11 replies to this topic

[Tleliaxu]

Hey guys,

 

The last few weeks have seen some interesting as well as silly suggestions. I think I'll add to the list with this active skill for the Cleric class.

 

Type: I honestly don't know

Target: Allied Cleric

Cast cost: Max MP 6%

Cooldown:40 seconds

Distance:  5m

 

[Requirements]

Equipment: Magic Wand

Class: Cleric

Skills: Soul Revive (1)

 

-----------------

 

This skill targets another friendly cleric and prompts a dialog that, upon confirmation, 

- adds a percentage of each cleric's mana to their respective manapools

- adds a percentage of each cleric's dodge rate, critical rate, defense and magic defense to their respective values.

- adds a percentage of each targeted cleric's attack speed and attack power to the caster's own attack speed and attack power (max. 5)

This should work similarly to a party, with a party leader equivalent to the main caster of the Soul Link. Others in the Soul Link circle / "party" can't link with anyone else. Only the head of the circle can Link.

 

Clerics who die drop from the circle, reducing the resultant bonuses for everyone who is linked. Killing the leader of the circle destroys all links, removing the bonuses.

 

 

So the strong can share her power with the weak, and the weak can send one of their own to become their hero. Our powers combined!

 

 

 

Let's see how this works:

Cleric Johnny has 7000 mana, 1000 DEF, 2000 MDEF, 600 dodge, 0% block rate (because of his Mummy Doll), 460 AP and 36% AS.

Cleric Anna has 8000 mana, 5000 DEF, 5800 MDEF, 1400 dodge, 51% block rate, 1100 AP and 125% AS.

 

Johnny asks Anna to link with him.

 

Let's say at level 5 of the skill the link adds 15% of both their mana pools, def, mdef, block rate and dodge to each of them, and 15% of both their collective AP and AS to Johnny.

Thus Johnny ends up with:

9250 mana, 1900 DEF, 3170 MDEF, 900 dodge, 7.65% block rate

Anna gets:

17250 mana, 5900 DEF, 6970 MDEF, 1700 dodge, 51% block rate (NOTE that Anna's block rate does NOT increase despite the math, only because Johnny's block rate is 0%)

 

Cleric Johnny ALSO GETS

694 AP, 60.15% AS

 

Now, Johnny can also link with Cleric ShrekisLove, Cleric Pinoy4Eva, Cleric DontEvenLookAtMe and Cleric MaiBuffs. As the percentages change, Johnny can become, if not a powerhouse, at least not a 1-hit kill for scouts or katar. Simultaneously, everyone in the circle has become tougher at marginal cost. Flipping this around to the logical extreme, Cleric Anna could link with fellow battleclerics to achieve values like:

 

30 000 mana, 18 000 DEF, 21 000 MDEF, 3000 dodge, 90% block rate, 5000 AP, 400% AS 

at the cost of no strong buffs and no strong heals, 

 

 

 

^**^ ~*~ ^**^

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

 

Clerics already have so few skill points available. Why add yet another skill?

Currently clerics are built for either PvM and then reset to PvP (AA, CD etc) or straight up left as PvM clerics for levelling alt characters. This skill proposes a 'bridge' of sorts between the PvP and PvM worlds: something that would work in both realms without a huge investment in accessories, armor or weapons.

 

Additionally, there is currently NO SUCH THING AS A BATTLECLERIC.  You can make one but the only use for such a monstrosity is to go against Kings and dungeon Bosses. This skill for once actually brings clerics to the battlefield as something more than flamecasters, aoe Purifiers and cannon fodder to distract the enemy from the group's mages or katars.

 Imagine: you're facing a team with 5 clerics... but which one is the weakest link? OOPS, you just attacked the Super Perfect Cleric.

 

 

 

But why CLERICS?

Clerics have always been a sort of in-between Jack of All Trades Master of Some. Able to cast every class's buffs (including the +stats buffs through Angelic Chant) with a ranged attack that costs no ammo but not much in the way of damage output boosting steroids to capitalize on the melee ability, weapons that offer only defensive main stat boosts (Mana cost, max mp) except for Valor weaponry. It's all very tame, very pastel. Very Yamamoto.

 

What clerics ARE true masters of is the power of Heart. Clerics are the heart of every party, holding us all together with heals and buffs and strongheaded stubbornness, a refusal to allow people's foibles to get in the way of the mission. A Cleric saves, a cleric shares. So, this ability is about rewarding clerics for being so unique as to be the sharing class, the class that embraces.

 

 

 

Why use Soul Revive as a requirement?

 

As most of you are no doubt aware, the Soul Revive skill is usually either

A.) not learned

B.) given 1 skill point only

C.) not learned and IM [Soul Restore] is learned in its stead, using 0 skill points.

 

More rarely, the skill is learned to its maximum level and then 'upgraded' with the Unique skill Soul Recall which uses 1 skill point per level of skill. 

 

IM skills obviously give real money to Gravity and that's fine. But what about those poor fools who learned Soul Revive, have 1 free skill reset left but DON'T have the real money to buy [IM] Soul Restore? Leveraging Soul Revive adds value to the game by giving clerics with less money more options. Additionally, those clerics with money can now spend 1 skill point to gain access to Soul Link, keeping a sort of balance without too dear a penalty.

 

Of course the devs will adapt this suggestion as they see fit if they ever implement it, so never mind :)

 

Edited by Tleliaxu, 13 September 2015 - 04:26 AM.

[KatsuraKujo]

interesting idea, but still one of the concern is balancing. I mean yeah its a nice idea but battle clerics would have quite an advantage to this if they have the link and pretty much the support one would be quite the tanker :v

 

Also, just to clear my head (cuz i'm a little confused) so soul link will only link with clerics right? not other classes?

 

I actually had more questions, but suddenly forgot all of them ^^lll i'll post again when i remember them

[Tleliaxu]

The whole point is that only clerics can link with each other. Balancing is for the devs, this is only a concept suggestion. At any rate, there are always trade-offs. Even a cleric linked to 5 others won't be able to take on a katar 1v1 for longer than 7 seconds - and that's an eternity in AA. Pierce Defense, Stealth, the fact that katars are cowards and never attack alone, the lack of sufficient crit to up a bc's dps and protect from same crit and mini-stuns... It's still pretty balanced in most situations, even before adjusting the numbers. Where this skill will really shine though is in preparation for another suggestion I'll be posting later.

 

There's some forced synergy here, but that's nothing new to ROSE. I'd like to hear more opinions from the Mechanics nerds on the numbers and the actual use of the skill.

[Jairis]

Nice suggestion tho.. just like Linker on the Game Ragnarok,  [ Soul Linker ]

 

 

keep it up ^^ , try suggesting on raiders as well vs scouts? most of the skills are more on raiders scouts have only limited skills, 

[Feuer]

I'd personally like to see something that propels the cleric into better group support. This idea will only encourage clerics to group together, resulting in more 1 sided matches where 1 team has 4 clerics and the other has none.

 

Instead, why not make it a beacon skill. You cast a mark or sigil or something onto any class target, and the cleric receives some of their defensive stats, while any heal the cleric casts on itself or another target, is automatically duplicated to the marked ally. 

[Tleliaxu]

@Jairis: Throwing other classes into the mix is a bad idea as they all have real combat passives and steroids; this will cause a helluva lot of imbalance.

@Feuer: The sigil idea sounds ridiculously complicated on our sometimes laggy servers and takes away from battleclerics. I don't think we want to take away what the devs have given us, as little as it is. The day that batteclerics routinely skill heals as core build is the day this idea has overall merit.

 

 

EDIT: To clarify, I don't want a skill that makes cleric stats dependent on OTHER class's stats. It just sounds ... bassackwards theme-wise, logically and just plain not a good idea. It introduces unnecessary complexity for the devs downstream. The last few updates brought a lot of clarity for each class and I'm very thankful for that, so let's move forward and not back to the days of shadow.

 

 

 

Thanks for the comments, guys, keep 'em coming!

Edited by Tleliaxu, 11 September 2015 - 09:29 AM.

[Feuer]

Technically it's not, and by technically I mean literally the technical aspect of the implementation.

 

In order for your idea to work, they need to implement a way to pull non eStat [equipment stat] from the targeted cleric, perform the calculations while ignoring base stat influence. That part [ignoring the effect base stat has on the cleric prior to the calcs for their stats] would require a different calculation process. Where as defensively the sigil can take from only defensive statistics and not break the class due to the new and very harsh defensive stat curve. The duplicated heal is as easy as adding a 'secondary target' flag, and any heal is passively coded for a case situation of if the secondary target is marked. Much less coding, provides the same results. 

[Tleliaxu]

Just realized I read Jairis's comment wrong. I'll see what nice things we can propose for scouts

 

@Feuer: And yet it does too little for bc's. I 'hear' what you're saying about massing clerics hiding under the crystal and whatnot. I'll remind you though that not all combat stats are enhanced by this skill and you're still going to have to make trade-offs between your dps hitters and fs healer/purifier/buffer team.  Clerics aren't going to say, "That's my secret, Cap, I'm always charming," and Hulk out in a katar's face. You'll see some improvements in blocking and mana shielding for all linked clerics and dps if you have a bc on your team (currently a low likelihood). Possibly another 2-5 sec you've bought to maybe survive a stun.

 

Your desire to amp up fs support is nice, but let's not start excluding for exclusion's sake. Also the technical side of things isn't the entirety of ROSE, else we'd have no lore and no Hero Quest. Maybe put that sigil suggestion up on a separate post so it can get more focused attention and reviews. ( I've noticed Genesis likes that sort of thing O.o )

 

 

PS: Just thought of a level gap requirement for this skill. Maybe either diminishing returns beyond 20 levels or straight up 0 benefit. R&R.

[Feuer]

BC Offensive capabilities are already phenomenal, and their survival is I'd say currently one of the best for a non dodge class. I can honestly say that I'm not excluding BC's for exclusions sake, I'm be cautious to not insta break the class because they're already doing incredibly well. 

Edited by Feuer, 12 September 2015 - 05:13 AM.

[Tleliaxu]

I've done some testing and it seems in some few situations battleclerics do okay. AA and CD don't number among those situations. Either way, if this idea is implemented the numbers would have to be nerfed down a good bit.

 

This skill has intrinsic trade-offs (opportunity cost of fs vs bc vs gunbourg/katar/mage). In the current meta (if ROSE even has such a thing) if you're in AA attacking a team with 4 fs, there's a greater than 50% chance that you're going to lose anyway. Adding a bc to give the fs 2 more sec of survival  is not going to break anything. The more bc you have, the fewer fs, fewer pure dps hitters. Also, that whole issue with stacking fs will be handled by devs through some forced balancing during the queuing process. As such, it's not material to this suggestion.

 

The benefit to the entire cleric class still stands, but the concept might need reworking. I'd like some more input on the idea as it is right now before I edit it. That sigil thing could be cannibalized, maybe... Good thinking on that btw, Feuer.

 

 

Looks like the other cleric skill I wanted to post will have to wait.

[Feuer]

Where are you getting the statistic that it would only increase their survival by 2 seconds? 

And how do you figure there's a greater than 50% chance a team of 4 fs would lose? 

[Tleliaxu]

"if you're in AA attacking a team with 4 fs, "

 

You read that bit wrong, Feuer. I should've written it better. Rephrased: ".. [I]f you are attacking a team that has 4 FS, there's a [...] lose anyway."

 

The 2 sec comes from theorycrafting how much 4 fs (some wearing Luminous, some wearing Charm IM gear) would benefit from linking with each other and what that translates to in effective HP. 

 

EDIT: Looks like I forgot to mention a critical component to this skill. THE BONUSES APPLY FROM AND TO LIVING PLAYERS ONLY. If 4 clerics link and 1 dies, the 1 who died has left the circle and the bonuses are recalc'd. Similarly, if another living cleric joins the circle (respawned and re-linked manually) the bonuses are re-calc'd. I will update the main post accordingly.

 

Edited by Tleliaxu, 13 September 2015 - 03:44 AM.