Race Balance: Higher - & Aether Permeation Prodigy
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2017 8:10 pm
So, since I'm been trying to look at what race/class combination I would play next, I've been looking at some of those 'lacklustre' races. One of those races if of course the Higher - and arguable it is the weakest living race in the game at this time. Personally I think this is a race that I would like to play - after it is perhaps buffed a little, because it doesn't do enough to make it worth playing as it is now.
Seeing as how this isn't the first time I've done this, here are the intrinsic stats that make up Highers:
Instrinsics
Life Rating +11
Starts with +1 in Strength, Dexterity, Magic, & Willpower
Constitution & Cunning Stats aren't modified
They are a Living Race, so they can use Infusions, Need to Breathe, etc.
Experience Penalty of 15% means they are the the third lowest race for level gain.
They might be the race with the worst Racial Talents in the game - My Opinion
Gameplay
Unlike with pretty much any other race, I think the Higher is really the only one that personally I don't have much fun playing with - so take that as bias if you wish. Unlike with practically every other race in the game, Higher's are that one race that doesn't synergize that well with anything else in the game; either due to other races pairing up better or the Higher's racial talents just being 'that weak'. Speaking about the talents in general too, their first Racial is likely the worst one in the game - since I think it might be the only one that be completely useless for use for certain builds that the Higher may run.
The first racial is only really useful if you invest in Willpower - but even if you do, you can't use it if you are already using a Regeneration effect. The second racial is.... okay, but literally everything they have here can be helped out a lot with item acquirement - including even the Sight Range bonus which once made them quite stellar. It is worth investing in, but it certainly isn't any top-tier racial talent, which the Higher is in dire need of.
Born Into Magic has 'sort of' stood the test of time in remaining as useful as it once was, since you still don't find a lot of items with Arcane Resistance; though one has to answer the question if it was really ever all the useful to begin with, since while the sparse few enemies that use Arcane Damage against you ARE quite dangerous, they are only a sparse few.... Aether Permeation, the Higher's 'personal' prodigy, doesn't really save them either, since there are so few items that can grant you Arcane Resistance to make it more useful. Born Into Magic can also be somewhat important if you are a spellcasting class dealing with a single damage type - though it only applies to the specific damage type.
Then there is capstone talent Highborn's Bloom - which is essentially a really weak Hidden Resources Talent. That talent lets them make more use of any resource based talents regardless of their cost while active - provided that they aren't suffering some form of Talent Failure and they already have the resources to initially power the ability. That makes it fairly useful if running a heavy using resource based class or using a class that runs dry on resources.
Aether Permeation
I'll note that I'm adding this specific prodigy into the discussion here since Aether Permeation comes off as being a prodigy very closes connected for use by Higher players. Likely any changes to the Higher Race should bring some change to Aether Permeation as well.
Okay, so first - Aether Permeation is of course obtainable by non-Higher races, but Higher's are more inclined to pick it up then other races due to Born Into Magic. Aether Permeation is a prodigy that will let you check 66% of your Arcane Resistance for reducing damage from non-Arcane Damage types - if that non-Arcane Damage type isn't higher then the value. Since Higher characters can build up their Arcane Resistance a bit higher thanks to their racial, it is more useful for them.
Thing is, it is perhaps one of the weakest prodigies to pick up and only if the 'stars align' is it even worth considering - those specific stars being if you pick the Higher Race and pick up Born Into Magic, go Archmage and invest in appropriate Spell/Arcane talents, and pick up some gear which grants some Arcane Resistance in your run. For the most part though, if you don't have all those stars aligning you are likely looking into other Prodigies.
Ideas & Suggestions for Improvements
Okay, so what are some ideas to making Higher's more preferable for play? Here's some from me:
1) In Regards to the Aether Permeation Prodigy - let's do something unique, and involve Higher's in that uniqueness! Let's dump this fairly useless prodigy in favor of a new prodigy with one special prerequisite - Higher Race only. I'm not sure specifically what he new prodigy should do, but if we want it to be similar to what it does -
-Make the new Higher only Prodigy buff 'all' their resistances substantially based on characters Arcane Resistance - but 'add' to current values. Maybe also make it so that it raises max resistance caps too.
-Maybe change it so that based off the characters Arcane Resistance, you can 'ignore' some of an enemies Resistance Penetration. Have 60% Arcane Resistance - you can ignore 60% of an enemies Non-Arcane Resistance Penetration.
-As an idea for those players in Higher Difficulty, maybe change it so that based off your Arcane Resistance, you might 'ignore' Critical Damage from enemies - though never lower then what they would inflict with a normal attack.
2) Change Gift of the Highborn so that it scales with the Cunning Stat (maybe change it so that Higher's get +1 Cunning too) - Classes that use Willpower 'likely' are more inclined to use Regeneration Infusions, and enough Races use Willpower as a modifier. Cunning seems like a good swap out for it - and classes that use Cunning are usually less focused on the use of Regeneration Infusions (or Infusions in general).
3) Change Gift of the Highborn so that when used it is still useful regardless of stat modifier related to it (or remove the stat modifier part to begin with) - part of the reason the first talent sucks is because you need to invest in its modifying stat for it to be good. Changing it to do something that it is beneficial regardless of the stat would go a long way to at least improving this talent. Maybe as one idea, Gift of the Highborn could reduce the cost of your resource based skills for X Turns; and the stat modifier could change 'how' much that reduction might be. That goes well with the 'resourcefulness' of Humans, as well as the class in general.
4) Add to Overseer of Nations effects - while this talent has a lot of overlap with equipment effects, that doesn't mean they aren't still beneficial. Since this is a talent based on vision, maybe we should just add to its effects. Perhaps you should gain better Stealth and Invisibility detection (just a little, not a whole lot) in addition to everything else the talent does; just to help make the talent that much more useful to invest in. People might still invest in it if the talent remains as is though so that should be mentioned too.
5) Born Into Magics single spell damage type could perhaps be changed so that instead of boosting the damage of a single spell damage type, perhaps it could apply to a specific non-physical damage type. Really, I see no reason we couldn't perhaps apply this to mindpower based characters.
Finally -
6) Change Highborn's bloom to be super special! Other races have abilities that are special and help make them stand out - while Highborn's Bloom is a weak Hidden Resources Prodigy. So as an idea - remove the Hidden Resources Prodigy, and give ALL its effects to Highborn's Bloom. I'm sure some people likely maybe not like the loss of Hidden Resources if they are using it for their non-Higher characters, but it would definitely make Higher's that much more desirable to play. No idea what prodigy would replace it, but I'm sure someone has an idea for a new prodigy.
Anyhow, anyone else have some thoughts on how Higher's could be improved, or where my ideas suck or rock or what not?
Seeing as how this isn't the first time I've done this, here are the intrinsic stats that make up Highers:
Instrinsics
Life Rating +11
Starts with +1 in Strength, Dexterity, Magic, & Willpower
Constitution & Cunning Stats aren't modified
They are a Living Race, so they can use Infusions, Need to Breathe, etc.
Experience Penalty of 15% means they are the the third lowest race for level gain.
They might be the race with the worst Racial Talents in the game - My Opinion
Gameplay
Unlike with pretty much any other race, I think the Higher is really the only one that personally I don't have much fun playing with - so take that as bias if you wish. Unlike with practically every other race in the game, Higher's are that one race that doesn't synergize that well with anything else in the game; either due to other races pairing up better or the Higher's racial talents just being 'that weak'. Speaking about the talents in general too, their first Racial is likely the worst one in the game - since I think it might be the only one that be completely useless for use for certain builds that the Higher may run.
The first racial is only really useful if you invest in Willpower - but even if you do, you can't use it if you are already using a Regeneration effect. The second racial is.... okay, but literally everything they have here can be helped out a lot with item acquirement - including even the Sight Range bonus which once made them quite stellar. It is worth investing in, but it certainly isn't any top-tier racial talent, which the Higher is in dire need of.
Born Into Magic has 'sort of' stood the test of time in remaining as useful as it once was, since you still don't find a lot of items with Arcane Resistance; though one has to answer the question if it was really ever all the useful to begin with, since while the sparse few enemies that use Arcane Damage against you ARE quite dangerous, they are only a sparse few.... Aether Permeation, the Higher's 'personal' prodigy, doesn't really save them either, since there are so few items that can grant you Arcane Resistance to make it more useful. Born Into Magic can also be somewhat important if you are a spellcasting class dealing with a single damage type - though it only applies to the specific damage type.
Then there is capstone talent Highborn's Bloom - which is essentially a really weak Hidden Resources Talent. That talent lets them make more use of any resource based talents regardless of their cost while active - provided that they aren't suffering some form of Talent Failure and they already have the resources to initially power the ability. That makes it fairly useful if running a heavy using resource based class or using a class that runs dry on resources.
Aether Permeation
I'll note that I'm adding this specific prodigy into the discussion here since Aether Permeation comes off as being a prodigy very closes connected for use by Higher players. Likely any changes to the Higher Race should bring some change to Aether Permeation as well.
Okay, so first - Aether Permeation is of course obtainable by non-Higher races, but Higher's are more inclined to pick it up then other races due to Born Into Magic. Aether Permeation is a prodigy that will let you check 66% of your Arcane Resistance for reducing damage from non-Arcane Damage types - if that non-Arcane Damage type isn't higher then the value. Since Higher characters can build up their Arcane Resistance a bit higher thanks to their racial, it is more useful for them.
Thing is, it is perhaps one of the weakest prodigies to pick up and only if the 'stars align' is it even worth considering - those specific stars being if you pick the Higher Race and pick up Born Into Magic, go Archmage and invest in appropriate Spell/Arcane talents, and pick up some gear which grants some Arcane Resistance in your run. For the most part though, if you don't have all those stars aligning you are likely looking into other Prodigies.
Ideas & Suggestions for Improvements
Okay, so what are some ideas to making Higher's more preferable for play? Here's some from me:
1) In Regards to the Aether Permeation Prodigy - let's do something unique, and involve Higher's in that uniqueness! Let's dump this fairly useless prodigy in favor of a new prodigy with one special prerequisite - Higher Race only. I'm not sure specifically what he new prodigy should do, but if we want it to be similar to what it does -
-Make the new Higher only Prodigy buff 'all' their resistances substantially based on characters Arcane Resistance - but 'add' to current values. Maybe also make it so that it raises max resistance caps too.
-Maybe change it so that based off the characters Arcane Resistance, you can 'ignore' some of an enemies Resistance Penetration. Have 60% Arcane Resistance - you can ignore 60% of an enemies Non-Arcane Resistance Penetration.
-As an idea for those players in Higher Difficulty, maybe change it so that based off your Arcane Resistance, you might 'ignore' Critical Damage from enemies - though never lower then what they would inflict with a normal attack.
2) Change Gift of the Highborn so that it scales with the Cunning Stat (maybe change it so that Higher's get +1 Cunning too) - Classes that use Willpower 'likely' are more inclined to use Regeneration Infusions, and enough Races use Willpower as a modifier. Cunning seems like a good swap out for it - and classes that use Cunning are usually less focused on the use of Regeneration Infusions (or Infusions in general).
3) Change Gift of the Highborn so that when used it is still useful regardless of stat modifier related to it (or remove the stat modifier part to begin with) - part of the reason the first talent sucks is because you need to invest in its modifying stat for it to be good. Changing it to do something that it is beneficial regardless of the stat would go a long way to at least improving this talent. Maybe as one idea, Gift of the Highborn could reduce the cost of your resource based skills for X Turns; and the stat modifier could change 'how' much that reduction might be. That goes well with the 'resourcefulness' of Humans, as well as the class in general.
4) Add to Overseer of Nations effects - while this talent has a lot of overlap with equipment effects, that doesn't mean they aren't still beneficial. Since this is a talent based on vision, maybe we should just add to its effects. Perhaps you should gain better Stealth and Invisibility detection (just a little, not a whole lot) in addition to everything else the talent does; just to help make the talent that much more useful to invest in. People might still invest in it if the talent remains as is though so that should be mentioned too.
5) Born Into Magics single spell damage type could perhaps be changed so that instead of boosting the damage of a single spell damage type, perhaps it could apply to a specific non-physical damage type. Really, I see no reason we couldn't perhaps apply this to mindpower based characters.
Finally -
6) Change Highborn's bloom to be super special! Other races have abilities that are special and help make them stand out - while Highborn's Bloom is a weak Hidden Resources Prodigy. So as an idea - remove the Hidden Resources Prodigy, and give ALL its effects to Highborn's Bloom. I'm sure some people likely maybe not like the loss of Hidden Resources if they are using it for their non-Higher characters, but it would definitely make Higher's that much more desirable to play. No idea what prodigy would replace it, but I'm sure someone has an idea for a new prodigy.
Anyhow, anyone else have some thoughts on how Higher's could be improved, or where my ideas suck or rock or what not?
