Idea on making mindslayer striking tree interesting

[Suslik]

How it currently works:
3 talents: kinetic, thermal and charged strike. First one adds pin, second one adds frozen and third one lowers stun resistance. Additionally we made kinetic strike deal bonus damage on frozen targets and charged strike deal mindor AoE damage on frozen creatures. Though I still think it's not enough and suggest adding more synergies to make the tree unique and interesting.

By adding such synergies we can combine the three talents in different combinations to get absolutely different results based on situatons. Ideally all combinations are viable in some situations and no combination is superior to others. To get the idea imagine invoker in dota or mages in magicka or ultima where we have limited runes that give completely different effects based on their order.

So there are 3 talents and 3 debuffs. In first glimpse we'll need 9 synergies but actually effects should not synergise with themselves so that only leaves 6 combinations. AND charged strike already lowers stun resistance so combinations like charged->kinetic and charged->thermal are fine already. Actually we'll need only 4 specific synergies:

kinetic strike on frozen target
thermal strike on pinned strike
charged strike on pinned strike
charged strike on frozen strike

Actually kinetic on frozen is implemented already but to make it more interesting I suggest shattering iceblock for bonus damage based on iceblock health. Charged on frozen deals minor AoE lightning damage but that does not look too interesting. Some buff removal would be cool to have in one of those combos.

What we are looking for:
- ideas on interesting effects on these 4 synergies
- ideas how to explain them in skill description lore

[edge2054]

I can't really comment on the specific changes as I haven't played with that tree enough. But I will say that I haven't played with that tree because it felt really boring and kinda tacked on.

More synergy would certainly make it more interesting and give me a reason to take another look at it.

That said not everything has to appeal to people like me. Maybe other people really like the simplicity. :shrugs:

[jotwebe]

• kinetic on frozen: I like the shatter-like effect suggestion
• thermal on pinned: heat-conducting wall: the cold spreads along the wall, dealing ice damage and pinning the targets adjacent to the wall square closest to the target (with the target in between) the next 0-2 wall squares or heat-conducting ground: damage increased and pin duration extended
• charged on pinned: could be an electricity themed version of one of the above, or shocking weapon: disarm if weapon is made of metal
• charged on frozen: snow static: the charged iceblock has its health reduced by X%, if it is destroyed it explodes in an electrically charged storm of ice chunks: do a phys/cold/lighting AoE that can cause bleeding or stuns (or daze)

[Suslik]

Another idea

Thermal on pinned:
Create freaking icewall radius 1-2(blocks movement and line of sight) around you and the target creature preventing anyone from solving your business with the foe for 1-3 turns.

[HousePet]

Maybe just make each individual talent more interesting by itself, instead of adding more synergies?

[Melkhior]

Maybe just make each individual talent more interesting by itself, instead of adding more synergies?

That can also help. I also think that shorter cooldown is needed or at least some way to make it shorter. Most of time as meelee slayer i use basic attack instead of meelee talents because they are on cooldown.

[HousePet]

Well if you include TK Smash, its 4 talents with 8 turn cooldown. So 1 every 2 turns. Not terrible, but still kinda low.

[HousePet]

Have pondered.

Am thinking that at level 5 Kinetic Strike could hit twice and Transcendent TK could make it a rush style attack.

Thermal Strike could change to a three target sweep attack at level 5. Transcendent PK could then upgrade the secondary to a width 3 wall shape doing cold, freeze and icewall. Transcendent and Thermal Strike 5 would make a width 5 wall.

Charged Strike could be a thrust across three targets at level 5, basically a range 3 beam of melee attacks. Transcendent EK would still upgrade the side effect to a three target chain lightning. But with Charged Strike 5 it would be a 5 target chain lightning instead.

[Suslik]

Sorry I'm really not a fan of having multiple abilities that just deal damage in various ways. We already have auras that are not worth spiking because there are far too many abilities that just deal damage already.

Increasing area like from 1-target to 3-target sweep may be a thing that some trapless-rogue class or a cursed wants but not a mindslayer who already has plenty of stuff that does AoE just better.

Rush style attack would be interesting if we did not have enough movement abilities which we certainly do already. Other buffs like increasing number of targets from 3 to 5 is just generic and far from being unique/interesting.

It's extremely difficult to come up with a truly unique talent like disruption shield or path of the sun especially when it comes to offensive abilities. Developing a full tree of 4 unique and interesting abilities is apparently even more difficult. But it's usually way easier to make multiple talents interact in an interesting way: solipsist's distortion tree, corruptor's epidemic stuff, sun paladin's light tree - all of them are interesting not because some spell starts hitting 5 targets instead of 3 on tl5 or deal damage more than anything else does, instead they are interesting because of rewarding interaction between talents that allows creative and synergetic play with as few abilities as 1 tree provides. I understand that theoretically it's just my vision of design but I see no reasons to think otherwise especially considering that class under consideration is one of the hardest to unlock and is supposed to have one of the most advanced but unique and rewarding mechanics.

[HousePet]

also suggest instead of dealing extra phys damage on frozen targets, deal % of iceblock health instead and shattering the iceblock. maybe as an icestrom in AoE over time which fits great thematically: you swirl the iceblock shards with your telekinetic powers.

You just suggested more damage and more targets with this synergy.
I'm going mad here!

[Suslik]

"more targets at tl5" != "more targets if you rotate abilities in certain way". same goes to damage. basically via synergetic way you trade area for damage or for debuffs or for penetration(i mean stun resistance lowering) - you can never get all at once this way. that's completely different thing to having 3 abilities that just deal damage and/or have AoE that you can simply spam in any order you like.

[HousePet]

That stuff was intended to make the base talent interesting. It wasn't intended for making it interesting to use the abilities in different orders.
If a single talent isn't interesting on its own, its not going to be used.

[Suslik]

If a single talent isn't interesting on its own, its not going to be used.

are any of distortion tree talents interesting on their own?

[HousePet]

Yes, they all do damage, apply an interesting debuff that will interact with things outside of the Distortion category and they have different shapes.

I'm currently thinking up a charge building system for these Strikes, but these charges will affect the attack done after you build it up, so the build up talents need something interesting while you are building up.

Also, these talents need to remain interesting against weaker creatures, where you aren't going to have a chance to string three attacks together.

[Suslik]

Also, these talents need to remain interesting against weaker creatures, where you aren't going to have a chance to string three attacks together.

oh wow. good luck making interesting a fight that you can win with casting 1 damaging ability anyway.