Deathwing by beboptimusprime

"Though believed dead by many, Deathwing made his return in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the third expansion to World of Warcraft, and his wrath constituted a pre-release event known as the Shattering, which changed the world of Azeroth permanently. The world continues to reel from the effects of Deathwing's return as he flies over Azeroth to randomly cast his flame. He is the final raid encounter of Cataclysm, appearing as the last two encounters of the Dragon Soul raid." -WoW Wiki

Every Warcraft fan knows Deathwing, and he's always at or near the top of most-requested concepts. The challenge of importing him to HOTS is always described the same way, though. He's huge - massive, really. It's a defining feature of him. There's almost no way to make him look normal if his whole body is in frame without him blotting out the screen.

So, in my concept, I took a different approach. Deathwing, as a dragon, is the former aspect of the Earth, and lay buried beneath it until the events of Cataclysm. So that's how he is in my concept. Most of Deathwing is under the map. When he casts an ability, part of him becomes visible - for example, a Claw shoots out of the ground and begins swiping at nearby enemies, or his Head digs up from below and begins breathing fire. In this way he can have a head as large or larger than Azmodan's entire body without dominating the map, and capture his appropriate scale.

From a gameplay standpoint, this makes him a challenging character to design. He has the ability to avoid conflict almost entirely, similar to Medivh - though I decided to give him 75 Armor while buried but let him bodyblock, to make him distinct and able to serve as an offtank in a way in fights. He has no mana and no basic attack (although his claws are, essentially, a basic attack). His appendages, though powerful, are all totally immobile, making him vulnerable to powerful skillshots, but he has high HP and sustain, and can talent into other defensive options. Deathwing excels at controlling a space and putting pressure on the map, but I designed him to have options to allow high-skilled players to really shine and get more out of him. Many talents allow for interplay between his abilities/appendages (for example, one ability extends the duration of another, that ability increases the damage of another, etc.) This allows a talented player to output extremely high damage if they can arrange the situation correctly, similar to Kel'Thuzad.

Statistics

Health: 3,100
Health Regen: 6.1
Armor: 75 (Buried)