I’m reposting the post I wrote to address how I would bring school identity and balance changes since The Dorms is more appropriate of a place to put these ideas. Most of these posts I have seen in the forums have only addressing damage and resist changes which is perfectly valid but is only the tip of the iceberg. Also I have updated this post so it is more balanced and accurate opposed to the other one I put in test realm.
Each school has been described in a single sentence of their school identity as well as their problems and solutions. Devs, if you guys are interested in having an in depth discussion regarding this, I would love to talk about this in further detail and any other cool ideas I have in improving the game.
One of the solutions I came up with involve new mechanics that they could implement, some passive abilities that each school can automatically trigger that works to their own school identity. Some bonuses scale per 10 levels. This is to encourage level progression and an incentive to level because of their school identity.
With these school identities in mind and if used to established as a base, gear should also be oriented in a similar fashion as well as fashioning spells to function in that sense as well.
Additionally, these abilities I mention don’t apply to monsters, only the specific SCHOOL that the wizard specializes in. I also wrote this post in regards to PvE only. For PvP, the values could be adjusted specifically to make it work for that.
LIFE:
The healing school with high accuracy.
Problems:
-Sucked into the standardized damage gear
-Healing is most valuable in team play, otherwise they use damage solo gear
-Fair Utility but forces them to choose between heal or hit
Solutions:
Passive Abilities for Life Wizards:
Passive 5% Heal triggering every turn
Passive heal is not affected by heal boosts or nerfs or cheats from bosses that punish for heals
Scalable Base Incoming and Outgoing 5% increase per 10 levels
Base accuracy +2% increase per 10 levels
-Limit Intersection should be higher on resist and lower on damage
DEATH:
The “can’t die” school with their drain spells and powerful prepatory spells.
Problems:
-They lose exclusive rights to prepatory spells when feint was trainable to everyone
-Drain spells are too OP, making them almost invincible
Solutions:
Passive Abilities for Death Wizards:
When they die from an opponent’s attack, they heal 25% of their health while taking the equivalent damage value from the opponent that killed them, with a cooldown of 10 turns
Receives +5% boss damage per 10 levels.
-The spell Feint should be reduced to 50% universal for the enemy traps for non death wizards and 70% (death trap) for death wizards
-AOE drain spells should be reduced to a 25-33% value as they are too OP for death wizards and is the reason they don’t really die in battle
MYTH:
The shield breaking school and minion school.
Problems:
-Lost School Identity
-Extremely situational tools
-Minions are useless late game
Solutions:
Passive Abilities for Myth Wizards:
Receive +2% pierce per 10 levels
Before the start of every 5 turns, remove one trap from self and one shield from the highest damage mob (absorbs cannot be removed passively), this may not apply to PvP
Every 50 levels, subtract one turn from the ability until the value hits 2.
-Make Mythspear 35% pierce instead of 20%
-Give all minions utilities only and/or make them specialize in certain utilities ex: healing, charms, traps, shields
ICE:
The shield and most tankiest school.
Problems:
-Late game gear is oriented towards standard damage gear
-They aren’t exactly associated with tanky in late game
-In short, they are very deprived of their school identity.
Solutions:
Passive Abilities for Ice Wizards:
Receives +2% base resist per 10 levels, base resist is not affected by pierce (or affected by limit intersection). Temporarily gives +1% base resist per 10 levels to other teammates (does not apply to self)
Apply counter damage equivalent to the health they lost divided by half multiplied by 1.0x increasing by +0.05 per 10 levels applied passively temporarily in battle. Healing will revert this effect in 3 turns.
-Ice Wizard shield spells like tower shield are given an addition of 10% when used on self
-Make absorb spells calculate by the wizard’s resist
-Limit Intersection should be raised on resist and lowered on damage only if their school identity is very very clear
FIRE:
The damage over time school that stacks for more damage.
Problems:
-Fire shouldn’t have the highest damage gear end game (but 2nd highest damage gear end game) although their DoTs should account for the most damage in the game on a card
-Damage over time is basically useless late game
Solutions:
Passive Abilities for Fire Wizards:
Receives +5% more damage on damage over time spells on 2nd ticks and beyond every 10 levels
Spells without damage over times will have one applied based (at +2% per 10 levels) from the damage card over 3 turns and does not trigger traps or shields or detonate/incindiate
Example: Fire Dragon 540 damage + 435 DoT
435 DoT over 3 turns is multiplied by 5% times the ten base of the level digit and beyond. Lv 10 wizard gets 5% more DoT, Lv 100 wizard gets 50% more DoT.
-Enchants should only affect the first value of DoTs
-There should be enchants for only the second value of DoTs at double the value of regular enchants
-Trap spells for fire wizards should have a 10% increase, for example fire traps which are 30% should become 40%
-Limit intersection should be raised on damage and lowered on resist
STORM:
The most powerful damage school and charm crippler.
Problems:
-Why does a Fire Wizard have more gear damage than storm?
-The charm thing mentioned for storm's identity isn't really a thing late game
Solutions:
Passive Abilities for Storm Wizards:
Receive +3% base damage every 10 levels
Receive +20 critical rating every 10 levels starting at lv 50
Before the start of every 5 turn, remove one damage debuff on self and remove one damage charm from the highest level mob without fail every 2 turns. This may not apply to PvP
Every 50 levels, subtract one turn from the ability until the value hits 2.
-Nerf Darkmoor accuracy robe
-Lightning Strike accuracy should increase to something more like 40-50% and trigger only when a damage spell is used
BALANCE:
The assist school with a little bit of everything.
Problems:
-Soloing Issues
-Can’t help themselves
-Suffers the majority game severely (until Polaris when you get Nested Fury)
Solutions:
Passive Abilities for Balance Wizards:
All for one at a reduced percentage (the list of a little bit of "everything" is below)
Passive 1% Heal triggering every turn
Passive heal is not affected by heal boosts or nerfs or cheats from bosses that punish for heals
Scalable Base Incoming and Outgoing 1% increase per 10 levels
Base accuracy +1% increase per 10 levels
When they die from an opponent’s attack, they heal 10% of their health with a cooldown of 10 turns
Receives +1% boss damage per 10 levels.
Receive +1% pierce per 20 levels
Before the start of every 5 turns, remove one trap from self
Receives +1% base resist per 20 levels, base resist is not affected by pierce.
Apply counter damage equivalent to the health they lost divided by a quarter multiplied by 1.0x increasing by +0.05 per 10 levels applied passively temporarily in battle. Healing will revert this effect in 2 turns.
Receives +2% more damage on multi hit spells every 10 levels
Receive +1% base damage every 10 levels
Receive +5 critical rating every 10 levels starting at lv 50
Before the start of every 5 turns, remove one damage debuff on self without fail
Blades used on self such as Balance Blade and Bladestorm without any teammates are standardized to 35% and are reverted to their regular percentage when it doesn’t apply to themselves, since you guys can make conditions on spells like Scion for double damage, I think this is very doable for something as simple as a Balance Blade to make it 35% on self or 25% on teammates.
Auto Balance Prism before whenever Balance damage hits balance mobs, gain +2% damage every 10 levels on Balance Mobs (or remove Balance resist altogether)
I saw your post on Reddit, but I figure I would also post here. (easier to type than on my phone). **Correction: It was someone else's post***
I think that some of your numbers are a little high (and probably too many things to do ALL of them, but I've left my notes below.)
Life: I think that for solo gear that incoming healing needs to be increased. Basically, I feel like that would be good in general for gear that is Damage Oriented. If you're hitting you are using pips for that and don't have access to pips for heals as much. I'd argue that this would be a good stat to boost on (Ice, Myth, Fire and Storm) (Balance, Death and Life if going for a healing build may want more Outgoing as opposed to Incoming in general, but should also have the option for increased Incoming for Solo Work).
I feel like as far as your passive abilities that the numbers are probably too high, but if there was a spell that let you heal 5% until it was removed (maybe an overtime that had like 100 rounds on it? or an Aura or Ward?) Would make more sense.
Death: I think it would be cool if Death Wizards could Distribute their drain heals to their teammates. (Why instead of half of the health going to just the Death Wizard that there could be a way for it to be equally divided amongst your teammates (reduce Overhealing). It could also be an Aura or maybe even a Sun Enchant?
I don't think that reducing Feint to 50% would NOT go over very well. I think a better solution would be to allow for Death to be able to Train it to Mass Feint via Spellements or make it separate to Death and probably death only (other support characters will miss this though so Balance needs a Blade that's of Equal strength to it in my opinion that costs pips).
Myth: Myth has no identity and does too many things. It's supposed to be the Minion School, but I agree that being the Pierce School gives it a good place in the Spiral. I would probably reduce the number of Stuns that it has though. Right now it does, Stuns (medusa is a double stun; plus a stun all both of which I feel like are more Ice's moves) Minions (they lose their usefulness rather quickly should be a way for them to scale up with the Myth Wizard or for them to be able to control them), Confusion (Interesting new ability sort of like Beguile?) Pierce/Shatter (remove Shields and Traps No bueno for my Ice Wizard and people trying to trap). It's just sort of all over. I think giving them more Pierce spells is a viable option. Perhaps Minions could be into classes like you suggested and would be a set % of the Myth Players health (10%?) to the nearest 50 HP.
Ice: I agree with all of your suggestions except maybe changing the limit intersection thing as I think that's a Global change. I'd maybe add that the 60% tower shield should just be a Ice Exclusive in general (kind of like with Death's Feint) that should be available to all Ice Wizards whether cast of self or teammate. Adding Protective spells that cost pips makes sense too (I get that there is Frozen Armor and the upgraded version, but they are not used ever). Same with Taunt. Though I think it is scheduled to updated to the new system.
Fire: Fire has higher damage overall, but not at once. Still making it so that Storm is the stronger school. Storm has more Critical (I think there is opportunity to improving Critical still as well).
Storm: Has more Critical than Fire as well. I feel as if the Critical and Damage Limits should be at effectively the same levels (this may mean expanding critical to do up to 3x damage in the future?) Storm tbh I feel as if is doing fine as far as Identity goes though yes, I would lower their access to accuracy. (They plus, Life and Balance all have an accuracy charm that should be better utilized).
Balance: The Boost to self Blade I feel is inappropriate as it promotes selfishness over team play. I don't even think it's necessary as a solo player to be completely honest (Hydra and Spirit Blast as well as 2ndary school makes up for the time that you have to fight the nasty mobs) They also just introduce the Iron Curse Spell for those Nasty Tower Shield spammers. A balance Prism available at a lower level I think could be appropriate though. I also think that they should lean into the Pip Manipulation part more. There was a post on reddit that maybe I'll ask the author if they could post it here.
what about ice recieving a spell similar to fortify that could be cast on allies? or maybe they should remove shadow sentinel and just make that ice's passive ability.
