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- Jun 30, 2004
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I originally posted this at wc3c.net, but I know that lot of Hive users don't go there. I would like to share this with you guys, as well.
This is a revisit to my previous idea about having variable level heroes. This idea stems off of that and includes a plethora of new ideas that add an extra dimension of gameplay and addresses issues that my previous idea had.
Making a map like this is absolutely possible, but it would require too much work to actually make. Now that Starcraft 2 is out, I don't expect a map like this map any time soon. Also, the mission of my Autocast channeling tests was so I could make a map like this, but since the autocast channeling test failed miserably, a major gameplay asset cannot function and thus ruins a lot the how fluid it should be to change the levels of all abilities, yet keep them active.
This hero arena is extremely fast paced with tons of action. If your not paying attention, you're doomed. Of course, such a game requires a completely lagless environment and a computer that will not lag when a lot of action onscreen occurs and you can still see what is going on. Players will assemble in two teams of three, so only six people can participate in each game.
Learning Curve: Very steep. The faint of heart won't find themselves getting far. Hardcore players will find the gameplay intense, exciting, and very competitive.
There are two major modes of gameplay and 2 smaller modes in each.
Solo Based - Standard free-style matches.
First, we will focus on gameplay. Then, we move onto heroes.
1. Main Ideas
1a. General
This theory is originally based off this idea: "What if a hero's level could scale up and down?" Then, "What if is this was important to gameplay?" I have grown tired of the standard hero arenas. Cast a bunch of abilities, the hero who can farm faster is the one that wins, etc. This idea is focused towards hero arenas, but it can also be used for an AoS with a few major changes.
To save us time of making heroes with themes, we will use the default 24 heroes given to us by Warcraft III. The Paladin, Archmage, Mountain King, Bloodmage, Blademaster, Far Seer, Tauren Chieftain, Shadow Hunter, Death Knight, Dreadlord, Lich, Crypt Lord, Priestess of the Moon, Keeper of the Grove, Demon Hunter, Warden, Tinker, Alchemist, Naga Sea Witch, Dark Ranger, Pit Lord, Fire Lord, Beastmaster, and finally the Pandaren Brewmaster. However, due to the nature of the major gameplay changes, the current abilities given to the 24 heroes listed are completely obsolete. We would have to do our best to renew every ability and ultimate via triggering them.
To keep the game lively and continually challenging, all abilities have lost their "point, click, and watch stuff happen" attribute. You must manually aim for every ability. Thus, everything is avoidable. You can also cancel out of any skill if you know are you in danger.
1b. Leveling Up and Down
What does that even mean? Before hand, I said that your hero's levels were real estimates of their power; the level of the hero determined what abilities they could use. Thus, it would also cost levels to use abilities.
The hero's level that is kept track of normally via experience and leveling up still allows the hero use higher, more powerful abilities. It costs levels to use abilities, but you will are no longer required to level up the abilities, use them, then lose them because of inadequate leveling. Now, every hero starts with every single ability and you should be able to right-click the ability to change it's power level. Normal abilities have a power level that ranges from one to three while ultimates are technically always at power level 4 (costing 4 levels). A hero's level is capped at level 10. There is no need for more or less.
Heroes also have another type of level. A hero's skill level keeps track of the total experience a hero has gained. For a hero to gain a skill level, they need tenfold the amount of experience it takes to gain a regular level. Your hero's skill level allows your hero to learn special abilities called Spirits. Skill levels are capped at level 10.
1c. Gaining Experience
In a map like this, how would you gain experience if there is nothing to kill? After all, it's just you, possibly your teammates, and everyone else who are trying to destroy you.
That's what a normal attack is for. Every hero has a normal attack of different proportions except Intelligence heroes (explained later). Like everything else in the game, standard attacks are manual aim, melee ranged AoE attacks-- kind of like Cleaving Attack, but more quirky. While they do not hit a lot, keep in mind that abilities- unless they say so- do not drop any gems at all.
When you strike an enemy with a standard attack, it causes the enemy to drop gems that are the same color as the player that hit the hero. So, if you're red, or Player 1, then the gems that drop when you hit an enemy are also red. Pick up the gems by getting near them. The collision size of your hero plays a part in how big the pick up range is, so fatter heroes have a higher pick up radius than smaller heroes. That being said, fatter heroes are more often to get hit by AoE attacks, which every attack in the game composes of. You can only pick up the gems that are of your own color. After a few seconds, your allies will be able to pick up the gems your hero created. After some time, probably about 10 seconds or so, the gems will disappear if they are not grabbed.
As you collect these gems, you will gain experience. Although, since gems are a magnet for attracting heroes, don't get greedy...
1d. Mana and Stamina
The concept that mana be turned into stamina has changed. Mana and stamina are now separate things. Mana is still mana, but a third "bar" is added to all heroes: Stamina.
Mana is used by some of a hero's normal abilities, but more specifically, you need mana to use special abilities called Spirits. This idea is taken from a specific game I'm thinking of, because I really love the concept. Spirits offer immediate, technical gains that usually only last a small time frame- in this case, the effect of Spirits should be useful for the span of one encounter with an opposing hero. I say "one encounter" because a single Spirit used by your hero or another hero can mean the difference between winning and losing.
Stamina is used by everything. It costs stamina to use abilities, use items, and normally attack enemies. If you run out of stamina, you can't do anything. Stamina can be gained easily by standing still. Your hero will recover their stamina back extremely fast (a second or so of standing still). Movement stunts stamina recovery. If a hero moves with full stamina, their stamina will decrease to 99%.
1e. Attack Types, Armor, and Resistances
There are three types of Physical attack types and three types of Spell attack types.
Physical
Resistance to each element is important at any time because it can be altered dynamically (via items or something). Armor, which reduces damage in general is harder to come by.
1f. Guarding and Reaction Abilities
Every hero has the Defend ability. In turn for standing still, your hero will take significantly reduced damage from any harm that comes their way. Every time you take damage, your stamina will reduce. Therefore, the duration of your hero's guarding corresponds to their stamina. Also, even though you are standing there, you are still performing an action, so you do not gain stamina while defending. While defending, your hero cannot use Spirits. To stop defending, do anything else that isn't Defend.
As your hero defends themselves from damage, their Reaction ability activates. It is a retaliation to discourage opposing heroes from prolonged attacking (plus they're wasting their own levels, mana, and stamina). These are the current types of Reaction abilities I have thought of:
If your stamina runs out while you are defending, Defend breaks and the hero is deterred. Unless the hero fully recovers all of their stamina, every action (except Defend) they can take will not work. The hero will take extra damage from all attacks, their health and mana regeneration will cease and while the hero may still defend, it's activation time is delayed and their Reaction ability no longer works.
Proceed with caution and know which heroes have abilities and Spirits that allow their attacks to instantly break Defend. When Defend is broken by an ability or Spirit, the hero's current stamina is reduced by 75% instantly. Understand that Defend is different than a shield (explained in Spirits section) and Wall (Spirits section).
Compared to my last analysis of this, the heroes are much more specified and instead of being separated by class, they are separated by their main attribute. What makes each branch of heroes a little more special than the other two branches? The hero's role is not necessarily determined by the abilities they have, but the Spirits they can use.
2a. Strength Heroes
Paladin (Defensive/Support)
Mountain King (Offensive)
Tauren Chieftain (All Rounder)
Death Knight (Offensive/Support)
Dreadlord (Offensive)
Crypt Lord (Defensive)
Alchemist (Support)
Pit Lord (Offensive)
Beastmaster (Support)
Pandaren Brewmaster (Offensive/Defensive)
In a generic sense, their stats look like this:
Health: A
Mana: C
Stamina: B
Special Ability: Freedom - All Strength heroes get a free Spirit. Freedom removes all status ailments from the user.
Experience Wealth: High. The default attack of casual Strength heroes is slow, but enemies hit by them will cause a lot of gems to drop. Plus, they have wide ranging hits so it allows them to strike multiple enemies, having them all drop gems.
2b. Agility Heroes
Blademaster (Offensive)
Shadow Hunter (Support)
Priestess of the Moon (Offensive/Support)
Demon Hunter (Defensive)
Warden (All Rounder)
Dark Ranger (Defensive/Support)
Fire Lord (Offensive)
In a generic sense, their stats look like this:
Health: B
Mana: C+
Stamina: A
Special Ability: Dash - All Agility heroes get a free Spirit. Dash allows the user to make a quick step forward.
Experience Wealth: Moderate to High. The default attack of melee Agility heroes can seldom times hit multiple enemies. The net amount of gems dropped from hitting enemies doesn't match Strength heroes. While ranged Agility heroes' attacks cause an enemy to drop a lot of gems, they can only hit one enemy and this assumes that you are good at the handicap of manual aim.
2c. Intelligence Heroes
Archmage (Offensive/Support)
Blood Mage (Offensive)
Far Seer (Defensive)
Lich (Offensive/Support)
Keeper of the Grove (All Rounder)
Naga Sea Witch (Defensive/Support)
Tinker (Offensive)
In a generic sense, their stats look like this:
Health: C
Mana: A+
Stamina: C+
Special Ability: Default Attack Spell - All Intelligence heroes do not have a standard attack. It is instead replaced with a Default Attack Spell (or DAS for short). DASs vary from a little amount of gems to a lot, depending on the DAS of the hero. Intelligence heroes cannot make gems easily-- instead, the majority of the experience from their Default Attack Spells is given just for using the DAS.
2d. Choosing a Second Hero
What does it mean to "choose a second hero"? After all players have selected their primary hero, you will be required to pick a second hero out of the remaining heroes. Each hero picked as a support give your primary hero an ability that you may use at absolutely no cost (except a cooldown). Depending on who you pick, each hero will help your primary hero in different ways. Choose the one that best compliments your hero, your style of play, or covers an aspect your hero has trouble with. Try them out and see what they do and/or learn how to use them properly.
2e. Spirits
Like I said before, "Spirits offer immediate, technical gains that usually only last a small time frame- in this case, the effect of Spirits should be useful for the span of one encounter with an opposing hero. A single Spirit used by your hero or another hero can mean the difference between winning and losing."
Spirits can make your life easier, but if your opponent skillfully uses them, Spirits can easily become the bane of your hero's existence. I really can't say much more than this. You'll get a a really good idea of HOW Spirits should be used once you see what each hero obtains. Unlike abilities, Spirits are instant use while a few are target-and-use.
Here is a list of what Spirits do. They are listed here in detail, while in each hero's list of learnable Spirits they are only explained in brief.
Offensive Spirits
Defensive Spirits
Supportive Spirits (Support Spirits can mostly used on allies)
This is a revisit to my previous idea about having variable level heroes. This idea stems off of that and includes a plethora of new ideas that add an extra dimension of gameplay and addresses issues that my previous idea had.
Making a map like this is absolutely possible, but it would require too much work to actually make. Now that Starcraft 2 is out, I don't expect a map like this map any time soon. Also, the mission of my Autocast channeling tests was so I could make a map like this, but since the autocast channeling test failed miserably, a major gameplay asset cannot function and thus ruins a lot the how fluid it should be to change the levels of all abilities, yet keep them active.
This hero arena is extremely fast paced with tons of action. If your not paying attention, you're doomed. Of course, such a game requires a completely lagless environment and a computer that will not lag when a lot of action onscreen occurs and you can still see what is going on. Players will assemble in two teams of three, so only six people can participate in each game.
Learning Curve: Very steep. The faint of heart won't find themselves getting far. Hardcore players will find the gameplay intense, exciting, and very competitive.
There are two major modes of gameplay and 2 smaller modes in each.
Solo Based - Standard free-style matches.
- Free for All - Every hero for themselves. Let chaos reign!
- Elimination - Compete for 1st place. Players will be randomly matched together and fight solo in a tournament-style elimination. All heroes have maxed hero level and skill level.
- Standard - Decimate the opposing team in the original hero arena setting.
- Shuffle 1 vs 1 - A player from each team will be randomly paired for a solo battle. Best two out of three wins. All heroes have maxed hero level and skill level.
First, we will focus on gameplay. Then, we move onto heroes.
1. Main Ideas
- General
- Leveling Up and Down
- Gaining Experience
- Mana and Stamina
- Attack Types, Armor, and Resistances
- Guarding and Reaction Abilities
- Strength Heroes
- Agility Heroes
- Intelligence Heroes
- Choosing a Second Hero
- Spirits
- In-Depth Analysis: One Hero at a Time
======
1a. General
This theory is originally based off this idea: "What if a hero's level could scale up and down?" Then, "What if is this was important to gameplay?" I have grown tired of the standard hero arenas. Cast a bunch of abilities, the hero who can farm faster is the one that wins, etc. This idea is focused towards hero arenas, but it can also be used for an AoS with a few major changes.
To save us time of making heroes with themes, we will use the default 24 heroes given to us by Warcraft III. The Paladin, Archmage, Mountain King, Bloodmage, Blademaster, Far Seer, Tauren Chieftain, Shadow Hunter, Death Knight, Dreadlord, Lich, Crypt Lord, Priestess of the Moon, Keeper of the Grove, Demon Hunter, Warden, Tinker, Alchemist, Naga Sea Witch, Dark Ranger, Pit Lord, Fire Lord, Beastmaster, and finally the Pandaren Brewmaster. However, due to the nature of the major gameplay changes, the current abilities given to the 24 heroes listed are completely obsolete. We would have to do our best to renew every ability and ultimate via triggering them.
To keep the game lively and continually challenging, all abilities have lost their "point, click, and watch stuff happen" attribute. You must manually aim for every ability. Thus, everything is avoidable. You can also cancel out of any skill if you know are you in danger.
1b. Leveling Up and Down
What does that even mean? Before hand, I said that your hero's levels were real estimates of their power; the level of the hero determined what abilities they could use. Thus, it would also cost levels to use abilities.
The hero's level that is kept track of normally via experience and leveling up still allows the hero use higher, more powerful abilities. It costs levels to use abilities, but you will are no longer required to level up the abilities, use them, then lose them because of inadequate leveling. Now, every hero starts with every single ability and you should be able to right-click the ability to change it's power level. Normal abilities have a power level that ranges from one to three while ultimates are technically always at power level 4 (costing 4 levels). A hero's level is capped at level 10. There is no need for more or less.
Heroes also have another type of level. A hero's skill level keeps track of the total experience a hero has gained. For a hero to gain a skill level, they need tenfold the amount of experience it takes to gain a regular level. Your hero's skill level allows your hero to learn special abilities called Spirits. Skill levels are capped at level 10.
1c. Gaining Experience
In a map like this, how would you gain experience if there is nothing to kill? After all, it's just you, possibly your teammates, and everyone else who are trying to destroy you.
That's what a normal attack is for. Every hero has a normal attack of different proportions except Intelligence heroes (explained later). Like everything else in the game, standard attacks are manual aim, melee ranged AoE attacks-- kind of like Cleaving Attack, but more quirky. While they do not hit a lot, keep in mind that abilities- unless they say so- do not drop any gems at all.
When you strike an enemy with a standard attack, it causes the enemy to drop gems that are the same color as the player that hit the hero. So, if you're red, or Player 1, then the gems that drop when you hit an enemy are also red. Pick up the gems by getting near them. The collision size of your hero plays a part in how big the pick up range is, so fatter heroes have a higher pick up radius than smaller heroes. That being said, fatter heroes are more often to get hit by AoE attacks, which every attack in the game composes of. You can only pick up the gems that are of your own color. After a few seconds, your allies will be able to pick up the gems your hero created. After some time, probably about 10 seconds or so, the gems will disappear if they are not grabbed.
As you collect these gems, you will gain experience. Although, since gems are a magnet for attracting heroes, don't get greedy...
1d. Mana and Stamina
The concept that mana be turned into stamina has changed. Mana and stamina are now separate things. Mana is still mana, but a third "bar" is added to all heroes: Stamina.
Mana is used by some of a hero's normal abilities, but more specifically, you need mana to use special abilities called Spirits. This idea is taken from a specific game I'm thinking of, because I really love the concept. Spirits offer immediate, technical gains that usually only last a small time frame- in this case, the effect of Spirits should be useful for the span of one encounter with an opposing hero. I say "one encounter" because a single Spirit used by your hero or another hero can mean the difference between winning and losing.
Stamina is used by everything. It costs stamina to use abilities, use items, and normally attack enemies. If you run out of stamina, you can't do anything. Stamina can be gained easily by standing still. Your hero will recover their stamina back extremely fast (a second or so of standing still). Movement stunts stamina recovery. If a hero moves with full stamina, their stamina will decrease to 99%.
1e. Attack Types, Armor, and Resistances
There are three types of Physical attack types and three types of Spell attack types.
Physical
- Slash - Physical damage from attacks that slice and/or strike.
- Pierce - Physical damage from attacks that stab and/or jab.
- Bash - Physical damage from attacks that sweep and/or swing.
- Wicca - Spell damage from the elements, like fire, ice, etc.
- Soul - Spell damage from the non-elements, like light, dark, etc.
- Vega - Spell damage that is neither Wicca or Soul.
Resistance to each element is important at any time because it can be altered dynamically (via items or something). Armor, which reduces damage in general is harder to come by.
1f. Guarding and Reaction Abilities
Every hero has the Defend ability. In turn for standing still, your hero will take significantly reduced damage from any harm that comes their way. Every time you take damage, your stamina will reduce. Therefore, the duration of your hero's guarding corresponds to their stamina. Also, even though you are standing there, you are still performing an action, so you do not gain stamina while defending. While defending, your hero cannot use Spirits. To stop defending, do anything else that isn't Defend.
As your hero defends themselves from damage, their Reaction ability activates. It is a retaliation to discourage opposing heroes from prolonged attacking (plus they're wasting their own levels, mana, and stamina). These are the current types of Reaction abilities I have thought of:
- Health - Recover health proportionate to the amount of damage the hero should have taken.
- Mana - Recover mana proportionate to the amount of damage the hero should have taken.
- Stun - Project a missile that temporarily stuns the attacker for some amount of time. Can be avoided.
- Stun AoE - Project multiple missiles that temporarily stun surrounding enemies in a large AoE for a small amount of time. Can be avoided.
- Redirect - Launch homing projectiles at the attacker, dealing damage proportionate to the amount of damage the hero should have taken. Can be avoided.
- Redirect AoE - Launch homing projectiles at nearby opponents, dealing damage proportionate to the amount of damage the hero should have taken. Can be avoided.
- Stamina - The attacking hero loses the same amount of stamina it takes for the defending hero to guard their attack.
- Ally Gem - Player-colored gems will drop in a small radius around the defending hero. The amount dropped is proportionate to the amount of damage the hero should have taken.
- Neutral Gem - Neutral gems that can be picked up by any hero will drop in a wide radius around the defending hero. The amount dropped is proportionate to the amount of damage the hero should have taken.
- Note: There's no Reaction ability for recovering stamina because it would encourage infinite defending.
If your stamina runs out while you are defending, Defend breaks and the hero is deterred. Unless the hero fully recovers all of their stamina, every action (except Defend) they can take will not work. The hero will take extra damage from all attacks, their health and mana regeneration will cease and while the hero may still defend, it's activation time is delayed and their Reaction ability no longer works.
Proceed with caution and know which heroes have abilities and Spirits that allow their attacks to instantly break Defend. When Defend is broken by an ability or Spirit, the hero's current stamina is reduced by 75% instantly. Understand that Defend is different than a shield (explained in Spirits section) and Wall (Spirits section).
======
Compared to my last analysis of this, the heroes are much more specified and instead of being separated by class, they are separated by their main attribute. What makes each branch of heroes a little more special than the other two branches? The hero's role is not necessarily determined by the abilities they have, but the Spirits they can use.
2a. Strength Heroes
Paladin (Defensive/Support)
Mountain King (Offensive)
Tauren Chieftain (All Rounder)
Death Knight (Offensive/Support)
Dreadlord (Offensive)
Crypt Lord (Defensive)
Alchemist (Support)
Pit Lord (Offensive)
Beastmaster (Support)
Pandaren Brewmaster (Offensive/Defensive)
In a generic sense, their stats look like this:
Health: A
Mana: C
Stamina: B
Special Ability: Freedom - All Strength heroes get a free Spirit. Freedom removes all status ailments from the user.
Experience Wealth: High. The default attack of casual Strength heroes is slow, but enemies hit by them will cause a lot of gems to drop. Plus, they have wide ranging hits so it allows them to strike multiple enemies, having them all drop gems.
2b. Agility Heroes
Blademaster (Offensive)
Shadow Hunter (Support)
Priestess of the Moon (Offensive/Support)
Demon Hunter (Defensive)
Warden (All Rounder)
Dark Ranger (Defensive/Support)
Fire Lord (Offensive)
In a generic sense, their stats look like this:
Health: B
Mana: C+
Stamina: A
Special Ability: Dash - All Agility heroes get a free Spirit. Dash allows the user to make a quick step forward.
Experience Wealth: Moderate to High. The default attack of melee Agility heroes can seldom times hit multiple enemies. The net amount of gems dropped from hitting enemies doesn't match Strength heroes. While ranged Agility heroes' attacks cause an enemy to drop a lot of gems, they can only hit one enemy and this assumes that you are good at the handicap of manual aim.
2c. Intelligence Heroes
Archmage (Offensive/Support)
Blood Mage (Offensive)
Far Seer (Defensive)
Lich (Offensive/Support)
Keeper of the Grove (All Rounder)
Naga Sea Witch (Defensive/Support)
Tinker (Offensive)
In a generic sense, their stats look like this:
Health: C
Mana: A+
Stamina: C+
Special Ability: Default Attack Spell - All Intelligence heroes do not have a standard attack. It is instead replaced with a Default Attack Spell (or DAS for short). DASs vary from a little amount of gems to a lot, depending on the DAS of the hero. Intelligence heroes cannot make gems easily-- instead, the majority of the experience from their Default Attack Spells is given just for using the DAS.
2d. Choosing a Second Hero
What does it mean to "choose a second hero"? After all players have selected their primary hero, you will be required to pick a second hero out of the remaining heroes. Each hero picked as a support give your primary hero an ability that you may use at absolutely no cost (except a cooldown). Depending on who you pick, each hero will help your primary hero in different ways. Choose the one that best compliments your hero, your style of play, or covers an aspect your hero has trouble with. Try them out and see what they do and/or learn how to use them properly.
2e. Spirits
Like I said before, "Spirits offer immediate, technical gains that usually only last a small time frame- in this case, the effect of Spirits should be useful for the span of one encounter with an opposing hero. A single Spirit used by your hero or another hero can mean the difference between winning and losing."
Spirits can make your life easier, but if your opponent skillfully uses them, Spirits can easily become the bane of your hero's existence. I really can't say much more than this. You'll get a a really good idea of HOW Spirits should be used once you see what each hero obtains. Unlike abilities, Spirits are instant use while a few are target-and-use.
Here is a list of what Spirits do. They are listed here in detail, while in each hero's list of learnable Spirits they are only explained in brief.
Offensive Spirits
- Blind - May reduce an enemy's field of vision by 50%. Lasts 10 seconds. This reduces the target's sight range.
- Paralyze - May inhibit the enemy from using abilities. Lasts 10 seconds. The target will still be able to use abilities, but under Paralyze they'll be forced to stop before the ability can take effect.
- Silence - May inhibit the enemy from using Spirits. Lasts 10 seconds. The target will still be able to use Spirit, but under Silence they'll be forced to stop before the Spirit can take effect.
- Slow - May reduce an enemy's Movement Speed by 30%. Lasts 10 seconds. Casual slow.
- Focus - Attacks cannot be condition evaded. This cancels the Demon Hunter's Evasion ability (which sort of does the same thing) and the Evasion Spirit.
- Passion - Increases ability damage by 50%. Lasts for one ability.
- Rage - Doubles ability damage. Lasts for one ability. Takes precedence over Passion.
- Wrath - Triples ability damage. Lasts for one ability. Takes precedence over Passion and Rage.
- Force - The user's next hit will instantly break an opponent's Defend.
- Resolve - The user's next hit will instantly break an opponent's Shield.
- Bleed - Movement causes unconditional damage to the target. Lasts until they Defend.
- Leech - Converts 50% of an ability's damage dealt into HP.
- Mercy - The user's next attack always deals 1 damage. Lasts for one attack or one ability.
- Vanish - The user becomes invisible for 15 seconds. This behaves just like Invisibility.
- Fury - All of the user's hits from the next offensive ability will instantly break an opponent's Defend.
- Soul - Casts Focus, Rage, Fury, Vaccine, and Adversity on the user.
- Stack - Casts Passion, Rage, and Wrath all at once. They stack additively.
- Demonize - Casts Focus, Leech, Force, Endure, and Passion on the user.
Defensive Spirits
- Pain - The attacker takes the same amount of damage the user takes from their attack. Lasts for 10 seconds or one ability.
- Veteran - All stats increase gradually every second for 20 seconds. The maxed stats will stay on the user for an additional 10 seconds. Health, mana, and stamina are not lost due to percent proportioning; you will keep whatever you have unless they exceed what the hero can initially keep.
- Lure - The user automatically draws fire from projectile-based attacks. Lasts for one ability.
- Adversity - Raises the health of the user depending on the number of opponents within range. Lasts for 15 seconds.
- Blindside - The user will instantaneously use Defend when attacked from behind. Lasts for one attack or one ability.
- Endure - Incoming attacks will deal damage, but cannot kill the user. The user will always remain with at least 1 point of health. Once the hero has 1 health remaining, all incoming attacks deal zero damage. Lasts 5 seconds.
- Alert - Enemy attacks show identifiers revealing the target location and effective range of their attack. Lasts for one AoE ability.
- Foresight - Reveals the location of all enemies. This reveals invisible heroes, too.
- Vaccine - The user is immune to status ailments for 30 seconds. This also protects from stuns.
- Evasion - All incoming attacks are condition evaded. Lasts for one attack or one ability. Condition evasion is when your hero can get hit by an attack and still come out alive. The damage mitigated is not as good as defending, but it doesn't cost stamina to take the damage.
- Stop - Forces the attacking hero to use the 'Stop' command. Used on self and triggers when an opponent uses a damage dealing ability on the user. When forcefully stopped, the attacking hero cannot use any abilities, Spirits, and cannot Defend, but they are invulnerable for 3 seconds. Since every ability can be canceled, this forces them to stop in the middle of their abilities.
- Wall - A special type of Defend that cannot be broken, but taking hits costs double the stamina compared to Defend.
- Fragile - The user takes double damage from all damage sources.
- Vengeance - The attacker takes double the damage the user takes from their attack. Lasts for one ability. Only the Warden gets this.
- Invulnerability - All incoming attacks are nullified. Lasts one second beyond the last hit the user takes. Takes precedence over everything.
- Penance - Casts Health, Adversity, Pain, and Wrath on the user.
- Punishment - Casts Lure, Pain, Fragile, Alert, and Endure on the user.
Supportive Spirits (Support Spirits can mostly used on allies)
- Heal - Restores 50% of the user's health.
- Health - Fully restores of the user's health.
- Surge - Restores half of the user's stamina.
- Enliven - Fully restores the user's stamina.
- Loner - Increases the user's maximum Stamina by 50%. Lasts 15 seconds.
- Restore - Restores 30% of a target ally's health, no matter where they are.
- Fondness - Restores 30% of all allies' health, no matter where they are.
- Bond - Restores 50% of all allies' health, no matter where they are.
- Love - The user conjures a wave of light, fully restoring the health of all allies within range.
- Energy - Restores some mana and some stamina to a single ally. This can alternatively be used on oneself for a way to get some stamina back at a very cheap cost.
- Freedom - Removes all status ailments from the user. All Strength heroes already have this.
- Dash - The user makes a quick step forward. All Agility heroes already have this.
- Antidote - Removes all status ailments from a single ally.
- Nurse - Removes all status ailments from all allies, no matter where they are.
- Life - Returns a fallen ally to battle with 50% of their maximum health.
- Charge - Increases the Movement Speed of an ally by 30%. Lasts 10 seconds.
- Gamble - The user obtains a random Spirit. Contains Spirits that can only be used on a single person.
- Charity - The targeted ally obtains a random Spirit. Contains Spirits that can only be used on a single person. Can also be used on self. The only hero who has Gamble and Charity together (and not one or the other) is the Alchemist.
- Force Shield - Increases resistances to all physical damage by 50%. Lasts 10 seconds.
- Spell Shield - Increases resistances to all spell damage by 50%. Lasts 10 seconds.
- Bright Shield - Produce a shield around an allied target that significantly reduces the amount of damage the user takes (about 90%). This triggers due to an ability and lasts until the ability that triggered it ends.
- Resurrect - Returns a fallen ally with full health and stamina. Only the Paladin learns this.
- Embrace - Fully restores an ally's health, mana, and stamina. Cannot be used on self.
- Guardian Angel - Casts Health, Antidote, Loner, Vaccine, and Invulnerability on an allied target. Cannot be used on self.