scaling for Bone Grab

[Sirrocco]

Currently, Bone Grab is something of a king among one point wonders for Reavers. The first point is fantastic. It's like mobility in reverse. You drag the enemy to you, staple him to the ground, and you even get a free hit because you're a reaver and it's a turn-costing spell. So far so good. Unfortunately, there's basically no reason to ever invest more than that first point. All investing points does is crank the anemic inherent damage up to marginally less anemic, and increase the pin length - and if it takes you longer than *4 turns* to kill an enemy that wanted to be at range but is instead right next to you, as a Reaver, you're kind of an embarrassment to the class (or playing in a higher difficulty). Dealing out horrific amounts of damage to people standing right next to them is kind of the Reaver schtick.

Things that *would* matter:
- decreased vim cost
- decreased cooldown
- range

I'm not even saying all of this has to be over and above. Reavers are getting a notable buff already in that whole one-handed staff thing (I'm definitely looking forward to next rev, when I can actually dual wield the things). Perhaps Bone Grab should start out a bit shorter range than it currently is, and work up. (I wouldn't increase the initial vim cost, just to keep it manageable for the early levels). I just think that having the Reaver guide say "one point is awesome, but anythign past that is utterly wasted" and having every Reaver ever look at that and say "yup. That's how it is" points to something that could be fixed. (disclaimer: I have not, in fact, looked at the stats on this one. It's possible that there are reavers out there that put 5 in bone grab. If there are, could they please explain why? I'm missing it.)

[Doctornull]

Interesting idea.

Another place that could scale is pin duration, and maybe the pin effect only starts at talent level 3 or something.

(That said, I was pretty happy with Bone Grab being a 1-point wonder in 1.0.4...)

[Sirrocco]

pin duration does scale. It just doesn't *matter*. Maybe take ti back to 2 to start with, if you want it to matter. even 3 should be plenty long to do whatever you need to do, unless you're being distracted.

[The Revanchist]

I agree that the Bone Grab could do with a reason to continue investing. On the other hand, having the talent work at one point frees up quite a few points. Would we be able to find a solution that lets it become better with more points, but still be useable with one?

[Doctornull]

Would we be able to find a solution that lets it become better with more points, but still be useable with one?

That sounds ideal to me.

Making the pin duration matter could be a good solution, or making the damage go from lame to decent to a radius 2 bone explosion at talent level 5

[Sirrocco]

We certainly want it usable with one. The thing is, it could be nerfed pretty hard from what it is and still be usable with one. Right now, it's something like range 7, 4 turn pin, and some damage (not a lot, but some.) You could nerf that all the way back to range 4, 1 or 2 turn pin, and no damage, and I'd still have it on my hotbar, even after dropping bone spear off. It would be a noticeable nerf for reavers overall, but I wouldn't be surprised if we found that they kind of needed one, after the dual-wielding staves comes online. It's a *significant* buff.

Note: I'm not suggesting nerfing them hard right now. I *want* to play the somewhat OP version of Reaver for a version, just to see how they work, and to get a feel for how OP they are.

Suggestions on scaling, the EXTREME version:
- range 4+talent level. 5 is enough to work with, and 9-10 all you'll ever really want.
- pin duration 1+talent level. 2 is enough to ensure at least one good hit after the initial autoattack, and 6 should keep them plenty long even if they're saving (which they shouldn't be, if you're working your spellpower right)
- initially, no damage. Levels beyond the first each add damage equal to about the damage increase you'd get by cranking one of your decent-scaling normal damage-dealing powers up by a point
- At lvl 3, it becomes ball targeting rather than bolt targeting, allowing you to target the squishy hiding behind the crunchies.
- at lvl 5, it becomes area 1. Enemies in the blast radius that are not directly targeted take damage and are pinned, but are not pulled.

There are clear tactical reasons to take it at 1, 3, and 5, and each point gives you a bit more of the stuff that you want. It's arguably weaker than the current version - I might well take it at 3, for example, and as compared to the current version, that's basically spending 2 class points to get ball targeting. I might take it to 5 later in the game if I had the points, in support of pinning shenanigans. I did skip the cooldown and cost scaling here - I figured that might be excessive.

[SageAcrin]

Range scaling makes the most sense.

How about 4+1 per TL, cap out at 9?

That would make it start at 5, two lower than it is now, and cap out at 9, two higher. Seems pretty fair.

Edit: Ah, I was actually beaten to the exact numbers. Heh, sorry. Obviously, I do support that idea.

[Waladil]

Looks like this got added to the git.

I'm not sure exactly what this means but the new code for Bone Grab includes "range = function(self, t) return math.floor(self:combatTalentLimit(t, 10, 4, 9)) end,"

Which looks like it goes from 4-9 but I don't know what that 10 in there means.

No other changes to Bone Grab were made (except for "range = 7," being removed obviously).

[Doctornull]

Which looks like it goes from 4-9 but I don't know what that 10 in there means.

It's an ID500 thing, it means the function will approach (but never reach) 10 as the number of talent points goes to infinity.

It's kind of pointless in this case since the return value is floored (so you'll cap out at 9) and you get range 9 at talent level 5 anyway.

Code: Select all

math.floor(self:combatTalentLimit(t, 12, 4, 8))

... would at least be interesting for Highers, eventually.