Hello, Armies. This is Mr. Frog again and I will give you another hero spotlight. And today, we are going to feature one of the heroes in Heroes of the storm. Orphea!
Orphea, Heir of Raven Court is a Ranged Assassin Hero and the first Hero who is entirely original to the Heroes of the Storm universe. Orphea rejected the dark power that her father began to associate with and tried to flee from the Raven Lord’s control. After witnessing King’s Crest being smashed by his machinations she became convinced that she had to fight. As a Hero of the Nexus, she vows to protect the innocent. She was revealed at BlizzCon 2018, and is available free of charge to all attendees and holders of Virtual Ticket.
Orphea was raised in isolation, but she found comfort in ancestral magic and felt connected to it. Orphea lost her mother early in Orphea’s life because she was afraid of what would happen to her father Oberon (Raven Lord) if he tapped into the Dark Nexus. Oberon promised Orphea that he would not tap into this power. But he broke his promise and drove Orphea away. Her father later sends Knights to locate her.
Deckard Cain is wandering through the forests of Dragon Shire when he is approached by knights. Orphea is present at the clash and aids Cain in defeating the knights. Deckard Cain, Orphea and the Raven Lord team up to solve the Dark Nexus threat. They approach Raena, the Lady of Thorns as well as Realm Lord of Dragon Shire to ask for her help and warn her of the imminent danger. Raena summons her most trusted allies from across the land and leads them to Alterac Pass to fight the Raven Lord and his champions.
Orphea later witnessed her father defeating Lady of Thorns, causing the fall King’s Crest. She vowed to stop her father hurting anyone else and chose to stand up against him to become a Nexus hero. Orphea confronted Orphea outside her father’s tower after returning to Raven Court. They fought and Orphea declared that he was beyond Orphea’s “dead magic” powers. However, she managed to find her singularity. They engaged in telepathic communication. The Raven Lord explained that order was essential, and that everything would be lost if it didn’t. His daughter declared that she would not stop fighting him and he disappeared to his tower.
The 2018 developers knew they would bring their final Blizzard universe (Warcraft), into the Nexus. They also had a large list of highly-requested heroes that were being added to it. It felt right to return to their roots and introduce the Nexus-born hero. Although creating a Nexus-born hero was difficult for them, it would have been a significant step towards making HoTS stand out as a standalone title. Heroes brings together different Blizzard heroes, but it also has non-traditional fantasy ideas such as the Lady of Thorns and Raven Lord. These are the origins of Heroes and Orphea. Developers were attracted to the phrase “the Raven Lord’s daughter” and started to design a hero using the concept. They spent the 2018 between four webcomics, and even the Dark Nexus themed event, to create her entire story and introduce her throughout her year.
Orphea had to feel comfortable, be different, and be amazing. These were the major challenges that the Art Design team faced. Oscar Vega was the original creator of Orphea. The original idea for Orphea was based on the silhouette of a young, beautiful woman with a large relic on her chest. This seems to be her focus to channel her dark energy.
Orphea’s design goal was to be accessible for all. They didn’t want her abilities to be too complicated. Instead, they wanted players just to pick her up and learn how to play her. They also wanted her to have a high level of mechanical skill and a high skill ceiling so that players could truly master her.
Orphea was first designed by Orphea from concept art. It depicted her as a dancer so her base kit design included elements of dancing. They loved the idea that Orphea could dance in and out of combat. At first, her Q ability (Shadow Waltz), forced her to sprint forward. Orphea’s W ability (Chomp), caused her to be relegated to baseline. This gameplay style was loved by them, but Orphea’s goal was to make her approachable by all skill levels. Due to the deadzone between damage and dash, having an ability that required you to sprint forward caused some players to overextend themselves or miss their Shadow Waltz completely. They decided to allow the player to control the direction of the dash by moving it to end of the ability, rather than the beginning. To match the timing of the ability when it was at the start, they added a delay before the damage. Although this felt fantastic and was loved by the team, it made her feel a little too mobile with Chomp’s baseline knockback. You could also find yourself chasing down low-health enemies, but your highest damage ability (Chomp), would cause you to go backwards, which would result in you missing out on the kill. They decided to remove knockback from this ability but it was so much fun that we wanted it to remain as a talent.
Orphea is “luxurious” to animate because of her long cast. Orphea can also be floating, which allows the developers to be more flexible because they don’t have to worry so much about foot placement. They were able to make her visuals stand out thanks to both.
Well, that’s it for Orphea. What do you think about this hero? Join our discord server at discord.gg/hubient. Thank you once again and catch you on the next one.
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Hubient Agency Week 3 October 2022 Newsletter
<strong>Bane Hero Spotlight</strong>
