Suggestion Conceptual Class -Cleric(Reborn)

[0xNaomi]

I tried to keep all the skills nearly copyable from other existing skill to quickly template @0xNaomi @Delfofthebla. Seems like even the Drain Counters could mostly be taken from the BloodMages Blood Union and just adjusted so they are not used up but instead time out.

Out of curiosity and for my own understanding how close am I to having most of the skills mostly copy pasta from various existing skills?

Lemme see...
Unsure if you can dynamically change mana cost.
You can subtract effect with a stat.
FullHeal gone? Bleh.
Fireball? Not any better than smite.
Healball? Eh. Lag would make this more eh than Ampul.

Honestly, I'd rather have proper heal targetting... except I don't dare be the one to code that, it sounds irritating. (Well, actually, only the part of dynamically getting targets on the user's cursor is hard... but I digress)

 

[Dsawemd]

1. Explain "Skill power"
2. If cleric gets decent damage with any sort of range, I will reroll it in a second, we need to keep in mind the strong potential of a tanky healer that is given any damage.
3. The drain counter mechanic is needlessly complex, especially for people who might not Main Cleric.
I know there is a simpler (read: better) way to make mana management thought-provoking for Cleric rotation.
4. The idea of skills scaling +4 per INT -2 per WIS and the InnerFlame is a great start to a pyro-looking build for Cleric. If we were to expand on that it would be great.

Here's my recommendation:
Cleric cannot use whatever main damaging skills it has until it uses InnerFire (the +INT, WIS = 0 skill)
This means that NewCleric would have a low damage Smite-like ability available always, but the main damage ability is ONLY usable during the periods of shitty heals.

Overall I like it, Cleric needs to feel impactful and not game breaking, while not encroaching on Druid (and to a much less-correlated extent, BM) territory of Damage and Heals. Again, it cannot overlap like that because Clerics have considerably stronger defense.

 

[Eldrylars]

Lemme see...
Unsure if you can dynamically change mana cost.
You can subtract effect with a stat.
FullHeal gone? Bleh.
Fireball? Not any better than smite.
Healball? Eh. Lag would make this more eh than Ampul.

Honestly, I'd rather have proper heal targetting... except I don't dare be the one to code that, it sounds irritating. (Well, actually, only the part of dynamically getting targets on the user's cursor is hard... but I digress)

Interesting, I did not think about that fact that no other spells have dynamic mana costs. See, this is why I ask these things!

As far as some of your concerns,

I have been a stark protector of Fullheal in the past, but over the last half a year I have fallen out of love with it. I don't believe it HAS to be removed or that it's too strong, I just see it's value at being very low. It's long warm up makes it hard to land efficiently as casting to early and most of the heal is wasted on your target not being hurt to much, where as casting it to late and your target dies before it goes off. It has a place, but I bet something a lot cooler could be created.

As far as HolyFlame, I was trying to move Cleric away from all autoaimed spells, and although HolyFlame cast with the default Cleric build would be no different then Smite damage wise, if you are wanting to switch up to a damage build either through attributes or InnerFire you will do 2 to 3 times the damage of smite with it. So not quite the same, but that was the intention.

As far as HealingOrb, we see Wizards tossing Fireballs and Iceballs and wrecking classes all the time so I don't see why having a projectile that heals would be so much worse! It would be fun to have a long range aimed healing shot IMO

As far as proper heal targetting, creating a skill that would direct all heals to a designated target would greatly increase the quality of life and power of the current Cleric, but I would still love to see a Cleric that has more skill and a little more option to their play style in hopes that we would see more Clerics in the game.

 

[Dsawemd]

Also, thoughts on the following skill?

Radiance:
Old geomancer FireWave, but instead of being an instant kill if you stack all the fireballs, it does medium-heavy (200ish) damage.
Cleric runs into enemy back line as his team engages and tries to stand on the same block as an enemy to land all the Radiance fireballs. If he succeeds, he has done some damage. If he fails, the fireballs radiate outwards, each doing tiny initial damage but also 1-2 ticks of fire damage to any enemies hit.

Variation: The Fireballs heal party members a tiny bit if they hit them, allowing Cleric to stack on one person and Burst heal them, or to AoE heal a bit requiring stronger team play than current AoE heals do.

 

[Eldrylars]

1. Explain "Skill power"
2. If cleric gets decent damage with any sort of range, I will reroll it in a second, we need to keep in mind the strong potential of a tanky healer that is given any damage.
3. The drain counter mechanic is needlessly complex, especially for people who might not Main Cleric.
I know there is a simpler (read: better) way to make mana management thought-provoking for Cleric rotation.
4. The idea of skills scaling +4 per INT -2 per WIS and the InnerFlame is a great start to a pyro-looking build for Cleric. If we were to expand on that it would be great.

Here's my recommendation:
Cleric cannot use whatever main damaging skills it has until it uses InnerFire (the +INT, WIS = 0 skill)
This means that NewCleric would have a low damage Smite-like ability available always, but the main damage ability is ONLY usable during the periods of shitty heals.

Overall I like it, Cleric needs to feel impactful and not game breaking, while not encroaching on Druid (and to a much less-correlated extent, BM) territory of Damage and Heals. Again, it cannot overlap like that because Clerics have considerably stronger defense.

Skill power is just an attempt to use Kainzo's new balance skill power tool. Obviously needs some tweaking but I did it more for fun to see how it would work as is.

Here's my recommendation:
Cleric cannot use whatever main damaging skills it has until it uses InnerFire (the +INT, WIS = 0 skill)

With the scaling skills as they are this technically is already accomplished.

• HolyFlame with an average Cleric build based on today's Cleric, it will do about the same damage as the Cleric Smite. The main difference being the projectile portion. (Longer range, harder to land)
• BlessedWeapon scales on +INT -WIS 1:1 so unless you use InnerFire it's nearly useless already.
• HolyWater was changed as you might see in the above examples to cause from 0-30 damage without using InnerFire on a standard Cleric build

Considering that, personally I feel it's better to allow the players to choose to have minimal effects and still use the skills keeping them simple and in a format like I have here instead forcing them to only be usable when InnerFire is cast. This allows rare situation choices to be made to use them even if they are barely effective.

2. If cleric gets decent damage with any sort of range, I will reroll it in a second, we need to keep in mind the strong potential of a tanky healer that is given any damage.

Well with this either or design, it would allow the Cleric to be the strong healer with no damage that it's supposed to be until it chooses to take a break for 30 seconds and then it becomes a Tanky medium damage dealer with crappy heals. This design is an either or, as to get better in damage to have to wreck your heals and vice verse.

 

[Eldrylars]

Also, thoughts on the following skill?

Radiance:
Old geomancer FireWave, but instead of being an instant kill if you stack all the fireballs, it does medium-heavy (200ish) damage.
Cleric runs into enemy back line as his team engages and tries to stand on the same block as an enemy to land all the Radiance fireballs. If he succeeds, he has done some damage. If he fails, the fireballs radiate outwards, each doing tiny initial damage but also 1-2 ticks of fire damage to any enemies hit.

Variation: The Fireballs heal party members a tiny bit if they hit them, allowing Cleric to stack on one person and Burst heal them, or to AoE heal a bit requiring stronger team play than current AoE heals do.

I could see replacing good old DivineBlessing with a skill like this that projects energy that heals allies for Wis-Int and damage enemies for Int-Wis. It would take a bit of thought as DivineBlessing is honestly one of Clerics most important skills at this time, so we would not want to completely wreck the Cleric, but one again adding more skill shots and less autoclick will make the class more engaging so I will think on a way to make it comparable.

 

[Eldrylars]

2. If cleric gets decent damage with any sort of range, I will reroll it in a second, we need to keep in mind the strong potential of a tanky healer that is given any damage.

4. The idea of skills scaling +4 per INT -2 per WIS and the InnerFlame is a great start to a pyro-looking build for Cleric. If we were to expand on that it would be great.

Here is how a couple of builds would work with the current skillset listed above:
Considering 35 Wisdom and 10 Int
Allies within 7 blocks are healed for 120
Enemies within 5 blocks are damaged for 51.25​

Level: 30
HolyWater - Skill power: 80
Mana: 200 Stamina: 250 Cooldown: 18 Warmup: .5 Reagent: None
Description: You throw a potion of Holy Water at your target location. Party members including yourself within 7 blocks are healed for (20 + 4 per wisdom point - 2 per Intellect point) health and your enemies in a 5 block radius are damaged for (20 + 3.75 per Intellect point - 1.75 per Wisdom point) health.


Considering 35 Wisdom and 10 Int
Allies within 7 blocks are healed for 140
Enemies within 5 blocks are damaged for 0

If the Cleric uses InnerFire with the same stats as above​

Allies within 7 blocks are healed for 0
Enemies within 5 blocks are damaged for 142

Considering 35 Wisdom and 20 Int
Allies within 7 blocks are healed for 120
Enemies within 5 blocks are damaged for 33.75

If the Cleric uses InnerFire with the same stats as above

Allies within 7 blocks are healed for 0
Enemies within 5 blocks are damaged for 180​

 

[Dsawemd]

Two quick notes:
On the Original Post, it appears that HolyWater is Red and says removed. But your recent posts seem to contradict that. Why use it as an example if its been removed?
Also, I am not sure what you want us to take away from your nicely detailed HolyWater numbrs, I understand the mechanic and I understand the Orininal Posts claim that we need to not focus on numbers at this time. What do you want us to learn from the above post?

 

[Delfofthebla]

Interesting, I did not think about that fact that no other spells have dynamic mana costs.

Dynamic mana costs and warmup times are not currently available for skills.

You can "fake" the mana cost one pretty easily and the user would have no idea...we've done it in the past. Hell, BloodBond technically does a bit of that with it's "mana cost per second" functionality.

Warmups though...that's a bit more of a pain. It wouldn't be too hard to add it to Heroes, but I dunno if that's something we actually want to do.

 

[Eldrylars]

Dynamic mana costs and warmup times are not currently available for skills.

You can "fake" the mana cost one pretty easily and the user would have no idea...we've done it in the past. Hell, BloodBond technically does a bit of that with it's "mana cost per second" functionality.

Warmups though...that's a bit more of a pain. It wouldn't be too hard to add it to Heroes, but I dunno if that's something we actually want to do.

I would assume you just build it into the spell effects right? Apply damage/heal then add/retrack mana?

 

[Eldrylars]

Two quick notes:
On the Original Post, it appears that HolyWater is Red and says removed. But your recent posts seem to contradict that. Why use it as an example if its been removed?
Also, I am not sure what you want us to take away from your nicely detailed HolyWater numbrs, I understand the mechanic and I understand the Orininal Posts claim that we need to not focus on numbers at this time. What do you want us to learn from the above post?

Originally there were two skills(now both in red) to separate a healing and a damaging version of otherwise the same spell. What I was showing in the above example and what the example should illustrate, is that it's possible to setup one skill, that could be used for both damage and healing without having both functionality at the same time.

 

[Delfofthebla]

I would assume you just build it into the spell effects right? Apply damage/heal then add/retrack mana?

Yeah. And we can cancel the skill out if you don't have enough.

Our warmups are more complex though, can't fake em.

 

[Eldrylars]

Yeah. And we can cancel the skill out if you don't have enough.

Our warmups are more complex though, can't fake em.

Hmm, so I will have to Revive back to the drawing boards, and I have thought about the difficulty of new players learning to manage the Drain system so I am going to take Dsw's thoughts into consideration on those.

How about Dsw's idea on a Firewave Ripoff in place of DivineBlessing. Do you think it would it be hard to code, or hard on the server to make a skill like Firewave that shoots out 12 projections, has them travel X blocks outward, and then reverse direction and return to the caster if they don't hit anything?

If so DivineBlessing could be made into a skill that actually has to hit your allies/enemies to effect them, but it would be so much better if it could hit them going and coming.

 

[LinkEiyu]

This sounds like my cup of tea.