Kawana, the Forgotten Tortoise

[TheDeathstalker]

Kawana
Forgotten Tortoise
Intelligence; Order.

Story: Many ages ago, while humanity was yet young, I was there to watch them, to love them, to nurture them. In their innocence they clung to my side, heard my words, and cherished my gifts. As they grew tall, strong, and wise in their own eyes, they put me away in their hearts, and turned their ears from me. It was not long until they forgot my teachings, and scorned my words, casting me out from amongst them. So I departed out from them and to my ancient home in the desert. It seems, however, that in humanity’s hour of need, we found each other once again, so once more I shelter them, standing between my children and their enemies.

Level 1 Skill:
Ancient Cry

• Active
  Deals X damage to all enemies in an area around Kawana, causing blinded units to attack Kawana, and applying blind for Y seconds on all other units.

Level 1 Skill:
Sandblast

• Active Channeled
  Knocks down enemy units within 200 AoE for X seconds, then a second later launches a cone of sand dealing Y physical damage and extending blind for Z seconds every second.

Level 1 Skill:
Desert Heart

• Passive
  Any time a unit within some AoE is blinded, Kawana gains X health and Y mana. If the blinded unit is an ally, enemy units near that ally are blinded for Y% of the (original) duration.

Level 6 Ultimate:
Aegis Shell

• Activated passive
  While active, X% of damage dealt to Kawana is absorbed by his mana. So long as this is in effect, all damage done and conditions applied to nearby allied units will be reduced by Y% and dealt/transferred to Kawana.

Comments:
In creating this hero I asked myself if it would be possible to draw the two key aspects of a solid tank (threat and survivability) into every skill, and while the end result may be a bit wordy, I think in game the effects are fairly straight forward. Also, random fact, this hero was loosely inspired by the Old Turtle book, which I can’t really remember anything from other than that it was a very hippy children’s book.

[Hydrolisk]

I can see much synergy within this Hero. Not only does he appear to be fun, but I can see a solid and defined role as well. However, a lot of the skills and effects are in-your-face, and it's quite obvious what should and could be done. The subtleties in this Hero can be found in modelled situations though, such as a nearby ally surrounded by melee units and the such.

This is a very well done Hero. However, there may be problems in the great amount of stopping/incapacitating power.

[LightburneR]

What I don't get is why Aegis Shell takes every condition and puts it on yourself. Granted, you're absorbing conditions for allies, but it doesn't exactly do much for you. For me, the part about conditions appears to be tagged on.

I also feel the same way about Desert Heart's Blind spreading.

However, putting those aside, it is a pretty nice hero. (Except kinda evil where Sandblast just steamrolls enemies ^^)

[TheDeathstalker]

Thanks for the feedback, yeah, I can see what you mean somewhat LightburneR, and for a second, I agreed with you until I remembered the theory behind the hero, every skill is built for survivability and threat, and the parts you pointed out are part of the threat. Say we're pushing, right? Kawana and say, really anyone else. Would we be more or less threatening if Kawana and his ally were being maimed and/or blinded, or if only Kawana was? Yes, he may get the living hell beat out of him, but that's his job. The same is true for Desert Heart, if it just absorbed damage into health, it wouldn't have any threat to it, other than a nigh-immortal tortoise if there's enough blind flying around, but add the blind spreading and all of a sudden it's no longer such a good idea to fling blind everywhere, and instead you decide "Turtle must die!" instead of "just keep swinging", and thus you succeed at Threat.

And yeah, you both have a point, Sandblast is rather badassedly strong, but as Dusk says, he makes things imba at first, then tones them back as needed, which seems to be a lot easier than the other way around. I'd say you could lose the knockdown, but that's almost what gives people a means to escape, as it's essentially a lag between activating it and the actual sandblast itself (Spell goes: Knockdown, 1 second, Sandblast - - - -). And hell, I almost feel he can get away with it as blind is really his only condition, it's not like sandstorm is any weaker with it's spammability.

Keep it coming guys, it's great to get feedback.