Race/Class Idea: Elementals [Coders aquired?]

[AlexanderR]

How about temporal elementals? I imagine, they would use paradox, both as resource and health replacement (e.g. dying at 0 paradox), and have affinity to temporal damage, effectively healing from anomalies/backfires instead of being damaged by them.

[AlexMdle]

Paradox as health sounds interesting, but ultimately unreliable. I mostly try to tend away from things outside of player's control, since it can result in cheap, frustrating deaths.

That and I think time manipulation has already been played out, there's two classes dedicated to splitting, rewinding, accelerating time and whatnot. I would like to try the idea, but can't really come up with any original idea out of the top of my head. At the very least, this needs some lengthy deliberation.

Edit: Added a table of contents to the first page, now people dont have to scavenge the first page for the actual fluff.

[AlexMdle]

Done with the comments on both Jadir and Asha.

Also, along the way, fixed the following of Asha's abilities:

Speed of Heat: Now has a small innate range of global speed, instead of 0% global speed on 0 heat. Additionally, it now grants a small amount of heat when moving.

Billowing Carpet: No longer has a dynamic size and does not generate heat on cast. Instead, the size is locked to 3/3/3/4/4 and Asha generates 15 heat for every turn it remains inside the cloud.

Lingering Fires: Does not provide a point of absolute minimum heat anymore. Allows heat to act as a replacement for hp if Asha falls under 0 hp, albeit at a higher damage-heat ratio.

[Amphouse]

Please tell me you found a coder for this. This is so well-thought out that it would be such a shame for it to stay as just an idea.

[AlexMdle]

All main entries updated with commentary.

Additionally a few changes:

Light as Feather/Ranged Strike - Merged into a single talent. There was really no reason for them to have a separate icon, since one of them was passive.

Aspect of Protection - Ice form does not reflect fully absorbed beams, instead the shield power is increased by 33%.

Crystalize - Replaced with Crystal Shards, a conic spell that deals cold damage, with closer enemies receiving freezing damage instead.

Pervert - Reworked into a lingering stat reduction area.

Unholy Fusion - The individual skills included are exempt from the tree's conversion to blight damage.

Magic Forge - Renamed Energy Forge, to avoid possible lore problems.


On the to-do list:

Do something about the Wind Warrior tree streamlining.
Ponder on possible extra secondary effect of Sublimation.
Rework Wind Tunnel, possibly replacing it entirely.
Give better spellcaster synergy to Temper Weapon.
(Possibly just me nit-picking)Give Tendrils of Fire some sort of off-switch, without turning it into a sustain.

If anybody has good ideas for those, I would love to hear them.

[PureQuestion]

Re: Living Mural; all spells go one space into walls specifically so you can hit ghosts and etc

Re: Guile; There is actually a "casting speed" stat.

[AlexMdle]

Ok, these are the final changes for now, unless there's more I should know:

Wind Warrior - Uses a projection of a weapon, instead of the actual weapon, so you can continue using it while the skills are in use. No inventory shuffling required every time you use those.
Sublimation - Succesfully using this to finish off an enemy leaves behind a healing-inhibiting area of effect.
Wind Tunnel - Reworked into Wind Shield, an ability that creates a half-circle that acts as an obstacle for the purpose of projectiles, beams and AoE effects.
Temper Weapon - Gives reduces damage bonus, but it now applies to all physical damage, regardless of melee or magical. Also slightly buffed the increase to nature damage if wielding a staff.
Guile - Adds both attack and casting speed, while retaining the "free turn", albeit in a max 1 of 8 turns, rather than 1 of 5.

[AlexMdle]

Pure brought to my attention that 5 trees per class is exceptionally low and played into my general paranoid fear of imbalancing them through addition of basic trees. While I don't know whether that is the case or not, it means that I should meet some precautions.

So, right back in the starting conceptual area. The goal is to diversify the class choice tree without repeating existing functions.

The addition is (for now at least) limited to two extra class trees and one extra generic tree.

Now, to deliberate.

Jadir:

- Possible additional spellcaster tree, focused on mixed physical and fire damage (Geothermal). Temper weapon would need a slight rework to not leave it without benefit.

- Sand-based tree that flips the defensive from "be tanky" to "debuff enemy attacks".

- A "mobility"-like offensive melee tree, with focus on freedom of action, rather than on additional movement.

Asha:

- Hybrid spellcaster/melee tree with focus on energy attacks (fire/light/lightning).

- Generic tree that allows you to spend various amounts of heat, instead of generating it.

- Possibly, a hybrid willpower tree with mind-burning effects.

Silyhe:

- There is a sore lack of archery involved, let's fix that.

- Generic tree with shift from defense to offense, for all the wildcards out there.

- Stratospheric tree, with ether based effects. Not sure on the degree of conflict with lore.

Naiar:

- Definitely a mental power tree.

- Possibility of an antimagic-grounded caster tree.

- Another summoner-esque tree, that calls and binds horrible things.

[Amphouse]

Are you giving them the basic generic "survival" tree that every other class gets? What about the other trees that most classes get?

You mentioned "mind-burning effects" for Asha - How about dreamforge damage? That's basically what that is, and I always thought it was underused.

Finally, what exactly do you mean by "ether based effects"?

[PureQuestion]

If Dreamforge damage is "underused" it's because it was invented for Solipsists, which are the second newest class in the game

[AlexMdle]

Ok, the first supplementary tree idea took a long time and got reworked several times. I kind of shot myself in the foot when trying to synergize it with it's own values, like fire resistance, to get a mix of offense and defense. It didn't work. Next idea was to let the player hybridize casting from the Jagged Body shield or Essence, but it felt awkward and cumbersome and very, very reliant on circumstances. It would force player to think in complex chains, so that got shot down as well.

Finally, I decided to make it revolve around the Jagged Body shield, which Ive already resolved to become an innate passive that the Jadir starts with, rather than a possibly optional sustain. The mix seems to work, it combines offensive and defensive capabilities in form of resistances, shield upgrade, mixed fire damage and fire penetration.

Anyway, enough talk, here it is:

Elemental/Geothermal(Class points) - [Jadir]

Rock Mortar (Active)[Range 4]
Cost: 5% Essence
Cooldown:2 turns

Fires a rock mortar at the target enemy in range of 4, dealing 24/30/36/42/48 physical and fire damage in a ball with radius of 1.

Each point increases the damage returned by Jagged Body by 2%.


Damage increases with magic.

You may notice that all the talents in this tree revolve around Jagged Body. This is a remnant of the old idea of "casting from the shield" that I found good enough to keep. It means you can continue being tanky while being a spellcaster. As to the skill itself, mixed AoE damage with decent coverage but low range, I mean hell, you can take the risk.

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Insulation (Passive)

Your hard outer shell does good to keep the gooey candy center warm.
Increases physical resistance by 2/4/6/8/10% and adds the total 20/23/26/29/32% of physical resistance to fire and cold resistance.

Each level adds 7% to the maximum capacity of Jagged Body.

Resistance conversion ratio increases with magic.

Another talent that suggests improving your physical defenses. The idea is to free up some possible bonus slots for the spell damage, or physical penetration, instead of concentrating on complete fire/cold immunity. It makes a bit less sense than it did with the previous version of the next talent, where your fire resistance played a role, but it's still decent.

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Pyroclastic burst (Active)
Cost: 20% Essence
Cooldown:16 turns

Bouts of molten rage explode from within, solidifying on both you and the immediate surroundings.

Instantly regenerates 34/42/50/58/66% of missing Jagged Body shield and roots all adjacent enemies for 1/1/2/2/3 turns. Each turn, the rooted enemies take 30 fire damage.

Passively increases jagged body regeneration by flat 1/2/3/4/5 points per turn.

Damage and passive regeneration increase with magic.

It would be a poor spellcasting tree if you didn't get at least one more way to deal fire damage. This is a small synergetic nod to Tremor and Put Roots - the respective AoE spells from the different 'spellcasting' trees of this class. Ideally, the passive bonuses you aquire from these skills make the shield replenishment a nice bonus.

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Smoldering Core (Passive)

A smoldering core houses within your chest and woe betides those who chip away to expose it.

- Converts 3/5/7/9/11% of all elemental damage received into fire damage.
- Increases fire penetration by 6/8/10/12/14%.

The first effect becomes twice as effective, the closer you get to 100% of the shield.
The second effect becomes twice as effective, the closer you get to 0% of the shield.

Neither effect can become less potent than it's base value, regardless of current percentage of the shield.

Base values of damage conversion and fire penetration increase with magic.

Ok, this might need a bit of explanation. The base bonuses are persistant, regardless of what value the shield is currently on. The closer you are to either absolute of the shield, the more potent either of the two bonuses become. So on full shield, the conservation has double the effect and on empty shield, the penetration becomes twice as potent. Both values are rather powerful and Excalorification allows you some degree of control over this.

[AlexMdle]

Mercifully, this tree did not present too many problems. The concept of debuff for defense has already been explored in some hybrid trees with Conditioning tree and Reaver. I still had to check the sand drake tree of the Wilder to make sure the skills don't overlap. The result turned out to be very versatile in what it debuffs, with a mix of defense, damage and utility. All around, it seems work.

Elemental/Erosion(Generic Points) - [Jadir]

Sharkskin (Passive)

Your 'skin' has dried and cracked, forming a rough mesh of hooked scales if put to stress. Every time you are attacked, you gain a stack of Sharkskin for 5 turns, up to 5/5/6/6/7 stacks.

Each stack gives 2/3/3/4/4 points to ranged defense and increases physical power by 2. Any enemy that lands a critical melee strike on you must pass a physical power check against your physical save or be disarmed for 1/1/1/2/2 turns.

Defense, physical power, disarm duration and maximum stacks increase with endurance.

I think disarm is a status condition that I gravely overlook. It applies some rather massive offensive penalities to an enemy, which is a good tactic for physical defense when coupled with ranged defense.

Amorphous (Active)
Cost: 15% Essence
Cooldown:18 turns

Explodes in a ball 3/3/3/4/4 of sand, dealing 52/62/72/82/92 physical damage to all enemies hit. For the next 2/3/3/4/4 turns, you can freely move to any square inside the affected area in a single turn, as long as you are inside it.

Damage and duration increase with endurance.

Ok, basically, you created a field of sand around yourself. As long as you are inside that field, you can instantly move to any tile that lies within it's premises. This creates amazing positioning properties as you can quickly engage different enemies, or maybe even kite some of them in one way, before moving the the opposite side of the field and fleeing. I'm pretty sure you'll find a good usage for that.

Sandstorm (Active)[Range 2]
Cost: 15% Essence
Cooldown:22 turns

For the next 7 turns, a fierce sandstorm rages in a ball 2 range around you for 8 turns. Enemy projectiles move 50% slower through it, while any enemy inside loses 4/5/6/7/8 accuracy per turn for 2 turns, stacking to a max of 12/15/18/21/24.
Enemies at the maximum of their accuracy reduction are blinded until they leave the sandstorm.

Accuracy reduction and duration increase with endurance.

I seriously thought that Wyrmic already had that sort of skill and was surprised when I double checked and saw that he didn't. I mean most classes have it in some way. Alchemists, Archmages, Wyrmics in other trees. You basically become a walking whistling vortex. Enemies(Players?) have roughly 3 turns to get out of your proximity before they become blind, which doesn't save them from the initial bouts of innaccuracy.

Silicine Slicers(Sustained)[Range 5]
Cost: 20% Essence
Cooldown:20 turns

Creates a line of sharp crystals in a target line between two points. (Max. range between the points is 3/3/4/4/5, neither point can be out of range of 5.)
The line persists for 3/3/4/4/5 turns. Any enemy walking into the wickedly sharp crystals bleeds for 60/68/76/84/92 physical damage over two turns and has their global speed cut by 20/22/24/26/28% for the duration.

Deactivating the ability early shatters the crystals, the shrapnel rains onto all enemies in ball 1 range of every crystal tile, applying the bleeding/slowing effect. (Effects do not stack.)

Damage, maximum line length and duration increase with endurance.

This is what Wind Tunnel turns out like after taking some hammering. A flexible, line-based skill to deter enemy advance. Admittedly, this version is far more offensive in it's purpose, what with an early detonation function. The latter is really there for crowd clearing.

[AlexMdle]

Ok, this tree proves that I should do the comments on the new trees again. I just can't properly word some of them without examples. As to the tree, I realized that I've given Jadir all the tools to fight unarmed/with gloves, so why not mix the implacability tree with it? The result is an offensive tree based on freedom of action, with the ultimate mother of defensive/offensive skills at the end.

Elemental/Eyal Resolver (Class Points) - [Jadir]

Afterecho (Passive)

Increases all physical damage done by 24/30/36/42/48% when fighting unarmed.
Unarmed attacks now echo, dealing 33/36/39/42/45% of damage to any enemy directly behind the target of your attack.

Damage increases with strength.

So, yeah. Remember when the first advanced metamorphosis skill also added bonus to unarmed combat, yet no tree had anything worth offering for it? This is the very straightforward answer to that. Punching with bare hands is surprisingly fitting in the metaphor of freedom of action and the extra piercing damage is what gives it that extra advantage.

Brutish Stride (Passive)

Your joints do not tire, your arms do not rest. Every time you move a tile, you gain speed for a charge - your global movement speed increases by 2.2/2.5/2.8/3.1/3.4%(11/12.5/14/15.5/17% if no enemy is in sight), to a max of 22/25/28/31/34%.

Hitting an enemy in melee deals up to 50/75/100/125/150% extra damage(On full speed bonus) and consumes the speed bonus. Any other action cuts the bonus in half with no effect. Standing still resets the bonus to 0.

An attack on over 50% of the effect extends the area of Afterecho to a cone with a range of 2 behind the attacked target, on 100%, the range is extended to 3 and the cone width is increased by 1.

Extra damage increases with strength.

Ok, I think I butchered the wording hard there. Basically, you charge people for extra impact, like a guy on a horse charging at people with a spear. You wind up and then hit hard, which rewards you for those stretches of land you have to cross to reach people and punch them in the face. A small fact I also didn't properly write is what exactly the extra damage is. The idea is that it increases damage from any physical strike, whether a basic attack or a talent. As such, Afterecho piercing damage is also amplified, same with Teluric fist and etc.

Another thing, the '5x boost if there is no enemy in sight' is there to prevent the silly situation in which a player winds up walking in circles for 10 turns after every fight.

Unleashed (Active)
Cost: 12% Essence
Cooldown:21 turns

Nothing dare stop you dead in your tracks. When activated, you become unleashed for 3/4/5/6/7 turns. While unleashed, you are immune to effects that would slow you down, knock you back or immobilize you.
This does not negate the application of harmful skills however, only their slowing/knock-backing/immbolizing effect and the duration of Unleashed decreases by 1 for every effect it negates.

Duration increases with strength.

More explanation. Basically, this does not prevent slow, or pin-down skills. They are still applied and on you, just that you ignore those parts of the effect. So, say, if you have a debuff that pins you down and deals damage over time, you still take damage, but are able to move.

Additionally, a turn is removed from duration every time an effect would be negated. So say, you have a slow and a pin-down debuff on you. It means that every turn you lose 2 turns of Unleashed. Of course, knockback is more direct and so you lose 1 turn of duration if it would be negated at the moment it is negated, rather than at the beginning of the next turn.

Cry of Eyal (Sustained)
Cost: 25% Essence
Cooldown:40 turns

You cry out for the defiance of the planet itself to embody you. While active, enemy damage reduces your maximum hp instead of your current hp and your global speed is reduced by 33%.(Your current hp still decreases, if the maximum hp is lower than it.)

Once deactivated, you release all this power in a cataclysmic display of might, dealing up to 240/280/320/360/400 physical damage in a ball of 5, depending on the percentage of max hp lost during the effect. (Up to 100% damage on 66% max hp lost)

Damage increases with strength.

This is probably inspired by Bulwark's Last Stand, which is a skill with a mechanic I really like, yet which feels like it draws from the same well as Necromancer's Blurred Mortality. I wanted it to have an offensive and a defensive part with a massive immediate effect.

The immediate effect is easy to see, if used, say, on 1% remaining hp, you basically double your hp pool. The difference however is the dynamic relationship of current hp, max hp and healing.

Say, you are on 20% hp and you know the enemy is about to remove it. You pop this skill, the enemy attacks, you are now on 20% current hp and 80% max hp. Then you heal and are attacked again, now you are at 50% hp and 60% max hp. You deactivate this skill, dealing ~75% of it's full damage, your max hp returns to normal and you are now at 50% hp. Nifty. It can of course be used differently and it's up to you to see if it's of better use when you are attacking, fleeing, or have already taking a beating. If the damage proves to be too high, it will probably get changed to up to 66% of actual hp removed during the effect, rather than that of the max hp pool. However, even right it means that for full damage, you risk deactivating this when at 33% hp, so I guess that evens it out.

[Velorien]

I would like to compliment your extraordinary design skills.

[AlexMdle]

Elemental/Power(Class Points) - [Asha]

Magic-based melee tree for hybrid usage, with the edge of elemental variety and utility.

Shining Burst (Active)
Heat: +40
Cooldown:14 turns

Ripples out a wave of blinding light, revealing all stealthed enemies in radius of 3/3/4/4/5 and dealing 40/46/52/58/64 light damage to them.
Affected enemies must pass a spell save check. Succesful save reduces accuracy by 12/14/16/18/20 for 3 turns. Failure blinds the enemy for the same duration.

Every extra point of light radius increases the damage of this ability by a stacking 10%, every point of heat adds 0.5% of extra fire damage.

Damage, radius, debuff strength and duration increase with magic.

My concern was that this may be too similar to luminiscence, which is widely hated, hence why instead of blinding outright it is likely to reduce accuracy instead.

Microwave (Active) [Range 3]
Heat: +40
Cooldown:9 turns

Sends out electromagentic waves to cook the target enemy in range of 3 alive in their armor. Target enemy takes 60/68/76/84/92 lightning damage and loses 20/24/28/32/36% armor for 3 turns.

Every point of enemy armor increases the damage of this ability by a stacking 1%, every point of heat adds 0.5% of extra fire damage.

Damage, radius, debuff strength and duration increase with magic.

Armor-cracking lightning spell, I imagine this would make it easier to fight the nigh-invincible antimagic bulwark setup.

Lifepyre (Active)
Heat: +40
Cooldown:25 turns

You undergo a rapid metamorphosis, absorbing any force that tries to harm you.

Increases your affinity to all elements by 70/76/82/88/94% for 2 turns, smearing any received healing over 5 turns.

Every 40 points of heat decrease the smearing duration by 1.

Minimal and maximal thresholds of damage increase with magic.

This talent was rewritten a number of times to properly capture the essence of what it is - it is a timing-based antidamage shield. The idea is that you use it when you become sure that a big nuke is going your way, effectively negating it and getting healed as reward. If you timed wrong, you either waste this on nothing, or a comparatively harmless enemy attack, to little effect.

Charged Arms (Passive)

A touch of your hands charges up the weapons you carry with ambient forces. Grants an extra 20/25/30/35/40% magic damage modifier to your attacks.
Also increases all your critical hit chances by 2/4/6/8/10% and the multiplier by 4/8/12/16/20%.

Critical hit chance and multiplier increase with magic.

Hella bland. I noticed that the tree needed some bigger ties between weapon attacking under the magic stat. The general premise works, but I will need to add something more interesting than crit stats.