Custom Attack Brainstorm

I once created a map in which you have a custom attack.
Heres how it worked.

By pressing the "Attack" ability, the hero in this case Grom swings his axe forward.
This ability has no targetting, or cast time.
It damages anything standing infront of him.

There are a few issues with the current system.

1) When people are moving thweir units around, flanking and 'dancing' to dodge attacks became pretty easy and hitting people became a pain.

2) I Thus increased the area effect of the hit, so swingin close to a enemy would still damage it. The only problem is that when players started fighting in groups the whole thing turned into a cleaving fest where 1 hit struck the entire team.

What im asking is how should I design a custom attack that hits only 1 target at a time but without being too hard to hit a target with.

Im not asking for triggers, just ideas.

i tried to make a map with the exact same idea :D
i used like you said a larger area of effect but i made a block system for the attacked unit based on its agility so the more agility a unit has, the higher the chance to block the attack

damage was based on the strength of the attacking unit

But if you want to hit only one unit use pick random unit in range of caster offset by x twards facing of caster: damage picked unit

I tried that too but the problem is that you dont laways end up hitting the intended person.
Especially if theyre many targets.

Then get the closest enemy by calculating the distance between the attacker and the enemies.

EDIT: Unless you don't want the closest enemy, then I have no idea how you want the game to detect who the intended target is.

Give a unit ability that's a duplicate of attack, a melee ranged ability that does nothing, and when a unit is ordered to patrol/follow another unit, order him to use the ability on the unit instead, and when the ability is used, trigger the damage.

I was actually leaning toward a system which allowed the player to 'target lock" enemy players.

So that the guy on your hate list gets hit everytime you swing near him.


Yeah i was thinking along the lines of this.
The only issue now is how do i make it such that players can easily swap their target focus.

SP or MP?

Its a multi player arena style map.

I say implement that, using the Escape key to cycle through nearby enemies. Oh, and with a target lock system it'd be cool if it kept you facing the locked guy, might be a tad tricky to do though.

Hmm using the esc key is a perfect idea, I pwont be doing a facing lock cause itll would kinda take the skill out of the game.