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Reimagining Life Drain

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Level 24
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I'd be pleased as punch if you could share your ideas or twists on the theme of life drain or your favorite depictions of this spell in media.
It doesn't need to be wholly tied to "green ghost straw" or "big succ" visuals either, it could simply be a variation on theme of transmutation, using the life of another to bolster something else!
What is life drain you ask? (You browse the forum of such a dusty game and don't know what life drain is... what's the matter with you?)

Life drain seems to be a standard fantasy ability that is portrayed as a dark spell that steals the health and vitality from a target and feeds it to the caster.
Here's a refresher, the icon and the tooltip:

iu


(Speculating: What's interesting is that it seems to be Lord Garithos in the icon so perhaps the ability came to the game around the time the undead campaign was being developed?)
1625592297436.png



Variations on the theme beyond Warcraft 3's own channeled spell can range from:

Instantaneous:
Pokemon move, Absorb:
Absorb_II.png


Area of effect:
League of legends Fiddlestick's Grim Harvest ability

AOE & Instant:
Vampire Skull consumable item.
(Depicted in warcraft 3 but originated from PS2 Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat)
vampire-skull-gif.322409


Damage over time (DOT) + Fire and Forget (FAF):

Pokemon move, Leech seed
Leech_Seed_III.png


Skill shot + DOT + FAF:
Heroes of the storm, Drain hope


If you've not yet closed this tab I'd like to thank you for reading.
Have you come across an interesting variation of Life drain? Or some other health stealing shenanigans? Share it below!
 
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Level 25
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Overcharged Life Drain:
Works like the original Life Drain. But if the casting unit is already at full health, it stores excess health to rapidly regenerate the next time it takes damage. Leveling the spell up could increase both the amount of life drained as well as the maximum that can be stored.

Redirected Health:
This would work like a support heal instead of a self-sustaining heal. The caster would steal health from enemies as a resource, and then using the same spell on allies would heal them with the drained health supply.

Action-Triggered Debuff:
The caster debuffs a target to trigger a life steal whenever the target performs an action, like an attack or a spell.

I always liked how Kain had to weaken or disable prey before he could drain their blood in the Legacy of Kain games. In terms of Warcraft 3, maybe you would have to stun an enemy or reduce their health to a certain percentage before you could Life Drain them. Relying on low health to drain from an enemy causes the player to decide whether to outright kill the target, or keep it alive a little longer to use it to heal. Stunning an enemy would be temporary and require good timing to make use of it.
 
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Necrotic Drain: Drains less health per second, but spawns a skeleton if the target dies under the effect.

Vitality Drain: Doesn't drain life, but the longer the spell is channeled, the target gets an increasing debuff to its speed and damage (the caster gets a corresponding buff). Debuff lasts as long as the caster lives, buff lasts until the caster uses the spell again.

Indirect Drain: Target heals the caster when it attacks instead of itself (use on ally or enemy).

Hole and Fountain: All units in area are drained by X HP/second, all units in a corresponding area around the caster heal X HP/sec.
 
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Life Drain: Channeled drain like now except you can cast it on a friendly unit to restore more health than you take from targeted unit (if it's friendly).

Life Drain: Instantly drains life from targeted unit and restores health to the caster.

Life Drain: Like Death Pact except you can cast it on low level enemies. Instantly kills targeted unit and restores health.

Life Drain: Passively grants life on hit.

Life drained can be based on a fixed amount or maximum hit points or current hit points.

Life Drain: Dealing spell damage heals the caster (passive).

Life Drain: Killing a unit restores health.

There could be a bazillion variants. What are you looking for especially.
 
Level 24
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Life Drain: Channeled drain like now except you can cast it on a friendly unit to restore more health than you take from targeted unit (if it's friendly).

Life Drain: Instantly drains life from targeted unit and restores health to the caster.

Life Drain: Like Death Pact except you can cast it on low level enemies. Instantly kills targeted unit and restores health.

Life Drain: Passively grants life on hit.

Life drained can be based on a fixed amount or maximum hit points or current hit points.

Life Drain: Dealing spell damage heals the caster (passive).

Life Drain: Killing a unit restores health.

There could be a bazillion variants. What are you looking for especially.
The thread is new ideas but you are more than welcome to share the simple ones.
 
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Steal Memory: Target loses a randomly chosen ability, caster gains the same ability. Creates a buff on both target and caster; if either dies or is the buff is removed from either (dispel, etc.), the ability is restored/removed respectively.

Drain Health (Channeling): Target loses max HP every second, of which the caster gains half (e.g. -50/+25). Difference in HP lasts until target or caster dies.

Life Experience Parasite: While active, target only gains half XP from kills/nearby kills/tomes, while caster gains 1 XP every time the target gains XP.
 
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Level 14
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How about something like you link two enemies together one drains life and one gains it, but as the one gains it gets bigger and bigger and if it drains all the life from the other it becomes too much and explodes. Basically one shrivels away and dies and the other expands and explodes and dies.
 
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How about something like you link two enemies together one drains life and one gains it, but as the one gains it gets bigger and bigger and if it drains all the life from the other it becomes too much and explodes. Basically one shrivels away and dies and the other expands and explodes and dies.
Hmm... Probably sounds like what mosquito on steroids would probably do or feeble vampire if dio manage to get one

Or kung fu panda 3 plot
 
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