World of Warcraft:Hero Abilities

Introduction
One of the things that make a Hero unique is his ability to gain experience levels and become better over time. Any Hero will gain experience points for every accomplishment on the game map (usually kills) that they or any nearby unit do. When a Hero accumulates enough experience points, they will advance to the next level, and you can choose a new ability for that Hero.

Gaining Experience
A Hero gains experience when he or any unit under his "command" kills an opposing unit. An opposing unit is defined as any unit that is hostile to the player. This includes enemy player units as well as aggressive NPC creatures on the game map.

Kills made when no Hero is nearby result in your Heroes' receiving experience. In team games, even your allies will get a share of that experience. If one Hero is nearby, but another is not, only the nearby Hero gains experience. This is to encourage the use of air mobility in harassing an opponent.

If two Heroes are both commanding a unit that makes a kill, then the experience received from the kill will be split evenly between the two Heroes.

Once a Hero gains enough experience, the Hero will move on to the next level.

Heroes gain experience for attacking buildings with attacks such as towers.

You do not receive experience if any building such as a tower or ancient makes the killing blow.

You can receive experience for killing units of dropped players. This can be very helpful in FFA games. But you won't get experience for destroying their buildings (except of towers, or other buildings with an attack), so unless you plan to build an expansion there, don't waste your time destroying those buildings. You will not get experience if your Heroes are over level 5 (just like Creeps).

Heroes gain more experience from Creeps early on, and less once they hit level 3. Once they hit level 5, Heroes can only gain experience through killing units controlled by other players.

If a player owns only one hero (dead heroes count), and is at tier 2 (Keep/Stronghold etc) or Tier 3 (Castle/Fortress etc), they gain bonus experience of 15% for tier 2 and 30% for tier 3. This affects all experience gain - both creeping and killing enemy units.

Determining Experience Gained
Experience is split up between friendly Heroes in the area. If one Hero is off somewhere else, only the nearby Hero gets the experience. Heroes can gain experience from units throughout the battlefield away from the Hero(s).

The following table lists the experience needed to gain a level.

The following table lists experience received for killing a Hero. So, for killing a level 4 Hero you would receive 220 experience.

Creep Experience % Cap
When your Hero kills a Creep you get a percentage of that experience depending on your Hero level.

Referring to the chart below, if your Hero is level 1 when he kills a Creep then he gets 80% of the experience he would get if the victim was not a Creep. If he is level 2 then he gets 70%, Level 3 - 62%, Level 4 - 55%. Notice 5th level Heroes and higher get no experience (0) from Creeps, regardless of Creep level. Once your Hero is level 5 he can only gain experience from other player controlled units.

GrantNormalXP=25
F(1) = 25
// f(x) = A*f(x-1) + B*x + C
GrantNormalXPFormulaA=1
GrantNormalXPFormulaB=5
GrantNormalXPFormulaC=5
F(x) = 1 * F(x-1) + 5 * x + 5
The chart comes out to:

Levels
When a Hero gains a new level, they will gain several benefits

Boost to attributes. Each Hero will have a factor that will determine how many attribute points go up each level. In this way, spellcasting Heroes have a greater intelligence, while fighter Heroes have higher strength over time.

New Ability. Whenever a Hero gains a new level, they will also gain an ability point. A player will be able to use this point to give the Hero a new skill/spell or to increase the power of an existing spell/skill.

The player will be informed that their Hero has gained a level by a sound, and by a flash of light around the Hero. A small flashing overlay will also appear on the Hero's portrait on the game screen.

Every Hero will have 4 base abilities to choose from, these include:

Skills - Passive abilities that do not cost Mana to use. Once obtained, the Hero always gets the benefit of the skill.

Auras - This is an ever-present command radius around a Hero that imparts benefits or penalties to the units nearby.

Spells - Adds a new useable spell to the Hero's command card.

Each Hero starts with a free skill point.

Ultimate Abilities

Every Hero will have one ultimate ability that they may choose for the first time at level 6. These abilities are far more powerful than the average ability. This ability has only one level, and therefore, cannot be increased in power with additional ability points.

The area of effect of the Aura will be the same for all Heroes.

Units that are affected by an Aura will have a blue highlight graphic displayed around the feet of the unit.

Flying units do not display Aura's, but are affected by Aura's when they are in range.

Hero Names
When created, a new Hero will be given a proper name (e.g. Conan). This name will help you differentiate the specific Hero from other Heroes of the same type (i.e. Paladin, Archmage, etc).

Names are separated by Hero type and are chosen randomly each time a new Hero is created.

Hero Revival
Although Heroes are larger-than-life figures, even they can die on the fields of war. When a Hero dies, it leaves behind no corpse. As its body vanishes, the Hero's spirit returns to the ether, in order to wait recall at a sacred Altar. Each race has an Altar it can build to revive dead Heroes. There is no limit to the number of times you can revive a Hero, as long as you have enough Gold to pay the revive cost. The cost of a fallen Hero depends on its level: the higher the level, the greater the cost in Gold. The ritual to create a new body for the Hero takes a certain amount of time, but at its completion the Hero is revived at the Altar, along with any items the Hero carried.

1. Tool tips over each button display the Name, Level, Type of Hero and the cost for revival.
2. The cost to revive a Hero will be approximatively half the cost for building the Hero plus 10% more per level of Hero to be revived.
3. The maximum cost to revive a Hero will be 550 Gold and 0 Lumber at an Altar and 1105 Gold 260 Lumber at a Tavern.
4. Once revived at the Altar, the Hero will be restored to full hit points and 100 Mana.
5. Hero revive time is capped at 150 seconds.

Hero Revival Cost and Time Formulae

GoldRevivalCost = originalCost * (ReviveBaseFactor + (ReviveLevelFactor*(level-1)))
      but not exceeding originalCost * ReviveMaxFactor
LumberRevivalCost = originalCost * (ReviveBaseLumberFactor + (ReviveLumberLevelFactor*(level-1)))
      but not exceeding originalCost * ReviveMaxFactor
revivalTime = originalTime * level * ReviveTimeFactor
      but not exceeding originalTime * ReviveMaxTimeFactor

ReviveBaseFactor=.40
ReviveLevelFactor=.10
ReviveBaseLumberFactor=0
ReviveLumberLevelFactor=0
ReviveMaxFactor=4.0
ReviveTimeFactor=0.65
ReviveMaxTimeFactor=2.0

Max awaken (Tavern) cost of a hero
HeroMaxAwakenCostGold=1400
HeroMaxAwakenCostLumber=350

When there is a Tavern available in the map, you can also use it to instantly revive your Heroes (neutral and race specific ones) but the price to revive at a Tavern is much greater. Heroes revived at the Tavern are brought back to life with 0 mana and 50% health.