Unloved Skills

[wizzzargh]

Fierce Stab- Even back in the days of yore when skill training was free, pretty much all the use this skill got was early mages using it to shank slimes. It could cost 0 SP (Regain SP while still getting to use 70 power attacks!) and I still don't think it would see any use. (But maybe, just maybe, we'd see mages with Tormentor and Bloodlust using sacrificial daggers to regain 15 SP in an attacking turn... eh? eh?)

Heavy Blow- As above, but for hitting Chindi in Tower 1 1/2 instead of slimes.

Feral Claw- As above, but for... uh... Shikigami? Okay, nobody used this except random-start characters with a Redcap and desperation.

Lucky Charm- Pre-currency pipedreams of rock-throwing brigades aside, ain't nobody got the currency to train their demons this, let alone themselves. Maybe if it was a free action with a cantrip cooldown we'd see some bizarre buffing Wizard/Lucky Charm/Lob Stone shenanigans. (But I doubt it.)

Throw Rock- No Ferret, nobody trains Artemis (or anyone else) to throw rocks to squeeze in a few more tactical 70-power hits. NOBODY. They just teach someone else Refresh, or teach Artemis Tireless, and/or Tormentor, and/or Vigorous, or even WARMTH because they pair her with an Ukobach but not Throw Rock.

Agility- Agility is not a skill but my attempts at going FULL AGILITY have been pretty mediocre. But by golly I'm going to keep doing it until I win that Riposte build.

Exhausting Bite/Desiccation/Frostbite- the SP of the enemy is usually irrelevant compared to their HP due to the shortness of fights, but if it's very important to shut them down, you should probably just Infect them, because that will, in addition to slowing down that pesky +5SP per turn, prevent them from healing effectively and possibly open them up to a bunch of Infection shenanigans. I suppose there could potentially be ice shenanigans too with stuff like a Ice-party with AoE and Winterkill and Wizard really ripping up the enemy SP right quick, but see earlier notes on Lucky Charm, Throw Rock, and pipedreams.

Corrupt- Isn't it weird that we find this AFTER Vile Dance? I think that's weird.

Uncurse- Yeah, all the foo-down are bad, but you sort of just have to suck them up because if your Uncurser and the enemy Curser blow all their mana fighting over curses, the real net effect is that you don't have any healing (or frontliners, or support, or whoever the heck you taught Uncurse to.) Plus it only shows up late, and it's only Manabananapranahosannagals who have the nasty Slow by then anyway. Calm>Cleanse>Absolution>Uncurse, that's the truth, yessirreebob.

Healing Rain- Some stay dry while others feel the pain healing raaaaain

[geminimax]

One thing i really don't like about currency is how it makes a lot of skills unviable because the player needs to be so choosy on how to spend their shiny stuff.

I disagree about healing rain though, i think it's pretty cool, at least in theory(didn't get to use it a lot).

[Ferret]

The 70 Power, 5 SP melee attacks: It's true, these are kind of artifacts from the bygone era where you could pick them up for free and might use them for a few levels before inevitably passing them up for almost anything else.

Lucky Charm: Hmm... a fair point. I'll try out a little tweak in the next resting hamster build and see what happens.

Throw Rock:

(More seriously: Luck in general isn't a very well developed concept/skill group yet. I don't want to make too many buffs/changes to them until they've had a fair hearing, even if that means that, until that hearing, they remain a bit iffy.)

Agility: Interesting question there: Does it need to be feasible to go 5/level (or even 4/level) in every stat? Granted, I admit I like that it is possible for 4 of them and wish it were possible for all 5, but I'm not sure it *must* be so. I think the problem might be that half the benefit of Agility is largely lost after 2/level, which is enough to hit nearly 100% accuracy with standard attacks versus 1/level targets (and most targets are 1/level or fairly close.) The benefit goes away even faster if ACC buffs/EVD debuffs come into play. hmm... hmm... lemme think on this a bit. Not going to do anything with it for resting hamster #1 (there's already enough balance-altering stuff in that), but I'm thinking.

SP drainers: Kinda like Luck, this feels like a mechanic whose time has not yet arrived. As such, I'm reluctant to do a lot of buffing to the current pieces since I would likely have to take it back when I finally flesh out the mechanic more. Still.. I've made a note, I have a small tweak that might be okay.

Corrupt: This one I'm actually gonna disagree with pretty completely. Corrupt is far, far better for infecting specific targets (especially ones w/ Body Resist, high Vit, or Heroic resistance) than Vile Dance, simply because it doesn't have that 4 turn cooldown. Vile Dance definitely gets the nod for multi-target applications, but if you need to Infect a single hard to Infect target, Corrupt is the way to go.

Uncurse: Debuff is next up on the "let's fix this" list after Light/Dark. Going to wait until that to poke at this.

Healing Rain: I am confused. Were you serious about this one? You didn't give any real reasons

Geminimax: Credits should be a bit easier to come by in general after this next build, since credit costs for many transmutations will be based on starting level of the target, not current level. Hopefully that will help a bit.

[pfhyyhtsche]

The concept of SP drain skills excites the debuff-oriented player me even if they aren't effective in most situations and I'd be sad to see them go. The combo of infect+sp drain can be devastating action denial on significant single targets like heroes, champion mobs with recruitment heroism, etc.

With luck, instead of having skills be a binary can/can't use how about having bonus effects that only occur if Luck isn't on cooldown, or more limited usage while it is? Throw rock could be just dam50 and range 2 or 3 while the Luck cooldown is on, for example. Skills that are slightly stronger some of the time but a little weaker than their alternatives the rest of the time could have an interesting space. Although I suppose breath weapons already do some of that.

If high agility gives marginal returns, could it give extra side benefits for exceeding a certain high threshold of accuracy? Like a tiny bonus to effective str/mag/cun for moves requiring accuracy. Though I expect that would be really hard to balance to stop it from becoming a potentially broken god stat.

[Gaswafers]

Accuracy loses out in power, but doesn't the evasion half become stronger and stronger? Like, evasion stacks in a way where two equivalent values added together are actually more than twice as good?

[Ferret]

The evasion part of Agility *is* pretty powerful... well, when it applies.

Part of the issue that makes it feel weaker is that it often just doesn't apply: Light, Dark, Mind, Debuff abilities in general bypass it almost completely. Body largely does. Anything does if you get slapped with Stun, Shock, or (once only) Sleep. Most area effects of any element also do.

That's what makes it a bit iffier than Vitality for a defense: Vit's more HP and status effect resistance pretty much are always in play, but Agility's defensive contribution may or may not be important for a given battle.

[ayayaya]

Here's a crazy suggestion: Agility affects speed. I brainstormed 2 ways:

1. Speed = Speed + Agility/10
Pros:
Easy rule for players to understand.
Doesn't mess with balance too much.
Cons:
Might not be a big enough incentive to get players to skill Agi.
Difference between skilling 4 Agi vs 5 Agi is small.
2. Use the percent tied to Agility that's used for calculating accuracy and evasion and add it to Speed. To prevent non-Agility users from being horribly gimped, make the effect never reduce speed.
Pros:
Impact of skilling Agi very noticable.
Cons:
Counterintuitive effect-Leveling up can make you slower.
Greatly warps balance.

I favor idea 1, but I'm interested in hearing other people's opinions.

[Gaswafers]

My simplest idea is that the "overflow" accuracy is converted into a chance to repeat the attack. But I think the way evasion works might cause that to play weirdly. 50% evasion causes a 100% accuracy attack to miss half the time, right? Maybe it's a problem that evasion scales exponentially faster.

[Ferret]

Speed is a scary thing to mess with at that easy an access level... though I confess I did have an idea for the barely mentioned "glyph" system related to this concept.

::enter foggy realm of stuff not even slated to be implemented, and certainly not on the schedule at present::

Glyphs are basically goodies you would find in the tower: once you find one, it is yours forever, and you may spent credits to imprint it on a demon: doing so only costs the credits, not the glyph, and you can overwrite later if you change your mind. One of the types of glyphs was "new benefit from stat", and "Agility bonus is added to speed" was one of the ideas.

::leaving the foggy realm of stuff not even slated to be implemented::

Repeated attacks based on overflow accuracy would have the traits of usually being rare and being very spiky damage-wise, potentially (imagine getting double hit by a 100 Power hit of an element you're weak to!), which is spooky. However, Agility also works a bit differently than you said:

Agility is basically a tug-o-war between the two combatants, both are applied to the base chance to hit, and the result is the final chance to hit. (i.e.: A +50% Agility bonus doesn't necessarily mean 50% of all attacks miss you, because it first has to work at cancelling out any bonus your attacker has from Agility.)

[mbj]

Yea I don't know about adding speed either. It's either going to be unnoticeable or you'll have innate haste or something ridiculous. To be honest I've never messed around much with haste/raicho soul armor or anything like that though. Adding a second hit might be ok; or maybe adding crits (with agility improving base crit chance, and crit strength determined by the relevant stat(s) bonus) could be cool too, but you'd have to add in a completely new potentially bullshit mechanic. Then lots of characters would be interested in agility (critical mass agony + offense up + innocence + demon's mien on full health angel pack anyone?).

Also unloved (by me) skills:
-Pretty much all pure debuff spells (on debuff builds I guess). I don't love them because even though they can be good, they just aren't that interesting or fun mechanically. You just kinda stand there, empty your mana, and watch your allies get to work, somewhat more effectively than before the debuffs. You know, as opposed to actually fighting and doing damage and just killing the enemy faster that way. Veil tank is kinda the same but it's funny because of how things just kill themselves on you. I guess risk factors into it too, since you're always in danger on a veil tank which can make some battles exciting.

-Soothe. That's the "heals only above 50% HP" skill right? Does anyone actually want this on their demons?

-Bull rush. Pounce and leap attack let you jump over dudes

-High attack power low accuracy skills like Devour or Eat Alive or whatever it's called that shoggoth has. I've never even bothered trying it out so I dunno.

-Sure shot. Huge SP drain on what's her face

-other stuff too