Class Brainstorming

[VakarlanS]

Total necromancer minions make-over. I always have this idea of necromancers being an old man leading a bunch of skeletons. Currently necromancer in Gaias is mostly if not pure skill casting based. I am thinking instead of making necromancer spam skills all the time, lets change times up a bit. Adding new skills and talents that is paired with current skills. Cause I am too bored. Magicians cannot get the new skills, skills 1 to 13 are only available to job up-ed necromancer, and can get only be achieved via respecting skills. Remove the necromancer level 35 talent for this to work smoothly, I felt that talent is just boring in Whitepines. THE AIM IS NOT TO DECREASE NECROMANCER'S DPS RANK IN GAIA BUT RATHER GIVE IT AN ALTERNATIVE WAY TO MAKE THE CLASS PERFORM WITH MINIONS THAT MATCH THE DPS OF THE CURRENT SPELL CASTER BUILD.

Spells (Paired with current)

Level 1 Q Bone spear cost 12 mana (5 seconds cooldown) – Launches a spear towards the enemy, damaging it by 1x SP physical damage. Last 5 seconds, target affected by the debuff takes 10% more damage from minions.


Level 3 W Wraith Flames cost 5 mana (3 seconds cooldown) Deals SP X 2 to a unit, SP X 1 to all units nearby. Marking enemies with a -5% move speed debuff. Stacks up to 4 times debuff lasting for 6 seconds. (reworked)


Level 7 Z Atrophy Aura Increase the hit points and mana pool of your minions by 15%

Level 13 F Nether Skulls (Trigger spell) Every 3rd cast of any spell summons one skull that surrounds the caster, up to 3 skulls can be up at a same time. Each skull grants 3% SP, consumes 1 skull when you summon any skeleton minion. (reworked, replaced river of souls)

Level 25 and 27 are the usual summon minions



Level 33 E Glaze of Mephisto E cost 20 mana (30 seconds cooldown) – Stare into a monster through Mephisto himself, silencing it for 9 seconds, the target takes 15% more damage from all sources. Minions always crits when damaging units under this debuff. Unable to target bosses.


Level 37 R Sacrifice cost no mana (require 1 minion, 4 seconds cooldown) – Explode a minion dealing 5 x SP shadow/physical damage. Each corpse exploded heals all allies in a 500 radius for 25 mana and 50 hit points.


Level 43 Cloak of Baal D cost no mana (Toggle) Conjuring the veil of Baal himself, protecting the caster, minions are unaffected. Increase the stats of minions by 50, they still generate threat. 50% of the damage dealt by your minions now fuels your cloak, recharging it. The shield cannot be charge for more than SP x 3 points of damage.


Talents (addition 4th opinions in talents)


Level 10: Increase the stats of your minions by 20

Level 15: Increase minion damage by 10%

Level 20: Every third cast of Wraith Flames grants you 10 mana.

Level 25: Adds 2 skeleton warrior and 1 mage to the summon limit.

Level 30: Halves the cooldown on bone spear, increase the mana cost by 50%, bone spear effect now stacks 3 times if casted under the 5 seconds’ duration.

Level 35: Atrophy aura now also affects allies at 50% power.

Level 40: Every time you cast Wrath Flame on an enemy, it empowers all your minions, increasing their attack speed and cast speed by 10%, stacks up to 4 times. Buff last 6 seconds refreshed upon recast. (reworked)

Level 45: Whenever you take more than 50% of your total hit points from one source of damage, you gain damage reduction from all sources by 50% for 3 seconds, 30 seconds cool down. (reworked)

Level 50: Glaze of Mephisto can be used on bosses. Instead of silencing, it now reduces the total damage output of the targeted boss by 10%, also increasing the chance of receiving a critical hit from all sources by 10%. (Boss only) (Minions still crits 100%) (Re balanced)

Addition end game talents: Wicked Ward

Hit point and mana bonus from all items no longer affects you, instead they are transferred to benefit your minions.

Addition end game talents: Vaal Pack

Whenever a minion dies, there is 33% chance another of the similar type will rise and take its place.

 

[Jumbo]

I like the general idea - won't comment on the specifics except to say that Bone Spear seems like a good alternative to its cast bar peers (i.e. Fireball/Water Globe) - though I have one reservation or at least a worry:
Will it seem too inconsistent to have necromancers having 3 instead of 2 spell options like every other class?

Either way, the core functionality difference that Bone Spear provides is a great idea.

 

[VakarlanS]

When I was doing this idea, I intended it to have more than 2 spell rotations, I wants the players who plays this "brainstormed class" to have an actual idea of what he or she is doing, instead of brainless spamming 1 or 2 spells like what casters usually do, for example timing bone spear, setting up sacrifice explosions at the right time, silencing mobs that cast dangerous spells ,mana management is key. In return, the potential for more damage and team debuff out pays the harder playstyle. I took this concept from zwieb's valkyrie class idea, that class looks like you have to know what you are doing to perform well.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

So these suggestions would automaticly replace the magician choices? That would be problematic, as I'd have to completely discard how the ability system works in order to allow that.

In the end, its probalby not worth the effort.


However, I'm not satisfied with the "spamable" spells on the magician either. I feel they are boring and feel too static compared to other classes.

I have some concepts for redesigning fireball and water globes, such as lightning charge to make it more interesting by adding combo effects to the spells and removing the cast time component to some extend. I'd rather implement that in general than revamping only the Necromancer from scratch. I don't think that the necromancer is broken or anything. It's just that fireball is a boring ability.



Basicly my idea for enhancing the existing spamable spells were as follows:

Fireball
Instead of targetting the spell, it would be turned into a self-cast (with cast time, in order to not devaluate spell haste) that generates a spinning fire orb over the head of the character. With each consecutive cast you can add an additional orb up to a maximum of 5.
These orbs can then be thrown by auto attacks that apply a stacking short duration debuff effect to the target:
1st stack: next consecutive orb attack decreases fire resistance by 10%
2nd stack: next consecutive orb attack applies a minor fire damage DOT to the target.
3rd stack: next consecutive orb attack explodes, dealing 50% of the damage dealt as AoE damage

The idea is that you gain mobility by being able to "precast" fireballs and use them as ammo for auto-attacks. Stacking up a good number of orbs and firing them all in one sequence will allow you to trigger the AoE effect and renew the DOT duration. This is even great for bosses that do not require AOE, but require lots of moving around: its enough to stack up to only 2 and just throw two consecutive orbs to reapply the debuff when needed. This also allows players to avoid the AoE effect when needed: simply precast only 3 fireballs at one time and you can never trigger the AoE component - or just throw your fireballs at different targets to spread the debuff thinner.


Water Globes
Instead of targetting the spell, it would be turned into a self-cast (with cast time, in order to not devaluate spell haste) that generates a spinning water orb over the head of the character. With each consecutive cast you can add an additional orb up to a maximum of 5.

These orbs can then be thrown by auto attacks that apply a stacking short duration buff effect to the caster that increases the damage of the next Water Globe by 10% and stacks up to 5. The buff duration does not get renewed with every consecutive throw, so you deal more damage throwing the globes in a continuous sequence. Soaked effect still applies normally.

The idea is that water globes is still your go-to single-target spam for magicians; the added consecutive attack bonus benefits players with more foresight and players that make use of cooldowns to avoid boss mechanics (like misleading image or spell mirror). As the stack is a buff effect on the player and not a debuff, you can now spread water Globes over multiple targets on demand; however, in total, fireball will still be superior in raw AoE damage potential.

The talent that makes Water Globes instant cast and adds a cooldown will now apply all 5 orbs at once (to make up for the added cooldown), so its still a comparable equivalent to the old talent.


Lightning Charge
Instead of targetting the spell, it would be turned into a self-cast (with cast time, in order to not devaluate spell haste) that generates a spinning lightning orb over the head of the character. With each consecutive cast you can add an additional orb up to a maximum of 5.

These orbs can then be thrown by auto attacks that apply a stacking medium duration debuff effect to the target:
1st stack: makes the target susceptible to arcing
2nd stack: increases crit chance of lightning damage by 10%
3rd stack: lightning attack will arc over to all nearby targets that are vulnerable to arcing whenever it critically hits

The idea is that lightning charge is a single target spam with a more "controlled" AoE potential than fireball. As you can select which targets will be susceptible to the AoE effect, you can use it to avoid spread damage to CCed units, yet still apply AoE damage. Arcing effect range will be higher than fireball AoE radius, but the fact that you have to waste auto-attacks on other units first will still make this a weaker AoE than fireball. The synergy with water globes remains untouched.

If you have both lightning charge and Fireball/Water Globes orbs active, both orb effects will apply at the same time.

 

[Jumbo]

Sounds good Zwieb.

 

[VakarlanS]

As we discussed, the skills will NOT replace magician early skills in anyways, also I changed some of the skills and talents, the new concept on the skills are very good, I can't wait.

 

[Jumbo]

I have one request in case of you implementing this change Zwieb: Please give Fireball a much larger aoe. The micro required at the moment can be painful at times - especially because most mobs die faster if you just nuke them instead of wasting time trying to group several mobs together. This is due to combat pacing being very fast in all cases, excluding bosses.

 

[MiroBG]

what will happen to the globe lightnin charge sorc combo if you implement this change? Will sorc throw 2 balls at once?

 

[VakarlanS]

If I recall, z said sorcs can have 2 different types of orbs rotating him or her.

 

[MiroBG]

Yea but whats the priority will u fire water globes or lightnin first or it fires em at the same time that was my questio