One unit race

[PajdomanMokri]

I am making a map with custom races and one of them should be just one very powerful unit.
Now, what kind of spells should he have in order to make him able to fight whole armies and still kill most of the units before dieing?

He is already physically strong (HP, damage, armor...).
I just need ideas for spells that would be useful while going 1 vs 20, but not based on existing ones. I'd rather have all of them triggered, for the uniqueness.

 

[The_Silent]

When designing monsters like that there is certain problems you must overcome.

1. What prevents the monster from going directly to a enemy base and destroy a player before they can even train their first combat units.

2. What prevents a player from rushing down the monster with their first army.

3. What should the monster be doing while everybody else is building up their bases. Wandering around doing nothing is not fun.

The monsters kit should include:

• AOE damage attacks and/or ranged attacks, since focusing down one unit at a time is impossible against players microing if you have just one melee monster.
• Sustain, the monster should regain life at about the same rate it takes for a player to rebuild their army. Maybe a little faster. This still makes it risky for a monster to go directly after a players base after it has destroyed it and risky for other players to focus it.
• Tanky rather than high dps, a monster that destroys monsters instantly is impossible to handle.
• Progression, the monster has to be able to handle each army at about the same rate as they are created. It cannot get too strong early, neither too weak late game.

 

[PajdomanMokri]

When designing monsters like that there is certain problems you must overcome.

1. What prevents the monster from going directly to a enemy base and destroy a player before they can even train their first combat units.

2. What prevents a player from rushing down the monster with their first army.

3. What should the monster be doing while everybody else is building up their bases. Wandering around doing nothing is not fun.

The monsters kit should include:

• AOE damage attacks and/or ranged attacks, since focusing down one unit at a time is impossible against players microing if you have just one melee monster.
• Sustain, the monster should regain life at about the same rate it takes for a player to rebuild their army. Maybe a little faster. This still makes it risky for a monster to go directly after a players base after it has destroyed it and risky for other players to focus it.
• Tanky rather than high dps, a monster that destroys monsters instantly is impossible to handle.
• Progression, the monster has to be able to handle each army at about the same rate as they are created. It cannot get too strong early, neither too weak late game.

Thx for the ideas. And I already handled all 3 problems you mentioned, so it's not a problem.

 

[QuillQuickcard]

A creature which grows or metamorphizes over time would solve that problem.

First of all it, it shouldn't be immune to debuffs, but it needs a way to render itself immune to them, and eliminate them, for a period of time. Anti-magic shell is a good example of how something like this could be done, but it needs to be limited, forcing the character to go after the dangerous debuffers during the period of immunity.

As for offensive powers, I once created a time stop power by simply having a trigger pause all units, stop all unit animations, and then unpause and unstop the caster. It's a really neat effect, and it gives a big single creature the power to move unimpeded and really tear at hard-to-get single enemies or debuffers that are helping them tank it.

A limited-duration mind control effect is also a good way to take out grouped enemies, even more so if it's an aoe limited duration effect, but watch that because it can get very out of hand, and ideally it shouldn't be able to hit workers.

Negative auras are always great tools against groups, as well.

Honestly when I read your idea, in my head, I'm seeing something like a giant ultralisk. If I knew a general idea of what you are creating, I could inspired with much more specific ideas.

 

[PajdomanMokri]

A creature which grows or metamorphizes over time would solve that problem.

First of all it, it shouldn't be immune to debuffs, but it needs a way to render itself immune to them, and eliminate them, for a period of time. Anti-magic shell is a good example of how something like this could be done, but it needs to be limited, forcing the character to go after the dangerous debuffers during the period of immunity.

As for offensive powers, I once created a time stop power by simply having a trigger pause all units, stop all unit animations, and then unpause and unstop the caster. It's a really neat effect, and it gives a big single creature the power to move unimpeded and really tear at hard-to-get single enemies or debuffers that are helping them tank it.

A limited-duration mind control effect is also a good way to take out grouped enemies, even more so if it's an aoe limited duration effect, but watch that because it can get very out of hand, and ideally it shouldn't be able to hit workers.

Negative auras are always great tools against groups, as well.

Honestly when I read your idea, in my head, I'm seeing something like a giant ultralisk. If I knew a general idea of what you are creating, I could inspired with much more specific ideas.

Well... For now, I have a hero that exists in his own realm, starting out as lvl 1 Hero. The realm is the part of the map isolated an inaccessible to others until objectives are met. When units die on the map, they have a chance to appear as neutral hostile inside his realm (like afterlife). He can then kill them for experience. So it's like a distanced entity, who wants to gain power.
For the phase 2, after he gets lvl 10, he should then not be a Hero anymore and becomes regular unit (it's easier for some morphing abilities if they are not for Hero), with much greater HP, slightly greater damage and splash. And is pretty much one man army (like suggested above, his regen takes as long as building a whole army, pretty much strong as a late game army, not weaker, not stronger).
For the abilities they are soul-based. Example: During the day one ability deals damage, and during the night it charms the enemy, but it works only if the unit didn't sell his soul (another feature available on the map).

Hope you can use something to think of something.
Thx for help.

 

[QuillQuickcard]

Well... For now, I have a hero that exists in his own realm, starting out as lvl 1 Hero. The realm is the part of the map isolated an inaccessible to others until objectives are met. When units die on the map, they have a chance to appear as neutral hostile inside his realm (like afterlife). He can then kill them for experience. So it's like a distanced entity, who wants to gain power.
For the phase 2, after he gets lvl 10, he should then not be a Hero anymore and becomes regular unit (it's easier for some morphing abilities if they are not for Hero), with much greater HP, slightly greater damage and splash. And is pretty much one man army (like suggested above, his regen takes as long as building a whole army, pretty much strong as a late game army, not weaker, not stronger).
For the abilities they are soul-based. Example: During the day one ability deals damage, and during the night it charms the enemy, but it works only if the unit didn't sell his soul (another feature available on the map).

Hope you can use something to think of something.
Thx for help.

Do you know what kind of race/species this hero is going to be? That will help me a lot.

 

[PajdomanMokri]

Do you know what kind of race/species this hero is going to be? That will help me a lot.

Well... The lore behind this character is that he was fallen angel that started making deals with humans, trading their souls for powers (like demons usually do). It corrupted him and he developed powers to influence people's souls without making deals.
So you could say he's a dark angel that's hungry for souls.

Originally, the idea was to make him collect a soul with one ability, for each soul he was supposed to gain power (up to 1.5 strength of an army). But his other abilities cost souls, so he would weaken every time he used a spell. But it proved almost impossible to balance out, so I scraped that idea.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Some ideas (using this jolly gentleman as a model):

Grabs one unit and throw it, dealing AoE and stun.
Grabs two units and hits them together, stunning both.
(With a demonic wing attachment): Jump up and crash down for AoE damage.
Channel for a few seconds, then attack, dealing knockback to all units in front.