Taking suggestions for new abilities

[Ihazdialup]

Base Class Skill ideas, these I think should be usable upon creation of the hero, and otherwise be worth 500g at the shop.

Squire:
Repel: Blocks the next source of physical damage, and additional (attackdamage/armor) auto attack(s). Lasts for 10 seconds, if other abilities are used during this duration, the duration is over. 25 second cooldown. Values <1 are treated as 0.

or

Wide Swing: Swing in a large arc with your weapon, dealing (attackpowerX1.25) physical damage in a small cone in front of you. 2 Mana Cost. 3 second longer cd than that of hateful strike.

Ranger:
Poisonous Arrow: Shoots an arrow covered in a toxin, dealing (attackpowerX1.75) damage and slowing down the targets movement speed by 25% and attackspeed by 10% for 10 seconds. longer cd than flaming arrow.

or

Animal Aid: Replenishes the current pet's health by 50% of its maximum health. 6 mana cost, medium cooldown.

Thief:
Throw: Throw a small knife, causing (attackpowerX2) physical damage. Does not deal bonus damage from stealth. Increased Critical damage, and aggro.
medium to long cooldown.

or

Smokescreen: Blanket an area in smoke which causes enemies to miss 10% more of the time. The area is blanketed in smoke for 12 seconds. Should be also a longish.

Magician:
Energy Tap: Deal (spellpowerX.5) magic damage to a target and replenish mana equal to (damagedealtX.5) and deal an additional (spellpower) magic damage to all nearby targets. The initial hit cannot be a critical hit. Cooldown = 15 + (levelX.9) seconds. Mana Cost = (level/2)

or

Thunder Clap: Deal (spellpowerX2) lightning damage to all targets around the caster. medium casting time, slightly longer cd than magic missle. 9 mana cost.

Cleric:
Shadow Bolt: Deal (spellpowerX2) shadow damage to the target. longer casting time than soul strike. Lower mana cost.

or

Curse of Atrophy: Decreases targets attackpower and armor by 5% for 15 seconds. some balanced cooldown, kind of low mana cost.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

So here's the feedback.

Crusader:
Bravery (passive):
Whenever crusader gets hit he has 10-15% chance to get stack of bravery. When number of stacks reach maybe 5-10, it heals Crusader for spell power x 1.5(?) and reset stacks.

A heal that can not be controlled. Useless, nobody will take it over other skills.

Assassin:
- Shadow swap (Ignores the first damage taken after activation and teleports behind the attacker dealing Attack power * 2, also reduces threat by 10% if triggerd; 20 sec cooldown, 15 mana, 5 second duration)
This can help out in solo play but can also be helpful in a boss battle that requires a lot of movement, reducing the downtime of the assassin. I don't see that much use for it in this version but might work well when you implement new boss battles.

So basicly a shadow step with a damage avoid component. Could be interesting, as I planned to add some blink-style spells to the game in future updates.

Bishop:
- Condemnation: All enemies in a medium radius are stunned for 3 seconds. For bosses this is only 1 second. Undead also takes X spellpower damage.
With a new talent, this spell could have the enhancement of adding crippling curse to all enemies hit.

3 second AoE stun for a healing class with damage/DoT added on top? Ain't gonna happen, bro.
Other than that, I feel that it's a very boring ability. Just another AoE damage skill.

Intervention:
The bishop calls upon the holy powers of his faith. Mana cost 60. CD: 140 seconds. Hitpoints dramatically increased (scaling with level). Threat generation very high while in this state. Lasts 12 seconds. Heal and Flash heal cannot be used while the spell is active (mend works though).
This is basically the avatar spell from vanilla WC3 that is used, with a few alterations. The points of this spell, as I see it, comes down to: 1. Useful in last stand situations, where the tank is dead or has decisively lost too much aggro on a mob to regain aggro. Here the bishop can use the spell to work as a tank for the last part of a tough fight, and dps can nuke the mobs down. 2. The bishop is close to dying and uses this spell to gain around 500-1800 hitpoints (depending on level) to temporarily be able to stand the attack. 3. Helping the bishop function as an offtank in certain multimob fights where no dedicated offtank is available. The downside is, of course, the high mana cost and long cooldown. Also, gaining large amounts of threat and not being able to use healing spells can be a problem.

Totally breaks solo play. And pretty much useless in group play.

Assassin:
Trip Wire: A trap which upon activation by an enemy stuns it for 5 seconds and deals X x agility damage. Can not be used in combat. Damage dealt to the stunned creature does not interrupt the stun. Could work as a more aggressive alternative to dazing trap. One can of course have both, but it will probably take up an important slot rather used elsewhere.

A stun trap with some added fire damage on top is currently planned for the next release.

Bard:
Song of Diplomacy: When used on an enemy, this song makes it impossible for the bard to gain more than the absolute minimum amount of aggro on the target. Due to the unwillingness to fight the bard, the target also takes extra damage from the bard's damaging abilities. Lasts 20 seconds. Cooldown 140 seconds.
The function of this spell is to allow a bard to, unhindered, deal full damage to any one target without the fear of getting aggro. In multimob fights with many weak enemies this will not be very useful, but in the opposite kind of fights (bosses included), it will serve its purpose well.

Makes the Bladedancer talent that restealths in combat pointless.

Berserker:
Brutal Strike: The berserker combines all his strength into one mighty blow. Casting time 1 second (plays attack jump animation if possible). Targets on enemies. Dealing ? x physical damage to the target. Hits in a 90 degrees cone and 300 range in length. Area hit will be struck by a short earthquake damaging and slowing enemies movement speed as long as they stay inside the aoe. The aoe lasts 5 seconds. 120 seconds cooldown. Requires 2-handed weapon.

Another AoE ability for the zerk?

Crusader:
Shield Wall: For 8 seconds the crusader holds his shield high deflecting 80% of physical ranged damage and 20% of melee damage. Shield bash can not be used while the spell is active. Damage from the back of the crusader while using this spell is doubled against him. Cooldown: 120 seconds.

Could be an addition in the future, for now, the Crusader needs more offensive flavour imho.

Squire:
Repel: Blocks the next source of physical damage, and additional (attackdamage/armor) auto attack(s). Lasts for 10 seconds, if other abilities are used during this duration, the duration is over. 25 second cooldown. Values <1 are treated as 0.

I like that one. While active blocking can be frustrating at times (especially with high latency), the idea to have multiple charges based on your stats is good. But I'd take a different approach here and make it based on STR instead of AP/Ar, as the latter would punish the player for stacking armor. And it makes STR crusaders or Shield-Zerkers viable.
I had a counter-attack ability in my mind, that basicly works like this, but only blocks one attack and makes an instant counter attack with an increased threat modifier.

Wide Swing: Swing in a large arc with your weapon, dealing (attackpowerX1.25) physical damage in a small cone in front of you. 2 Mana Cost. 3 second longer cd than that of hateful strike.

I don't really think that Squires should get a damage AoE. That would just make too much classes with AoE capabilities.

Ranger:
Poisonous Arrow: Shoots an arrow covered in a toxin, dealing (attackpowerX1.75) damage and slowing down the targets movement speed by 25% and attackspeed by 10% for 10 seconds. longer cd than flaming arrow.

Very basic idea, but since it's for a base class, that's fine. To give it more flavour, I think it would be cool to reduce the cooldown to 5 seconds, decrease the reduction and damage, and instead make it stack up to 3 times with the values accumulating.

Animal Aid: Replenishes the current pet's health by 50% of its maximum health. 6 mana cost, medium cooldown.

Hmm... I guess that's more of a Hunter spell than Ranger spell. And it needs some more flavour too. I don't see people learning this, really.

Thief:
Throw: Throw a small knife, causing (attackpowerX2) physical damage. Does not deal bonus damage from stealth. Increased Critical damage, and aggro.
medium to long cooldown.

Making thieves a tank class, eh? I like the idea of another "bottle ability", but it needs a more destinct purpose.

Smokescreen: Blanket an area in smoke which causes enemies to miss 10% more of the time. The area is blanketed in smoke for 12 seconds. Should be also a longish.

Smoke-type abilities are usually extremely annoying for players because of the SFX. I'd stay away from that.

Magician:
Energy Tap: Deal (spellpowerX.5) magic damage to a target and replenish mana equal to (damagedealtX.5) and deal an additional (spellpower) magic damage to all nearby targets. The initial hit cannot be a critical hit. Cooldown = 15 + (levelX.9) seconds. Mana Cost = (level/2)

I'd rather not give all magicians a mana replenishment option. It would make Inspire and the druid ability pretty much pointless.
I want to make mana management matter in my current ideas for the endgame, so everything that replenishs mana must be carefully weighted.

Thunder Clap: Deal (spellpowerX2) lightning damage to all targets around the caster. medium casting time, slightly longer cd than magic missle. 9 mana cost.

Rather basic idea. But since the mage is heavily lacking survivability, I'd rather go with some kind of Nova spell that AoE-slows for soloing and AoE-utility in groups.

Cleric:
Shadow Bolt: Deal (spellpowerX2) shadow damage to the target. longer casting time than soul strike. Lower mana cost.

Hmm... there's a problem with adding a low-mana nuke to clerics, which is not to allow for an OP DPS/heal hybrid that performs too well in both roles. I could see another direct single target damage ability for a cleric in case it somehow penalizes healing.
That would allow for playing a cleric as a spelldamage DD and also has nice synergy to the bishop spelldamage talent line or the monk non-tank playstyle.

Curse of Atrophy: Decreases targets attackpower and armor by 5% for 15 seconds. some balanced cooldown, kind of low mana cost.

Wow, an ability that decreases both armor and attackpower? I'd rather see that as an advanced ability, especially if the armor component is meant to stack with embrittling acid.

So far, I have mixed feelings about adding more base class spells. I see why that could be interesting, but it's hard to balance especially due to the recent addition of talents for advanced classes, as that would probably require a lot of changes in the talents.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Btw, you don't need to make suggestions about spells that are already planned. You can find what will come with the next update here (under advanced; spoiler):
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/guides-database-650/detailed-spell-info-231557/

Those spells are pretty much final. Only the poisonous gas for Assassin (will be replaced by a shadow-step type skill) and the Implosion spell for Sorcerers are going to be changed (will be replaced by a stationary AoE that draws enemies towards it's center, then explodes and damages all enemies inside).

 

[Jumbo]

Wow its really sweet of you to look through all these suggestions. My ideas in the final post were made in a very tired state, so isn't strange that they turned out to suck. Anyway, if we keep coming up with tons of ideas 1 out of 10 or 1 out of 50 may be good ;-).

EDIT:
Crusader:
Sacrifice: Shares cooldown with hateful strike. The crusader makes a heavy unbalanced strike against a single target dealing x physical damage (a strong attack). For 5 seconds his armor is reduced by X x ?(due to the momentum of the strike preventing him from properly defending immediately afterwards). If the target is already struck with gaping wounds sacrifice will ignite the wound with burning light (magic damage) dealing X x spelldamage + extra ? x spelldamage to undead.
The point here is to provide an alternative to hateful strike for spellpower crusaders using gaping wound. It doesn't have to necessarily share cooldown with it, but that can be taken out. This can also be interesting in parties consisting several crusaders/berserkers with gaping wound allowing the spell to be used at maximum efficency on several mobs.

 

[Ihazdialup]

My idea for repel is that if something used bash (like luiet) it'd stop that on the initial repel, but then, it'd only repel auto-attacks after that, but if something else tried to bash (like the double 26 skeleton wave) the second bash would still hit.

I was also thinking of a skill for Crusader that would not make the damage aoe, but the aggro itself. So if you produce like 10 aggro from a hit on one enemy, it would also produce 10 aggro on all nearby enemies, but just not damage.

I also thought of a cyclone skill for druid... except the druid would summon a cyclone, around a small area, and enemies that are caught in the area would then be "tossed" out and cant re-enter, if they do they just get pushed back untill the duration is over. Basically the opposite of the gravity flux skill I suggested for sorcerer.

 

[galactcus]

you will change detonation bones?

 

[grekern]

as I planned to add some blink-style spells to the game in future updates.

A possible blinking ability for sorcerer:

Lightning trace (Teleport to target location leaving a lightning charge behind and one on your new location, after 2 seconds a lightning bolt will fly cross the points dealing spell power * 2 to units hit. This ability can be cast again within the 2 seconds to leave a total of 3 lightning charges; 15 mana; 60 sec cooldown, Each bolt can hit each unit once)
I don't know if it is possible to make the delayed cooldown in wc3. This ability can be used in offence or keep it in defence. It might give the sorc too much burst AoE but it can perhaps be balanced with mana cost.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Just a question, is it possible to have a skill that is only activatable for some odd seconds after an enemy misses you?

 

[Xonok]

Just a question, is it possible to have a skill that is only activatable for some odd seconds after an enemy misses you?

Technically it is. There might be something about the implementation stopping it though.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Follow-Up skills are very hard to make, as it's technically not possible to "grey out" an ability without putting it on cooldown. It's possible to remove an ability from the command card temporarily, of course, but that would just imho look ugly.

The only method that comes to my mind now is that I create a passive dummy version of that ability and swap both abilities depending on their state. So if you didn't block/evade an attack, you only got the passive unclickable icon and as soon as you evade, the ability turns active and can be used.


@Lightning blink suggestion:
Unique idea. I love it, but there's one giant downside to it: I can't make it point-target. Gaias does not allow point-target teleport abilities for obvious reasons. And I think it wouldn't work as good with targeting units only.

 

[Xonok]

Follow-Up skills are very hard to make, as it's technically not possible to "grey out" an ability without putting it on cooldown. It's possible to remove an ability from the command card temporarily, of course, but that would just imho look ugly.

The only method that comes to my mind now is that I create a passive dummy version of that ability and swap both abilities depending on their state. So if you didn't block/evade an attack, you only got the passive unclickable icon and as soon as you evade, the ability turns active and can be used.


@Lightning blink suggestion:
Unique idea. I love it, but there's one giant downside to it: I can't make it point-target. Gaias does not allow point-target teleport abilities for obvious reasons. And I think it wouldn't work as good with targeting units only.

Zwieb, with engineering upgrade you can grey out abilities without messing with cooldowns.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Zwieb, with engineering upgrade you can grey out abilities without messing with cooldowns.

Yeah I know that; I've used engineering upgrade a lot for the talent system. However, it requires a lot of object data and unneccessary trigger work to do that. The only reason people use engineering upgrade is because it's the only way to replace hero abilities.

Swapping a passive dummy with an active ability is just a two liner:

call SetPlayerAbilityAvailable(first, true)
call SetPlayerAbilityAvailable(otherabil, false)

So I don't see a reason why I should overcomplicate it. Especially since this also keeps the cooldown intact.


Long story short: Yes, follow-up abilities are possible!

 

[Xonok]

Yeah I know that; I've used engineering upgrade a lot for the talent system. However, it requires a lot of object data and unneccessary trigger work to do that. The only reason people use engineering upgrade is because it's the only way to replace hero abilities.

Swapping a passive dummy with an active ability is just a two liner:

call SetPlayerAbilityAvailable(first, true)
call SetPlayerAbilityAvailable(otherabil, false)

So I don't see a reason why I should overcomplicate it. Especially since this also keeps the cooldown intact.


Long story short: Yes, follow-up abilities are possible!

Oh, you said without putting it on cooldown. In that case I would make the cooldown 0 and replace it instantly upon cast. That way cooldown won't matter. It might not work for this specific ability, but it's an idea to consider.

 

[grekern]

@Lightning blink suggestion:
Unique idea. I love it, but there's one giant downside to it: I can't make it point-target. Gaias does not allow point-target teleport abilities for obvious reasons. And I think it wouldn't work as good with targeting units only.

I didn't even think about that, but it would obviously be a problem. However are you sure it wouldn't work decently by targeting units if you will end up on the other side of the unit? So if you target a unit twice, you will more or less end up in the same spot just a bit closer. You cold also target allies and yourself and if you target yourself it will teleport you a short distance (short enough not to pass the blockings).

Anothoer possible way would be to move, not teleport, the sorcerer with "lightning speed" and without unit collision to the target location. You could get around exploitations by having a timer on the bonus speed (so you don't get super speed all the way when running around a long path).

 

[galactcus]

zwieb could you make a charge for the monk? maybe a cool trap for the hunter...

and when the new version will be up?

 

[Eagle XI]

For monk not charge maybe but a knockback to send mobs flying.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Some abilities... just whatevers, mostly for crusader, and druid...

Crusader:
Supernal Purge: Deal (spellpower) magic damage in an area. Then the caster is coated in holy energies dealing (spellpowerX.3) damage to every unit that damages the caster. (this includes spells and DoTs) Cooldown/mana cost/aoe radius can be whatever would be balanced.

Iron Enforcement: Deal (armor+strength) physical damage and also stunning the target for 2 seconds (half duration on bosses). Generates a high amount of threat. Double the damage if the target is taunted, however no stun.

Penance: Deal (attackpower+spellpower+(healthlost)) magic damage to the target. Drains health by 20% of the maximum health. lonigsh cooldown I would say, maybe a casting time as well.

Ridicule: Mark a target with a "Ridicule" debuff. Enemies debuffed with Ridicule are 5% likely to attack the caster for the next 3 seconds. On top of that the caster also produces 20% more aggro on the target. Lasts for 15 seconds. cooldown can be something balanced, mana cost can be as well. Or it could have reduced chance, or no chance to taunt the target, and produce less aggro, but you can accumulate stacks of ridicule on every attack.

Divine Lance: Launch a lance of divine energy into the ranks of your enemies damage all hit enemies for (spellpowerX3) magic damage and explodes at the target point dealing another (spellpower) magic damage. Creates a high amount of threat. Kind of like magic arrow, except no mana steal, and explodes in a small aoe at the end.

Reprisal: For the next (however many seconds) increase evasion by (strength/5), also while under this effect, every time an enemy misses the user, the enemy takes (strength) physical damage. As I see it, mostly for Crusader evasion is more like blocking, I have no idea why, but it makes sense if you think about it.

Bishop:
Shadow Pacttoggle) While this is in effect all aggro produced by bishop is decreased by 20%. Also, all magic damage is turned into shadow damage. However, while this effect is active the user cannot use any sort of healing spells. (this includes mend/shield/heal/flash of light/Burst of Light/and the new aoe spell) 20 second cooldown, or longer.

Druid:
Spirit Link: (yes someone suggested this before) Link the target to yourself, equally splitting the damage that is done to the target between you and the target. (ex: Berserker gets spirit linked, berserker takes would recieve 100 damage, but 50 is applied to both you and the berserker)

Nature's Wrathchannel) Deal (spellpowerX3) poison damage over the next 5 seconds to the target. Mana cost: 8. Cooldown: None. (Well the multiplier can be changed, but it'd be nice if this could do as much damage as soul strike. Druid really needs some sort of damage skill that isnt fire and forget.... just to make it more interesting)

Bark Skin: Enchant an ally or yourself giving them a bark like shell which will prevent the next 2 attacks.
OR: Enchant an ally giving them bark like skin that reduces incoming damage by (some amount) however it increases damage taken by fire.
OR: Enchant an enemy giving them a wooden skin, increasing water resistance, but decreasing fire resistance.

Summon Treant: High armor/health/aggro summon however relatively low dps in comparison to Servant of Nature (SoN) or Efrit. Also... I think Efrit needs a small dps increase as its still slightly lower than the SoN's, or give it aoe. As I see it the general idea is SoN is the Tank/dps hybrid, Efryt is dps, Nymph is healer.

Neutralize: Magically calm a target. The target will not attack you or your allies, and will not run around doing nothing. However the target still has the capability of healing or buffing its allies for up to (some duration) seconds. This effect ends if the target is damaged. (if possible, it doesnt have to switch ownership, just not be a threat for some time).

Transferenceagain I already suggested it)Transfer up to 20% of your remaining mana to an ally of your choice. Long Cooldown, maybe a cast time.

thats it for now.....

 

[doubtful]

Necromacer

Accordance With The Devil
The necromancer transforms into a Skeleton Mage for ( X seconds, can be canceled) increasing:
HP by (x)
INT by (x)
AGI (by (x)
Shadow resist by 50%
Nearby allies shadow damage by (x)
Minions HP, damage, attack speed, spell damage (x)
Cannot be healed or get buffed while transformed
Loses HP per second (x) number. The skill can also kill you if you don’t return to original form in time.


Curse of Power
The necromancer applies a curse on his enemies. Every time he or his minions get damaged, the attackers also suffer (x) % damage.

Lifeless (this skill has two versions. Check it below)
The necromancer casts a curse which sucks the lifeforce out of his enemies (aoe). Reducing their damage, attack speed, movement speed while buffs his own minions. Generates good amount of threat. Mana cost (never played necro). No cd.

OR

The necromancer casts a curse which sucks the magic powers of his enemies (Aoe). Reducing their spell damage and casting speed while buffing his own minions. Generates good amount of threat. (Mana cost (……). No cd.

This skills can become more helpful if there is a choice to play a Necro with mage minions or fighter minions etc.

Truth to be told I never played Necro nor Mage in Gaias. So I simply don’t know how to think of more interesting skills to fit with the rest of the skills. Maybe these skills can inspire you Zwieb or the others to think of better combinations.


Assassin

Blinding potion
The Assassin blinds her opponent by applying chemical on its eyes, which makes it miss (x ) %. It lasts 20 seconds.
The skill can be done only while the target is stunned. No mana cost. No cd but only 3 tries since she carries only 3 potions with her. The skill refills after every rest.

BladeFury (enchancement for Bladefury)
The assassin now plays smarter. Striking at the same spot that she stroke before causing serious bleed. Now Bladefury also applies bleed on her stunned targets. Bleed by (x) number assassins INT + AGI. Bladefury now costs 9 mp instead of 6. Limitless stacks.


Monk

Chi Focus
Each one of the next 7 regular attacks of the Monk will deal only 20% of his overall physical damage. After 7 attacks the monk strikes a fragile spot on his enemy dealing x7 overall damage (70 % chance), x10 overall damage (21% chance), x13 overall damage (8.5% chance) and fatal strike (0.5% chance). Fatal Strike means instant death. No CD. Mana cost 50.
Wisdom should increase the chance to fatal strike: Example. 1 Wisdom = + 0,1 chance to fatal strike.

Grave Digger
The monk slows the movement speed of his opponent by damaging the part of the body that allows it to move. Each strike reduces movement speed by 1%. Stacks unlimited. No CD. Mana costs 5 (each strike).

At this point i want to say that I prefer every single RPG (including Gaias) without cooldowns. My philosophy is if you are able to cast 100 times a Fireball then go for it. Its up to you how you are going to use your power (mana, stamina etc). Choose wisely. This way the game doesn’t limits your actions but instead lets you decide. This factor will make difference among players. The uniqueness we all look for.