ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Since arcane blades use dual wielding lets replace Two handed maiming tree with dual wielding tree. It has 0 sense for them to have opened tree which they cant use anyway.

Dual-wielding is optional for Arcane Blades. They are perfectly capable of sticking to a two-hander and using the two-hander skills.

There may be an argument for switching them to be a dual-wielding class, but I'd personally prefer if their skills were changed to only affect attacks from the main hand (arcane combat, arcane destruction, fiery hands, frost hands). Reduces their dual-wielding potential (without eliminating it, mind) whilst giving them a more cohesive class image.

Dual wielding is optimal for arcane blades even now. Whats the point in having tree which y cant use after 10 min of the game at all? I dont get that logic at all.
Honestly it would be much better for arcane blade to remove this tree and open some closed tree as a tradeoff.

I think they could use a class-specific two handed tree, frankly.

Some thoughts:

1 Forceful Rejection - range 1, small cooldown - knocks target away from caster a distance X. Y% chance to daze. This spell is a free-action. X, Y functions of skill level and some stat (magic is boring, how about cunning?) Though it doesnt cause any damage directly, knocking mobs into stuff (like other mobs) does damage them.

2 Now you see me - sustain, long cooldown - When a melee blow would normally hit you, you are instead moved to a nearby space (another space adjacent to the attacker? adjacent to your own space?). Skill level would drop cost/cooldown. This small transport costs a small amount of mana, which if unavailable, will end the sustain and fail. There is also a strong chance after each transport that the sustain ends (maybe 40%->20%?).

3 Exclusion Zone - sustain - effectively gives X% chance to do a forceful rejection with each blow. Two-handed weapons only please! X depends on skill level and... weapon weight! (yeah to new mechanics!)

4 Repudiation - medium cooldown - duration X, +Y% to critical hit chance when hitting a dazed or stunned target with two-handers. X, Y dependent on skill level.

Why would arcane blades want to knock an opponent back...? :P

Grey wrote:There may be an argument for switching them to be a dual-wielding class, but I'd personally prefer if their skills were changed to only affect attacks from the main hand (arcane combat, arcane destruction, fiery hands, frost hands). Reduces their dual-wielding potential (without eliminating it, mind) whilst giving them a more cohesive class image.

I dislike this solution. Dual-wielding Arcane Blades are fun as they are now, and aren't particularly overpowered; there's no reason to nerf them (and I don't see the advantage to encouraging Arcane Blades to go two-handed.)

If you want to make two-handed viable, give them some sort of advantage for it. Eg. multiply the spellpower of any Arcane Combat-cast spells by 1.5 if you're using a two-handed weapon.

I like Edge's ideas in the other thread for boosting two-handers, but it does seem a bit silly that the class that benefits most is Berserkers (who need no help!) I think part of the problem is that unlike in many other games dual-wielding is easy to do and has zero drawbacks. But nerfing dual-wielding is seen as unfair...

Grey wrote:I like Edge's ideas in the other thread for boosting two-handers, but it does seem a bit silly that the class that benefits most is Berserkers (who need no help!) I think part of the problem is that unlike in many other games dual-wielding is easy to do and has zero drawbacks. But nerfing dual-wielding is seen as unfair...

It does reduce weapon damage by 50% on your off-hand weapon.

Part of the problem, perhaps, is that there are so many things that it doesn't reduce. But honestly, I can't say that dual-wielding feels overpowered right now...

Some thoughts on a two-hander tree for Arcane Blades
To stay consistent with the class name, I suggest disallowing greatmauls, since those aren't blades. Greatswords and greataxes only would be fitting.

Twohanded Weapons: Arcane Blade
1) Soulblade (sustain)
- when this sustain is active, you gain a counter status effect: Soulblade
- for each kill made with the weapon, while the sustain is active, the counter increases by one, up to a max of 5/10/15/20/25/30/35
- each point increases your spellpower by x
- when you de-activate this sustain, the current amount of points in the counter is added to your physical crit chance for 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 turns
- sustain drains some mana each turn it is active
- mana drain increases slightly as the counter rises
- increase in spellpower scales with Willpower (x should range somewhere between 0.5 (at 10 Wil) and 2 (at 100 Wil) I think)

2) Quickened Blade (activation)
- makes your weapon attack faster, by reducing attack speed by y% for x turns
- duration (x) scales with talent level
- effect (y) scales with Spellpower

3) Bind Spell (activation)
- when used, this talent will ask you which spell to use
- you can bind any damage spell that you can cast to your current weapon
- the weapon will gain 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 charges of said spell
- these charges can then be used, like any item activation. One use consumes one charge. (and no mana)
- Puts the spell that you chose on cooldown
- Said spell does not start to come off cooldown, until the last charge on your weapon is used
- Bind Spell will not start to come off cooldown, until the last charge on your weapon is used
- If you unequip / swap your weapon, it will lose it's charges (and Bind Spell will start to come off cooldown)

4) Sentient Blade (sustain)
- you gain +x infravision
- you gain +y spell critical chance
- when your weapon has Bind Spell active, it will activate upon melee hit, without costing a turn (just like arcane combat, but costing charges instead of mana). Note that arcane combat can also still go off, possibly causing two spells to go off at once on melee hit.
- drains some stamina each turn it is active (you have to struggle a bit to keep your Sentient Blade under control)
- infravision bonus scales with talent level
- stamina drain decreases with talent level and Strenght
- spell critical chance bonus scales with Willpower

martinuzz wrote:Some thoughts on a two-hander tree for Arcane Blades
To stay consistent with the class name, I suggest disallowing greatmauls, since those aren't blades. Greatswords and greataxes only would be fitting.

NO.

martinuzz wrote: Twohanded Weapons: Arcane Blade
1) Soulblade (sustain)
- when this sustain is active, you gain a counter status effect: Soulblade
- for each kill made with the weapon, while the sustain is active, the counter increases by one, up to a max of 5/10/15/20/25/30/35
- each point increases your spellpower by x
- when you de-activate this sustain, the current amount of points in the counter is added to your physical crit chance for 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 turns
- sustain drains some mana each turn it is active
- mana drain increases slightly as the counter rises
- increase in spellpower scales with Willpower (x should range somewhere between 0.5 (at 10 Wil) and 2 (at 100 Wil) I think)

2) Quickened Blade (activation)
- makes your weapon attack faster, by reducing attack speed by y% for x turns
- duration (x) scales with talent level
- effect (y) scales with Spellpower

Both are kind of boring, the second especially, and the arcane blade has enough mana problems already, they can't afford to keep this sustain up for any length of time. Not to mention that with mana draining like that, they can't actually make use of the spellpower bonus anyway.

martinuzz wrote: 3) Bind Spell (activation)
- when used, this talent will ask you which spell to use
- you can bind any damage spell that you can cast to your current weapon
- the weapon will gain 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 charges of said spell
- these charges can then be used, like any item activation. One use consumes one charge. (and no mana)
- Puts the spell that you chose on cooldown
- Said spell does not start to come off cooldown, until the last charge on your weapon is used
- Bind Spell will not start to come off cooldown, until the last charge on your weapon is used
- If you unequip / swap your weapon, it will lose it's charges (and Bind Spell will start to come off cooldown)

4) Sentient Blade (sustain)
- you gain +x infravision
- you gain +y spell critical chance
- when your weapon has Bind Spell active, it will activate upon melee hit, without costing a turn (just like arcane combat, but costing charges instead of mana). Note that arcane combat can also still go off, possibly causing two spells to go off at once on melee hit.
- drains some stamina each turn it is active (you have to struggle a bit to keep your Sentient Blade under control)
- infravision bonus scales with talent level
- stamina drain decreases with talent level and Strenght
- spell critical chance bonus scales with Willpower

These are cool. Quite cool. Though having a prepped flameshock go off on melee hit might be a bit too overpowered. On the other hand, having a prepped inferno go off on melee hit would be outright hillarious.

Double the effects of fiery hands arcane combat etc... on two handed weapons? The doubled damage could be explained because you are using two fiery hands on it, instead of just one (same for arcane combat?).

Clearly you guys haven't tried a fire damaging staff wielding AB. You'd be surprised how synergistic ABs can be with two handed weapons. Sure, dual wielding can give a CHANCE to proc arcane combat twice a turn [which yes, can be a very huge advantage]; but when your damage is boosted innately, you'd be surprised.

Actually, the fun thing with staff AB is that, in all likelyhood, they're going to be head and shoulders better than a non-staff 2hander AB. Stuff like arcane destruction (and, yanno', flame, earth missiles, the hand sustains, etc.) scales with SP, which means you're probably going to be hitting harder simply through the extra physpower due to higher SP (again, and all that extra damage from from better scaling talents) despite staves' notably lower weapon power.

Lemme' see if I can summarize this in a simple way, strictly for my own amusement:

Dual-wield Arcane Blade:
Advantages:
Higher chance to trigger arcane combat (Two talent % chances per bump).
Chance to double-cast with arcane combat.
Effective 150% bonus from arcane destruction (+50% for offhand).
Higher damage than non-staff 2hander (145% stat scaling off str+dex, vs 120% scaling off strength. Negligible weapon power difference -- fully offset by the extra arcane destruction power.). Higher damage than staff AB that doesn't have staff mastery.
Doubled on-hit damage from both hand sustains.
Doubled chance to freeze from frost hands.
Better kit bonuses than non-staff 2hander (Two pieces of equipment to get bonuses from, instead of one.). (Side note: Double blazebringer of shearing can easily give 20+% resist penetration to both physical and fire.)
Able to use a wider variety of equipment (1hander + dagger, instead of just 2hander.).
Minor: Somewhat less effected by accuracy, as they've got two chances to hit (albeit one at greatly reduced damage) instead of one.

Disadvantages:
No access to the twohanded-weapon cripple tree. Corollary: Must spend cat point to get access to non-freeze stunning.
Needs more kit (1hander + dagger, instead of just a single two-hander or staff.)
Notably lower SP than staff-AB until late game, at which point it becomes merely somewhat lower.
Drains mana faster from all the extra arcane combat activations.
Semi-minor: Damage scales off two stats, only one of which is directly useful (i.e. talents scale off it) to arcane blades.
--

Staff Arcane Blade:
Advantages:
Higher SP than either normal 2hander arcane blades or dual-wielding arcane blades.
Due to ^, most talents are more powerful.
Access to the 2handed-weapon cripple tree.
Only need one weapon (staff), which likely has a useful activation (AoE stun, teleportation, corrupted negation, etc.).
Easy access to very powerful non-physical damage (i.e. arcane destruction boosted staff strikes.).
Semi-minor: Damage scales off one stat, which is very useful to arcane blades.

Disadvantages:
Needs staff mastery to maximize damage potential.
Minor: Staff egos tend to be less melee-focused than weapon egos.
Cheeky: Doesn't have all the advantages dual-wield arcane blades have
--

Non-staff 2hander Arcane Blade:
Advantages:
Access to 2handed-weapon cripple tree.
Only need one weapon (2hander).
Semi-minor: Damage scales off one stat, which isn't very useful beyond basic talent prerequisites.

Disadvantages:
Almost every advantage the other two have, these guys don't
Semi-minor: Damage scales off one stat, which is basically useless except as a prereq.
--

Feel free to add anything I've missed! (Except unarmed and shield/sword ABs. The first is actually semi-decent, at least with gloves (High attack speed, extra procs with the right egos), while the second is like non-staff 2hander ABs, except worse in every way.)

All that written out, I'd definitely like to see non-staff 2hand ABs given some love. They're currently missing out on, like, everything.

Honestly, though, looking at that, I'd almost prefer to see staff 2-hander made the default (as in, have them spawn with a staff -- mildly important because your starting weapon forces stat allocations for some races due to minimums.)

Rationale, pretty straightforward: We don't currently have any class that obviously encourages staff melee. Arcane Blades are clearly good at it, but for a new player it's a bit unintuitive.

In general, though, I'd like to see all three options supported. While 2-handed non staff needs some love, let's not try and cram it down people's throats -- give them support for the other two options, too.

The class name would need to be changed to "Arcane Bonker," of course.

I agree with the various weapon setups all being options, and for giving bonuses to the discussed skills for two-handers.