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Suggestion Disciple Agility Rework

Egorh

Outcast
Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Overall Disciple is in a fairly strong position right now and I see no easy way of implementing a set of changes that continue with the current skill set/playstyle that end up satisfying the player base (both those who play Disciple and those who want the nerf hammer). Not too long ago Kainzo mentioned in a post that he would rather Disciple be based off Agility (I am far too lazy to go on a hunt for that post).

Current Disciple Stuff:
Pros:
  • Great sustainability/passive heals. Meditate will keep you mana up and although Fist of Jin may not seem like a strong skill it will really add up in a fight
  • Strong defensive skills. Seikuken makes left clicks useless for a little bit but requires good timing (if used at the wrong time will really screw you over). Ironfist has a strong slow and alright damage, with a meh knockback.
  • With proper communication can be the best class for peeling enemies off of your squishies/back line. With Forcepull, Forcepush, Ironfist, and Balance you can peel very well (on par with a Paladin)
  • Has three instant interrupts: Forcepull, Forcepush, Flyingkick. Each of these skills do have reasonable cooldown for their uses
Cons:
  • Fairly weak left click damage compared to other melee classes (if Quivering Palm properly added the bonus damage this would not be a con). Fist of Jin helps balance out the difference in melee damage
  • Alacrity does not actually do a whole lot for the Disciple (and only really helps a few classes: Ranger, Ninja, Dragoon)
  • Choose the wrong skill combination and you will find yourself out of stamina
Starting Attributes
These attributes were used to retrieve the numbers for the Current Disciple Skillset
  • Strength: 3
  • Constitution: 4
  • Endurance: -5
  • Agility: 2
  • Intellect: 5
  • Wisdom: 3
  • Charisma: 0

Current Disciple Skillset

Red - Remove
Green - Change

Fist of Jin (1)
  • Passive: Each of your melee strikes restore 12.6 health to you, and 6.6 health to party members within 7 blocks. You cannot heal more than once per 1s
  • Scaling: 0.2 health (for both the self heal and the AOE heal) per point of Wisdom
Smite (1)
  • You smite the target, dealing 46 light damage to the target. Will instead deal 106 damage if the target is undead.
  • Scaling: 1.25 damage per point of intellect
  • Cooldown: 7s
Safefall (5)
  • You float safely to the ground for 6s
  • Cooldown: 30s
Forecepush (10)
  • Deal 40 physical damage and force your target away from you. The push power is affected by your Intellect
  • Scaling: 1 damage per point of Intellect
  • Cooldown: 14s
Alacrity (15)
  • Prepare the target, granting them Alacrity that increases their Agility by 15 for 42 minutes
  • Cooldown: 10s
Forcepull (20)
  • Deal 20 physical damage and force your target towards you. The targeting distance of this ability is affected by your intellect
  • Scaling: 1 damage per point of Intellect
  • Cooldown: 14s
Flyingkick (25)
  • Flyingkick towards your target and deal 43.38 damage! Targeting distance for this ability is increased by your Agility
  • Scaling: 1.12 damage per point of Strength. 1 block per 8 points of Agility
  • Cooldown: 22s
Chakra (35)
  • You restore 88 health and dispel up to 0 negative effects from all party-members within 6 blocks. You are only healed for 61.6 health from this ability however
  • Scaling: health per point of Wisdom. 1 debuff per 20 points of Wisdom
  • Cooldown: 11s
Renewal (40)
  • You restore 155.62 health to your target. You are only healed for 108.94 health from this ability.
  • Scaling: 1.88 health (allies), 1.31 health (self) per point of Wisdom
  • Cooldown: 19s
Ironfist (45)
  • Strike the ground with an iron fist, striking all targets within 5 blocks, dealing 44.5 damage, and knocking them away from you. Targets hit will also be slowed for 5 seconds
  • Scaling: 1.5 damage per point of Strength
  • Cooldown: 24s
Balance (50)
  • On use, balances the percent max health of everyone in the party within a 7 block radius
  • Cooldown: 45s
Seikuken (55)
  • Create a protective barrier around yourself for 3 seconds. The barrier allows you to retailiate against all incoming melee attacks, disarming them for 3 seconds, and dealing 44.38% of your weapon damage to them
  • Scaling: 0.87% per point of Intellect
  • Cooldown: 24s
Meditate (60)
  • You regain 50% or your mana, and 70% of your stamina
  • Cooldown: 60s
Quivering Palm (65)
  • Strike your target with a Quivering Palm dealing 54 damage and weakening the target, causing them to take 7.5% increased melee damage for 8 seconds. The strike disorients the target, causing nausea
  • Scaling: 1.5 damage per point of Strength
  • Cooldown: 16s

The Rework
Current Skill Changes
  • Remove Fist of Jin
  • Remove Seikuken
  • Increase Chakra cooldown to 15s
  • Balance out the base damage of Forcepull and Forcepush
    • 40 + 20 = 60 / 2 = 30
  • Change Forcepull and Forcepush's damage to magic
  • Increase scaling on Renewal to 2 (allies), and 1.5 (self)
  • Quivering Palm's % damage increase starts at 2.5%
    • Now scales 0.1% per point of Agility
That Quivering Palm change would be for when the bug is fixed

New Skills

Reflex
  • Passive: You have a 3% chance (at 0 Agility) to dodge an incoming melee attack. When you successfully dodge, your next attack will deal an additional 5 piercing damage. This can only occur once every 1 second
  • Scaling: 0.2% per point of Agility
Reborn
  • You mark an ally for 60s. If they die in this time they are reborn and given 35% of their maximum health.
  • Scaling: 1% per point of Wisdom
  • Cooldown: 15 minutes

Explanation/Reasoning
  • One of the main things that made Disciple's kit a bit too strong was that overtime it just got so many free heals. Fist of Jin builds up pretty fast in the middle of a fight. 25 Wisdom makes your Fist of Jin heal 17 HP per hit. If you proc Fist of Jin 20 times you are going to be healed for 340. It may not seem like it is healing a lot but over time you really are
  • Seikuken should be removed for a few reasons. Firstly, it practically acts like a stun, not allowing you to turn/maneuver like you are suppose to. Secondly, it is practically an invincibility against melee classes, and if used right can be devastating to the opponent (especially if they don't realize you have started to use it)
  • Chakra is a strong group skill, a debuff with a heal, and the cooldown was a bit too short for it's potency
  • I never really completely understood the reasoning for having Forcepush and Forcepull do different damages. In ways it just seemed like there was more incentive to use one over the other
  • Last patch Forcepush and Forcepull were made to scale with Intellect. I found it a bit odd having physical damage scale with Intellect.
  • Renewal is lacking compared to the other heals similar to it (Absolution) and it simply needs a slight bump up in scaling (there needs to be more incentive to build Wisdom. Disciple is a healer specialization)
  • Because this is an Agility rework there needs to be more incentive to build Agility. Adding Agility scaling to Quivering Palm's damage increase will make people want to invest into Agility (when the damage increase is fixed)
  • I suggested to remove Fist of Jin and Seikuken for the purpose of Reflex. There needs to be a reason to build a good amount of Agility. Hopefully Reflex would be less devastating overtime than Fist of Jin and does not render melee classes completely useless for 3 seconds
  • Reborn....Reborn...Reborn!
  • This is where I may be a little biased because Reborn is my favorite skill (from DG) and I would like to see its re-implementation, but in a more balanced state. Before it was a passive that would just go off on yourself. Now it would be more of a support skill than a selfish solo skill. It would have either a 3s or 4s warmup so it wouldn't be easy to get off.
Tags
@Delfofthebla @0xNaomi @PewPewPewLasers @w0nd3rb0y @Naxet91 @malikdanab@FrankyDemon1996 @Balance Team
I tagged people that I thought would provide good input, issues, etc.

@Kainzo every Balance change needs to pass through you so I will be tagging you here. And because you are the one who said that Disciple should be more Agility based (and that you wanted more RNG skills-Reflex)
In no way are any of the numbers on here are final, and everything is up for discussion
This post took too long to write.
 
Last edited:

JupiterRome

Legacy Supporter 5
Joined
Mar 24, 2013
Location
l
Overall Disciple is in a fairly strong position right now and I see no easy way of implementing a set of changes that continue with the current skill set/playstyle that end up satisfying the player base (both those who play Disciple and those who want the nerf hammer). Not too long ago Kainzo mentioned in a post that he would rather Disciple be based off Agility (I am far too lazy to go on a hunt for that post).

Current Disciple Stuff:
Pros:
  • Great sustainability/passive heals. Meditate will keep you mana up and although Fist of Jin may not seem like a strong skill it will really add up in a fight
  • Strong defensive skills. Seikuken makes left clicks useless for a little bit but requires good timing (if used at the wrong time will really screw you over). Ironfist has a strong slow and alright damage, with a meh knockback.
  • With proper communication can be the best class for peeling enemies off of your squishies/back line. With Forcepull, Forcepush, Ironfist, and Balance you can peel very well (on par with a Paladin)
  • Has three instant interrupts: Forcepull, Forcepush, Flyingkick. Each of these skills do have reasonable cooldown for their uses
Cons:
  • Fairly weak left click damage compared to other melee classes (if Quivering Palm properly added the bonus damage this would not be a con). Fist of Jin helps balance out the difference in melee damage
  • Alacrity does not actually do a whole lot for the Disciple (and only really helps a few classes: Ranger, Ninja, Dragoon)
  • Choose the wrong skill combination and you will find yourself out of stamina
Current Disciple Skillset

Thread is WIP
Id like to add in Flying Kicks scaling pretty much sucks
 

Eldrylars

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Apr 28, 2012
Location
Dragon through ...
Overall Disciple is in a fairly strong position right now...

I don't see anything here that would throw off balance a lot, although I am sure some tweaks would have to happen. I have never been a fan of RNG which is what you would rely on for your dodges, but I love the idea on the Rebirth rework.

Certainly fits the class in my opinion.
 

Nevinryal

Glowstone
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Very well thought out could it being quite fun and hold to what that class should be expected to do. Has my thumbs up.
 
Last edited:

Egorh

Outcast
Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
No. They are intended to disrupt warmups. This is the role of disciple. If you think disc has too many interrupts please remember how many zerker has. Thanks
Well, if forcepush is used properly they should be out of range, so if an interrupt were to be removed it would be on forcepush
 

Delfofthebla

Legacy Supporter 4
Retired Staff
Joined
Nov 25, 2012
Location
United States
I'll be the first to admit I never could get it right with Disciple. Rework after rework after rework and I could never be happy with it. Throwing another one onto the pile might be necessary...

Misc. Comments:

* I think it's funny that the two skills you are suggesting be removed are skills that most inexperienced players dubbed as "Useless skills".
* I also think it is silly to have physical damage increased via intellect. This is why the skills originally scaled in two ways. Int for distance, str for damage.
* The force skills originally did deal the same damage, as you know, but I changed it because I hated how much damage the class was doing near the end of Bastion. (The fault lied with the armor penetration bug, and I did a lot of overbalancing to compensate for it back then.) I don't think there's anything wrong with having them do the same damage again.

On the note of Reflex...
I want to preface this by stating that I do not hate RNG as a concept. Many MMORPG's implement things like dodge, crit, evasion, ect. and these games do very well, and do not suffer from the RNG aspect. In most cases it's practically transparent.

However Herocraft is not an MMO, despite the fact that it plays like one. It is a Custom Minecraft Server with Custom Plugins written in Java. And you know what? It does suffer from RNG aspects.

I'd also like to state that the concept of "Randomization" / "RNG" in computers is a COMPLETE AND TOTAL LIE. Computers cannot generate random numbers, and they cannot perform random operations. They can only do EXACTLY what they were told to do. Most programming languages come with basic "randomization tools" to attempt to generate an actual sense of randomization. But they are far from perfect, and in Java's specific case, far from anything close to actual randomization.

Anyone that played during Bastion (or prior) has got to know what I mean. There's no way you could have played for any amount of time and not felt that "something was wrong" when it came to RNG based skills or plugins.

People who won the lottery, won it often. People who didn't win, didn't win often.

Blackjack almost never proc'd, but when it did proc, you bet your ASS it proc'd repeatedly. You would transition from getting 0 procs to getting about 3 or 4 in a span of 2 seconds. Because that's just how basic java randomization works.

Developers that are planning to implement randomization in their game, create their own randomization tool. It will track how often something "happens", and statistically quantify it.

Here's a really dirty example of what I mean.
Let's say you have a 25% chance to dodge in some random RPG.

If you are attacked 100 times and dodge 30 attacks, your "chance to dodge" is temporarily reduced or outright blocked until you have received enough attacks to where the system "feels" as though your "chance to dodge" is below, or equal to, 25%.

get it? If you are dodging to much, it stops you from dodging for a little bit. If you are dodging to little, it increases your chance to dodge for a little bit. It puts your chance to dodge in a constantly changing state so that it "feels" accurate to the player.

Herocraft Does Not Have A System To Do This, And Likely Never Will.

So yea. I dunno. I just don't like the idea of any RNG ever being put into Herocraft. If there is ever going to be RNG, it needs to be done right, and I do not know of anyone on the HC staff that is willing or capable of creating such a system (myself included).

It's a huge pain in the ass for one thing, and since we're dealing with Minecraft, it's likely to cause a lot of unnecessary lag for everyone to even attempt to have such a system.

If you're OK with having your randomization be wonky, unreliable, and very imbalanced at random points of the day, then by all means, add it. But if that does not sound appealing to you, then I would try and think of something else.

The reborn thing is...whatever I guess. I'm pretty neutral on it.

That's about all I gotta say on this for now.
 
Last edited:

malikdanab

Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
I'll be the first to admit I never could get it right with Disciple. Rework after rework after rework and I could never be happy with it. Throwing another one onto the pile might be necessary...

Misc. Comments:

* I think it's funny that the two skills you are suggesting be removed are skills that most inexperienced players dubbed as "Useless skills".
* I also think it is silly to have physical damage increased via intellect. This is why the skills originally scaled in two ways. Int for distance, str for damage.
* The force skills originally did deal the same damage, as you know, but I changed it because I hated how much damage the class was doing near the end of Bastion. (The fault lied with the armor penetration bug, and I did a lot of overbalancing to compensate for it back then.) I don't think there's anything wrong with having them do the same damage again.

On the note of Reflex...
I want to preface this by stating that I do not hate RNG as a concept. Many MMORPG's implement things like dodge, crit, evasion, ect. and these games do very well, and do not suffer from the RNG aspect. In most cases it's practically transparent.

However Herocraft is not an MMO, despite the fact that it plays like one. It is a Custom Minecraft Server with Custom Plugins written in Java. And you know what? It does suffer from RNG aspects.

I'd also like to state that the concept of "Randomization" / "RNG" in computers is a COMPLETE AND TOTAL LIE. Computers cannot generate random numbers, and they cannot perform random operations. They can only do EXACTLY what they were told to do. Most programming languages come with basic "randomization tools" to attempt to generate an actual sense of randomization. But they are far from perfect, and in Java's specific case, far from anything close to actual randomization.

Anyone that played during Bastion (or prior) has got to know what I mean. There's no way you could have played for any amount of time and not felt that "something was wrong" when it came to RNG based skills or plugins.

People who won the lottery, won it often. People who didn't win, didn't win often.

Blackjack almost never proc'd, but when it did proc, you bet your ASS it proc'd repeatedly. You would transition from getting 0 procs to getting about 3 or 4 in a span of 2 seconds. Because that's just how basic java randomization works.

Developers that are planning to implement randomization in their game, create their own randomization tool. It will track how often something "happens", and statistically quantify it.

Here's a really dirty example of what I mean.
Let's say you have a 25% chance to dodge in some random RPG.

If you are attacked 100 times and dodge 30 attacks, your "chance to dodge" is temporarily reduced or outright blocked until you have received enough attacks to where the system "feels" as though your "chance to dodge" is below, or equal to, 25%.

get it? If you are dodging to much, it stops you from dodging for a little bit. If you are dodging to little, it increases your chance to dodge for a little bit. It puts your chance to dodge in a constantly changing state so that it "feels" accurate to the player.

Herocraft Does Not Have A System To Do This, And Likely Never Will.

So yea. I dunno. I just don't like the idea of any RNG ever being put into Herocraft. If there is ever going to be RNG, it needs to be done right, and I do not know of anyone on the HC staff that is willing or capable of creating such a system (myself included).

It's a huge pain in the ass for one thing, and since we're dealing with Minecraft, it's likely to cause a lot of unnecessary lag for everyone to even attempt to have such a system.

If you're OK with having your randomization be wonky, unreliable, and very imbalanced at random points of the day, then by all means, add it. But if that does not sound appealing to you, then I would try and think of something else.

The reborn thing is...whatever I guess. I'm pretty neutral on it.

That's about all I gotta say on this for now.
Would static percentages work fine?
 

Egorh

Outcast
Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
I'll be the first to admit I never could get it right with Disciple. Rework after rework after rework and I could never be happy with it. Throwing another one onto the pile might be necessary...

Misc. Comments:

* I think it's funny that the two skills you are suggesting be removed are skills that most inexperienced players dubbed as "Useless skills".
* I also think it is silly to have physical damage increased via intellect. This is why the skills originally scaled in two ways. Int for distance, str for damage.
* The force skills originally did deal the same damage, as you know, but I changed it because I hated how much damage the class was doing near the end of Bastion. (The fault lied with the armor penetration bug, and I did a lot of overbalancing to compensate for it back then.) I don't think there's anything wrong with having them do the same damage again.

On the note of Reflex...
I want to preface this by stating that I do not hate RNG as a concept. Many MMORPG's implement things like dodge, crit, evasion, ect. and these games do very well, and do not suffer from the RNG aspect. In most cases it's practically transparent.

However Herocraft is not an MMO, despite the fact that it plays like one. It is a Custom Minecraft Server with Custom Plugins written in Java. And you know what? It does suffer from RNG aspects.

I'd also like to state that the concept of "Randomization" / "RNG" in computers is a COMPLETE AND TOTAL LIE. Computers cannot generate random numbers, and they cannot perform random operations. They can only do EXACTLY what they were told to do. Most programming languages come with basic "randomization tools" to attempt to generate an actual sense of randomization. But they are far from perfect, and in Java's specific case, far from anything close to actual randomization.

Anyone that played during Bastion (or prior) has got to know what I mean. There's no way you could have played for any amount of time and not felt that "something was wrong" when it came to RNG based skills or plugins.

People who won the lottery, won it often. People who didn't win, didn't win often.

Blackjack almost never proc'd, but when it did proc, you bet your ASS it proc'd repeatedly. You would transition from getting 0 procs to getting about 3 or 4 in a span of 2 seconds. Because that's just how basic java randomization works.

Developers that are planning to implement randomization in their game, create their own randomization tool. It will track how often something "happens", and statistically quantify it.

Here's a really dirty example of what I mean.
Let's say you have a 25% chance to dodge in some random RPG.

If you are attacked 100 times and dodge 30 attacks, your "chance to dodge" is temporarily reduced or outright blocked until you have received enough attacks to where the system "feels" as though your "chance to dodge" is below, or equal to, 25%.

get it? If you are dodging to much, it stops you from dodging for a little bit. If you are dodging to little, it increases your chance to dodge for a little bit. It puts your chance to dodge in a constantly changing state so that it "feels" accurate to the player.

Herocraft Does Not Have A System To Do This, And Likely Never Will.

So yea. I dunno. I just don't like the idea of any RNG ever being put into Herocraft. If there is ever going to be RNG, it needs to be done right, and I do not know of anyone on the HC staff that is willing or capable of creating such a system (myself included).

It's a huge pain in the ass for one thing, and since we're dealing with Minecraft, it's likely to cause a lot of unnecessary lag for everyone to even attempt to have such a system.

If you're OK with having your randomization be wonky, unreliable, and very imbalanced at random points of the day, then by all means, add it. But if that does not sound appealing to you, then I would try and think of something else.

The reborn thing is...whatever I guess. I'm pretty neutral on it.

That's about all I gotta say on this for now.

I am completely okay with scratching the RNG aspect. I personally don't want another black jack skill that you rely on to win. One fight you proc it tons of times, the other barely none. In all honesty I was a bit iffy about putting it in my suggestion but did it anyways.

How would: Once every X seconds you dodge a melee hit. The damage return part of the passive would change heavily depending on how often you can actually dodge an attack. If set to 10s it could be a 1s disarm. 5s could be some bonus damage, etc. Balancing would be needed.

For your comment on Seikuken and Fist of Jin: The only really time the skill was bad was when it stunned you (couldn't move or turn) and the stun continued on past the duration of Seikuken. But the tradeoff was normally worth it. Fist of Jin just stacks over time and most people barely notice the difference
 
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