Adria by SBPW

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Adria

By: SBPW
Last Updated: Oct 25, 2015
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Adria

Blood Witch

Summary: Uses diabolic powers and blood magic to shield allies and harm foes. Capable of summoning Blood Golems or transforming into a Blood Demon.

HP: 750 (+240 per level)
HP Regen: 8.828 (+2.543 per level)
Attack Damage: 31 (+9 per level)
Attack Speed: 1.11

Adria is an 'evil support' from the Diablo universe and does absolutely no healing baseline, plus she has Health comparable to a tank and no mana pool. She is a unique support that focuses more on 'sharing' damage: redirecting, negating or spreading it out by paying life. This makes her a support that can pump out big damage, is tough to take down and embodies what a 'demonic medic' would do. Her abilities are also discussed at the end of the article.

Adria should play like an evil support. You absolutely do not want to 'green bar' and 'top off' or 'play safely'. Instead you want to get dirty, deal damage and dissuade enemies from attacking certain targets. She could negate the same amount of damage as a full healer could heal, but in practice she can't actually heal allies that are not in a fight. Luckily for you, you can spec into talents for that.

Design philosophy
NO generic talents. Flavorful and powerful variants.
NO filler, all killer. All tiers have build defining and fun skills.
NO crutch talents like Earth Shields, Reanimation, Chain Bomb/Fission bombs etc.
Every talent is unique and powerful, and it feels as if you give up on 3 or 4 other awesome effects when you pick something.
Unique gameplay and mechanics. Nothing like any other support. A support that sacrifices? Has almost same health as Azmo? Murky Regen? Can build as a viable DPS?
Flavorful and true to Diablo, while filling a niche and having ample opportunities for funny quotes, references...
Before I talk about the spirit of abilities or their talents, take a look at...

Combat Trait

1
Blood Magic
Adria uses Health to pay for abilities and has higher regeneration and Health. Upon Hero takedowns, gain 1 stack of Blood Fervor. Each stack increases Adria's Health by 4%. Maximum of 5 Fervor stacks.

Primary Abilities

1
Blood Bond
Cost: 14 (+3,5/lvl) health per second
Cooldown: 2 seconds

Place a Blood Bond on an ally that lasts 5 seconds. 40% of damage dealt to that ally is redirected to you instead. You take 25% more damage while any Blood Bond is active.
2
Sadism
Cost: 100 (+58,0/lvl) health
Cooldown: 12 seconds

Whenever target ally takes damage, 20% of that damage is negated and redirected to its source. Also applies to damage received through Blood Bond. Lasts 5 seconds.
3
Tainted Blood
Cost: 100 (+40/lvl) Health
Cooldown: 8 seconds
Heal yourself for 40 (+16/lvl) health per second for 5 seconds.

Secondary Abilities

1
Diabolic Ward
Tier: 2
Countdown: 60 seconds

Places a Ward on the ground that heals allies for 5% health per second, for 3 seconds. When Diabolic Ward ends or is destroyed, all enemies in the Ward become vulnerable for 1 second, taking 25% more damage from all sources.
2
Diablo's Will
Tier: 2
Countdown: 60 seconds

Activate to shield an ally for 10% of their maximum Health for 3 seconds and grant them 10% movement speed, 10% attack speed, 10% reduced cooldowns and 10% reduced ability costs.
3
Diabolic Tutor
Tier: 3
Countdown: 60 seconds

All stuns, slows, roots and polymorphs applies to target ally are applied to you instead. Lasts 4 seconds.

Heroic Abilities

1
Summon Blood Golem
Cost: 50 (+50/lvl) health
Cooldown: 75 seconds

Summon a Blood Golem Shaman with 200 (+150/lvl) health that deals 150 (+10/lvl) damage per second through ranged attacks. The Shaman summons Blood Golem Brutes with 100 (+75/lvl) health, that deal 50 (+5/lvl) damage per second in melee, and apply a 20% movement slow. Blood Golem Shaman lasts for 20 seconds. Maximum of 1 Shaman and 2 Brutes.
2
Blood Demon
Cost: 70 (+80/lvl) health
Cooldown: 90 seconds

After a 1 second delay, Adria transforms into a Blood Demon for 20 seconds, gaining 125 (+125/lvl) maximum health. While in Blood Demon form, 15% of damage is reflected from Adria to each enemy in 2,5 range. Your attacks deal 50% damage in an area around an enemy. Each attack causes a Blood Slime to spawn that seeks out the nearest enemy and explodes, dealing 10 (+8/lvl)damage and leaving behind a pool that deals 10 (+5/lvl) damage per second for 3 seconds.

Playstyle and flavor


Blood Magic is Adria's trait. Adria uses her health in order to cast and channel abilities. When scoring Takedowns, Adria's maximum health increases through Fervor Stacks, further solidifying her status as one of the highest health heroes. Her health regen is also higher than normal. There are several talents, scales and modifiers that affect the exact price of abilities.
Blood bond is the primary 'healing' and works by redirecting a part of damage taken by an ally, and draining it from Adria's health pool. It can be cast on multiple heroes and synergizes with your trait and other skills. Several upgrades turn this from a 'shared life pool' into a full-fledged, reliable and robust healing skill. Inflicts vulnerable in its base variant.
Sadism negates (a percentage of) damage and reflects it on enemies when an enchanted ally takes damage. Given that Adria will take damage through 'healing', casts and combat, this can also be cast to effect on herself. Upgrading this allows Adria to form her own 'death zone' around her or her allies, and even heal whenever damage is dealt. This talent is absolute delicious Black. It takes about 25% of your health pool to cast and has massive utility, power and potential. Say goodbye to Chain Bombs.
Tainted Blood heals Adria herself and can provide buffs or debuffs to herself, her team or enemies, depending on talents.

Flavor and ultimates
Summon Blood Golem These mobs are present in the area before Adria's bossfight. Ssummons a Blood Golem Shaman, that in turn summons two Blood Golem Brutes. Blood Golem Shamans are tough to take down, attack from a distance and leave a DoT. The Brutes are melee bruisers that briefly slow enemies and deal nasty damage. When a Brute is killed, it is resummoned by the Shaman until he is destroyed. A maximum of two brutes can be summoned by default for balance here.

Blood Demon turns Adria into her 'Boss' form from the Act 5 encounter in Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. All attacks made by Adria deal area-of-effect damage, summon blood slimes, and she reflects damage dealt to her. Blood slimes seek out enemies and explode, leaving an AoE DoT. This is a slight play on D3 RoS.

Talent Tree


Transfusion: Basic attacks deal extra damage equal to 1% of a hero's maximum Health and heal you for the same amount.
Blood on your Hands: Fervor stacks grant an extra 2% maximum Health, and may hold 7 of them.
Regeneration Mistress: Picking up Health Globes increases base Health Regeneration by 8% permanently.
Sanguine Voice: Whenever you spend Health on abilities, heal for 14 (+3,5/lvl). Increases healing from all sources by 7,5%.

Diablo's Will: Shield a hero for 10% for 3 seconds, and improves their attack speed, movement, casting costs and cooldowns.
Diabolic Ward: Places a Ward that heals allies for 5% for 3 seconds, and inflicts Vulnerable when it ends to nearby enemies for 1 second.
Hell's Veins: You are no longer vulnerable while Blood Bond is active, and your Health Regeneration is increased by 25% while it is active.
Infernal Scars: Sadism now negates and reflects 25% of damage, and lasts 1 second longer.

Diabolic Tutor: All stuns, roots, slows and polymorphs are applied to you instead of an ally for 4 seconds.
Diablo's Favor: Increases Tainted Blood's casting cost by 15%. It lasts 2 seconds longer and heals for an extra 8 (+2,2/lvl) per second.
Dyin' on a Prayer: Each Blood Fervor stack now also increase movement speed by 1,0% and base health regeneration by 2 (+0,5/lvl).
Hemostasis: Allies affected by Blood Bond are also Resistant, taking 25% less damage from all sources.


Summon Blood Golem: Summon a Blood Golem Shaman that summons Blood Golem Bruisers.
Blood Demon: Transform into a Blood Demon, dealing area-of-effect damage and summoning Blood Slimes.

Blood Dance: While Tainted Blood is active, you take 15% less damage from all sources, attack speed is increased by 15% and duration of stuns, roots, slows and polymorphs is reduced by 15%.
Scream Bloody Gore: When you cast Blood Bond on an ally, you also apply talented Sadism to yourself for 1,5 seconds. This has a separate 22 second cooldown.
Schadenfreude: Whenever you deal damage through Sadism, you heal for 25% of the damage dealt.
Blood Brothers: Blood Bond now redirects 50% damage to you and reflects 5% to the source. It lasts 10% longer.
Hemopoetry: While an ally is enchanted by Blood Bond, they restore 24 (+4,5/lvl) health per second.

Demonic Presence: While under the effects of Tainted Blood, all enemies attacking you have their attack speed slowed by 35%. Whenever you cast Tainted Blood, summon a Demon Warrior that lasts 5 seconds and deals 50 (+4/lvl) damage per second.
Masochism: each time an ally takes damage while Sadism is active on them, it heals them for 20 (+4/lvl).
Bleeding the Apocalypse: Sadism now also inflicts 67% of its damage to the nearest enemy hero in a 4,0 range.

Blood Oath: A talented Blood bond is automatically applied whenever an ally falls below 40% health. This effect has a separate 13 second cooldown.


Antique Rite: Summon Blood Golem holds a second charge, lasts 7 seconds longer, countdown reduced by 20 seconds. Maximum of 2 Shamans and 4 Golems.
Witching Hour: Blood Demon's countdown is reduced by 30 seconds and duration is increased by 5 seconds. Attack Speed is increased by 25%. Now reflects 25% of all damage dealt in a 3,2 range.

Blood Vengeance: Whenever Adria deals damage through abilities, attacks or reflects, she also applies a 1,5% movement and attack slow for 3 seconds, stacking up to 15%
Dark Mistress: removes all ability costs, increases base health regeneration by 200%.
Hell's Portal: instantly teleport to target area and steal 10% health of all enemies in a small area, 70 seconds cooldown.

Tactics and builds


Adria relies on allies taking damage. She can get in the thick of things, bond up allies and soak up tons of damage while redirecting it to the source. Has massive regeneration and self sustain if left unchecked. While she is alive, your allies are harder to take down. However, she will usually be the first to die thanks to little mobility, enormous incoming damage and focus fire. There is no safe backline healing for Adria herself. Prepare to die.

Take the Blood Bond talents to truly shield allies, similar to Morales.
Take the Sadism talents to punish enemies that attack a certain enemy. If you apply it to yourself, you can reflect absolutely insane amounts of damage, especially with the level 16 talent.
Take the Tainted Blood talents for extra sustain and to shield yourself from ganks.

Strengths: deals damage while shielding. Strong self heal, strong allied shields. High damage output. High regeneration and health (lvl 20: 5550 without stacks, 6660 with 5 regular stacks, 7881 with 7 upgraded stacks) .
Weaknesses: sustained damage, spike damage on unshielded targets. Abilities require upfront casting costs, meaning it is risky to self heal when low (Sadism at lvl 20 costs 1160 health to cast). Not attacking targets with Sadism or Blood Bond basically hurts her for free. Gets absolutely crushed by percentage based damage like Kharazim or Leoric.

Final words
Thanks so much for checking this out! All the green icons are from Guild Wars 1. The rest is from Diablo 3.
It seems some of the icons in the talent tree (those from Guild Wars) are missing. For reference, see the 'Kit' section and imagine them there.

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1
[-]
Tarurb (2) | November 26, 2016 12:35am
I can feel that Witch!
1
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Aurist | November 8, 2015 9:11am
I don't know how much constructive commentary I can add here, just wanted to comment how awesome this concept is, and Adria is the perfect character for this kind of support role. Plus the use of the Necromancer talent icons from Guild Wars 1 was a nice touch :)

I do feel as though Adria would lack the ability to fix teammate's mistakes which is a fairly pivotal part of a support in my opinion, as things stand her main role seems to be reducing punishment for her teammates by taking some of it on herself, which seems a tad exploitable considering other supports reduce punishment by effectively negating the punishment with healing/utility/etc. I feel like she'd provide interesting sustain for a team and would perform as something of a semi-support that can provide some damage and damage mitigation, I don't know if your intent was to make her viable as a solo support but I'm not sure in this current state she could do that. I also feel as though adding damage talents as her main ults - especially ones with transformations/summoned units - though lore-wise it sort of makes sense it does feel a little contrary to the rest of the build, a little out of place. I think she could do a lot better with support-focused ults, or if she does get damage focused ults something like a Grasp of the Dead style Aoe slow/dmg could be real interesting.
1
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Dalmasca | October 26, 2015 8:25am
Tainted Blood seems like it needs a scaling adjustment. In its current form, it always results in a loss of health. I think you're looking for an ability that has a small health cost for a larger return, right? That would have some good gameplay and timing decisions, especially if it's a long enough CD (I'd increase the CD to 10 sec, especially if the heal is substantial).

I think a lot of the talent designs are interesting, but probably in need of some number tweaks to bring down their power level. Blood Dance at Level 13, for example, is probably overloaded with too many benefits.

Edit: I do like the design and choice of the Level 7 talent tweak to Tainted Blood. Stick with that.
2
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Huitzil (2) | October 25, 2015 4:22pm
She can only stop a percentage of health loss from allies, and until level 13, can't heal any damage they take. Tassadar is the only other support with no healing besides a ward, and his shields stop 100% of damage until they run out. Adria's damage-reduction abilities all mean that she's a "healer" who wants to target allies with high health, and she's really bad at saving wounded allies.

I don't think this concept works without reworking.
1
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SBPW (2) | October 25, 2015 4:53pm
With the base kit until lvl 13 it adds up really fast if a target is attacked, for a total of 52% reduction with Sadism and Blood Bond. If you take Sadism extra reflect at level 4 and the BB talent at level 7, it also adds Resistant and extra reflect, adding up to a total of 68,5% (!) damage reduction of which 25% is reflect. There is no way a LiLi of Malfurion keeps up with that on the short term.

If you take all the support talents you end up with about a 76% reduction, of which 30% reflect. Whenever an enemy hits your ally, that ally also gets healed for about 100 Health.

Imagine casting that on a Pyroblast or Chainbomb sequence, factoring in that 20% to 30% also gets returned to the source. Would an enemy really want to finish off that Valla with spike damage if it means overkilling your own team? Tassadar's shield are just a buffer. Adria's shields are dangerous (like the Diablo 3 reflect mod from old Inferno difficulty). Discouraging attacks through smart placement of Bonds and Sadism is what keeps health up.
3
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matheod (5) | October 25, 2015 2:59pm
Hello, I am a big fan of this hero.

First, two remarks :

Transfusion > Seem underpowered for me compared to other talent. First, 1% life of enemy will probably be 0.5% life of yours, and then, the benefit (a little heal and a little buff damage) is very low compared to benefit from other talent at this tier IMO.

Diabolic Ward > It's unfair to still apply the vulnerability debuff if enemy team destroy the ward.

Then, the build I would choose :
Regeneration Mistress, Hell's Veins, Dyin' on a Prayer:, Blood Demon, Blood Brothers, Bleeding the Apocalypse, Witching Hour.

Last question :
If I put 2 blood bond mark. Do they get 80% less damage or 64% less damage ?

Thanks !
1
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SBPW (2) | October 25, 2015 3:27pm
Hey, thanks for your reply. Transfusion is basically Diablo's lvl 13 talent, which is considered really weak. Putting it at tier 1 for a new hero is a little experiment. Making is 1,5% would make it a stricly better Giant Killer. Maybe 1,25% could be pushed. Diabolic Ward can be changed if it looks too good compared to the rest of the tier. Blood Bond does not stack. It's like an enchantment you can spam on every member of the team (like Regrowth).
1
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Dalmasca | October 26, 2015 8:51am
Actually, I think Transfusion is perfect at that place. It's still a 2% swing in health every 1.11 sec in a 1v1 scenario. That's strong early game, and much less potent late game (barring a warrior-heavy comp). I think the problem is that Blood on Your Hands and Regeneration Mistress are just much stronger, especially in the late game, which is a higher priority for most players.

Likewise, I would be very careful about the automatically-applied talented versions of spells. If you look at similar talents among other heroes, they typically provide an untalented version, which is still a large benefit (no cd, no cost, still able to target other people with the real spell).

Additionally, I don't think you need the extra penalty on Blood Bond. It's already dangerous to share damage while channeling an ability that costs health, without the added vulnerability.
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