Melder Skillset Ideas

Orael

Here is what I currently have with the new melder revamp skillsets.

Again, the two big goals here were synergy and mirror-like skillsets. There are some unique things with each skillset, but in general, they'll all have the same effects/abilities etc.

There are a few skills I don't have names for yet. I haven't been able to come up with the flavour for those skills, but I knew what the mechanics are so I've left those blank for the moment. If you have ideas, feel free to mention them.

I did adjust Nature Flow to allow druids to flow to nodes (since mages can travel to nodes) so that's why they don't have anything similar listed here.

As always, this is an initial draft, it's subject to change but hopefully we're aiming in a good direction.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EGo87irZlUWUfTWW1yhy79zpCo4-wLUxSdUM7LUks_k/edit?usp=sharing

Edit: I forgot to mention that I'm going to be out of the country for the next week and a half or so. I should be able to check in and answer questions, but it will be more sporadic than usual. 

Pysynne

I like the ideas presented so far barring one, "hide exits" is a useless ability with client side mappers. Please come up with some new idea

edit:: Also every 'mancer and Blacktalon get their beast skill + their builder, except Hartstone. Any reason?

Keegan

Big fan, big fan.

Avurekhos

So I looked it over, and Its really great how its going so far in this initial draft. I have some questions/concerns though. 1) How is new chasm going to work, and based on the amount of balance loss in the kit will an aff from rockslide be vomiting to go hand-in-hand with that balance loss? 2) Rockslide is listed two times was that meant to happen and 3) Deathmarks, the red-headed step child of tiered affs. Its subject to diminishing returns, will that be changing/deathmarks be changing to account for the melder revamp? Otherwise new Geomancers may just be hurting rather than synergizing with anyone that has necromancy. If I remembered right too at some point things that had given one deathmark were affected by diminishing returns, not sure if that was ever fixed.


Apart from that I don't really see any other glaring issues, thank you so much for the work that's been put into this thus far.

Synl

1. Looks like Hartstone is missing an ability? They get SpiritGrasp instead of BT Swarm, Squirrels instead of BT Murder, and nothing instead of BT Spiders - looks like nothing is in place for Pathtwist?
2. Blacktalon doesn't have Meld listed. We know they'll have it, just a typo.
3. I would make the beasts for the two specs similar. Crow can have 'swoop' instead of treetoss for the flavor, but same effect. Alternatively, have the stag gore for damage + allergies. Basically, more mirroring whenever possible is something in which I am strongly in favor of.
3a) If we paid for the totem power for our pet, will we have access to whatever the new power is on our pet?

Looks fantastic! Quite excited. Wish BT had Lightning malus instead of Poison malus as their focus, may have to betray for Serenwilde so I can spam lightning like a proper shaman

Saran

Some of the missiles list chills rather than the aff for their spec.

More theme'ing but I don't like allergies as a name/skin, it just goes back to one of the early convos about wanting it to feel more deeply Seren. Probably the same with Sap.

Shango

Also Geomancers' meld currently works as a great deterrent vs burrowers...makes sense that masters of earth and stone shouldn't be stymed by people digging themselves out of sight to escape...causing decent damage each tic they remain below. That will remain in there, yes?

Though please, please fix it so the Stonerain doesn't cause a rubble effect that hits nonenemies...it's the worst part of Geo melds.

Saran

Synl said:

1. Looks like Hartstone is missing an ability? They get SpiritGrasp instead of BT Swarm, Squirrels instead of BT Murder, and nothing instead of BT Spiders - looks like nothing is in place for Pathtwist?
2. Blacktalon doesn't have Meld listed. We know they'll have it, just a typo.
3. I would make the beasts for the two specs similar. Crow can have 'swoop' instead of treetoss for the flavor, but same effect. Alternatively, have the stag gore for damage + allergies. Basically, more mirroring whenever possible is something in which I am strongly in favor of.
3a) If we paid for the totem power for our pet, will we have access to whatever the new power is on our pet?

Looks fantastic! Quite excited. Wish BT had Lightning malus instead of Poison malus as their focus, may have to betray for Serenwilde so I can spam lightning like a proper shaman

1. Just doesn't have a name, it's the ally buff / enemy debuff slot (Sparkleberry buff/malus)

3. Totem just looks like an error, it's the only ability in that slot that doesn't just do "main damage type + aff"

Maligorn

Not a fan of Aquas and Geos losing their banish abilities (especially their banish self abilities). Now druid gets a pretty unfair advantage as far as being able to soak aggression via Serpent. I'm hoping to see some serious survivability tweaks to mages given that they are all forced to take Highmagic.

EDIT: Forgot my positivity hat. Everything else looks promising to me.

Kalnid

Mag balance lock is dead. It's dead as hell. Everything vestigial that once contributed to it needs to be excised and replaced with something not useless. Compared to scarab (periodic incurable anorexia/slitthroat that currently lasts multiple minutes), chasm being a bal knock is just absolutely nothing unless it's something absurd like 4s every 7. I'd just keep it as the channeled IK but that might be mag bias talking.

If you're revamping chills to be a numeric aff I'd cut fire def affecting it entirely unless you're moving its cure to slush.

Are you imagining that eating dust will cure an aff, particulate, and DM all at once? That's the current behavior for TW/AW, which're both on steam, but that's limited to researchers and offensive healing is rare enough that it doesn't tend to crop up. Same question for cloudcoils with TW, I guess.

I'd rather see geo on exco instead of poison in terms of city synergy but it's not like aqua aligns super hard there either.

It's kind of noisy to see every single passive contribute to the stacking aff. You could make a single tick effect that delivers a lump sum instead. With how prot scrolls work now, you're already getting hit by either everything or nothing.

Saran

Are the druid affs meant to not have a cure?

Also, looking over HS just for a themeing tweak example. Could use pathtwist (as theme) instead of briars for the "keep people in" slot, you could swap six of the meld effect names/themes to the HS stones while keeping the same effects, then if you made the aff "cursed" you swap IF and Sap to something aligned with that.

example effect swaps
[spoiler]
Squirrels > Present stone: connection to the forest calling creatures to protect it
Spores > Past stone: forest punishing enemies transgressions
SeedCloud > Before-Time stone: Visions of what could have been obscure paths
Buff/Debuff > Future stone: Empowers and curses to help ensure the right future
Thorns > Broken stone: Shards slice at enemies to prevent more loses
Storm > Moon stone: Draws on the connection to the commune to empower allies and weaken enemies
[/spoiler]

Makai

I also really like where the idea is headed, but I have a concern. Does every single meld effect or ability they can use need to advance their special stacking affliction? From what I'm counting, a single meld tick could do 4-5 stacks of the special type to all being hit by it, then just use the meld-wide damage ability that is boosted by special affliction and bonded mages. I personally feel like this is going to turn into, "Stack your mages, bond a node, stall a meld tick then FIRE THE AOE KILL!" and quite possibly kill everybody in one single cast.

Aramel

Can you clarify if new Aquamancy needlerain is going to be an active action that costs power to cast instead of a passive meld effect? Not really a fan of passive stripping waterwalk/waterbreathe - it's one of the most annoying and unfun things about aquamesne currently.

Edit: I also have some concerns about new Northwind - how will it integrate with new Twister? Will people instantly get dragged down to earth once they're tossed up into the sky, or is it going to be a game of timing the tick?

Additionally, I see that new!Needlerain is advertised as "Strip waterwalk/waterbreathing (other defs)". Does this mean that if the target doesn't have waterwalk or waterbreathe, they're going to start being stripped of another def? What happens with the parallel skill in Aeromancy if they don't have levitation to strip - are they 100% going to get tossed instead, or will it too strip a different, random def?

Makai

@Aramel it looks like it is an active, based on the spreadsheet:

Needlerain

3p/5p

Strip waterwalk/waterbreathing (other defs)

single target strips both waterwalk/waterbreath at once, multiple does one at a time

Aramel

Hmm, then I have another issue with Northwind, namely that the roomwide power seems to be relatively useless. With roomwide Needlerain, if someone is stripped of waterwalking even if not also stripped of waterbreathing, they must expend eq to keep waterwalking up or else have to swim through the demense. With new roomwide Northwind, if they're stripped of levitate and not tossed into the sky, it does nothing - if they're tossed into the sky and not stripped of levitate, it also does nothing, which isn't true for the other specs.

Synl

Kalnid said:

It's kind of noisy to see every single passive contribute to the stacking aff. You could make a single tick effect that delivers a lump sum instead. With how prot scrolls work now, you're already getting hit by either everything or nothing.

I would say it's done the way it is for people who aren't trans. It makes no difference mechanically at trans to do it this way, while still keeping that excitement of 'Oh I got a new ability.' I agree it's noisy, but whatever, not like that'll matter in-game.

Makai

That doesn't really make sense if it is balanced around people not being Trans in the skill or not. They can't really make use -of- the stacking aff until Mythical or Trans for the execute ability.

Pysynne

They can however contribute to someone else doing it. Especially if say the primary melder gets killed and the secondary melder is someone not trans they are still building the death route and then if someone with the execute skill comes in, like the primary melder returns from death sequence, they have not lost all ground.

Pysynne

@Orael

Having slept on it and looking it over again I would like to state that melds with cutting/blunt damage types are hit hard by both the buff system and the current armour system. I would like to see if they are sticking to those damage types a % of their damage be unblockable to give parity to the melds that are not physical damage based and therefore don't get an armour reduction on their damage as well.

Briars: I would prefer to see Briars turned into a rubble effect rather than a webbing effect. Something that can be raised or dampened like current rubble as well. As it is currently you have to raise it and it covers random exits in the meld, but anyone with a fire enchant can just burn them away.

My preference would be something like "Pushing through the briars slows your your movement to the east."

Synl

Makai said:

That doesn't really make sense if it is balanced around people not being Trans in the skill or not. They can't really make use -of- the stacking aff until Mythical or Trans for the execute ability.

Not about balance though. Basically Kalnid was saying 'Why do 1+1+1+1 instead of +4', an argument about cleanliness/noise. Your argument is 'Why do 1+1+1+1 instead of +3', an entirely different argument and one based around balance. The latter I do not have anything to say about since we have yet to see it in action. 

Synl

Pysynne said:

@Orael

Having slept on it and looking it over again I would like to state that melds with cutting/blunt damage types are hit hard by both the buff system and the current armour system. I would like to see if they are sticking to those damage types a % of their damage be unblockable to give parity to the melds that are not physical damage based and therefore don't get an armour reduction on their damage as well.

Briars: I would prefer to see Briars turned into a rubble effect rather than a webbing effect. Something that can be raised or dampened like current rubble as well. As it is currently you have to raise it and it covers random exits in the meld, but anyone with a fire enchant can just burn them away.

My preference would be something like "Pushing through the briars slows your your movement to the east."

Regarding this and the rubble post earlier by Shango: my current take on this is that ALL the effects are being changed entirely to act one way. Ie. pull people into the meld, build specific aff. So no more rubble on the ground affecting both allies and enemies, briars causing entanglement, etc. Just the same effect, different name.

Basically, read the document as an all-new design, rather than continuing the effects as they currently exist.

@Orael can clarify?

Orael

re: Treetoss not building allergies - fixed. The reason I left it as treetoss was because treetoss felt unique and useful to HS still and subbing treetoss instead of a damage attack didn't seem unreasonable.

re:Rockslide - oops, I removed one, will need another name

re: Chasm, Needlerain, Northwind - These are periodic ticks, not just one and done. If you case Northwind on someone, they will have levitation stripped and be tossed into the air every x seconds over y time. Same with Needlerain - it will strip defs every x seconds over y time. Chasm will cause balance loss every x seconds over y time.

re: Building effects - we were using burns as the baseline and most pyro effects build burns as well.

re: Briars/Rubble - new effects, they won't be doing the old effect - unless it's specifically stated to not be changing, you can assume it is changing and the old effect isn't accurate. 

I fixed a bunch of typo/c/p issues as well

Kreon

So far these changes seem interesting, I'm still trying to wonder which would be better for Bubble mana or ego. 🤔

Kreon

Hrm also wondering since needlerain will strip waterwalk/breathe, I'm assuming Deluge will keep our areas flooded with water to deal that cold/drown damage?

Keegan

I do have a question regarding curing the -mancy afflictions.

Particulates, for instance, share the same balance as both dust afflictions and deathmarks.

If I eat dust with asthma, 4 marks, and n particulates what kind of behaviour would one expect?
Would I cure x particulates, 2 marks, and asthma or 4 marks and x particulates etc.

Pysynne

I am curious about Diminished Returns and the making sure there are none of such on these new aff builders, as deathmarks was hurt pretty bad, for no reason other than Loud Envoys, by applying Diminished Returns to them and I would not like to see that sort of thing right out of the gate here as well.

Tridemon

Not a fan of taking away the Raise/Whirl/Twirl for staves.

Enya

Pysynne said:

@Orael

Having slept on it and looking it over again I would like to state that melds with cutting/blunt damage types are hit hard by both the buff system and the current armour system. I would like to see if they are sticking to those damage types a % of their damage be unblockable to give parity to the melds that are not physical damage based and therefore don't get an armour reduction on their damage as well.

I agree, though it's been punted twice by administration/player base. If nothing else I'll be reporting it yet again in the new reporting system.  (I've floated the partial unblockable solution (and then lower the raw damage if need be) as well.)

Report #1317

Skillset:                      Skill: Armor

     Org: Hartstone           Status: Rejected Feb 2015

Furies' Decision:

We aren't going to commit to any specific changes to armour at this time, though we will

keep this report in mind when we get to Overhauling armour. In the meantime, we will look 

into damage typing on caster attacks to try to make sure they are not unduly hampered by 

armour in adition to DMP/buffs.

Problem: Of all damage types, the physical types (cutting and blunt) are the most widely

defended against, as physical armor is required to defend against monks and warriors. This 

creates a situation where characters may be defended from physical damage using two 

separate systems, partially bypassing the usual diminishing returns on damage resistance 

through the dmp system. Post-overhaul, damage resistance will be capped at 25% for each 

type, accessible only through certain strong guild skills or artifacts... except for blunt 

and cutting! After the 25% cap for damage resistance is reached, armor will protect 

against additional damage, punishing those with guild attacks that do physical damage 

(potentially even ONLY physical damage).

[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Divorce armor ratings from physical damage

                         resistance, leaving armor ratings to ONLY modify

                         wounds.   Certain types of high-end armor may add

                         physical defense levels, using the dmp-replacement

                         mechanics.

[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: Change armor so that magically sourced damage does

                         not respect armor ratings. Certain types of high-end

                         armor (masterplate) may still provide some physical

                         defense against magically sourced physical damage,

                         within the dmp-replacement mechanics.

---------------------------[Report #01191402]---------------------------

Title:      Armour

Stage:      Draft

Problem: 

Of all damage types, the physical types (cutting and blunt) are the most widely defended

against, as physical armor is required to defend against monks and warriors. This creates 

the unique situation where characters mitigate damage using two  separate static systems, 

bypassing the usual capping limitations on defensive values. Damage resistance is normally 

capped at 30% for a given type, accessible only through high value skills or expensive 

artifacts, but at baseline everyone gets a defensive buff equal to at least 5 levels of 

defensive buff, 8 for masterplate users that stacks FULLY with cutting and blunt levels, 

making these effectively a 5-8/infinite buff! This punishes casting classes that deal 

damage with physical components, some of whom have limited (or NO) options to deal damage 

without some physical part.

Solution 1:                   

Convert armour to the buff system, and adjust damage for affected classes directly. Those

wearing any kind of forged armor receive regular damage. Those wearing greatrobes or some 

other lesser amount of armor receive a physical debuff equivalent to the difference in 

armor rating within the buff/debuff system (~1-3 levels). Master Armour wearers recieve a 

2/5 defensive buff to cutting and blunt. Those who are naked/unarmoured recieve a 7 level 

debuff.

Solution 2:                   

Leave armour as is, but have caster damage attacks ignore armour values entirely. This

means not having to adjust warrior and monk damage but probably still adjusting some 

classes damage anyways.

Solution 3:                   

Just remove armour entirely. Adjust damage as needed, and give warriors a cutting/blunt

resist buff through a skillset.

Enya

For druids, one thing that I would like is an option to toggle between pulling enemies to trees and turning off the tree elevation entirely for the demesne. 

Also second to losing raise and twirl on staves entirely, at least for the active powers.  Perhaps instead of removing those powers, lower the staff in the skillset and include the power ups further in the skillset as new skills. 


For allergies, will they cure in the same way they do now over time with conditions speeding/slowing the curing? Will there still need to be an active start to the allergy levels, or will they build as a general aff on every target hit by the passives? 


I'd like to caution against too much mirroring, particularly for the druids, as the two orgs function VERY differently. An appropriate amount of bleeding on a HS meld may be far too much on a BT meld, for instance, and Scarab is dramatically more powerful than Darkseed (dramatically dramatically far and away) because they were theoretically balanced around the very specific conditions of curing mechanics pre-overhaul in relation to sap. In modern Lusternia (post-sap) darkseed is 7p to mildly annoy an enemy who is likely to tumble out of danger anyways and scarab periodically blocks one quarter of all cures, on a high-traffic dangerous curing balance.  Things like that will need to have a really critical second pass once details of actual skillset focus are zeroed in on.

Beyond that, I have a few minor points but can't really say anything major about the skill specifics without information about instakills. That's really the center around which the skillsets build, and the usefulness of the skills in a pretty large part centers around that. Like, allergies will extend bal/eq but... why? Without those finishing pieces to put the skills in context only really glaring problems can be addressed.

Auriella

At first glance Aquas looks fairly neat. If you're going to choose an affliction set I would suggest dust to help stick the chills. As for a drain, if you're going for synergy with other guilds, then probably mana, but if you want to help the mage themselves then definitely ego.

Also I was just wondering, since I've wanted it since I started, can we also please please please rename Preserve to something like Cold Snap and possibly add some flavour to the messages since it currently looks like regular freeze with a secondary line?  

I too am not sure why or like the idea of removing the twirl/raise/whirl from the staff, I thought it added a little flavour to the skill rather than it just being a weapon.

Orael

What about those twirl/raise/whirl did people like? Is it just the fact that there were actually things you can do with your staff? Whirl staff for everyone just revealed hidden people which I feel is kind of useless now a days, but I may be off. The rest of the stuff was different things with differing strengths and usefulness.  We can bring that back if it's something that's going to be really missed.

I want to point out again, that we're using burns as a baseline. Each leveling aff will be cured by something, but it'll function like burns where you need specify to cure it (it won't cure additionally like other levelled affs) Right now, burns only cure when you apply body. 

That's also why everything will slow down bal/eq, because that's what burns does right now, as well as reduce specific resists.

We could switch Mag to Excoro if that makes more sense, I don't think that's a big deal, and it's still thematically appropiate.