Yeah, it's another spell help thread. I'm just...stuck right now so new ideas are welcome. I just need one more spell! First, I'll explain the context so people can get a better understanding of what I'm trying to accomplish. Note that is is for a RPG, not an AoS.

Requirements:

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The skill must be upgradable 10 times (11 total levels)
The skill must be offensive (there are plenty of other defensive abilities, so NO STUN TRAPS please)
No instant kill weak enemy skills, skills MUST do damage
It isn't affected badly by terrain (gridding units nearby is a nono)

Character:

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Kerrigan ghost hero
Has a 250 energy cloak
Can pick between one of three pets
- Corsair (Dweb)
- Science Vessel (Def Matrix)
- Queen (Parasite, Ensnare)
Swapping pets gives the pet to P12, invinc, and order moved to the hero
When the pet reaches the hero, the pet is swapped
Swapping sets your mana (gas) to 0 and Kerrigan's energy to 250
Death of the pet sets your mana to 0 without the energy bonus to Kerrigan and selects one of the two remaining pets
Swapping has a 5 second cooldown to prevent uncloak spam

Current Spells:

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1) Multishot
- Moves up to 11 stacked ghosts owned by the player (shares wep upgrades) on top of your hero
- Mana drain over time
- If Kerrigan moves during Multishot, Multishot cancels
- If the stacked ghost moves during Multishot, it is moved on top of Kerrigan
- Multishot does not cancel is Kerrigan is Dragged by the Pet (see drag skill)
2) Strafe
- Moves up to 11 interceptors on top of your hero
- Interceptors are set via generic command point to follow your pet
- If an interceptor encounters an enemy, it is removed and a random suicided Scarab is moved under it for one trigger cycle to deal damage
- When the interceptors reach your pet, they disappear
- Casting strafe again removes interceptors and restarts the skill (no more than 11 interceptors out)
3) Trap
- Moves 1 invincible Zerg Egg under your pet owned by you
- Maximum of 11 Zerg Eggs
- Canceling the Zerg Egg creates an invinc Spider Mine there that blows up in place to deal damage
- Eggs can be dragged 1 at a time
4) Drag
- Moves units under the pet to the pet each time the pet moves
- Uses a 4x4 location
- Up to 11 moves before cooldown affects it
- Which units are moved can be toggled by unloading units inside the Shuttle
> Enemy (drag the enemy away from you or to a spot you want)
> P1 hero (drag your ally out of danger)
> P1 hallucinations (drag dummy units into the fray to take hits)
> P2 hero (you) (drag yourself during strafe to shoot and move simultaneously)
> P2 Dweb (drag Dweb on top of enemies to cover them)
> P2 Egg Traps (drag invinc eggs to the enemy to blow em up, or drag em to make a wall)
> P3 Hero (drag your ally out of danger)
> P3 Summons (not the sunken colonies) (drag your ally units into/out of the fray)

Rejected Spells: (might give you guys ideas for a new one)

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1) Snipe
- Moves 1 stacked ghost owned by the player on top of the hero for one shot
- More levels decreases cooldown
- Testing showed that it sucked, takes too long for the ghost to fire a single shot
2) Divine Arrow
- Moves a cloaked air unit on top of your hero that is order moved to the pet
- Moves random suicided scarabs underneath it periodically
- It sucks against single enemies, so the interceptor Strafe spell replaced it
3) Searing Arrows
- Moves up to 22 stacked Hydras on top of your hero
- Number of Hydras is based on the number of enemies near you
- Removed because there's always a ton of enemies around you, so it's too similar to Multishot
4) Trap v2
- Moves up to 11 uninvinc targets owned by P9
- If the target is killed, the trap is sprung
- Unknown what the trap would do
- Intent was for comboing with long ranged bow spells or ally attacks
- Removed since there was no effect that distinguished it from the egg cancel trap
- Needed something that made it special aside from how it was sprung, no stuns or instant kills though
5) Explosives
- Creates an uninvinc Spider Mine underneath the pet if the pet isn't over one already
- Max 11 mines
- Is an ok spell that I might use, but isn't as interesting as the rest of her abilities
- May also confuse people with the egg cancel trap due to both using mines
- Not enough room in the shuttle to allow for mine dragging too
- Currently leaning towards this only since I can't think of any other option

Player Usage: (note that junkyard AI is out of the question due to this setup)

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P1 - Human
P2 - Human
P3 - Human
P4 - Weak enemies
P5 - Strong enemies
P6 - Allied to everyone, used as a target for P7 during certain spells, runs generic command point AI
P7 - Allied to everyone except P6, attacks P6 during certain spells, runs Random Suicide Mission AI
P8 - Allied to P1-3, unallied to P4-5, your town ally that helps you out at times

Post has been edited 7 time(s), last time on Nov 26 2008, 9:19 am by SelfPossessed.

Cripple
- Some unit owned by the player is created/moved to kerrigan
- Unit has a life timer, 0 = miss
- If unit comes into contact with enemy hero then
- Constantly move burrowed unit under enemy hero

First few levels could only move the burrowed unit every other trigger cycle, while increases to the level could also increase the duration. For a visual effect you could create 'blood spots' with unit deaths every second or on impact on the affected hero.

Something like that?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 23 2008, 8:38 pm by Elvang.

Offensive damaging spells please.

I probably should have specified it, but this is for a RPG, not an AoS esque game. Let me edit that in now. I honestly thought that the player setup would have made it obvious though. 3 Players with 1 computer ally, 2 computer enemies, and 2 computers for spell effects means it is impossible for it to be AoS.

*grumbles about the DotA craze that has taken over SEN*

Bomber Squadron
- Creates an infested Terran underneath the pet or at the hero every 8 seconds
- Spawn duration decreases by 0.5s each level. Final delay is 2.5 seconds.
- Infested could be owned by the player himself (then you'd need to make a max. of 5 at a time or something)
OR
- could be owned by an allied computer and ordered to patrol to [foes] at anywhere or set on random suicide mission.
- can damage the player so they have to be used wisely

You could take scarabs for a similar effect but without splashing yourself if you give the reavers to the player after the scarab has been ordered.

Throw Bomb/Explosive

Throws a bomb (some air unit) at a target.
Possible stun.
Higher level=bigger AoE.

Ring Of Fire:
-Creates air units that spread outward
-units circle around the caster for an amount of time while fireing at units in range
-when the amount of time is up, units come back to caster
-units spread out even farther and turn into tanks.

-everytime you upgrade it, you get 2 extra units and they spread and circle in a farther distance
-at the final level, you may pay a very high price to make it a super-spell
-in super spell mode: the tanks form an inescapeable ring and the targets are trapped for a certain amount of time
the ring is destroyed and anything hit by the explosions are delt damage

wouldn't this go in UMS Theories And Ideas

I have a few ideas, let's see if you like any of them. There are several different upgrades that could work for each one.

Path of Fire:
Creates Benglaas death animations "following" your hero, so it looks like your hero is laying down a trail of blue fire. Anything that touches the trail takes heavy damage.

Line of Destruction:
Creates Scourges in a horizontal line that spreads out a small distance to the left and right of your hero. The Scourges are ordered to the very top of the map. Anything that touches one takes heavy damage.

Chaos Winds:
You get an air unit (Once again, one with no normal attack would be best) which has a P6 Zergling (or some other fast unit) constantly hyper-ordered to move under it. A P7 Siege Tank is created nearby in Siege Mode to shoot at the ling, which is constantly healed to full HP. (If you can cloak tanks, cloaking it would be a good idea.)

Bladestorm: Creates a cloaked unit which targets a random nearby enemy and chases it. (DTs or Infested Kerrigan would be best because they are melee.) Each upgrade causes more units to spawn. Each one picks its own target, they don't all chase the same unit. (If you can get that to work, of course.)

@ NudeRaider

What's the diffence between the Infested Terran and the Mines that I had under Rejected spells? It's practically the same thing. It'll be my last resort if nothing else comes up.

@ ForTheSwarm

Describe throwing the bomb. How would I do this? How would I even do bigger AoE?

@ Obama.Generalpie

How do I spread outward. I already stated I can't junkyard with my computer player setup.

Circling air that attacks is too similar to Multishot as it acts like a close ranged draggable move. Multishot already requires twice the investment as you need weapon upgrades on it, so a third investment for close ranged wouldn't make any sense.

Turning into tanks...there might not be room for the tanks. I want something consistent that isn't that affected by terrain (IE Egg creation has problems around terrain, but you just won't suffer mana cost when you can't create it). I'll have to edit that into the main post. That and the tank idea in general is iffy. It's like there's no reason to micro if it just...creates a 12 ranged unit far away from you that demolishes enemies with a single click. That and I don't know how to create a unit that far away (gridding is a nono, and I can't junkyard the spread).

Trapping enemies into an area is bad. It means no need for micro. You're supposed to trap enemies by properly positioning the invincible eggs and using drag as necessary.

No super spell. Each level should be incremental in nature and a breakpoint by itself. Superspells will only confuse the player.

As for the section, I wasn't looking for general spells though, just one really specific one to fit the character, so I thought Assistance was a better place for this. If a mod wants to move this to theories and ideas, I'm fine with that.

Center "Location A" on player.
Create Scourge at "Location A" for Current Player.
Create <whatever> Observers for Current Player at "Location A"
Give 1 Observer owned by Current Player at "Location A" to Neutral.
Remove all Observer at "Location A" for current player.
Center "Location B" on Observer owned by Neutral at "Location A".
Remove all Observer for Neutral at "Location B".

EDIT: Like any of my ideas? Or have any comments on them so I know how to improve them?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 23 2008, 9:54 pm by TassadarZeratul.

@ TassadarZeratul

Bengalaas takes up room and can displace. But the idea of a trail attack I've used before using mines to no success. I was trying to imitate the Diablo 2 Blaze spell myself for another player (which is what this seems to be) but I ended up using other abilities instead. I never thought of using it for Player 2. This might actually work out as it can synergize with Strafe (lure enemies into it and interceptor attack them). I'll have to think on this a bit, but I like it better than creating mines under my pet continuously. That it doesn't synergize with Drag is a minus though. The name will have to change to fit the lore too. I'll also have to experiment with how long the trail should be. I'm going to need a hell of a lot of Reavers now. Alternatively, I could try a trail spell for P1 and give P2 one of P1's abilities. Like the lightning bolt. Hrmmmmm. Revisiting Blaze definitely appears to be my current best option. I like it.

I can't create Scourges in a line. Mobile grids fail as I have air units that will screw it up and I'm not about to Coordinate grid the entire map for a single spell. Also, being limited to one direction is bad.

That's actually a boss spell, which works only because I can create a special boss room and stick Sieges there. I just don't have room for a Siege tank for the player normally. I also can't use hyper order as generic command point will screw it up. Generic command point works with P6 only since it doesn't affect burrowed units. That and since I have other P6 units out on the field to get hit, the Tank will oftentimes shoot the wrong enemy.

The cloaked units get in the way. No control either. Bad.

And I already stated multiple times that gridding is a nono. I HAVE OTHER AIR UNITS (your pet, your interceptors, P3 scourges, etc.) so the Observers will screw up when they're nearby.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 23 2008, 10:05 pm by SelfPossessed.

It doesn't actually matter if a few of the Observers are displaced or don't spawn, you only need the final one to be in something approximately in the general location of where it was supposed to be. The only point is to make the unit spawn a distance away from your unit.

As for the cloaked units getting in the way: You could use Observers or something and create DTs when they get close enough to their targets. Or use non-cloaked units (I'd recommend Zerglings) and call them Blade Elementals or something.

Not being able control where the unit spawns is a biiiig nono. That makes the spell random and decreases player control. It also look ugly as hell when it displaces. Presentation matters.

As for the dts when they're close by, they will STILL block and get in the way. Which I don't want. Control is very important. The only blocking for P2 should be done by the Eggs, which is intentional. Other players have summon esque spells that block (P1 summons hallucs, P3 summons Infested Kerrigan and unburrowing Infested Terrans), so repeating it for this player isn't worth it. She's supposed to play different.

I still like the trail concept though. I'm still mulling it over and thinking if it works better with P1 (in which case I can swap a spell) or P2. I'm also worried about its damage as I'm already using random suicided scarabs twice. There's also how it's somewhat similar to the Lurker fissure spell. But still, it might work well with P2...hrrrrmmmm.

You seem into stacking units under your character so..

SUPER FIERY SPARK OF BLAZING DESTRUCTION!

Create a stacked invisible firebat under your hero.

@ Pigy_G

Tried it long ago. Firebats are inconsistent with their damage. Crap range and all. That and, P2 is supposed to fight at a range while running away. She isn't supposed to walk up and get deep into the fray. That's P1's job (if P1 decides on the Archon build).

Drain

Damages enemy units and heals your character for x amount of life, the amount of damage and the amount of life gained increases per level. I thought it would be a cool idea if the amount of life you gain also depends on the unit that was damaged. For example, draining a mechanical unit gives you less life than an organic unit.

I can't heal myself for a certain amount of life. I'm not using vHP. Moving the main away to a medic to heal is also really bad as it'll take your hero out of action for a while.

Just spawn a medic then?

A lot of difference:
- They always spawn, even when an infested is around
- Infested spawn in shorter time intervals instead of in greater numbers
- Option of giving the player control over them
- Infesteds are cool
- They can damage buildings
- They are mobile and can actively seek out the enemy

And honestly I know a lot of games where you can lay mines as a spell but I know only 1 map where you generate infested that automatically find targets.

@ TassadarZeratul

Then how would I level it then? Moving an invinc medic for a short period of time looks ugly as hell. To my knowledge I can't stack it either. That it can heal other units than your main is also bad. Then there's how I have a hp limit based on levels in vitality. Spamming medic's incredibly fast heal until you hit 100% is not something I want to make available. I'm already pushing it by allowing P3 to be a Zerg unit, but at least Zerg regen is pretty slow.

@ NudeRaider

I can make Mines always spawn too.
I can also make Mines spawn in shorter intervals.
I can also give the player control of Mines.
Mines are cool too.
No enemy buildings.
Mobile is a bad thing. It becomes a summon then, which is not P2's area of expertise.
P3 has unburrowing Infested Terrans already, so it'll cause major confusion.

@ All

I love how many responses I'm getting so far! Thanks!

Okay how about this.

EARTH BOLTY THINGY CONTROL!

Once the spell is cast, for ten seconds lurker deaths appear under the hero, (This acts as a warning to alli's and a nice effect) While the lurker deaths are appearing the hero cannot move, After the five seconds a lurker is created for once shot under the hero, as you level up, the amount of time you must wait to cast is decreased by one second, and an additional lurker is created.