[Death Knight] skill set!

Hidden information: Alright, I saw this done before by cohadar and others, so I'll give it a try. Heaven knows no one checks out my Custom Race topic, so this'd get ignored there. :/ Link to the ~Project Page~

I am attempting to work on a set of Neutral Tavern heroes, for unexplainable reasons (i.e. I love custom heroes :P). One of which will be the "Death Knight", a faithful representation of the Wc2 Orcish Death Knight (i.e. the frail-awexome death-caster guy). Regrettably, I am unable to use the name "Death Knight", because of the existing Wc3 Undead hero of the same name :/. Regardless!:

I need help finishing this hero up. That includes 1 of his 3-level abilities, a cool name, and perhaps some good icon suggestions. (I'd highly prefer to only work with GUI and Object Editor) Thus I turn it over to the forum for some good ol' brainstorming. :P

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Wc2 Skillset (For those curious):

• Touch of Darkness (attack)
• Death Coil
• Haste
• Unholy Armor
• Decay
• Whirlwind
• Raise Dead

Current Ability Ideas: (NOTE: I don't really have a type of ability to ask for, since I detect no cohesive theme with this guy other than 'death' :P)

• Decrepify - Blights a target area of ground with death and ruin, causing pain to the living who walk upon it. (actually puts Blight and a ward w/ a Damage Aura; much like a reverse Healing Ward. Slows, too?)
• ??? - Creates a violent flux in the surrounding area, flooding it with volatile necromantic magicks. Nearby random enemy units are engulfed in explosions.

Wishlist:

• I have the "Exorcism" sound buff (like a 'death bell'-type sound) from Wc2; definitely want to have a place for it on this guy. :P
• Some cool names: Reqiuem, Gather Shadows, Death Knell, Touch of Darkness... etc.

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Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Decrepify sounds brilliantly thematic for this guy. I have suggestion though - make the invisible ward, with Blight generation and anti-living damage aura, also spawn corpses like the Graveyard does. The only thing then needed is some ability (for the hero) which actually makes use of this supply of corpses...

The Touch of Darkness hand reminded me of the Pit Lord's Doom spell, but with a difference. The targeted unit becomes Silenced and takes damage over time, but at death, an invisible (no image) unit is spawned. This unit lasts only 0.01 seconds before it dies, and has the Kaboom! suicide ability, modified to trigger at death. So once the Doomed unit dies, a massive explosion originates from his corpse, and you can use a simple map trigger to play a suitable explosion effect at the location the unit dies (eg the death effect for Undead buildings). The spell could be called 'Soul of Darkness' (cast only on your own units, like Death Pact) or 'Corrupting Touch' (cast on enemies).

...

I think I'm going to use that myself...

<3 One of my few original ideas. :P


A man (?) after my own heart. Using the Object Editor to the nth degree, all the way!

So basically, it's a Doom, but instead of a summon, it's an AoE on Death-type spell. I like it. However, I like your suggested change better; making "Decrepify" spawn corpses. Then the decision is whether to make Army of Darkness or Whirlwind use corpses...
- AoD: in the targeted area, it summons your skeleton warriors, but if their's any corpses, it also casts Raise Dead on them...
- Wwind: the soul-nado has a custom Raise Dead, so while it's zipping around destroying stuff, it also summons skeleton warriors...
- Wwind2: the soul-nado gains more power based on the number of nearby corpses... not sure I can do that, though.

Death knights without some variant of death coil (Or extended use of the death coil FX) are not death knights at all.

I'd do a short (2-3 seconds) drain life spell that removes 75, 115, 170 in total life to the target unit, the effect would be a soul missile from the target to the caster, so it would look like the caster is stealing life in pieces...

Juszt my two cents...

To make the Whirlwind unit influenced by the number of nearby corpses, give it an aura ability (affecting only itself) with say 10 levels. Then, when you cast the spell, it simply counts the number of corpses in the area (trigger that picks all units in N radius and counts number with health less than/equal zero) and sets the level of the Whirlwind's aura equal to the number of corpses, to a max of 10. However, I wouldn't call it Whirlwind then - rather something like "Bone Storm" or "Corpse Maelstrom".

Oh, and give the Whirlwind unit auto-cast Raise Dead for extra mayhem.

When i read moyack's idea with the life drain i got a new idea for a spell.

When you skill it you get 2 spells. The first one is an ability that drains X amount of health from the target (The caster gains nothing) The other ability gains the drained life as an amount. That amount can be used to either heal a friend or damage an enemy.

Like this. You cast the first ability 3 times, it drains 200HP (Per cast). The other ability then gains either a 600HP damage or a 600HP heal. Its like a death coil/holy light that you stack.

A-hah! Now it is the turn of me to be making the fun of you!
But really, no. This is made as an addition to, and not a replacement for, melee Wc3. Thus I cannot use Death Coil, nor anything too similar to it (i.e. a single-target direct damage spell that can heal undead).

However, I agree that, if possible, I should attempt to use the Death Coil sfx somewhere. I'm definitely using Animate Dead sfx, at least twice...

@Moyack: Thank you. That's all I'm asking for, really; two cents.

Hidden information: Because if I collect merely two cents from every user, I will become a obscenely wealthy!! Mwahahaha!

@Shadowkiller: Ooh, I like that. Not so much as a Hero ability; I want to keep their command cards as clean as possible. But a special caster-ish unit, with a stackable-Heal/damage... Then make the heal/damage autocast, instead of direct cast, and perhaps the "accumulator" a passive as well, and then you have a simple unit that ..

OH! That's almost perfect for a Troll Blooddrinker unit I had planned! It passively drinks/channels/funnels the blood of it's enemies into it's mouth/soul/blades, and then can use the stolen blood to heal nearby friendlies! Nice.

@Ashkati: Of course; just like my Vampire Bats, which gain a bonus to damage based on the number of nearby Vamp's. Except do it on "unit is summoned", and for "summoned unit"; nice. I definitely like that (but only if the first ability is "Decrepify" and makes corpses.

And of course it gets Raise Dead! Since it's uncontrollable, that'd be rather lame if it just ran away...

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So I'm liking the WoWwiki idea of "stopping all orders" while a unit is affected by the soul-nado. I'm not totally sure how to (GUI) do it, though. I mean is this:
acceptable, if copied 3 times (1 for each type of order)? Or would it be easier to just make the affected unit Neutral Passive for the duration of it's affectation? (gogo wordzorz)

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Ok, so semi-assuming the spell "Decrepify" makes it. Does anyone have a particular opinion on the icon? I.e. the green hand, the purple hand, or something else?

The icon should be some blasted ground, with a grave or ghoul arm bursting through the soil.

... Wait, that's Reanimate...
Go with green.

Alright, I updated the first post (love the synergy with the green icons). Now, assuming everything how it is, only a few things remain:

Last Coupla' Questions

• He absolutely needs a rockin' name to fit that rockin' hero model. Thoughts?
• Right now, Decrepify and Whirlwind both have a slowing + damaging effect. To me, that seems rather overkill and blase. Any thoughts as to how to differentiate?
• Also right now, Whirlwind damages, slows, cancels orders, raises dead, and gains power w/ nearby corpses (only once upon casting). Now it is an ultimate, and since it could feasibly Wander away, perhaps this isn't so bad.
  **But I could add a trigger to have the Whirlwind 'follow' the [Death Knight] whenever he's issued an order.

Thanks again, everyone; I had no idea this would get as many replies as it did.

Hmm... How about giving the Decrepify ward a plague aura instead of damage and slow? It would fit in with the poisoned soil and rotten corpses.
Name: Lugdan Soulblight, the Renegade Nightmare

*Plague Ward* - Perhaps, but doesn't "Plague Ward" only have a very small AoE? Not sure I can change it, either... But perhaps a modified "Phoenix Fire" that looks like plague instead of fire. That might work, as long as the Blight radius is the same as the Fire radius.

So should I assume the Whirlwind should stay the way it is?

*Name* - Thanks for the 'Ludgan Soulblight', but I should've clarified; this isn't an AoS. It's melee. So while I do need some good Proper Names, like "Teron Gorefiend (a throwback to Wc2, a must) and "Korth Felheart", those aren't usually hard to whip up. What's hardest is a good, fitting Hero Name; the one that appears next to their level. Like "Death Knight", "Lich", or "Dreadlord". Except none of those :P.

And "Renegade Nightmare" sounds too AoS-y; sorry.

"Necrolyte" "Horseman of the Plauge" "Reaper"

How about... "Blight Rider" or "Blighted Rider"?