Thread:Willbachbakal/@comment-7709681-20150131182542/@comment-1330314-20150206222823

Sorry, I've been all over the place and haven't given this as much attention as I should have.

So, for a recap, the kit you want for Dimitri is:

I - Tides of Life: Dmitri deals bonus magic damage on every third attack, scaling with max mana and AP. The counter resets if Dmitri doesn't attack for 3.5 seconds.

Q - Anima Flux: Dmitri creates an invigorating blood shield around the target ally or himself for up to 2.5 seconds, scaling with his target's maximum health and Dmitri's AP. While the shield holds, enemies within 162.5 units take magic damage scaling with their maximum health and Dmitri's AP. Upon being casted, the shield Burdens nearby enemies, causing the next spell against them to ignore a portion of their magic resistance, and the shield increases by 20% for each enemy struck and by X% per percentage of the target's missing health.

W - Sanguine Surge: A dash with a blood trail effect that heals Dmitri for enemies standing on it.

E - Tides of Death: Dmitri pulls nearby enemies towards him, dealing magic damage.

R - Crusted Soil: Dmitri channels before covering the area around him in cursed blood, also suspending enemies caught in the AoE.

Thoughts on this:
 * The passive effect is a fine ability, but doesn't really do anything with the rest of his kit. It also doesn't really convey the idea of a bloodbender/blood monk in a particularly unique way. If you want to integrate Dmitri's autoattacks into his playstyle, I think we need to look deeper into what it means for a blood fighter to attack (how does he attack, how does blood come into play, etc.). I took a look at the Puppetmaster episode from Avatar, and I think it would be a cool idea to have Dmitri rip the blood from his enemies or the environment and use it as a physical tool for combat. I also don't think Dmitri necessarily needs to be ranged: he could definitely be ranged and use blood projectiles to fight from a distance, but perhaps we could even make his range a toggle based on whether he has blood to use or not. If he has a blood rip ability, we could even make him rip blood for himself if there is no target around in order to become ranged. This could also allow for different abilities, if you want a push/pull dichotomy on his kit.
 * There are a few too many things going on with your shield, namely the way it scales. One way to simplify it would be to have just the base shield scale with missing health and then have the amount increase with each enemy struck. Another question here, though, is how this fits into the theme of a blood-based martial artist: casting a shield on an ally is, most of the time, a fairly magey ability, and only gets away with it because he looks like he's dashing to an ally to protect them. Is this how a blood monk would fight?
 * I think the blood trail effect might still work, but we'd have to establish how Dmitri would use it, and how effective it would be (i.e. what applies blood what Dmitri gains from it). I added a tainted soil mechanic on my kit because I wanted literally all of Dmitri's abilities to corrupt the ground, but now that the theme is changed maybe we might need something more adapted to a blood-based martial artist: like you said, blood is more of a physical weapon and extension of himself than it is a means of greater magical power, so he may not even want to spread blood anymore (in fact, he might want to collect as much of it as possible and use it against his enemies).
 * A pull ability works in terms of gameplay, if you want Dmitri to pull enemies into him and use Q for a better shield and extra damage, but in the kit you described it's difficult to associate it with a blood theme: why does Dmitri want to pull enemies towards himself? How does he do it? Would it be ideal for him if he's ranged? The same applies for a push mechanic, and the health distinction could lead to awkward situations where Dmitri would like to pull in a champion with his health but pushes them away instead (or vice versa). I think we could actually link this really well into a bloodbending theme: if Dmitri has the power to telekinetically manipulate blood, he could be able to pull enemies in the direction he wants, in a click-and-drag manner similar to (except with an enemy). It would need to be difficult to pull off, since any kind of a pull is hugely powerful, but it could tie in a lot better to Dmitri's theme.
 * Crusted Soil is an amazing ability, and definitely one we should use for a kit, but again I'm not sure if it fits a blood martial artist. When I looked at your original kit I was thinking more of a blood priest, or some kind of magey fighter who used blood magic on his surroundings, but with Dmitri being more of a blood fighter/monk, having him spread blood around might not be entirely thematically correct. If we're going to focus on making Dmitri a bloodbending fighter, his fighting style's going to have to be very physical, so he'd be more about using blood as an actual weapon than as a magical conduit, which would mean blood projectiles and manipulating the enemy's blood, but not so much using blood to corrupt the ground.

Basically, the kits we both have in mind are more for a blood priest-type character than an actual blood-based monk/martial artist. We could still post a kit like that, but for a bloodbender we might need to get right down to figuring out how a kung fu or karate master would fight if he could telekinetically control blood (basically, how Hama or Tarrlok from AtLA/LOK would go play in League of Legends).