Class Idea: Wood Sentinel

[James LaBrie]

Note: I'm not a very good coder. My skills are sub-par at best, but I'm trying my best to improve at the very simple code required for the engine. Anyone offering help though, would be greatly appreciated.

Basically, I've had the idea of an antimagic-only character for a long time. The idea of the Wood Sentinel is a combination of an antimagic character and a pure tank. I'm not sure how this will balance out yet (and criticism there is extremely welcome) but I'm imagining resource management should be a problem, along with high accuracy/high armor penetration characters (particularly drakes and archers, I'm thinking). Any ideas on switches to trees/talents are also very welcome.

Wood Sentinel - Wilder Sub-Class
As the Spellblaze wound on, the world let out a desperate cry. It would soon give up on the mortal races of the planet. This plea was answered by a group of Bulwarks intent on the destruction of spellcasters. These Bulwarks channeled their energy together with the world to gain perfect balance with mother earth. Their guardian, their god, their savior is her. The Order of the Wood Sentinel, a society that will stop at nothing to save Mother Earth, was formed.


Stat Modifier
Strength +2
Dexterity +2
Constitution 0
Magic 0
Willpower +4
Cunning 0
Starting Life 120
Life per Level +3

Starting Equipment/Talents
Iron Longsword
Iron Shield
Iron Mail Armor

Shield Wall
Combat Accuracy
Armor Training (3)

Talent Trees
Techniques
Shield Defence (1.3 mastery)
Combat Veteran (1.3 mastery)
Superiority (1.1 mastery)
Combat Training (1.3 mastery)
Wild Gift
Call of the Wild (1.2 mastery)
Harmony (1.2 mastery)
Antimagic (1.3 mastery)
Grace (1.3 mastery)
Vengeance (1.3 mastery)
Balance (1.3 mastery, locked)
Earthbond (1.2, locked)
Cunning
Survival (1.0 mastery, locked)


New Trees:

Wild Gift: Grace

1) Leafblade (activation, 3 equilibrium).
You hit a single target with a nature infused slash. This attack does 110/115/125/140/155/170/190% weapon damage, and inflicts x poison damage over 3/3/4/4/5/5/6 turns.
At talent level 4, this becomes insidious poison.
x increases with Mindpower.

2) Bloom (activation, 2 equilibirum, cooldown 20).
Life springs up around you in a radius of 1/2/2/3/3/4/4 for 3/4/5/6/7/8/9
turns. Your connection with nature grants you power inside this radius.
Weapon damage is increased by x%, Healing Mod is increased by y%, and any
kills inside the Bloom restore 1/2/2/3/3/4/4 equilibrium.
x% increases with Physical Power.
y% increases with Mindpower.

3) Nature's Beauty (Passive).
While inside bloom, your appreciation and admiration of beauty increases.
You are inspired to save it from destruction. In addition to Bloom's
bonus, you recieve a (talent level*1)% resistance to elemental damage
(excluding arcane), and a (talent level*3)% resistance to arcane damage.
At talent level 3, 5, and 7, your Bloom has its duration increased by a respective 1, 2, and 3 turns.

4) Roots (Passive).
Nature does not share its love for you with your adverseries. Trees will send their roots through the ground to protect your Bloom, inflicting pain from beauty they do not appreciate. There is a x% chance that enemies in your Bloom will be pinned and recieve y% damage.
x% increases with mindpower.
y% increases with physical power.

Wild Gift: Vengeance

1) Sting (Sustained, 40 equilibrium, 30 cooldown).
The wrath of nature is present in all creatures, particularly the swift, deadly, and poisonous hornet swarms. You channel their wrath, decreasing your weapon speed by (talent level*3), increasing your movespeed while in bloom by (talent level*5), and increasing your affinity for finding weak spots, increasing critical chance by (talent level*.5) and critical damage multiplier by (talent level*2). This talent may not be active at the same time as Pure Wrath.

2) Sticky Sap (Activated, 5 equilibrium, 5 cooldown)
This skill requires Sting to be sustained. Any enemy attacking you while you're channeling your nature spirit will recieve x slime damage and be slowed by 5/5/5/10/10/10/15%.
x increases with mindpower

3) Impale (Activated, 10 equilibrium, 20 cooldown).
You send a wave of natural pain throughout your enemies. You lash out at a nearby foe, doing (talent level*10) extra weapon damage and 10% of that as bleed damage over 5 over turns. Your wrath exceeds your grace however, putting Sting on cooldown.

4) Pure Wrath (Activated, 20 equilibrium, 30 cooldown).
The anger of a treant flows through your blood. Your wrath increases physical power by 10/20/30/40/50/60/70 and sends 10% of the damage you deal in a radius of 1 around the target, even hitting yourself if you are in range. Your wrath blinds your true goal though, reducing armor and defense by (talent level*5) and reducing your vision range to 1.

Wild Gift: Balance

1) Ponder (Activation, 5 equilibrium, 10 cooldown).
You question the nature of the world for a few moments. You are incapable of acting for 3 turns, but your peace with the world increases your regeneration by (talent level*5).

2) Enlightenment (Passive).
You add insight to your life. You gain (talent level*2) mindpower.

3) True Meaning (Passive).
Your search for the ultimate purpose in life leaves you more resistance
to deterrants. Gain (talent level*5) Confusion Resistance.

4) Restore Balance (Passive)
You attempt to return a semblance of perfect balance to the world. While sacrificing 10 armor and defense, you return (talent level*.5)% of the damage you recieve in a radius of 1.

Wild Gift: Earthbond

1) Universal Peace (Passive).
Above all your goals is the achievement of perfect equilibrium, or Universal Peace. This desire makes you resistant to many dangers.
Decrease all damage by (.1*Willpower). Additionally, your weapon damage is decreased by (30/talent level)%.

2) Fracture (Activation, 10 equilbrium, 20 cooldown)
Earth splits in front of your command. A fracture in the earth is sent out in a 1/1/1/2/2/2/3 radius ball around you, having a 50% chance to daze enemies for 2/2/3/3/4/4/5 turns.

3) Slateshield (Sustain, 10 equilibrium, 20 cooldown)
Your shield becomes heavy with the additional force nature infuses into it. Your global speed is reduced by 40/35/30/25/20/15/10%, while you recieve a (talent level*2+willpower)% to your armor total.

4) Atlas (Activation, 10 equilibrium, 50 cooldown)
You ready yourself to protect planet earth; becoming an extremely powerful protector in the process. While becoming immobile for 10 turns, your Armor and Defense receive a (talent level*2) increase, your resistance to all physical damage is increased by (talent level*3), and
all enemies are drawn to you. Additionally, your physical and mind power recieve a 5/5/10/10/15/15/20 bonus.


Let me know what this angry hippy has going on.

[Goblinz]

So this looks like a interesting idea and concept of a pure anti magic class has been thrown around. I personally would try to come up with another tree or two that focuses on killing mages. A talent that reveals magic users and stuff like that. The grace tree is a really cool idea and I think taking that further would be nice. so have different effects so it could be defensive or offensive feel. So you could lay down an area that causes spells to fail or it could heal you. This seems to be the defining class trait so I would but more focus on it.
Everything you suggested is doable code wise and I am personally happy to help out. I would advise on going to the tome channel if you encounter any problems (irc.rizon.net #tome).

[James LaBrie]

Thanks for the comments! I did have an idea for a further tree complimenting Bloom; nothing worthy of four talents yet though. Basically I just had an idea of a talent that leeched spellpower in return for a bonus to mindpower, a talent that would have a chance to confuse based on how high an enemy's spellpower (meaning higher spellpower would increase confuse chance), and maybe a talent similar to a wild infusion for spell-based effects. Not sure what else I'll come up with yet.

[jotwebe]

Let me second Goblinz in complimenting the Grace tree. The idea of claiming your ground and fighting there has a lot of charm, and I see some lovely synergy with Battle Call from the superiority tree.

So, my thoughts:

Grace: great stuff

Vengeance: interesting, I like the reduced vision on Pure Wrath.

Balance: seems a bit underpowered all around

• Ponder: 3 turns for a little bit extra regen? So basically "do not use in a fight"? Seems very meh, unless I'm missing something.
• Enlightenment: A bit bland. How about it gives +1/TL mindpower and mental save, with a +1 bonus for both when inside a Bloom, an extra +1 per TL mental save when Sting is active and +1 per TL mindpower when Pure Wrath is active?
• True Meaning: Could be higher, I think. Make it talent level * 10% at least. Maybe throw in fear resistance, too - don't want to get scared out of your Bloom...
• Restore Balance: It says passive, but it ought to be a sustain.

Earthbond:

• Universal Peace: Like Restore Balance, I think this should be a sustain, not a passive. Permanently reducing your damage output sounds a bit nasty. On the other hand, with high willpower (and 80 is no problem in the endgame) you'd get 80% resist all? That's crazy talk. Maaaybe half of that. Maybe only for everything except physical & nature ("unnatural damage types"). Also think of the bosses. The horribly overpowered randomized bosses...
• Fracture: about right, I think.
• Slateshield: hmm... I think the values need to be fiddled with. I think it scales a bit too well, after it starts horribly. Global speed is really important, and Bulwark-types usually have all the armor they could ever need anyway. Although the Wood Sentinel might be a bit starved for generics, so not have Armor Training all that high... maybe have it give a bit armor hardiness, too?
• Atlas: Flavor text niggle: What's Planet Earth? And who is Atlas? Apart from that I like it. Although it might be more tactically interesting with a higher equilibrium cost but a lower cooldown.

All in all I think Bloom is the classes' selling point, it would be nice to see another tree complementing it. There could be treacherous ground that stuns enemies, a slow effect on all projectile spells that enter the Bloom, a chance to remove invisibility and maybe stealth, a reduction in enemies' accuracy (great synergy with shield def and riposte), and increased effectiveness for the Antimagic and Harmony trees while standing in the Bloom.

Also a possibly interesting curlicue would be some kind of special defense from attacks originating outside of the Bloom, so you could hunker down and weather spells/arrows while your Battle Call comes off cooldown...

[darkgod]

Show potential yes

[marvalis]

Okey, here a couple of ideas:
First, it seems to me like this class could rely on healing and healing mods. Fits with the nature theme. Second class feature seems to be antimagic. Those two combines makes me think that this class should turn mana etc into healing.

First you lay down your bloom. It should be area targetted and not move around with the caster. Bloom should turn cave into grass, and grass into flowers.

After bloom you cast your roots, pinning things to the ground and moving them closer to you. (optional, battle call first). These vines should leech the casters resources, and turn them into healing for you (modified by bloom's healing mod). For example, each turn your vines leech 30 mana, and turn them into a 30 hp heal.

Just looking at this, I think this should be a generic tree (much like the harmony tree).

A possible second class mechanic could be slowing your enemy, while speeding up yourself. I don't know if you want this, but I am taking it from 'sticky sap'.

So, the first generic tree:

Wild Gift: Grace (generic)
1) Bloom (active)
Area targeted, +healingmod, +heal over time (everyone gets healed 20 hp per turn, including enemy while in the bloom). Bloom will also help your enemy. Compensate the healing with insidious poison.

2) Roots (active)
PBAoE pin, damage over time, steals resources from the targets and turns it into healing over time for the caster (not regeneration, healing). Roots also move the target closer to you when possible. At level 5 your roots are covered in venomous poison, lowering targets healing and dealing damage over time.

3) sticky sap (passive or sustained)
Anyone hitting you with a weapon will get covered by acid. Acid is a cumulative DoT nature damage debuff that also slows by by 5..30%.

4) Adrenaline (active with passive effect)
Passive: Whenever you enter combat you get +200% movement speed for 1 turn.
Active: Activate this skill to get 50% global speed for 3 turns (recharge 10).

Now that we have fixed the 'body' of the wood sentinel and its main general talent tree, let us look at some damage abilities:

Wild Gift: Vengeance (class)
1) Leafblade (active)
Single target nature weapon damage, poison, at level 3 insidious poison.

2) Sting (active)
Single target nature damage, part of the damage as poison DoT, high armor penetration and critical chance. After using sting your critical chance is increased by 10% for 5 turns.

3) Sticky web (active)
You spit sticky webs. Beam range 5. Target - 20% movement speed and -30% skill recharge for 5 turns, poison DoT. At level 5 it becomes venomous poison.

4) Pure Wrath
PbAoE. You turn the ground around you into acid, dealing nature damage over time. Anyone walking on it gets -10% movement speed.


Then a quick look at your other talent trees:
Wild Gift: Balance.
A damage reflection skill, some confusion resistance, and regeneration, and a mindpower boost. This is a bit of everything and it looks like you are trying to make a passive general tree? I don't think this is needed. Sticky sap already does retaliation damage, bloom already is healing, roots are now also healing. The only thing missing is confusion resistance and mindpower, but both are these are gotten by increasing willpower. Conclusion: Remove this talent tree.

Wild Gift: Earthbond
Fracture could be a PBAoE stun (targets become 'off-balance' and stunned). Universal peace: A general damage increase is not very interesting. Slateshield: Global speed reduction is very painful. This is not useable. Just make it global speed -10% for all levels for some armor boost. Atlas: Also increases armor.

It looks like Earthbond is also a passive generic tree. Perhaps you should try to come up with another active class tree.

Just my 2 cents.
Cheers.

[James LaBrie]

Ponder: 3 turns for a little bit extra regen? So basically "do not use in a fight"? Seems very meh, unless I'm missing something.

You're correct on that. Originally, I had something very different planned for Ponder (mostly buffs coming out of the Ponder, but I didn't like the idea enough and couldn't personally think of a strategic situation I would like there) but had scrapped the rest of the tree. I've yet to change Ponder and hadn't placed a disclaimer there.

Enlightenment: A bit bland. How about it gives +1/TL mindpower and mental save, with a +1 bonus for both when inside a Bloom, an extra +1 per TL mental save when Sting is active and +1 per TL mindpower when Pure Wrath is active?

Very good idea, well worth consideration. I'm glad my synergy ideas got across.

True Meaning: Could be higher, I think. Make it talent level * 10% at least. Maybe throw in fear resistance, too - don't want to get scared out of your Bloom...

An equally good idea.

Restore Balance: It says passive, but it ought to be a sustain.

You are correct in that. It seems I had a temporary brain malfunction and put it down as a passive. Real value is (Sustain, 20 equilibrium, 20 cooldown). Once again, please let me know what you think of these values. The class looks rather sustain heavy to me at the moment and that leaves less tactical options in the middle of a battle (hopefully combated by Resolve + Bloom equi regen, however)

Universal Peace: Like Restore Balance, I think this should be a sustain, not a passive. Permanently reducing your damage output sounds a bit nasty. On the other hand, with high willpower (and 80 is no problem in the endgame) you'd get 80% resist all? That's crazy talk. Maaaybe half of that. Maybe only for everything except physical & nature ("unnatural damage types"). Also think of the bosses. The horribly overpowered randomized bosses...

You misunderstand. I agree that 80% resist all is far too much, however the value is .1 * willpower. The scenario of 80 willpower would instead be 8%, a value I'm sure you agree is much more reasonable (though I might tweak up a slight notch to be around 10% resist all at a reasonable max). I like the idea of it as a passive, but I'll see what I think of the merit behind a sustain here.

Slateshield: hmm... I think the values need to be fiddled with. I think it scales a bit too well, after it starts horribly. Global speed is really important, and Bulwark-types usually have all the armor they could ever need anyway. Although the Wood Sentinel might be a bit starved for generics, so not have Armor Training all that high... maybe have it give a bit armor hardiness, too?
Atlas: Flavor text niggle: What's Planet Earth? And who is Atlas? Apart from that I like it. Although it might be more tactically interesting with a higher equilibrium cost but a lower cooldown.

I don't like these talents even a little bit and am thus scrapping them. I saw some merit to them when writing, but.....eh, no more. Two new talents will revolve around Bloom.

All in all I think Bloom is the classes' selling point, it would be nice to see another tree complementing it. There could be treacherous ground that stuns enemies, a slow effect on all projectile spells that enter the Bloom, a chance to remove invisibility and maybe stealth, a reduction in enemies' accuracy (great synergy with shield def and riposte), and increased effectiveness for the Antimagic and Harmony trees while standing in the Bloom.

Also a possibly interesting curlicue would be some kind of special defense from attacks originating outside of the Bloom, so you could hunker down and weather spells/arrows while your Battle Call comes off cooldown...

Thanks greatly for the ideas! They all have some nice merit to them; right now I'm working on the idea of an advanced Bloom tree that would combine some nice debilitating effects with a few more small boosts. I'm sure most of these ideas will make it in in some form or another.

First you lay down your bloom. It should be area targetted and not move around with the caster. Bloom should turn cave into grass, and grass into flowers.

After bloom you cast your roots, pinning things to the ground and moving them closer to you. (optional, battle call first). These vines should leech the casters resources, and turn them into healing for you (modified by bloom's healing mod). For example, each turn your vines leech 30 mana, and turn them into a 30 hp heal.

Just looking at this, I think this should be a generic tree (much like the harmony tree).

A possible second class mechanic could be slowing your enemy, while speeding up yourself. I don't know if you want this, but I am taking it from 'sticky sap'.

This looks rather....overpowered to me. 30 mana leech into a heal could turn into some potentially large numbers, and I think the myriad of defensive and healing options (of which are greater than any other class) would, in combination with this idea, make an overpowered class.

I disagree that it should be a generic tree; generic trees are things everyone in the sub-class has access to and defines the sub-class's commonalities, whereas class trees define this exact class. Grace is definitely the top defining idea I have here, I don't particularly think many would choose this class over the other two Wilders should they get it.

I'm not sure if I want Sticky Sap to give leech move speed; you're already getting pretty big boosts by being in bloom (along with a myriad of other big buffs...) and adding to that would make Bloom practically an invulnerability zone. Sticky Sap was designed in part to make sure there was some way to keep alive outside of Bloom.

1) Bloom (active)
Area targeted, +healingmod, +heal over time (everyone gets healed 20 hp per turn, including enemy while in the bloom). Bloom will also help your enemy. Compensate the healing with insidious poison.

I'm sorry, I just don't think the idea of healing the enemy while in the Bloom works out well. What's the benefit of Bloom then? The class relies on healing mod and regeneration heavily, so it needs an advantage there...

Now that we have fixed the 'body' of the wood sentinel and its main general talent tree, let us look at some damage abilities:

Fixed? I'm sorry but that's fairly rude. I'm not sure if you intended to come off that way but I'm looking for constructive criticism and some collaboration on an idea I've seen thrown around a lot, not "fixing".

[marvalis]

Fixed? I'm sorry but that's fairly rude. I'm not sure if you intended to come off that way but I'm looking for constructive criticism and some collaboration on an idea I've seen thrown around a lot, not "fixing".

No, you are reading that sentence wrong, I was simple making a comparison with the cursed body. I was not referring to me 'fixing' anything.

If 30 resource leech and heal is to much, just lower the numbers. The resource leech alone much be OP shutting down all resource using classes over time. You can have it leech 20 and heal 50% of that or whatever. If it is still to strong you can also make it heal the caster.

Since bloom can be put where you want it, you can put it somewhere that it does not heal others. As I pointed out, you can compensate the healing with all the skills that deal insidious poison, lowering the heal mod.

Suppose bloom heals 20 hp per round. You stack 2x insidious poison -30% healing mod (total -60% healing). You also have some +healing mods. You get healed for say 27 hp, the enemy gets healed for 8 hp. The idea is simply that you create a zone that is full of life, but then debuff your enemy so it does not benefit them as much as it does you.

I never said that sticky sap leeches speed. If you look at my post, sticky sap deals DoT nature damage (covers them in acid) that also slows. Other talents can give some speed boost (like adrenaline).

It was really a very rough sketch that did not need to be shot down. You don't like that idea of an anti-magic class that turns resources into life (healing)? Fine, you don't have to like it. However, you simply misread my post and your arguments are missing the point. I wonder why I even bothered reading your post.

It is true that it probably should be a class tree and not a generic tree. However, wilders only have one generic tree, and it is pretty crappy imho. Whatever rocks your boat. I don't count harmony, because every class can get that.



----


That being said, let me try to elaborate a bit on the unwanted idea of a healing debuffer:
Enter the following two cards:

Image.ashx.jpeg (27.53 KiB) Viewed 2476 times

scourge.png (31.26 KiB) Viewed 2476 times

Now if both the bloom and the roots act like PbAoE heal area healing springs, and then you cast scourge healing on the target... fun times guaranteed!
False cure would be to powerful if it affected all healing. It should probably only affect roots and bloom healing.
Scourge healing could affect all healing, including the targets own healing spells or healing infusions.

[NEHZ]

The tier 4 skill of Wild Gift / Harmony: Healing Nexus syncs very well with Bloom if you let Bloom heal enemies. It transfers the healing to you and restores equilibrium to boot. Harmony also syncs with Bloom's healing mod (I assume), making this a general tree that a lot of sentinels will invest points in.
I'd keep Bloom an area around the player rather than targeted though, as that feels more like making the world around you alive.

Additional idea for roots: active, targeted area, but can only target (with it's center) Bloom or trees. Roots will, in additional to the other effects, spawn Bloom over it's area. (using Bloom's talent level)
While this will restrict Roots to bloomed area it also allows you to spread the bloom further. It also gives the Sentinel a slightly stronger position when fighting in a forest, as the restriction is significantly lessened there.

[jotwebe]

Actually I like the idea about healing everybody in the blood, too. Bathed in Light from the paladin class is a bit similar. Or a ghoul's Retch, for that matter, if you're undead. On that note it would consider healing only natural beings, but doing damage to undead and demons (and horrors? not sure about those). Nature damage, of course. It would make it a bit of a trade-off whether your ideal setup is to stand right at the edge of your bloom and fighting your enemy outside, thus denying them healing, or letting them come in and subjecting them to the debuffs.

And marvalis' healing elaborations could be the replacement for ponder you're looking for, or the earthbond talents you're scrapping.

4) Restore Balance (Passive)
You attempt to return a semblance of perfect balance to the world. While sacrificing 10 armor and defense, you return (talent level*.5)% of the damage you recieve in a radius of 1.

Real value is (Sustain, 20 equilibrium, 20 cooldown). Once again, please let me know what you think of these values. The class looks rather sustain heavy to me at the moment and that leaves less tactical options in the middle of a battle (hopefully combated by Resolve + Bloom equi regen, however)

The thing about sustains is that they actually can increase your options in the middle of a battle, if you give them a low cooldown (say 10 turns - bosses get these, too, and dispelling needs to have some effect ) and maybe even make them instant use. Sustains don't actually cost resources if you're low (or high in the case of equilibrium), but rather decrease your maximum. So if you've already used 20 equilibrium, you could turn on restore balance for free.

Anyway, the numbers... This is a pretty huge and complicated post because my intuition was silent on this and I was moved to do a lot of research in existing talents to get a feel.

First my thoughts on sustains and scaling. With a sustain (or an activated ability), you usually have a constant layout, in this case 20 equi and 10 off def and armor. If you scale the benefits linearly, your bang for the buck actually gets higher with every point, giving you the opposite of a one-point wonder, unless the scaling is so weak that it's totally not worth it. The game has built-in functions to calculate damage (or values really) based on talent level in game/modules/mod/class/interface/Combat.lua. I've quoted the code for mind damage here, spell- and weapondamage work exactly the same, though. Can't say I'm understanding all of it, but the gist is you put what you want as minimum and maximum damage, and it does the rest. Maximum seems to be what you get with 60 in both the applicable stats, with equipment and other bonuses on top (and boss craziness) values will actually be a bit higher.

Code: Select all

function _M:combatTalentMindDamage(t, base, max)
	-- Compute at "max"
	local mod = max / ((base + 100) * ((math.sqrt(5) - 1) * 0.8 + 1))
	-- Compute real
	return self:rescaleDamage((base + (self:combatMindpower())) * ((math.sqrt(self:getTalentLevel(t)) - 1) * 0.8 + 1) * mod)
end

So I prefer this kind of scaling to linear, unless we're talking passives.

Now let's look at similar stuff from other classes:

My current necro's maxxed Displacement Shield returns up to 450-ish damage with a 30% of letting it go through, and with 35 CD it's once per fight. Single target though and the range is 8. Archmages I think have higher mastery and aegis, so it's even better for them. Also they don't have minions wandering into they're line of fire - but I digress .

Sun Paladins get Martyrdom, single target, range6, duration 10 turns, cooldown 6, and does a straight 5% per point talent - mastery is taken into account, so with a cat point and 5/5 that would make 45%.

Their locked tree has Retribution, a 10 CD sustain that siphons 50% of incoming damage, up to 28-170, then relases it in a radius 1+raw TL radius. While our other examples return damage in the original type, Retribution converts it to light. That's a bonus, because some stuff resists it's own damage 100%.

The generic corruption tree Hexes has Empathic Hex, which is a long-range radius 2 ball with 20 turns duration causing targets to be subjected to 4-20% of the damage they do. Never used it much (but haven't played any corruption much above level 30-ish either).

I'd rate Displacement Shield (best for bosses, which is where you need every edge) a bit better than Retribution, in fact a bit OP. Both of these are a lot better than the other two which do squat defensively. Martyrdom should be ok in a boss fight and Empathic Hex is definitely weakish.

So, since your talent does not protect the user from damage, I think it is fair to increase to a bit above the levels you get from Empathic Hex, say 25% max, but also cap the damage output at say 50-200 (thinking of bosses having this, mainly). I'd suggest reducing the cooldown to 10 so you could turn it on and off tactically and making it either instantaneous or taking one turn, whichever turns out to be more interesting in practice. The defense and armor maluses are fine.

So: percent of damage taken returned: combatTalentMindDamage (t, 5, 25), with an absolute cap of combatTalentMindDamage (t, 50, 200).

In terms of effectiveness this would be ok, but not great.

[James LaBrie]

First of all, let me apologize marvalis if I offended you in any way. I wasn't shooting your ideas down; but they are as subject to criticism as any other ideas are. I'm not arguing with you, I'm just merely stating any concerns over ideas I have. That said, your ideas (and all others) certainly have great merit to them.

Right now I'm laid low because of a fairly lengthy sickness, but I'll try to come up with some talents/new tree or two within the week. I like the idea of further healing/healing mod (that also affects all enemies) at the end of the Earthbond tree, mostly because I don't want to heal enemies in bloom right away. I think it would be more tactically interesting if you could choose further healing in an advanced tree, like Earthbond, and then further synergize it with Healing Nexus.