Hello there folks.
Anyone who knows me or has partied with me in game probably knows that one of my peeves about the game as it is now is the sheer amount of content that has been made absolutely obsolete by a variety of things, including but not limited to, the combat rework reducing the HP of all enemies to pitiful amounts, defense of enemies and players not countering incoming damage the same, the fact pardoner buffs use the players current stats and attributes.
With the fact you can go and buy a dedicated buffer’s bless/sacrament/aspersio/magic defense, it makes me wonder what the point or purpose to playing a Priest is anymore, in terms of buffing people. Everyone wants a Thaumturge in the party to get their sweet buffs, but you can just go to town and scope out where to get a +2000 bless, sacrament to double that, and for the really adventurous, a set to give an additional damage line, making you able to deal upwards of 6000-7000 more damage per auto attack.
Not only does this obviate the need to have any dedicated buffing priest in your party, it also completely relegates early game content into nothing more than “go to best XP area, auto attack kills everything” that lasts all the way up into the rank 6-7 parts of the game. I feel like in general that completely removes the point of about 90% of the content of the game for folks who know how to really push it.
So now that I have that part discussed, I was thinking why not have the pardoner buffs function similar to how the buffs from Squire weapon sharpening works, except instead of counting the stars of the weapon, it counts the rank of the player? Assuming IMC still wants a 2000 bless supporting rank 9 players, we could make the fomula more like this.
Existing: Damage = (3 x (Spr ^ 0.9) + 405).
New: Damage = ((3 x (Spr ^ 0.9) + 45) x Player Rank).
With the new formula, assuming a person can give a +2000 damage bless now, that would bring a fresh faced newbie into the game a buff 222 damage. That would help immensely (still one shotting) most monsters in the game given their new HP values, but it would also mean the player can’t auto attack for 4000 damage per swing, making any bosses from areas or quests immensely worthless.
On top of that, allow a priest player to circumvent the rank modifier, have it only apply to pardoner shops, so if you’re leveling with a priest they could actually provide a function beyond revive and resurrect. Of course you should do the same with Sacrament as well, given it’s damage boost in recent times, but the end result should be still beneficial to new players, a reason for people to use skills when killing things, and hopefully more varied gameplay than “run around, hold Z till enemies dead, repeat”.
The second thing I was thinking about was the fact that early rank classes STILL get mostly pushed to the side when you reach higher ranked classes, and frankly I don’t know how, or why, IMC decided that for some reason a Doppelsoldner should be “Rank 6” and take longer to obtain than a Highlander which can be taken at Rank 2. I know that my dream of having almost all the classes and rank system revamped so that more classes are available at earlier ranks would never happen, I think there’s another option that would allow for lower rank skills to still be viable or considered for use as you reach high level.
Let’s be fair, by the time you reach the end-game, who’s ever going to use Thrust from the swordman tree? Bash becomes CC only as damage is useless. Double Slash crits are weaker than high rank skill white damage. Why? Why on earth should skills and abilities from lower ranks automatically be weaker than higher rank abilities? I know with the huge combat rework they made skills function on % based damage, but even then they % for higher ranks are bigger for no good reason other than “game mechanics”.
Why not apply the theory of rank multipliers to skills and abilities as well? To give an example, it would require adding player rank into the formulas and rethinking and adjusting all damage across all skills, but let’s have a gander at how it would work. All skills here will be assumed max level without gems/divine might. Assuming weapon damage 1000 regardless of rank of skill for easier calculation. The numbers are out of thin air and balancing/adjusting could easily be done before even considering it.
Bash - Overheat 3, Cooldown 6, Can knock things down via attribute.
Bash Old: 290% = 2,900 damage.
Bash New Player Rank 3 ((115% x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) 3,450 damage.
Bash New Player Rank 6 ((115% x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) 6,900 damage.
Bash New Player Rank 9 ((115% x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) 10,350 damage.
Double Slash - Overheat 3, Cooldown 21, Extra high crit rate via attribute, extra damage vs bleeding.
Double Slash Old 304% = 3,040 x 2 hits = 6,080 damage.
Double Slash New Player Rank 3 ((157 % x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 4,710 x 2 hits = 9,420 damage.
Double Slash New Player Rank 6 ((157 % x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 9,420 x 2 hits = 18,840 damage.
Double Slash New Player Rank 9 ((157 % x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 14,130 x 2 hits = 28,260 damage.
Cartar Stroke - 1.5 second charge time, Overheat 2, Cooldown 21, double damage on knocked down enemies
Cartar Stroke Old 187% = 1,870 x 4 hits = 7,480
Cartar Stroke New Player Rank 4 ((90% x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 3,600 x 4 hits = 14,400
Cartar Stroke New Player Rank 6 ((90% x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 5,400 x 4 hits = 21,600
Cartar Stroke New Player Rank 9 ((90% x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 8,100 x 4 hits = 32,400
Zornhau - Overheat 1, Cooldown 15, 4x hits via attribute, applies SHOCK debuff.
Zornhau Old 1,242% = 12,420 damage, w/attribute = 49,680
Zornhau New Player Rank 7 ((225%x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 15,750
Zornhau New Player Rank 9 ((225%x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 20,250
Zornhau New Player Rank 9 w/attribute ((225%x Weapon Damage) x Player Rank) = 20,250 x 4 hits = 81,000 damage.