Ideas for Mage Skills (in General)

1) Sniper Shot. Works with MM. 1/4th your DD level. Allows you to "guide" your MM past a persons MgS. Max effect is 0.5 = 50% chance that round your MM bypasses a MgS if the minion your attacking has one.

2) Self-Contain. Works with FB. Allows one to use FB and not worry about dealing damage to your own minions. Train to 1/4th your DD level. Max effect is 1.0. At less effect you do proportion to your own minions. IE at .8 effect you do 20% of the normal damage you would to your own minions.

3) Quick Freeze. Works with CoC. Train to 1/4th your DD level. Chance the cold is so cold it prevents the TSA regeneration ability from working. Max effect 0.5 = 50% chance of TSA not working.

4) Rot. Works with Decay. Train to DD level. ?????????????. I got nothing for this one. If decay even needs a skill.

Just ideas on a Monday which I hate.

Of course since they are skill, familiars would not be able to use them. Which is just fine with me.

For Quick Freeze, i think it should be 50% per round cuz it would kinda suck to spend all that money getting it and then half the time it doesn't work. Same with Sniper Shot

Yes, each skill for MM and CoC is per round having the special effect. Calculated independantly.

It would indeed be nice for mages to get a mage-specific skill.

Maybe CoC could get its own version of Bloodlust. *grins evilly* then we'd see true power!

I don't care for skills that bypass or foil a specific item...(and there is no precedent for such specificity in skills thus far in the game). If a skill is truly needed to get by an item, I would say that item is "overpowered". So I'm not too keen on ideas 1 or 3. I certainly would not invest in them. Especially if there is only a 50% chance? No way. If I invest in that much, I better know a consistent result against a consistent set of targets.

2, however, is one of the most brilliant ideas I have heard in ages. Elegant in design with a distinct, consistent payoff, and it scales logically from 0.0 to 1.0 as the skill grows. Also, since an FB mage is quite likely to use Evasion now (in order to deliver damage while having the best chance to dodge physical ranged damage), it is the perfect choice-forcer. Give up a better chance at surviving in ranged to make it to melee safely? Or stay alive through ranged only to fry your teammates in melee. I love it!

It's a shame number 2 could not somehow apply to the other DDs, but I have no idea what it could apply to.

You could just alter #1 such that it attacks the highest DD or ST on the opposing character...

Here is a way to put #2 on CoC. Training it focuses damage on the front minion. At 1.0 effect 100% of damage hits first minion only.

I would prefer the spread effect of CoC over front minion concentration.

AB, if you only train the skill as much as you want, you can still make the front minion take some more damage and the rest divided among the others.
If you don't like it at all, don't train it and focus on what you want.
I think it would certainly make a good addition.

Here's an idea on rot...how bout it keeps decaying the enemy hp for another 5 turns after the last decay has hit. Effect: at 1.0, it decays additional 5% of enemy hp per turn, meaning, somebody with 1m hp after last decay, loses 50k hp at turn 1, 45k at turn 2, and so on.

For MM, I would actually change that to something akin to what NSCs do to AMF, except for magical AC reduction. Something small in effect, because you definitely don't want everyone training MM ;/.

For Decay, something that lets you target the minion with the most HP? It might not always be the best choice, but you sure do get a hefty bang for your buck :P.

For CoC, I would probably suggest a reduction in AMF backlash damage. NOT a reduction in AMF effective level in any way, but simply a percent reduction of DAMAGE done by backlash.

You'd need to think up fancy names for them all :P. I adore the FB skill suggestion.

Or, the CoC could max hit front minion at his normal share plus 50% of remaining (or somesuch)... But yeah, you could just train it where you want it...

That's why idea 2 is so elegant, and why you can tell an elegant idea when it fits... It scales around and has variances that all seem to make sense.

I really like 2 because it passes the "choice" litmus test. I'm not sure if I would train it or not, but it's close, and I have a large Evasion. Then again, a lot of battles don't go into melee for me. I would probably gain Failure if I had a fireball quench skill, he last's until melee and I roast my whole team while he finishes off Joe.

Heh, "gain Failure". I'd love to gain failure!

I would not train self-contain. If a fireball mage team reaches melee, then the battle is most likely lost. also, CoC damage quickly catches up to FB once entering melee. To spend exp on a skill that has such a small window of operation and can be exceeded quickly by something that doesn't require skill training is hardly wise...

Oh Ulord, you've no idea. Lost if it reaches melee? Hardly. And I'm not even a defensive team (other than the Evasion). A DE-based Fireball team could _easily_ reach melee. If a CoC team can reach melee and beat someone like Oxcha (read: Violent Femmes), then what in goodness name makes you think an FB team can't get there?

A skill to contain FB would help to muddy that make-it-but-fry-my-team (FB) vs. gotta-make-it-there-to-freeze-the-other-team (CoC) dynamic. That's glorious.

I did some calculation before the ranged change and CoC beats out FB in damage 3 rounds into melee. Don't know how that is now, but the idea is, if you need to last a few rounds to win in melee, you might as well train coc and get the same or better total damage output without having to train the skill. That being said, my team has even less kill slots than you do :). So that explains my no hope in melee comment.

Ulord, great points. But the whole CoC thing has a LARGE stepwise portion to it -- you need to LIVE until then.

So, for folks who aren't so sure, and who just want 2-3 more rounds in melee, this new skill could be the ticket. What harm does it do adding a skill with such intriguing choice opportunities?

3) Quick Freeze. Works with CoC. Train to 1/4th your DD level. Chance the cold is so cold it prevents the TSA regeneration ability from working. Max effect 0.5 = 50% chance of TSA not working.

quick freeze should lower dex like on any other RPG lol make em move slow

sut: That's true. If you manage to kill off one or all of their damage dealers but killed yourself before being able to mop up, this skill would help. Any mage skill would be interesting actually, especially if evasion gets a nerf and can use an alternative.

Oh, Ulord, we're dead on 50/50 (actually 70/30 to you, you know your stuff)... That's what's fun. For all I know, Jonathan has already worked this all into the calcs and a skill that dilutes ranged-to-melee is a no-no....

But it's a fun idea!

You are too humble sut :). If I were to take Rigwarl to the big leagues, I'll be following your strategy. By the way, can you manage to get your trained fireball to be bigger than your minion's dd (with a good evasion on the side of course)? Also, how important is it for you to protect your familiar from MSK?

In one sentiment (two sentences) you thwart me! Yeah, can't beat the familiar when AoF is on. That's why I'm not sure AoF is "overpowered" in that regard...

So, "no" and "not". But only by reality-check standards. *grin*

Shhhh, we should take this to CM! No one sees what we are doing! Muhwahahahahahahaha!

I failed to see any greatness from these skills. Or how to implement them. Almost the same as : "Gamble" : boost up 90% of train level to tank's Dex and lower own's ST up to 45%.

wait a sec. why do mages need skill? spells have enough variety and merely adding the add listed above only improve the spells by putting more xp into it. is there enough of a difference between 100k XP in MM and 50k XP in sniper shot compare with 150k XP in MM?