Skills & Abilities vs. Elites/Bosses

[ikarius]

I was going through the skills & abilities in order to plan my character build, and I found a few skills and abilities which are flagged as not working versus elites & bosses. The leadership/charm/domination skills are completely understandable, as those can give you fodder to throw in front of elites & bosses, but some of the others make a lot less sense, as really- after a while, the elites & bosses ARE the challenge in Portralis. Anything which is simply written off against the elites & bosses is generally a waste of investment. I can understand not wanting to allow certain effects to be applied so as not to trivialize encounters, but perhaps allowing either the abilities to work at a reduced chance, reduced effectiveness, or revamping them would be a good idea.

The high-monk ability "Arms Crush" says it does not work against elites/bosses/uniques, though on reading it carefully, it may only be the "Mutilate Arms" status effect which does not work; the description is a little fuzzy. What if the "Mutilate Arms" status effect were to reduce damages dealt instead of preventing it from attacking?

The "Axes" skill appears to be particularly poor off, as both "Mutilate Legs" & "Mutilate Arms" (40 point and 70 point) abilities don't work on elites/bosses. I'd suggest a similiar approach- reducing the effectiveness of attacks and reducing movement, instead of having the abilities simply not work.

Cheers
Ikarius

[Variaz]

High Monk needs a complete revamp. If you need a proof, read my sig.

The Mutilate abilities could be redone. The thing with this kind of abilities is that it's hard to make them balanced. If they work too well, they trivialise encounters that are supposed to be difficult. On the other hand, if they don't work, well, the entire skill becomes less atractive.

[ikarius]

I'd lobby for a revamp on the axe skills; the Axe skill abilities generally pretty much suck. Swords on the other hand, is *fantastic*- sword spin buys you an ability that takes 7 APs to replicate, and Parry looks pretty darn useful too.... and the sword skill abilities come in with a lot fewer points invested. And by the way- THANK YOU, Variaz- for creating such a neat game!

Cheers
Ikarius

[Variaz]

It's true that Axes isn't that great compared to other weapon skills.

Swords is very good in most situations, but excel in a Battle Skill build, and/or Kensai build.

Polearms is great for combat feat builds.

Daggers is a different style altogether. Theorically the most powerful skill, because with the 2 billion hp cap for monsters, at very high levels and very powerful weapons, you would eventually be able to reach those damages. With the extreme number of blows, this would be the best skill in the game. Expect this to change in 0.5.

Blunt isn't as good, but the last feat has a very, very high success rate and takes defense to 0. And it's a combat feat. Not as good as Swords, but not bad either.

Axes.... yeah. One-handed axes are bad, two-handeds aren't as good as polearms, weak feats... Not too useful.

[Gando]

There are one handed Axes? I've never seen one.

[Variaz]

The Hand Axes.

The early ones are about as strong as daggers, except with weights of 9.0 or even 11.0 instead of 1.0. The later ones are on par with one-handed spears, except without the x2 to base damages.

As you can see, they aren't very good. The reason you didn't know they existed is that you didn't bother with them, and there's no reasons for you to.

[sekira]

ah, aren't battle axes 1 handed? I think they have the COULD_2H flag, so they are technically 1 1/2 hands, but still, you can use them 1 handed just fine, like all 1 1/2 handed weapons (long swords, katanas, spears, flails)