This concept is a proposal for the Scarab Host related talents only. The idea is to design a more viable and fun build focused on his trait. In White you can see the changes, while in light blue is what it already does.
Combat Trait
1
Scarab Host
Using an Ability spawns a Beetle which lasts for 8 seconds, attacking nearby enemies for 20 (+4% per level) damage. Press D to cause all beetles to burrow, preventing them from receiving damage. LifeTimer is stopped for druation. Lasts 4 seconds. CD 12 seconds. This simple micro can be enough to give a more skillfull control of the build, making it actually usefull against bosses and objectives like Garden of Terror or Grave Golem when they stomps the ground.
Primary Abilities
1
Level 1 - Resilient Scarabs
Beetles have 50 spell armor
Quest 1: Beetles dies by non heroic sources: 40
Quest 2: Beetles dies by heroic source: 30
Quest 3: Beetles expires: 50
Each completed quest increases duration by 1 second, 5% spell armor and 5% resistence against non-heroic damage.
Completing all quests grants an extra 1s, 10% spell armor and 5% resistence against-non heroic damage (75 spell armor, 20% reduced damage against non-heroic and lasts for 12 seconds. This will bring the fun concept of quests to the game, also forcing Anub'arak to make decisions when to spawn beetles to complete quests. The rewards will improve the intention of the original talent: keep beetles alive. Reaching the final reward will allow them to help Anub'arak against mercenariess and bosses.
2
Level 4 - Legion o Beetles
Automatically spawn a Beetle every 8 seconds. Can be toggled on and off. If toggled off for 16 seconds can stack up to 2 beetles. This allows this ability to require tatic and control instead of just letting it on all the time.
3
Level 7 - Leeching Scarabs
Beetles gain 20% bonus attack damage and they heal Anub'arak for 50% of their damage with each attack if he is nearby.
Quest: Heals for 10k damage
Reward: Beetles also recovers Anub'arak mana for 20% of damage caused. So now they improve the initial idea to keep Anub'arak longer in battles. The beetle build is the most mana-consuming and will ofenly cause Anub to hearthstone to recover mana.
4
Level 13 - Burning Rage
Deal 23(+4% per level) damage per second to nearby enemies.
Quest 1: Damages hero enemies 120 times; damages minions 600 times.
Reward: Beetles now also have burning rage. The range is half of Anub'araks and burning rage do not stack. This will improve his wave clear and will increase the power of his presence by increasing the area of effect. Damage will not be increased, only the area of effect. Also, Leeching Scarabs do not benefit from burning rage. Suggested new name: Venon of Nerub. (Thanks Spyro2002 for the suggestion)
5
Level 16 - Beetle, Juiced
Receiving ability damage spawns a beetle. This effect can only occur every 4 seconds.
Also increases beetle mov. speed by 10%. Hitting the same hero again and again is not what Anub'arak should be doing. This is a high level talent that is probably the worst for the build. So, by spwaning beetle while tanking against special abilities Anub'arak is doing his role and 3 seconds is the time he spends to hit 3 times, so 4 CD cooldown is an attempt to keep it real. Also, for such high level talent, I thought it would be a good opportunity to increase the beetles mov. speed, which is a problem since they spawn behind anub'arak and can never reach target in chasing.
Heroic Abilities
1
Locust Swarm
Deal 62 (+4% per level) damage per second to nearby enemies. Each enemy damaged restores 21 (+4% per level) Health. Lasts 6 seconds. Heroes killed under the area of effect of Locust Swarm spawns a beetle from corpse. Locust Swarm is the general option to go when doing the beetle build but this new utility enhances the sinergy of the build.
2
Cocoon
Wraps target enemy in a cocoon, rendering them unable to act or be targeted for 8 seconds. Allies of the hero can attack the cocoon to break it and free them early
For each 3.5 seconds a Beetle will spawn from the cocoon. This is a tentative to make the cocoon more viable when going for the beetle build
3
Rewind
Activate to reset cooldown of your Basic Abilities. Also refreshes duration and completly regenerates living beetles. Rewind is one of the best options for Beetle Build. That's because he can spawn double the beetles. But it often is not enough to make it viable when beetle build is more coherent to go with Locust Swarm and Hive Master. This forces players to think about late game and chose a different build that will better benefit with Cocoon if the games needs that. Maybe the rework up to this point is enough to make beetles build+hive master viable, but I also wanted to bring a option to make beetle build+cocoon viable, and that's why rewind also received this rework. Suggested new name:I am Renewed. or New Beetle.
I really like the rework idea and it is very well done(some numbers might need twicking but it's fine), but you can't change what burning rage and rewind do because they are generic talents.This means that you should give them a diferent name so that they can be classified as 'hero specific versions of generic talents'.If you can't find names I have some ideas.For example you could call his burning rage 'The venom of Nerub' and his rewind 'New brood'.
I also agree some numers are not that good. I'm also concerned about how powerful beetles could be with all this upgrades but I don't know where to take from, maybe their baseline damage? or maybe remove the 20% increased damage from Leeching Scarabs? Would love to discuss that!
I'm keeping the name and icon to make clear which talent this was about, but I see your point. I'll add in white in description the name suggestion!
I like your ideas, I'll totally keep The Venon of Nerub, but for rewind I guess I'll also take your burning rage idea for inspiration and go with "I Am Renewed" or any variation of it since it's also one of his quotes, what do you think?
edit: would like to discuss more before publishing again to avoid spamming it, but changes are add and saved already!
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I'm keeping the name and icon to make clear which talent this was about, but I see your point. I'll add in white in description the name suggestion!
I like your ideas, I'll totally keep The Venon of Nerub, but for rewind I guess I'll also take your burning rage idea for inspiration and go with "I Am Renewed" or any variation of it since it's also one of his quotes, what do you think?
edit: would like to discuss more before publishing again to avoid spamming it, but changes are add and saved already!