Help With New Units

Alright! Now that the game has "stabilized" bug-wise, I want to start adding in some more units. I've got a few ideas that I'd like to share, and I'd really appreciate some help filling in the gaps. Here we go!

Hydralisk
Health: 1
Power: 4
Speed: 3
Offensive Ability: Acid Something--the Hydralisk releases a straight-line acid attack that does either some sort of poison damage or makes the victim take 2* more damage for x seconds
Defensive Ability: ???--rut needs help coming up with a unique ability here!
(Straight-up combat unit.)

Hellion/Firebat
Health: 1/5
Power: 2
Speed: 5/1
Offensive Ability1: Hellion creates a line of fire that lasts a long time and burns enemies that walk into it, mainly an area-control effect
Offensive Ability2: Firebat launches a special fireball-dodgeball that travels faster than normal and does splash damage upon impact
Defensive Ability: Transform between the two
(This unit is actually two rolled together into one with the ability to switch between them endlessly. When HOTS comes out the Firebat will be replaced by the Hellbat. I like the idea of switching between fast but weak and slow but strong, and I want to add in some more "area control" abilities.)

High Templar
Health: 1
Power: 5
Speed: 2
Offensive Ability: Psionic Lob--area-control damage-dealing ability activated similarly to the Infestor's Fungal Lob. Whether or not a psionic storm can deliver a final blow is up for debate.
Defensive Ability: Something Cool Sounding--this ability will create a shockwave effect around the High Templar that stops incoming dodgeballs in the air, making them fall and become idle.
(I want to add in some more "spellcasters" and support units, and I think this could be a good addition. I was a Zerg player in Broodwar, and High Templars were the scariest thing ever, so it seems appropriate to me to give it 5 power. But should a space-control "spellcaster" support unit really have 5 power?

Medic
Health: 5
Power: 1
Speed: 2
Offensive Ability: Optical Flair--A projectile similar to the Ghosts' EMP, but instead of stunning it disables vision of the battlefield for x seconds
Defensive Ability: Heal--I'm thinking a dodgeball-based healing ability where the Medic can lob a ball to a point and it becomes a temporary healing zone for x seconds.
(I've been wanting to make a Medic for a while, but I do have concerns about a sheerly defensive unit and if it will be boring to play against. With 5 health and somewhat decent speed, it'd be near impossible to kill it by normal means. Add in a heal and it could be worrisome. That being said, I like the idea of creating special areas on the map via the heal that could lead to interesing gamplay.)

Archon
Health: 2
Power: 5
Speed: 1
Offensive Ability: Shockwave--Archon fires a projectile that hits a spot on the ground, scattering idle dodgeballs outward and making them capable of hurting enemies.
Defensive Ability: Something like "Temporal Rifty Magic-Sounding Goodness"--teleport with no range limit, dramatic animation at the target location that spreads units around it outward.
(The Archon has a "shockwave" theme to it. I worry that the Offensive Ability would be too powerful, but I think if it's triggered by a lobbed projectile and was easy to see coming, it could be avoidable.)

These are the most concrete ideas I have floating around. Absolutely nothing is set in stone and indeed I have not begun work on any of them at this point.

So here's what I need from you:

(1) I need a defensive ability for the Hydralisk. I'd prefer if it was not burrow-related, as it is very difficult to work with burrowing abilities and I can't imagine anything burrow-related that the Roach doesn't already do better.

(2) Theory-craft whether or not the High Templar's Psionic Lob should be able to deliver a killing blow. On the one hand, it comes from a dodgeball so it should, but on the other hand I think it'd be kind of lame if you were low on health, accidentally walked into it, and then died without even taking a dodgeball to the face.

(3) Do the stats 1-5-2 fit the High Templar?

(4) Would you enjoy playing as or against the Medic at all with these stats and abilities?

(5) Do the Archon's abilities sound useful and fun to use?

(6) Any other general ideas or comments.

Remember that none of this is set in stone--this is just brainstorming! I'd love to make all these units but it does take a lot of time and effort and I can't always guarantee that I'll be able to create and implement new units in a timely manner (lousy real life gets in the way of Starcraft life).

rut

Great ideas!
Going to post ideas as they come to me so expect edits.

Hydra: Maybe this idea should be saved for a Queen unit. But as a defensive ability, the hydra could drop a creep tumor that spreads creep that increases its speed. The creep could spread at an increased rate and need to be killed by lobbing a ball on its origin to prevent it overtaking the entire map. This idea seems like it would be too easily to kill though. Perhaps instead, the hydra spawns a small queen that drops creep tumors at random every X seconds. It could move in a random manner similar to the mutalisk image and hopefully it would be more difficult to take out. Upgrading it could increase its health, speed, and rate at which it drops tumors.

Firebat/Hellion: The firebat fireball ability sounds interesting but it sounds overall more powerful than the hellion's, this might lead people to staying in hellion form to dodge until the E cooldown comes back up, then switching to firebat for a killing blow and then returning to hellion for dodging. I don't want to impose too much but maybe that ability could be saved for later, and instead replace the splashing damage with a large fire ring on impact that burns enemies that pass through (similar to hellion). This way both abilities are essentially equal, but it is up to the player to decide which one they want to use (for example, using the fire ring on people who hide behind walls on metal/little arena would be ideal, or using the hellion wall on people hiding in the corner of the maps). The fire ring would have to be large enough to allow players to still attempt to dodge incoming balls without sacrificing health to the fire ring, but make it difficult to dodge balls from multiple angles.

High Templar: I like the idea, but I'm confused about the offensive ability. Is it a lob similar to the infestor, but when it lands it creates a storm? If so, I think it shouldn't deal a killing blow. As for power, I think keeping it at 5 for now would be interesting. The idea that it would have to rely on using its defensive ability to survive, but being deadly otherwise sounds like fun.

Medic: I also think a healer class would be cool, but I fear that it would be necessary for every game. In order to avoid the heal from being overpowered, I think that the heal radius should be about the same radius as a normal lob. This way players looking to get healed have to be very careful and it would keep the amount of healing from being game breaking. If the heal is too easy to get off it may dominate public games, however if it's just the right amount of skill and strategy to use, I'd love to see it have a role in competitive play. The other problem I forsee is that in public games it would not be fun to play because its inability to kill at all (I know thor is seldom picked already). If the current stats don't work out, maybe making it a 3-2-3 setup might allow it to still be fun in public games. Also I love the offensive medic ability, that would be a lot of fun to use.

Archon: Looks awesome! Sounds like a very tactical unit!

I also want to throw in a quick suggestion of my own for new units/abilties:

Phoenix/Scout:
Health: 1
Power: 3
Speed: 4
Offensive Ability: <Psionic Current> (Just a name I thought of, 100% up for changing) Sends a gust of wind in target direction that carries enemies with it [Not sure if starcraft is capable of this but the mechanic I was thinking of is similar to this ability of Zephyr's from Heroes of Newerth (add youtube dot com here)/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0Svi5uo_YI8#t=4s - I can't post links because I'm a new member]. The idea would be to send enemies back into your projectile or fork them into being gusted or getting hit or maybe other tactical plays that I haven't thought of. To prevent it from being overpowered, it shouldn't carry them long enough to be able to use it, THEN throw a ball and hit them guaranteed. Instead, it should be an aimed precise line (width of a normal dodgeball) that will give them a quick shove into whatever you want them to go into.
Defensive Ability: <Fly or Updraught?> Unit flies into the air, dodging balls underneath. I'm not sure if this next part would work: Unit also catches any lobbed dodgeballs it comes into contact with while flying. Basically the idea is that the unit flies into the air with basically the exact same duration/height/animation as a lobbed dodgeball and it could be used to save a teammate or save yourself from a hit. Also, again, I'm not sure how the mechanics work, but if a ball was thrown while the unit was flying, some interesting plays could happen.

Just as a final note, I'm 100% open for discussion with all my ideas!

Hellion
Blue flame: Make ground icy, making units ice skate around the flamed area.
Red flame: Make ground catch fire and any ball that passes through the flamed area will deal extra damage, anyone that comes near it will take minor damage.

I don't see much potential for medic, because this game has a lot of one-shot kills anyway. Otherwise, it can be paired up with tanky units such as Thor, hide behind Thor and heal all game which, as you've said, would be boring.

How about a "catch" ability? It would be similar to Immortal's defensive ability, except instead of deflecting, it would give an upgraded version of the caught ball. If it's the black ball, then maybe it could be upgraded to something even better? Hydra's melee-attack animation would do a decent job for catching animation I think.

I think Archon's ability is interesting. In addition to your idea, how about making it deflect thrown balls in its wake?

Hydralisk:
This character's offensive seems very "support" to me. Therefore, why name make the defense do the exact opposite.
Offensive does 2x more damage to enemies, defensive does half-damage to allies.

High Templar:
Defensive Ability Name: Instead of Archon, use the "Temporal Rift" here since there's a definitive wall around the HT.

Medic:
Defensive Ability: Personally I feel an AoE heal could drastically change the game meaning a team MUST have a medic in order to win. I say make it hard and have the medic have to HIT a teammate in order to heal them, if they miss... ya well.
Also, for Optical Flair, instead of removing map vision, have the screen go white for the opponent team for like 1.5 seconds then fade back to normal (since it IS a flair). This will achieve the same effect, yet more realistic (as realistic as you can get with a flair lol).

Archon:
Offensive Ability: As to the this character's Shock-wave power, I'm quite biased to support it since i thought of it LOL. Unfortunately the speed is a killer which is a good compensation. Only problem is that, similar to the MULE, if there are no idle balls (gather/shockwave) will be fairly useless - it would really only become useful in elimination round.
Defensive Ability name: "Psionic Tranfer" - since the archon will be transferring its essence to another location.

LMK what you think.

Another name for the High Templar defensive skill is Severe Gravity.

If you keep the unlockable unit concept, I suggest that you add 4 units at a time. Also, when theorycrafting, the playing difficulty of the units should be taken into consideration.

Hydralisk
Offensive ability: I think you can have two options here...the acid attack or a super fast spine attack (maybe power level 10 or something)
Offensive scaling: with the acid attack, you can add how much more damage they take...with the spine attack, you can increase the speed/range
Defensive ability: Tail swat...reflects the dodgeball back at the angle of reflection ( if the dodgeball comes in at / you reflect back with \).
Defensive scaling: can be cool down period and reflection speed can be determined by receiving speed OR reflection speed can be scaled with a constant cool down. I have a feeling that the former will be more balanced.

Hellion/Firebat
Great idea!

Medic
Offensive ability: I love the optic flare idea...scaling would be blast radius I guess (increasing the blind time would be OP I think).
Defensive ability: This has the potential to be OP....I think a heal by X health is good enough...should consume a dodgeball as well

High Templar
Offensive ability: Maybe you can do something with hallucinations here. Randomly teleport the HT a short distance and spawn X hals nearby. The hals mimic the exact movements of your HT including throwing. Hals last Y seconds. You can scale either X or Y
Defensive ability: I think there should be an ability that can "catch" lobbed dodgeballs and prevent them from being destroyed. Why not use psionic storm to do this in addition to stopping thrown dodgeballs?
Stats: I'd swap archon and HT stats I think

Archon/Dark Archon
I like what you did with the hellion/firebat so I'm just throwing this out here...this one goes from defensive to offensive
Archon Offensive ability: pretty solid as is I think
Archon Defensive ability: convert to dark archon
Dark Archon offensive ability suggestions: convert to archon
Dark Archon Defensive ability suggestions: Maelstorm...makes target unit invulnerable but immobile


On a side note, I think a unit that has the sabotage ability would be cool. Perhaps a Specter?
Sabotage - causes a ball to drop and blow up from the selected unit