Need ideas for passive abilities for mages.

+rep for good idea.

A conditional mana regen, which promotes the play style of your 'mage'.

How about...whenever a mage casts a spell, there is a % chance to (or 100%) do something, eg. heal some mana. Not too creative but I might post another sometime.

wtf does that mean?


Hmm this is good base, but healing mana sounds just too common.
Need something more exotic.

How about if it's a target spell, knockback (or pull, depending on what mage it is) the target unit? Or giving the mage a bonus like +armor or something.

He gains mana equal to a % of the damage he takes. If he has full mana, damage is reduced instead.

Fluctuation - If the Mage casts a spell, it will regain X mana where X is the number of times that spell has been previously cast times Y over Z seconds. *optional*
So if Y is 5 and I've cast Storm Bolt 5 times and I cast it again, I will regain 30 mana, if the optional part is used and Z is 5, it would be regenerated over 5 seconds.

Spell Thievery - If a spell is cast on the Mage, there is a Y% chance it will regenerate X% of that spell's mana cost.

Mana Tithe - Spells that target the Mage will cause the caster to lose Y mana. If it cannot lose that much mana, the excess will heal the Mage.
Y is 70. If I only have 100 mana and I spend 75 of that to cast Storm Bolt on the mage, I will have 25 mana remaining. After that, I lose Y mana but I can only lose 25, therefore I heal the mage for 45 because of the extra.

Manadrenaline - If the Mage is attacked and it has above Y mana, attacks will deal damage equal to the amount of mana exceeding Y to a limit of X.
Y is 250 and X is 50. If I have 350 mana, it exceeds Y giving me the bonus damage but it will be limited to 50 because of X.

Eh, these are some ideas I have for now.

Weaves of Arcanity: Whenever the Hero casts a spell, there is a % chance that it will cast a second time.
(Possible: It can only activate when mana > X.

Mana Overload: Whenever a unit casts a spell within the area around the Hero, that unit has a chance to overuse their mana. This causes them to use extra mana depending on a % of the mana used for the spell. For every extra point of mana used, the caster takes X damage.

Energy Drain Aura: Every few seconds, enemy units with mana (or without, if using health) around the Hero lose some mana (or health). The Hero then gains that much mana (or health).

Those are some ideas.

My brain has received another set of ideas!

Arcanic Mirror - If a spell is cast on the mage and it has above X mana, it has a Y% chance to recast that spell against the casting unit for free.

Vaccination - Gives an X% chance that the next spell to be cast on this hero will be countered and blocked. If a blocked spell is cast on the Mage, it will be countered. If another spell is countered, then that spell will become the new blocked spell.
Blocks only 1 type of spell at a time.

Psychic Venom - If a spell is cast on this hero and it deals X damage or below, it deals that much damage to the casting unit over 10 seconds. X is equal to the amount of mana the Mage.

Potency - Each time the Mage attacks, it has a Y% chance to cast a spell of the last type it cast.
This may need lots of work, positive spells to target allies, negative on the attacked unit, area of effect spells are the worst of all.

Surrealism - If the Mage is attacked by a melee unit and it has above X mana, it has a Y% chance of pushing that unit back and dealing damage equal to the amount of mana above X.

Magical Insanity - As long as the Mage has between X and Y mana, all spells it casts will have no/reduced cool down.
If X is 100 and Y is 120, as long as the hero has mana between those two values, all spells will have a modified cool down.

Illusions: Whenever the mage casts a spell or a spell is casted on him (or choose one), there is a % chance for him to create a mirror image.

Magical Reaction: Whenever the mage casts a spell that targets a unit or a point, there is a % chance for it to do the same spell (without cost of mana/cooldown) in an AOE around the point/position of the unit.

Well Tide-Arc Ephemera is absolute winner here,
I will go for Magic Insanity or Spell Thievery (or both)

But something tells me that it is not possible to make an ability that will reduce cooldown of your spells.

On the other hand regaining 50% of spell's mana after cast sounds doable.

+for Tide-Arc and +for Anopob

If any new ideas come to anyone fell free to post them,
I still have some rep left in reserve ;)

You could modify the cooldown of the mage's spells with engineering upgrade that replaces the spells with versions that have shorter cooldowns. As far as I know, engineering upgrade is reversible and can be hidden in spellbooks or possibly even disabled outright.

So what you'd do is run a periodic check on all units that have Magic Insanity or check whenever the begin casting (not start the effect of, because then the spell would be cast without the modified cooldown). If they have between the specified values and don't have the engineering upgrade, then give them the EU ability; if they do have it, do nothing. If the unit does not have mana within the specified range and does have the EU ability, then remove it; else do nothing.

Finally, you'd have to configure all of your mage's spells to recognize both rawcodes and make sure that the code would work with either version of the spell.

Not gonna happen,
I need these passive abilities for ALL int heroes on my map.

And there is no way I am gonna do upgrades on 1/3 of all map's spells.

Anyways it is good to know it can be done.

Drain
Whenever the Arch-mage casts a spell he drains 100*level health and mana from the target of the spell, only applies to spells that have a target. level is the level of the ability being cast
Ability Heal
Everytime the Arch-mage casts a spell he is healed for the total number of upgrades of all the abilities he has*100. So if Water Element is on level 3 and brilliance aura is on level 2 then he is healed for 500 health because (3+2)*100 = 500

It's amazing what people will do for rep.