Calico
Female
Calico is an **Assassin** who specializes in high mobility and burst damage. She excels at using her shadow forms to infiltrate enemy lines, deliver devastating melee-scaled attacks, and escape before being caught. Her playstyle revolves around picking off isolated targets and utilizing her cat form for rapid map rotations and box farming.
Base Stats
Vitality
- Health
- 700 (+37/boon)
- Stamina
- 3
- Move Speed
- 6.8 m/s
- Sprint Speed
- 8.8 m/s
Weapon
- DPS
- 80 (8 pellets)
- Bullet Damage
- 2.09 × 8 (+0.0484/boon)
- Ammo
- 12 rounds
- Fire Rate
- 4.76/s
- Reload Time
- 2.6s
- Falloff
- 20m-58m
Melee
- Light Melee
- 63 (+1.58/boon)
- Heavy Melee
- 116 (+2.91/boon)
- Heavy/Light Ratio
- 1.84x (inefficient - prefer light melee spam over heavy melee)
Abilities
Gloom Bombs
Throw a cluster of bombs that detonate after a delay, dealing Spirit Damage. Enemies hit by multiple bombs take 65% damage. The bombs provide effective area denial and burst potential against grouped enemies.
Leaping Slash
Dash forward before slashing all enemies in a circle, dealing melee damage. If the ability hits at least one hero, heal a small amount of health. This is Calico's primary engagement and sustain tool, scaling directly with her melee power. **Melee Item Interaction:** Leaping Slash counts as **light melee** for item proc purposes. Melee items like Spirit Strike (2x cooldown for light melee) and Spirit Snatch (70% effectiveness for light melee) are penalized when procced by this ability.
Ava
Turn to shadows and possess Ava. You gain bonus move speed and become hidden on the minimap, but cannot use your weapon or cast abilities. Melee button: Pounce to break boxes. When taking damage from an enemy hero, bonus move speed is reduced by 65% and you are unable to activate Ava for 6s. Ava is no longer disabled by damage over time abilities (same as zipline rules).
Return to Shadows
Instantly turn to shadows, becoming untargetable, gaining bonus move speed, and dealing Spirit Damage. After a delay, return from the shadows, dealing Spirit Damage again. This ultimate provides a powerful window of safety while repositioning for a lethal strike.
Strengths
- + Exceptional map mobility and rotation speed using Ava (Cat Form) to contest objectives like the Urn.
- + High burst potential with melee-scaled Leaping Slash and Gloom Bombs for early lane kills.
- + Innate sustain through Leaping Slash's heal on hero hit, allowing for aggressive trading in lane.
- + Hidden from minimap during Ava, enabling stealthy rotations and surprise ganks from the veil.
- + Untargetable during ultimate (Return to Shadows), providing a reliable escape or initiation tool.
- + Strong box farming capability with Ava's pounce mechanic to boost soul economy efficiently.
- + Excellent at securing 100% soul confirmation due to melee-focused kit and pounce mechanics.
- + High base move speed (6.8 m/s) allows for superior kiting and positioning in team fights.
Weaknesses
- − Below-average health scaling (700 base, +37/boon, ~1,440 at 20 boons) makes her susceptible to burst damage.
- − Weapon has significant falloff (20m-58m), forcing her into dangerous close-range combat.
- − Ava is easily interrupted by hero damage, which locks the ability and removes the speed bonus.
- − Complete lack of offensive capability while in Ava form as she cannot shoot or cast abilities.
- − Long ultimate cooldown (60s) limits her impact in frequent mid-game skirmishes.
- − Highly reliant on landing Leaping Slash to maintain health and reset cooldowns via upgrades.
- − Vulnerable to crowd control and silences that prevent her from entering shadow forms.
- − Small clip size (12) necessitates frequent reloads, creating windows of vulnerability during trades.