Tree of Savior Forum

Use Attributes to make older skills scale + Class suggestion: Geomancer

Suggestions Game
#1

So one problem I have with ToS’ offensive skills is that when you get C2 of a class to get more skill points into their C1 skills, those skills get stronger at the same rate as C1. If you chose a new class at your current rank, those offensive skills will scale at rate relative to that rank. So if you were C2 or C3 of a certain class, investing points into a C1 skill only makes you stronger at a rate 1 or 2 ranks lower than what you currently are. Of course, this doesn’t apply to the super good offensive skills that add an additional hit for every use of the skill, like Fireball or Multi Shot. But for ordinary skills like Energy Bolt or High Anchoring that just hit once, investing more points into them at C2 or C3 feel like a huge waste.

To circumvent this, I propose adding more attributes or game mechanics at C2 and C3 to make skills in previous circles more worthy of putting points into. That way a C2 Wizard’s Energy Bolt feels better or has a new utility compared to C1. Of course, this applies to all lackluster offensive skills for any class. To demonstrate this, I prepared an elaborate example of a R2 Wizard class I made while I was bored.

##Geomancer C1

###Skill - Seeking Spears [Magic] [Earth] [Secondary Buff]

Prepare stone spears that shoot from under your enemy. After each successful basic or subweapon attack, one stone spear shoots out to attack the targeted enemy. The stone spear breaks after it is shot.

Notes:

  • The buff is secondary, so it doesn’t contribute to the buff limit. The buff icon is only there to tell you how many spears you have remaining.
  • If your basic attack finishes off the enemy (like tree root crystal) the spear will still shoot out to hit nearby enemies, if any.
  • At lv15, your next 15 basic/sub attacks you use will come with spears. No spears are consumed if your basic/sub attacks hit thin air.
  • Range is about the same as the radius of a tree root crystal.
  • Skill is designed to make basic/sub attacks feel better to use.

Lv1 - Attack: 152. Number of Spears: 1. AoE Attack Ratio: 2. SP 30. Cooldown: 40 sec.
Lv5 - Attack: 320. Number of Spears: 5. AoE Attack Ratio: 2. SP 46. Cooldown: 40 sec.
Lv10 - Attack: 530. Number of Spears: 10. AoE Attack Ratio: 2. SP 66. Cooldown: 40 sec.
Lv15 - Attack: 740. Number of Spears: 15. AoE Attack Ratio: 2. SP 86. Cooldown: 40 sec.

###Skill - Sinkhole [Magic] [Earth] [Cursor Target]

Create a circle of loose sand that draws enemies standing on it towards the center. All characters standing on Sinkhole cannot jump or be knocked down/up/back. Increase the damage of Earth element damage to all enemies standing on Sinkhole.

Notes:

  • Does not affect flying enemies.
  • Bosses are not affected by the pull effect. Instead they get the Slow debuff for Skill Lv sec.
  • You could use the knockback prevention to land more hits of Catar Stroke, if it wasn’t nerfed to always deal 4 hits. Oh well. If a new skill comes out that deals damage similarly to old Catar Stroke, this could be useful.
  • Range is larger than Flame Ground but smaller than Broom Trap.
  • Enemies are gradually pulled in towards the center. Enemies with high enough movement speed can outrun the pull. They’re not sucked in like Frost Pillar.

Lv1 - Duration: 6 sec. Bonus Damage for Earth element: 5%. SP 18. Cooldown: 25 sec.
Lv5 - Duration: 10 sec. Bonus Damage for Earth element: 25%. SP 50. Cooldown: 25 sec.
Lv10 - Duration: 15 sec. Bonus Damage for Earth element: 50%. SP 90. Cooldown: 25 sec.
Lv15 - Duration: 20 sec. Bonus Damage for Earth element: 75%. SP 130. Cooldown: 25 sec.

###Skill - Clay Doll [Summon]

Create a clay body double in front of you. Clay doll accumulates enemy aggro instead of you and takes damage for a limited time.

Notes:

  • Clay Doll has a brief 1 sec cast time so it’s not a get out of jail free card when you are swarmed by monsters.
  • The Clay Doll doesn’t taunt enemies. You have to provoke passive enemies in order to get them to approach the doll.
  • Clay Doll does not accumulate aggro from your party mates.
  • If the Clay Doll is outside of the enemy’s range of vision, they will continue to aggro you until the Clay Doll is within vision.

Lv1 - Duration: 21 sec. Clay Doll HP: 1200 + Con50. SP 34. Cooldown: 60 sec.
Lv5 - Duration: 25 sec. Clay Doll HP: 2000 + Con50. SP 50. Cooldown: 60 sec.
Lv10 - Duration: 30 sec. Clay Doll HP: 3000 + Con50. SP 70. Cooldown: 60 sec.
Lv15 - Duration: 35 sec. Clay Doll HP: 4000 + Con50. SP 90. Cooldown: 60 sec.

###Skill - Sand Veil [Self Buff]

For a short period of time, increase your p.def by a percentage of Int.

Lv1 - Duration: 32 sec. Percent Int used: 13%. SP 18. Cooldown: 60 sec.
Lv5 - Duration: 50 sec. Percent Int used: 25%. SP 50. Cooldown: 60 sec.
Lv10 - Duration: 70 sec. Percent Int used: 40%. SP 90. Cooldown: 60 sec.
Lv15 - Duration: 90 sec. Percent Int used: 55%. SP 130. Cooldown: 60 sec.

Attribute - Geomancer’s Tenacity [Max Lv.5]

Increase resistance to Earth element damage by 5% per attribute level. Increase chance of resisting knockback/down/up/etc. by 5% per attribute level while a shield is equipped.

Attribute - Seeking Spears Enhance [Max Lv.100]

Attribute - Sinkhole Enhance [Max Lv.100]

Attribute - Sinkhole - Damage [Max Lv.1]

Sinkhole deals damage equal to 50% matk each second.

Attribute - Clay Doll Duration [Max Lv.3]

Increase the duration of Clay Doll by 5 sec. per attribute level.

Attribute - Sand Veil Equilibrium [Max Lv.1]

Half of the Int used to raise p.def is used to raise m.def instead. Cannot be toggled On/Off while the skill is active.

##Geomancer C2

###Skill - Gorgon’s Eye [Magic] [Earth] [Overheat 2]

Petrify unpetrified enemies in front of you and unpetrify petrified enemies to inflict aoe damage to petrified enemies in front of you.

Notes:

  • The skill has a brief cast time, identical to Ice Blast or Flare.
  • Range is similar to Stone Curse, but cone-shaped and thus wider.
  • The skill can petrify and damage up to aoe atk ratio targets, so you could simultaneously damage 3 enemies while petrifying w others without any buffs to aoe atk ratio.
  • Enemies are unpetrified first before the skill deals damage to them

Lv1 - Attack: 200% + 361. Petrify for 4 sec. AoE Attack Ratio: 5. SP: 40. Cooldown: 50 sec.
Lv5 - Attack: 200% + 605. Petrify for 6 sec. AoE Attack Ratio: 5. SP: 56. Cooldown: 50 sec.
Lv10 - Attack: 200% + 910. Petrify for 8 sec. AoE Attack Ratio: 5. SP: 66. Cooldown: 50 sec.

###Skill - Tombstone [Magic] [Earth] [Overheat 2] [Req. Target]

Raise a large tombstone behind your target and topple it down on their head. Knocks down enemies towards the caster.

Notes

  • Range and knock down is similar to as if someone used Catar Stroke right behind the enemy you have targeted.

Lv1 - Attack: 252. AoE Attack Ratio: 4. SP: 30. Cooldown: 30 sec.
Lv5 - Attack: 560. AoE Attack Ratio: 4. SP: 54. Cooldown: 30 sec.
Lv10 - Attack: 820. AoE Attack Ratio: 4. SP: 74. Cooldown: 30 sec.

Attribute - Tombstone Enhance [Max Lv.100]

Attribute - Gorgon’s Eye Enhance [Max Lv.100]

Attribute - Seeking Spires [Req. Lv.6 Seeking Spears][Max Lv.10]

Converts Seeking Spears into stalagmites that pierce enemies from underneath. Seeking Spires have increased AoE radius by 5, AoE attack ratio by 1, and cooldown by 4 sec (Attribute Lv.1 only). Increase the number of Seeking Spears turned into Seeking Spires by 1 per attribute level. Increase the chance of gaining a new Seeking Spear when one hits an enemy by 4% per attribute level.

Attribute - Sand Veil - Petrify [Max Lv.5]

Increase chance of petrifying enemies that melee attack you during Sand Veil by 5% per attribute level.

##Geomancer C3

###Skill - Gravity Wave [Magic] [Earth] [Channel]

Hold down the skill key to amplify the effect of gravity around you. Enemies nearby take damage from extreme G-forces and can’t move or attack until the skill ends.

Notes:

  • Functionally equivalent to Sadhu 2’s Possession.
  • Skill radius is centered around you and has the same range as Flame Ground.

Lv1 - Attack: 308. AoE Attack Ratio: 10. SP: 4.8% MSP/sec. Cooldown: 80 sec.
Lv5 - Attack: 420. AoE Attack Ratio: 10. SP: 4% MSP/sec. Cooldown: 80 sec.

Attribute - Gravity Wave Enhance [Max Lv.100]

Attribute - Sand Veil - Reinforcement [Max Lv.1]

Sand Veil uses Con+Int instead of just Int for calculation. SP cost +30. Cannot be toggled On/Off while the skill is active.

Attribute - Tombstone - Graveyard [Max Lv.5]

If there is another target near your current target, raise another Tombstone behind that target as well. Repeat for up to attribute level targets. SP cost +20.

Note: This skill searches for new targets the same way Split Shot or Electrocute does. It may target dead enemies due to the same bug that affects these 2 skills, but since the skill’s named Tombstone it may appear intended.

Attribute - Seeking Towers [Max Lv.5][Req. Lv.11 Seeking Spears]

Converts Seeking Spears into giant geysers spewing out land and debris. Seeking Towers have increased number of hits to 3, AoE radius by 10, AoE attack ratio by 2, and cooldown by 6 sec (Attribute Lv.1 only). Increase the number of Seeking Spears turned into Seeking Towers by 1 per attribute level.

Notes:

  • Priority property. If you have Lv15 Seeking Spears, Lv10 Seeking Spires, and Lv5 Seeking Towers: the first 5 spears will become towers and the last 10 spears will become spires.
  • Replacement property. If you have Lv11 Seeking Spears, Lv10 Seeking Spires, and Lv5 Seeking Towers: the first 5 spears will become towers and the remaining 6 spears will become spires.
  • Remainder property. If you have Lv15 Seeking Spears, Lv10 Seeking Spires, and Lv1 Seeking Towers: the first spear will become a tower, the next 10 spears will become spires, and the last 4 spears are unchanged.
  • Range is similar to Fire Pillar.
  • Additional spears gained by Seeking Spires will remain as spears. To gain more Seeking Towers and Spires, you must recast Seeking Spires.

So to summarize. Rather than have mediocre attributes that look like dlc that strips content from existing skills, we introduce more significant attributes, but lock them away at higher circles. This creates a balance between old C1 skills that don’t scale as well as new C2 or R3 skills, and by extension C2 skills that don’t scale as well as C3 or R4 skills. What do you guys think of this method of designing/balancing classes/skills?

EDIT: Stone Skin renamed to Sand Veil

6 Likes
#2

Basically people go for C2 or C3 to get new skills, not to upgrade the old one. And I think the example should be the exist class because people has already known how it scale, not the new concept class you create.

#3

Only one thing about the Geomancer is that Stone Skin is already used

Beside that I love your idea!!!

Check out this Geomancer class is very good.

@GM_Erick & @GM_Fuji

#4

Plenty of builds upgrade skills from previous ranks because you can’t use all your point into the new skill, sometimes some of these new skills aren’t even worth investing points in. The problem is that skills will always be behind in scaling due to how it works.
By example Wizard’s Energy Bolt gets +12 or +13 damage every level, which for a R1 skill sounds about right, the problem is once you get to higuer Circles, Energy Bolt keeps getting only +12 or +13 per skill level and hits only once. Ice Bolt on the other hand (to use another single hit skill) gets +31 or +32 per skill level and can freeze.

Now let’s compare their raw damage with no atributes, Energy Bolt at Lv6 (suposedly the equivalent to a R2 skill) has 105 attack, doesn’t look half bad. Then there’s Ice Bolt Lv1 with 121 attack, hey it isn’t THAT big of a diference and Energy Bolt has that one atribute that makes it do more damage, not bad eh?
The problem is that this diference just gets bigger as Energy bolt keeps getting only +12 or +13 damage per level. So let’s compare Lv10 Energy Bolt with Lv5 Ice Bolt.

Lv10 Energy Bolt has a power of 153.
Lv5 Ice Bolt has a power of 256.

You see the problem now, right?

#5

People pick Wiz C2 and C3 for Sure spell and Quick cast so I don’t really think it’s the problem. The skills that hit harder have longer CD and each skills have different overheat counts.
Ex: Cryomancer C2 and Psychokino C1 as R3
Ice bolt lv10 does 402 got 2 hits before overheat and CD 15s freeze 5s
Ice pike lv10 does 629 got 2 hits before overheat and CD 25s freeze 5s
While Telekinesis lv5 does 360 got 3 hits and CD 40s
Psychic pressure lv5 does 288 AoE ratio 5 and CD 30s
I can say that Cryo C2 is better than C1 Pyscho because you can cast while moving (easier to kite) and don’t have the AoE limit.
Or Elemetalist C1 doesn’t stand a chance against Pyro or Cryo C3 as R4.
Class combination is a different story as we all know Pyro2>Ele3 and Wiz3>Ele3 are the highest damage output in the wiz tree.

#6

What they could implement is a skill awakening type of deal where you have to do daily quests to earn points and when you have a certain amount of points you can use them to awaken a skill. They have a similar system in Tera for farming special items and equipment.

#7

Ice PIke has five hitboxes, meaning that in bosses or just large mosnters it can hit up to five times actually.
The thing with Psychokino is that it instantly hold the oponent for the rest of your party while Cryo may freeze the oponent making Ice Wall it’s only real CC skill before C3. Things like these are also important to think about while the Energy Bolt and Ice Bolt comparision even if Energy Bolt has a lower Cooldown.
The problem arises as a new class also means other skills besides your old ones, it’s not only about the ammount of power the skills have but also about the ammount of skills you have.

Yes WizardC3 is done for QuickCast, but that doesn’t fix the fact that up to that point your only damaging skill is Energy Bolt which doesn’t scale well and Earthquake which is in a long cooldown, the lack of actual skill options compared to a CryoC2, PyroC2, PsychoC1 and LinkerC1 are very undewhelming when you think about it. If you have less skills why wouldn’t they be better?

#8

Wiz C3 you’ll get magic missile. And as I said you go wiz C2 and C3 not for the damage skills but the buff skills which are still useful at much higher rank. If you want strong buff at late game, you have to sacrifice the damage at early game and I think it’s reasonable. That’s why people keep saying Linker C1 is OP when you can higher your damage that easy at R3 (and it got nerf and nerf now) while you have a hard time with wiz C3 to get the OP Quick cast. Don’t you think 50% damage increase is OP with the skill damage is flat number like now?

#9

Some skills get better in big ways with attributes already.
Archer’s Swift Step and Psychokino’s Psychic Pressure are good examples of this.

I would like to see it happen more often though.

#10

Because the power issue applies to every class tree with the circle progression, not everyone gets a Quick Cast equivalent, the Ice Bolt / Energy Bolt comparision was for the sake of making a comparision that can be easily aplicable to a lot of skills.

#11

For a similar comparison, look at Fireball and Flare. Fireball adds another hit per skill level, essentially gaining a % value, whilst flare only advances like normal with +.

Nobody in their right mind would consider leveling flare past one point when they could level fireball.

#12

I’d love to see skills grow differently for each rank.

A modified Ice Pike example:
Lv1: Atk=150, Freeze=30%(5 seconds), CD=25
Lv2: Atk=200, Freeze=30%(5 seconds), CD=25
Lv3: Atk=250, Freeze=30%(5 seconds), CD=25
Lv4: Atk=300, Freeze=30%(5 seconds), CD=25
Lv5: Atk=350, Freeze=30%(5 seconds), CD=25

Lv6: Atk=400, Freeze=40%(5 seconds), CD=25
Lv7: Atk=450, Freeze=50%(5 seconds), CD=25
Lv8: Atk=500, Freeze=60%(5 seconds), CD=25
Lv9: Atk=550, Freeze=70%(5 seconds), CD=25
Lv10: Atk=600, Freeze=80%(5 seconds), CD=25

Lv11: Atk=650, Freeze=80%(6 seconds), CD=24
Lv12: Atk=700, Freeze=80%(7 seconds), CD=23
Lv13: Atk=750, Freeze=80%(8 seconds), CD=22
Lv14: Atk=800, Freeze=80%(9 seconds), CD=21
Lv15: Atk=850, Freeze=80%(10 seconds), CD=20

So the first 5 levels, it just grows stronger linearly. The next 5 levels, the freeze chance increases in addition to the growing Atk. And the final 5 levels, the freeze duration increases instead of the chance, but also the cooldown time decreases, while Atk is still growing further of course.

The whole thing could be done via Attributes as well, by simply making those attributes have the impact of their effect depend on the skills Level etc…

But that’s just an example so don’t take it as a serious suggestion for adjusting Ice Pike in particular.

The point is, the same linear growth is either “meh” (when merely the Atk grows lineraly or similar), or OP (when every level adds another hit for example). So why not both and balance the degree at which circle what effect starts showing up etc.

1 Like