Naga Ability Tree

[Kam]

There are many attempts at fleshing out the Naga tech tree. If you were designing a melee Naga race what would the essential abilities and racial traits be in your opinion?

If you had the models below how would you use them?

 

[cleavinghammer]

I would go with water bonuses, like regeneration, stealth or even (temporarily) lowering terrain until it's underwater.

 

[Kam]

I would go with water bonuses, like regeneration, stealth or even (temporarily) lowering terrain until it's underwater.

regeneration in water is good. I could do a % bonus. Terrain changes are likely to cause desync though.

 

[jopi]

Well, IMO water bonuses, let it be regeneration or even movement in deep water, aren't a good idea as long as your goal is to create a naga race that also is good in blizzard meele maps. The reason for this is that there are maps where there is no "valuable" water for the naga race and thus this bonus turns out more or less useless, so the Naga are in a disadvantage, while there are also maps with a lot of water where Naga might be OP. And a race should be balanced in every map. So aslong you're not creating a Naga campaign with fitting maps I would not use water bonuses.

Some ideas from me, as I see that you use this "Naga Portal" building, maybe try to make it work like the Zerg's Nydus Worm? You could even make them teleport buildings like the eldar can in WH 40k (i think so).
If you still want to have some water interaction maybe make it around rain? Not the tarrain rain in some maps, but a effect (the one from the stormcall ability?) that is around the main building, and can be spread on other buildings in range (combine this with lightnings and you have a fine defensive mechanic). Or make some stormcaller/stormsphere that somehow have this rain around them (permanently or toggeled) and give bonuses this way.
Or make every big building (not food building and towers) be guarded by a waterelemental that can't move away from the building to far and respawns after a given time if it is destroyed (defensive mechanic).

Some Unit ideas would be a gathering Turtle (a turtle with a murloc house on it, i've seen this model somwhere) that works as a mobile resource gathering point. It should be rather slow and have a restriction (like maximum one per main you building have). Maybe make them even start with three workers and one gathering turtle so they can start expanding once they clear a goldmine.
Another unit might be a heavy siege turtle (meele not ranged spitting rocks^^) which has slow but destructive attacks against buildings. Give it a charge ability that can be cast on buildings (i've also seen a turtle shell (shockwave) missile that would fit here) so you have a gapcloser for the slow moving turtle.

I hope this helps you a little. If you like this ideas just PM me, maybe some more things come to my mind ^^

 

[Kam]

Well, IMO water bonuses, let it be regeneration or even movement in deep water, aren't a good idea as long as your goal is to create a naga race that also is good in blizzard meele maps. The reason for this is that there are maps where there is no "valuable" water for the naga race and thus this bonus turns out more or less useless, so the Naga are in a disadvantage, while there are also maps with a lot of water where Naga might be OP. And a race should be balanced in every map. So aslong you're not creating a Naga campaign with fitting maps I would not use water bonuses.

Some ideas from me, as I see that you use this "Naga Portal" building, maybe try to make it work like the Zerg's Nydus Worm? You could even make them teleport buildings like the eldar can in WH 40k (i think so).
If you still want to have some water interaction maybe make it around rain? Not the tarrain rain in some maps, but a effect (the one from the stormcall ability?) that is around the main building, and can be spread on other buildings in range (combine this with lightnings and you have a fine defensive mechanic). Or make some stormcaller/stormsphere that somehow have this rain around them (permanently or toggeled) and give bonuses this way.
Or make every big building (not food building and towers) be guarded by a waterelemental that can't move away from the building to far and respawns after a given time if it is destroyed (defensive mechanic).

Some Unit ideas would be a gathering Turtle (a turtle with a murloc house on it, i've seen this model somwhere) that works as a mobile resource gathering point. It should be rather slow and have a restriction (like maximum one per main you building have). Maybe make them even start with three workers and one gathering turtle so they can start expanding once they clear a goldmine.
Another unit might be a heavy siege turtle (meele not ranged spitting rocks^^) which has slow but destructive attacks against buildings. Give it a charge ability that can be cast on buildings (i've also seen a turtle shell (shockwave) missile that would fit here) so you have a gapcloser for the slow moving turtle.

I hope this helps you a little. If you like this ideas just PM me, maybe some more things come to my mind ^^

I design all the terrain to be balanced for sea combat. I have actually already used several of your ideas. Right now they are heavily magic focused.

 

[cleavinghammer]

You could even make them teleport buildings like the eldar can in WH 40k

It only really works because Dawn of War requires structures to be built within range of each other, it'd be equivalent to teleporting buildings but only on Blight.

-

Some more ideas:

A turtle that causes damage to buildings when it moves due to the vibrations of its footsteps.
Naga buildings that spawn water elementals at half health, that will then repair the building by throwing water on it.
An army-wide upgrade that can be switched around as needed, that gives every unit a boost in damage/movespeed/regen/etc.

 

[Kam]

An army-wide upgrade that can be switched around as needed, that gives every unit a boost in damage/movespeed/regen/etc.

I like that. It would be a unique way to counter enemy army compositions.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Sea combat:
Enemy ships get turned into lumber powerups (perhaps changing the model for floating wood) that the naga can pick up.
Allow submerged units to move around/ make submerging a waterborne Ethereal Form with more powerful spells.

 

[Ragnoras]

How about when buildings are placed in water: they can also gain some new units: sometimes:
Asl o buildings will have regenaration

 

[Vinz]

Gain unit abilities while on water?

 

[Kam]

How about when buildings are placed in water: they can also gain some new units: sometimes:
Asl o buildings will have regenaration

The problem with building on water is that you must set the pathing to Ground Pathable. This means that a structure can be built on items. One solution is to give items a pathing map but that really messes with unit movement.

Gain unit abilities while on water?

Right now they gain mana and health regen. I could add anything though.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Stronger spells.

For example, if using Crushing Wave on land requires magically creating water first, casting it on water gives a lot more to work with, so more damage, knockback... By the same logic, bigger elementals, colder Frost Armor/Arrows, etc.


As for the items, maybe you can put a trigger like "building is placed on an item" -> "move item three inches to the north"?

 

[Ujimasa Hojo]

Hmph. In my own Naga techtrees, I've removed their ability to build on Ground pathable. It gives them too much of an advantage to be able to build in places where others can't.

In one of my crazier Naga techtrees, I gave the "Town Hall" a modified uproot ability making it look like the building morphs into water to move around.

Before I go to abilities and units, are you going to add this Naga techtree to the original 4 races or are you going to edit the 4 original races as well?

 

[Kam]

Hmph. In my own Naga techtrees, I've removed their ability to build on Ground pathable. It gives them too much of an advantage to be able to build in places where others can't.

In one of my crazier Naga techtrees, I gave the "Town Hall" a modified uproot ability making it look like the building morphs into water to move around.

Before I go to abilities and units, are you going to add this Naga techtree to the original 4 races or are you going to edit the 4 original races as well?

They have already been added to my project as a replacement for Night Elf. There are also heavily edited Orc, and Human, and a completely new race of my own design called the Lost.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. Right now the AI isn't functioning as I had to make room at the last minute.
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps-564/btt-ruined-lock-256107/?prev=status=p

 

[Ragnoras]

cool, lemee try it out!