Thread:Willbachbakal/@comment-7709681-20150131182542/@comment-1330314-20150406215504

Here are my thoughts on the changes:
 * The changes to Ministry of Life look good, and would help shift Dmitri's power progression towards the late game. No criticism here.
 * I'm not entirely sure about the early game changes to the bonus blood orb range, though this is ultimately a minor issue: my intent was to have Dmitri have 125 base range and thus start out with 300 range when in ranged form, as he would still be at risky ranges when fighting opponents in top lane. The steeper per-level increase would also be an incentive to rank this ability up early. Ultimately, though, there's no way of knowing for sure how Dmitri would interact with melee top laners.
 * The reason I wanted Dmitri's blood orb to stop upon colliding with an enemy champion is so that he would only be able to possess/burden one at a time, which would set a much clearer indicator as to which champion would be at risk of turning against their team. Although his Q would be his bread-and-butter ability, I don't think it needs to be a great multi-target nuke.
 * Adding a bonus health scaling to Haemokinesis looks interesting, though I'm not sure if it's necessary. My intent with Dmitri's power overall is that there would be a clear separation between tankiness and damage, where building tanky would allow him to tank even better, but wouldn't give him additional damage, and building damage would allow him to scale well as a mage but remain fairly squishy. A change like this basically means a tanky Dmitri contributes more damage on top of tankiness and crowd control, and I think that might be a bit too much.
 * I'm not a big fan of the changes to Evanescent Oblation/Reap. The idea behind the original was that Dmitri would create a fixed-width circle of blood around him and be able to determine the radius, which would require a kind of aiming that doesn't exist on any other champion in the game, and would also emphasize the nature of the blood orb as a moving entity of its own. I also don't think it would need to be charged if it were a ground-targeted ability.
 * I also think it's worth deciding whether we should really fully integrate the original kit's blood trail system into this new ability set, which is already loaded enough with its own set of mechanics. I personally think Dmitri has enough crowd control already to not need a suspension effect, and I feel there's already a core mechanic here (possess enemy champion, use them against their own team), so having another whole system on top feels like a bit too much. I feel the mini-blood trail system in my original E1/E2 would be enough, at least for this kit.
 * Similarly, I don't really see the need for the changes to Sanguine Surge. Having a blood dash not produce its own trail of blood sounds counter-intuitive, especially since its other ability is dependent on blood trails, and its fixed range means there's no need for it to also target specific enemies (dashing through them without targeting them would involve more skill anyway).
 * The idea behind Tainted Bloom's mist is that it would be just a compact entity, as multiple mists hitting the same target sounds a bit confusing, and so one cast would only damage each enemy once. I don't really see the value in encouraging Dmitri to stack multiple blood trails behind his target in this kit, either. I deliberately gave this ability no cost either because I don't think a self-shield meant to protect you when low on health should also remove your health (you could accidentally kill yourself with this ability when using it at the right time, basically), and conversely gave Sanguine Surge the combined health cost of both abilities because of how its cooldown refund would allow for a huge amount of in-fight mobility. The overall idea here was that Dmitri would whittle down his own health with Sanguine Surge and then use a well-timed Tainted Bloom/Sanguine Purge to protect himself at the right moment.
 * While the idea of transferring this shield was something we discussed in previous kits, I think there are already enough things going on with this ability for it to not be necessary. Overall, I also don't feel like this version of Dmitri would be oriented towards helping allies directly, even if he'd be tanking, CCing and peeling for his allies. His ideal playstyle would also require perma-Burdening/possessing opponents, so firing the only ability that allows that at allies instead of enemies would likely not help him out. As with Evanescent Oblation, I'm not sure there really needs to be an intricate blood trail interaction here other than with the mist/shield mechanic.
 * The reason I didn't give Cruor Bond/Blood Puppet a cast range is because I think the blood orb's range and Burden/Possession debuff duration is a strong enough gate, and so I still think there should be no range restriction here. I also think ultimate abilities should be disabled along with items, since most of them are meant to set up kills anyway. The decreased movement thing looks okay, since it reflects the priority I had in mind with respect to possessor-possessee movement.
 * As said above, I don't think Crusted Soil is really necessary to this kit, since there's already a lot going on. The interaction with the rest of Dmitri's kit (especially with his stances) looks strange, and I think it mostly detracts from his main gameplay hook (use opponents against their allies). I think the mechanic itself is good, and we could probably preserve it on Dmitri's old kit, but here I feel like it overloads his ability set.