Ability and Creep Workshop

[Rufus]

Here are a few concepts I've been thinking of for future versions of warden.
Feel free to contribute by leaving suggestions for new abilities, creeps and bosses!

Base Abilities
Those abilities are available at campaign start.

Q - Attack	Spoiler: Details Deals damage to enemies in front of the Warden. Damaging an enemy grants the Warden 10 energy.
W - Dash	Spoiler: Details Grants a burst of movement speed. 0.9 second cooldown

Combat Abilities
To access combat abilities, one must press E to open a spellbook, and then click Q, W, E or R to use an ability.

Q - Soul Surge	Spoiler: Details Creates a bomb attached to the warden. It explodes after 5 seconds, stunning and dealing damage to nearby enemies. Costs 60 energy. Upgrade: The bomb can be dropped by clicking E. The bomb can also be pushed after being dropped by attacking it.
W - Shadow Bolt	Spoiler: Details Conjures a magical bolt that deals damage to all enemies in a line. Can be used to kill far away enemies. Costs 40 energy. Upgrade: Spawns a second smaller shadow bolt, that moves at half speed, and turns with the Wardens turns.
E - Lightning Rush	Spoiler: Details Infuses the Wardens body with lightning, soubling movement speed, disables all abilities and removes unit collision. Touching an enemy stuns them and grants the Warden 10 energy. When all energy is depeleted, or the ability is toggled off, all enemies are unstunned and the Warden hurls a lightning bolt on them. Costs 10 energy per second.
R - Vengeful Spirit	Spoiler: Details Releases an angry spirit that will seek out the nearest target, attack it once, and then die. Costs 20 energy.

Utility Abilities
To access utility abilities, one must press R to open a spellbook, and then click Q, W, E or R to use an ability.

Q - Focus	Spoiler: Details Click to channel. Any actions or damage taken cancels the channel. If the Warden succesfully channel for 1.5 seconds, she will heal for 33% of her max health. Costs 40 energy. Upgrade: Interruping the channel by attacking, grants you 1 second invulnerability.
W - Project	Spoiler: Details Projects a spiritual image of the Warden, allowing it to move and scout the area. The projection can see invisible units. The effect ends if: The Warden presses Q or run out of energy. The Warden or the projection takes damage. The projection is further than 2000 units away. Costs 5 energy per second.
E - Hookshot	Spoiler: Details Shoots out a magical chain. If the chain collides with a heavy target, the Warden is pulled towards the target. If the chain collides with a light target, the target is pulled towards the Warden Costs 15 energy.
R - Rewind	Spoiler: Details Creates a magical orb that stays on the ground for up to 5 seconds. Cast this ability again, to return to the orb. Costs 30 energy. Upgrade: The orb can last up to 10 seconds instead.

Passive Abilities (WIP)

Energy Blade	Attacking deals bonus damage equal to 10% of your current energy.
Hardened Gloves	Can pick leaves from Razorleaf Bushes. Leaves can be thrown in a straight line, dealing damage to the first enemy hit. Leaves wither after 10 minutes, so they must be used before that.
Climbing Boots	Can move up and down damaged cliffs.
Strongblade	Can clear certain obstacles such as rock chunks by attacking them.
Dig	Can dig at ruined ground to uncover buried items or go into areas below.
Blizzard Boots	Can walk on water by freezing it under the boots.

I also need ideas for creeps and bosses. Here are a few examples:

Erupter - Creates a bomb under the player which erupts after 1.5 seconds, stunning the player if it is still there.
Crusher - Have a long windup, and then deals damage in an area around it.
Drainer - Drains life instead of attacking. You need to stun it in order to interrupt the channel.
Frenzy - Every 7 seconds, gains invulnerability and a huge boost to attack speed for 3 seconds.
Ghost - Ranged attacks. Channels to deal damage around it when you get close.
Pestillence - Pursues the player and lives for X seconds when seen. If you are to close, you take (immolation) damage per half second.
Liner - Its basic attacks are replaced with shockwaves, dealing damage in a line. Kite it to avoid.
Blizzarder - Calls down a blizzard (not channeling) on the players location, and then attacks from range. Invulnerable. Needs to be lured into the blizzard to kill itself.
Twins - They must die within a second of each other. Ranged, and can't be too close to each other (flyer separation).
Trailer - Leaves a trail of fire when it walks. Runs away from the player at max range of its attacks.
Lavinaer - Calls a lavina (stampede with high number of projectiles with low duration) that the player must use Rewind to get over.
Protector - Renders all nearby allies invulnerable, forcing the player to take this one down first. No attack.
Icer - Slowing aura. Ranged attack.
Assassin - Permanent invisibility. When it sees the palyer, it runs forward, becomes visible for 1 second before dealing damage in an area around it. The player must stun it to interrupt and kill it, or dash away.
Hazer - When nearby, the camera begins to wobble and becomes hazed.
Torture Ward - No attck, no move. Has a low damage aura. the player must use Project, in order to reveal it and kill it.
Illusioneer - Every time it takes damage, it uses mirror image, becoming two. Mirror images dies from one hit.
Summoner - Summons small melee attackers that charge the player while the summoner moves away from the player, summoning more and more.
Fatman - Has a very slow turn speed. You need to stay at his back to kill him. If you are in front of it, it can deal huge dmage with each attack.
Poker - Attacks from range. When the player gets close, it teleports after 1 second. Dash and attack to get it.
Tennis - Fires a slow projectile at the player. Hit the projectile to make it rebound on the enemy.

Charger - Moves towards the warden at great speed and hits her once, then teleporting back to where it started charging from. The warden must stun it, and then hit it 5 times to kill it.
Teleporter - Teleports away as soon as the player gets close. Must use hookshot to get close.
Pusher - Pushes the warden away with each hit. Must use Hookshot or Rewind to get close.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

I have got some Creep abilities, these are potentionally quite nasty:

Sniper:

Permanently invisbile, even while attacking (0 second fade time invisibility). Fades to visibility for 1 second when damaged. Attacks 3-4 times before repositioning. Can be found by following the attacks. If very nasty attuned make it very fast and reposition after one attack, so it can only be revealed by hookshot or luck.​

Sanctifier:

Like protector, but protects itself also for as long as it has allies in area and has a very limitied range. Need to kite enemies out of the aoe.​

Behemoth:

stops to prepare a very heavy charge, then charges in a straight line. Is invulnerable and only suffers damage when hitting obstacles with its charge. When creative: Can be used to destroy brittle obstacles that are needed for secrets/progression.​

Centipede:

Multisegmented unit. Attacking any non-head or -tail part splits the centipide into two units, which regrow over time. stunning it is essential to hits its vital parts. Head-damage is permanent, unlike tail damage, which regrows.​

Armored centipede:

See centipede, but with invulnerable body and thus whithout splitting. whiped its tail in an arc to hit and hgeavily knockback the hero. Rewind is needed to evade the tail.​

Alarmer:

Instead of attacking, channels for 4 seconds and then releases a cry that attracts any enemy in an area of 1500. Needs to be either be interrupted or killed. Makes kiting and picking off single targets very difficulty/skillfull or could outright spell doom when it attracs more enemies the player can handle.​

Ritualist:

like alarmer, but instead of calling units deals heavy unevadeable damage (would say around 75).​

 

[Rufus]

Awesome! Thanks! I'm not sure I'll be able to produce all of those, but they surely sound cool.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

Well, the centipede could be quite iffy to get triggered, depending if you prefer the smooth coiling movement of a snake or can get with something different. When i get some free time i could wrap up something. PM me when you need help.

 

[deepstrasz]

@cleavinghammer if you please use your immeasurable imagination to aid @Rufus.

 

[cleavinghammer]

^ You called my name, puny lich, and I have come.

Spells:

Hookshot upgrades (switch between functions):
* Anchored Hookshot: When fired at a heavy object/unit, the object is pulled to the Warden's location, dealing damage to all units in the way (including the Warden if she's still there). Upgrades increase the delay.
* Delivery Hookshot: Load with an item (poison, explosive, elemental item, etc.) then targets an enemy, using the item on the enemy (for poison debuff, stun, elemental damage, etc.). Items without a special function just deal damage and stun, and are picked up at the enemy's location.

Remote Drone (Channeling): Switches control to a small magical flying drone. Can be upgraded to distract enemies, pick up items, explode, attach itself to enemies and explode, or to pick up items and then attach itself to enemies (see Delivery Hookshot).

Arrow Dance (Drains mana): Increases move speed, 100% chance to reflect attacks.


Enemies:

Fire & Ice: One with Permanent Immolation, the other with a short-range ice aura, must be lured close to each other so their auras damage each other (automatically split up after a few seconds).

Diver: Aerial unit with high evasion that attacks by dive-bombing. Damaged by dodging so it crashes, then attacking while it's stunned.

Heavy Speeder: Loses armor and damage with every attack taken, but increases its movement and attackspeed (Unit starts with various armor and weapon attachments that are removed by triggers).

Living Statue: Spawn in groups of X, each turned towards 360/X (turn very slowly). Fire powerful line-damage (all units) lasers whenever the Warden crosses their line of sight (narrow cone).

Trippers: Whenever the Warden is between two Trippers, one casts Curse and the other Cripple on her.


Bosses:

Kraken: Arena is deep water with a central shallow water area where rocks keep falling. Aquatic boss that spawns tentacles while submerged. Damaged by dropping rocks into the water so the stunned main body floats up, sometimes near the shallow area, sometimes not (can be beaten without the boots, but takes a lot longer).

Ancient Cannibal: Area is a pit filled with corpses and 5 corpse spawners. Boss eats corpses to regain health or raises them as zombies, but the 5 corpse piles can be trapped so it hurts itself instead (and buffs the zombies).
* Fire: Boss takes periodic burn damage, zombies have Permanent Immolation.
* Wood: Boss has negative health regeneration, zombies have 1s Entangle.
* Metal: Boss has reduced damage, zombies have increased armor.
* Stone: Boss is stunned, zombies have Hardened Skin.
* Ice: Boss is slowed, zombies have Cold Attack.
If all five piles are trapped with different elements, the zombies turn against the boss.

Mythril Golem: Arena is a lava pit. Very high armor and uses Thunder Clap when close to the Warden, with every use weakening the floor (and adding lava cracks to the ground). Fight ends when it finally slams the ground one time too many, breaking through the crust and into the lava, sinking out of sight. Final thumbs-up optional.


Items:

Magma Boots: Allows walking on lava and reduces damage from fire spells, leaving a trail of damaged ground behind.

Insect Hive: Use to create a friendly Locust with timed life (has limited charges). Use via Hookshot to release all Locusts at once (but are now hostile).

Insubstantial Armor: Gives Evasion and has a chance to cast Banish on the Warden when attacked.

Mana Arc Armor: Use to cast Mana Shield and gain Thorns Aura (removed when turned off or out of mana).

Mana Displacement Armor: Use to cast Mana Shield and cause melee attackers to be teleported away from the Warden with every attack while Mana Shield is active.

Mana Thief Armor: Use to cast Mana Shield and drain mana with every attack. Lowers the Warden's attack while active.

[Element] Shield: Decreases damage taken from attacks and blocks some spells for a certain amount of hits (up to three charges). Spells and attacks remove two charges unless the shield is weak (three charges)/resistant (one charge). Recharged by picking up elemental items from enemies.
* Fire Shield: Resists wood (Entangle etc.), weak to ice (Frost Nova etc.).
* Wood Shield: Resists stone spells, weak to fire.
* Metal Shield: Resists ice, weak to lightning.
* Stone Shield: Resists lightning, weak to wood.
* Ice Shield: Resists fire, weak to metal.

Elemental Items: Throw at enemies to damage them (or heal them or deal double damage, depending on the element) or use during boss fights.

 

[Rufus]

Oh my goodness, this is awesome!

The spells:
Remote drone is pretty similiar to a concept i already have, so you'll see something similiar to that ingame.
Arrow Dance is a good concept, and I have been considering a similiar thing: Lightning rush. Greatly increase movement speed for up to 5 seconds, disabling all actions but moving. Colliding with an enemy deals damage after the effect ends.
Those are some good ideas for hookshot, but seems problematic to create. I'll be remembering this idea though, as it may prove useful.

Creeps:
Fire and ice is good. I'm gonna make them fire projectiles at each otehr though.
Diver is really nice. It will require the player to outsmart it.
I like the living statue idea too. Might be tricky though.
The heavy speeder isn't very good as it is based on raw autoattackpower and tankyness. Not a lot of outplay potential.
Maybe I'll go for trippers. Maybe.

Items:
The magma boots are nice. Might do something like that.
I had a concept similiar to the element shield in a bossfight, so that's gonna be in there.

Bosses:
The boss concepts are all awesome. Keep 'em coming!


Thanks a lot! Really appreciated.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Mighty Darknut Heavy Speeder, take 2: The enemy can be attacked at a distance, but each hit takes off a small amount of HP and not armor (taking, say, 20-30 hits). By moving in close to disarm it, it can be killed faster (say 8-10 hits). However, it has an AoE spell (Carrion Swarm, Slam, etc.) that deals less damage but resets faster with every hit taken, making it more dangerous in close combat.

Apprentice Mage: Unit starts with a lot of spells given by its gear. As it takes hits, it teleports away but loses spells (for instance, starts with non-channeling Flame Strike, Blizzard and Monsoon, every hit taken makes it unable to cast one of those spells).

Rammer: Charges in a straight line, dealing damage to anything in its way and damaging itself when it runs into something.

Star Kin: Arena is an underground cavern with holes that let moonlight through. Whenever the boss is under moonlight, it regenerates HP. Defeated by setting traps on those areas.

Monstrous Slime: Every time the boss is hit (has near 100% armor), it splits into two smaller and weaker slimes, and those into even smaller and weaker slimes on every hit, with the smallest dying in a single hit (Monstrous -> Colossal -> Giant -> Huge -> Normal -> Small -> Tiny). After a while all slimes meld back together, the boss' HP being the sum total of the surviving slimes.

 

[Rufus]

Heavy Speeder, take 2 - Sorry, still not buying it.
Rammer - Nice. Gonna change that damage to a stun though, and let the player deal the damage.
Monstrous slime - Good. Gonna do something with this.
Apprentice Mage - Fun concept, but I think he should gain spells rather than losing them, making him harder to beat over time.
Star kin - Not a bad idea. Maybe I can make that work.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Bosses:

Sand Worm: Arena is a giant sand pit where enemies with slam spells keep spawning. Worm moves around underground (causing a mobile Earthquake effect/aura). If a unit moves/attack-moves, the worm heads towards it. If a unit is slowed by the quake, the worm attacks it. Defeated by forcing the worm to surface by using a ground-slamming spell near it.


Illusionist: Boss splits into several Mirror Images, the number increasing with every round. Illusions deal no damage, but cast debuffs including DoT and buff themselves. Two way of defeating it:
* The Warden uses Project to identify which of the images is the Illusionist (for example, having an invisible creature hanging around him or adding a special effect if seen by something with True Sight), attacking him instantly dispels all illusions and moves to the next round.
* Defeating all images (takes much longer).

 

[cleavinghammer]

Bosses

Blind Gorgon: Boss is invisible and has no attack but decloaks when casting (a sound plays and an effect appears when it's about to cast). If the Warden and the boss face each other (in a +/- 45° cone from the Warden's facing), the Warden is stunned. Defeated by turning away if it decloaks in front of the warden and repeatedly attacking it in the back.

Evil Mirror: Creates multiple copies of the Warden for each phase of the fight (1, then 2, then 3) facing/surrounding her. Each copy mirrors the Warden's movements relative to the room (warden looks or goes north/east, copy looks/goes south/west) and has 1 of the Warden's spells, casting it at the same time she does. Defeated by killing all the copies (fixed top-down camera view for the battle).

Polaris (Requires water boots): Arena consists of deep water. Boss is a sea monster that surfaces under the Warden when she holds still, swallowing and spitting her out to deal damage. Defeated by dropping a Rewind orb, moving away from it, then dropping a soul surge and teleporting back to the orb, leaving the boss to eat the bomb (can be defeated without teleportation, but every bite hurts the Warden).

Creeps:

Mole King: Travels around underground, leaving a visible wake. Can use a dash attack that leaves a wall of destructible rock in its wake. Defeated by using Dig while near it to force it out of the ground here it can be attacked.

Hookster: Fires a hookshot to drag the Warden to its position, stunning her.

 

[Rufus]

Polaris concept is awesome!
Blind orgon could also work.
Moly king also sounds pretty interesting.
THe other gives some good ideas.

Thanks! Keep em' coming!

 

[cleavinghammer]

Bosses:

Ogre Brothers:
* Polifemus: Arena is a volcanic chamber with several fissures on the ground. Boss is invulnerable and attacks by sending a "spotter" unit (bird, bat, imp...). The spotter goes near the Warden, emits a loud noise and flies away, then the boss smashes down on the spotter's previous location. Defeated by hookshotting the spotter onto a lava fissure, creating a flame strike effect that damages the boss when he hits it, repeat 3 or 4 times.
* Chton: Arena is a cave. Boss makes slam attacks triggered by the Warden standing close to him, large rocks fall on and around him every time he does so. Defeated by getting him to drop rocks on his head 3 or 4 times.
* Tellur: Arena is an enclosed space whose roof is held up by 6-8 support columns. Boss attacks with Shockwave (range greater than the arena's diameter), defeated by getting the shockwave to hit more than half the columns, collapsing the arena on the boss.


Sky Dragon: Arena is several pillars in a circle, each wide enough to let the Warden move a little and containing a big boulder (fixed hookshot target). Boss is a giant dragon that attacks by ramming or spitting fire at the Warden, defeated by hookshotting out of the way when it attacks so it damages itself on the boulder. Once rammed, the boulder cracks and the pillar can no longer be targeted by the hookshot.