[Senna]

So, this is more a suggestion on classes that are suffering when it comes to Hit and evade. At the moment, the game has devolved into using around 6 and 7 classes. Why? Because those are the classes that offer enough hit and evade buff to make a difference. So, I thought, why not make a suggestion about stuff that could provide a hit and evade bonus for each class that lacks them?

Why? So the game can regain some diversity between the classes. These are all bonus effects on skills, added to provide other classes SOME hit and evade options. There is a cap for both so it wouldn't get out of hand like prior.

• Brine Blade - While enchanting their weapon, it can increase hit by 1+3 hit per rank.
  
• Eternal Flame: The closer they are to the targets(s), the more hit chance the lantern spells gain in return based on rank. Max at 20.
  
• Dark Imbue - Open to Swords and polearms as well.
  
• Relent Gale - Bonus effect - +2 Evade per rank.
  
• Ice Fairy - Bonus effect - +2 Hit per rank.
  
• Charge Mind - While active, provides +15 hit on the spells next Evoker spell.
  
• Imagin's Despair - Negates Bravery talent.
  
• Charge - If they run away from the enemy using charge (It goes on CD), a status call Retreating appears which provides them +1 + (3 evade per rank) for two rounds. This effect can also be used if Retreating Swipe was used with Charging Strike.
  
• Charging Strike - The next Soldier skill (Including promotion) or basic attack used gains +2 per rank hit bonus.
  
• Watchful Eyes - As long as they are facing the target, they gain +10 Hit and +10 Evade.
  
• Snake Dancer - Whenever the user evades an attack, they gain a status call Snake dancing. It increases their Evade by 10 until their next damage instance.
  
• Misty Dimension - Also provides the user +10 Evade while Sneaking.
  
• Encourage - While pumping the youkai up, you also encourage yourself. Provides 2+rank * 2 in bonus Hit for the player and youkai that last for three rounds.
  
• Evoker Mastery - Increase Hit for Evoker spells by 5 per rank.
  

[Snake]

- Brine Blade's Hit bonus should be tied to the Aquamancer's Crest LV * 2, so this doesn't become another Spellthief DLC.

- Instead of that, I'd make it so Eternal Flame passively increases a certain LB spell's Hit equal to Rank * 5.

- Hard pass on Dark Imbue for anything but Axes. Instead, it'd be more thematic for Ghost's Hit/Evade to be directly increased equal to Rising Game LV * 4.

- Relent Gale and Ice Fairy are okie-dokie in that context.

- I'd make Charge Mind's Hit bonus be equal to Evoker's class level, so it gives Destiny something funny.

- Imagin's Despair is okie-dokie, if that's even possible to do.

- Charge's 'retreat' shouldn't be a thing, it sounds ugly. Retreating Swipe however could maybe give you Disengage LV40 until your next round, just 'maybe'.

- Charging Strike could use +5 Hit alongside its +5 Power. 4M investment for a hit steroid on your next offensive soldier skill is fair and balanced.

- Watchful Eyes won't be necessary in that context. At most I'd say it could give your allies a Hit bonus towards the person you're observing, or give it the Intense Observation treatment, where on use, you remove all of the enemy's Evade buffs and while active, reduces the max duration of Evade buffs by 1 round.

- Snake Dancer should grant Sonic Speed LV15 for 2 rounds. I do like me my Trickster teleports.

- Misty Dimension could give Disengage LV10 for 2 rounds alongside Sneaking.

- Evoker Mastery should be similar to Magic Gunner. Grants 3 Hit per rank to Evoker spells, but double for Invocations.

[Jeff]

I think these are all good ideas, but more broadly I have to ask, is this really healthy for the game? Should players be so focused on sprinting toward massive amounts of hit or evade to come out as the man on top when the numbers are crunched?

To me it seems like this really strangles build diversity, along with some other things I won't mention in this thread. But maybe we need to step back and look at the whole system.

[InsainArcaneBirdbrain]

I think these are all good ideas, but more broadly I have to ask, is this really healthy for the game? Should players be so focused on sprinting toward massive amounts of hit or evade to come out as the man on top when the numbers are crunched?

To me it seems like this really strangles build diversity, along with some other things I won't mention in this thread. But maybe we need to step back and look at the whole system.

With the current state of the game and the GR2 mechanics, absolutely. One of the first questions I find asking myself with every build I do now is "can I get enough hit/eva?". Because even glancing is so devastating, and you need 85+ hit chance on your opponent to have the math finally work in your favor, many classes are straight up unusable without a class to provide a "hit battery". The imbalance of hit distribution is one of the leading factors of why GR2 feels so unfun, combined with unfair glance mechanics and the abundance of spamable evasion ignores. Giving classes hit where needed is the first step towards making this a less painful experience for all, and would promote diversity past verglas spam.

[Jeff]

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that every build requires SKI now. No matter what else you want to build, you need SKI.

This seems to be a good starting point for addressing the problem more broadly.

[Senna]

That's intended. The GR2 pretty much forced the player to build skill since before people used to neglect it. So it's just as important if not more important than vit. What were trying to address here is the lack of buffs for skill and evade in other classes comparing to some. There is a reason why Rogue classes, M.Arts classes, BK, sometimes hexer and so on sees more usage over something like Evoker (That isn't wind spam) , Lat.bearer, Grand summoner and so on aren't being used.

[Jeff]

If every build is forced to invest in SKI then you may as well scrap the stat, reduce total character stat points and give everyone the same baseline hit value across the board. At present it only gives the illusion of choice, and I think a system that forces all builds to do the same thing is a system that is poorly designed.

[Lolzytripd]

If every build is forced to invest in SKI then you may as well scrap the stat, reduce total character stat points and give everyone the same baseline hit value across the board. At present it only gives the illusion of choice, and I think a system that forces all builds to do the same thing is a system that is poorly designed.

If every crit build needs to build guile to get crit damage maybe we should scrap the stat and return to base crit damage mulitplier

If every build uses aptitude maybe we should scrap that too

If every build uses a minimum amount of vit maybe we should scrap that too....


this goes on and on its a slippery slope.

the solution is making the hit formula less scuffed, not changing things. Minimum and maximum hit rates that the system can't push past based on cel and skill or  for god sake a fucking log curve so because the debuff/buff window is enough to cause a 100% difference.

[Jeff]

Very poor comparisons. Not every build needs crit, and while more health is nice, it isn't a necessity.

Players can opt out of the evasion game by dropping CEL for DEF/RES/VIT and heavy armor. But nobody can opt out of the hit game, which stifles build diversity and class choice.

(Oh and there are actually four different options for APT.)

[Snake]

Technically you can opt out of the hit game by spamming evade ignoring techniques.