Thunderbolt

I see a lot of people saying Thunderbolt is weak and needs to be redone, so here is an idea I had for it:

Instead of 3 orbs that go out in a cone and summon lightning strikes, channels mana into a large globe that is launched from the mage to the target location in an arc, where it then detonates and throws out smaller globes in all directions that deal damage.(Possible secondary effect: Static Charge that lasts for no more than 10 seconds and randomly slows/stuns the affected unit for (1)/(.5) second.)

The actual explosion will deal a small *Power damage and the globes would do higher *power damage, or the other way around.

I'm not sure I'm picturing this properly? Can you re-iterate this?

I like it except for "throwing" it. I was actually thinking about a similar idea, so I will incorporate elements of both into this.

Lightning Bomb (Or any better name.)

Effect: Channels a powerful orb of electricity and then launches it at the target point. It passes through anything on the way to the target point and deals minor damage or Purges them. At the target point it explodes for Power*(seconds channeled) and sends out 8 of the current Thunderbolt bolts in 8 directions. Higher levels increase potential channel time. (Something like 2/4/6. Long range on it, but a fairly small aoe on the initial blast.)


So, it's pretty powerful but requires channeling and good prediction of your enemy to use. It would be an initiator move, a sniping move, or a creep killing move. But, it would not contribute to any of the in-your-face combos that Lightning is so good at very well. (You could fire it at just a 1 second channel if you were desperate and just wanted the 1.5*power from the Thunderbolts, but it wouldn't be very good.)

What are you picturing?

It's a target missile AoE spell with a cast and travel time that will be launched from Mage to Target Point, with a missile animation arc that sends it over troops, that will explode, dealing damage, and from the point of impact spawn little lightning orbs that radiate outward and do damage to the first target they contact.

In my picture it doesn't fly in an arc, but rather just passes over the ground.

I think Dragon's idea would be cool to see, but difficult to use. Most of the trapping spells don't last for 6 seconds, so for it to do full damage you'd either need to predict or possibly be able to cast either purge or tazer to immobilize the target further. The only thing I'm not crazy on is the 8 thunderbolts... do they emanate from the same central location... i.e. could an enemy mage hypothetically take 1*power damage from the charge + 12*power damage for the 8 thunderbolts? That's a decent chunk of HP for 1 skill.

I guess the only other thing I don't like upon thinking about it is the fact that the spell slows lightning down. I've noticed that lightning mages, more than any other, are glass cannons. Charging for 6 seconds for a skill that has a HUGE probability of missing is not really that worth it except to strike at an NPC. You're kind of making this spell out to be a less effective Armageddon. maybe remove the charging or make the multiplier go up more quickly as the level increases as well. 1st level *1, 2nd level *1.5 and third level *2 for up to 3 seconds? It would be very difficult to hit much besides a rock with 6 seconds of lead time... unless you sniped... but still seems like it's begging to be an underused skill... still.

Idea 1: I pictured lightning bolt as summoning a cloud which would strike down in an area a few times after 2 seconds of flight, each bolt hitting 1 unit (max of 1 hit/unit) for a little bit of damage dealing a small splash. Basically, the more clustered they are, the more damaged they get. Inspired by an old game I saw before.

Idea 2: Ball Lightning: concentrates a vast quantity of energy/voltage in the mage's palm and compresses it. It is then thrown. As it gets closer to its destination, the pressure causes the energy to burst outward, as plasma. Nearby beings... get hurt. Anyway, it gives everything there a 1/3 powered purge at a 1/2 percent chance, and deals damage based on their current mana, up to 80. Burns some mana according to how much the mage charged up the spell; mana is drained the longer the mage channels, the longer the mage channels, the stronger it becomes (every second channeled should be something around x1.2 last power amount) TBD.

Idea 3: Overload: exhausts all of the mage's current mana. All nearby units get a bunch of bonus mana regeneration. Over time, (regen increases per level) the mage gathers that energy back up into their body.

details: expends X mana. Channels (100/Y) seconds, Y = mana regenerated every second. This does not count mana regenerated by an outside force; is channeled for 100/Y seconds, the energy is released (regardless of current mana).

Sorry if this is a bit complicated, but the idea is, its basically like a lightning-style armageddon. Mage charges up, and then releases all the energy. Although, this is more realistic than the traditional armageddon.

Idea 4: Overclock B: The mage (targets a point, then) charges up for X seconds, draining mana all the while. Seconds channeled is directly related to the damage output. After channeling is completed, a burst of lightning is released. If you combined the current thunderbolt with a shotgun, you'd get this. Its like a charged, long-distance cone-shaped forked lightning.


Just some ideas.

Good points Aqua. And yes, I was thinking that if you hit with the absolute epicenter on a full channel it would actually do 18*Power total. Although if they were a bit off to the side not all of the Thunderbolts would hit them and it would do much less. Meh, it's probably a failed idea.


Some of those are support skills kuro. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, but it might change the emphasis of Lightning a bit. (It only needs 1-2 more good support skills to actually be able to be a semi-support element.)

I actually kind of like the concept of expending all of your mana in order to cast a spell.

Ill have to look into ideas for this.

I don't like the idea of Lightning giving mana to other people.

I believe certain Elements should have no support in them, Lightning already has Tazer which is more then enough.

If a spell has a support side it should also be somewhat selfish and self buff itself in the process. (This is for certain Elements only)

I would have to agree with DarkDjinni on the Lightning not giving mana to others: It's a raw damage element, not a support like Water.

Also I rather envisioned my version to have a 1-1.5 second cast time, with no actual "Charging" (IE: Armageddon). The actual explosion of "Bolts" would be a bit like one of the orb spells, in that if you take a direct hit from say, Icy Orb, you are taking damage from the orb itself, and not the bolts it's spitting out. A secondary function could be that the bolts either apply a weak purge to the targets they hit or a debuff that randomly stuns or slows them for a short time.

Lightning is a weird element. It's supposed to be a huge power element, glass cannon type mage. However....a lot of their skills just don't rely on power. Purge, Taser, Elementals, Crack...The remake should be a lot more power dependent IMO than something that's either let's use all my mana so essence is good...

which brings up a valid point of at the least turning lightnings non jassed spells into jass coding so we can have it be based off of power.

I don't know about that. I don't see how that doesn't cripple lightning, or overpower it. What kind of numbers you going to use >.> I mean...the mages power varies so much...It can be from anywhere from 70-100 (For a maxed mage). If you make something like Tazer .1 second per power, that can be a difference of 3 seconds. And then lower levels of Lightning are complete garbage. Purge...Making the slow factor based on power? Also seems weird, or hard/impossible to balance. I mean - the power levels of a mage overall range from 10-100. That's a hard range to balance with....You could use BOTH static and scaling...but even that's hard.

Regardless - this is offtopic, and should be more about Thunderbolt.

Suggestion: Just make a reverse chain lightning aimed spell. A bolt or two comes out similar to the current one. If it hit's a unit it releases 2 more bolts from that unit, and so on.

Soo... A diagram.

----->X===>X


------>X===>X

Where X is a target, and - is one bolt, and = is two bolts...Except I can't really draw it. It would be more spread out...and different angles and stuff. Sort of like Echo Slam, except aimed and not everything is hit necessarily, and it's not melee..

Lightning needs Crack because it is a glass cannon. Tazer and Purge are incredibly powerful skills, and Purge at least needs to stay. Tazer I'm on the fence about, but it doesn't bother me. The elementals like most summons are pretty worthless late-game. Lightning can put them to better use than most though because of Thunderstorm cast on them. (Btw, I think we can unnerf TS on elementals now, because no one uses it anymore and I miss that strategy. It takes massive mana anyway and is easily Dispelled or pwned by aoe damage. With the new TS it's less of a problem anyway.)

Now if you want to remake those spells in a way that they use Power while still fulfilling the same role, that's fine.


But back on the topic of Thunderbolt, Lightning needs in my opinion either another sniping skill, or a good aoe skill. But, NOT another good single target combo spell. If you want to do a support spell there, that would work too, but it might change how Lightning is seen and used. (So I'm sure some people would be against it.)


P.S. A splitting Chain Lightning is fine, but I have a couple of suggestions for it. #1 The initial damage of it should be very low. Something like 1-2*Power at max level. #2 If possible, the split shots should be able to bounce to something hit by another split shot but not something hit by that shot. #3 The damage should INCREASE with each bounce instead of decrease.

Reasons: Making it a low initial damage but increasing with more hits means that it would be bad against heroes. (Which is important since it's another targeting skill.) But, because the damage increases with hits, you could let it bounce around on creeps for a while increasing until it is strong enough that it does pwn a hero. So, you have to watch the positioning of a Lightning mage more with this spell like you do with Carrion Swarm on a dark. The reason for my funny targeting of the splitting is to make sure that something does not continue to be re-bounced against, but that if you line it up right multiple split shots can hit a single unit/hero at the back of a crowd of others. (The weird bouncing is not necessary though, the other two things are FAR more important.)

when I picture lightning, I see single target damage that might arc but not do much, HOWEVER when you want that guy dead, he dies and hits the ground a twitching crisp, which brings me to another point; lightning burns. It's hot. The Fire/Lightning spellbook needs an ultimate, and something better than the 'payback' from static charge. Though I like the idea of making them reluctant to kill you, something that only works when you die (aside from resurrection spells) is not ultimate-worthy, and if it is, it shouldn't take up useless space in the 150 gold book.

We are releasing more M-spells every version. It's just that there are ALOT of M-books that need them.