Duelist sucks, let's make it better

Yea I understand that. Definitely aware some of them suck just had a bunch of shit start coming to mind and figured I'd throw it out there. Honestly haven't thought too much about the game lately.

I agree that armor is part of the identity but at the same time I'm having a hard time thinking of another way to balance some of these idea's. Also I wouldn't want these to necessarily be the only option for duelist just one option. We need a yin to the yang a way that we can specialize towards armor but also keep us different from mara's.

Maybe something like this: node - converts evasion to life leech each 1000eva becomes 1% leech. Or something along those lines. Something that makes it worth it to keep wearing armor/eva gear but also allows us to specialize. The same thing could be done with armor for attack speed or something along those lines.

Maybe we were meant to be hybrid armor/eva users, in a perfect world maybe we would be. Right now though i feel like there is no reason not to go iron reflexes. Just using armor/eva gear isn't enough to make duelist unique or interesting. Right now at the end of the day all that is is what your gear says. Whether your pure armor or pure eva if your character is surviving it probably feels the same. So sacrificing an identity that at the moment isn't really defining the class doesn't bother me.

I do think that there might be some merit to my above idea of keeping us in hybrid armor but allowing us to sacrifice one side of the armor for a bonus that helps make us more unique.

Let's leave all armour/evasion topics to the other threads for now. We should refine what we have and make a push for it.

In response to interactions with block, I would prefer parry to be a separate layer of defense like how acrobatics and shield-block can be combined. An incoming melee attack will go through:
- acrobatics (passive tree, keep in mind that rangers can probably get both with our current location)
- parry (passive tree)
- block (shields, DW, staff)
- evasion

I don't know how the game engine orders each of these, but on-parry effects and on-block effect should not activate at the same time. One of them has to have priority. Here, I would prefer to trigger Parry first, and then block. Although this decreases the minor utility of Tempest Shield reflection and increases the effective lifetime of Molten Shell, it also ensures players are getting their worth out of the deeper passive effects.

To answer definitively the difference scenarios, I'm going to rehash & refine my last relevant set of nodes.
= = =

= = =
The available paths for different duellists are thus follows:
- 1-hander sword and nothing off-hand. Can have %-parry. Can Riposte. Cannot blind-side.
- 1-hander axe/sword holding a shield. Can have %-parry. Cannot Riposte. Can blind-side with his other hand (preferable a bucker or spiked shield :D, but I guess shield bashing using a mega tower shield is okay too.)
- Dual-wielder axe/sword main. Can have %-parry. Cannot Riposte. Can blind-side if correct weapon is on off-hand.
- 2-hander axe/sword. Can have %-parry only. Cannot progress to either.

Are we happy with the current compromise solution?

Draft path:

The defensive plan inside these keystone cluster is thus either:
- to parry much more as a pure shield replacement (aiming to be reliable melee blocking alternative)
- to delay future incoming attacks by stunning opponents

Both the above are compatible with life-regen. Actual values will need some adjustment!

Fucking amazing. See I'm not much for having the actual polished ideas but I'm a wonderful muse. If I see Chris or Qarl tonight I'm going to point this out to them. I think it wraps up all of these concepts (over 11 pages) nicely.

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I realize that this is just a suggestion and might not resemble what the actual implemented nodes would be like. That said I have to wonder if this is enough to make 1 hander no off hand viable. Sacrificing a shield in your offhand isn't much but would this debuff really make up for the lack of a 2nd weapon? Personally I'd much rather see riposte have actual dmg behind it. If not actual dmg then instead of a debuff to the enemy a buff to yourself like +attack speed and + crit strike/lifeleech/meleedmg ect ect for the next 1.5 seconds.

When I read your suggestions they all sound extremely well thought out. However when I think about how this would actually make the character more fun or 1 hand no off hand as viable as 2 handers or dual wielding I'm not really seeing it. I will say these do seem a lot more likely to be implemented than anything I could come up with but when I think of something I'm thinking of what would be really fun for myself, not necessarily what would work heh. Also I may be underestimating how much of an effect the debuff would actually have.

Sorry if this has already been discussed to death. Overall I think all of these proposed changes would make the class more interesting and I would certainly be behind it. Even if it's not exactly what I would like to see. What I'd like to see probably isn't remotely possible =P.

Oh didn't even notice there was no 1h buff. I think it needs some sort of damage buff, 25%-50% to make up for a lack of 2nd weapon as no one is really using a shield anyways but you are losing the stats of the shield and the damage of a 2nd weapon so there needs to be something to balance those two things.

Okay yes, I forgot to consider that you are also giving up 3 gem slots as well as the stats.

Would a general buff of the character be required, not just for blocking? One of the potential problems I see is the same unreliability of %-chances (ala evasion) coming in and screwing you over before you've had a chance to utilise the parry benefits properly. This is where I think we could bring in other stats of the character such as damage boost based on accuracy.

So, what of... (in general)
- +20% attack speed
- adds 2% of accuracy to base damage

I don't know off-hand what accuracy end-game duelists are getting, but remember the gateway cost of accuracy as well. However, you can substitute double strike for dual-strike, and your cleave doesn't get a 40% discount. I don't know if other skills use both weapons at once.

We can also consider placing some attractive nodes behind the gateway, like a second Beserking... ;)

The other question on the draft nodes I wanted comments on is whether we should keep trading accuracy for extra parry, or if the 20% penalty (additive or multiplicative?) at the gateway is good enough.

20% is a pretty big hit to any class 1. not using dex 2. not using swords in particular. Most swords will balance that loss (I think most give 16%?) so I can't see many classes besides ranger or duelist using it.

Also if you put it out of the way, similar to how hex master is set up, it becomes something that anyone non-duelist would have to go out of their way to get, which is a great thing.

Some great stuff here, Great work zharmad!

Can't add anything beyond what's been said right now, I'll have a brainstorming session later and try to augment what we have now.

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Moosifer wrote:

Also if you put it out of the way, similar to how hex master is set up, it becomes something that anyone non-duelist would have to go out of their way to get, which is a great thing.

+1, although I would like keystones in general to be attractive enough to be worth considering its passives cost for other classes. E.g., I would imagine a witch wielding a Queen's Decree (Midnight's Bargain doesn't allow CI) would want to snake over and steal some Parry. It's not going to be that easy, but I don't want to make it impossible either.

We're still considering placing it where +15% all resists are (and bump it of somewhere else), so Duelists can charge straight through the frenzy nodes and get it?