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New tree for Arcane Blade

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 8:17 pm
by Dekar
Arcane Blades dont have a lot unique skills at the moment, and none of them really gives you the feeling of playing someone who is trained in both, martial and magic arts.
I want to give them a few of the cool and handy skills they deserve to have.

This tree is probably best used as advanced tree unique to Arcane Blades.

Advanced Arcance Combat:
-Enchanted Slash: Attack that deals x% damage, converts physical damage to arcane damage. Has a low cooldown.
-Magic-Letting: Attacks an enemy, reducing his resistances by x%, stealing y magic and making him bleed for z turns.
-Lightning Cut: Attacks an enemy for x% damage, convertes physical danage to lightning damage.
Releases a lightningnova that hits the target and all enemies in range of y of the target for z lightning damage with a chance to daze.
-Overcharge: Uses x% of current mana. Attack that deals y additional arcane damage based on mana used.
For every z arcane damage dealt in the attack, a magic missile will be released from the target to attack a random enemy in sight of the target.

Re: New tree for Arcane Blade

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:08 pm
by lukep
Dekar wrote: -Enchanted Slash: Attack that deals x% damage, converts physical damage to arcane damage. Has a low cooldown.
Sounds pretty good, simple and thematic.
Dekar wrote: -Magic-Letting: Attacks an enemy, reducing his resistances by x%, stealing y magic and making him bleed for z turns.
Not too sure about this one, it sounds more like antimagic that a magic talent to me.
Dekar wrote:-Lightning Cut: Attacks an enemy for x% damage, convertes physical danage to lightning damage.
Releases a lightningnova that hits the target and all enemies in range of y of the target for z lightning damage with a chance to daze.
I like the idea of it creating a nova centred on the enemy, but making the attack deal lightning damage instead of physical pushed this skill farther to the "pure magic" side than I would have done.
Dekar wrote:-Overcharge: Uses x% of current mana. Attack that deals y additional arcane damage based on mana used.
For every z arcane damage dealt in the attack, a magic missile will be released from the target to attack a random enemy in sight of the target.
Sounds pretty good, I like it. One issue would be that it seems like a nice bosskiller with the damage boost from mana, but if it is used without enemies nearby, the bolts are wasted.

Re: New tree for Arcane Blade

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 12:12 am
by Aquillion
Some thoughts...

An instant-speed spell that makes your next melee-range personal attack into a long-ranged one instead, by having your weapon instantly fly out of your hand to strike your target, then return to you. Stunning Blow, Sunder Armour, and Sunder Arms could all be used with this, as could a normal attack. Naturally, it would be compatible with Arcane Combat. Maybe higher talent levels could make it last longer or increase the damage / accuracy.

A similar spell that makes your weapon leap out of your hands to hit a sequence of enemies in range, like chain lightning.

An "arcane rush" talent that teleports you straight to the enemy you want to attack, maybe with a blast of elemental damage when you arrive?

A 'dancing blade' persist that has a chance of getting extra attacks on enemies within a certain range of the target you attack (as your weapon leaps from enemy to enemy automatically, for free?) Like the above chain lightningish one, but randomly as a persist, for free. Higher levels could increase the probability and the potential cap on the number of attacks. Of course, each hit would potentially trigger Arcane Combat.

As an aside, it would be neat to have a free class talent you could use to turn off / turn on the various things compatible with Arcane Combat individually, so you can choose what it uses and what it doesn't.

And it might also be nice if they had a cold tree. I don't quite get why they don't. It seems like the Archmage water tree would be much, much more useful in close combat than either fire or lightning... I mean, yes, it wouldn't be unique, but it feels like they'd be more inclined to use it differently -- cornering one enemy and using tidal wave to push away everyone else, or advancing with tidal wave up, or wading into a bunch of foes and relying on blizzard for crowd control. Fire and lightning don't so much lend themselves to close combat; the water tree does.

They'd need something to protect themselves from their own field effects (already a problem with Inferno, would become bigger if they had the acid one in the water tree.) I suggest a passive or sustain that reduces damage from field effects you're standing in by 15% or even 20% per level (maybe just your own ones) and adds that amount of the field's damage and type to your melee attacks. Though, with Inferno, that damage might get a bit out of hand... perhaps don't add the full amount to their attacks. But anyway, this would encourage them to use those spells to support their close-range combat, while currently, those spells tend to conflict with close combat a bit.

Re: New tree for Arcane Blade

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 7:06 am
by Nagyhal
I've been playing an Arcane Blade for much of tonight, and I came here with the very same intentions- to post my own ideas for this class that dearly needs them! All this is conditional, as well as hastily scribbled down, so just look at the flavour for now, as I'll amend everything when I wake up tomorrow afternoon. Apologies for toes trodden on and all.

For me, these things are definitely locked, perhaps higher-level or even secret talent trees you won't see every build, and express a deep specialization of any arcane blade's battle training.

Enhanced Armour (class)

Flickering Form/ sustain
Your armour is heavy and wearies you, impeding your magicks; you displace it from this world, with a little of the space around it. You suffer 7->35% less fatigue from armour, and any enemy that attacks you has a 5->15% chance to be displaced, teleporting 3 squares away from you randomly; likewise, projectiles have a similar chance to pass through you.

Fortress Arcana/ passive
Less militant mages see armour as an impediment, and a crude sort of materialist crutch. You know that the thickness of your carapace protects and steadies you not only against your enemies' attacks, but against the wild arcane energies you must wrench from the planes when in the heat of a skirmish; gain spellpower equal to 50->125% of your armour. You may activate this ability to dig in, entrenching your position; you then gain double the spellpower for 3->5 turns, but cannot move or be knocked back.

Armour Inversion/ sustain
As much as armour safeguards you against physical attacks, it is largely useless against an elemental or an arcane onslaught. You use magic to turn the nature of this material bulwark on its head; you have 0 armour, but gain %30->%65 of your armour's total value as resistance against all elemental attacks. Each time you are hit by an elemental attack, this dimishes by 5% as your wizardrous exertions are strained, but this penalty recovers by 1% per turn.

Guardian Arms/ activate
In the fray of a pitched battle, a suit of tightly enclosing armour can become a cage as much as a sanctuary. Magic has an answer to that. You teleport up to 3->5 squares away, outside of your armour and without your weapon, and you are now naked. Your panoply of arms, however, goes on fighting without you, a golem of evacuated equipment. Your golem fights for 4->9 turns before it ceases to toil, but you may simply walk back to your equipment to rejoin it. Or, you may wait for this spell to cooldown in order to recall it.

Imbued Shield (class) shield-only

Enhanced Barrier/ sustain
Each time you dodge an enemy's attack in melee, you have a 35%->85% chance to deal your Fiery Hands and Cold Hands damage to it. Also, when hit by a physical blow dealing over 15% of your total life, you have a 5%->25% chance to activate Earthen Barrier without putting it on cooldown.

Mirror Phalanx/ activate
You create 2->6 evanescent mirror images of yourself to stand in line by your side, so that your shield may hold more firmly with others abutting it. These mirror images do not attack, but they share your defenses and any shield effects you have that deal damage, they also have. Allies gain +3->7 armour and +5->7 defense for up to 2 Mirror Phalanx shield warriors by their side. Mirror Phalanx mirror images have 25->33% of your full HP and last for 5->7 turns.

Energy Dispersion/ sustain
Each time you are hit by a ranged elemental attack, your shield disperses some of that energy upon the enemies harassing you in melee, reflecting 3->15% of that damage to each foe in any adjacent square.

Absorptive Shield/ activate
You hunker down against your shield, bearing the brunt of all magical artillery; never flinching in either the physical or the sorcerous struggle. For 3-7 turns or until you engage in melee, you gain a 15%->25% increased resistance to all elemental attacks, and with each elemental attack that hits you, you gain 25->30% of that damage as mana.

Runeblade (class)

Runic Combat/ sustain
You weave your runic invocations into the flow of combat as well as you do the spells you trained with. On a hit, once per turn, if Arcane Combat does not activate, you have a 23%->38% chance to activate a random attack rune, blasting your foe with it. Runes activated in this manner have a 5->9 turn reduction in cooldown and saturation duration.

Runic Flame Ward/ activate
You write a warding rune into the air far away from you, slashing any nearby foes as you do this. Within a range of 6, create a wall of 3 squares of runic admonitions, which will be facing you. These squares last for 4->9 turns and deal XX fire damage to any foe passing them, burning them for XX over 3 turns. Also, you attack up to three adjacent enemies in that direction for %50->%80 damage.

Runesunderer/ passive
With greatly finessed handling of the tip of a blade, you can etch the runes you invoke in combat into the very flesh of your foes, and even gouge them into the plates of a resilient armour, or a monster's thick hide. Damaging runes used actively against an adjacent foe deal 110->150% of full damage; in addition, sundering attacks from the two-handed weapon tree cause the "Runesundered" status effect, making them susceptible to harsher status effects from your rune-based attacks.

Runecrazed/ passive
Each time you damage an enemy, for each enemy you gain 1 point of the Runecrazed effect up to 14->42; each point of Runecrazed gives you an extra 1% damage with attack runes and 1% power with any other rune.

Edgeshaper (class) 2hw-only

Flaming Scythe/ activate
You transmute your blade into arcing flames; for 5->10 turns, your weapon becomes a shattering scythe of searing pyromantic power. Your weapon now deals fire damage, and with each enemy you kill in melee, your Flame spell comes off cooldown. (Icy Hands cannot have any effect for the duration of this spell).

Lightning Lance/ sustain
Tempering your implement with channeled thunder, you meld it into the shape of the sky's wrath, making its mundane substances into a lance of writhing lightning that strikes far and sharp. You deal lightning damage with your attacks, and felling a foe in melee causes your Lightning spell to recharge off cooldown. Also, all Lightning spells are enhanced by casting your melee lance into the fray, which then returns to you; you gain one free melee attack against the first target of each Lightning spell you cast, even at range. This spell drains XX mana for each turn it is active.

Ice Axe/ activate
You chill your weapon in the abyss of elemental winters, encrusting it in a heavy carapace of ice and congealing upon it one great wicked axe-like edge to fell your foes; you lose 25% movement and attack speed, but all approaching enemies suffer 6-25 ice damage per turn, and your weapon gains a cleave effect for 35-80% damage, in addition to XX bonus ice damage. With each attack after the third, the ice has a cumulative 15->7% chance to shatter, ending the spell.

Prismatic Steel/ sustain
Your blade is no stranger to the deathly embrace of any of the elements; mastering them all, you combine them into one cataclysmic arsenal of transmutated metal. Each turn your weapon becomes a different element, which you may learn before the attack; with each strike, the weapon's attack passes through your enemies and as it is refracted it beams off toward a random nearby enemy, though not back at the caster. This prismatic attack has the same damage as a max level Lightning, and with increasing talent levels, the chance of inflicting devastating status effects increases. This spell drains XX mana for each turn it is active.

Re: New tree for Arcane Blade

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 9:24 am
by Grey
Whilst I'm not against all of these ideas I do think some are stretching the class into far more magical grounds than it currently stands in. Currently the class sits under warriors, and plays like a warrior. It is based mostly around sustains rather than activated talents - indeed, it's the only class for which I only need one pane of the talents shortcuts (I always remove sustains from the shortcuts). In most situation the default maneuvre is a straight, simple attack. It is supported by sustains and passives which enhance those attacks, and some activated skills to help do additional damage or cripple the enemy. It also has some movement and shielding options (though they are initially locked). Overall it does not have a lot of activated talents that it circles through or even that many interesting skills to use only in certain tactical scenarios, instead relying on enhancements to base abilities. The many magical activated attacks in this thread do not gel well with the current class image.

However I think there are some interesting ideas in this thread which could form the basis of a whole new class focused much more on magic than on combat. Something that would sit under the Mage class type, but would use weapons as well, and would essentially be using these weapons as projectiles and conduits for their spells. A bit like Mindslayers but with a more arcane theme.

Re: New tree for Arcane Blade

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 9:27 am
by Reverend Bizarre
Whoah, that's a large bunch of nifty talents, Nagyhal. These talent trees definitely fit the class and give it quite a bit of versatility. Some thoughts about talents:

1. Flickering Form: random teleportation may be quite annoying. What about simply increasing the user's defense?
2. Guardian Arms: looks amazing and unique, but I don't understand what happens with equipment when golem's life time comes to the end. It simply drops to the ground or is it gone with the golem, but available again when you recall him via the spell? Also, that golem better be darn strong, because if he doesn't manage to dispatch or properly distract opponents, then you're screwed.
3. Energy Dispersion: I think it should be toned down (mainly, dispersion shouldn't happen all the time) and become a passive skill.
4. Runic Flame Ward: well, it's not a bad talent, but it's not that special. Here's my suggestion.

Runic Sign (activate, usable within a certain range): the target of this spell is marked with a runic sign, which pins it to the ground for X turns. If target dies while the runic sign is still active, the arcane explosion is triggered, which hurts all those who were in vicinity of target (even the caster). Damage is based on spellpower.

5. Runeblade and Enhanced Armour (well, at least the latter) should be available from the start, while others should be available from level 10 via spending a category point.

Re: New tree for Arcane Blade

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 5:53 pm
by edge2054
I'm with Grey on this one. While I think there's a lot of neat talent ideas in this thread I think some of them are quite a stretch for the current class and don't gel well.

That said I think Dekar's initial tree could work as an advanced tree with some minor tweaking.

To elaborate.

Enchanted Slash - I think this is good as it is.
Magic Letting - This could be an interesting passive. Have it convert all arcane damage dealt to arcane damage overtime that restores a small amount of mana on tick.
Lightning Cut - This is a neat idea but the rest of the tree is very arcane focused. So I would rewrite this is an arcane effect of some kind.
Overcharge - This would work nicely as a passive boost to Enchanted Slash. Just have it fire X bolts (no more then one per enemy) of arcane damage every time Enchanted Slash hits (much like Corona does with crits). The reason I say just enchanted slash instead of all arcane damage is because it could get really cheesy really fast otherwise, especially with dual wielding. If you wanted it to proc everytime arcane damage was dealt I'd make it a sustain that drained mana every time it fired.