Death and taxes

So hello there. First of all, before I say anything else I have to preface this with the following disclaimer:

This post is not asking for numerical buffs for any part of any skill that the Death tree has.

I'm saying this first because when I've talked (at length) on stream about my issues, and it's been mischaracterised as me saying that I want buffs or that I "can't kill everything". That's not the issue. The basic mechanics of the death tree that you gain health when you damage living targets (except Corpse Explosion) is fine, the lack of heal against non-living targets is again fine. None of that needs any change.

However, there is an issue that I've found that when you're up against higher level enemies (a decent amount of episode 2, all Aether enemies I've fought, and even some dragons) are either completely immune or have a massive death resist. To the point where as a Death/Blade spec build I basically can't fight enemies. Which is a problem.

This game is a sandbox in it's current form and I like that, it's great. However when 50% of my build is completely negated by an enemy and I can't heal myself (because I've got Death Shield up to heal from physical hits taken, and it comes with a -25% heal modifier) it makes certain parts of the game unplayable. Now again, to refer back to my disclaimer, I don't want to see any of the existing skills changed (except the nebulous description of "Summon Effectiveness"+) unless absolutely necessary. However I do feel like either the player should be warned that Death magic is almost completely useless in certain parts of the game, or maybe some of those areas could do with a tune down on their death resist.

With spec, I can throw out a -5 death resist debuff some of the time (stacking to -15) with no per cent chance shown in game. I've checked the wiki and even asked around, with the consensus being it's around 5% chance. That's a 1/20 chance of throwing a very minor debuff, which in general isn't really helping. Do I want it gone? No. Do I want it changed? No, not really. Asking for a buff here would seem a bad idea, but here is my big issue: almost any other magic tree can output the same or much higher damage with less effort.

That's it. I have to jump through hoops to do middling damage with my spells, and any other magic tree can do the same or more, and take no healing minus at the same time. I get that Death magic has historically done really well, and used to be completely useless against the undead, which is definitely not the case now (and better for it) but, when I run into a plains encounter (3+ area) and I get jumped by a Purple Dragon which I cast Death Ray on and it takes literally zero damage but gains the debuff, it basically signals that I have to run away. I can't out heal it's fire damage, I'm a melee build in heavy armour, there's no option for me to fight it and have a chance. I've been told on stream to equip other stuff, but in the heat of battle that would be an armour change and deck change when I'm not expecting it. It's also meaning that I'd generally be changing to a non-spec build so I'm essentially playing a different "class". So what is the point of my spec when it's completely negated in many situations.

If the player is allowed to build any way they want, but the build shuts down 30% of the time (on average of my 1000+ hours) then that feels bad for any player. When I started down the Heavy Armour route, I was told that I should go for Earth, but I didn't want to play an Earth caster. I wanted to go for a "Blackguard" or "Black Knight" build, and if the game lets me, then in theory it should be supported. Equally I like chainswords (If you've watched any stream of mine or maybe gotten lucky, you may know this) so I go for one handed weapons*. So again, if it's there in theory its supported, but in practice it's not. I have struggled and honestly would be no where near where I am now if not for heavy, and I mean heavy support from my viewers and many in the community taking the time and effort for others to make gear for me for free. Even then, I'm shut out of playing many parts of the game.

A good example is the Lost Vale, where I can't get through a certain quest because I lack crowd control when playing through the Fall of Epitaph, and thus I die over and over, and while Death does have decent damage (with caveats) it has no consistent crowd control. So as an example had I gone into say Sun, I'd have no crowd control, but I wouldn't take the minus to healing even if I had around the same damage. So I'm very much someone that can't play on his own.

Speaking of, that is not a choice. I'm from the UK and just due to time zones and when I can stream, I rarely see many other player unless I'm 4+ hours into a stream. I do play other games, and I don't want to burn myself out on stream as I don't want to be angry, but here's the rub: I either have to completely change my build on the fly to something I'm not spec'd into and deal less damage and have to keep multiple sets of gear on hand to support these alt builds, play with others who aren't even conscious, or die. Generally "die" is what I've done. Which is unfun.

Now I've made this post, and if I'm 100% honest, I'm expecting a negative response. I'm expecting to be told that I'm playing wrong, however if it game lets me do it, then it's not "wrong". If it's not a build that is "allowed" then why bother having the player choose their spec. Why not make a "class build" screen. I don't think that's what's intended, but I'm not a dev. I'm just a dude with 1046 hours of my build. Almost all of which has been on stream for people to watch.

Thank you for reading, there are footnotes.


+Seriously what does that even mean? Like, when I have Summon Lich at 128, and it gives him 128 Lich summon power, but when I check his details he has a level of 66.8, it's just confusing. I'll need to make another post but for the love of the virtues, please clean that stuff up.

*I'm a 40k fan, I'm a Voice Actor for the Dawn of War Unification mod, and there isn't any two handed Chainsword skins. Just saying. Or Axes. I'd do that....hint hint

 

It isn't just Death magic, it's most magic. For instance, boss level enemies are also immune to Sun magic. Casting something like Blind on them results in zero debuff. I really disagree with this mechanic. I could understand if some boss-level enemies have increased resistance to certain magics (where it makes sense) but just making them outright immune to most magic is a cheap (and lazy) band-aid and only serves to dishearten players.

 

@Barugon
I'm certainly not saying that you are incorrect, but could you please be more specific regarding exactly which "boss level" enemies are immune to exactly what magic ?

 

I don't use any direct attack magic, but some of the boss-level enemies that are immune to Blind are here and here. Others have commented that they are largely immune to other magics as well. I remember specifically a player that was very upset that his chosen magic (I think it was fire) did nothing to shadow creatures.

 

Yeah and you don't take a healing minus for using your sun based Shield. On your side, but keeping the focus on the "Death Magic gets kicked in the **** for using it's mechanics" aspect of my post.

 

I wasn't trying to distract from your post, just trying to explain that it's not specifically targeted at Death magic but all magic. The devs simply give them insanely high "magic" resistance so that they're essentially immune to all magic.

 

I’ve not tried most of the 210 unique combinations of specs. In fact I’m only a little bit over trying 10% of them, but with Death/Blades having been in that 10% I can assure you that there are far worse decisions in terms of killing power. Subterfuge/Sun would be quite rough. Life/Focus leaves some most everything to be desired in terms of DPS.

I agree with much of what you’ve laid out on the topic of what we might call ‘fairness’ in choosing builds, but it’s not a reasonable comparison to pit Death/Blades against “any other magic tree”. It’s a split build, incorporating melee and magic, which gives greater versatility at the very costs you’ve described. A Death/Chaos build is the most powerful common PvE mage build after Fire, or after Fire and Air if you covet defense.

By contrast Blades/Tactics, Bludgeon/Earth, etc, are more powerful melee builds 1v1 or 1vFew, but are lacking what the Death/Blades split build brings to 1vMany fights. This is both the compromise and joy of a split build.

It must be said that Death/Blades can also be one of the most powerful healing builds in the game. The Sacrifice combo requires much effort to master but can heal for 2k health somewhat easily and for over 4k health at more advanced stages, all the while giving the user a precise and effective tool for maximizing damage from Death spells due to the self-sacrifice aspect.

Purple Dragons are to my knowledge the most universally magic resistant mobs around. 20 billion XP into a fire build or any other magic build kills him slower than under a billion into a swords build, when designed for that fight. Rend and Run is the strategy here, with Festering Death. Yes, that necessitates an on-the-fly deck swap to bounce you off the ropes, flip your opponent, and deliver a piledriver before pinning to win the match. Not easy. The compromise and joy of a split build.

I understand your worries of this post being met with negative responses, though I from what I’ve seen your view is a common one and I know that many people agree. I agree with the core of it, as I said before. But for me the solution isn’t to simplify the game and let us run out of content in 500 hours or 1000 hours or however many hours. I do agree more builds should be made more equal or fair or whichever word might be appropriate, but I don’t think letting everyone do everything all the time and in no time at all is the most fun. It doesn’t sound like a sandbox.

I am a latecomer to the game, at least compared to some. But I’ve been here for some years and I’ve often been so eager to get in one last minute of game time I’d just start a port from adventure zone to town and AKF at the last second for what I needed to do. Sometimes I didn’t get back to the computer until the next day. That’s why my 22,726 hours aren’t real. I don’t know how long I’ve actually played, but I know I’ve only gone through about 10% of the spec combos. I know that I don’t truly understand some of the values of stats. I know that every build I try is better at killing at least one mob than any build I tried before it. All that is enough to have me playing for a lifetime, even when my sand castle collapses and I have to figure out why. It’s what keeps me in the sandbox rebuilding the castle better each time.

 

Always wanna play a Deathknight(death+blades) in bone armor but the real thing that stops me - is extreme depend of XP and gear from my point of view. Probably 140+ level and 4x4 perfect bonus gear is a must(death by itself is, but with blades it goes even futher). Also I would consider(at least for testing) not blade spec, but tactics/chaos (with sword as a weapon). Also you need at least 2 suits (pure death mage and death+physical build with death magic support)
About Lost Vale - if it about room with trolls and elfes, on second level its pretty heavy zone. I can still die there, if I would try to make it as fast as possible. Its a zone for aoe mage or multishot archer, probably death+air mage would make it faster than anyone ingame.
Also try smth Kobold related. From my point of view Kobold hall in Mysterious swamp or Kobold CP are the places where (Death Mage/Sword switching) could be number one ingame. Combination of corpse explosion (main dmg dealer in death tree imho)+ sword ability to kill fast fat single target could be good there.
Another great zone for death could be wyverns, its one of best place in terms of reward in the game and imho death could be extreme good there.(For sure if wyvern does not have extreme level of death resistance)

P.S. Also I could heavily suggest devs to add -death resistance artifacts as a drop from Ancient Undeads.

 

As a Death Mage mainly myself, undead content will always be hard. Well my pet does do some nice dmg against undead my honest opinion is very simply that the game forces you too have physical in ep2 for most of the new zones sadly. We almost need a new tier of debuffs for ep2 content to allow magic to work on those types of mobs. fire mage is the only one that has an extra level of debuff to get a chance on some of them. Elemental pets can do some dmg but nothing where tamer pets can do even with heavy investment along with focus tree skills its not powerful enough. I still think the summon pet levels for death are not boosting any dmg my level 1 does the same as my level 160 but has more hp only from what I see. its the summon effectiveness skill that is what gives any dmg for the pet. so I still think that is the issue for death having a physical attack if it was corrected imo.

 

Yes! The fact Death builds can draw power from both Intelligence and Health (including Health from Strength), plus has two very powerful chest masterworks seem to make a white iron bone chest an amazing opportunity because of its increased durability. To my mind it's mostly useful for the chest slot, and I have always assumed the rest in Carapacian would be optimal for PvE, though just stacking immense health from full bone while still receiving a full set bonus on Evasion and Dodge could be the ticket in many PvE fights I think.

Transforming the idea to serve Death/Blades is interesting, and sounds geared for a high crit build with a 60str sword bearing, say, Thrust, Riposte, Rend. You'd be searching for all the Int and Strength you could get because of the leather. But it could be played many other ways as well. I also think the fact you've played as an incredibly powerful character for so long somewhat skews your idea of how much gear/XP you'd need. A build on these lines can be incredibly viable from day one (as Deus himself has often shown) and I don't believe the midgame problems (say AL 100-130 with 50k-3m spent on gear) are intractable, though they take a decent bit of solving. In the end game it will take more XP/Gear than other builds for sure, but of course the reason it's so interesting is because it would also be able to do more.

Bone Armor also seems like it could hold potential for certain Air builds, for similar reasons, but I suppose this isn't the place for that discussion. Very good advice Spinok, and I like the kobold Rotunda player dungeon rooms for Death/Blades as well as the Swamp and Sanctus Spine that you mentioned. Very fun build ideas, very good post.

 

My brother in virtue, you started before me I get where you're coming from and I really thank you for your response.

 

Thank you for the replies from everyone in the thread so far. My initial post doesn't really have solutions to the Death damage issue, and I think I'd like to take this post to try my hand at a few suggestions. These ideas are things I'm throwing out there and I'm sure I'd make a balance mistake or two, so please let me know as despite my 1k+ hours of actual game time, I still feel like a noob.

1) Death spec is a little flat
Currently the bonuses for Death Spec on the 3 main damage abilities (Touch/Ray/Field) are somewhat underwhelming. Touch and Ray give out that -5 resist, but it's that small chance that can make it difficult to test and if I'm not mistaken it's the same debuff on two attacks. Field's effect is a cost reduction which is nice, but not exactly impactful. So how about a numerical change on that debuff or perhaps only the touch gives the debuff but at a higher chance of happening. This could open up other design avenues for the Ray and Field. As there's only 4 damaging effects in the whole tree, differentiating and making each one unique would allow players to have to make a choice. Currently in the choice between Ray and Touch, Ray is objectively better as it does more damage with the debuff effect being shared.

Equally Spec has no effect on the summons, at least not from what I've seen. I know that the other trees also don't have an effect, but given that there's 2 of them in the Death tree (and if we're honest with ourselves here the Skeleton is wildly outlclassed as a meatshield by the Lich) I would have thought it might do something.

2) Buff Corpse Explosion
I mean I could just leave that sentence there, it's clearly the star spell. Jokes aside, I have said on many occasions on stream that I want to use it more, but given you can't gain health with it, it can only be used 3 times per corpse and it's damage doesn't appear to be related to the health/damage aspect (from memory, happy to be wrong) it's a spell that frequently is needed to buff your own Attunement while being regularly un-useful in combat. The way I see to do this would be to increase the mesmerising quality it gains through spec, as with 107 Death Spec (it would be higher but dear lord that XP drain) it gives out 33.5% chance to mesmerise. While it's a CC effect, it's immediately negated by damage and doesn't last long. Could be a cool thing to do.

I've realised this sounds like a wishlist, but that isn't really my intention. These are ideas that could be used to abnegate some of the issues that I've seen so far. Rather than spend the next 40 minutes typing up a big post, I'll leave that for another time as I'm currently working on 2 other long (long) posts in feedback to do with other topics that I think are bigger deals and are not build dependant.

Thank you again for any and all responses.

 

I've not had a chance to test it properly but my suspicion is that Death summons receive a near-death bonus just as their masters do, which would explain their effectiveness being uniquely centered on raising Health. It would also be adding a fun balance mechanic to their Decay rate and would mean the prized gold-infused pet gear that negates it completely is perhaps rather a curse. Testing this is one of big things calling me back to a Death build.

Aye, outclassed as a meatshield. In the early days it would have been valuable to players who had not yet (or could not yet) complete(d) the quest to unlock the Lich, but that isn't nearly as long a time these days. In practical terms the value of the Skeleton Warrior glyph is to be Combo'd into a Skeleton Mage which adds DPS at range thus avoiding incoming melee damage. I don't use a sword when I play Death, but just as you I am a close contact fighter and even the incidental melee damage my Lich would receive was enough to make me prefer the mage. Though I should say I almost never use elemental summons either way, as I don't find them fun/compelling.


I mentioned the Sacrifice combo, one of the most powerful spells in game, in an earlier post. I mentioned here the Skeleton Mage. Death and Taxes. Unavoidable and intertwined with every aspect of the waking world it seems, and that very spirit, the very spirit that makes a build like Death/Blades so fun, reaches its necrotic grasp across all things. When Death is combined with Chaotic Feedback it becomes an unreckonable force and the cooldown reduction on Death Field is highly relevant, the low-chance debuffs stack readily from the shear rate of casting, and Corpse Explode never runs out of its malignant munitions as the dead continue to pile up at a rate Hades himself could not ponder. A viaduct of destruction which flows as ichor through the veins; we become as gods more supreme than any land has ever known!

Ahem. Sorry. Got carried away there. Death also combos into Fiery Decay, which is again a very powerful spell, heals the caster on initial impact, and gives a (rather long) DOT effect. And let's not flatter ourselves into thinking Death concerns itself only with our little mortal coil. Shooting Star, especially when spec'd, has incredible potential to be combined with a Death build, and the high focus cost again points us to Chaotic Feedback. Death. Chaos. Destruction.

There's other connections as well, some much more viable than others, and they are all interesting in their own right. I mention these other connections because while Death/Blades is not the most optimal it's far from needing its last rites. I thank you for this post as I love nerding out over Death magic-- wish I had more time to write.

 

The mage doesn't run around with upwards of 500 strength and nearly 2k health, it also requires me to run my summon in a combo deck and relies on my levels in Enlightenment. Maybe that's the buffs I'm throwing on him, but he completely outdamages me in melee. I'm currently (as you may have seen) leveling taming and while it's doing some damage, I'm doing about the same albeit I have more than double my tamed creatures strength at this point. My focus was more on how as a melee focused Death character, I'm punished with diminished healing (and you want to run the Shield for a minor heal when you're hit but mostly the Attunement) while no other magic user is. I'm actively punished for using my mechanics as a player. The Death Shield synergises as a melee person as I do get some sustain from being hit, and as you've seen I generally run some bardic healing (that's a whole other post right there) for regeneration. Essentially my main tactic is to engage in melee, drain when my health is low for more damage, while keeping regeneration on myself while I stack spells and do auto attacks. This works for like maybe 60-70% of the content that I've found, but I have to play like everything can kill me, because every time I get told "oh you can handle that" I die within seconds. On stream. Repeatedly. I have to play so safe that I'm bored.

I have never had it heal me in the times I've used it on stream. Happy to be wrong, but I've literally never seen it heal me. Also that again means I'm keeping a non-spec damage source for one combo which is counter to my whole point. I know I'm very item dependant and I have chosen a harder build to play, but I'm constantly punished for using the mechanics of the stuff that I have. I'm not asking for massive DPS numbers, I'm asking not to get kicked squarely in the groin when I play, and being essentially excluded from content because I don't have another 3000+ hours of time to sink into having alt decks and alt items for supporting other builds because Death is so crap that it can't stand up to the magically resistant and non-living. Again not asking that I become "Death, Destroyer of Worlds", just that for 1000 hours of play time that I'm able to at least feel like taking on anything higher than level 3 area isn't going to be me on survival the whole time, where I run from enemies who can murderize me by thinking hard.

I would like to say thank you for your input Cos, and also to NBNN News for featuring this post, but as I said in my initial post, I have only been able to do what I have done by either relying on my viewers to give me stuff to even survive for as long as I have, relied on other players to do the heavy lifting for me (when it's been relatively low level stuff) or died. Playing Death/Anything Melee is punishing without extreme levels of grind for gear or extreme levels of grind for xp. The game is already grindy as all get out. I get that. However at 1046~ hours to be told I'm in the mid game, is pretty depressing and kind of proves my point. I have to work a lot harder to do what most other builds can do without that work. I'm not asking for other spells/tress/etc to get nerfed, I'm asking that Death just be looked at, as it's already a hard sell to existing players and for new players it should really come with a warning of "don't bother unless you have a bunch of mates to back you up" because it's not feasible to do what I have done without the support of my viewers.

This is kind of the crux of my point. If I had chosen ANY other magic tree to spec into, I'd have have something I can do consistently. Damage is more consistent with no need to gamble with my health, fire can get away with absolute nonsense as the passive skills in that tree are clear, they are impactful, and they make your damage better. Death has 3 passive skills (not including the warding because why would I take even more of a minus to my healing spells for next to no gain*) Death Mastery, Mummified Undead, and Undead Mastery. Death Mastery doesn't seem to be clear to what it actually does, again it's the elusive "effectiveness" stat which doesn't really seem to show what it does, and even then after 130 levels in the thing, it gives me a 13% increase in my drained health, which was tied into my death damage anyway. It's a skill that is basically double-dipping the mechanic but for 130 level getting a 10th of the levels as a heal modifier is not great. Mummified Undead is reducing the health drain that your undead summons take, and I've managed to get my summons to stick around but only if I'm in combat, which again means that unlike any other summon in the game, I have to spend resources to keep my stuff around and it's much more of a pain comparatively. Lastly there's Undead Mastery which again has the "effectiveness" thing as an issue, but I have no idea what it does, or if it does anything at all. I have that at 113, and it gives me "+235.4 Death Summon Effectiveness". I have no idea what that means, I've not spoken to anyone who does. Fire on the other hand gets Highly Flammable which increases your fire damage and time, Fire Speed which is a range and speed boost (which is a damage boost), and Fire Proof which makes you more resistant to fire damage.

Every single one of those passives are clear, effective, and useful at every stage. They all increase how your skills work and are clear on how they do it. Death does not get the same treatment, and I'm tired of being told off for using Death. At this point, either the skill tree should be removed (I do not want this) or it need a rework which is what I was kind of angling for here. As many of you know, I have backgrounds in other games, Warframe, Hellgate London, League, and so on. All of those have reworks for characters/skills, Death is sorely in need of one. It's mechanics are clunky, you're punished for using them, and due to the effective low level of power they have (compared to other trees) it's a hard sell to any player to consider putting points into those skills when there's no real benefit to the tree. I know that Xee is a Death Mage, but as I remember he's also not melee. Again I have to reitterate, that if the system allows a player to essentially make the mistake of going Death/Blades, without warning, without any real indication that it's going to be a lot harder, then it's kind of not fair to leave the school as it is. If I played PVP then sure, I could maybe see where balance could be tweeked, but in real terms, there's nothing to stop the player getting a "PVP nerf" to skills as you have to activate the PVP mode with a buff to begin with. There's design space to tack on PVP nerfs to a player that only trigger when not in PVE.

This is coming across aggressive (at least how I'm reading it) and that's not my intention, I'll leave off for now and see what the reactions are, as I have other posts that I am actively working on.


*Life has one damage skill and it only targets the undead. I'm not undead, so warding against it is a waste of time.

 

Deus, my friend, you have to pass me these memos. I honestly had no idea that if we're dying repeatedly on stream that was an indication we had to start playing it safe instead. I just keep dying repeatedly on stream.

I loved your epic grind for obsidian chips, and your diligence in creating, and my delight in finding, the loot table chainswords. That didn't take 1000 hours, but it took a lot, and it was incredibly fun. There are probably people with as much real time in this game as you and I combined who cannot clear a T3 zone. I certainly know of some candidates for that. And they don't want to clear a T3 zone. They have that much play time because they're having a blast doing things other than mastering combat. I have the chainsword I found up on the wall of my crafting pavilion, next to the dagger I patterned as a chainsword when we were first talking about them. It was time well spent.

Again, there's a ton of the 210 total spec combos I've not tried, but there's some grass-is-greener thinking going on when you say you could do better when combined with any other magic tree. I know folks, myself included, who have done Blades/Fire, Blades/Earth, Blades/Life, Blades/Chaos, Blades/Air, Blades/Death, Blades/Moon. My experience with the Heavy/Water spec'd "rust mage" lets me infer some things about Blades/Water, and Blades/Sun has popped up in theoretical build conversations before but I've not seen it carried out.

The people running those builds had many troubles, conceded many benefits that a split build makes impossible, sacrificed META level DPS and loot to play a build that was super fun for them, and which had the chance to become a new META if they mastered it. And in many cases they worked very, very hard to master it. You're a DnD guy. You know the dangers of multiclassing. I've talked to a lot of folks that have used blades with other magic trees, and their campaign was no easier. You're a DnD guy. 1000 hours being midgame is one of the biggest blessings a player can be given.

Death/Blades is a strong build. At all levels. These proposals make it sound like Death has beaten you but you can surely master it. What is the biggest single fight that is causing you frustration? It would be fun to spitball ideas on how to conquer it if you're down. Through that we can hash out a lot of these confusions in a way that's more productive to any Death/Blades player, and a way that's more likely to exposes exactly where changes could be made (and submitted individually to the wishlist or bug report sections as appropriate.)

 

Xee is not a Death Mage. Don't let the luster and seeming providence of Silverdale deceive you. Xee is a necrotic lord of untold power and infamy whose pestilence has wrought havoc upon New Britannia since long before you or I came to this realm! He's also super nice.

 

I get that, but dying over and over in what is essentially low end content is really disheartening and unfun. I like to have fun streams, and if I'm dying every 4-5 mins and not knowing what I did wrong then I find it very frustrating and unfun to play or watch. Also again if you're thinking of this like a new player, dying all the time and not knowing why would push people away and as I've mentioned previously, the death tree is already a hard sell for many players and as such it's a tree that becomes less and less used by players and I've got to try and get something changed.

 

I've said dozens of times that figuring this stuff out is exactly what drew me so strongly to the game, so naturally there's a difference of opinion on that aspect. I'll say again, as I did in the previous message, that I believe the best way to get anything changed is to figure out what specifically you're having trouble with, and submit individual requests to the wishlist or bug report sections as appropriate.

Making specific skills and stats more clear is something that's been happening gradually and it's had a positive effect making me hope, as you ask for here, that it continues. Elgarion did a lot of that work and DevilCult is doing a lot of it now. Recent taming changes being possibly the most known example. I've mostly had my fun in figuring the game out, so while I'm sorry to see some of the puzzle and mystery leave, if it puts the game in a better place I'm all for it. I don't really worry that it will be taken far enough to cram the game into some cookie-cutter pattern that it never was intended to be, because I don't see it going that far. If the game was simplified to the point of being like so many other games that already exist I think it's clear that people would play those other games instead of Shroud.

I understand you're a Streamer and have worked hard to earn that capital letter. The truth is I'm just a Shroud player that streams. The effort you put into your streams is clearly exhibited in their quality, variety, and steadfast schedule. I do admit it's a really hard game to get good at when you're also having to use a large portion of your brain worrying about that other stuff. It's like trying to play chess while juggling chainsaws.

I know it's hard to deliver a convincing and safe piledriver but I really do think embracing your multiclass build instead of fighting it, leaning a bit more in one direction (Blades) or the other (Death) at times would be insanely helpful, as in the cases of those on-the-fly deck swaps. It's also thrilling and rewarding to pull off. At least from the perspective of a very-active-combat junkie. And yes some grass is greener, but multiclassing is always hard and making every multiclass combo be fully supported and intuitive is completely intractable. It really is on us as players to learn both trees and how to most effectively combine them. The side effect of us being given no barriers or boundaries to box us in is that it's easy to fall off a cliff.

 

Seek out the Shadow People. Their guild has seen many gods of death. If we're talking about death from a pure magic standpoint it's insanely powerful. I'm highly in favour of general magic buffs (sources of spell crit damage multiplier mostly) but Fire, Air, and Death are the three schools I see as needing to be exempted or modified in order for that to be anything but game-breaking.

I know it's a hard sell, because I've sold it, several times. I'll try to see if I have any Bearnard streams recorded. He was clearing T5 undead at AL 60 or something like that.