CDV17: Starting Class and weapon focus changes, part 3

[Tim]

I thought about breaking this into two posts, but really you'd be able to guess 90% of the bonuses for whatever half I saved for the second one.

Weapons and Armor focus will have more of a focus on raw damage/block than the starting classes, as well as bonuses that only apply if you are using a weapon of that type (obviously). I also tried to emphasize the stats associated with that type of equipment (the ones added with prefix and suffixes).

Wasn't sure how to best handle channeling, so added a 2nd/3rd stat (depending on if you count the weave strength) to each of them. With 3 of the 5 now reducing weave costs, I hope that balances out fact that you can't put ter'angreal on weaves.

Discuss away!

Sword
-- Heron Spreads its Wings: +X~2X damage, +X% damage, +X/3 speed
- Sword Finesse: -X% sword usage
--- Cat Crosses the Courtyard: +2X~4X sword damage, +X% damage, +X% defense
- Sword Mastery: +X~2X sword damage
-- Parting the Silk: +2X% sword damage, +X dodge

Axe
-- Hacking through Brambles: +X~2X damage, +X stun, +X/3 wound
- Axe Finesse: -X% axe usage
--- Mighty Chop: +2X~4X axe damage, +X% damage, +X stun
- Axe Mastery: +X~2X axe damage
-- Cleave: +2X% axe damage, +X accuracy

Spear
-- Wash the Spears: +X~2X damage, +X accuracy, +X/3 wound
- Spear Finesse: -X% spear usage
--- Dancing the Spears: +2X~4X% spear damage, +X dodge, +X first strike
- Spear Mastery: +X~2X% spear damage
-- Reach: +2X% spear damage, +X first strike

Bow
-- Rapid Fire: +X~2X damage, +X dodge, +X/3 speed
- Bow Finesse: -X% bow usage
--- Focused Shot: +2X~4X bow damage, +X accuracy, +X first strike
- Bow Mastery: +X~2X bow damage
-- Tipped Arrows: +2X% bow damage, +X poison

Bludgeon
-- Shattering Strike: +X~2X damage, +X% defense, +X/3 wound
- Bludgeon Finesse: -X% bludgeon usage
--- Stunning Blow: +2X~4X bludgeon damage, +X% defense, +X stun
- Bludgeon Mastery: +X~2X bludgeon damage
-- Hard Knocks: +2X% bludgeon damage, +X stun

Knife
-- Quick Toss: +X~2X damage, +X luck, +X/3 speed
- Knife Finesse: -X% knife usage
--- Trick Throw: +2X~4X knife damage, +X accuracy, +X dodge
- Knife Mastery: +X~2X knife damage
-- Concealed Strike: +2X% knife damage, +X taint

Shield
-- Shield Bash: +X~2X block, +X stun, +X/3 wound
- Shield Finesse: -X% shield usage
--- Cover: +2X~4X shield block, +X accuracy, +X% health gain
- Shield Mastery: +X~2X shield block
-- Parry: +2X% shield defense, +X luck

Body
-- Moment of Silence: +2X~4X block, +X% defense
- Body Armor Finesse: -X% body armor usage
--- Deflection: +2X~4X body armor block, +X% defense, +X dodge
- Body Armor Mastery: +X~2X body armor block
-- Protection: +3X% body armor defense

Leg
-- Armored Agility: +X~2X block, +X dodge, +X/3 speed
- Leg Armor Finesse: -X% leg armor usage
--- Stability: +2X~4X leg armor block, +X% defense, +X% accuracy
- Leg Armor Mastery: +X~2X leg armor block
-- Maneuverability: +2X% leg armor defense, +X% health gain

Weaves
- Strength of Water: +X~2X weave damage, +X water strength, +X accuracy
- Strength of Fire: +X~2X weave damage, +X water strength, +x dodge
- Strength of Spirit: +X% weave damage, -X% weave usage, +X spirit strength
- Strength of Earth: -X% weave usage, +X earth strength, +X stun
- Strength of Air: -X% weave usage, +X air strength, +X first strike

[Jenlyn]

Why not give Spirit something nice like the other ones? why not Health Gain or Luck?

[Seitaarin]

Will give weaves a go on a char, but the problem with weaves is that you not only can't fit TA's to them, but you are spending (a crapload of) skill points to fill an equip slot with less stats than a TA'd item can give you for 0 skill expenditure. It actually works out not as bad for a melee damager, but it's all kinds of bad for a special damager ... Can I make a suggestion that rather than simply '+ weave damage', this becomes '+ weave damage/block' depending on whether the weave is block or damage bonussed? That could potentially make it worthwhile, but with only damage bonus it's far, far less effective in special builds.

[Seitaarin]

Just to clarify I don't think weaves are completely underpowered in a damaging build ... With skill expenditure you can gain more raw damage bonuses than a TA'd item - however I haven't run the numbers to see how much skill elsewhere you lose to do this, so my picture is incomplete in this.

[Tim]

I don't know. I think weaves make it really easy to stack special skills like first strike and stun if you manage your points correctly. 1 skill level = 1 stat point for all but speed and wound and those are 1-2 instead 1-3 like it is for other skills. I had pretty good success with Compulsion in the past making a Defensive Poison build.

Plus all 5 are passive skills so you get the raw damage and now the bonus stats without eating up active skill slots.

Spirit's bonus I was a little shaky with what to do with. Not sold on the +%damage. Originally had it as x-2x weave block. The context switching between weave damage and weave block depending on which weave you have equipped is a good thought, but not simple to code. Might also switch it back to raising health gain, but a little cautious about making health gain too easy to stack since spirit controls how much health gain there is on a lot of weaves too, so I think it could get out of control and for some reason I'm wary of health gain right now.

[Seitaarin]

But that 1 skill for 1 stat point is an unfair tradeoff when you consider that 1 skill is 1 stat point for those same skills in a non chaneller PLUS a non channeller can use their equip points for a TA'd item on top of that ... the 1-2 vs 1-3 tradeoff is good, but only for weaves that contain speed/wound - and point for point it's more wortwhile to put speed TA's into an item and use that rather than spend enough points in weaves to gain a comparable value. Take for example a scout's stone knife of Tinkers ... or we'll even make it just a little bit easier and make it a scout's stone knife of corruption ... for 4 speed in a weave you need what, 8 points in that weave line ... and then for 12 taint, well nobody is ever going to put that amount of points into a weave even if a speed+taint weave were available, both because of the point cost and because of the equip cost of the item. That's not even taking into consideration the def%, dodge side stats that come with it. Then you need to take into consideration the points that you put into those weaves to get those stats could have been put into other skills for other stats instead.

Weaves can't compensate for creative itemisation - being able to change weaves with fixed skill point allocations for those weaves is not actually as flexible as simply changing to a weapon/shield with more suitable stats for your purposes - no skill points necessary. And so they fall short with a special damage build especially as the 'weapon' equipment slot is not required to be maxxed out in a special build as it is for a melee, and yet that's the only slot available for a weave to go into, AND there are no +weave block bonuses for weave specialisation, just raw damage bonus. That's always been the struggle - the most success I had with weaves was when speed was 1:1 and I had a ridiculously expensive weave that contained 10 speed, but in order to do that I had to sacrifice defense and item block due to points available for other items, as well as the skills that those points could have bought elsewhere. ... that was mostly worth it, but at 1:2 speed it's now no longer viable really in a competitive speed world. There's no going back to 1:1 speed either, that was too much.

I won't pretend to know how to evaluate appropriate balance for that system. There needs to be a draw for using the class, but it has to be comparable and competitive with other classes. In this I think that Kal-Ger's slightly more mathematical system of evaluation could perhaps help you more than my idle ramblings

[Jenlyn]

Yeah, a strong Lightning Storm used to be effective, but it took a long time to get there, and you were wearing wool when using it.

[gerdonat]

Well, without entering in math details, I evaluated weave use, with the current changes, and didnt find any scenario were using weaves would be worthy, in general, you can get more value from an item with ta, and without spending skill points, even if it does not uses active slots, it drains skill points that you could use in other things.

One of the problems, is that with ta's you pick only the most valuable for your goal, while with weaves you get an assorted group of skills, so its harder to specialize, the thing right now, is that ta's are really powerfull.

Some more than other ovbiously... anyway, I dont really have a suggestion to how to fix weaves really, thats why in the past I didnt comment on them...

[kaldar]

I will take a stab at giving a basic explanation why the weaves don't work. Let's see what it would take to replace a low tier item with the most useful TAs for a particular build.

Let's try and replace a Scouts stone knife of Tinkers with a weave.

We have with that item +6 speed , +16% health gain, +8 dodge, +6% defense, +1 accuracy.

Now, if we break that down into what I would consider stat points where speed counts for 2 , defense counts for .5 and the others count for 1 , that gives 40 stat points to replace.

With the weaves, they give base block or attack , in this case we will be interested in the block aspect. However, the problem with the block points it gives is that it also raises the equip points of the weave. so, in effect, my block on the weave is going up, but at the same time, I have less points available on my other items so I have to scale them down. This creates pretty much an offset situation.

Without being about to count the base block as a bonus, it becomes approximately 2.5 stat points / weave point in bonus.

to get to the 40 stat points we are trying to replace in this example takes around 16 weave points to get to break even. Assuming our male/female +1 bonuses are used , this would take 4,4,3,3 to achieve or around 32 skill points.

Every point additionally we add to the weaves will net us about 2.5 stat points, but on a normal active skill we could get 3 stat points so this doesn't really help us at all. Also, with the 32 skill points we spent, we lost at least 4 levels of active skills for a total of around 12 stat points.

So, in conclusion, while weaves don't suck as bad as they used to with the changes, they would probably need to add another stat point / weave point in order to make it interesting.

[Tim]

Let's say you want to use Hailstorm. You get 6 strength in spirit, air, and earth. Resulting stats are 24-48 Block, 3 Speed, 6 Taint and 12% defense. My quick math puts an item like that as normally costing about 337 points. With the new changes, the character would be able to use if for 280 since they get -17% weave cost (one of the earth or air points would have come from gender bonus). That's a 57 point save or about 2 equipment levels on another item. That seems like a pretty decent item for mid game (could be used as early as level 32 I think). Especially considering ter'angreal that add 3 speed or 6 taint or even 12 defense don't come out til much higher levels.

Kaldar's example is pretty good, but you're assuming that all the points you're spending on weaves get spent solely on 3 stat active skills, which require passive skills below them to be raised too.

I think with these changes channelers could be pretty strong for the mid-game, but I agree they might still be underwhelming late game (would need to spend a lot of skill points in weave skills to get high items...). I'll have to run one to do some testing this age to see I guess.

[gerdonat]

Well, i have to admit that every time i analyze something, i do it for end game, that is when you have all the powerfull ta's available, one reason to do this, is that analyzing at different points of the age its a lot more of work... and in general, you dont want to invest heavily in something that will stop being usefull after lvl 80, you end playing more than half of the age after lvl 80 after all.
So, if you could get weaves to be slightly less powerfull than other options at end game, but more powerfull mid game, it could be something to consider...