First level racial talents

[Shade]

Maybe change non-undead first level racial talents so their effects scale at least a little bit with point investment? Beyond cooldown reduction, which tends to be pretty minor since in many cases you are able to rest between skirmishes.

[Delmuir]

I endorse this.

Obviously, there's a balance concern but I think a very, very small improvement with each added skill point would be nice. Then maybe, a more substantial additional benefit when you cap it at lvl 5.

[Faeryan]

I don't think I've ever spent more than one point on the first tier racial, so changing it like this might actually make me do so in the future.

[SageAcrin]

I think it'd be more interesting if they all had an L5 effect.

(Except Skeleton, which could use a secondary effect-maybe elemental resistance or something like that, to match Ghoul.)

Then it becomes a 1-or-5 choice across the board, which is better than just making scaling statistics(which would generally land on you putting them all on 3 if you cared about the effect, or 1 if you didn't-and most of the time people don't care enough about their first skills, except Shalore's.).

Examples off the top of my head (All of these are L5 bonuses to the talent except the Skeleton one, and obviously only while the buff is on):

Higher: Grants Willpower based bonus to your Healing Modifier(10, 30?)
Thalore: Grants Willpower based bonus to your Allrespenetration(10, 30)
Shalore: Grants Magic/Dexterity based bonus to Spellpower(10, 30)
Halfling: Grants Cunning based Critical Hit Modifier bonus(10, 30)
Dwarf: Grants Constitution based Armor Hardiness bonus(10, 30)
Yeek: Dominant Will now attempts to Confuse those with a rank above 3.
Skeleton: Grants a 3% Cold/Darkness resistance bonus per level.

[Tharsonius]

i dont think shalore and thalore racials need a buff. the first skill each is a 1point wonder already and all res penetration / spellpower is also a stronger bonus than 15% for 2 resistances on skeleton/dwarf armor hardiness for example imo.

[SageAcrin]

Just drop the values then.

The bonus can be lowered to something more thematic than majorly useful. 5, 15 perhaps.

[Delmuir]

If we're giving Skeletons a bonus to cold and darkness (which makes sense to me) then I think they should naturally be susceptible to physical damage, which also makes sense to more for a skeleton but not a ghoul. Maybe -10% as an inherent racial characteristic.

Skeletons are just bones after all… makes sense to me that they'd be a bit "brittle."

[Tharsonius]

for the shalore racial maybe only a bonus on lvl 5? i think it is really strong enough and your proposition would only lead to people glitching it to lvl 4 in the beginning of a game to gain substantial spellpower bonus, and taking it out later when they got enough spellpower.

or dont give those 2 races any improvement at all, and just make the first skill scale with points. they got nerfed recently and still i think theyre the top 2 races(maybe cornac too). the global speed from shalore is effectively 3 times better than yeek speed with only 1 point because it lasts like 10-13 turns with timeless and few fights are longer than that. the activation also lets u control when u want to begin and take that extra turn

the other ideas are good tho

@ delmuir why nerf skeleton. id say ghoul also could still use a buff - many players will agree with me i think - undead races are weaker than living ones (no infusions, no equilibrium(harmony tree from queen heart), no way to remove magical detrimental effects, no blood of life)

they can be played as archmage because of meta and the shielding, but any other char will have to farm gloves of dispersion before the final fight or they got high chances of losing it.

[Delmuir]

@ delmuir why nerf skeleton. id say ghoul also could still use a buff - many players will agree with me i think - undead races are weaker than living ones (no infusions, no equilibrium(harmony tree from queen heart), no way to remove magical detrimental effects, no blood of life)

they can be played as archmage because of meta and the shielding, but any other char will have to farm gloves of dispersion before the final fight or they got high chances of losing it.

I don't think it's a terrible nerf, given the strength of that shield. They're picking up cold resist and darkness resist. I actually think they should also pick up poison and disease resist as well (but that's just me). Heck, why not make it 4% of even 5% a level?

Would you consider that trade-off a nerf or a buff? +15-25% darkness, cold, disease, and poison but -10% physical.

[Davion Fuxa]

While I'm for the first tier Racial Talents getting a buff, I'd actually be more interested in them getting changed around a bit so that they don't mirror other Racial Talents from other races in function; this also goes for the other Racial Talents too. Ignoring this discussion for a moment, most non-undead Racial Talent trees go:

'Activating Skill - Further Point Reduction Reduces Cooldown', 'First Passive - Talent Points Improve Talent', 'Second Passive - Talents Improve Talent', 'Activating Skill - Points Improve Talent'.

Getting back to first tier Talents - maybe use SageAcrin's idea but limit it to only a few Races have the 5 point wonder attached. Maybe have other Races get incrementally improving first tier Talents outside of their cooldowns.

[SageAcrin]

Skeletons don't need an innate buff to go along with a minor buff to a racial skill none of them are leveling.

Skeletons have a hard time finding points to use as it is, with three high priority racial skills to 5; Buffing Skeleton with 3% in two resists won't make it huge priority for most builds.

[Marson]

I don't think I've ever spent more than one point on the first tier racial

Ditto. I think 25 turns is the lowest most of these cooldowns get (50-5*level), which isn't worth five points to me. Even with a 20 CD after an additional category point into mastery, these skills would only see one use in most battles.

With many skills, you see an increase in utility as you invest points, but I think CD is a tough one to scale. If the skill is meant to be used semi-regularly, then a drop from 12 to 7 over a five point investment, for example, is something you might notice. But if the skill is too powerful for that, then a CD reduction may not come in to play without a hefty price.

[Tharsonius]

@ delmuir why nerf skeleton. id say ghoul also could still use a buff - many players will agree with me i think - undead races are weaker than living ones (no infusions, no equilibrium(harmony tree from queen heart), no way to remove magical detrimental effects, no blood of life)

they can be played as archmage because of meta and the shielding, but any other char will have to farm gloves of dispersion before the final fight or they got high chances of losing it.

I don't think it's a terrible nerf, given the strength of that shield. They're picking up cold resist and darkness resist. I actually think they should also pick up poison and disease resist as well (but that's just me). Heck, why not make it 4% of even 5% a level?

Would you consider that trade-off a nerf or a buff? +15-25% darkness, cold, disease, and poison but -10% physical.

id personally consider this as a nerf, since >50% of the damage in the game is physical, and dark damage is pretty rare. physical res is among the most important ones maybe

bout that disease resist id agree. ghoul and skeleton should be both immune thematically and because its very hard for them to remove them.
skeleton already has 100% poison immunity

[Delmuir]

I'd forgotten about their poison resist… how about blight? I've never found the problem with status effects too terribly brutal for a Skeleton. I actually find the handicaps of other races worse. Still, your point is well taken.

Either way, this game has SO many resistances and too few ways to address even one effectively. I really do think that more builds and more races should have some natural resistances (like Higher with arcane), or at least the option to pursue them. Gear is fine but fickle due to variance...

Why don't Archmages get a bonus to resistance and resist cap when they get their mastery skill like utter cold? For example… Corruptors with Blight? Cursed with physical damage? Bulwarks as well to physical damage… and on and on and on...

[Ivels]

Skeletons are the dullest race as far as racial skills go and they suffer somewhat from poor scaling. Bone shield and reassemble are extremely powerful early on, but towards the end of the game they become just another 600 point shield and just another 500 health heal, and with fairly long cooldowns at that. Some ideas:

1) Merge resilient bones with the first racial skill, which would create nice symmetry between them and ghouls (whose first racial gives a unique damage reducing effect in addition to stat gains). Create a new skill to fill the resulting gap.

2)Keep resilient bones a tier 3 passive. Add a different effect to the first racial tree, which could be:

- fatigue reduction and higher encumbrance limit - skeletons are tireless
- an extra rune slot at level 5, allowing 6 possible rune slots in total - skeletons are inherently magical beings and those that have kept their free will often decorate their bones with powerful sigils
- flat critical hit damage reduction and a chance to shrug off criticals entirely - skeletons lack vital organs and their undead minds are not easily broken
- 10% darkness and cold affinity - darkness and cold are the domain of death
- decorated skull (occupies helmet or chest slot!) - if given free will, reanimated skeletons of powerful nobles will frequently embed a gem into their skull or ribcage to raise themselves above lesser undead

There are many ways to augment your skeletal body.