[Brainstorm] Mana for Intelligence Heroes

As you all know, during the early and middle part of the game, intelligence heroes are pretty useful. But when it comes to the late game, intelligence heroes are pretty useless and they probaby have their mana bar full forever since spells don't cost so much mana anymore. Intelligence heroes are also weak during late game due to the lack of damage, attack speed and health unlike agility and strength heroes.

Don't suggest to me the part where it do DamageTarget * intelligence.

I need some ideas for intelligence heroes to be useful late game and not be just a weakling standing there staring at the sky crying.

Basically, to sum them all up, what suggestions to you guys have to make a intelligence heroes strong late game? They seem really too weak in my opinion.

Intel heroes are only weak late game assuming you add melee game style nuker heroes to a genre like say "Hero Arena's".

Even then its heavily based on how the map is designed, just because intel's suck in the generic Hero Arena doesnt mean they suck in all game types.

All them points you raised are variable based on the type of game this is.
If you could tell us more stuff like what genre this is etc. would help greatly.

It is a hero defense genre where you defend against a onslaught of creeps.

I wouldn't say intelligence heroes are weak late-game at all. The only game I really know of this being an outstanding factor is in DotA Allstars but that's due to the ridiculous item-bonus additives. You also have to note that by level 7 you can have an ability that lasts with you from level 7 to level 25.

You really just have to be careful how you design your game - if it is designed properly without an end-game God-mode then the attributes should all pretty much be equal.


Intelligence heroes only have a ridiculous sum of mana if you allow them to. In melee games the only hero that never runs out of mana is the Archmage.

The same goes for strength/agility heroes. I've had a level 10 Death Knight before and he doesn't own up the battlefield... your problems are strictly your own creation.

Perhaps simply give intel heroes spells that scale per level or give them vital support abilities etc.

Vital support abilities means that playing as a role of a intel hero will seem boring...

Levels for heroes will probaby be 25, level 1 to 3 skills have 5 levels and ultimate has 3 levels. The other is for customizability.

Well there's your problem. Intel heroes would only be at their 100% during levels 1-18, that's when they get all their skills. Then at 19-25, they start to degrade, since they won't be learning any new skills and just gaining stats, which they don't benefit much from at all compared to "late game" heroes.

If youre going to do 25 levels then scale your spell levels appropriately.
Your setup seems ok, just as long as you dont add super imba Dps items intel heroes shouldnt get underpowered.

Also what makes you think a support skill is boring?

For me, playing support in wc3 seems lame and boring. Items will be imba due to the fact of the time spent on the game.

Well, brainstorm guys! Think of some ideas that can make intelligence heroes shine in the bright sky!

Youre rigging a Hero Defence to play like DotA.

Youve simply combined all the factors that make INT heroes weak make it into a map an then complain they suck. How do you want people to give ideas since you.

1) Dont want abilities that scale all game.
2) Dont want support abilities
3) Rig items that will make INT heroes suck
4) Scale levels and abiltiies such that INT heroes will suck.

What you need to do is increase the amount of levels you can put in just one ability to 2 or 3, so you have to learn two abilities before you can invest more points in the first. Then, make the abilities stronger per level so that they are scaled to be incorporated with level 25 gameplay, and not level 10.

Intelligence heroes should always have "effects" associated with their abilities, too, which adds a dimension of "power" to it. Typically I dislike giving strength/agility heroes really "magical" abilities unless it is strictly built-in to their theme.

Anyways, the Ultimate at level 3 of an intelligence hero should be a hard thing to master-mind against, not just a simple area of effect stun.

Right now your game mechanics are flawed (in my opinion, that is) and you need to increase the level-scale because you're basing the level upgrade limit off of the melee game which is made for level 10 heroes. Be sure to not make the mistake of balancing intelligence spells with strenth/agility either because their spells are meant for completely different objectives. Strength/agility heroes do not need their spells to succeed in combat while intelligence do, and they have far more knowledge in the casting of spells than either strength or agility normally would.

If you disagree that's fine this is just my own belief.

just make the spells of intelligence-heros percentage based ....
so not "deals 100 damage" but "deals 10% of targets base hitpoints as damage"

or at least every intelligence hero should have at least one of those abilities

Or stop failing and just balance the shit out of your map. It works in enfos, why can't you do it? -.-

Lol you beat me to it. :(

Here's a hint: Play with attack/armor type values.

There, you've answered your own question: make the game shorter. Of course, you probably don't want to do that, because if I sum up you attitude in this thread so far: "I want to make intelligence heroes balanced late-game, but I don't want to do any of the things that would balance them." I mean, so far we've had:

• Make spells scale with intelligence.
• Give casters vital support spells.
• Make spells with percent based damage.
• Increase the level skip requirement for spells.
• Make intelligence hero spells grow faster at the cost of a higher mana cost.
• Add items with high mana cost abilities.
• Make the game shorter or items more expensive or a lower level cap.

I'm sure there's more, but seriously, this should be enough. If you don't like any of these options then that means you don't really want intelligence heroes to be balanced.