A simple suggestion which undoubtedly may be entirely too complex to code versus what we already have.
I would like if either the Dungeons tab of our Asago cards, or a new tab, displayed dungeons with people inside them and or how many people are there. Mostly for late night delving without having to try and get people to respond in OOC, and to cut down on people popping into every single bdp trying to find a group to adventure with.
Ideally this would be more of the global variety but it could also work to simply display on the dungeon sprite I suppose.
In light of how underrepresented the rail gun magi are right now, I wanted to make a few possible suggestions to help put Evoker in a better spot -- or at least generate productive discussion about other ways to do so. Strap into your seats and channel your inner Megablues, because it's time to buff Evokers.
Before I list off any suggestions at all, I believe it's helpful to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the class. Even if the later suggestions themselves seem distasteful to you, keep in mind that the core topics I'm trying to address can be found in the below list. This is the heart of the discussion at hand.
Perceived Weaknesses:
Low damage output, outside of invocations
Perhaps the most glaring (and ironic) weakness of the class as it stands is how little damage it threatens with its non-invocation skills. With the explicit exception of Lightning criticals, which have ample room for their own forum discussion, the basic Evoker spells are often comparable to the Mage base class. Sporting a handy special effect with the proper enchant, the Evoker skills clock in at 100% Scaled Weapon Attack scaling, and 100%-140% Elemental Attack scaling. This ratio is also what outlines basic mage skills, and the corresponding effects are often weaker than any similarly scaled Hexer/Tactician/Lantern Bearer/etc counterparts.
In this regard, the core identity of the class is falling short. There's room to argue that the invocations are quite powerful -- and I would agree -- but it makes little sense for the hyper-offensive themed mage to have an otherwise inferior suite of spells in terms of damage AND utility. To provide tangible examples, compare:
Sear, to Holy Spark/Explosion.
Wind Slasher, to Titan Gale/Ghostwind.
Libegrande, to Frigid Arrow/Famuiga.
Bringing more powerful spells into the comparison, such as Domino Resonate, Pinpoint Electro, Wretched Oil, Black Bolt, Black Bubble, Focused Beam, Quetal, and Rebia, leaves little (in my opinion) room to vouch for Evoker's offensive prowess. Many physical damage classes can even threaten a larger amount of magical damage, with more conditional skills like Kadouha, Setting Sun, or Eclair Lacroix. Outside of invocations, Charge Mind does little to remedy this when footsies aren't involved, as the momentum spent to empower a basic spell is almost always less damage than casting the spell thrice.
Difficulty with High Mobility
Evokers have a tough time keeping up with hyper mobile classes like Duelists, Martial Artists, or Demon Hunters. With Vydel as a notable exception, most of the spells in the class' repertoire can't threaten an opponent who can attack through them, flee 10+ tiles, and repeat. Here is a small list of scenarios that aren't too uncommon to encounter:
A Demon Hunter opponent who can attack, Leaping Lizard, then disengage with Winged Serpent/Chaser/Knockdown up to the max range of Blink. They can then stare at the mage to become nearly impervious to meaningful retaliation.
A Monk that leverages Shukuchi, running, Meditate, and Body of Isesip to reset the fight through attrition and mitigate Charge Mind enhanced spells/invocations with immunity.
Spacing has always been, and continues to be, a very important component of playing as and against Evokers. The class struggles against those who are too mobile to allow momentum efficient damage exchanges.
Lack of utility/crowd control
Evokers have very little to offer in terms of utility or control. Lazarus wind offers a very situational Knockdown, Magaisendo a very situational tile control, and Libegrande a means to punish Guard. I believe this weakness is thematically intentional, and it seems apparent enough to not need an in depth paragraph.
Lack of meaningful defensives
Possessing no inherent defenses or mitigation-oriented abilities is another instance of a thematically intentional weakness. The class is postured to be purely offensive, and thus struggles heavily to trade blows with opponents that possess mitigations like Wraithguard, Voidveil, Evasion, Snake Dancer, Geist Schritt, or simply high elemental resistance itemization. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the class does not have comparably high damage output.
Few spells to pick from
The class suffers as a whole from the difficulty of picking up more than one or two elements in your toolkit. Depending on your build's circumstance, it may be feasible to grab enough Defense to make Earth relevant, alongside either Fire, Ice, or Wind. However, this translates to Evoker granting you passives, and two (four if you're one of the lucky few described above) abilities -- a fairly abysmal amount of class flare compared to nearly everything else in the game. Compare these options to Hexer, who can skirt by with only Resistance if they so choose, and with access to a plethora of Elemental ATK independent invocations and curses.
Because I specifically couldn't come up with new basic spells for every single element, I will point out here that I believe adding more basic skills that are more complex than just a 100% SWA 100-140% Ele ATK damage number would be wildly beneficial to the class.
Perceived Strengths:
Invocation damage
This speaks for itself. The mortality rate of Isenshi, Exgalfa, Intensify Cold, and Overload with Charge Mind is a very high number -- though the likelihood of managing to hit someone with these is directly related to how statistically likely it is that you're currently a Dullahan. Jokes aside, if a mage is allowed to hard cast a powered up invocation with Greaper, it hurts. As it should. More often than not, however, attempts to do this are stifled by death, Silence, mobility, dispels, or conditional immunity.
Spacing
Though it's ironic that this would be listed as a strength when difficulty with mobility is listed as a weakness, Evokers are fairly adept at forcing those without the blessing of infinite speed to play a very meticulous spacing game. When High-Speed Divine Words comes up, enemies who can't dip in and out of 15 tiles per turn need to pay very close attention to where they're standing. If an invocation is being cast, they now need to factor in Blink.
Of the weaknesses listed, I think it's a safe assumption to make that low damage output should not be present, nor should minimal variety of spell choice.
With all of that in mind, I've made an attempt at creating or reworking abilities to try and help address these. Feel free to critique my ineptitude with game design, but, keep in mind that the goal is ANY solution to the weaknesses that aren't supposed to be inherent to the class, not these abilities exclusively.
Quote:Synaptic Precision:
Ranks: 3
Type: Passive
Your empowered spells cast faster than the eye can see. Increases the accuracy of spells amplified by Charge Mind by (100/200/300).
This will be the only suggested ability with additional explanation. This passive felt like an intuitive way to address the extremely difficult management of Snake Dancer and damage trading against Evasion, without making the defenses useless altogether.
Quote:Evocation (REWORKED):
Ranks: 5
Type: Innate Main Class Only
Harness the destructive currents of magic, increasing the damage of your non-invocation Evoker spells by (8/16/24/32/40%) while you are wearing an Unarmored torso.
Quote:Pure Power (REWORKED):
Ranks: 5
Type: Innate
Fully embody the reckless appeal of magic, at great personal cost. Increases all spell damage dealt while wearing an unarmored torso by (10/20/30/40/50%), but your physical damage reduction %, magical damage reduction %, critical evade, status resistance, and evade can no longer exceed (40/30/20/10/0).
Quote:Spell Cadence:
Ranks: 1
Type: Passive
When your opponent takes damage from elemental augment, gain 1 stacking level of Spell Cadence. Your next Mage or Evoker spell refunds X (Spell Cadence level) momentum, stacking up to a maximum of 6 times. This cannot refund more than the spell costs to cast. (For example, Wind Slasher can only refund up to 3 momentum. The initial cast of Isenshi can refund up to 6.)
The last couple of abilities are all ridiculously high ranking invocations. I can't fathom these seem fair, but I would imagine the steep cost of even trying to cast them would err them on the side of unusably weak, instead of overpowered. Nonetheless, it's difficult to gauge power level with a tier of spell that quite literally doesn't yet exist.
Quote:Cataclysm: Main Class Only
This skill requires a Rank A Invocation (see the Invocation talent for more details). The caster must be enchanted with Nerhaven to cast this abiliity.
Call down a meteor from the heavens, ravaging the area with molten stone. Deals fire damage to all enemies on the map. It will also create Cinders for 3 rounds across the entire battlefield, with a LV equal to 100% of your Fire ATK.
Rank 1: 50 FP (200 to fully cast), 400% Fire ATK, 250% Scaled WPN ATK
Quote:Absolute Zero: Main Class Only
This skill requires a Rank A Invocation (see the Invocation talent for more details). The caster must be enchanted with Kraken to cast this abiliity.
Obliterate all traces of heat from the battlefield, dealing Ice magic damage to all enemies on the map. It will also create Ice tiles for 3 rounds across the every tile. Enemies hit are inflicted with Frozen for 2 rounds.
Quote:Terracide: Main Class Only
This skill requires a Rank A Invocation (see the Invocation talent for more details). The caster must be enchanted with Galren to cast this abiliity.
Sunder the earth with arcane upheaval, dealing Earth magic damage to all enemies on the map. Enemies hit are inflicted with Stun. It will also destroy all special effect tiles in the area of effect. Additionally, it will Pillage all tiles on the map.
Quote:Sylphid's Spiral: Main Class Only
This skill requires a Rank A Invocation (see the Invocation talent for more details). The caster must be enchanted with Talvyd to cast this abiliity.
Conjure up a harrowing windstorm, dealing Wind magic damage to all enemies on the map. Enemies hit are knocked Airborne, knocked back 20 tiles, then Knocked Down.
Quote:God Bolt: Main Class Only
This skill requires a Rank A Invocation (see the Invocation talent for more details). The caster must be enchanted with Redgull to cast this abiliity.
Call down a column of lightning from the heavens, dealing Lightning magic damage to all enemies on the map. Enemies hit are inflicted with Blind for 3 turns, and have up to 10 beneficial status effects removed.
Can Fasting Vampires be able to grab Human eye passives, since like, they lose literally everything a Vampire stands for when fasting?
This is mainly for fluff, on some characters who I wanted to have Divine Eyes on for lore reasons. I wouldn't mind if the effects got a cut or whatever to justify it, or just harsher drawbacks, HP% wise.
I was fighting with the Whulf equipped but it was doing Blunt damage instead of slash? It's a claw type weapon. Also using the Sharp Claw trait on my Lupine.
So, we've got bunny people, cat people, dog people, snake people, bunny people, etc etc etc. Some may think we have it all.. but you would be very wrong, my dear friends. I propose to you the singular most important addition in the history of Sigrogana Legends 2, slightly exaggerated.
Fish. People.
They would be a relatively easy addition (compared to other potential races) to fit into the lore, because they could be handwaved by just being underwater until *insert catastrophic event here* happened within their society that forced them to move into contact with the other races.
As for icons or spriting, I don't think they'd be -too- difficult to implement but I'm no spriter so I won't make any statements. They wouldn't need to be more fish than man, but simply humanoid with fish-like traits such as a Zora from Legend of Zelda or something similar that provides a good enough variety for different characters but still remaining humanoid for the sake of spritework and simplicity.
Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about. If they do get added, I hope it's something more creative than a generic anime lad with flippers or fins. That's boring.
On the suggestion of a Fish-related race, three suggestions, related to visuals come to mind, as requested:
The first one is a visual similarly to the Hoshigaki clan from Naruto, humanoids who possess sharp teeth akin to sharks and gills around their body, mostly around cheeks, sides of the neck and sides of the shoulders. They're far more humanoid-looking than the second suggestion. Ex:
Second suggestion would be Zoras from The Legend of Zelda series, which are far less humanoid and more fish-like compared to the above. Basically monster people in similar fashion to maybe Nagas, if that makes sense. Ex:
Third and last would be Mermaids. This comes from pretty much anywhere and is way easier to get playbys, much like the first suggestion. Zoras are highly specific, and very little good playbys come in that style. I have no idea how they would work outside of water, but maybe a small stream of water under them could levitate them to wherever they want to go. Ex:
(For an enlarged version of the pics, right click > view image.)
As for what they could have, they could have a bonus to stats if they take water damage, as if they were refreshed by that water, while also having some resistance to the Water element, and a drawback to another element. (Fire maybe?)
Another cool interaction would be that they would cost less stamina to do the diving mini-game, as they are great swimmers naturally and without the need for oxygen while underwater. Other things could be thought out, so I'm free to suggestions to actually making this race a real thing.
It'd also be great if Mermaids were added as a sub-race to the primary fish race, in similar fashion to Reapers and Apertaurus.
Unsure if its just me as 90% of the OOC chat didn't even seem to know the trait existed in the first place, let alone have it on hand to try. However, in the case of my aspertauren, buying the trait "Ram tactics." Didn't give me a new skill in battle, OR a new skill to equip.
How to replicate:
Make an aspertauren
Get 15 strength
Buy Ram Tactics
Go into battle, and notice that you don't have access to any new skill or battle action. Even when next to a foe.
(Tested against jammers in the jammer cave with a level 59 aspertauren with 63 scaled str who had the trait)
So I just saw a level 16 jammer with 36 max fp use Denile on somebody who was also level 16. The fp cost listed on the skill is 60, and it seems the jammer only lost 16 fp.
This seems to be a bug to me, then!
How to trigger:
Fight a jammer around level 15 or 16, either in the arena by using a low leveled character, or by finding a low level cavern dungeon.
A dance to welcome the start of a new year.
Often hosted only for the high society of Alstalsia...
There's been a change of hosts this year so everyone is welcome.
Do dress to impress however!
This gun that Raid Mechanations get when they are are using no weapons. Does not count as a gun towards the eyes of Desparado stance, while it counts towards Magic Gunner skills/bullets, and the Trait Special skill called Headshot. Also, it states it's suppose to be enchanted with rampaging, but I don't see the reduce defenses when I hit a target with it, nor the rampaging debuff on their status effect list when I click to view them.