EternalLurker
Therefore, I want to make sure that every character has multiple viable options in ITRH. Obviously, this is part of beta-testing, but I want us all to discuss some aspects of build balance right now, based on our knowledge from DTROT. That way, if we agree overwhelmingly on any particularly glaring issues, An can get a head start in fixing them, rather than creating a problem that we only catch in beta-testing and thus having to delay the game's final release.NOTE THAT THIS THREAD IS IMPORTANT TO GIVE AN SOME FOR THE NEXT GAME. SPAM OR EVEN MILDLY OFF-TOPIC TANGENTS WILL BE DELETED IMMEDIATELY. I'LL RULE THIS THREAD WITH AN IRON FIST. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING: IF YOU POST HERE, READ EVERYTHING IN THE THREAD FIRST, KEEP YOUR POSTS TO-THE-POINT, BACK UP EVERYTHING YOU SAY WITH EVIDENCE, AND USE SUFFICIENTLY CORRECT GRAMMAR TO BE UNDERSTOOD WITHOUT UNNECESSARY EFFORT.Everything below the following line is going to be constantly updated as the thread continues, assuming this proceeds how I'd like. In your posts, feel free to bring up any other issues you have and I may add the questions to this post.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~coloro:#FF0000/coloroHere are the current points of discussion being argued, as well as a summary of current opinions. Specify which question you are addressing in your posts, or create your own.Is Gelyan's Black perk tree (Eagle Eyes, Falcon Eyes, Beholder Eyes) too weak in comparison to the other two trees? If so, what can be done to make it stronger?colorc/colorc-Falcon Eyes: 100 Dodge Piercing, +1 Agility-Beholder Eyes: +25% Black Resistance, -50% White Resistance, either 100 Dodge Piercing or 30% Black Resistance Piercingcoloro:#FF0000/coloroAre Gelyan's two Tarots balanced? If not, what can be done to improve the inferior one?colorc/colorc-Decrease the Fool's dependence on Soul Bond by lowering his Battle Abilities' damage and raising his Magic and Power. Also increase the accuracy of Rod Twirl to 120.-Improve the Hanged Man's natural resistances to 20% Black, 0% Red, 40% Blue, 0% Yellow, -50% White-Improve the Hanged Man's damage either by increasing Pain Eater's effectiveness by 1.4x or by increasing his Agility for one more attack per turn-Improve the Hanged Man's battlefield control by having Dark Gravity call two opponents in sequence-Change Essence of Winter's Blue Resistance reduction to (20 + level*2), unless some extraordinarily powerful Blue abilities are in the works for ITRH; in that case 20 + level*1.5 is enough-Weaken Last Exile's raw damage a bit, decrease enemy Power/Magic reduction from 4 to 3coloro:#FF0000/coloroAre Light Steps and Battle Rhyme balanced with Neraine's other perks? If not, how do we fix them?colorc/colorc-Light Steps is part of the Green tree, which is overall balanced.-Battle Rhyme is only overshadowed by 50% Defense Piercing right now. Rising Magic scores will make it far more powerful later for non-Power-focused Neraines.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~coloro:#0000FF/coloroHere are the issues which have been satisfactorily resolved. You may bring them up again if you have evidence regarding the issue.Gelyan's Red and Green perk trees are generally considered to be balanced.colorc/co
EternalLurker
QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Dec 5 2009, 08:10 PM) quoteccoloro:#FF0000/coloro1) Is Gelyan's Black perk tree (Eagle Eyes, Falcon Eyes, Beholder Eyes) too weak in comparison to the other two trees? If so, what can be done to make it stronger?colorc/colorcQuoteEndQuoteEEndThis is basically my biggest issue regarding balance in the entire game, and always has been. Eagle Eyes is, for a first-tier perk, fairly useful. Stacked with Dark Ranger's dodge reduction, it can be invaluable in certain fights, such as against Saber, and only costs a single stat point to obtain. However, Falcon Eyes is quite disappointing.Now, Gelyan's Black perks do not unlock a unique Central Perk, so of course all three do not have to be used in tandem as is generally suggested for the other trees, but I believe Falcon Eyes is simply far too useless in any perk combination. Both Falcon Eyes and Beholder Eyes offer Defense Piercing. This is bad for Gelyan. It weakens Armor Crusher and has no effect on Soul Pact and Jelly Shot, which means Falcon Eyes is an entire second-tier perk that does nothing but mildly improve Trigger Happy's damage, at the cost of 3 fairly useless stat points (Magic) and a weakened Armor Crusher. I can't see Falcon Eyes ever finding a place in any build.Verdict: unbalanced. Falcon Eyes is completely useless, and Beholder Eyes is somewhat underpowered. Suggestion: completely revamp Falcon Eyes, remove the 100 Defense Piercing from Beholder Eyes.quoteo(post=1560:date=Dec 5 2009, 08:10 PM:name=EternalLurker)QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Dec 5 2009, 08:10 PM) quoteccoloro:#FF0000/coloro2) Are the Red perk tree (culminating in Sharpshooter) and the Green perk tree (up to Nature Warden) balanced? If not, what can be done to improve the weaker one?colorc/colorcQuoteEndQuoteEEndI believe the two are quite well balanced. Endurance builds create impressive tanks against the vast majority of opponents and still have respectable range. The Red perk tree's overwhelming range gives Gelyan nearly the same survivability, as he can fight from far behind Neraine and take out long-range opponents before they reach him, and it allows him to protect the party in a different method from the tank: he can attack almost any troublesome opponent, regardless of location, and thus can defend multiple people in completely separate areas. Furthermore, a Power-focused Gelyan can instantly become a tank when necessary via a swift Soul Bond, offering unmatched versatility in combat; on the other hand, Endurance Gelyans are invaluable against foes with high Black resistance, against whom Power Gelyans are useless whether or not they are Soul Bonded.Verdict: balanced. No changes necessary.quoteo(post=1560:date=Dec 5 2009, 08:10 PM:name=EternalLurker)QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Dec 5 2009, 08:10 PM) quoteccoloro:#FF0000/coloro3) Are Gelyan's two Tarots balanced? If not, what can be done to improve the inferior one?colorc/colorcQuoteEndQuoteEEndI would love to hear more discussion of the Hanged Man from people more experienced with him than myself, but for now, based on my tests with both, I would sayVerdict: fairly balanced. No major changes necessary. Minor suggestions: improve Thunder Orb's damage, increase the Fool's health, increase the Hanged Man's Berserk effect.
timbits1o1
/coloro3) Are Gelyan's two Tarots balanced? If not, what can be done to improve the inferior one?colorc/colorcI think the hanged man could use more defense and resist as he pulls enemies in, essentialy making them attack him on their turn. he always dies in like 2 turns for me. His insane health is no use if he doesn't have good health regen, so that could be improved a bit. Also, about the fool, i agree that his thunder orb(?) needs to be stronger, it's useless in most cases, and the fool is a melee unit anyways with his esse
EternalLurker
Rod is the field attack. (Also, the Fool isn't actually a melee unit; he's got 4 range, after all.)quoteo(post=1569:date=Dec 6 2009, 12:33 PM:name=timbits1o1)QUOTE (timbits1o1 @ Dec 6 2009, 12:33 PM) quotecI think the hanged man could use more defense and resist as he pulls enemies in, essentialy making them attack him on their turn. he always dies in like 2 turns for me. His insane health is no use if he doesn't have good health regen, so that could be improved a bit.QuoteEndQuoteEEndThe Hanged Man's impressive Endurance and moderate Magic already offer him a fair amount of Defense and Resist. However, I agree entirely that he needs some more survivability, probably because his natural resistances are crappy. The Fool at least can Castle to a safe place and attack at range even if he's not Soul Bonded; the Hanged Man really only has melee combat as an option, as Arctic Call's damage is fairly lame on a single opponent, and a stationary unit like the Hanged Man has little chance of using it on more than one.Come to think of it, you bring up a very good point: survivability is really the core issue behind Berserk's uselessness, which I mentioned in my previous post. It's not that Berserk doesn't increase his damage enough...The problem is that it doesn't really matter how much stronger his attacks get when his health's low, because at low health he's just going to die anyway, so that only gives one turn of usefulness. I'd suggest buffing his natural resistances to 20% Black (+20) / 0% Red / 40% Blue (+15) / 0% Yellow (+25) / -50% White, instead of my previous suggestion about increasing Berserk's effectiveness.EDIT: It occurs to me that I should be calling it Pain Eater, not Berserk, since only An would understand the latter. >_> I'll do that from now
chamomileess
QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Dec 5 2009, 05:11 PM) quotecVerdict: unbalanced. Falcon Eyes is completely useless, and Beholder Eyes is somewhat underpowered. Suggestion: completely revamp Falcon Eyes, remove the 100 Defense Piercing from Beholder Eyes.QuoteEndQuoteEEndWould it help if Falcon eyes did exactly what Eagle eyes does? This would then make a Black-perk Gelyan the ultimate sniper in terms of accuracy (These two perks in tandem would reduce Saber's epic dodge rate of 850 to a mere 283.) Then for Beholder eyes, we could simply remove the defense piercing and 33% dodge reduction, and increase one of his primary stats by 1 or 2 (Power or magic was what I was thinking of, although magic is pretty useless... Unless you have a strange love for jelly shot...) Falcon eyes could add something else, but I haven't thought of what yet...quoteo(post=1561:date=Dec 5 2009, 05:11 PM:name=EternalLurker)QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Dec 5 2009, 05:11 PM) quotecVerdict: fairly balanced. No major changes necessary. Minor suggestions: improve Thunder Orb's damage, increase the Fool's health, increase the Hanged Man's Berserk effect.QuoteEndQuoteEEndI'm not sure how the damage rating formula works for the game, but if we increased the damage rating of Thunder Orb from 2.0 to, say, 3.2, what effect would that have? As for the Fool's HP, he can't get killed that quickly because of Castling. The only way the Fool can really be taken down is with field abilities, and Tale of Memory is pretty much the only one you have to fear for that.Going back to what timbits said, Thunder orb isn't TOTALLY useless... its 1 energy cost has saved me quite a few times, and though there aren't many of them, it absolutely destroys enemies with a yellow/magic weakness.As for pain eater, the strategy guide doesn't give me enough information about it...How much extra damage/decrease of white resist? What's the formula that it works
an
Pain eater boost your damage by the differences between max HP and current HP, up to 100% bonus. For example, if the Hanged man has half HP less, he recieve 50% bonus in his damage.Good thread btw EL. I will follow this thread closely to make the necessary adjustme
EternalLurker
QUOTE (Chamomile @ Dec 6 2009, 03:17 PM) quotecWould it help if Falcon eyes did exactly what Eagle eyes does? This would then make a Black-perk Gelyan the ultimate sniper in terms of accuracy (These two perks in tandem would reduce Saber's epic dodge rate of 850 to a mere 283.) Then for Beholder eyes, we could simply remove the defense piercing and 33% dodge reduction, and increase one of his primary stats by 1 or 2QuoteEndQuoteEEndNote that Gelyan's central Dark Ranger perk (which he's going to have if you have Falcon Eyes) already gives 30+(Level*6) Dodge Piercing. At level 20 that's 150 Dodge Piercing. Dropping their Dodge to 1/3 and then subtracting 150 is incredibly overpowered for a total of only 3 stat points (Agility 10, Magic 7 is 3 stat points above Gelyan's starting stats). I do agree with the idea of dropping the Dodge piercing from Beholder Eyes to Falcon Eyes, but let's not add so much. How about we give him a Dodge Piercing bonus instead of a Dodge Piercing Rate bonus (a flat reduction like Dark Ranger instead of a percentage decrease like Eagle Eyes), say 100? "Falcon Eyes: Ignores 100 of enemy Dodge; increases Agility by 1" sounds much more useful than what we have currently, and I certainly don't think it's overpowered. It helps him qualify for Beholder Eyes or just 3 attacks per fight, and reducing Dodge by 100 instead of 33% is less effective on anyone with more than 300 Dodge but virtually guarantees a hit on anyone with less, which sounds just about perfect for Gelyan (whose Battle Abilities are less accurate than Neraine's and Sisily's).As for Beholder Eyes, a stat bonus could be useful, but I took that idea of yours as well as the Dodge piercing one and stuck 'em on Falcon Eyes, and I think that works out well. How about we replace the Dodge and Defense piercing with an unusual ability of some sort? I'm pretty sure, from what I've seen of the code, that the game engine can handle the following..."Beholder Eyes: Increases Black resist by 25%; Increases damage taken from White attacks by 50%; Reduces Movement of opponent by 1 this turn" is still in line with the flavor of Beholder Eyes while providing a benefit to the party as opposed to Gelyan himself. It's not overpowered since any enemy whose movement would be reduced to 0 will of course have powerful ranged abilities (every enemy with 1 Movement always does), and an enemy whose movement is reduced to 0 can always catch Gelyan since he can't move and attack in the same turn. It just helps the other party members: he can slow a boss down to give them time to regroup and heal, or he can hold off incoming enemies from one side while the party is fighting elsewhere, in order to reduce the effectiveness of an enemy flanking maneuver. If this does turn out to be too difficult to implement in the game engine we can do something else.quoteo(post=1574:date=Dec 6 2009, 03:17 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Dec 6 2009, 03:17 PM) quotecI'm not sure how the damage rating formula works for the game, but if we increased the damage rating of Thunder Orb from 2.0 to, say, 3.2, what effect would that have? As for the Fool's HP, he can't get killed that quickly because of Castling. The only way the Fool can really be taken down is with field abilities, and Tale of Memory is pretty much the only one you have to fear for that.QuoteEndQuoteEEndMultiplying its damage by about 1.4 is what I was planning, which is similar to the number you suggested. The problem with the Fool is that he can die in , though, and then he has no time to Castle to safety. His Rod Twirl is too inaccurate for him to use his own Essence of Slyness to heal much. Perhaps, however, that is the issue more than his health. I think giving Rod Twirl a Hit of 120 would be sufficient to increase his survivability significantly. It really misses too often as-is. Increasing its accuracy, then decreasing its damage and increasing the Fool's Power to compensate would be perfect.quoteo(post=1574:date=Dec 6 2009, 03:17 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Dec 6 2009, 03:17 PM) quotecAs for pain eater, the strategy guide doesn't give me enough information about it...How much extra damage/decrease of white resist? What's the formula that it works on?QuoteEndQuoteEEndJust like the Fool's Ethereal perk, that note about resistances is just for show. The effect it has on his resistances is already calculated into the resistances you see on the first page of his section of the strategy guide. The damage increase of Pain Eater is a straight percentage multiplier: if he's lost 30% of his health (so he's at 70%) then he does 130% damage, and if he's at 10% health he'll do 190% damage. That Berserk bonus is only significant at less than 50% health or so, at which he dies too quickly against anyone he's capable of hurting. (He could survive against a Blue opponent due to his natural resistance, but he's not going to do significant damage to a Blue foe anyway.) So I think a boost to his natural resistances would be helpful.EDIT: Damnit. Ninja'd by An hims
an
((Fool_magic x 4) + (random modifier ranging from 0 to 10)) x ( duration of collision * 36).Duration of collision is the duration while thunder orb overlapping enemy in second. Typically, this duration is 1.2 second.There is a hidden mechanism about damage types. There is 3 kind of damage types: Normal, Concussive and Special. Thunder orb damage is concussive type which mean it deal more damage to bigger enemy and can't be dodged (200% hit rate).On the same topic, Rod Twirl damage formula is:50 + (random modifier ranging from 0 to 50) + 20 x (power/2.5) x(power/2.5)Rod wirl hits 4 times and the each attack is calculated separately. Its type is "Normal" which mean rod twirl will deal the same amount of damage on all enemies sizes. Power increase Normal damage exponentially instead of linearly. Normal damage can be dodged ( hit rate below 1
EternalLurker
The reason I make this distinction between affecting the Fool's stats and affecting the Battle Abilities is that the Fool is powerful when Soul Bonded but is quite weak when he isn't, so improving his stats is important to make him viable for people who want to be able to use him without being forced to Soul Bond. Just because I like the combination of Vampirism and Essence of Slyness doesn't mean it should be the only practical way to use the Fool. Improving his Battle Abilities, on the other hand, would make him overpowered when Soul Bonded.The current situation is that the Fool should be Soul Bonded, since there's no significant drawback to doing otherwise. Thunder Rod's damage is respectable enough even with the Magic decrease and Thunder Orb is too weak to bother with it most of the time. Shifting the focus of his magical damage (Thunder Orb and Thunder Rod) to his stats rather than his Battle Abilities gives Soul Bonding a more clear penalty. A situation in which a character is vastly superior when built a certain way (in this case, when Soul Bonded) homogenizes character building and should be avoided.By the way, An, just so you know, the way the code is written doesn't make 200% Hit attacks undodgeable. Instead, an enemy with 1001 Dodge has about a 50% chance to be hit by an attack with 150% Hit but will ALWAYS dodge attacks with 200% Hit rates. If you're planning on including any enemies with Dodge rates higher than 1000, take note of that. Look at Neraine's Frozen Steps, for example (sprite 742): it compares a hit chance of 100 to the enemy's Dodge/10, so if the enemy has 1001 Dodge he'll always evade.EDIT: Oh, hm, I just realized that's a mistake present only in some Battle Abilities. The Hanged Man's Grand Cross (sprite 2276), for example, compares 100 to 0 and thus always hits. Don't forget to fix that, then, for ITRH. ^_^DOUBLE EDIT: Hey, An, here's a question to which I don't know the answer. Didn't find it in the code (though I didn't look very hard; I've been busy). Does Dodge Piercing occur or Dodge Piercing Rate? Ditto for Defense Piercing (Rate). For example, with a level 20 Gelyan (150 Dodge Piercing) using Eagle Eyes (33% Dodge Piercing Rate) against an opponent with 700 base Dodge, would he be up against 317 Dodge or
si.ner.ge
1) What Black resistant enemies are there that don't also have a high Defense to boost Armor Crusher's power? The only situation I can remember off the top of my head in which Gely was "useless" is Battle 24 with the shadows, where either build is going to be largely occupied with Conjuring/Soulbursting the Fool.2) Speaking of which...what effect would increasing the Fool's Magic stat potentially have on Plasma Solstice? (one instance in which you do NOT want to Soulbond him)I prepared a long-ish rant on why I prefer the Fool to the Hanged Man, but my issues couldn't really be addressed without changing the fundamental nature of the Hanged Man's abilities, so I'll just post the relevant points here:1) The Hanged Man has zero mobility and a pathetic 2 range. This makes him hard to use effectively, especially against mobile enemies (which a lot of Red natured enemies are). Conjuring the Hanged Man in a bad position can hamper the party for the entire battle. Further, since Gely has only 1 action per turn, if the optimal position for the Hanged Man is not in a square adjacent to Gely's starting position he must waste a turn to move, compared to the Fool who can relocate practically anywhere.2) The Hanged Man's field abilities are also not as useful as the Fool's. While pulling an enemy adjacent is nice, it makes the Hanged Man's range of 2 pointless against melee enemies, and sometimes you don't want an enemy in one of those positions just to be able to attack with a character. The Hanged Man's field ability is also the only one with a restricted range, and given his high Endurance the likelihood of him getting swarmed enough to maximize Arctic Call is slim.3) While I'm not entirely sure what Essence of Winter does, it doesn't seem to help much against non-Red enemies, and even then it pales in utility to the Fool's, as it only benefits a Magic-focused Nera, the Hanged Man himself, and the High Priestess if you're using her to attack. As a tank, the Hanged Man also has no self-healing ability, unlike Moon Waltz Nera, Endurance Gely, or (Soul Bonded) Fool.I will run some more tests with the HM when I get him to see if he can be useful for something other than Last Exile, but for the most part I only use him for 1) pulling the Beholder arms in Memory 8 and 2) pulling Tale then Soulburst
EternalLurker
quoteo(post=1593:date=Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM:name=Si.Ner.Ge)QUOTE (Si.Ner.Ge @ Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM) quotec1) What Black resistant enemies are there that don't also have a high Defense to boost Armor Crusher's power?QuoteEndQuoteEEndPotentially some more in ITRH, but that's not the issue. The point is that any enemy with high Black resistance is going to weaken Armor Crusher massively. High Defense will only the effect. Fighting an enemy with high Defense and high Black Resistance would be similar to fighting an enemy with 0 Defense and 0 Black Resistance in terms of Armor Crusher, except for the downside of not being able to resort to Trigger Happy in an Energy crisis. Sure, a Power Gelyan can still do decent damage in such a scenario, assuming he doesn't run low on Energy, but A: dealing with Energy issues via Trigger Happy is an advantage Power Gelyans have over Endurance Gelyans, so that's lost here; and B: "decent" damage still would be less than Soul Pact in this situation, so again Endurance Gelyans win. The point was to compare Endurance and Power Gelyans in every situation, so even if Armor Crushers are usually not against most high-Black-Resistance enemies they're clearly not as well suited to dealing with them as Soul Pact builds are.quoteo(post=1593:date=Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM:name=Si.Ner.Ge)QUOTE (Si.Ner.Ge @ Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM) quotec2) Speaking of which...what effect would increasing the Fool's Magic stat potentially have on Plasma Solstice? (one instance in which you do NOT want to Soulbond him)QuoteEndQuoteEEndYeah, forgot to mention that is also another reason, perhaps even the main one, that the Fool's damage should be shifted from the ability toward his Magic stat. He really should have a lot more Magic and his Battle Abilities' damage ratings should be a lot lower, with the exception of Rod Twirl. That way Soul Bonding him makes Rod Twirl still quite powerful, but isn't strictly better in every situation since you're giving up all of his Magic options. In the current situation, Plasma Solstice's damage definitively dives, but it's always worth it due to the tanking boost of Soul Bond for the entire time he's alive, save for in specific fights against White-weak enemies like the shadows.quoteo(post=1593:date=Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM:name=Si.Ner.Ge)QUOTE (Si.Ner.Ge @ Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM) quotec1) The Hanged Man has zero mobility and a pathetic 2 range. This makes him hard to use effectively, especially against mobile enemies (which a lot of Red natured enemies are). Conjuring the Hanged Man in a bad position can hamper the party for the entire battle. Further, since Gely has only 1 action per turn, if the optimal position for the Hanged Man is not in a square adjacent to Gely's starting position he must waste a turn to move, compared to the Fool who can relocate practically anywhere.QuoteEndQuoteEEndExactly, the Hanged Man's main issue is actually inability to move, no fault of the Hanged Man himself. I rather like the of the Hanged Man's mobility and range really being fairly useless as compared to the Fool, and compensating by making him an overwhelmingly powerful opponent for the one turn that he pulls the enemy in with Dark Gravity, but at the moment he's simply underwhelming. Sure, Dark Gravity is more offensive than Castling since it can bring an enemy within range of the party, but the downside to that is that you don't to bring an overwhelmingly powerful unit like, say, the Tale Memory in range of your weaker units like the Magician. Therefore, Castling has defensive and offensive utilities while Dark Gravity is stuck to offensive unless the Hanged Man is far from the party and can thus defend it by pulling powerful enemies away from the weaker characters. Which brings me to a suggestion...Ever since the very first time I used him I was disappointed, and I immediately had an idea that could make the Hanged Man far more useful, but I've never mentioned it because I thought it might be hard to implement given the restrictions of the engine. I'll mention it now, though, in case it be done. What if, when Gelyan has a Tarot other than the Hanged Man active, clicking on the button to Summon the Hanged Man automatically entered the Soulburst menu for the other Tarot, as if clicking on the Soulburst button? Say you summon the Fool, then Castle to an optimal location for the Hanged Man. Instead of then Soulbursting the Fool and Summoning the Hanged Man, Gelyan could do both in one step. Making the Hanged Man the quickest Tarot to Summon would, due to the Fool's Castling, compensate for his uselessness if Summoned in a subpar location, since Gelyan can now make sure to Summon him on the perfect tile without wasting too many turns in the process.I think he's technically "balanced" with the Fool, but that's only because of his overwhelmingly powerful Soulburst, and that's not a good idea since it makes his interesting combat abilities go to waste if we're just going to Summon him, Soulburst him, then stick with the Fool. If I could have my complete choice of what to do with the Hanged Man to make him usable in combat, it'd be: higher natural resistances, x1.3-x1.5 Berserk effect, and auto-Soulbursting the active Tarot as described above. To compensate, I'd tone down his incredible Soulburst just a little bit: drop Power and Magic by 3 instead of 4, and reduce the physical damage a bit. Most of its power comes from the -3% HP per turn effect anyway.There is another option, as well. Instead of the auto-Soulburst mechanic, Dark Gravity could be buffed by making it summon two opponents per use. After the first target-selection menu, another pops up asking if you want to use Dark Gravity again, then allows you to pick a different enemy and a different summoning square. That alone would make him far more useful as well.quoteo(post=1593:date=Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM:name=Si.Ner.Ge)QUOTE (Si.Ner.Ge @ Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM) quotec2) The Hanged Man's field abilities are also not as useful as the Fool's. While pulling an enemy adjacent is nice, it makes the Hanged Man's range of 2 pointless against melee enemies, and sometimes you don't want an enemy in one of those positions just to be able to attack with a character. The Hanged Man's field ability is also the only one with a restricted range, and given his high Endurance the likelihood of him getting swarmed enough to maximize Arctic Call is slim.QuoteEndQuoteEEndI should mention that Arctic Call's range is identical to that of Illumination with the advantage of not hurting allies, so on its own its area of effect actually seems amazing. The problem is that its damage is pretty wimpy for a single opponent, and yes, the Hanged Man isn't going to be using it on multiple opponents since they'll just run away after the first turn before he can pull off a Dark Gravity again. (That wouldn't be the case for my above suggestion of allowing him to summon two opponents per Dark Gravity.) As for Dark Gravity's general effectiveness, however, the advantage of it is that, if used early in a round, you get the wailing on one enemy, as opposed to the Fool Castling a single friendly unit up into a mess of enemies.quoteo(post=1593:date=Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM:name=Si.Ner.Ge)QUOTE (Si.Ner.Ge @ Dec 7 2009, 02:49 AM) quotec3) While I'm not entirely sure what Essence of Winter does, it doesn't seem to help much against non-Red enemies, and even then it pales in utility to the Fool's, as it only benefits a Magic-focused Nera, the Hanged Man himself, and the High Priestess if you're using her to attack. As a tank, the Hanged Man also has no self-healing ability, unlike Moon Waltz Nera, Endurance Gely, or (Soul Bonded) Fool.QuoteEndQuoteEEndNon-Soul-Bonded Fools have self-healing too, but it sucks. :P The Fool's Power is too low to rely on Rod Twirl for Essence of Slyness' low healing, at least at his current level. Since Essence of Slyness also scales with his level, he should be okay later. Anyway, Essence of Winter lowers the Blue resistances of enemies, and I think it's fine as-is; you'll notice a significant increase in the power of Crystal Ballad and Frozen Steps when you use it, making Neraine's already godlike damage even more ridiculous. Frankly, it's so win-more for a Magic-focused Neraine that it's actually useful for a Power Neraine, allowing her to do some Blue damage against enemies who are too strong against Black.The Hanged Man shouldn't have too much self-healing, since he does more damage at lower health. I think that Pain Eater should be exaggerated, as I pointed out above in my bolded list of suggestions, to compensate for this. He already has some decent self-healing if he needs it since Grand Cross does more than enough damage for Essence of Slyness to be helpful.In summary, there are two sides from which the Hanged Man needs to be buffed: combat utility and battlefield control. Both should be balanced by weakening his Soulburst somewhat. This will make him more useful while active rather than making him "balanced" only by nature of the effectiveness of Summoning him and then Soulbursting him immediately, which makes a potentially cool character go to waste. (Personally, I treat Death the same way, with the instant Soulburst, but the fact that so many people means she can be used both ways; since the majority of people use the Hanged Man as I do, it's significantly more of an issue.)Combat utility:Both survivability and damage are needed. Compensate by weakening the Soulburst as described above.-Survivability: Increased natural resistances, preferably to 20% Black, 0% Red, 40% Blue, 0% Yellow, -50% White.-Damage: The above increase will affect Pain Eater since he can survive at lower health now. Preferably a boost to Arctic Call's damage would be nice, but also more of an increase in Pain Eater's effectiveness, perhaps x1.3-x1.5, would be helpful. Alternately, instead of making Pain Eater more effective than it is, increasing his starting Agility by three points would be nice, so that A: he can get attacks in before the opponent for quicker damage, and B: he can hit Agility 14 more quickly, allowing for two Grand Crosses followed by Cold Torment for more significant damage against opponents with high Resist.Battlefield control:Just one of the following would increase his effectiveness enough in this category.-Starting location: Extremely important for the Hanged Man, which is a problem since Gelyan has crappy mobility. Can be fixed by making the Hanged Man automatically Soulburst the active Tarot upon his Summoning, allowing a Fool Castle to wherever Gelyan needs to go and then a simultaneous Plasma Solstice and Hanged Man Summoning.-Gravity effectiveness: Summoning one enemy per turn is slow, in comparison to the Fool who can Castle a powerful unit to the front lines where said unit can fight enemies. Allowing Dark Gravity to summon two units per cast would be helpful.What does everyone think about these changes? I think the Survivability increase is a must, and one of the two Damage increases would be helpful. I'd personally prefer the interesting utility of the auto-Soulburst mechanic for battlefield control, but increasing the effectiveness of Dark Gravity is another option; doing both would of course be pretty overpowered, though, so just one or the ot
chamomileess
QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Dec 5 2009, 05:10 PM) quoteccoloro:#FF0000/coloro2) Are Gelyan's Red perk tree (culminating in Sharpshooter) and the Green perk tree (up to Nature Warden) balanced? If not, what can be done to improve the weaker one?colorc/colorcQuoteEndQuoteEEndDo you mean that they're balanced vs each other? Because if you do, it would be pretty hard to guage them against each other, seeing as how they both play off of two completely opposite stat builds.Nature Warden obviously focuses on Gely's survivability, which in turn helps out Soul Pact.Sharpshooter, on the other hand, turns Gelyan into a "Glass Cannon" like a Magic Sisily.I suppose it's all down to personal preference.quoteo(post=1576:date=Dec 6 2009, 01:24 PM:name=EternalLurker)QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Dec 6 2009, 01:24 PM) quotec"Beholder Eyes: Increases Black resist by 25%; Increases damage taken from White attacks by 50%; " is still in line with the flavor of Beholder Eyes while providing a benefit to the party as opposed to Gelyan himself. It's not overpowered since any enemy whose movement would be reduced to 0 will of course have powerful ranged abilities (every enemy with 1 Movement always does), and an enemy whose movement is reduced to 0 can always catch Gelyan since he can't move and attack in the same turn.QuoteEndQuoteEEndI think this addition to Beholder Eyes would be a little complicated...How would you affect the target for only one turn if B.E. is a perk? Would it run along the lines of this:Gelyan initiates an attack on (Target)(Target) moves 1 space less after the battle is finished?When I first read your re-vamp of B.E., I was thinking more along the lines of:"Beholder Eyes: Increase Black resist by 25%; Increases damage taken from White attacks by 50%; Reduces Enemy agility by (1,2,3?)". This would in turn give Gelyan dodge piercing, but not by much. It would also reduce the number of actions the enemy can execute, much like the Beholder boss in the actual g
EternalLurker
QUOTE (Chamomile @ Dec 7 2009, 03:36 PM) quotecDo you mean that they're balanced vs each other? Because if you do, it would be pretty hard to guage them against each other, seeing as how they both play off of two completely opposite stat builds.QuoteEndQuoteEEndOf course, but I'm taking that into account. After all, the perks have pre-reqs, and pre-reqs are part of balancing.I think we have approximately as many people who believe Power Gelyans to be stronger as we do Endurance Gelyan fans, as well as those like myself (and maybe you, Chamomile?) who think they're balanced, so unless anyone objects I'm going to take that issue off the table now.quoteo(post=1597:date=Dec 7 2009, 03:36 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Dec 7 2009, 03:36 PM) quotecI think this addition to Beholder Eyes would be a little complicated...How would you affect the target for only one turn if B.E. is a perk? Would it run along the lines of this:Gelyan initiates an attack on (Target)(Target) moves 1 space less after the battle is finished?QuoteEndQuoteEEndPrecisely. So it's only useful when he's attacking (since, if he's defending, the target's already used his Movement that turn).*Gelyan attacks a target with 4 move. They fight and hurt each other.*Player turn ends; AI turn starts.*That turn, the person Gelyan fought has 3 move.Like that.quoteo(post=1597:date=Dec 7 2009, 03:36 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Dec 7 2009, 03:36 PM) quotec"Beholder Eyes: Increase Black resist by 25%; Increases damage taken from White attacks by 50%; Reduces Enemy agility by (1,2,3?)".QuoteEndQuoteEEndAlready considered, but I like Sisily's Blood perks being unique. Let's not have Gelyan trample on her niche. Agility Piercing is her th
chamomileess
What possible stat or unique ability could we give Gelyan once he gets Beholder Eyes?We've ruled out:Defense PiercingDodge PiercingAgility Reduction+Power( Same as sharpshooter perks)+Endurance (Same as nature warden perks)Increasing movement range ( Beholder Eyes makes you move farther??? O_O)We're considering:Enemy movement reduction+Agility ( kinda makes sense... Eyes= better vision=better dodge?)We have not yet considered:Increasing resist of other coloured abilitiesIncreasing rangeAm I missing anyth
EternalLurker
Well, I'm still not sure if Dodge Piercing (a flat Dodge reduction) takes effect before Dodge Piercing Rate (a percentage reduction). I'm working on the assumption that it does, unless An says otherwise or until I have some time to look into the code and check for mys
si.ner.ge
QUOTE (Chamomile @ Dec 7 2009, 08:32 PM) quotecOk then...What possible stat or unique ability could we give Gelyan once he gets Beholder Eyes?We've ruled out:Defense PiercingDodge PiercingAgility Reduction+Power( Same as sharpshooter perks)+Endurance (Same as nature warden perks)Increasing movement range ( Beholder Eyes makes you move farther??? O_O)QuoteEndQuoteEEndWell, Dodge Reduction doesn't seem like it'd be overpowered, but might be redundant with the previous Eyes. I guess you can say it's been ruled out.quoteoQUOTE quotecWe're considering:Enemy movement reduction+Agility ( kinda makes sense... Eyes= better vision=better dodge?)QuoteEndQuoteEEndI approve. Though it might be hard to implement.quoteoQUOTE quotecWe have not yet considered:Increasing resist of other coloured abilitiesIncreasing rangeQuoteEndQuoteEEndNo chance - Nature Heart (and Warden) increases magic resist, and increased range is Power Gely's entire shtick.quoteoQUOTE quotecAm I missing anything?QuoteEndQuoteEEndBlack Piercing?quoteoQUOTE quotecAlternately, some sort of Black Resistance reduction might be nice, but it'd have to be an ugly number to be balanced against the Red tree: 7-9% is fair, as anything less is useless and anything more is too strong in comparison to the Red tree. I don't want ugly numbers in the perks. (-.-)QuoteEndQuoteEEndThe Red tree gives Gely 7 range and 60% healing without Soul Bond. How overpowering would the Black tree's greater damage be? (Doesn't Soul Pact have the best raw damage potential anyhow, with Gely's higher starting Enduran
EternalLurker
QUOTE (Si.Ner.Ge @ Dec 8 2009, 12:01 AM) quotecWell, Dodge Reduction doesn't seem like it'd be overpowered, but might be redundant with the previous Eyes. I guess you can say it's been ruled out.QuoteEndQuoteEEndRemember that the Black perks don't unlock a new central perk, unlike the Reds and Greens, so redundancy isn't an issue.quoteo(post=1625:date=Dec 8 2009, 12:01 AM:name=Si.Ner.Ge)QUOTE (Si.Ner.Ge @ Dec 8 2009, 12:01 AM) quotecThe Red tree gives Gely 7 range and 60% healing without Soul Bond. How overpowering would the Black tree's greater damage be? (Doesn't Soul Pact have the best raw damage potential anyhow, with Gely's higher starting Endurance?)QuoteEndQuoteEEnd60% HP leech (actually, isn't it 90%? I thought Sharpshooter stacked with Devil's Hunt...) is great if you land your hits they do enough damage, but the Red tree has no accuracy bonuses at all; it even loses Dark Ranger's 150 Dodge Piercing. If the Black tree had better damage accuracy resistance it'd be a problem. I think -30% Black Resistance is okay, though, but I'll have to crunch some numbers to make sure, and of course the enemies that show up in ITRH are different as well. Nonetheless, overall that's a big damage boost for most of Gelyan's abilities, which in addition to the fact that they'll be landing a lot more often with -(250 + 33%) Dodge makes Beholder and Falcon Eyes powerful enough, I think. The Black tree taken all at once would thus give Gelyan amazing accuracy (effectively one more attack per turn since Jelly Shot becomes generally unnecessary), +25% Black Resistance and -30% enemy Black Resistance at the cost of 50% White Resistance, 4 Agility, and 6 Magic.Some notable options:Soul Bond! You lose the +1 Agility from Falcon Eyes technically, but it did help qualify for Beholder Eyes. You now do great damage with overwhelming accuracy, thus leeching HP at a rate comparable to the Red tree perk, but trading range for durability (+25% Black Resistance, and none of that massive Endurance loss). This is somewhere between the tanking capabilities of an Endurance Gelyan and the damage output of a Power Gelyan, which is exactly the sort of balance his third tree should have. I like that.Swap Beholder Eyes for Devil's Hunt! 30% HP drain and +2 Power is nice when you're reducing enemy Dodge by a massive 250 + 33%, especially with your high attacks per turn due to Falcon Eyes. This would probably be my second favorite build next to pure Endurance if these changes are made.Other perk combos can do some interesting things too. I like this.Summary of suggested changes so far:Falcon Eyes: 100 Dodge Piercing, +1 Agility - old version, 200 Defense Piercing, is pretty much useless since it weakens Armor Crusher and only boosts Trigger HappyBeholder Eyes: +25% Black Resistance, -50% White Resistance, 30% Black Resistance Piercing - old version had the useless 100 Defense Piercing, and Dodge Piercing was basically moved to Falcon Eyes, though weakened since that's a lower-tier perkThoughts? Conce
si.ner.ge
Pure Red Nera has 40 Power (35 RD +3 PO +2 AA), 25% dodge piercing (DS), 100% defense piercing (RD, redundant +25% from DS), and 0 dodge, defense, and resist (RD).Pure Green Nera has 6 move (3 +LS +FS +SD), +200 dodge (100 FS +100 GS), and 100 defense reduction (GS).No one uses Battle Rhyme so Pure Blue doesn't matter.Pure Red Gely has 9 range (Shp 7 +1 Marks +1 SS), -8 Endurance (-1 Shp -2 Marks -3 SS -2 DH), +4 Power (+2 SS +2 DH), and 90% leech (60% Shp +30% DH).Pure Green Gely has 3 range (NW), +800 hp (UH), +30% health regen (+15% RH +15% NW), +100 defense (RH), +35% Red/Blue resist (+20% NH +15% NW), +15% Yellow resist (NW), +15% White resist (-40% +20% NH +35% NW), +5 Power (NW) and +5 Magic (NW).Pure Black Gely is still being retrofitted.Pure Red Sisi has +11 Magic (+5 SB +3 SS +3 HS), +50% energy regen (+25% ES +25% HS), and 50% resist piercing (+25% SS +25% HS).Pure Blue Sisi has +4 Power (PG), -2 Magic (PG), 150 defense piercing (RB), and 300 resist piercing (+150 GB +150 RB).Pure White Sisi has +1650 hp (+850 DR +800 MG), -25% Blue resist (-50% +25% FrG) +50% Red/Yellow resist (+25% +25% FlG), +200 resist (+100 FrG +100 FlG), 200% magic reflect (150% DR 50% MG), and "Decreases all resists to 0" whatever that means. (reduces all positive Natural Resist of enemies to
EternalLurker
Also, I'm pretty certain that Divine Retribution just flat-out sets all Sisily's natural resistances to 0, just like Rave Dancer sets Neraine's Power to 35.It sounds like you wanna discuss balancing Battle Rhyme. You think it's underpowe
an
At it is right now, All red Gelyan has 60% Leech rate, not 90%. I may consider lowering that in the actual game tho. 60% is quite
