by Shieba » 04/15/2012 3:14 AM
I was told by Kodai to post this somewhere, but since this is not about new Traits, I figured it goes here? I'm not sure. If this is only for things suggested by Kodai, feel free to move this to where it is appropriate.
1) Horrific Wail/Moan: Right now, it's a one-target trait. However, given that it's a sound-based thing and you rarely have an opponent standing still enough that you can scream directly into their ear, it should maybe work like an area attack in 2vs2 fights, as in, it affects both opponents and your ally if it hits each of them. This is more like a logic issue than a Trait needing to be fixed. We...never really had 2vs2 battles, but who knows. So yay/nay?
2) Healing Traits/Bonus damage. It's a sad matter of fact that no one uses them. And why should they? Let's have a look at a pet level 21. In a battle with an equally leveled pet, it would heal with Healing Touch - which is stronger than Healer's Chant - 5 Endurance and forsake a chance to attack for it. In the same turn, it might get hit by its opponent (likely, since no one ever uses healing moves). Upon a hit, the opponent gets a bonus damage roll of 1-7, which, even if the healing pet has greater defense than the opponent's offense, means that there is a damage of 8 (1+7) possible, which is almost twice as much as the healing ability did. At any rate, even a bonus damage of 4 means that the healing had no effect at all and 7AP are wasted. A pet at level 21 has 30 AP. If the opponent hits with an elemental attack at this level and has the element of its attack (which is likely), the damage will be 9, which is even higher.
Now there are "upgraded" versions of the healing skills. They heal, hold your breath, a single Endurance more at that level and require you to have the original version in addition to the upgraded one, meaning you waste one valuable battle slot that you could just fill with an Endurance increasing trait for a measly one Endurance. I think there is no doubt that this is completely and utterly useless.
Also, yes, the difference of one Endurance remains until the stat cap. And in comparision between all healing traits, it remains just as funny.
At level 100:
Greater Healing Touch (restricted) heals 14 Endurance for 16 AP
Healing Touch heals 13 Endurance for 15 AP.
Healer's Prayer (restricted) heals 15 Endurance for 17 AP.
Healer's Chant heals 12 Endurance for 14 AP.
Obviously, Healer's Chant and its upgrade, Healer's Prayer, have a bigger margin, but it still remains that for two endurance difference, everyone would rather pick up only Healing Touch and not waste another slot on the upgrade.
But. Know the biggest fun here? The bonus damage for a pet at level 30 (not 100!) goes up to 14! Why is this? It jumps from 9 to 14, that's insane since no one gains suddenly a load of more Endurance (have fun slaughtering level 29 pets, you of level 30! 8D) That is as much as even Greater Healing touch can only heal at level 100! The most powerful healing, Healer's prayer, heals 8 Endurance at level 30, making this finally a complete waste.
Now there is another restricted Trait, Augment Healing. At level 20, it adds +4 Endurance, at level 30 +5 and at level 100 +12 to every healing Trait used. Since I doubt anyone would ever waste half their slots on healing Traits, picking a non-restricted, basic healing Trait and Augment Healing will effectively double your healing power at the expense of NO ADDITIONAL AP. This means that you can outheal any bonus damage with it even at level 30 with that combination. (If your Defense is lower than your opponent's Offense, though, you're most likely still losing Endurance.)
Then again, I doubt that anyone would just want to outheal the next strike, since that gets you nowhere in a fight. Someone would want to actually last longer in battle. Oh, about having one healing pet and one fighter in a 2vs2 battle? Nope. Augment Healing doesn't work on allies. And with two opponents beating you up, it wouldn't save you even if it would. Double damage and all that.
So, in the end, I propose four changes to Healing stuff and bonus damages:
a) Make it that you can use healing together with an attack. Using them this way means that you gain at least an additional attack by outhealing the next strike for sure if you have a healing Trait + Augment Healing and your Defense isn't a pile of dung. The high AP cost is enough of a downside already.
b) Erase the two restricted healing Traits - they're useless and just waste a slot since you need the prerequisite. If anything, I think we need only one healing Trait at all (Healer's Touch seems like the best choice to keep). Without Augment Healing, they are all pretty useless, though, so yeah. Maybe Augment's Healing's value and the healing Trait's one together should be the new base value for the healing Trait to give it some meaning without Augment Healing?
c) Make bonus damage rise normally, not jumping from 7 to 9 to 14. There is no...logic in that. Everything else scales normally up to the highest level, why not bonus damage?
d) Make Augment Healing work on allies...not that it saves you when recieving double damage, but still.
3) Precision stuff: Since I'm helping with the new Precision system, I know there might be a change soon and Dai already knows about this, but just so that it is complete: In the current tournament, Sharp Vision actually added 10% of 100 (max hit percentage) to the fight, making the pet using it able to hit on a 1-9 roll instead of the usual 1-8 one. While nice, we have a Trait - Deadly Precision - that adds 50% to the hit rate. Since all pets, even with Precision 1, have a chance to hit with 50% (1-5 roll), adding 50% of 100 there would end with a pet never missing even with no Precision whatsoever. There is a mistake there.
In an earlier tournament, there was a pet using Elusive Foe and the 75% miss rate weren't substracted from 100 (which would be bad, that would be an eternal Horrific Wail at max level and everyone can read in the Horrific Wail test battle how much that had failed), but from the actual Precision the pet had - I think it had 29 and was then left with 7, which still gave it a 50% hit chance, which is okay and how it should be. So yes. This doesn't need a Trait fix, but a fix back to the old calculation system. Since the new Precision system that is in the test might cap at 50 and work pretty much the same way as the current one, just with Speed influencing it, this would still apply there as well. o3o So yes, current tournament calculation = bad.
And now I'm done. Anyone having any comments? Please? (We need more people working on the battle system! D8;;;)
I know my dreams are made of you
Of you and only for you
Your ocean pulls me under
Your voice tears me asunder
Love me before the last petal fallsHowever cold the wind and rain
I'll be there to ease your pain
However cruel the mirrors of sin
Remember beauty is found within