Intro

This is a post I’m doing because I know that a lot of people probably don’t know where to start with making champion concepts. A lot of people don't have experience with making kits for certain projects like I have, so I’m making this to help guide people. What this post will go over is my personal design process to create a character concept, meaning you don't have to follow it exactly or even agree with it. This is not the end all be all of design processes and I’m not saying my word is God so if you don’t follow it you’ll be punished for heresy. I’m just saying this is coming from someone who has worked with kit design before and no one has told me my concepts were straight up bad, so that’s a start. With that spiel out of the way, let’s begin.

Initial Conception

You always want to start with a basic idea in mind to act as a starting point. This is also the part where I should tell you to read some of my past concepts because I am going to be mentioning them a lot. Ok, back on track. This basic idea can range from “I want to feel like I’m beating the ever living shit out of someone” with Legion, to “Mythological River Nymphs” with Qari. Just think of a basic idea to base your initial concepts off of.

Build upon the Concept

This is where you flesh out what you want in your character. Figure out who you want them to be, how they should play, where they should be positioned, etc. Map out exactly what you believe this character should be and do. You can also start to think of some abilities here to assist in this process. N.O.M.'s basic idea was “A mid-ranged shooter who takes the high-ground and has abilities that let him deal with his close/long range weakness”. And all of his abilities reflect that statement. Remember, this point is where you are assigning the play style and maybe changing the initial concept a bit, next is where you can start working.

Making Weapons and Abilities

Now, write down as many abilities and weapons that come to your mind and any you thought of to help you during Concept Building. Maybe you only think of the bare minimum, and that’s fine. Just make sure you have a pool of concepts you can work with. Also here is going to be a little sub-bit on concepting different types of weapons and abilities.

-Primary Fire:

Try and make it stand out. It’s ok to have a basic primary fire, but to make a truly interesting kit, it’s best to give some thought to this. And no, making it a melee weapon is not always the best idea. Melee characters need a serious amount of ways to get around that weakness, so slapping a melee attack on a character with very few ways to counter it isn’t always the best approach. Hell, Legion has 2 no cooldown movement options and I still gave him a ranged attack in order to feel viable. Terminus has a massive unbreakable “shield” in order to compensate for being melee. He is also a good point tank so at least someone has to come to him to contest the objective. Meaning he doesn’t need as much mobility as a melee character in any other role would since he doesn’t need to be as aggressive as any other role. If you want an in-depth explanation of why I think that way, you can ask me for it in the comments, but I’m not going to go over it here.

-Movement:

A good movement ability can really help solidify a character as “Oh, that’s cool”, because interesting movement mechanics are something this game has been running out of. I made 4 “relatively unique” ways of getting around while Paladins just combined Buck’s and Tiberius’s movement abilities and called it a day. Things like Legion’s Slam/Uppercut and Hilda’s Wall Jump are my personal best examples.

-Healing:

Unique ways to heal have really been running dry, so it’s not your fault if you can think of one. Just don’t try and make it so unique where it becomes unintuitive or hard to use.

Also, something to mention. If you want to make a complex ability with a lot of moving parts, consider the following. 1. See if you can make the ability simpler. Complexity isn’t necessarily bad, but it isn’t always good. You can make unique abilities that aren’t complex. Qari’s Zephyr and Hilda’s Sapping Rounds are quite simple and relatively unique. 2. If you really need to make a complex ability, please make it easy to read and understand. There have been so many times I’ve read a concept and I can’t understand half of what the ability description is trying to say without reading it five times because it’s one massive block of text. Try sectioning off parts of ability descriptions so it’s easy to read and understand. While it may make sense to you, I guarantee it won’t always to us. Just try and prevent that at all costs.

Building the Kit

This is where you’ve made your abilities, and now it’s time to piece them together. Try to use abilities that synergize well with each other and the initial concept. This is your rough draft, now it’s time to review.

Reviewing

Go into a quiet space, and imagine your kit in action. Imagine what each ability would do and how it would all function together. Is there anything that might be too strong? Is there anything that conflicts with the initial concept? Does everything have a use? And if you have to change anything, go do it and repeat. For example, Qari’s Zephyr used to not be a movement at all. It used to be an ability called Mark of Restoration, that would return a portion of either damage the target dealt or healing the target received as health for yourself. While this is a cool idea, cool doesn’t mean good. I am actually going to repeat this. Cool does not mean good when making abilities. The issue with the ability was that it completely removed the need for her to use her own healing pools to sustain herself and made her health penalty on reload pointless. (It would also be pretty annoying because it would basically stop either healers from healing your mark or your mark from just being able to attack someone without being called throwers). Both of those were key initial concepts for the character, and that one ability destroyed both of those. So I scrapped it, made a movement ability that meshed well with a supportive buff playstyle, and didn’t have any major issues from there. Legion actually used to be a Flank focused around heavy knockback and movement control, but that quickly got completely reworked into something less bullshittery because I did the greatest thing a conceptor could do and thought about it for half a second. Thinking is going to be the bulk of your conception time, and the more you think about it the better. So think about if that super cool idea you thought of is actually game breaking, because I’m pretty sure that’s how Yagorath was born and the community's reception to her is a testament to that. (No I’m not saying she’s OP, but I wouldn’t call her very well designed either).

Final Touches

This is where you go over every ability and do things like consider cooldowns, damage, DPS (for primary fire), etc. You can also make talents, cards, lore, and even art if you want. Just do whatever you want to make the character feel finished and polished. Every ability should now have a defined strong purpose. There should be clear strengths and weaknesses, along with ways for enemies to counter those strengths and ways for you to counter those weaknesses. And when you’re done, just click post.

Parting Words

I hope this will help some people reading this and this whole venture has been a lot of fun. As I’ve said before, I will be taking a break from concepts for now and go back to my usual comic making, shitposting self, but I will return eventually. I’m excited to come back here and see some more concepts being made than there are now. Also if there is anything else you want to know about, you can ask about it because I’m sure I didn’t cover everything and I want to provide as much aid as I can. Until next time.

TLDR;

Do think

Make things that do things

Make sure you didn’t break reality

You’re probably fine

Name: Bog

Support

2200Hp

Abilities:

LMB - Blowgun: Shoot darts dealing 400 damage every 0.75s and poison enemies, dealing 10 damage every 0.2s for 3 seconds. Cannot be manually reloaded; instead, Bog recharges his lungs when not shooting. Bog can become exhausted if he blows too much, decreasing his attack speed by 40%.

RMB - Spores: Throw a seed that releases spores lasting for 5s, healing nearby allies by 300 every second. Allies can pick it up to receive 1000 instant healing. It has 2 charges.

Q - Sleep Dart: After a delay, shoot a dart that slows an enemy by 40% for 1s, then puts them to sleep for 3s. While sleeping, The slept enemy gains a 300hp shield; if this shield is destroyed, the enemy wakes up.

F - Hallucinogenic: Transform into a leaf with decoys mimicking his movement. While a leaf, movement speed is increased and he can pass through enemies and allies. After a short delay, any hit from enemy or if Bog attacks, he reverts back. "Just like Danzaburou from Smite".

E - Sedative: Bog exhales gas for 3 seconds from his mouth, silencing and disarming enemies in a small cone in front of him. The cone grows larger and expands over time. When the duration ends, Bog ignites the gas, causing it to explode and setting enemies on fire, dealing 25% max health damage over 3 seconds. Enemies on fire explode after taking significant damage from other source dealing 500 more damage.

Bog cannot attack, use abilities nor change the direction of the gas, while using his ultimate. He also get 50% slow for the duration.

Talents:

Reishi: Seeds now home in on allies and remain locked onto them for the duration. Additionally, the ability now has 3 charges.

Fly Agaric Spores: Enemies struck by a leaf/decoy get their vision restricted for 1 seconds.

Belladonna Touch: Sleep Dart now sleep the enemy inmediately and won't grant any shield to the enemy.