Onyxia by Zarpd

Playing Onyxia

Onyxia is a monstrous bully. Her crushing damage decimates anything in melee with her and forces the enemy to employ hit-and-run tactics. While her favored prey is immobile structures, she can still use Fire Breath to clear a lane and punish overconfident heroes. She's no assassin, but the option to cut off a hero's escape with Dragonflight demands respect.

Onyxia's ability to crush structures and shrug off casual harassers can instill confidence, but she's not immune to over-extending. Her low movement speed means that every hero in the game can catch up to her in a long term chase. She can use Call Drake to spot incoming enemies in advance, but Dragonflight is her only escape tool and persistent enemies can continue chasing her down after it's used.

Multiple heroes can repell Onyxia from a lane frequently, but liberal use of Broodmother turns every retreat into a minor victory. If she brings Food clutch each time she's repelled and protects it with Call Drake, she'll soon return with a a full scale invasion beneath her wings that cannot be so easily pushed back.

It is tempting to play Onyxia as a tank in team fights, but she lacks the crowd control and mobility needed to defend her allies. She does a good job protecting her backline with her presence alone, while harassing the enemy with Fire Breath and Call Drake. The ever-looming threat of an aggressive Dragonflight should keep her enemies in check, but it also means she'll have absolutely no avenue of escape if things turn sour.

Playing Against Onyxia

The key to defeating Onyxia lies in her slow movement speed. She is more vulnerable to over-extending than most heroes, so enemies should use hit-and-run tactics to ensure she's never sitting confidently at full health. She may be hard to kill, but the extra time it takes for her to return to lane makes a forced retreat a major victory. Fire Breath is intimidating when charged but also easy to dodge, and attacking the summon from Call Drake significantly reduces how often it can be used.

An enemy Onyxia will try to use a swarm from Broodmother to make herself difficult to harass. If Onyxia is in lane gathering Food, that means her Egg Clutch is vulnerable. Brave heroes that raid her lair can expect an incoming Dragonflight, but that removes her from lane and stops the precious flow of Food. A pair of heroes can easily disrupt the growth of Onyxia's brood, and force her to waste time relocating further away from the frontline.

Staying mobile is the best way to counter Onyxia in a team fight. She lacks the tools to pick off enemy assassins and is simply doomed if she extends too far. She has to commit to a full advance or retreat unlike the rest of her team, and Dragonflight's cooldown is uncomfortably long.

Level 1:

[D] Armored Shells
Egg Clutches from Broodmother have 300% bonus health
! Quest: Gather 400 Meat
! Reward: Call Drake no longer consumes a charge if set to guard an egg clutch.

[D] Scavenger
Cooldown - 45 seconds.
Gain 25 meat.
Additionally, only lose half of your carried meat on death.

[W] Raining Death
Reduces the cooldown on Call Drake by 5 seconds and increases the cast range.
! Quest: Damage heroes 100 times with Call Drake.
! Reward: Call Drake gains an additional charge and reduces it's cooldown by 5.

[1] Breathing Exercises
Fire Breath can be toggled between a long range ball or a close range cone.

Level 4:

[D] Strength in Numbers
Gain 5 for every whelp you are near and 5 armor for every summoned or hatched drake you are near. These effects stack.
! Quest: Hatch 3 Egg Clutches above 50 Food each.
! Reward: Increase how much armor drakes give by 5.
! Quest: Hatch an Egg Clutch with 100 Food.
! Reward: Increase how much armor drakes give by 5.

[-] Mighty Claws
Basic attacks deal 25% of their damage to nearby targets.

[E] Too Good For This
Dragonflight's cooldown is reduced by 10 seconds if it does no damage.

[Q] Sizable Breath
Fire Breath can channel for 0.75 extra seconds longer, increasing range and damage.

Level 7:

[W] Well Raised
Whelps and drakes have 25% more health.

[E] Dragon Fall
Dragonflight knocks enemies back on landing and slows them by 50% for 2.5 seconds.

[Q] Destructive Wake
Fire Breath leaves burning ground that deals half its damage again over 3 seconds.

[Q] Everything Burns
Fire Breath slowly turns toward the mouse cursor while it is being charged.

Level 13:

[W]Twilight Brood
Summoned drakes leave burning ground each time they attack, dealing 50% of their damage again over 2 seconds.

[W]Pureblood Brood
Summoned drakes deal 30% more damage.

[W]Enduring Brood/b]
Summoned drakes push down the nearest lane instead of flying away. The cooldown reduction they offer is lowered from 15 to 10.

Level 16:

[Q] Flame Buffet
Fire Breath's cooldown is reduced by 2.5 seconds for every hero it hits.

[E] Beneath My Notice
Onyxia gains the Protected status while she is hovering.

[2] Mommy's At Work
Cooldown: 30 seocnds
Give all meat on Onyxia to a Egg Clutch within long range.
Additionally, Broodmother can be cast to hatch Egg Clutches from a very long range.

Level 20:

[Q]Blazing Fury
After using Fire Breath, Onyxia's next 3 basic attacks within 10 seconds hits all enemies in a large area.

[W]Endless Brood
Every Call Drake is cast, it summons two extra non-talented drakes.

[R]Deeper Breath
Deep Breath leaves burning ground that deals 200% of its base damage over the course of 5 seconds.

[R]More Whelps!
10 Whelps spawn at the edge of Earth-Warden's Daughter and attack heroes before pushing down the nearest lane.

For frame of reference, the core stats of other characters can be viewed HERE.

Stats at: Level 1 / Level 10 / Level 20
Health 3573 / 5311 / 8248
Regen 14.88 / 22.12 / 34.36
Mana 500 / 590 / 690
Regen 3.000 / 3.855 / 4.805
Damage 397 / 590 / 916
Attack Speed 0.55 / 0.55 / 0.55
DPS 218 / 324 / 503

Concept

There were a lot of potential ways to create Onyxia, but I found the answer by focusing on her title. The Broodmother.

I knew from the start that she had to be a giant, lumbering threat (I have no interest in Lady Prestor) to fulfill the fantasy of a dragon. I imagined a colossal dragon attacking city walls, laying waste to everything while the defenders barely made a dent in its scales. Pretty cool! But unfair. If she wasn't a brute the concept wouldn't work, but how could I make her fair in a competitive game?

The answer came from the dragon's arch-typical counter: the lone dragon slayer knight, venturing into the wild to confront the beast in its lair. I had to think of a reason for Onyxia to keep a lair and that's where the Broodmother concept came from.

The giant dragon fantasy was fulfilled thanks to her high hit points and damage, and crippling her speed gave her a weakness. Defenders would rarely kill Onyxia, but persistent harassment would be enough to drive her off -- especially since she is vulnerable to being chased down. Onyxia would test a fortress' defense before unleashing her brood to overwhelm her enemy and drown out the defenders... unless a brave knight raided her lair while she was out hunting.

Specifics

Why Onyxia?

Dragons are cool, and Onyxia is one of Warcraft's most iconic to me. Sure there are more powerful or plot-relevant dragons, but she was old school cool. No grand speeches or hidden weapons, just you and 39 of your friends being arrogant enough to lose your lives and your DKP by assaulting a dragon in her own lair. Plus, Heroes of the Storm is the only MOBA that can really bring the dragon fantasy to life. I'm looking at you, Shyvana.

Why the Broodmother trait?

This came from the idea of a knight setting out to slay a dragon. I realized that a slow movement speed meant Onyxia would be pushed out of lane fairly often, so I wanted a way to play around that. She deliberately lacks the tools to prevent this from happening, but now she actually has things she wants to do that don't involve crushing structures. Plus, I thought this might make for interesting moments where people realize that Onyxia has been missing for far too long.

Why the Fire Breath Q?

If you're going to have a dragon, it has to breath fire. This ability was a no-brainer, the only question was how to make it different from the Dragon Knight's. As the concept began to take shape and her sluggish nature became a core character component, the channeled range and damage made perfect sense.

Why the Call Drake W?

Playing into her title again, I knew I wanted to force Onyxia to decide whether she would call on the black dragonflight to defend her lair or help her in combat. This ability went through several different iterations - sometimes giving her more push power and sometimes acting as a controllable pet - but nothing felt right. The end result gives her some much needed vision and the ability to dissuade heroes from chasing her, without taking so much focus off of the hero and making her feel like The Lost Vikings.

Why the Dragonflight E?

I liked the idea of Onyxia attacking a wall, being whittled down in the process, and slinking into the jungle to lick her wounds. She has her Egg Clutches, so being pushed back isn't always a bad thing. The problem was that I could very easily imagine frustrating scenarios where acting as a Food taxi would take too long, or having to chase enemies away from her lair only to have them come back after she left, or spotting a gank coming from halfway across the map and still being unable to escape. She needed an escape. The high range and extra vision gave her the tools to avoid most of these aggravating situations, but the start up time and long cooldown means she can't use it as a dash and must commit to a decision when taking off.

Why Deep Breath R?

IT'S ONYXIA. ONYXIA TAKES A DEEP BREATH. Onyxia CANNOT be made without using Deep Breath. It was only a matter of how. At first the ability mimicked her Q, but that just felt lame. D.Va's Self Destruct ability was the perfect inspiration, but I wanted the ability to be used more for damage than area denial. When I thought about making the ability move, I decided just to mimic her World of Warcraft encounter entirely and make her fly as she channels. I imagine it will either be satisfying to roast enemies from above or watch them flee for their lives.

Why Earth-Warden's Daughter R?

I originally wanted to incorporate the Twilight Dragonflight into Onyxia's second heroic ability, but giving her improved minions felt like putting a hat on a hat. Instead, this ability was born from necessity. Despite her high health and damage, Onyxia's speed makes her extremely vulnerable in a team fight. She's an Artanis swap or Diablo push away from being super over-extended, so she's almost forced to remain in your team's backline. This ability gives her a long-cooldown option to throw her weight around an make groups of enemies run from her instead of the other way around. Plus, this pairs with her E in a really cool way so long as you're confident enough to burn multiple cooldowns.