait or talent, considering how powerful it is and how high the Cooldown is. The Build is conflicting on how it is like a Summoner, but the more directly combative part is weaker, only having Q and a Heroic for head-on fighting.

3

I wanted to reduce Zagara’s 1v1 potential, while still giving her some good Teamfight potential. However, her new E (Frenzy) also affects her, so she still has the ability to battle one-on-one. If I made Evolve Swarm her Trait, she would lose Creep Tumor.

4

You can always give her baseline active ability.

Also since you are doing a summoner, it is worth noting that Blizz has stated that they don’t like heroes with too many summons as it can be distracting in larger fights. (I don’t think this will much of a problem here since Zagara is summoner already but still).

5

I’m trying to make her into more of a seigeing Hero, not a better summoner.

6

…Reduce 1v1 potential, but become more of a siegeing Hero? These are contradictory, you need a powerful 1v1 ability of some description (Hunter-Killer, for Zagara) to be good at siegeing against competent enemies, because if you don’t, you’ll have Ragnaros or Xul maiming your rear constantly.

Evolve Swarm stacks much too hard with Infest, causes issues from the Zerglings outrunning the rest of the minion wave and gives way too much meat to minions for the baseline. Being area-based, it also means Zagara can walk up to a built-up wave and instantly make it about 50% more powerful, at least, causing it to self-push with ease.

Frenzy is also a Big Problem, because we’ve had that ability before. Raynor’s Inspire used to be able to do less than that and turned the Immortals into a joke. 30% damage for 3 seconds alongside, say, the Butcher, or that range applied to Hammer makes for ridiculously painful messes very quickly.

If the point is to siege, axe Devouring Maw, not Nydus Worm, as the latter is another necessity of effective siege. The ability to be where the enemy isn’t, and Creep doesn’t outpace Mounts to enable this need. I, personally, have won a number of games with just hopping between Nydus Worms to clean off lanes and bash forts on the opposite side of a team fight.

My own suggestions for Basic Abilities are as follows:

  1. Redo Evolve Swarm as a substitute for Hunter-Killer for the baseline ability. Replace target Leader minion with a Swarm Queen that focuses Heroes, but won’t chase them. Perhaps replace Infest to implement the other replacements in a way less bothersome to the enemy being able to lane properly and tie it behind a Talent that competes with lane-bullying outright.

  2. Switch Frenzy for returning Drop Pod, but have Talents adding to what’s in the pod, with one for some Banelings to have additional burst and one for a Swarm Queen that’ll stay near Zagara, both benefiting from the Talents in the associated ability, including Hero-buffing Swarm Queen talents to retain the team fight buff option, but have said buff, while long-lasting, be killable with just a touch of effort.

  3. Have Baneling Barrage spawn the Banelings as units following the path, with the timed life sticking to the same range limit. This works as a nerf for riskless long-range siege, as the towers will kill off lone Banelings, but also allows for having them chase down Heroes by directly targeting them, so they’re actually reliable to deal damage to enemy Heroes for that important team fight contribution and further poke away counter-laners without being able to easily assure the kill.

2 Likes
7

Total Score - 12/20

Creativity - 4/5
The new abilities you chose are decently creative, though they do end up being basic buffs/summons most of the time. The baneling change is kind of nice, further pushing Zagara as a territorial hero and making the ability easier to use in some situations. I don’t have much to say for this section.

Cohesiveness - 1/5
I see two main problems that I’m listing under cohesion. First, you want to push her into pushing and team support roles, but want to tone down summoning and fight potential. Losing summons actually makes her a much worse pusher in general, since she can’t soak tower shots and apply more building pressure through summons anymore. Additionally, she can’t contend with another hero if they try to stop her from pushing because she’s lost so much fight potential; Evolve Swarm provides nothing and Frenzy is an underwhelming effect when it’s just used on Zagara herself. Losing Nydus Network also hurts her pushing ability, since she can’t move around the map to attack less defended lanes anymore. As for a team support role, the only skill supporting this in her base kit is Frenzy, which has a low duration, long cooldown, and just isn’t exciting to use. Second, the idea of a lane push focused hero clashes with the direction Blizzard is pushing the game overall; I consider this a smaller penalty but I think it’s still a problem with how you want to push Zagara.

Thematic - 5/5
None of your changes clash with Zagara’s theme, so no points off here.

Interaction - 2/5
This new Zagara would feel bad to play with and against. Evolve Swarm makes her even worse in teamfight situations, but its pushing power with little counterplay makes it unfun to play against. For Frenzy, losing another ability for a bland AoE buff makes Zagara feel even more unimpactful to her team; she does very little on her own with these base kit changes, and mostly exists as a nuisance. The new second heroic, Summon Swarm, would not be fun to play against; massive summons are not fun to deal with in MOBAs.

8

Overall Score

Category Rating
Creativity 3/5
Cohesiveness 1/5
Thematic 4/5
Interaction 2/5
Overall 10/20

Creativity

3/5

The new basic abilities, and their supporting talents, don’t feel particularly creative. I also feel like more could have been done to change up the existing talents that weren’t changed to spice them up a bit. As it stands, 9 of Zagara’s talents are the exact same as her live counterpart, including position in the tree.

Cohesiveness

1/5

Having a character designed to split push the entire game without any good tools to rotate to vulnerable lanes or any good ways to protect herself from pressure just wouldn’t work out well. Combine that with her base kit not even really working with itself, with the lack of W & E synergy, and there’s nothing really helping one part of Zagara support another except a general way to push, which just isn’t enough for any real cohesion.

Thematic

4/5

While evolution and swarming are major Zerg tactics, having Zagara evolving minions and not spawning them feels out of theme for a Queen, especially with all the depictions of Zagara in other games.

Interaction

2/5

This kit’s ability to cause lanes to push without any other assistance, ability to enable basic attack teams extremely well with E talents, lack of much contribution in team fights besides Maw, assuming its even taken, and her mindless summon spam on her new heroic just wouldn’t feel good to play against.

Additional Feedback

I echo Nortin’s sentiment of a split push focused hero not working in with the design direction Blizzard has been taking, I just wasn’t sure where to put it under a category.

9

Total Score - 11/20

Creativity - 1/5
No fluff of any kind whatsoever and seems shes just a true Swarmer xP

Cohesiveness - 3/5
While her kit fits together well on itself it also seems its too designed to punish the game on its own as well.

Thematic - 5/5
I can get behind the evolution mechanic as outside of Abathur and the Celebrates it was the Queens of Kerrigan that helped mold the broods to fit there purposes.

Interaction - 2/5
No skins or voicelines to interact with at all, kit wise she seems more Summoner than the Sieger you were going for and generally in that alone is causing problems.

10

With the fluff I didn’t want to change existing stuff…

11

Understandable mate, though you can still manage that in ways with Voicelines just being prominent or a skin thats similar to how she is like say um SC: Brood War Queen but on the ground.

12

LegendLogan - 50/100

Creativity: 4/10
Cohesiveness: 3/10
Thematic: 9/10
Interaction: 0/10
(+1 Thoughtfulness, +0 Game Fluidity)

13

As one who have played Zag since beta i like the idea.