[FernGilly]

Thesis: Omina is in a problem spot right now.






There are a few notable traits about Omina that keep them from greatness. Their stat distribution isn't terrible, but it is lackluster compared to other species and, lore-wise, doesn't totally match up. Their racial abilities are screwy and they lack a racial identity that makes them stand out as an option.





What follows is the result of a detailed discussion between three Omina players about how to resolve the issues with Omina and breathe interest into the class as a whole.






Approach One: The Stat Switcheroo





This is the easiest approach to implement, but too many changes risks invalidating the work that players have put into their builds. Hesitance when it comes to stat redistribution is definitely warranted, but Omina are desperately in need of adjustments.




Lore-wise, what kinds of stats work well for an Omina? The answer feels easy, but a quick overview of each stat and where it sits for then right now reveals complications.




Omina favor evasion builds. They have CEL 7 and LUCK 4, both of them justified as having 'supernatural senses for danger'. These together are so overwhelmingly strong that any attempt to build outside the paradigm of the species (I run a Destiny Mage myself!) is fighting against their statblock... but what does their statblock do for them? They have GUI 2, which means they can't use guns very well. STR 4 gives them access to some Ranger approaches, and WIL 4 means that they have magic options open to them. Even so, nobody plays Omina to be good at dodging; they'll play species like Redtail or Felidae to maximise their ability to dodge. They won't play Omina for their damage output, either. A crit-based build could find success, but at what cost?

The question becomes: where is the flavor? What is the design philosophy of their statistics?

For a species which has been through hell, what sorts of stats are actually supported by the text? Ironically, they're the stats most neglected on an Omina-- VIT, RES and DEF. Vitality is a vital stat used by everyone, so having Vitality at 4 is at most decent... but their RES and DEF are a pitiful 2 each. For a species which, per the lore docs and their racial passives, drain the luck of everyone else, they should be good at casting curses. Instead, they're some of the weakest hex casters... which is ironic, given their high SKI also supports the concept of an infliction-based mage.




SKI 5-- Skill is a great stat to look at when making a lore-friendly statblock for Omina. Skill increases the odds your victim is inflicted with a status debuff, decreases their ability to dodge your attacks and increases ice damage. Why is this an Omina stat? Two of the racial moves-- Red Misfortune and Green Misfortune-- have strong relationships to ice. Green Misfortune trips someone-- almost like they were sliding on ice. As for Red Misfortune, making someone who steps on a tile lose movement... in this case, their whole turn? It sounds exactly like Ice Sheet tiles.




Sanctity 4 and Faith 2 are not doing much for Omina. With its poor choice of racial passives and Faith being a pitiful 2, these stats make no impact on any Omina-friendly build. Their stats could be appropriated elsewhere and few would blink or miss them.




Consortium notes about Approach One:





- Polkjim suggests increasing Omina's Guile. The text seems to support this, as they are more perceptive, and it would improve their flexibility.





- Nekojinn warns against shifting stats in a way that overly punishes evadie builds. Most players have already built to be evasive Omina.





- FernGilly thinks that increasing Skill has good lore synergies, as Skill is the stat most represented by their racial passives and abilities.





- Both FernGilly and Nekojinn agree that Resistance should be raised, even if it comes at a cost to something else; it feels more lore-friendly.





- Everyone agrees that Sanity is not doing very much for Omina. Sanctity can be lowered to 0 without damaging the racial identity at all.

To summarize: Omina's best stats should be CEL, SKI, LUC and RES, rather than the current statblock.

Approach Two: Adjustments To Racial Abilities









As anyone who has played an Omina can attest, Omina have pitiful, nearly useless abilities with some niche applications. The second approach to fixing Omina would be to adjust each ability slightly to make them more usable. Changes don't need to be big to have big impacts on each move's viability. An Omina SAN build does nothing special at time of writing, so the goal would be to make SAN a worthwhile stat to invest in.







Firstly, the racial move Omina's Curse is a non-button. What it does is that, for 3m and 10FP, you can apply three stacks of Fortune Vacuum... for two rounds. I don't think it's an exaggeration to call this the worst move in the entire game with no applications in any use case. I'm sure the veterans of this game could workshop a move that was worse than this one, but I'd be hard pressed to agree with them. 









Omina's Curse needs to scale based on SAN. At high levels, this move barely even removes 1 point of effective luck. Alternatively, lowering the cost of Omina's Curse to 1m momentum cost makes it a viable way to quickly build up Fortune Vacuum stacks and build the Unluck resource; many builds could make use of an ability like that, and it would support many of the other suggested move changes.









Speaking of Fortune Vacuum, that ability sits in a weird place. It applies one stack of Fortune Vacuum to every enemy... except boss monsters, and those who are in stealth, and not if you're confused or suffering from interference, and not to anyone already suffering from Fortune Vacuum at 3+15% of your SAN... not that you'd ever build more than three stacks of this, since there's no point making a SAN build and many fights end within five rounds. Flame forbid you are in a 1v1 PvP match, this passive is going to do nothing for you.









To buff Fortune Vacuum, you'd need to examine the premise-- increasing the maximum amount of -LUC this move inflicts is probably not the play, but making it easier to apply -LUC and to apply more in a 1v1 situation. My suggestion is to have it inflict 1 stack of Fortune Vacuum to 3+15% of SAN targets chosen randomly each round. Additionally, stacks of Fortune Vacuum applied to someone who is immune should still generate Unluck, preventing this species from being starved of their class resources.









Next up, Yellow Misfortune; no notes. This is an Omina's best move, and it has power equivalent to a class move. -15 to hit for 3m is incredible for dodgy classes! The only suggestion I would give is to make this move cost less Unluck, but if the other moves are buffed and the species is adjusted to better produce Unluck more consistently, this one wouldn't need any changes.









Green Misfortune suffers from a high cost for a small effect; a 3m trip which costs 10 unluck (requiring rounds and rounds of combat) for 15 FP... it's not bad inherently. Lowering the Unluck cost considerably and reducing how much momentum the trip requires would go a long ways towards making it viable as a move. A 2m Green Misfortune wouldn't be much different, but it would give many players more setup opportunities; otherwise, the 10 Unluck cost requires a considerably long time for a move which only reduces the victim's momentum by 3m.





Nekojinn believes these changes aren't enough, and we should be looking at a 1m Green Misfortune or even giving it area of effect. While I'm inclined to agree, those kinds of changes might fall under the next approach, Radical Realignment.









Red Misfortune needs to go. Even if it were effective and easy to cast (and with the 15 Unluck cost, you will not be using it), it would be too toxic to keep around. People being deprived of their turn is not a meta we want to encourage. Axe it entirely. Remove it from Omina's skillset. Replace it with something, anything else.









Consortium Notes about Approach Two:





- Nekojinn loves Yellow Misfortune. They DID suggest having it scale off stacks of Fortune Vacuum or SAN instead.





- Right now, 1v1 fights as an Omina are unreliable; racial abilities do nothing. Bosses are immune to Fortune Vacuum, putting us in a weird place.





- Red Misfortune is one of those moves we think people might balk at removing, but it needs to go, especially if the other moves improve.





- We want Unluck and stacks of Fortune Vacuum to be generated more consistently with high SAN.

To Summarize: The Omina's Moveset Could Do With Some PvP Friendly TLC

Approach Three: Radical Realignment



Well, this is the part of the suggestion box where we throw the baby out with the bathwater and suggest something COMPLETELY different. Omina are in such a bad place, literally adding anything to their kit would be seen as a positive. Let's go over a few 'wild' ideas that aren't so wild.




Replace Red Misfortune with the choice of temporary Flight or the Play Cute ability. There are two kinds of Omina, and having the ability to pick a trait for free which allows them to take a temporary Flight or Play Cute (exclusive to bird or cat Omina) would fill the gap Red Misfortune leaves behind. It's been suggested in another thread (Omina Deserve to Be Cute!) and should be reiterated here, since everyone seemed to agree on that thread.




Rework Omina like Hexers. Basically, give Omina hexes-- change their statblock to be about inflicting debuffs (high SKI, high WIL), make their debuffs matter more, give them a debuff that's inflicted when they're attacked, so forth. Really enable Omina to make other people suffer. Polkjim suggested this after I made my Skill being supported by lore remarks, and I like it so much I really want to push it.




Omina could use more Fae-related abilities. Omina are Fae, definitionally, and leaning into this fact might produce interesting moves and combinations of racial passives to make use of. Make us crave honey, make us trail feathers behind us, give us resistance to something fae are resistant to, give us an immunity to some debuff. Something to tie Omina to their heritage or show that they're a product of agglomerated Focus.




Make Good on Lore Doc promises.

While many Omina see their curse as that and nothing more, there are those who manage to become intune with it, learning to harness its potential and managing to assert some amount of control over it, having it target those who they wish to inflict with ill-fatedness, ranging from a simple inconvenience, to something potentially fatal.

None of Omina's racial moves can do damage. We can change that. We can make things worse.




Give their bad luck IC influence over dice rolled near them. This one is just a bit of flavor, but if we're throwing ideas at the wall, why not? Snack it, give them bad dice rolls. We're completely reimagining Omina in this approach.



Ice Ice Omina Baby. Rework Omina so they're all about ice. Putting down ice sheets, slipping on ice, ice sliding. Whatever. Any element works, really-- darkness, fire, lightning. Omina being elemental would be very flavorful. Okay, this one's a joke suggestion, but...




Forget the lore! Catbirds! Give em all flight after a Legend Extension! These suggestions are getting a little silly. I'll wrap the discussion here.

To Summarize: The Omina Needs A Fresh Coat of Paint

I hope this long, extra long message brings with it some long-awaited TLC to a maligned species and helps bring it out of the shadows of the Redtail. I love playing as an Omina, I love being an Omina, and I want to share this love with other Omina players, but players avoid the Omina like the plague. Perhaps that's appropriate. Perhaps I've said too much; in any case, I hope that you can all find it in your heart to give more suggestions on ways to treat Omina right in this messed up world of Korvara.

-FernGilly, Local Catbird Enthusiast Who Made An Account Just To Say All This

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Before anyone asks; I do not know why there are so many spaces...

[renowner]

I definitely think Omina could use a buff!
I also sort of think wood elves do, too, but mostly just in the stat department.

Everyone I know who played an Omina said they felt lackluster, which is sad. I will say i'm pretty sure the luck drain minimum is three though, not one?
Either way, better stats, better fortune moves would be cool.

[Slydria]

I don't think their statlines should be touched. Frankly, it's much more important that their racials get a brush up instead.

Here's what I'd suggest:

- Remove Unluck. Misfortune abilities can instead just work off consuming Luck Drain on enemies for bonus effects.

The reason I'd like this is for simplicity's sake: Unluck works a bit oddly with how Luck Drain is currently set up, leaving situations where you can only get so much Unluck after a while. This way, Luck Drain is simply the resource itself and is spent so you can get more.


- Fortune Vaccuum's Luck Drain applies a number of times to random enemies, rather than 1 for each. (E.g. Applies 3 + SAN/15 times, Max Drain LV: 5+SAN/4)

Luck Drain currently favours large battles since there are more targets to drain, whereas against few enemies, fights often end before you get to use your abilities. This aims to tweak that by favouring the inverse.


- Bosses no longer immune to Luck Drain, Confusion makes Fortune Vaccuum and Misfortunes able to apply on allies and Luck Drain is shared between Ominas.

Luck Drain is not so strong of an effect that I feel bosses should be immune to it with these changes, let alone in it's current state. 

The Confusion part doesn't have to be tweaked this way but I think it's in theme to be unlucky for your friends when confused. 

Luck Drain should ideally be advantageous for multiple Omina, whereas currently I think it limits how much Unluck each can get (unless I'm confused, admittedly it's not a common occurrence to have 2+ Omina in a party.) While they might end up both spending it, at least they can also jointly build it up without stepping on each other's toes.


- Omina's Curse reduced to 1M and applies 3 (+SAN/15) Times.

This is a simple buff. The effect is hardly strong enough to be 3M and it now benefits from SAN. As 1M, it becomes a reliable extra action to slip in for non-critical builds.


- Misfortunes reworked to be passive-like 0M skills, much like their lucky Redtail counterparts. They apply to enemies suffering from LV5 or higher Luck Drain.

This change is made for two reasons: to make it more broadly appealing by being a low commitment option that works autonomously and as mentioned to be more like Redtails, given they follow a similar naming scheme for these abilities and thematic inverse, it also makes sense that these are in some ways similar.


- Yellow Misfortune applies to enemies with LV5+ Luck Drain, lowering their Hit by 15. Whenever they glance or miss, they lose 1 LV of Luck Drain.

This ability is mostly untouched, it does what it currently does but as an automated effect.


- Green Misfortune applies to enemies with LV5+ Luck Drain, giving them a 20% chance to be Knocked Down after Moving or using a Movement Skill. When they are Knocked Down by this, they lose 5 LVs of Luck Drain. (Each enemy can only be knocked down by this once per 2 Rounds.)

I wanted to keep the effect in tact but Knockdown is pretty strong so it needed limits, this is mostly represented by the high Luck Drain and low chance of activating.


- Red Misfortune applies to enemies with LV5+ Luck Drain, after they take any action, there is a 50% chance for them to take armor-ignoring Blunt, Piercing or Slashing physical damage equal to their Level (min. 20). This damage can be glanced (but not fully evaded). When they take damage by this, they lose 3 LVs of Luck Drain. (Each enemy can only be damaged by this twice per Round.)

Pitfall traps couldn't really exist in a way I liked with this new version, so I decided to change it to a more harmful theme of bad luck, the kind of bad luck where you stub your toe or step on something sharp. The damage is admittedly small but given how skills like Earthbound Vengeance can add up, I wanted to err on the cautious side for effectiveness.