[PossumParty]

Hello friends! Hoping to get some changes into Solblader to kick it up a bit and speed up their gameplay. If you have any ideas please toss 'em in here! Mainly I'll just be going over Solcharges for Solblader and putting through some ideas to gain them more easily.

So, in my opinion, Solblader in its current form is SLOW! Painfully slow, holy guacamole. I do think it's a good class in all honesty, it does a lot good, but it's so painfully slow if you want to use any of its utility spells at all. Let's take a normal class that has similar things- Mage and its augments.

For 3m they can give you whatever enchant + elemental attack, stats, and magic on-hit related to the element. Awesome! And then we take Holy Sword, costs 2 Solcharges, and for that it gives you +5 SWA, +5 Light ATK, extra damage on undead, 3 times per round 50% light atk on basic OR offensive skills- that is pretty good. And to get that you need essentially 6m, 3m to Solcharge, 3m to Holy Sword. The same with Holy Shield and Wings as well- essentially you need 6m to use any of your cool stuff. Lets look at other classes and their skills - Bards songs, 3m. Curate, 3m, just costs 3m to heal, same for priest. Graft, Invigoration, Quickness, Malmelo, Sanctuary- etc., you get it. No set up needed, just whip it out. Now lets take a look at a usual Solbladers turn.

Solbladers turn: Solcharge (3m), Solsphere (3m). 2nd turn - Solcharge (3m), Radiant Splendor to upgrade sphere (3m, 3 charges). 3rd turn - Solcharge (3m), Holy Shield or Sword or Wings (3m), 2 charges). It takes THREE turns basically to get your start-up on Solblader. On that 4th turn you have 4 charges now to play with at least and can start actually fighting- if you don't want to cast any of your other buffs (which you probably do). It just takes soooo long to get your class' skills off. Mind, you don't HAVE to do any of these things of course- but then you know.. why are you playing Solblader?

For another example- lets say you want to use Solblader's heal and you have a casting tool. 3m to Solsphere, 3m to Solcharge to gain enough charges for it- then you can finally heal, another 3m. You don't get the best heal of it, but it's something. You can also use Star Parade- but, guess what? It takes 3 solcharges! So you'd have to Solcharge, solcharge, star parade, heal. 2 turns to do a heal. Whoof. But it can get even worse!

Let's say you don't have a casting tool- you can get it from the class anyway, right? And let's say you want the bigger heal from it. What does it require?
Solcharge(3m), Solsphere (3m). 2nd turn - Solcharge (3m), Radiant Splendor (3m, takes 3 charges). 3rd turn - Solcharge (3m), Holy Sword (3m, takes 2 charges). 4th turn - Radiant Solace! (Takes 3 charges) Yippee! It takes 4 turns to get your big heal! It has to be worth it huh? Oh- Priest can Mass, Graft, and Malmelo- all in one turn? Oh..



And so, I think Solblader just needs more ways to gain Solcharges. Currently you have Solcharge- gain 1-3 charges for 1-3 momentum (has a 1 turn CD), Illuminating Sol - You start with 3 Solcharges IF you're monoclassed (lets be honest, no one is doing this). Or Sapping Sol - If someone is grappled or KD'd you can cure that, do 60 damage and gain 4 solcharges. But that bounces back to the first problem- to do either of those its going to cost 3 momentum, then another 3 to do this ability- you're taking a whole turn to get 4 solcharges. And finally, once per round, if you use a Mercalan spell from a NON-SOLBLADER class, use pray, or get a critical hit, you'll gain 1 solcharge. This requires classes outside of Solblader AND ones with Mercalan spells to get usage out of this. You can also crit too, which isn't a bad option to have. Just you know.. its gonna take 3 turns to get 3 solcharges out of this ability- IF you're getting use out of it. Outside of these- there is no way to gain Solcharges. We gotta fix that!

Options I'm putting forth - I think any of these are good to put in, maybe even ALL of them to be honest.

Option 1: Solcharging - Generate 1 solcharge a turn. Simple, easy, good.

Option 2: Solsphere and Holy Aura - Whenever you step into your Solsphere, gain 1 Solcharge. Simple, makes sense too- your sun sphere is charging you up. OR, and this may be a better option- whenever your Holy Aura is triggered, gain a Solcharge. Your heal can give you this, Radiant Surrender, and stepping into your Solsphere.

Option 3: Wall, Speed, and Flash of Light - For Wall of Light, whenever you Guard, Protect, or Parry, gain a Solcharge (limit to once a round). For Speed of Light, whenever you Evade or Glance, gain a Solcharge (limited to once a round). For Flash of Light, whenever you use a Mercalan based spell, gain a Solcharge (limited to once per turn).


I think all of those are great options and have 2, maybe all 3 of them in Solblader would be a good option. They go into the class' fantasy well and play right into its playstyle, fit right in to the class. There's counterplay (get someone away from their orb, dont evade on them, hit their parries or protects, silence them). And it opens up Solblader to just not having to sit there and Solcharge up the entire combat. They'll still probably want to do it on first turn, maybe later on if they need an emergency heal for example, but they won't be locked into it the entirety of combat to just be able to use their skills. Instead if they play well into their class, they'll be rewarded with Solcharges and be able to more frequently use their classes' abilities. Yay!

I hope that sounds good to you! If you have any ideas or criticisms please let me know. Thank you for taking the time to read this!