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GinGaThu 08-May-08 05:45 PM
Member since 04th Mar 2003
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#21340, "Some random ideas for spicing up Shaman's"
Edited on Thu 08-May-08 05:48 PM

  

          

They're a great class, but they're so incredibly bland. I thought I'd toss some ideas into the arena:

Nerf damnation by removing it's ability to target stats (con-damn and rot is so cheap, and it doesn't need to do more -strength or annoying things like -moves/mana), and gain new skills to hobble (-dex) and inflict scarring boils (-chr). Perhaps rework Afflict to do this instead of it's other maledictions.

Calling their God to dispel the opposite align can be edged up to lower saves instead of damnation.

Fatigue also needs to do more - there's no reason to use it after you gain Demonfire, it's fatiguing effect never fires on even people with bad saves. The human brain uses more energy than any other organ in your body - as soon as your blood sugar drops, you have problems thinking straight. Fatigue can be not only about bringing lethargy to ones body, but mentally fatiguing them as well. This makes sense in line with it's mental damage type, high cost (I never used it after demonfire because of this) and the fact it will never stunt moves against someone with even rudimentary saves. The only two times I ever saw it work, was once versus me just before hero when the Watcher used it - and once when I used it on the maran outter just to experiment. All the times I used it in pk/otherwise pre-demonfire I saw nada.

Edit: I had a flash - consider removing Energy drain, and making Fatigue like a fixed-numbers version. Each fatigue will act like iceball to body+mind, removing anything from 40-120 moves/mana per hit depending on saves. It's cool, it's different and it differentiates them from the negative-style AP/Necro bunch. Making it more sense making for Goodies!

You said not long ago you were totally in favour of moving edges permenantly into skills - I'd highly recommend beginning with Wither and Langour of Aeons. No one wants to inflict -age anyway, and it could be done now to give shamans a foot up in the dex-nerfing department. Please consider this one seriously, it makes the most sense out of all of them

Tailor the class-theme more towards being niche priests by removing earthquake and tsunami, and giving each align it's own area attack. Kind of like a mini-version of Holy Word. I know the word 'shaman' is classically associated with more naturistic-style priests but I'd like to suggest to the staff they be considered more Align-related zealots. There's already a lot in their class that goes this direction - demonfire, dispel-align, protection, etc. And while I don't expect goodly shamans to turn into paladins (they're still about inflicting pain and suffering), I would like to see something that removes some of the blander stock-skills they've been holding.

Rework Aristaeia to allow fleeing, but not allow magical teleportation of any kind. Currently, the circumstances under which it's useful are so incredibly rare it's not worth the practices. My suggestion is to lower it's power slightly, and give it a secondary effect of boosting the healing from Mend Wounds. While under Aristaeia and in battle, mend wounds will act much more like Heal. This favors the physical-style shamans in giving them more oomph to their melee side, but is most powerful on a high-mana shaman who can afford to burn up 200 mana, and knock off a load of mend wounds to compensate for their lower hp/physical resistances. This also still embodies the original aims of Aristaeia - which were to give raw power to a mortal at the expense of their escape chances.

Fervor already heals in a cute berserk-like and is fine as-is. It's a very neat addition, and perfectly fits it's niche already while matching up well with Aristaeia's theme. Great job to the peeps who did this one. I'll just highlight here that another downside to Aristaeia, is losing the mental-resistance bonuses of Fervor that are much valued when there's a bard around (or transmuter, but less so).

Shamans and polearms - this is a wierd match, and I think giving them the distance skill (or something similar to boost distancing) wouldn't overpower them while making polearms an actual viable option. The only time I ever considered using one, was when I got a pincer staff. I never got why paladins/shamans got a weapon I've always seen as a 'utility' spec, yet only got a token offensive skill. Slice has improved this slightly but the basic melee mechanics make it useful nearly as often as Aristaeia.

Thanks for reading, hope it's something you consider if any of you guys gets the urge to pick up the shaman code! And thanks for a great game so far.

Yhorian

  

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laxmanSat 10-May-08 01:20 AM
Member since 18th Aug 2003
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#21346, "i would like to see a split"
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between witch doctor type shaman that lay curses on your family and shake vodoo dolls and warrior priests who utter prayers while swinging a hammer at their enemy.

one would be more ultity malediction oriented the other more offense oriented.

I also kind of think it would be cool if a shaman aristing themselves could have none of the drawbacks.

  

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