Healing an allied Hero allows them to see over obstacles for 4 seconds. Can only affect the last 2 healed Heroes.
Primary Abilities
1
River of Youth (Q)
Mana: 90
Cooldown: 8 seconds
Yu’lon slithers to the target location, healing herself and allies in the way for 150 Health, increased to 300 Health for the last allied Hero hit. Refunds 25 Mana per allied Hero hit, up to 50.
Using River of Youth at 75% of its maximum range or more allows Yu’lon to dash in a target direction within 2 seconds of reaching her destination.
2
Enveloping Mist (W)
Mana: 60
Cooldown: 14 seconds
For the next 2.5 seconds, Yu'lon leaves behind a cloud of mist as she moves, healing allied Heroes in the area for 35 Health every 0.5 seconds. The mist starts disappearing after 5 seconds.
Enveloping Mist does not apply Wisdom of Yu’lon, but it increases its duration on affected Heroes by 1 second, up to a maximum duration of 4 seconds.
3
Jade Lightning (E)
Mana: 40
Cooldown: 7 seconds
Channel for up to 2.5 seconds, dealing 60 damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies in a line that follows your mouse cursor, and reducing their damage done to Heroes affected by Wisdom of Yu’lon by 20% for 2 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
1
Ring of Peace (R)
Mana: 70
Cooldown: 80 seconds
After 0.75 seconds, create a ring of peace in an area for 5 seconds. The first time Heroes damage a Hero while inside the ring, they are Blinded and Silenced for 2.5 seconds and for as long as they stay in the area.
The effect is removed from allied Heroes when they leave the area.
2
August Constriction (R)
Mana: 80
Cooldown: 100 seconds
After 0.5 seconds, Yu’lon becomes Unstoppable, gains 50 Armor, and spins around an area that shrinks over 3 seconds, blocking all units from passing through her wake.
Reactivate to cancel August Constriction at Yu’lon’s current location.
Talents
Level 1
Laminar Flow
Dashing after River of Youth reduces its cooldown by 1.5 seconds.
It's always nice to read a HotS concepts moveset where the abilities are only two-three sentences long and don't have 4 different permutations, as well as one with a fairly clear vision for what the character is supposed to play like.
I feel like you have something here, especially with the ability River of Youth, as giving a healer high mobility but also forcing them to use that mobility in order to heal creates a unique dynamic. That said, I think there's room for improvement. I'd love to give some more specific, constructive criticism if you'd like to hear it.
Thanks for the feedback! I like to keep my descriptions' style close to what you'd see in the game, as I feel like it brings the concepts to life in a more authentic way.
I'd love to hear your ideas, as design is always better when viewed from multiple angles!
Well strap yourself in, because this'll be a bit of a long response. I won't be bringing up talents too much here, just the basic kit.
Trait: I feel like Wisdom of Yu'lon is wanting for a more specific identity. Right now it's a soft Uther trait with a somewhat awkward vision element attached. More awkward though is the limit of only buffing two heroes, which would be fine on a Healer with single-target healing, but both of Yu'lon's healing abilities are AoE, so it's somewhat hard to be deliberate with applying its benefits. I understand though that vision is a potentially powerful thing, and so wanting to limit it makes sense from that perspective.
Personally though I do really like the idea of her marking allies she passes through, setting up for other benefits later, as it ties directly into a theme of Value vs. Safety that I'll bring up when I talk about River of Youth. My overall suggestion for the trait though is to commit to either the vision aspect, or the ally buffing aspect (though I'd use something other than armor, to give her a more distinct role separate from Uther. Movement speed? Slightly increased damage?), and work the dropped half into Yu'lon's talents.
Q: This is the key part to her entire moveset and personally I love it. At first I questioned the 'hey, why does this have baseline mana restoration?' but thinking about it more, the purpose is clear and elegant - to force her to primarily use it to heal allies, and implicitly punish her if she uses it to escape. This forces her to stay near where the fight is, meaning she's not going to just dip out of the fight and become one of those frustrating healers that can't be pinned down. You still have the option to retreat with it, it's just punishing. Love it.
What I think really works here is that, in order to get full value out of River of Youth, she'll often need to dash right to where the fight is happening, serving her up to the enemy. To get full value, you have to sacrifice your safety, giving Yu'lon players more to think about than just diving in and diving out.
On that note, the final line of being able to re-use it at high health... I'm not so sure about that one. Personally I think she's better off just going with a more traditional 'has two charges', with adjusted stats to accommodate, or having a talent tier dedicated to Q cooldown reductions, and that being one of the options. I know this goes against the praise I gave above, with her being harder to pin down, but with proper balancing and a healthpool like hers, I'd say she's earned it.
W: This makes enough sense for the character. It solves the question of 'how does she heal herself?', but I tend to think it doesn't quite match their aggressive risk vs. reward playstyle. But I think it's very easily fixed if Yu'lon is forced to leave the mists around her current location. She can dive in, drop the pool, then escape, but she might get caught out in the process. Maybe a channel time could be added before it's created, to increase the risk of use, opening the door to more counterplay.
E: I think E solves the simple problem of "hey, what's she actually gonna do after she's jumped to the front lines other than just dash away?" and the damage reduction does actually have synergy with the limited targeting of her trait and the dive-y nature of her Q, since the last people you hit will probably be in the most danger. That said, I'm iffy on this move's application, since a move that targets one specific location will most likely only hit one or two members of the enemy team, leaving only a small amount of your team receiving the damage reduction from the enemy team. My first instinct is to have it target a specific enemy and allowing you to move while it channels, like an Azmodan or Falstad, but with the stream hitting all enemies between you and the target.
R1: I have no problems with this, aside from that HotS generally avoids including moves that can be used to grief your own team. They exist, of course, but this one could be particularly abused, so you gotta be careful with it.
R2: My only problem with this is that I'm not sure if the HotS engine can handle a hurtbox like this one.
None of these are definitive suggestions. They're just the most immediate solutions that come to mind. Overall I say you have something here, and I really hope it evolves into something even better.
I recently looked at this concept several months after editing it the last time, and, after reading your comments again, I felt like putting a bit more effort into reworking some of Yu'lon's abilities and talents to make them more interesting and unique.
Here's a breakdown of my latest changes:
Trait: I removed the Armor buff as I felt that it added an unnecessary layer to her active damage mitigation from Jade lightning. Because of that, I added more talent effects that buff or synergize with it, which raises the Hero's complexity and skill ceiling by rewarding proper ally targeting and use of her trait.
Q: River of Youth is in a pretty good place, so it remains unchanged. The only change is an added line on its lvl 16 talent that clarifies the way the added buff functions.
W: Enveloping Mist is the aspect of Yu'lon that saw the biggest design change out of everything. Just like you said, it needed a bit more risk in its use to fit her playstyle. Actually, you mentionning her risk/reward playstyle (mainly because of her Q) inspired me to change its area to a path that she leaves behind as she moves (with adjusted talents for the new functionality) instead of the plain old "click here and watch" version. This encourages her to put herself in potential danger during fights when using it in the frontline. Also, she could now use her Q to spread the mist further, or use it to heal her allies for a longer time during escapes. All in all, i think these changes to her W make it more interesting to use and opens up opportunities for counterplay that weren't there before.
E: Also pretty much unchaged. I changed one of the old W talents into a synergy talent that spreads the area of Jade Lightning throughout her Enveloping Mist, which could but pretty strong (and fun!) in team fights.
R1: I gave allied Heroes a simple way of removing the effects, reducing the ability's griefing potential. However, to balance this against my initial design, I slightly reduced the durations and increased the cooldown and cost.
R2: Unchanged.
As far as talent changes go, they are mostly balance and mechanical adjustments to fit the new base kit changes, with the exception of her last 2 lvl 20 ones. I feel like they could be very strong, maybe even broken in some situations! I do like going a bit crazy with non-Heroic lvl 20 talents, and I'm pretty happy with their overall concept.
I'd love to read your opinion about the changes I made to Yu'lon. Your feedback made me really think about her design and try to make her look unique and fun to play.
I have to say, I wasn't expecting such a detailed and insightful response. Thanks for taking the time to explain all of your concerns!
I am going to address your points one by one, as I think it is going to be easier to follow.
Trait: I derinetely agree that it feels a lot like Uther's trait. I actually realised that a while before publishing the concept, I just really wanted a defensive element in the effect by design, and Armor felt like the way to go. However, I do think it just feels like a weaker version of Uther's buff, so I plan on changing it for a more unique effect. The vision bonus feels like a good way of bringing Yu'lon's whole wisdom aspect to the game, and I think it is probably here to stay. As for the 2 target limit, I wanted to force players to choose who they want to buff, making the use of her Q more calculated. The fact you can choose its range allows more control on the affected heroes as well. Her W, which has quite a long cooldown, could then serve as a tool to solidify that buff on your allies when you felt like you applied it on the right targets. Update: I went for a Spell Armor buff instead of pure Armor, making the passive more specific, but still keeping its defensive element. This does make the trait weaker overall, but the uniqueness of the vision bonus as well as its strong synergy with Yu'lon's basic abilities are strong enough in my opinion.
Q: Thanks for the positive opinion on this one. It is actually one of my favorite abilities that I have created so far. I just want to bring a bit of clarification about the secondary conditional dash. First, it is a simple dash with no other purpose than to reposition yourself after using Q. Second, I think you may have misread the condition for triggering it. It can be used after casting Q at long range, not at high Health, similar to how Li-Ming's Arcane Orb can be talented have a bonus effect after half range.
W: As I wrote earlier, I see Enveloping Mist as an alternate source of healing and a tool to complement her trait without necessarily defining her playstyle. However, I do agree that I need to bring an element of risk/commitment into its use to allow for more counterplay. I was thinking about making it into a small channel that increases the size of the mist as it is channeled. Update: In the end i wasn't sure about adding a second channel to the base kit, so I simply gave it a moderate cast time.
E: I initially designed it as an ability you would channel without retargeting or moving, but as you said, I think giving it more flexibility is the best move here. I updated the description to say that it now follows the player's mouse cursor, making it similar to Li-Ming's (her again?!) Disintegrate, but a bit wider and about half as long. I think this change would make the ability more usable and reliable for targeting and damaging enemies, while still making you vulnerable to attacks and skillshots while using it.
R: Your concerns about the game engine's limitations and griefing potiential are understandable. Sometimes, things we create in concepts wouldn't have the intended effects in game. Also, to clarify about August Constriction, I imagined it as an impassable wall, not unlike Sonya's crater at level 20, with the added effect that it shrinks over time (it would start way bigger than the crater, of course). Yu'lon would simply spin around that area without actually being tied to the blocking effect itself.
Thanks again for your interest in my concept. I hope that my explanations enlightened you about the way I made decisions about it. I will be changing and refining Yu'lon soon to try and make her better overall!
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I feel like you have something here, especially with the ability River of Youth, as giving a healer high mobility but also forcing them to use that mobility in order to heal creates a unique dynamic. That said, I think there's room for improvement. I'd love to give some more specific, constructive criticism if you'd like to hear it.
I'd love to hear your ideas, as design is always better when viewed from multiple angles!
Trait: I feel like Wisdom of Yu'lon is wanting for a more specific identity. Right now it's a soft Uther trait with a somewhat awkward vision element attached. More awkward though is the limit of only buffing two heroes, which would be fine on a Healer with single-target healing, but both of Yu'lon's healing abilities are AoE, so it's somewhat hard to be deliberate with applying its benefits. I understand though that vision is a potentially powerful thing, and so wanting to limit it makes sense from that perspective.
Personally though I do really like the idea of her marking allies she passes through, setting up for other benefits later, as it ties directly into a theme of Value vs. Safety that I'll bring up when I talk about River of Youth. My overall suggestion for the trait though is to commit to either the vision aspect, or the ally buffing aspect (though I'd use something other than armor, to give her a more distinct role separate from Uther. Movement speed? Slightly increased damage?), and work the dropped half into Yu'lon's talents.
Q: This is the key part to her entire moveset and personally I love it. At first I questioned the 'hey, why does this have baseline mana restoration?' but thinking about it more, the purpose is clear and elegant - to force her to primarily use it to heal allies, and implicitly punish her if she uses it to escape. This forces her to stay near where the fight is, meaning she's not going to just dip out of the fight and become one of those frustrating healers that can't be pinned down. You still have the option to retreat with it, it's just punishing. Love it.
What I think really works here is that, in order to get full value out of River of Youth, she'll often need to dash right to where the fight is happening, serving her up to the enemy. To get full value, you have to sacrifice your safety, giving Yu'lon players more to think about than just diving in and diving out.
On that note, the final line of being able to re-use it at high health... I'm not so sure about that one. Personally I think she's better off just going with a more traditional 'has two charges', with adjusted stats to accommodate, or having a talent tier dedicated to Q cooldown reductions, and that being one of the options. I know this goes against the praise I gave above, with her being harder to pin down, but with proper balancing and a healthpool like hers, I'd say she's earned it.
W: This makes enough sense for the character. It solves the question of 'how does she heal herself?', but I tend to think it doesn't quite match their aggressive risk vs. reward playstyle. But I think it's very easily fixed if Yu'lon is forced to leave the mists around her current location. She can dive in, drop the pool, then escape, but she might get caught out in the process. Maybe a channel time could be added before it's created, to increase the risk of use, opening the door to more counterplay.
E: I think E solves the simple problem of "hey, what's she actually gonna do after she's jumped to the front lines other than just dash away?" and the damage reduction does actually have synergy with the limited targeting of her trait and the dive-y nature of her Q, since the last people you hit will probably be in the most danger. That said, I'm iffy on this move's application, since a move that targets one specific location will most likely only hit one or two members of the enemy team, leaving only a small amount of your team receiving the damage reduction from the enemy team. My first instinct is to have it target a specific enemy and allowing you to move while it channels, like an Azmodan or Falstad, but with the stream hitting all enemies between you and the target.
R1: I have no problems with this, aside from that HotS generally avoids including moves that can be used to grief your own team. They exist, of course, but this one could be particularly abused, so you gotta be careful with it.
R2: My only problem with this is that I'm not sure if the HotS engine can handle a hurtbox like this one.
None of these are definitive suggestions. They're just the most immediate solutions that come to mind. Overall I say you have something here, and I really hope it evolves into something even better.
Here's a breakdown of my latest changes:
Trait: I removed the Armor buff as I felt that it added an unnecessary layer to her active damage mitigation from Jade lightning. Because of that, I added more talent effects that buff or synergize with it, which raises the Hero's complexity and skill ceiling by rewarding proper ally targeting and use of her trait.
Q: River of Youth is in a pretty good place, so it remains unchanged. The only change is an added line on its lvl 16 talent that clarifies the way the added buff functions.
W: Enveloping Mist is the aspect of Yu'lon that saw the biggest design change out of everything. Just like you said, it needed a bit more risk in its use to fit her playstyle. Actually, you mentionning her risk/reward playstyle (mainly because of her Q) inspired me to change its area to a path that she leaves behind as she moves (with adjusted talents for the new functionality) instead of the plain old "click here and watch" version. This encourages her to put herself in potential danger during fights when using it in the frontline. Also, she could now use her Q to spread the mist further, or use it to heal her allies for a longer time during escapes. All in all, i think these changes to her W make it more interesting to use and opens up opportunities for counterplay that weren't there before.
E: Also pretty much unchaged. I changed one of the old W talents into a synergy talent that spreads the area of Jade Lightning throughout her Enveloping Mist, which could but pretty strong (and fun!) in team fights.
R1: I gave allied Heroes a simple way of removing the effects, reducing the ability's griefing potential. However, to balance this against my initial design, I slightly reduced the durations and increased the cooldown and cost.
R2: Unchanged.
As far as talent changes go, they are mostly balance and mechanical adjustments to fit the new base kit changes, with the exception of her last 2 lvl 20 ones. I feel like they could be very strong, maybe even broken in some situations! I do like going a bit crazy with non-Heroic lvl 20 talents, and I'm pretty happy with their overall concept.
I'd love to read your opinion about the changes I made to Yu'lon. Your feedback made me really think about her design and try to make her look unique and fun to play.
I am going to address your points one by one, as I think it is going to be easier to follow.
Trait: I derinetely agree that it feels a lot like Uther's trait. I actually realised that a while before publishing the concept, I just really wanted a defensive element in the effect by design, and Armor felt like the way to go. However, I do think it just feels like a weaker version of Uther's buff, so I plan on changing it for a more unique effect. The vision bonus feels like a good way of bringing Yu'lon's whole wisdom aspect to the game, and I think it is probably here to stay. As for the 2 target limit, I wanted to force players to choose who they want to buff, making the use of her Q more calculated. The fact you can choose its range allows more control on the affected heroes as well. Her W, which has quite a long cooldown, could then serve as a tool to solidify that buff on your allies when you felt like you applied it on the right targets.
Update: I went for a Spell Armor buff instead of pure Armor, making the passive more specific, but still keeping its defensive element. This does make the trait weaker overall, but the uniqueness of the vision bonus as well as its strong synergy with Yu'lon's basic abilities are strong enough in my opinion.
Q: Thanks for the positive opinion on this one. It is actually one of my favorite abilities that I have created so far. I just want to bring a bit of clarification about the secondary conditional dash. First, it is a simple dash with no other purpose than to reposition yourself after using Q. Second, I think you may have misread the condition for triggering it. It can be used after casting Q at long range, not at high Health, similar to how Li-Ming's Arcane Orb can be talented have a bonus effect after half range.
W: As I wrote earlier, I see Enveloping Mist as an alternate source of healing and a tool to complement her trait without necessarily defining her playstyle. However, I do agree that I need to bring an element of risk/commitment into its use to allow for more counterplay. I was thinking about making it into a small channel that increases the size of the mist as it is channeled.
Update: In the end i wasn't sure about adding a second channel to the base kit, so I simply gave it a moderate cast time.
E: I initially designed it as an ability you would channel without retargeting or moving, but as you said, I think giving it more flexibility is the best move here. I updated the description to say that it now follows the player's mouse cursor, making it similar to Li-Ming's (her again?!) Disintegrate, but a bit wider and about half as long. I think this change would make the ability more usable and reliable for targeting and damaging enemies, while still making you vulnerable to attacks and skillshots while using it.
R: Your concerns about the game engine's limitations and griefing potiential are understandable. Sometimes, things we create in concepts wouldn't have the intended effects in game. Also, to clarify about August Constriction, I imagined it as an impassable wall, not unlike Sonya's crater at level 20, with the added effect that it shrinks over time (it would start way bigger than the crater, of course). Yu'lon would simply spin around that area without actually being tied to the blocking effect itself.
Thanks again for your interest in my concept. I hope that my explanations enlightened you about the way I made decisions about it. I will be changing and refining Yu'lon soon to try and make her better overall!