Magic combo ideas

I haven't found a thread on this, so I thought I'd start one.

First to remind people of the ones DarkStarr described in his mega post:

* Spells to manipulate earthen matter into various effects.

Sand Storm = Earthquake + Gust: Blinds targets and slows them down, weakening their defenses and impairing their attack speed.
Stone Volley = Gust + Stone Wall: Rips stones out of the ground and hurls them towards a target, doing heavy bludgeoning damage.
Sapping Root = Root + Death Field: Immobilizes a target and drains hit points as long as he remains immobilized.

* Spells that use "Reveal Hidden" to set a focus target for other spells. The idea here is to turn a caster's defense strategy against him.

Drain Hidden = Death Ray + Reveal Hidden: Transfers hit points from targets using concealment spells.
Scorch Hidden = Fireball + Reveal Hidden: Immolates and burns targets that are using concealment spells.
Shock Hidden = Lightning + Reveal Hidden: Shocks targets that are using concealment spells.

* Spells that manipulate shadow form by combining it with other powers.

Shadow Walk = Blink + Shadow Form: Allows the caster to move places that are blocked off, as long as he can see them. Such as slinking under a door.
Steal Shadow = Shadow Form + Death Ray: Allows the caster, through control of the target's shadow, to manipulate it's movement by making it imitate him. This is inspired by the Shadow Imitation Technique in Naruto. Draining on the caster.
Create Shade: Shadow Form + Animate Undead: Allows the caster to summon a shade or spectre from a corpse instead of raising the corpse itself.

*Spells that manipulate air to different effects.

Lift = Gust + Air's Embrace: Lifts a target off the ground in one spot, immobilizing the target but also making it difficult to attack.

 

I see two results: If the number of combo spells is of sufficient variety, diversity, and equality, that is a LOT of programming and coding. Like, years worth. If it's not sufficient, then the combos become the ultimate build. Sapping Root is clearly superior to both it's components and several potential competitors, so why do anything else? If there aren't enough options, of sufficient diversity but still competitive with each other, game balance is lost.

Now if Portalarium has the manpower to code that, and can create the dozens and dozens if not hundreds of combo effects, that would be really cool to play.

 

The answer to that question is pretty simple. Because you need to progress on two skill lines, both sigils need to come up in battle, you need more reagents, and it drains more mana.

 

But the answer ISN'T so simple, because the reagent and mana use (and don't make assumptions, I haven't actually heard a dev confirm that this game will USE reagents, I don't care how many oldschool UO fans howl in protest, it's not final yet) will be balanced against the rest of the game, it's not like the devs will be actively trying to PUNISH us for using the combos, hell, they seem right now to be trying to encourage it.

If the resource consumption is balanced against other powers, then the only problem lies in building my character and deck so that I can get that combo routinely. I probably won't have 100% uptime, but if I can get it every battle, and the rest of my deck supports me while I fish for that and maybe one or two other combos, it could get nasty fast.

Imagine this. Imagine that the two skills that combo into Sapping Root can each be combo'd well with ONE other skill. The same skill. Then we get a combo triangle, I am fishing for cards A, B, and C. If I get A and B, it's Sapping Root. If I get A and C it's Burning Root, and if I get B and C it's Sapping Blast.

Now I think I can suggest that getting ONE of those combos every 5 to 10 seconds is starting to become pretty likely. Imagine that the remainder of my deck, the "filler", consists of quick delays, self heals, slows, stuns, etc., and of course that skill that freezes a skill card so that it doesn't fade on timer to buy me time to get my big combos.

Use the feature that lets you lock certain skill slots, so that they are always a predictable single skill, and you'll have reliable access to some bread and butter abilites, say, a short range teleport, a heal over time, and a ranged damage over time with long duration.

Now it's "DoT my enemies, Port and HoT myself to maintain range, and buy time as necessary to fish up my three horrid kills.

Are you starting to see how balancing the combo abilites could get tricky?

I'm not saying that combos are inherently bad, I am looking forward to using and learning them. But again, if there are too few, with too little diversity, and not balanced well, we get a mega-build (and then they patch to fix it, but they didn't balance perfectly, so we get a new, different mega-build...and flavor of the month); whereas if they DO introduce enough different, varied, and well balanced combos, that is a LOT of programming and coding. All of which will have to be carefully re-examined and watched each and every time new content, and new skills, are introduced.

 

Well the devs have already said they're planning combos and gave a few examples of ones they were thinking of This thread was just for ideas, which they might find interesting, or they may not; or may have some other objection against them, like balance concerns...

Just a brainstorm, in other words.

And I was soliciting ideas from other people too, so if anyone has any suggestions, chime in

 

My question is how do we execute a combo ... do we click two cards at the same time; is there a holder area for a card that initiates a combo ... or when the two cards that comprise a combo are in our deck do we suddenly see a new "combo card" and the other two automatically disappear? Have they said how that mechanic will work?

Edited to make more sense

 

I heard something about clicking and dragging one card onto the other when both are in your hand, but nothing more specific.

 

Combos between life and death magic would be interesting. I'm not sure what they would accomplish though. In a literal sense, combining life drain effects and healing effects should just cause life drain with huge healing, but that doesn't seem like it would have a lot of utility.

 

Ok, I was afraid of that ... not only do you have to be cognizant of what you are looking for but you also have to actively bring them together (not a good approach in my eyes)

Hopefully it is a little more fluid in practice but it seems like we will be fighting the hud and not the opponent

But enough of the system back on topic
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I was looking at the combos already in existence, looked at the one's you (redfish) made - and I thought that those were cool but I had a hard time thinking of any new ones without trying to mimic everything I've seen in Avatar ( the Nickelodeon animation series )

My take on the combos (without knowing damage output) is that it seems that this game is going to be more about managing vulnerabilities (creating advantages) through combos.

 

It really depends on how powerful the drain is; from what I've seen in other games, they usually don't make health drains too strong to ensure balance (which makes the skill useless outside of PvE)

But if you combined life drain and applied a penalty on the opponent such as a vulnerability to something else ... that would make for a sneaky combatant (one that appears to not cause damage but then is setting you up for a combo attack which you are now completely vulnerable to the effects)

 

It also depends on how the Aggro system works. I've always believed that NPCs should make decisions on who to hate more like the decisions that players in PvP would make. Little is going to be more irritating in PvP than someone who is damaging your entire team AND healing his entire team all with one aoe field. A big, flashy graphic that says "look at me, I'm the source of that irritating HoT 'n Dot!"

 

One of the ideas in my original post is that magic spells could be possibly turned against the caster. In that example, it would use 'reveal hidden' to target casters who are using a concealment spell. Maybe people who are casting hp transfer spells (like death ray) could also be tripped up using counter-magic. After all, to drain someone's health and add it to your own, you have to create a relationship with the other player, some type of "hold" on them. This "hold" could be turned against them. Ju-jitsu for mages.

 

Complicated, but VERY interesting.

 

I'm thinking... just like the counter-concealment spells I came up with are something like "shock hidden," the counter-vampiric spells could be something like "shock host," where the "host" would be the caster draining you.

oops edit: i got the host, parasite relationship reversed. It would be more like "shock parasite", but there's a better word I can't think of right now.

 

There was this theory in old world healing that certain parasites, most commonly leeches, which drew on the blood of their host for sustenance, could be used to draw out the "bad" blood, the poisons within that caused fevers. Not actually true, most of the time they wound up treating viral infection with blood loss, which is a bad combination for the patient.

It WOULD however, make a great spell.

Being drained? Cast "Bad Blood", and turn the damage you take into equal damage for the one draining you, when their own HoT gets poisoned, it will probably throw off their plans significantly. For an added boost, you could have the spell transfer negative status effects that you suffer to the one leeching off of you.

 

Ooh, hey, and while my mind is on the topic, and I just noticed the "cannibalism" thread over in PvP, how about "Bad Blood" or a spell like it poisoned your FLESH, so that if any sicko DID eat you, he would lose HP instead of gaining it. That would be clever, IMO.

 

Loving the brainstorming in this thread!

 

Death Magic
Death Touch + Death Shield = Death Force : Push back attack, 3 player lengths and life drain

Death Ray + Death Field = Death Arrow : unblock-able, armor piercing projectile attack

Moon Magic
Night Vision + Shadow form = Eye of the Owl : player buff skill increase to hit rate and player is harder to hit

Summon Wil-o-wisp + Shadow form = Shadow Wil-o-wisp : Wil-o-wisp hits at a higher rate and is harder to hit