Fey the Lash Queen by Cuttleboss

+ Melee classification with ranged hero attack range as you level up her passive, allows for excellent use of certain items and other key melee advantages
+ Powerful laning between long range with melee damage block, triple nuke, and blind making people miss last hits
+ Very well rounded, is able to play as ganker semi-carry, aggressive support, a sort of initiator, or save based utility
+ Can help melee heroes who are vulnerable to kiting with her aura
+ Strong anti-carry abilities with miss chance, attack slow, and kiting potential
+ Good in all phases of the game; strong early, farms and scales well
- Very long attack animation and big damage spread means enemies can often contest her last hits
- Will be very reliant on Black King Bar in most games due to her ult cast time and lack of innate magic protection
- Pretty item and very level dependent, especially if she's in a lower position
- Is absurdly vulnerable to Break as it affects not just her range but the range of two of her spells
- Lack of specialization can easily make her feel unimpactful, especially if you do not snowball; she is not the best damage dealer, support, initiator, or save hero

Fey can do whatever you need her to do. She offers a range of benefits with her skills. She is an old fashioned versatile hero with a lot of options for how you approach her. She can deal a fair amount of damage with her Rhythmic Thrash for teamfights and farming, she can use Snap Back to misposition an enemy or save an ally, and she can lower enemy vision and right click damage with Sight Jinx.

The Lash Queen is fundamentally a lane dominating snowball hero. She scales well with levels and is somewhat farm reliant, so even though she would be a functional support hero who shines in late-midgame onwards, she is likely best suited for position 3, probably in some kind of aggressive lane with one or more partners. Depending on the game any position can be viable, as her potential damage and strong laning can make her a good mid, especially if she makes the enemy mid miss a lot of last hits and can get momentum to get kills and make an impact on the map.

She is not well suited for safelane carry unless she is picked with synergy heroes and is picked because of her laning strength over his actual scaling with farm. In terms of gameplay even though she's technically melee, her carry self plays like a mix of the ranged carries Sniper (as positioning and kiting is a big key to her gameplay) and Shadow Fiend (due to how much she relies on a triple nuke), while her utility role is similar to Rubick/ Tinker (for the ability to make enemies make last hits and deal less attack damage) and Pudge/ Kunkka (for the displacement and ally saving potential). This makes her like many heroes in one.

Fey is a versatile hero with multiple paths, but she is mostly played in an aggressive manner. She can focus on her Sight Jinx to weaken carries and the vision of the enemies. She can focus on her damage with her range and Thrash. She can also focus on utility and using Snap Back to save or initiate on people (or with a Blink Dagger, potentially trap them in trees or on cliffs). Her gameplay is built around which of these three abilities is the one you are focusing on most. Fey is extra good with multiple melee heroes on her team so Overreach Aura will affect them.

In order to keep relevant, she needs to be getting levels and items. She gets a lot of benefits from points in her skills and her talents. She will find herself easily overwhelmed if she falls behind.

Fey is a simple and straightforward hero. Her skills are easy to use and the difficulties with her are mostly based on positioning and measuring risk, as she can easily lose momentum. Fey has a low skill floor and a medium skill ceiling.

General Stat Priorities (Carry build):
High Priority: Attack Damage, AGI, Attack Speed, Mana Regen, Spell Immunity, Movespeed
Middle Priority: Mobility, STR, HP Regen, Status Resistance, HP, Mana, Lifesteal, Armor, INT, Evasion
Low Priority: Magic Resistance, Spell Amplification, Spell Lifesteal, Cooldown Reduction, Cast Range

Fey's itemization favors items with extra benefits to melee heroes. That would mean Orb of Venom, Orb Of Corrosion, Phase Boots, Echo Sabre, Vanguard> Skull Basher> Abyssal Blade, Manta Style, and technically Battle Fury too but that's less impressive on her. These items will naturally be the most appealing because they play to her natural strengths she has over other enemies.

In general, Fey will either itemize for her attacks around her range and Shard upgrade of attacking with her nuke, which means that attack modifiers, especially Crits, become very powerful on her. She can also be the only hero who has a 25% chance to bash from up to 800 range if she buys Basher. She can also be a stat-based illusion hero because her illusions would be stronger than usual for her range due to Manta illusions favoring melee over ranged.
The other path of itemization is one that is around her Snap Back and Sight Jinx which allows her to control the enemy and save her allies well and just be generally useful without being focused on her attacks. This is generally for lower positions, but can be quite powerful as a core-utility hero.

Early: Orb of Venom Quelling Blade, Wraith Band, Blight Stone, Wind Lace, Magic Wand, Urn of Shadows, Ring of Health, Orb Of Corrosion, Falcon Blade, Bottle
Boot Options: Phase Boots is best due to her getting a much better turn rate and stats from it due to being melee. Arcane Boots or Tranquil Boots if you are playing more of a support role. Power Treads is probably acceptable to due to Fey's versatile nature and synergizes with stat based illusion Feys, but will often be outclassed by Phase.

Mid:
Carry: Diffusal Blade, Echo Sabre, Crystalys, Skull Basher, Sange and Yasha, Desolator, Mask of Madness, Shadow Blade, Orchid Malevolence, Manta Style, Maelstrom, Aghanim's Shard
Utility: Blink Dagger, Glimmer Cape, Spirit Vessel, Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Medallion of Courage> Solar Crest, Vanguard> Crimson Guard, Aghanim's Scepter, Rod of Atos, Force Staff, Mage Slayer, Vladmir's Offering, Helm of the Dominator, Drum of Endurance
Generally Important: Black King Bar

Late:
Carry: Abyssal Blade, Bloodthorn, Daedalus, Butterfly, Silver Edge, Eye of Skadi, Satanic, Monkey King Bar, Swift Blink
Utility: Scythe of Vyse, Lotus Orb, Shiva's Guard, Heaven's Halberd, Assault Cuirass, Aeon Disk, Gleipnir, Wind Waker, Arcane Blink, Wraith Pact, Helm Of The Overlord, Boots of Bearing
Situational: Linken's Sphere, Heart of Tarrasque, Mjollnir, Nullifier, Divine Rapier

Some item builds:
Carry (Attack Modifiers): Phase Boots> Echo Sabre> Desolator> Aghanim's Shard> Black King Bar> Daedalus> Eye of Skadi> Satanic
Carry (Fast and Disruptive): Phase Boots> Yasha> Skull Basher> Sange and Yasha> Black King Bar> Aghanim's Shard> Abyssal Blade> Bloodthorn/ Nullifier
Carry (Illusion): Power Treads/ Phase Boots> Diffusal Blade> Manta Style> Aghanim's Shard> Black King Bar> Daedalus> Butterfly> Abyssal Blade
Utility (Anti-Attacker, Sight Jinx focused): Arcane Boots> Solar Crest> Aghanim's Scepter> Heaven's Halberd> Shiva's Guard
Utility (Anti-Mobility and Save, Snap Back focused): Arcane Boots> Blink Dagger> Force Staff> Rod of Atos> Lotus Orb> Scythe of Vyse

Neutral Items:
Level 1: Broom Handle*, Lance of Pursuit*, Arcane Ring, Possessed Mask, Pig Pole, Occult Bracelet, Tumbler's Toy, Seeds of Serenity
Level 2: Ring of Aquila*, Dagger of Ristul*, Bullwhip, Dragon Scale, Grove Bow, Vambrace, Brigand's blade
Level 3: Elven Tunic*, Psychic Headband, Paladin Sword, Mind Breaker, Enchanted Quiver, Titan Sliver
Level 4: Penta-Edged Sword*, Ninja Gear*, Trickster Cloak, Flicker, Ascetic's Cap, Witchbane
Level 5: Desolator 2*, Apex, Pirate Hat, Mirror Shield, Fallen Sky, Force Boots, Book Of Shadows, Arcanist's Armor
*Denotes an extra useful neutral item

Fey's skill build is flexible like her. She can max any of his skills first and many of her skills are also good value points.

Rhythmic Thrash is Fey's bread and butter skill as it is a powerful farming and harassing skill. This is how she can easily clear out waves of creeps. However, the damage scales with her range, so in order to make this spell truly powerful requires levels in Overreach Aura. This spell is usually maxed first, and may be the first point to secure a creep.

Sight Jinx is a useful spell for a value point, as it gets most of its miss and reduction on the first level, though the low cast range at low levels can be a big issue when it comes to trading, since she has to get close before she can blind them. Usually Fey's priority is her range, but certain skill builds that are more support based can max this skill first and disrupt enemy cores.

Overreach Aura is another skill where the value point is good, because it gets half of its benefits with one level, bringing Fey's attack range to a respectable 450. This is usually the second skill that is maxed out since Fey needs range no matter her role as core or support.

Snap Back is powerful but not entirely necessary to get at 6 if you don't see kill potential with it and would rather put more points into your two farming spells (Thrash and Overreach). As a support it should always be leveled whenever possible, as it expands Fey's usefulness.

Attribute Bonus: Fey has some options for going for Attributes over levels in her spells. As a support she does not really need additional levels of Rhythmic Thrash if she is only using it for the slow. As a carry she can choose to neglect Sight Jinx if she does not need to be an anti-carry and would prefer to farm faster or be tankier. Due to being versatile with her skillset she has more options for these bonus stats than most heroes.


Talent Choices:

Level 10: Longer Thrash Slow vs Damage. The longer thrash slow is useful for chasing and kiting while Damage boosts farming and kill potential. The longer thrash is useful for ganking and fighting carries, while damage increases farm speed significantly.

Level 15: Sight Jinx miss and vision boost vs Agility. If Lash Queen is playing around Sight Jinx (especially if getting Aghanim's Scepter) then that talent is much better as it makes the spell much more powerful and disruptive, especially for sieging or defending (since at 2000 range, it can be safely cast on enemy ranged carries). The agility is a good damage increase and speeds up farming, so pick that if it's your role and its more valuable than a stronger Sight Jinx.

Level 20: Fast Snap Back vs Overreach Aura Range. A faster Snap Back makes it a lot more useful during combat, instead of only at the beginning of combat. The bonus range is good for just being able to attack from farther, which suits many attack modifiers and generally keeps Fey in a safer position by being farther.

Level 25: Snap Back pierces immunity vs Low Snap Back cooldown. Both of these talents relate to Snap Back. Piercing immunity makes it extremely effective against magic immune reliant kiteable heroes, but having it on a low cooldown is very powerful if you also have the fast cast talent (otherwise you'd be spending a lot of time casting Snap Back in fights) and allows you disrupt fights very strongly with multiple casts.

Due to her flexibility, Fey does not have a huge problem with counters and counterpicks compared to many heroes and is well suited for most drafts. Despite this, there are many types of heroes where she still generally shines or suffers.

Ideal Allies:

Gatherers:
These heroes set up multiple enemies to be hit by her Thrash combo. With Shard it can be a very strong potentially teamwiping move.

Aggressive Lane Partners:
Heroes that work well with her to apply pressure and allow her to bully the enemy lane easily.

Kiteable Melee Heroes:
Extra good if they have a slowing attack Fey makes these heroes more likely to hit their intended targets and less weak to kiting.

Good Against:

Non-Dispel Right Clickers:
Between the 60 attack slow and the miss chance, Fey can heavily dampen most physical attackers if they don't have a dispel. Can also mess with these heroes in lane by making them miss last hits.

Vision Heroes:
The vision reduction of Sight Jinx significantly affects the gameplay of these heroes, leaving them with much poorer sight.

Kiteable Melee Heroes:
These heroes are vulnerable to Fey's skillset of long range, displacement, and slows.

Worst Enemies:

Dispel Heroes:
These heroes can easily remove Thrash slows and Sight Jinx blind.

Break:
This affects not only her range because of Overreach Aura but also Thrash and Snap Back because those are tied to her range.

Displacement Heroes:
Even though Fey is technically melee, she really has little use up close and can be easily killed in such a position for much of the game.

(Design by Cotta, not made for this concept)


Personality:
Fey despite her being a whip user that is associated with sultry and seductive is actually quite a pleasant and lighthearted character who is easily amused by the world around her. She is polite to the characters who help her and a loyal friend. This is in contrast to the other Queen character, Queen of Pain who is a nasty egomaniacal demon. Fey is driven by her sense of justice and camaraderie and her position as the Lash Queen is just her way of doing that. She is a ultimately an idealist who is aware that she lives in an unkind world and is really trying to rebuild everything she used to have.

Interactions with Other Heroes:
Fey is friendly and gets along well with any good spirited animal-man characters like Brewmaster, Pangolier, Hoodwink, and Tusk. She will also get along with people with a similar optimist view as her that want to make the world better, such as Snapfire, Crystal Maiden and Omniknight. She also will make attempts to reach out to loner characters to get them to join her, either friend or foe like Drow Ranger, Sven, and even Troll Warlord. She holds no ill will against Lycan or Beastmaster for their role in the loss of Slom and that they must have done good things with the rest of their lives, and even credits them for her becoming the Lash Queen. She also is looking to recruit Bristleback due to his fame as a bouncer in the Slom area. Fey is willing to mock her enemies however, especially archers like Medusa, Clinkz and Windranger, since she views whips as superior to bows, though will make an exception towards her bow-bias for Drow Ranger. She is easily annoyed by loud and egomaniacal characters like Invoker, Zeus and Storm Spirit. She thinks Queen of Pain is overall a disappointment of a queen but will be excited to work with her if they are on the same team. And of course, she likes Razor and his whipping skills and says that even though he's much older, they may still be able to teach each other.

Lore Strength, Classification, and Comparison:
Gender: Female
Age: Mid 20s (She was a child when Lycan and Beastmaster basically overthrew the Last King of Slom)
Classification: Human lightly practiced in magic
Powers and Abilities: Weapon Mastery (specifically skilled with bullwhips), Limited Skill in Magic (specifically some manipulation of curses), Weapon Enhancement, Beast Taming, Skilled in Dancing
Stamina: High (Her background involved her taking down many beasts and brigands and she takes on many challengers to the present)
Intelligence: Genius (She became a crime boss at a young age, manages a huge organization that she built from the ground up, managed to crush or absorb all competitors with her leadership and planning skills, and continues to study lore and magic despite this to earn a reputation as a "self made queen".)
Comparable Power Scales: Highly skilled and trained but otherwise someone who is not physically enhanced
Legion Commander, Drow Ranger, Axe

Voice Sample:
Based on A2 from Nier Automata, voiced by Cherami Leigh. Fey sounds young and boastful in contrast to her queenly self image, and overall sounds coolheaded. Play Video

Equipment Slots (7) and Default:
Head: Fey's Hair
Back: Fey's Cape
Shoulder: Fey's Shoulders
Belt: Fey's Belt
Legs: Fey's Boots
Weapon: Fey's Whip
Taunt: None

Set ideas:
Bandit of Slom Design by Cotta (link to design currently dead)


Head: Short Cut of Charm
Rarity Uncommon
When she was the younger Bandit, Fey liked to have her hair shorter than now. It not longer felt proper as the Lash Queen.

Back: Armor of the Vigilante
Rarity Rare
This armor was tailored to be lightweight for the swiftest and bravest female warriors of Slom. Luckily it also fits on Fey.

Shoulder: Pauldrons of Royal Slom
Rarity Common
It was normal for female royal guards to protect their shoulders with Pauldrons. Many of them were left over in the deserted castle of the last king.

Belt: Goods of Thievery
Rarity Rare
These belts can hold everything that a bandit needs which suits long chases with impressive yields.

Legs: Boots of Beaststalking
Rarity Uncommon
Slom was a kingdom of beasts and attracted the greatest hunters, which attracted the greatest cobblers, for what was hunting other than a long stalking game?

No Weapon in this set


The Rhapsody QueenshipDesign by Cotta (link to design currently dead)


Head: Hair of the Rhapsody Queenship
Rarity Uncommon
To be a powerful and seductive queen means that her hair must billow as much as her whip snaps.

Back: Dress of the Rhapsody Queenship
Rarity Legendary
This beautiful flowing dress was given to Fey by the Lord of Misrule to marry his son. Fey kept the dress but not the son.

Shoulder: Bare Shoulders of the Rhapsody Queenship
Rarity Common
A woman has nothing to hide in Slom, so Fey says.

Belt: Corset of the Rhapsody Queenship
Rarity Rare
An impressive display and beautiful shining form that makes itself seen during the dance.

Legs: Anklets of the Rhapsody Queenship
Rarity Uncommon
Even though the Kingdom fell, there was still a time to appreciate Slom's ritualistic dances.

Weapon: Whip of the Dance
Rarity Rare. Creates special visual and sound effects when using Rhythmic Thrash.
Within the layers of the dress itself is the dancing whip, constantly in motion and seeking to eliminate all partners.


Standalone Item: Gleipnir
Weapon: Gleipnir

Based on the Gleipnir item, it is the item's chain and flail used as a weapon by Fey. It glows every time she uses the Gleipnir active.
Fey found perhaps the greatest prize of them all. Even if it isn't strictly a whip it strikes a sound of thunder.

Relative Size Comparison:

Thank you for reading my concept. If you enjoyed it, you may enjoy some of my other concepts below:

Cosmic Crawler -A spellcasting hard carry that scales indefinitely-
Galamathet, The Behemoth -A lightning-fast tank and disabler with no fear of mana costs or cooldowns-
Seline, The Aeromancer -A support that excels at re-positioning others in combat-
Kurthifa, The Crimson Knight -A carry that weaponizes the power of strength and health-
Pyotr, The Portal Keeper -The Agility Support that controls Mobility and Teleportation-

Additional Reading:

Check out the original forum version of Fey (as the Sentinel, a completely different hero) here to see how she has changed

Some other changes the hero concept has had over time:


Credits:
Fey's Design by Cotta
Bandit of Slom and The Rhapsody Queenship set designs also by Cotta.

Icons created by the talented artists at TheHiveWorkshop:
Rhythmic Thrash Icon by Blacksky
Sight Jinx Icon by APproject
Overreach Aura Icon by Sin'dorei300
Snap Back Icon by Jhon Wilber