Orchestrator

Overview

The Orchestrator is the army commander — a Summoner/Mechanic hybrid that almost never deals damage personally. Its combat swarm of spirit minions does the killing; the Orchestrator positions, directs, and sustains the army while dropping a stationary turret to anchor a lane. The class maps directly to the AI/LOGOS theme: the Orchestrator is literally orchestrating — managing many reclaimed agents at once.

It is the most indirect class in the roster and the most positional. A great Orchestrator is always holding a full, well-placed swarm with a turret covering the angle the swarm isn’t. A bad one runs around with a dead swarm and a weak peashooter.

Source mix: Summoner + Mechanic.

Note on the Companion: every class carries a universal Companion — an account-bound support pet that heals, scouts, and magnets loot but never fights. The Orchestrator’s combat swarm is entirely separate from the Companion. Minions are transient, numerous, and damage-dealing; the Companion is none of those things.

Weapon — Conductor (personal bolt + swarm direction)

The Orchestrator’s personal auto is intentionally weak:

• Pattern: a short-range low-damage bolt. The Orchestrator’s actual “primary action” is directing the swarm: its aim and facing set a soft focus target that the minions prioritize.
• Fire rate: ~2.5 personal shots per second.
• Damage: ~6 base per personal shot — the lowest in the roster by design. The swarm’s aggregate output (each minion ~5–8 damage per hit, up to 6 minions) far exceeds the Orchestrator’s personal contribution and can out-damage any single class’s personal DPS when spread across targets.

The Orchestrator is not built around its personal weapon. It is built around what the weapon aims.

Abilities

Both abilities are MP/mana-gated. The Orchestrator has the highest Bandwidth (MP pool) and Refresh (MP regen) in the roster — the ability-cycling class.

Swarm (A1 — damage lane)

Spawns or refreshes the spirit-minion combat swarm.

• Spawns ~3 spirit minions (up to a cap of ~6 per combat). Each minion lasts ~12 seconds and auto-attacks the nearest enemy, prioritizing the Orchestrator’s focus target.
• Locked twist: the Orchestrator gains +~5% DEF (Coherence) per living minion. A full swarm of 6 grants ~+30% damage reduction. Keeping the swarm alive is simultaneously the damage source and the survivability mechanism.
• At the cap, recasting Swarm refreshes and enrages the existing minions rather than spawning new ones.
• MP cost: ~35.

Swarm positioning is the core skill. Walking the swarm so minions body-block a boss, surround it, or shield the Orchestrator’s body from projectiles determines both DPS and personal survival. Timing a Swarm cast before a new pack spawns (not reactively after) keeps the army at full strength when it matters.

Turret (A2 — control / sustain / mobility lane)

Deploy a stationary auto-firing construct.

• Places a turret that fires at ~8 damage per shot at the nearest enemy in range.
• Active for ~10 seconds. One turret may be active at a time.
• MP cost: ~30.

The turret is an anchor — a fixed damage source that holds a lane, covers a chokepoint, or parks DPS on a spot while the swarm roams. The genre identity (FOUNDATION notes it as a white-space pick) is a summoner class that is also a deployable-anchor class — two distinct positional tools rather than just a raw swarm.

Optimal Turret placement covers the angle the swarm is not covering: lock down the door the adds pour from while the swarm chases the boss, or anchor the boss’s position while the swarm handles add cleanup.

Survival Model

The swarm is the defense.

• Minions body-block incoming projectiles and attacks.
• The +DEF-per-living-minion buff makes the Orchestrator meaningfully tankier with a full swarm, and softer as the swarm is picked off.
• The turret zones space — enemies entering its fire zone take sustained damage and may route around it.

There is no personal dash. The Orchestrator hides behind its army. Lose the swarm and the Orchestrator is a soft target with rapidly shrinking DEF and a weak peashooter. Keeping the swarm alive is the highest-priority defensive task.

Stat Identity

Skill Tree Paths

Two per-character trees (lost on death):

• Swarm tree: Hive Mind (minions inherit a percentage of the Orchestrator’s stats), Sacrifice (consume all living minions for a burst nuke that scales on count), Legion (increase the swarm cap)
• Turret tree: Fortress (turret HP / range), Overclock (turret fire rate), Mobile (turret follows the Orchestrator rather than being stationary)

Node names are OPEN — path themes are locked, final names are a taste pick.

Loot Contribution

The Orchestrator earns loot through damage_dealt credited for its minions’ and turret’s output, plus control events for minion/turret zoning and body-blocking. The contribution system (Threshold + Inspiration) explicitly credits swarm damage to the Orchestrator — it does not need to personally top a damage meter to qualify.

Build Note

The Orchestrator is the heaviest kit to build in the proto order — minion AI, pathing, lifetime/cap management, the deployable turret entity, swarm contribution-crediting, and the +DEF-per-minion hook are all real subsystems. It is designated build-last in the prototype sequence. It ships at launch (FOUNDATION L100).

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• Aggregate swarm + turret DPS can exceed any single class’s personal output at full strength
• +DEF-per-minion gives passive tankiness that scales with army uptime
• Dual positional tools (roaming swarm + fixed turret) cover the entire room
• High Bandwidth/Refresh enables sustained ability cycling

Weaknesses

• Weakest personal damage in the roster — entirely dependent on the swarm
• Swarm must be actively maintained; a dead swarm means both zero damage and dropping DEF
• No mobility tool — survival depends entirely on army positioning and body-blocking
• The heaviest kit — swarm AI, turret entity, and contribution-crediting are late-prototype systems