Your opinion - Give it please

Alright, now there are a few things I am putting in my silly little AoS(DoD), and I want your opinions on it all. Mainly constructive criticism please.

1) Item meld - On your hero or in a specially designated blacksmith sort of deal?

2) Captureable Node - Basically each node has its own set of properties, these include time to capture, benefits of ownership, etc. When your team controls a node the other team could decide to assault it, to gain control there are several methods I am considering, and this is where I want to opinions.

Method 1 - Acts like a rect, you enter it, if you don't own it you begin "assaulting it", and the other team has to prevent you from doing so. Now I don't know how they would do this, so if you have ideas feel free to post away.

Method 2 - You enter the node and are given an ability, this ability is situational, if the node already belongs to you then you get nothing, if it does not you gain an "Assault the node" sort of ability that must be successfully channeled for X seconds. While assaulting the other team can stun or otherwise prevent you from completeing the channel and disrupt the control switch.

I would also not mind some decent ideas for what the nodes could give, some Whitehorn suggested already are bonus spawns, regen areas, specialty items, bonus gold rewards.

3) The multiboard - I am currently debating what exactly this should display, if you have preferences on what a board SHOULD give as info to the players post away.

Thats about all the stuff I can think of atm, if anyone has any other interesting ideas feel free to toss them out there, the sillier and more outlandish the better.

Item meld - I'd say at a blacksmith, but make sure it is easy to find stuff.

Capurable nodes - I prefer the second one. Possibly trigger some timer to show (either through a timer or floating text).

Multiboard - Nothing. It is unneeded (normally). Only use if you have to, such as for things completely triggered, and even then a dummy ability would be preferable for most things.

1) Does it really make a difference? I can't really see any effects this would have on gameplay, especially if you've got a packhorse or something to get items for you. I'd say blacksmith, just because it makes more sense; you could make different types of blacksmiths to offer different types of melds with similar items.

2) I really like Method 2, except it's too easy and character-specific to stun people. Most characters don't even have a stun whatsoever. This sounds like a good idea for teamwork (have someone on the team have a long-range stun for zone control), but it wouldn't work at all in random-hero games.

What if, when you start channeling the ability you become magic immune (until you finish or halt the channel of course), and the enemy needs to kill you (or you choose to flee) to cause you to stop channeling? I think it would create a lot of depth of play, because if you try to assault a node and you fail, as soon as you decide to flee, you're vulnerable to magic again, which means you've got several heroes with sniper skills on your back. It creates a great downside to halting the channel in the midst of a battle, and would make for some extremely tense play at the nodes.

3 - Not really necessary. Perhaps displaying kills, but if you do, display them in a row instead of a column so that they take up less room on the screen.

1) On the hero, just make it so dropped items can only be picked up by the one dropping it so that when you need room, you can be safe from retarded allies. Simple custom value manipulation

2) Assaulters get the channeling and all defenders get a stun with a long casting time and/or long cooldown.

Pretty decent feedback, but I was considering that perhaps the spell can either be stunned or disrupted other ways(was considering the possibility of items or somesuch that can disrupt channel abilities).

About the mutlboard perhaps there could be several toggleable boards that display different info.

1) Your basic kills/deaths/etc board
2) A board displaying specific node conditions, owners, ownership changes, etc
3) Team info, overall stats on how the teams stack up
4) No board, for those who get annoyed by a small portion of their screen being monopolized.

@Vuen, no it doesn't make an impact on gameplay really, but I want a nice, smooth and mostly, easy to use system. Ease of use is my biggest aim, since I don't want there to be silly instances where someone goofs a recipe because some require the same builds as other item recipes.

Can we get a gameplay overview before you ask for ideas to integrate such features?