Help with AoS hero editting...

...Well, here I am, asking for help from the people who will one day, hopefully, play my map. I'm trying to make my map better, not by adding a bunch of random heroes with random skills, not by making a really deep texture, but perhaps the most important thing of all, which none of the other AoS's had...heroes that were completely balanced. So, if you could just please post the name of the hero which is cheap, tell me why, and if you really want, you can tell me what I should do about it. People who help me extensively will get credit in my AoS, and some people are already gonna get credit. So, thanks in advance, and just remember, that these 3 questions will help the AoS's of tommorrow...man, was that corny :WD:

lol, not to be a dick but theres no such thing as completely balanced heros, unless you want to make everyone have same stats and abilities... you could change the model up for some variety. I bet everyone here at the forums would play your awesome map!!!!!!!! WITH SUPER BALANCED HEROS! WOO WOOT!

.. and i seriously doubt you can make the claim 'no other AoS has balanced heros,' theres a million of them, no way you could have played them all, and if you did you would know that some have balanced heros. Not identical, but balanced all the same.

Well, yes, all the heroes will be based off the blademaster model, with different colors.

NO!

Yes, I have played a lot of AoS maps, and pretty much all of them are biased towards agility character, and the ones that arent are biased against KoTG, Farseer, and a couple other characters. Yes, there are some that are balanced, but I wanna make a map where each character is as close as they can get to being balanced. I mean, have you ever played DoTA: Dwarven Stand? I can tell you right now which characters are good, and which ones are bad. I hope to make an AoS where whatever hero you choose, you'll do just fine with.

Well in some way I have to agree with Microsoft (although not in such a forceful manner perhaps :P). When the abilities are so entirely variable there's no way you can make them exact without making all abilities exactly the same. And even then, it still comes back to the one basic thing that you simply cannot change no matter how much hero balancing you do: player skill. Not everyone is as good as the next bloke, and certain players will be more attuned to how they can get the most out of their chosen hero. It's unavoidable. I suggest you simply try and balance it as best you can.

Significantly lower the availiblity of tomes (particularly agility) if not remove them completely. Remove or nerf lightning orb and consider frozen orb aswell. Consider the effectiveness of melee units vs. ranged units and if a ranged unit simply does hit and run, make sure that the melee character is either as fast/faster than them or can catch up to them using a ranged ability. Ask around on bnet in games and do some research to what everyone thinks is too powerful/cheap so you get a more 'balanced' (no pun intended) opinion rather than a few people on the board.

These are my basic suggestions to you, you're going to be sick to death of playing your map by the time you've finished it if you've done the job right. But pull it off and other people won't be able to get enough of it.

~kharma

create completely new

create completely new what? Well, anyway, I'm not looking for perfect fairness, I'm just trying to make every hero a good hero. Like, the Death Knight for example. I rarely see him played with, so I just want to make a map where heroes that aren't played much become used as much as heroes that are played now. Anyway, I think I already know some things I could do to make the Death Knight (my example) more playable with all his original spells. So, if you think I mean by fair that a demon hunter could fight a lich and they would double-ko each other, then you've got me wrong. Anyway, from both my searches online, on boards, and on B.Net, here is what I've collected so far.

-No tomes. They automatically make agility heroes overused.

-No lightning Orb. Being sniped out by a couple long-range heroes while your a slow melee hero is always frustrating.

-No uber items. They just make it a rush for money, with no use of other items.

-Fair heroes on both teams. I mean, what's the fun if none of the heroes on one team are good duelers, but all the heroes on another are purely dueling beasts?

-Make cheap items worth buying. Something like this, but prices may vary...
Ring +1 Armor = 100 Gold
Ring +2 Armor = 300 Gold
Ring +3 Armor = 600 Gold
Ring +4 Armor = 1200 Gold

-Replace worthless spells. Having heroes that have scouting spells with the whole map automatically being revealed to you really bites.

-and, perhaps, I could make it so there could only be 1 of each hero on a team. Again, this is so people have to choose other people other than BM and DH.

Anything I missed? I think I covered most of the problems, It's just that I wanna list of heroes that have something wrong with them. Anyway, I think I got pretty much all I need to do, now I just gotta edit a couple spells and raise the strength of some summonables. Yeah, that should do it.

Anyway, I'm going to edit the Death Knights Death Pact spell, but it might make him the new most used dude. Anyway, here are the new Death Pact's things. At what level (either 1 or 3, I think 3) It will cost like 100 mana, and have a 60 second cooldown. It can be cast upon allied, undead units, as well as dead and your units. I'm not sure how much life will be healed at level 3 (i think the 300% could be a bit too much...maybe like level 1 - 75% units health, level 2 - 150% units health, level 3 - 225% units health), but all suggestions are wecome.

Also, for the Lich's spell, should I do something similar, or should I make a summoning spell, maybe like the raise dead thing in DoTA. 60 second cooldown, like 75 mana. level 1, 2 dead units. level 2, 3. and level 3, 4 units. So, would this be too cheap for the Lich or not?

Bloodlust ALSO suggested I give the Farseer...possibly an aura, maybe +dmg, but I don't see how it would work with Trueshot aura...maybe a life regain thing, like Brok in RoK. I dunno about the Farseer, and I'm open to suggestions. Just keep in mind, I'm adding dmg to his wolves.

Another thing I need to change is the PoTM's bird. I'd either give it life (not invuln) and some damage, making it a support unit, or I'd give her Advanced Tiger War Training, which would passively (just for her) add a small amount of life and damage.

Comments, suggestions?

dmg aura would be command aura (gnoll overseer) with a 3 lvl edit

Alright, here is a list of proposed skills. If you think any of them are too powerful, too weak, or just right, please post a quick yes or no.

Far Seer
In place of Far Sight...
We get the skill Command Aura
Level 1- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 5%
Level 2- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 10%
Level 3- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 15%


PoTM
In place of Scout...
We get the skill Advanced Tiger War Training
Level 1- Life increased by 50, Movement by 10%
Level 2- Life increased by 100, Movement by 20%
Level 3- Life increased by 150, Movement by 30%


Death Knight
In place of Death Pact...
We get the skill Death Pact (altered)
Level 1- Kills target allied unit, gives DK 75% of unit's hp.
Level 2- Kills target allied unit, gives DK 150% of unit's hp.
Level 3- Kills target allied unit, gives DK 225% of unit's hp.


Lich
In Place of Dark Ritual...
We get the skill Reanimate
Level 1- Brings 2 corpses back to life
Level 2- Brings 3 corpses back to life
Level 3- Brings 4 corpses back to life


I think that's it. I'll also be making the Treants of Force of Nature and the Wolves in Feral Spirit stronger.

Well actually, you can use tomes of knowledge. When you remove tomes completely from an AoS, you also remove a player base. You may also gain one as well.

Keep in mind that if you do use tomes or attack speed increasing items, that certain abilities grow more powerful over time. Preferably your hero skills should remain constant in that manner. So, don't use bash, vampiric aura, etc. along those lines. I remember someone suggesting not using any passive skills period.

I think it would be cool if the player had a certain number of points to start with. He could spend the points on activating certain skills (the hero can start with many skills but no researched until the spell is bought for the points) and you can give them more points to spend on level up. This would give each hero equality as far as abilities are concerned and still give players the option to customize their heroes. Better skills like Bash and Vampiric Aura can be hella expensive skills and stuff like scout and farsight can be practically give-aways. Of course this would require you to use non-hero abilities instead so they'd only have one levels (you can only have 5 hero abilities after all, im not sure how many non hero abilities is the limit) theres also the problem of fitting them all on the screen... but you got 6 spaces so you can limit them and I guess you COULD do level ups by letting them use points to buy an upgraded version of a spell they have. It would disable the old spell so it disappears and enable a new spell to take it's place that is the same except slightly stronger. You could even use the point system for them to allow to add into stats and have completely customized hero system. Well this is probably more than you wanna do but it's an idea I've had stuck in my head forever now and I just had to say it, even if it's not the best place to say it :ggani:

dang, Dinadan, that's the crummiest idea I ever heard. I LOVE IT!! I can picture that now. You have a couple of hero 'bodies' just kinda like heros with no spells. You could have Demon Hunter, Paladin, Dwarf, Elven Archer, Blademaster, etc. So, they have certain advantages and stuff, like the blademaster is strength/agil, while the demon hunter is all agil. Then, you could customize them with different spells and such, thus making the most customizable and unique AoS EVAR!!!!11111

Maybe both of us could team up and do that, but first I really want to make an AoS that is really balanced. Hey, making that might even give us ideas on your map, as far as the worth of spells and such goes.

So, are those new spells that Bloodlust came up with fair?

That would take some doing as far as the triggers concerned. We prob wouldt even try to set up a system like that without custom text. Since we have no idea how to use custom text we would aviod that system all together. There is another way to create a simular effect tho. Use a kind of evolution that is based on the first skill brought to lvl 3. When u reach level 6 or so your hero evolves into another hero based on the hero model and that skill. The new hero would be stronger with a new set of better skills. You could also allow players to buy better heros instead.

There are a lot of other things you can do in a AoS map to make it different than just the hero setup. Take a look at Action! AoS. It has customisable unit spawns with upgrades. AoS relics has high powered quest items that you can find. We are working on a sea battle map right now but we will be doing a AoS type map in the future. We have a tons of ideas on how to make them a lot better. We do agree with you that most have poor hero and item balance. We look forward to seeing what you come up with.

farseer aura is too weak
and i forgot that potm was already a passiv skill, no need for 2 passiv skill >_<

Ok, I hate to admit such an oversight in my WC3 knowledgebase, but WTF does AoS mean? If you can think of any other commonly used acronyms could you go ahead and pass those along as well. Thanks.

dude, AoS is short for Aeon of Strife, a very popular and sometimes unfair custom map, but I plan to change that. Ok, here are some more spell ideas...and, as far as Farseer aura goes, it can't be more than 30% dmg +, because that would make the Priestess of the Moon's aura worthless, because the far seer's aura affects both melee and long range, while the PotM's (Priestess of the Moon) aura worthless as far as it goes. Anyway, here is my old and new auras for the Far seer's aura. If you don't like it, please tell me. If you do, please tell me.

Far Seer
In place of Far Sight...
We get the skill Command Aura
Level 1- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 5%
Level 2- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 10%
Level 3- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 15%

Far Seer
In place of Far Sight...
We get the skill Command Aura
Level 1- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 10%
Level 2- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 15%
Level 3- Dmg increased for all surrounding units by 20%


As far as the Priestess of the Moon goes, your right, 1 passive skill is enough. So, I got to thinking, why not use the DotA's spells as influence?

PoTM
In place of Scout...
We get the skill Ballista Shot (think like Storm Bolt)
Level 1- 75 damage and 25 splash damage
Level 2- 150 damage and 50 splash damage
Level 3- 225 damage and 75 splash damage

How is that? I think it's good, but if you can improve on it, please do tell.