Warrior Power Attacks Upgrade

Shedrin

I've been thinking about Warriors some more and I've come up with another Crazy Idea™.

First, the problem statement:
Pre-Overhaul, Warriors both built wounds and dealt afflictions at the same time. They could also get to heavy wounds much quicker to deal the significant regeneration-cured afflictions or slitlocks, which were a core part of Warrior offense. Post-Overhaul, dealing afflictions comes at the cost of wounds, and it's much harder to build those wounds especially in group combat. This leads to a situation where Warriors are mostly relegated to spamming the most effective light wounds modifiers in groups. I want to bring some of the pre-Overhaul flavour through buffs to the power moves of each spec, and additionally give them a unique effect for each spec which is thematic and synergistic with their strategies.

The proposed change:
Each power move would become it's own syntax instead of a modifier. Each power move would do +5/12 wounds, and allow the usual modifiers (or none) as well as bypass parry. For example, a Blademaster would have:
LUNGE <target> <bodypart> <modifier>
With no modifier, it would do 10 wounds like lung does now, with a modifier it would do 5 wounds and the modifier.
For a Pureblade that would be:
ASSAULT <target> <bodypart>
The Assault would do 12 wounds, and with no modifier, do an additional 12, or with a modifier, deal that affliction (and the 5 wounds from the approved 2h-er report for 17 + affliction).

In addition, each Warrior spec would have another effect on their power moves, as follows:

Blademaster: Lunge deals the affliction the blade 100% of the time, bypass rub chance and shrugging.
Bonecrusher: Crush would delay the clotting of bruising for 4s.
Axelord: Sweep would apply a -2/-10 universal resist malus for 15s. Another sweep would increase the malus by 2 and reset the timer.
Pureblade: Assault would apply a -1/-10 mana malus for 15s. Another Assault would increase the malus by 1 and reset the timer.
Cavalier: Sunder would act as if the target bodypart were one wounds tier higher than it is. For example, you could CrushArm at heavy, and PiercePlexus stun would be 1s longer.


This is intended to be a fairly significant buff, though I don't think it would solve the fundamental issues, I hope it would be a nice change.

Let me know what you think. Is it too strong? What effects would you like for your spec? Is this even the right direction to take?

Zagreus

"This leads to a situation where Warriors are mostly relegated to spamming the most effective light wounds modifiers in groups"

Huge core mechanic problem evidenced here. Power moves need to afflict/wound without ruining your wound buildup, i.e. your entire offense. I think the individual bonuses need some tweaking or changing entirely, but on the right track.

Deichtine

Using a power move for something other than double wounding would be rare.

It'd have its uses certainly but it would be more for doing an affliction through parry to get the instant kill. Or as a single opening move to try and catch a runner, eg enter and power move/afflict the legs.

This wouldn't really change what warriors do in solo or group combat. I'm either spamming low level afflictions or building wounds. So either I don't really need to use power moves or I'm going to use the power moves on double wounding.

Whats the downside to letting power moves do double wounding and afflictions? I mean if you compare some of the warrior power moves to other classes power moves and affliction and some wounding dosnt seem too crazy I guess? Not sure would require testing but it sounds like it would solve the issue your trying to solve in trying to get warriors to do something other than spam love level wounds in group combat?

As for :
Blademaster: Lunge deals the affliction the blade 100% of the time, bypass rub chance and shrugging.
Bonecrusher: Crush would delay the clotting of bruising for 4s.
Axelord: Sweep would apply a -2/-10 universal resist malus for 15s. Another sweep would increase the malus by 2 and reset the timer.
Pureblade: Assault would apply a -1/-10 mana malus for 15s. Another Assault would increase the malus by 1 and reset the timer.
Cavalier: Sunder would act as if the target bodypart were one wounds tier higher than it is. For example, you could CrushArm at heavy, and PiercePlexus stun would be 1s longer.

The blademaster one seems like a pretty nice cool upgrade. Although it would mean Heavy head and heavy chest would be an instant lock on people wouldn't it?

The Bonecrusher one is an upgrade that is semi-useless in solo combat but would be really really strong in group. Like three bone crushers would murder everyone with pulp in the first two combos.

The Axelord one sounds pretty good for group combat, not much use solo, thats basically a 12% damage boost to the target for the team which sounds pretty strong for group combat.

Not sure about the Pureblade/Cav one.

 

Shedrin

Yeah I wasn't sure on a lot of the spec effects other than Blademaster, so I'm hoping people more familiar with those specs can give ideas on what would be useful to them. For the BM one, you could do a guaranteed lock once you have heavy head and heavy chest, for 4p. But it costs less than that to escape, so I don't think that's too bad. Opens up other possibilities as well.

Veyils said:

Whats the downside to letting power moves do double wounding and afflictions? I mean if you compare some of the warrior power moves to other classes power moves and affliction and some wounding dosnt seem too crazy I guess? Not sure would require testing but it sounds like it would solve the issue your trying to solve in trying to get warriors to do something other than spam love level wounds in group combat?

I'm not opposed, but I wanted to start more conservatively. I don't think even that would solve the entire issue, though.

Zagreus

"Whats the downside to letting power moves do double wounding and afflictions? "

I thought that was implied as a baseline... if not I read into it too far, and yeah power moves should wound+aff for sure IMO. Wound and aff check comes after the wounding just like pre-overhaul. No instakills should be on a power hit like before (needs a separate hit at the right wound state).

Shedrin

Well my original idea was normal wounds + modifier, and the modifier can be none for the double wounds. Just straight up double wounds + modifier is probably fine, though.

Falaeron

The resist malus of AL and mana regen malus of PB will do nothing substantial for either of these specs in 1v1 but could have larger consequences in groups. Neither of these specs are really struggling in groups but both do have trouble in 1v1, so I don't think this is the way we want to go with these two specs. Haven't got any ideas for what would be more fitting though.

Deichtine

Axelord is a pretty good one v one spec. Its instant kill is one of the quicker and easier ones to do. It requires no afflictions and less effective wounding than basically all the other warrior specs.

Karlach

I think you mean -1/13. Otherwise a -1/-10 would instantly set to -10.

Deichtine

I was just sort of thinking about the blademaster idea, it's maybe too good, heavy wounds would allow you to basically lock people and force them to drain their power and stop their offence to counter the blademaster while at the same time allowing the blademaster to continue her own offence. 

If blademaster got this you would maybe want see one of these lock afflictions move to critical wounds. 

Sorry of agee with fal on the pure blades and axelord ones as well they just seem like group buffs

Karlach

Anything that works to affect vitals is going to cause hell in groups, while a slow attrition in solo it'll lead to stacking abuse in teams.

I'd still rather see Pureblade be able to make bleeds stick, by having some interaction with clotting.

Shedrin

I think if I make a report on this, I'll wait on the unique spec effects. I still like the idea, but it's clearly needs work. There does seem to be a consensus that the first part would be good, though.

Karlach

What if for Pureblade, instead of your mana malus idea, a certain amount of bleed can't be clotted, stacking with every subsequent assault and the timer refreshed?

For example (numbers purely for demonstration, not balance) 100 bleed per assault, so the target can't clot the last 100, then the last 200, etc etc.

Deichtine

Karlach said:

What if for Pureblade, instead of your mana malus idea, a certain amount of bleed can't be clotted, stacking with every subsequent assault and the timer refreshed?

For example (numbers purely for demonstration, not balance) 100 bleed per assault, so the target can't clot the last 100, then the last 200, etc etc.

Not sure about that, it sort sounds like Shedrins idea for making bonecrushers crush not allow clotting of brusing.

Like three pureblades assault and thats 300 bleed you can't clot, they then assault again and thats 600. So even if you clot away everything you can but the 600 they all then twist on the next balance and thats 600 to 1200 to 2400 bleed stack you have and your basically dead from the damage right?

And if the clot stack stops you for a set amount of time they could do it again, just feels a bit of a clunky mechanic.

Like either its going to be too much bleed so way to easy to build/stack or too little and not worth worrying about.

Karlach

There's ways around that, before the changes to Knighthood you had a system put in that reduced the effect of multiple attacks on one body part to stop speed wounding / insta beheading.

You could put a system in place that does the same, where subsequent power attacks within x seconds from other knights won't stack the effect.

Luce

It could have either a stun-like immunity or a damage-like mitigation-by-time thing added so that it doesn't get redonkulous in groups.

Like, one pb can assault for 100 bleed, then do it again a few seconds later for a total of 150, then again for 175, then start going up to 200, 225, etc, but two together would do 100, then 125 for 1 tic and 150 the next, then 175 and 200, then 225 and 250, etc.

Or one can build clotless bleeds and the other(s) can extend, but not build on the bleeding window.

Deichtine

But if your limiting it to only a few hundred then stopping a few hundred bleeding isn't really a big deal then. I don't think many people would have trouble just tanking and ignoring that so in which case what's the point of the ability then?

It feels like it'll just be to much or too little, there isn't really a sweet spot to aim for.

Luce

Idea being that it's on top of whatever bleeding is already going down. So, Bob is assaulted a few times, he has 900 bleed per tic, 225 of which is incurable for at least 10 seconds, the rest of which he can CLOT to mitigate. And this is also bearing in mind the caveat Karlach used initially, which is that numbers would need to be tweaked, this is just a question of whether we'd want PB offense to include incurable bleeds as part of their power attacks.

Shedrin

No single change is gonna make PB bleeds viable outside of just adding more pressure in groups. I think the idea can work with some tweaking to help with the strategy.

Though, I had another idea I'll throw out there:
What if Puissance was changed to do what the current Cavalier idea is, but no extra wounding (acting as if the bodypart you hit is one wounds tier higher than it is). Give it a power cost as well (maybe 3p?).
The most powerful options this opens up that I see are mutilates at light for AL and PB, asthma at light for BM, damagedthroat for everything but Cav. These are definitely powerful, but compared to Warrior's pre-Overhaul power, I think still weaker, though the entire context for Warrior balance has shifted quite a lot.
I like the idea because it opens up more modifiers and powerful effects for Warriors, but I'm definitely cautious of adding too much up-front power.

edit: Excluse instakills from the Puissance effect.

Luce

What do the three 'styles' do again? Maybe something could be done with those if they're underused?

Deichtine

Hmm Puissance  with wounds +1 sounds interesting.  Double mutilate for bm at heavy wounds for 6 power sounds pretty good.

How much wounding would you say puissance should do?

Not sure if it would get much use for most specs outside of group combat if it didn't do some wounds though.

Even in group combat 3 power to hit an affliction vs using 4 power for 20/24 wounds. Seems like it'd be better just piling on the wounds so you can do the afflictions properly, maybe useful in specific circumstances or as an opener to jump people to stop them running.

Karlach

I disagree that bleeding outside of groups is going to remain useless. At a few hundred bleeding twist is going to start putting some serious pressure on vitals.

Shedrin

Veyils said:

Hmm Puissance  with wounds +1 sounds interesting.  Double mutilate for bm at heavy wounds for 6 power sounds pretty good.

How much wounding would you say puissance should do?

Not sure if it would get much use for most specs outside of group combat if it didn't do some wounds though.

Even in group combat 3 power to hit an affliction vs using 4 power for 20/24 wounds. Seems like it'd be better just piling on the wounds so you can do the afflictions properly, maybe useful in specific circumstances or as an opener to jump people to stop them running.

Normal wounds (aka 0 with a modifier). I thought of just making that the effect for all power attacks, but I can see that getting out of hand pretty quickly, especially with the AL/PB mutilates. The one advantage post-Overhaul warriors have now is that there's no rng roll to get the affliction you want, so once you can get on the double mutilate train, there's really no getting off.

Karlach said:

I disagree that bleeding outside of groups is going to remain useless. At a few hundred bleeding twist is going to start putting some serious pressure on vitals.

I don't know PB numbers. If it sounds good to you and other PBs, I'd support an effect like that for 'em.

Deichtine

Not saying useless just well bleed mechanics seem like they are going to be too much or two little.

I don't see how  a few hundred bleed is going to put much pressure on anyway 200-300 unclotable bleed means that your better off doing a wounding strike than twisting as the wounding strike will cause more bleed than twist. So its just you leave 200-300 bleeding on as a minor annoyance.

If you upped it to 600 unclotable bleed then that means you can hit twist for damage and about 1450ish mana of clotting every attack if you maintain the unclotable stuff. 

So like you'd need to judge it on that but its either going to be super good or super weak I can't really see a nice number for it.

Leolamins

In principle this is a great idea and has my support.  I am too out of the loop on the mechanics so I'll let you guys argue the details.

Karlach

I'm fine with it being an attrition over time as the fight progresses, so that in long and drawn out battles it's opened up another kill method.

It doesn't need to be an amazing and instant impact, but 5-6 power attacks later you're going to notice the effect.

Deichtine

Ok this idea is totally stolen from Siam but well think of it like this:

The issue with bleed mechanics is that there is nothing stopping the enemy just clotting it all away, using all their mana to get rid of it and theres not much downside to just sitting at near no health other than in groups.

How about a damage based ability that does damage based on missing mana?

Modifier brain rattle (or make up a better name) Light/heavy/crit wounds on head. The Pureblade strikes the targets head the enemy is able to resist the damage based on their willpower. (mana)

Like just random idea numbers but:
Make the modifier like:
+1% damage at light wounds per missing mana. So at 50% mana someone is taking a 150% damage hit. So like 1k is roughly the base damage of a strike on most folks with basic buffs and resistances makes it 1500.
+2% damage at heavy wounds per missing mana. so +100% damage at 50% mana and heavy wounds for like a 2kish hit
+something big% damage at crit wounds etc etc

Maybe not exactly these numbers but I'm liking the idea of the concept. You can gate it behind wounds so that its not just a case of bashing it too early on and that the pureblade has to work towards it and then if the pureblade pushes people down to low mana they can punish them for it if they have built up for the set up. If they dont then theres no issue with sitting at low mana so its down to the set up of the warrior. Then you can counter it with smart sipping and balancing your health/mana etc.

Karlach

Except mana pressure doesn't exist in solo and qould be a nuke in groups.

Shedrin

Another crazy idea:

For 4s after an Assault, the target takes 1 wounds to that bodypart for every 100 bleeding clotted.