With Dawnbringer having come out over two years ago now, we’re long overdue to get Duskbearer.
It would certainly be of Mythic rarity, would likely have the opposite colors (Green/Purple/Brown), and probably the same mana cost of 20. The Mythics in Dawnbringer’s colors are Jotnar Stormshield and Tian Yi, and the Mythics in Duskbearer’s (tentative name) are The Wild Queen and Yasmine’s Chosen.
Given this, what should its effect be?
Something dark themed. Db heals your team, deals damage to all enemies and buffs your team. So I’m thinking duskbearer should do the opposite. Steal health from all enemies, debuff all enemies, maybe curse? And maybe convert a bunch of gems into doomskulls?
It’s really hard for me to think about what it could do if we want it to satisfy the legacy of Dawnbringer. Due to power creep, Dawnbringer is nowhere near as good as it used to be. So if Duskbearer shows up with a similar power level, it’ll be “just another disappointing mythic”. But I also shudder to think of trying to introduce a new weapon that will have the same, “This is the only hero weapon anyone uses for a year.” impact.
So on the “It should be as powerful as DB was in context” front, it should:
OK whew. Now that I got the stupid out of my system, here’s what I think.
Dawnbringer, I think, is supposed to make me imagine sunbeams raining from the heavens and wreaking havoc, then leaving a glowing allied party in its wake. Duskbearer, for thematics, should make me think of, say, stars falling and leaving darkness behind.
Further, I don’t want it to do true AoE damage. Submerge has done a really good job at lessening the impact of AoE. The next-best damage would be splash damage, I think it should hit the first and last enemies. This is a bit of a bummer compared to “2 random enemies” as it will hit for 3x total damage instead of a potential 6x, but it also means it’s guaranteed to hit every opponent so it deals with stealthy barriers and other annoyances.
Since it gives up a little on damage, I want to give it a benefit to make up for that. I think an effect like Silence or Faerie fire should also be applied to the first and last troops.
Dawnbringer leaves your troops harder to hit due to Barrier. I want Duskbearer to do something similar, but it’s hard to choose a good but equivalent effect. Full-team barrier isn’t quite as big a boost as it used to be, but can still be significant. I don’t like a full-team Bless thematically, that feels like a “light”-affiliated thing. What I’d like is for it to let you make a chosen ally Stealthy, but that’d be new code to add a new effect. So right now what I think I’d like is for it to cleanse the allied team and enchant a random ally. This is more an offensive buff than defensive, so I think it contrasts with Dawnbringer well.
So:
I could tweak it all day. I think it could steal life instead of dealing splash damage, but then I want to lessen at least one of the other effects because steal life is pretty powerful.