Hero-Making: An Overview

Hero-Making: An Overview

Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 5:06 pm

Rawr!

These are the four steps I consider critical to making a hero idea.

This is not a full guide like the other ones, just my two cents and a bit of help to anyone who needs more.

Enjoy!

Table of Contents


Pre-I. Introduction
I. Brainstorming
II. Synergy and Concept
III. Balancing and Comparison
IV. Cleaning it all up
V. Summary


Pre-I
So you've decided that you want to make a dream hero. Let me remind you, this is not as easy a task as it would seem. I occasionally see bad ideas tossed out on this forum, and I hope yet another guide will help stop them.

I. Brainstorming

A. Don't rush your thinking process! You aren't ready to make a hero unless you KNOW you're ready to make a hero. Perhaps influenced by an icon you see, a wikipedia article, or the weirdest wonder of nature outside your window, you WILL get an idea for a hero if you keep waiting! If you think of a cool concept, or one skill you could spiral three others off of, commence step B.

B. Ohmygod write it all down. Write down EVERY idea for a skill you get. In one of my hero ideas, I actually wrote down 18 skills before I could decide which ones to take, all of them centered around a base skill. Whats a "base skill" though? I keep talking about them. Base skills are one way to make a solid SYNERGY. Synergy is how well your skills work with each other. A solid synergy will make a hero so much better! So back to the subject, a base skill gives you something to focus your hero around. Something that serves as a huge help with other skills to support it. Like witch doctor's death ward, you have casks and maledict to make it stronger and avoid harm, as well as voodoo restoration to keep your health up. After you write these ideas down, its time to do some heavy duty thinking.

C. What hero are you trying to make? The list consists primarily of:

Nukers
Light Tanks
Heavy Tanks
Support Tanks
Nimble Agi Heroes
DPS Agi heroes
Hunters
Support

So pick one of these and start narrowing your ideas down. Make sure to keep up a constant synergy of skills right now as you begin eliminating skills. keep slicing and slicing until you find something that you like AND fits together. Cut your own jigsaw pieces and see which ones fit.

D. This could be done before or after the last step. Stats! The usual rule consists of keeping your base stats near 60 and your +stats near 6. Don't strive for perfect balance, make sure that your stats lean toward your brand of hero. Don't give a nuker 23 + 2.9 strength and 11 +1.1 int, make sure he can do what hes meant to do!

II. Synergy and Concept

A. So you probably have a nice pool of 5-8 skills by now. This is where your hero will begin to come to life. Take your style of hero and work the skills around him, modify your current skills in the pool and maybe add some more. But most importantly, remember SYNERGY.

A.1. Light Synergy: Light Synergy is the most common style in DotA. In light synergy, your skills are very usable on their own without relying on other skills to be helpful. A good example is NA, who has an amazing ganking combo but can harass very well early game with a stray spell every now and then.

A.2. Medium Synergy: Medium Synergy is less common in DotA. Your skills work individually, but are not worth it that much. An example is pudge, who can hook to bring a runner back, but its much more effective with his hook, rot, and dismember combo.

A.3. Heavy Synergy: Heavy Synergy is rare in DotA, in fact I only see it in hero ideas. Heavy Synergy is dangerous territory. Your skills are virtually worthless without leaning on each other, but if you pull it off you can make an amazing hero. What if you had a nuke that did no damage unless you healed your allies and you had 3 healing skills? Theres Jord - The Avatar of Nature, one of my hero ideas. He actually has a skill that deals no damage unless he has healed in the past 3 seconds.

B. Concept. What specifically do you want your hero to do? You picked a particular brand previously, but lets branch it off. There are no categories for this area. Just imagine, what do you want him to do? Do you want a hunter that whirls straight through targets and destroys your foes head on? Or do you want a hunter who isn't seen until the last moment when he tears up an entire team. Here is your time to define your hero into a strong concept that makes him work. Now its time to integrate Concept and Synergy.

C. Picking the skills. You have a pile of skills now, your final refined copy. After the last two areas, you probably know what you want your hero to do, so work your skills onto your layout. Make sure your skills fit his purpose and work together. Don't make 3 nukes, and don't make a nuke, a heal, and a passive armor boost. Make a nuke, an amplifier, and a disable and you have a strong caster. Make a passive armor boost, a deflection skill, and an AoE crowd control skill and you have a tank. Make sure all the aspects of your hero cover its theme.

III. Balancing and Comparison.

A. Common Sense Comes First. Lets say you made a DoT in an AoE that does 300 damage a second for four seconds. 300 doesn't sound that big for an ult, so some people just let that pass beneath their noses without doing the math of 1200 damage. Do the math and make sure you don't have retarded rapability.

B. Balancing issues. There are actually a lot of common balancing issues to work with. These include but are not limited to:

Pure Damage - VERY risky. Unless you have to make a sacrifice or do very little damage, Pure Damage is not reccomended.

Perma Slow/Orb - These are commonly used in DotA by heroes like Traxex and Viper, but are very scary territory. They can potentially make you invulernable, so keep them toned down.

Invulernability / Spell Immunity: Unless you have to make sacrifices to keep these up (Omniknight can't heal himself with spell immunity and his invulernability is a bit short) I reccomend not keeping them (I still think N'aix Fury is very overpowered). Omniknight's ult is a bit of a stretch, but keep these low for dodging targeted stuns and other skills.

MS/AS Boosters: Just look at the old Balanar! Mass haste let him and his team mates be at 522 the whole game while attacking rapid fire! Its now pretty easy to keep these down, but make sure you do.

Use other common sense issues and whatnot to make sure your rough draft is balanced.

C. Comparison! Put your hero in a real game. I myself take a whiteboard and begin throwing skills back and forth with other heroes in DotA. How does it work? Is your hero dominating, is he getting owned? Do some theorycraft and guarantee you work with other heroes. This is a great way to balance your heroes.

IV. Cleaning it all up

A. This is a simple section, so I'll keep it just that way. Polish off the rough edges, perfect your skill descriptions and icons, make a nice story that shows your skills and theme. Try to keep everything nice and organized when you finalize your idea. Just make sure it looks pretty ;]

V. Summary

1. Don't use the same skill four times.
2. Avoid lots of passives.
3. Make sure you have synergy.
4. Make sure your hero fits into his role.
5. Don't make heroes we've already seen before.
6. Don't rush your thinking process.
7. Have fun with it! If making a hero is boring to you, do something else until the juices start flowing again.
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Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 6:14 am

wow, great guide blarf............
and the way to "publish" your "hero idea"..........
(just kidding)
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my Nov BC entry!

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Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 11:02 am

Greate guide
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NEEDS AN AWESOME SIG!!!

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Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 7:34 pm

Thanks guys ^^

It'd be great if anyone could sticky this (Is it sticky-worthy?)
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 3:22 pm

blarfles, how about writing a judging system for hero ideas?
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my life is filled with leavers, noobs, dumbasses and people that doesn't seem to know what good manners are!

Here are my hero ideas:
Keax- The Annoyer
Cyrus- The Celestial Being
Jaizur- The Celestial Darkness

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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 8:53 am

This thing worked nicely. I used it to make my June BC entree, the Yellowjacket.

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