Heroes of the Storm Build Concept: Xalatath

Combat Trait

The Black Empire

Xalatath uses a brainwashed cultist to do most of the fighting.
When Xalatath’s cultist is dies, Xalatath stays and can continue to fight as a floating knife.
As a knife, Xalatath loses access to all of her basic and ultimate abilities and can channel for 10 seconds to summon a new cultist.

The cultist has 2300 health and is worth 25% oh a heroes experience points
Xalatath has 750 health and is worth 75% of a heroes experience points

Xalatath is really not merciful and has been wielded by many people. Most of which were driven to complete madness and really had no control over them selves. The black empire effectively gives Xalatath 2 lives just like D.va. The cultist has alot of health for a caster while Xalatath has only slightly more health then murky and will die very easily. And just for a little bit of flavor, cultists can have one of a few different models but they are all the same size and all wear the same outfit.

Surrender to Madness

Xalatath uses Insanity instead of mana

Cost: 5 Insanity per second and cost increases by 1 each second

Apon reaching 100 Insanity, automatically cast surrender to madness which fears all nearby enemies for 1.5 seconds and you gain 15% spell power and 1% spell power each second until surrender to madness ends. Each basic ability is enhanced during surrender to madness. When surrender to madness ends its spell power and ability bonuses reset and Xalatath’s cultist dies.

This is what the entire hero is built around. In wow this ability made you feel like you absolutely need to deal damage to something or everything falls apart. I feel that this mechanic would work well if not better in a moba setting as people going all in is already something that happens fairly often. This also plays right in to The black empire as your cultist is going to die no matter what once you surrender. If you do absolutely nothing, surrender to madness will last 15 seconds.

Primary Abilities

Void Torrent

Cooldown: 8 seconds
Range: 5.5
Generates 2 Insanity per hero hit and .5 per non hero hit

Channel a beam that deals 400 damage over 2.5 seconds to all enemies in a line. (Deals damage every .25 seconds)

During surrender to madness the size of the beam is increased by 5% each second and cooldown is reduced by 5% each second.

Classic shadowy laser beam for the shadow priest hero. This works similarly to Cassia's Fend but in a rectangle shape and without the dash. The damage number looks really high but Cassia's fend does 468 damage over its 1.5 duration when its not boosted by a blind. Most of your insanity will come from this ability so dont over use it unless your ready to surrender.

mind blast

Cooldown: 4 seconds
Range: 5.5
Generates 8 Insanity if a hero is hit

After casting for .5 seconds fire an instant psychic attack in a line that deals 180 damage to the first enemy hit.

During surrender cooldown and cast time is reduced by 5% each second.

Void torrent may generate the most insanity but mind blast will deal the most damage with how spammy it will be during surrender to madness. This is a skillshot.

mind bomb

Cooldown: 13 seconds
Range: 6.5
Generates 5 Insanity per hero hit

Launch a mind bomb in the target direction, attaching to the first enemy hit. After 2 seconds the bomb explodes dealing 120 damage and slows enemies in the area by 50% for 2 seconds.

During surrender area is increased by 5% each second.

All of Xalatath's other abilities force her to stop moving so mind bomb will be necessary to keep enemies in your range but the delay means enemies who dont want to fight you can move to safety before the slow hits.

Heroic Abilities

Total Corruption

Passive: apon entering and every 4 seconds during surrender to madness, grow a shadowy tentacle that shoots a void bolt at a near by enemy every 1.5 seconds dealing 100 damage and generating .5 Insanity.

Active
Cooldown: 15 seconds
gain 20 Insanity

Total Corruption will be the most consistent option. Its active will let you decide when to start surrendering to some extent and the passive will keep you in surrender for much longer as it generates insanity as long as any enemy, not just heroes, are nearby while providing damage that ramps up over the duration of shadow form. This will not beat out the increasing cost of surrender to madness tho, nothing can...

Shadow Word Death

Cooldown: 12 seconds
Range: 5.5
Only usable during surrender to madness

Instantly deal 190 damage to target enemy hero. If the target is below 35% health they 100% more damage and reduce the cooldown by 6 seconds and generates 15 Insanity. If this kills the target then it generates an additional 15 Insanity.

Pretty much a win more spell. This wont really help you beat enemies you went beating before but if you get this off in a teamfight then you can start snowballing like Li Ming but to a lesser extent.

Talents

Level 1

Shadow word pain: non shadow word pain damage also deals 75 damage over 5 seconds.

Mind spike: when void torrent is canceled or ends it deals 120 damage to enemies in the beam.

Psychic link: enemies with a mind bomb on them take 90 damage each time another hero is hit with mind blast.

Horrific end: when surrender to madness ends, explode in shadowy energy dealing 280 damage and fear near by enemies for 1.5 seconds.

Shadow word pain wasnt included as a basic ability for 2 reasons. First, its "set and forget" nature wouldnt make for a very exciting surrender for madness and second, there wasnt really a way to make insanity generation work with this ability. If it generated insanity per tick then you have problems keeping your insanity low if you diddnt want to surrender. If it generated instant insanity when used then it wouldn't be as fun to use during surrender sense, at most (for most cases), you would only have 5 pain dots on the enemy team at a time. Had to include it somewhere tho sense it a classic shadow priest thing.

Level 4

Vampiric embrace: heal for 40% of your max health apon entering surrender to madness.

Void shell: gain a shield equal to 8% of damage delt that decays over 3 seconds. this shield cannot exceed 20% of Xalatath

Potential good and bad match ups

Good allies

Good counters

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(8) |

I love the idea. Xal'atath is the best shadow priest. You nailed the void form and Q looks better than just Azmolaser. W is like reverse Anduin, which is cool. E could be a skillshot so it wont be just a Kael bomb.

Visual wise, how do you imagine the cultists? Are they clones or there are variations?

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:D
Im glad you liked it!

The variations on each cultist model would be pretty light. Just some slight size and height differences to reference Xalatath being an equal opportunity life ruiner. Not as drastic as different skins are for heroes but about as much of a change as the different color variations of heroes are (all the colors and outfits would stay the same tho).

Yeah, I could make E in to a skill shot with out hurting anything. Would probably give me an excuse to up the range by just a bit.

Edit: W was also a skillshot just in case that wasnt clear : s

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(8) |

I could imagine her taking control of male orcs and female humans alike.

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Xalatath by Waterlong

Xalatath