Race Balance: Higher - & Aether Permeation Prodigy

[Davion Fuxa]

So, since I'm been trying to look at what race/class combination I would play next, I've been looking at some of those 'lacklustre' races. One of those races if of course the Higher - and arguable it is the weakest living race in the game at this time. Personally I think this is a race that I would like to play - after it is perhaps buffed a little, because it doesn't do enough to make it worth playing as it is now.

Seeing as how this isn't the first time I've done this, here are the intrinsic stats that make up Highers:

Instrinsics

Life Rating +11
Starts with +1 in Strength, Dexterity, Magic, & Willpower
Constitution & Cunning Stats aren't modified

They are a Living Race, so they can use Infusions, Need to Breathe, etc.
Experience Penalty of 15% means they are the the third lowest race for level gain.
They might be the race with the worst Racial Talents in the game - My Opinion

Gameplay

Unlike with pretty much any other race, I think the Higher is really the only one that personally I don't have much fun playing with - so take that as bias if you wish. Unlike with practically every other race in the game, Higher's are that one race that doesn't synergize that well with anything else in the game; either due to other races pairing up better or the Higher's racial talents just being 'that weak'. Speaking about the talents in general too, their first Racial is likely the worst one in the game - since I think it might be the only one that be completely useless for use for certain builds that the Higher may run.

The first racial is only really useful if you invest in Willpower - but even if you do, you can't use it if you are already using a Regeneration effect. The second racial is.... okay, but literally everything they have here can be helped out a lot with item acquirement - including even the Sight Range bonus which once made them quite stellar. It is worth investing in, but it certainly isn't any top-tier racial talent, which the Higher is in dire need of.

Born Into Magic has 'sort of' stood the test of time in remaining as useful as it once was, since you still don't find a lot of items with Arcane Resistance; though one has to answer the question if it was really ever all the useful to begin with, since while the sparse few enemies that use Arcane Damage against you ARE quite dangerous, they are only a sparse few.... Aether Permeation, the Higher's 'personal' prodigy, doesn't really save them either, since there are so few items that can grant you Arcane Resistance to make it more useful. Born Into Magic can also be somewhat important if you are a spellcasting class dealing with a single damage type - though it only applies to the specific damage type.

Then there is capstone talent Highborn's Bloom - which is essentially a really weak Hidden Resources Talent. That talent lets them make more use of any resource based talents regardless of their cost while active - provided that they aren't suffering some form of Talent Failure and they already have the resources to initially power the ability. That makes it fairly useful if running a heavy using resource based class or using a class that runs dry on resources.

Aether Permeation

I'll note that I'm adding this specific prodigy into the discussion here since Aether Permeation comes off as being a prodigy very closes connected for use by Higher players. Likely any changes to the Higher Race should bring some change to Aether Permeation as well.

Okay, so first - Aether Permeation is of course obtainable by non-Higher races, but Higher's are more inclined to pick it up then other races due to Born Into Magic. Aether Permeation is a prodigy that will let you check 66% of your Arcane Resistance for reducing damage from non-Arcane Damage types - if that non-Arcane Damage type isn't higher then the value. Since Higher characters can build up their Arcane Resistance a bit higher thanks to their racial, it is more useful for them.

Thing is, it is perhaps one of the weakest prodigies to pick up and only if the 'stars align' is it even worth considering - those specific stars being if you pick the Higher Race and pick up Born Into Magic, go Archmage and invest in appropriate Spell/Arcane talents, and pick up some gear which grants some Arcane Resistance in your run. For the most part though, if you don't have all those stars aligning you are likely looking into other Prodigies.

Ideas & Suggestions for Improvements

Okay, so what are some ideas to making Higher's more preferable for play? Here's some from me:

1) In Regards to the Aether Permeation Prodigy - let's do something unique, and involve Higher's in that uniqueness! Let's dump this fairly useless prodigy in favor of a new prodigy with one special prerequisite - Higher Race only. I'm not sure specifically what he new prodigy should do, but if we want it to be similar to what it does -

-Make the new Higher only Prodigy buff 'all' their resistances substantially based on characters Arcane Resistance - but 'add' to current values. Maybe also make it so that it raises max resistance caps too.
-Maybe change it so that based off the characters Arcane Resistance, you can 'ignore' some of an enemies Resistance Penetration. Have 60% Arcane Resistance - you can ignore 60% of an enemies Non-Arcane Resistance Penetration.
-As an idea for those players in Higher Difficulty, maybe change it so that based off your Arcane Resistance, you might 'ignore' Critical Damage from enemies - though never lower then what they would inflict with a normal attack.

2) Change Gift of the Highborn so that it scales with the Cunning Stat (maybe change it so that Higher's get +1 Cunning too) - Classes that use Willpower 'likely' are more inclined to use Regeneration Infusions, and enough Races use Willpower as a modifier. Cunning seems like a good swap out for it - and classes that use Cunning are usually less focused on the use of Regeneration Infusions (or Infusions in general).

3) Change Gift of the Highborn so that when used it is still useful regardless of stat modifier related to it (or remove the stat modifier part to begin with) - part of the reason the first talent sucks is because you need to invest in its modifying stat for it to be good. Changing it to do something that it is beneficial regardless of the stat would go a long way to at least improving this talent. Maybe as one idea, Gift of the Highborn could reduce the cost of your resource based skills for X Turns; and the stat modifier could change 'how' much that reduction might be. That goes well with the 'resourcefulness' of Humans, as well as the class in general.

4) Add to Overseer of Nations effects - while this talent has a lot of overlap with equipment effects, that doesn't mean they aren't still beneficial. Since this is a talent based on vision, maybe we should just add to its effects. Perhaps you should gain better Stealth and Invisibility detection (just a little, not a whole lot) in addition to everything else the talent does; just to help make the talent that much more useful to invest in. People might still invest in it if the talent remains as is though so that should be mentioned too.

5) Born Into Magics single spell damage type could perhaps be changed so that instead of boosting the damage of a single spell damage type, perhaps it could apply to a specific non-physical damage type. Really, I see no reason we couldn't perhaps apply this to mindpower based characters.

Finally -

6) Change Highborn's bloom to be super special! Other races have abilities that are special and help make them stand out - while Highborn's Bloom is a weak Hidden Resources Prodigy. So as an idea - remove the Hidden Resources Prodigy, and give ALL its effects to Highborn's Bloom. I'm sure some people likely maybe not like the loss of Hidden Resources if they are using it for their non-Higher characters, but it would definitely make Higher's that much more desirable to play. No idea what prodigy would replace it, but I'm sure someone has an idea for a new prodigy.

Anyhow, anyone else have some thoughts on how Higher's could be improved, or where my ideas suck or rock or what not?

[ster]

lol lets give archmage permenant impenetrable 100% res all

[Pisastrish]

As far as aether permeation goes, the way it currently works just seems sort of weirdly complicated, I think I'd rather have it just do something like convert a percent of incoming damage into arcane. Which would also work with arcane affinity if you get lucky, and doesn't seem op. And I'm not really sure how I feel about a higher specific prodigy, I don't mind it in the abstract, but I'm just not sure one race should get its own prodigy without others getting one. That could be interesting though, each race having their own prodigy, would work to diversify them even more

[ster]

Gift and Overseer posting`

sight radius is pretty bad and so is light resistance. dark resist and blind immunity (very rarely but i like having it for convenience) is semi useful but not worth generic points, gift doesn't get good regen even if you do invest in WIL so its main use ATM is free turns with fungus (actually surprisingly good, maybe better than most 1st racials that aren't shalore)

born into magic

What are you talking about? Arcane damage comes from literally 2 talents that are available to rares atm and you don't care about manathrust because Lightning hits harder and mana clash's threat is resource drain. Arcane resist is 100% useless. The 15% damage boost is decent, but ironically not on casters since you find a ton more elemental %damage (and it's hardly race defining like Haste + Pitiless/Timeless + Grace/Grisly + Writ Large). Demonologist and Sun Paladin among a couple others like +%physical since it's rarer and have spells to proc it though. (e: actually sun paladin has righteous strength. it's just demonologist)

HB

The funny part about HB is shalore is better at using it than higher. Also that nothing you want to use highborn's bloom on actually works.

Aether Permeation

Aether permeation is currently one of the few prodigies that actively makes your character worse. Your suggestion reverses the balance of power and makes it so that it makes you completely invincible....but Archmage and Doombringer/Demonologist are the only classes that can pick it up reliably anyway, and 2 of those classes can't die even without it - what's the point of buffing good classes? Also racial prodigies are a terrible idea for reasons i can't care enough to explain.
Finally i love the little jab you gave at the good players, like you've ever played high difficulty


Ideas & Suggestions for Improvements

gift buff ideas

Currently gift is getting buffed for heal mod in git and that's really all it needs (that and to not take up the same slot as your regen buffs + hopefully still trigger fungal growth for oozemancer synergy). Wil scaling is fine and honestly what are you talking about regarding infusions? Pretty much every character that doesn't have massive damage shields or better natural healing will use regen infusion.

overseer buffs

Generic points are pretty scarce... I would probably rework this talent into some other kind of passive stat dump that gives stats worth taking but i'm not sure what. It's got the right idea but the wrong stats. (see magic of the eternals and more debatably militant mind/guardian of the wood for OK examples of stuff to throw free generics in for good stats)

Born Into Magic

Just make it apply to everything so it can get proper use on physical and MP classes. 20% damage boost isn't super bad honestly but most magic users get so much %dam it's irrelevant. Since i have to provide a lore reason for everything, they're Higher. They're meant to be better than average at everything.

HB buffs

Hidden resources atm is only good on 2 classes (necro and PM) and highborn's bloom doesnt even let you use paradox. You're on the right track though, tho IMO i would just make all resource usage not happen during HR/Bloom. This lets you keep stuff like Forcefield, Fearscape, Dream Prison (i don't even know if this is good), Momentum up which is actually fairly powerful and would help to define the race compared to things like Timeless or Grisly Constitution.


e: shalore with cauterize would still be better than buffed higher with this ridiculously OP aether permeation replacement, but that's a problem with prodigies and bpat tried to get prodigies rebalanced a while ago and got ignored due to normies so lol

[Davion Fuxa]

As far as aether permeation goes, the way it currently works just seems sort of weirdly complicated, I think I'd rather have it just do something like convert a percent of incoming damage into arcane. Which would also work with arcane affinity if you get lucky, and doesn't seem op. And I'm not really sure how I feel about a higher specific prodigy, I don't mind it in the abstract, but I'm just not sure one race should get its own prodigy without others getting one. That could be interesting though, each race having their own prodigy, would work to diversify them even more

Giving every race their own Prodigy could be cool, but mostly I was thinking that this could be a way to make Higher's in specific unique to other races. An alternative idea though in regards to Prodigies could be that Higher's could have an easier time with any and all Prodigy Prerequisites, if not perhaps having their pick of them regardless of their stats or whatever else the Prodigy requires them to do first. That could open up some new avenues of play that would be unique to the Higher - much like how Ogre's did when they came into play.

born into magic

What are you talking about? Arcane damage comes from literally 2 talents that are available to rares atm and you don't care about manathrust because Lightning hits harder and mana clash's threat is resource drain. Arcane resist is 100% useless. The 15% damage boost is decent, but ironically not on casters since you find a ton more elemental %damage (and it's hardly race defining like Haste + Pitiless/Timeless + Grace/Grisly + Writ Large). Demonologist and Sun Paladin among a couple others like +%physical since it's rarer and have spells to proc it though. (e: actually sun paladin has righteous strength. it's just demonologist)

Two Enemies - Skeleton Mages, and The Shade. They are respectively the number 2 and number 4 killer of players. Then their is Elandar, who has as one of his main damage type - Arcane. While I'm sure an experienced player doesn't have trouble with these enemies (ignoring Elandar for the moment), it is worth noting that newer players still do.

Aether Permeation

Aether permeation is currently one of the few prodigies that actively makes your character worse. Your suggestion reverses the balance of power and makes it so that it makes you completely invincible....but Archmage and Doombringer/Demonologist are the only classes that can pick it up reliably anyway, and 2 of those classes can't die even without it - what's the point of buffing good classes? Also racial prodigies are a terrible idea for reasons i can't care enough to explain.
Finally i love the little jab you gave at the good players, like you've ever played high difficulty

Due to their Racial, Higher's CAN pick it up reliably. Ignoring that though, part of the suggestion was to make the Prodigy 'Higher Only' for a reason. Additionally, while a class like Archmage might get more benefit from it since they can obtain higher Arcane Resistance from their talents, it would still likely be good to all classes since Higher's would still add their own Arcane Resistance into the mix.

gift buff ideas

Currently gift is getting buffed for heal mod in git and that's really all it needs (that and to not take up the same slot as your regen buffs + hopefully still trigger fungal growth for oozemancer synergy). Wil scaling is fine and honestly what are you talking about regarding infusions? Pretty much every character that doesn't have massive damage shields or better natural healing will use regen infusion.

If you can use it irrespective of Regeneration Infusions then much of what I said doesn't make as much sense. If it does though then note that classes that Willpower are generally more inclined to take Dual Regeneration Infusions then Cunning based classes - whether that be due to making Anti-Magic characters, playing a Wyrmic or Oozemancer, and so forth due to the Fungus Category.

overseer buffs

Generic points are pretty scarce...

Maybe subsequent updates can see additional benefits given to them, but people still invest in it so giving it a bigger buff isn't as inclined.

Born Into Magic

Just make it apply to everything so it can get proper use on physical classes. 20% damage boost isn't super bad honestly but most magic users get so much %dam it's irrelevant. Since i have to provide a lore reason for everything, they're Higher. They're meant to be better than average at everything.

I'd actually be for this in some shape or form, but seeing as how Whitehooves don't get their damage boost for free, it is likely the Higher's would have to do something for it, or it would have to be a very small percentage.

HB buffs

Hidden resources atm is only good on 2 classes (necro and PM) and highborn's bloom doesnt even let you use paradox. You're on the right track though, tho IMO i would just make all resource usage not happen during HR/Bloom. This lets you keep stuff like Forcefield, Fearscape, Dream Prison (i don't even know if this is good), Momentum up which is actually fairly powerful and would help to define the race compared to things like Timeless or Grisly Constitution.

You know how Timeless doesn't effect some things? If it proves to be a problem, HB can have restrictions of the same type.

[ster]

in no particular order:

re: aether permeation i was talking about the other requirement which requires Fearscape Invasion Portal or AM/searing halls start

re: gift, currently it (Gift) does use the same buff slot as regen, i think this may have got changed in 1.5 trunk but if not i'll bug ##tome

re: born into magic: 20% damage isn't that big honestly, ogre gets 10% forever as well as Ogre Things

re: HB, My entire point of the HB post was to say it needs to work on more things not less!!!

and regarding enemies with arcane, i think in terms of rare+ classes since it's really really rare to be threatened by a normal enemy (lol top 10 killers intentionally avoiding rare+). i did miss impending doom though which is fairly major (except you use disperse gloves vs it or die anyway)
Balancing around noobs is how we get trainwrecks like EoR so it's probably not the best idea to go that way.

elandar uses like 20 different types of damage and has crazy respen for them all anyway. usually he's never threatening because you just kill him unless he rolls ridiculous classes in which case his damage probably isn't all arcane or hes unkillable

[Mordy]

You know Higher already got a few racial buffs done for 1.5 right?

[Davion Fuxa]

To be honest, I'm just waiting for 1.5 to come out. If Higher got a few racial buffs then great - but unless any of them were major they won't be enough.

-----

In regards to Highborn's Bloom - I suggested Hidden Resources because it will effect more stuff; and that's before even considering the 'No Talent Failure' part of the equation as well.

If it does however do anything too overpowered like how Timeless use to extend Unstoppable or Draconic Will then we can look into adding restrictions for it then.

[Frumple]

I'unno if it really needs something drastic to be more attractive than it is. Cornacs are a thing and about all they have going for them is a single cat point. I'm forgetting the specifics but I'm pretty sure there's been more than one race over the course of the dev cycle that went from mostly ignored to at least middle-of-the-road (at least at that point in development) with just one or two, fairly small, changes. Doesn't necessarily take much, just the right thing in the right place. Capstone overseer and/or born with 1 square extra range on ranged talents or somethin'. Be pretty nice on something like doomed.

... that said, if folks want to take the mutual escalation route to character design, I'm pretty okay with that, m'self. I used to enjoy portralis quite a bit :V

[Sheila]

Weakest living race is actually Dwarf, higher is a bit underrated. But yeah, they're both getting buffed in 1.5.

[Frumple]

Huh. Actually checking the apparent higher changes... passive mind link('s telepathy aspect) for a few turns when you damage something on overseer 5,* healmod on the tier 1 (minor suggestion there, maybe be really fancy and let it go over the 250% cap?), bit of a damage buff (+5%) on born. Link thing's kinda' neat. Not sure how actually useful it is (never toyed around with mind link enough to get a feel for that sort of effect), but neat.

*Have to say, now I'm wondering if that'll work when you hit yourself >_>

[ster]

Dwarf has stone walking at least, yeek has a HP penalty and nothing good except maybe their summon (why didn't these get buffed in 1.5?)

[Davion Fuxa]

Dwarf has stone walking at least, yeek has a HP penalty and nothing good except maybe their summon (why didn't these get buffed in 1.5?)

Ignoring what benefits the Yeek has, they are notably the 'challenge' race in the game. Or they were.

[ster]

Dwarf has stone walking at least, yeek has a HP penalty and nothing good except maybe their summon (why didn't these get buffed in 1.5?)

Ignoring what benefits the Yeek has, they are notably the 'challenge' race in the game. Or they were.

but we already have undead, which make for a much more interesting challenge than just having bad hp and mediocre racials (on par with thalore, except thalore 1st is excellent and 4th potentially better, while yeek's 1st is situationally useful against summoner summons and patrols, maybe doomed shadows too? and bad against all other relevant enemies since they're rare+).

Expecting every living race and maybe Skeletons to become on par with shalore racial-wise is kind of unrealistic though (and as much as i whine, ogre is only really needed for a few builds using 2h+offhand and timeless is only needed to chain spells on madness, non-undead are mostly interchangable. ogre was a step in the right direction, it's close to shalore on the power curve but subjectively better and worse at things.)

[Sheila]

Dwarf has stone walking at least, yeek has a HP penalty and nothing good except maybe their summon (why didn't these get buffed in 1.5?)

You trolling ster?
Memes aside, you overrate hp which you can build (easily, and in big quantities), you can also build mobility. You can't build good racials.
Also, are you aware of how small shalore HP is as well? Sure, they have timeless, but their HP is barely higher than yeek.
Yeek has one of the best skillsets overall. Confusion immunity is one of the few that's very useful even if it isn't 100%, and yeeks get like 50% off the bat with one point in their second racial.
Global speed is one of the best stats in the game, and the "situationally useful" is still good against summons which are some of the most dangerous mobs in the game on insane+, and things like champions of urh'rok and what not.
3 beefy instant summons is incredibly good as well, even if not as good as thalore's, still great.
Yeek is easily better than undead, higher and dwarf, and arguably a few others depending on what you need. They're in a good spot and don't really need buffs.
Other misc benefits are that they basically start maj eyal at level 10 and with some extra money and gear so you don't really need to scum or drown, saw you complain about that the other day. They also get zigur access on any class that's able to access zigur (the other one is dwarf).
The whole "challenge race" is an old meme at this point and it needs to die