So for Volt's L3, here's one idea
It's very similar to Flashbeer's idea

Because we can use upgrades to make Volt's L1 more powerful, I do not think volt needs another stun lock/mana drain spell. In fact, I think mana drain mechanics is better suited for other heroes that are more focused on shutting down others. (Volt was sort of a hybrid of that, depending on how you played him)

Volt's L3 should probably be a damage dealing AoE, as he lacks something of the sort, and electricity yields really good effects for damaging spells.
Name it Shock Storm, Storm Surge, or Eye of the Storm
After a charge time (similar to what his current L3 has), volt unleashes 6 psi storms around him in a hexagonal pattern, as depicted in the picture
(Maybe add more psi-storms and make them smaller in order to fill in the cracks)



Those initially caught in the psi storms will be stunned (and since stunned right now = move very slowly, this will create a great placement strategy in which the Volt player has to land the psi storm at the perfect place in order to deal maximum damage).
The storm should do Damage over time, and the damage should be relatively high (let's assume it's damage per second, making it 7 seconds, let's have it deal 80+6 damage for a total of 560 maximum damage).

This is more interesting than a straight up AoE as spell placement is very important. It is also interesting to see opponents weigh staying in the storm, or going into the Eye, being right next to Volt's Melee damage. Melee heroes, especially those which can stun, will certainly take advantage of the safe spot in the middle.

Sounds like a good ability to me. So there should be no cracks in the circle of storms around volt right? Also, would we want to make volts l1 not knock back units who have been affected by the storms so he cant make them stay in the AoE radius? If we don't add this it would be pretty simple for a volt to keep an enemy hero in the storm he created.

O yea right...
I'm gonna do this and just say "who cares"
It's a cool mechanic anyway, we can balance it later ><

I don't want to limit Spell 1 by making it less effective
And yea, no cracks in the storms.

So we shall use 1 persistent with a big search area?
In sc2 everything is made with circles...

I suggest 1 stretched psi storm actor to fit the size?

If that's possible, that'd be better!
(Thought it'd be eziest to make six psi storms go around a circle)

Psi Storm is made up of a ton of effects and actors, so it would just be more difficult to place each storm through one ability without the use of triggers. I think it is doable, though, but it would just take a whole lot of components.

We can make volt cast the psi storm spell on each point with an issue order if necissary. It shouldn't be that hard to duplicate

uhm... guys, guys, just 1 search effect and persistent effects for different storm actors.
I just guess that we could even use 1 stretched psi storm because the sc2 psi storm has the ugly ring within its model which might look stupid if you got mutliple storms...

Ahli do u mean 1 very large storm actor? I'm not sure I get what your saying. Having just 1 big storm makes it look like the center still damages you.

Things are coming along slowly, but nicely.
We're going to be solidifying the Spell Upgrade system.

We're still a bit iffy on what to do with Spell Upgrades.
Ahli thinks we should use both the dialog boxes in the space where unit information is, as well as the command cards in Upgrade Buildings(Structures).

Me and Luzz have pretty much decided that the spell upgrades will be very similar to TS1.
-Some spells will have their damage increased with normal weapons upgrade
-while some spells will have their damage increased with other upgrades
-We will have certain "Passive" or "Special Upgrades" that costs more than usual, but gives a big, and strategic change (Think Summoner's Zergling speed/attack speed upgrades and Mech's form 2's speed upgrade). These only upgrade ONCE.
-and Finally, not all spells will need to have upgrades (like Assassin's L1)

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Here is a rough draft that I've come up with.
This is the Command Cards in an Upgrade Building.
I am assuming that it is easy to change Cmd cards for buildings when you pick a hero.
This is Light Mage



- A1 represents Normal Weapon Upgrades. If it is possible, we can make it like "Arcane Damage" or something.
- A1 will always upgrade the hero's basic damage

- A2 and A3 represent Grayed Spell Icons. The spell icons indicate which spells also shares the Normal weapon Upgrades.
- A2 and A3 do not function, but should have a tooltip short explanation

- B1 represent Special weapon upgrades. For the sake of this, let's call it Energy Damage
- B1 would upgrade damage specific to certain spells. B2 and B3 shows the spells it is upgrading.

- C1 is armor.

- E3 and D3 are "Special Upgrades". Think Summoner's Zling speed upgrade. They cost more than the usual upgrades, but give a big, and lasting effect. These are only upgradable ONCE.
- D3 shows "Radiant Projection", an Upgrade that doubles the range on Light Essence, and also causes Light Transmission to return 30 mana. It'd cost anywhere between 50-120 minerals.

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Seperate Damage Upgrades has added depth to TS1, and I think recreating it with this sort of UI is a good idea Because
1. It still allows room for new things, especially with "special upgrades"
2. It adds much needed depth to spell upgrades
3. It allows us to balance things without making them useless in diff situations (think Assault's current L1 (afterburn, which is basically stimpack using mana))
4. Allows us to avoid making upgrades for all spells (spells like Ass's L1 will be weird and hard to balance if upgrades are forced on it)
5. It doesn't require us to have big, complicated UI's.

We can play around with what fits into the Normal damage and the Special damage.
We can even give "Special Armor" (fits in D1) to heroes that have summons (not summoner, but think Assault's L4... it'd be nice to have the option to upgrade ship armor.)

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I know you guys probably have tons of ideas for "Special Upgrades"
and I'd like to hear them.
However...

I want the Special Upgrades to be strategic/situational. Also, I want them to Change the Playstyle of heroes or at least Allow it.
In the above example, I used "Radiant Projection". The effects of the spell allows the Light mage to REALLY jump around in the battlefield, something that LM can't really do before.
Things like "Give LM x% mana for x damage he deals" is boring and uncreative. It'd only be acceptable if the effects really does change the hero's playstyle.

Here are some examples

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Other things to Change

Volt's current L3 needs to have better effects and a longer duration.
Double the duration (if you can), and stretch the damage. If you think it's too slow, increase the DoT (dmg over time)
It's AoE also needs to be bigger (needs to be about 1/3 bigger)
(Question: would overlapping psi-storms deal double damage? If not, just overlap them... If yes, is it possible to add extra Psi-storm actors in the middle that does nothing?)

Volt's current L2 needs to have a "W" hotkey! It's shooting projectile is also really slow. Either increase it's speed or range (or both)
It also feels too floaty. We can add weight by giving like a half-second charge time or something (it's not too terribly important atm)

Fix the upgrade bugs
Fix the assault bomber bug
Fix the text during hero selection UI bug (Squish them! AAHAHAHAHAH CRUSH THEM!!)

Ahli and I thought about switching Assault's L1 and L2, as Ahli thinks that players will just spam L1 and weapon upgrades (which is a legitimate problem).
(I don't know about Null Blast's effect. It's "Knock-in" effect makes the heroes face towards it, and it's not really enough to have any effect. Does it still give 50% speed? I'm starting to feel that the debuffs aren't good enough. But we'll c.. again, not too important atm)

We should focus on creating 8 heroes all done and finished and publish a prototype

Is there a particular reason you want to go with a building rather than dialog menus for the spell upgrades? Seems like that might be easier and look cleaner in the long run, unless you need the hero to be in close proximity to the building. Then again you could also make it pop up when the hero is nearby, like SOTIS.

As far as I know (though I'm sure someone like Ahli may know how), there is no way to add and position upgrades onto a command card via triggers. I think what you'd have to do is add every single spell upgrade to each pre-positioned slot on the building and disable them all initially, only enabling those that are linked to the chosen hero. Or you can create an identical building for each hero and just create it after the hero is chosen.

Alright, for Volt keep in mind that he has shields as main defense. I don't know how you're playing it out, but he's a large target.

I think he would benefit from an l1 that focused on helping this vulnerability, either with a hardened shields type thing or a quick shield regeneration. This was his main problem in the original TS, and his l1 isn't very effective at low level without mutant because he was simply too vulnerable.

@Devlin
wouldn't it also be possible to create Hero specific Buildings that has the upgrades needed?
The reason why I'm using the Upgrade Building Command Card structure for Upgrades is because I'm not sure what dialog boxes will look like, or how Ahli wants to implement them. It is entirely up to him. In the last convo we've had, we've decided there's no reason why not to do both. So I just went ahead and put up this example. It's definitely something needed so that Ahli and Luzz knows exactly what I'm thinking about.

@Sacrieur
Volt's current L1 is adequate in helping Volt escape, as it pushes swarms away.
As for his vulnerability and how spells affects it, that goes into balancing issues, which requires playtesting.. So i'm not gonna think about it too much until we get to at least an alpha prototype stage ><

All upgrades are done with triggers via catalogs (Ahli set this up I take no credit) so it is extremely easy to create different ways to upgrade the hero. The upgrade structure provides a fast and nonlag way for the upgrades to take effect. If the player gets used to the hot keys on the upgrade structure then they will be able to execute special upgrades and tons of other upgrades much faster than using custom dialog with you mouse.

Upgrade armor - are we going to keep the armor upgrades for Protoss units that have both shields and HP? It would be best if we did I think, if only to give the heroes a bit more flexibility.

I think I fixed all the bugs!! I sure hope so, some may come crawling back up from the grave xD

Added a crapload more effects to volts l3 to make it more lightning like, I also made it larger, and I tested it to be sure the dimensions were corrects. I also found out how to make it last longer so I can make it last as long as need be.

And splitting up the upgrades is quite easy, and putting them on the command card is easy as well, no problems there.

We need a L4 for spec ops!! I have decided (U don't have to agree with me) that the spec ops has tons of ways to hinder enemies, and gain info on the them, but he can't really do anything about what he discovers, so I was thinking that his final should be a big damage disher so he can actually do something when he knows where his enemy is, what they are doing, and basically everything you would need to know when you fight them.

An ability I thought of was something like flash beers weapon change idea, but with buffs, u can choose between 3 buffs and they would each give you a tactical advantage like piercing round, or DoT rounds, or slowing ones. You would gain a passive attack damage increase, and you could choose between any buff we decide to make (Kinda sketchy I know) I would like you guys to think of either buffs, or an entirely different ability that has to do with dishing out some real damage. Just be sure to make it micro based and not just a click and watch style ability. "it must encourage player interaction" said unholyurine. xD

Yeah, that's what I meant by creating identical buildings for each hero.

You can also assign hotkeys to dialog buttons if I remember correctly, so really the difference would be basically selecting the building and then pushing hotkeys or opening a dialog and pushing hotkeys. The only reason I suggest using a custom dialog layout is basically for integration into the custom UI since you wont have the command card looking like the default one, based on the mockups in the TS2 forum, and also because it could just look cleaner in the long run.

Why not an actual gunship? Throw a gatling gun or two on it and some hellfire rocket packs. Maybe even a seeker missile or two. Special ops doesn't mean he has to be so quiet all the time.

If you're going to do this, then you might want to make the l1 the gun switching thing, or just make that something that's a special ability without requiring mana. You want to leave damage dealing options within the player's grasp to allow versatility. Volt and assassin suffered from that sort of thing a lot, where there was only one way to play them, and that was to grab mana and rush l4.

How do you do this? I know it's possible to use the "key pressed" function but that has some of the largest lag times so we wouldnt want to use that. Is there another function I don't know about?


Hmm the passive idea isn't that bad. Currently he has stim, which in my personal opinion goes completely against being special ops xD But true, he doesn't always have to be quiet. Idk about a gunship tho, we already have a dropship, and I'm trying to make it so that heroes that have no AA still have a fighting chance against heroes with air (Like assault and spec ops). Adding a gun ship would make heroes with no AA almost entirely useless cuz u can get an infinite amount of free hits on them and they can't do anything about it

The lag is pretty equal. The difference is minor or not existent.
It just has no local UI stuff like directly letting the button blink/play a sound, etc... These things cover the lag pretty nicely. So sadly we can't add those. :S

Why don't we just use both? I'm sure there are people that would like custom UI, and some that would like to stick with the original ts.

I'm for using both atm, the upgrade building and the buttons on the screen. That's basically how it is now.
If HotS adds support for a better system (custom buttons with hotkeys for example), we can still switch to a new system.