Useless Skills (Kinda)

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Cora Cuz'avich, Aug 1, 2020.

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  1. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    There are some skills in the game which become effectively (or literally) useless fighting higher level mobs. Some of these I can maybe understand when dealing with some bosses, but if the enemies can outlevel your skills to the point that they no longer work, why put points into them? I feel like maybe they should have a level requirement- on higher level mobs, the skills won't work unless they're at least at x level, but if you meet that requirement, they should work as normal.

    I'm sure others can point to skills I haven't listed here, but these are the ones that leap to mind:

    • Poison Weapon - I've put around 2.5 million xp into this skill. It's great at low Adventurer Levels, where you might struggle to kill a 300 hp mob. Nowadays, I spend most of my time in t7 and up scenes, and I encounter a lot of mobs that are immune to poison. I don't need a 2-6 hp/sec DOT on a 300 hp mob, but I'd want it on 4000 hp mobs. Additionally, given that I can't carry enough poison to use it ubiquitously, I need to reserve it for tougher enemies. But, as noted, those enemies are often immune. So in the end, I've put a lot of xp into a skill that that I can't really use anymore. It also feels a little nonsensical that 2-6 hp/sec is fine for something it could kill in 25-50 seconds on its own, but not okay on something it would take 16-30 minutes to kill. Some immunities certainly make sense (undead, ghosts, automata, corpions to corpion poison, spiders to spider poison, etc.) but blanket giving high level mobs and bosses immunity seems too heavy handed. (And, for some of those immunities, maybe some particular poisons could be introduced to deal with them. Corrosives that affect automata, or magical poisons that can hurt undead.)
    • Disabling Shot - Again, I'm seeing more and more mobs that aren't affected by this. Take the new Shadow Creatures- it lasts like, half a second on the spiders, maybe a few seconds on the wolves, and it doesn't even register on the bears. High level skellies are similar, they maybe get slowed for a second or two, if it applies at all. I think it would make more sense to make it less effective on stronger enemies, but still have a decent duration. I feel that maybe 6-8 seconds should be the minimum duration on anything if you've gotten the skill to GM, longer on weaker mobs.
    • Survey Skills -(credit to @Scoffer ) These can be useful when you first start, and don't know what to look for , and maybe occasionally for some garlic or nightshade hidden in tall grass, but that's about it. It doesn't take long to figure out what all the nodes look like, and learn how to spot them, even from a distance. The skinning one is particularly useless; it's fairly easy to see what you just killed, and even in those instances where a corpse is obscured by terrain, the nameplate floating above it is a dead giveaway. One suggestion I've heard is to have in cause nodes to respawn faster, though that seems like it would affect the scene for everyone. Another might be to add a small bonus to the chance of getting secondary materials like tin or beetles.
    • Freezing/Ice Skills (Credit to @AoiBlue ) "Another attack set that seems excessively weak on high level foes is ice attacks. The slowing effect of ice attacks lasts less than a second on many high level foes. It makes it useless."
    • Ignite Weapon - (Credit to @Anpu ) "This skill is actually incredibly handy at low levels because of the low HP of lower level creatures."
    • Reveal Hidden - (credit @Net ) "If you are PvP just use fire ring or meteorites, if you are PvE you will use it only for attunement."
    • Summon Wisp -(credit @Sorgin Txakal ) "I think the trained summon pet damage should scale with the wisp to make its spells more effective since it doesn't do damage..."
    • Summon Air Elemental (credit @Sorgin Txakal ) "...but when I run a DPS meter it never seems that the air elemental actually ever does anything."
    • Obedience (credit @OzzyOsbourne )
    • Moon Eater (credit @Barugon )"This fabulous 4x skill gives you a few extra real minutes of moonlight bonus but the moon cycle is many real hours."
    • Cocoon of Night - (credit @Abstrax Phoenix ) "Don't think ive ever seen anyone use it."

    Light Armor Tree - Well, okay, not the whole tree. But it feels unfinished, given that it is only 2/3 as many skills as the Heavy Armor tree.
    • Flurry - Although it technically gives a higher/longer attack speed bonus than Berserker's Stance, you can only use one or the other, and the other bonuses from the stance (especially with Tactics Spec) make it the better choice.
    • Sprint - See Flurry. Though you can potentially stack Sprint with Berserker Stance, as you can use two speed buffs, Dash is better than Sprint. Maybe if Sprint was immune to the "half speed in combat" nerf it could be a contender.
    • Escape doesn't seem to work (from what I've heard) and is only really useful in groups, because if there's nothing else creating more aggro, reducing it by a small amount isn't much good. (Maybe it should become a Subterfuge skill?)
    • Evasion seems out of place. DA is all about Glancing Blows, and light armor doesn't really seem like the place for that. It might be good with bone armor, I suppose, but given that probably most light armor wearers are in cloth or leather, where a bit more DA isn't going to have much of an impact, it feels kinda worthless. I'd use it if it lasted a lot longer, like a few minutes; then I'd put it on my buff bar and charge it up before combat.
    • I do wish the tree had some skills for mitigating stuns/knockdowns/roots. Especially roots; Heavy has a skill (two skills, actually) for knockdowns and stuns, it seems light armor being mobility based should have some root protection. Maybe the difference is that Heavy armor has skills that avoid/reduce knockdowns and stuns, Light has skills that avoid/remove roots, and reduces the duration of knockdowns and stuns.
    • And it's probably no secret that I'd love a skill that counteracts Confusion effects, that might find a home in Light Armor. Though, it might make more sense in Subterfuge or Focus.
    • Maybe a crit bonus skill. Thinking again of Berserker's Stance, if Light armor had a crit bonus skill as well, the Tactics Spec is no longer the apples-to-apples better choice.
    • Specialization - Maybe it'd have more value if we had more skills. But with Bererker's Stance being the go-to skill in place of two light armor skills and giving a crit bonus with Spec, the Tactics spec is a better choice for most non-magic based light armor builds.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2020
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  2. Jezebel Caerndow

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    For the poisons, undead are immune to many dot poisons, in that case I go to corpion poisons cuz they are not dots just burst damage.
     
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  3. Net

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    My least favourite skill is the Sacrifice combo of death ray and healing ray. I heal for more with healing blast and I lose just a tiny amount of focus compared to half of my hps. But then I think the whole healing system deserves a bit more balancing and love.
     
  4. Turk Key

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    Little chance this will be addressed. I posted for over a year about the fact that the hard headed skill in the heavy armor tree does not work. With 120 skill points, level 4 creatures routinely stun and knock down continuously during fights. With any of the stronger mobs, like kobald bruiser, I spend half the fight on my tail or standing there stunned. There never was a response, despite bug postings release after release. I just stopped pointing out the problem and live with it.
     
  5. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Maybe, but it seems like things only get fixed if they randomly grab a dev's attention when they're in the right mood, so who knows.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2020
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  6. AoiBlue

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    We definately need to see poison improved.

    Another attack set that seems excessively weak on high level foes is ice attacks. The slowing effect of ice attacks lasts less than a second on many high level foes. It makes it useless.
     
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  7. Last Trinsic Defender

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    Haha .. love that wording.
     
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  8. Scoffer

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    Surveying skills
    Specifically field dressing survey...just why?
     
  9. Cora Cuz'avich

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    True, but my intent here is to highlight skills that are actually useful, but become useless at higher levels, when you're likely to have several million xp invested, because even non-boss mobs have out-leveled their effectiveness.
     
  10. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Yeah, good one.
     
  11. ShurTugal

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    Ha! I don't even think it happens then. I had something I would like to see done once, a low hanging fruit thing as well. I was curious if I could actually get it done so I became that annoying little squeak. You know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease? Every little chance I had to ask about it, I did, streams, forum posts, you name it. I quite literally got Chris one day, during a stream to say out loud "Ya, we can do that, in fact, I will do it right now" (stream was ending so he meant after stream or so I thought). I got excited thinking "Yes! finally." I didn't check on it right away. gave it a couple days to get done but when I finally logged in to check, It still had not been done. To this day its still not done so my faith in them quite literally tanked after that. Don't tell me your going to do something if you have no plan to do it. I feel now that I was told yes just to shut me up.... My experience.. P.S. Just to make sure I wasn't prematurely opening my mouth about something that finally got done, I logged in just now to check...... Nope, not done even after literally saying he would....... *sigh
     
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  12. Sorgin Txakal

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    I'm just gonna sit here cooking with my one related skill and relatively limited recipes while y'alls complain about the depth of poisons that help take down clockwork dragons.
     
  13. ShurTugal

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    I think we are all on the same team here. your cooking tree is a system (one of many) that was never finished. these skills that are being mentioned are also not complete. Its all part of the same problem. -lets throw all this mediocre unfinished stuff (quantity over quality) at you and hope you don't come to the realization that you deserve better- We deserve better.....
     
  14. kaeshiva

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    It is because they never finish anyth
     
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  15. Scoffer

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    Oh sorry, I didn't realise you were looking for a specific set of useless skills rather than the generic useless skills
     
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  16. kaeshiva

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    Not to be confused with the set of useless ITEMS....
     
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  17. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Changed my mind; Chris mentioned that he was keeping an eye on this thread in the last stream, so have it with the skills that make no sense! I'll add them to the first post as they come in.
     
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  18. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Added some stuff.
     
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  19. Net

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    I use escape so the aggro goes to my pet... it is useless when I am solo without pet. Also it often takes me several casts for the mob to change target even though my escape is at level 120 or so... And when I try to be a fire mage, it seems all those dots anger the mob so the escape does not work even if I use it 5 times... When I do not attack, it is usually 2 casts for the mob to change target to my pet, so I can harvest a node in peace, so I do not think the skill is completely useless, but I do think it could work a lot better (or the aggro and stealth mechanic could be improved).
     
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  20. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Ah. Hadn't considered pets; I don't use them. But I think overall, my point stands- it seems to be ineffective unless you have another large source of aggro.
     
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