Keystone Brainstorming
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Contagion: Poison DoTs have a 25/33% chance each second to spread to nearby targets, which in turn can spread to more. Enemies infected in this manner cannot be reinfect unless another poison attack is made.
Cursed Ground: Curses last twice as long, but creates a cursed area on the ground that only affects enemies while they are within it. Would perhaps replace Hex Master, or at least be far away from it. Flurry of Blows: +100% attack speed, -40% damage. Power Shot: Bow attacks are 33% slower, but all shots and bow abilities have 100% chance to pierce. " Damn you, you even had a better name. Last edited by Lmaoboat#4694 on Dec 30, 2011, 9:59:24 AM
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MOAAAAAR!
(the next suggestion can be put into a 3 passive cluster at the center (or somewhere close to it) of the skill tree so you take them in any combination you want. And, in general, I think the following passive suggestions would work great if they were in the center of the tree, available to everyone) Fire/Ice/Lightning Amplification Amplifies all Fire/Cold/Lightning spells and skills - basically a generic set of strong buffs such as damage, crit chance/multiplier, AoE, etc. that feels fair and universal. Attaches the upcoming cooldown mechanic to all spells of that school - i.e. casting a spell puts it on a cooldown, but you can bypass the cooldown by consuming a Power/Endurance/Frenzy charge. Affinity of Motion Standing still drains attack and cast speed to a certain negative modifier cap. Moving accelerates this up to a certain positive modifier cap. The net effect should be balanced so that if you stand and fight, you lose DPS, if you move and fight constantly, you gain DPS. Adrenaline Skills with a motion component are amplified (i.e. things like Leap Attack, Shield Charge, Flicker Strike, Phase Run, Lightning Warp) with a hand-tailored effect. Repeated use of them places a temporary stackable buff not-too-different-from-charges that rewards their repeated use in combat. For example, Phase Run amplification would be dramatically increased cast speed. Leap Attack could be increased AoE and damage reduction while in flight. Etc. I think it would be a good idea if this stackable buff was universal so you could, for example, combine the use of several mobility skills if you chose so. Or, we could just tie it to the charge mechanic itself. Who knows? Perhaps this is the sort of thing that the charge mechanic needs to do instead of adding generic % bonuses, which makes it a nightmare to balance compared to other character builds.
Spoiler
Personally, I am of the opinion that Frenzy/Power/Endurance charges in their current format are inherently unbalancable. There are three possible situations: 1. Charge investment more effective in terms of raw power than other passive investments. 2. Charge investment equally effective. 3. Charge investment less effective. In situation 1, your charge builds are superior in terms of power to regular builds. In situation 2 and 3, charge builds are pointless because you have to put in more effort for equal or less reward. It's just not gonna work this way, charges need to reinforce different game mechanics that do not directly compete with other passives. They need to be different so pursuing charges is a choice for a different playstyle with different results rather than a different playstyle for same results but more or less powerful. The upcoming cooldown mechanic is IMO a step in the right direction. But the idea of charges as "passive buffs that you can effectively keep up 95-100% of the time in combat" needs to die in a fire. Killing Spree You get a NEGATIVE modifier to your item rarity/quantity total. Killing enemies adds a stackable buff that counter-acts and exceeds the negative modifier. Rewards herding enemies and taking greater risks in combat such as killing minions before the boss. Far more interesting than the current +% rarity/quantity passives in the center of the tree, IMO. And far more fun to play with. And, again like the above suggestion, could be just tied to the Power/Frenzy/Endurance charges instead of mucking with a new stackable buff. Who knows? Last edited by konfeta#2391 on Dec 30, 2011, 10:21:31 AM
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Flesh Giant
Summoning multiple minions will cause them to collect together in to a frightful unnatural creature with the same collective health as the minions used. This creature gains additional abilities the more bodies used for its construction. The idea is to give summon focusing players an alternative to just zombie hoard and make it more interesting. Such as gaining Cleaves and Knockbacks after a certain number of minions are consumed. Ethereal Flames Burning causes Paralysis and deals Chaos damage instead of Fire damage. Fleeing enemies, especially with Firestorm, is annoying. Fire to Chaos damage change should be okay since its not a large amount, but would probably need tuning. Bitter Frost Enemies you shatter cause ice shards to scatter, dealing Cold damage to enemies that walk over them and allowing the shattered remains to be used for corpse targeting spells. Gives some passive AOE and less irritation when grouping with corpse using builds. Blood Shield Increases your maximum Mana Shield by 15% of damage taken, this effect stacks up to 200% of your regular Mana Shield amount and lasts 30 seconds. Simple, idea is to keep the player in combat. Could be mixed by having Mana Shield become additional Life with a similar effect and tweaked lower than 30 seconds to focus on combat. Rush of Victory Gain 25% Life leech for 5 seconds after an enemy has been slain. They don't all have to be complicated! Elementalist Dealing Elemental damage to enemies grants a chance to summon an invulnerable Elemental of the same type as the spell cast. This Elemental distracts nearby enemies and implodes after a short time, dealing area damage. Give elemental builds a bit breathing room from having to rely on kiting always. Bloodkin Slaying enemies causes a Blood Elemental to flee from their corpse. Allies standing on the blood trails left have their Life regeneration doubled for a short period of time. Could instead have the allies "catch" the Elemental to restore a percentage of the enemy's life or similar. |
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Hidden item potential
Items that are magic, rare and unique gain an additional hidden quality boost. Magic- 7% boost Rare- 8% boost Unique- 9% boost Multi-talented 10+ strength 10+ dexterity 10+ intelligence Knight of choas 10% resistance to chaos 10% of physical damage converted to chaos damage 10% reduced effectiveness of healing flasks 50% chance to ignore 10% of damage taken 10% chance of taking 10% extra damage Thrust of Perses One handed thrusting weapons; add 3% to critical hit chance add 40% to critical hit damage add 1 chaos damage per character level to critical hit damage decrease regular attack accuracy by 5% Touching the hand of death When you drop below 30% health you gain a hand of death charge Hand of death; Next physical attack adds your missing health to its damage. You can only receive a charge every 8 seconds. Forest ranger Increased damage vs animals by 5% Increased attack speed with dual wielded axes by 5% 3% increased movement speed 10% decrease to all armor Magic infused muscles 75% of your intelligence also adds to your strength 3% decrease to your default strength value Concentrated spells 15% increased spell damage all spells take 25% longer to cast March of the undead Your undead minions stay 5 seconds extra after they reach 0 hp All undead minions gain 10% increased movement speed Elemental barrage While every casted spells is of a different type then the last casted spell; add 15% spell damage Example: Cast fire for 10 damage, cast lightning for 11.5 damage, cast fire for 11.5 damage, cast fire for 10 damage. 1 second, 100 stabs Increase attack speed with claws and daggers by 50% Decrease physical damage with claws and daggers by 35% Templar training add 3% resistance to fire add 3% resistance to cold add 3% resistance to lightning add 10% physical damage for 10 seconds after being hit by elemental damage Confidence by security If character has 5 flasks in belt and 4 of them are full; add 3% to evade chance add 3% to critical chance add 15% to critical damage add 1% chance of enemies critical hitting you Mind over matter Every 40 points of intelligence reduces physical damage by 1% Dual mastery of wands Every 20 points of intelligence adds 1% chance of firing both wands at once. Adaptive body Whatever you were previously attacked by, you gain a resistance towards that type of damage until a new type of damage is received, the initial attack that starts a new resistance is not affected by the resistance. add 5% reduction to melee if hit by melee add 5% reduction to ranged physical damage if hit by ranged physical damage add 15% reduction to fire if hit by fire add 15% reduction to cold if hit by cold add 15% reduction to lightning if hit by lightning add 15% reduction to chaos if hit by chaos Arcane whisperer When you cast a spell and your target is within melee range; add 20% faster casting speed reduce cost of spell by 10% Executioner When critical hitting with a 2-hand sword or 2-hand axe, double critical damage. Revenge If enemy critical hits you, your next attack on that enemy will be an automatic critical hit. Disorienting blow 5% chance that an attack with a mace class weapon will disorient an enemy into doing his two next attacks against an ally, if no ally is present then the time it would have taken to do the 2 attacks is how long before he can start attacking you again. Crusher of bones 15% increased damage when dual wielding maces 5% decreased attack speed 7% chance to decrease attack speed by 10% of monsters that wield weapons 2% chance of instantly killing skeletons, not applicable against rare or unique monsters. Through steel,flesh and bone Thrusting weapons have a 5% chance of completely ignoring armor Troll skin Regenerate 5 hp per 10 strength Decrease fire resistance by 15% Increase cold resistance by 5% Crusader Increase armor by 7% Increase health by 7% Increase physical damage by 5% Add 3% to block chance with shields Decrease movement speed by 5% Increase cost of spells and abilities by 5% Last edited by korosuu#7678 on Dec 30, 2011, 11:10:27 AM
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Master of the Void
- Reduces all elemental resistances by 30%. Adds a 25% chaos damage modifier to all damage, physical and magical. Biohazard (Also could be called Infection) - 50% chance to turn an enemy you just killed into a zombie based on the level of your current highest raise zombie gem. Allows for 2 more than zombies allowed to be spawned, else no zombie will spawn. Cloak and Dagger - Reduces incoming stuns and other movement impairing effects by 30%, however reduces your movement speed by 30% when this effect triggers. Ghastly Touch - The air around your character suddenly feels haunted, applying a 25% slow randomly to targets you attack. Also has a 10% chance to make your target fear you for 3 seconds. |
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Mkay, enough spellcasting/generalist passives for now for me, time to throw in a few ideas for melee/archery:
Counter-Attack Blocking no longer reduces damage. Instead, when blocking, you perform a vicious counter-attack. And, by vicious, whatever works - stun, ton of damage, AoE, whatever. I just like the idea of converting a defensive stat into an offensive one. Works for both dual wield blocks and shield users. Juggernaut Moving past enemies knocks them aside as if you used the Shield Charge skill to get past them. Can no longer block attacks. Enraged Assault Missing an attack due to an evasion roll or a block dramatically increases the damage but lowers hit chance of your next attack. Should this buff stack for epic lulz and frustration? An inverse of Resolute Technique, if you will? Obsession Reduces the damage of your area attacks. Attacking a a single target marks them. While attacking this target, you gain significant damage reduction against all attacks from all sources other than the marked target. Bloodthirst Elation Reduces your attack speed. Killing a target gives you a damage buff proportional (or equal, dunno) to the amount of overkill damage. This damage buff stacks cumulatively until spent. Missing an attack spends the buff. For example: Let's say you do 150 damage per hit and hit a 50 HP monster. This means you will have overkill damage value of 100, so your next strike will do 250 damage. You kill another 50 HP monster, gain an overkill value of 200, so your next hit does 350. Etc. You can try to store up this buff to wipe out a tougher enemy in one hit, for example. You could get Resolute Technique to combo with this Keystone for reliability, but you would lose the ability to store up delicious critical strike overkill damage. Now, the next three keystones are a bit crazier and more ambitious. I envision these to be more akin to GGG's concept of keystone passives being "prestige classes." The idea is - you reach the keystone passive, take it for a DRAMATIC effect and to unlock a bunch of unique passives behind it to customize your keystone passive choice. Shield Fighter Reduces main-hand attack damage by 50% total. This is to be a "gateway" keystone passive - behind it there should be a selection of shield related passives such as: 1. Shield Bash - a cluster of passives that gives a chance with every strike to do a damaging shield bash. 2. Defensive Technique - blocking an attack bashes the opponent, stunning and knocking them back. 3. Shield Deflection - gives a chance to reflect spell projectiles. 4. Shield Wall - reduces arrow damage by 50%. Or raises block chance against arrows. Etc. The idea is to have a new style of keystone passive - it requires greater investment after the fact of taking it, but it can be customized to be a simple defensive trade off or it can be made into a full blown shield fighter archetype. Yes, heavy inspiration from Titan Quest's Defender class. Pugilist Applies a -100% total damage debuff when wielding weapons. Your raw damage per hit is now determined by your armor total. So, if you have 4k armor, you punch for 4k damage per hit. This is also a "gateway" keystones. This should have a bunch of punching related passives behind it that compensate for not having a weapon. Perhaps stuff like: 1. Convert elemental resistances into elemental damage. So, maybe 75% fire resist = Add +25% of your punch damage as fire damage. 2. Convert evasion into attack speed. Etc. Basically a way to introduce unarmed combat. Can sell the martial art animations in the DLC store later hint hint. I stole and modified this from Skyrim. And, lastly... Assassin Can only equip daggers and claws. Melee attacks (made with an equipped dagger) targeted at enemies out of melee swing range result in you throwing the dagger. Dagger throws work with BASIC ATTACKS only. You keep the dagger, of course, bow users don't run out of arrows so this is a concession for gameplay over realism we should keep. Haven't really thought what kind of passives would be behind this gateway passive, but I like the idea. Would turn you into a melee/ranged hybrid. I am envisioning a few passives related to boosting claw/knife melee with unique, assassin flavored effects; and a few passives related towards essentially turning the dagger throw into its own skill - maybe poison damage, or debuffs, or bleed, etc.. You could try to be a pure melee fighter with an option to just throw regular daggers at range, or a pure dagger thrower, or go all in and put points in everything. Last edited by konfeta#2391 on Dec 30, 2011, 11:27:31 AM
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I'm a summoner by nature so many of mine will be minion focused :)
Double Trouble 50% chance to summon 2 minions out of 1 corpse. Raise the Shields Minions gain an Energy Shield Unholy Link Your minions are connected to your life pool. Your life regen drops by 25% Empowered Shield Gain 10% more Energy shield for each summoned minion. Cursed Summoner You can only have 1 minion, but he gets the following bonuses: 50% movement speed 50% attack speed Chaos Nova Spell. Summoner's Wrath When your life drops bellow 25%, a minion is automatically sacrificed to get back to full Health. You lose the Energy Shield.....forever Unholy Trinity You can only summon 1 zombie and 1 specter. When both are summoned you get an extra Energy Shield, and 25% more spell damage. When 1 dies your energy shield depletes instantly, and when both are dead you lose half your life. Last edited by lupasvasile#5385 on Dec 30, 2011, 11:36:17 AM
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Heh, come to think of it, you could apply the "keystone passives as gateways to a prestige class" to a whole lot more of things. It would help both with making the prestige class idea feel more like a sub-class and would help with balancing the keystone passives more effectively.
Like, Avatar of Fire or Blood Magic would make for excellent keystone gateway passives to a whole bunch of side effects behind them. Naturally, not every keystone passive is fit to be a gateway, but more variety the better, no? Would help a lot to spruce up the boring bloat of the current passive tree. So, overall, we would have: 1. Highway/splash passives (+stats) 2. Current tiny generic passives with stat buffs. 3. Single stat-aligned keystone passives with some game changing, but overall minor effect (stuff like current Iron Reflexes or Resolute Technique; or the suggested Curse or element aligned or bow passives). These live buried within their respective stat alignment. 4. Generic, universal keystone passives that hang out in the middle of the skill tree and are potentially helpful to ALL classes. The crazier effects can live here. Can also have some of the charge mechanic passives live here so specializing in charges as a whole is easier - all you gotta do is travel middle than dive into the int/dex/str tree to pick up the perspective charges you want. 5. "Gateway" keystone passives (no idea how their placement should work out) that function to fulfill the true fantasy of a prestige class or a subclass if you will - dramatic gameplay changing passive that unlocks a selection of other important strong passives behind it, so you can customize whenever you want to fully commit to a prestige class or just take a specific benefit you want out of it. Now, to come up with some actual archery related passives cause I got carried away with the gateway concept. Last edited by konfeta#2391 on Dec 30, 2011, 11:42:45 AM
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" I would modify this to be less good but also less negative. Summoner's Wrath Shield is reduced by 50% If health drops below 20% of character; destroy 1 random minion heal 25% of characters health restore 75% of the shield Character has to regain health back to atleast 75% before another minion will die to save its master again. thats my 2 cents on it ^^ |
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" That could also work. What I posted are simply ideas, the parameters can be modified. |
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