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- - Skill balancing (http://www.soldak.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3419)

OK this thread is for skill balancing, as the title says. Post all your observations and recommendations in here please, even if you posted them elsewhere.

I'll just post Alstein's post from the other thread, since he already put in a lot of effort:

Quote:

Originally Posted by alstein (Post 22293)

Ok, I'll list by class what I see as useless in the base game, starting with priests

Paladin Shield Bash- just an underpowered skill across the board
Zeal- not worth 6 pts.

Paladins need more in general I believe, Din's Additionals has some great stuff- though some of it is OP in my eyes.

Healer

Cure Poison- needs to be linked to a Cure Fire like in Din's additions, maybe even a Cure Acid.

Holy Shield - useful, but needs to be stronger or have longer effective time or less recharge time with level. This is a general problem with your skills.

Shaman-

Champion- recharge time too long

I'd say Shamans need more skills also.

Warrior-

Weaponmaster

Power Strike- skill isn't bad, but Perfect Strike is better for a higher mana cost, which is negligible, so it's underpowered in that sense. Maybe if you used devastating blow more, which I don't use, but can see a reason to use.

Gladiator

Cleave- the damage malus needs to go.

Savage Strike- unsure it's worth 6 points

Defender

Shield Bash- see Paladin

Revenge- seems too situational with too short a time to use. Maybe the skill should be automatic?

Retaliation- not worth 8 points.

Rogue-

Thief

Caltrops- too much cooldown time, maybe cut it by level some?

Concentration Skills- too much cooldown time here also

Trickster

Sleight of Hand- does anyone use this?

Feint- not worth 6 points, effect doesn't last long enough?

Assassin

Spot Vulnerability- too expensive

Critical Strike- should be automatic perhaps?

Fire Mage

Flame Blade- time should increase with level up to recharge time. 5secs/level perhaps

Ice Mage

Ice Armor- less recharge time/longer effect time by level

Concentration- why is this a 1pt skill for gladiators and 6pt for Ice Mages?

Permafrost- this is worth 8 pts how? It's nowhere near as good as the good 8 pt skills.

Magician

Blinding Flash- needs a slight power up or reduction in cooldown timer

Arcane Blast- should be quicker

Magic Shield- needs to be stronger, or less recharge time

Arcane Drain- should perhaps give the caster life and have duration increased to 10 secs?

Arcane Swarm- horrible at 8pts. Needs to do vastly more damage.

Archer

Marked for Death- vastly overpriced at 6pts. Might be worth 1 or 2.

Hunter

fine

Druid

Mana Regen- needs to be a passive effect- not a spell, or have its effect increase by 1min/level until it reaches 5.

Conjurer

Curses- need either a range increase with level, or a separate skill for 2-3 pts which increases radius by 2 ft/level, capped at 7.

fine, but needs an additional skill

Necromancer

Lich- could stand to be cheaper, or a stronger effect

Sorcerer

Chain Lightning- needs to work on more targets

Thunderbolt - if stun is nerfed, lightning mastery should work on it

Ball Lightning/Lightning Swarm- need more effectiveness

Reaver

Charge, Rampage- need cooldowns reduced by level
Breach- needs to be cheaper 4 pt skill perhaps

Warden
Shield Blast- why is a 3pt skill= 1pt Shield Bash for other classes, and Shield Bash underpowered as is?

Shield Sweep- for 8 pts should have a minimal recharge time

Wards- should also have recharge reduce by level

Demonologist

Inferno- underpowered, should be a toggle (maybe have it drain mana until you turn it off)

Blood Sacrifice- damage you take should go up by less per level. Maybe +1 per level, otherwise fine

Blood Rage- underpowered at 6 pts. Maybe should be automatic

Circles- should have reduced recharge time by level.

I dont agree with 2 of the points you made. Blood rage is very good if you get hit alot, and with an aoe attack, you can clear the room with 1 casting (plus aoe) and more with more castings of it. Maybe increase the damage a bit, but overall i think its fine. The circle of protections are another one. They eventually have a reuse time of 60 seconds at lvl 8, and they last 60 seconds. There's not much more you can get it and you can use both at the same time too. Circle of protections go up in time by 5 seconds per lvl. Everything else sounds fair and i am for it.

Especially the blood sacrifice. That could be a great skill, but unfortunately way too much health over time.

Rogue impressions

OK just played with a classic rogue for the first time. Granted, it was just the first town and my impressions could change once I go on to higher level towns, but at least so far, this class just kicks butt -- perhaps too much butt. I'll need other people to tell me if that changes later on.

Stealth seems SUPER powerful. This is the first town I've actually run out of quests for! Optional ones too! Just go in, get the stuff done, and come out. At this point (unless people with more experience say otherwise) I'd like to see it nerfed somewhat. For example, bumping into monsters could make you visible; making noise around monsters could make you visible. In my mind it should be something I need to be very careful about rather than running around willy nilly getting all my quests done. Oh -- make me move slowly when stealthed. Makes sense, no?

And I disagree with Alstein -- Sleight of Hand, especially when stealthed, can seemingly make an entire army tear each other apart as you stand idly by.

Don't base observations on just the first part of the game. Please also don't try and alter the game based on early observations. All characters are badazz in the beginning and all the way up to the 20's or 30's. It is after that that you see how things really work.

Believe me, there are plenty of creatures that can spot a stealthed character straight up without you either being close or doing something to get spotted. Krall also can make a mark on you that makes it easier for you to be spotted(though not sure how this works). I also think that higher level creatures may be more observant.

A lot of badazz characters end up being what is known as a glass cannon. At higher levels you can die in one shot, or be surrounded and overwhelmed. My level 31 trickster/weaponmaster is and has been badazz, but with experience I know that I am going to run into serious problems with having enough armor and enough vitality. At higher levels Stealth is the only thing making that character viable. But I will have to play within that stealthed window and when I get out of it I am toast. Here is a scenario:

I am stealthed, I try and pick off as many from a group as I can with shuriken and stealth tactics. I then, having stealth active, run in and hopefully kill all survivors within 5 seconds. When that doesn't work, it is time to run, or smoke screen and run until I can get out of view to re-activate stealth.

Anyway, long story short - I think Stealth is fine as it is. I would rather skills that aren't so good get a boost instead of nerfing anything. Also, I could have sworn that I saw a post the other day, Bluddy, that said you haven't taken a character out of the 20's yet. Is that true?

I think Fire Elemental (wizard; fire mage subclass) could use a boost.

I'll preface this by saying that I know the wizard class has a lot of things going for it, and that summons/pets are the specialty of the conjurer; these factors must of course be considered when balancing the fire elemental.

That said, I feel as though the fire elemental still just isn't really worth the very high point investment. The limited lifespan, limited survivability within that lifespan, long cooldown, and limited damage potential really make me think it's just wiser to invest one's points in simply killing or crowd controlling the enemy directly. I believe that the elemental could really use a boost to make it at least worth a look.

I'd say multishot (ranger; archer subclass) could use some tweaking too. From my own experiments with it, it seems more like a close quarters only "shotgun" blast at best. The very wide spread of the shots make it a questionable and inefficient ability for any sort of distance work. Of course, distance work is sort of the point to the ranger. One problem I see with it is the "side shots" inevitably seem to end up firing off harmlessly into empty space or into the sides of walls.

Tightening up the "spread" or "cone" (or making it into more of a cone style attack) of the shots might be interesting, for starters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluddy (Post 22311)

OK just played with a classic rogue for the first time. Granted, it was just the first town and my impressions could change once I go on to higher level towns, but at least so far, this class just kicks butt -- perhaps too much butt. I'll need other people to tell me if that changes later on.

Stealth seems SUPER powerful. This is the first town I've actually run out of quests for!

I'd say stealth is fine where it is. Everything tends to be pretty easy in the first town, with just about any character imo. When playing a conjurer recently, for the first town I mostly just ran around beating things down in melee with a staff in cloth armor and just pretty much neglected to invest in any stats. I could one shot almost anything with a rank 1/tier 1 damage spell. Of course, as the levels go by, that situation changes, and rightfully so. Bear in mind also that enemies tend to be less aggressive and less "perceptive" of the player in general at earlier levels; this changes later too.

Getting back to stealth, I have a level 53 trickster hybrid and while stealth remains useful, it does lose at least some effectiveness as the levels go by. Again, I think it's fine where it is.

As for rogues in general, I'd say they're fine too. One personal gripe I have with the rogue class is the lack of strong area damage. Charged strike is fine and all if you keep dropping the points in non-stop, but when things get heavy, I really wish for the good old one-two warrior punch of whirlwind+cleave.

I'm finding Permafrost extremely useful for complementing Shatter (which is the only ice-based attack spell that doesn't cause Frost),
mainly for keeping the more dangerous monsters from catching up with you while on the run from their melee attacks.
My only gripe is that its blast can't be used to put out fires. But yes, 8 skill points is a bit too much.

Also, Ice Storm and Frost Nova seem way too weak against higher level monsters, unless you spam 'em like there'd be no tomorrow.

Raise Dead:

I have a couple gripes with it.

The first is why are so many creatures excluded from this? Does an Orc have no soul? Why can't I bring back amophs(even the smallest little one?)? Once brought back, why can't I make them use heatlh/life stones?

The second is the new fear algorithm or whatever. Sometimes your pets just seem to stay afraid all the time. Some will be afraid in town. Some just run around and around the area all afraid while yourself and the other non-iffy(if you know what I mean)pets do the fighting. Why should something brought back from the dead even be afraid?

The thief class is not very strong compared to the trickster and even the assassin. You do get dagger mastery, thats true. And the concentrations sometimes help, but you cant rely on them. What i find is horrible about the thief is the main attack you get-slice. It is 1.6 seconds long, which is not bad but the damage part is at the end which makes it horribly unreliable and sometimes can kill you. When i used to play dop, slice was fast and did its damage and that was it. I think if you wanted to make the thief class better, slice should turn into 1.1 or 1.2 seconds long. The thief should be about speed, not a slow attack that does more damage, but rarely connects.

I think this would help make the class more viable. The extra damage from time isnt worth it as the attack damage only goes up by 15% anyway.

I also think that dagger mastery might be worthwhile if you threw in a little armor piercing. Daggers dont do much damage, so even 5 armor piercing would be cool to add.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Max_Powers (Post 22322)

Here's why you can't raise orcs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow (Post 12729)

The lore goes something like this: a necromancer once tried to create some zombies from live elves (he thought they were dead). The raise failed of course since they weren't dead. However, the spell transformed the elves into orcs and then the necro was promptly ripped into shreds.

An amorph is essentially an animate ball of mud, so when it dies it returns to mud. Animating mud is different from animating a corpse.

Your army can't heal from a health stone because that would make it a little too convenient. The compromise is that they will now heal at Din's altar -- full health but requires a trip to town.