Gladiator Arena

Background: I had decided to play the two gladiator arena maps, legendary gladiators and orc gladiators and was apalled by poor execution of a solid idea. There where gross hero and item imbalances, and the waves differed only in is it ranged? yes/no, and number of hit points. From that I was inspired to make a gladiator map with far better execution.

Premise: First this is a survival not competition game. Each hero fits one of four roles, or a mixture thereof:Tank, Healer, Damage, Crowd Control. Each wave will present unique challenges, rather than mobs of one unit type. The highest number of mobs is one wave is 18, so that it is less of a sea of faces and more actual tactics. Heroes are made with the intention of fulfilling class roles and having (hopefully) unique powers. i.e. if you choose the tank class, you must fulfill your role as a tank.

Heroes: 12 heroes have been written on paper, and 8 in game. Here are two examples.
Blood Shaman: party role: healer, primary attribute: intel, note: has as may hit points as a tank
Gift of Blood: Transfers HP to friendly unit, amount healed is doubled if ally's HP below 30%
Distill Blood: Cost 50 HP to restore 75 HP over 8 seconds. Also adds an armor buff. Increased healing and cost w/level, but HP cost always less than amount healed.
Blood for Blood: Deals damage to blood shaman and target enemy. If the enemy is killed by this, blood shaman regains half the life spent.
Ulti--Blood of Life: Costs half of current health of Blood Shaman. Turns all units invulnerable for 4/5/6 seconds and heals them for the amount blood shaman sacrificed.

Spellsword: Party Role: damage, Primary attribute: Intel
Link's Sword: Deals ranged damage to a single target by hurling his sword.
Blades song: Replenishes mana with every strike
Sword of the Slayer: In addition to normal mana cost, costs 2/4/6/8/10% of Spellswords max mana and deals that much damage on strike (works like flaming arrow)
Blade's Awakening: Greatly Increases attack speed for a duration. Drains Spellsword's mana while the buff is active, but the buff will continue to work even if Spellsword is drained of mana.

Waves: 25 waves planned, 18 written on paper, 6 done in game. Tthe most difficult process is trigger driving the AI of these mobs so that each fight is different. Two examples of waves.

The Exiled (level 6 Warden w/beefed HP, DMG, and mana): She will blink to her target and shadow strike them. Every ten seconds she will switch target, blink to them and shadow strike. Given her damage, non tanks will die very quickly unless they pull her (all tanks automatically have a taunt).

9 melee fighters with a general that will heal and ressurect his allies.

There are very few waves that are one type with a single passive ability.

Itemization: Not completely worked out on paper, but the usual weapons/armor/pots/trinkets with recipes. Typically the items will be gladiator themed rather than purely WC3, and will not have attribute boosting tomes (which is the reason why orc glads could be exploited so eaily).

Several other features will take too long to list in a coherent fashion

Work some more on the ability names. Just because his name is Blood Shaman doesn't mean all of his abilities need blood in their names, instead, each ability should have a more unique name.

Oh, and don't call it a "gladiator map". Think of a unique name that is reminiscent of the original.

Hmm, yeah I do that alot with my ability names, I will try to expand my vocab on those. More I'm worried about the ideas as a whole and if they sound like a solid concept. i.e. is the blood shaman a fun twist on your usual hero?

Your heroes seem like they are very very stuck on a theme. Less the Bloodshaman and more the Spellsword.

What do you mean by stuck on a theme? I intend the heroes I make to have a flavor theme as well as an ability theme that makes the abilities complement each other. Not sure what being "stuck" on a theme means.

The Blood Shaman sounds like the Blood Shaman from DoTA, just a note if you wanted to try to be original...

All the sword guy does is attack or have a basic nuke...

He attacks attacks attaks until hes out of mana and then thats it. He attacks more to get more mana so he can attack more again.

@ balloon dragon: I beleive you are talking about the bloodseeker in DotA whose only resemblance to the blood shaman is in name. I originally named him the Blood Warden but changed it due to the fact that I myself didn't even know what he would look like.

@St33m: I can see your point, I will try to figure out a way to make him dynamic rather than click, nuke, click, nuke again. What about making the spellsword have no mana, and gains 1 mana with every strike (as a passive not levelable skill). Then the mana is used for abilities like: a nuke, an aoe explosion, and an aoe mana replenish. So that you have to strike to gain mana, which is used for the abilities. Would that be more interesting to play?

All constructive criticism is appreciated and welcome.

Ehhh my friend had a hero like that in his AoS, and it means you cant retreat or anything. You NEED to be in combat, so you need to be beefy and/or have a way to quickly regenerate (because time out of combat is twice as expensive for you than for other heroes). it sounds like you want to add a lot of elements to strategy, so I think you would need to playtest it. Being in combat like that, if i can take anything from WoW, means that you become BETTER equipped to fight the longer you are in combat, which is reverse to other things, which get worse in combat (as they run out of items, cooldowns, and mana (you are both running out of health)).

EDIT: And that still doesnt make him more interesting. You cannot as easily conserve mana or build it up safely, you need to be in combat. It gives him, if anything, less of a field to play in (so to speak).

Well, part of it is that the game is meant to be played with one healer and tank (hence the class roles) and one damage dealer, so that he would not take a great deal of damage if played correctly. Plus, the intended class role is damage dealer via fighting, meaning if you arent fighting, you are not doing your job well. I guess I didn't give the full picture of the game I am trying to make.

As a WoW veteran myself, I would think of it similar to the rogue or warrior, who actually gains momentum as the fight continues. These classes continue to use their abilities as others run out of health, which is more a difference in dynamic then a flaw.

Although I want to make fun original heroes, the game depends on far more than the heroes

On a lighter character though (less HP) it means that he can go as long as he lives, but, being lighter, he doesn't live very long. In WoW warriors are a heavy class, they can take a lot of damage before dying, especially when backed by potions, lifegem, etc. I don't know, maybe it will work. Test it. We can theory craft it to hell, but it sounds like you want to do it, and I don't know how it will turn out. Just make sure its not all attacking + a nuke.

No, there are many resemblences between Blood Shaman & Blood Seeker...
They both use health to cast spells and the names, as you stated, are just WAY too similar.

If we're talking about Blood Seeker in DotA I don't think he uses Health to cast spells... but then again I havn't plated DotA in a while.

Also a note on the attack = mana system, you need to give more than 1 mana or make his spells really low mana. Also remember he needs a way to stay in combat.

1. The blood seeker is not a healer at all in DotA. His abilities do things like make him move faster when a hero is below 20%, places a DoT that hurts people when they move, and otehr hero-killing spells. Nothing like using health to cast spells.

2. Yeah, the spells would be in the 5 -8 mana range.

On a sidenote I appreciate the constructive criticism as opposed to just telling me an idea is stupid. Because of your comment I'm looking over all the heros and making sure that you don't just attack and hit one button. Also those are two of only 12 heroes I have written out.

Sweet.

Also make sure that healers and tanks have means of getting money as well. Assuming you're using the method Orc Gladiators uses, IE kills = gold. You probably, if you're trying to make healers and tanks and such, want to think up a new method or at least add some other means of gold getting.