Some Ideas for a Focus Tree Rework.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Aetrion, Sep 25, 2019.

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  1. Aetrion

    Aetrion Avatar

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    Some ideas for changing the focus tree to be more interesting to use, as it's currently only a repository for innate skills, but lacks active skills that are actually fun to use and benefit meaningfully from specialization. The goal is to make the focus tree into a tree that is genuinely useful for managing focus, both by building it in interesting ways, and by burning it quickly for powerful effects. It should also be the basis for more summoning focused characters, by providing both active and passive skills that improve summoned creatures.

    Changes:

    Get rid of the auto discard as well as Mind Lock. Both are unnecessary.

    Basically the only reason to ever use Mind Lock is to keep glyphs from dropping off, but ever since the game has designated slots there are no good decks that don't just have a slot to park any glyphs you aren't using at the time anyways. Having glyphs drop off from designated slots isn't really a big deal, you just wind up with another full stack in ten seconds or so. If there is ever a reason to discard a glyph the auto discard is too slow to be convenient to wait for, manual is the only thing that makes sense. The auto discard has become irrelevant, and so has the skill that stops it, so both should be dropped from the game.

    Change Mind Wipe to not simply discard and draw glyphs in your draw stack, but actually finish all cooldowns on glyphs and shuffle them back into the draw stack after discarding your entire hand. Add a significant focus cost, perhaps one that increases per glyph on cooldown or cumulative seconds of cooldown erased to balance it out.

    As of right now any situation where someone can't do anything useful unless they discard their whole hand and draw a new one is caused by a poorly constructed deck that was overloaded and unmanageable to begin with. It needs to do more than just change the glyphs in your hand, since any well built deck is only limited by cooldowns, not by the luck of the draw.

    Change the mastery bonus on Spellbinder Stance into a bonus to all attunements. Something like +0.1 or 0.15 to all attunements per point of specialization.

    This would allow Focus Spec characters to take on the role of a true wizard who utilizes all schools of magic at the same time more effectively. The additional focus gain you currently get isn't particularly useful, since characters that really benefit from spellbinder stance tend to have an abundance of focus, and the bonus isn't big enough to be a gamechanger for characters who are running out. There are some better focus building mechanics in this post later.

    Rebuild Aetheric Feedback so that it works similarly to Juxtapose. It can be comboed with any targeted glyph, and then produces an Aetheric Feedback version of that glyph that doesn't have a focus cost. Landing a crit with a glyph that has been comboed with Aetheric Feedback returns focus instead of costing any. Mastery either increases the focus gain on a crit, or the crit chance of glyphs cast with Aetheric Feedback.

    This encourages draw decks and combo building, and provides a more interesting mechanic than trying to hit a specific button after every crit you land.

    New Skills:

    Overchannel: Puts the character into a stance that drains 100 focus per second, but also provides a stacking buff that increases all attunements by 10 every second. If the character has less than 100 focus when Overchannel ticks they take 50% of their health in damage and receive the "Burnout" debuff, which sets their focus regeneration to 0 for 30 seconds. Moving cancels the stance. Drinking potions cancels the stance. The attunement buff remains for 10 seconds after the stance is cancelled. Mastery increases the time the buff remains after cancelling the stance (+0.1 seconds for every point of specialization).

    This would basically be a skill that allows "Ritual casting", letting a caster brute force extremely powerful spells by dumping huge amounts of focus into them. It is also a skill element that requires careful management. If you don't stop overchanneling in time you burn out and won't be able to cast anything at all for a while.

    Soul Siphon: Functions similarly to Corpse Explosion, but instead of causing an explosion this skill returns focus to the caster when used on enemy corpses. Can only be used once per corpse. Mastery makes a small percentage of the focus gained spill over to nearby allies as well.

    Another interesting way to gain focus. Requires defeated enemies to work, so this can be extremely useful in mass battles, but fall flat when fighting a single powerful boss.

    Circle of Binding: Creates a circle on the ground in which summoned creatures are significantly more powerful, but the fizzle chance for all other spells is increased 50% while the spell is active. Mastery increases the area of the circle.

    Having this be a ground effect makes it so you actually have to be aware where your summon is and manage this spell accordingly. You can't simply set loose powerful summons that play the game for you, if you want to be effective as a summoner you need to keep control of them. This is geared toward pure casters that have abundant fizzle chance reduction.

    Transplanar Assault: Teleports all your summoned creature to an area on the ground after a short cast time, causing a burst of their primary damage type to nearby enemies and increasing threat from the summon. Mastery increases the amount of threat generated. The creature will also take this as an attack order against the most wounded enemy hit by the Transplanar Assault.

    This helps you control your creature, get it into the action where you need it, and generate threat so that it can keep enemies busy rather than just be background noise.

    Unfetter: Removes all restraints and bindings on your summoned creature, causing it to grow significantly in power, but also go out of control and eventually disappear. The creature becomes much more powerful, but no longer obeys commands and will turn hostile the caster and their party if it can't find any more enemies to attack. The creature rampages for a random amount of time between 60-90 seconds before returning to its home plane. Unfettering more than one creature will cause the first one to disappear immediately. Mastery adds a chance that the unfettered creature does not attack it's former master's party after killing all enemies, but instead shows its gratitude by restoring some of the party's focus before leaving. (0.5% per specialization point)

    This is basically the summoner's big red button of mayhem. You hit it and just watch your creature go berserk, with the added risk of having to fight it if it can't find anything hostile to kill. A throwback to the Energy Vortex/Blade Spirit from UO.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2019
  2. Lazlo

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    I think mind lock and aetheric feedback are ok, but I agree that the tree could use a rework. I doubt many people spec focus.
     
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  3. Margaritte

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    But, but I LIKE Mind Lock. I have at least three decks built around that skill, and some old school spellweavers like @Mimner use it for pretty much everything with amazing results. The tree could use some love, I agree with that bit, but don't get all crazy now ;)
     
  4. Aetrion

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    You wouldn't need Mind Lock anymore, I'm saying they should remove the auto discard so everything always acts like it's mind locked.
     
  5. tolgator

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    Cool ideas.

    I also would love to see a Focus Transfer skill added to the tree. So I can transfer some of my focus to another party member who is running low on focus.
     
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  6. Sketch_

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    Too much italic
     
  7. Aetrion

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    That's kind of provided in the Soul Siphon skill, since with specialization your whole team gets a bit of extra focus. Being able to transfer focus would be a cool skill though, maybe with a ground effect or PBAoE so that positioning matters.
     
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