Deathravin
07-02-2009, 06:27 PM
X-Post from officials:
A friend mentioned this and it set the gears to turning, so I thought I would make a post of it.
Sacrifice, as a sorcerer skill, is not completely useless, but it could certainly be improved upon. As either Strath or Oscuro had asked for suggestions about it a few months ago, I feel that this might be a bit late, or could really make a big difference. Clerics currently have Orisons in the works, these will be their new guild skill and will be largely RP related, but some of them will also give mechanical benefits. I think this is an absolutely wonderful idea and could be the basis for a really good sacrifice system in the Sorcerer Guild.
The current Sacrifice doesn't have to die, as it can be a boon to very low level sorcerers, but it could also stand to be retooled slightly so that it still provides some use to them, but could be made more powerful through the Sacrifice guild skill. The base Sacrifice, the one that you can learn once you have 706, grants 20 mana +1/target level, and has a 20 minute timer on it. To make it more useful, it could be dropped to, say, 10 mana +1/2 levels above level 10, and have only a 5 minute timer. At 100, you could get 180 mana out of it in the same 20 minutes by sacrificing every 5 minutes, so maybe those numbers would have to be tweaked, but maybe not, considering that sacrificing a creature can be difficult and often requires special tactics that may not be as mana efficient, thus balancing things out a bit.
The sacrifice guild skill could augment the existing sacrifice skill by doing things like making it slightly easier (or, in fact, possible) to sacrifice creatures more than a few levels over your head, increase the mana returns or do other things... But wait, there's more! Why should sacrifice be limited to just returning mana? What about having other types of sacrifices as well? What about a sacrifice that boosts your mana regen rate, or health regen, maybe max stamina, XP absorption or other things. Perhaps we could get one that temporarily boosts our CS by a nominal degree, much like quartz orbs. We could also get RP related stuff with this and who can doubt that it could be quite a powerful RP tool in the hands of a player desiring to use it for such purposes? The bonuses for it don't have to be huge, but a small boost here and a small boost there do add up. This could really serve to further the image of Sorcerers that we still have in a lot of people's minds, even if our mechanical implementation in recent years has been a bit lackluster.
These are just ideas thrown out there for people to think about, not hard and fast "my way or no way" offerings. I think that we lack a lot, but this would not be a bad way to recoup some of what we're missing and it could certainly be worked into new systems that may be on the (distant) horizon for our beloved profession. I suppose I am feeling a bit verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.
~Player of Athenar Gelarne Faendryl, half-Faendryl Summoner.
Sacrifice could use stamina or spirit. Sorcerers in general don't have a lot that can use stamina. It remains fairly unused. The penalty of a failed sacrifice could easily be a quick 30/60 minute cooldown rather than a whole spirit loss.
Youll see why in a minute, but with this exact method, an animated critter must be able to be sacrificed for VERY low returns. Sacrifice mana gives 1 mana, Sacrifice spirit just replaces the spirit it took, etc. And then the animated critter must be able to be brought back to life fairly easily.
Rank 1- Sacrifice gather used for guild reps only. Read on to see what it does.
Rank 1 - Sacrifice reverse used for guild reps only. Read on to see what it does.
Rank 1 - Sacrifice mana - cost: 1 spirit or 20 stamina - takes mana from sacrificed critter. 10 mana + level / 3 - 5 minute cooldown
Rank 10 - Sacrifice health - cost: 1 spirit or 20 stamina - takes health from sacrificed critter. fills up health bar - 5 minute cooldown
Rank 20 - Sacrifice spirit - cost: 1 spirit or 20 stamina - takes spirit from sacrificed critter. gain 2 spirit - 5 minute cooldown.
Rank 30 - Sacrifice wounds - cost: 1 spirit or 30 stamina - transfers any wounds you have to critter. - 10 minute cooldown.
Sorcerers are squishy. we don't get hit often, and when we do we can't get hit too many times without dying. Will be very sparsely used and I highly doubt somebody will be sacrificing all 3s ever.
Rank 40 - Sacrifice CS - cost: 1 spirit or 30 stamina - gives same effect as quartz orb, cannot be stacked with an orb. 5 minute cooldown
Rank 50 - Sacrifice DS cost: 1 spirit or 30 stamina gives double effect of small statue, cannot be stacked with a statue. 5 minute cooldown
Rank 60 Sacrifice Animate cost: 5 spirit or 60 stamina (or all stamina, whichever is less) refreshes your Animate by 30 minutes. 15 minute cooldown
Rank 63 Sacrifice Animate update: Also heals your animate from all health and wounds.
Sacrifice may stack up to 3 cooldowns at any given time into a master cooldown. If you do a CS, Mana, then XP, that's it for 15 minutes, Or you can do a CS and Mana every 10 minutes, Or 1 Mana every 5 minutes.
Reps types:
Arcane Master training You practice a sacrifice on low level mobs (kobolds & roltons) from the dark corner with the Arcane master. You use a siphon to drain the critter from most of its health, and then sacrifice it. The higher your rank the closer to like-leveled critters you practice on. Costs associated are reduced, if stamina then to 3-5 per attempt (If spirit, then the cost is removed).
2-10 reps per assignment.
Gather specimen training Were you wondering where you were going to get all these nice kobolds & roltons you were going to practice on? Sacrifice gather. You gather the spirit and body of a critter into a gem (or book or something). You are tasked with gathering critters. Can be any critter, but as you get higher ranks, it has to be closer to like-level. The higher level the gathered critter, the more expensive the gem has to be to contain it. Gems can be re-used for this purpose, but are hollowed during the process. Pre-hollowed gems such as from animation work too.
1-5 reps per assignment.
Mopping the floor All this sacrificing is getting the floor drenched with blood. You gotta mop that blood up. Its making a mess. VERY similar to rogue guild sweeping.
3-8 reps per assignment
Critter reps You gotta go out and do what youre learning. Go out and practice on some critters in the wild. Can take quite a while with all the cooldowns.
3-10 reps per assignment.
Learn reps You need to go out and be shown a good sacrifice from a similarly trained sorcerer. This can be used with animated critters for a much lesser cost to you (2-5 stamina) and you can bring your animate back to life if killed in this way by Sacrifice reverse. You use some 1 spirit, 10 health, and 2 mana to breathe life back into your animate.
3-15 reps per assignment
Teach reps You need to go out and show a good sacrifice to any guild member training in Sacrifice. Similar to learn reps.
3-15 reps per assignment
Not sure about it, but seems interesting at least. And certainly something there to build on.
A friend mentioned this and it set the gears to turning, so I thought I would make a post of it.
Sacrifice, as a sorcerer skill, is not completely useless, but it could certainly be improved upon. As either Strath or Oscuro had asked for suggestions about it a few months ago, I feel that this might be a bit late, or could really make a big difference. Clerics currently have Orisons in the works, these will be their new guild skill and will be largely RP related, but some of them will also give mechanical benefits. I think this is an absolutely wonderful idea and could be the basis for a really good sacrifice system in the Sorcerer Guild.
The current Sacrifice doesn't have to die, as it can be a boon to very low level sorcerers, but it could also stand to be retooled slightly so that it still provides some use to them, but could be made more powerful through the Sacrifice guild skill. The base Sacrifice, the one that you can learn once you have 706, grants 20 mana +1/target level, and has a 20 minute timer on it. To make it more useful, it could be dropped to, say, 10 mana +1/2 levels above level 10, and have only a 5 minute timer. At 100, you could get 180 mana out of it in the same 20 minutes by sacrificing every 5 minutes, so maybe those numbers would have to be tweaked, but maybe not, considering that sacrificing a creature can be difficult and often requires special tactics that may not be as mana efficient, thus balancing things out a bit.
The sacrifice guild skill could augment the existing sacrifice skill by doing things like making it slightly easier (or, in fact, possible) to sacrifice creatures more than a few levels over your head, increase the mana returns or do other things... But wait, there's more! Why should sacrifice be limited to just returning mana? What about having other types of sacrifices as well? What about a sacrifice that boosts your mana regen rate, or health regen, maybe max stamina, XP absorption or other things. Perhaps we could get one that temporarily boosts our CS by a nominal degree, much like quartz orbs. We could also get RP related stuff with this and who can doubt that it could be quite a powerful RP tool in the hands of a player desiring to use it for such purposes? The bonuses for it don't have to be huge, but a small boost here and a small boost there do add up. This could really serve to further the image of Sorcerers that we still have in a lot of people's minds, even if our mechanical implementation in recent years has been a bit lackluster.
These are just ideas thrown out there for people to think about, not hard and fast "my way or no way" offerings. I think that we lack a lot, but this would not be a bad way to recoup some of what we're missing and it could certainly be worked into new systems that may be on the (distant) horizon for our beloved profession. I suppose I am feeling a bit verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.
~Player of Athenar Gelarne Faendryl, half-Faendryl Summoner.
Sacrifice could use stamina or spirit. Sorcerers in general don't have a lot that can use stamina. It remains fairly unused. The penalty of a failed sacrifice could easily be a quick 30/60 minute cooldown rather than a whole spirit loss.
Youll see why in a minute, but with this exact method, an animated critter must be able to be sacrificed for VERY low returns. Sacrifice mana gives 1 mana, Sacrifice spirit just replaces the spirit it took, etc. And then the animated critter must be able to be brought back to life fairly easily.
Rank 1- Sacrifice gather used for guild reps only. Read on to see what it does.
Rank 1 - Sacrifice reverse used for guild reps only. Read on to see what it does.
Rank 1 - Sacrifice mana - cost: 1 spirit or 20 stamina - takes mana from sacrificed critter. 10 mana + level / 3 - 5 minute cooldown
Rank 10 - Sacrifice health - cost: 1 spirit or 20 stamina - takes health from sacrificed critter. fills up health bar - 5 minute cooldown
Rank 20 - Sacrifice spirit - cost: 1 spirit or 20 stamina - takes spirit from sacrificed critter. gain 2 spirit - 5 minute cooldown.
Rank 30 - Sacrifice wounds - cost: 1 spirit or 30 stamina - transfers any wounds you have to critter. - 10 minute cooldown.
Sorcerers are squishy. we don't get hit often, and when we do we can't get hit too many times without dying. Will be very sparsely used and I highly doubt somebody will be sacrificing all 3s ever.
Rank 40 - Sacrifice CS - cost: 1 spirit or 30 stamina - gives same effect as quartz orb, cannot be stacked with an orb. 5 minute cooldown
Rank 50 - Sacrifice DS cost: 1 spirit or 30 stamina gives double effect of small statue, cannot be stacked with a statue. 5 minute cooldown
Rank 60 Sacrifice Animate cost: 5 spirit or 60 stamina (or all stamina, whichever is less) refreshes your Animate by 30 minutes. 15 minute cooldown
Rank 63 Sacrifice Animate update: Also heals your animate from all health and wounds.
Sacrifice may stack up to 3 cooldowns at any given time into a master cooldown. If you do a CS, Mana, then XP, that's it for 15 minutes, Or you can do a CS and Mana every 10 minutes, Or 1 Mana every 5 minutes.
Reps types:
Arcane Master training You practice a sacrifice on low level mobs (kobolds & roltons) from the dark corner with the Arcane master. You use a siphon to drain the critter from most of its health, and then sacrifice it. The higher your rank the closer to like-leveled critters you practice on. Costs associated are reduced, if stamina then to 3-5 per attempt (If spirit, then the cost is removed).
2-10 reps per assignment.
Gather specimen training Were you wondering where you were going to get all these nice kobolds & roltons you were going to practice on? Sacrifice gather. You gather the spirit and body of a critter into a gem (or book or something). You are tasked with gathering critters. Can be any critter, but as you get higher ranks, it has to be closer to like-level. The higher level the gathered critter, the more expensive the gem has to be to contain it. Gems can be re-used for this purpose, but are hollowed during the process. Pre-hollowed gems such as from animation work too.
1-5 reps per assignment.
Mopping the floor All this sacrificing is getting the floor drenched with blood. You gotta mop that blood up. Its making a mess. VERY similar to rogue guild sweeping.
3-8 reps per assignment
Critter reps You gotta go out and do what youre learning. Go out and practice on some critters in the wild. Can take quite a while with all the cooldowns.
3-10 reps per assignment.
Learn reps You need to go out and be shown a good sacrifice from a similarly trained sorcerer. This can be used with animated critters for a much lesser cost to you (2-5 stamina) and you can bring your animate back to life if killed in this way by Sacrifice reverse. You use some 1 spirit, 10 health, and 2 mana to breathe life back into your animate.
3-15 reps per assignment
Teach reps You need to go out and show a good sacrifice to any guild member training in Sacrifice. Similar to learn reps.
3-15 reps per assignment
Not sure about it, but seems interesting at least. And certainly something there to build on.