[Role Playing Game] Need abilities for 2 custom heroes: a Lich and a Poison Treant

[A Rather Wily Beaver]

Hello all,

I'm making a MOBA for myself and my friends and I'm working on custom heroes. Two of them are a Lich and a Treant.

Each Hero has 4 abilities: 3 basic abilities (Q, W, and E), and an ultimate (R).

Here are their current abilities, including their placeholder abilities that I would like to eventually replace:

Lich:

Passive: the Lich has 3 Frozen Orbs that orbit him. Frozen Orbs regenerate a few seconds after being expended.

Q: Launch: the Lich launches one of the Frozen Orbs in a target direction that damages and slows the first enemy encountered

W (Placeholder): Frost Armor: aside from some number changes, it's identical the vanilla Lich's frost armor

E: Raise Dead: Summons 1/2/3 high damage but very low health skeletons to fight for the Lich

R (Ultimate): Frozen Tomb: the Lich either targets himself or an enemy Hero. The target is entombed in ice, stunning them for 3 seconds. On a self-cast, the Lich is healed, and on an enemy-cast, the target takes heavy damage.

Poison Treant:

Passive: None (I'm not giving every Hero a passive, but I'm not opposed to adding one)

Q: Death Blossom: the Treant summons an immobile plant that shoots thorns at nearby enemies

W (Placeholder): Entangle: Roots a target in place for a short duration

E: Poison Bolt: the Treant blasts a target enemy with poison, dealing damage over time

R (Ultimate): Overgrowth: all active Death Blossoms become enraged, greatly increasing their attack speed

Any new ideas, especially for the placeholder abilities, are greatly appreciated, and constructive criticism is always welcome!

Thanks!

 

[cleavinghammer]

Lich:

Ice Barrier (Active, Drains Mana): The Lich's orbs fly around him, reducing all damage taken by 3x/2x/x depending on the number of orbs left around him.

Slow Chill (Active, Channeling): Targets a unit. The Lich's orbs fly off him and around the target, greatly slowing movement and attackspeed of the target and surrounding units. Lasts until the spell ends, is interrupted or the target moves out of range. When the spell ends, the Lich must regenerate its orbs.

Empower (Active): Targets a friendly unit. One of the Lich's orbs flies around the target, giving it Frost Attack and increased damage. Bonus damage is doubled if used on one of the Lich's minions. Lich's maximum orbs are reduced by number of Empowered units, the effect ends or the unit dies the orb returns to the Lich.

Treant:

Seed (Active): Plants a seed at a target location. The seed slowly grows into a tree, granting the Treant vision over the area. Once the tree is fully grown it grants minor health and mana regen to allied units close to it, continues granting vision and reveals invisible units.

Accelerate Growth: Targets a point. Creates a ring of seeds around the target point that slowly grow into destructible trees. The trees will die after a long delay, each leaving a Disease Cloud where they once stood.

 

[A Rather Wily Beaver]

@cleavinghammer these are some really great ideas! I think I may end up using some of them.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Are the Lich's orbs inspired by the crypt from Cursed Treasure by any chance?

 

[A Rather Wily Beaver]

@cleavinghammer I actually have never heard of Cursed Treasure before you mentioned it just now. I was moreso thinking about Syndra from League of Legends; she has 3 "Dark Spheres" that orbit her, and all of her abilities revolve around creating more and manipulating them. I'm considering reworking the Lich at some point to make him a bit more like that.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Coming up with a bunch of random abilities can be fun, but I have found it's a sub-optimal method of Hero design.

The most important things to consider are:
1) What kind of game is the Hero for? (you answered this; a MOBA)
2) What kind of Hero are they supposed to be? (i.e. what is their Role, their "mechanical" Function, in the game? DPS, Tank, "Carry"... Mage, Warrior, Ranger, Rogue... You can use D&D classes or other MOBA characters to help us get a good idea of what you're looking for).

 

[A Rather Wily Beaver]

@Kyrbi0 you are 100% right, and your comment is similar to a revelation I had yesterday or so (I have a *very mild* case of covid at the moment so the days are kind of blending together haha).

I've decided I'm going to do partial redesigns of several of the existing heroes. I may post the reworks into this thread when I'm done/feeling up to working on it.

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Here are some hero ideas I had a long time ago for a project that was called off. I'm not really sure they're applicable for your map, but here goes;

Spoiler

Mark of the Wild: Marks target enemy unit. You and your pet deals 10/12/14/16/18% increased damage to marked target.


Call of the Wild: Summons an uncontrollable raptor that damages nearby enemy units. Marked targets has priority. Instantly attacks target as soon as you mark a target. Automatically follows the hunter when not attacking. If attacking a unit and the hunter runs away, stops attacking when the distance between hunter and raptor is more than 1000 and starts following the hunter instead. Raptor is permanent. This ability will be unavailable as long as the raptor lives.
Casts the following abilities on different levels:
1 - Bite. Deals 2x of normal attack damage.
2 - Decaying claws. Deals 1.5x attack damage, poisons target enemy unit, reducing their armor by 5.
3 - Detects hidden units. Deals 2x damage to hidden units if not attacking a marked target.
4 - Rapture. Applies a bleed effect to target.
5 - Rapid attack. Attacks 6 times extremely rapidly, dealing 1.2x damage per attack.


Volley: Fires 5/6/7/8/9 rapid arrows in a straight line, damaging 40/45/50/55/60 damage per arrow. Deals 1.2x damage to targets afflicted by decaying claws (raptor ability).


Mount (Ultimate): Mounts the raptor (Have to target the raptor, melee range). Renders the hunters and raptors abilities unavailable (use hero passive transformation). The raptor/hunter unit has increased movement speed + armor + health, and has two abilities. Lasts 15 seconds, then the hunter and raptor is separated. If the hunter/raptor dies the hero and raptor is separated, and the raptor dies leaving only the hero with reduced HP.
Ability 1: Leap. Leaps to target and instantly damages 300/350/400.
Ability 2: No name. Can only be used within 2 seconds of Leap. Shoots 3 arrows rapidly at the target of leap, dealing 50/75/100 per arrow and applying a poison that damages 15/20/25 per second over 5 seconds.

The hunter and raptor model needs to be combined into one model with the above ability. If you're not able to do this then I can think up something else.


Passive:
Escape plan. Once every 3 minutes, if the hunter is dealt lethal damage, the damage is instead redirected to the raptor and the hunter gains 300% movement speed for 5 seconds.



Can use the following models if you can optimize them and make their animations look OK in Warcraft 3:
This or this or this for hunter.
This for raptor.

Spoiler

Healer/DPS:



Unnamed - Heals target friendly unit 150/200/250/300/350 HP. Healing done is increased by 10/15/20/25/30% if target is below 10% health.

Unnamed Shadow form - Damages target enemy unit 150/200/250/300/350 HP. Damage done is increased by 10/15/20/25/30% if target is below 10% health.

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Spheres of Hope - Summons three rotating orbs around the healer. When active, each orb increases all healing done by 5,8,11,14,17%. If the spheres comes into contact with friendly units they heal 75/100/125/150/175 per sphere, and the sphere that came into contact with the friendly unit is consumed.
(If this spell was active when you used shadow form the remaining orbs turns into shadow orbs)

Spheres of Damnation (shadow form) - Summons three rotating orbs around the healer. When active each orb increases all spell damage done by 5,8,11,14,17%. If the spheres comes into contact with enemy units they damage 75/100/125/150/175 damage, and the sphere that came into contact with the target disappears.
(If this spell was active when you revert from shadow form the remaining orbs turns into holy orbs)

--------------------------

Toggleable ability:

Unnamed - Auto attacks heals friendly units. Costs mana per attack.

Unnamed Shadow Form - Auto attacks drains HP. Costs mana per attack.

--------------------------

Ultimate:
Shadow Form - Changes all the healers spells. No cooldown.

--------------------------

Passive:
Unnamed - Every time the healer heals a target to full HP, it creates a holy explosion around the target. The explosion heals nearby friendly units and damages nearby enemy units the excess healing done.

Passive Shadow form - Every time the healer kills a target enemy unit it creates an explosion around the target, dealing overkill damage to nearby enemy units.

Spoiler

Witch doctor. Uses this model.

First ability.
Spirit Healer: Channels negative energies into target unit, damaging x/x/x/x/x per second. All friendly units in 300 range of target unit is healed for x/x/x/x/x HP per second.


Second ability.
Devour Essence: Debuffs all enemy units in target area. Deals x/x/x/x/x damage multiplied by the amount of units caught in the initial buff area. If any of the affected units dies while still having the debuff, all other living units that also has this debuff will be dealt x/x/x/x/x damage.


Third ability.
Voodoo Doll: Targets enemy unit or friendly unit.

If target is an enemy: Creates a controllable copy of target enemy hero. The copy has no abilities, but has 100% of targets current health and deals 100% weapon damage. When the copy is dealt damage the target is dealt x/x/x/x/x% of the damage that was dealt to the copy. If the voodoo doll dies before it expires the target is dealt x/x/x/x/x damage. Lasts 30 seconds.

If target is friendly: Creates a controllable copy of target friendly hero. The copy has no abilities, but has 100% of targets current health and deals 100% weapon damage. When the target friendly hero is dealt damage the copy absorbs x/x/x/x/x% of the damage. If the voodoo doll dies before it expires the friendly target is healed for x/x/x/x/x% of total damage the copy took. The copy is unhealable. Lasts 30 seconds.


Ultimate.
Restless spirits: Shoots a spirit into target enemy unit or friendly unit.

If targeted unit is an enemy: It deals x/x/x/x/x damage and afflicts unit with a deuff that deals damage over time. Damage is increased by x/x/x/x/x every 3 seconds. To get rid of the debuff the target enemy unit have to run within melee range of a friendly (friendly to the target) hero. The buff will then be transferred to the new hero, and the damage over time increase will be reset. If the buff is changed from hero to hero like this for at least x/x/x/x/x times the debuff will disappear. If it's not changed at all it will last for 30 seconds.

If targeted unit is a friendly unit: It heals x/x/x/x/x HP and gives them a buff that heals over time. Healing is increased by x/x/x/x/x HP every 3 seconds. If the target friendly unit is healed to full HP the spirit will jump to the friendly unit within 400 range with the lowest HP. The healing per second increase is then reset. Lasts 30 seconds or until the healing has jumped x/x/x/x/x times.


Passive.
Voodoo heart: Every 5 times you deal spell damage you get a buff that mirrors the next incoming damage and returns 50% of it to its source. Lasts 5 seconds.

I know these aren't exactly liches or poison treants, but it can serve to give you some inspiration at least

 

[Kyrbi0]

What Nazeebo model did you use?