"Time"-themed Creativity Wanted

Due to a lack of inspiration to do anything with my real life, I figured I would try to make a spell pack or something. The problem is that I have no creativity; none what-so-ever. Thus, I need some ideas for spells with a theme somewhat vaguely related to "Time".

They needn't be hero spells (unit abilities are OK), and full-fledged descriptions aren't something I need (unless you really want to). I would, however, like to avoid anything too ordinary (spells that pause all units on the map, etc.).

So far, I have two abilities finished: Temporal Fluxuation, and Displace.

Temporal fluxuation is a very complicated way of summoning yourself from the future that applies string theory (or at least I think it does) to be more than the average summon-yourself-from-the-future spell.

Displace is a simple, autocast unit ability that zaps target unit (level 5 and below; non-hero) out of existance for 3 seconds; when it returns, its health is reduced to 40% of its total health, no matter what. I need to work on the AI aspect of this, however.


I'm posting in the hopes that others can generate some interesting, entertaining, or somewhat challenging sketches of abilities for me to work from.

Back to the Future: Your hero begins charging in a direction, knocking units back in its path. When it reaches 88 MPH, it disapears in a track of fire. ___ time later, it re-appears around where it left, damaging units in an area around that. If the unit cannot reach 88 MPH (eg: collides with something), it explodes dealing AOE damage.
Edited because: before pyro can complain, i fixed a run-on sentance. =P.

That actually could be entertaining to fool with. I appreciate the suggestion and the fixation of your run-on sentance.

Chronostatic Fluctuations - Stops time within target unit, pausing all nearby units in time aswell for 6 seconds. When the time-stop expires, it will jump to a nearby unit and repeat for the same amount of time minus 1 second. Chronostatic Fluctuations will repeat until the duration reaches 0.

I am really bad at wording things, but if you need more clarity on that spell, don't hesitate to ask.

Time spells are 100% in the lore.
I mean shit, bloodlust is a time spell if you want it to be.
Blinking spells are time based if you want them to be.
Etc.

Also remember that there has to be a very fluid simplicity to a spell.
Complexity just makes stuff silly and stupid.

There's a reason that sort of stuff is popular.
It's because the WC3 engine doesn't easily support time manipulation on a level you might see in other games.
The stuff you might want to do would end up too processor-heavy or just unfeasible.

I say pick a theme you can actually do stuff with.
Either that or go look at Dahaka in AotZ for an example of time-simplicity.

Cleverly made AOE slows or even single target disables work well.
Somehow I get the feeling you want stuff with lots of code though. :/
If anything smites me in the head with an idea, I'll post it.
But seriously consider a new theme. :P

I've been thinking of time spells for a future rpg (maybe) that revolves around that aspect, so lets see what I got.

Illusion of Death:
Target unit is killed and remains killed for x seconds (hopefully a long time like 5-10 seconds). During that time, the caster has his max mana reduced by (the health remaining of the killed/y). After x seconds, the target unit is revived to it's former health and the casting unit gains back the mana lost and replenishes the same amount. (this just basically replaces a stun, but make it longer because of the casters reduced mana) Exmaple: Caster has 400/400 mana, unit has 200/300 health. Casts ability for 50 mana. Caster now has 400-200/2 = 300 max mana and 250 mana ( 300/250 ). Caster casts more spells and is down to 50 mana. Unit revives to 200 health, Caster's mana is back to 400 and it replenishes 100 mana ( 150/400 ).

Time step:
For x seconds, all units around the casting unit are slowed and the casting unit escapes to a nearby location. (make the unit do a charge to a point with no knock-back or damage dealt, using some periodic movement function) Used as an escape spell.

Not necessarily; Displace is only about 15 lines of actual code (Not including attaching variables). Temporal Fluxuation, on the other hand, is way too long; but all it does is simply summon yourself from the future and then brings you back along the path your future self took.

That I will do; I haven't played AotZ in a while.

Simple, but still able to look good; I like the idea.

That's cool, but it sounds a bit too complicated. Maybe something will inspire me to use it, though.

A charge spell with a theme; neat.

This is kind of from the Blink Rune from Suikoden(Go Vivi!). It's a three part sequence! You can make it all one spell or split them up.

Ready!
Stops the movement of a unit for 10 seconds. If the unit tries to move, potential energy will store up.

Set!
After the 10 seconds is over, the unit has 5 seconds to choose a direction.

Go!
The unit will be blasted away in the direction it is facing. The speed is based on the amount of potential energy stored. The unit can be damaged by the amount of destructables, units, and buildings it runs into. The until will go over cliffs lower then its terrain height, but will take substantial damage if it hits a wall higher then its terrain height. Ramps do not harm the unit.

O_o, that'd be fun... Just thing of all of the nasty things you can do...

Ignited, that is a perfect example of an unnecessarily overcomplicated spell. :p

Degradation: The unit's personal time is sped up, bringing it closer to the inevitable natural death. The effect of which is that the unit faces degeneration over time. However, the unit also gains an increase in speed as a side-effect.

Regression: The unit is returned to a younger state of itself, where it can do and take less harm than otherwise.

Removal: The targeted unit is removed from time. It cannot move, but neither can it be harmed for a short amount of time.

Skip: When the caster is moving toward a certain point, he/she/it can choose to take all the time between being where they are, and being where they want to go, and put it all behind them. However, this leaves the caster drained of energy, and takes time to execute.

Displacement: Few people can take being ripped from where they are and being pushed into a conflict they hardly even care about and not feel the urge to rip off heads. Brings soldiers from other wars which are on no one's side. Useful as irate roadblocks.


There you go. Take your pick. If any.

Do you mean this as sort of a blink spell that takes you to wherever it is the unit has last been issued to go to?

Not too interesting....

That could be an interesting utility ability.

I'm with Rising_Dusk here... definitely way too complicated.

Hmm, so many good ones have already been done.

Temporal Displacement..

Caster travels backwards or forwards(insert cheese flavor) through time to seek the aid of him/her self.

The result of more than one of the caster in the present time results in all sorts of chaos to units around them.

This is a reach..let's see...future self boosts intel and spell damage, past self boosts strength and hp. Each instance of the caster deals damage over time to each other instance for the duration. Levels can be years traveled and scale the damage to match the size of the leap.

I will take that as a compliment.

I will think of other things so not complicated.

Another one came to mind.

Dimensional Twist:
The dimensional properties of the caster are switched and the caster gets stuck in 1 dimension of space and 3 dimensions of time. While the dimensions are switch, the caster cannot move, but can damage the units with 2 summons, 1 which deals damage normally, and another which deals damage 5-10 seconds later (The caster should recover and the summons disappear before the "future" damage occurs.

The only hard scripting would be the future damage and the need for a damage detect method. I can leave the damage detection to you, but what I would do for damage is use linked lists and add damage to the end when you detect it, and use a master timer to wait the length of the shortest "till damage" apply the damage and start the timer again, till the list is exhausted (it should be MUI this way).

A spell that damages units according as to how much time it has been on the map. Or something like that.