Spell Making Session #14 - Voting

This is the voting thread to decide the winner of the 14th Spell Making Session. You can find all the individual submissions in this thread, or download them all in a pack (Spell Making Session 14.rar).

Note that the poll is score-based, you should give the highest score to your favourite submission and the lowest to your least favourite. As always, it's the order of submissions that matters, not the actual score (for example, ranking three submissions with the scores 3,2,1 is the same as 10,8,1), ties are allowed (two or more submissions may be given the same score) and if you don't give a score to all the submissions then the unranked ones will be considered tied for the last place.

The poll has closed on Sunday, March 29th at 23:59 UTC.

The votes have be processed using the Schulze method. You can vew the details here.

The winner is Blackroot with his Nature's Hand spell. Congratulations!

• Lava Rock (+15): -GUI
  -overpowered
  -i really liked the idea and effects
  -lava spawns didnt rally spawn next to the lava rock, maybe locust lava spawns would have been better
• Nature's Hand (+6): -JASS
  -nice idea ...maybe a lil to complicated / hard to balance
  -5000 config constants
  -many unapproved libraries
• Orbital Strife (+6): -GUI (GUIMUI CODE BLOAT)
  -effect looked a little laggy
  -beside that effects were quite nice
  -nothing special about this ability except the nice effects
  -DAMN let me change the camera angle
• Lightning Rod (+6): -JASS
  -idea was ok ...
  -effects didnt look tooo well
  -needs more documentation
  -why dont you have your structs (lgtr,bolt,shock) extend array for performance bonus ?
• Fiery Summon (+5): -JASS
  -spawned units hadnt immolation activated
  -lots of typos in the tooltip
  -nothing special
  -its NOT a DavidStar (a DavidStar is a six-pointed star, not a five-pointed one)
• Summon Reflection (+4): -JASS
  -idea was a lil boring
  -really ugly effect
  -O(n) search (well wont harm that much since you wont have many instances of this spell active at the same time)
  -beside that code seems ok
• Summon Phoenix (+4): -JASS
  -looks nice, however the explosion could need some bonus eye candy
  -seems underpowered
  -use GroupUtils
  -idea wasnt the best..
  -ReleaseUnitId in onDestroy method can cause bugs ..when you have other code in your map using UnitIndexingUtilities
• Color Defence (+4): -JASS
  -fun idea
  -more of a shield spell, than a summon
  -you wouldnt need GroupUtils ..as its really easy as shit to add group recylcling to a struct
  -you should add a constant for the max shield ammount (24currently)
  -didnt loooked thaaat special (needs more color)
• Awaken The Arcane (+4): -JASS
  -idea is kinda ok ...but im tired
  -use grouputils...REALLY
  -you wouldnt need that aura thing ..but well its ok
• Elder Void (+3): -GUI
  -nothing special about this ability except the nice effects
  -WAY to heavy ..too many effects to small interval > laggy
  -extensive use of inaccurate waits
• Glacial Harbinger (+3): -JASS
  -spawn effect was ok but nothing fancy
  -most special about this are the spawned units
  -way to many constants you have to adjust when you want implement that spell
  -ReleaseUnitId in onDestroy method can cause bugs ..when you have other code in your map using UnitIndexingUtilities
  -use some more locals
• Grim Ward (+2): -GUI
  -overpowered
  -nothing special
• Call of Sylvanas (+1): -GUI
  -uses custom value of unit (You MAY NOT do that for a single spell)
  -nothing special
• Ecliptic Summoning (+1): -GUI
  -nothing special
  -leaks hard
  -game ended automatically
• Plague of Locusts (+1): -GUI
  -didnt stop on death of caster (critical bug)
  -where is your *bling* idea ?

blah..didnt look too deep in the triggers ...have no time..

• Elder Void (+13): Pretty.
• Lightning Rod (+11): Cool spell, but you should probably randomize the bolts, lightning isn't that predictable.
• Fiery Summon (+7): Fun to use, but you forgot the last piece of fire on the right side...
• Orbital Strife (+5): Cool idea, nice look. Camera lock was annoying though.
• Color Defence (+3): Neat idea, but nothing spectacular. I would probably make it a damage resistance or barrier/pushback instead of invulnerability.
• Summon Phoenix (+2): I like that the summon drains mana instead of having a duration, but there wasn't anything particularly great otherwise.

I would have voted for more spells, but there are only so many prime numbers between one and fifteen.

(* Automatic vote: Lava Rock +16 *)

• Nature's Hand (+14): - It's really minor, but the tooltip has some typos and is a bit vague regarding growth, wilting, and the unit's powers.
• Fiery Summon (+14): - Tooltip lacks the duration for the channeling. Also, the "lv#" preceding "Lava Spawn" is unnecessary.
• Color Defence (+13): - Tooltips do not include ability level. - [|cffffcc00Level %d|r]?
  - Beautiful and functional spell, but a bit overcomplicated. Either all the barriers should be subject to damage, or the undamagable barriers should be rendered invulnerable for the sake of auto target acquisition or AIs.
• Plague of Locusts (+13): - Tooltip doesn't provide information on Locust damage or the fact that they die when there are no enemies nearby.
  - Minor Grievances: Damage is too high, duration is potentially limitless. And no mana cost? Come on, people! At least make an attempt at melee or AoS balance.
• Grim Ward (+13): - Tooltip does not mention the spell must target an allied Orc-race unit to sacrifice, nor does it provide enough information on the number of summons or their duration.
  - I enjoy the idea and would gleefully use a spell like this in a game, but it is staggeringly unbalanced. No mana cost, it summons a frightful number of units -- the effect is disproportionate to the resources used. If the effect were somehow tied to the sacrificed unit's life or utilized corpses, it would be an improvement.
• Lightning Rod (+13): - Poorly written tooltip. Numerous misspellings.
  - Looks kinda cool, but the damage is obscenely unbalanced.
• Call of Sylvanas (+12): - While it may function, it does not seem effective. It hardly makes a difference. Moreover, what happens if another player casts the same spell? I expect the original player ownership would be lost.
  - Should use an AOE targeting circle.
• Summon Reflection (+12): - Timed Life labeled "Bear".
  - Reflections are terribly weak; it would have been better perhaps if they were basically illusions of the caster, based on 'Alil' (Item Illusions), with Damage Dealt set to 1.00.
  - I enjoy the lightning effect (though perhaps superfluous), but it didn't move with the units. Using a timer to update the lightning poles would have been nice.
• Glacial Harbinger (+12): - Tooltip uses excessive shorthand. AS MS AD are not acceptable.
  - The spell is overcomplicated. It has six parts: target spell, then order 5 units to their targets. At least remove the first part by making it an immediate-order spell.
• Lava Rock (+11): - Poorly written tooltip. "10 DPs Immolation" is particularly unpleasant to see.
  - The boulder's immolation effect deals superficial damage. It deals an insignificant 20 damage to an enemy as it rolls past.
  - Fun to use, but overpowered. No mana cost, short cooldown, it summons an (unspecified) number of Lava Spawn, and spawns an Infernal.
  - Poorly coded and not multi-instancable.
• Ecliptic Summoning (+11): - Poorly written tooltip. Notice the run-on sentence and wrong use of words.
  - Should use an AOE targeting circle.
  - Both summons are weak; somewhat low damage, low health, and extremely short duration. Not worth casting for 150 mana.
  - Poorly coded and not multi-instancable.
• Summon Phoenix (+10): !!! Worthless tooltip, completely lacking in any useful qualitative or quantitative information like the phoenix damage or rate of mana drain. The Explode ability, gaudy enough, lacks a discernible hotkey.
• Orbital Strife (+10): !!! Duration too short, no mana cost, no attempt at balance, I'm not entirely sure what else its supposed to do. The tooltip isn't quantitatively descriptive. But HEY - it does look pretty! Way to go you!
• Elder Void (+8): !!! Terribly written tooltip. Terribly overpowered. Yes, it's pretty, but it's also ridiculous.
  - It uses trigger sleep actions (Waits) and is not multi-instancable.

I wish I had incorporated into my spell a means of determining the mana spent on a spell to add the value to the Arcane Minion duration or something.

(* Automatic vote: Awaken The Arcane +16 *)

• Fiery Summon (+1): + Eyecandy is great and not overdone
  + Good idea for the spell itself
  + A very well balanced spell
  + A clean and efficient code which is easy to configure
  + The spell fits the game Warcraft very well
  + The spell fits the contest theme very well
  
  ! Could be some "imba" if there are too many spawns. It's surely just me, but I think the lifetime for these summons should be set very low. (About 10 seconds)

There is a reason for not rating the others. I am lacking time <_< I just selected the (for me) best spell and rated it. I hope my rating will be counted.
Greetz, xxdingo93xx

• Summon Phoenix (+14): - A nice vJASS spell. The maths are very interesting and the concept behind it, although not much original is very interesting to study
  - There are some parts of the code that are blurry. The code could be better organized and it lacks comments.
  - One of the best and most advanced submissions.
• Awaken The Arcane (+14): - Silence from ranger is more powerful in most cases
  - Quite useless against Archmage Ownlcaster ... (lol... I found him xD )
  - Quite useless if enemy has no casters
  - Excellent against auto-cast spells (super big army ...)
  - I expected more (no offense) I know you have greater capabilities
  - It leaks a group
  - One of the most advanced submissions in fact
  - Very nice calibration section
  - The terrain in this map beats the terrain on my map .. somehow (lol...)
• Summon Reflection (+13): - A simple spell, nothing extraordinary
  - An idea that I have already seen before
  - The connection between summon and caster is quite ugly and bad ...
  - The summon could be stronger
• Color Defence (+13): - vJASS advanced spell, but the code simply hurts my eyes for its poor organization
  - it is highly unbalanced and it is error prone, sometimes tornadoes get stuck inside of units.
  - I don't understand the point of the spell...
• Nature&apos;s Hand (+13): - A nice spell overall, although the concept could be better
  - Uses many not approved systems, which may put the codes overall stability into cause
  - the code scares me ...
• Glacial Harbinger (+13): - Quite a simple spell
  - I expected more
  - The summons could have better abilities ...
• Lightning Rod (+13): - Messy code, why use 2 Cohadar storage systems and TimerUtils ? It could be done with less systems
  - the math library is quite ridiculous... you know there are functions to do that and you wouldn't lose efficiency
  - vJASS spell and MUI (as far as I could see)
  - Has problem with green icons
  - has a corrupted trigger
  - max level is 10 not 15
  - have no units to call (makes me thing this map is from something else?)
  - not a bad spell, although code is messy, could become something good
• Orbital Strife (+6): - GUI spell ...
  - not MUI
  - the camera is annoying
  - I can find ways to break this
  - Nice GUI spell
• Elder Void (+5): - GUI spell, very inefficient
  - Spam of effects and portals
  - The GUI code isn't bad, the creator takes care of location leaks
  - uses waits ...
• Grim Ward (+5): - The idea isn't that great
  - It is GUI
  - The summoning amount is ridiculous
  - I expected more, having in mind I take Kirby as a legend in the GUI world, maybe next time you can have better grade. So far I have to give you a middle score in the GUI spells
• Call of Sylvanas (+4): - it is bad coded and error prone. I can think of 1000 ways to make it fail.
  - Nice idea, bad implementation
• Ecliptic Summoning (+4): - Why the hell can I select the mark? Why does it have a "tornado" name?
  - GUI
  - The idea is not that good, and the implementation in GUI is also very poor
  - Uses waits, and plays with triggers ...
• Lava Rock (+3): - non MUI and GUI
  - I can find 1000 ways to break it
  - Nice idea, horrible implementation
• Plague of Locusts (+3): - A simple tweak from th editor spell, with some GUI bonuses...
  - Nothing special at all

To GUI users:
- You guys may think I was hard on GUI submissions and waits, but I will never give a GUI entry same grade I give to a vJASS entry. Also, why do I think waits are so bad? See this link:
http://www.wc3c.net/showthread.php?t...are+waits+evil

About vJASS entries,some were good, others were not. There wasn't a perfect submission (Phoenix and Archmage submissions were going to have grade 15, but then I saw the codes ...lol) Anyway I am sure these people have experience and will make good work next time.

Please don't be angry if I give low grade =S

(* Automatic vote: Fiery Summon +16 *)

• Nature&apos;s Hand (+14): This was my favorite entry. It had some bugs/balance issues but were easily fixed. It fits the summon theme very well, and has a really excellent and unique idea applied to it. The method of summoning (requiring trees) was better than standard, and so was the actual summon.
• Awaken The Arcane (+13): I really liked the idea of creating summons when a nearby spell is cast. It makes the use of it a little tricky, but it brings skill into a pvp situation. It was clean, but the summons were somewhat bland. One possible improvement that would be tricky but really cool is base the strength of the summon on the caliber of the spell (maybe using spell priorities?)
• Lightning Rod (+12): This entry was great and unique. It was simple yet effective. It fits the theme without being overly complex or bland.
• Glacial Harbinger (+11): The construction of this ability was great, but was a little confusing to execute at first. The idea of using units as buffs is really cool, especially since they could be used to either buff or debuff. I think the summons could've had a little more to them however, because it just redirects casting a buff into the form of a summon.
• Summon Reflection (+10): I really liked the concept, but this needed a little more work. The effect was a little sloppy and the spawn died waaaay to fast. A little more balancing was needed on this spell imo.
• Grim Ward (+9): Great idea, but needs some alterations. Making it dependant on the life of the target would've been really cool. As is, it is a little bit overpowered as it spawns hordes and hordes of summons, which is epic, but a little unbalanced. I'm not going to mark down for the lack of cost and cooldown, that was obviously done to make the testing easier (right?)
• Fiery Summon (+8): Cool effects and idea, but I think some big improvements could be made here. The custom built immolation is just silly, just give them a negative health regen and give them permanent immolation. Also, more specific spawn points would have been better. The elementals spawn randomly and give it a sloppy feeling, maybe making them spawn at the points of the pentagram would have been better.
• Color Defence (+7): Cool idea, but it was confusing. Since the premise of the spell was color based, I think using a model different from the whirlwinds would have been better, they all have a shade of grey mixed in and it doesn't do well with the colors. Also was a bit random and doesn't fit the theme of summoning as well as some of the other entries did.
• Lava Rock (+6): Decent entry, but it was too haphazard. It had an enormous AoE but wasn't all that effective. The spawns die fast, and don't do that much damage. A mixture of rolling lava rock with elementals and an infernal seems a bit much.
• Plague of Locusts (+5): This spell reminded me of the Disease spell from D3's Witch Doctor, which is a cool spell, but this rendition of it was pretty bland. It's way too strong, and the locust thing makes it too similar to Blizzard's Locust.
• Orbital Strife (+4): All it did was summon units, and the summoned units weren't anything special, not to mention they died too fast to really do anything.
• Ecliptic Summoning (+3): Cool idea, badly implemented. It was buggy, the spawn wasn't the best, and honestly, the switch from night/day hardly happens and a lot of maps disable the passing of time.
• Elder Void (+2): It was pretty. Also is way too heavy and would cause lag in a real map. I'm also not a fan of instant killing (overpowered), especially applied AoE.
• Summon Phoenix (+1): It may have been well coded, but that doesn't make up for the fact that it's just a bland spell. Summon Phoenix is already a spell, and taking away control and causing it to do less DPS seems like a downgrade to me. Fancy flight pathing doesn't kill units =/

Overall, the entries really needed more effort put into them, including my own. Everyone is getting a little sloppy with their creations. There are a lot of great ideas here, but would've been superb had they just been taken a step further to the next level. I think maybe having a week between submission and voting for people to test the entries and give feedback, allowing people to edit and fix entries would increase the quality of these contests. A lot of problems could easily be avoided by simple fixes not always evident to the creator.

(* Automatic vote: Call of Sylvanas +16 *)

• Lightning Rod (+15): I liked this spell, especially the flashing animation on the obelisk, it was quite coordinated, though I think some balancing and resizing could have helped. The lightning effects weren't perfect, despite their cleanness, and you could tell where each new lightning started. Nice entry overall.
• Color Defence (+14): The particle emitters on the tornadoes were quite beautiful, as Archmage said. In terms of usability, it seems pretty circumstantial - do you actually need your hero randomly invulnerable with a huge storm flying around him? Also, while the colorations were of a good range, I had to strain to actually see the changes in vertex color - those were a bit underwhelming.
• Orbital Strife (+13): Nice, but I'd like to see some application, not just flying orbs. The effects were well done, not overdone, and showed off the spell well.
• Nature&apos;s Hand (+12): Very interesting idea, though I got kind of bored. I guess I would have "loved" it if I knew what was going on - I had to figure out several things that were important to the spell. I had no idea when the unit would wither, or how long it should keep sucking up tree spirits. Again, the sustainable summon was neat but I was confused.
• Summon Reflection (+11): Nice idea, though in execution I thought the linked unit got torn up too quickly. The lightnings were an accurate representation but lagged behind at points and seemed a little too concentrated.
• Call of Sylvanas (+10): I quite liked the spell at first, and looking at the portal open up was fun. However, placement and sizing could have been more proportionate - a slightly smaller portal that shot banshees out at say 100 fly height would be preferable because they were stuck in the ground. In terms of usefulness, I could perhaps see it in use in a melee map. I did like the impact on enemy units, it was quite cool.
• Summon Phoenix (+9): All right spell, I liked the dive-bomb. Not much to complain about, other than some polish it could have used and more frequent "hits" on enemies, or some effects to make it more "unique" looking.
• Fiery Summon (+9): Good, but effect heavy, whose main purpose (I felt) was to draw shapes. The explosion of peasants under the lines was neat, but the channeling dragged on iterminably. This is my real gripe - the lava spawns froze after being spawned (SetUnitAnimation without resetting later? Easy fix...) and weren't all that dynamic. Why would you need to code permanent immolation when it already exists? Anyway, it looked fancy but felt a little empty in the end.
• Awaken The Arcane (+8): Maybe I just chose the wrong place to fight, but the minions died immediately and didn't contribute much, and were very tiny. The idea was actually pretty good, though it felt underwhelming :(.
• Grim Ward (+7): Pretty cool, but I didn't get a good sense of "purpose" from it other than spawning mobs of skellies. The triggering was pretty minimal as well.
• Elder Void (+6): Good expanding ring, but I could tell the spell was unit-heavy. It's pretty overpowered and you can't cast it around allies. The summon could have used more dynamic aspects, and the huge lag spike when the unit was summoned was undesirable.
  
• Plague of Locusts (+4): Interesting, but could have used some more innovation. I liked its flexibility, but it came across as exploitable in the end, especially with the rapid cast (I know its for testing, but still).
• Lava Rock (+3): Cool enough, but in the end it felt like a regular old summon with some wide-range immolation initially, which didn't make it very dynamic.
• Ecliptic Summoning (+2): I liked the moon unit better, though the spell ended up being very simple. The fire unit got torn up immediately and ran awkwardly before that.

(* Automatic vote: Glacial Harbinger +16 *)

• Summon Reflection (+15): Concept(10/10): Brilliant concept. The idea of a summon is integral to the spell. It is simple and elegant yet offers a lot of gameplay applications. It is very unique and original. Personally I would have added an ability on the summon to instantly swap its position with the hero.
  
  Bugs(5/5): None as far as I can tell.
  
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• Nature&apos;s Hand (+14): Concept(10/10): So you have a summon that gains power as it stands near trees, and dies if it isn't. There's a lot of originality there, and as far I know it's never been done before. As far as gameplay is concerned though, there are a lot of problems with it, such as it lasting forever. The execution of the idea could have been better, with smoother transitions, though that is not something I am judging.
  
  Bugs(4/5): The tree spirits were giving 100 mana each, which I presume is a bug. This is probably something you forgot to take out from testing though, and can easily be configured to any value, so I will ignore this problem. There also appears to be a permanent buff on the summon with the purge icon and "tooltip missing" as its title.
  
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• Awaken The Arcane (+14): Concept(9/10): I really liked this concept. The summons, however, are incredibly weak and are not dependent on the type of spell cast. There's not much to write about this spell, its simple and to the point.
  
  Bugs(5/5): No bugs as far as I can tell.
  
  .
• Lightning Rod (+14): Concept(10/10): This spell summons a ward-type which fires off an area-of-effect attack every couple of seconds. The effect is very akin to the Stille's lightning ward spell from DoE, but I can't expect everyone to have prior knowledge to every spell ever created. As far as originality goes, this spell is very creative and uses the lightning theme well. The concept of a summon is also very integral to the spell.
  
  Bugs(4/5): The lightnings fire off in the same directions every time, and thus can easily be dodged. Graphically, the lightnings move too slow and don't move randomly enough, but this is more of a problem of personal taste. Otherwise, the spell appears to functions as intended.
  
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• Summon Phoenix (+13): Concept(9/10): A locust summon which you control indirectly, activated by a immolation-mechanic. The concept is not entirely original, but I'm giving you props for your superb execution. Although it is very random which target the phoenix attacks, you still have indirect control over it through positioning and your suicide ability.
  
  Bugs(4/5): The phoenix would sometimes get stuck flying in small circles around a target forever, unable to hit it.
  
  .
• Color Defence (+13): Concept(9/10): The spell is very complicated, yet it is understandable. It's a good idea, but it simply boils down to a highly random damage shield. Some of the colors are too close together to be able to tell apart on a semi-transparent unit, but this is simply an execution problem.
  
  Bugs(4/5): The cyclones are not able to move over units, but blink randomly around them.
  
  .
• Grim Ward (+13): Concept(8/10): I like the idea of sacrificing a permanent unit in order to summon several temporary fighters. This spell had major balance problems, and lackluster special effects, but these are very minor points as far as the concept goes. I feel that the power of the summons should have been proportional to the power of the unit you sacrificed somehow. Also, giving the ward negative health regen and invulnerability is just a more convoluted way of adding an expiration timer and making it locust.
  
  Bugs(5/5): The spell appears to function as intended. (Although I would prefer if the summons died when the ward died)
  
  .
• Glacial Harbinger (+13): Concept(9/10): Ultimately, this spell is just a choice between two buffs. The summon is used as the mechanic to choose which one, and I think it solves the design problem nicely. There are a couple problems with it though: there is no reason to have to aim the spell, since the summons move insanely fast and there is no effect on where they are summoned. Additionally, the units should be selected automatically when summoned, but this is a minor point. The spell is an original way to give a choice between 2 effects.
  
  Bugs(4/5): The hotkey for Frozen Rage is not functioning, which is vital to a micro-intensive spell such as this.
  
  .
• Ecliptic Summoning (+12): Concept(8/10): Okay, so this is a channeling summon spell, which has different effects whether it's day or night. It is a relatively unique concept, although they both boil down to the same effect with some very subtle differences, where one is good against swarms and the other against individual targets. Any strategic advantage of one over the other is null though, since in any common game you wouldn't be able to control the time of day. Overall, I like it. The mechanic of summoning is not the most unique, but it does the job well.
  
  Bugs(4/5): The movement of the fire spawn seemed a little buggy. I realize you were probably going for AI-controlled movement, but when you issued manual orders they conflicted and resulted in the summon retreating back to its origin or the caster. The moon spawn seemed to function as intended. The spell ended on caster death, and did everything I would expect a channeling spell to do.
  
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• Fiery Summon (+11): Concept(6/10): It's a channeling summon-over-time which happens to deal damage when the units are summoned. The pentagram earns you no bonus points since I have seen it almost a million times and it is not original in the least. The spell can be broken down into two effects: Channeling random damage, and summoning. The random damage is interesting, but lacks any explosive special effects to match the sudden damage it deals to units. The summoning aspect just feels tacked on, and does not feel like it is at the core of the concept of this spell. They have an immolation which is not activated by default. There is no reason not to do so since there is no disadvantage to having it on.
  
  Bugs(5/5): As far as I can tell the spell functions as intended.
  
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• Lava Rock (+9): Concept(6/10): While I appreciate that this spell summons units, it is clearly not at the core of the spell itself. The spell could have just as easily been made without the summoning aspect. The summons are stock units from the game and lend no points to originality or creativity.
  
  Bugs(3/5): The summons are not placed on the boulder many times, but very far away from it. The summons seem to multiply randomly, which I assume is intended but I have no idea since the tooltip states no such mechanic. The infernal has no expiration timer, which may lead to balance issues in a real map, but this is a minor issue.
  
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• Call of Sylvanas (+8): Concept(4/10): This spell is a simple mixture of stampede and possession. Neither is original in the least, and a mix of the two is not much more so. There is no summoning happening either, since the banshees are simply special effects as far as the gameplay is concerned.
  
  Bugs(4/5): If you stop casting it before the spell ends, the portal does not go away immediately.
  
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• Plague of Locusts (+8): Concept(4/10): This spell is a simple DoT spell. The only hint of creative mechanics is that upon killing a target, the locusts will seek another target. Damage over time spells have been done a million times, and I do not see much originality in this spell. Also, the summons are not even controllable, but act more like special effects than units, so there is really not even any summoning aspect in this spell.
  
  Bugs(4/5): The locusts attack their closest target, not necessarily the unit you selected.
  
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• Orbital Strife (+7): Concept(2/10): This is about as bland as you can get as far as concept goes. You click the ability, and it summons several basic units which can do nothing but attack. Sure you have excellent special effects, but this lends nothing to the concept. Either make the summoning mechanic unique, or give the summons unique abilities and applications.
  
  Bugs(5/5): I didn't like the fixed camera, but I didn't notice any bugs with the spell.
  
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• Elder Void (+6): Concept(3/10): You target a point and it summons a unit with forked lightning and consume magic. You can't get much more unoriginal than this. Oh, and it instantly kills every unit in the area. There are two ways to have an innovative spell in this contest: to have a unique mechanic to summon your unit(s), or to have your summon do unique things. Special effects give nothing to the spell itself, and do not help you in the least with your concept.
  
  Bugs(3/5): Insane overuse of special effects. They both block vision of the game, and lag severely.
  
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For this contest, I decided to vote mainly on the concept of the spell, something I think many of these are lacking in originality. I am not looking at the code at all, partly because I don't have the time, and partly because I don't personally think it matters much as long as the spell works right. My point breakdown for each spell is:
Concept/Idea: 10 points
Playability/Bugs: 5 points

As a side note, many of these test maps needed a lot of work. A testmap should include an easy way to reset cooldowns, and should have a lot more time put into it. In a spell contest, the testmap is the container you present the spell in and should help to show off the spell, not hinder it. You don't cook a 5star feast as a chef and then present it on paper plates, it's the same thing. While I'm not scoring the test map for this contest, it is something I urge people to work on.

• Lightning Rod (+5): - Winner. Good idea, good effects.
  - Lightning paths should be much more varied.
  - Map filename totally useless: "TheSpell.w3x"
  - Lots of prereqs... Are PolarProjRad and DistanceXY really worth their own lib?
  - A couple handle leaks
• Fiery Summon (+4): - Effects well done
  - Builds up very slowly; melee units would autorun to center and own you
  - Summon Immolation should be activated by default
  - [What's the point of simulating immolation? Put the reason in the code..?]
• Nature&apos;s Hand (+3): - Good concept
  - Way too many little details for the player to care about
  - Tree effects well done
  - Awful lot of prereqs.
• Plague of Locusts (+3): - Funny test map
  - Not an amazing idea, but it works
• Awaken The Arcane (+3): - Good idea
  - Summons seem super weak, even in great numbers.
• Glacial Harbinger (+3): good idea
  spell should have been no-target
  Frozen rage hotkey didn't work
  abilities should have been one-order one-unit, instead of starcraft style one-order all-selected
• Summon Phoenix (+2): - Decent idea
  - Phoenix rarely ever attacks
  - Huge function syndrome
• Color Defence (+2): - This spell is confusing to watch. I can't tell at a glance if I'm invulnerable or not, and all the enemy units end up running in circles. It should be renamed to "Confusion Defense".
  - Awful lot of prereqs.
• Lava Rock (+2): - "Just another wc3 map"
  - Damage done by spell is low considering the MASSIVE FIREBALL OF DEATH rolling over the enemies.
  - Summons seem grafted onto the spell, and also do crap for damage.
• Grim Ward (+2): - Pretty average.
  - All the logic is in the ability data? Interesting.
• Call of Sylvanas (+1): - Beast Master's stampede implemented with triggers. You even call one of the triggers "StampedeCollision".
  - Using custom values totally inappropriate for a spell.
  - Otherwise a reasonable spell, I guess
• Elder Void (+1): - "Just another wc3 map"
  - omg lag
  - omg leaks
• Ecliptic Summoning (+1): - Serious test map issues (WAIT for night?? Victory at start??)
  - Crappy variables names (a, m, T)
  - Not MUI
  - omg leaks

(* Automatic vote: Summon Reflection +16 *)

• Nature&apos;s Hand (+11):
  Lots of configuration options, which I think is a good thing. The spell seemed perfectly stable, despite murmurs in the background about "unstable triggers" and "overcomplicated code". It works. It's also totally MUI, as far as I can tell, and has a pretty unique concept to boot. The test map was nice, too. The "tooltip missing" buff was kind of annoying, but this is really a minor concern.
• Grim Ward (+10):
  Fully MUI. Each skeleton generated by the ward has its own timed life, which is nice, and the number and type of skeletons generated is fairly easy to control, since the spell is entirely done with GUI triggers. The test map was both effective and extremely eye-pleasing. Unfortunately, there is no reason to favor a Tauren over a Ghoul with this spell, so a mapmaker would be hard-pressed to balance it properly. Still, this was one of the better spells, overall.
• Awaken The Arcane (+9):
  Very cool concept, and very well executed. The minions aren't that great, but that can easily be adjusted. I wish the system detected a difference between, say, a buff and a summon, though - making the units generated a little more unique. But the spell's already plenty unique, I think, since it's the only one based on Mana Flare. The test map was wonderful. There's a significant gap between the top three and everything else, but I can't really do anything about that because of the way the Schulze method works. If I could, I think I would have rated these three higher than my own. Oh well.
• Summon Reflection (+8):
  MUI. Good. Interesting concept. I've seen it before, but a good implementation nonetheless. The test map was functional. I am pleased to see that the author created the whole thing himself, without relying on outside libraries. Unfortunately, the effect chosen was aesthetically unpleasing, and the lightning effect was hidden in the code and not declared as a global constant, making it harder to change for someone who just wanted to use the spell. The test map was okay. Not amazing or anything, but it was functional and allowed the user to test the spell.
  
• Fiery Summon (+7):
  Fully MUI, and the code is well-documented and easy to alter in all the important areas. I liked it that the timers were kept separate - summons weren't spawned at shared intervals, as they would be if a periodic event had been used (every x seconds of game time). I didn't like the concept much and couldn't see any practical use for it, but that was really the least of my concerns. The test map was adequate.
• Lightning Rod (+6):
  Fiery Summon, Cast-And-Forget Edition! Okay, they're not that closely related, but there were some similarities between the two and they are getting a similar score, I think. Constants were easy to redefine - including lightning effects, which is always a plus. The test map itself was also fairly well-designed. The map name, however, was horrible (TheSpell) and would have stumped a mapmaker attempting to open the spell and add it to his own map. Trigger organization was also bad - the "Melee Initialization" trigger, which should have been in the "Test Only Triggers" category (since it just added special effects to the map), was instead in the "Main Scripts" category, which would have caused problems for map importation.
• Summon Phoenix (+5):
  Okay, as far as I can tell, this ability is a nuke. Yeah, it looks pretty. It's MUI - yay. The test map is decent. But really, the phoenix doesn't seem to do anything practical until you make it kill itself on something. It attacks, but not nearly frequently enough, and I didn't see a constant to adjust the phoenix's rate of attack.
  
• Color Defence (+4):
  An interesting mechanic, but not terribly well-executed. The test map actually demonstrates how horribly confused a computer opponent gets when faced with this kind of spell, as well as how easily this is countered by simply Holding Position. However, the spell is MUI and the test map does adequately demonstrate the potential of the ability.
• Call of Sylvanas (+3):
  Neat concept, but needed a bit more work. The portal was dumb, but I'm not going to slam this spell just for that. It's not hard to take the special effect out, and the idea was fairly original.
  However, the spell did not work for any players other than red, making it less mapmaker-friendly than it should have been.
  Props for a decent test map, though.
• Glacial Harbinger (+3):
  While I appreciate that this spell is MUI, it's needlessly overcomplicated. The summoning spell itself is essentially just Dark Portal, so I'm a bit confused about why the author felt it necessary to base it on Channel and spawn the units in JASS. The only real point of interest about the spell was the spell-stacking the summons themselves were capable of, which isn't exactly original and doesn't really fit the contest parameters.
• Orbital Strife (+2):
  This might as well have been Feral Spirit, really. Flashy special effects worthy of a cinematic, perhaps, but not really noteworthy within a summoning contest. The spell does work, though.
• Lava Rock (+1):
  No map description, no MUI (rock freezes if another instance is created), and lousy test map. Concept is decent, but could have been improved if more than five minutes of thought had been put into it.
• Elder Void (+1):
  This spell is not MUI. It is terribly inefficient and is difficult to change, which is really bad for a GUI spell. It's also horribly overpowered - a point I would overlook for any spell that could easily be adjusted in terms of balance. The test map is adequate for spell testing, but that's pretty much the only positive thing I can say about this submission.
• Ecliptic Summoning (+1):
  Fairly unoriginal concept and fairly unimpressive test map. This spell isn't MUI at all. The summons themselves are totally uncontrollable, the daytime summon has terrible AI, and yet both summons (and the little circle of power labeled "tornado") are selectable! I really can't see why anyone would want this.

Multi-instance support is one of the most important aspects of any spell, in my opinion. I don't care whether the spell uses triggers or JASS or just the object editor as long as it gets the job done and does so without causing a huge amount of lag. While reviewing these spells, I tried to put myself in a mapmaker's shoes, so when I looked at how the spells were done it was to see how many things I could change and how easy the changes were. Any spells that were not MUI received a low grade from me because if I were making a map I would want any spells I used to work regardless of which player(s) and unit(s) I gave the spells to.

I didn't really care much how the spell was coded, as long as it was easy to reconfigure. The GUI spells were generally easy enough to configure by their nature, though I noted one exception. As for JASS and vJASS spells, all they really needed was global constants. Some submissions were actually missing some important constants, which I think would annoy anyone who wanted to tweak a spell just a little bit. Data accessible in the Object Editor counts as "easy to change." Data accessible only after scanning pages of code does not.

In a similar vein, the test map itself was also important. Although the quality of the test map has little relevance in how a spell would be used in a "real" map, a good test map should at least help the user figure out what spell he is testing. The scenario description and map name would take a few seconds for the creator of the test map, but a user wouldn't even know it needed to be changed until he checked it himself. As it is a matter of both convenience and professional polish, I don't think I am wrong in grading these spells at least partially on test map quality.

My final major criterion was "concept and design," which is left to interpretation much more than the others. While it is obvious whether or not a map description reads "Just Another Warcraft III Map," and it is a fairly simple matter to test for multi-instance support even on maps that try to hide their lack of it, it can be difficult to judge accurately whether I am being completely fair when I hold one "concept" in higher esteem than another. In the end, I decided this was less important than utility and testability, so even spells with concepts I didn't like much ranked higher than spells with solid concepts but bad execution. This is because a random mapmaker could be interested in anything, but wouldn't have much use for a spell he was interested in if the darn thing didn't even work. So "spell concept" served as a tiebreaker of sorts - but if I wasn't absolutely sure about which concepts I liked better than others, ties remained.

It was interesting to see how varied voting criteria was in this contest, as this is the first time I've participated in such a thing. Some people voted very differently than I would have expected, and sometimes the reasoning seemed a little shaky (you may find this to be the case with my review as well, though). I hope to participate in future spell-making contests, and will keep in mind some of the votes I've seen in this contest in future submissions.

(* Automatic vote: Plague of Locusts +16 *)