Mindwind Mine by Murraythehuman

Mindwind Mine features a fairly unique lane layout, as the top and bottom lanes begin to merge together at the top left and bottom right portions of the map. As such, this makes defending these areas considerably easier, and allows for much quicker soaking to be done by the losing team once their forts have been destroyed. Because the last two Keeps are so close together, they have been merged into what can only be called a superkeep. While largely identical to an ordinary Keep, the superkeep features 50% increased health, and destroying it will count as a destroyed structure for both its lanes, enabling catapults in each (albeit the same amount of passive exp as destroying a single structure). This may open the door to more strategies for players, as destroying the single keep will provide a greater advantage, but at a much higher investment.

The primary reason for this 2.5-lane style is to prevent cheese strats during the objective, where a player may attempt to draw fire to the bottom lane, only to instantly move their attention to top after the enemy team has congregated away from it.

At the back, you may have noticed this monstrosity:. This structure, tentatively known as a Superkeep, behaves as a keep for both lanes attached to it. When destroyed, it will spawn catapults for both lanes (or at least one every three waves if the fort isn't destroyed). To make up for its tendency to take on two waves simultaneously and increased value, it has an additional 50% health compared to a regular keep. Its primary reason for existing is to help mitigate the backdoor strats that an objective reward with globals might otherwise bring.

After 2:30 seconds have passed, you will be alerted to the presence of a battle between the Overmind and C'thun. After another 30 seconds, two eyestalks will appear on opposite sides of the map, and a ball of clashing psychic energy will appear between them, directly atop mid-lane.

Dealing damage to the ball of energy will cause it to drift towards the opponent's eyestalk, similar to Hanamura's payload. The more damage it has recently taken, the faster it will move. However, damage from the opposing team will negate the damage done by your own team, requiring the two teams to overwhelm the other's damage. While the energy ball isn't receiving any damage, its speed will gradually decay down to zero, decaying at a more rapid rate for the winning team should they be nearing the opposing eyestalk.

Once it reaches the opposing side and remains there for at least 4 seconds of not taking damage from the enemy team, the objective is won and C'thun/the Overmind will be weakened. While the opposing deity's powers are dampened, your own is able to attack at full power by using a hero as a conduit.

For the second objective, the location of the energy ball will change, and will be located on the side of the map that more greatly favors the previous objective's loser. If that team loses again, the objective will remain in place, but if they win, it will return to its original neutral position for the next objective. This allows for some degree of rubber-banding, without giving the first obective's loser a free win.

Additionally, the orb will occasionally perform similar AoE attacks as the Immortals, either creating a pulse around itself or shooting blasts into the air that come down to deal heavy damage, as well as inflicting an 80% slow that decays over 4 seconds. Unlike the immortals, these effects aren't team specific, so both sides will need to watch out when these attacks are telegraphed.

Certain concepts in this map design may seem arbitrary, but in actuality were added based on certain problems that inherrently came with a global-based objective reward. Other vehicles can be focused down, and fixed damage rewards like Hanamura have finite value. When it comes to global effects, the only comparison point is to Cursed Hollow, which isn't nearly as drastic in design.

Certain key flaws came to mind, the most prominent one being "Hey, if Overmind starts pushing top, and the entire enemy team goes to stop him, what's to stop him from immediately focusing his efforts on bot instead?" Being able to just jump around the map to where the enemy isn't would be too much of a dominant strategy, and the game should never become about avoiding playing the game. As such, the effectse of the Overmind/C'thun were adjusted to only enable powerful pushes, requiring coordination from the team.

Vile Ooze disables structures and provides excellent area control, but its can only deal 80 damage per cast to each structure in its radius.
Eyestalk deals considerably more damage and might be usable to back-cap a structure already facing minion pressure, but it's most effective when used around allies, who can provide it with protection and better capitalise on the bonus damage it provides.
Psi-stim is a bit of a throwaway move, but provides a bit more useful utility, enabling some powerful plays by C'thun's allies. Being able to moderately revive allies is designed to mitigate a 'won objective but got teamwiped' scenario, which would be less than ideal for the winning team, as they'd lack a way to capitalise on their success, especially in the lategame.

Lastly, Mind Rend is designed to create a bit of pizzazz, something these godlike entities deserve in their otherwise pragmatic designs. This move can set up a teamwipe in the right circumstances, and hit enemies on multiple parts of the map simultaneously. It's a bit too good for the early game, so it's been locked until level 10.


The purpose of the Superkeep was one that also came from trying to mitigate back-cap strategies without making it impossible to do so. You can do it... but really only once.


Also, I left out a piece of the terrain in the current version of the map. Redoing it would require changing all these images one at a time, so keep in mind that there wouldn't normally be a straight shot right from the top to the bottom of the map.


My last major concern is... "is it exciting to play as this vehicle?" Being locked into the role of a Super Abathur might not be all that entertaining to some players, and may lead to infighting over who has to do the dirty work of actually having to play them. Compared to the Dragon Knight, who has a play-making kick, a satisfyingly meaty basic attack, and still has to engage with the game by dodging and positioning, C'thun/Overmind has moves that tend to focus on setup for other players. Vile Oooze's near constant uptime means they will still have at least one source of APM, and Summon Eye Tentacle provides some big moments, I fear that players might prefer to play with their demigod, rather than as them.

Then again, Abathur is one of the most popular characters in the game, so who knows?