[Altered Melee] Extended Scourge Techtree Idea (Not finished)

[Sapprine]

Just spitting some ideas I have on how to seriously spice up the Undead race. Everything, 100% of these ideas can be achieved without requiring any kind of custom models or icons. However, some minor triggering might be needed.

Many of these ideas are meant to be taken as "for fun" or for a custom campaign, there's no way any of this is fair, balanced or fit for competitive gameplay.

Necopolis/Halls of the Dead/Black Citadel:

Spoiler

- A "Lift-off" ability, similar to night elves' Uproot. Lets the necropolis take off and slowly fly around. Can only be targeted as air unit and leaves behind a thin trail of blight underneath it.
- "Soul Seekers" ability that releases a Carrion Swarm reskinned as Spirit missiles, becomes stronger with each building tier.
- "Gargoyle Swarm" ability for Black Citadel. Allows you to load up to 4 Gargoyles into the Black Citadel, similar to loading Peons into a Burrow. For each Gargoyle loaded, the Black Citadel gains an unselectable Gargoyle that will automatically swarm around it in circles and lash out against any attacker within a certain range (similar to a Starcraft 2 Carrier's interceptors, except invincible)

Graveyard:

Spoiler

In addition to Attack/Armor upgrades, can now additionally train 3 types of Skeletons and houses upgrades for them;

Skeleton Warrior - 235HP, 14-15 normal dmg 2.00 sec, 1 armor heavy
Upgrade: "Hollow Interior" - Causes Skeleton Warriors to take 35% reduced damage from piercing attacks.

Skeleton Archer - 180HP, 11-14 piercing dmg, 1.50 sec, 0 armor medium
Upgrade: "Dead-eye" - Causes Skeleton Archer's attacks to have a 15% chance to deal triple damage.

Skeleton Mage - 160HP, 7-8 piercing dmg, 1.60 sec, 0 armor small
Upgrade: "Dark Embrace" - Turns the Skeleton Mage's attack type to Magic, gives them 50 points of Mana and the "Dark Mend" ability.
Dark Mend: 15 Mana to Restore 30 HP over 3 sec to a friendly undead or deal 15 dmg over 3 sec to a living enemy. (Auto-cast)

Skeleton warrior costs 85 gold, archer 95 and mage 105 gold. Each cost only 1 food and each take just 12,13,14 seconds to train.

Crypt

Spoiler

- No longer trains Crypt Fiends and Gargoyles.
- Instead, only trains Ghouls and 3 unique types of Zombies
- Cannibalize now has a second research level called "Endless Hunger"
- Ghoul Frenzy is replaced with "Crypt Frenzy" and also has a second research level called "Unending Rage"

"Cannibalize" unlocks cannibalize.
"Undending Hunger" raises the Max HP of Ghouls, Abomination and all zombie types by 10% and gives their attacks 15% lifesteal.
"Crypt Frenzy" raises the attack rate of Ghouls by 15%. Raises the attack rate of Abomination and all zombie types by 5% and adds 15 flat movement speed to all mentioned.
"Unending Rage" raises the attack rate bonus for Ghouls to 25%. Raises the attack rate bonus of Abomination and all zombie types to 10%. Increases the movement speed bonus to 30. Additionally, Abomination gets a 25% cleaving attack effect, Ghouls get a harvest speed bonus and Zombies gain an extra 20 points of movement speed at night.

Gaper - 260HP, 10-11 normal dmg, 1.35 sec, 0 armor medium
Basic light combat unit. Can learn Cannibalize.
100 gold, 1 food, 14 sec

Lobber - 190HP, 7-9 siege dmg, 1.45 sec, 0 armor medium
Light ranged unit that lobs pieces of its own flesh, dealing siege damage. Suffers 8-12 points of self-inflicted bleeding damage over 4 seconds after each attack it launches. After all of its flesh has been shed (HP reaches 0), continues fighting as a lesser skeleton warrior for up to 20 seconds. Can't attack air units, does deal splash damage.
Lesser Skeleton Warrior has 135HP, 8-9 normal dmg, 2.00 sec, 0 armor heavy, does benefit from "Hollow Interior" upgrade.
115 gold, 1 food, 16 sec

Plaguer - 155HP, 7-8 normal dmg, 1.35 sec, 0 armor medium
Light melee unit with slower than average movement speed. Has the Infected Claws passive that deals 3 poison dmg/sec and turns enemies that die within 5 seconds after being struck into full HP Plaguers. Also benefits from the Disease Cloud and Abominable Infestation upgrade (but both nerfed).
130 gold, 1 food, 18 sec

Gargoyle Spire

Spoiler

- Trains two units. Gargoyles and "Swarmgoyles".
- Swarmgoyles are half as expensive as normal Gargoyles but only have equal to 40% of the Hitpoints and DPS as their full counterpart.
- Swarmgoyles are trained in packs of 4 at a time (pay 4x gold cost and 4 food, but 4 Swarmgoyles come out when finished).
- Stoneform has two research tiers. The first unlocks standard Stoneform. The second level increases the regeneration rate from 8 to 12Hp/sec and turns their armor type while in Stoneform from Unarmored to Fortified and their regular armor type from Unarmored to Heavy.
- Regular Gargoyles are 1.10x bigger and Swarmgoyles like 0.85x scale and vertex-colored to 190/190/190 or something to tell them apart.
- Also, just generally boost their anti-ground dps and nerf some of their anti-air dps. You know you want it.

Slaughterhouse

Spoiler

- Trains Abomination, Meat Wagons, Lurkers (4th Zombie type) and Engorged Bletchers
- Meat Wagons requires (and spends) loaded corpses in order to launch their Siege attack, otherwise, they have a 26-30 damage Melee attack that deals Normal damage with 2.20 sec atk spd
- Has the Meat Wagon Plating, Abominable Infestion, Disease Cloud and Potent Disease Cloud upgrades.
- Trains Lurker zombies

Engorged Bletcher - 380HP, no attack, 2 medium armor.
Smaller abomination stuffed to the brim with bile and plague. Serves as a fast-moving kamikaze unit.
Deals 75 damage in it's direct vicinity and 50 splash damage in a medium area. Also automatically explodes upon HP reaching 0. Upon death, spawns a plague cloud, 1 random zombie type and 1 random skeleton type that last 20 seconds each. In addition to those, also spawns 3 Ferocious Maggots if Abominable infestation is researched.

Lurker - 440HP, 17-19 normal dmg, 3.00 sec, 1 armor medium
Melee melee combatant. Is nearly blind, very slow and rapidly loses HP during day, but becomes fast and deadly at night.
(150 mov spd at day, 300 at night. 3.00 sec atk spd at day, 1.50 sec at night. -22 HP/sec at day.)

Meat Wagon Plating (upgrade) - Reinforces the Hull of the Meat Wagon, making it more suitable for melee combat. Adds +200 HP and +1 armor per tier of Unholy Armor upgrades researched at the Graveyard.

Abominable Infestation (upgrade) - Causes Abomination, Engorged Bletcher and certain zombie types to release Ferocious Plague Maggots on death. (4 for abomination and Engorged Bletcher, 1 for Plaguer zombie).

Ferocious Plague Maggot - 100HP (-5/sec), 4-5 normal dmg, 0.70 sec, 0 armor medium
Very fast critters that rapidly lose hitpoints as soon as they leave their host, however, they don't have a timed life duration and prolong their duration by feasting on living flesh.
(they lose 5hp/sec, their attacks have 300% life steal.)

Disease cloud - Regular Disease Cloud (120 dmg over 120 sec), for Plaguer zombie type its 30 dmg over 30 sec.

Virtuous Disease Cloud - Now deals 90 dmg over 60 seconds instead and can actually be lethal and units that die from it infect other nearby units. Plaguer Zombies, Engorged Bletchers and Abomination now leave behind a special virtuous Disease Cloud that in addition to infecting units also deals 8 dmg/sec to all living enemy units in it.
Spawns a medium cloud for Abomination and Engorged Bletcher that lasts for 12 sec. Plaguer zombies and living enemies that die spawn a smaller one that lasts 6 sec.
Any infected unit that dies within a cloud turns into a full HP Plaguer zombie.

Nerubian Ziggurat

• Spoiler

  • Buildable from Acolytes like any other building, has no tech requirement and similar cost/build time as crypt.
  • Trains Broodguard, Crypt Fiend, Darkweaver, Obsidian Statue and Underlord
  • Building can be upgraded for 240 gold / 140 wood to gain a 27-32 damage AoE attack that inflicts slowing frost effect (requires black citadel)
  • Houses many, many upgrades (I'll go over them first)

  [*]
  Drain Vigor - [Upgrade]
  Has two levels, first tier requires Halls of the Dead, second tier needs Black Citadel + Tomb of Relics.
  Allows Crypt Fiends attacks to drain vigor from their foes, restoring 1 hit point for every 8 damage dealt and 1 mana for every 4 damage. Also raises their mana capacity from 0 to 150.
  On tier 2 of this upgrade, restores 1 HP per 6 damage and 1 mana per 3 damage. Also raises their mana capacity from 150 to 250.
  
  Necrotic Incubation - [Upgrade]
  Causes Broodguard and Darkweaver to spawn a Hatchling upon death. Enables Crypt Fiends to use their accumulated mana to birth eggsacs or spawn additional Hatchlings when perishing. Causes Underlords to spawn 2 Carrion Beetles.
  
  Birth Eggsac costs 125 Mana. The Crypt Fiend spawns 1 guaranteed Hatchling on death and 1 extra for every 75 mana it has at the point of perishing.
  Eggsacs are wards that have 200HP and lose 10HP per second once placed. They bring forth 1 Hatchling every 4 seconds until their HP runs out.
  
  Hatchling - [Summoned Unit]
  140HP, 6-7 normal dmg (1.00 sec), 1 heavy armor. (doesnt benefit from regular atk/armor upgrades)
  Lasts 20 seconds. Has a tiny collision size and fast movement speed. Benefits from Spiked Carapace.
  
  Spiked Carapace - [Upgrade]
  Outfits Broodguard, Crypt Fiend, Darkweaver, Hatchling, Underlord and Carrion Beetle with a spikey carapace that reduces damage taken from all melee attacks by 2 and hurts melee attackers for 4 points damage with each successful attack they land.
  Special: This effect synergizes with the Crypt Fiend's Drain Vigor.
  
  Broodguard - [Unit]
  190 gold, 3 food, 26 sec train time
  An undead Nerubian warrior with high defense, but has less potent offensive capabilities. Particularly effective when surrounded by large quantities of Hatchlings.
  580 HP, 14-15 normal damage (1.80 sec), 1 heavy armor.
  Special: Broodguards passively gain +1 point of armor and +2 HP regen/sec for every Hatchling (owned by the same player) around it within a radius of 500.
  When a Hatchling within 500 range perishes for any reason, the Broodguard temporarily gains +10% attack damage, +5% attack and movement speed for 8 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Whenever a stack of this effect is gained, the overall duration is extended to 8 seconds.
  
  Darkweaver - [Unit]
  Requires Temple of the Damned.
  210 gold, 45 wood, 3 food, 32 sec train time
  Medium supportive spellcaster that can infest living enemies, place damaging wards and heal friendly undead.
  400HP (440/480 with caster training), 9-17 magic damage (1.75 sec), 0 heavy armor. 200/325/450 mana (training)
  
  Infest - [Q]
  50 Mana, autocast. Has a melee cast-range.
  The Darkweaver creeps up an enemy living unit and plant an egg, infesting the unit.
  Deals 2 damage to the affected unit per second, or 4 damage if the target is standing on blighted ground.
  If the unit perishes while infested, a Hatchling will rise from its corpse.
  Infest lasts 15 seconds.
  
  Mending Blight - [W]
  125 Mana, 7 sec cooldown, requires Adept training.
  The Darkweaver creates a small circle of blighted ground in a target location. All friendly units within the affected area gain the Mending Blight buff, increasing their regeneration rate by 5 additional points while standing on blighted ground for 20 seconds. (only works on blight).
  
  Soularium Crystal - [E]
  200 Mana, 30 sec cooldown, requires Master training.
  The Darkweaver deploys a Soularium Crystal on the battle-field (same crystal floating above spirit towers).
  The Crystal is a ward that has 250HP and lasts up to 45 seconds.
  On its own, it does nothing. But whenever any living unit within a 700 range of the Crystal dies, the Crystal will absorb the dying unit's spirit and suck it into the Twisting Nether.
  
  For each collected soul, the Crystal will immediately fire a dark missile that either deals 60 spell damage to a random living enemy unit or restores 60HP to a random friendly undead unit. Maximum cast-range for this is 700.
  
  Underlord - [Unit]
  380 Gold, 100 wood, 5 Food, 58 sec train time. Requires Black Citadel and Crypt Lord hero.
  Underlords serve as the personal elites to guard or accompany the mighty Crypt Lords. They possess a large health-pool, high defense and the ability to summon their own Carrion Beetles and release swarms of Locus.
  850 HP, 34-42 normal damage, 2.00 sec, 4 heavy armor. Has 150 mana
  
  Carrion Beetle - [Q]
  40 mana, 6 sec cooldown, autocast
  Raises a corpse into a Carrion Beetle for 45 seconds. Benefits from Skeletal Longevity. Can have up to 2 per Underlord.
  
  Locust Swarm - [W]
  100 mana, 25 sec cooldown
  Releases up to 6 locust for 20 seconds. Each Locust will attempt to drain 8-12 hit points from an enemy every 3 seconds. When the duration of the spell is over, all Locust return to the Underlord and restore him for half of the damage they dealt.
  
  Special: Underlords only generate Mana when accompanied by a Crypt Lord hero at a rate of 2 mana/sec and their Carrion Beetle spell no longer requires a corpse to be cast. Has to be within 800 range to take effect.
  Each Underlord within the effective 800 range will redirect and absorb 10% of the damage dealt against the Crypt Lord onto itself.

Temple of the Damned

Spoiler

• Massive changes to Necromancers and Banshee
• Rather than house a ton of different new units, Temple of the Damned unlocks various units elsewhere as techtree requirement
• Allows Darkweavers to be trained at the Nerubian Ziggurat and allows Acolytes to upgrade themselves/morph into Cultists
• Also trains Lichborn and Necromaster
• 
  First, MAJOR changes to Raise Dead:
  
  Spoiler

  Necromancers will have a spellbook with 3 different variations of Raise Dead. Raise Dead only raises 1 skeleton from a corpse, either a Warrior, Archer or Mage. The player can choose which within the spellbook and set the desired variation of auto-cast.
  
  All 3 skeletons are unlocked from the start, but they got very special attributes and mechanics.
  
  Skeletons no longer have timed life, at all. They are permanent. But each Necromancer can only raise one minion, raising a second will replace the first.
  However, when a skeleton is over 1200 range away from its summoner, its HP will start to decay at 4%/sec.
  
  Skeleton Warrior has 235HP, 14-15 normal dmg 2.00 sec and 1 heavy armor
  When summoned, the warrior is Soul Linked to its master to absorb/redirect 40% of the damage taken by its master onto itself. This link is severed when the master is over 1200 range away from its minion. Skeleton warrior also takes 35% reduced damage from piercing damage.
  
  Skeleton Archer - 180HP, 11-14 piercing dmg, 1.50 sec, 0 medium armor
  When summoned, the Archer starts to emit a single-target aura that raises its master's attack damage by 5 points. This aura is destroyed when master and minion are over 1200 range apart. Also, the attacks of the Skeleton Archer have a 15% chance to deal triple damage.
  
  Skeleton Mage - 160HP, 7-8 magic dmg, 1.60 sec, 0 small armor and 50 mana.
  When summoned, a pact is cast between the mage and necromancer. When the Necromancer is struck by a fatal blow, the Skeleton Mage will sacrifice itself, instantly destroying the skeleton mage and adding its current HP and 50% of its mana to the Necromancer in an attempt to prevent his death.
  Does not work if 1200 range away.
  
  Skeleton mage can also use its mana to cast "Dark Mend"
  15 Mana, 4 sec Cooldown, Auto-cast
  Restore 30 HP over 3 sec to a target friendly undead. Can also be cast on enemy living units instead to deal 15 damage over 3 seconds. Each point of damage dealt this way will restore 1 point of mana to the necromancer who summoned the mage, but this doesnt work if 1200 range away.
  
  Researching the Skeletal Mastery Upgrade that usually unlocks mages now instead allows each Necromancer to summon an additional skeleton without the first being replaced.
  
  Effects of each skeleton type will stack and synergize.
  

  • 2 Skeleton Warriors will redirect 80% of damage taken by the necromancer, equally split between the two
  • 2 Skeleton Archers will increase the Necromancer's attack damage by 10 points
  • 2 Skeleton Mages will both sacrifice at the same time

  [*]
  Skeletal Longevity will grant skeletons +1 Hp/sec while in 1200 range of its summoner that stacks with On-blight regeneration.
  
  Secondly, Unholy Frenzy is also MASSIVELY changed:
  
  Spoiler

  Unholy Frenzy is now a channeled ability. Costing 40 mana to start casting and then cost 8 mana/sec to maintain. Has a cast-range of 500 and a "leash" range of 900.
  
  Throws a target non-heroic unit into a self-destructive frenzy, raising attack rate by 125% and movement speed by 25%. The affected unit takes equal to 4% of its max hp every second as long as the necromancer remains channeling.
  
  Can also be cast offensively on enemies to destroy them with the 4% hp/sec damage, but they will benefit from the attack rate and movement speed boost just as much.
  
  Necomancers are unable to move or attack while channeling and any form of stun, silence, moving out of the leash range, running out of mana, ect will instantly sever the effect and force the necromancer to pay the 40 mana 'start-up fee' again.
  
  Cannot, under any circumstance be cast on heroes.
  
  Special: When Unholy Frenzy is cast on a Necromancer's minion it doesnt need to be channeled (still consumes 40 mana) and instantly grants the 125% attack rate and 25% movement speed boost for 8 seconds (saves 64 mana). Also only damages their minion for 1%hp/sec instead of 4.
  
  Lastly, Cripple.
  
  Spoiler

  Cripple remains largely the same, except for a synergizing effect with Unholy Frenzy.
  
  If the Necromancer channels Unholy Frenzy on an enemy unit already affected by Cripple, the duration of Cripple is extended by 1 sec for every second the Necromancer spends channeling and during this time, Cripple can also no longer be dispelled. The attack rate and movement speed boost from Unholy Frenzy is entirely negated and to maintain the channeling of Unholy Frenzy will only cost the Necromancer 4 mana/sec instead of 8.
  
  Banshee
  I hate banshees. Curse is lame, magic shield is too situational and possession punishes you with an increase in food usage. But thats just my opinion, they are probably one of my least favorite units. So here's how, in my eyes at least, they become fun, enticing and interesting.
  
  When a Banshee is trained, they will enter the battlefield ethereal (invisible, cant attack) just like Tauren Spirit Walkers. They have different abilities while ethereal and a different set when corporeal.
  
  (in Ethereal form)
  Haunt - [Q]
  The banshee flies over a target enemy unit and haunts it. Even if revealed, the banshee counts as a flying air unit while in this state. The banshee is always above the unit, even if it moves. (Imagine like a Huntress' sentinel above a tree, but the tree is moving) Haunt doesnt cost mana, but prevents the banshee from literally performing any other action until Haunt is manually cancelled.
  
  Haunted targets deal 25% reduced damage and receives 25% more from all sources.
  A banshee can only haunt one target and cannot haunt heroes.
  
  (in Corporeal form)
  Deafening Screech - [Q]
  50 mana, 5 sec cooldown
  Silences a target enemy for 10 seconds. Cannot be cast on Heroes.
  Special: When cast of an actively Haunted unit, the unit is also stunned for 3 seconds.
  
  Mana Shield - [W]
  25 Mana, 10 sec cooldown
  Surrounds the Banshee with a magical barrier that absorbs 75% of incoming damage, but burns 1.5 point of mana for each point of prevented damage.
  Special: When out of mana (mana shield breaks) the banshee will automatically attempt to fade into Ethereal form, turning invisible over 4 seconds.
  
  Possession - [E]
  250 mana, default possession
  EXCEPT, the possessed unit will always cost 2 food, regardless of what its original food cost.

 

[noob]

Crypt fiends vanishing makes an hole not filled by the new added units, lobbers will never be built due to how costly they are for units that have hp that low and takes self damage, they just serve to give xp to opponent heroes twice.
Meat wagon plating is an absurdly overpowered upgrade that enables meat wagon only armies.
This whole set of changes allows a clearly overpowered endgame army made of meat wagons with some necropolises filled with gargoyles for near uncounterable anti air and anti ground while adding a whole bunch of units which will never be built(ex: lobbers, the three types of skeletons, gapers, plaguers, lurkers and engorged belchers, it is just better to build more ghouls early on because they have more hp and abominations when you reach the tier with belchers).

Since undead can not trigger night at will, lurkers are guaranteed to die as soon as the first sunrise reach them, players will never spend gold on them after the first disappointment because you are basically paying gold and training time for a temporary unit that is also bad for its cost even during night time.

Also for some reason you do not even mention the undead spellcasters: banshees and necromancers, do the spire replace the temple in the build menu?

 

[Sapprine]

Crypt fiends vanishing makes an hole not filled by the new added units, lobbers will never be built due to how costly they are for units that have hp that low and takes self damage, they just serve to give xp to opponent heroes twice.
Meat wagon plating is an absurdly overpowered upgrade that enables meat wagon only armies.
This whole set of changes allows a clearly overpowered endgame army made of meat wagons with some necropolises filled with gargoyles for near uncounterable anti air and anti ground while adding a whole bunch of units which will never be built(ex: lobbers, the three types of skeletons, gapers, plaguers, lurkers and engorged belchers, it is just better to build more ghouls early on because they have more hp and abominations when you reach the tier with belchers).

Since undead can not trigger night at will, lurkers are guaranteed to die as soon as the first sunrise reach them, players will never spend gold on them after the first disappointment because you are basically paying gold and training time for a temporary unit that is also bad for its cost even during night time.

Also for some reason you do not even mention the undead spellcasters: banshees and necromancers, do the spire replace the temple in the build menu?

these ideas arent meant for competitive play, more like an extended techtree for a custom campaign or just a fun map where balance isnt as important. I said this at the top of the post.

And about Crypt Fiends, they'll have their own building, a nerubian zigguat, but im not yet sure... I find Crypt Fiends a very boring unit and they'll need some serious re-design to be enticing.

As for the other missing stuff, im not done making this list, hence why "not finished" is in the title.

Meat Wagons will cost 280 gold 70 wood 4 food, they have 580HP, 26-30 damage at 2.20 sec and 5 armor... They have like 3/5th the dps of abomination and only half the HP at almost the same cost. Meat Wagon only army would be terrible lol, but yeah, they will be a lot more versatile as current meat wagons.

(Edit)
Anyway, ive added them. Acolytes would have a second advanced build menu for the additional structures.

Engorged Bletchers will require Slaughterhouse, Black Citadel and Disease Cloud before you can make them. Making them instead of ghouls is flat out impossible. Also they have medium armor type. They're a very niche and expensive unit meant to inflict massive devastating damage to dense groups, like a level 3 flamestrike lol.

And with the skeletons and zombies, they're cheap, 1 food and train really fast. Alongside that, each of them has an unique quirk to suit people's playstyles and preference.
Skeleton warriors taking 35% less dmg from piercing makes them effective against towers and artillery.
Skeleton archers move faster, have long-range attacks, very decent dps for their cost and possibly a critical strike chance on top of that.
Skeleton mages have magic attacks, but low dps otherwise and a minor heal/damage ability, making them versatile.

Relatively to their cost, Gapers are tougher and do more dps than ghouls, but the catch is they have Medium armor type, cannibalize on top of that.
Lobbers do siege damage, making them perfect both for performing or defending against early game base rushes, they can launch like ~15 attacks before shedding their flesh and then still continue fighting for a limited time.
Plaguers are extremely broken if used correctly. You only need one and it's able to create more of itself and do a ton of damage with both disease clouds and maggots.

Each of these units is worth their gold cost if used correctly and if you don't like them or they dont suit your playstyle, just make ghouls or broodguard instead.

 

[noob]

these ideas arent meant for competitive play, more like an extended techtree for a custom campaign or just a fun map where balance isnt as important. I said this at the top of the post.

And about Crypt Fiends, they'll have their own building, a nerubian zigguat, but im not yet sure... I find Crypt Fiends a very boring unit and they'll need some serious re-design to be enticing.

As for the other missing stuff, im not done making this list, hence why "not finished" is in the title.

(Edit)
Anyway, ive added them. Acolytes would have a second advanced build menu for the additional structures.

Relatively to their cost, Gapers are tougher and do more dps than ghouls, but the catch is they have Medium armor type, cannibalize on top of that.

Gapers have less hp per cost than ghouls: ghouls have 330 for 120 gold, gapers have 312 for 120 gold (260+20% of 260) and the low hp per unit makes them privileged xp sources for heroes with single target damage spells.

Lobbers do siege damage, making them perfect both for performing or defending against early game base rushes, they can launch like ~15 attacks before shedding their flesh and then still continue fighting for a limited time.

Lobbers are really horrible according to your own description: 15 attacks for an unit that deals 8 on average is low: you are paying 115 gold for dealing a total of damage of 120, even against buildings, you are dealing 180 damage(due to the +50% damage against buildings of siege damage) per 115 gold, it means that for killing barracks for example you are paying on average 958 gold to kill one, it is insane, nobody ever wants to spend a thousand gold to kill a building that costs 160 gold and 60 wood, in a campaign the trade becomes even worse as ais often get free resources.

Engorged Bletchers will require Slaughterhouse, Black Citadel and Disease Cloud before you can make them. Making them instead of ghouls is flat out impossible. Also they have medium armor type. They're a very niche and expensive unit meant to inflict massive devastating damage to dense groups, like a level 3 flamestrike lol.

I said they were terribly bad and never suggested using them instead of ghouls, in fact I told the reverse: that you should always build abominations instead if you get a slaughterhouse (or meat-wagons if you have rank 3 Armour upgrade).
It seems you did not understand my previous post telling a list of units not to use due to being worse resource and stat wise relatively to ghouls and abominations.
A cold nova deals more damage than an engorged belcher and you can sacrifice ghouls to cast more cold novas for cheaper despite sacrificing ghouls generally being a bad idea (you could sacrifice skeletons instead for turning necromancer mana into novas) that is how terrible the unit is.

Plaguers are extremely broken if used correctly. You only need one and it's able to create more of itself and do a ton of damage with both disease clouds and maggots.

Plaguers are bad because it gets lower dot than even an orb of poison or a bandit spear which are both considered not very good damage sources while the bandit can actually hit and run due to being ranged, in fact it is way inferior to for example the parasite spell on naga sirens or on the eredar which both deals higher dot and makes better minions while being merely a single spell on an unit with other good abilities instead of an entire unit dedicated to it.

Skeleton warriors taking 35% less dmg from piercing makes them effective against towers and artillery.

They are still bad because they have roughly 30% less hp than a ghoul and are xp fodder for opponents due to low total hp making them die a lot to spells for example

Skeleton archers move faster, have long-range attacks, very decent dps for their cost and possibly a critical strike chance on top of that.

None of that is mentioned so I assumed it was the base stats of the unit in the game which is mid range(600) and average speed(slower than a ghoul)
If it have 1000 range and a speed higher than the one of a hero it might be worth it because then it would be able to dodge being hit by spells and dying instantly which is the reason night elf archers get extreme spell damage reduction(else they would not be viable at all)

Skeleton mages have magic attacks, but low dps otherwise and a minor heal/damage ability, making them versatile.

Their healing ability is strong but they are just way too frail to be of any use, there is nothing that can not kill them with their 160 hp, thus making them extreme xp fodders empowering massively opponent heroes.

Meat Wagons will cost 280 gold 70 wood 4 food, they have 580HP, 26-30 damage at 2.20 sec and 5 armor... They have like 3/5th the dps of abomination and only half the HP at almost the same cost. Meat Wagon only army would be terrible lol, but yeah, they will be a lot more versatile as current meat wagons.

You forgot the upgrade you made which adds up to 600 hp to meat wagons which are mechanical and so already gets a bunch of resistances(ex: chain lighting can not hit them).
Even stronger, they can get up to 14 armour once fully upgraded (+6 from armour upgrades, +3 from the armour upgrade upgrade), that kind of armour makes them together with their 1180 hp near impervious to harm, it is as tough as a hero.
In fact I wonder if you even think about the stats of the units with full upgrades

 

[Sapprine]

You forgot the upgrade you made which adds up to 600 hp to meat wagons which are mechanical and so already gets a bunch of resistances(ex: chain lighting can not hit them).
Even stronger, they can get up to 14 armour once fully upgraded (+6 from armour upgrades, +3 from the armour upgrade upgrade), that kind of armour makes them together with their 1180 hp near impervious to harm.
In fact I wonder if you even think about your own upgrades.

Meat wagons by default arent affected by armor upgrades, only attack. They have 380hp and 2 armor by default, so 580hp and 5 armor is the maximum

Plaguers are bad because it gets lower dot than even an orb of poison or a bandit spear which are both considered not very good damage sources while the bandit can actually hit and run due to being ranged, in fact it is way inferior to for example the parasite spell on naga sirens or on the eredar which both deals higher dot and makes better minions while being merely a single spell on an unit with other good abilities instead of an entire unit dedicated to it.

But on death, they release a disease cloud that deals 8 dmg/sec to all units in the cloud and the cloud infects units to deal 30 damage over 20 sec that when an unit is killed during this effect, from any cause, a full hp plaguer will be born who's able to afflict more units. If set up correctly, you can have a whole chain reaction. Engorged Bletchers, Meat Wagon and Abomination all have the same buff, you can have an army of plaguers without ever training one and do multiple thousands to damage to crowds, all originating from a single, well-placed Bletcher explosion.

Lobbers are really horrible according to your own description: 15 attacks for an unit that deals 8 on average is low: you are paying 115 gold for dealing a total of damage of 120, even against buildings, you are dealing 180 damage(due to the +50% damage against buildings of siege damage) per 115 gold, it means that for killing barracks for example you are paying on average 958 gold to kill one, it is insane, nobody ever wants to spend a thousand gold to kill a building that costs 160 gold and 60 wood, in a campaign the trade becomes even worse as ais often get free resources.

Do note that Lobbers benefit from attack upgrades like any other unit and their attacks do deal splash damage in a small area. Also they double as a melee combat unit, because they become a Lesser Skeleton Warrior on death, which has 135HP, 8-9 normal dmg, 2.00 sec, 0 heavy armor and takes 35% reduced piercing damage. Zombies also leave behind corpses for Necromancers, Ghouls, Abominations, ect to use, which is kind of their whole deal. Cheap 1 food combat units unlocked early that serve as easy corpse supply in mid-game.

As it is, medium armor takes 75% dmg from piercing and with the skeleton taking even less, even a small group of them could take out watch towers or effectively soak a lot of artillery damage (combined up in twice the amount of piercing damage a ghoul could take) . I believe the gold cost is more than fair for the versatility and utility these zombies provide.

Gapers have less hp per cost than ghouls: ghouls have 330 for 120 gold, gapers have 312 for 120 gold (260+20% of 260) and the low hp per unit makes them privileged xp sources for heroes with single target damage spells.

Again, not meant for balanced competitive play. But you have a point. Also their Medium armor type really doesnt work. I'll think about it.

But also keep in mind Zombies benefit from Crypt Frenzy upgrade, (+10% attack speed, +15 flat movement speed and +20 extra movement speed at night.) and also the "endless hunger" upgrade (+10% max hp and attacks have 15% life steal.)

All of a sudden gapers have 286HP, 10-11 normal dmg (13-17 max), 1.22 sec, 0 armor medium, can outrun heroes at night and 15% life steal. Seems like a pretty good deal.

 

[noob]

Meat wagons by default arent affected by armor upgrades, only attack. They have 380hp and 2 armor by default, so 580hp and 5 armor is the maximum

But on death, they release a disease cloud that deals 8 dmg/sec to all units in the cloud and the cloud infects units to deal 30 damage over 20 sec that when an unit is killed during this effect, from any cause, a full hp plaguer will be born who's able to afflict more units. If set up correctly, you can have a whole chain reaction. Engorged Bletchers, Meat Wagon and Abomination all have the same buff, you can have an army of plaguers without ever training one and do multiple thousands to damage to crowds, all originating from a single, well-placed Bletcher explosion.


Do note that Lobbers benefit from attack upgrades like any other unit and their attacks do deal splash damage in a small area. Also they double as a melee combat unit, because they become a Lesser Skeleton Warrior on death, which has 135HP, 8-9 normal dmg, 2.00 sec, 0 heavy armor and takes 35% reduced piercing damage. Zombies also leave behind corpses for Necromancers, Ghouls, Abominations, ect to use, which is kind of their whole deal. Cheap 1 food combat units unlocked early that serve as easy corpse supply in mid-game.

As it is, medium armor takes 75% dmg from piercing and with the skeleton taking even less, even a small group of them could take out watch towers or effectively soak a lot of artillery damage (combined up in twice the amount of piercing damage a ghoul could take) . I believe the gold cost is more than fair for the versatility and utility these zombies provide.


Again, not meant for balanced competitive play. But you have a point. Also their Medium armor type really doesnt work. I'll think about it.



All of a sudden gapers have 286HP, 10-11 normal dmg (13-17 max), 1.22 sec, 0 armor medium, can outrun heroes at night and 15% life steal. Seems like a pretty good deal.

unambiguously the 200 hp for meat wagons is per armour upgrade:

Meat Wagon Plating (upgrade) - Reinforces the Hull of the Meat Wagon, making it more suitable for melee combat. Adds +200 HP and +1 armor per tier of Unholy Armor upgrades researched at the Graveyard.

The sentence was not clear.
So I assumed the 500 hp you told was the new base stat for meat wagons(because you do not state again their base stats in your first post)

But also keep in mind Zombies benefit from Crypt Frenzy upgrade, (+10% attack speed, +15 flat movement speed and +20 extra movement speed at night.) and also the "endless hunger" upgrade (+10% max hp and attacks have 15% life steal.)

Both applies to ghouls too and at a stronger rate for the frenzy one since the crypt frenzy adds +15% attack rate to ghouls and only +5% for zombies therefore with upgrades the gap between ghouls and zombies increase.

Do note that Lobbers benefit from attack upgrades like any other unit and their attacks do deal splash damage in a small area. Also they double as a melee combat unit, because they become a Lesser Skeleton Warrior on death, which has 135HP, 8-9 normal dmg, 2.00 sec, 0 heavy armor and takes 35% reduced piercing damage. Zombies also leave behind corpses for Necromancers, Ghouls, Abominations, ect to use, which is kind of their whole deal. Cheap 1 food combat units unlocked early that serve as easy corpse supply in mid-game.

The lesser skeleton warrior is in fact a penalty: it clogs up your own higher damage melee units while dealing very low damage and it also gives xp to opponents easily due to extremely low hp.
For corpses, meat wagons with graveyards are better than losing your own units, especially in a campaign scenario where you need to keep your units alive to win (ais gets more army, you can not afford to do anything less than a 1:10 trade).
Also you lowered considerably the corpse use of necromancers by making skeletons capped per necromancer and permanent so you can just make them at home before moving out which is a considerable change in dynamic.
Furthermore barracks also get hp and armour upgrades which more than compensates the damage upgrade of gapers since gapers have a D3 dice so attack upgrades improves them very slowly (since attack upgrades adds dice)

When a Banshee is trained, they will enter the battlefield ethereal (invisible, cant attack) just like Tauren Spirit Walkers. They have different abilities while ethereal and a different set when corporeal.

That is not what ethereal does, ethereal instead makes you immune to all attacks that are not magical and vulnerable to magical spells (basically all spells that are not net deals +66% damage) and magical attacks(+66% damage) and does not turns you invisible, it looks like invisibility due to transparency and the opponent stopping to attack but it is a different mechanic as not only the unit can still be seen but it can also be targeted with magical attacks and spells and detection have no interaction at all with the ethereal mechanic.
Here is a link toward the keyword: Ethereal

 

[Sapprine]

The lesser skeleton warrior is in fact a penalty: it clogs up your own higher damage melee units while dealing very low damage and it also gives xp to opponents easily due to extremely low hp.

Just over all the collision size of all units would be greatly reduced. there will never be clogging up.

For corpses, meat wagons with graveyards are better than losing your own units, especially in a campaign scenario where you need to keep your units alive to win (ais gets more army, you can not afford to do anything less than a 1:10 trade).

Exhume Corpses will be removed and Meat Wagons actually require and consume a stored corpse in order to fling their meat projectiles, otherwise they can only use their melee attack.

That is not what ethereal does, ethereal instead makes you immune to all attacks that are not magical and vulnerable to magical spells (basically all spells that are not net deals +66% damage) and magical attacks(+66% damage) and does not turns you invisible, it looks like invisibility due to transparency and the opponent stopping to attack but it is a different mechanic as not only the unit can still be seen but it can also be targeted with magical attacks and spells and detection have no interaction at all with the ethereal mechanic.

thats what I meant. These haunting banshees take 66% increased spell and magic damage + immunity from physical and they're also invisible while doing it.

Both applies to ghouls too and at a stronger rate for the frenzy one since the crypt frenzy adds +15% attack rate to ghouls and only +5% for zombies therefore with upgrades the gap between ghouls and zombies increase.

Fine. Cost of Zombies further reduced.
Gaper 100g > 85g
Lobber 115g > 100g
Plaguer 130g > 115g
to not undermine the skeletons from graveyard, their cost is also reduced
Warrior 85g > 70g
Archer 95g > 85g
Mage 105g > 100g

unambiguously the 200 hp for meat wagons is per armour upgrade:

Changing it to say a one-time +200 HP and +2 armor.

Any comments on the Nerubian and Necromancer?

 

[noob]

Unholy frenzy's leash range and short base range makes it hard to use together with melee stuff (if you do so, your necromancers are nearly in the fray) and the fact it does not works on heroes makes it a lot less powerful than before however the damage is crazy (ex: an abomination would lose 40 hp a second) so some testing would be required but I except it to mostly be used on T3 stuff.
Cripple not dispel able while under unholy frenzy mechanic means that the opponent needs to walk away from the effect or use a stun/silence on the necromancer. (unless you can just use dispel twice once for unholy frenzy and once for cripple)
The necromancer base stats are a lot stronger thanks to the skeleton boosts.
I except people to rarely use unholy frenzy on the minions for while it is buffed in this case, the minions are stat boosts for the necromancers and so keeping them safe as much as possible(but still within 1200 range) is tempting (a safe skeleton mage is an extra 160 hp for the necromancer) finally I suggest that for making this interaction more intuitive to use that the leash range for the unholy frenzy to be raised to the leash range of the minion when cast on a minion(else the player have to remember two different radii for his minions).

However the banshee changes makes them anti synergistic with the new units: the only way to use extra frail units in the endgame like the low cost units you added would be to use antimagic shell reactively to shunt single target damage spells (needs high micro but obviates the main weakness of all your cheap stuff: them dying to a single stormbolt or frost nova or holy light (those who dies to shock wave will just die anyway) but you removed that and replaced it by two debuffs that does not work on heroes.
Mana shield seems bad for a banshee, they have overrall low stats and spending mana just to survive means that after that they are stuck autoattacking for 12 damage.
I suggest that you replace mana shield by something else(if you dislike having to reactively cast antimagic shell you could change its mechanic and make it work like guardian shield: you cast it and then for a while the banshee makes all allied units within a specific radius take less damage from spells(ex: 50% less for all units within 500 range))

In fact a common theme between your temple of the damned casters is "does not work on heroes" this makes them all very bad against orc which have heroes strong enough for them to be their army (lots of raw stats and a few really good aoe attacks).

The nerubian caster have only one good ability but it is a very good one (mending blight) and it is good enough on its own to justify making the unit.
His parasite variant not only makes parasites weaker than the ones of naga sirens but it also is in melee range meaning that the caster have to wade in melee to cast it (and basically be guaranteed to die) and it deals only 4 dps at most unlike the 5 of a naga siren's parasite spell.
His soul crystal adds extremely low amounts of damage or healing that triggers only in rare specific circumstances (you must be fighting an opponent that have living units and already be winning the fight for it to trigger) while costing an extreme mana cost and having a short range for a static thing that triggers only on opponent death, never ever cast that spell, it is a trap and you lose 200 mana for basically doing nothing at all (unless there is some cheese about getting 40 of them at once and triggering them all with a single opponent living unit dying but then you had to get 40 nerubian spellcasters and basically have an army made entirely of that and which will have an hard time killing the first unit to trigger the chain and then the opponent can just walk away easily because it is all static).
Also the crystal does nothing at all in an undead vs undead matchup.

Brood guards are very weird for they encourage stacking all the broodlings with them(defense stacking have no cap) but broodlings are critically vulnerable to AOE and the stat boost from dying broodlings is capped.
I except people to just use more crypt fiends for they do not require broodlings to work and are ranged (broodlings are so frail that you are feeding massive xp to opponents).
I also except people to not do the mana upgrade for crypt fiends in match ups against humans and night elves (makes your crypt fiends vulnerable to feed back/mana burn in exchange for low amounts of life leech and the "opportunity" to feed xp to opponent heroes with frail summons)

The elite nerubian unit unlocked by a hero is weird design especially since it is not as strong as an abomination. yes, it got higher dps (less dps per supply except when casting carrion swarm at which point the 20 dps boost makes them higher dps units) but they need to be in range of the hero and costs a lot more for less hp and are vulnerable to anti caster stuff.

Finally I have still no news of the obsidian statue, where is it and does it still exists?

 

[Map Designer]

what spell would acolytes have to defend the base?

 

[Sapprine]

what spell would acolytes have to defend the base?

morph to Cultist

 

[noob]

Did you start making a map with these and the regular undead faction?
Playing a bit around with units that have those changes and some without to compare would be nice.

 

[Sapprine]

I am working on a map, yup
though its mostly just terrain atm