Auto Attacks
For those wondering if him having the gatling wand would be too similar to Tychus, Reno will only have his "minigun" appear during
Gatling Wand (Q) (through magic!). His standard auto attacks fire spells from his hands (probably with finger guns going "pew pew!"). Up close, Reno will use his fists, which will be a key part of one of his builds.
Amateur Mage
RNG can always be somewhat of a concern, because while it may be fun in Hearthstone, it may turn people off in HotS. Modeling after Gul'dan's rain of destruction (which hasn't caught much flak for randomness),
Gatling Wand (Q) can be much more controlled. Up close, you don't even feel the randomness. From afar the ability loses effectiveness and therefore would have to get lucky to snipe that back line squishy. Like so:
10 shots over 1.5 seconds felt like a good number to minimize the impact of any particular random shot. Also I think it comes out to 400 bpm (beats per minute) which felt right in my head.
As for
Shifting Scroll (W) while some may feel angry at Reno getting
Entangling Roots or
Polymorph just at the right time, bare in mind Malfurion or Brightwing could have done the same thing (just more consistently). As for
Puzzle Box (R1), there can be a solid argument against
that level of randomness. It looks like a balance nightmare, but damn would it be fun. Who wouldn't laugh at you getting wisps and gazlowe turrets instead of storm bolts? That's why we're here right? If it's fun, put it in the game!
Treasure Hunting
We're gonna be rich! Taking inspiration from Shovel Knight's design in the smash-bros-like Rivals of Aether (a game you should all play!), Reno satisfies his desire for riches by collecting treasure and assembling an arsenal of artifacts. The mechanic for collecting treasure looks like this in Rivals:
Any damage drops treasure. So if you hit a juicy
Flame Strike from afar, and get a few gatling shots, you have a stock pile of treasure waiting for you to slide in and get. If you are up close, you can keep damaging and collecting treasure to keep chaining Daring Slides (E).
In Rivals, Shovel knight's store looked like this, however the
Treasure Hunting (D) menu would look similar to how you pick talents, and all the items looked the same.
The effects of the artifacts, while powerful, are designed to be simple. Having so many to choose from and access to up to 3 extra buttons doesn't need any more complication. This large suite of cool sounding artifacts leans into the Indiana Jones feel of The League of Explorers. During his
Daring Slide (E) he almost loses his hat (like in Raiders of the Lost Ark). The fact that its cooldown is reduced upon collecting treasure supports his "Get the loot and get out!" strategy. It also showcases his foolhardiness. Speaking of...
Foolhardiness
Reno can be brave, or maybe it's just stupidity. Either way he will rush into certain danger to save his friends... and the gold. With some talents supporting an up-close auto-attack style, you could see a squishy Reno diving into enemy territory to give them the old razzle dazzle! The fact that his
Gatling Wand (Q) works best up close also supports this aggressive play style. His second heroic and second Raiders of the Lost Ark reference,
Boulder Dash (R2) benefits most from foolishly charging into the enemy team (and hopefully diving out of the way at the last second).
All of these moves have the "If I can just pull this off, it'll look awesome!" quality to them, while also suffering from "When it fails, it looks dumb" syndrome. Which I think fits Reno Well.
Talent Summary
While I know the competition requires talents, I'll instead give an abstract of what the general builds might look like. I'm not sure I see the point in making a fully fledged list of talents and calculating the damage and mana cost of everything (which probably DQ's me). I'm just here for the elevator pitch!
I can see there being three major builds:
Ranged poke/spellslinger/gatling gunner:
Talents that help minimize the randomness of
Gatling Wand (Q) from range (by perhaps narrowing the firing cone). Talents could also improve the range and effectiveness of some poke
Shifting Scroll (W) spells such as
Blizzard,
Flame Strike, and
Corruption.
Amateur mage/relicologist:
Talents that work well with shifting scroll such as improving the utility of specific
Shifting Scroll (W) spells or improving your access to treasure and therefore artifacts (treasure rains from the sky!). Maybe have some
Shifting Scroll (W) spells become empowered for a limited time (which would appear randomly).
EX: You're positioning for a teamfight and you're waiting for a
Flame Strike to poke, but you see an empowered
Polymorph (maybe it reduces armor?) and you encourage your tank to engage and help quickly melt someone (this may be tooo much RNG but I'm just spitballin').
Aggressive auto attacker/foolhardy adventurer:
Talents that would synergize with auto-attacks up close (forgoing magic for fists) and
Daring Slide (E) improvements to help you get in and out. There could also be bonuses for hitting all your
Gatling Wand (Q) shots (which will be easier up close)
Heroes of the Storm Build Guides
I don't get the trait fully on how it works and like how much stuff costs and how much you get, but I like the concept of it, but would need some extra numbers and stuff to see how balanced it is.
Depending on how many beams he fires then I can understand the RNG amount, if he fires 5, will there be a chance of 3 being in the same direction as the previous one? Or if he fires 15 beams, then I can understand the RNG. But the fewer beams launched, the more I want it to not be RNG.
Shifting Scroll, love it, I just don't think being in a random order would make for much of a skilled Reno. If it was in a specific order like going down a list and then restarting, that would be more "skillfull" and make more sense (in a gameplay perspective).
Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron, I'd like it more if it became like a random ultimate already in Heroes of the Storm and that Reno could use it within 10 seconds of casting Puzzle Box of Yogg Saron. So it becomes a real ultimate.
I get that the concept is about RNG and luck but I don't really see luck as something you would want to rely on, especially in ranked.
(Also, would like treasures being able to be used again somehow if that is possible. Late game he probably won't have any left :O)
(I actually did make some changes based on your feedback. Shifting scroll now has a set order. I removed the Rewind artifact and made all the treasures cost the same. And I've also specified the number of beams fired in Gatling Wand (W), which is 10. After running 5 hits per 1.5 seconds through a metronome, I realized it was WAAAAYYY to slow. It is a "minigun" after all)
I tried to keep the RNG as manageable as possible, but puzzle box was definitely the worst offender. The thrill of playing Yogg or Puzzlebox in Hearthstone is something I wanted to capture in HotS, but I'm sure it would be tough.
5 beams over 1.5 seconds feels like a good number to me, but it probably depend on the damage and cooldown (which would take a while to figure out). And I did imagine the shots having a truly random firing pattern, so yes you could conceivably fire all the beams in one direction. I figured Blizzard would balance it better than I can, so they could throttle the damage and cooldown. What was important to me was the 1.5 second channel. You want to be able to fire these quickly so you weave in and out of the fight.
I did think of keeping shifting scroll in a set order, and honestly that would be great as a talent, but the original intent was to have you react based on what spell you get each cycle. Perhaps you wait and hold out for another one during the fight, or you find the best way to use what you have now. I can see how some people wouldn't want to play that way, so maybe there could be some way to mitigate that RNG through talents. I could see it either way.
Actually by the end of this paragraph you convinced me to make it a set order.
As for the item shop, mentioning the cost was probably a mistake. Originally I was going to have them all cost the same, but the addition of the cooldown reset artifact made me think "Oh, that's significantly better than the other ones, but it's still pretty cool. Maybe I'll make it cost more!" Aaaannnnddd that probably got everyone confused on how costs worked. I'll probably just chuck that one out and keep the cost at a flat rate.
The mechanic of collecting treasure and spending treasure would just involve hitting enemies and picking it up, and when you felt like you had enough, open up the shop and grab an artifact. Rival's of Aether did this pretty well with Shovel Knight, but the shop selection wasn't randomized. Maybe Reno's shouldn't be either. Honestly I just wanted to add more RNG icing on the RNG cake (maybe that's too much).
Here's collecting gems. For Reno, this would involve poking with spells and diving in to collect/just attacking up close and collecting it as you go.
Opening the shop (which stops you from moving in Rivals, but I'd imagine Reno just brings up a quick menu, like talents):
Lastly, as for ranked play. If someone didn't like all the RNG, the up close "Razzle Dazzle" build wouldn't rely too much on RNG. Just poke them with spells, slide in and grab treasure, and then either stay in to punch and gatling wand, or slide on out! If one wanted to iron out all the RNG, I'm sure they can make a talent build for that, but damn would it be fun in the clown fiesta of Quick Match!
Thanks again for the detailed response!