Ability Variation and Restriction
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I have experience playing a tank in this game but no real experience with light/medium armor builds. From that perspective, the ability tree seems pretty broken.
What I see for heavy armor users seems pretty nice. Your armor choice narrows the tree. Your weapon choice narrows the tree. There are options, mostly built around the weapon you use, and you can get access to more abilities, but play is going to be more complicated, requiring weapon-switching during combat to enable different abilities. I ran that build in PVP and it seemed to work well. Shield charge + sword heavy ability, switch to 2h-hammer for hammer heavy ability, switch to 2h-axe for axe heavy ability, switch back to shield for defense and cooldown.
But from what I can tell, the other builds don't have these problems. Some abilities require light armor. Most require light/medium. None require medium. None require heavy.
The magic schools also don't work like the weapon schools, but they probably should. Split Earth is great, but you can't use it with a sword, because it requires a hammer. You can't use it with a mace, because it requires a 2-handed weapon. Magic schools should be the same way. Everything in Cryomancy should require an ice weapon. The strongest things in Cryomancy should require a 2-handed ice weapon. Want a fire/ice build? No problem, equip a fire weapon and an ice weapon, and weapon-switch to cast abilities. Want to mix 3 schools? No problem, add a 3rd weapon. Want to mix 4? No. Just like melee can't. Want a block chance and more defense from a shield? No problem, but you'll give up the higher-effect abilities to do so (and gain access to shield-requiring abilities).
More defense should always pair with less offense. Flexibility should come with a cost. Every set of choices (armor, weapon, off-hand, jewelry) should somewhat equivalently narrow the ability tree.
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I disagree with the weapons should tie you with the skills at least as mage. The heavy armor restriction makes sense in locking out abilities but that can be resolved by adding more specific armor class skills or schools. This is one of the things that makes it different than albion. If this just becomes another clone by locking you into a weapon type then there is no point in playing. Heavy melee gets locked in because of their tankiness + the damage they can put out to things like light armor / medium. Granted some skills should be able to be used by multi weapons. Like pommel strike shouldn't be exclusive to sword. The currently variation isnt making light mages any overpowered thats for sure. Even the mediums with right skills aren't crazy(few exceptions here).
Then you're forgetting about being Evil. Basically that would be an extra 2 weapons dropped if at -10k karma.
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I agree to MidniteArrow.. for me it doesn't make much sense to deactivate mace-abilities for sword users while mages with fire-staffs can cast ice-magic.. I'd give other (incompatible) schools a dmg/utility debuff when wearing the wrong staff or deactivate some school-abilities completely for them.. E.g. mages with fire-staffs would only do 75% of the dmg/effect-time when casting ice-abilities.
We need more fairness between melee-builds and mage-builds.
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That's actually very easy to achieve.
We simply have to make elemental staffs actually taken.
Fractured right now has 6 staffs, namely the Energy Staff and all the ones that no one uses.
The 15% cooldown reduction given by the energy staff is simply better than the other options.
If it was reduced to 10% and the Elemental staffs gave 20% increased damage with that element, fire mages would use fire staffs. Energy staff would be the staff of those who like to mix many schools.
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@spoletta this!
Makes are utility casting classes traditionally not bound by their weapons, but often enhanced by them.
Conversely, they are often restricted from casting at all when using non-caster weapons and higher defensive armors/shields.
Melee/Ranges characters on tge otherhand are equipment dependant classes. What they can and can't do is directly linked to which weapons and/or armor they are wearing. That goes to the core of the 3 play styles (melee/ranged/mage)
Sure, there are mixed classes, Arcane Archers combine magic and Ranged, but are locked out of casting more pure magic type spells by their armor/weapon choices. The Paladin, Cleric, and Ranger types are other examples, and like th e Arcane Archer, limited by their gear as to what magics they can use.
In this regard, I'd go back to an earlier suggestion @spoletta has made in the past and have more than one grade of Spell Channeling so as to allow for composite class builds, buttering the "true makes able to fully function as their build is intended, when in light armor, with a Staff and no shield.
Healing magic, for instance, as that used by divine casters such as Clerics and Paladins would either not require Spell Channeling at all for those meant for the composite types, but rather just have an armor limit, or a Divine Channeling prerequisite would be there as an option
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@spoletta said in Ability Variation and Restriction:
Elemental staffs gave 20% increased damage with that element
I wouldn't buff the dmg again after this round of rebalancing.. I'd rather decrease the overall dmg/utility when using the wrong staff or make the elemental-staffs required for these elemental-magic-schools.. Also we would then need primitive version of the elementa-staffs but that shouldn't be that hard to implement.
The dev's could actually use the effects that already are used for the mobs..
Fire-Staff: Ice/Energy/Poison/Acid Damage Increase -20%
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@spoletta are we going to do the same thing with melee? Make a sword give you +20% for sword skills, but still let a sword use all the mace abilities?
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@MidniteArrow no, that would look dumb.
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@spoletta exactly.
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Except having the staff doesnt bring you any options. Taking a melee weapon + shield is better as a caster. You get a slight cooldown increase but gain resistance across the board still keep your damage amount depending on the weapon made.
Switching to a staff you lose a nice chunk of resistance across the board especially in something like scholar. You're still going to choose the element type you to get that bonus damage just like the melee weapon to get the 20% increase. In return the staff gives you stacks on autos that is useless. Having something like 15% block from scimitar is more valuable.
Energy is the only good staff & its still not worth taking if I can equip a shield in my off to pick up 2x more enchants.
So why take a staff again over a shield and melee? You lose out on 6-8% at least resistance on the shield this is for a stock one. Anywhere from 10-15% block & 2 enchant slots. Elemental staff you get 10 stacks of whatever element from autos thats gone in a blink of an eye. Even if the staves had a 10% increase to the main element that I could stack another 20% by the type material then maybe it might be a consideration.
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The base bonus + material is what I was thinking about indeed. Right now the elemental staves are not worth it.
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@MrErad said in Ability Variation and Restriction:
Taking a melee weapon + shield is better as a caster. You get a slight cooldown increase but gain resistance across the board still keep your damage amount depending on the weapon made.
This is a huge part of what is broken. Adding a shield should always drop your DPS. It doesn't because the "best abilities require 2h weapons" that applies to melee schools does not apply to magic schools.
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Technically it is like that. The shield increases your cooldowns and lowers your movement speed. Maybe it isn't doing it enough. (CD reduction imbue probably should not be allowed on a shield).
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@spoletta If CD and movement are an effective mechanic, then then none of the melee schools should have a 2h requirement.
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Why?
Shield builds should have less mobility and use less skills. I don't see your point.
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@spoletta I'm just applying the logic across the board. If the CD/movement penalty from a shield is sufficient for cryomancy, it should be sufficient for mace fighting as well.
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I agree with MidniteArrow.
We had a problem of all weapon skills being useable by all weapons with minimal restictions due to armor type.
but then they restricted weapon skills to weapon types and that created lots of different builds with no one being the clear favorite. Yes there is some hot swaping with tab between axe and mace or sword, but that is a player choice that now has downsides of the user not being able to use part of their skill bar at any time for the luxury of using different weapon skills.
However now that most mage spells are useable in medium armor we have the same problem that we had when all weapon skills were useable by all weapons; an over reliance on a certain combination of skills to the exclusion of others. because why would you if it is OP and allowed?
as such if they did the same thing they did with weapon skills to mage skills then we could avoid this problem again and encourage a more diverse build enviroment that is not cherry picking the top CC from each different school or such.
As spoletta mentioned we already have elemental staves and could require that those be equipped if you want to use the matching elemental attacks.
but that runs into a major problem via the elemental fist and arrow abilities.
It also does not sepperate the abilities from the necro, druid, geomancer, abjuration, alteration, enchantment, illusion and restoration.
As such I suggest that we either create new one handed mage weapons (orbs, fist wraps, wands) which unlock one, two , or three schools for use or have rings do that work.
if you have to have three different weapons to use the currently popular CC chain of fire pillar (fire staff), epicenter (earth orb), and sprouting pulse (druid fist wraps). then at the very least there would be the pause between each spell when the user is switching between weapons. While this may seem to be a minor barrier to prevent such OP combos I would point out that it worked just fine to curtail the same such problem we had with melee weapon OP combos.
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The problem is the staves are to weak not that the shield and weapon combo is to strong. Go play a mage in light armor vs someone who is tanky without said shield. Scholars vs a medium with good resistance + shield or even a heavy is a chore or basically a no go without using certain skills ie. Firestorm etc.
The defensive spec'd melees and hybrids do more damage than a full fledged mage does to them because of how stacked resistance is plus capped fort , will , evasion whatever. Majority are running second wind + inspire (which is basically perma up time if you have the right stats on top of the nice heal). Poor mages have no hope of basically killing a medium hybrid or heavy melee without having to "kill" them 2x over sometimes 3. While a hybrid is killing someone in light faster with spells since they end up doing more damage to said person than the mage does to them. The heavy because of no shield & low resistance on the armor is just hitting like a freight train vs the light armor guy/mage. While the mage is basically doing chip damage.
Then we can go on to the whole stacks mechanic at high level is beyond useless except for a few spells in cryo. Permafrost + shivers to freeze someone. You'll usually end up killing someone before you get to enough stacks to have an effect in the battle. Except in the case when they have low fortitude , evasion, willpower. Then its the total opposite. The stacks pile on.
@spoletta the CD reduction enchant being on a shield is a non factor. If you're trying to balance the hybrids. I messed around with a CD reduction build to see if that would help vs the tankier guys without using a shield. Helps kill people you can already kill but against the more resistance folks CD reduction just puts more stress on the mana bar. You basically need higher damage or stacks (which is non existant). All it will do to the people that use a shield if you increase CD is delay the next cycle before the whole healing cycle starts again. There's just not enough incentive damage for pure mages to use a staff currently even if you tried locking them into the element which you sort of do with the material types.
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@MrErad This thread has really become two different ones.
2h vs 1h+shield
ability restriction by weaponWhen it comes to the second, I'm not trying to make any statement about staves specifically. I think every weapon should be tied to a school. But I'm not saying that to use cryomancy you have to use an ice staff. Maybe there's some other mechanic for tying your weapon to ice. Maybe every weapon should tie to 2 schools (like an ice rapier would enable swordsmanship and cryomancy). I don't know. All I'm really saying is that we shouldn't enable the entire set of magic schools at once.
When it comes to the first - I just think adding defense should come at some cost. This is done already for the mace school. Not sure why we wouldn't do it for cryomancy. Choosing a 2-h cryomancy weapon should make you do more damage than a 1-h cryomancy weapon. Right now, it doesn't, because a scimitar/mace let you cast everything in the spellbook. Part of that is no school restriction. Part of that is no 2h restriction within a school. Adding 2h restrictions within the magic schools would make staves more powerful.
Both of those are done and done well IMO for the melee schools.
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@MrErad
Inspire does not heal.
Or better, it should not. The fact that it does is a reported bug.
