Col. Morris by Leidiriv

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Col. Morris

By: Leidiriv
Last Updated: Nov 30, 2017
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Col. Morris

Dominion Marauder

Ranged Tank who enables chasers and protects his backline all at once


Meant as a ranged alternative to Muradin, with easy-to-land CC, a Swiss army knife-style toolkit, and a commanding presence


Excels against Zeratul, Sonya, and Zul'jin


Works well with Illidan, Kharazim, and Li-Ming


Struggles against Arthas, Xul, and Chromie


Favors Towers of Doom, Braxis Holdout, and Tomb of the Spider Queen

Damage: 3/10
Survivability: 7/10
Utility: 9/10
Complexity: 5/10

Combat Trait

1
Concussive Shells
Damage inflicted to enemy Heroes by Col. Morris applies stacks of Concussive Shells to his targets, reducing their basic attack speed by 5% for 4 seconds. Additional damage refreshes this duration and applies more stacks, up to 5.

You gain 1 Armor for every active stack of Concussive Shells.

Primary Abilities

1
Ballistic Volley
Mana: 50
Cooldown: 7 seconds
Deals 90(+4%) damage to enemies in the target area and slow them by 45% , decaying over 3 seconds. Also applies two stacks of Concussive Shells on impact.
2
Stimpack
Health: 224 (+4%)
Cooldown: 5 seconds
Increase your Basic Attack damage by 20% for 5 seconds. Also increases your movement speed by 15% for the duration.
3
Lock 'n' Load
Mana: 70
Cooldown: 14 seconds
Augments your next three Basic Attacks, causing them to stun your target for 0.6 seconds each.

Secondary Abilities

1
Magrail Munitions
Level 7 Talent
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Activate to increase your Basic Attack Damage by 40% and your Basic Attack Range by 1.1 for 5 seconds. Your Basic Attacks cost 14 mana during the effect of Magrail Munitions.

Heroic Abilities

1
The Smell of Napalm
Mana: 80
Cooldown: 70 seconds
Deal 120(+4%) damage in a line, and 42(+4%) more every second for 6 seconds to all affected targets. The over time portion of this ability's damage also applies Concussive Shells whenever it ticks.
2
Selfless Leader
Mana: 90
Cooldown: 80 seconds
For the next 5 seconds, any damage inflicted against you also heals nearby allied Heroes for 40(+4%).

Stats

Health: 2537(+4%)
Health Regen: 5.65(+0.3)

Mana: 500(+2%)
Mana Regen: 3(+0.1)

Basic Attack Damage: 116(+4%)
Basic Attack Speed: 0.8
Basic Attack Range: 5.5 (Ranged)

Talent Tree

Level 1-
Kinetic Foam (Passive): Every 3 seconds, gain a charge of Kinetic Foam. Kinetic Foam grants you 25 Physical Armor against the next Heroic Basic Attack directed against you. Stores 5 charges.
Biosynthetic Stim (W): Gathering a Regeneration Globe while under the effect of Stimpack grants you 294 (+4%) health.
Go, Go, Go! (W): Stimpack now increases your movement speed by 35% while it's active


Level 4-
Knockout Volley (Q): Ballistic Volley now applies three stacks of Concussive Shells, and the duration of Concussive Shells is increased by 1 second.
Soldier's Momentum (Passive): Your Basic Attacks reduce the cooldowns of Ballistic Volley and Lock 'n' Load by 1.1 seconds.
Kaboom, Baby! (E): Basic Attacks augmented by Lock 'n' Load heal you for 85% of the damage dealt.


Level 7-
Blowout (Q): Increase the area of Ballistic Volley by 25% and its damage by 15%
Bioregenerative Rounds (W): Stimpack now allows you to heal for 25% of your Basic Attack damage while active
Mediator Shells (E): Basic Attacks augmented by Lock 'n' Load deal 12% additional damage for every stack of Concussive Shells on the target.
Magrail Munitions (Active):


Level 10-
The Smell of Napalm (R1)

Selfless Leader (R2)


Level 13-
Adrenaline Rush (W): Stimpack increases your attack speed by 25% while active
Ablative Armor (Passive): Once every 30 seconds, taking Spell damage grants you 18 Spell Armor for 2 seconds. Additional Spell damage during the effect refreshes its duration.
Boom Goes the Dynamite (E): Attacks affected by Lock 'n' Load now do 55% of their damage in an area around the primary target, and all secondary targets hit lower the cooldown of Lock 'n' Load by 0.2 seconds, 0.5 if they are Heroes.


Level 16-
We'll Need a Bigger Needle (W): Stimpack's duration is increased by 3.5 seconds
Lasting Trauma (E): The duration of stuns inflicted by Lock 'n' Load is increased to 0.8 seconds
Shook Up (Trait): Concussive Shells can now stack up to 7 times


Level 20-
Wakeup Call (R1): The duration of The Smell of Napalm is increased by 3 seconds, and it now makes enemies lose 15 Armor for the duration.
Last Stand (R2): You are healed for half of what your allies receive from Selfless Leader
Internal Tech Module (Q): You now have two charges of Ballistic Volley. In addition, activating Lock 'n' Load restores a charge of Ballistic Volley.
Nexus Blades (Passive)

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1
[-]
cpt.haxray (1) | December 1, 2017 5:25pm
Amazing concept overall, and would be great to have a warrior capable of being run solo that isn't a melee hero.
1
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Grunnikins | April 18, 2017 11:31pm
I like the recent cleanup to the sections. I've got a few more stray comments and questions:
  1. Is there a particular reason you want to give him 550 mana instead of the normal 500? There are very few heroes that deviate from 500.
  2. Scaling for mana is typically +10(2%) per level instead of 4%(20) and mana regen starts at 3(+~0.1) per level.
  3. 10% on the Stimpack is a good middle-ground to what I suggested, and I agree with your increase to 35% on the first-tier talent.
  4. I don't mind 0.6 as baseline for Lock 'n' Load but why did you go with that instead of 0.5?
  5. How does The Smell of Napalm look visually? Like a Hellion's attack but bigger? How long/wide is the line? Does it strike instantly or can a hero move out of the way?
  6. What do you think about Selfless Leader working on abilities instead of basic attacks? (I won't harp on it much more, I know you like the design as-is. :) )
  7. Ablative Armor looks even better the way you designed it!

In addition to all that, I also think it's valuable to look at this hero's tree from a player's perspective. If you were running Morris as a solo warrior, how would you build? What about if there was a tank on your team and significant AA on the enemy team? How would the build look if the enemy was a dive comp? Is there any realistic comp you'd have where you'd be the solo laner and take AoE-focused talents?

Once you run through these questions, are there any talents that you think won't be taken in almost any match?

Right now, I'm thinking that at level 4, Knockout Volley looks too underpowered and Soldier's Momentum looks too good for most situations, Boom Goes the Dynamite is only ever valuable on an "E-build" which I think would be rarest (used mainly for countering a hyper-mobile comp), Lasting Trauma is not even attractive enough for an E-build compared to Shook Up, and that Internal Tech Module (my suggestion, I know) looks too attractive since Ballistic Volley is only 45 mana.
2
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Leidiriv (14) | April 19, 2017 5:42am
1) I'm honestly not quite sure anymore XD
2) I honestly didn't know that little detail, I'll be sure to change it
4) Because I lowered his attack speed so drastically, I didn't want to kneecap his lockdown capability at the same time
5) Yeah, it's essentially a blue-flame Hellion attack that sort of *fwooshes* down its range. If it's point-blank it's pretty much a guaranteed hit, but someone near max range could get out of it.
6) I feel like that would make the ability very ineffective in most cases, seeing as how a lot of ability damage isn't multiple rapid hits. It could work against, say, Sylvanas and Gul'dan, but it seems to me as though the change would make the ult too niche compared to Napalm.

As a solo tank, I'd probably run Biostim, Soldier's, Magrail, situational ults but mostly Napalm, Adrenaline, Lasting, and Internal
As a second tank against AA, my build would likely be something like Go Go Go (or Foam, depends on the AA), Knockout, Mediator, either ult, situational, Shook Up, and Internal
Against dive, the build would definitely have to be (imo) Go Go Go, Soldier's, Magrail, either ult, Ablative, Lasting, and either Wakeup Call or Nexus Blades

As for the question of Morris as solo laner, I can't think of such a comp at the moment, but he'd overall be pretty good solo just by the nature of how his kit works. He'd be able to split to do things on his own nicely and bully people out of lane, but it's not a role I'd draft him for.

I'll try and adjust those talents. Here's the changes I'm thinking.
1) Adding a duration boost to Knockout Volley (something like 1 second added to the trait's duration)
2) Reducing Soldier's Momentum to 1.0 seconds
3) Adding something (maybe CDR of some kind) to Boom Goes the Dynamite
4) I intend to mainly nerf Shook Up somehow, because it IS a really powerful talent, especially with any attack speed buffs and Knockout Volley at 4, but I may also buff Lasting Trauma somehow (although the Boom buff might indirectly buff it)
5) Raising Q's mana cost to 55 mana

Thanks again for all the concept love! Morris wouldn't be half as good as he is right now even without your feedback :)
1
[-]
Grunnikins | April 12, 2017 1:02pm
As a tank, Morris is not going to be hanging back, out of range of his targets. Therefore, he will almost always be AA-ing someone during a fight, building stacks of Concussive Shells. At 1.2 attacks per second, there is a cooldown of ~0.83 seconds between AAs and you can get someone to their 5th stack in ~3.33 seconds of auto-attacking (if you start counting from the first hit).

I think that 25% is a nice baseline effect for his 5-stack figure, but I think that this is too quickly achieved. Knockout Volley at level 4 makes a full stack even quicker with Q.

What I'd like you to consider is making Colonel Morris a more deliberate fighter.

Here's what that entails:
  1. Reduce his attack speed to 0.80 attacks per second (1.25 seconds between AAs) and scale up his damage accordingly (to maintain DPS). This makes him closer to a marauder in SC2. A slower attack speed means easier stutterstep, so more people at all levels of play can use him correctly as a strong chaser and peeler. However, it also makes it a little more difficult to maintain Concussive Shells on multiple targets, which I think is fine and serves as a less-impactful way for mechanically-skilled players to differentiate themselves.
  2. Increase the health cost of Stimpack and eliminate the lifesteal effect. Tanks play with healers, and he already clearly isn't a solo laner due to his lack of waveclear (unless I'm underestimating the area of Ballistic Volley). I'm thinking it should cost 15% of his maximum health, which is also closer to the SC2 marauder. By not having baseline self-sustain, you make Stimpack a decision point, used mainly when the player is confident he can safely chase an enemy, or during a teamfight when Morris thinks he can get healed up by the support before being burst down by the enemy.
  3. Increase the mana cost of his Q by 10 and his E by 5. To encourage conscious use of his slow and stun abilities respectively, there should be consequences for reckless usage.

Jumping off from all of that, here are the other tweaks (mainly talents) I'd think about. Note that I'm one of those anti-generics, and if you disagree with me on that, it's okay, you do you man.
  • Block could be replaced with Kinetic Foam: Every 3 seconds, gain 20 Armor against the next enemy Hero basic attack or Ability, reducing the damage by 20%. Stores 5 charges. By making it low reduction but more frequent (with higher max charges), you don't suffer as much from extended fights. Since your passive already reduces enemy attack speed, you can get even more mileage out of the talent. Finally, by making it work against abilities, we also justify me removing Spell Shield later. :)
  • Regeneration Master could be replaced with Biosynthetic Stim: If you collect a Regeneration Globe while Stimpack is active, you heal 15% of your maximum health. Since Stimpack scales its cost with your health pool, the quest reward from Regeneration Master had diminished value. Instead, this design results in waveclear improvement because it refunds the otherwise prohibitive cost of Stimpack being used in lane. Lastly, there are some situations where you'll end up getting more than 1 globe during a single stim, so it's an outright heal at those times.
  • Eliminate Medical-Grade. Your Go, Go, Go! is the ideal choice for those who play Morris as a chaser, and my Kinetic Foam is ideal for those who play for in a teamfight comp, and my Biosynthetic Stim is the ideal for those who need to cover waveclear or are playing on maps with camps and objectives that give reliable globes at ideal times.
  • Eliminate Keep it Coming. Lock 'N' Load is valuable for being an on-demand disruption on a medium cooldown that can be used piecemeal. The fact that it must come onto the next 3 auto-attacks, though, is a negative feature that I view as an appropriate amount of self balance. If you want to time your stuns against enemy animations, you are losing your AA DPS and potentially even letting stacks fall off your target. Therefore, adding a 4th piece to the meal doesn't seem very attractive.
  • Soldier's Momentum should work on Ballistic Volley and Lock 'N' Load. Why do you need to lower the cooldown on an ability that has 5 seconds of uptime with a 5-second cooldown?
  • Vampiric Assault, as a generic, has already been renamed to Vigorous Assault in March of 2016. I'd say to replace the talent slot entirely with something fresh because I think you should be careful with his self-sustain (not that he shouldn't get any). Maybe you could come up with something here for Lock 'N' Load.
  • Follow Through could be replaced with Mediator Grenades: Activating Lock 'N' Load causes your next 3 basic attacks to deal 10% more damage per stack of Concussive Shells on the target. This approximates the effects of Follow Through, some more damage potential but tied to the Lock 'N' Load cooldown and requires more setup.
  • Searing Attacks could be replaced with Magrail Munitions: Activate to increase Basic Attack damage by 40% and Basic Attack range by 1.1 for 5 seconds. Each attack costs 15 Mana. Non-generic, SC2 reference, and has nuanced usage.
  • Selfless Leader is a neat design, but... doesn't it run counter to Colonel Morris's very trait? Since his main niche is being an anti-AA tank via attack speed decrease, his R2 is an ability that does worse if he is maximizing his trait value. I actually think this mechanic is an idea you should save for some other hero concept entirely.
  • Spell Shield could be replaced with Ablative Scales: After being struck with an Ability, you gain 10 Spell Armor for 2 seconds. Any abilities that land within those 2 seconds refresh the duration but don't stack the armor.
  • Wakeup Call doesn't need to be limited to the first 3 seconds. I think the 25% vulnerability for all 9 seconds is okay considering it's level 20.
  • Eliminate Nexus Blades. It's intended for melee units anyway.
  • Replace Nexus Frenzy with Internal Tech Module: Your Ballistic Volley can now hold 2 charges. Activating Lock 'N' Load will instantly restore 1 charge of Ballistic Volley. How's that for a frenzy? Note that early on in this post, I advocated increased mana costs for these abilities. That helps balance this talent as an all-in.

That was a lot of critique just now.

That was because, for everything I didn't mention, I loved it. This entire concept is fantastic, and I haven't seen a better marauder implementation yet. The recent relegation of tanks to their niches meant that this marauder had an obvious anti-physical role in the meta, and the nature of stimpack lent itself to peel and chase. The stats seem fine, the talents I didn't mention seem fine, and I'm really inspired by what you've got here working all together.
1
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Leidiriv (14) | April 12, 2017 7:05pm
These are all amazing suggestions, thank you so much for the concept love! I'll be sure to implement most if not all of them with your permission, because they're just great for the concept's fantasy and makes him feel more visceral. The only ones I'm iffy on are the change to Selfless Leader (it's meant as a purely anti-snowball ult, which I'm very fond of, allowing Morris's team to bounce back from a lost teamfight. I'm also fond of abilities that work contrary to other mechanics in a hero's kit yet still fit the fantasy and fill a needed role.) and the removal of Nexus Blades, but overall your changes are great! Thanks for caring so much about an old concept, I really appreciate it :)
1
[-]
Grunnikins | April 15, 2017 11:56pm
Of course you have the permission—I didn't write all that down just to not share it. :) And this concept isn't old at all yet, 6 months is nothing for hero concept longevity. Some of these ideas have been around for years!
1
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GeorgeGaming (3) | November 30, 2016 4:48pm
Selfless Leader is a fun concept I haven't seen much else--Seems like it would be ungodly against a tychus (tychus miniguns you, you fully heal your team)
1
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Leidiriv (14) | August 13, 2016 5:53pm
In the spirit of inspiring creativity, any builds mentioned in the comments will be placed in the Talents section of the concept.
2
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Crs Grim (33) | August 6, 2016 1:49pm
The dialogue between Morales would be awesome.
1
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hawkray (22) | August 5, 2016 8:40pm
Cool concept! I really liked the representation of Concussive Shells and Stimpack.
Well, what better skin than
HAMMER SECURITIES?!
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starcraft/images/f/fe/MarauderMerc_SC2_Head1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100717172235
1
[-]
Leidiriv (14) | August 6, 2016 12:34pm
Thanks for the feedback! Do the numbers seem alright, or does Morris need a bit more to successfully compete with heroes like Muradin?
1
[-]
hawkray (22) | August 6, 2016 1:38pm
I like how the numbers look. I think he needs some form of mobility instead. Maybe Lock'n'Load could grant him movement speed or resistance to crowd control?
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