Good day, Forgers! HeroicTechnology here with a new Aetherforged Update:

Today, we have something quite special for you. Our third Forger, Tespis, is ready for you to check out! As a ranged mage, Tespis has respectable damage, but her grotesque way of doing things both disquiets enemies and empowers her to do ‘wonderful’ things. Playing this wandering doctor with a penchant for curing mass-plagues will require strong positioning, good awareness of how her kit disturbs teamfights, and a love of leeches. Lots and lots of leeches.

The amazing artwork was done by Jas!

If you haven’t already read it, the accompanying lore, Heartbeats, is already ready here: https://dinkdunkblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/22/heartbeats/

As always, the AetherForged development team will be on-hand to answer any of your burning questions regarding the Forger development.

Comments by the development team are in italics, in an effort for you to get inside the mind of how the character works:

Tespis’ kit is built around two primary themes:

First, the theme of plague and disease, which slowly eats away at the infected while also crippling them. Second, the mechanical theme of breaking teams apart and utilizing the gaps that are formed to wreak havoc. Each of her abilities is designed to fit these themes in some way, or to help her utilize the play style that it creates more effectively.

Tespis is a mage who thrives on locking down her enemies, pure and simple, so she can… aid them. And to that end, her kit promotes her in a farming role. She’s strongest with an enemy wave during the laning phase, as that gives her kit the safety that she needs to farm safely and provide her support and jungler with the CC they need to harass, gank, or whatever playstyle there is for success. While we believe that death is the best CC, there are certainly many more ways to skin a Forger, and Tespis knows how. With an array of slows, roots, and fears, she will be able to lockdown her enemies so she can administer her remedies…

Passive: Disturbing Methods

When Tespis kills a unit or gets an assist on an enemy forger, enemies within a close range of the unit are feared for a short duration. Enemies cannot be affected by Disturbing Methods again for a moderately long amount of time.

HT’s Notes: Essentially, this punishes enemies from getting too close to the wave through her last hits and forces them to play away from their waves. Lane partners with skillshots benefit from this in many ways, not the least of which is the fear, but also the more predictable pathing that comes from not being in the wave.

Q: Malaise

Tespis fires a bolt of energy from her cane, dealing moderately low magic damage to the first enemy hit (notably increased damage to minions and monsters). In addition, the blast slows the enemy by a moderate amount for a short duration, which rapidly decays after a small amount of time.

On a successful hit, Malaise can be recast for a short amount of time. Malaise can be recast up to 4 times. If an enemy is hit 3 times by Malaise, they are also stunned for a short duration.

HT’s Notes: The fantasy begins. Think of Malaise as… like a needle. If you only need one needle, you’re pretty okay with it. But more and more needles and it starts to add up and get pretty terrifying. At least if you don’t like needles. But the emphasis here is that Tespis needs to hit a target. And for that all-important Stun, three hits need to be achieved. The synergy with her passive comes into play; they can either be feared by the passive and be able to hide in their minion wave to block Malaise, or they can step out and be hit.

W: Bloodletting

Tespis shatter a flask of leeches to cleanse herself of all slows and roots and gain a large amount of bonus movement speed that rapidly decays over a short duration.

If Tespis cleanses a slow or root with Bloodletting she becomes immune to slows and roots for a very short to short duration.

HT’s Notes: This acts as two things: a non-blink/dash escape tool, and a cleanse for some of the lesser crowd control effects. Very simple, but gets Tespis out of situational jams. Don’t expect this to save you every time, though.

E: Moonblast

Tespis tosses a handful of seeds into an area, causing a patch of moonflowers to explosively bloom after a very short duration, dealing moderate magic damage and mesmerizing all enemies within the area for a short duration.

HT’s Notes: Ever wonder what Mesmerizing is? Essentially, this is a stun which is broken by any damage effect. This is an incredibly powerful ability that gives Tespis the ability to set up plays and ganks. This zoning ability will also allow her to land Malaise much more easily and control the battlefield effortlessly.

R: Patient Zero

Tespis infects target enemy Forger with her plague, dealing a moderately large amount of magic damage over a moderate duration and crippling them for the duration. After a moderately short duration, all enemies near the initial target are infected and suffer the damage and cripple over the same interval.

HT’s Notes: Her ultimate gives Tespis a crown jewel to work with and something rather rare for mages: a point-click CC that prevents escape. The fact that this damage is over time should give Tespis players the feel that they are slowly, but surely, draining the life out of their enemies. This virulent plague also has the added effect of splitting up the enemy team to avoid the infection effect, meaning that flankers or duelists can get better matchups in teamfights with the right targeting.

Keep an eye out over the next few weeks as we barrel headlong through development, we have a lot more planned to keep you, our community, informed and up to date with the game. Continue to keep tabs on our reddit and our blog, as well as our social media channels to stay as updated as you can, because there’s going to be much more in the coming weeks.