07-12-2003, 12:22 PM
Hmm this is rather bizarre.
With all the posts on Blizzard Logic ⢠lately I would have thought people had better ideas. Let's say there's there's a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being highest, to determine logical solutions to skill synergies, and the 1.10 beta has the synergies giving a score at about 7.
These ideas I see here I'd rate at around 4. :(
Hooray! We now have Lurker Lounge Logic â¢!
:(
Where to begin . . .
If we look at Paladins we'll come to realize that the class in general is pretty much always based around a primary attack skill with a supporting Aura or what I sometimes refer to as the "two-skill combo". The Combat Skill (or unskilled attack) defines how the Paladin behaves in the game, while the Aura reinforces that behaviour and also may support the behaviour of others around him. Now if we look carefully at the synergies provided in the beta there is a clear indication of the following trend: Auras that stick to partied units do not carry synergies, with the marginal caveat being that Meditation and Cleansing are stacked with, but not enhanced by, Prayer. On the other hand Auras that grant 'Paladin-only' effects, such as Holy Shock and Sanctuary, are the ones that do carry synergy upgrades.
I'm a little disappointed that nobody seems to be questioning why the synergies have been built in this way.
There are two reasons that I can think of.
1.) If you take a Combat Skill and multiply it with another Combat Skill synergy, then factor in an Offensive Aura multiplied by another Aura synergy, you'll find you are creating a pretty wild exponential damage ramp in particular cases - namely the left side of the Offensive Aura Tree. And this is just on the Paladin himself.
2.) More importantly, if you have two Offensive Auras combining to form one super Aura, then apply the result to a Partied Amazon or Barbarian, you'll suddenly find your 'synergized' Aura is supporting all their skills meaning they get full benefit from all of their synergies and half of yours! :blink: Hello brutal character imbalance!
So, having spotted this problem what does a programmer do? We can look at the Paladin skill trees in fact and see what was done.
Physical Auras down the left of the Offensive Aura Tree: Nada. No Synergies.
Elemental Auras: Paladin source only, purely additive effects with the attack skill. Fairly controlled and really the only Auras carrying synergies.
Sanctuary: Same concept as the Elemental Auras, but the Physical Damage multiplier makes it sketchy. Avoids point #2 above, but still runs into point #1. This was played safe and left out of the Synergy options.
Thorns: Relative to monster damage. Played safe and avoids synergies.
Conviction: Runs defence and Resistances down to minimum values with 20 points invested, so can't really be upgraded without gaining more side effects. Besides, who'd want to invest in a synergy skill for it when it already reaches optimum results as it is?
Prayer, Meditation, Cleansing: Aura effects remain unamplified while two Auras become one. (a very interesting idea and not an unbalancing one either)
Redemption: The only 'safe' Paladin-only Defensive Aura and has been omitted. The diminishing returns chance to redeem should probably be maintained while the Life and Mana values could possibly be safely manipulated.
Remaining Defensives: Well would you want your Defiance or Vigor getting better use from a Barbarian than your own character? Call me selfish, but that idea kind of sucks to my way of thinking and I'm not surprised at all to see that no enhancements appear here (although I'll restate the Defiance/Holy Shield relationship as perhaps one of the most clever moves I've seen in this patch - think about it).
Note also, the three support Warcry synergies are duration-only and not actual support value reinforcements, there are no Necromancer Curse synergies, nothing on Druid Spirits etc. all for the reason that the power of any synergy applied to those kinds of skills is effectively multiplied by the number of nearby partied units and will doubtless bring in all manner of balancing issues. And on top of all that there is also a recurring trend to avoid placing synergies into skills I'd loosely describe as "passive upgrade types", see various Combat Masteries, Shadow Disaplines, Amazon Passive Magic etc. This is undoubtedly to keep some possible internal damage curves under control. ;)
Most of what was done there was the smart thing to do IMO. Clocking up Aura bonuses across the board is going to screw the balance far more than what we are experiencing in the beta at the moment, although it does vauguely point in one direction that could potentially open up some Paladin options.
Which is . . .
The game looks like it needs better identification of skill "generator" versus skill "recipient" (I could be wrong - such things might be there in a largely unusused form). The only case in point of all the skills in the game that would seem to have any such distinction would be the new Fanaticism. +X Damage for Paladin, +Y Damage for party. That strikes me as the one foundation that could bring a new era of Paladin enhancements by eliminating the party benefit problem, although much care will still be needed to keep the internal damage ramp under control and really I'd recommend such a device never be used for damage at all. More to the point, making Aura synergies into a Paladin-only affair will open up a means by which a Paladin can potentially supersede Greiz's little mercenaries without overbalancing whatever other party member who happens to be in the vicinity.
Now that I've carried on for far too long on a boring old, "No you can't go doing THAT" diatribe, I feel the sudden urge to indulge my more wishful impulses and float some rough ideas before concluding this horrible post.
IDEAS
Sanctuary: Attack Rating versus Undead anybody? Under the existing setup this skill is fairly safe to meddle with, provided damage multiplying isn't involved. Blessed Aim strikes me a decent aesthetic candidate for providing such a synergy to Sanctuary and will probably be on the way to Fanaticism in a build inclined to want Sanctuary, thus avoiding some of the pre-requisites headaches, not to mention giving back some AR lost with the Absence of Fanaticism.
Conversion: Many skill options could provide a modest 1 second per level Conversion duration.
Holy Shield: This is just begging for a modest duration upgrade from a skill preceeding it in cLvl availability. And waddayaknow. There's Smite sitting right there cringing at the prospective of not being viable until well after Holy Shield is purchased, for the simple reason that a thirty second weapon is . . . yucky.
Enough from me.
WarBlade out.
With all the posts on Blizzard Logic ⢠lately I would have thought people had better ideas. Let's say there's there's a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being highest, to determine logical solutions to skill synergies, and the 1.10 beta has the synergies giving a score at about 7.
These ideas I see here I'd rate at around 4. :(
Hooray! We now have Lurker Lounge Logic â¢!
:(
Where to begin . . .
If we look at Paladins we'll come to realize that the class in general is pretty much always based around a primary attack skill with a supporting Aura or what I sometimes refer to as the "two-skill combo". The Combat Skill (or unskilled attack) defines how the Paladin behaves in the game, while the Aura reinforces that behaviour and also may support the behaviour of others around him. Now if we look carefully at the synergies provided in the beta there is a clear indication of the following trend: Auras that stick to partied units do not carry synergies, with the marginal caveat being that Meditation and Cleansing are stacked with, but not enhanced by, Prayer. On the other hand Auras that grant 'Paladin-only' effects, such as Holy Shock and Sanctuary, are the ones that do carry synergy upgrades.
I'm a little disappointed that nobody seems to be questioning why the synergies have been built in this way.
There are two reasons that I can think of.
1.) If you take a Combat Skill and multiply it with another Combat Skill synergy, then factor in an Offensive Aura multiplied by another Aura synergy, you'll find you are creating a pretty wild exponential damage ramp in particular cases - namely the left side of the Offensive Aura Tree. And this is just on the Paladin himself.
2.) More importantly, if you have two Offensive Auras combining to form one super Aura, then apply the result to a Partied Amazon or Barbarian, you'll suddenly find your 'synergized' Aura is supporting all their skills meaning they get full benefit from all of their synergies and half of yours! :blink: Hello brutal character imbalance!
So, having spotted this problem what does a programmer do? We can look at the Paladin skill trees in fact and see what was done.
Physical Auras down the left of the Offensive Aura Tree: Nada. No Synergies.
Elemental Auras: Paladin source only, purely additive effects with the attack skill. Fairly controlled and really the only Auras carrying synergies.
Sanctuary: Same concept as the Elemental Auras, but the Physical Damage multiplier makes it sketchy. Avoids point #2 above, but still runs into point #1. This was played safe and left out of the Synergy options.
Thorns: Relative to monster damage. Played safe and avoids synergies.
Conviction: Runs defence and Resistances down to minimum values with 20 points invested, so can't really be upgraded without gaining more side effects. Besides, who'd want to invest in a synergy skill for it when it already reaches optimum results as it is?
Prayer, Meditation, Cleansing: Aura effects remain unamplified while two Auras become one. (a very interesting idea and not an unbalancing one either)
Redemption: The only 'safe' Paladin-only Defensive Aura and has been omitted. The diminishing returns chance to redeem should probably be maintained while the Life and Mana values could possibly be safely manipulated.
Remaining Defensives: Well would you want your Defiance or Vigor getting better use from a Barbarian than your own character? Call me selfish, but that idea kind of sucks to my way of thinking and I'm not surprised at all to see that no enhancements appear here (although I'll restate the Defiance/Holy Shield relationship as perhaps one of the most clever moves I've seen in this patch - think about it).
Note also, the three support Warcry synergies are duration-only and not actual support value reinforcements, there are no Necromancer Curse synergies, nothing on Druid Spirits etc. all for the reason that the power of any synergy applied to those kinds of skills is effectively multiplied by the number of nearby partied units and will doubtless bring in all manner of balancing issues. And on top of all that there is also a recurring trend to avoid placing synergies into skills I'd loosely describe as "passive upgrade types", see various Combat Masteries, Shadow Disaplines, Amazon Passive Magic etc. This is undoubtedly to keep some possible internal damage curves under control. ;)
Most of what was done there was the smart thing to do IMO. Clocking up Aura bonuses across the board is going to screw the balance far more than what we are experiencing in the beta at the moment, although it does vauguely point in one direction that could potentially open up some Paladin options.
Which is . . .
The game looks like it needs better identification of skill "generator" versus skill "recipient" (I could be wrong - such things might be there in a largely unusused form). The only case in point of all the skills in the game that would seem to have any such distinction would be the new Fanaticism. +X Damage for Paladin, +Y Damage for party. That strikes me as the one foundation that could bring a new era of Paladin enhancements by eliminating the party benefit problem, although much care will still be needed to keep the internal damage ramp under control and really I'd recommend such a device never be used for damage at all. More to the point, making Aura synergies into a Paladin-only affair will open up a means by which a Paladin can potentially supersede Greiz's little mercenaries without overbalancing whatever other party member who happens to be in the vicinity.
Now that I've carried on for far too long on a boring old, "No you can't go doing THAT" diatribe, I feel the sudden urge to indulge my more wishful impulses and float some rough ideas before concluding this horrible post.
IDEAS
Sanctuary: Attack Rating versus Undead anybody? Under the existing setup this skill is fairly safe to meddle with, provided damage multiplying isn't involved. Blessed Aim strikes me a decent aesthetic candidate for providing such a synergy to Sanctuary and will probably be on the way to Fanaticism in a build inclined to want Sanctuary, thus avoiding some of the pre-requisites headaches, not to mention giving back some AR lost with the Absence of Fanaticism.
Conversion: Many skill options could provide a modest 1 second per level Conversion duration.
Holy Shield: This is just begging for a modest duration upgrade from a skill preceeding it in cLvl availability. And waddayaknow. There's Smite sitting right there cringing at the prospective of not being viable until well after Holy Shield is purchased, for the simple reason that a thirty second weapon is . . . yucky.
Enough from me.
WarBlade out.
Heed the Song of Battle and Unsheath the Blades of War