You've made a very excellent point. Many people go about designing a Demigod idea by starting with the visual design, or some kind of character theme they want to fulfill, and fill in the abilities later. But really, most abilities can be given to any Demigod, you just rename it and change the style to make it fit. And once you have a few independent ideas that work together well, THEN you can combine them and start filling out the rest.

Here are a few quick ideas on what we're missing:

A trap-based DG. Reg's mines are all well and good, but that's just one ability, on a single DG. I want to see more traps, of various designs, maybe even some that are remote-detonated (for example, click the ability to set the trap, click it again to activate it.) How about traps set on a flag that explodes when you get close? An oil slick that slows down enemies who walk through it? A bear trap that immobilizes?

We already have fire/ice/earth elements, how about a lightning elemental god? Lightning strikes, chain lightning, and stun attacks are all obvious choices, but how about more unique ones, like magnetic "force"-pushes, the ability to electrify allies' weapons to make them deal damage (like a weapon enchantment), or the ability to magnetically steal gold from enemy DGs (ok I don't know if that would be fair, but it would be awesome.)

We need more spellcasters in general. Everyone has "spells," but Sedna and The Torchbearer are the only ones who I would really call "magic users." Really, one more Demigod in this class would fill it out enough.

A martial artist. Everyone else uses weapons, how about someone who kicks and punches?

I'll list some more later.

Thank you Ke5trel.. I have wanted to post the same thing.. as long as something else.

All kinds of threads about people wanting a dead samurai or something like that.  Like you said with Barbarian.  These aren't original.  They're cliche.

I mean seriously?  We have a god damn walking castle, a chick with vines for "clothing" that comes out from a flower carried on beatles, a badass diseased dog with exposed bone armor and you want.. a dead sumarai?  Oak could of looked more like a living weapon than some paladin, and TB isn't the most original idea though he looks awesome, but really.. people should have more original concepts than "muck guy".

They should be over the top like half the demigods are already.  There needs to be more Rook and QoT.

That said, also most of the ideas are basically slight variations of what we already have.  We already have the nuker guy(TB), the more 1 on 1 oriented DPS guy(UB), the healer(sedna), the buffer(oak), and so on..  People aren't really taking into accuont what would be the best additionals to add more to the gameplay.

Like the crystal guy, Porygon, would be sweet to have something that removes enemy buffs, and an aura that when enemy demigods in range lose a buff(whether naturally or by his buff removal) they take damage, and then something that lets him form with an ally to protect them, blah blah.  Buff removal is something missing from DG.  So are some good amana drain abilities. Though some of these could be added ot current ones.

These sound annoying..  There is enough ganking in demigod, people are just too noob to know how to do it.  I'd rather have some support abilities like wards where the wards can be tele'd to just like rooks towers.

Or oculus eye's.. should be able to tele to those.

And by tele to them, I mean they should count as a friendly building like rooks towers.

Some have said being able to use rooks towers for tele'ing to is too powerful, I just think others characters are lacking something similar.

Yeah I doubt the wards or favor tiem would see him.. that'd be too much weaksauce.

It looks like the guy with the long sword that's haunched over would be a stealth demigod.. but i'dd wish for something cooler looking.

Tons of us were asking for more mana burning abilities in beta but never really got em.

I'm not really sure a cloaking demigod is lacking, though.  Mostly I think there is a really fine line between making it underpowered and making it just good enough where people go "HOLY FUCK YEAH IM GOING TO BE INVISIBLE" and everyone wants to play him even if he isn't the best.

I actually.. would be happy if there wasn't an invisible demigod.  I like the Oculus sight range reducing idea more.

I think there simply aren't enough skills on generals.. or well all Demgiods.  There should be 20-25 minion oriented skills on the generals, 25-30 other skills on the generals.  Right now you have 7-8 minion skills on the generals and about 17-18 non-minion ones.

They could add like 3 new skills to Oak for example that would be a unique mechanic to just him, which is a passive aura where when you put a point into one of the 3, the other 2 are locked out, so you can only choose one of these(sort of like diablo2 paladin except no switching).  That'd benefit more with minions if one was a straight +damage modifier since more units you +dmg the more effect you get from it, without saying "minions only".  Plus, cooler things for the other two auras than +dmg.   Another could lower enemy MPS, another could give some trigger bonus to ally demigods attacks.

For dark side they should have a guy just as big as the Rook, or just about, that is a mechical wooden walker that resembles a pirate ship.  It has no head, just the deck up top with the wheel and a pirate manning it that has a sword in one hand, flask of ale in the other.

There are wooden gears and cables connected to the joints that makes it look very primative.

This is rather wrong. But I shouldn't give up tricks.

Personally, one of my favorite things from certain AoS maps (Not DotA, more like Age of Myths Desert of Exile etc) Was that some Heros had the power to manipulate their opponents position. One example was a Hero that could push a target back, force all enemies in an area into a select point, (Best example I can think of at the moment is when you use your hands and cup a bunch of change together).

Those were my favorite types of heros due to their unpredictability and potential for support and Killing. I recently posted one idea of such a thing around here somewhere .... Ah, (Shameless plug)

Two abilities I'd come up with are

• A flag you can plant which redirects tower lasers to it, preventing yourself as well as your minions/reinforcements from taking damage from it.  It could also be detonated after (say) 4 absorptions in an AoE, but breaks after 6 absorptions.  Of course this ability would have to have a weighty cooldown and likely be put on a demigod that's melee.
• An attraction spell, which would cast like an AoE but instead of doing damage, it pulls any and all units within the affected field to the center of the circle.

Ghost-like invisibility sounds like a lot of fun, but unlike ghost, it would have to either cost a LOT of mana, or (most likely) break upon attack.

The Faerie Dragon in DotA also had a great ability where he shot a slow-moving damage projectile (like Rook's boulder) and then had a 2nd ability that allowed him to teleport to the projectile's location.  It was a great one-two punch: shoot the projectile and let it hit your target, then teleport to it and finish them off while they're trying to retreat.  Made it really hard to keep track of his movements.

Reducing LoS sounds like a fun debuff, but it could get really frustrating if it was usable too often, and also would likely only be able to be given to a melee-type, otherwise it would grant him effective invisibility.

I never liked demigods who could switch places with enemies.  It's REALLY disoeriented for the opponent and is a bit of a catch 22: either the range is too short and its worthless or the range is too far and its too powerful.  Someone might be able to convince me of otherwise on this but my experience is there's no way to make this paticular ability work right.

I also wanted to point out that the Forces of Darkness have no real team players right now, aside from QoT's shield.  A few have auras which are kinda nice but nothing like Oak or Sedna.  I hope this gets addressed when the new demigods come out.

So I had an idea for a water demigod.  So have a girl or mermaid riding a turtle that has deffensive spells and offensive spells.  Maybe give her a fog abbility to blind the other team for a set amount of time and maybe have a healing rain to heal units around her.  Have some splash attacks or something along those lines.  I was also thinking of a dark one sort of  modeled after the goddess Nyx and have a darkness effect around her.

No kiddin!  Who's to say what a god can and can't procreate with?  Apparently though he's F-d faeries, flying people, englishmen, inuits, norsemen, demon dogs, and vampires. There's more on the menu, I'm sure, and this guy's ordered the lot.

Lugh... while Greek mythology I'm sure was called upon for inspiration for the Demigod game lore, the 'rules' may not be identical -- that being said, centaurs and the Minotaur were never considered gods or demi-gods by the greeks, but rather supernatural, legendary beings.  Hericles was a demigod who was, yes, sired by Zeus and birthed from a mortal woman.

So even by Greek standards, it seems to be that for it to have a status of "demigod" it must have one divine biological parent.  Note that these supernatural beings put up good fights to demigods like Hericles, but as the story goes -- Hericles always wins.  Makes a great argument for them to be minions in the game, don't you think?

Mechanics Abilities -

With the idea that mechanics we are missing could be made up in DG abilities - balancing these would be tough but gameplay would get pretty deep

- upgrade items
- upgrade buildings
So a DG like "The Smith" can combine two items + gold + warscore for you to create a custom item, or can upgrade a given building to deliver more damage or have higher health, etc.  These would be skills earned by levelling just like Fireball or Shield and they would have a cost to the receiving player

- upgrade abilities
- upgrade stats
So a DG like "The Tuner" can tweak your abilities to design, increasing a given stat at the expense of some other...Again, earned through levelling and at cost

- Additional Buff and Debuff layers - take it beyond health, mana, speed, attack speed, and armor.  Let's start bringing in auras and targeted spells that enhance "Fire Magic" or debuff "Ranged Attacks."  The traditional way to look at this is to give every spell and school an elemental affiliation (Fire, Water, Earth, etc..) but I know we can do better...So if you brought something like Sentry Guns in (as designed by The Smith), make them fairly weak but with the potential for devastating attack speed when matched with the DG Mercury's "Mech Enhancement Aura" or much higher armor penetration with Regulus's Angelic Fury Buff...Every DG should have multiple aura choices that can benefit and stack in multiple ways..

- Movement variation - beyond running, flying, porting, and blinking let's get some tunneling, some portal-creation, some summoning: A digger who can tunnel down and lay in ambush or gnaw at a tower's foundations, a mage who can gate his allies across enemy lines, a warlock who can summon them back again.  Make movement variation synergize, make coordination as important here as in killing an opponent.

- It's already been mentioned, but we should go over it again because it's the biggest deficit in gameplay imo - ambush/evasion needs a bunch of love.  We can't do it through terrain variation so lets do it with abilities

- ambush/evasion abilities that are environmental/endemic - Occulus is a good start but I'd like to see every DG have something along these lines or have a few abilities that project them onto the environment so that allies can use them like generating minions or buildings that have "Blind" effects within given radius...Don't give us straight invisibility - it's a cop out.  Allow us to use our skills to become effectively invisible, but make it very much more complex than toggling the spell or popping the pot, please...

When time comes along I'll be looking at character classes...

In the meantime, what are some mechanics you would introduce as abilities or ability schools in future updates?

That's just Frogboy's opinion; inevitably it's up to GPG and not Stardock, as to how many Demigods are available. Personally I think the game would be fine with a number of Demigods, but I think DoTA is just excessive. I want to see a variety of Demigods, but after a while I want to see current Demigods expanded even further. More skill options would go a long way to making matches more interesting... more so than even adding more heroes. Currently it's not hard to guess a hero's build at first glance, but with more options it'd be far more difficult to predict one's build.