L: Hey everybody, it’s the Character Development team here. We have no less than 29 characters - not including Beforus trolls - already in development here, and it occured to me that everyone might want to actually hear about who we’ve got, where we’ve got them, and why we’ve got them like that. I’m Leafsword, part of the writing team - sorta the designers of the project, who are basically working out the mechanics of the everything. With me, I have Tato, a good friend of mine and a very talented… dice-roller? Mechanics designer?
T: I prefer the term ‘creative genius’ myself.
L: Creative genius, then. We’re going to, with the help of various other members of the dev team, illuminate every character we have planned - although we’ll start with those in the early releases.
T: The very earliest releases will be the very first characters we finish and play, and will be in the starting lineup for the alpha. And you know what that means, don’t you?
L: …
T: MORE TIME TO NERF THEM INTO THE GROUND.
L: MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
T: No but seriously. They’ll be the proof of concept of our balance model and the game in general. There’s at least one of every basic archetype in there - fighter, tank, mage, assassin, support, jungle.. you get the idea.
L: It’s really good that homestuck has so much variety. There’s plenty of unique characters to play with here.
T: Possibly too many. But let’s start with what we have, eh? Leaf, if you would be so kind as to reveal the very first character under the spotlight?
L: Sure! There were two obvious options here: John, being the first character introduced in the comic, and Dave, being the most popular in the straw poll at time of writing. They both have models, too. In the end, though let’s just start at the beginning and see where we develop from there, so the first character is JOHN EGBERT, people!
T: Okay, so he doesn’t look that impressive JUST yet. But you get the general idea. He will be making his appearance in UU in his Godtier outfit and will be delivering a righteous smashing with the Warhammer of Zillyhoo.
L: He’ll be a tank, through and through, with high defenses and plenty of HP.
T: But don’t think he does no damage. He has a passive that lets him deal more damage, and the crowd control he can put out is nothing to sneeze at. Speaking of which, let’s go through his skills.
L: Right, so the aforementioned passive is Wind Breaker. This marks anyone hit by John’s spells, and gives him extra damage if he autoattacks them. Or… he can not use them and save them for… something else.
T: Because how could we give him this massive hammer and NOT encourage him to deliver a solid thwacking? Not much to say here, really- this means he can close to melee range with his CC’d enemy and deliver some decent damage. Not great, but enough to help the rest of his team.
L: And Wind Breaker works very well with John’s other abilities. Do the Windy Thing is a charged attack, which sends out Tornadoes to send enemies flying.
T: They knock enemies towards John slightly, as well. Important thing to note, here: Do the Windy Thing scales off Prankster’s Gambit (magic attack) rather than Mangrit (Physical Attack).This presents John with a bit of a problem when it comes to building for damage. As yes, John can get some good numbers by building Mangrit AND Prankster’s Gambit, but where do the tanky items fit after that?
L: It’s probably not worth investing too much into Windy Thing though. It’s low damage and low cooldown might make it more useful as a trigger for Wind Breaker than as a seperate ability.
T: His next ability scales off Prankster’s Gambit as well, although not very well. It’s A Breath of Fresh Heir, which forms a protective cyclone around John that damages enemies somewhat. Its main attraction though for the discerning customer interested in living a long time is that it boosts his movement speed and his armour.
L: Live to fight another day. And that’s helped even further by his third ability, Heirfront. This ability is basically a dash, turning into blue winds and effecting everyone he passes through.
T: It also damages and slows enemies, further adding to the ways in which he can mess with enemy mobility. Fairly straightforward this. With two engages and two escapes, John is going to be very difficult to escape or kill. But he still doesn’t do much damage, and his ultimate skill just adds to the dilemma…
L: Ah yes, his ult. Remember the part in the comic where John uses wind to drill a hole in the battlefield? That’s what his ult, the Hurricane Drill is based on.
T: After a short delay, every poor sod in there is getting stunned and beat on for 3 seconds. And those marks John’s building with his passive? All marked enemies within a certain radius of the drill are sucked in - of course, the mark is consumed in the process and so you lose the autoattack damage.
L: So you HAVE to know when that Drill’s up and when it’s not.
T: Because an ult like that, even though the drill’s radius isn’t very big… it’s the kind of ult that swings a teamfight. So you’ve got a character who is a force in a teamfight, can slow and knockup enemies to peel or leave them helpless, and is quite slippery indeed. It’s a shame his damage is so awkward and he’s quite slow. His range can only really be described as abysmal as well. Pretty much all he can do 1 on 1 is stay alive against most foes.
L: You probably won’t see John fighting solo. He really needs allies to back up his low attack and capitalize on his ult. He is good at baiting opponents to where he needs them to be, too, so stay out of any brush he tries to lure you through. John players should feel free to feel a little bit brave and race up the lane - one of his greatest advantages is his ability to abort most bad situations with some good ol’fashioned button mashing.
T: If you haven’t made the enemy assassins and mages facedesk with frustration, you’re not doing it right.
L: We can’t give you equipment recommendations, because, well… equipment isn’t finished yet. You’re going to want HP and defenses, I can assure you of that much, and movement speed would be very desirable too.
T: Who doesn’t like moving faster? Consider some PG or MG or even a little bit of both, too. It’s never fun dealing irrelevant damage - but John’s bases should be good enough to make a noticeable dent at first.
L: And that’s pretty much all we can cover, today at least.
T: We’ll have more when me and the rest of the guys in Writing get the rest of these items sorted (Who knew our characters would need to lug so much crap around?) and as time and kits progress.
L: Next time is going to be a Strilonde, I can tell you that they both oppose John - much, much more squishy, but crazy DPS to compensate.
T: You can probably guess how they’re going to deal that damage, though. But until then, I shall take my leave.
