Potential Hero Abilities

[Karawasa]

This will be a list of potential abilities that I am considering putting into the game (FOR HERO MODE).

Aura:

Heartstopper Aura: Causes creeps in AoE to lose 1% of hp per second. AoE increases with level.

Single Target Spell:

Reverse Time: Sends a target creep back to the spawn.

Devolution: Devolves a creep by X level.

Gravitation Nova: When cast it throws all enemy units towards target.

Recycle: Casts on a tower to increase sell value.

Pseudo Damage Spell:

Tainted Ground: Cast on an area, all enemies who enter lose % hp per second.

Judgment: Causes target creep (or creeps if AoE) to take x% more damage.

Insidious Beacon: Conjures a beam of negative damage at a nearby enemy that jumps to other enemy units too, and deals damage depending on the current amount of hit points lost. Each jump deals less damage.

Ultimate (all heroes):

Replenish: All spells on cooldown become available for use.

[Karawasa]

Alright, to make things easier I have unlocked the thread. Feel free to discuss anything about this list here. *Note: Abilities with *Approved* by them have already been, or are being coded.

[Karawasa]

Reverse Time Added

Devolution Added

Entwined Spirits Added

[Guest mrchak]

Range Aura Towers affected by the aura have a little bit added to their attack range, increases with the level of the ability.

[Karawasa]

I like the idea, but I do not think it is possible to code. The only way that I know of to increase range is through upgrades, which cannot be undone.

[Guest mrchak]

Just bear in mind, the more varied the hero abilities, the more difficult it will be to balance one hero with another.

Currently all heroes have similar abilities:

1) An aura that increases effectiveness of towers (more or less)

2) A single-target stun/Slow + damage

3) A multi-target Line attack

4) Summon the dudes

Not that these abilities are all too spectacular. They are however, relatively easy to balance against each other.

Just warning you, you'll have a hell of a time balancing vortex with brainwash...

[Guest Sancdar]

I like the idea, but I do not think it is possible to code. The only way that I know of to increase range is through upgrades, which cannot be undone.

I'm pretty sure I've seen temporary range boosts coded before, but I can't remember what map it was.

[Guest mrchak]

just do it in Jass right?

[Karawasa]

-Isolation Nova Added

-Barrier Added

[Guest mrchak]

Isolation Nova: When cast it throws all enemy units away from target.

I can't imagine this being a good ability though - why would you want to spread the units apart? AOE is hindered and single target towers aren't helped...

[Karawasa]

Well, if you cast it on the first creep, it would essentially push all creeps back. But, I think it would be more practical if it threw enemy units toward the target.

[Guest mrchak]

Yes, a Gravitation ability would be much more useful. And it would work well as a darkness hero ability - black hole or something.

[Karawasa]

Just need four more abilities , and an aura.

[Guest MasterTenor]

I'd get rid of the summoned level 3 guardians -- the stomp is too good when you have three of them.

As for a hero ability, how about casting a spell on a tower allowing it to be sold at full price? With enough of a cooldown it shouldn't imbalance things too much.

[Karawasa]

-Insert Name Added

[Guest Sancdar]

Insert Name? How about Recycle - when it's cast on a tower, just kill the tower and add the HP to current gold. Of course, it's a useless ability on random, so I don't think it should be included.

[Cisz]

As I understand it, it will give you extra gold, so on rnd you could get like 125% for a tower.

[Karawasa]

Exactly.

[Guest Sancdar]

There are two ways that the ability could improve by leveling - increasing bonus gold, or decreasing cooldown.

Bonus gold:

The bonus gold clearly has to be a % of the original cost, because costs differ so much that a strict +gold wouldn't make sense. Also, it would just be free gold if you sold like a basic arrow tower with the ability. So, if the % starts out low and gets to be like 25%, so on pick you sell for full, what is the use of the ability? On pick, you would probably not use this ability because you don't often have to sell towers. If you were planning on using it in order to get effective 100% sell so you could swap builds at will like on random, it would need to be at max level, which would not happen for a long time and so it wouldn't be that useful. Plus, it would have to have a pretty short cooldown (at most a minute) AND you would have to only have a few towers that you wanted to switch around. Even then, if you're on pick there is rarely a good reason to change towers. Basically, the skill would not be that good.

However, if you were on random, the skill would be ridiculous. From the very first level, it would be giving you bonus cash equal to X% of the cost of the most expensive tower you could build at any one time, every time it cooled. So obviously the cooldown would have to be kind of long or by the end of the game you're getting 25% of 30k every time it cools. 7.5k bonus at least once every level from 52-59 (assuming you get a level 3 element by your first free pure) seems to me to be kind of a lot. But wait, if the cooldown is long it is not useful on pick!

Shorter cooldown:

On pick, this would actually be a little useful, assuming you're going for a build that is very weak on some levels or you're trying to go quickly or something. Otherwise the other abilities would almost definitely help you more. However, issues with cooldown balancing still apply, because to be useful it would have to be once again at MOST 60 seconds by the final level. For effects on random, you can just re-read the previous paragraph...except that the ability would suck early on because it would be infrequent (if it was supposed to have 60 second cool at max level), and you wouldn't be able to tech to expensive towers necessarily because you're on random. Later on it would still be ridiculously good.

I guess you could have a separate ability depending on whether or not they had picked random, but then you just have a lame free gold ability on random (whose worth is completely determined by the random element picks you get, since you need to be able to make an expensive tower), or a lame selling ability on pick that just compensates for poor play. I mean, if you absolutely need to change your build AND you can't spare 25% of the cost of a few towers, you're probably doing something wrong...probably what you did wrong was pick this skill instead of something helpful.

[Karawasa]

Now that the towers have finally been taken care of (we hope), it is time to start considering what we are going to do with hero mode.

-Removed AoE disables, removed Entwined Spirits (Spirit Link)

[Guest FusionSlayer]

What about a shop with items? Technically all items are balanced because anyone can buy them, its just a matter of strategy then. right?

[Twilice]

We had items in the older versions. But they were kinda unbalanced, you could spend all your money on your hero and kill everything with only a hero.

[Guest 1mpulse]

here is a random thoought..

make hero abilities dependant on other level 2 elements as well...

although heroes would need ALOT of skills and ALOT of balancing, thought would have to go into what abilities you want the hero to have etc.

even if it only relies on the second level 2 element it would add some strategy to having a hero. (water first then earth could have the same ability has earth first then water though to make it easier)

work with it

[0rb3r]

I would vote for a redesign of the actual hero mode. I dont like the fact that you can't choose how to develop your hero. I think the main reason hero-mode is not very popular is the lack of strategy on them. Heros should be sensitive to a smart planing of their role and skills, and they should always be seen as active controllable supporters of the build, not as main characters.

Here comes my concept:

Heros get 1 level each wave that finishes. Heros get a skillpoint to spend all 5 waves/ levels. It is impossible to get all skills maxed out at once. The sooner you get a hero, the stronger he gets endgame.

0) All heros have a mid range aura, it is an autoskill that cant be upgraded as its effectivity depends on hero level, i.ex. (slows enemies a 0.3% per hero level).

1) All heros have an equivalent aoe damage spell (can be bouncing, terrain or all-in-a-line spell as well, as long it is possible to balance easy). This spells are suposed to synergize with the disables of the towers of the element the hero is. Has 6 levels.

2) All heros have and equivalent aoe disable/damage buff, those who concentrate using their towers to damage can use the hero to disable or to increase the incoming damage the mobs get (like aoe slow, aof armor reductor, aoe curse,...). Has 6 levels.

3) An shortrange autocast to buff single towers, the hero is supposed to walk over the tower he wants the spell casted on. The autocast affects only towers aligned to the element of the hero, and the effect varies from case to case. Has 6 levels. Here some ideas:

Light autocast: Farsight amplifier

Improves range and damage of light single element towers, except pures.

(Dual light) Increases attack range of Ice and life tower, increases bouncing range, copy range and teleport range of Electricity, Trickery and Quantum tower.

Increases attack range of some of the triples that have light element on it. Buff is only slightly, as there isn't much light element contained in a triple.

Darkness autocast: Resistence Piercer

Makes dark single element towers have a portion of armor ignoring damage (i. ex. 20% of damage ignores armor). Except pures.

(dual dark) Ignores % of armor or deal extra damage on Contamination, Touch of death, Magic damage of Poison, death and magic tower, gunpowder ignores % of armor, trickery has longer duration of copies.

Increases duration of some disables/skills of dark triples, in some cases it grants a portion of armor ignoring attack damage or skill damage.

(resuming the other elements)

Earth autocast increases attack speed

Nature autocast increases attack damage

Fire autocast increases splash, mana regen, or resets cooldown each 5 secs.

Water autocast increases splash, aoe, or resets cd each 5 secs.

(i have a full list if you like the idea)

4) Hero upgrade skill, upgrades damage, movement speed and mana regeneration of the hero. Has 6 levels as well.

This way the role of the hero is choosen by the player and it requires a certain experience to know what works and what does not, you need to create a build addapted to the skills of your hero or addapt the hero skills to the build you use.

[Twilice]

Isn't splash and AoE the same? (check water ideas)