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Thars by Sernyx

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Thars

By: Sernyx
Last Updated: Apr 29, 2021
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Thars

The Skyflame

What happens when you mix a millenia-long dynasty of pyromancers with strength and ferocity of a Slomish hunter? As the old wise teachers of Ultymir academy used to say, "an outrageous, fire-spitting in all senses, hulking slab of disaster". While young Thars certainly gave away some of those impressions, they were not entirely correct. Imposing stature? Yes. Alarming lack of self-preservation? Sure. A mouth full of snide, disrespectful remarks? Absolutely. Though what they did not see was a talented student, and a powerful mage.

A fine, sophisticated art paired with hot temper and pride makes a deadly combination - one that could turn into a disaster without training and discipline. And with dedication, the prickly boy getting into trouble left and right grew into a ruthless and fearsome duelist.

A sharp, inquisitive mind paired with total disregard for personal safety makes a scholar ripe for experimentation - without much caution or restrictions. And so, the ever curious mage learned how to fuel his element not just with magic, but his very life force. If only the academy's healers were just as enthusiastic about his discovery.

When a single mistake at the demonologists' final exam turned into a catastrophe, he was among the first ones to rush into the fray. Still just a student, he fought alongside Professor Lannik, fending off hellspawn while the warlock banished them one by one. And even though he almost died to demonic claws and his own fire, the cause was indubitably worth the pain.

People change when they grow older. Though, some things never change. An undying love for adventures? Yes. A roaring fire of the elemental ancestor in his heart? Indeed. Rare, but absolutely insufferable fits of stubbornness that only the thickest oafs can possess? Yes, yes and yes. And if you have something to say about it, do it quickly. Fire is faster than you could ever be.

Ranged - Carry - Nuker - Escape
Complexity: ★★☆
STR
AGI
INT
: 19 + 2.3
: 17 + 1.8
: 25 + 4.4
Damage
Armor
Speed
: 40-44 (15-19 base)
: 2.8 (0 base)
: 300
Attack range
Projectile speed
Base attack time
Attack point
: 600
: 1200
: 1.7
: 0.3 + 0.7

Primary Abilities

Q
Blazing Strike
Throws a fireball to a targeted location. Upon hitting the ground it explodes, dealing damage to all enemies caught in it, and burns them for a slow and additional damage over time.

Explodes instantly around the hero with wider area as Elemental.

ABILITY
DAMAGE TYPE
PIERCES IMMUNITY?
CAST ANIMATION
: Target Point / No Target
: Magical
: No
: 0.3 + 0.7
Range
Duration
Radius
Elemental radius
Damage
Burn Damage
Slow
MANA
COOLDOWN
: 900/1200/1500/1800
: 2
: 300
: 500
: 60/120/180/240
: 15/30/45/60
: 20%
: 90/110/130/150
: 9

Those who stand in Skyflame's way will soon find themselves in ashes.

Notes
W
Immolation
Immolates himself, gaining bonus movement and attack speed at the cost of his health. The effects grow with time, and rapidly decay when toggled off.

Also grants magic resistance as Elemental.

ABILITY
CAST ANIMATION
: Toggle
: 0 + 0
Health cost per second
Max stacks
Attack speed
Attack speed per stack
Movement speed
Movement speed per stack
Magic resistance per stack
: 5% of current health
: 10
: 30/60/90/120
: 6/12/18/24
: 6/8/10/12%
: 0.5%/1%/1.5%/2%
: 3%

Great power comes at a greater price.

Notes
E
Eternal Fire
Basic attacks deal a percentage of Intelligence as magical damage, and every time he deals spell damage to an enemy hero, his active cooldowns are reduced by a small amount.

Also grants spell lifesteal as Elemental.

ABILITY
DAMAGE TYPE
PIERCES IMMUNITY?
: Passive
: Magical
: No
Bonus damage per Intelligence
Cooldown reduction
Spell lifesteal
: 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8
: 0.1/0.15/0.2/0.25
: 15%/25%/35%/45%

Fire grows hungrier the more it spreads.

Notes

Ultimate Abilities

R
Path of the Flame
Charges up to 2 seconds and surges forward in a wave of fire, cleansing himself and searing enemies hit. Upon arrival he unleashes his Elemental form, becoming a melee hero and gaining additional effects to his basic abilities for 12 seconds.

Can be recast to immediately end the effect.

ABILITY
DAMAGE TYPE
PIERCES IMMUNITY?
CAST ANIMATION
: Target Point
: Magical
: No
: 0.3 + 0
Max distance
Damage
MANA
COOLDOWN
: 2000
: 250/375/500
: 200/300/400
: 100/85/70

Purify your soul in flames — and ascend to true mastery.

Notes

Other Abilities

R
Extinguish
Reverts Thars back to his original form.

ABILITY
CAST ANIMATION
: No Target
: 0 + 0

...But do not overestimate yourself.


Notes

Hero Talents

Path of the Flame 25% Status Resistance
25
Eternal Fire Pure damage and pierces Spell immunity

+1000 Path of the Flame max distance
20
-0.2s Base attack time

+10% Spell amplification
15
+1s Blazing Strike burn

+5 Armor
10
+25 Attack speed

Upgrades

Aghanim's Scepter


Eternal Fire deals 50% of the damage in a 250 radius around the target.

Aghanim's Shard


Each stack of Immolation also grants 2% Spell Amplification.

Playstyle

Skyflame is designed to be a unique approach to a hard carry. It's quite an unorthodox role for an Intelligence hero, and he performs in it in a different way than other heroes.

Eternal Fire is his bread and butter. It gives him a unique method of scaling fitting an Intelligence hero, allowing him to perform both as a spell-caster and as a right-clicker. Moreso, the scaling magical (potentially pure) damage autoattacks make him a good tank destroyer, as armor values are usually higher than magis resistance later in the game. The cooldown reduction allows him to use active items more effectively than other heroes, and rewards the good usage of Blazing Strike in teamfights.

Blazing Strike is his main spell for the early parte of the game. It gives him lane presence, harass potential, and its low cooldown makes it a useful farming tool - an essential requirement for a hard carry. During the ultimate, it has a larger area of effect, which helps hitting more enemies with it for more cooldown reduction and healing from his passive.

Immolation is a very high risk-high reward ability. It incentivizes the player to keep it on for prolonged period of time for maximum benefits, but leaves him very vulnerable by burning away his health. Carefully managing your health to keep up reasonable levels of strength and not falling to low is crucial. Additionally, Skyflame doesn't have any means to sustain his health without the ultimate - so in order to be a strong ranged carry that doesn't die to a couple sneezes in his direction, he either has to invest into lifesteal - or go deep into fights from time to time. This is where the magic resist comes in handy - it protects you in the heat of things, making you harder to take down in close combat.

His ultimate has a wide array of potential purposes. It can be used as an engage or a disengage tool with a very solid range, as a hard-hitting nuke in the mid-game, or even as a dispel through its Spell Immunity period. The tricky part is to stop the charge in time to go precisely where you want to, or letting it go preemptively if you're about to get hit with an enemy disable. No cheesy escapes allowed unless enemies brought no crowd control - in that case this is pretty much an alternative to a TP-out.

Being an Intelligence hero and having his damage scaling built into his abilities, Skyflame's item build is a field ripe for experiments. He can go for almost any item in the game, as he can make use out of anything - damage, utility, tankiness, etc. He can ramp up his damage output with Intelligence items giving him double the effect, raw damage or proc items to go along his high attack speed from Immolation, or a more magic-focused build with active items coming off quickly thanks to his passive. He can tank up and not be afraid of diving in with Path of the Flame, or losing too much health from Immolation and keep it maxed up continiously. And utility items work just as well if he can utilize the cooldown reduction to its full potential.

Study your opponents, gather up a deadly arsenal, and be your team's searing fist!

Hero art and icons made by me

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Agin (1) | September 8, 2018 9:33am
Hi, I think this is a great hero design and the presentation is clear and pretty, almost making him seem simple, but his Melee-Ranged switching and spell-lifesteal make Thars incredibly deep and interesting to theorycraft.

I find the Eternal Fire skill especially interesting, as it is quite similar to a passive I’ve just recently made for my hero concept, but your execution actually seems much more Dota-like and its possibilities in conjuction with his other skills and items are endless, should you take the correct talent.
In this sense I feel like you should perhaps include the Item-Working talent as a baseline feature and then maybe scale it down a bit if it feels too op for you. That is because it simply seems like so much fun to do maths with and theorycraft, that it would be like a staple feature of the hero.
(ps there is a typo in the notes, it should be “It fully benifits from Eternal Fire’s own lifesteal” i think, I’m pointing it out just because it confused me)

Thars’ ultimate Path of the Flame is glorious, but if you wish for the spellcaster approach to be viable over full brawler at any time, then consider making it possible to be toggled off (finitely, like “stop rolling”) once it is activated. It may seem completely unintuitive to get rid of your own ult, but as of now it actually locks you into melee mode… and spellcaster Thars may not like that after a while, maybe for a few moments and then go ranged again.
You could also reduce the damage scaling to be something like 300/400/500, or even lower over all, and then reduce the cooldown accordingly. Like this, together with Eternal Flame, Thars will be able to weave in and out of melee form much more often, making it very flexible - this would allow for many more builds and true Ranged and Melee playstyle.

Thank you for creating this amazing hero concept. Have a nice day.
2
[-]
Sernyx (3) | September 8, 2018 2:29pm
Hi, thanks a lot for the warm response!

The note is not a typo actually. The bonus damage counts as ability damage, so if isn't blocked (by Pipe of Insight or Aphotic Shield, for example), your basic attacks apply the CDR as well. And this bonus damage works with spell lifesteal of course. (should probably include that in the description I think)

Item talent was intended as a massive lvl 25 powerspike no matter what build you're using. And besides, it working on Midas as soon as you get it or throwing Dagons each 5 seconds 20 minutes into the game is kinda OSFrog :D

I actually did a lot maths in my spare time too, you're right on point here! This helped me to look at smaller details, like what should the stats be to not become oppressive in lane, or how hard would he hit later on.

PotF was the main headache honestly, there's a lot of things dumped on this: mobility, damage, buffs... The cooldown was made a bit higher to accomodate for the CDR, but your suggestion is actually super neat and gives another level of complexity and flexibility.

Huge thanks for your insight!
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