An exercise in creating a character for Blizzard Entertainment's hero shooter game Overwatch (2016), based around the gentleman thief archetype and with a focus on ability design.
PART I - Quick Overview
PART II - Detailed Design Specifications
DESIGN GOALS
A support with anti-sniper abilities. Phantom enables Snipers on his own team, while harassing the enemy snipers that rely on long sight-lines.
A support with a counter to high impact combos that affects weapon usage.
High mobility support with a focus on making an achievable and balanced hero.
ABILITIES
Hard-Light Cane
Type: Melee Weapon
Description: Phantom’s Hard-light cane is a stylish melee weapon that can quickly chain a deadly three-hit combo that targets multiple foes at a time.
Damage: [Three Hit Looped Combo] Light Attack (0.6 seconds duration | 40 damage) + Light attack + Heavy attack (0.9 seconds duration | 70 damage) + repeat from start (can be interrupted)
Max range: 5 metres
Casting Time: 0.2 secs (initial cast time)
Control: Left click (primary fire)
Animation: The cane is initially quickly swiped in a horizontal direction (from right to left or left to right). This constitutes the first Light Attack. The direction is then reversed for the second Light Attack (similar to Reinhardt’s rocket hammer swing) and finally slams downwards (heavy attack).
Voice-lines: Onguard! You villain! | Oh, the violence I must endure!
Detailed interactions: The combo can be interrupted by any stuns or Phantom himself, after which it would be reset to the start of the loop. Otherwise, this ability serves as a simple melee attack.
Acrobatics
Type: Passive Ability
Description: Phantom can perch and jump across walls like a master acrobat, making it difficult for his foes to pursue. Acrobatics allows Phantom to jump onto walls and stick or perch onto them for a limited duration after which he may move across to a wall directly perpendicular to his current position. The further the wall is the lower the jump across will land as this ability is affected by (only slightly) gravity and has a falloff distance.
Perch Max Duration: 3 secs
Wall Jump Climb Height: 5 metres
Wall Jump Falloff Distance: 15 metres
Animation: A wall jump and perch state animation.
Voice-lines: Pursue me at your own peril, villain! | *mocking chuckles* Where did he go?
Detailed interactions: This passive ability allows Phantom to easily getaway or close the distance on an enemy in a pinch, taking full advantage of his melee-damage
capabilities. This can also been enhanced by his Escape Artist ability that when combined not only boosts movement speed, but also wall-jump momentum, allowing for longer and more powerful acrobatics.
Charm
Type: Targeted Ability (Ally only)
Description: Phantom gives a charismatic speech, encouraging an ally to fight for all their worth. This provides heals and boosts weapon attack speed.
Special effect: a yellow lightning crackle effect to a charmed ally.
UI: The ability button at the bottom right begins the cooldown counter.
Healing: 30 per second
Buff: Fire-rate/weapon attack speed and reload speed increased by 30%
Cast time: 0.4 seconds
Duration: 3 seconds (if out of line of sight i.e. blocked by walls or barriers or out of range)
Cooldown: 2 seconds (begins once applied to an ally)
Max range: 15 metres
Control: Right click (secondary fire)
Animation: Phantom slowly raises his staff (which seems extremely heavy) upwards as it glows and crackles with yellow lightning.
Voice-lines: Let my voice strengthen your heart. | Fight on, you beautiful specimen!| Accept my humble intoxication.
Detailed interactions: This fire rate and reload speed buff are limited to weapons only, specifically the primary and secondary fire capabilities. Charm will also buff certain Ultimate abilities that are derived from a character’s weapon, but will not work with certain special abilities for example D.va’s micro missiles or Doomfist’s Rocket Punch.
Escape Artist
Type: Movement Ability
Description: Using advanced fusion boosters, Phantom gains a quick burst
letting him run at super-speed. Phantom can run and wall jump with increased momentum for a limited duration.
UI: The ability button at the bottom right begins the counter for the duration followed by the cooldown.
Buff: 80% increased momentum
Cast time: 0.1 seconds
Duration: 3 seconds
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Control: LShift (ability)
Animation: A faster run speed + more powerful wall-jump moves.
Voice-lines: *chuckles* You must catch me first! | Too fast for you?
Detailed interactions: This ability works strongly in combination with Phantom’s Passive, Acrobatics, that let him wall-jump and perch upon walls, with even greater momentum. Like a short burst of adrenaline, he can get in and out of fights, using his cane to good advantage. Lúcio’s Crossfade and Amp It Up are the only abilities that affect ally movement speed. They will stack for a 80% + 25% (Crossfade) speed boost or a 80% + 60% (Amp It Up). This would be the fastest movement speed in the game after Sombra’s Stealth and Lucio’s Amp It Up which is at 65% + 60% respectively.
Calling Card
Type: Energy Projectile Ability
Description: Phantom throws his calling card to a foe, inciting fear which clouds their minds and enshrouds them in a visibility-obscuring fog.
Special Effect: a purple haze cloud effect around the target’s head.
UI: The ability button at the bottom right begins the counter for the duration followed by the cooldown.
Projectile speed: 80 metres per second
Casting time: 0.2 seconds
Duration: 3 seconds (or until cleansed)
Cooldown: 8 seconds
Max range: 200 metres
Control: E (ability)
Animation: Phantom pulls out a card (with his free hand) and throws it at a foe.
Voice-lines: I shall take what is mine! | Fear my audacity! | Be delivered upon me.
Detailed interactions: Calling Card is a fast moving projectile ability, but still requires a bit of shot lead-up, depending on how far away a target is. For example, a target 40 metres away would be hit by the card within 0.5 seconds. Since this ability is primarily used to counter a sniper’s long sight-lines, the projectile speed would need to be tweaked during the test phase. At the moment it is double that of a Roadhog's Chain Hook and equal to a Brigitte Whip Shot. However, both are short range abilities (20 metres). This ability can also be cleansed immediately through cleanse abilities like Zarya’s Projected Barrier, Moira’s Fade, etc. However this being an energy based projectile, cannot be blocked by shields.
Disarm
Type: Ultimate Ability (AOE)
Description: Phantom slams his cane onto the ground releasing a powerful command that forces his foes to drop their weapons at once.
Special effect: Purple haze clouds and thorns surround all foes weapons
UI: The ultimate button is reset to zero
Area of effect: 15 metres
Casting time: 0.5 seconds activation
Duration: 6 seconds
Ultimate cost: 1820 points (Max charge time of 6 minutes & 4 seconds)
Control: Q (Ultimate ability)
Animation: With both hands, phantom slams his cane onto the ground releasing a shock-wave of charged purple smoke and vines with thorns that extend outwards, engulfing any enemy weapons within range.
Voice-lines: Disarm your hearts! | Let your hearts be DISARMED!
Detailed interactions: All weapons are disabled i.e. ranged and melee (opposite of Sombra, who only disables abilities). Disarm ignores barriers, can be interrupted and cannot go through walls. It can also serve as a defensive ultimate to certain high value combo ultimate abilities like Nanoblade.
REFERENCES
The official Overwatch hero page
The Overwatch wiki (in particular their rich library of stats as well as their system of [Hero-Match-up-Synergy] which is useful in quick comparisons)
How Baptiste, Brigitte, Genji, And Other Overwatch Heroes Got Made | Forbes
Building Baptiste: How An Overwatch Hero Is Made | Audio Logs
Every Overwatch Hero Explained by Blizzard’s Michael Chu | WIRED
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