Skill tree balancing

[SnIpEuOuT]

This is an idea I have had for a long time now and will probably turn out to be a very long post. Basically every players main is under the same skill tree with the exception of some players who switch to affliction for dark strength. To me, the whole point of having 3 skill trees is to give players some variation in their skills and to not have every player under the same skill tree with the same exact skills. I'll give a brief description of what I think is wrong with each class and then at the end give suggestions on how I think it could be better. I probably have some grammatical mistakes throughout, but hopefully nothing major.

****overview and some "analysis" of each class, skim/skip next 3 paragraphs if you would like"****

If you look at ferocity, Uproar is useless since most players easily get 100 rampage. Swiftness is useless since most players get 100 crit, and even if they don't it is still a pretty useless skill and doesn't deserve skill points. Ambush at level 10 gives +500 attack which is pretty decent. Killing spree is a very good skill which is the same as ML from pres. Vitamin X gives +800 attack at lvl 10 which is also a good skill. Sunder armor is the unlockable skill at lvl 40, which is only good for multies not for mains. So this tree lacks a dominant skill that could rival BFA from pres and another utility skill since there is only one good personal use skill which is killing spree.

Preservation is loaded with excellent skills which makes it unquestionably the best skill tree. Masterful looting is great for players who like attacking others. Circle of protection is excellent for attacking also and good for dcing if your account is weaker then most others. Cleansing is a multi skill pretty much. Loyalty/illusion are very powerful(too powerful IMO, but that is a different topic lol). Together at level 10 they are capable of keeping you protected from all incoming attacks for 14 hours a day without using totems. Loyalty is the better of the two. Fortify is an amazing skill not just for the hp bonus, but for reaching max block when used with a tome, very very good skill. Then BFA which gives an attack bonus that is better then ambush AND +1.5k hp. BFA combined with fortify is a very good combo and outclasses ambush and vitamin x. Preservation is excellent for raiding AND has four great utility skills

Affliction is basically a neg skill multi tree. Dark strength is a very good for high leveled players with high attack. Only problem is there is 0 utility skills and no other raiding skills to complement DS.

****new ideas so start reading again if you skipped, lol****

So, ferocity has 2 decent raiding skills, 1 multi skill, 1 utility skill, 2 wasted skills, and missing a seventh skill. Preservation has 2 amazing raiding skills, 4 utility, and 1 multi skill. Affliction has 1 very good raiding skill if your attack is high enough for it to be worthwhile to switch over and 6 multi skills. How can it be fixed?

These are some things I think could be done balance the 3 trees, I'm sure not everyone would agree with me, but these are some ideas I have. It appears ferocity is for players who want to get their attack as high as possible not worrying much about hp and to be able to excel at attacking others. I think uproar and swiftness could be removed all together. Cripple would still need to be a level 40 skill or else it would be abused much easier. I think adding in a 3 skill for raiding would make this tree be capable of being used in raids. Maybe move dark strength over from affliction and put it in ferocity and weaken it down to 20-30% at level 10. This might still be over powered in terms of raiding and need some tweaking since this would make it possible to get 6k attack with just having around 2.5k attack base and have very low hp. Vitamin X I think would have to give block instead of critical hit so its possible to reach max block or close to it. Then give the class a 2 new utility skill(something I'm sure the admins could think of). After all of this I think ferocity would look very appealing to some people and some would switch over.

Preservation should stay the same I think since most people are already in the class and purchased skill orbs and such, I don't think it would be a good idea to start changing things around, but improve the other 2 tree's so they are on the same level as this one. I think loyalty should receive a small nerf which is arguable among some players.

Affliction obviously needs a lot of work to make it appealing for players especially if DS was switched over to ferocity. I think lots of new things skills from scratch could be added here as long as it follows the 2-3 raiding skills and 3-4 utility skills formula. To me, ferocity should be high attack, preservation is high hp, with a little bit of attack, so affliction should be somewhere in the middle with a more balanced approach to attack and hp. One idea could be to add in some elemental resist/elemental damage skills to affliction to really make it stand out from the rest and have it very appealing to the players who do SR and the other elemental gods on a consistent basis. One of the utility skills I think should definitely be a copied version of ML/KS so this tree can compete with the others on hitlists and attacking. This leaves room for a few more utility skills which hopefully would be beneficial to players. Also a skill that includes a bonus to block would be needed to put this tree on the same level as the other two.


Thats all of it I think. I didn't do a lot of brainstorming for the extra utility skill spots in ferocity and affliction, so maybe some of you guys could come up with some ideas and I'll include them. I also didn't touch on negative skills and multi skills or class specific skills, I think the positive skills should be addressed first then figure out what to do with the negative skilled. Hopefully a discussion forms and I get some constructive criticism on how this could be improved and maybe an admin will read the thread and get some ideas :D

[Eagleskill]

Amazing. Brilliant, I like it.

[Wizzy]

Can someone write an abridged version of that please.

[Domination]

I like of it i like how you set up the ferocity tree.

Then give the class a 2 new utility skill(something I'm sure the admins could think of).


In terms of something to go along with the attack base theme of ferocity, i'd maybe bring back time warp and maybe a purify/unholycure but for pos skill.

Can someone write an abridged version of that please.

Blah blah blah rearranging some of the skill trees, blah blah increasing the attack power of the ferocity skills, add 2 more skills for that skill tree to even it out. ......and i kinda zoned out after that -coughs- >,>

[MasterTolkien]

This is a great idea, does give a more balance of skills in the game and would eliminate some useless skills. I believe skills needed a revamping and this would/should be the way to start

[kazl]

good idea.. skill tree been needing a little balance for a while.

[Wizzy]

Meh. I don't care either way for a skill change. Like, it wouldn't matter to me because I'd probably still stick with preservation skill class for stuff like CoP and so on. But that's just my personal take. If anything they should add some more skills to each of the classes to balance it out.

[crudedude]

good idea the skill trees are way too unbalanced.

[Frozt007]

Snipe, that was very LONG but very good reading bud.

Perhaps a more organized fashion with written examples under each, ie:


Ferocity:
___ gives x ATK
___ gives x ATK
___ gives _____

Preservation:
___ gives x HP
___ gives x HP
___ gives _____

Affliction:
___ does ______
___ does ______
___ does ______

That would be stand up, bud. Love the post, keep brainstorming ;).

~FroztMod

[SnIpEuOuT]

In terms of something to go along with the attack base theme of ferocity, i'd maybe bring back time warp and maybe a purify/unholycure but for pos skill.

Time warp might not be so great for balance issues unless there was limitations or something on the second attack like brutes/hitman don't go into affect or you only strip a limited amount of experience instead of all of it. Time warp used to work fine before hitman, ml, and brutes were brought into the game, but I don't know if it could be made to work now while keeping everything balanced.

[deadlyrebel3629]

i like the idea of moving DS to ferocity and then making new skills for affliction.

[Shady]

You got some great ideas, But id just probably stick with Pres class.

[Domination]

Time warp might not be so great for balance issues unless there was limitations or something on the second attack like brutes/hitman don't go into affect or you only strip a limited amount of experience instead of all of it. Time warp used to work fine before hitman, ml, and brutes were brought into the game, but I don't know if it could be made to work now while keeping everything balanced.

Time warp could be a castible neg skill.

Time Warp (1)
Targets can be attacked twice.
Duration:
1 Attack

Time Warp (10)
Targets can be attacked twice.
Duration
10 attacks

after 10 attacks from 10 differen't people it simply wears off.

Or as a utility skill, it wears off after you've attacked 10 different accounts.

[Wizzy]

Then you can just train that on multis and rape the crap out of people. LOL.

[Superduck]

I like pwning people tho.

[SnIpEuOuT]

I think targetable skills should be avoidable for the time being and just focus on self cast ones. I like the idea of time warp, but keeping it balanced would be the only difficult thing to implementing it.

[snyper816]

i generally like the idea, esp the move dark strength to ferocity and redo affliction completely

[Eagleskill]

Snipe Rulezzzzz

[jZampage]

Meh... sounds kind of out of the question. I think you're thinking way to out of the question. The classes are named what they are for a reason - Affliction is for Afflicting people, causing detriment, damage, etc... that is what it is for - it's a neg skilling branch. Totally understandable, it's what 90% of our lings are trained in after their base skills i.e. stealth, emp, lust, sometimes enf for lower levels. Ferocity is an attack based branch - it needs to be more attack oriented - ambush and vit-x should be raised attack wise to make it more competitive for BFA. There needs to be another skill added to it though - something like a hybrid of CoP and attack related - like 40% less damage taken in on attacks and 10% more damage. Preservation should be kept the way it is, it is preservation based, preserving your experience, your HP, your block, and the damage you take in, CoP... it is as of now the best branch, but I would like to see ferocity more attack oriented.

[DeroICB84]

What is time warp

[jZampage]

What is time warp

Allowed you to attack the same person twice in an hour.

[snyper816]

Meh... sounds kind of out of the question. I think you're thinking way to out of the question. The classes are named what they are for a reason.

exactly though... since dark strength is just and atk, rampage, crit booster then it should be in ferocity. and i think affliction hould be completely redone, new skill set and all to even the odds.

[Deathbringerxxx]

I think they should remove skills altogether and make raids slightly weaker =) But then I guess they would have to give everyone refunds on orbs and such =/

[Kourtney]

Deathbringer thatd really make the game boring :\ no skills at all lol

Anyway, on topic to the first post, brilliant idea. Yeah Affliction means to afflict, but it should be a mixup of negs and what hes talking about. Still a very good idea to build on, hope Justins peeking at this thread now and then

[jZampage]

exactly though... since dark strength is just and atk, rampage, crit booster then it should be in ferocity. and i think affliction hould be completely redone, new skill set and all to even the odds.

Affliction should stay the way it is. Dark Strength can move, doesn't affect me as I don't use it - but I think a few people might change the branch if it moved to ferocity - I might even as well, that would be a huge attack bonus coupled with Vit+X // Ambush

[Wizzy]

You can "afflict" yourself with Dark Strength. ^_^. It's fine where it is, I think the problem is with the name and description so it "fits" into the class.

[SnIpEuOuT]

"Afflict" means to weaken or cause pain. Dark strength doesn't fit in at all with that idea because dark strength doesn't weaken, it does the opposite which is increase your stats. The concept of increasing your attack fits more in the ferocity tree.

Some ideas I thought of are to make the affliction tree sort of like the skill CoP is from preservation. Have it "weaken your enemies" but at the same time self cast. For example, a skill could be self cast, and it lessens the amount of damage your enemy does to you. So instead of increasing your stats, it could decrease your enemies stats only when you are attacking it. Say your doing a raid and the god would of normally hit a 2,000 on you. Well this skill could have you receive less damage so you only receive 1,000 damage or something. Those are just random numbers, but concept remains the same since this still fits in the idea of weakening your enemies to make yourself stronger.

[Wizzy]

Ok fine. You got me there :(

So, just make Dark Strength have a negative effect while have a positive one as well.

[SnIpEuOuT]

Ok fine. You got me there :(

So, just make Dark Strength have a negative effect while have a positive one as well.


If DS has negative effects then it would make the already worst class even worse.

[Wizzy]

It doesn't have to be something overwhelming. It could be like

+ xx% ATK
+ xx% Critical
- xx% HP (something small like 10% or less)

[SnIpEuOuT]

It doesn't have to be something overwhelming. It could be like

+ xx% ATK
+ xx% Critical
- xx% HP (something small like 10% or less)


I still think that entire idea would fit better in the high attack theme of ferocity instead of affliction lol. With DS and a couple of new utility skills in ferocity it would really make it an appealing class to players I think. Then starting affliction over from scratch or even keep the rest of the affliction skills in tact and bringing in a new skill tree all together and give it all new skills that could rival ferocity and preservation so there is a lot of variation among players.

[Wizzy]

Ferocity already has Ambush and Vitman X.

Affliction wouldn't be used AT ALL if there isn't any sort of buff in one way or another available to your character even if there was a negative effect to go along with it.

[SnIpEuOuT]

Ferocity already has Ambush and Vitman X.

Affliction wouldn't be used AT ALL if there isn't any sort of buff in one way or another available to your character even if there was a negative effect to go along with it.


Ambush and Vitamin X are both mostly complementary skills, neither one is a dominant skill that is on the same level as BFA or DS.

[Wizzy]

They both add up to give more attack, don't they?

[SnIpEuOuT]

They both add up to give more attack, don't they?

1300 attack and 10 critical is not as good as 600 attack, 2250 hp, and 6 block when it comes to raiding.

[Egnar]

Meh. I don't care either way for a skill change. Like, it wouldn't matter to me because I'd probably still stick with preservation skill class for stuff like CoP and so on. But that's just my personal take. If anything they should add some more skills to each of the classes to balance it out.

Ya, I'm sure most people 'don't' care since they're preservation anyway but the fact remains that this game is incredibly boring from a skill perspective because we've been given 3 trees to work with but everyone goes down one tree.

The fact of the matter is that every skill tree should be useful to some degree. When I go into Stone Raven I should think, "Damn, it'd be nice if we had 1-2 ferocity players with us".

I don't particularly agree with the original posters approach but I applaud his efforts. Personally, because only one style of play (raiding) is available right now it's difficult to come up with more builds just as viable as "Fort+BFA". I think if wars become available again and become useful and interesting to the point where it's an alternate style of play a skill tree fix would become viable. This is not to say that some skills just plain need to be reworked for the better of this game (Unholy Cure, Loyalty, Illusion).

Assuming Wars become viable I think it should be setup something like this:

Ferocity: Attack Based Tree (Dur!)
*Skills focus on finding flaws in an opponents defense and maximizing the damage they receive in order to make up for weaknesses in your own HP.
Preservation: Defense Based Tree (Dur!)
*Skills focus on taking hits for longer amounts of time, less damage and negating debuffs.
Affliction: War based Tree
*Skills focus on increasing both base stats minor amounts while maximizing rampage, rage per turn and max rage. At the same time weakening enemies to make up for lower base stats with lower cooldown debuffs.

Of couse this doesn't work out well until Wars are establised and working in a manor in which players wish to partake in them.

[snyper816]

Assuming Wars become viable I think it should be setup something like this:

Ferocity: Attack Based Tree (Dur!)
*Skills focus on finding flaws in an opponents defense and maximizing the damage they receive in order to make up for weaknesses in your own HP.
Preservation: Defense Based Tree (Dur!)
*Skills focus on taking hits for longer amounts of time, less damage and negating debuffs.
Affliction: War based Tree
*Skills focus on increasing both base stats minor amounts while maximizing rampage, rage per turn and max rage. At the same time weakening enemies to make up for lower base stats with lower cooldown debuffs.

Of couse this doesn't work out well until Wars are establised and working in a manor in which players wish to partake in them.


i kind of like the idea you have on affliction =)

[Wizzy]

mmmmmmmmmm...a skill to increase Rage and Max Rage.....

/me drools

[simonrobinson]

mmmmmmmmmm...a skill to increase Rage and Max Rage.....

/me drools


theres already a skill to increasing maxrage its called buying a fury pot thats a skill in itself
close thread ty

[SnIpEuOuT]

close thread ty

No thanks.

[snyper816]

theres already a skill to increasing maxrage its called buying a fury pot thats a skill in itself
close thread ty

dude.... have you said anything possitive in here yet? bc i cant find it... and not all players have the money to buy points or time to hunt pots all the time to sell for points, so not everyone can afford to buy fury pots daily, and furies dont increase your max rage...just puts your rage back up to your max.

[Sparda1234]

Meh. I don't care either way for a skill change. Like, it wouldn't matter to me because I'd probably still stick with preservation skill class for stuff like CoP and so on. But that's just my personal take. If anything they should add some more skills to each of the classes to balance it out.

I really couldnt be bothered to read all he posted it was way too long, but agreed lol

[Domination]

mmmmmmmmmm...a skill to increase Rage and Max Rage.....

/me drools


They could just revamp adrenaline to give rage and no exp loss

[Egnar]

theres already a skill to increasing maxrage its called buying a fury pot thats a skill in itself
close thread ty
Flasks increase HP
Mushrooms increase attack
Brutes increase exp stolen (rampage)
Exp locks prevent exp loss
Beer cans teleport you to different inns
Dest potions increase crit %
Sammy's give just about everything

Lets close down all skills, they're all worthless


/sarcasm off!

[Wizzy]

I feel ya on that one ^_^

[SkatrBill]

Talking about useless skills, could we possibly get rid of Unholy cure lmfao, and i think that they should add new skills mabye 2-3 per skill tree, or make a lvl 60 + skill tree that people can choose from with skills that would be helpful and in a sense give a chance to help even out all the other skills and stuff.

[Wizzy]

Unholy Cure has already been reported in the Bugs Section of the forum. Hopefully it'll be fixed sometime in the near future.

[makavelitehdon]

I agree with your post, about balancing the current skill school system. But I also think that the whole skill system should be re done. Some of the skills we got now are pretty good they increase your attack/hitpoints etc.
But how about some changes to the current skill system?
Mostly the game is trying to be turned into elemental way with kinetic/holy etc powers, so how about adding more skills to the game?

Here is what I'm thinking of a skill system.
- Every character has his/her own skill profile page (just like a current skill page but differently set up etc will see what I mean). In this new system you do not choose one school (ferocity or pres) you can choose couple of skills from each school and add them to your skill profile (Max number of skills you can have 10)
From the current skill schools you are alowed to choose 5 skills and add them to your profile. The other 5 are new skills that you can choose (new skills need to be added) So in total you got 10 skills 5 any from 3 old school system and 5 new from new skills. And you have your optional skills ie tome, daily grind etc.

Now if it was to be added, the new skills that you can add should be set up differently. Skills should be something that you have to work for, not just train. So how about adding like quests to complete training of a skill, it can still be based on skill points so everytime you do a quest for a skill you will have to put in a skill point at the end to get that skill. But everyquest is different and ever level harder.

Just an idea, might not make sense cause it would be easier to read in point form but was to lazy to type out in point form

[jZampage]

Mostly the game is trying to be turned into elemental way with kinetic/holy etc powers, so how about adding more skills to the game?



I don't especially agree with your train of thought, but you bring up a good point. I would say there needs to be some elemental damage/resist skills. That is a decent idea.

[SnIpEuOuT]

So how about adding like quests to complete training of a skill, it can still be based on skill points so everytime you do a quest for a skill you will have to put in a skill point at the end to get that skill. But everyquest is different and ever level harder.

That is a pretty good idea, but that would be a lot of new quests for every single skill and to need 10 individual quests for each, but I do like the idea of having unlockable skills just not for every single one.

Lets close down all skills, they're all worthless


/sarcasm off!

Haha.

[Wizzy]

Element-based skills would help alot of the weaker people get a better shot at raven and getting thru all the raids.

[simonrobinson]

Element-based skills would help alot of the weaker people get a better shot at raven and getting thru all the raids.

but the whole pt in raven is to make it hard so its not easily defeated
raven is too easy has it is they should make raven much harder

[jZampage]

but the whole pt in raven is to make it hard so its not easily defeated
raven is too easy has it is they should make raven much harder

You also have some of the best accounts for Raven in the game, let alone all the elemental upgrades. Of course it's easy for you. Poopy. :p

[simonrobinson]

You also have some of the best accounts for Raven in the game, let alone all the elemental upgrades. Of course it's easy for you. Poopy. :p

i agree we are sex but we worked hard to get that way it took us months to get the right sets

[Wizzy]

For level-55's, Raven isn't THAT easy. They still need the help.

[Domination]

There should just be a an elemental skills tree, or raid/quest obtainable scrolls that that have element resist/damage

[Wizzy]

I disagree on that entire skill tree for resistance idea. I don't think there'd be enough ways to manipulate skills smartly to make an entire tree.

[Domination]

I disagree on that entire skill tree for resistance idea. I don't think there'd be enough ways to manipulate skills smartly to make an entire tree.

How about elemental tomes?

Holy Tome
Add +150 holy damage and 200 holy resist.

Shadow Tome
Add +150 shadow damage and 200 shadow resist.

Fire Tome
Add +150 fire damage and 200 fire resist.

Arcane Tome
Add +150 arcane damage and 200 arcane resist.

Kinetic Tome
Add +150 kinetic damage and 200 kinetic resist.

They could drop from i dunno new gods, from quests, or just be drops from older gods.

[Wizzy]

Ionno. I think that's a bit much and would require lots more skill points to train to level 10 for it to make any difference.

[Domination]

They wouldn't be lvl based, they'd (I'd like them to be really long quest based) either be quest or they'd be drops from nar zhul.

[quezacotl]

theres already a skill to increasing maxrage its called buying a fury pot thats a skill in itself
close thread ty

I thought fury pots were potions and not skills, and i also thought it brought u to ur max rage, not increased it. I learned something today YAY

[Wizzy]

They are and they do. lol. Hec's just being difficult.

[robtheklepto]

take away affliction and spread it out among 3 trees(fer, pres, and something else)

fer:
Dark Strength - lvl 50
sunder armor - lvl 40
vitx - lvl 36 (change to +1k atk +4 block)
ks - lvl 30
ambush - lvl 26 ( change to + 650 atk)
poision dart - lvl 20
Mind Leech - lvl 15

pres: keep the same except...
|new| - lvl 50 (+2250 hp)
|new| - lvl 40 (-800atk -1500hp to target, change at getting 1k hp) ... mix crip n s/a
remove illuision(not needed) - add blind (makes sence, cuz it keeps you from being attacked back) (but blind needs to be fixed in the attack itself lol)
fort - add 3 block

new tree
BFA - lvl 50 (moved here since its atk n hp)
cripple - lvl 40
time warp - lvl 36
protection - lvl 30
boost - lvl 26
daze - lvl 20
hm - lvl 15

put time warp in the new tree instead of a ml or ks...

that could be its way to increase exp stripped... just hit the acts twice

just change time warp so that it hits the account twice automatically...

so you attack someone...

and it says...

blah has weakened bloo by 10
blah gained 4 strength
blah stripped 1035xp and gained 107xp

blah attacks boo again
blah has weakened boo by 10
blah gained 4 strength
blah stripped 1035xp and gained 107xp


or something along those lines... that way you dont have to use 2 brutes...



i think the skills would be set up well this way...


for the first tree(currently the class tree) just have...
emp, stl, enf, bl, strikedown, purify

as for classes:(this prolly wont work but w/e its a thought)
monster - get bonus 2 sp's in fer
gang - get bonus 2 sp's in pres
pop - get bonus 2 sp's in new tree

[Egnar]

Just what pres needs, ANOTHER Super HP skill.

[robtheklepto]

if you move bfa out then its not bad though

[Egnar]

Well it really is since the supposed level requirement is 50, and leveling is harder now, thus. . .Anyone going preservation is lost and useless until 50. Not to mention I'd rather have the minor attack bonus of BFA.

[KaStAnG]

Personally, I think what should be done is just add an hp buff to the Affliction skills so you don't have people dying on the first attack on raids all the time.

Another approach would be the following:

Make Mind Leech self cast, make it like masterful looting.
Make Daze a self cast skill and make it give you positive rage/exp a turn.
Make poison dart self cast to aid your character in dc (it would cause negative damage to the mobs).
Change blind completely --- Self cast, allows a player who is personally capped to join a raid?

[Wizzy]

That would be pretty decent I guess. I'm not sure they actual skills would be worth of the title of Affliction skill class. But at the same time... we won't have any skills to bother people with :(

[ginabean]

But then you need to take into account people who paid for orbs, pants, and all that for the pres tree and I know I wouldnt be happy if I lost my BFA/Fort combo adn I doubt many others would either.. but the idea in theory is looking good.

[robtheklepto]

well all they ahve to do is change the pres orbs to be fort and the new skill...

that way u still get the same thing u payed for...

[Domination]

well all they ahve to do is change the pres orbs to be fort and the new skill...

that way u still get the same thing u payed for...

The +1 emp/slth could be removed and the new and one old skill put in there place.

[Wizzy]

well all they ahve to do is change the pres orbs to be fort and the new skill...

that way u still get the same thing u payed for...

Erm. Those aren't the only orbs. I spent 8400 points for +2 Loyalty +2 Fortify +2 Illusion and +2 Masterful looting orbs a couple months ago and I sure as hell doubt they'd be refunding me for that if they change up the Preservation skill tree.

[SnIpEuOuT]

This is why I said, don't change preservation at all. Just bring ferocity and affliction up to the same power as preservation so people wouldn't have their orbs messed up.