Bulwark Rework: A New Shield

[NemesisZeru]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1asM ... mV8wM/edit

Me and Starkeep are sorta working on a Bulwark rework/update/whatever! Gone are the random trees like Archery, replaced with new, more fitting trees. Feedback would be appreciated!

[Red]

Minor notes:

Shieldnadooooooooo, while fun, should probably have a name tweak.
Bash and Slash will be very interesting to do with a mace.
For the People sounds... Kinda cruel. I mean, you're their hero, and you'll put them in a place where they will die painfully.

Overall, it seems like a good mod. Adds in a greater focus to the Bulwark. The main issues might be any kind of balance issue, which I am woefully inadequate at properly helping with. Actual numbers would help a good deal for others to work that out, though.

However, some of the "reduce debuffs by X" or especially Martial Mastery seems really powerful. Perhaps give Martial Mastery a "consumes 5 stamina per turn while active" in addition to being a sustain, since it basically doubles your damage output.

[NemesisZeru]

Minor notes:

Shieldnadooooooooo, while fun, should probably have a name tweak.
Bash and Slash will be very interesting to do with a mace.
For the People sounds... Kinda cruel. I mean, you're their hero, and you'll put them in a place where they will die painfully.
Well, the idea is you'll want to try and protect them for the buffs.

Overall, it seems like a good mod. Adds in a greater focus to the Bulwark. The main issues might be any kind of balance issue, which I am woefully inadequate at properly helping with. Actual numbers would help a good deal for others to work that out, though.
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure on numbers yet. I'll figure it out as I go.

However, some of the "reduce debuffs by X" or especially Martial Mastery seems really powerful. Perhaps give Martial Mastery a "consumes 5 stamina per turn while active" in addition to being a sustain, since it basically doubles your damage output.

Well, it replaces GWF, which was really good I wanted it to be solid to make it not as huge a loss. Would be easy to tie a stamina cost to each attack, though(while making it a sustain).

[StarKeep]

Updated Focused Shield and Agile Defender (my two trees given to the pool) with some fairly rough initial values.

Included is a rename for Bash and Slash, and removing 3 o's from Shieldnadooooooooo.

[NemesisZeru]

Added some super rudimentary numbers to the talents I designed.

After talking to Starkeep a bit, it seems we've run into a bit of a problem: Knight's Honor and Spinning Guard seem to clash a bit, doing roughly the same thing in different ways(Knight's Honor is better against mages, Spinning Guard being better against groups). What does everyone think? It's easy enough to change now, I think, we're just unsure which to change(if either). So, looking for feedback there.

Edit: Knight's Honor is probably getting reworked, once I figure out what to do with it.

[Razakai]

Consider changing some existing talents too. I'll go through this line by line and give feedback.

Shield Offence
Fine

Shield Defence
Shield Wall - Is the damage nerf really necessary nowadays? Many new classes get equivalent bonuses with no downside.
Repulsion - Terrible. Not sure what to replace it, some sort of better crowd control or active mitigation effect would be good. Or how about a bonus to Block that allows you to reflect projectiles back at the source, with some other passive effects?
Shield Expertise - Ok, if dull. This should probably explicitly say what bonuses it gives.
Last Stand - ...not very good. Takes a whole turn to use, pins you, and bad against ranged. Perhaps make it more like Unstoppable but Bulwark flavoured? Or remove the pin effect, make it instant, and replace the defence/armor with some better effects like debuff removal, flat damage ignore etc.

Combat Techniques
Fine

Soldier
Shield Toss - I'd increase the damage a little, make it Daze, and have the initial target be what you end up to next to so it's more controllable. Makes it a great Rush equivalent then.
Spell Parry - Good. Might be interesting for it to be Spell Reflection though, or maybe that can go somewhere else.
Battlefield Expertise - Fine, but as the core Stamina regen talent for Bulwark I'd shift this to T1/2. I'm not a fan of it being a near-copy of another talent though, maybe give this some unique Bulwark flavoured effects.
Flow of Battle - Again, fine, but copies aren't good. Perhaps give it a slightly weaker effect equivalent to Step Up but another bonus.

Focused Shield
I like the concept of Brace. I'd consider making that the T1 talent and making the rest of the tree focus on it, like Grappling. Have talent points in it reduce the damage penalty and increase the debuffs, then the rest of the talents can be attacks and utility effects that ignore the penalty.

Gladiator
Brutal Headbutt - Eh, not a fan of a copied talent. How about something like 'Brawling' that gives you a random chance on attack to make an unarmed strike/headbutt (dmg+confuse) or kick (dmg+slow), if we're going the whole dirty fighter/gladiator route?
Hardened - Fine
Warcry - Fine concept but not sure about the effects.
Martial Mastery - Very good. In fact, so good I'd be tempted to put this into Soldier as a baseline skill because every Bulwark will automatically beeline for it. Would be nerfed obviously though, maybe something more like Shield of Light.

Knighthood
Knight's Honor - Cool idea, I like it.
Riposte - Already a talent called Riposte, needs a new name. Apart from that, good concept but might need more work.
Gallant Charge - Good idea, but having foes run away from you is bad. Instead I'd make the debuff something like talent failure instead, keeps them in melee range but cripples their offence.
For the People - Sorry, not a fan at all. Sounds really awkward to use and the concept is weird.

Agile Defender
Mobile Defence - Great, really like this.
Bash and Slash - Not really a fan, doesn't exactly fit with the concept of the tree if the tree is going for mobility. Jump and Slash would fit better.
Shieldnado - Apart from the silly name, moving a foe out of melee range is bad. I'd change this to Bulldozer and have it also have you travel with the foe. Good way to separate a mob from a pack and get some space.
Spinning Guard - Not sure about this. I'd probably have it work as some sorta buff to Block instead, feels kinda odd atm.


I like the overall concept. When I have more time I'll try to suggest some replacements and ideas.

[StarKeep]

Not a fan of the Brace idea.
Brace is intended to simply allow you 'ignore' a target in melee while dealing with the crowds around him.
Suddenly allowing you to bypass the damage reduction with some talents would go against the whole reason of the talent, that being blocking off key targets from a group while you deal with the weenies.

Bash and Slash was designed to reward the player for proper positioning, working along with the free mobility from Mobile Defense.
Proper positioning means you can quickly and efficiently deal with crowds. (Since Bulwark is lacking, massively, in aoe currently.)
It is quite hilarious how much more Jump and Slash would fit into this tree, though. Kinda poor hindsight there.

Shieldnado's goal is not to move your foe out of melee range, it's to use your foe as a projectile. :p
If you went with it, it would suddenly have extremely limited use due to it easily sending you dashing into rooms filled with massive enemies.
Now, if it doesn't play well in it's current form, shifting it to be more mobility focused could work, but spreading around more forms of aoe/power when fighting large crowds was one of the major design points for designing talents.

Spinning Guard is meant to be odd, you see.
It requires you to be offensive to keep up it's defensive buff (since it's worthless if all your foes are at range) and as a result it seems weird.
Now, that said, allowing the player to pick the target would, indeed, be nice to do, and I'm all for ideas on how to declunkify that portion of it.

[donkatsu]

Knight's Honor is a great mechanic but sounds really weird to me from a narrative perspective. Why does being honorable make you bleed? Smearing is cool but for the sake of not suddenly getting inexplicable hemophilia, maybe just make it % damage reduction like Sanctuary.

Gallant Charge sounds like a bad thing for a melee, especially a melee that has 50% movement speed. For the People is not enough to make up for how actively harmful it is. Rather than running away, maybe enemies could have a chance to "shake with fear", losing a turn but staying in place. Also make the effect break on a certain amount of damage, like Beckon.

For the People is also weird from a narrative perspective. You're not doing anything for the people except putting them in harm's way. If anything, the people are using For the Bulwark, which doesn't really make sense.

Spell Parry is going to be insurmountable on npcs, who don't care about stamina costs. Maybe make it a timed effect that triggers on block?

The Focused Shield tree sounds awesome.

[NemesisZeru]

Knight's Honor is a great mechanic but sounds really weird to me from a narrative perspective. Why does being honorable make you bleed? Smearing is cool but for the sake of not suddenly getting inexplicable hemophilia, maybe just make it % damage reduction like Sanctuary.

Gallant Charge sounds like a bad thing for a melee, especially a melee that has 50% movement speed. For the People is not enough to make up for how actively harmful it is. Rather than running away, maybe enemies could have a chance to "shake with fear", losing a turn but staying in place. Also make the effect break on a certain amount of damage, like Beckon.

For the People is also weird from a narrative perspective. You're not doing anything for the people except putting them in harm's way. If anything, the people are using For the Bulwark, which doesn't really make sense.

Spell Parry is going to be insurmountable on npcs, who don't care about stamina costs. Maybe make it a timed effect that triggers on block?

The Focused Shield tree sounds awesome.

Knight's Honor went through several variations. The idea is that ranged damage would be kinda seen as 'dishonorable' by a knight, and thus the tree'd get some sort of boost against it. Admittedly, it came from getting oneshot from outside LOS a few times on my last characters, but seemed like a decent idea. Basil suggested the current idea, and I like it. Not quite thematic, though, I'll admit.

Gallant Charge was an idea from Starkeep, written before the -50% movement speed thing Could use tweaks. Idea would be that you'd use it to save your fans.

Spell Parry...yeah. I didn't consider NPCs there. A timed effect could work, probably. Making it an instant buff that makes your next block parry spells might work better then a sustain.

For the People is kinda weird, yeah. It came from a silly idea on the irc(Wall of Rabble, I think it was called), and I liked the concept of people coming to cheer the brave knight onwards...even if it probably isn't that wise an idea. Might refocus Knighthood as a sort of antimagic(Not as in zigurian, but focused on dealing with magical threats).

[Zonk]

When I thought of making a Knight class (or even simply a tree) the ways of handling the 'Honor' concept I considered were:

- penalties for moving away from the foe (unless it was forced movement), to represent that you should not retreat. Possibly also penalties for other "dirty fighting" tactics such as poison and such.

- a duel/challenge talent, where you pick a single foe that is elite+ rank and you BOTH gain bonuses vs each others (but yours are bigger, scaling with TL) while gaining resistance vs other actors

- something like a "Pride" talent that gave you resistance to both damage and status effects inflicted by foes of a lower rank than you. Basically, "unworthy foes".

And not directly honor related, but I thought an ability to synergize with heavy/massive armor would work.
As this was not a 'mundane' knight, but a shadow/cursed one, my idea was that wearing heavier armor would make your Hate NOT decrease below a certain level naturally.
Not sure how you can adapt that to Stamina only - perhaps a (boring but useful) reduction in fatigue?

Also, having a squire would be pretty knightly. Basically a much weaker version of the knight, when they die you can get another (only in towns?) but it costs you gold based on your level.


On 'the idea is to resist ranged attacks':
There are already some abilities that offer resistance to ranged attacks based on how distant the source is, aren't there? I think Doomed have one.

If you really think that is a fitting concept for the Knight (I don't think so personally), you could look at that. Don't just copy the talent of course but tweak it so it is more of its own thing.

[Razakai]

I felt like doing my own rework as it's a slow day at work, so here's some ideas you can plunder: http://pastebin.com/QPNDxM65

[NemesisZeru]

I felt like doing my own rework as it's a slow day at work, so here's some ideas you can plunder: http://pastebin.com/QPNDxM65

Oh wow! I really like! In particular, the new Gladiator tree is pretty amazing.

The only downside is they're generally more complicated then my original ideas(I originally went for simplicity on my talents so that I'd be able to reasonably try at coding them). But, with how popular this is turning out to be, I could probably recruit some help. If anyone with some free time wants to help out with coding, I'd really appreciate it.

[Razakai]

I don't really have the time to work on this project, but if you try to code em and post issues in irc/dev I can bugfix anything you make. Trying to work on a Reaver rework myself unfortunately.

I really like this concept so I hope it succeeds in some form.

[NemesisZeru]

I don't really have the time to work on this project, but if you try to code em and post issues in irc/dev I can bugfix anything you make. Trying to work on a Reaver rework myself unfortunately.

I really like this concept so I hope it succeeds in some form.

Yeah, I understand. I really appreciate you helping to unify everything. It's helped a ton!

I'm really glad this whole thing has taken off! It went from a single tree idea(Knighthood), to this whole rework...amazing. x3


Razakai also planned out a generic shield tree! x3

http://pastebin.com/n74j7F99

[Razakai]

For the sake of not putting you through reading pastebin, I've tidied it up into a Google doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wjw ... sp=sharing