hale
QUOTE (Chamomile @ Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM) quotecOhGodWhatAHugePost D:QuoteEndQuoteEEndXD; Been on a different forum for too long which values long posts, THAT and i'm naturally a windbag. >_>;quoteo(post=2295:date=Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM) quotecTrue, Trigger Happy does have a lower cost in terms of energy, but you need to factor in its horrid accuracy rating (75) and how the damage is reduced by defense. Because we've already decided to buck the defense piercing in favour of a stronger Armour Crusher, Trigger Happy will become VERY useless against high dodge/ high defense opponents.QuoteEndQuoteEEndAssuming we DON'T buck the defense reduce, Trigger happy becomes a decent accuracy(given that the enemy's dodge rating just got hit by 66% AND had 100 points reduced before this AND the central black perk reduces dodge, I'd say you're looking at 0 dodge for most enemies), low energy attack which works on high def(who have just been hit with a 300 point penalty) enemies as well as low def(who are now 0 def enemies) enemies.quoteo(post=2295:date=Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM) quotecWhile this makes sense, it should be noted that this works on lower defense opponents. This will still bring us back to the issue of high defense. If the New Ability is Black-natured, it will be very dependent upon the defense of the opponent, which means that you'll have to rely on Armour Crusher. All in all, when the three skills are used together to cover various weaknesses, Gelyan will be balanced. For example:Opponent with 100 defense and 0 dodge(125 -100 and minus however much Gely's perks allow him to) could be easily dispatched with Trigger Happy due to its low cost: damage ratio.Opponent with 1000 defense and dodge should be taken down with Armour Crusher for obvious reasons.Opponent with 600 defense and 450 dodge. This one is a bit difficult, as the high dodge makes Armour Crusher unreliable, and the combination of High dodge and defense make Trigger Happy useless. This would be when you bring in the new mystery skill, assuming that it has some newfangled special effect that reduces these two somehow. ( A Magic based effect, perhaps?)That part of your post confused my a bit. Are you saying that a magic-build Gelyan will be weaker in the long run? If that's what you mean, then it's very obvious that that is true, seeing as how two out of his four attacks now are based on Power, not magic.QuoteEndQuoteEEndWith the defense reduction your formerly impressive 600 def enemy now has 300 def and around... 154 dodge(assuming the 100 is taken off before the % is applied). I don't think the new skill needs any special effect other than does somewhat comparable damage to Soul Pact/Armor Crusher on a high Defense Ratio opponent to kill that, perhaps normal accuracy rather than low(i.e 100% rather than Trigger Happy's 75%).In other word for non-endurance builds,Low Dodge/Armor = Trigger HappyHigh Dodge/Low Armor = Jelly Shot -> Trigger Happy/New Skill*Low Dodge/High Armor = New SkillHigh Dodge/High Armor = Jelly Shot -> New Skill**This is where the accuracy part comes into play, a power Gelyan can try to hit the enemy using Jelly Shot -> New Skill but Jelly shot only decreases dodge by a fairly small amount so a Gelyan with Black perks should still deal more damage compared to a Power Gelyan doing the same thing.Whereas Endurance Builds will spam Soul Pact or Jelly Shot->Soul Pact on everything that needs it.quoteo(post=2295:date=Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM) quotecI think what you're doing is trying to make Gelyan the "all-purpose" party member. You're saying that a power Gelyan should invest points into magic just so that he can have access to his stronger moves more often; it seems that you've overlooked the fact that this game is a game about a party of people, which means that Gelyan has support. There's a reason why most people make Sisi and Emi into Energy-batteries, so Gelyan won't need to cover that. You can, conceivably, build a Gelyan out of nothing but power, and he'll have stupidly low HP, he'll only be able to act twice per turn, and he'll only generate 6 energy on his own per turn, but his damage will be utterly insane. He can even spam any move he wants, since he has Sisily in front of him (in terms of turn order) and Emi behind him. So even though Gely needs magic for his perk tree, he won't be dependent on magic for energy.QuoteEndQuoteEEndI'm just trying to make sure no one centers their party around Gelyan and his (already impressive) arsenal of attacks though as you said, energy supply from Sisi and Emi kinda moots my point though @_@;quoteo(post=2295:date=Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM) quotecAgain, your post confuses me. You're saying that if Gelyan gets more attacks per turn, he can hit harder? O_O Maybe in cumulative damage, but not overall. The way I see it, an endurance/agility Gelyan would make the most sense, seeing as how he can get three Soul Pacts in every turn, and still do decent damage with every one if he has 14 agility. The only con of this is that Soul Pact takes 15% of his max HP each hit, which means that Gelyan will lose 45% HP every turn, so he'll be dependent upon his own healing abilities as well as the High Priestess from time to time.QuoteEndQuoteEEndSo far I've mainly been using Gelyan with 2 turns per battle and he can already wreck massive havoc with mostly power(and a bit into mag if I remember correctly, I never really focused on him being a damage dealer until Tale.).Having a Gelyan that focuses on Power/Endurance and Agility only sounds painful particularly with another 9 levels to go. That said, it's not really the point of this particular discussion so I'll just ignore that point and assume I didn't say anything about Agility being important. (For a sample of just how much this could potentially hurt, Soul Bond Gelyan, having 3 attacks(as opposed to 2 which is what most builds will have) and high power makes his Trigger Happy and Armor Crusher very painful)quoteo(post=2295:date=Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM:name=Chamomile)QUOTE (Chamomile @ Jan 4 2010, 01:47 PM) quotecI think the perk trees are there simply for the effect of getting the final Central Perk. Each of the perks are impressive on their own, but the Central Perk is what takes the cake. I doubt anyone would want to mix and match perks, except in a few extreme cases. As well, mixing and matching will cost you valuable attribute points just so that you can unlock it.For example, you said that Endurance Gelys will want to focus on Green and Black perks. Since there's only three, I'll list the possibilities:Unshaken Heart+ Falcon Eyes+ Nature Heart= Minimum 20 Endurance, 10 agility, 7 magic.Unshaken Heart+ Falcon Eyes+ Beholder Eyes= Minimum 10 Endurance, 14 Agility, 12 magicUnshaken Heart+ Rejuv. Heart+ Beholder Eyes= Minimum 16 Endurance, 14 Agility, 12 magic (<--Attribute point waste-age)Eagle Eyes+ Falcon Eyes+ Nature Heart= Minimum 20 Endurance, 10 agility, 7 MagicEagle Eyes+ Rejuv. Heart+ Nature Heart= Minimum 20 Endurance, 8 Agility, 7 MagicEagle Eyes+ Rejuv. Heart+ Beholder Eyes= Minimum16 Endurance, 14 Agility, 12 magic (<-- Another waster)Really, mixing the perks will give you a minor boost in an all around sense, but nothing really solid. Plus, you lose access to the Central Perk, which requires three perks of the same colour to become activated.QuoteEndQuoteEEndMmm. I was considering the bonuses only so I didn't take a look at the requireme
chamomileess
QUOTE (Hale @ Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM) quotecAssuming we DON'T buck the defense reduce, Trigger happy becomes a decent accuracy(given that the enemy's dodge rating just got hit by 66% before this AND the central black perk reduces dodge, I'd say you're looking at 0 dodge for most enemies), low energy attack which works on high def(who have just been hit with a 300 point penalty) enemies as well as low def(who are now 0 def enemies) enemies.QuoteEndQuoteEEndBut that's the thing; we've already decided that the defense piercing on all of Gely's perks are totally moot, since it reduces the power of Armour Crusher and only mildly inproves the damage of T.Happy (I got lazy D: ) As well, looking at your post, it looks like you're factoring in both the old version of Falcon Eyes (100 defense piercing) and the proposed re-vamp (100 ) (The bold-italics marks where I'm talking about) quoteo(post=2298:date=Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM:name=Hale)QUOTE (Hale @ Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM) quotecWith the defense reduction your formerly impressive 600 def enemy now has 300 def and around... 154 dodge(assuming the 100 is taken off before the % is applied). I don't think the new skill needs any special effect other than does somewhat comparable damage to Soul Pact/Armor Crusher on a high Defense Ratio opponent to kill that, perhaps normal accuracy rather than low(i.e 100% rather than Trigger Happy's 75%).QuoteEndQuoteEEndAgain, I feel I need to state the fact that defense reduction is terrible for ANY Gelyan. I find that even when I use a Power Gely, I almost never use T.Happy later in the game. It's always Armour Crusher, even on the lower defense opponents simply because it hits more often. ( I know, the 75% hit rate for T.Happy is spread across 18 shots, and the 100% for A.Crusher is spread across 2 shots; I just have atrocious luck when it comes to hit rates, yet for dodge rates, I can't get hit at all (18 agility Nera= untouchable for me O-o))quoteo(post=2298:date=Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM:name=Hale)QUOTE (Hale @ Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM) quotecI'm just trying to make sure no one centers their party around Gelyan and his (already impressive) arsenal of attacks though as you said, energy supply from Sisi and Emi kinda moots my point though @_@;QuoteEndQuoteEEndGely isn't central character O-o. I know he's absolutely destructive, but he's pretty much equal with the girls. I've been following EL's build for Nera (the 14 Agility Edition) who's a hybrid Power/Magic Moonwaltzer ( 1 Moonwaltz= 35 power /laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" /> ), Sisily is the ever-popular Pure magic. Really, it's impossible to focuss on Gely when the other characters are just as good.quoteo(post=2298:date=Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM:name=Hale)QUOTE (Hale @ Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM) quotec(For a sample of just how much this could potentially hurt, Soul Bond Gelyan, having 3 attacks(as opposed to 2 which is what most builds will have) and high power makes his Trigger Happy and Armor Crusher very painful)QuoteEndQuoteEEndSoul-bond Gely is terrifying, in my opinion. In late game, we'll assume that Death's attributes are: (lvl 20)26 power, 18 endure, 20 agility.Add that on to a Red Perk Gely with the Sharpshooter Central, and you get:26 power (less than what he would have, but eh.) 18 endure ( A HELL of a lot more than he would have if you were focusing on power) and 20 agility ( Holy poo, 5 attacks!?), as well as 60% HP leech from the Sharpshooter Perk with Death's Vampirism. What you have is someone who can deal stupidly high damage (5 TIMES /wacko.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wacko:" border="0" alt="wacko.gif" /> ) and convert almost 80% of that damage into HP. Tack that on with the high defense provided from the Endure, and you have yourself a-near invincible tank that won't die so long as he can attack with black natured abilities.quoteo(post=2298:date=Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM:name=Hale)QUOTE (Hale @ Jan 3 2010, 11:47 PM) quotecMmm. I was considering the bonuses only so I didn't take a look at the requirements.QuoteEndQuoteEEndEven when you look at the bonuses, none of them are very good when they're alone, or even mixed with others from different trees. The main point of following a perk tree/build is to unlock the central perk.
EternalLurker
First off, in case anyone doesn't understand the Central Perk mechanic, I'll restate it from the strategy guide. Everyone has a default Central Perk. Gelyan's is the Black Dark Ranger, Neraine's is the Blue Blade Dancer, and Sisily's is the Red Soul Bond. Characters whose Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Perks are all of an identical color that is not that of their default Central Perk change Central Perk. Sisily with three White Perks automatically gets Divine Retribution, for example. This is helpful for some builds and bad for others. For example, making Sisily into an overwhelming Power-whore by stacking Blood perks to get Petrifying Glare can be rewarding, but if you want to go for overall solid damage while still being a great battery, it may be preferable to go for something closer to, say, my ITRH plan: 1-Energized Soul, 2-Shining Soul, 3-Rainbow Blood, and 18 Agility. That way she doesn't lose her Magic bonus from Spell Bond and that combos with Energized Soul to make her into a very nice battery, yet Rainbow Blood and Shining Soul batter the enemy's Resist (with the Magician's help) while the former also boosts her Power and lowers the enemy's Defense. Similarly, I imagine most Hanged Man users will probably have Neraine go for Power Overwhelming, Absolute Authority, and God's Steps, as taking Divine Supremacy virtually kills Neraine's tanking ability.Now...Hale, what you're basically saying seems to be that keeping the Defense Piercing is all right if Gelyan gets a high-power Black move (as opposed to Armor Crusher's decent power + boost-by-enemy-Defense) because then he has Trigger Happy as and the new Move X as . The problem is that Defense Piercing nerfs Armor Crusher into uselessness. Therefore, Gelyan with Black Perks has only Trigger Happy and Move X as options, not Armor Crusher. Gelyan with Red Perks has and is doing more damage with each due to his high Power. There isn't any comparison unless the new move is, say, triply affected by enemy Defense, so that the Defense Piercing makes it godlike, in which case A: it's lamely overpowered; and B: that just doesn't make much sense in flavor. The thing is, Gelyan's central perk gives him Dodge Piercing, and he's guaranteed to have that if he has at least one Black Perk. Since Dodge Piercing should combo well with the inaccurate Armor Crusher, making Armor Crusher useless with the Black tree just makes Gelyan wimpy overall, so that needs fixing, plain and simple. Giving Gelyan a Black Magic move doesn't help the uselessness of Falcon Eyes since Magic wouldn't be affected by Defense Piercing anyway; it'd need Resist Piercing.No matter what, Falcon Eyes has to be revamped, and while I'm open to other suggestions as to how to do it, I think the one we've figured out there works pretty well. If Gelyan has Falcon Eyes, he's going to have Dark Ranger due to the way Central Perks work, so stacking 100 Dodge Piercing onto Dark Ranger's normal effects makes him lethally accurate. That plus 1 Agility is worth the pre-req cost of Falcon Eyes; Gelyan's damage scales so well with his stats that he normally can't afford Agility if he wants to max out his damage output, so this helps a
hale
QUOTE (Chamomile @ Jan 5 2010, 04:43 AM) quotecBut that's the thing; we've already decided that the defense piercing on all of Gely's perks are totally moot, since it reduces the power of Armour Crusher and only mildly inproves the damage of T.Happy (I got lazy D: ) As well, looking at your post, it looks like you're factoring in both the old version of Falcon Eyes (100 defense piercing) and the proposed re-vamp (100 ) (The bold-italics marks where I'm talking about)QuoteEndQuoteEEnd... oops. >_>; I misread Falcon Eyes as dodge piercing or i'm switching back and forth between the game and this forum too much to keep things straight in my head. Both are probable. :xquoteo(post=2308:date=Jan 5 2010, 07:29 AM:name=EternalLurker)QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Jan 5 2010, 07:29 AM) quotecToo much stuff about Gelyan to quote XD;QuoteEndQuoteEEndAnd no i'm not disregarding the point, i'm just too lazy to find the quote button.A Power Gelyan would want to get the entire red tree though for the 60% vampirism(which negates whatever dodge piercing a central black perk should net him) which means that he will have to lead off each round with Jelly Shot. What I'm proposing is that a Gelyan which focused on black perks would be able to foregoe that one turn spent lowering the enemy's dodge instead due to his insane 66% dodge reduction on top of his central perk. Admittedly this is only a useful thing is Gelyan has say 2-3 moves rather than the 5 that soul bonding Death would probably give him...On the other hand mixing and matching perks can easily net him 66% dodge reduction as well as either 30% hp leeching or +1 range (and some additional power in either case).@_@; Okay, looks like a revamp instead of having a strong black(magic or otherwise) skill is in or
EternalLurker
why we've revamped Falcon Eyes to do Dodge Piercing instead of Defense Piercing, to make up for the greater damage that Red and Green builds will do. This way all three Black perks reduce dodge somewhat, rather than Falcon Eyes being useless, so that you can't just take 1-Black 2-Red 3-Black and expect to have the absolute best of both worlds. So are you just agreeing, t
hale
QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Jan 5 2010, 10:29 AM) quotecI know the lack of a first-turn Jelly Shot is a significant advantage with enough Dodge Piercing. That's exactly why we've revamped Falcon Eyes to do Dodge Piercing instead of Defense Piercing, to make up for the greater damage that Red and Green builds will do. This way all three Black perks reduce dodge somewhat, rather than Falcon Eyes being useless, so that you can't just take 1-Black 2-Red 3-Black and expect to have the absolute best of both worlds. So are you just agreeing, then?QuoteEndQuoteEEndYep. I haven't messed enough with the game to be confident about changing the actual perks so i'll leave it up to people who've played it longer methi
chamomileess
Since Battle Rhyme is being overshadowed, what can we add to it to make it more appealing? At the moment, AA's 25% defense piercing is just too destructive to make Battle Rhyme worth it (although 100% damage on the defensive position is impressive, when compared with the 66% it should be).I say that along with the 100% damaged dealt, Nera should also receive a boost to her defense and resist along with Battle Rhyme, seeing as how someone who chooses Battle Rhyme will be counting on Nera getting attacked so that they can exploit the perk. Maybe an increase of 100-200 defense/resist? I wanted to propose a dodge increase, but the Green tree already offers that, so I don't want the Blue tree to be stealing Green's thunder.I don't see any problem with adding Defense and Resist, seeing as how Celestial Rhyme already adds Resist; why not follow the trend?On another issue, the Rave Dancer central perk will make MoonWaltzers obsolete, won't it? 35 power and 40 power have very little difference when it comes down to that. Will this mean that players can use a Divine Breath once Nera gets Rave Dancer so that they can reset all their magic and power points into Agility and Endurance? With the power set at 35, and 24 ( I think... 2 attribut points per level for 12 levels?) attribute points, is it possible to build a 35//16//4//20 Neraine? She could be a virtually invincible tank with the Fool's HP leech tacked on to that. Her high Endurance would ensure that her own HP recovery at the end of every turn will be about 18% per turn, and her stupidly high black damage will heal her (5 times, from 20 Agility) even if the Fool's HP leech is negligable.So, to summarize: Rave Dance= Not a MoonWaltzers fri
EternalLurker
As for Rave Dancer, Divine Breath gives you 35 Power / 20 Agility / 30 Magic / 6 Endurance. 5x Crystal Ballad at 35 Power / 30 Magic while entirely ignoring enemy Defense kills everything, even assuming she doesn't get another good Magic+Power attack later. So Rave Dancer is fine for my Moon Waltz build without using a Divine Breath: pump Magic, put a point into Endurance for Enchanting Rhyme in the early Moon-Waltz part of the game, put another point into it for Battle Rhyme in the mid-game, always keep just enough Power to qualify for each Red perk (including the Red perks themselves, as each helps you afford the next), and finally grab Divine Supremacy for late-game Rave Dancing, pump Agility to 20, and put the remainder of the points in Magic. It's not worth it to give Neraine much Endurance since Power already factors more into her HP formula than it does for other characters. And yes, that includes under Rave Dancer, so despite the fragility that 0 Defense/Resist/Dodge implies, Rave Dancers have very nice health.Celestial Rhyme is Neraine's only real imbalance at the moment. It's significantly underpowered compared to the other two Tertiary Perks. But if Neraine gets a very powerful Magic ability later on, something like a much more viable version of Frozen Steps, then 400 Resist Piercing could be powerful enough to be worth
mokona96
know this might not make sense, (or if I spelled that right) and nobody has posted on this in a while, so I'm not sure if we're done with it, but maybe beholder eyes could allow Gelyan to move and attack. I'm not sure how you could implement this though, without giving him two attack pha
chamomileess
QUOTE (Mokona @ Jan 8 2010, 02:16 PM) quotecI know this might not make sense, (or if I spelled that right) and nobody has posted on this in a while, so I'm not sure if we're done with it, but maybe beholder eyes could allow Gelyan to move and attack. I'm not sure how you could implement this though, without giving him two attack phases.QuoteEndQuoteEEndNo, that would be too difficult, not to mention that if Gely were able to both move and attack, he would dominate more than he already doe
EternalLurker
QUOTE (Mokona @ Jan 8 2010, 05:16 PM) quotecallow Gelyan to move and attackQuoteEndQuoteEEndbrokenbrokenbrooooooooooooooookeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
pyromania
QUOTE quotecAre Light Steps and Battle Rhyme balanced with Neraine's other perks? If not, how do we fix them?-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.QuoteEndQuoteEEnd- I don't understand the comment about Light Steps. It is inferior to the other two level 1 perks in pretty much every situation, so wouldn't that call for it to be balanced appropriately? If it was +50 Dodge or something that would make it a bit more powerful and hence be tempting. If lvl 10 Nera has ~60% evade with 20 Agility and the Lvl 2 Green Perk, it would make it 65%. That would be about 14% more durability to 100 hit attacks. At lvl 20 with 75% to 80% evade this would be a 25% increase in durability. Well, when it is first available the perk is something to grab when you are raising agility. I suppose it is balanced early, but not so much late. If you take the Lvl 2 Green Perk for her there is no real reason to take the Lvl 1 green perk. It just feels kind of pointlessly redundant. The difference between 3 and 4 move is significant, but not so much between 4 and 5.- Battle Rhyme is nice in theory but assuming that Nera is even the target of a single unit's attack then it only increases her damage output by 20% between her turn and her target's. If she is surrounded by enemies who all want to attack her and they are range 1 and she doesn't get obliterated by the assault then I suppose it is useful? You have to give up 10% of her evade to take it, which is where most of her durability comes from in the first pl
EternalLurker
QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Jan 5 2010, 09:30 PM) quotecDidn't we just spend the beginning of last page discussing the fact that Battle Rhyme is already extraordinarily powerful? If I pumped Neraine's Agility as most people do, instead of leaving her at 14, I'd certainly use Battle Rhyme, since she'd attack before her opponent even when on defense, and thus she'd kill everything with ease. Dude, it's +50% damage. That's ridiculously awesome: it has a greater effect than Absolute Authority on any enemy with less than 2000 base Defense (yeah right); it affects each enemy that attacks her every turn rather than just the one enemy she attacks; and it works on magical damage too. Absolute Authority really can't hold a candle to Battle Rhyme, frankly, with the sole exception of a low-Agility Neraine, who'll wanna be on the attack in order to go first and end the battle before taking much damage. In the late-game, when Neraine should have high Agility regardless of her build (due to her overwhelming stats), even that doesn't apply, so the only reason to take AA is that it's necessary for the Red Perk tree.QuoteEndQuoteEEndJust requoting my old post in response to your Battle Rhyme issues. Too lazy to retype anything.As for Light Steps, it's not meant to be used on its own. +1 movement isn't that great, but +2 is quite useful, and the Green tree as a whole is, we believe, balanced with the others. Individual perks aren't meant to be balanced, as I've stated before in this thread. Since having three perks of one non-default type changes the central perk, non-default perks generally need to be weaker than the default ones. That's not strictly true, but it's a good rule of thumb. And that's why it's good that Battle Rhyme is as overwhelmingly powerful as it
pyromania
Obviously this gets more extreme as you add enemies. 3 enemies means she has 400% total damage as opposed to 298... an increase of about 33% all in all. The problem is that she sacrifices either 1 Move and ~20% of her durability against evadable attacks or +2 power and 25% defense ignorance. Indeed I struggle to think of situations in part 1 where Nera ever counters three enemies at once... maybe the bear fights?I don't really understand why Light Steps being green matters. So Nera gets Flight-classing if she uses it along with the other green traits? Flight classing is not nearly as useful for Nera as it is Emi unless the maps are specifically tailored to reward that (ranged attackers on islands or with long land routes to them and so on). If Nera was ranged 2 that would be fairly useful as it allows her to grab a position where she could attack without being attacked and so on, but she is not ranged as Emi is so this is a far less useful trait.More importantly, unless I am mistaken the green center perk for Nera as it stand is absolutely terrible and a bad idea to take. According to the Sky Dancer description it does not increase evade as her blade dancer center perk does. This matters a rather lot since evade is crucial to a green Nera's durability. Indeed if synergy is what one is going for then it would be preferable to boost her evade by more and let her fit into the Niche it by more if anything, as that fits with the tree as a whole.I can't comment on Gel very much because I didn't try too many different builds on him, but defense reduction does feel fairly pointless, given his primary way of hurting things is either the Armor Crush or the HP-dependent attack. If his second attack cost less than 5 it might justify
EternalLurker
Sky Dancer is, at level 20, a decrease of 160 in Neraine's Dodge as compared to Blade Dancer. The +200 Dodge she gets from the Green perks more than compensates for that. Giving Neraine High Priestess -level mobility (in both movement range and movement type) with her formidable melee skills makes her a terror to absolutely everything on the battlefield; the High Priestess herself is already decent enough at that even without Neraine's incredible damage output. Furthermore, it's quite easy for Neraine to qualify for the Green perks, so you can make Endurance her secondary stat if you want her to be a mobile tank or you can focus on Power or Magic if you want damage output or a backup battery; she's completely versatile. If anything, the Rave Dancer perk is the only one for which I can see any viable argument about a central perk being too weak due to its major drawbacks; Sky Dancer is pretty bad
pyromania
QUOTE (EternalLurker @ Feb 22 2010, 10:40 PM) quotecYou seem to be misunderstanding Battle Rhyme entirely. It raises your defensive damage from 2/3 of your offensive damage to a full 100%. An increase from 2/3 to 3/3 is a 50% increase for all damage in defensive fights. Absolute Authority is a mere 25% increase that is limited to physical damage in exchange for affecting only one more fight per turn: the single offensive one. For me, the physical damage limitation is a major deal-breaker; I like Neraine to be a battery for the party and often rely on Frozen Steps in battle as I pump her Magic score through the roof, so Absolute Authority will become useless for me once her Magic rises sufficiently.Sky Dancer is, at level 20, a decrease of 160 in Neraine's Dodge as compared to Blade Dancer. The +200 Dodge she gets from the Green perks more than compensates for that. Giving Neraine High Priestess -level mobility (in both movement range and movement type) with her formidable melee skills makes her a terror to absolutely everything on the battlefield; the High Priestess herself is already decent enough at that even without Neraine's incredible damage output. Furthermore, it's quite easy for Neraine to qualify for the Green perks, so you can make Endurance her secondary stat if you want her to be a mobile tank or you can focus on Power or Magic if you want damage output or a backup battery; she's completely versatile. If anything, the Rave Dancer perk is the only one for which I can see any viable argument about a central perk being too weak due to its major drawbacks; Sky Dancer is pretty badass.QuoteEndQuoteEEndI understand what Battle Rhyme does and was just analyzing it for varying situations. It honestly isn't that awesome unless you rely on draining vs. multiple enemies, and then you are relying on her First Dance (due to energy concerns) which ends up being bad thanks to poor accuracy in most situations where you are fighting multiple melee enemies in the first place. Also Absolute Authority isn't 25% more damage, it is 25% defense reduction which translates to like a 10% increase even against higher defense enemies (~300). It only really pays dividends when you are up against something with truly monstrous defense.Nera can get the +200 Dodge from green perks and the +160 dodge as well just by, ignoring Light Steps. In exchange for 2 move and flight typing she gets ~66% more durability to most evadable attacks and either +3 Power or 25% defense reduction. Honestly the loss of the evade is like a slap in the face and doesn't fit with the evade tanking setup that the green tree seems to be setting up. If anything the green tree ultimate perk should accentuate the evade, not remove
EternalLurker
QUOTE (Pyro @ Feb 23 2010, 12:31 PM) quotecI understand what Battle Rhyme does and was just analyzing it for varying situations. It honestly isn't that awesome unless you rely on draining vs. multiple enemies, and then you are relying on her First Dance (due to energy concerns) which ends up being bad thanks to poor accuracy in most situations where you are fighting multiple melee enemies in the first place.QuoteEndQuoteEEndUm, no? Just have your battery (Sisily for most people) go last and you've got plenty of Energy on defense.quoteo(post=2658:date=Feb 23 2010, 12:31 PM:name=Pyro)QUOTE (Pyro @ Feb 23 2010, 12:31 PM) quotecAlso Absolute Authority isn't 25% more damage, it is 25% defense reduction which translates to like a 10% increase even against higher defense enemies (~300). It only really pays dividends when you are up against something with truly monstrous defense.QuoteEndQuoteEEndThanks for agreeing with me that Battle Rhyme is quite powerful relative to the other perks in its tier.quoteo(post=2658:date=Feb 23 2010, 12:31 PM:name=Pyro)QUOTE (Pyro @ Feb 23 2010, 12:31 PM) quotecNera can get the +200 Dodge from green perks and the +160 dodge as well just by, ignoring Light Steps. In exchange for 2 move and flight typing she gets ~66% more durability to most evadable attacks and either +3 Power or 25% defense reduction.QuoteEndQuoteEEndThat's a trade I'd hate most of the time. Unless I'm going for a ranged Gelyan, I'd never give up that massive mobility boost for 160 Dodge and a pitifully tiny damage increase. The Fool's Castling is only of use if you have a few mobile party members to switch in the others afterwards, and without Neraine Sky Dancing the only people that fit the bill are Emi and the High Priestess (who I usually Soulburst, so she's not much of an option, leaving only one fragile Castle-targ
pyromania
Battle Rhyme is balanced I suppose in that you can rely on it for normal damage while summoning/SoulBursting with Nera. It still isn't going to be worth the durability loss as her evade reaches 75% though. Durability matters way too much when you have as limited healing as you do in the g
EternalLurker
Durability, um....um....shmurability? >_> Point is, if your damage isn't high enough that The Fool's HP-leeching doesn't heal Neraine sufficiently between battles, your damage isn't high enough. Which means you might wanna look into using Battle Rh
pyromania
o Nera's ultimate green ability hurts her in combat ability to make Gelyan and the Fool better? That doesn't really seem right at
