A Perspective on 'Bad' Skills

[sharang2]

I love that ToME offers so much room for customization and innovative, unconventional builds. I really do; the entire Alchemist starting class is extremely awesome. The option to be a more combat-, magic-, or stealth- oriented Shadowblade is very cool, the decisions between 1 handers, 2 handers, and shields as Cursed is interesting. However, I've noticed that certain options can be unviable, usually due to the power-levels of some skills being far below that required to make them rewarding choices. These otherwise strictly-worse skills make putting points into some trees seem unrewarding, and reduce the diversity of effective characters and in a way, reduces the 'fun' factor of a game in which the character build options are so theoretically diverse.

I'd love to keep this thread going, because I'm sure many of these skills could simply be given a slight tweak, numbers wise, to be brought in line with other comparable skills.

Afflicted: I have difficulty understanding the purpose of the Fear tree; it's worse at mass crowd control than Gloom, although slightly more reliable at single target crowd control. Its effects are overall too weak- I enjoy the element of randomness to the Fears I can instill, but I often get one that's contextually not useful. If I want to weaken a single target, Dominate both reduces resistances and gets me a free hit. If fears could be chosen individually, like poisons, or split into meta-categories (I.e., Minor Fear [Despair and Paranoia], Instill Fear [Terrified and Distressed], Agonizing Fear [Haunted and Tormented]) so that it's still somewhat random, I'd be more incentivized to put points here.
Heighten Fear: Perhaps this becomes more effective on higher difficulties, but generally speaking, if I've targeted a single opponent with a fear, it won't live long enough to pick up a second fear. Additionally, the lower end of the Distressed fear ( - saves) seems pretty marginal; 1 or 2 points isn't much of a reward compared to simply putting additional points in Gloom. I suggest lowering the threshold time by one turn, and adding a floor value to Distressed (even if it's just -2 to saves).

Anorithil
Darkest Light: A very cool skill, unfortunately a hassle to maintain it. Ways to consume negative energy are easy, while consuming excess positive energy is difficult. If anyone has suggestions for this skill, I'd love to hear it.

Defiler
Bone Talents

Bone Spear is fairly low damage, has little talent support in the form of damage boosts from the other trees, and more importantly is just boring. It has a slight use for triggering Corrupted Strength on Reavers but it's hardly stronger than a Channel Staff bolt if you're doing a Shortstaff build. I'd recommend changing it so it acts as a bolt that shatters on the first target it and does a spray of bone shards in a cone behind them, gives it a fairly unique sort of targeting niche.
Bone Grab actually has some use for Reavers as a one point talent to close distance, so it's not quite so bad. Rarely useful for a Corruptor though. I remember seeing that it now gets a range boost with talents which makes it abit better, but it's still not particularly exciting. It'd be interesting if you could grab a target and move it to any targeted location within range, so it'd double as a knockback or a gap closer. Maybe have it act like Reckless Charge and shove targets out of the way, making it an interesting position control spell.
Bone Nova is short range, low damage, medium cooldown and also very boring. Corruptors certainly don't need it with their massive room clearing blight spells, and it's only worth casting on Reavers for the free swing. I'd rework it so it also solves the problem of physical resist - have it curse a target for 3-5 turns with a massive -physical resist% debuff, then have them explode in a bone nova based on the damage dealt. Lets you deal with physical resistance targets, and doubles as both a strong single target attack and a good aoe.
Bone Shield is fine. Apart from those, maybe give each point in the Bone tree a bonus to phys dmg/resist pen/chance to bleed with phys attacks or the like to make up for the lack of phys damage support in Defiler trees?

Mage:
Glacial Vapors:The Water tree's first skill, Glacial Vapors, does very little damage and makes it difficult to get several turns of damage in. Lightning Bolt does much more damage - Vapors may be an AoE, but if the Bolt hits just two targets its damage has already far exceeded what Vapors would do on four targets for the full duration (which is an optimistic scenario). If the base numbers in regards to damage and radius were slightly better, it would become viable at lower levels for weakening and killing large groups of enemies. At high levels, a slight increase in the base damage without a corresponding increase in Spellpower scaling will mean Vapors won't become (too much) better for Shivgoroth form healing, and an increase in radius would likewise only help keep enemies in the AoE without 'breaking' Vapors' synergy with Shivgoroth.

Wyrmic:
Static Field : Static field is cool. You're a lightning dragon, so lightning shoots off you. This is cool. There is a problem. Compare Static Field(Lightning, tier 2) to Bellowing Roar (Fire, tier 1). One point in Bellowing Roar does more damage against enemies with less than 600 health than one point in Static Field, for 17 less Equilibrium, in a larger radius, with a tacked on CC. Static Field in theory pays off on higher difficulties and against bosses with large health pools, except the base numbers are very low and are less effective against the targets you most want it to work against (high ranked monsters). Against weaker monsters, normal attacks or Bellowing Roar is the preferred option. The issue may simply be that Bellowing Roar is too good, but in a single player game 'too good' isn't an issue as players can simply choose to avoid using those skills. I suggest Static Field have a greater radius and either have a very short cooldown, with unchanged equilibrium costs (high) and damage (low) as a spammable, unreliable, resource-consuming AoE, which is in keeping with Lightning as an unpredictable, dynamic skill tree, or keep it as is but add a base damage in addition to the percentage to bring it more in line with its current purpose - weaken large groups before you use a stronger AoE.

[bpat]

Static Field : Static field is cool. You're a lightning dragon, so lightning shoots off you. This is cool. There is a problem. Compare (Lightning, rank 2) Static Field to (Fire, rank 1) Bellowing Roar. One point in Bellowing Roar does more damage against enemies with less than 600 health than one point in Static Field, for 17 less Equilibrium, in a larger radius, with a tacked on CC. Static Field in theory pays off on higher difficulties and against bosses with large health pools, except the base numbers are very low and are less effective against the targets you most want it to work against (high ranked monsters). Against weaker monsters, normal attacks or Bellowing Roar is the preferred option. The issue may simply be that Bellowing Roar is too good, but in a single player game 'too good' isn't an issue as players can simply choose to avoid using those skills. I suggest Static Field have a greater radius and either have a very short cooldown, with unchanged equilibrium costs (high) and damage (low) as a spammable, unreliable, resource-consuming AoE, which is in keeping with Lightning as an unpredictable, dynamic skill tree, or keep it as is but add a base damage in addition to the percentage to bring it more in line with its current purpose - weaken large groups.

The biggest issue with static field is that it can be resisted and it's weaker against high rank enemies, which are also the enemies that tend to resist it most often. In my opinion, it should either be resistible or be weaker against high rank enemies, but not both since it's very impractical to use in its current state.

[Razakai]

I think Static Field should have the numbers reworked a little to be a good opening attack against high-health targets, which would give it a good niche. Maybe just remove the damage penalty against higher ranked foes, improve the radius, and make it scale fairly well with additional points.
Glacial Vapors has a decent niche as a healing field for Shivgoroth Form but it's still not that great. Maybe tie it in with the freezing aspect, and have it 'heal' iceblocks in the area, allowing you to keep targets frozen for longer? Or reduce freezing resistance but that might be too strong.
Dunno about fears as it's never appealed to me, Cursed kills stuff too fast to bother with debuffing and Doomed is already starved for class points if you go Shadows+Darkness.

If I had to suggest a problem talent, it'd be everything in the Bone tree. Bone Shield is incredibly strong, but the rest:
Bone Spear is fairly low damage, has little talent support in the form of damage boosts from the other trees, and more importantly is just boring. It has a slight use for triggering Corrupted Strength on Reavers but it's hardly stronger than a Channel Staff bolt if you're doing a Shortstaff build. I'd recommend changing it so it acts as a bolt that shatters on the first target it and does a spray of bone shards in a cone behind them, gives it a fairly unique sort of targeting niche.
Bone Grab actually has some use for Reavers as a one point talent to close distance, so it's not quite so bad. Rarely useful for a Corruptor though. I remember seeing that it now gets a range boost with talents which makes it abit better, but it's still not particularly exciting. It'd be interesting if you could grab a target and move it to any targeted location within range, so it'd double as a knockback or a gap closer. Maybe have it act like Reckless Charge and shove targets out of the way, making it an interesting position control spell.
Bone Nova is short range, low damage, medium cooldown and also very boring. Corruptors certainly don't need it with their massive room clearing blight spells, and it's only worth casting on Reavers for the free swing. I'd rework it so it also solves the problem of physical resist - have it curse a target for 3-5 turns with a massive -physical resist% debuff, then have them explode in a bone nova based on the damage dealt. Lets you deal with physical resistance targets, and doubles as both a strong single target attack and a good aoe.
Bone Shield is fine. Apart from those, maybe give each point in the Bone tree a bonus to phys dmg/resist pen/chance to bleed with phys attacks or the like to make up for the lack of phys damage support in Defiler trees?

[The Revanchist]

Bone talents, save the last, do need a buff, and I wouldn't mind seeing this one tested.

It seems fair, and even a different sort than normal talents that fill the role better, which is good.

[bpat]

If I had to suggest a problem talent, it'd be everything in the Bone tree. Bone Shield is incredibly strong, but the rest:
Bone Spear is fairly low damage, has little talent support in the form of damage boosts from the other trees, and more importantly is just boring. It has a slight use for triggering Corrupted Strength on Reavers but it's hardly stronger than a Channel Staff bolt if you're doing a Shortstaff build. I'd recommend changing it so it acts as a bolt that shatters on the first target it and does a spray of bone shards in a cone behind them, gives it a fairly unique sort of targeting niche.
Bone Grab actually has some use for Reavers as a one point talent to close distance, so it's not quite so bad. Rarely useful for a Corruptor though. I remember seeing that it now gets a range boost with talents which makes it abit better, but it's still not particularly exciting. It'd be interesting if you could grab a target and move it to any targeted location within range, so it'd double as a knockback or a gap closer. Maybe have it act like Reckless Charge and shove targets out of the way, making it an interesting position control spell.
Bone Nova is short range, low damage, medium cooldown and also very boring. Corruptors certainly don't need it with their massive room clearing blight spells, and it's only worth casting on Reavers for the free swing. I'd rework it so it also solves the problem of physical resist - have it curse a target for 3-5 turns with a massive -physical resist% debuff, then have them explode in a bone nova based on the damage dealt. Lets you deal with physical resistance targets, and doubles as both a strong single target attack and a good aoe.
Bone Shield is fine. Apart from those, maybe give each point in the Bone tree a bonus to phys dmg/resist pen/chance to bleed with phys attacks or the like to make up for the lack of phys damage support in Defiler trees?

I actually think the only really bad talent in the tree is Bone Nova, as long as you think of it as a tree for Reavers more than Corruptors. Bone Spear actually does pretty good damage that just seems low because it's not blight. It's actually not bad to 5/5 it on Reavers since it's a great way to hit lined up enemies. Bone Grab is great for Reavers since they don't have any other method of getting closer to enemies and the Reaving Combat hit triggers after you pull the enemy. Bone Nova, however, feels like a much worse version of Blood Boil even if you ignore the damage type and I agree that it could use some buffs.

[TheRani]

Dunno about fears as it's never appealed to me, Cursed kills stuff too fast to bother with debuffing and Doomed is already starved for class points if you go Shadows+Darkness.

I hate Shadows and Darkness on a Doomed, so that's never an issue for me. I don't like relying on weak pets, and the only thing I even slightly like about Darkness is the beam. Much like the fears, the rest of the darkness tree is too random to be helpful.

[bpat]

It just occurred to me that Darkest Light, arguably the worst talent in the game, hasn't been mentioned yet. The fact that Anorithils have literally two talents that cost positive energy (and very little positive energy at that) makes it very hard to get this to last for more than a turn or two and it will almost always immediately end when you use any spell. At the moment, the only way to use this talent is to have Highborn's Bloom or Hidden Resources, which isn't really a good place for a talent to be. I suggest possibly making Glyphs cost positive energy rather than generate it and to greatly increase its damage or decrease its damage reduction to make this talent viable.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Problem there is that the glyphs themselves are already laughably bad. I can't bring myself to use them as it is, being an unlockable tree. Making them cost too would only make the situation worse.

[bpat]

Problem there is that the glyphs themselves are already laughably bad. I can't bring myself to use them as it is, being an unlockable tree. Making them cost too would only make the situation worse.

That's a good point, Glyphs aren't very strong at the moment with the exception of Glyph of Fatigue, but making them cost positive energy will be a fairly small nerf considering how hard it is to run out of positive energy. For compensation, they should probably become stronger or have much lower cooldowns. It doesn't make much sense for them to generate positive energy though considering the only ways to spend positive energy are Twilight, Circle of Blazing Light, Corona, and Darkest Light (which no one uses).

[Nizidra]

Problem there is that the glyphs themselves are already laughably bad. I can't bring myself to use them as it is, being an unlockable tree. Making them cost too would only make the situation worse.

That's a good point, Glyphs aren't very strong at the moment with the exception of Glyph of Fatigue, but making them cost positive energy will be a fairly small nerf considering how hard it is to run out of positive energy. For compensation, they should probably become stronger or have much lower cooldowns. It doesn't make much sense for them to generate positive energy though considering the only ways to spend positive energy are Twilight, Circle of Blazing Light, Corona, and Darkest Light (which no one uses).

And you cannot use Twilight with Darkest Light which seems like a natural combo when you look at talents. Is it too powerful if you allow that synergy?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Problem there is that the glyphs themselves are already laughably bad. I can't bring myself to use them as it is, being an unlockable tree. Making them cost too would only make the situation worse.

That's a good point, Glyphs aren't very strong at the moment with the exception of Glyph of Fatigue, but making them cost positive energy will be a fairly small nerf considering how hard it is to run out of positive energy. For compensation, they should probably become stronger or have much lower cooldowns. It doesn't make much sense for them to generate positive energy though considering the only ways to spend positive energy are Twilight, Circle of Blazing Light, Corona, and Darkest Light (which no one uses).

You forgot the last circle (knockback) which is heavily used by many players.

[bpat]

Problem there is that the glyphs themselves are already laughably bad. I can't bring myself to use them as it is, being an unlockable tree. Making them cost too would only make the situation worse.

That's a good point, Glyphs aren't very strong at the moment with the exception of Glyph of Fatigue, but making them cost positive energy will be a fairly small nerf considering how hard it is to run out of positive energy. For compensation, they should probably become stronger or have much lower cooldowns. It doesn't make much sense for them to generate positive energy though considering the only ways to spend positive energy are Twilight, Circle of Blazing Light, Corona, and Darkest Light (which no one uses).

You forgot the last circle (knockback) which is heavily used by many players.

You're right, I forgot about that. While it does make positive energy actually matter a bit, it unfortunately doesn't help with the Darkest Light problem since it costs equal amounts of positive and negative energy.