Verdant Class Pack: v2.3

[trenggiling]

Okay, my first bit of feedback is on the opening lore.
It's not bad (per se) it just doesn't capture the right emotion for me.

Here is my suggestion.

=====upon character creation=====
You are (insert character name here) a wandering vagabond who has set out on a quest to see the far corners of the world.
Unfortunately, you may have underestimated the costs involved.
And to acquire the funds you need to continue your adventure, you have gotten a job a logger.
Your wages are low, and you are barely breaking even, but one day you stumble across a massive white tree.
Antimagic energy swirls around its vibrant green leaves, and you instantly identify it as one of the fabled Arnik trees.
It would fetch a hefty price, and its bark alone could easily pay for the rest of your adventure.
The forest around you seems to dim as you ready your axe.
It's rumored that the Arnik trees were created by nature itself to protect the word from magic.
If that is true then this forest would become vulnerable to corruption if you cut it down.
But you need the money for your adventure, so with fiery determination, you strike the tree.
The once tranquil forest turns hostile as your axe repeatedly hits the plant with brutal force.
“Timber!” you yell as the majestic tree falls.
Your triumph is quickly blurred out by the overwhelming sense that someone, or something, is casting judgment upon you.
You fall to your knees in fear, as the you are surrounded by the feeling of righteous fury.
Then your fear turns to hatred as well.
Hatred for yourself, hatred for your colleagues, hatred for anyone or anything that dares to threaten the natural order.
You let loose as animalistic roar as you succumb to your new curse.

=====after killing the lumberjacks=====
An inhuman whimper escapes your lips as you see your former friends lying dead by your hand.
You want to stay and mourn their deaths, but natures curse is affecting your mind.
You shiver in abject terror as you feel yourself slowly changing into something more akin to an animal.
Then your cries of grief and fear turn into cries of rage, as the curse bleeds into your heart once more.
They will all pay for their sins against nature, this is your life now, this is your one and only quest!

[HousePet]

Its interesting, but I don't like being too specific in this sort of game. It can clash with how people might want to play the character or imagine their backstory.

[trenggiling]

I suppose that makes sense...
But I still think that the current lore is too vague.
It seems to portray you as an apathetic murder hobo that likes killing things, and not a cursed individual forced against his/her/its will.
But I guess that's just my opinion

^ After reading this over, I noticed that it could be misinterpreted as disdainful... it's not meant to be sorry ^

[HousePet]

Well I'm not that good at writing.

[trenggiling]

Well I may come back to the lore later.
But first lets talk about the croc tree.

First of all, why is it locked?
Come to think of it... why are any of them locked? (except for rampage and predator, those make sense)

Crushing bite:
Cost changed to 5 hate, and 5 equilibrium.
(dual cost are going to be an ongoing suggestion, because they make for more interesting resource management)

Cold blood:
This skill doesn't support the rest of the kit.
I think that it would be better if you swapped it out for a new skill called death roll.
I mean, the death roll is a very iconic part of crocodile behavior, and I was kinda disappointed when it wasn't included.
It would work like this.

=====Death roll=====
Use: active
Cooldown: none
Cost: 2 hate and 2 equilibrium.
Range: melee.
You spin around and deal 140/155/170/185/200% weapon damage to your grappled target.
This skill requires a grappled enemy to use.
(I also made an icon for it, just replace it with the lame icon I made for cold blood)

Tail slap:
Make tail slap hit everyone in melee range, but make it so that pinned and grappled targets are not knocked back.
Also reduce the cooldown to 14 turns, and change the cost to 7 hate and 7 equilibrium.

Croc shape:
The shape skills are highly biased towards trees with lost of active talents, and are not very interesting to boot.
I feel like varying skill augments would be a better way to go.
For example.

====Croc shape=====
Use: sustain.
Cooldown: 20
Cost: none
You transform into a crocodile.
This gives you 20/40/60/80/100 air, 10/15/20/25/30% fire resistance, 10/20/30/40/50% blight resistance, and augments some of your abilities.
But it also reduces your cold resistance by 10/15/20/25/30%
You can only have one animal shape active at a time.
While active:
Crushing bites cooldown is reduced by 2/4/6/8/10 turns if the target dies before the grapple ends, death roll will also damage all the other nearby enemies for 10/15/20/25/30% of your weapon damage, and tail slap now stuns enemies hit for 1/1/2/2/3 turns.

[HousePet]

The game requires locked talents as it is balanced around their existence.

Everything having a dual resource cost was not done as that just makes it effectively one resource, not two.

Cold Blood is there cos too many actives isn't good.

Death Roll could be incorporated into Crushing Bite.

I don't want to restrict the Shape talents to only one at a time.
I went with cooldown reduction as it is simple, and doesn't mess with the talent balance as much as effects boosts would. (Where there ends up with either the talent too powerful with the Shape, too weak without the Shape or negligible difference from the Shape)

[trenggiling]

The game requires locked talents as it is balanced around their existence.

That is true, but you only need one or two to be effective.
Also, the croc tree (and other) don't seem to be supporting anything, rather, they are very independent build paths.
And from my observations, all the locked trees are meant to be complementing other skills gotten before level 10.

Everything having a dual resource cost was not done as that just makes it effectively one resource, not two.

But equilibrium is based around the assumption that most (if not all) of your talents use it, and thereby can fail from its absence. (or abundance?)
Also, the wild hunter skill makes it so that you gain it, in the exact same way as hate.
Right now equilibrium seems to be a tacked on copy of hate, and the only ways around it that I can think of are:
1: everything uses hate (kinda bland)
2: everything uses equilibrium (not as bland)
3: most (if not all) skills use both resources. (essentially making it one, more complex, resource)
4: have skills strength scale up with hate, but use equilibrium (would be a lot of work to implement)

Cold Blood is there cos too many actives isn't good.

Many classes have a lot of actives, the game has a built in way of balancing actives/passives.

Death Roll could be incorporated into Crushing Bite.

That would give WAY too much power to that one talent, and the tree already lacks appeal beyond crushing bite.

I don't want to restrict the Shape talents to only one at a time.

Why not?
If you ask me, that would be what's best for the class, both thematically, and mechanically.

I went with cooldown reduction as it is simple, and doesn't mess with the talent balance as much as effects boosts would. (Where there ends up with either the talent too powerful with the Shape, too weak without the Shape or negligible difference from the Shape)

Um? no.
Cooldown reduction is simple yes, but that's the only thing it has going for it.
It strangleholds the feel of many skills, as you can't realistically have any a cooldown lower than 6, it benefits some skills way more then others, and I don't know about you, but to me it feels more like the shapes are just removing a debuff rather then giving you an actual benefit.
Also specific aspects would be much, MUCH easier to balance as you could look at each benefit individually.

PS: I personally love to nitpick, and I love it even more when my work is nitpicked.
It's just how I operate, and I mean no disrespect to the people or things I critique.
actually the opposite is true in most cases.
I just wanted to throw this out there, because I have had bad experiences with people getting offended in the past.

[HousePet]

I my experience shape shifting classes tend to be a mess of restrictions, like not being able to use equipment or locking you out of using half your talents. I hate that sort of thing, so the Shape sustains were designed to be stackable. Also, with a point investment style system that this game uses means that if you could only use one at a time, people would only ever invest in one. I don't like that sort of build restriction.

The resource costs sort of ended up as Hate for offensive abilities and Equilibrium for defensive/utility talents.

Overall the Shape talents and the resource costs could be done better, but it is much better than the original Werebeast. As it changed quite a bit I need to give it some time to assess an effectively entirely new class before I can make proper decisions about further improvements.

[trenggiling]

I my experience shape shifting classes tend to be a mess of restrictions, like not being able to use equipment or locking you out of using half your talents. I hate that sort of thing,

I want to avoid that sort of thing as well.

so the Shape sustains were designed to be stackable. Also, with a point investment style system that this game uses means that if you could only use one at a time, people would only ever invest in one. I don't like that sort of build restriction.

They actually shouldn't, (IMO) because it makes them essentially passive skill steroids at the end of the tree.
There definitely needs to be a good reason for getting more shapes though...
Maybe take a page out of Udyr's book, and give you a stacking stat boost every time you change forms?
Possibly a heal as well.

The resource costs sort of ended up as Hate for offensive abilities and Equilibrium for defensive/utility talents.

I would have had it the other way around, but okay.

Overall the Shape talents and the resource costs could be done better, but it is much better than the original Werebeast. As it changed quite a bit I need to give it some time to assess an effectively entirely new class before I can make proper decisions about further improvements.

I haven't played the original Werebeast, but I'm sure that its current state is much better.
Also, if you want me to back off and stop giving feedback for a while, then I will understand.

[grayswandir]

One way would be to restrict you to a single form at a time, but have some sort of synergy between forms or just have them give you a passive bonus.
Or maybe the first form you activate is your primary form, and subsequent ones are secondary. Then have each form have a unique primary bonus it can give you. That'd let you have a sorta strong unique effect for each form that you won't have to worry about stacking with the others.

There definitely needs to be a good reason for getting more shapes though...
Maybe take a page out of Udyr's book, and give you a stacking stat boost every time you change forms?
Possibly a heal as well.

I really like the idea of forcing you to switch forms when you're low on health. What if each form had a semi-independent life pool (or equilibrium/whatever)? So once your shark form gets low on life you switch out of it for a while to let it heal up.

[astralInferno]

...really petty question/complaint, but it's the one thing that bugs me about the addon and has since I first downloaded it. Why is Wing Buffet not a Breath talent? It bothers me so much that it isn't. @_@

[HousePet]

err... In what way is it not? and why does it need to be?

[astralInferno]

err... In what way is it not? and why does it need to be?

because it's called Wing Buffet and not like Gale Breath?

It just bugs me, given that all the other drake categories have a Breath as their last talent. As I said it's super petty, sorry. DDXD
It's still an amazing addon.

[HousePet]

You just want the name changed...

[Micbran]

err... In what way is it not? and why does it need to be?

because it's called Wing Buffet and not like Gale Breath?

It just bugs me, given that all the other drake categories have a Breath as their last talent. As I said it's super petty, sorry. DDXD
It's still an amazing addon.

If it was a breath, I wouldn't take it seriously. Your character would literally be just exhaling air. Doesn't sound very impressive.