Fantasy-Based Unique Hero items

[EricDaRed]

Hey hiveworkshoppers!

I've been working on a project called Battlecraft: Warcraft III edition. Its a map based off of the Battlecraft UMS map for StarCraft.

The map is nearing its first releasable version (woot). I've been considering posting it in the map dev forums, but I don't really want to obligate myself to keep up with a bunch of posts. Yea, I'm lazy like that.

One thing I am going to implement is the addition of unique items for each hero. I've come up with a few, but I'm drawing a blank on many others. Below is a list of heroes in the map and the unique item that they receive (and what it does). If there is no item listed, it means I haven't come up with one and need ideas!

Criteria:
1) The item needs to fit thematically with the hero (or at least not clash). For example, it would make no sense to give the Blood Mage a sword.
2) The Item can be a stat boost, an activatable ability, a passive ability, or any combination of the three. Abilities and effects can be unorthodox, so long as they could be reasonably created in the world editor.
3) The item needs to be named after an item found in some other work of fantasy (Elfstones of Shanara, The One Ring, Sith Holocron, etc) and its abilities/effects should approximate the effect of the object its named after (it doesn't have to be exact, though).


Human Heroes
Paladin: Book of Life (Fully heals all nearby allied units. 60 seconds cooldown)
Blood Mage: Elfstones of Shanara (Deals 600 dmg to a single target. 30 sec cooldown).
Mountain King: Midas Stone (Gives 20 gold every 3 seconds to the player)
Archmage: none yet

Orc Heroes
Far Seer: none yet
Tauren Cheiftan: I want his item to give 50% of the mana he spends on warstomp and shockwave back to him, because he can absorb some of the energy he created back into himself, but I can't think of a fantasy item to fit the idea!
Blademanster: none yet
Shadow Hunter: none yet

Undead Heroes
Dark Ranger: none yet
Lich: I want him to have an aura that has a 30% chance to raise an allied unit as a skeleton when it dies... but can't think of a fantasy item to fit!
Death Knight: Book of Death (deals 400 damage to all nearby enemy units. 60 second cooldown).
Crypt Lord: none yet
DreadLord: I want units who strike the Dreadlord to have a 20% chance to be put to sleep, but I can't think of a fantasy item to fit!

Night Elf Heroes
Priestess of the Moon: none yet
Keeper of the Grove: none yet
Warden: none yet
Demon Hunter: Doom Contact (selects a unit type. The DH deals extra damage when attacking units of the selected type).

Naga Heroes
Naga Sea Witch: I want something to boost her mana regen, but I am short
on fantasy-based ideas.
Royal Guard (Beefed up Myrmidon): none yet

I'm mainly looking for ideas for the blank slots, but feel free to suggest if you think of something better for one of the items I've already cooked up. Also, feel free to include criticism/complements on the ideas I've listed.

 

[Kwah]

Human Heroes
Archmage: Glass Staff of Farseeing - Has the farsight ability. And adds damage.

Orc Heroes
Far Seer: Spurred Boots - Increases move speed by a base of 100 and gives ability to charge. (incease move speed for a given amount of time)
Tauren Cheiftan: Make the absorbtion item a talisman of some sort. Say, Talisman of Absorbtion
Blademanster: Ninja-to of Blood - Passive life steal and a short intense lifedrain.
Shadow Hunter: Shadow UnderTow -Not sure of type of item but perhaps an amulet. Should make shadow hunter invisible for a time and damage all of the people around him when it ends.

Undead Heroes
Dark Ranger: Everlasting Quiver - Increases attack speed.
Lich: Skull of The Fallen
Crypt Lord: Enhanced Philia - Adds a burrowstrike ability (like in DoTA) which burrows then comes out of the ground and impales
DreadLord: Gauntlets of Slumber

Night Elf Heroes
Priestess of the Moon: Oracular Orb - Allows the priestess to confer with the goddes of the moon who strikes down her enemies with a giant meteaor. (AOE damage)
Keeper of the Grove: Nature Wand - Like summon Treants but effects every tree on the map temporarily giving them an attack before turning them back to trees
Warden: Net of the Thief - Has an entangle which targets a unit and locks them down. Can also hit air units

Naga Heroes
Naga Sea Witch: Cap of Clarity - boosts mana regen
Royal Guard (Beefed up Myrmidon): - Trident of Striking - Gives a knock back attack to the Royal Gaurd.

If you use some of these I am trying to develop reputaion and would appreciate it.

 

[EricDaRed]

Thanks for the ideas. Unfortunatley, you can't give someone +REP until you have 10 rep of your own. Sorry.

 

[SilverSong]

I liked his ideas +rep.

 

[AmadiTheGreat]

What guality should these items be? Powerful? Very powerful? Rather weak?

Anyways, here goes:

Human:
Paladin - Book of Life (What you had there was overpowered by far. Instead try this: Paladin's Holy Light spell gains an extra 100 healing, which affects the target and area 100 around him. Healing living targets and damaging undead as normal.)
Archmage - Tome of Wisdom (Increases the effect of Archmage's Brilliance Aura by 50%, Damage of Water Elemental by 5 and Damage of Blizzard by 10/wave. Also gives +10 int.)
Bloodmage - Elemental Orbs (Replaces the orbs flying around his head. One is replaced by fire orb (Attack shooting it will make target burn over time) one with Ice orb (Attack shooting it will cause a small ice explosion dealing 30 damage to primary target and 15 to enemies next to it.) and one with Earth Orb (Stuns the target for 0.5 seconds.))
Mountain King - Thor's Hammer (Orb Effect, Cooldown 10 seconds. Every attack of MK with this out of cooldown will trigger the cooldown, bash the target for 2 seconds and deal 50 bonus damage.)

 

[EricDaRed]

My game, in simple terms, is a reverse tug-of-war. Players send waves of units at each other (as they have the cash to do so). The units clash in the middle, and push back and forth until one group manages to overwhelm the other and destroy the enemy base.

For example, if an opponent playing the orcs sends some grunts and shamans at you, and are the humans you would probably want to reply with some footmen and spell breakers.

Anyway, because there are a large # of units, the heroes are underpowered if left at Blizzard specifications. To make the heroes more important to victory, the standard abilities are more potent. Since the Paladin lacks any abilities to destroy large number of enemy units, he instead has the ability to keep his units alive.

The cooldown may need to be increased, but I don't think the Book of Life is unbalanced because the Paladin himself is already at a disadvantage (holy light is almost useless because there are so many units). Thanks for the suggestions, though, they were helpful. I especially liked Thor's Hammer.

The bloodmage one is a cool idea, but I have no idea how to make that happen.

 

[Formula1]

Anyway, because there are a large # of units, the heroes are underpowered if left at Blizzard specifications. To make the heroes more important to victory, the standard abilities are more potent. Since the Paladin lacks any abilities to destroy large number of enemy units, he instead has the ability to keep his units alive.

The cooldown may need to be increased, but I don't think the Book of Life is unbalanced because the Paladin himself is already at a disadvantage (holy light is almost useless because there are so many units). Thanks for the suggestions, though, they were helpful. I especially liked Thor's Hammer.

The bloodmage one is a cool idea, but I have no idea how to make that happen.

Change Alot of abilities to area of effect or Chain instead of Single target (Like death Coil)
Giving Heroes Ability to use splash damage is very important
FireLord is a very good example of a good anti army/anti Hero unit
-Summons split up into more units over time
-Attacks deal AoE damage when throwing the killing blow
-Incinerate silences enemies and Deals Damage over time

I can't come up with creative names right now... but thats really all thats necessary for hero Transformation...

Don't forget...
-Anti Hero
-Anti Army
-Anti Summon
-Support Army
-Support Hero
-Create Summon

This is a general way of describing the tpes of spells you can give units... from there it is about playing style in some ways....

 

[AmadiTheGreat]

Bouncing Death coil would be awesome, in large arcs for like 5 times across the battlefield.