Sojourn Concept [Overwatch]

[chi179-2120]

I thought to myself, ‘who would be the most basic Overwatch hero to add to HotS?’, and the answer came to me. Tbh her kit isn’t the most profound but her playstyle if added would be a bit unique

Sojourn

Title: Cyber-Augmented ex-Overwatch Veteran
Role: Assassin
Difficulty: Easy
Franchise: Overwatch
Attack type: Ranged
Health: 1660
Health regen: 3.1
Resource: Railgun Charge, 100
Unit radius: 0.675
Attack speed: 4
Attack range: 5
Attack damage: 24

Q - Railgun Shot - 6 seconds - Fire a 0.5 unit by 7 unit shot, with its damage depending on your Railgun Charge. Each 1 Railgun Charge deals 3 Railgun Shot damage.

W - Disruptor Shot - 8 seconds - Fire a projectile at the target location (0.25 seconds). On landing, it immediately expands to a 3 unit diameter circle that deals 14 damage every 0.25 seconds.Lasts 3 seconds, and has a 6 unit range.

E - Power Slide - 12 seconds - Slide in the target direction at 130% move speed up to 7 units. Can be cancelled early. Can use abilities during Power Slide.

Trait - Railgun Charge - Basic attacks against heroes grants 6 Railgun Shot charge.

R1 - Overclock - 70 seconds - For 7 seconds, Railgun automatically charges 25 per second, and Railgun Shot’s cooldown charges 100% faster.

R2 - Cybernetic Overdrive - 70 seconds - After 1 second, gain 40% move speed, 40 armour and heal for 40% of the damage taken over 3 seconds (ignoring armour). Lasts 4 seconds

Lvl 1
Taking Charge - Receive 30% less damage from minions, mercenaries, and monsters; basic attacks against them grant 2 Railgun Charge and deal 50% increased damage
Resourceful - Regen Globes grant 25 Railgun Charge over 2 seconds. Collecting a regen globe increases your next Railgun Shot damage by 10%.
Hardware - Gain 5 armour, increased to 15 while stunned or rooted. Passive: Gain 2 charges of blocking, gaining 75 physical armour against the next basic attack. 14 second cooldown, or gain 1 immediately whenever you damage an enemy hero with Railgun Shot.

Lvl 4
Long Shot - Increase Railgun Shot range by 50%, and deals 40% increased damage to enemies in the last 15% range.
Power Boost - Railgun Shot deals 30% increased damage to enemies affected by Disruptor Shot. Each enemy hero hit with Railgun Shot causes your next Disruptor Shot to deal 10% increased damage.
Strike Commander - Bribe: Enemy eliminations give stacks of Bribe, up to 80. Minion eliminations give 1, and hero eliminations or fully charged Railgun Shots against heroes grant 5. Disruptor Shot deals 75% increased damage to non-heroic targets.

Lvl 7
Target Analysis - Basic attacks against enemy heroes reduce their spell armour by 2, up to 20. Lasts 3 seconds.
Stick to the Basics - Increase basic attack range by 1.6, and basic attack speed to 4.5 per second.
Propulsion Accelerator - Increase the range of Disruptor Shot by 33%. Over its duration, it increases in size over 2 seconds, up to 100% larger.

Lvl 13
Charged Up - Gain 20 maximum Railgun charge, and increase the Railgun charge gained from basic attacks against heroes by 2.
Follow Through - Passing through the inner 2 unit range of Disruptor Shot during Powerslide carries the Disruptor shot with you and pauses its duration; Disruptor Shot is then dropped once Power Slide ends. Passive: Increase the duration of Disruptor shot by 2 seconds.
Reactive Processors - Being stunned, rooted, or silenced causes Power Slide to recharge 75% faster for 4 seconds. Passive: Gain 3 Railgun charge for every 2% maximum health’s worth of damage you take.

Lvl 16
Gauss Rifle - Increase the width of Railgun Shot by 100%, and it stuns all enemies for 0.75 seconds. Passive: Railgun Shot passes through all enemies, but takes 0.25 seconds to fire.
Critical Hit - Railgun Shot deals additional 1% of the target’s maximum health for every 10 Charge it has.
Adaptive Nullifier - Disruptor Shot deals additional damage per second equal to your current Charge, and reduces enemies’ damage dealt by 50% while they remain inside its field.

Lvl 20
Just like Clockwork (R1) - Decrease the cooldown of Overclock by 40 seconds, but decrease its duration by 2 seconds.
Peak Human Design (R2) - Become unstoppable during Cybernetic Overdrive. Passive: Basic attacks reduce the cooldown of Cybernetic Overdrive by 1 second.
High Jump - Reduce the cooldown of Power Slide by 4 seconds. Activate Power Slide during the slide to jump 3 units. Can jump over obstacles.
Backup Charge - 30 seconds - Activate to gain 100 Railgun Charge and reset the cooldown of Railgun Shot.

[vent-11137]

First, I want to talk about the good parts of this kit.

1. This character is incredibly well represented and translates very well into HotS (except for a few things)
2. the Role this character fills is somewhat unique, sharing similarities to Auriel and Valla, though unlike the latter isn’t also laced full of move-speed instead relying on “bursty movement” which I appreciate.
3. Some of the talents are genuinely quite fun, Target Analysis, Gauss Rifle, and Backup Charge are all genuinely well designed talents with good synergy.

There are a few basic things that I think need some work. First off…

@chi179-2120

Trait - Railgun Charge - Basic attacks against heroes grants 6 Railgun Shot charge.

Taking Charge - …basic attacks against them grant 2 Railgun Charge and deal 50% increased damage

I’ll get more into talents later, but there’s no reason why, “Basic attacks against other targets grant 2 Railgun Charge.” shouldn’t be baseline. Essentially locking Sojourn out of one of her abilities during laning kinda sucks, and this matches other similar “energy” mechanics like Auriel.

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E - Power Slide - 12 seconds - Slide in the target direction at 130% move speed up to 7 units. Can be cancelled early. Can use abilities during Power Slide.

High Jump - … Activate Power Slide during the slide to jump 3 units. Can jump over obstacles.

The jump part of Power Slide (the ability name is already used by E.T.C but that’s not the end of the world) is very iconic for Sojourn and should be baseline, perhaps both aspects needing small nerfs to keep mobility in check (or perhaps cooldown increase?).

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R2 - Cybernetic Overdrive - 70 seconds - After 1 second, gain 40% move speed, 40 armour and heal for 40% of the damage taken over 3 seconds (ignoring armour). Lasts 4 seconds

First off, this commits the cardinal sin of “two self-buff heroics” which makes level 10 feel very flat. Secondly, this is very role-agnostic (which is another issue with talents I’ll touch on later) and doesn’t really make much sense on a ranged assassin? The closest comparisons I can think of would be Valeera’s Heroics (who’s widely considered a badly made character, and her Heroics are more of an escape tool than anything), or Taz’Dingo on Zuljin (which uniquely utilizes his trait to either allow him to play dangerously or to survive stuff he wouldn’t otherwise.) This heroic feels like it’d slot right in on a character like Mal’Ganis or Muradin, and likely should be scrapped IMO.

Some suggestions.

1. Take the Tracer Approach, give a “nerfed” version of Overclock on 1 with 2-3 upgrades on 10.
2. Make some sort of active skill heroic that isn’t just a self buff (you’ll have to make something up)
3. just have the one heroic, which isn’t the end of the world.

ok onto talents

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Hardware - Gain 5 armour, increased to 15 while stunned or rooted. Passive: Gain 2 charges of blocking, gaining 75 physical armour against the next basic attack. 14 second cooldown, or gain 1 immediately whenever you damage an enemy hero with Railgun Shot.

If I’m wrong quote me but the only assassins with Vanilla+ Block are Valeera (very outdated and in need of a rework) and Butcher (also a melee assassin, also very outdated, also needs a rework). While this talent in isolation is probably fine for Sojourn… in combination with R2 and Reactive Processors this makes Sojourn feel like a tank with 1.6k health. It’s not that a DPS can’t have the occasional defensive talent, but almost all defensive talents for Assassins’ are either offensively based (e.g, Frost Armor on Jaina applies chill, which is not only peel, but amps her damage) or on tiers with only other utility options (see Tychus level 13.)

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Taking Charge - Receive 30% less damage from minions, mercenaries, and monsters; basic attacks against them grant 2 Railgun Charge and deal 50% increased damage

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Strike Commander - Bribe: Enemy eliminations give stacks of Bribe, up to 80. Minion eliminations give 1, and hero eliminations or fully charged Railgun Shots against heroes grant 5. Disruptor Shot deals 75% increased damage to non-heroic targets.

I love bribe and PvE talents but some of these bonuses should be shifted around. I think Bribe should be a standalone talent on level 1, while the “non-heroic armor” should be combined with Strike Commander on 4. Also like I said earlier, Railgun Charge from non-heroics should be baseline.

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Lvl 7

There is never a good reason to pick anything other than Stick to the Basics on this tier. Buffing your range by over 20% and your attack speed by 12.5% increases your throughput by more than any other talent on the tier, and also helps your burst. This talent should either be a quest ala Greymane, or JUST a range increase (let’s also increase the range of Q to match the increased range)

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Reactive Processors - Being stunned, rooted, or silenced causes Power Slide to recharge 75% faster for 4 seconds. Passive: Gain 3 Railgun charge for every 2% maximum health’s worth of damage you take.

I think instead of gaining a small amount of charge for taking a small amount of damage, I’d rather attempt to discourage divers more actively. If for example, you dropped a Disruptor Shot at your feet when you take 15% or more of your health in a short time span, that’d be versatile and more “active.”