Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Elric Galad]

5 hours ago, Bosmer said:

Nice idea and I think the values seem right, but regarding the technical implementation.. why make it a 12s tick? Wouldn't it be more transparent to have a faster tick (1s or 3s) that provides accordingly lower chances, such that the exact timing of the tick becomes less relevant. It might feel a bit tedious to try to make sure that each tick lands on a low-health moment in order to maximize resource generation.

As you say, the average value seems balanced.

As it is :       "x%                       chances of getting 1 zeal where x is the percentage of health lost every 12s".

For 3s ticks "x% divided by 4 chances of getting 1 zeal where x is the percentage of health lost every 3s".

The second one simply seemed more confusing.

5 hours ago, Bosmer said:

Just brainstorming here: Would it be possible to combine the two effects (since they lie both on devine retribution), such that they kind of exclude each other? Meaning: Divine Retribution providing zeal for downed ally in 5-Meter AoE and at the same time number of allies in 5-Meter AoE lowering the chances to get the on-health-lost zeal generation? By doing so you would make sure that summon-killing is not the superior (and overpowered) strategy.  

Summon killing requires some ressource dedication. Optimally 1 Chanter summoning skellies while doing only that, and some character having a way to kill them without too much dedication. 1 zeal per downed summon does not seem too much for doing all that. Compare this with a Cipher spamming Brilliant on a Paladin.

And the Zeal for low health requires a bit of management to give good result.

I think the ability will be very strong (less so than vanilla), but would only give great results only if playing around the 2 sides. If you can manage the 2 sides, you deserve to be rewarded (once more, it would certainly be less than in vanilla).

Making the 2 sides mutually exclusive would be an option, but it would overcomplexifies the ability IMHO.

Somehow Paladin is the martial class "expected" to have the more ressources (+1 Zeal, Zeal on Kill mid game, Divine Retribution). Divine Retribution would be still a "must pick", but the summon strategy would be less necessary to get at least some decent results.

If really needed, it is still possible to reduce the percentage chance of Zeal (including for downed summon).

Edited March 7, 2023 by Elric Galad

[NotDumbEnough]

I personally don't think that paying 1 more Zeal for 10s Robust or 15s Courageous is that bad. I do actually think Lay on Hands itself is slightly weak, due to the recovery time. In easy fights you don't need to use it, in hard fights the enemy deals damage faster than you can heal it, so it is better to either use some other ability to kill or disable the enemy faster, or help the injured ally run away (with Swift inspiration, BDD, Withdraw, etc.) and regenerate with more cost-efficient AoE heals. Spending 5 seconds using Lay on Hands is just very poor action economy.

[Elric Galad]

On 3/6/2023 at 7:40 AM, Shai Hulud said:

But I thought light of pure zeal was fire / frost ? Are there any enemies immune to both?

As I suspected Fire absorbing foes are immune to Light of Pure Zeal. I tested it with a Flame Naga (after removing the condition for LoPZ). Probably due to the "low fire AR" of the flame naga but still.

I plan to change LoPZ this way :

- 4 zeal (as already implemented by BPM)
- 0.8s/4.s cast/recovery (no change) 
- 100 heal (no change)
- 66-84 damages vs everything (equivalent to 3 Immolation ticks). So less damaging than currently but universal. I'm leaving the anti-vessels anti-spirit part altogether because I feel the spell might have been slightly too powerful vs them. Note that with Zeal cost down from 5 to 4 in BPM, this is roughly equivalent vs vessels and spirits as vanilla.
- 10 PEN +4 intresic as Tier 9 ability (no change)
- Cold/Shock damages for the reasons mentionned before. Pals need something not fire based. Call it "celestial"
- Adding Frost and Electricity Keyword to the ability and attack for itemization. Now SC Chromoprismatic Pal could be a thing (style bonus point if Bleak Walker for using all elements)

On 3/6/2023 at 11:56 AM, Shai Hulud said:

  

Second, Blood Storm sometimes gives way too much time for crits. Normally it gives about 3 seconds on a crit but occasionally far more. I haven't found out exactly what triggers it but I had like 20,000 seconds of Blood Storm after about 45m and just the one cast. I saw it jump by over a thousand at certain points. I think it is an interaction between interrupting blows and blood storm. Not really a problem from my POV not to have to cast Blood Storm as much but thought I'd mention it.

Indeed, it is a known hardcore bug when multiple sources of + duration.

I left it because it honnestly doesn't break the game.

20 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I personally don't think that paying 1 more Zeal for 10s Robust or 15s Courageous is that bad. I do actually think Lay on Hands itself is slightly weak, due to the recovery time. In easy fights you don't need to use it, in hard fights the enemy deals damage faster than you can heal it, so it is better to either use some other ability to kill or disable the enemy faster, or help the injured ally run away (with Swift inspiration, BDD, Withdraw, etc.) and regenerate with more cost-efficient AoE heals. Spending 5 seconds using Lay on Hands is just very poor action economy.

That is worth reading.

Personally, I find that LoH "does its job", as cheap pseudo-emergency healing (though as pointed, not as efficient as BDD to save someone). It heals in the 100ish in the scaling, which is in my experience sufficient.

That said, I do understand the issue about okayish cost efficiency (although druid style - and Pain Block - healing over time with long duration are necessarily more cost efficient). It means that it translates also to the pseudo-upgrades. And since they costs 2 Zeals one can feel it even more. Hence the lack of enthusiasm for LoH pseudo-upgrades.

Also something annoying about these pseudo-upgrades is that they are Tier 3 and scales as such with PL (since they are not upgrades. Upgrades would scale as the original ability). The pseudo-upgrades basically loose 2 PL for the "original Lay on Hand compoent" (20 health per 3s tick for 5s). And since Healing over Time get double benefit from PL, it is sensitive for both : GLoH isn't that much better healing and HoL heals less than LoH.

That's why my proposal is the following :
- Both pseudo-upgrades would be kept at 2 Zeals. Original LoH supposed to be used when "sufficient", improved version for better action economy efficiency or Courage utility.
- Pseudo-upgrade base healing buffed to 30 health per 3s tick for 6s. That is 90 base healing over 53.33 for LoH (with +2 PL, so roughly in the 60ish). 
- Robust for 12s. I'm not trying to challenge Pain Block in its own way, but to add a layer of healing. GLoH will have great initial healing of 40 instant, 120 over 6s and 140 for total duration.
- Courageous for 18s. Courageous is less good than Robust, but nice utility to support casters (especially since after Courageous, you will still have 1 Concentration with infinite duration from the Tier 2 part of Courageous, as for Resolute but guaranteed by previous Immunity). And HoL will still heals more over a short duration than any ability in the game... bar GLoH and LoPZ  

 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

On 3/6/2023 at 7:40 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Divine Immolation health upgrade doesn't scale with +health like every other ability.

As I suspected, it is a purely display bug, the effective healing values are normal (tested at list Might, Practiced Healer, Mercy chant)

It happens with attacks within status within attack within... etc. Just too complex for the UI to handle perfectly.

I have no idea why, and display issues are not my priority when I don't know how to correct them easily.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

8 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

- 66-84 damages vs everything (equivalent to 3 Immolation ticks). So less damaging than currently but universal. I'm leaving the anti-vessels anti-spirit part altogether because I feel the spell might have been slightly too powerful vs them. Note that with Zeal cost down from 5 to 4 in BPM, this is roughly equivalent vs vessels and spirits as vanilla.
- 10 PEN +4 intresic as Tier 9 ability (no change)

Second thought, it might be a bad idea. LoPZ has no casting time (only recovery, but really great action economy), no friendly fire, immediate damages and instant heal and has quite high PEN.

There would be many fights that you could win just by using it repeatedly, especially with several SC Paladins. Even with its high cost, it is allows 2-3 casts that could trivialize too many fights (even if not so good for some boss fights).

 

My idea would be to keep the current damages (92-123) but with much lower PEN (10 base -> 6 base, + 4 PEN as a tier 9 + whatever PL would give)

6 base PEN is quite average but not so low with dual type. Basically the equivalent of a sword.

It is also BPM value for Maelstrom.

Also Immolation is useless vs fire immune who tend to have low frost AR, except constructs who have low Elec AR. So it would be the best when the most needed by SC Paladin, while being slightly less of an universal tool.

 

What do you think ? What is your experience with current LoPZ vs vessels ? Does it feel too strong sometimes ?

Edited March 8, 2023 by Elric Galad

[NotDumbEnough]

It is quite frankly difficult to find much use vs late game vessels because it rolls vs fortitude, and lots of late game vessels have really high fortitude (fampyrs, steelclad, etc.). The damage is good, but not amazing compared to barbarian shout spam (probably the closest comparison as a spell-like ability on a martial class). The healing is definitely strong, though.

Low penetration would not necessarily be a very serious issue given that Paladin would have 3 different damage types to choose from, and the self immolation abilities have very high penetration. Even with 1 or 2 underpenetration the damage would still be respectable.

[Elric Galad]

39 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

It is quite frankly difficult to find much use vs late game vessels because it rolls vs fortitude, and lots of late game vessels have really high fortitude (fampyrs, steelclad, etc.). The damage is good, but not amazing compared to barbarian shout spam (probably the closest comparison as a spell-like ability on a martial class). The healing is definitely strong, though.

Low penetration would not necessarily be a very serious issue given that Paladin would have 3 different damage types to choose from, and the self immolation abilities have very high penetration. Even with 1 or 2 underpenetration the damage would still be respectable.

This and rolling vs Fortitude tend to guarantee the ability won't be an auto win button. 

In the meantime, even a Graze vs Fortitude would still do respectable damages. 

And in the case of severe underpen, just use it as a panic button that do a little damages. Or for healing the self damages from immolation that would have better chance of penetrating as you say. 

 

Ok I'm probably going on this route with 6 base PEN and current damages. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Elric Galad

[Shai Hulud]

 

On 3/7/2023 at 8:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

Concentration is much weaker than the healing from LoH. 

Maybe, but you need to look at the ability as a whole and compare to other sources of healing. Concentration + 15s / resource intuitive with instant cast and no recovery is much better than 20 health per 3s for 5s + 7.5s/bond courageous (or 5s/bond robust) with 5s cast. It is not even close IMO. Disciplined Barrage lasts 41s without INT buff, 47.2s with Inspired Discipline on my pure fighter.

Lay on Hands OTOH is one of the weaker healing abilities in the game (besides maybe restore, but that one at least heals instantly). With maxed INT and a ton of healing buffs I get at L20, 57 healing per 3s for 13.5. This is pretty much the absolute maximum and yields 256 health. Not too shabby, except my 10 CON paladin has 491 health and a lowly potion of major healing heals 272 with 0 investment in alchemy, and a potion of moderate healing heals 252 with 10 alchemy. So it's about the same as a moderate or major healing potion, depending on alchemy level, including similar cast/recovery time total. 

In fact my fighter could cast disciplined strikes and drink a potion in the same amount of time.

Sure there are abilities that heal less, but they're passives with very long or infinite durations, or like Ancient Memory / Consecrated Ground and affect the whole party. Lay on Hands is the equivalent of handing someone a middling potion. Discipline Barrage is so useful partly due to the rarity of Intuitive buffs also. There are many sources of healing. 

On 3/7/2023 at 8:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

Honnestly, you're quite unique in your view as far as I remember. SC Barb are usually described as great (in Vanilla as well), mostly because of Tier 9 shout upgrade, and a couple other feat.

Note that they do unexpectedly more damages than their description would make you believe cause they count as intresic Tier 9 (so +16 Acc and + 4 PEN) and scale with PL as if they were Tier 1 (so + 8 Acc, + 2 PEN, +40% multiplicative damages and duration at 9 PL, and more with bonus PL). Even Dazing Shout does ok damages this way (and decrease PEN vs your whole party, something Wiz can't do as well).

Driving Roar is extremely strong, cheap, fast to cast, interrupting. Cannon SC Barb is the most commonly spoken about build. Blood Thirst and Blood Surge complete the picture. 

HoF with dual mortar  is great vs pick packs of foes (such as Splintered Reef).

I guess Dazing Shout + Instruments of Boundless Rage (mostly for fast cast, prone on graze and severe damages vs single foes) could be an alternative, but AoE Daze seems mostly interesting with a party.

Such abilities are fun and when brilliant was a thing and you could in fact spam them, yeah, pretty useful. Still useful sometimes, sure. But I think you are underestimating what you get from seven levels of another class in comparison to forfeiting PL8+ abilities, including getting back double resources from potions of enlightenment.

Blood Surge is good in fights where there are tons of enemies but it is useless in some boss fights. And 33% proc is too random to be relied upon.

Blood Thirst is not SC exclusive, but yeah, it's good in some fights. 

On 3/7/2023 at 8:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

 

On a general note, MC are ususally better for long term passive + self buff because of the greater variety they get. So it's no surprise they fit better your playstyle.

True, though I'd argue if a build is better at soloing it is usually going to be better in parties also. If I can solo the toughest encounters with a build it will surely do well in other situations... There are some exceptions, mainly with paladins and ciphers because they can't self-cast a lot of stuff, and when you have 5 times the resources using active abilities becomes more tempting for sure. 

On 3/8/2023 at 7:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

As I suspected Fire absorbing foes are immune to Light of Pure Zeal. I tested it with a Flame Naga (after removing the condition for LoPZ). Probably due to the "low fire AR" of the flame naga but still.

I plan to change LoPZ this way :

- 4 zeal (as already implemented by BPM)
- 0.8s/4.s cast/recovery (no change) 
- 100 heal (no change)
- 66-84 damages vs everything (equivalent to 3 Immolation ticks). So less damaging than currently but universal. I'm leaving the anti-vessels anti-spirit part altogether because I feel the spell might have been slightly too powerful vs them. Note that with Zeal cost down from 5 to 4 in BPM, this is roughly equivalent vs vessels and spirits as vanilla.
- 10 PEN +4 intresic as Tier 9 ability (no change)
- Cold/Shock damages for the reasons mentionned before. Pals need something not fire based. Call it "celestial"
- Adding Frost and Electricity Keyword to the ability and attack for itemization. Now SC Chromoprismatic Pal could be a thing (style bonus point if Bleak Walker for using all elements)

Sounds reasonable I guess.

On 3/8/2023 at 7:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

Indeed, it is a known hardcore bug when multiple sources of + duration.

I left it because it honnestly doesn't break the game.

Thanks for the explanation. Yeah it isn't hard to keep up blood storm anyway, I script it so it's always up in harder fights, was just kinda surprised seeing I suddenly had thousands of seconds. Barbarian's second best ability IMO. The raw damage on crit adds a LOT of damage, the 25% action speed buff is huge, and the long duration might inspiration is translatable to tenacious or energized with slayer's claw. Probably the easiest way to keep up energized outside of a chanter. 

On 3/8/2023 at 7:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

That is worth reading.

Yeah I mostly agree with this, though I'm looking at the abilities as a whole and I think they're kind of bad at 2 zeal

On 3/8/2023 at 7:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

Personally, I find that LoH "does its job", as cheap pseudo-emergency healing (though as pointed, not as efficient as BDD to save someone). It heals in the 100ish in the scaling, which is in my experience sufficient.

As pointed out earlier in the post it's basically a potion of moderate to major healing. It "does its job" I guess but there are so many sources of better healing. Also at high levels even with super high INT and healing modifiers lay on hands is going to heal one character for like 1/2 to 1/3 of their health. Just very very "meh" IMO.

On 3/8/2023 at 7:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

That said, I do understand the issue about okayish cost efficiency (although druid style - and Pain Block - healing over time with long duration are necessarily more cost efficient). It means that it translates also to the pseudo-upgrades. And since they costs 2 Zeals one can feel it even more. Hence the lack of enthusiasm for LoH pseudo-upgrades.

Also something annoying about these pseudo-upgrades is that they are Tier 3 and scales as such with PL (since they are not upgrades. Upgrades would scale as the original ability). The pseudo-upgrades basically loose 2 PL for the "original Lay on Hand compoent" (20 health per 3s tick for 5s). And since Healing over Time get double benefit from PL, it is sensitive for both : GLoH isn't that much better healing and HoL heals less than LoH.

Yeah I noticed this, on my test char Hands of Light healed like 210ish while Lay on Hands 250ish. 

On 3/8/2023 at 7:00 AM, Elric Galad said:

That's why my proposal is the following :
- Both pseudo-upgrades would be kept at 2 Zeals. Original LoH supposed to be used when "sufficient", improved version for better action economy efficiency or Courage utility.
- Pseudo-upgrade base healing buffed to 30 health per 3s tick for 6s. That is 90 base healing over 53.33 for LoH (with +2 PL, so roughly in the 60ish). 
- Robust for 12s. I'm not trying to challenge Pain Block in its own way, but to add a layer of healing. GLoH will have great initial healing of 40 instant, 120 over 6s and 140 for total duration.
- Courageous for 18s. Courageous is less good than Robust, but nice utility to support casters (especially since after Courageous, you will still have 1 Concentration with infinite duration from the Tier 2 part of Courageous, as for Resolute but guaranteed by previous Immunity). And HoL will still heals more over a short duration than any ability in the game... bar GLoH and LoPZ  

 

 

Less than I'd hoped for but reasonable enough, thanks. Looking forward to testing out the new SC ranger  

[Shai Hulud]

Is Beast's Claw / Hunter's Fang supposed to stack with Enduring Dance? Doesn't seem to. I'm guessing...no, but not sure why.

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

 

Maybe, but you need to look at the ability as a whole and compare to other sources of healing. Concentration + 15s / resource intuitive with instant cast and no recovery is much better than 20 health per 3s for 5s + 7.5s/bond courageous (or 5s/bond robust) with 5s cast. It is not even close IMO. Disciplined Barrage lasts 41s without INT buff, 47.2s with Inspired Discipline on my pure fighter.

Disciplined Barrage is self-only. That's a pretty big difference. Of course not for Solo. LoH can save your life, Displined Barrage cannot. Initially I was comparing 1 concentration with LoH base healing effect, which I think is in favor of the later by a pretty big margin.

But we're really comparing apples and tomatoes here. 

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Lay on Hands OTOH is one of the weaker healing abilities in the game (besides maybe restore, but that one at least heals instantly). With maxed INT and a ton of healing buffs I get at L20, 57 healing per 3s for 13.5. This is pretty much the absolute maximum and yields 256 health. Not too shabby, except my 10 CON paladin has 491 health and a lowly potion of major healing heals 272 with 0 investment in alchemy, and a potion of moderate healing heals 252 with 10 alchemy. So it's about the same as a moderate or major healing potion, depending on alchemy level, including similar cast/recovery time total. 

It also heals more than any instant healing abilities bar LoPZ and consumables. Actually, it's the Healing over Time that heals the most per tick. It's really middle ground between instant heals (life savers) and heals over time (damages mitigators), with the big distinctive feature from instant ones of benefitting from INT and PL duration scaling.

It also has nice interaction with Wall of Draining for being a "short but strong" buff.

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

In fact my fighter could cast disciplined strikes and drink a potion in the same amount of time.

Sure there are abilities that heal less, but they're passives with very long or infinite durations, or like Ancient Memory / Consecrated Ground and affect the whole party. Lay on Hands is the equivalent of handing someone a middling potion. Discipline Barrage is so useful partly due to the rarity of Intuitive buffs also. There are many sources of healing. 

As they are many source of DPS. Disciplined Barrage is precious because there aren't that many souces of crits though.

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Such abilities are fun and when brilliant was a thing and you could in fact spam them, yeah, pretty useful.

Brilliant has the same effect on SC barb as in Vanilla.

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Still useful sometimes, sure. But I think you are underestimating what you get from seven levels of another class in comparison to forfeiting PL8+ abilities, including getting back double resources from potions of enlightenment.

All this requires ability points. SC and MC get almost the same numbers, even if it is obvious that they are spent less optimally for having a single tree (especially since some Tier 1-7 passive are really broken). It's hard to figure what MC feature could beat Driving Roar in term of convenient cheap AoE DPS + fast cast Interrupt/push. And it terms of Spike AoE, dual mortar HoF is there too. 

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Blood Surge is good in fights where there are tons of enemies but it is useless in some boss fights. And 33% proc is too random to be relied upon.

Blood Thirst is not SC exclusive, but yeah, it's good in some fights. 

Not everything works every fight. Blood Surge works well vs Belranga and to some extant vs Hauni O Whe (because Blood Thirst make Barb optimal for dealing with those parasite oozes), but require some Chanter skellies slaying to work a bit vs Dorudugan (and probably not a very optimal strategy then).

Anyway, SC Barbs are seen as fine by most, so I won't change them, unless some other reviews argue about it. As said above "SC Barbs are fine" does not reflect only my opinion. This was even said before BPM, and I still buffed them.

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

True, though I'd argue if a build is better at soloing it is usually going to be better in parties also. If I can solo the toughest encounters with a build it will surely do well in other situations... There are some exceptions, mainly with paladins and ciphers because they can't self-cast a lot of stuff, and when you have 5 times the resources using active abilities becomes more tempting for sure. 

Parties require less balanced build in general. Noticeably, you don't have to tank or do the healing yourself.

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also at high levels even with super high INT and healing modifiers lay on hands is going to heal one character for like 1/2 to 1/3 of their health. Just very very "meh" IMO.

If healing 1/2 to 1/3 of health pool for 1 zeal is very very meh for you... well I don't know what you need. 

As said above, apart for consumable, I don't know what can beat it apart things that restore ~10 base health per 3s. Sure it heals more overall, but it is really slow.

 

If we're talking about healing efficiency, IMHO nothing can top Nature's Balm. I start every druid battle by casting it, it is so fast, can affect the whole party (initial placement matters). Pain Link and Spiritual Ally (!) are also my bread and butter heals for their efficiency again.

 

But when a character is dangerously low on health, LoH becomes better at "saving one's life" than the mentionned abilities (not to mention it can be stacked with said Robust).

I guess for Solo, you have to think a lot about long term and attrition, which makes it "very very meh" instead of "basically okay", which it is in the general gameplay.

 

Anyway, since we have more or less agreed on GLoH and HoL I propose to stop arguing here (you can answer but I don't guarantee responding).

Actually I think I'll go with 30 health per 3s for 5s (instead of 6s as said above) for HoL/GLoH in order to harmonize duration with Shielbearer secondary effect (which is 5s in BPM).

But I'll go with 15s Robust and 20s Courageous instead. So same level of power as described above.

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Looking forward to testing out the new SC ranger  

Also now I'm turning my attention on a final point before release (I hope) :

Take the Hit.

It is supposed to be the pinacle of "tanking" (in term of deviating attacks from others), but it is limited to damages transfer. Even with BPM change (no recovery, no cost), I find it hard to pick and cast (some combos do exist).

Thematically, you're getting damages on your fighter in exchange for protecting your friends. The issue is that the said friends have usually lower defenses, so transfering damages make easy damages vs your supposed tank.

It worked somewhat better in Vanilla since Unbending was overhealing there dues its weird implementation. So these excessive healing could be dumped with Take the Hit cast, even if the synergy didn't work. 

 

Take the Hit would be perfect if there was a way to make 50% of the attacks actually target the fighter in order to benefit from its defense. I must emphasize that there are no way to do that. The ability that redirect attack have they targets hard coded (Reflect stuff, Blade Turning).

You all can make design suggestions, but remember not everything exists. So try to replicate an existing ability/effect.

 

My proposal would be :

- Take the Hit grants 50% damages resistance to allies in the AoE
- Take the Hit transfers 50% stacking bonus damages to fighter for each protected ally.

This can be mitigated by Unbending of course, which is a better synergy than the current effect. Also stacking defenses make these bonus damages less easy to take advantages of. The basic idea is to enable the fighter to protect what has passed their line of defense.

Thematically, it fits remarkably well with Furrante's Breastplate passive (-10% allies damages, +10% to self)... which also has Take the Hit as castable effect.

Duration, Recovery and Cost should be adjusted.

Cost can't be zero in this case, so probably back to 1 Discipline.

Duration should be relatively low. Could be 10s as original. Could be down to 6s if the effect feels too powerful.

Recovery / no Recovery is also a question : I admit I fear having a backrow fighter casting Take the Hit repeatedly (even worse with a "Brilliant" Tactician), so at least recovery would prevent them from doing much else.

56 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Is Beast's Claw / Hunter's Fang supposed to stack with Enduring Dance? Doesn't seem to. I'm guessing...no, but not sure why.

Nope, they are not supposed to stack. Both are from active effects.

[Bosmer]

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

l would be :

- Take the Hit grants 50% damages resistance to allies in the AoE
- Take the Hit transfers 50% stacking bonus damages to fighter for each protected ally.

This can be mitigated by Unbending of course, which is a better synergy than the current effect. Also stacking defenses make these bonus damages less easy to take advantages of. The basic idea is to enable the fighter to protect what has passed their line of defense.

Thematically, it fits remarkably well with Furrante's Breastplate passive (-10% allies damages, +10% to self)... which also has Take the Hit as castable effect.

Duration, Recovery and Cost should be adjusted.

Cost can't be zero in this case, so probably back to 1 Discipline.

Duration should be relatively low. Could be 10s as original. Could be down to 6s if the effect feels too powerful.

Recovery / no Recovery is also a question : I admit I fear having a backrow fighter casting Take the Hit repeatedly (even worse with a "Brilliant" Tactician), so at least recovery would prevent them from doing much else.

Nope, they are not supposed to stack. Both are from active effects.

Sounds great! I think the implementation is straightforward and it would work as expected. I'm not sure on the exact value of the 50% stacking bonus, because I don't know how it plays out with decreasing returns (the difference between 200% and 250% should be minor I guess?) and how it interacts with damage reducing effects, such as defender's stance (and similar item effects). 50% - 50% looks cleaner of course.

Out of curiosity: Would a "AoE Pain Link"-implementation also be possible? I.e. allies in the AoE have 50% resistance and damage on them is 50% raw on Fighter"

Regarding recovery: I think 4s it fine (maybe 3?), makes also sense from a thematical point of view: While trying to catch the hits, the fighter is not expected to dedicate his time too much on other stuff (similar to blade turning I guess).

 

[Shai Hulud]

39 minutes ago, Bosmer said:

Sounds great! I think the implementation is straightforward and it would work as expected. I'm not sure on the exact value of the 50% stacking bonus, because I don't know how it plays out with decreasing returns (the difference between 200% and 250% should be minor I guess?) and how it interacts with damage reducing effects, such as defender's stance (and similar item effects). 50% - 50% looks cleaner of course.

Out of curiosity: Would a "AoE Pain Link"-implementation also be possible? I.e. allies in the AoE have 50% resistance and damage on them is 50% raw on Fighter"

Regarding recovery: I think 4s it fine (maybe 3?), makes also sense from a thematical point of view: While trying to catch the hits, the fighter is not expected to dedicate his time too much on other stuff (similar to blade turning I guess).

 

Good idea but Pain Link barely works as is so I doubt it...it only redirects the first hit of an attack/ability on the first target. Like enemy casts concelhaut's crushing doom on a pain linked guy they only get procced on first hit, if they fireball three guys with pain link only takes damage from first guy hit, if an attack kills pain linked person it doesn't return anything etc. @Elric Galadyou said this part of pain link was hard-coded right?

I think Take the Hit as is is problematic because the game doesn't have a "taunting" system or anything that directs damage towards the tank besides engagement. Often the best strategy is just have a couple tanks to engage the melee guys and keep your range and spellcasters back, so they're rarely taking damage anyway and it doesn't make a lot of sense to cast take the hit. 

Also the damage being redirected as raw is gross because your tank might have 20+ AR which gets bypassed like he's as squishy as the ones he's taking the hit for.

As proposed +- damage resistance AOE sounds good but I'd make the ability apply in a cone rather than a circle. Fairly large radius, 135 degree cone that directed behind the fighter. Or maybe 180 degree but not more. This would make it harder to "tank" from the back line (one still could by turning around but this would severely limit the character)

I dont think it should have recovery unless it turns out much stronger than expected. Not with a 10s duration anyway. I kind of think the role of take the hit should be a panic button in case your line gets broken

Edited March 10, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Elric Galad]

20 minutes ago, Bosmer said:

Sounds great! I think the implementation is straightforward and it would work as expected. I'm not sure on the exact value of the 50% stacking bonus, because I don't know how it plays out with decreasing returns (the difference between 200% and 250% should be minor I guess?)

Well, it's additive, as always. So if you would take 10, it would be from 30 to 35. Note that these bonus damages should stack additively with other bonus damages (weapon quality, mig, etc...).

20 minutes ago, Bosmer said:

and how it interacts with damage reducing effects, such as defender's stance (and similar item effects). 50% - 50% looks cleaner of course.

The same way as double inversions in general. +100% damages cancel -50% damages. 

(5 SC Fighters would get +200% damages -100% (cancelled by -50%, so +100%). In this case, the bonus from several fighters doesn't stack while malus does. )

20 minutes ago, Bosmer said:

Out of curiosity: Would a "AoE Pain Link"-implementation also be possible? I.e. allies in the AoE have 50% resistance and damage on them is 50% raw on Fighter"

What do you mean, exactly ?

Vanilla : out of 100 damages :
- 50 goes to target
- 50 goes to fighter

Your proposal (???) out of 100 damages :
- 50 goes to target
- 25 goes to fighter

It is doable with mathematical trick (hand werdish display):
- 25% resistance
- 33% of the 75% left to the fighter.

Or is it something else ?

Pain Link points to the attacker (hard coded, I checked it too yesterday).

20 minutes ago, Bosmer said:

Regarding recovery: I think 4s it fine (maybe 3?), makes also sense from a thematical point of view: While trying to catch the hits, the fighter is not expected to dedicate his time too much on other stuff (similar to blade turning I guess).

 

Deal

[NotDumbEnough]

I personally like the current state of Take the Hit. It's especially good with the paladin immolation upgrade that heals allies, as the fighter shares half of the self damage then immediately gets healed. I'm not too sure what you mean by your proposal, does the fighter get bonus damage for protecting allies, or is he also debuffing allies' damage output?

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Shai Hulud said:

As proposed +- damage resistance AOE sounds good but I'd make the ability apply in a cone rather than a circle. Fairly large radius, 135 degree cone that directed behind the fighter. Or maybe 180 degree but not more. This would make it harder to "tank" from the back line (one still could by turning around but this would severely limit the character)

Don't think an arc would change that much

I you sit on the backrow, you can have your arc in front of you and cover the front row. It is even easier than a circle.

Also SC Fighter has access to Swift just in case (from inspired strike, not the most convenient but still).

1 hour ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I personally like the current state of Take the Hit. It's especially good with the paladin immolation upgrade that heals allies, as the fighter shares half of the self damage then immediately gets healed. I'm not too sure what you mean by your proposal, does the fighter get bonus damage for protecting allies, or is he also debuffing allies' damage output?

It is 50% more damages taken by the fighter (per ally, stacking), not done by them. And 50% less damages taken by allies, not done. So your allies take less damages and you take more. The more allies protected the more damages you take.

 

I know about Divine immolation, I've done some forum research before my proposal  

This would still work fine with (any) Immolation by reducing by 50% the damages taken by the paladin (for this part, it would be as before).

The fighter won't take immediate damages from Paladin self immolation, but since it would take more damages from any source, he would still be quite interested by the extra healing specifically from Divine Immolation. 

It doesn't break the interaction with Immolation, but it is supposed to make Take the Hit less combo dependant, although it works great with any self damages (better than Voidward).

 

So my proposal :
- 0.5/4s cast/recovery, 10s base duration, 1 discipline, 2,5 radius (basically these are unchanged) 
- Take the Hit grants 50% less damages taken by the to allies in the AoE
- Take the Hit transfers stacking 50% more damages taken by the fighter for each protected ally (so +100% damages taken for 2 allies affected, +150% for 3 allies, etc...).

Edited March 10, 2023 by Elric Galad

[NotDumbEnough]

So if the fighter himself does not get hit, allies will take less damage, but fighter will not take any damage? I guess that might be interesting on, say, a ranged Fighter that simply aims to never get hit.

[Bosmer]

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

What do you mean, exactly ?

Vanilla : out of 100 damages :
- 50 goes to target
- 50 goes to fighter

Your proposal (???) out of 100 damages :
- 50 goes to target
- 25 goes to fighter

It is doable with mathematical trick (hand werdish display):
- 25% resistance
- 33% of the 75% left to the fighter.

Or is it something else ?

Pain Link points to the attacker (hard coded, I checked it too yesterday).

My question was only targeting the technical feasibility. The idea would be: AoE-Pain-Link on allies, but instead to "reflect" damage on attacker, to reflect it on the tank. But as pointed out by @Shai Huludpain link itself is too troublesome to use it as a basis, and if I understand you correctly it's not even possible to change the damage "reflection" direction. So never mind

8 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

So if the fighter himself does not get hit, allies will take less damage, but fighter will not take any damage? I guess that might be interesting on, say, a ranged Fighter that simply aims to never get hit.

I thought into a similar direction and that basically shows that Take the Hit does need some relevant opportunity costs, otherwise it is too convenient and you would want to have it on all the time. 50% resistance is better than 50% increased damage even if the Fighter and ally are targeted, if Fighter is not targeted it's just a very very strong buff without drawback. Maybe it should break on mobility (such as Blade Turning)?

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, NotDumbEnough said:

So if the fighter himself does not get hit, allies will take less damage, but fighter will not take any damage? I guess that might be interesting on, say, a ranged Fighter that simply aims to never get hit.

Sure, but also on a frontliner with Unbending active, or any combination of defenses that would make it survival with a massive damages increase.

1 hour ago, Bosmer said:

My question was only targeting the technical feasibility. The idea would be: AoE-Pain-Link on allies, but instead to "reflect" damage on attacker, to reflect it on the tank.

But that's what Take the Hit currently does.

1 hour ago, Bosmer said:

But as pointed out by @Shai Huludpain link itself is too troublesome to use it as a basis, and if I understand you correctly it's not even possible to change the damage "reflection" direction. So never mind

Indeed, you can't. You can't change the damage reflection. But Take the Hit currently redirect some damages to the caster.

But as said, @Shai Hulud, it's gross since your clothinling will redirect half of its taken damages to your hevaily armored fighter.

1 hour ago, Bosmer said:

I thought into a similar direction and that basically shows that Take the Hit does need some relevant opportunity costs, otherwise it is too convenient and you would want to have it on all the time.

There are some hidden costs.

First the recovery, which should lower your fighter utility.

Second Toughened Fury (the backbone of BPM SC) would be much less convenient. You can still take damages, but +200% damages for 4 targets would hurt.

Third, all your beautiful defenses as a fighter would be much less usefull. +3 engagements, +20 all defenses, etc... Still usable but one isn't tanky with +200% damages taken.

Forth, super bad interaction with summons. If you have plenty summons around and are protecting them, your fighter would be even more vulnerable. I would even say that it could somewhat refreshing to have some party tanking NOT based on summons.

And of course, the risk of loosing the fighter from some random AoE.

1 hour ago, Bosmer said:

50% resistance is better than 50% increased damage even if the Fighter and ally are targeted, if Fighter is not targeted it's just a very very strong buff without drawback. Maybe it should break on mobility (such as Blade Turning)?

I like the idea of lowering mobility.

Breaking on fighter movement would be tedious to implement, but it could break on protected target movement. Arguably it would even be an advantage to prevent summons from being protected.

There could also be a penalty for fighter such as -75% movement (or -100% ??) as long as at least one target is protected.

Or both.

I don't want to make it over complicated though, and I'm not fully convinced it's necessary to add a penalty. But lowering movement is a good direction to look into.

[NotDumbEnough]

I think if you wanted to make Take the Hit into a pseudo-taunt like effect, it could be done. Generally my experience is that enemies will prioritize damage dealers (e.g., bring a priest and Eder to the first construct + revenant fight in the cave. Have priest use Radiance, watch all of the revenants come for you) and targets with low defenses/low hp. Unfortunately AI is extremely conservative about risking disengagement attacks and will almost never try to break engagement just by walking (will still use Leap, Escape etc.) even if the disengagement attack doesn't hurt at all. So if you wanted a taunt effect for Take the Hit it might look like:

-50 deflection and +10 (or some other ludicrous number) engagement for the fighter

+50 deflection for nearby allies, but they cannot engage

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by NotDumbEnough

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I think if you wanted to make Take the Hit into a pseudo-taunt like effect, it could be done. Generally my experience is that enemies will prioritize damage dealers (e.g., bring a priest and Eder to the first construct + revenant fight in the cave. Have priest use Radiance, watch all of the revenants come for you) and targets with low defenses/low hp. Unfortunately AI is extremely conservative about risking disengagement attacks and will almost never try to break engagement just by walking (will still use Leap, Escape etc.) even if the disengagement attack doesn't hurt at all. So if you wanted a taunt effect for Take the Hit it might look like:

-50 deflection and +10 (or some other ludicrous number) engagement for the fighter

+50 deflection for nearby allies, but they cannot engage

Well, that's quite out of the box as a proposal. I'm not sure I want to base the design on AI behavior.

At least you don't have to remove allies engagement. That's a bit too weird. If one wants to build around, one can simply not pick engagement (or pick a ranged weapon). 

 

What I like with the "-X% damages taken for allies/+X% damages taken for self per ally" is that it is quite straightforward, easy to understand and somewhat aligned with the feeling of the initial ability.

But I also agree that it could be a bit broken. It's really hard to get an idea.

That said, if 50% feels too much, I could go with 40% or even 33%. The ability would still be nice since -% damages is quite rare.

-40% could feel right because of all opportunity cost I see with this design.

Or I could lower the duration to 6s.

[NotDumbEnough]

I think a less extreme value (like +25%/-25%) in exchange for keeping the current 0 cost and no recovery would be nice, otherwise the ability feels a bit too reliant on high intellect to be efficient.

[Shai Hulud]

11 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Don't think an arc would change that much

I you sit on the backrow, you can have your arc in front of you and cover the front row. It is even easier than a circle.

That's why I suggested the arc be directed behind the fighter 

If you sit on the backrow, the arc (somewhere 135 to 180 degrees) is going the opposite direction you're facing, so you're only benefiting people behind you, which if you're on the back row is no one. The only way you could tank from the back would with this arc would be to face the opposite direction of the fight which is pretty limiting given you won't be able to attack. Also, don't see how an arc can be "even easier than a circle" since it is literally a section of a circle.

That said I don't really care if people tank from the back, though it would be ridiculously strong to have 50% damage resistance on your actual tank(s) while the guy spamming take the hit is behind them firing a bow and rarely getting hit... I just suggested rearward facing arc AOE as a solution since you mentioned this potential problem.

Would be an interesting build, could have a devoted with hunting bow and stats like 12/10/13/19/18/3, very un-tank like, wearing +DPS and +accuracy stuff just firing the hunting bow and spamming take the hit, negating the downside almost entirely because he's rarely getting hit. With max INT base 2.5m circle he could stand pretty far back, and 10s duration with 4.5s cast, you could keep that up almost permanently with +beneficial effect stuff like ooblit and strand of favor.  

11 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Also SC Fighter has access to Swift just in case (from inspired strike, not the most convenient but still).

Not sure why you mentioned swift honestly. Not really seeing how it relates to Take the Hit. I guess lets you break engagement if you need to? 

--------------

Another idea if the +-damage resistance is too strong, the current Take the Hit can merely be tweaked to hand out the same damage type as received by those "protected". So fighter doesn't receive raw damage, but instead slashing or fire or whatever hit them, which damage can then be reduced by armor. So if say your protected caster is hit with damage roll 60 (slash) it redirects half (30 slash) of that damage roll to the fighter, then that gets reduced by slash armor. Dunno how hard would be to implement. 

Edited March 11, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Shai Hulud]

@Elric GaladBTW I tested the Divine Retribution talent in a party, and it is really, really busted even with +1 resource per fallen ally if you have even one chanter in the party. I made a small party with a troubadour/psion and two bleak walker paladins. The paladins just cast divine immolation repeatedly, keep up Greater Lay On Hands, Enduring Beacon and Inspired Beacon (one on each paladin), one has exalted endurance, other exalted focus, and they keep up zealous exhortation on the spiritualist. For stats they dump dex because their damage is almost entirely passive. Moon godlikes work particularly well. They attack with a flail when not doing something else (using the -25 reflex debuff). Spiritualist does a lot of stuff but most important here is brisk recitation and many lives pass by, along with summoning something (in this case wyrms) every 30s or so, keeping up set to their purpose, echoing shield, psychovampiric shield, borrowed instinct, etc. Anyway this party shredded Hauni O Whe in 3 minutes flat with zero interaction from me, nobody ever came close to dying, and they all had full or soon-to-be-full resources the whole time. I think I could have thrown in a light of pure zeal attack every 30s or so and been fine, but in this particular fight that wouldn't be much use since it targets fortitude.

With just one chanter and brisk recitation they get back 1 zeal per 4s just from the skellies, more from the wyrm summons, probably closer to 3s. Also the little symbiotes have 50% chance to give back 1 zeal on kill. It's basically infinite resource for all practical purposes, procs even faster than old-school brilliant which was one per 6s IIRC. The only way I could have used up resources fast enough to deplete them was spam light of pure zeal nonstop.

And that's just with one summoner and two paladins. 2 - 3 chanter / x plus 2 - 3 paladins and I don't think they could use resources fast enough to run out, even spamming the most damaging attacks / powerful heals / handing out exhortations endlessly. 

[Elric Galad]

5 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

That's why I suggested the arc be directed behind the fighter 

If you sit on the backrow, the arc (somewhere 135 to 180 degrees) is going the opposite direction you're facing, so you're only benefiting people behind you, which if you're on the back row is no one. The only way you could tank from the back would with this arc would be to face the opposite direction of the fight which is pretty limiting given you won't be able to attack.

But when casting a cone ability, you can rotate at will. 

It would requires a Cone Aura to work as you describe. But as far as I know, it doesn't exist. 

5 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also, don't see how an arc can be "even easier than a circle" since it is literally a section of a circle.

Because you mentionned a "fairly large radius" so I thought you suggested a larger radius than the current circle. Nevermind

5 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

That said I don't really care if people tank from the back, though it would be ridiculously strong to have 50% damage resistance on your actual tank(s) while the guy spamming take the hit is behind them firing a bow and rarely getting hit... I just suggested rearward facing arc AOE as a solution since you mentioned this potential problem.

Would be an interesting build, could have a devoted with hunting bow and stats like 12/10/13/19/18/3, very un-tank like, wearing +DPS and +accuracy stuff just firing the hunting bow and spamming take the hit, negating the downside almost entirely because he's rarely getting hit. With max INT base 2.5m circle he could stand pretty far back, and 10s duration with 4.5s cast, you could keep that up almost permanently with +beneficial effect stuff like ooblit and strand of favor.  

Maybe the issue is the 50% values is just too strong. 

5 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Not sure why you mentioned swift honestly. Not really seeing how it relates to Take the Hit. I guess lets you break engagement if you need to? 

You were suggesting to add positioning constraint, which Swift partially solves. But I think I didnt get your arc idea. 

5 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

--------------

Another idea if the +-damage resistance is too strong, the current Take the Hit can merely be tweaked to hand out the same damage type as received by those "protected". So fighter doesn't receive raw damage, but instead slashing or fire or whatever hit them, which damage can then be reduced by armor. So if say your protected caster is hit with damage roll 60 (slash) it redirects half (30 slash) of that damage roll to the fighter, then that gets reduced by slash armor. Dunno how hard would be to implement. 

It is actually the very first change I tried. The issue is that damages transferred have 0 PEN. I couldn't change it. Which is both too strong and weird. 

[Elric Galad]

7 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

@Elric GaladBTW I tested the Divine Retribution talent in a party, and it is really, really busted even with +1 resource per fallen ally if you have even one chanter in the party. I made a small party with a troubadour/psion and two bleak walker paladins. The paladins just cast divine immolation repeatedly, keep up Greater Lay On Hands, Enduring Beacon and Inspired Beacon (one on each paladin), one has exalted endurance, other exalted focus, and they keep up zealous exhortation on the spiritualist. For stats they dump dex because their damage is almost entirely passive. Moon godlikes work particularly well. They attack with a flail when not doing something else (using the -25 reflex debuff). Spiritualist does a lot of stuff but most important here is brisk recitation and many lives pass by, along with summoning something (in this case wyrms) every 30s or so, keeping up set to their purpose, echoing shield, psychovampiric shield, borrowed instinct, etc. Anyway this party shredded Hauni O Whe in 3 minutes flat with zero interaction from me, nobody ever came close to dying, and they all had full or soon-to-be-full resources the whole time. I think I could have thrown in a light of pure zeal attack every 30s or so and been fine, but in this particular fight that wouldn't be much use since it targets fortitude.

With just one chanter and brisk recitation they get back 1 zeal per 4s just from the skellies, more from the wyrm summons, probably closer to 3s. Also the little symbiotes have 50% chance to give back 1 zeal on kill. It's basically infinite resource for all practical purposes, procs even faster than old-school brilliant which was one per 6s IIRC. The only way I could have used up resources fast enough to deplete them was spam light of pure zeal nonstop.

And that's just with one summoner and two paladins. 2 - 3 chanter / x plus 2 - 3 paladins and I don't think they could use resources fast enough to run out, even spamming the most damaging attacks / powerful heals / handing out exhortations endlessly. 

I think it works that well in this fight because the Megaboss has AoE Attacks that systematically kills your skellies. But in a larger party, a barb could have done the job. 

The annoying thing is that it is really only the skelly chant that leads to such absurd Zeal gain. Other summons work great, but not to such extreme extant. 

Brilliant is still 1 resource per 6s. The only BPM tweak was to make higher spell Tier more rare to regen (and it starts giving back resource 3s avec the start, not immediately).