Poor skills list/ideas for them! (Warning, big topic.)

[SageAcrin]

This is meant to be a study of skills that, currently, look A: Underused, and B: In my opinion, and based on reactions to them in general, underpowered, with ideas to improve them.

(While it would be good to highlight OP skills, possibly, OP skills can be part of a character's overall playstyle. I don't think OP skills are as big of a problem as skills that never get used. Underpowered skills can overall improve a character, but as long as they're balanced in context of the character's other uses for points, the impact should be relatively minimal, while allowing a character to be both more interesting and easier to style to a character's playstyle. Overpowered skills, by contrast, can be crucial to a current character's playstyle. A Sun Paladin plays differently from a Bulwark largely due to a few skills in each's cases, and what stats they run off of.)

To get on this list, there had to be: A: Sufficient evidence using the b37 lists (seen here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=33158 ) that the skill was underused or not being leveled at all, and that said skill hadn't been changed since then(as it's too early to really say based on evidence, even if someone was willing to check, if skills that recently altered were good/bad), and B: Sufficient argument for them being generally underpowered, as opposed to, say, being a good L1 skill but poor at leveling(which are arguably good things, as they simplify decisions somewhat). (As a disclaimer, my memory is not perfect, so some of these may have changed since b37.)

To a lesser degree, I'll be looking for underpowered categories in general, and possible ideas for classes that still seem underpowered, but mostly it is skills. The latter two can be fixed by improving skills enough, after all.

As a note; Ideas are, just that, ideas. If anyone else has any-or if they think any skill on this list shouldn't be here, mentioning it is probably good! I just want to help make ToME more interesting.

Racial skills:

At last check, all currently strongly underpowered racial skills were under discussion, and racial statistic discussions tend to be rather debatable. I'd rather steer clear of this for now, since I'm looking for strongly underpowered options. None of the races are massively underpowered in a way that is universally agreed upon(outside of some specific class/race combinations, anyways).

Techniques:

Two Hand Weapons:

Death Blow: 0(8) 1(8) 2(1) 3(1) 5(1) for Berserker. Wyrmic and Bulwark have a few people that unlocked the category, but put no points into this.

(The format, for those that have not looked it up, is that the first value is the amount of points put into the skill, then the amount of players that put that many points into that skill. For example, eight players put no points into Death Blow, and eight more put one.)

* Death Blow: 30 stamina, 30 cooldown

Attacks for automatic critical hit, dealing (80-130)% weapon damage, if talent >=4, adds (stamina / 2) physical power, draining all stamina, the stamina damage is added before critical damage is calculated. If target is now below 20% of max life, try to kill it, checking instakill immunity and your accuracy with strength against their physical save for resistance.

Stolen from the wiki. As far as I'm aware, this has not changed, so I'll use Wiki entries when applicable to simplify things.

Issues: An automatic critical isn't totally useless for Berserker, who has on-crit innate skills. But leveling this skill is largely damaging; Consuming all of your Stamina leaves you in an incredibly vulnerable situation afterwards, and the added damage doesn't seem to justify it(I believe it would only double your damage in cases of incredibly high Stamina consumption.). Leveling the skill increases the instant death rate, from what I'm seeing in the code, as well, so using it for instant death effects at low life is less workable at L1. Add in the fact that Berserkers naturally raise their own critical rate and can usually get a critical when they want one, and it's not that great. Notably high Stamina cost(on base)/Cooldown as well.

Ideas: Double the Stamina to power ratio, but only have the skill consume half of remaining Stamina. This gives you more of a safety net to use it with at higher levels. The basic weapon power could stand to be higher, as well, due to criticals being so common for Berserker. It isn't entirely unreasonable for a Berserker to instead critical Death Dance to do more damage than this, I believe, which is a little sad.

Two Handed Maiming:

Blood Frenzy 0(18) 5(1) for Berserker. Two ABs put no points into this.

* Blood Frenzy: sustained, 100 stamina, 15 cooldown, -4 stamina per turn

Gain a stacking buff of +(2 * talent) physical power per kill, reduced by 2 per turn. No cap.

Issues: Consumes a lot of Stamina, both as a sustain and per turn. Is not instant. And L1 of it means that, if you kill one enemy a turn, you net...a constant +2 to power. Hrm. Also, as near as I can tell, Bloodrage is mostly just better, being that it is a free passive, though in fairness the two stack.

Ideas: +2 the base value seems reasonable(So, +4 base, +2 per level). Perhaps a reduction of the per turn Stamina cost as you level would be reasonable(Say, -1 Stamina cost every three talent levels). And, given the nature of it, it probably should be an instant buff, so that you can easily cut it on when you see a large amount of foes. I don't think the lack of a cap makes it overpowered, even with those bonuses, though a cap could be added if that's a worry. (Probably should be something like 20*rawtalent, if so.)

Technique / Superiority (9) unlocked for Berserker. One Bulwark unlocked this, who I'll skip for simplicity sake, but note as it means this entire category is considered very bad for Bulwarks, despite theoretically being bonuses they'd love...

Juggernaut 0(1) 1(7) 4(1)

* Juggernaut: 60 Stamina, 40 cooldown, 20 duration

+(5, 10, 15, 20, 25)% physical resist

Issues: Very weak baseline impact(5% physical resist for an incredibly high cost). Berserker and Bulwark both do well against physicals to start with. Up until very recently, common Ego items could provide an L4 of this effect for little cost(this has been effectively fixed, but said items are nearly useless now due to setting all Charms onto an 80 cooldown on the other hand, and I believe an Artifact still has an L2 version of this.). Is in a category that is always locked and does not have really strong draws.

Ideas: 10% base and 4% per level would make this skill somewhat more standout as a cheap dip. Alternatively, it could raise Allresist. Some combination may work as well(+5% Allresist whenever used, then leveling boosts the physical resistance only. Or, it could gain some Allresist at higher levels, making it a relatively weak low level skill but a more powerful high level one.).

Onslaught 0(2) 1(7)

* Onslaught: 80 stamina, 60 cooldown, sustained, frontal arc, -15 stamina per turn

Hits enemies for (talent, rounded down) knockback.

Issues: I am honestly lost on this skill. Knockback on physical fighters is, at the best of times, somewhat questionable, yet this has incredible stamina/cooldown costs. Also, I believe it would conflict with the AoE damage focus of the final skill.

Ideas: This seems like it could make an interesting form of mobility boost if it was far, far cheaper and boosted Movement while it was going. Something like 40 Stamina/20 Cooldown/Sustained, -5 Stamina per turn, same amount of knockback, 100%+(talentlevel*40)% extra Movement speed? This would let you potentially escape a large, surrounding crowd, which would make an okay point dip, but I still can't imagine a heavy investment, which is a little depressing of commentary on the current skill.

Shattering Impact 0(2) 1(3) 5(4)

* Shattering Impact: 40 stamina, 30 cooldown, -15 stamina per blow

Hits nearby enemies for (20-60)% weapon damage when you hit an enemy.

Issues: Costs as much as your average attack skill every single hit, yet has a very low raw power on base. It's not terrible at L5, but at best it is very situational due to the Stamina consumption being so high. Is very bad on Bulwark, who can more easily run through Stamina and strikes more times with their skills, despite them desiring the area of effect damage even more than most classes, which is telling.

Ideas: A smaller range, like 40% to 60% from L1 to 5, and have the Stamina per blow go down from, say, 10 to 6(-1 per level) linearly from L1 to L5. This makes it a much more attractive single point dip, while still making it a good skill to level.

Technique / Warcries (12) unlocked for Bulwark. Berserkers unlocked this three times. None of the three skills mentioned were ever leveled by them though.

Second Wind 0(5) 1(6) 2(1)

* Second Wind: 100 cooldown

+(20 + talent * 12) stamina

Issues: Heals about a skill worth of Stamina on base. Can be leveled to heal...about two skills worth of Stamina, maybe three. Has 100 Cooldown. Doesn't actually do anything else. Is kinda sad, since a good Stamina heal would be nice.

Ideas: A percent based Stamina heal seems more helpful here. Perhaps something like 5-10% base+3-4% per level or so? The cooldown is pretty much well past the point it's once per battle in any situation but the final battle, as well, which tends to encourage lots of resting; Maybe 50 Cooldown is more reasonable.

Battle Shout 0(10) 1(2)

* Battle Shout: 40 stamina, 30 cooldown, (7, 9, 11, 13, 15) duration

+(11, 12, 13, 14, 15)% life and stamina.

Issues: I believe this quietly heals that % of your remaining HP and Stamina as well, but healing you based on your current HP and Stamina isn't very useful on the whole. The main effect, more HP/Stamina cap, is just not really that useful alone. The main use for this is also kinda similar to Second Wind(namely, healing, with Stamina as part of it).

Ideas: Candidly, rewriting the skill into some kind of temporary save or physical damage/resist penetration/etc. skill would seem more useful. If I were to keep it in its current form, I'd make it instant and boost how much the % scales up to triple(10/13/16/19/22). Oh, and lower the Stamina cost, possibly to 0, so that you actually net some Stamina, as 10%-20% HP current healing is not that good.

Battle Cry 0(12)

* Battle Cry: 40 stamina, 30 cooldown, (4, 5, 6, 7, 8) radius

Tries to lower enemy defense by (7 * talent) for 7 turns. Checks your Str against their Physical save for resistance.

Issues: Makes it easier to hit enemies, by...checking...another save. On the same classes that get Perfect Strikes. And has less impact than Perfect Strikes anyways. Hm.

Ideas: Lowering physical resistance and armor would be in character for this. Perhaps it could status at higher levels as well. Being power against mind(so that it could Brainshock) would also be in character.

Technique / Battle Tactics (19) unlocked (1) improved for Bulwarks. Marauders also unlocked this a ton. (All five did.)

True Grit 0(19). None of the five Marauders leveled this either.

* True Grit: 70 stamina, 30 cooldown, -16(-2 per talent level) stamina per turn

Gain 5% resist all per 10% of life missing.

Issues: Gives you a lot of resistance when you are very close to dead. This is, ultimately, not when you want a lot of resistance, and it still bonks the caps pretty hard later in the game, meaning the durability boost isn't as impressive as it sounds on paper. Is really annoying when enemies have it, considering the low value to PCs.

Ideas: Well, I like the idea of a resistance as you get low on life skill, though it's hard to make work. Perhaps just substantially boosting the Stamina cost(150?) and making it cost no Stamina a turn would be best(Or raise the sustain cost, and lower the per turn to something like -8(-1 per talent level), etc.). This way, you get a nice defensive boost that you can turn on whenever you're in trouble-because, by definition, a physical fighter without Stamina is in trouble. Since that would give it nothing that scales with talent levels, perhaps making it scale up caps by 2-3% per rawtalent level would seem fair, or just simply making the Stamina sustain cost lower as you gain levels(200-20 per level?). Making it instant seems like it could work, but it also seems like it could be useful if it wasn't instant.

Technique / Combat Veteran:

Unending Frenzy 0(7) 1(6) 2(1) 3(1) 5(4) Berserker, Unending Frenzy 0(13) 1(5) 2(2) 3(1) 4(3) 5(1) Bulwark, Unending Frenzy 0(9) 1(1) 5(2) Archer, Unending Frenzy 0(2) 2(1) Shadowblade(only three unlocked the category), Unending Frenzy 0(7) Brawler, Unending Frenzy 0(3) Wyrmic, and some assorted two and one users that were mostly 0s as well.

* Unending Frenzy: passive

+(talent * 2) stamina per kill.

Issue: 2 Stamina isn't a lot. 10 Stamina is pretty decent, but the issue is that people can simply level the regen skill for Stamina instead and get 2 stamina every four turns instead. This is generally more psychologically appealing-there aren't always enemies to kill, but there are always turns.

Idea: Just boosting the skill would be boring. How about +4 HP per talent level per kill as well? This would give it the same rate of HP healing relative to Fast Metabolism as it has Stamina healing relative to Quick Recovery, and means that you could level it as an alternative to regens if you want constant healing in combat. Or stack them for a lot of healing. It should be attactive to Berserkers, at least.

Technique / Field Control: (Note: While this skill category has three classes that can unlock it, they almost never do. I'm not sure what precisely this is a statement on, though.)

Heave 0(6) 1(4) 2(2) Archer, Heave 0(5) 1(2) Brawler, Heave 0(2) 1(3) Marauder.

* Heave: 20 stamina, 15 cooldown

Attempts to knock the target back. Physical power vs physical save check, knocks back 2+talent level spaces.

Issue: Knockback isn't that great in general, but this happens to be knockback that does nothing extra. For Brawler and Marauder, this is largely useless-you don't want enemies *away* from you as them. For Archers it is only marginally useful(many Archers cut down enemies before they reach them, and there are escape options in the same tree that you can use, rather than relying on something with a check).

Idea: Very cheap stamina cost(5?) would be good. For the rest, I suggest having it double its current knockback, and deal its current knockback(which would be half the new knockback) when an enemy successfully makes a save; Only Knockback resistance could fully save you from this skill, as such. Not only does this improve the skill fairly reasonably, it would be hilarious to watch someone rocket backwards 15 squares because they failed to make their check.

Technique / Dual Weapons:

Precision 0(5) 1(8) Temporal Warden, Precision 0(4) 1(6) Shadowblade, Precision 0(3) 1(2) Marauder, Precision 0(4) Rogue.

* Precision: sustained, 50 stamina, 30 cooldown

Increases armor penetration by (4 + [talent * Dex / 20]).

Issue: Knives have a lot of armor penetration naturally. I think that's about 80% of the problem here.

Idea: Perhaps a small amount of physical resistance penetration? Say, half of what it adds in APR?

Technique / Archery Training: Two other classes get the category, but never unlock it. It's not actually a bad unlock objectively, I *think*, but goes against the psychology of the classes, so *shrug*.

Rapid Shot 0(4) 1(7) 2(1) Archer. As a note, almost everyone that went this far heavily leveled the final skill, so few people bought this skill for its self.

* Rapid Shot: sustained, 20 stamina, 8 cooldown, instant, mutually exclusive with Aim

-(10.4, 12.8, 15.2, 17.6, 20) damage, accuracy, and critical chance, increases attack speed by (10 * talent / 100)%

Issue: Improving the rate of fire of an already fast weapon, at the cost of its...most everything else, is both psychologically unappealing and not really better on damage per second until later in the game. Aim does the opposite and has an added downside, but still almost universally gets leveled.

Idea: Flat rate 10 Damage/Accuracy/Critical Chance loss instead of a scaling loss. Aim will always be a good situational skill, no matter what, due to accuracy and AP bonuses, so I don't think this will ever dominate over Aim even with a fairly solid bonus like that.

Technique / Archery Prowess:

Flare 0(1) 1(7) 2(1) 3(3)(These are, despite being the first skill in the tree, the lowest overall levels of any skill in the tree.)

* Flare: 15 stamina, 15 cooldown

Shoot for (50-120)% fire damage. On hit, lights up radius (1 if talent < 3, 2 if 3 <= talent < 5, 3 if talent >= 5), and tries to blind for 3 turns as well at talent >=3, checking their blindness immunity, and your accuracy against their physical save.

Issue: Does remarkably poor damage until leveled. Light radius sounds neat, but it requires heavy leveling to get a light radius of any real size. While the radius blind is good, it requires more levels than most people seem to invest, perhaps due to the short duration of the blind.

Idea: Having the skill deal 100-150% damage seems harmless and more in line with the rest of the tree(and, indeed, it seems rather odd that a flaming arrow does *less* damage than a normal one.). Having one light radius per talent level seems like an okay idea, too, as this would light up quite a large area at L5(Of course, it blinds a big area at that level too, but only for three turns). Alternatively, the blind duration could be extended with talent level, or it could even blind at L1 instead. There are many ways one could attack this skill, I think.

Technique / Unarmed Discipline (1) unlocked. For the single Brawler that unlocked them...

Push Kick 1(1)

(Tri = Str + Cun + Dex, also function of talent level, one third each.)

* Push Kick: 12 stamina, 6 cooldown, Pugilism skill

Attacks for (Tri, 30, 300) damage, trying to knock it back (1 + talent / 4, rounded up) squares, and yourself back 1. Breaks your grapples. Gains one combo point. Checks your accuracy against their Physical save for resistance.

Issue: For some reason(Okay, okay, because it's a kick and not a punch), does not do weapon based damage. Instead, does a damage range based on three stats; The net result is usually vastly less damage than, say, punching with the various incredibly high damage pugilism skills. Breaks grapples, as well, meaning that using it with the more defensive Grapple style is mostly useless. Creates space between you and the enemy, but very little, which means it won't usually stop combat, merely instead preventing you from hitting your enemy more.

Ideas: You could have this use a formula similar to Skullcracker, but with boots instead of helmets. A bigger deal would be to make it more of a mobility skill; I'd suggest having it knock the enemy back 3 or 4+Talent level(with the usual save check), as well as knocking the Brawler back the same amount(with no save check, similar to Disengage but requiring physical contact.). This is not only hilariously appropriate for a martial artist, but quite useful, as Brawler has few ways to get out of combat quickly.

Breath Control 0(1)

* Breath Control: 30 stamina, 30 cooldown, sustained

+(1.5 * talent) stamina per turn, -10% global speed

Issue: The only time regenerating 7 Stamina at the cost of global speed is useful is when no enemies are around, at which point you could have rested longer anyways. And that's assuming you put a lot of points in it; It is very bad at L1.

Idea: I'm not actually sure Brawler, which has a free skill with very short cooldown, *ever* would want Stamina enough to eat a global speed penalty. Perhaps it should have some offensive bonuses as well, or lower cooldowns over a certain amount while it is going? I'm not actually sure, perhaps it deserves a total rewrite. If not, though, it also should totally raise your Air while it's going, because that would be hilarious.

Roundhouse Kick 0(1)

* Roundhouse Kick: 18 stamina, 12 cooldown, frontal arc, Pugilism skill

Attack for (Tri, 20, 600) damage and 4 knockback, breaks your grapples, and gains one combo point. Does not check for saves.

Issue: Nope, still doesn't do much damage. The range sounds good, but in practice Brawlers can easily do four digit damage lategame, unless I'm mistaken. Brawlers have more defensive issues than offensive. The area of effect helps a bit, but not really enough.

Idea: See above about the Skullcracker-like formula idea. Otherwise, the obvious thing to do is to make this a full 360 move.

Technique / Thuggery (2) Marauders improved this category, out of five, which makes this skill a little more striking.

Total Thuggery 0(5)

* Total Thuggery: 40 Stamina, 30 Cooldown, instant.

Raises physical critical rate and physical penetration by (Dex, 10, 50) / 1.5 and (Str, 10, 50) / 2 respectively. For a practical value assessment, this is around 8%~ at endgame at L1 after the Thuggery talent modifier, and twice that at L5. Each strike costs 11(-talent level) Stamina.

Issues: Well, it's giving you a very small benefit for a very large stamina cost...per hit...on a two weapon class. Which hits a lot. This is a bit of a problem, unless you actively hate Stamina.

Idea: Either spiking the bonuses heavily(at least double) or lowering the Stamina costs drastically(or simply making it a more expensive Sustain, say 80-100 cost, or even a short term 40 Stamina cost buff instead).

Cunning:

Cunning / Survival:

Evasion 0(5) 1(2) 5(3) Shadowblade. Several other classes have notably worse ratios on this skill than this, while the vast majority adamantly refuse to level it. (Hilariously, there are more Bulwarks that have leveled up Stone Touch than this.) It's also past skills that most people don't tend to level strongly.

* Evasion: 30 cooldown, (5 + Wil[10]) duration

+(5 * talent + Cun[25] + Dex [25])% chance to avoid any attack

Issue: Requires three stats that most people do not consider central, I think.

Ideas: Perhaps it should just run off Dexterity and Will(With Dex's modifier boosted to compensate appropriately)? It isn't actually a bad skill, and is useful on some classes, but as far as fairly universal skills go, maybe one shouldn't run off three stats that not everyone uses. Maybe a higher base evasion amount and lower scaling would help as well, as many mage types heavily level Will and would find a point useful here for that.

Cunning / Dirty Fighting: Notably, no one has ever unlocked this category out of the sample set in b37. Not once. Even more amazing, out of the five Marauder sample, not one leveled a single skill in this category.

Dirty Fighting 0(3) 1(3) 2(2) 4(2) Shadowblade. Rogue has a similar spread.

* Dirty Fighting: 10 stamina, 12 cooldown

Attack for (20-70)% weapon damage, trying to stun for (3 + talent, rounded up) turns. I believe this is a standard physical power check.

Issue: Very, very bad damage stun skill. Most stun skills range from 100 to 150.

Idea: More damage is boring for this skill. Perhaps it should have more stun impact than most similar skills(Say, 4/5 turns base) instead? The cooldown's also too long to reasonably chain Stun attempts, so that is another direction it could be attacked from. I think this is probably the most balanced skill in this set, but considering it has multiple 0s despite being a first skill, I'm inclined to say it may need an enhancement despite what I think.

Backstab 0(5) 1(3) 3(2) Shadowblade. One Rogue capped this skill, but the other three were 0 in it.

* Backstab: passive

+(10 * talent)% critical chance against stunned targets

Issue: Stunned enemies are generally less dangerous in general. If you can stun someone at all, they generally are a much lesser threat. Adding crits to that is fun, but ultimately, not that practical, and somewhat hampered by the fact that you could just be extending your Stun length instead by leveling that skill.

Idea: Perhaps this should grant a small crit chance and/or critical multiplier impact in general? I would suggest it raise critical rates while stealth or invisible, but there's already a better skill for that, more or less.

Switch Place 0(8) 1(1) 5(1) Shadowblade. No Rogues OR Marauders leveled this or the next Dirty Fighting skill...

* Switch Place: 50 stamina, 10 cooldown, (1 + talent) duration

Swap places with an adjacent enemy and gain 50% evasion.

Issue: A very, very short range escape skill(If, given that you're still adjacent to the enemy, it can even be called an escape skill), combined with a decent evasion bonus for...two turns on base. Leveling this more levels the duration, but leveling Evasion seems more practical there. Basically, it isn't very good. To boot, it makes enemies spectacularly annoying *and* happens to cost 50 Stamina for some baffling reason.

Idea: Much cheaper Stamina cost(20 or so?) and standard damage multipliers of moderate level rather than evasion(or possibly, along with less evasion) seems reasonable. As much as the hit-without-dealing-damage mechanics this skill has are cool, they don't really help enough. Perhaps a large range like 70-160% damage, to encourage leveling it as a moderately accessable damage skill?

Cripple 0(9) 1(1) Shadowblade. Out of all the existant classes in that sample, exactly one Shadowblade leveled this skill one time.

* Cripple: 30 stamina, 25 cooldown

Attack for (90-140)% weapon damage, and debuffs for -(10 + talent * 3) accuracy and -(10 + talent * 4) damage for (3 + talent, rounded up) turns. Checks your Dex against their Physical Save for resistance.

Issue: Mostly the costs. There's nothing particularly wrong with this skill that cutting the cooldown down to 40%(Namely, 10) wouldn't solve, though the Stamina cost is still a little high too.

Idea: See above, again. Lowered costs would make this a nice enough skill.

Spells:

Spell / Advanced Necrotic Minions (3) unlocked, out of six Necromancers.

Undead Explosion 1(3)

* Undead Explosion: 30 Mana, 10 Cooldown.

Causes one of your undead to explode in a radius 1 blight damage explosion based on their current life. The exact % of their life is spellpower based(20, 80), and practically ends in a 35-70% range depending on Talent level.

Issue: If your undead are all healthy, blowing them up is not especially desirable. If your undead are not all healthy, blowing one up will kill the rest. If you have one remaining near-dead undead(near redead?), then this does...damage based off their current life, which, chances are, will be quite low, meaning it does bad damage.

Idea: Either make it based off maximum HP(would make it quite powerful, but very situational), or make it ignore friendly fire(would make it reasonably powerful, if you're detonating full HP undead, but probably not broken.). I can't think of any other ideas for it.

Sacrifice 0(2) 1(1)

* Sacrifice: 5 Mana, 25 Cooldown, requires a living Assembled Bone Giant.

Consume a living assembled Bone Giant and produce 1 + talent level Bone Shields for 4 + self:combatTalentSpellDamage(t, 8, 20) turns(roughly 10-20 at endgame varying on talent level).

Issue: Bone Giants are extremely expensive(high cooldown skill that requires three Necrotic worth of skeletons to make one of). This would make it a good single point dip if one was about to die, but that...gives you two Bone Shields for ten turns, which doesn't stop much. If Eternal Bone Giants could Reassemble back to life when the PC had them, this could be an amusing barrier to abuse to some degree, but they don't(not sure if that's a bug or not). It isn't terrible, but five points for a moderately good barrier that you can only use in extreme emergencies is pretty bad.

Idea: I'm honestly a little lost. You can't actually lower the cost(how do you partially sacrifice undead?), and it's hard to think of an added effect to put here. Even with higher shields and duration, this would still be very situational, and wouldn't help you at the times Necromancer is in most danger(namely, when it is low on Necrotic). Maybe the skill's just a loss...

Minion Mastery 0(2) 5(1)

* Minion Mastery: Passive.

Gives you a very small chance of replacing normal undead with higher level undead. On base, this gives a 2% chance of Vampires. By L5, this expands to a 2% chance of Vampires/Master Vampires/Grave Wights/Barrow Wights/Liches and a 3% chance of Dreads.

Issue: On average, you'll get one "higher" undead per six undead summon, at L5. However, that list is only generally about as competent as a Skeleton Mage or Master Archer is. Liches are pretty good, but you'll only get one of those every 50 summons, and, while they're good, they're only moderately durable. And due to the mechanics of Necrotic, scumming for the undead you want is impractical.

Idea: More undead rates, or better undead(Most of the highest undead, like stronger liches, Dreadmasters, vampires, Banshees, etc. are notably absent from the list, though obviously not entirely without cause.). Doubling the rate of everything by L5 would be a good start.

Spell / Air

Feather Wind 0(18) 1(3) Archmage. No ABs unlocked this spell or the next one.

* Feather Wind: 50 mana, 10 cooldown, sustained

+(0.14 * [4 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rebalanced ranged defense, +(0.50 * [10 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rebalanced encumbrance, at talent >= 4, you levitate.

Issue: Blur Sight is an excellent way to raise Defense from all sources, and few Archmages bother simply because the mentality of an Archmage is not generally defensive. The rest of the abilities are nice, but rarely enough to be a strong draw.

Idea: Dropping the Mana cost drastically(to, say, 15-20), similar to what was done with Phantasmal Shield, could be an option, as there's nothing particularly wrong with the skill as far as a package of low end impacts go. Another option would be to have it grant a low amount of Movement speed(5*Talent Level?) at higher levels, and grant the trap impact at lower levels(Perhaps 2/4), as both Archmages and Arcane Blades would like that.

Thunderstorm 0(20) 1(1) Archmage.

* Thunderstorm: 170 mana, 15 cooldown, 5 range, sustained, -(1.2, 2.4, 3.6, 4.8, 6.0) mana per turn

Hits (talent, rounded down) foes within range randomly, for 1 to (0.35 * [15 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rebalanced lightning damage.

Issue: Extremely high sustain+constant cost, low range.

Idea: Perhaps this should be made per actual bolt cast, rather than consuming Mana constantly every turn? It doesn't seem bad on paper, but the lowish range and the constant cost makes it flaky.

Spell / Fire Alchemy

Body Of Fire 0(10) 1(2) 2(1)

* Body of Fire: 250 mana, 40 cooldown, sustained, -(0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, 2.0) mana per turn, 8 range, 240% velocity

+(0.21 * [5 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rebalanced fire resistance, fires bolts at random targets within range, dealing (0.30 * [15 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rebalanced fire damage. Also deals (0.12 * [5 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rebalanced fire damage to the attacker when hit in melee. Can be changed to less damage and a different damage type by the Infusion skills.

Issue: Besides the usual conflict Fire Alchemy has with the Infusion skills, there's a secondary one here. This constantly autotargets and fires off friendly-fire-capable fire bolts, usually attempting to fire them through your Golem. This is already a very expensive(though Alchemists can float high Mana costs) skill with heavy cooldown. It's an okay skill if your Golem has happened to die, but in general some extra amounts of constant light damage aren't saving you in that situation.

Idea: Well, it could be made to fire through the Golem. Alternatively, which I'd prefer, it could be blocked by the Golem, but not damage it, which seems like a fairly reasonable balance for it. I'm not sure how you'd rebalance it fixing its constant attempts to beat up your Golem.

Spell / Necrosis

Undeath Link 0(1) 1(4) 2(1)

* Undeath Link: 35 Mana, 20 Cooldown.

Deal 20+(combatTalentSpellDamage(t, 10, 70)% damage to all of your undead minions, based on their maximum HP(this can be fatal to them). Heal yourself the same % of your maximum HP. (Note: The two values are not interrelated, as I understand it. You can use it to kill six 1 HP undead and still gain the full healing value.) This is roughly 45-75% or so at endgame on a Necromancer, I believe, depending on Talent level.

Issue: While the healing is good, you rarely want to use this unless nearly all of your undead are dead. In general, having an undead between you and the enemy is better than having the extra HP. If you are suddenly ambushed, using this to heal yourself will likely put you in a worse position, and if you have control of the situation, you are likely fairly high on HP.

Idea: Make this target a selected undead and outright destroy it, rather than heavily damaging all of your undead. Lowering the heal if necessary would still make it reasonable. This way, you won't lose all your currently existant undead. Alternatively, converting this to some kind of consuming points of Necrotic for healing skill would also be more controllable. However, it is hard to make such abilities not overpowered for Necromancer, so this is another skill I'm somewhat lost on for ideas.

Spell / Staff Combat:

Defensive Posture 0(21) 1(6) 2(1) 5(1) for Alchemist. There are various assorted single users of Staff Combat, but it probably isn't that useful to tally them.

* Defensive Posture: 80 mana, 30 cooldown, sustained

+(0.091 * [10 + spellpower] * talent modifier) defense, and -(half of the defense bonus) physical power(?). Roughly about 10-20 Defense at endgame and half that in power lost.

Issue: 10 Defense on a class that doesn't do well with Defense to start with(Indeed, most classes that get staffs will rarely have good Defense) will rarely, if ever, prevent damage, and the Sustain cost is reasonably hefty. (Blur Sight costs substantially less and has no downside.)

Idea: Have it raise Armor by either the same amount as the Defense, or by a lesser amount, and lower the Mana cost. This wouldn't render it great, but would be a more notable(and more unique) bonus.

Blunt Thrust 0(24) 1(3) 2(1) 5(1)

* Blunt Thrust: 12 mana, 6 cooldown

Attacks for (100-150)% weapon damage, dazing for (4 + talent) turns

Issue: Dazing a single enemy is rarely all that good. Various weapons now can randomly daze enemies on hit, at this stage. Toss in the fact that, while this is an okay skill, it is basically a physical range technique on a mage-and in the same skillset as Channel Staff, which makes it so that you never really need to close to melee range, and it's not actually that useful.

Idea: Perhaps a rising chance as you level it to Stun enemies for a lesser duration as well? Say 20% per rawtalent chance of 1+talent level stun? This would make it somewhat better of a defensive measure move, as it could be used, not just to escape an enemy, but also to stun an enemy you can't manage to run from, in a pinch. Alternatively, an entirely different skill, one more interesting and relevant to the more magical nature of Staff Combat otherwise. Sadly, I don't have an idea off the top of my head for that, though.

Wildgifts: Oddly enough, while I'm not entirely sure of the balance on some skills here, there's only one skill that stands out as strongly bad.

Static Field 0(2) 1(1)

* Static Field: 20 equilibrium, 20 cooldown, 1 radius

Enemies lose (0.20 * [10 + mindpower] * talent modifier) rebalanced % of their current life in radius 1. Checks for Mindpower vs Physical Save. Elites have the damage divided by 1.5, uniques by 2, and elite bosses by 3. (With 40 Mindpower this is roughly 13-26% for L1/5 respecitvely Talent levels).

Issue: Completely useless against grunt enemies...and then largely useless against bosses. Concievably does fairly okay damage against final bosses, but Wyrmic very rarely will ever hit them with it.

Idea: Echoes From The Past functionally has a much bigger blast radius, a similar form of damage(Earlier in a battle, damage vs current HP is better, but later, a portion of damage they've taken before now is better), and does a baseline amount of damage on top of that. And doesn't have a check on its special damage, and doesn't do worse against higher rank enemies... and Echoes From The Past is, in the sampling, not even used all that much, nor have I heard it referred to as overpowered. Within that, Static Field probably could use some boosts, and Echoes is probably a good direction to look in for boosts to it-baseline damage, more blast radius, and less limitations on its impact. (Probably less of those than Echoes, though. Wyrmic is more of a heavy fighter than TW or Paradox Mage is.)

Celestial:

Celestial/Circles. One Anorithil out of four unlocked this category. Given the small sampling, comments here are somewhat on the subjective side, reader discretion is required. Said Anorithil 1/2ed the entire category, which may be a statement on the entire category, or may not(Both skills listed were given one point, despite their overall impact scaling multiple ways at higher levels...). Personally, I think it's rather poor, but.

* Circle of Blazing Light: 20 positive, 20 cooldown, (3 + talent, rounded up) duration, (2, 3, 3, 4, 4) radius

Gives +(1 + [0.018 * (2 + spellpower) * talent modifier] rescaled) positive energy per turn to you while within it, and hits others for (0.074 * [2 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rescaled light damage, and the same amount of fire damage. Roughly, 12-25 damage at endgame a turn for 5-10 turns, and 3-4 Positive energy a turn.

Issue: Positive energy isn't very hard to come by, and the damage is very, very bad. 250 damage over time at cap is underwhelming even by Anorithil standards, and this is only at short ranges/scales disproportionately at higher levels(60 damage or so at L1 over five turns!).

Idea: There's room in Circles for a damage-oriented Circle, and this is the obvious one. Doubling the damage would be fairly reasonable, as would be making this instead a Negative regen.(Circle of Darkened Flames?).

* Circle of Warding: 20 positive, 20 negative, 20 cooldown, (3 + talent, rounded up) duration, (2, 3, 3, 4, 4) radius

Slows projectiles targeted at you by (0.098 * [2 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rescaled %, and deals the same amount of light and darkness damage to all others. Roughly 15-30 damage a turn for 5-10 turns and 10-20 projectile slow, at endgame.

Issue: Despite consuming both Positive and Negative, is basically entirely a damage skill, that still doesn't do a whole lot of damage, largely does it at point blank, and generally is underwhelming. The secondary impact should be pretty good, but a 20% slowed projectile is barely noticably different.

Idea: Triple the projectile slow impact(Probably with a cap around 60%, for safety sake.). It still requires you to be within the circle, so there's only so many kinds of projectiles it'll protect you from even in that circumstance.

Celestial/Combat. Only two Sun Paladins existed in the criteria(I am uncertain what this is a commentary on precisely). While I personally have cleared a Sun Paladin since, these comments on Sun Paladin are still partially subjective.

Crusade 0(1) 1(1)

* Crusade: 10 positive, 10 cooldown

Attacks for (110-190)% weapon damage as light damage.

Issue: Hits for exactly the same damage as Wave of Power, but is not ranged. Has less cooldown, too. Does Light damage, which can be enhanced by Sun Paladins with Chant of Light, but this requires losing one of their excellent defensive chants, at least temporarily, and requires points on two skills instead of one.

Idea: Strike twice for 100-160%. This still makes it arguably weaker than Overpower, and surely weaker than Assault, but Positive for Sun Paladins is easier to come by than Stamina. With Chant of Light this would be fairly impressive, but still arguably worse than Assault, which seems reasonable.

Celestial / Glyphs: Two Anorithils unlocked this.

Glyph Of Explosion 0(1) 1(1)

* Glyph of Explosion: recover 10 positive, 20 cooldown, (talent, rounded down) range, (5 + talent) duration

Hits in a radius of one for (15 + 0.12 * spellpower * talent) light damage. This is roughly 25-70 damage at endgame.

Issue: I'm not sure why you'd want a spell that does 25-70 damage earlygame, with no other effect, in radius 1 and that requires an enemy to walk into it(and only lasts 5-10 turns)... As an added bonus, there's an earlier Glyph that does the same damage, but instead of activating in rad 1, does knockback away from the glyph.

Idea: Strongly boost the damage. It'd probably be a below average skill at roughly triple the power, to be honest. Perhaps a larger blast radius at high levels, as well?

Edit: After some discussion, I think the damage suggestion here is too high-200 or so damage off this would decimate rows of enemies in narrow areas. I still think some damage base bonus could be useful, though, perhaps something like 30 instead of 15 for its base?

Celestial / Sun:

Sunburst 0(1) 1(1) Sun Paladin, Sunburst 0(2) 1(1) 5(1) Anorithil.

* Sunburst: recover 20 positive, 15 cooldown, 3 radius

Hits for (0.73 * [10 + spellpower] * talent modifier) rescaled light damage. Roughly 75-150 damage at endgame.

Issue: For reference, 0.55 * [10 + spellpower] is the formula for Flameshock, which is a huge area Stun skill. Brandish, one of the Sun Paladin's unique skills, attaches a large burst of Light magic damage to a physical assault; The magic burst off that *alone* does more damage than this. For some reason, this doesn't scale up in radius at all, either. It is basically somewhere between free and MP restoring to cast, admittedly, but the other skills in the category have better utility use despite that.

Idea: At the very least, some level of radius scaling would be good. Concievably, a large enough radius(say 2+talent level) could justify this skill alone. Obviously, more damage could help it some too.

Celestial / Twilight:

Shadow Simulacrum 0(2) 1(2)

* Shadow Simulacrum: 10 negative, 30 cooldown, 5 range, (3 + [talent + cunning / 10], rounded up) duration

Make a copy of a non-boss enemy up to (medium, big, big, huge, huge) size. It cannot summon, split, or multiply. It has its resistances changed by +50% darkness, -50% light, +(0.1 * cunning * talent)% all. It has its max life changed to (old max life / [2 - 0.002 * cunning * talent]). This is roughly 10-15 turns, 10-40 All resistance, and 50-80% of the target's life, at endgame, from L1 to L5.

Issue: Creates tanking oriented clone in fairly short range that cannot target higher quality enemies. This means that you produce something a little more durable than a standard grunt, that no enemy has any special reason to attack and that will last as long as a normal enemy, or a bit longer. Many Anorithil skills have large blast radius or indiscriminate damage effects, as well.

Idea: Drastically lower the duration(3+talent level/3, perhaps?), but allow the skill to work on any size enemy. Allow it to work on Rare enemies at L3 and Elites at L5. This would make it a situational nuke, rather than a very situational tanking skill. Alternatively, perhaps only have the much lower duration against rares/elites.

Corruption: Note: Corruption has recently been heavily overhauled. As such, due to the lack of testing of many skills and skillsets, this will be relatively brief and mostly concern skills that, as far as I know, have not been retooled.

Curses / Hexes:

Empathic Hex 0(2) 1(2) Corruptor. Two Necromancers unlocked this, but did not get this skill. One Reaver in the sampling did the same.

* Empathic Hex: 30 Vim, 20 Cooldown, 10 Range, 20 Duration.

Causes all enemies caught in the 2 radius blast to deal roughly 10-20% of all damage they do(by endgame; This is notably lower earlygame) in damage to themselves.

Issue: Martyrdom, for a class designed to tank constantly, is still twice this impact. Sun Paladin is a relatively low damage melee class. Despite the skill having issues there, it is sort of useful. This is half the impact, and Corruptors do not terribly wish to get hit in the face, as well as being far more damaging. Reavers also do more damage than Sun Paladins. 30 Vim is also a relatively high cost, while Martyrdom's Positive cost is reasonably close to free.

Idea: Double to triple the recoil damage.

Cursed:

I will be skipping this. Cursed have been so thoroughly redesigned, and are possibly still in flux. Most of the b37 tables no longer apply to either Cursed or Doomed.

Chronomancy: Much of this has been recently retooled as well, and would be more on the subjective side. However, a few skills have been unchanged.

Chronomancy / Timeline Threading (one person out of five unlocked this category):

Temporal Clone 0(1)

* Temporal Clone. 30 Paradox, 30 Cooldown, 6 Range.

Make a copy of a non-boss enemy up to (medium, big, big, huge, huge) size. Said clone and enemy will instantly attack each other. Lasts five turns.

Issue: Basically the same as Shadow Simulacrum. The useful upside-that the target automatically aggros the enemy you targetted-is counterbalanced by this not always being useful and by the fact that the skill has much less duration. Has an amazingly short duration at L1, in fact(The formula for the duration is 2+rawtalent/2, rounded up, I believe.).

Idea: While this could be made into a similar idea as Shadow Simulacrum, there are other options. Perhaps this could be resisted with Spellpower, but strike any enemy? The duration is short enough and the cost high enough so that I don't think this would be overpowered. Maybe one or the other of the skills could have the size limitation, but not the limitation on enemy ranks? Regardless, I think the limitation on these two skills make them often unattractive; There are usually other options that will actually function on a boss. And I don't think a cloned boss is necessarily that overpowered, so long as the duration is kept quite short.

See The Threads 0(1)

* See the Threads. 50 Paradox, 50 Cooldown. Instant.

Essentially allows you to redo the next 5-11 (L1->L5 Talent level) turns over three times and choose which of the three attempts you like and keep that result, I believe.

Issue: While really cool, if you die during See the Threads, unlike Precognition, you die permanently, I believe. The cost is also amazingly high. And the value is somewhat subjective to start with.

Idea: Precognition's no-death-during-the-spell effect would be good. Optimally, you'd only die if all three threads die, and would be able to choose from thread routes that didn't die at the end of the spell. This would make it an odd form of escape. The added duration is only rarely useful in that case, though...perhaps a lower base duration would help there.

Psionic:

Psionic / Augmented Mobility: Four out of eleven Mindslayers unlocked this.

Mindhook 1(1) 5(3)

* Mindhook: 20 psi, ([20 - 2 * talent], rounded up) cooldown, ([3, 4, 5, 6, 7] * reach talent bonus) range

Pulls the target towards you.

Issue: One of the odder skills; As can be seen, while not a lot of people unlock the category, many 5 this skill. 20 Psi is quite expensive regardless, but the main issue with it is that it is only remotely good when leveled. A three range grab with no secondary impact, 20 cooldown and a high cost is one of the most amazingly bad L1 skills in the game, strangely enough, which seems off for a high level unlockable category ability.

Idea: 5+(rawtalent/2) range seems a better curve for this, though I don't think it'd be broken with 5+talent. The Cooldown still does go down at higher levels, as well as gaining range.

Shattering Charge 0(4)

* Shattering Charge: 60 psi, 10 cooldown, ([3, 4, 5, 6, 7] * reach talent bonus) range

Requires a spiked Kinetic Shield, casts one if required and possible. Hits all enemies in your path for between (2.5 * [20 + mindpower] * talent modifier) rescaled physical damage, and 2/3 as much, and knocks them back (3? squares). At raw talent level 5, it digs through walls in your path. This is probably 150-250 to 350-500 damage ranges(L1/L5 talent level) at endgame, though Mindslayers have highly variable Mindpower based on build and equipment.

Issue: 60 Psi is a spectacular cost for Mindslayers, which *might* get 200 Psi before their moderately expensive sustains. Spikes your Kinetic Shield, if you want it or not. Is a weird mixture of escape skill and damage skill, and requires L5 before it has much of a standout impact in either of those directions(relative to Mindslayer, which tends to specialize in high damage, high cost skills). Even then, the cost still cripples it. Also is a very short range skill indeed at L1.

Idea: Well, if it hit enemies to the sides of the line(perhaps only at higher levels, though given the range 3 L1 version, perhaps not...), this would make a pretty good crowd control skill by Mindslayer standards. Regardless, it doesn't deserve the 60 Psi cost, 30-40 would be more reasonable and more in line with other Psi skills.

Psionic / Psi-Archery: Two out of eleven Mindslayers unlocked this.

Guided Shot 1(2)

* Guided Shot: 10 Psi, 10 Cooldown.

Does a normal bow shot with 30+(Talentlevel*10) added Accuracy/Critical rate.

Issue: Usually you can hit someone with Mindlash and do more damage, with less Psi cost and Cooldown. It also doesn't miss. And this is only remotely valuable to start with if you have a good bow.

Idea: This is a logical attack to have a standard damage multiplier. Alternatively, it could grant a higher critical multiplier when you use it, which would be more in character. Regardless, halving the Psi cost, and perhaps lowering the cooldown, would help it compete with Mindlash more(It isn't even terribly logical that mental bowshots should cost as much as producing raw mental force assaults; The attack skills should be quite cheap, and it is largely the opposite.).

Augmented Shot 1(2)

* Augmented Shot: 15 Psi, 15 Cooldown.

Does a (150%->250% base, closer to 200/270 in practice) damage bowshot with (10+(10+talent level, or roughly 23-75 in practice)) APR.

Issue: Costs are prohibitive, again, mostly. Steady Shot does only marginally less damage, yet has half that cost in the much easier to come by Stamina, and one fifth the cooldown. See above comment about Mindlash being mostly better.

Idea: Perhaps lowering cooldown and Psi costs as it levels? Maybe 10 base on each, and -1 per talent level for both? This would make a high level version of this possibly better than Steady Shot, but would make a low level version worse, but still good for an occasional firing if you're only in this skill for Telekinetic Archery.

Thought-quick Shot 5(2)

* Thought-quick Shot: 20 Psi, 18-(Talent level*2) cooldown, 16-5 range in practice. Instant.

Instantly shoot a normal bowshot.

Issue: Despite the high investment from two players, I suspect the investment is due to the fact that A: This skill is only worth something at all at L5, and B: The earlier two attack skills were worse, and that the two people that unlocked this skillset wanted to have at least one attack skill to use with their bow. (While I cannot prove this, due to the small sampling size, the small sampling is due to the fact that almost no one who succeeds with a Mindslayer unlocks this category, not due to a lack of Mindslayers...) 20 Psi is very expensive, and leveling this, while making it good to constantly fire off damage, makes cost even more, even faster, to the point where it's only really useful when used in tandem with Matter is Energy.

Idea: Lowered Psi cost, mostly, yet again.

And that's it for things that stand out to me at a glance. Phew.

I hope this massive ramble helps a little. <_<

[lukep]

I mostly agree; some comments:

Death blow: received a huge nerf with the saves/power rework. The bonus damage is now bonus physical power, which does not add to damage very much.

Rapid Shot: generally more DPS than Aim at maxed talent levels with regular shots, but really eats up ammo now.

Feather Wind: used to be useful for encumbrance, not so much anymore.

Glyphs (in general) start weak but scale extremely well with talent level. That should really be looked at.

Body of Fire/Thunderstorm: should be more like hymn of moonlight, and only drain resources when used (and have lower sustain costs).

Archery as a mindslayer looks massively underpowered. IIRC, you get no benefit from wielding a bow telekinetically, and if you are shooting a bow, you want to be at range, so melee weapons are useless. Give mindslayers Masterful Telekinetic Archery or something equivalent as a passive/0 cost level 0 sustain to put it on par with beyond the Flesh. It could even fire only every 3 turns, or every 2, but they get no benefit from archery as it now stands.

[Grey]

Great analysis and lots of good practical ideas. I especially like the idea of the movement speed boost from Feather Wind.

For Dirty Fighting I suggest making it an instant attack with even more reduced damage. Would have a lot more tactical value then. Maybe at level 5 it would have a chance to daze as well.

[donkatsu]

Shadow Simulacrum and Temporal Clone already work on rares and elites. They are already good talents, the problem was that Anorithils and Paradox Mages were both so overpowered that they didn't need a way to deal with elites. Now that they have both been nerfed to somewhat reasonable levels, and rares have been added into the game, I would expect to see more use of these two talents.

See the Threads is good, it's just that its main use isn't readily apparent. It's for scumming boss drops to try to get an artifact you want. That said, it is a one point wonder. I think more talent points should allow you to see more threads.

Steady Shot is one of the best weapon talents in the game to the point where it's a no-brainer to put 5 class points into it. If Augmented Shot is boosted to anywhere near Steady Shot level, it will also be too good, except it will be on a class that was already good without something like Steady Shot.

Everything else you wrote about Celestial, Corruption, Chronomancy, and Psionic talents I would quite readily agree with. In addition, I'd like to mention a couple more talents.

Corruption/ Absorb Life: The Vim increase is tiny. At 5/5, if you kill three things in one turn then it provides enough Vim to use Epidemic once. With Leech and Drain, no one really has problems with Vim anyway. Would be nice if it recovered health on kill as well.

Psionic/ Absorption Mastery: Whether at 1/5 or 5/5, the effective cooldown is still "once per encounter". Same thing with Projection Mastery.

[SageAcrin]

Steady Shot is one of the best weapon talents in the game to the point where it's a no-brainer to put 5 class points into it. If Augmented Shot is boosted to anywhere near Steady Shot level, it will also be too good, except it will be on a class that was already good without something like Steady Shot.

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that level of buff. I was thinking more like half the cooldown it currently has, and less Psi, not bringing it into line with Steady Shot. I was just pointing out that it is massively inferior in practice to a skill that, say, Bulwark, currently gets for its ranged attacks.

For See The Threads, I hadn't thought of that, but...it's sorta depressing as its only use. I suppose that does make it worth a point, but somehow, scumming drops doesn't feel like the only reason it should be good.

Ah, it was just bosses that the clones didn't work on. Guess I misremembered(or is that a relatively recent change?) Still, the skills, glancing at the latest six Paradox Mages above L40, three didn't get the category, and the remaining three gave it one point and the other ignored it(Anorithils are similar, 0(3), 1(1), 3(2).), which shows some question in people's minds about investing past one point in it, I think.

Maybe it needs a shorter duration boss version with heavy investment(possibly with a resistance check that the boss could make to prevent it from appearing)? I don't think the skill would be overpowered if it produced a boss for two or three turns, but may be more psychologically satisfying; As you more or less said, the issue is, essentially, that there's skills that work on higher end enemies that people could invest in instead.

[jotwebe]

Worthwile project. It might be worthwhile to weigh skill choices differently depending on the level of the char in question, with good skill choices presumably reflected in high level chars.

On the suggestions, generally I agree, for where I don't, some thoughts:

Dirty fighting:

It's a bit of a one-point wonder, but quite useful as a backup for double strike. It's also somewhat more of a sure thing, since only one of two hits needs to connect. And having two stun talents makes a stun lock easier to get. Also

Dirty Fighting 0(3) 1(3) 2(2) 4(2) Shadowblade. Rogue has a similar spread.

...is a nice, balanced spread. I don't see where it suggests a need for change? That said, one way to increase it's attractiveness would be to let it daze additionally to stun, so it'd be superior in cases where you mainly want a breather.

Back Stab:

Give it a chance to stun for one round when landing a critical hit, starting at 5%, about 20% max. Or give it a bonus to accuracy against stunned targets, making it easer to get cross-tier effects.

Swap place:

Situational, but potentially a life-saver. I'd suggest letting increasing talent reduce the cooldown and stamina cost. 80/(TL+1) would start at 40 and end somewhere around 10, depending on mastery. I don't think damage is the point of the skill, and the fact that it does no damage does play into some uses with escorts, I vaguely remember to have heard...

Minions: Sacrifice

It could actually refill the necrotic pool. What self-respecting necromancer would release his captured souls just because he had to disassemble his bone giant pet?

Necrosis: Undeath Link

It's quite useful, as a one-point wonder. Best used before summoning a new batch of minions, of course, and in a way it actually gets worse with more points invested. My suggestion: Keep the damage healed per point, switch around the damage dealt to minions. Make TL reduce cooldown, perhaps also on the minion summon spell.

Staff Spells

My solution would be to nerf alchemist bombs so that they are projectiles traveling at half their max range per turn. This would make dexterity matter for alchemists. That would make a defense bonus not quite as useless. Defensive posture still could use reduced costs and a somewhat higher defense bonus. I don't see it giving armour either thematically or with any synergy potential.
Blunt thrust would IMHO be perfectly ok with doing both daze and stun.

Static Field

I don't think you can equate it Echoes of the Past's damage model quite so easily. It is very easy to set up Static Field for maximum effectiveness (open combat with it while standing next to a lot of dudes) but somewhat difficult to do the same for EotP (have as many heavily wounded - but not too heavily wounded - targets in range as possible). Still, it could stand do some 50% more damage in exchange for a couple of rounds more CD, imho.

Sunburst

The point of the skill is the positive energy refund, the damage it does is the topping and the cherry. At least that's how I remembered it working the last time I played a sun paladin. That does make it a one point wonder, though. I'd suggest reducing cooldown with higher talent. Damage wouldn't hurt either, I agree on that.

Psionic / Augmented Mobility: Four out of eleven Mindslayers unlocked this.

This is another case where I don't see it as underused if over 30% unlock it.

[SageAcrin]

It might be worthwhile to weigh skill choices differently depending on the level of the char in question, with good skill choices presumably reflected in high level chars.

The original topic referenced for those figures only includes characters over L30 at all.

For Dirty Fighting, I can respect that; It was included mostly due to a matter of context. 0s in a first skill-one with a debilitating status effect, yet-is basically not heard of in any other skill. (For instance, one Temporal Warden out of 14 failed to level Dual Strike, despite it being a fairly weak stun skill, relatively, and Temporal Wardens having a heavy Archery alternate option that, likely, said TW dipped into.) A universal physical skill (that starts the category, yet) seeing a 0 means at least some people don't respect it at all, which is rather surprising for a Stun skill among people that made it to L30. However, it could be more of a statement on the rest of the category, which is uniformly bad at getting points.

Personally, I think Dirty Fighting makes a useful 1 but see no real reason to level it ever, but I figured suggesting a small improvement, in light of the figures, would make sense.

For Swap Places, it actually *does* sorta do damage. Any on-hit skills and effects will kick on, as it stands, when you use it; It just does no base damage. This makes it actually not that great for just swapping with someone friendly, either.

Echoes From The Past is a range six radial skill(at cap) with low cooldown. Having ran a PM, I can say with certainty that it is very easy to remember to cast it some when high HP enemies start getting low on life. It does reasonably decent damage given its radius even if the target hasn't been injured yet. It isn't really overpowered even so, to be honest, but it's quite good. More limitations on Static Field is fair, but it's very notably worse at its job.

The problem with Sunburst as a charger is that you just don't need an eighth charge. You don't have turns to use all eight on as it stands; Their cooldowns reset while you're using things that don't restore Positive. Just toss out another Barrier or Healing or Searing or Sunray or Sun Flare or Bathe in Light instead(You may want to save Providence, though, since you may not be statused at the time.). By the time you hit Sunburst, it's just not that needed.

For the Psi category, I think you're confused and thinking I'm saying it's a rare unlock. It's fine there. I list all the categories and how many people unlock them just for context.

[donkatsu]

Re: Shadow Simulacrum and Temporal Clone

It's bosses and uniques that they don't work on.

The entire Timeline Threading tree got some direct and indirect buffs at some point, and I think it was after b37, in which case that data is no longer relevant. From b38 onwards, of the 12 PMs above level 40, 6 unlocked the tree and 5 put at least one point into Temporal Clone.

From b38 to b40, of the 5 Anorithils above level 40, the spread was 0(1) 1(1) 2(0) 3(3) 4(0) 5(0) which hardly seems underused to me, but then again small sample size.

As of b39, with an average of around 2-3 rares on every single floor of every single dungeon, each of them typically more dangerous than the boss itself, the usefulness of these talents will shoot up dramatically. Lots of other changes made these skills more appealing since b37, for both Anorithils and PMs. In general I do agree; I tend not to take talents that will utterly fail me in boss fights. With the addition of rares though, the actual bosses themselves have become, frankly, pathetic in comparison. A shorter duration use on bosses would be nice and more tactically interesting, since there's not much a boss can actually do in just 2-3 turns. I think the worst thing would probably be SWQ's breath, and the Master's summoning. Oh, and I guess anything that Atamathon does.

[Frumple]

Still reading through things, but did notice something a bit ways up while skimming that could stand a minor correction -- TK wielding a bow allows you to apply conduit damage to shots, which is what lets bowslayers start approaching archer damage for a bit. Psiarchery tree has other issues (cost, cost, cost, being massively underwhelming, cost), but there's certainly an advantage to TK wielding a bow.

The, uh. The point on shattering impact is hilariously wrong insofar as viability goes. The cost is high, yes, but some kit and the stam-related talents lets you suck it up quite easily (though you do effectively have to max the passive stam regen talent and get 3+ points in unending frenzy to really use it). In exchange, you get one of the absolute most powerful damage boosting talents in the game -- maxed, it gives a steady 160% multiplier to every single melee attack you throw out, (including talents!) and then hits everything around the target with that extra 60%. Further, the AoE effect from it stacks -- it's very possible (via death dance, ferex) to stack that effect on the same critter five times over (60*5+100=400% damage boost on single critter!). Which hurts, and very, very badly. Further, the AoE damage doesn't miss -- which means if you're dealing with two critters side by side, one with high defense and the other without...

Being fair, it's not as appealing to bulwarks as 'zerkers -- bloodbath is an extra bit of help to offset the stamina cost. Still. I've suggested nerfing SI a number of times in the past. It is an incredibly vicious -- borderline gamebreaking -- talent if you can offset the cost.

Re: Blood Frenzy: Its biggest problem, frankly, is that it's overkill. In the later game, a 30+ stack is quite common -- basically boosting you up another weapon tier or more -- but by that point you're doing excessive damage to most things anyway. At that point, the talent doesn't really do anything besides make the numbers go higher (which, being fair, is great fun ) and chew up a huge chunk of your stamina. I'd definitely say drop the sustain cost significantly.

Last bit, for slayer's augmented mobility... the big situational aspect to that is twofold: One, if you can get away without having it via inscriptions (movement infusion, CPD rune) or racial abilities (Shalore, ghoul) and two, if you can find the kit to not need it (rush boots, etc.). Otherwise, it is almost entirely necessary for a mindslayer to even hope to survive -- it's their only source of mobility related talents! Mindhook is expensive, but the big thing about it is that it's even there at all -- cases where you need to get something close to you (Crypt!) or stop something from running (Crypt! Master archers, etc.) benefit incredibly from being able to fire off both it and leap. Tree's biggest problem right now is its level cap -- only being able to unlock it at level twenty means that you most likely won't have access to the full tree (minus shattering charge, which, agreed, is mostly useless.) in the situation you're likely going to need it the most (CRYPT!). Wouldn't mind mindhook getting a cost reduction or range increase, and the whole tree could stand to drop down a level tier (to 10 -- swap it with advanced energy manipulation!).

[Hungry_Zerg]

Static Field

It reminds me skill of Zeus from DotA. Maybe make it work like that - passive/sustained skill that is triggered on the use of offensive talents/wild gift talents/storm drake talents.

[SageAcrin]

Wouldn't a Death Dance with Shattering Impact cost into the 100 Stamina range then? I would honestly hope it would not just kick in eight times, only to charge a cost once; That's less powerful and more vaguely buggy and underexplained. And also makes a better Stamina chugging blast than Death Blow, which is pretty sad.

Similarly, the skill makes it sound like it does blast radius around the target that doesn't hit the target(Which is to say, it doesn't make it sound like it adds a damage bonus to who you're hitting). And it at no point says the shockwave can't miss surrounding targets, something that never occured to me. (In fairness, that's not a big deal overall, except for Dreads, but.)

At this point, I'm starting to wonder if the skill isn't so unstable as to be a good candidate for removal and replacement with another form of AoE skill. I'm trying to imagine a proper tooltip for this skill as it apparently actually functions and it makes my head spin, and for some strange reason it sounds like it vastly more rewards Berserkers than Bulwarks, much more than I expected even, despite the fact that they need the AoE much less.

I'm willing to grant that it's good, based on what you've said, but it's certainly badly misleading at this point, which is a different issue.

For Augmented Mobility, you've hit on why I feel it needs some buffing above and beyond even having some poor skills; As you said, it's the only game in town, but people still don't necessarily unlock it, because it is a 20+ locked category, and in many cases, that means it competes with an extra infusion or rune slot(which can instead be used for Mobility without costing Generic points). It's nice to see someone agree with my assessment that Mindhook is leveled to 5, not because it's a great skill, but because it's only good at L5, and because they have so few other options for mobility in other directions.

[edge2054]

Great write up and while I mostly agree that the above talents tend to be under powered I want to point out that that fix for See the Threads wouldn't work.

As demonstrated before Lost Merchant scumming and Coffin scumming was fixed See the Threads allows you to create a loop by always keeping one thread as an 'out'. In other words, while Precognition has no consequences (for good or bad, it's mostly for scouting) See the Threads does and if we remove the bad consequences it would let you basically scum every dangerous encounter in the game (which is the entire game) given enough patience. A fix for this would of course be to reduce the duration, in which case the spell would become ineffective for boss fights, which preferably is where I'd like the player to be using the spell.

Point being, the effect would be extremely scummy if it had a no death clause and would encourage tedious monotonous play from the player as the 'best' course of action (which is even worse in my opinion than the game balance issues).

I'm open to suggestions on improving it. But like Precognition but 'better' I don't think is the fix.

*edit* I also want to point out that Static Field is one of the only talents in the game that doesn't deal damage in a traditional way. In other words, it bypasses all resistances etc. etc. I'm not saying that it couldn't be improved somehow. But it's something to consider.

[SageAcrin]

Mmmm, I think what you're saying is that the skill is too effective at providing an out consistently, albiet very slowly, if all the timelines can survive. While I have to agree(Though, I dislike to, funny enough; I hate admitting to myself that thousands upon thousands of added turns options could be optimal, and that people do them even if they are optimal, mostly.), that may just mean the idea isn't being provided with enough of a drawback to counterbalance.

The logical thing, then, is to find some way that it is ineffective for scumming all situations, but instead give it more of a niche property. An added trait as well as the inability to die unless all three threads die, that would give it some anti-scumming properties.

I can think of several parameters that could be attacked there. For example, you could make it so that much more Paradox is consumed while under the effects of See The Threads split, or that you do less damage and take more, meaning that See The Threads would be useful more as an escape, instead of a combat option-you'd always fight worse under its effects. You could, alternatively, force someone casting the spell to move in a random direction. (A short range teleport paradox effect?) This would mean that you wouldn't be able to, say, just stand still and handle every Pride from the door.

The issue is that someone can still do it with those, though, if they're persistent enough-and if anything, the playstyle becomes even more degenerate, arguably(though, I think the former type could be done well if someone wanted, it would be hard.).

Therefore, I think I may have a better idea.

If *all* of your selves die, you're dead, no matter what. But if any given self dies, the mental shock of experiencing your own death (Or paradox effects from dying on a close, magically linked, timeline, or whatever.) has a *chance* to outright kill you on the other timelines you've split to, as well. Say, 50% base, -5% per talent level, off the top of my head(though, obviously, the values can be attacked any way it seems most balanced. If it's too low, one could argue someone could bruteforce the game with odds and enough full runs, but if they're too high, it doesn't sound like a useful perk.).

This would give it a stronger niche L1 use, as well as encouraging leveling for people that wish an even stronger escape. It would be useless for scumming situations constantly, as the risk becomes insanely high-you'd just be performing a form of russian roulette if you're trying to get into situations where death is a high odds option, and for scouting, Precognition is simply superior. I'm not entirely sure most people would dip into the skill, but it might be a way to make it more well rounded.

Thoughts?

[kazak]

As lukep pointed out, Rapid Shot isn't so much a poor skill as just underutilized. I've been playing around with it a bit lately, and it's actually crazy good, especially when combined with other speed sources like Eden's Guile, the yeek racial, etc.... Stacking speed, you get so many shots each turn before anyone else can do anything. So you can focus on one critter and dish out a barrage of damage, or you can fan out shots that slow, stun, or blind to whatever's around you, all within one game turn and before anyone else can act. Also, the penalty seems to cap with 5 points in the skill--add a category point and/or amulet of mastery and you get more speed with no added penalty.

People seem to prefer Aim, but personally I hate skills that make you immobile so that you have to cycle them on and off for every encounter.

[SageAcrin]

For the record, everything about Aim scales statistically, while nothing about Rapid Shot does. I still have a hard time being sold here, due to that.

Rapid Shot's curve somewhat weak, relatively. A...I believe the test Dexterity here was 60? Archer gains 40-45 Damage/Accuracy/APR/Critical Hit Rate at the cost of 25% rate of fire, with L5 Aim(It scales up strongly, but so too does Rapid Shot.).

Rapid Shot...well, will have its damage loss be relatively less minor, later in the game, but critical hit modifiers and damage bonuses on Aim are extremely dominate. An Aiming Archer has 65 more accuracy and a similarly higher amount of critical hit rate. Lategame criticals having a 200%+ bonus is not particularly unheard of. Toss in the raw damage modifier and APR and it honestly strikes me as a bloodbath in the favor of Aim, outside of the personal preference "Do I mind not being able to move some of the time?".

As an added penalty, newer versions haven't been particularly kind to chewing up a ton of ammo, as lukep pointed out.

Of course, there's a pretty solid argument for using both, objectively-Archer doesn't have that many point sinks, and the two skills are somewhat different/complementary-but subjectively I'm going to go with "Out of 12 people, one person gave it 2 points and none higher." as a problem, at least psychologically, and that poll was done before the ammo issues gave it a more objective problem.

...This all reminds me that I probably should have put Cleave on this list, as both have similar "mutually exclusive so one never gets used" issues, but eh, I forgot that Cursed had that standout still-the-same skill there. (Then again, I don't actually think Cleave is bad, and people level up Repel, which I do think is bad. *shrug* Some things are partially subjective.)