Melee Human Hero Design

Hello fellow wc3c:ers!

I'm designing a human hero intended to meld in with blizzard's melee heroes and I'd like to hear some input on what is hopefully my final rendition.

I intend the hero to function as a support/cc/warrior-mix fighting in the front-line, able to take a lot of beating and keeping the army healthy and fighting.

Tooltips aren't final and I'll be working on balancing the abilities once the design is set.


Cheers!

Is a conical ability the best idea for a highly melee hero? I assume Thuder Clap is radius because the MK expects to get surrounded -- he's a basher and I expect him to get bashed by all the other heavy-hitting meleers. A conical attack isn't very good in that case since you'll only hit a small slice of your attackers?

On the other hand, my understanding of melee may just be too simplitic to see its utilitry because... Well, you know me!

Welcome back anyway!

Hmm that's true. I guess the conical ability (Shield Slam) contradicts the damage-soak (Defensive Stance). For Defensive Stance to be viable the hero needs to be a vital target for the enemy (like MK and TC).

Making the slam a radius spell makes little sense though and would just make it a copy of Thunder Clap. Perhaps making it stun instead of dazing the hit targets would be preferable? Having it on a reasonably low cooldown should make him an annoying crowd-controller.

The only other melee brawler hero I can think of with a conical ability is the Brewmaster's Breath of Fire, which has some nice synergy with his haze spell. Other melee's aoe are Thunder Clap, War Stomp, Shockwave, Bladestorm, Carrion Swarm, Impale, Immolation, Fan of Knives, all of which are either radius or line abilities. (I think Carrion Swarm is conical? The Dreadlord is more of a melee caster though.)

Thank you! <3
I were discussing with a friend on my years of wc3-modding and my last project, which lit the mapping-fire anew (as usual). I was happily surprised to see the site still going (haven't typed in the adress for a very long time). I guess the bill is still being paid =)

All the cool cats have come back to putter around a bit recently. <3

I wonder if it's a matter of vulnerability? If you have a hero that's basically invulnerable against melee units, but weaker against ranged units, a cone might work -- since he doesn't have to worry about the guys surrounding him, but does have to worry about the halo of archers out of reach of his main attack. I guess since everyone has Hero armour these days that that would be a nuance not suitable to melee heroes, though. Unless you made Defensive Stance only block melee attackers? Is that synergy or just needless complexity?

Shockwave and Carrion Swarm do have fairly long ranges, so I guess that does make them vital for reaching out to strike ranged attackers. Carrion Swarm is a little bit conical I think., though I'd imagine a shield bash type ability having a shorter and wider cone than that, hence my worry about its lack of utility -- too conical to hit a surrounding group, too short-ranged to hit archers. On the other hand, I don't think any melee hero has a long line/cone daze (Crypt Lord has line stun :<) so there IS definitely a niche there.

That's nice to hear :) With all the time spent on this game and forum, wc3 and the community I've gotten to know around it will always have a special place.

True that he will innately be resistant to ranged due to Hero armour, which in that sense makes him "weak" to melee. So the ability would be more impactful if it blocked melee damage or both (though a damage reduction when he already takes 50% less from ranged seems a bit over the top).

For the Defensive Stance's heal I'm considering if triggering the heal "on hit" is ridiculous to balance (tanking a mass of weak units -> infinite heals to army). Maybe make it a ticking aoe heal while the ability is active?

Regardless on how the mitigate spell works, there needs to be a reason to use it (i.e. he is targeted). So the damage spell needs to fill in on that role. I agree that the current design might not be enough, but as mentioned the abilities design makes sense for it not to be a radius spell, and I'd like to keep the base theme of the spell. I'm unsure of what changes could be made to it to make it more useful.

On one hand I'm looking a lot at the existing heroes, their abilities and the abilities of some of the normal units. On the other hand, most heroes works rather uniquely and their abilities tend to have unique mechanics.

I guess somewhere I'll have to draw the line for how "perfectly" I can meld the hero with Blizzard's since I'm never able to get the near infinite time of playtesting they've had along the years. And in the end the only way to make sure the design works is doing tests, theory can only get me so far.

Woah! This kind of topic/discussion can be viable? This is all I do anymore.

So would anybody be around to hear this kinda thing? I'll spam the forums; I will. :P

I doubt you're still working on this Thunder_Eye, but if you are, I'd love to talk some more on this.