[Altered Melee] PurrsandMlem's playable Naga

[PurrsandMlems]

-PurrsandMlem's playable Naga-
Foreword: This faction is mostly complete, however still in development.
Its definitely in a playable condition, have decided to post here instead of map
section in order to gain some feedback, in the meanwhile missing things can get done too.

This is altered melee map with a custom Naga faction, that is meant to be completion of the
campaign only faction, with the intention to bring it to the multiplayer environment in a
playable fashion.

Ingame at begin select your race through dialogue, can choose to play Naga this way.
Other than the new Naga race its pretty much the standard melee.

There is only a primitive, place-holderish AI made for the Naga, so only human players
get to make full use of them.
If you set a computer player as Naga, it would not be playing effectively.

This map was created using version 1.27b, it should run in the current version of Warcraft III without
further editing necessary. However but if you encounter any problems, feel free to comment or send me
a message through the hiveworkshop forums.

Lots of Information
-Units- The Naga unit roster got expanded and reworked to be more progressed towards being a complete race. Humans can simply heal their units, Orcs can use Wards for it, The Undead have the blight, Night elves regenerate fast only at night. The Naga as a race lacks any methods of healing or regeneration boosting, so units get to regenerate at a fast rate all the time. While i can agree with this reasoning have decided to slightly lower this to 0.75 from 1.00 as in order to be better balanced. The Naga will always start the game with 3 Mur'gul Slaves and 1 Work Turtle. The Mur'gul Slave is your builder, its got lumber harvesting changed to 10(down from 20) There is a second "worker" unit for the faction: the Work Turtle. This new unit acts like a mobile lumber mill, as workers can deliver gathered lumber to it. In case of danger it can be garrisoned by the Mur'gul Slaves to enable a ranged defensive attack, just like the Orc Burrow structure can get. It can be also upgraded to enable Spiked Shell, that will return damage on melee attackers when struck. In all its like a mobile lumber mill on the back of a turtle with a burrow slapped on top. Does not look anywhere fancy as that description might imagine though. The Mur'gul Reaver is your basic melee fighter still, it needs a Spawning Grounds to be built in order to become available for training. It gets mostly seen alike to a Naga Ghoul, so went ahead with that thought and added a late game upgrade to enable Cannibalize for it. The armor type of Mur'gul Reaver was set to Light from Heavy, more befitting its status as the initially available basic melee unit. Naga Myrmidon had too much hitpoints for the role it plays. Its hitpoints got reduced to 750 from 1080. It also now requires an Armory to be built in order to become available for training, so no spamming them from the get go. At late game there is a new upgrade that enables them to use Cleaving Attacks. This functions just like Pit Lord hero's passive skill. The Dragon Turtle siege unit got reworked into a trainable Hydra. This version of the Hydra has retained the Devour ability and Hardened Skin, but lost Spiked Carapace, and gained the capability to spawn Hydra hatchlings on it's death. The Hydra(and it's hatchling)have got their hitpoints regeneration rate set to 3.50, and have a upgrade that can double this. So that a upgraded Hydra regenerates at 7.00 + more if used Devour ability. Their hitpoints got increased to 1080 from 750, basically Naga Myrmidon and Dragon Turtle(now Hydra) swapped hitpoints. Because the unit is now so awesome and powerful it requires 6 Food, up from 5. Also needs one of the new structures, the Hydra Hatchery to be built in order to become available for training. One time while i was working in the editor had turned on the Display Raw values as Data function, it was then that i saw the unit code for the Dragon Turtle is nhyc, as in like the neutral hostile Hydra units(nhyh,nhyd,nehy,nahy) and not like the Turtle-type units(ntrh,ntrs,ntrt,ntrg,ntrd) This has lit up an idea in my head, promptly decided had to get at the bottom of it. Could it have been that Blizz truely intended for the Naga to get a Hydra unit ? I extracted the files of the game from mpq's and promptly gotten to searching, the first find was quick to make inside the UnitAbilities.slk file the comment for nhyc read "campaign hydra". It turns out my suspicions were correct. Later on have taken a cursory examination around the web, and yepp. It was a pretty late in development change of the Hydra into Dragon Turtle indeed, even. Next is the Wind Serpent, that got renamed from Couatl because i always mistyped its name whenever talking about it. This unit has gained the capacity of True Sight, as the Naga faction desperately lacked any stealth detection. Have you noticed this unit starts out with mana, but doesnt have any spells to cast until you bother to tech Abolish Magic for it ? Its obvious that Blizz intended for this unit to have another spell, given they have bothered to add a stand channel on the unit model. What this was i could not find, but would not be surprised if it was simply Monsoon, or Mana Burn. That latter would have been really overpowered. Still i liked the idea of the Coatl shooting a deadly beam so decided to give them the neutral hostile version of Life Drain spell. It was then i noticed the neutral hostile version uses data of lvl3 hero version, ofcourse this was OP and needed to get adjusted. So now it performs equivelant to lvl1 This kind of helps them out due to how rather squishy they are compared to other fliers. There are two new additions to the Naga unit roster: a trainable version of the Sea Giant, and the Sea Drake. Both of those units get trained at the new Naz'jatar Gate structure. This Sea Giant is well armored with base armor value of 4, and got 950 Hp to boot. As abilities can use Howl of Terror, Pulverize after learning it, and has Resistant Skin. The Sea Drake is a new unit, that fulfills the role of a second flyer unit for the Naga race. It attacks using lightning just like the Night elf Chimera, and deals magic damage unlike it, while being immune to spells itself. Its damage capacity versus ground units can be boosted further with an upgrade. That Storm Coils upgrade when researched allows it to strike up to 3 different units with lightning at once per attack.
-Heroes- The Naga Sea Witch moved from Tavern to the Naga altar. There has been not made any replacement for her in the Tavern. This change was rather beneficial, as it allowed her to enjoy amphibian movement like the rest of her race. Another change she suffered is her primary attribute getting set to Agility from Intelligence. This was made to better differentiate her from the rest after the addition of two more Mystical heroes to the Naga roster. To complete the hero roster to 4, added 3 more heroes: the Naga Royal Guard, the Naga Sorceress, and the Sea Giant Elder. Of those new, the Royal Guard is the most straightforward addition. Being the brutish STR tank of the roster, he is good for only one thing: smashing in melee. To that end he has got skillz like Crushing Wave(which is a copy of Carrion Swarm, really), War Stomp(which functions just like the Tauren Chieftain's), Command Aura(that works like a melee version of True Shot aura), and as an ultimate can summon a Naga Brute, that is a beefy tanky unit with Resistant Skin that hits hard while being able to Bash. Next is the Naga Sorceress, that started out as a heroified version of the Summoner in the campaign, that got hastily reworked into a proper hero. As skillz she has got Scalding Ward, Frost Armor, Watery Minions, Dark Summoning. Scalding Ward is acting like a polar opposite of the Healing Wards: instead of healing friendly units, they damage enemy units that come into range, being wreathed in a cloak of fire each. Those unfortunate victims that come into its range will also find their armor getting reduced. In summary, its the evil blue twin of the Healing ward that deals damage and reduces armor to those enemies around it. Frost Armor is the very same skill the undead Lich hero has got. Watery Minions is a summon ability that generates a pair of Mur'gul minions each time its used. Its thanks to this skill the Sorceress can run around with a pocket army in a sense, as the minions can be spawned independently of each other just like the Spirit Wolves of the Orc Farseer. A Naga Sorceress on full mana can conjure a raiding force out of thin air quickly thanks to the skill's low cooldown. Dark Summoning is the scrapped ultimate of the Dreadlord, he was supposed to originally get prior to getting the Inferno ability. It works like Mass Recall the protoss Arbiter can do in Starcraft. So like a Mass Teleport, but the units come to the Sorceress instead. The Sea Giant Elder came into being as i wanted to give allied races some more representation in the faction. Of the choice between Mur'guls and Sea Giants, the latter gained more weight thus became the winner. It could be said that after witnessing the awesome model that is the Sea Druid i became enamored to compel the octopus' will to be made into a mighty hero. However i have decided to make Intelligence be the dominant stat, on the basis of it being a spellcaster. Still, being a Sea Giant its by no means a squishy hero, capable of using it's high health pool to tank damage while blasting spells. The Sea Giant Elder can use the Monsoon, Frost Bolt as its skillz, can gain a Weakness Aura that works like reverse Endurance Aura for enemies and Devours Magic to gain health and mana as ultimate. Monsoon as a skill rather sucked, being behind in comparison to its functional equivelants like Blizzard or Rain of Fire. So have got to work bringing it to be at the same power level with the rest. Frost Bolt is just a reskinned Thunder Bolt ability of the Mountain King.
-Buildings- In order to complete the Naga into a fully fledged faction it was necessary to expand the construction options. The main building gained a second level, because a completely flat tech-tree made for rather uninteresting play. There is no third level as feeled like to experiment with a race that has only two levels, the second level simply enables the third hero also, and in all other sense acts like equivelant of a third level, too. Naga being able to make structures in water was a cool gimmick, alas that is not how the game functions at large, especially in multiplayer. All Naga structures changed to follow the universal rule of base buildings needs when it comes to terrain. I have always find it odd that the main building was also the upgrader, so decided to relocate those into their own structure like, y'know those 'normal' races do. I'm sure the Naga find surface-dwellers odd in the similar way. The new Armory acts the equivelant of a Blacksmith, researching the tech-up upgrades without having the clog up the main structure. The Hydra Hatchery is a structure that fulfills a singular purpose: That of enabling the Hydra and it's upgrade at the Spawning Grounds. As the Hydra is now retooled to be rather awesome, the opponent should get better odds by having a means of disrupting its production. The Naz'jatar Gate is another structure that came into being after realizing the Sea Giants wouldnt really fit into the Shrine of Azshara. Its used for producing the Sea Giants, and the new Sea Drakes and their upgrades. Being at the end of the tech-tree it prerequisites a lot to become available for building, needing both an Armory and a Royal Vault in addition to a level two Main building. Royal Vault is the item shop structure for the Naga race, offering a rather uninspired and fairly generic selection of items. After burning out my creativity while designing all the things have told you about just above there was not much energy left to throw in the way of itemization. Still, using the whatever last droplets of inspiration i had managed to squeeze out a few unique items for them. Of those are the Vial of Haste, Saltwater Stone and the buyable Barricades, that simply erect a primitive blocker on use. Vial of Haste boosts attack speed of the hero by 20% when consumed, the Saltwater Stone can be used to summon a Sea Elemental. As an orb they have got the Orb of Slow, which is kind of fitting for them as did not want to fiddle around with the artifact status of the Orb of Frost despite wanting to give it to them. It will act as a close enough-substitute. Its presence enables you to research Backpack, which allows most units to carry around two items, or in the case of Work Turtle carry four.

Spoiler: Credits

This is attempt to list of all people's works have been used, it may be incomplete and i apologize in advance for that.
If you happent to have your resource used, seen it and are not listed here please tell me as to be remedied.

• Mouseketeer - icons for Mur'Gul Reaver unit, Naga Royal Guard hero
• Tarrasque - models of Naga Royal Guard hero, Sea Drake unit
• Chucky - model and icon of Hydra Hatchery structure
• Liomsi - a model from the Murlocs models and Icons pack got modified to be the new Mur'Gul Reaver, the missile used by the Work Turtle.
• Panda - new icon for Dark Summoning ability
• Sin'dorei300 - icon for Naga Royal Guard hero's War Stomp ability
• AndrewOverload519 - model and icon for Royal Vault structure, model used for Work Turtle unit
• Darkfang - icons used for Wind Serpent's True Sight passive, Forked Lightning ability, Saltwater Stone item
• Barbafire - icon used for Naga Myrmidon's Cleaving Attacks
• MangakaDark - icon for Sea Drake unit
• Aldeia - icon for Naga Brute summon
• Bleeq & Dominus15 - model for Naga Brute summon
• Ujimasa Hojo - fixed versions of Naga unit and structure models, Naz'jatar Gate structure, Naga Armory structure, tiered Temple of Tides models
• JesusHipster - model for Naga Sorceress hero
• Freddyk - model used for Sea Giant Elder hero, model and icon for Scald aura and effect
• Retera - tweaked model of Sea Druid with swimming animations
• BLazeKraze - icon used for Sea Giant Elder hero
• (zerotul) - icon used for Work Turtle unit
• Don Valentino - icon for Sea Giant's Howl of Terror
• stein123 - model of One-headed Hydra used for Hydra Hatchling
• kellym0 - model for Murloc Barricade Ward
• PrMosquito - model and icon used for Scalding Ward
• RvzerBro - model used for Sea Giant Elder's aura ability
• Sharkarsh - icon used for Naga Royal Guard's Command Aura ability
• Eagle XI - icons used for Strength of Corruption upgrade line
• World of Warcraft (game) - one of the used icons are from WoW
• Blizzard Entertainment - this map would not exist without them <3

Special thanks goes to all fellow modders of Hiveworkshop

Spoiler: Change Log

[2025-10-28]-Uploaded initial version.
[2025-11-1]-Updated to make few changes:

• Added the missing first skill for the Naga Sorceress hero
• Renamed Scalding aura to Weakness Aura, given new aura fx
• Given Naga Royal Guard's Command Aura a new icon
• Tidal Stone item changed name to Saltwater Stone and given new icon
• Reduced hitpoints of Mur'gul Reaver to 380 from 400
• Increased the stock-up cooldown of Barricade Ward to 90 from 60
• Re-saved using YDWE, this reduced the filesize somewhat
• Made the Naga build icon replacement work, thanks to YDWE

[2025-11-4]-Updated to make few changes:

• Seperated melee-ranged damage upgrade lines
• Fixed lvl2 and lvl3 Naga unit upgrades not needing a High Temple of Tides
• Added missing Backpack upgrade to Submerged Myrmidon
• Fixed Sea Drake's mana pool problems after upgrading Storm Coils
• Fixed Sea Drake not having Air collision
• Made it so High Temple of Tides needs Altar of Depths
• Changed Naga version of Cannibalize upgrade to also need Spawning Grounds
• Spiked Barricades on the Work Turtle now actually works
• Upgrade for Work Turtle needs only Armory, not lvl2 main structure
• Added a functioning portrait for Sea Giant Elder

Spoiler: Known Issues

• AI for Naga does not play good
• The Sea Drake does not display teamcolor, does not seem to have any on the model/skin

 

[PurrsandMlems]

le bump times


given the lack of feedback i can assume
this one is ready to be shipped soonish
(astounding cat logic)

since maps posted on hive are technically bundles, its possible to provide multiple maps with the same altered melee ruleset applied on them.
for that purposes im going to ask for map suggestions. what melee maps do you think would be interesting to play with the Naga made available ?
I think should include more than one 1v1 map, a couple 4-player maps, one or two team-game/ffa maps that range 6p - 8p

 

[PurrsandMlems]

uhh, just a heads up that this thread has fulfilled its purpose with the release of

PurrsandMlems' playable Naga

This is a series of altered melee maps with a custom Naga faction, that is meant to be completion of the campaign only faction, with the intention to bring it to the multiplayer environment in a playable fashion. Ingame at begin select your race through dialogue, can choose to play Naga this...

www.hiveworkshop.com

and can now thus be closed and/or deleted