Developing a shadow class

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Goal

Develop an ability tree for a Shadow class. Most of its abilities should be double-edged, heavily depend on a situation or require a proper setup to be effective. The class should fit the description: Devastating, but only if used by the right hands. The abilities should be associated with dark magic.

Result

Developed a tree with only 4 or 5 of its 28 abilities being somewhat straightforward. The class is designed to be balanced in terms of its qualities even before the testing.

Tree

Main sources of damage

1. Dark Infusion + Corruption
A basic combo for early levels. The target will be able to regenerate some mana due to Infused buff placed by Dark Infusion before the Shadow player will dispell it with Corruption.

2. Epiphany + Corruption
A basic combo for later levels. Allows the Shadow player to spam Corruption as the debuff cast by Epiphany cannot be dispelled. However, Corruption has big manacost so without a teammate that will replenish your mana it will be still too hard to spam it.

3. Overdrive (passive) + Epiphany + Terrify + Implosion
Allows you to deal a solid amount of damage-over-time during one turn the Implosion debuff is on and a moderate amount of damage before Terrify is dispelled after that. It doesn't allow the player to depart from the stated combo so the player won't be able to heal himself, apply a cleanse or do something else without breaking his combo.

4. Void spheres
A skill that can deal small or big damage depending on how lucky you are. Provides sufficient damage on a long distance, but in games where you can't use it more or less often serves as a last resort.

As can be seen, all the main sources of damage are unreliable so the Shadow player should be considered as a soft-support and not as a damage-dealer.

The ways to sustain the manapool

1. Dark Infusion on self
Deals damage to you and doesn't deal any damage to enemies so, practically speaking, you lose 2 turns. Should be used accurately as you can easily put yourself in a dangerous position by using this skill raw.

2. Retrograde + Dark Infusion
Not only you won't receive any damage, but also you'll even heal yourself a bit. However, using Retrograde just because you need to replenish some mana leaves you open for dangerous attacks which you won't be able to negate due to cooldown
Again, all of the ways to replenish mana are unreliable, so, basically, as a Shadow player, you need a teammate who will be able to regenerate your mana.

Heals

1. Salvation Orb
Doesn't provide actual healing and instead only increases any healing you receive. Also, it can be easily destroyed if focused. Its survivability can be amplified by Reluctant Orb, but it wastes one more turn and can be destroyed even more easily. That said, it requires the enemy team either to be disabled or to have a more important target at the moment.

2. Placebo
Only a temporary decision as the target will decay for the amount of healing done.

3. Shadow blend
Provides vampirism and not the actual healing thus requires you to survive at least one more turn and constantly use damage dealing skills after that.

4. Shock Coma
Stuns you or your teammate for several turns so the enemies are free to do anything they want. A very, very questionable move.

5. Retrograde + Dark Infusion
Can't be used too often and leaves you with important skill being on cooldown.

6. Ultimatum
It is expected to be used only as a last resort. If you won't be able to kill the enemy team in 10 turns, you're dead.

Stuns

Only Shock Coma, which also applies a heavy heal on the target so can be used only in rare cases. Stopped Clock can be used to prevent the enemy from attacking, but it forces the targeted unit to skip only one turn and can be dispelled.

Conclusion

Despite the lack of damage, stuns, heals and the ways to regen mana stated above, this class is nonetheless helpful. It excels at casting nasty debuffs and avoiding death. With the help of his team, the Shadow player can also deal sufficient or even overwhelming damage if he has enough experience and communication skills.

Bonus: Debuffs that can be masked

Due to the fact the Mask ability itself is very questionable (no damage, no control, just mask the following debuff) it is important to make sure that Shadow class has enough abilities that place a debuff on an enemy and that understanding what these debuffs do is important for the enemy (for example, Shadowfraud's debuff indeed can be masked, but whether the enemy understands he's affected by it or not, his strategy won't change).

If Mask turns out to be a weak choice, it is, of course, possible to rework it, making it passive ability with a chance to proc when you're about to cast a debuff, but this can lead to unpredictable balance shifts and in fact, doesn't remove the need in nasty debuffs but instead just lowers the amount needed.

Abilities that are a viable option after using Mask:

1. Retrograde (obvious)

2. Confinement (enemy can try to heal and waste one turn)

3. Insecurity (enemy can try to attack and waste one turn)

4. Implosion (if the enemy is under the damage-over-time debuff, it is important for the enemy team to cast a healing-over-time buff on the target to compensate for the damage)

5. Stopped Clock (attempting to ignore or to dispell this debuff can lead to serious consequences. This is very important as all the debuffs stated above can be simply dispelled. The dispells are rare, however, they are must-have abilities in 3v3 matches)

Mask can also be used to conceal the intentions, masking the first debuff in a combo that can be interrupted by the enemy.