[Altered Melee] Murloc Race Creation

[Hermit]

I'm making an altered melee map with a custom Murloc race. I'd like to get feedback for ideas posted by me (especially those highlighted in orange). Tell me what you like, what you don't like, if you think anything should be added, changed, replaced, renamed or removed.

Coming up with spells and abilities (among other things) has been really hard for me so far. If anyone has any good ideas please share them here. However, you should keep these things in mind:

• They shouldn't be flashy and/or complex like most spells from the Spell section. They should be SIMPLE and similar to existing abilities (Blizzard-ish), but still have a unique feel to them.

• All spells/abilities must be balanced for melee gameplay. Spells like this are really unfitting: "Hero jumps to an enemy unit and slashes it dealing 3 + (Level x 2) + (Agility x 0.75) damage and creates a giant force field that knocks back all nearby units and deals AoE damage."

• Most custom units in my map are amphibious, but that's not really important since their spells/abilities don't need to have anything to do with water. Just keep in mind that I don't need anything with blight, skeletons, summoning demons etc.

• I need ideas for both hero and unit spells/abilities.

Here's something like a legend/key:
Green - I'd rather not change this.
Orange - I'm not sure about that; subject to change.
Red - Should probably be removed/replaced.
X - Can mean a few things depending on the context. It's usually a value that changes depending on the level of the ability or something that has yet to be determined.
Comments and additional information are written in italics.

Buildings

Outpost/Settlement/Colony
Primary structure.

Training Camp
Basic unit creation building.

Murloc Hut
Provides food

Altar of the Deep
Summons Heroes. Revives slain Heroes.

Carpentry
Provides upgrades.

Shrine of Leviathan
Spellcaster creation building.

Tidal Tradepost (Tidal Treasury or Tidal Storage)
A shop with purchasable items.

Reptilian Hatchery
Advanced unit creation building.

Hydra Lair
Ultimate unit creation building.

Lookout Tower
Has no attack, but can be upgraded into different defensive towers. The tower has "Upgrade" animations (just like the Human Scout Tower) with different murlocs that stand on the platform and attack enemy units in range.

I can still add one more building, but I probably won't.

Units

Units produced by the Outpost/Settlement/Colony

Slave
Basic worker unit. Can harvest gold and lumber, build structures, and Repair. Can also be garrisoned inside Murloc Huts to give it an attack, and learn the Combine to Mangonel ability. Attacks land units and trees.

Units produced by the Training Camp

Coastrunner
Basic attack unit. Can learn the Scavenger Drake Taming upgrade. Attacks land units.

Huntsman
Fast medium-ranged javelin thrower. Can learn the Net and Sprint abilities. Attacks land and air units.

Flesheater
Heavy melee unit. Can learn Envenomed Weapon and Carnivorize. Attacks land units.

Units produced by the Reptilian Hatchery

Sea Turtle
It should be some kind of siege unit, but I still have no idea what abilities will it have (Spell Immunity?) and if it'll be a melee or a ranged attacker.

Scavenger Drake
Flying melee attack beast. Can learn the Scavenger Drake Taming ability. Attacks air units. Basically a Hippogryph.

Reef Dragon
Flying heavy assault creature. Can learn X (some kind of anti-tower ability). Attacks land and air units.

Units produced by the Shrine of Leviathan

Seacultist
Supporting auto-caster. Can initially cast Wither, which decreases the attack damage of enemy units. Can also learn Water Shield and X. Attacks land and air units.

Ritualist
Essential spellcaster. Can initially cast Shadow Ward, which decreases the armor of enemy units. Can also learn Fear and Shallow Grave. Attacks land and air units.

Tidecaller
Versatile spellcaster. Has Abyssal Bulb, which allows it to reveal nearby invisible units. Also has Cleanse Magic, which dispels magical effects in a chain. Can learn Mind Rot and Adrenaline Rush. Attacks land and air units.

Units produced by the Hydra Lair

Hydra
Powerful melee unit. Can learn Aerial Acid and Separation Capability. Attacks land units.

Unit abilities and spells

Combine to Mangonel
Combines two Slaves to form a Mangonel, a long-range siege weaponry. The Mangonel is effective against buildings but slow and vulnerable. Can learn the X ability. Attacks land units and trees.

Scavenger Drake Taming
Trains Scavenger Drakes to allow Coastrunners to mount them. This allows them to attack both air and ground units. Scavenger Drakes (especially the mount thing) are really similar to Hippogryphs, so maybe I should remove them completely, and make Scavenger Drake Riders trainable instead of them.

Net
Same as Orc Raider's Ensnare.

Sprint
Increases this unit's movement speed by X%, but causes it to take X% bonus damage. Lasts x seconds.

Envenomed Weapon
Same as Orc Wind Rider's Envenomed Spears.

Carnivorize
Same as Cannibalize. I know it's uncreative, but his name is Flesheater after all.

Wither *35
Decreases an enemy unit's attack damage by 35%. Lasts 60 seconds. I'll definitely have to remove this since it's just Inner Fire with negative damage increase. Inner Fire is a frequently used spell and buff clashing is inevitable.

Water Shield *40
Creates a shield of water around a target friendly unit. The shield adds 2 armor and has 33% chance to absorb incoming attacks. Lasts 45 seconds. I might change what the shield does, but I won't remove/replace the spell.

Shadow Ward *50
Summons an immovable ward that reduces the armor of all nearby enemy units by 5. Lasts 15 seconds. I might change what the ward does, but the ability will remain.

Fear *75
Stops a target enemy unit from attacking and causes it to flee in terror. Lasts 15 seconds.

Shallow Grave *220
Makes a friendly unit come back to life if killed while under the effect of Shallow Grave. Lasts 10 seconds. A buff that gives reincarnation. Useful when an expensive unit is about to die and has nowhere to run. Since the buff can be dispeled and has a short duration, it should be cast just a few seconds before the unit dies.

Cleanse Magic *75
Hurls forth a stream of neutralizing magic that bounces up to 8 times, dispelling units in its wake. Deals 200 damage to summoned units. Slightly edited Item Chain Dispel.

Mind Rot *50
Drains 10 mana every second from a target enemy unit for 15 seconds. One of unused Object Editor abilities.

Adrenaline Rush *50
Increases a friendly unit's attack rate by 50% and movement speed by 25%, but deals 20% of it's attack damage back to it when it hits an enemy unit. Lasts 45 seconds.

Aerial Acid
Allows Hydras to attack air units. Enables Attack 2 with an upgrade.

Separation Capability
Allows Hydras to split into 3 Lesser Hydras when they are slain. I'll have to remove this if I don't find a way to prevent it from being abused with Shallow Grave.

Heroes and their abilities

Sea Witch (or Tide Hag or whatever) [Ranged Intelligence]

1. Torrent
Summons a blast of water that, after a short delay, hurls enemy ground units caught in the area of effect into the air, dealing x damage. Inspired by a Dota hero, Kunkka.​

2. Summon Murky Elementals
Summons 2 Murky Elementals to fight the "Sea Witch"'s enemies. Each elemental has x hit points and deals x - x damage. Lasts x seconds. Attacks land and air units. I know it's lame, but the race needs more summons and she summoned Water Elementals in the demo campaign.​

3. X​

4. Flood (Ultimate)
Floods the area around the Sea Witch, damaging buildings and slowing the attack rate and movement speed of nearby enemy ground units. Each wave deals 50 damage. Lasts 25 seconds. Channeling. I might change what the Flood does, but the ability will remain. E.g. Maybe it could also have a weak periodic AoE heal.​

Sorcerer [Ranged Intelligence]

1. Cremate
Violently burns a nearby corpse, dealing x damage to nearby enemy ground units. This is more original/unique than the Forked Firebolt I mentioned earlier. Undead Necromancers had a similar spell in some of the pre-release versions.​

2. X​

3. Molten Grip
Causes molten rocks to burst from the ground, immobilizing, disarming and damaging a target enemy unit temporarily. If the rocks are destroyed, the unit is released. It could also be something different (like a Crystal Prison) if I don't make all of his abilities fire-based; Similar to this.​

4. X (Ultimate)​

Nightcrawler [Melee Agility]

1. X​

2. Fatal/Shadow Bonds
Binds several enemy units together, causing X% of the damage dealt to one of them to be felt by the others. Lasts 15 seconds. Maybe this ability isn't the best choice for this hero, but since KILLCIDE was so nice and made the triggers for me, I have to include it. Maybe not on this hero, but at least as one of the 3 casters' spells.​

3. Backstab (Passive)
Every time the Nightcrawler strikes an enemy unit from behind, he deals bonus damage. Compares the Nightcrawler's current facing angle to the target's facing angle on each attack. It has a 90 degrees arc, so he doesn't need to be exactly behind the target.​

4. Enveloping Shadows (Ultimate)
Makes all nearby friendly units, including the Nightcrawler invisible. Lasts 30 seconds. Channeling. I don't know how useful would this be. Maybe it should also make nearby enemy units miss on their attacks or something. By the way, I think Dreadlord had an ability with the same name in some of the pre-release versions.​

Mutant [Melee Strength or Agility]

1. Slime Splash
Splashes slime on all nearby enemy land units, dealing X damage and slowing their movement speed by x% and attack rate by x%.​

2. X​

3. Toxic Blood (Passive)
Gives a percent chance to poison enemy melee units who attack the Mutant. Poisoned units take x damage per second. Lasts x seconds.​

4. Infestation (Ultimate)
Summons 6 Hatchling companions to fight for the Mutant for 40 seconds. Each hatchling has 300 hit points and deals 14 - 17 damage. Attacks land units.​

Items

Tier 1
X
Lesser Clarity Potion
X

Tier 2
Potion of Healing
Potion of Mana
Scroll of Town Portal

Tier 3
Orb of Frost
X

 

[Deleted member 219079]

coming up with spells and abilities has been really hard for me so far.

You should play LoL, Dota and Heroes, great source of inspiration.

 

[Hermit]

You should play LoL, Dota and Heroes, great source of inspiration.

Warcraft 3 is a strategy game, not a battle arena. It's not that I don't have any ideas, I just don't know how to make abilities balanced and fitting for an altered melee map.

 

[cleavinghammer]

* Living Flame: Hurls fire at the target. The fire spreads to other units and deals continuous damage until it wears off. If cast on a building, the building has Liquid Fire and any units created will have the debuff on creation.
* Sun's Glare: Creates an ethereal ward at the target point. All enemies near the ward have reduced accuracy.
* Pyromancy: Targets and destroys all corpses in an area. Temporarily gains 1% of Evasion per corpse up to a maximum (maximum % increases per level).
* Smokescreen: (Channeling) Creates a choking cloud of smoke that reduces accuracy, adds evasion and deals minor damage to all units within.
* Dawnbringer: Creates artificial daylight, increasing health regeneration for nearby allies while active.
* Friendly Fire: (Ultimate, Channeling) The area around the caster erupts into an (invulnerable, locusted) ring of flame. The next friendly unit selected becomes the ring's target, and it begins moving slowly towards the target's current location, dealing damage to all units in its path. If the ring reaches the target, the spell ends or the caster is interrupted, it explodes for heavy damage to all units.

 

[Deleted member 219079]

Warcraft 3 is a strategy game, not a battle arena. It's not that I don't have any ideas, I just don't know how to make abilities balanced and fitting for an altered melee map.

Well abilities from Heroes, Dota and LoL form a pool of more than thousand abilities. You'd be surprised of how much brain work is poured into them. A lot can be transferred over with no alterations to mechanics, some need some RTS - altering and some are too MOBA centric to be transferred over.

My point: don't turn down what's gatherable from MOBA:s.

And @cleavinghammer gave good ones as well.

 

[Hermit]

* Living Flame: Hurls fire at the target. The fire spreads to other units and deals continuous damage until it wears off. If cast on a building, the building has Liquid Fire and any units created will have the debuff on creation.
* Sun's Glare: Creates an ethereal ward at the target point. All enemies near the ward have reduced accuracy.
* Pyromancy: Targets and destroys all corpses in an area. Temporarily gains 1% of Evasion per corpse up to a maximum (maximum % increases per level).
* Smokescreen: (Channeling) Creates a choking cloud of smoke that reduces accuracy, adds evasion and deals minor damage to all units within.
* Dawnbringer: Creates artificial daylight, increasing health regeneration for nearby allies while active.
* Friendly Fire: (Ultimate, Channeling) The area around the caster erupts into an (invulnerable, locusted) ring of flame. The next friendly unit selected becomes the ring's target, and it begins moving slowly towards the target's current location, dealing damage to all units in its path. If the ring reaches the target, the spell ends or the caster is interrupted, it explodes for heavy damage to all units.

Thank you +rep. Those are some really nice ideas.

Well abilities from Heroes, Dota and LoL form a pool of more than thousand abilities. You'd be surprised of how much brain work is poured into them. A lot can be transferred over with no alterations to mechanics, some need some RTS - altering and some are too MOBA centric to be transferred over.

My point: don't turn down what's gatherable from MOBA:s.

And @cleavinghammer gave good ones as well.

I don't think I'll starting playing one of those games, but I'll look around youtube and some wikis to see what I can find.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Shadeform: Becomes ethereal and invisible.
Stretching Shadows: Gains Agility depending on time (max at 6AM and PM, 0 at noon and night).
Heartbreak: Slows attack speed, gaining x5 Critical Strike.

 

[Nowow]

For stealth:
1. Leading away (based on a point spell of your choosing): create a dummy unit with no model at the designated point, which will cast taunt and disappear after a few seconds. Bonus: if you can base the spell on flare/some other spell so that you'll be able to cast it in a quick succession.

2. Master of mirrors (ultimate, based on storm earth and fire): this ability has a nifty little trick based on the fact that the units the brewmaster splits into actually start as projectiles. Meaning you can delay the summon by tweaking with the projectile speed and the ability.
In this ability the stealth hero will disappear for a few seconds (i.e. give the ability a slow projectile speed and no model) the reaper as several weaker illusions. Only these illusdeal real damage and can cast abilities.

For fire:
1. Boiling point (based on permanent immolation): tweak permanent immolation to have a long range like (300-400) and very low dps (1 or less per second for each level).
2. Puller of fire (based on shockwave and some other point target spell): I don't know if this works, but I believe that you can control the duration of the shockwave by editing it's speed and range. If it is possible, create one with extremely low speed and range, so it will practically stay still or move a little, and have a dummy unit (created at point) cast it towards you. The good part is that this ability won't hurt your units.

 

[Nightmare2077]

I always found combining two (or more) abilities into one a neat way to create a new ability. For example, you have Holy Light, and you have Bloodlust: Why not make the ability that both heals and puts on a positive buff? Or, you have Death and Decay, and you have Pocket Factory: why not have a channeled Pocket Factory ("undying energy" spawning skeletons) with an effect of Death of Decay around it? Or combine Devotion Aura and Thorned scale into a single passive ability. Etc etc.
Concrete examples that come to mind: For agility/stealth -- blink +invisibility (hero blinks as usual, but becomes invisible for say 12 seconds afterwards). For fire: buffing allies with both lightning shield and cleave (lightning shield turning into fiery shield, and cleave being inspired by Orb of Fire).
Stuff like that always helps me when I'm in need of ideas.

 

[Xonok]

In my experience the best way to find fitting abilities is just making more than you need and swapping them out until you are happy with the results. The initial abilities you make might be rough and not make the concept work properly, but what matters is that they WORK. This lets you figure out more exactly what you need.

 

[Hermit]

Stretching Shadows: Gains Agility depending on time (max at 6AM and PM, 0 at noon and night).

That's really creative. I would have never thought of that myself.

I always found combining two (or more) abilities into one a neat way to create a new ability. For example, you have Holy Light, and you have Bloodlust: Why not make the ability that both heals and puts on a positive buff? Or, you have Death and Decay, and you have Pocket Factory: why not have a channeled Pocket Factory ("undying energy" spawning skeletons) with an effect of Death of Decay around it? Or combine Devotion Aura and Thorned scale into a single passive ability. Etc etc.
Concrete examples that come to mind: For agility/stealth -- blink +invisibility (hero blinks as usual, but becomes invisible for say 12 seconds afterwards). For fire: buffing allies with both lightning shield and cleave (lightning shield turning into fiery shield, and cleave being inspired by Orb of Fire).
Stuff like that always helps me when I'm in need of ideas.

Thanks for the suggestion(s). I already made a few of them by combining two (or more) abilities. However, I try not to make it look too obvious and I often use ability fields that are unused by default. And I already said (in the first post) that I don't need anything with skeletons, but I realize that you just gave an example.

In my experience the best way to find fitting abilities is just making more than you need and swapping them out until you are happy with the results. The initial abilities you make might be rough and not make the concept work properly, but what matters is that they WORK. This lets you figure out more exactly what you need.

I often come up with a new ability, but then I realize that I already have a few abilities that do the same thing (e.g. slow) so I scrap it.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Combining spells: good one.


* Herald of Helios (Ultimate, temporary): Gives Permanent Immolation, Incinerate and Orb of Fire while active. Sets time to 6AM on casting.
* Burn the Witch!: Reduces target's mana and casts Lightning Shield (well, Fire Shield) on it.
* Convection (Drains mana): Attacks deal splash damage while active.
* Radiate (Drains mana): Deals minor damage to all enemies in wide radius (only radius increases with level) while active.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I am so jazzed for this topic.

I'm making an altered melee map with a custom race and coming up with spells and abilities has been really hard for me so far. If anyone has any good ideas please share them here. However, you should keep these things in mind:

• They shouldn't be flashy and/or complex like most spells from the Spell section. They should be SIMPLE and similar to existing abilities (Blizzard-ish), but still have a unique feel to them.

• All spells/abilities must be balanced for melee gameplay. Spells like this are really unfitting: "Hero jumps to an enemy unit and slashes it dealing 3 + (Level x 2) + (Agility x 0.75) damage and creates a giant force field that knocks back all nearby units and deals AoE damage."

• Most custom units in my map are amphibious, but that's not really important since their spells/abilities don't need to have anything to do with water. Just keep in mind that I don't need spells/abilities that are clearly designed for a specific race. E.g. I don't need anything with blight, skeletons, summoning demons etc.

• I need ideas for both hero and unit spells/abilities. However, abilities for these 2 heroes are essential:

1. Ranged, fire-based intelligence hero (No summons).
2. Agility based shadowy rogue melee hero (Stealth is okay, but no poison/venom abilities and no life steal).​

Man, you really are doing what I'm doing. This is great.

In my many years of working on custom Heroes & races, I too have made it my goal to make "Blizzard-like" stuff, eschewing the flashier, fancier & more complex spells (as you said, often found in the Spell section, but also often found in MOBAs). This has made some things much easier (like coding), but some things much harder (ideassssss...).

Number one job is diving into the Object Editor for every conceivable unused ability & under-used ability field. I might send you a PM later with some thoughts. But this can be an amazing resource for some really simple, yet useful/powerful/creative abilities. (Number two is gathering ideas from old, dead mods & stuff... *cough* *looks at signature* *cough*)

On that note, lemme share my philosophy for this with you, as it has helped me a lot. I subscribe to a school of thought that allows for "technical creativity"; that is to say "Ideas that are technically creative unique", even if they aren't really "generally" creative/unique. So for example, there's plenty of Movespeed enhancers in the game (Endurance Aura, Scroll of Speed, Bloodlust/Frenzy, Unholy Frenzy (?), Engineering Upgrade, etc etc), but there's not a single "toggled AoE Movespeed enhancer", so I consider that a (sufficiently) creative ability. Even though there are certainly loads of those in other games, or in the Spell section, or wherever; the only thing that matters is, "is it in the game, in this form?" If not, it's free game as far as I'm concerned.

This is consonant with the way Blizzard does things, if you take a cursory look. Blizzard is (in)famous for mixing & matching previous games' ideas; NE Wisps are like Zerg Drones (sacrifice themselves to make (certain) buildings), UD Acolytes are like Protoss Probes (warp in buildings & can walk away), but only on Blight (i.e. Creep, like Zerg buildings). Crypt Fiends Burrow (like Zergs), Huntresses have a bouncing attack (like Zerg Mutalisks). The examples go on (I'm ignoring stuff from previous Warcraft games, because stealing from earlier installments in the series is a little different. Still very useful, see below).

More pertinently, take a look at Warcraft 3 within itself. You have Devotion Aura & Thorns Aura (+Def & Melee-Attacker-Retribution Auras, respectively)... And then with TFT you have the Crypt Lord's "Spiked Carapace", a personalized combination of the two (+armor & damage-upon-melee-attackers). Drunken Haze is just a weaker Evasion + Critical Strike. Death Pact & Dark Ritual are just mirrors of each other. Same with Death Coil/Holy Light, Animate Dead/Resurrection. Dispel & Disenchant are essentially the same; Purge & Abolish Magic are similar (one slows, the other removes only certain buffs & is autocast)... Again, the list goes on and on.

So to reiterate what @Nightmare2077 stated above, combining two abilities (or parts of abilities) in interesting ways can really make your job quite easy ("quotation marks"). Also stealing ideas from Beta Warcraft; one of my favorite things to do.

@jondrean , I think you have an idea with some merit; I have found some interesting ideas out of MOBAs (especially DotA, with it's Warcraft roots). But more & more that's becoming a non-option; MOBAs seems so full of skillshots & overly complex abilities that seriously don't fit in an RTS like Warcraft. Really only the earlier DotA heroes have stuff that can be directly ported over; everyone else you have to be very careful about picking the right parts of the abilities over. IMO.
(when we're talking complexity, it's important to remember that Warcraft heroes, admittedly, run almost the full range of complexity from "Tauren Chieftain/Mountain King" to "Firelord/Warden". But the general idea (at least at first; TFT/Tavern Heroes started to bend this) was that Heroes, while important, are still just a part of the army, and could be used as "just another cog" to be occasionally forgotten.

~~~

@cleavinghammer , I like the cut of your jib. Some really creative ideas floating around there. I'm not sure I quite get Friendly Fire, and how Pyromancy gives you... evasion... for corpses? But it's unique. Maybe just a new name ("Graverobber" or "Corpsewalk" or somesuch).

One thing you've done that I'm a big fan of is "recreate a real-life thing". "Sun's Glare", "Living Flame", and "Smokescreen" are great examples of that. Blizzard started it (Volcano, Tornado, Earthquake, Cloud, Defend, etc), but there's soooo much more. Flood, Mudslide, Meteor Shower, Whirlpool... Meditation, Hibernation, Triage, Multi-Shot, Armor-Piercing... Etc etc.

~~~

Some things to remember:
- If you're truly making a "fits in with the standard races" custom race, @Hermit, you really cannot afford to re-use existing buffs (without some external system like Anitarf's "ABuff" from Wc3C). That means any suggestion like, say, Liquid Fire or Lightning Shield or Cloud (//as of 2017.06, I have been informed (& even tested & proven) that Cloud, somehow, does indeed allow for Buff Stacking!! That is to say, any number of custom Cloud abilities with custom Cloud buffs will stack with each other, in direct contravention to Blizzard standard! Cool beans.) or whatever... Doesn't work. The buff won't stack with the *actual* ability as it's used. There's one really good way around this, but it's limited in application (see PM).
- Don't forget the power of precedent. This is somewhat controversial; some of us here feel that Blizzard is God-Emperor of RTS design and can do no wrong; others feel like the original leaves much to be desired & can only be improved. I'm somewhere in the middle, but I generally trend towards "Blizzard knew what they were doing". That means even though there are handfuls of Really Cool, Unique Ideas, I will sometimes reconsider even if I don't know the real reason. Specific Example: "Offensive Auras". Ever notice that there really aren't any in the game? We have Unholy Aura (+HP Regen & +MS), but there's no "Plague Aura" (-HP Regen & -MS). No "Armor Break Aura" (reverse Devotion), no "Mind Sap Aura" (reverse Brilliance), etc. Why? For a while I fought this & included lots of "offensive auras"... But at this point, I've pared most of them away to just having 1 or 2. Why? I'm not sure. But if Blizzard didn't do it, there (must/might) be a good reason. (This is also the case for certain things like "veterancy upgrades"; I had that going for my Trolls for the longest time, but (for reasons too long to get into in this already-massive post) I removed it. PM me for details)
- Speaking of precedent, I value it highly. So when I see abilities like "Stretching Shadows", I automatically shy away a bit; Engineering Upgrade Robo-Goblin is the only ability I know that messes with Hero Attributes. Being one out of 96 other abilities leads me to believe that may not be a very common kind of ability (and even before that math I can say it's a very "AoS-ish" kind of ability). Now you could say "oh good, only one other means there's plenty of room for new ones; it happened once, why not again?" I'd be more prone to say "it happened once, yes... but on a Tavern hero. Not just a Tavern but a later Patch addition. Those three heroes, much as I love them, were objectively more complex (& somewhat AoS-ish) than all other pre-existing Heroes.
- Speaking of Heroes & abilities, see below... But one thing to remember (that I did not realize until 'recently') is that nearly every Hero in the game has at least one ability that deals Direct Damage to a target. Search your feelings; you know it to be true. It's scary, but it's (nearly) always the case; everyone's got some simple way of point-click-deal damage. That can make your job easier in a way; Direct Damage can only be so creative, and no one's gonna fault you too much if there are some similarities (I mean, Blizzard vs. Flamestrike... Holy Light vs. Death Coil... Thunder Clap vs. War Stomp... again, etc).

~~~

I've gone on and on, and I've only started to touch some of the more important subjects. What's worse, I haven't even given you any real help. Lawl. Lemme talk about your Heroes, then.

Unfortunately, I won't do you the disservice of just throwing out ability ideas. This is how I operated a few years back... And then this conversation happened with a man I consider one of the best in Warcraft design (Rising_Dusk). If you can slog through it & make sense of it, the gist is this: "Don't just come up with random abilities that fit the Theme of your Hero & stick them together, trying to make sense of them. Rather, come up with a concise, cohesive & specific "Role" (gameplay function, what the Hero does in the game), & then come up with Thematic abilities for that Role."
(also, when making a custom race it's important to consider all the other Hero's abilities & the rest of the race, not just for overlap but to define synergies & stuff... But I won't get into that. xD)
It'd also be really useful to know what existing abilities you have for these two Heroes.

Anyway, so what you've got is close, but needs just a bit of clarifying: You have a Fire-based Hero (I won't question here your choice of a Fire-based Hero on what-I-know-you-chose-for-your-custom-race... But consider my eyebrows officially raised.); that's "Theme" or "Form". "Ranged Intelligence" is starting to paint the "Role" or "Function" picture a bit... But "Ranged Intelligence" describes the Archmage (support/mobility), the Blood Mage (sustain/disable), the Lich (sustain/siege/support), the Keeper of the Grove (SUPPORT/disable), the Far Seer (siege/scouting), and the Naga Sea Witch (assassin/sustain/siege). What kind of "Ranged Intelligence" hero are you looking for? A destructive 'glass-cannon' caster, a talented 'multi-modal support skills' caster, a dedicated 'siege' caster? Or something more unique (an assassin-caster, a tank-caster (whoops, Tinker), etc)?

So finally some specifics. I'll break my rule & go ahead & lay some thoughts on you. Fire is great for simple Direct Damage; honestly a hero-version of the creep's "Fireball" would be fine with some modifications (since it's basically just Storm Bolt). Perhaps giving it a (dummy-casted (DC)) AoE splash damage, or making it bounce (just once) to a nearby target (again DC).

If this is for the standard game, you'll have to scrupulously avoid too many Firelord comparisons. One way to do that would be to make this guy all about "support" rather than "dealing-damage"; I was designing a Hero much like this for Deolrin's awexome Centaur Flamecaller model, called the "Oracle". Basically take all the "supportive/positive" aspects of fire & use that; giving sight, bringing warmth, rejuvenating, defending, hiding. PM me for details.

I really like "Searing Armor" as a hero-version of Lightning Shield... However, the buff-stacking issue is one I myself have yet to resolve for that one.

I also really like the "spreading flames" thing, and have some schweet abilities like that planned myself.

~~~

Same deal for the other guy. "Shadowy Rogue" is a solid, classic "Theme/Form". "Melee Agility" is a good start, but compare this guy to the Blademaster (assassin/sustain/DPS), Demon Hunter (anti-mage/sustain/god-mode), and the Warden (disable/mobility/damage). All similar Heroes, but subtly different. What kind of Melee Agility hero you going for? What "Role/Function" does he play in battles & around the map?

Stealth abilities are legion. You could re-create Starcraft's elegant "Cloak" abilities (Warcraft has a few invisibility abilities, but none that are "toggled self-invisibility" (except Hide but that's only @ night & without moving/attacking), so that's "sufficiently unique" in my book). Watch out for balance concerns, though (moving and attacking while Cloaked, for a Hero, might be too much).
You could reverse Wind Walk for a "sneaky Ambush" ability (slows down the Hero & inviso's him (& gives a crazy back-stab bonus?)). You could make him Cloaked while holding still ("Cloak of Shadows", but in day?). Rising_Dusk created an interesting "cloaked around corpses" ability (although it did seem rather AoS-y to me, lots of micro involved. Also coding? No clue). "Blink & Cloak" is a pretty cool idea as well.

To make things interesting, give him a summon; not a lot of Melee Agility dudes have that (ok, Warden, but it's honestly very weird on her). You didn't want one on the fire-wizard, fine. But every race has, like, 2 or more summons. Perhaps he can hire special Assassins (i.e. Starcraft Protoss Dark Templar?), or Informants who provide vision/scouting/expo discovery, or a Gang of Thieves to poach & pillage an enemy outpost.

Gather some ideas from TF2's Spy class, as well. Lots of neat stuff there. WoW, too; again, MMORPG != RTS, but some things/ideas can translate. Specifically, while the Rogue has the "Assassination" and "Subtlety" specializations that sound like the 'classic/generic' Rogue, the new "Outlaw" specialization is a really interesting take. In fact, it reminds me favorably of the Swashbuckler, a custom Hero in the most recent Hero Contest I ran/entered (#8); that guy was one of my favorites of the bunch (see my Vote in the Poll thread) & is a really interesting take on this kind of Hero.

~~~
~~~
~~~

Anyway, I've done enough damage. It's 5am, I was supposed to be working on my final exam... Curse you & your interesting topics. I'll try to get around to that PM someday. Hopefully I gave you some useful things to think about. Definitely put some thought into those Roles. It's all about Form & Function.

Good luck!

 

[Xonok]

Dunno if it'd be useful here, but one ability I've thought about ages ago would be more useful in an altered melee than elsewhere.

Name - Gives you vision around all corpses within X range.

The X should be something REALLY big.

 

[cleavinghammer]

^^ The original meaning of X-mancy meant using X to predict the future: necromancy meant talking with the dead, pyromancy meant interpreting the pattern of cracks in burning objects (bones and turtle shells, as I recall) to foretell events. Knowledge of the future->Warning of incoming attacks->Evasion.

As for Friendly Fire, the idea is to have the target run around before the fireball reaches it and explodes, allowing for more precise casting than targeting an enemy (along with being able to take out moving targets).

 

[Rilene]

Do you accept passive abilities? Because I got some like for example, "Every attack will stack critical chance by x% but resets upon critical hit.".

 

[Dehua_Darbuya]

Well I was gonna suggest a real cheesy ability for your fire-themed hero but after reading @Kyrbi0's impromptu "Guide to Hero-Crafting" above but now I feel like it's letdown. I got some ideas for your Shadow Rogue though thanks to that guide.

Fire-themed hero:

• Midnight Sun: Increases night vision of [hero] and provides HP regen to nearby friendly units. (Could add night vision as an innate ability)
• Ablaze: Ignites a target, causing damage to it and nearby allies per second.

Shadow Rogue:
The idea here was to create a 'glass cannon' of sorts. The skillset is more inclined towards an AoS/MOBA hero but I still think it can work. If anything, you can pick it apart and take what you need. Even if it's one of the names! If you're interested in the logic behind all this, check out the spoiler.

Spoiler: Hero-Crafting

My intention was to create a glass cannon with a high physical damage output through the spells.

The focus is on the ultimate, Spectre, which will "summon the hero's shadow" at a target point. While the shadow exists, the Shadow Rogue temporarily loses the passive, Umbra Aura, which is 'transferred' to the shadow for the time being. Initially, I was thinking to make the shadow 'locusted' but then you can throw your shadow into a battle and offer an unstoppable armour reduction aura at no risk. The obvious solution is to make the shadow vulnerable; probably a ward-type unit. If the sub-ability, Reunite, is cast (couldn't think of a better name...) or if the shadow dies, the aura is returned. I was also playing with the idea of Reunite and Spectre each dealing physical damage at the target point when cast to make use of the aura, but I'm probably going overboard with that. The ability can also be used as a pseudo-blink to escape as well.

Not much to say about Umbra Aura... It's essentially a negative Devotion Aura to help with the hero's damage output and synergy with the ultimate. That's about it.

I'll be honest here; Shadowblade is the filler spell. My idea was to have a Shockwave-like nuke where both the hero and his/her shadow cast it in the same direction as the target point but the concept was becoming too alike Zed, a champion from League of Legends. I couldn't come up with anything else of great creativity, so I eventually settled on a generic, unit-target nuke as a means to focus on a specific enemy unit that you want to take out.

Mercurial Phantom is quite bland as well (by my standards anyway) but the idea is for it to deal physical damage to make use of the aura, both when you have your shadow in play and for general use. I was contemplating adding bonus damage if the spell was cast just after Reuniting to encourage the high risk, high reward approach of casting the ultimate and then entering the fray, as opposed to casting Mercurial Phantom from a safe distance.

• Mercurial Phantom: Calls upon [his/her] shadow to violently attack nearby enemies.
• Shadowblade: Hurls a mystical dagger at a target unit, dealing damage and slowing movement speed.
• Umbra Aura: Reduces the armor of nearby enemy units.
• Spectre: [Hero] summons [his/her] shadow onto the battlefield, which can't move or attack but will cast Mercurial Phantom whenever the Shadow Rogue does. Can teleport to the position of [his/her] shadow using the sub-ability, Reunite. Lasts X seconds.

 

[Kyrbi0]

^^ The original meaning of X-mancy meant using X to predict the future: necromancy meant talking with the dead, pyromancy meant interpreting the pattern of cracks in burning objects (bones and turtle shells, as I recall) to foretell events. Knowledge of the future->Warning of incoming attacks->Evasion.

Ooh-hoo... I like the way you think. I'm ashamed I didn't make that connection (I'm one of those annoying linguist dudes, always going on about BUT THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE WORD...). Very nice.

Might still be too esoteric for the regular user, but hey. xD

As for Friendly Fire, the idea is to have the target run around before the fireball reaches it and explodes, allowing for more precise casting than targeting an enemy (along with being able to take out moving targets).

Oh, I get that. I was saying I don't quite understand how the ability would work... And now that I re-read it, more like "I have no idea how I would make this". Sounds like it would require actual triggering.

Do you accept passive abilities? Because I got some like for example, "Every attack will stack critical chance by x% but resets upon critical hit.".

Ooh, this raises a good point I forgot: Passives.

Once again, patterns & precedent. If you take a look at the other races, they all have at least 1 dedicated Passive; almost always an attack enhancer (Bash - Critical Strike/Reincarnation - Spiked Carapace* - Evasion (- Drunken Brawler - Cleaving Attack - Engineering Upgrade)). (This is in addition to the two (one for Orcs) Heroic Auras they have, which are also Passives of course)

So yeah, definitely wanna throw that on there, if you haven't already.

Well I was gonna suggest a real cheesy ability for your fire-themed hero but after reading @Kyrbi0's impromptu "Guide to Hero-Crafting" above but now I feel like it's letdown.

Lolol.
Don't let it get ya down.

I got some ideas for your Shadow Rogue though thanks to that guide.

Fire-themed hero:

• Midnight Sun: Increases night vision of [hero] and provides HP regen to nearby friendly units. (Could add night vision as an innate ability)
• Ablaze: Ignites a target, causing damage to it and nearby allies per second.

Shadow Rogue:
The idea here was to create a 'glass cannon' of sorts. The skillset is more inclined towards an AoS/MOBA hero but I still think it can work. If anything, you can pick it apart and take what you need. Even if it's one of the names! If you're interested in the logic behind all this, check out the spoiler.

Spoiler: Hero-Crafting

My intention was to create a glass cannon with a high physical damage output through the spells.

The focus is on the ultimate, Spectre, which will "summon the hero's shadow" at a target point. While the shadow exists, the Shadow Rogue temporarily loses the passive, Umbra Aura, which is 'transferred' to the shadow for the time being. Initially, I was thinking to make the shadow 'locusted' but then you can throw your shadow into a battle and offer an unstoppable armour reduction aura at no risk. The obvious solution is to make the shadow vulnerable; probably a ward-type unit. If the sub-ability, Reunite, is cast (couldn't think of a better name...) or if the shadow dies, the aura is returned. I was also playing with the idea of Reunite and Spectre each dealing physical damage at the target point when cast to make use of the aura, but I'm probably going overboard with that. The ability can also be used as a pseudo-blink to escape as well.

Not much to say about Umbra Aura... It's essentially a negative Devotion Aura to help with the hero's damage output and synergy with the ultimate. That's about it.

I'll be honest here; Shadowblade is the filler spell. My idea was to have a Shockwave-like nuke where both the hero and his/her shadow cast it in the same direction as the target point but the concept was becoming too alike Zed, a champion from League of Legends. I couldn't come up with anything else of great creativity, so I eventually settled on a generic, unit-target nuke as a means to focus on a specific enemy unit that you want to take out.

Mercurial Phantom is quite bland as well (by my standards anyway) but the idea is for it to deal physical damage to make use of the aura, both when you have your shadow in play and for general use. I was contemplating adding bonus damage if the spell was cast just after Reuniting to encourage the high risk, high reward approach of casting the ultimate and then entering the fray, as opposed to casting Mercurial Phantom from a safe distance.

• Mercurial Phantom: Calls upon [his/her] shadow to violently attack nearby enemies.
• Shadowblade: Hurls a mystical dagger at a target unit, dealing damage and slowing movement speed.
• Umbra Aura: Reduces the armor of nearby enemy units.
• Spectre: [Hero] summons [his/her] shadow onto the battlefield, which can't move or attack but will cast Mercurial Phantom whenever the Shadow Rogue does. Can teleport to the position of [his/her] shadow using the sub-ability, Reunite. Lasts X seconds.

Hm, not bad.

With 'Shadowblade', it'll be important to make it different enough from the Warden's 'Shadow Strike'. Perhaps that can be done via numbers (i.e. hers does Damage & DoT, & -MS. Yours just does Damage & -MS... But maybe a lot more MS reduction?). But it might also necessitate a change in how it functions.

'Mercurial Phantom', noice. Classic modded Mirror Image; there's several good ways to modify that for some neat abilities.

'Umbra Aura', well, ok. Reverse 'Devotion Aura'.

'Spectre'... I don't get it. The description makes it sound basically like an identical (but souped up) version of 'Mercurial Phantom'. Is it basically a combo with 'MP', so you get double the mirror image clones? I mean that's not bad, but it probably ought to do something on it's own in case the player hasn't gone with 'MP' for their build. Also remember it's an Ultimate, which means it needs to have a BIG impact on the game when cast. There are very few exceptions (Reincarnation... the only three "single-target" ones (Charm/Transmute/Doom) all result in the 'death' of the target & some other effect... etc). It doesn't necessarily have to be flashy... But it should be meaningful.

Perhaps it acts as a powerful stationary defensive "tower", then with Reunite can be made mobile (so an Ultimate-version of Serpent Ward, basically)? Or perhaps it acts as a teleport location (give it modified Dark Summoning) so it can pull (allied) units towards itself (like a modified, unit-bound reverse version of the Archmage's 'Mass Teleport' Ultimate)? Or perhaps it has a big AoE splash damage upon entry, and has some kind of nega-aura (lowers MS/AS or somesuch) for the duration (like a combo of the Dreadlord's 'Inferno' Ultimate & Naga Sea Witch's 'Tornado' Ultimate)?

 

[Dehua_Darbuya]

Hm, not bad.

With 'Shadowblade', it'll be important to make it different enough from the Warden's 'Shadow Strike'. Perhaps that can be done via numbers (i.e. hers does Damage & DoT, & -MS. Yours just does Damage & -MS... But maybe a lot more MS reduction?). But it might also necessitate a change in how it functions.

'Mercurial Phantom', noice. Classic modded Mirror Image; there's several good ways to modify that for some neat abilities.

'Umbra Aura', well, ok. Reverse 'Devotion Aura'.

'Spectre'... I don't get it. The description makes it sound basically like an identical (but souped up) version of 'Mercurial Phantom'. Is it basically a combo with 'MP', so you get double the mirror image clones? I mean that's not bad, but it probably ought to do something on it's own in case the player hasn't gone with 'MP' for their build. Also remember it's an Ultimate, which means it needs to have a BIG impact on the game when cast. There are very few exceptions (Reincarnation... the only three "single-target" ones (Charm/Transmute/Doom) all result in the 'death' of the target & some other effect... etc). It doesn't necessarily have to be flashy... But it should be meaningful.

Perhaps it acts as a powerful stationary defensive "tower", then with Reunite can be made mobile (so an Ultimate-version of Serpent Ward, basically)? Or perhaps it acts as a teleport location (give it modified Dark Summoning) so it can pull (allied) units towards itself (like a modified, unit-bound reverse version of the Archmage's 'Mass Teleport' Ultimate)? Or perhaps it has a big AoE splash damage upon entry, and has some kind of nega-aura (lowers MS/AS or somesuch) for the duration (like a combo of the Dreadlord's 'Inferno' Ultimate & Naga Sea Witch's 'Tornado' Ultimate)?

I went over the descriptions I wrote for the abilities and I'll go back and rewrite them later. As for Mercurial Phantom, it's meant to be a Fan of Knives that deals physical damage where, from a thematic point-of-view, is carried out by the shadow.

Again, not much to say about Umbra Aura and Shadowblade is basically a filler.

Spectre is a fancy summon that creates a single illusion at the target point to act as the living shadow. I thought it might've been too OP as a regular ability considering the added pseudo-blink and potential Level 3 combo with the aura and Phantom, so I decided to make it as the ultimate. I get your point about making it "meaningful" with respect to existing ultimates in the game. I was going for something akin to your third suggestion but again, I thought it'd be slightly over-the-top. We could always mess around with these ideas until we find the right mix.

P.S.: I like the way you think.

P.S.S.: I just realised that my Midnight Sun proposal is just a passive version of @cleavinghammer's Dawnbringer... -___-

 

[Rilene]

Ok so I don't know if OP will consider my ideas or not but doesn't hurt to do so...

• Every attack will stack <critical/dodge> chance by x% but resets upon <critical/dodge>
• Every attack will stack <x> <stat> per <action>, caps at <x>.
• Bonus <stat> if ally is nearby within <x> range, caps at <x>% <stat>.
• <x>% bonus damage for per target's <x>% remaining HP. (Preferably 1:2 ratio)
• <x>% bonus damage for per user's <x>% lost HP. (Preferably 1:2 ratio)

There may be more but these are the one I can think of but though these definitely must be made with triggers.
Or maybe, more can be founded from LoL or DoTA.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Solar Flare (Ultimate, Channeling): Brings down the light of the Sun into a single cohesive pillar of fire, doing tremendous damage in the target area (alternately, does less damage but is controllable for the duration) and charring the ground. Can only be cast between 6AM and 6PM, changing the time to night during casting stuns the caster and cancels the spell. Basically, this.



Evanesce (Passive): Enemy attacks have a chance to hit themselves (unless there's a way to transfer the attack to another enemy unit).
Shadowself (Ultimate, Active): Creates a permanent, ethereal clone of the hero. If the ability is used while the clone is still alive, the hero teleports to the (now replaced) clone's position, the new clone spawning near the hero's former position.

 

[Hermit]

Number one job is diving into the Object Editor for every conceivable unused ability & under-used ability field. I might send you a PM later with some thoughts.

I've been using the Editor for years, so I probably discovered all of them. However, there could still be something I missed, so I'd love to hear more about it from you and other wise and experienced modders.

Dispel & Disenchant are essentially the same; Purge & Abolish Magic are similar (one slows, the other removes only certain buffs & is autocast).

I thought about dispel abilities and I noticed all 4 races have a single-target dispel (Spell Steal, Purge, Abolish Magic and Anti-magic Shell) and an AoE dispel (Dispel Magic, Disenchant, Detonate and Devour Magic).

I don't have many ideas for dispels, besides these:

• Exorcism - Dispels positive buffs from enemy units, and negative buffs from friendly units. Additionally, deals x damage to enemy undead units.

• Cure - Heals a target friendly non-mechanical wounded unit for x hit points and removes negative buffs from it.

• Maybe something based on Item Chain Dispel (Wand of Neutralization).

Flood, Mudslide, Meteor Shower, Whirlpool... Meditation, Hibernation, Triage, Multi-Shot, Armor-Piercing... Etc etc.

I already have Flood (hero ability) and I had ideas for something like Multi-Shot and Hibernation.

If you're truly making a "fits in with the standard races" custom race, @Hermit, you really cannot afford to re-use existing buffs (without some external system like Anitarf's "ABuff" from Wc3C). That means any suggestion like, say, Liquid Fire or Lightning Shield or Cloud or whatever... Doesn't work. The buff won't stack with the *actual* ability as it's used. There's one really good way around this, but it's limited in application (see PM).

That's one of my main concerns. I know there are systems that were made to avoid that problem, but I absolutely suck at triggering and and I don't know any JASS/vJASS.

or Cloud or whatever... Doesn't work.

Well, Cloud only affects buildings, so it wouldn't be a problem if I made a Cloud that only affects units.

I generally trend towards "Blizzard knew what they were doing". That means even though there are handfuls of Really Cool, Unique Ideas, I will sometimes reconsider even if I don't know the real reason. Specific Example: "Offensive Auras".

I know exactly what you mean. I don't use offensive (negative) auras for the same reason.

So when I see abilities like "Stretching Shadows", I automatically shy away a bit; Engineering Upgrade Robo-Goblin is the only ability I know that messes with Hero Attributes. Being one out of 96 other abilities leads me to believe that may not be a very common kind of ability (and even before that math I can say it's a very "AoS-ish" kind of ability). Now you could say "oh good, only one other means there's plenty of room for new ones; it happened once, why not again?" I'd be more prone to say "it happened once, yes... but on a Tavern hero. Not just a Tavern but a later Patch addition.

You're absolutely right. I also avoid using abilities that have Attribute-dependent durations or damage. I think the way "Stretching Shadows" works (depending on time) is cool, but I thought about changing it so it gives Evasion instead of Agility.

Blizzard vs. Flamestrike... Holy Light vs. Death Coil... Thunder Clap vs. War Stomp... again, etc

Carrion Swarm, Shockwave and Crushing Wave are also really similar.

also, when making a custom race it's important to consider all the other Hero's abilities & the rest of the race, not just for overlap but to define synergies & stuff... But I won't get into that.

I consider all other Hero's abilities and spells of caster units, but I haven't thought about synergies.

It'd also be really useful to know what existing abilities you have for these two Heroes.

I just wanted to hear some ideas. After all, I decide if I'm going to use them. If you're interested, I can tell you about those heroes and their abilities in a PM.

I won't question here your choice of a Fire-based Hero on what-I-know-you-chose-for-your-custom-race... But consider my eyebrows officially raised.

What's so surprising about it?

What kind of "Ranged Intelligence" hero are you looking for? A destructive 'glass-cannon' caster, a talented 'multi-modal support skills' caster, a dedicated 'siege' caster? Or something more unique (an assassin-caster, a tank-caster (whoops, Tinker), etc)?

Hmm... I'm not sure what some of those even mean ('multi-modal support skills' caster), but I think I'm gonna say it should be a 'siege' caster.

Fire is great for simple Direct Damage; honestly a hero-version of the creep's "Fireball" would be fine with some modifications (since it's basically just Storm Bolt). Perhaps giving it a (dummy-casted (DC)) AoE splash damage, or making it bounce (just once) to a nearby target (again DC).

I thought about something like a Forked Firebolt/Splitting Firebolt/Triple Firebolt; Hurls 3 fiery bolts, hitting up to 3 enemy units for x damage.

If this is for the standard game, you'll have to scrupulously avoid too many Firelord comparisons. One way to do that would be to make this guy all about "support" rather than "dealing-damage"

I don't know about that. I have one more ranged intelligence hero and I was kinda planing to give that other hero the support role.

I was designing a Hero much like this for Deolrin's awexome Centaur Flamecaller model, called the "Oracle". Basically take all the "supportive/positive" aspects of fire & use that; giving sight, bringing warmth, rejuvenating, defending, hiding. PM me for details.

Interesting; I'd love to hear more about that.

"Shadowy Rogue" is a solid, classic "Theme/Form". "Melee Agility" is a good start, but compare this guy to the Blademaster (assassin/sustain/DPS), Demon Hunter (anti-mage/sustain/god-mode), and the Warden (disable/mobility/damage). All similar Heroes, but subtly different. What kind of Melee Agility hero you going for? What "Role/Function" does he play in battles & around the map?

To be honest, I didn't really think much about his role. I imagined him as something in-between. Like a weaker (deals less damage), shadow/night-themed and assasin-ish Blademaster. If you want, I can explain the abilities I have in mind in a PM.

moving and attacking while Cloaked, for a Hero, might be too much

Yes, it sounds OP.

To make things interesting, give him a summon; not a lot of Melee Agility dudes have that (ok, Warden, but it's honestly very weird on her). You didn't want one on the fire-wizard, fine. But every race has, like, 2 or more summons. Perhaps he can hire special Assassins (i.e. Starcraft Protoss Dark Templar?), or Informants who provide vision/scouting/expo discovery, or a Gang of Thieves to poach & pillage an enemy outpost.

Well, I already planned for two of the heroes I didn't mention to have summons. By the way, do you consider wards summoned units or not?

Swashbuckler, a custom Hero in the most recent Hero Contest I ran/entered (#8); that guy was one of my favorites of the bunch (see my Vote in the Poll thread) & is a really interesting take on this kind of Hero.

I never paid attention to those contest, but it looks cool.

Anyway, I've done enough damage. It's 5am, I was supposed to be working on my final exam... Curse you & your interesting topics.

I'm in a similar situation. My exam season has just started and I really need to stop procrastinating and start studying right now.

I'll try to get around to that PM someday. Hopefully I gave you some useful things to think about. Definitely put some thought into those Roles. It's all about Form & Function.

Good luck!

Thanks.

Name - Gives you vision around all corpses within X range.

The X should be something REALLY big.

I'm not sure how useful would that be since corpses have a pretty short "lifespan" compared to Sentry Wards.

Well I was gonna suggest a real cheesy ability for your fire-themed hero but after reading @Kyrbi0's impromptu "Guide to Hero-Crafting" above but now I feel like it's letdown. I got some ideas for your Shadow Rogue though thanks to that guide.

Fire-themed hero:

• Midnight Sun: Increases night vision of [hero] and provides HP regen to nearby friendly units. (Could add night vision as an innate ability)
• Ablaze: Ignites a target, causing damage to it and nearby allies per second.

Shadow Rogue:
The idea here was to create a 'glass cannon' of sorts. The skillset is more inclined towards an AoS/MOBA hero but I still think it can work. If anything, you can pick it apart and take what you need. Even if it's one of the names! If you're interested in the logic behind all this, check out the spoiler.

Spoiler: Hero-Crafting

My intention was to create a glass cannon with a high physical damage output through the spells.

The focus is on the ultimate, Spectre, which will "summon the hero's shadow" at a target point. While the shadow exists, the Shadow Rogue temporarily loses the passive, Umbra Aura, which is 'transferred' to the shadow for the time being. Initially, I was thinking to make the shadow 'locusted' but then you can throw your shadow into a battle and offer an unstoppable armour reduction aura at no risk. The obvious solution is to make the shadow vulnerable; probably a ward-type unit. If the sub-ability, Reunite, is cast (couldn't think of a better name...) or if the shadow dies, the aura is returned. I was also playing with the idea of Reunite and Spectre each dealing physical damage at the target point when cast to make use of the aura, but I'm probably going overboard with that. The ability can also be used as a pseudo-blink to escape as well.

Not much to say about Umbra Aura... It's essentially a negative Devotion Aura to help with the hero's damage output and synergy with the ultimate. That's about it.

I'll be honest here; Shadowblade is the filler spell. My idea was to have a Shockwave-like nuke where both the hero and his/her shadow cast it in the same direction as the target point but the concept was becoming too alike Zed, a champion from League of Legends. I couldn't come up with anything else of great creativity, so I eventually settled on a generic, unit-target nuke as a means to focus on a specific enemy unit that you want to take out.

Mercurial Phantom is quite bland as well (by my standards anyway) but the idea is for it to deal physical damage to make use of the aura, both when you have your shadow in play and for general use. I was contemplating adding bonus damage if the spell was cast just after Reuniting to encourage the high risk, high reward approach of casting the ultimate and then entering the fray, as opposed to casting Mercurial Phantom from a safe distance.

• Mercurial Phantom: Calls upon [his/her] shadow to violently attack nearby enemies.
• Shadowblade: Hurls a mystical dagger at a target unit, dealing damage and slowing movement speed.
• Umbra Aura: Reduces the armor of nearby enemy units.
• Spectre: [Hero] summons [his/her] shadow onto the battlefield, which can't move or attack but will cast Mercurial Phantom whenever the Shadow Rogue does. Can teleport to the position of [his/her] shadow using the sub-ability, Reunite. Lasts X seconds.

Mercurial Phantom/Spectre - I already had some ideas about a "shadow clone" ability and you managed to crystallize them, but I agree with this:

it probably ought to do something on it's own in case the player hasn't gone with 'MP' for their build.

I'm not a fan of Umbra Aura ("offensive" hero auras) and one of my spellcasters already has a "Shadow Ward" spell which does the same thing.

Maybe I should write details about all existing units/heroes and their spells/abilities, but it would be really long and I'm not sure if anyone would even want to read all that.

Ok so I don't know if OP will consider my ideas or not but doesn't hurt to do so...

• Every attack will stack <critical/dodge> chance by x% but resets upon <critical/dodge>
• Every attack will stack <x> <stat> per <action>, caps at <x>.
• Bonus <stat> if ally is nearby within <x> range, caps at <x>% <stat>.
• <x>% bonus damage for per target's <x>% remaining HP. (Preferably 1:2 ratio)
• <x>% bonus damage for per user's <x>% lost HP. (Preferably 1:2 ratio)

There may be more but these are the one I can think of but though these definitely must be made with triggers.
Or maybe, more can be founded from LoL or DoTA.

Well, those ideas aren't bad, but they don't really fit a RTS game. Warcraft III doesn't really have any similar abilities.

 

[Xonok]

Well, the corpsevision ability is intended to be a passive. If you have to cast it it's not worth using, but if all corpses within a certain range automatically show you the area around them, then you could use it to figure out where the enemy army is while creeping. There are probably other uses for it too, but overall it would be a really nice utility ability with clear constraints.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Maybe I should write details about all existing units/heroes and their spells/abilities, but it would be really long and I'm not sure if anyone would even want to read all that.

Yes you should, it gives us more to work with and prevents redundant ideas.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I've been using the Editor for years, so I probably discovered all of them. However, there could still be something I missed, so I'd love to hear more about it from you and other wise and experienced modders.

That's what I thought, too. : ) But I've been re-doubling my search efforts these past years, and have discovered some wonderful stuff. We'll have to get together. ; )

I thought about dispel abilities and I noticed all 4 races have a single-target dispel (Spell Steal, Purge, Abolish Magic and Anti-magic Shell) and an AoE dispel (Dispel Magic, Disenchant, Detonate and Devour Magic).

Hm! You got me, I never paid attention to racial dispel ability patterns (an oversight I shall soon correct). Thanks!

Now that you mention it, that's rather interesting. You consider Spell Steal a dispel; never thought of that but yeah. And Anti-Magic Shell dispels?? No clue. Same with Detonate... Hmm.

A part of me wants to say 'nuh-uh! some of those only showed up in TFT, so not every race has to have them!', to keep me from having to make changes to my Trolls, but laughably, the same is true for a lot of techtree design elements, so if I say that for Dispels I have to be consistent elsewhere. Lol.

TL;DR -- Gonna have to re-look at Troll dispels. I'm currently using only (?) the Item Chain Magic Dispel, which is sort of a mix between Single- & AoE-Target... But I think I also included a new Single-Target much like your Cure, called "Poultice". So maybe I'm good?... Might have a 3rd one in there as a 'racial uniqueness/strength'.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I don't have many ideas for dispels, besides these:

• Exorcism - Dispels positive buffs from enemy units, and negative buffs from friendly units. Additionally, deals x damage to enemy undead units.

• Cure - Heals a target friendly non-mechanical wounded unit for x hit points and removes negative buffs from it.

• Maybe something based on Item Chain Dispel (Wand of Neutralization).

^Bingo. ; )

Yeah, Dispels are kinda easy & hard at the same time. I rather like those. Are they single- or & AoE-target? And if I'm correct that you're working with (essentially) the same tool-set as me, I'm curious how they'd be done... Just simply trigger the damage to Undead? Or the healing? Or would they be a separate, dummy-cast ability... Hm.

I already have Flood (hero ability) and I had ideas for something like Multi-Shot and Hibernation.

I figured you'd have Flood. ; ) I too have a "Multi-Shot" ability, and a "Hibernation" ability planned for a Neutral Hero.

But that comment was directed at the other guy, sort of a "yeah, stuff like this is cool to recreate". Not so much ideas for you. : )

That's one of my main concerns. I know there are systems that were made to avoid that problem, but I absolutely suck at triggering and and I don't know any JASS/vJASS.

Lol, same here buddy. It's really one of the big reasons I scaled waaaay back to just focusing on the Jungle Trolls; I wanted to make all these races & stick them in the same map & stuff... But the Buff-Stacking issue (among others) made this essentially impossible.

Well, Cloud only affects buildings, so it wouldn't be a problem if I made a Cloud that only affects units.

Bingo. ; )

I know exactly what you mean. I don't use offensive (negative) auras for the same reason.

Cool. I'm still not sure why it is the way it is. And like I said, I'm still using them here & there (like for wards & such). I mean, what's the difference between an ability that creates a temporary, localized field of debuff, and a unit/hero that does the same? Not sure.

You're absolutely right. I also avoid using abilities that have Attribute-dependent durations or damage. I think the way "Stretching Shadows" works (depending on time) is cool, but I thought about changing it so it gives Evasion instead of Agility.

Good call. Yeah, pretty much unilaterally, if it involves Stats I'm not interested. Not for RTS. (except, of course, the Tinker (but again, I firmly believe that the later additions (neutral Tavern heroes & especially the patch Tavern heroes) trend towards more AoS-y standards).

Carrion Swarm, Shockwave and Crushing Wave are also really similar.

Ah, of course. Good catch; knew I was forgetting something.

I consider all other Hero's abilities and spells of caster units, but I haven't thought about synergies.

To be fair, I don't know how much I do that either. I'm not even sure Blizzard does that amount of high-level design. I mean, it just gets to be too much to think about, aside from in broad terms like "huh, the Horde has lots of 'army-buffing' magic" or "hm, I think the Scourge should have sacrificial magicks".

I just wanted to hear some ideas. After all, I decide if I'm going to use them. If you're interested, I can tell you about those heroes and their abilities in a PM.

That's true.

Definitely. Send it on. : )

What's so surprising about it?

It's like a Earth Elemental hero shooting light beams. Or a Goblin mech throwing leaves at enemies. Or a Troll (with regenerative powers defused by fire) wielding magic fiery torches. Yaknow. : P

Hmm... I'm not sure what some of those even mean ('multi-modal support skills' caster), but I think I'm gonna say it should be a 'siege' caster.

I was trying to sound smart. Some heroes are sort of this "jack of all trades" deal with a lot of things that there abilities do, lots of Roles they fill. I could be wrong, but stuff like the Blood Mage (though he edges into "assassination" as well), the Far Seer, etc.

'Siege Caster', eh? Ok then.

I thought about something like a Forked Firebolt/Splitting Firebolt/Triple Firebolt; Hurls 3 fiery bolts, hitting up to 3 enemy units for x damage.

Neat.
How would the trigger figure out who to hit? I'm assuming you're using Dummy Casters.

I don't know about that. I have one more ranged intelligence hero and I was kinda planing to give that other hero the support role.

Ah. A perfect example of 'incomplete knowledge'. Fair enough, then.

Interesting; I'd love to hear more about that.

While I wish I could link you to a finished product, I've been busy/lazy & don't have it. Soooo... What the heck.

(I) - Centaur Oracle
- Firefly (Line LoS - provides vision in a big line across the map)
- Searing Armor (Hero Lightning Shield - enchants an ally with fiery armor which burns nearby dudes (+ Defense?))
- Cauterize (Hero Purge & stuff - Cleansing flames strip all buffs from target ally, slowing it down? or something)
= Mirage (Channeling) (Protoss Arbiter cloak - AoE Invisibility!! While channeling he makes everyone around him invisible! (& him?))

That's the rough draft. Doable for the most part except, of course, the buff-issue.

To be honest, I didn't really think much about his role. I imagined him as something in-between. Like a weaker (deals less damage), shadow/night-themed and assasin-ish Blademaster. If you want, I can explain the abilities I have in mind in a PM.

Exactly! Neither did I. But it's quite important. : )

Same as above; definitely send it over.

Well, I already planned for two of the heroes I didn't mention to have summons

Ah, then same deal as above (incomplete info).

By the way, do you consider wards summoned units or not?

That's a really interesting question... On first blush, you do "summon" them, so I'd say 'yes'. I mean, generally a Summoned Unit is a temporary (timed life), non-Resource-requiring (Food, Gold/Lumber), Unit created by a spell (usually a Hero spell) that is damaged by Dispels. By that definition, a Ward fits.
However, looking at the official source, it doesn't appear that they consider a Ward a summoned unit. I guess it's considered more like a spell effect, localized to a 'unit' body? Ah dannae.

That's a pertinent question because, as you may have guessed, Trolls have LOADS of wards, and I think I was counting them as Summons. Other than that... I'm not sure I have any Summons planned for them. :< Hm.

I never paid attention to those contest, but it looks cool.

D: D:
Dat crazy, man! Hero Contests are some of the coolest Contests we have! And even though you'd probably do as well as me (i.e. poorly, lol), they are hecka cool to see new & interesting Hero designs. Join a "Team" Contest & you might have your dreams come true (in the form of your team-mate Artist making something cool for your ideas)!

I'm in a similar situation. My exam season has just started and I really need to stop procrastinating and start studying right now.

Ah geez, I know that pain. Literally just finished last Friday. Quite the nightmare ride, but it's finally over. Whew. Well, I wish you luck & I won't expect a hasty reply/PM. : )

Maybe I should write details about all existing units/heroes and their spells/abilities, but it would be really long and I'm not sure if anyone would even want to read all that.

YES.

You should write it all down regardless of whether you share it here or not, because just like anything else in life (data, information); it's essential to have backups. I can't tell you how many cool ideas I've forgotten over the years. Keeping notes is a definite must.
(I've actually opened up a Google Doc here recently, allowing me to real-time Update it (& share with friends) with all the latest. Formatting, organization, able to edit anywhere... It's nice)

But yes, once you have written it TOTALLY post it somewhere for me us to read. Quite interested.

 

[Gottfried]

Superpower Wiki - It contains nearly everything, just be able to make proper triggers.

 

[Kyrbi0]

... just be able to make proper triggers.

...

That's one of my main concerns. I know there are systems that were made to avoid that problem, but I absolutely suck at triggering and and I don't know any JASS/vJASS.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Eh, there's plenty of cool spells that can be done with the standard editor.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Yeah, that's exactly his point. And many of yours have been pretty good, it seems.

//EDIT// - Alright, I think I should contribute a bit more, lol. I've been thinking about "siege caster" heroes, and combing through the game to get an idea of what that means.

What's interesting is that there is actually a few (what I would consider) "creative" siege options for Heroes in the game. There are, of course, the classic obvious ones; NSW's Tornado, FS's Earthquake, LC's Death & Decay, FL's Volcano (100 damage to units & DOUBLE that to buildings). Whether straight DD or % of base HP (which means it's essentially is a Building killer more than for any unit), they all just annihilate buildings.

There are also several options that don't scream "SIEGE", but since they don't have Damage Reduction vs. Structures (e.g. Blizzard, Starfall, Rain of Fire), can be considered an alternate siege-use spell (e.g. TC's Shockwave (saw this on Youtube with wtii, so it's Fact xD), Flame Strike (?), Cluster Rockets...).

I want to give special mention to the Tinker, who is IMO one of the most clear "Siege-focused" Heroes. He can do a lot of things, but *3* of his abilities are good against buildings (if not directly targeting them). Cluster Rockets as aforementioned, but Pocket Factory also (lots of explosions against tightly-packed structures = good), and definitely the Ultimate, Robo-Goblin. Heck, the Robo-Goblin form has "Demolish", which gives up to 3.5x damage to structures. But on top of that (less overtly 'siege-y'), he becomes much tougher (+Str & +Armor) & Mechanical, making all those nasty spells & interrupts useless on him.

Now, the last two are a little unique, but IMO can still be considered "siege" capabilities, in a round-a-bout way, based on the game's treatment of Chaos damage. First is the DH with the Metamorphosis Ultimate; his Demon form has lots of bonuses but importantly a Ranged, Chaos-damage attack. Since Chaos deals FULL BARS DAMAGE to everything, including structures, this turns the DH into an effective base-killer.
Similarly, the Dreadlord's Ultimate, Inferno, summons an Infernal that deals 50 AoE damage upon entry (good for tightly-packed buildings?) & then sits there & pummels buildings with his Chaos damage. Permanent Immolation & Spell Immunity make him tough to kill after that (as well as his entry stun).
(I could be wrong about those two, and it's definitely a niche usage, not the primary one. But it's still there IMO)

~~~

So what does all this mean for you? Well, it means there are options; you don't just have to re-create Earthquake or whatever.

At this point I gotta spill the beans, because I CAN'T HANDLE THESE GENERALITIES!! So you got a Ranged Intelligence Murloc caster hero, with an emphasis on fire-based magicks (??) (Theme/Form). He specializes in dealing damage to structures and something else... we'll figure that out (usually good to have two 'mechanics' in mind; he could be a debuffer, or a damage-dealer, or a utility-guy, or a mobility maven, etc) (Role/Function). So far:

(I) - Murloc Fireman (lol)
- Forked Firebolt/Splitting Firebolt/Triple Firebolt (I'll just call it "Tri-fire" for short): Deals X damage to (& Stuns?) up to 3 target enemy units.
-
-
=

You want to give him at least 2 "siege" abilities (ala the Tinker), with 2 leftover for other things/kinda siege-y things. Tri-Fire could be turned into somewhat of a Siege ability; if it's able to target buildings, that's a start. You could also add "target enemy structures will be set on Fire, dealing X DoT" clause.

Since you want him Siege-focused, it also makes sense to make the Ultimate a 'siege-y' ability, as that will be, like, his calling card (what he's remembered for). While you could simply make a big DD-ing ultimate; take an existing ability (like Carrion Swarm/Crushing Wave/Blizzard/etc) & reverse the "deals less damage to buildings" field (make it deal bonus damage)... Let's think outside the box.
Ultimate Hero 'cast' version of Freezing Breath, Corrosive Breath or (ooh) Liquid Fire would be nice, but Buff Stacking as always comes to the 'rescue'. Sigh. But are there Status Effects that structures don't currently get that they could? Can a building be Stunned? Or Cycloned? Or Faerie Fire'd (*** ooh this is the one)? Or Reverse-Inner-Fired (another good one)? Or Reverse-Roared/Howl-of-Terror'd?

As an alternative to that, I'm thinking something like some kind of massive firestorm... Calling it "Conflagration" is the ticket. Something big and burny; but how to differentiate from Volcano?... Perhaps, using a modified Summon Lava Spawn, create a 'living wildfire' that grows and consumes. Alternatively instead of coming from the ground, you make it come from the sky... OOH I got a good one. ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT. Summon a giant column of focused sunlight and heat that the hero can control, incinerating any structure it rests on (high, localized DPS) as well as setting all nearby enemy structures on fire (Phoenix Fire for buildings, modded with higher damage and a HUGE duration). Then, instead of damaging units (most are fast enough to avoid the beam), it *blinds* them; easy solution is a modded reverse Trueshot/Command Aura with negative damage (except they are still attacking, and you have to with about healing attacks...). Better solution is giving the bean an aura that, ('unit is attacked' trigger-assisted) gives a Spellbook-hidden modded Critical Strike with crit chance replaced by Miss Chance; that way, Blinded enemies are given a 100% miss-chance as long as they try to attack while Blinded by the Light (lol). This skill could either be Channeled (i.e. like Tornado), or simply 'summoned' & then let loose. The former means it could be stronger; the latter means it must be weaker.

Anyway, this is awexome because it is awexome. Even if you use it, I'm gonna use it somewhere too. My main concern would be how to differentiate it from Tornado, now; especially if you went with using Tornado as a base. At the most basic, they are basically the same (channeling summon -> siege-y vs. bldgs, disable-y vs. units), but hopefully the differences are enough to sell it (deals less damage in a much smaller area; has a long-lasting DoT effect; doesn't physically disable units (whirlwinds) but disables their attack (blinding light). Perhaps this is a good enough reason to not make it a Channeling spell.

Anyway, so yeah.

~~

For the other two... Hopefully I'll be less verbose. I'm really stuck, though, without a clearer picture of this guy & his place in the Lore. I know he's a Murloc, but what role does he play in society, what does he do? What's their background, where do they come from/train? Why (in the world) do they use fire magicks? I know you were looking for "generic, non-racial" abilities, but I feel it's oh so important to have (almost) all your abilities be (at least) racially-themed.

So thinking of 'fiery' spells that don't necessarily siege, I like to think of alternatives. Like Smog or Smokescreen (probably modded Cloud, or DC modded Cloud); debuffing enemies within it's AoE. I also like the more "supportive" fire-stuff (Searing Armor, "Cauterize" (dibs on that idea), etc. As a Murloc, he could have some kind of goopy phlegm he can loogie out to do stuff... Or something. I'm at a loss.

Hope that helped?

 

[cleavinghammer]

Only fire Murloc I know is that miniboss in the extended WC3 prologue.

How about a spell that gives an allied unit Liquid Fire?

 

[Kyrbi0]

Only fire Murloc I know is that miniboss in the extended WC3 prologue.

Ooh... Knowing him like I know me knowing him who knows me... I'll bet that's it. Lol.

What was that even about?

How about a spell that gives an allied unit Liquid Fire?

That's not bad, as long as the Liquid Fire is modded to only affect units (Buff Stacking issues). Also, the add/remove might be tricky ("unit is attacked" should work fine, but I could be wrong).

 

[Nowow]

For a fire siege unit I would look into the idea of the boiling oil effect, which also happens in flamestrike. Making it last for a long duration will be almost like creating a debuff based on terrain, as opposed to earthquake, which needs to be maintained by channeling.

If you remove the initial blast/damage and just leave the scorched ground there for 30-40 seconds you got yourself a great tactical tool that can act just like poison on buildings.

 

[Hermit]

I just skimmed over your posts, but I promise I'll go back to thoroughly read them and reply as soon as I'm free. I'm busy with my exams (cramming), so I won't be posting much for a while.

I'll definitely write down what I've done so far and everything I plan to do and post it here. If you guys want to continue the discussion in the meantime, here's some information:
- The race will have 3 casters (just like Orcs)
- Heroes: Sorcerer (INT), Nightcrawler (AGI), Mutant (STR or AGI) and Sea Witch* (INT).

cleavinghammer guessed it right. I was inspired by Warcraft III Demo (campaign) and two heroes that I want to include are Murloc Sorcerer and the Sea Witch* (I'm gonna have to rename her since the name is already taken).

 

[cleavinghammer]

Murloc Firebringer (Int)

* Steam (Channeling): Creates a cloud that prevents units inside from firing.
* Boiling Blood: Target unit's move and attack speed are greatly increased, but takes moderate periodic damage. If it dies under the effect, surrounding units take damage.
* Gift of Flame: Target unit has Liquid Fire and Orb of Fire for a short time.
* Sea of Fire: Creates a huge circle of flames around the caster that damage all units inside it.

Tide Hag (Int)

* Wax and Wane (Passive): Intelligence increases and decreases every game hour in six-hour cycles (from +1 to +6).
* Riptide (Channeling): Summons a wave that pushes all enemy units forth before dragging them back.
* Maelstrom: Creates a ward that slowly drags all units towards it (units that have a Move order move at half speed).

Murloc Murkskin (Agi)

* Spray Mud: Reduces enemy accuracy in AoE.
* Sharp Shells: Targets an area. Enemies that go through the area take minor damage and are slowed.

Murloc Bottom-Feeder (Str)

* Water Hammer (Passive): Chance to deal area damage.
* Stagnant Water: Creates several Disease Cloud wards in an area.
* Slimy Skin: When cast, gives a buff that slows melee enemies and gives Evasion.
* Drown: Targets an enemy unit at melee range, stunning it. The stunned unit slides behind the caster, and takes heavy damage if taken into water.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I just skimmed over your posts, but I promise I'll go back to thoroughly read them and reply as soon as I'm free. I'm busy with my exams (cramming), so I won't be posting much for a while.

Hey, no probs mate. As someone who just recently passed through that particular Trial by Fire, trust me; we'll all still be here when you get back. I look forward to your voluminous response. ; )

If you guys want to continue the discussion in the meantime, here's some information:
- The race will have 3 casters (just like Orcs)

Interesting choice. Speaking of which, I've always wondered why the Orcs of all races have 3 separate casters; seems like they'd be the least magic-focused. Then again, given their role in the story, perhaps it's more fitting than I originally thought...
What are the three (roughly)?

- Heroes: Sorcerer (INT), Nightcrawler (AGI), Mutant (STR or AGI) and Sea Witch* (INT).

Ahhh. Alrighty then. So the Sorceror was the fire-caster, and the nightcrawler was the 'shadowy-roguey one'. Cool. Does that mean you already have the Mutant & "Sea Witch" planned, or you just don't want/need help on them (yet)? And which one is the 'supportive' one; was that meant to be the "Sea Witch"?

cleavinghammer guessed it right. I was inspired by Warcraft III Demo (campaign) and two heroes that I want to include are Murloc Sorcerer and the Sea Witch* (I'm gonna have to rename her since the name is already taken).

Well howdy doo! What a savvy guess, @cleavinghammer. That makes a lot of sense; you too were inspired by some of the existing campaign material. And of course, impressionable as we all were in our youth, you have latched on to the those particular characters (thanks for the videos by the way; really helps remind me). Hm.

If I may say, I'm not sure I've been so impressed & chagrined at the same time before. I mean, taking inspiration from little nooks & crannies of the game (demo campaign, Beta stuff, Alpha stuff, rejected stuff) is one of my favorite things to do. However, that guy just seems like a blatant "lore-lol" in the style of WoW; a fish-man throwing fireballs & raining fire from the heavens?? Wat.

To be honest, if I was dead-set on including a fire-wielding fish-guy, I'd probably reason that, as primitive as they are, the Murlocs probably have shamans & medicine men & stuff, that perhaps use & worship fire (or "the fire gods"); y'know, staying warm in the cold deep water (wait, what?). And so I'd be more inclined to shoot for a more supportive role, treating fire as 'the tool of the gods' & how a shaman would use fire to see the future (true "pyromancy"), commune with the spirits, all that jazz. Supportive.
This could still work with (what I presume is the current "supportive INT hero") the "Sea Witch", because honestly "witch" makes me think of curses & nasty spells & debuffs & stuff. So she could become a more deadly damage/debuff INT caster hero, leaving the support for the Sorceror.
Alternatively to all that, the name "Sorceror" is nice & generic; he could really do almost anything magical. Need not be 100% Fire Magic.

But hey, don't let me rewrite your universe here. Just some thoughts. : )

~~~

For the "Sea Witch", the obvious solution is...

Tide Hag

DANGIT!! I wanted to be first to say that. :<

//EDIT// - I just realized I was subliminally influenced by cleavinghammer with my "conflagrate" idea; he said essentially the same thing with "solar flare" up at the top. :<

//EDIT// - Hey, before I forget, @Hermit you should check out this contest entry model. With a little bit of work, I think it could make a fantastic Murloc (though, you may already have all the models you need).+

 

[cleavinghammer]

Murloc Springseeker:
* Extinguish: Restores HP to target mechanical unit/building and removes Liquid Fire.
* Wash Away: Dispels all buffs in AoE, reveals invisible units, damages summoned units.
* Healing Waters: Summons a temporary Fountain of Healing at target location.

Sea Giant Warcaster
* Waterlogged (Autocast, Drains Mana): Slows enemy with every attack.
* Keelhaul: Stuns target unit (melee range).
* Sea Shanty: Temporarily increases attack damage and movespeed of nearby allied units.

Mur'gul Wrecker
* Careening: Damages target unit, giving it a regeneration buff and greatly increasing its movespeed.
* Wreck (Passive): Does extra damage against mechanical units.

Giant Turtle
* Devour/Regurgitate: Devours an enemy unit. Casting Regurgitate spits the unit back out at the target point, dealing damage in an AoE. Regurgitated unit has Dizziness.

 

[MogulKahn]

Damn, that was a good read. Only 2 pages, but it looks like 6. Hahaha


Anyways, after reading all of this, I have to ask: aren't you guys overthinking "a bit"? For me perfect example is tomorider. Dude took few spells here, few abilites there, changed few of them, added few custom ones and BAM, you got 2 completely new unique races. And guess what? Those races were amazing!

About that buff stacking, can you elaborate a little more? What can I do to avoid that, if I am making a new map with custom races?

Also, where can I find all those informations about beta/alpha/scrapped abitlites from Warcraft 3?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Hermit]

You consider Spell Steal a dispel; never thought of that but yeah.

It steals buffs only when it's set on auto-cast. You can cast it manually to dispel buffs from both friendly and enemy units.

And Anti-Magic Shell dispels?? No clue.

Anti-magic Shell (not to be confused with Anti-magic Shell (Magic Resistance)) makes the target unit immune to magic and also dispels buffs from it. You can use it on friendly units to protect them from being Slowed, Cursed, Crippled, Polymorphed, etc. and you can also use it on creeps or enemy units to prevent them from casting Bloodlust, Frost Armor, Inner Fire, Heal, etc. on themselves.

Same with Detonate... Hmm.

Destroys the Wisp, dispelling all magical buffs and draining 50 mana from each unit in an area around the Wisp. Deals 225 damage to summoned units.

I rather like those. Are they single- or & AoE-target?

I think they should be single target.

And if I'm correct that you're working with (essentially) the same tool-set as me, I'm curious how they'd be done... Just simply trigger the damage to Undead? Or the healing? Or would they be a separate, dummy-cast ability... Hm.

I don't know, but it'd be easy either way. I can also make an ability that heals/damages and trigger the dispel.

But that comment was directed at the other guy, sort of a "yeah, stuff like this is cool to recreate". Not so much ideas for you. : )

I know, but when I saw some of your ideas here and now that list I couldn't help but to think you're a mind reader.

Lol, same here buddy. It's really one of the big reasons I scaled waaaay back to just focusing on the Jungle Trolls; I wanted to make all these races & stick them in the same map & stuff... But the Buff-Stacking issue (among others) made this essentially impossible.

I hope you finish it someday. Although my idea is more modest, it still requires a lot of work. *Sigh* I wish I had more free time.

Neat.
How would the trigger figure out who to hit? I'm assuming you're using Dummy Casters.

I think I already have a map with the triggers somewhere in my Spells folder (that's getting very congested with things I'll never use).

= Mirage (Channeling) (Protoss Arbiter cloak - AoE Invisibility!! While channeling he makes everyone around him invisible! (& him?))

Maybe I'll give my Nightcrawler hero an ability that works like that; I'd call it Smoke Cloud, Enveloping Shadows, Shadow Dance or something like that.

That's a really interesting question... On first blush, you do "summon" them, so I'd say 'yes'. I mean, generally a Summoned Unit is a temporary (timed life), non-Resource-requiring (Food, Gold/Lumber), Unit created by a spell (usually a Hero spell) that is damaged by Dispels. By that definition, a Ward fits.
However, looking at the official source, it doesn't appear that they consider a Ward a summoned unit. I guess it's considered more like a spell effect, localized to a 'unit' body? Ah dannae.

That's a pertinent question because, as you may have guessed, Trolls have LOADS of wards, and I think I was counting them as Summons. Other than that... I'm not sure I have any Summons planned for them. :< Hm.

Looks like each race should have at least one mobile summon (that's not a ward).

Ah geez, I know that pain. Literally just finished last Friday. Quite the nightmare ride, but it's finally over. Whew. Well, I wish you luck & I won't expect a hasty reply/PM. : )

Thanks for being understanding.

There are also several options that don't scream "SIEGE", but since they don't have Damage Reduction vs. Structures (e.g. Blizzard, Starfall, Rain of Fire), can be considered an alternate siege-use spell (e.g. TC's Shockwave (saw this on Youtube with wtii, so it's Fact xD), Flame Strike (?), Cluster Rockets...).

I get what you're saying, but afaik Blizzard, Starfall, Rain of Fire and Flame Strike do have damage reduction vs Structures. (Data - Building Redution field), while Shockwave and Cluster Rockets don't.

I CAN'T HANDLE THESE GENERALITIES!!

I didn't want to overload you with information, but since you said you were interested, I posted everything (further down).

But are there Status Effects that structures don't currently get that they could? Can a building be Stunned? Or Cycloned? Or Faerie Fire'd (*** ooh this is the one)? Or Reverse-Inner-Fired (another good one)? Or Reverse-Roared/Howl-of-Terror'd?

Cool! I never even tried something like that.

Perhaps, using a modified Summon Lava Spawn, create a 'living wildfire' that grows and consumes.

That sounds like a great idea, but I'm not sure how would that work. Would the Living Wildfire be vulnerable or even selectable and should it be stationary or be able to move?

Alternatively instead of coming from the ground, you make it come from the sky... OOH I got a good one. ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT. Summon a giant column of focused sunlight and heat that the hero can control, incinerating any structure it rests on (high, localized DPS) as well as setting all nearby enemy structures on fire (Phoenix Fire for buildings, modded with higher damage and a HUGE duration). Then, instead of damaging units (most are fast enough to avoid the beam), it *blinds* them; easy solution is a modded reverse Trueshot/Command Aura with negative damage (except they are still attacking, and you have to with about healing attacks...). Better solution is giving the bean an aura that, ('unit is attacked' trigger-assisted) gives a Spellbook-hidden modded Critical Strike with crit chance replaced by Miss Chance; that way, Blinded enemies are given a 100% miss-chance as long as they try to attack while Blinded by the Light (lol). This skill could either be Channeled (i.e. like Tornado), or simply 'summoned' & then let loose. The former means it could be stronger; the latter means it must be weaker.

It's not bad, but in the demo campaign Blizz gave murlocs a cave home that was burning with fire and lava, so I planned his abilities to be more more lava-ish, not based on Sun rays/Solar power.

I know you were looking for "generic, non-racial" abilities, but I feel it's oh so important to have (almost) all your abilities be (at least) racially-themed.

Well, besides one upgrade that gives all organic ground units increased regeneration when they're in water, I don't think I really have any racially-themed abilities.

As a Murloc, he could have some kind of goopy phlegm he can loogie out to do stuff.

I have something like that (Slime Splash).

For a fire siege unit I would look into the idea of the boiling oil effect, which also happens in flamestrike. Making it last for a long duration will be almost like creating a debuff based on terrain, as opposed to earthquake, which needs to be maintained by channeling.

If you remove the initial blast/damage and just leave the scorched ground there for 30-40 seconds you got yourself a great tactical tool that can act just like poison on buildings.

Imo, it would look like a copy of Flamestrike or Burning Oil (we already have enough of burning ground abilities). I'm thinking about something like a Fire Wall or a Lava Field.

By the way, I think 30-40 seconds might be too long for a Dot ability that doesn't need to be channeled.

Does that mean you already have the Mutant & "Sea Witch" planned, or you just don't want/need help on them (yet)?

Those two were a bit easier for me and I managed to come up with quite a few abilities for them, but I had to get rid of most of them so I wouldn't have too many abilities of the same type (e.g. unit-target or AoE) or too many abilities that have the same effect (e.g. slow). There are also some other factors (they can't all have an aura or a passive ability, since each of the 4 races has at least one hero whose abilities are all active).

And which one is the 'supportive' one; was that meant to be the "Sea Witch"?

Yes, but nothing is final yet, so she doesn't have to be the supportive one.

If I may say, I'm not sure I've been so impressed & chagrined at the same time before. I mean, taking inspiration from little nooks & crannies of the game (demo campaign, Beta stuff, Alpha stuff, rejected stuff) is one of my favorite things to do. However, that guy just seems like a blatant "lore-lol" in the style of WoW; a fish-man throwing fireballs & raining fire from the heavens?? Wat.

I wanted to use what I have and that demo campaign is the only part of Warcraft's history where Murlocs aren't depicted as just stupid creeps. They even showed the ability to speak and their society was highly organized compared to other murlocs, with buildings that trained fighting units, heroes and attack tower buildings.

However, I have to agree; that demo campaign is full of strange things and his design is pretty illogical. Murlocs even used Siege Golems in their army, but I scrapped them since that didn't make any sense to me.

And so I'd be more inclined to shoot for a more supportive role, treating fire as 'the tool of the gods' & how a shaman would use fire to see the future (true "pyromancy"), commune with the spirits, all that jazz. Supportive.
This could still work with (what I presume is the current "supportive INT hero") the "Sea Witch", because honestly "witch" makes me think of curses & nasty spells & debuffs & stuff. So she could become a more deadly damage/debuff INT caster hero, leaving the support for the Sorceror.

You're right. I just thought, fire seems destructive and they gave him Rain of Fire, so he should be a siege caster. I probably need to consider all the other hero's abilities before defining his role, so I don't end up with heroes that have overlapping roles.

And about the "Sea Witch", I think her abilities should be more focused on the "Sea" part and not so much on curses/debuffs since she's not a typical Witch/Hag. (She was like a goddess that murlocs worshiped and the Sorcerer referred to her as "the exalted one").

Alternatively to all that, the name "Sorceror" is nice & generic; he could really do almost anything magical. Need not be 100% Fire Magic.

Hmm... I haven't thought about that, but now that you mention it, I don't need to make him that similar to the Sorceror from the demo campaign. Not all of his abilities need to be fire-based and it would make a lot more sense. This opens up many possibilities.

Murloc Firebringer
Tide Hag
Murloc Murkskin
Murloc Bottom-Feeder
Murloc Springseeker
Sea Giant Warcaster
Mur'gul Wrecker
Giant Turtle

Thanks for the Tide Hag, but I'd rather not change the names of other units.

* Steam (Channeling): Creates a cloud that prevents units inside from firing.

I don't know how could I make that without making it look like a copy of Dragonhawk Rider's Cloud.

* Boiling Blood: Target unit's move and attack speed are greatly increased, but takes moderate periodic damage. If it dies under the effect, surrounding units take damage.

I like this one.

* Gift of Flame: Target unit has Liquid Fire and Orb of Fire for a short time.

I like this, but I'm not sure about the liquid fire part (buff stacking).

* Sea of Fire: Creates a huge circle of flames around the caster that damage all units inside it.

I like it, but it's kinda vague.

* Wax and Wane (Passive): Intelligence increases and decreases every game hour in six-hour cycles (from +1 to +6).

↓↓↓​

if it involves Stats I'm not interested. Not for RTS.

* Riptide (Channeling): Summons a wave that pushes all enemy units forth before dragging them back.

Well, I don't like knockbacks/pushing/dragging/sliding, since none of the standard abilities have it.

* Maelstrom: Creates a ward that slowly drags all units towards it (units that have a Move order move at half speed).

Same as Riptide (and it would be hella complicated to make).

* Spray Mud: Reduces enemy accuracy in AoE.

I already have an ability with similar concept.

* Sharp Shells: Targets an area. Enemies that go through the area take minor damage and are slowed.

So it's like a trap that slows? Interesting.

* Water Hammer (Passive): Chance to deal area damage.

It's basically the same as Pulverize and I don't know what unit could have it.

* Stagnant Water: Creates several Disease Cloud wards in an area.

The hardest part would be finding a fitting Stagnant Water model.

* Slimy Skin: When cast, gives a buff that slows melee enemies and gives Evasion.

It's nice, but too similar to some abilities I have in mind.

* Drown: Targets an enemy unit at melee range, stunning it. The stunned unit slides behind the caster, and takes heavy damage if taken into water.

I'm not sure what you meant by 'taken into water', but taking a non-amphibious ground unit into water would be silly since the unit couldn't even get out of it.

* Extinguish: Restores HP to target mechanical unit/building and removes Liquid Fire.

I'll probably have an item that repairs buildings, so this would be too similar and extinguishing Liquid Fire wouldn't really be useful if I'm playing against Humans, Night Elves or Undead.

* Wash Away: Dispels all buffs in AoE, reveals invisible units, damages summoned units.

I like this one.

* Healing Waters: Summons a temporary Fountain of Healing at target location.

Healing Ward?

* Waterlogged (Autocast, Drains Mana): Slows enemy with every attack.

Frost Arrows?

* Keelhaul: Stuns target unit (melee range).
* Sea Shanty: Temporarily increases attack damage and movespeed of nearby allied units.

Those would be cool for a Sea Giant, but I don't have any of them in this map.

* Wreck (Passive): Does extra damage against mechanical units.

Good idea.

* Devour/Regurgitate: Devours an enemy unit. Casting Regurgitate spits the unit back out at the target point, dealing damage in an AoE. Regurgitated unit has Dizziness.

Cool, my Sea Turtle could use an ability like that.

For me perfect example is tomorider. Dude took few spells here, few abilites there, changed few of them, added few custom ones and BAM, you got 2 completely new unique races. And guess what? Those races were amazing!

I never played tomoraider's maps, but they look like campaigns and I'm making an altered melee map.

About that buff stacking, can you elaborate a little more? What can I do to avoid that, if I am making a new map with custom races?

Sadly, I don't think there's much you can do about it if you don't know JASS.

Also, where can I find all those informations about beta/alpha/scrapped abitlites from Warcraft 3?

I'm sure you'll come across some interesting things just by googling.

Some questions occurred to me:

Could Finger of Death (Archimonde) be a decent ultimate if it had a mana cost?

Is an aura that gives magic resistance a good or a bad idea?

Every race (with the exception of Undead; they only have DK) has a few mounted ground units:
Humans - Archmage and Knights
Orcs - Far Seer, Raiders and Kodo Beasts
Night Elves - Priestess of the Moon and Huntresses (Maybe also Keeper of the Grove and Dryads, since they're half deer)
Undead - Death Knight
Mounted units usually have higher movement speed, but since I don't have any riders, I wonder how I'll justify the unusual movement speed variations. Do I really need mounted units? Besides slow-moving Sea Turtles, I have no idea what other amphibious creatures could murlocs ride.

Also, every race has at least one unit with Spell Immunity (Spell Breaker, Faerie Dragon, Dryad, Destroyer). Orcs don't have a magic immune unit, but they have Ethereal Spirit Walker that's immune to physical attacks. So, should I give any of my units Spell Immunity?

 

[cleavinghammer]

To clarify:
Gift of Flame: The unit gets the Liquid Fire ability, not the buff.
Sea of Fire: Basically causes the Burning Oil effect all around the caster.
Drown: The spell ends when damage is dealt by going into (shallow or deep) water, leaving the unit on land.

Different towers shouldn't look the same, a human player needs to be able to tell them apart at a glance. Maybe put a special effect using whichever murloc type they're garisonned with?

Concerning duplicate spells: It's not a necessity for each spell to be unique. Look at the Naga, who have Ensnare, Abolish Magic and Cyclone but have enough original spells to feel like their own race. So the Net ability doesn't have to be replaced if you can't find an original way to bring down an air unit, Cannibalize is a perfectly good spell name, etc.

Balance of Power: I don't know about heroes not being affected, a spell limited to casters isn't going to see much use.

You don't have a healer unit, you should replace Wither with a healing spell.

Name-wise, Shack of X and Coastal Mill seem very off to me.

Mounted units: Mounts are more to look cool since over in reality, their main purpose is to outrun infantry (and horses are the best way to do that). If you have a unit with Fast base speed you don't need to worry about needing a mounted unit. That said, if you can get Murlocs riding turtles, hydrae or drakes and make it look good, by all means go ahead. Maybe you could turn a melee hydra into a siege unit when a murloc is riding it.

Give Spell Immunity to the anti-caster unit.

 

[Hermit]

To clarify:
Gift of Flame: The unit gets the Liquid Fire ability, not the buff.
Sea of Fire: Basically causes the Burning Oil effect all around the caster.
Drown: The spell ends when damage is dealt by going into (shallow or deep) water, leaving the unit on land.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Different towers shouldn't look the same, a human player needs to be able to tell them apart at a glance. Maybe put a special effect using whichever murloc type they're garisonned with?

The tower has "Upgrade" animations with different murlocs that stand on the platform and attack enemy units in range. So, they're always visible.

Concerning duplicate spells: It's not a necessity for each spell to be unique. Look at the Naga, who have Ensnare, Abolish Magic and Cyclone but have enough original spells to feel like their own race. So the Net ability doesn't have to be replaced if you can't find an original way to bring down an air unit, Cannibalize is a perfectly good spell name, etc.

I guess you're right, but I just want to have as many original things as possible.

Balance of Power: I don't know about heroes not being affected, a spell limited to casters isn't going to see much use.

I guess I'll remove it then.

You don't have a healer unit, you should replace Wither with a healing spell.

Yes, I definitely need a healing spell.

Name-wise, Shack of X and Coastal Mill seem very off to me.

I know some names are kinda stupid, I ran out of ideas. Do you have any suggestions? I don't know if this helps, but the "Town Hall" is the tallest building in this screenshot and the "upgrader" is right next to it.

Mounted units: Mounts are more to look cool since over in reality, their main purpose is to outrun infantry (and horses are the best way to do that). If you have a unit with Fast base speed you don't need to worry about needing a mounted unit. That said, if you can get Murlocs riding turtles, hydrae or drakes and make it look good, by all means go ahead. Maybe you could turn a melee hydra into a siege unit when a murloc is riding it.

I don't know if I'll do anything about that since turtles are slow, hydras don't really look rideable and drakes aren't ground units (in this map at least).

Give Spell Immunity to the anti-caster unit.

Maybe I'll (re)design the Tidecaller to be an anti-caster.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Spells: Yes, but at some point there's no getting around that some aspects offer little to no room for improvement. Try looking through Ujimasa Hojo's altered melee maps for inspiration, all he does is switch spells and units around and give them new icons, and yet it's enough to make very remarkable maps.

Names: Outpost/Settlement/Colony (I'm assuming that's the t3 hall in the picture). Sea Sawmill, alas, is too good a pun, so maybe just Carpentry, Woodworker's Hut or Storehouse.

Anti-caster: If the others have a capable combat unit as their anti-caster, you should probably make a new one.

 

[Hermit]

Try looking through Ujimasa Hojo's altered melee maps for inspiration, all he does is switch spells and units around and give them new icons, and yet it's enough to make very remarkable maps.

I haven't played any of Ujimasa Hojo's maps yet, but I did "steal" some ideas from Fokyip's E.O.R. (Evolution of Races) maps. He included 16 races in a single map; that's really astonishing.

Names: Outpost/Settlement/Colony (I'm assuming that's the t3 hall in the picture). Sea Sawmill, alas, is too good a pun, so maybe just Carpentry, Woodworker's Hut or Storehouse.

Thank you. And yes, that's the 3rd tier of the hall. Tell me if you think anything else should be renamed.

Anti-caster: If the others have a capable combat unit as their anti-caster, you should probably make a new one.

I'm not sure if that's even a requirement since Orcs have a third caster instead of an anti-caster. Also, I don't consider Dryads anti-casters but they still have Spell Immunity.

 

[Nowow]

That was one hack of a long read... I might not address everything here, but there we go:

1. You seem to have a siege unit short, but I actually really like the idea of "form mangonel". That could make moving the siege unit much faster. Perhaps consider adding a "disperse" ability that will break the mangonel back to workers while making the mangonel inse

2. I think that the taming thing and the reef dragon sort of cancel each other out as flying units who can attack ground. Could be a role change for the reef dragon to aerial siege with low range will solve both this problem and the aforementioned siege unit problem.

3. As mogul Khan pointed out, you have no healer. That role is mostly given to a caster (except obsidian statue and necromancer sharing it). Here you can give that role to your giant title, as a support melee which will heal allied units with corpses (like @Kyrbi0 and his mcgyver contest entry, only based on raise skeletons.

4. The siege caster idea is really interesting. I have very little experience in messing with the object editor but hasn't anyone tried buffing/debuffing buildings?

 

[Kyrbi0]

Gah! You guys are so fast, saying so many cool things I want to comment about... But alas, I have so little time. I'll update/re-post/whatever as I get to it.

~~~

First off, @Hermit, AWEXOME. Great to see you wrote it all up for us. I just love perusing techtrees. : ) I would highly suggest, though, that you snip that out & move it to the first post (and/or an entirely separate thread, Pastebin or otherwise), and definitely in Hidden tags. Maybe a few/nested Hidden tags (i.e.
"whole race"
-> "heroes"
-> "units"
-> "buildings"
-> etc). It's a real load to scroll through, but especially the try & Quote/respond to. ; )

Secondly, and this is (IMO) very important: I'm going to go ahead and categorically rebut what has been said about "uniqueness" (i.e. abilities). We're talking about creating (a) faction(s) for the standard, melee game. The campaign plays all sorts of things fast & loose; the Draenei also have loads of repeat abilities. So does Garithos, and the Blood Elves, and all the others. But that's the campaign; not the standard, melee game.

In the standard game, there are only a small handful of "repeat" abilities both inter-faction and intra-faction, and all for specific reasons/rationale. Inter-faction is stuff like Backpack ('cuz they all need it (though I always thought it'd be neat to have unique 'backpack' icons for each faction; "Human Backpacks, Orcish Rucksacks, Undead Bags, Night Elven Satchels, Trollish Slings")), or Spell Immunity (same, and why bother making it different for each race (see ^Backpack)). Intra-faction is stuff like Feedback on the Spell Breaker/Arcane Tower, Shadowmeld on the Night Elf females, and 'Stalk' on Troll infantry. Otherwise... Pretty much nothing. No repeats.
(You'll notice that all the Creeps have abilities that are copied versions of faction abilities; same with items for the most part. The places where they don't overlap (i.e. creep/item abilities that don't have an analog in an existing faction), are of course, ripe ground for "technically unique" & cool abilities.)

So to me, the Naga is an example of what not to do; in fact, one of the first things I have planned for my Naga race are replacements to those exact issues* (Ensnare on Myrmidons, Abolish Magic on Coautls, Cyclone & Frost Armor on Naga)

*Unless of course I go ahead with my plan to replace the existing races with the Naga (& some others), making it a non-issue

So for your Murlocs, I say "keep it up!"; 'it' being the motivation to ensure all your abilities are (at least technically**) unique & creative.

**See the first part of my first post in this thread for how I define "technically unique"

 

[Hermit]

You seem to have a siege unit short

Yes, but I think the Sea Turtle should be some kind of siege unit.

I actually really like the idea of "form mangonel". That could make moving the siege unit much faster.

Not really; Slaves are worker units and their movement speed is 190. The Mangonel is similar to the Orc Demolisher/Catapult and has a movement speed of 220.

Perhaps consider adding a "disperse" ability that will break the mangonel back to workers

That could be abused. The Mangonel's HP is not a combination/portion of the Slaves' HP. It always forms with full HP. The reason why it doesn't take into account the Slaves' HP at the time is simply because forming a damaged, burning Mangonel would look silly. The Mangonel wouldn't even have to be repaired like all mechanical units if I added an ability that separates them.

I think that the taming thing and the reef dragon sort of cancel each other out as flying units who can attack ground.

I don't think so. Humans have Gryphon Riders and Dragonhawk Riders; both can attack land and air units.

As mogul Khan pointed out, you have no healer.

*cleavinghammer

obsidian statue and necromancer

How is Necromancer a healer?

Here you can give that role to your giant title, as a support melee which will heal allied units with corpses

How would a turtle (if that's what you meant by "title") heal allied units with corpses?

hasn't anyone tried buffing/debuffing buildings?

I tried Curse and Faerie Fire. They work fine, but the buff indicator (E.g. This unit is Cursed; it can miss when it attacks) doesn't show.

move it to the first post

definitely in Hidden tags

Done. I also changed the name of the thread.

 

[cleavinghammer]

I can't really see the Naga coming up with a siege weapon that wouldn't work underwater.

As for the turtle, maybe it chews up dead bodies into fishbait the murlocs can eat, restoring HP all around?

 

[Nowow]

That could be abused. The Mangonel's HP is not a combination/portion of the Slaves' HP. It always forms with full HP. The reason why it doesn't take into account the Slaves' HP at the time is simply because forming a damaged, burning Mangonel would look silly. The Mangonel wouldn't even have to be repaired like all mechanical units if I added an ability that separates them.

Fair enough. I thought that would fit the "makeshift" theme of muguls.

I don't think so. Humans have Gryphon Riders and Dragonhawk Riders; both can attack land and air units.

We'll, yes. Technically humans have three units which can attack air and ground once you research gyro bombs. But each of them has a specific role derived from its abilities. The gyro is a scout anti-air, the gryphon is a 3rd tier ultimate with relatively high cost &damage, and the dragonhawk is a spellcasting all-rounder (aerial shackles=AA, cloud=siege).

My point is that you need something to distinguish between the tamed Drake and reef dragon, because in my eyes "some tower ability" doesn't cut it. I think that making it more siege oriented would suffice as a distinction, while freeing the giant turtle to be something else, unlike the Naga turtle (yeah that's turtle not title. I have autocorrect issues...)

How is Necromancer a healer?

He is not a healer per se, but his ability allows you to coax more usability out of corpses. In RoC that was much more noticeable, what with not having obsidian statues to heal.

(This was also a nice balancing touch by Blizzard giving each race a single main healing method)

ow would a turtle (if that's what you meant by "title") heal allied units with corpses?

As for the turtle, maybe it chews up dead bodies into fishbait the murlocs can eat, restoring HP all around?

Basically this (I thought about using the spider egg model for that but still something along these lines)

I tried Curse and Faerie Fire. They work fine, but the buff indicator (E.g. This unit is Cursed; it can miss when it attacks) doesn't show.

That's a shame. Although the only good idea I currently have for base debuff is "malfunction" -making a building randomly cancel a unit training or research (obviously not tiering up or hero revival), but it'll have to be triggered.

 

[MogulKahn]

For a guy who was so strict on race uniqueness, you have surprisingly huge amount of abilities that are used by other races...

 

[Hermit]

"some tower ability" doesn't cut it. I think that making it more siege oriented would suffice as a distinction

Besides making the Reef Dragon have a siege attack type, how else can I make them more distinctive?

As for the turtle, maybe it chews up dead bodies into fishbait the murlocs can eat, restoring HP all around?

Honestly, it seems kinda far–fetched.

That's a shame. Although the only good idea I currently have for base debuff is "malfunction" -making a building randomly cancel a unit training or research (obviously not tiering up or hero revival), but it'll have to be triggered.

That would have to be thought out very carefully. Also, if a building is affected by a buff, that buff can't be removed since dispels can't target buildings.

For a guy who was so strict on race uniqueness, you have surprisingly huge amount of abilities that are used by other races...

Most things aren't even close to being finalized and are subject to change (highlighted in orange). I'm by no means an expert on making a custom race and that's why I made this thread, to gather ideas and to get feedback.

 

[Nowow]

Besides making the Reef Dragon have a siege attack type, how else can I make them more distinctive?

You currently have AA and a basic attack all-rounder with the equivalent of hyppo and hyppo rider, so just make something which isn't any of those. The elves have 3rd tier ultimate unit and anti-caster as other flyers, but your already have both of those. I thought splicing an equivalent of troll batrider would be fun, but if you rather make the giant turtle a siege unit then you don't need another one.

If not a siege unit, then I like the idea of an aerial support unit. That's something no vanilla race truly has. Also, you could give him the healing ability your race needs (I'm very much for giving the healing ability to someone other than casters for the sake of uniqueness).

Introducing: Reef dragon! A support flying unit with relatively low attack power and mid-low HP armor, with the following abilities:
Fear from above: the reef dragon terrifies it's foes, lowering their attack damage by a small percentage (reverse kodo war drums ability).
Soothing bile: the reef dragon spews a soothing bile which heals allied units in a small circle (healing sprey).

Then again, this might turn him a bit too caster-y. Perhaps require a research for soothing bile...