While looking at shifters I noticed something odd.

I couldn't understand why water shifters were so seldomly played. Then I had a look at the enlivens.

Offense majors:
4 offensive enlivens
1 utility

Defense majors:
4 defensive enlivens
1 utility

Utility majors:
2 defensive enlivens
1 offensive enliven
2 utlity enlivens

Water majors:
1 offensive enliven
2 defensive enlivens
1 utlity enliven

Air majors:
2 ulity enlivens
1 defensive enliven


People still pick air, and that's most likely because the element of being able to pick your targets/fights easily due to supreme scouting abilities.

But water forms are highly limited in their use, though a few of them can move on land as well, and the ones that can are great forms.
However, the enlivens seems quite bland, now I've never played a water shifters, and never any shifter above lvl 44. I've only had defense, offense and utlity shifters. But I think that adding a fifth enliven to water forms would be a good idea.

Here are a few ideas I've come up with:
'NODE OF THE HAMMERHEAD'
Syntax: enliven node of the hammerhead

Node of the hammerhead allows a water major to develop a certain node, sensitive to electric pulsations from living creatures, making it impossible to hide from the water major. Blinding the water major will not stop them from being able to sense the living creatures nearby. This ability works better in the water than on land.



'SKIN OF THE EEL'
Syntax: enliven skin of the eel

Skin of the eel allows a water major to transmute the skin of his form in the slippery skin of an eel, rendering all attempts to lash or entwine them fruitless, it also makes them much harder to bash to the ground.




'TEARING JAWS'
Syntax: enliven tearing jaws

Tearing jaws allows a water major to make their attacks can cause bleeding smaller bleeding wounds to open, and once a wound has been open, if it is struck again the bleeding might increase and the wound will have a harder time to heal.



'BLOOD IN THE WATER'
Syntax: enliven blood in the water

A water major that is affected by blood has a chance to pounce after bleeding oponents and knocking them down.



'ADAPTION OF THE JELLYFISH'
Syntax: enliven adaption of the jellyfish

Adaption of the jellyfish allows a water major to ignore physical maladictions that might affect them, it even makes them unable to bleed while under this affect.



Just some ideas, no idea if any of it would make things OP. But perhaps it would make use see more water forms in the game. :)


Now, feel free to shoot me down or flame me.

some time taken to look at how maledictions affect the performance of forms. Even a little bit below max stats on most forms and your doing as well as if you were at 3's for str/dex. It seems to me that it doesn't scale. I know that there are mechanics in place to assist this but over all it just doesn't seem to be working properly.

An example I can think of is a defense major I had at 42 with Mongoose that was confident who fought a village assassin who was level 36 and he was able to land an axe kick on my hasted form with superior evasion/dodge. At the time nexus was in power and I don't think the veil came into play here.

I checked 80 shifters from PBF's, finding 4 water majors and 1 water minor and double water Annaeia. Annaeia was too old to have greater enlivens and can thus be ignored. Thus, 80% of water shifters with greater enlivens chose water as their major focus, getting water enlivens instead of the greater enlivens of the other focus. This implies that poor greater enlivens was not the reason for not selecting water as your major focus. It can thus be concluded that water was not chosen as major focus due to the way it is restricted terrain-wise rather than poor greater enlivens, leading to water's 7.5% popularity as a focus.

Water majors:
Jordanian, Kelstrane, Aelozzosot, Strelicer, Annaeia

Water minors:
Destim, Annaeia

The current ones are, simplified based on helpfiles:

-+str and more damage
-+dex and better dodge
-+con and more dam redux
-able to use non-water forms underwater

They don't sound bad to me at all.

Let's compare it with others:
Defense:
-regen slowly
-more dam redux
-more saves
-better dodge
-small chance to dodge any blow (better evade?)

Air:
-Better scouting while on the ground (not sure how this works)
-Increased mv regen, mv regen while in the air and reduced mana cost for form use
-increased dodge, evade and +dex

Offense:
-+str and +dex
-+ hit and increased chance to get past opponents defences.
-more damage
-maledict and bleeding
-random magical attack damage type at times.

Utility:
-sneak
-reduced maledicts
-resist sleep
-resist mental, + wis and reduced mana cost
-quicker and less costly movement. More movement points.

And to the question:

How well do water's more damage, dam redux and better dodge compare to ones provided by offense, defense and air foci and what the actual increase percentages are in general?

They are similar in effect and have the affected stat increase as well. In my opinion they are good enlivens but some of the forms need a little help.