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Upcoming Sylvan Class Changes: Ideas and Speculation
With the impending loss of concoctions as a class skill, Sylvans are looking at some significant changes coming up. I'd heard that, rather than simply getting a new skill to replace concoctions, the admin may take this opportunity to further set Sylvans apart by revamping their other skills as well. We're probably going to keep groves with few changes (at least, I hope we are), but I heard mention of weather control as a new skill and swapping elementalism for a skill that centers around the viridian form.
I'd like to hear other people's opinions about changes to the Sylvan class--both what people think will happen, and what people hope will happen.
My personal hopes:
I really want Sylvans to keep the groves ability. I think it would be really neat if we got two new skillsets to replace elementalism and concoctions.
The first skillset could be something like "lifemancy" (please give it a cooler name than that), which would involve skills centered around manipulating natural life energy. This would include some of the unique skills from elementalism, like barkskin, viridian, and heartseed, and could potentially involve a channeling mechanic similar to elementalism that would require a binding to a natural source in order to use abilities. Maybe you would need to be in a forest room or have a grove quarterstaff to establish the binding. Personally, I'd like this skillset to involve a lot of defensive abilities, mostly oriented toward giving the user very powerful regenerative capabilities, since it's all about life energy. Maybe include an ability that provides mana and health regeneration, or improves healing of afflictions.
The second skillset could be something like "weathermancy" (again, a better name would be appreciated). This would include things like hailstorm and stormhammer from elementalism. From a mechanics standpoint, it would involve a lot of abilities that affect multiple people within a room or area. I don't think that this should become another mechanic similar to vibes, harmonics, or rites, where the effects are persistent and can be moved around; Sylvans already have a lot of room-related power from groves, and giving them their own version of vibes would be absurd.
I think these two skillsets would allow Sylvans to maintain their RP role as the forest-wizards, and also some of their broad mechanical traits such as their impressive health regeneration and wide range of utility through groves.
I'd like to hear other people's opinions about changes to the Sylvan class--both what people think will happen, and what people hope will happen.
My personal hopes:
I really want Sylvans to keep the groves ability. I think it would be really neat if we got two new skillsets to replace elementalism and concoctions.
The first skillset could be something like "lifemancy" (please give it a cooler name than that), which would involve skills centered around manipulating natural life energy. This would include some of the unique skills from elementalism, like barkskin, viridian, and heartseed, and could potentially involve a channeling mechanic similar to elementalism that would require a binding to a natural source in order to use abilities. Maybe you would need to be in a forest room or have a grove quarterstaff to establish the binding. Personally, I'd like this skillset to involve a lot of defensive abilities, mostly oriented toward giving the user very powerful regenerative capabilities, since it's all about life energy. Maybe include an ability that provides mana and health regeneration, or improves healing of afflictions.
The second skillset could be something like "weathermancy" (again, a better name would be appreciated). This would include things like hailstorm and stormhammer from elementalism. From a mechanics standpoint, it would involve a lot of abilities that affect multiple people within a room or area. I don't think that this should become another mechanic similar to vibes, harmonics, or rites, where the effects are persistent and can be moved around; Sylvans already have a lot of room-related power from groves, and giving them their own version of vibes would be absurd.
I think these two skillsets would allow Sylvans to maintain their RP role as the forest-wizards, and also some of their broad mechanical traits such as their impressive health regeneration and wide range of utility through groves.
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Comments
For the Sylvans (since that's what this thread is about):
Name: Unification
An increased focus on Viridians. There was talk of it possibly being moved to the slot currently occupied by Concoctions and expanded upon. What I think would be really neat to see is different types of Viridians. The precedent is already there with things like ice golems and the guardians Druids and Sylvans summon into their groves for protection purposes.
Currently, Druids have the Harmony ability, which lets them harmonize with a specific natural environment and then use it to grant different boons, such as health regeneration and increased damage to denizens. A Sylvan spin on this, perhaps, would be a Sylvan traveling to a different landscape and "unifying" with it in the same way a Druid harmonizes. Once unified, a Sylvan can then become that landscape's Viridian. Unifying with an arctic or tundra area would let the Sylvan become an Ice Viridian. Unifying within a forest would let the Sylvan become an Earth Viridian (which, for all intents and purposes, is what they currently have now), and unifying in a volcano/mountainous region would allow for a Magma Viridian.
Only one type of Viridian would be active at a time, so if you wished to switch from, say, Magma to Ice, you'd have to travel up to the tundra and unify there, which would switch your Viridian type. All of the types would share the same basic attacks and functionality for ease of use and to reduce coding difficulty (I'm not a programmer, so I have no idea how hard doing something like this would be, but I would think it's still doable), but the attacks would have different effects. Some ideas:
- Ice Viridians would have a chance to inflict the shivering or freezing affliction.
- Earth Viridians could either afflict a random venom, or possibly have a increased damage towards limbs.
- Magma Viridians could possibly inflict burning.
Obviously, balancing would have to be done and some uniqueness would have to be given to the different forms to make them all worth using, but that's the basic premise of what I've come up with.As for Elementalism? Truthfully, I'm not sure that would be replaced, but I have ideas for a substitution regardless.
Name: Evocation (tad bit iffy on the name)
An increased focus on Sunlight. Obviously, this is the energy Druids and Sylvans use to fuel their groves and evoke powers through their quarterstaves, such as Vigour, Panacea, Remedy and Cure, among other things. It would be great to see an increased focus on this, especially in an offensive role. Things such as sunlight whips - like firelashes, but sunlight! - and using the potential "malleability" of sunlight to inflict various afflictions; blinding, hallucinations, having the unique form of sunlight "pass" through enemies and disrupting their internal workings, etc. etc. Walking on prismatic beams of light, sunlight surfing in the sky! The possibilities are limitless. A cool finisher might include something akin to Solar Beam, where you aim your quarterstaff and basically vaporize the fool with the power of the sun. Hardcore.
Obviously, this additional strain on the sunlight reserves would require some altering of how much could be stored, both within groves and within the quarterstaves. But I won't talk about the balancing and things, I'm obviously not qualified for any of that and these are merely ideas.
I have certain ideas for Druids, as well as some less-developed ones for Sentinels, but this is a thread on Sylvans so I'll keep it on topic. I don't know how far along Admin is in the design stages, but nevertheless I hope they give us forestals something cool to work with, because losing the sheer utility of Concoctions might be rough until we (meaning I, because I'm poor and a noob like that) get enough lessons to relearn it.
If their elementalism was altered so that instead of channeling elements, they channel an elemental, granting them access to related skills. With only one elemental form at a time.
Viridian: heartseed, vinewreathe, eclispe + Str
Water: Flood, weird, water manipulation, and drowning +?
Fire: holocaust, efreeti, temperature control and firestorms + Int
Air: choke (similar to blackwind), transfix? + Dex
*Earth: possible limb focus or earthquake ability, maybe the end-game involving a fissure that swallows the opponent + Con
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Regarding Sylvans, I almost want to see their unique Elementalism split into its own skill, called Naturalism.
It would still have an elemental basis but focuses more on the nature side and continuing with the theme of elemental forms like Viridian.
The elemental form idea had a lot of mention in the Magi topic, but somehow it feels more Sylvan to me. So I did have an idea.
If we consider the Viridian to be the "Earth" elemental, I went on to consider a "Water" elemental, called a Cerulean. Cerulean combat is designed to involve fluid movement, strategizing the water level between adjacent rooms so that they help maintain each other and your resources deplete slower for combat.
Cerulean form abilities:
AQUIFY - adds +6 inches of water to the room (3 eq)
Water level drains at -6 inches every 12 seconds (global timer), and adds +2 inches to all adjacent rooms.
-6 happens before the +2, and if there are less than 6 inches, adjacent rooms get no water.
River rooms have 12 inches by default. Devotion Parting would then temporarily negate 12 inches worth.
At 4 feet (48 inches) of water, waterwalking enchantments are disabled (not weirds), requiring swimming. Holocausts in the room are also instantly extinguished.
At 6 feet (72 inches) of water, the room type is underwater, requiring prickly pear to not drown.
SUBMERGE - In your elemental form, force your target's head underwater for asphyx damage that scales with the level of water in the room.
FLOW <dir> - direct 1/2 of current room's water into adjacent room (the draining effect means it will drain +2 back into your room)
SOAK - drain water to heal. -6 inches (3s EQ), healing equivalent to a Boar
STREAM <dir> - visible form of evade. -6 inches from starting room
If 4+ feet of water, all salve applications have 66% chance of dissolving in the water (still consumes the salve's balance)
IODIZE - water so salty target gets a tummyache (anorexia/nausea) (1.5 EQ)
PRESSURIZE - pop target's bubble granted by prickly pear (1.5 EQ)
COOL - makes water colder for ~8s, causing a level of freeze in enemies every ~3s (2.5 eq)
So the goal is to damage them with drowning I guess. I added the salve effect so that they would rely on focus balance to cure anorexia and eat pear again.
So with 4 feet of water, waterwalking is negated. COOL, then IODIZE twice. With the looping freeze and repeated attempts at salve curing, just IODIZE/PRESSURIZE in an attempt to remove pear just before drown damage hits? Feel like I should address anorexia or focus balance more so it has a chance at working. Thoughts?
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Other possible elemental forms:
"Saffreeti" (saffron + efreeti = clever) - increases room heat to cause extra fire damage. Passive personal burn aura just like efreeti has. can still cast firewalls/holocaust/etc. 3 levels of room heat that periodically fade. Could BOIL at level 3 to vaporize all water if fighting a Cerulean. Blah...
Wind elemental - +1 dex, etc. No ideas for this, really.
EDIT: I forgot to mention. Since rooms drain -6 and add +2 inches to all adjacent rooms, you could theoretically create a perpetual motion sequence with
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The center room would lose 6 and gain 8 (/12 secs) if the other rooms had at least 6 inches of water. And they would lose 6 and gain 6 each, staying at the same level. So I guess allow people to scoop out water with buckets or require other Ceruleans to drain them or make a stagnant room collapse after enough time passes. However, room formations like that aren't super common
I like that you're throwing ideas out there, but increasing salve balance is more realistic/less OP.
Where sentinels represent the beasts of the wilds, and druids represent the bond between Nature and those who dwell within, sylvans represent the flora of Nature in its many forms. The forests are the truest representation of the Primordial Green, but the deserts, swamps, oceans, grasslands, and tundra are all facets of the world through which the Primordial Green shines, manifesting as different forms of plantlife: trees, shrubs, moss and lichen, cacti, seaweed, wildflowers, fungi. The only environments truly bereft of Nature are those paved over by civilisations, corrupted by vile forces, the extradimensional and alien, or the sky which is no part of the earth.
Sylvans can bond with different biomes, and their viridian form will reflect this: prickly cactus viridians from the desert, colourful razor-edged coral + seaweed viridians from the ocean, half-rotten fungus-adorned viridians from the swamps. Maybe they gain like +1 move/sec in that environment.
Sylvans can use their elemental powers to manipulate the weather. By altering precipitate, atmospheric pressure oh wow no this is too hard wind (strong/weak), temperature (high/low), moisture (wet/dry), and arcane flux, they can alter weather patterns. This may extend to an aura around themselves, a radius of rooms surrounding them, all rooms in specified line of sight, or in their area. This can effect phenomena like rain, thunderstorms, howling winds, blizzards, pea-soup fogs, clear skies, nourishing sunlight (day)/arcane aurora (night), sandstorms, and rainbows.
Oh and their Trans ability is Immanence which can cause Nature to rise up to reclaim urban/highway rooms, overgrowing them with crawling vines and resurgent saplings, transforming them into the 'trees' environment. Yeah that sounds good.
And maybe they can consort with dryads or something, that could be cool too. Probs no attack dryads as loyal entities, though.
The RNG is probably less OP than extended balance. Even if they fail the first apply, failing another one is less likely to happen. The room requirement for water level means they won't be perma-stuck, since every 12 seconds you lose half a foot and it's 3s to put back. The strategy revolves around drowning, which means preventing sipping, eating pear, or both. Cerulean itself has no means of paralysing, so you're using that balance to hinder them for nothing instead of damaging them before anorexia wears off.
I think my basis for the approach was that anorexia doesn't scare people for the reason it could: preventing health sip. Drowning also doesn't, and is never part of any combat strategy either. So a lot of times my proposals focus on "obsolete" skills or game effects that could be put to use.
If you have a 66% chance of failing an instance and you fail on the first instance, the odds of you failing the second instance are still 66%.
They are definitely lacking in PvP. They should really have some attention there. Utility, as with all forestal classes, is off the charts - so I don't really know what exactly you could add there. Maybe a wp regen, increasing PvE damage as an AoE or targeted, etc.
Will post a lot more in a few days as am on holiday, but have a bunch of ideas for the PvP and group PvP/group utility side of things.
Sylvans have almost most all of the same defs to do, plus Viridian. Probably excessive.
Each has the same chance, but consecutive results are not the same.
If you think the probability of getting a result twice is the same as getting that result three times, I guess you do not even statistics.
Magi are nowhere near as equally screwed as Sylvan on burst. Both are screwed on burst. Magi at least only have a ~4 second downtime on burst before they whip out the 1/3 casts and 1/2 hammers. Four seconds isn't much in a big group fight. Sylvan's are out of a fight for AT LEAST double that of a magi (it's invariably longer) See: enchantment replacement for that talk.
RNG don't give a fuck about what's already happened, just what could possible happen next time you try.
Edit: Reread, clarified.
More clarification: There's kind of two situations being talked about here. Failing X opportunities consecutively is a different statement from failing one additional opportunity after failing (X-1) times already. In the first, you're projecting the odds of failing X opportunities in a row. In the second, you're only talking about failing one opportunity, which has a constant failure rate (66% in this hypothetical discussion)
At 0 seconds, their chance of not curing it is 2/3. After the first application, the chance of the second also failing is 4/9, and then 8/27, which is less than 1/3.
So your chances of sticking it for more than 4.5 seconds are as low as their chance of curing it first try.
Edit: the reason it is called a 66% chance is because it will only happen 2/3 times.
Like Jacen said, statistics doesn't give a damn what happened in the last iteration or what will happen in the next. Your math shows the odds of a victim losing their mending balance consecutively. If my attack balance is under 2 seconds, there's a 44% chance that they won't have cured anorexia, and if it's just under 3 seconds, that only drops to 30%. As somebody who relies heavily on Nairat, which only procs like 15% of the time, I know it doesn't take a lot of imagination to make the best of such an opportunity, and if that opportunity happens 30-44%% of the time, I'm going to be pretty god awfully strong.
I like that you're trying to come up with new things, but please, this isn't a good idea.
Maybe there could be a channel system, like there are for magi, except instead of elements you have environments, and you have to be in the environment to open the channel until you get a high-rank skill that allows you to open all the channels from anywhere. If they implemented this system, I think it would be neat to have access to the viridian transformation very early in the skillset, and have it not be very powerful; however, you would gradually earn the ability to attune to more environments, and each environment would add a benefit to your viridian form (e.g., stat boost, defense, new ability) until it became very powerful.
Regarding the idea I posted at the beginning of this thread (having life-mancy and a weather-mancy skillsets), I thought I'd throw out some examples of what kinds of abilities I thought these might have (listed below). Obviously, They would need more abilities than what I listed below. I think Naturalism could easily have an attunement mechanic incorporated: either move viridian down, add different environment attunements throughout the skill, and subsume some of the abilities I listed under the various attunements; or, add some abilities above viridian to allow for changing of its elemental orientation.
NATURALISM
Bond Establish a bond between yourself and the lifesource.
Barkskin Make your skin as tough as tree bark.
Vitality Call upon your vitality in times of need.
Sandling Animate the earth to pull you beneath the ground.
Photosynthesis Gain nourishment from the sun.
Camoflage Shroud yourself while you’re in the forest.
Viridian Transform into a mighty viridian.
Heartseed Send the might of nature to consume your enemies from within.
Lifesplit Deepen your connection to the lifesource (give a portion of life to get massive regen, like kaido splitting for health)
METEOROLOGY
Gust Use a gust of wind to blow an adventurer around.
Chill Leech the warmth from a room.
Windwalk Use the wind to carry yourself into the skies.
Fog Summon a fog to obscure vision.
Hailstorm Create a hailstorm in your location.
Stormhammer Call down the might of the storm on your foes.
Depressurize Create a vacuum to pull everyone around to your location.
Firestorm Rain fire from the heavens.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
I understand your confusion but I'm not talking about the independent probabilities. A single proc of RNG is what determines the outcome of several occurrences, which ultimately is what matters and what these are intended to do. Delay for a number of procs or length of time.
In the case of the proposed cerulean form, the caster first needs 48 inches of water, then has to stick anorexia as a means of blocking prickly pear and sips. The passive salve blocking helps with that, but I actually provided nothing to account for focus, so it would still need mental affs or something to even effectively stick the anorexia.
Paralysis serves little purpose in the damage strategy and this proposed form has no way of locking, so anorexia serves exactly its purpose. Cerulean also doesn't focus on limb damage so not likely to have restoration abuse.
There's this running game we have where people assume my ideas will never be approved and I wait to see them eat their words. It's super fun.
all 3 forestals use alternate forms by communing with nature. But while Druid and sentinel use metamorphosis, sylvans cast elemental spells and channel an elemental of nature, Viridian.
So these forms would keep with both the fusing with nature and the elements. Different types would work better in different situations. For example, if the salve penalty affects the user as well, Cerulean would be a terrible idea against a monk.
You are granting this form afflictions like chill (every 3s for 8s) and anorexia on a 1.5 second eq with a 66% chance of failing to cure. Stacking breaks while your victim is trying and failing to apply mending/caloric/epidermal is not improbable, all they need is a blunt weapon and Shatter in Weaponry.