[Campaign] Spell Ideas

[AditTechno]

Well, I'm currently creating a project, and I'm running out of ideas to make spells. Can anyone explain me a little bit about them?
I plan to make 5 classes. Each has 5 abilities. 2 classes are done. 3 classes have pending abilities. They're a "unit".
1. Warrior class has 3 abilities done.
- How do you make a Defend ability which can be activated (not turned off) and has a duration?
2. Engineer class is in the works.
- What kind of spells work best for an engineer class?
3. Marksman class is in the works.
- I plan to make all of the marksman abilities defensive. What kind of spells work best for this class?

Well, that's all. For this campaign, I will have alloted a lot of the time for Object Editor and terraining every map. So, I hope I can find any feedback from you guys.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Engineer: Focused on mechanical objects, so buffing/repairing allied machines/allies using machines or guns, constructing mini-turrets, sabotaging enemy buildings, putting down mines or barbed wire.

Marksman: I'm surprised that you'd need defensive spells. Maybe something like shutting down enemies on an individual basis.

 

[noob]

A marksman might get defensive abilities like "Threatening area: enemies within range gets their attack speed reduced of 10 20 30" or yet a stunning attack but getting 5 defensive abilities on a hero can be quite weird.(although it is nearly what the mountain king does and it works fine)

 

[disruptive_]

Marksman:
1. Suppressive Fire/Suppression: the marksman, either: attacks/damages all enemies (low damage tho) on an area slowing (very heavy slow) them afterwards, or gains insane attack speed, at the cost of damage, while gaining some bonus like slowing units on attack.
The second approach can be done trigger free using Metamorphosis. I say this because most people on the Idea Factory ask for trigger free ideas.
The design is to not make it a powerful damaging attack, but as a skill that keeps enemies from advancing to melee down the marksman.
2. Detect (more an utility): the marksman reveals all invisible units/traps on its vecinity/target point for some seconds.
Dust of Appereance, Flare, etc.
3. Camouflage (passive): the marksman becomes invisible or gains evasion while standing near trees/debris/etc.
This recquires triggers. Mostly. Maybe make a plain Wind Walk with no backstab bonus.
4. Take Cover: the marksman creates sets a barricade on the target point, granting a "placeholder" defensive bonus.
Placeholder, because the barricade could just be a summoning ability like Water Elemental, summoning an immobile unit with a box model or something that grants an insane devotion aura (+armor) but with very short aoe.
Triggering an intuitive barricade/cover (ie. only defends against ranged attackers facing directly the covered unit) would very fun.
Maybe mixing Camouflage with Take Cover.
Bonus: the marksman dissapears from the minimap while affected by Take Cover (this would recquire Metamorphosis i think).
5. Operative (utility): after X time, calls for some "placeholder" aid.
This is more like a "Commando" dude. But on a Marksman it still makes sense.
The phylosphy here is that the Marksman would abuse its survivability to inflirtrate on the enemy position or to quickly and steadily get to an ally position, ie. the map is an AoS -> the enemy base/jungle, and would use this ability to strenghten that position. Let's say calling a medic/air units/siege units/a timed shopkeeper, maybe Operation is a Spellbook (i hope you know what i'm talking about) skill that features different options but that share a very high cooldown (Spellbook can feature exactly that).
6. Disarming Shot: an attack that deals low damage or no damage at all but that disable the auto attacks of a single enemy.
A ranged, missile based, and single target disarm. Could it be that such thing exists on the vainilla WC3 abilities? YES.

 

[Pyrogasm]

- How do you make a Defend ability which can be activated (not turned off) and has a duration?

Make a dummy ability based on Channel that the unit can cast. Change its order id to something that is usually no-target like roar or war stomp. You then need a trigger to give the unit a defend ability and order it to use it, then hide the ability from the UI with one of the new Blz natives (won't work pre-1.29 patch, and I think it the visual removal was actually bugged and not working properly until 1.30). After a certain time, remove the defend ability from the unit.

• Events
  • Unit - A unit starts the effect of an ability
• Conditions
  • Ability being cast equal to WHATEVER
• Actions
  • Unit - Add DEFEND_ABILITY to (Triggering Unit)
  • Unit - Set level of DEFEND_ABILITY for (Triggering Unit) to (Level of WHATEVER for (Triggering Unit))
  • Unit - Order (Triggering Unit) to Human Footman - Defend
  • Unit - For (Triggering Unit), ability DEFEND_ABILITY, Disable ability: false, Hide UI: true
  • Time - Wait N game-time seconds //waits are bad but in this case it's the easiest possible solution
  • Unit - Remove DEFEND_ABILITY from (Triggering Unit)

 

[AditTechno]

Make a dummy ability based on Channel that the unit can cast. Change its order id to something that is usually no-target like roar or war stomp. You then need a trigger to give the unit a defend ability and order it to use it, then hide the ability from the UI with one of the new Blz natives (won't work pre-1.29 patch, and I think it the visual removal was actually bugged and not working properly until 1.30). After a certain time, remove the defend ability from the unit.

• Events
  • Unit - A unit starts the effect of an ability
• Conditions
  • Ability being cast equal to WHATEVER
• Actions
  • Unit - Add DEFEND_ABILITY to (Triggering Unit)
  • Unit - Set level of DEFEND_ABILITY for (Triggering Unit) to (Level of WHATEVER for (Triggering Unit))
  • Unit - Order (Triggering Unit) to Human Footman - Defend
  • Unit - For (Triggering Unit), ability DEFEND_ABILITY, Disable ability: false, Hide UI: true
  • Time - Wait N game-time seconds //waits are bad but in this case it's the easiest possible solution
  • Unit - Remove DEFEND_ABILITY from (Triggering Unit)

Dang, sadly I only use 1.27b.
My concept is like this, maybe there is:
"When activated, reflect all damage back to its source for x seconds."
"With the defend stance"

 

[Pyrogasm]

Thorns Aura reflects damage but only works on melee attacks, and it also won't redirect the projectile like Defend will (which looks real cool). I think it would be easiest to simply trigger that damage return with whatever Damage Detection System suits your fancy. You'll probably need a DDS for something else eventually in your map, so might as well put it in there now.

Alternative solution is making the ability un-deactivateable for the duration by catching undefend orders given to the unit and circumventing them. This makes MUI a little more tricky to do. Does it need to be MUI? I believe the icon on the command card could still be hidden by using (0,-11) button position.

 

[DingoT]

You can make the defend ability a timed thing by either creating a clone of the unit with a highly modified eludes grace ability and using a modified metamorphosis to change into the unit for an x period of time, of u could give the unit defend, position it at 0, -11 so it is hidden then use a dummy ability and a trigger to turn it on, and another timed trigger to turn it off, hope this helps

 

[noob]

Dang, sadly I only use 1.27b.
My concept is like this, maybe there is:
"When activated, reflect all damage back to its source for x seconds."
"With the defend stance"

you can hide abilities on an unit without using recent versions of WC3 by simply giving a spellbook with the ability you want to be invisible and have the corresponding spellbook ability considered as a disabled ability for the player.
The abilities in the spellbook will still be usable but they will be impossible to see because the player will not be able to open the spellbook and so the unit will use the ability through being ordered to by scripts.
But the ui position trick is usually way better.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Marksman:
* Fixed Firing Position (gives bonuses in exchange for preventing movement):
** Entrench (Active): Increases armor, sight and attack range at the cost of mobility.
** Sniper Nest (Active): Becomes invisible even while attacking, but not while moving. Invisibility is removed if an enemy is within X distance (even without True Sight).
** Sandbags: (Active) Grants increased armor, Resistant Skin, Hardened Skin and Amulet of Spell Block while active, and creates several Destructible sandbags in front of the Marksman.
* Eye in the Sky (Active): Summons a familiar with flight, Faerie Fire and True Sight.
* Clear Sight (Passive): Curse and other accuracy-reducing debuffs are automatically removed from the Marksman and his attacks bypass Evasion/Drunken Brawler/Phase Shift (if possible).
* Center Mass (Autocast, drains mana): Every attack deals knockback.
* Destroy Morale (Active): Targets an enemy. While active, every attack the Marksman makes reduces the unit's damage by 10% (stacks, up to 90%), while nearby enemy unit damage is reduced by 5% per attack on the main target.