Lots of Ability suggestions :)

Let me know what you think about each one! You are bound to like at least one.

1 Time bomb: Lobs a ball that has a short countdown before exploding and doing wide area damage

2 Meteor: Targets a location, after a certain amount of time a ball falls from the sky doing area damage

3 Graviton Beam: Lifts an opponent up preventing them from being hit or throwing/moving.

4 vortex: Pulls units around it toward its center

5 Steal: Steals a ball from an opponent

6 photon cannon: Fires slow moving dodgeballs

7 Transfuse: Heals a nearby allie

8 leech: heals the user equal to the damage dealt

9 chronofield: Slows the movement speed of opponents in a specific area.

10 curse: slowly reduces health of opponent down to 1 hp

11 silence: temporarily prevents an opponent from throwing balls and/or picking up balls

12 Empower: Temporarily buffs a selected ally by increasing their power by 1

13 Amplify: Temporarily increases the damage taken from dodgeballs to an opponent

14. Fireball: Throws a ball with much higher speed

15. Phase run: Temporarily allows you to cross to your opponents side before teleporting you back (in ffa grants you temporary immunity?)

16. Distortion field: Balls thrown at the field from your opponent are stopped, allowing you to pick them up

17. Contaminate: infects a ball, once picked up it slows the user

18. Trick ball: Appears as a normal ball, when picked up it travels in a random direction and may friendly fire

19. Siphon: absorbs a ball for life

20. Catch: If a ball enters the radius while activated, you catch the ball instead of being damaged.


I think a lot of abilities that help your teammates could be a nice dynamic.


Some things I think would be cool for new units to have on top of their main abilities (would require balancing)

passive abilities

21 : allows user to hold two balls at a time (only throws one at a time)

22 : slowly regenerates own health

23 : Power increases as user gets kills

24: Reveals cloaked units within its radius

25 :Dodgeballs thrown to the opponents side disappear even when you miss

Some really cool ideas! Let me go ahead and give you my take on them.

1. Excellent idea--I like it a lot!

2. Meteor: I've actually thought about an ability like this using the Zerg Drop Pod models from the campaign. I think it'd probably fit a little better as a damage/stun ability rather than a dodgeball ability, but I wonder if it'd be near impossibel to actually hit with it. I'll play around with the idea, though--it'd be a waste not to use such a cool animation!

3. An interesting idea, for sure a winner if I make a Phoenix unit. I imagine the Phoenix throwing out a glowing sphere (or severa) that travel unpredictably like a Knuckleball, and if it connects it imprisons the unit and lifts them "out of play." Maybe lobs could still hit the lifted unit though.

4. A cool idea, but my big worry would be for slow units like the Thor or Siege Tank--if they're incapable of escaping it would be a little unfair for them. That being said, I could see an ability like this being useful and to be fair, it would probably be "casted" via dodgeball like Fungal.

5. The Infestor's Retrive ability already does this, so I don't think this is all that necessary atm.

6. I think a passive dodgeball-firing ability would be too powerful, but if I make a probe unit I could see an incarnation of this being an effective offensive ability. Maybe it could damage but not deliver the final blow.

7. I've been hesitant to make a healing ability, but if I do it will probably be an AOE thing that lasts in a specific area for a while with a slow healing rate, in order to create a high-value target for the enemy team.

8. I've heard the idea for a "leach-ball" attack and I think it would be great on a high-HP Zerg unit!

9. I like the idea of "area-control" abilities and this would certainly do that. Good idea!

10. I've actually been considering a variant of this idea but with poison, maybe an offensive ability for the Hydralisk or another poison/acid based unit.

11. I like this idea, as it would basically put a unit into "dodge" mode where all it can do is run and try to hide. I have trouble, however, visualizing what it would look like and what unit it would be used by--if you have an idea in this regard, please share!

12. To me, passive buffs aren't necessarily the "funnest" type of ability to make. Debuffs are okay so long as the enemy has the capacity to dodge it, but buffing fellow units wouldn't really require skill to pull off. Though I wouldn't count this idea out, I think we can come up with some more "creative" variants of it!

13. I've got an idea for a "Corruption" ability for a Zerg unit involving corrosive acid that would have this exact effect!

14. This is indeed an ability I'm planning to make shortly for the Firebat!

15. This ability made me literally laugh out loud! I don't think it's necessarily a good idea (it's probably a bit strong and I think new players would think it's a glitch!) but I love the creativity!

16. I actually plan on making this exact ability for the High Templar's Defensive Ability.

17 & 18. I've actually gotten a couple requests for "trap" dodgeball skills you could cast on an idle dodgeball, but I hesitate to make them. I want to try and avoid "frustrating" abilities as much as possible, and I think the idea of picking up a masterball only to have been tricked and it works against you both ruins a great positive moment (picking up a special dodgeball) and then punishes you further (debuff applied). Again, I won't write it off, but it's definitely something I'm wary of making.

19. This sounds similar to the Siege Tank's Reactor, but the problem I have with it is that life-regeneration, I believe, would be extremely powerful in this game (hence there are no abilities that can do so currently) and this might be a little "too easy" to use.

20. I fully agree with this ability and it's actually crazy I haven't made a "catch" ability in a dodgeball game by now! I'm thinking of giving it to the Hydralisk, as it has a good animation for it and is going to be a straight-up combat unit.

The passive abilities all sound cool, but they would definitely come as upgradeable perks, rather than unit-specific passives. I like the regenerating health one but I'd probably combine it with #23, and make it so you regenerate some health for each kill (I think this would be particularly appealing for people who want crazy kill-streaks). I think detection is probably not a great idea since it so directly affects only a couple playable units. The last one about dodgeballs disappearing when you miss could probably be real useful but it'd be more like "50% chance missed dodgeballs disappear."

Some really cool ideas, thanks so much for writing them all down! You can bet to see some of them in the future. If you have any more, I'm always here to listen!

rut

yeah feel free to modify any of the ideas i'm just trying to help with the creative process so you will be inspired to make some more updates!

Thanks for reading them and I can't wait for passive perks~

my responses to your responses(lol):

2: it would be hard to hit with a meteor ability but you can just adjust the radius, it can be more of something that your opponents really have to pay attention to or get punished. More skill involved!

4. Well slow units are meant to have a disadvantage somehow, its part of what you trade off to earn the other abilities. Maybe if they start to feel weaker then they can get some subtle buffs as well!

5. The infestor can steal with retrieve only if the opponent has barely picked it up. I think the ability should only work on ground, and that way a steal ability would fill a separate role.

6. I think it is okay as long as the projectiles are slow and it is the main offensive ability for the unit. So they get a nice passive cannon but they make a trade off with some other stats.

15. There are always going to be many confusing things for noobs. For example, a ghost cloaking could be really confusing if you don't know what is going on. To help with this, phase run could change the color of your unit temporarily while its in effect.

Trap dodgeballs: I think these kind of abilities should have tough cooldowns. I think frustrating abilities are great! There should be subtle ways to tell. For example when a roach burrows you can see where it is underground if you look closely. In this way, you can make it so the balls are slightly discolored or something. Or even make it so it only works on standard dodgeballs. You can even make an animation show up when you first cast it, to make players that are more aware benefit.

On the other hand think about how good it feels when you fool somebody on your opponents team and it gives you a slight advantage.

so to flesh out my ideas a bit more with the trap balls:

Contaminate: infects a ball, once picked up it slows the user
- the length of time you are slowed doesn't have to be too long, it can just be long enough for you to take advantage of it in a small window of time.

. Trick ball: Appears as a normal ball, when picked up it travels in a random direction and may friendly fire
- if it ends up being too powerful you can simply take out friendly fire. It can really just be a small nuisance that can only be casted occasionally.

You can even experiment with 1 cast per life. That is you cannot cast the ability again until you respawn.

For the most part you liked my favorite ideas, but I hope this helps you reconsider some concepts!