ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Quake is a weird talent. On one hand it serves as a AOE attack, and on the other hand it could be an escape option, but it does not work well on both ends.

As an AOE attack, it knocks your enemies back, which is not desirable for a primarily melee character. As an escape option, it is too unreliable as you don't know whether you will actually end up landing at an undesirable position, and whether you will actually be exposed to more enemies due to the re-arranged terrain, escape option should not be a gamble.

So I have been thinking about these potential changes:
1) Simply remove the knockback to self and to enemies, or, on top of it
2) Reduce the AOE damage, make it a sustain which keeps re-arranging the terrain, so you can have more control over the terrain formed.

Any comment?

Technically the Wyrmic can be played in a semi-ranged manner thanks to its talents. While they have a lot of melee based talents, they also have some ranged abilities and attacks too. However, Wyrmics already has a knockback talent from the Fire Drake Element tree and Tornado will throw enemies about too. As for an escape ability, that likely isn't the best use for it as it is now. You might make use of it to rearrange the battlefield however.

Maybe as an idea to keep it as a one use talent, it might instead of making it a sort of defensive talent - change it to a full on offensive utility instead. Remove knocking enemies back and replace it with a battle call like ability to draw them 'too' the Wyrmic. This would give them a choice talent for getting enemies close to them.

let's take away one of wyrmic's escape options, on the class that has nothing it can do other than run away really well

Davion Fuxa wrote:Technically wyrmic can be played in a semi-ranged manner

Antimagic archmage is technically playable but it's a really bad idea compared to the easier option. (for wyrmic this is weapon damage because lol scaling on non-weapon talents)

Knockback is desirable on a melee character. Just because you frequently want to be adjacent to enemies doesn't mean you never want to be away from them.

HousePet wrote:Knockback is desirable on a melee character. Just because you frequently want to be adjacent to enemies doesn't mean you never want to be away from them.

Sawbutchers....

HousePet wrote:Knockback is desirable on a melee character. Just because you frequently want to be adjacent to enemies doesn't mean you never want to be away from them.

My comment about knockback was referring to Quake as a AOE attack. Knockback could be desirable effect for defensive purpose, but it is undesirable for offense. And even if you want to be away from adjacent enemies, Quake might not be a good option either, because it might land you at a worse position. These leave me thinking that, Quake as a:

Offense option: At least we need to remove the knockback to enemies and the random position shift to self, and potentially like what Davion Fuxa said, add it with a battle call like ability to draw them 'too' (which could be selected?)

Defense option: At least we need to remove the random position shift to self, and potentially like what I said make it a sustain which let you have more control over the terrain formed. I always feel this terrain re-arranging ability could be emphasized more as it is the main flavor of this talent. It could actually be made as a preparation move before battle (maybe also let you choose the radius?), and you lure enemies into a terrain of your choice

A mix of offense and defense option: At least we need to remove the random position shift to self. Potentially remove knockback to enemies and replace it with other short duration status effect so it won't hurt the offense side so much. Other tweak mentioned above could be applied as well

So it appears to me this random position shift to self need to be removed at least