skill balance feedback

[wave]

this game is a ton of fun! even if some skills are imbalanced, using them a lot still feels cool! i think it would be good if they were more balanced so there's more fun choices to make when you're picking skills instead of everyone building the same
[edit 1/5: a couple people responded and i tried some of the skills again to make my feedback better. thanks!]

basically, i'm making the suggestions because i like this game a lot and i want to like it even more

all these suggestions assume these skills are supposed to be useful even after the class enhancements come out!
[edit: here i claimed Recover and Rock Toss were supposed to become bad when you get your class, but Rock Toss is Fighter's single only projectile and Recover would be solid if not for healing potions, just like all the other healing skills!]

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Prism only takes one or two hits at max level and from current endgame enemies, and you can heal that damage with a single potion or other skill, so it's never worth taking. if it's supposed to be insurance for mystics, maybe instead of taking X damage, it should take X hits and the user should take knockback to keep the mystic at a safe distance. if it's supposed to be so mystics can play tank, it should have way higher HP
[edit: Prism is actually to keep you from being interrupted while you cast spells, but it only saves you from 1 interruption every 30 seconds. you'd be better off blinking away! it'd be better if there were more spells with long cast times or if it had more HP]

for Inner Focus and Alacrity, a single crit every 40 seconds is nowhere near as strong as any other skill, and nothing takes long enough or is expensive enough to cast that Alacrity is useful [edit: except Life Tap, but Life Tap's job can be done by a single consumable that doesn't take any skill points or hotbar slots]
if they gave you brief buffs, like if Inner Focus gave you 2 or 3 seconds of 100% crit and Alacrity gave you 5 seconds of no costs, they would be almost as good as Sturdy

Restora and Divine (and Recover) are way worse than just using health potions. to make them better, potions should heal less or have longer cooldowns (also, i think the healing item cooldown should lock out ALL healing items instead of only the exact potion)

and a bunch that i have less to say about

• Sturdy is an amazing skill for tanks and the idea is cool but i think it is WAY too good to be invincible for that long. i think the length at max level should be a couple seconds shorter
  
• Fluxbolt is so fast and damaging that other magic skill scrolls aren't worth using. its mana cost being higher wouldn't make it harder to spam because potions, and it wouldn't make the other skills more worth using, so instead, Spire, Cryo Needle and Fireball should have much shorter cooldowns while Fluxbolt's cooldown is nerfed to be a little slower than those [edit: actually, Fluxbolt is skill point-hungry, so it's only better if you have the points to give it. Cryo Needle and Spire are pretty good]
  
• Life Tap's job can be done a LOT cheaper by consumables, but the idea is cool. maybe make it a Magic Power buff that also lowers max HP? anything that lets you trade HP for mana is outdone by consumables (but might not be in the future when people have and use a lot more MP than magiflowers give)
  
• Leg Up isn't very useful because having to run away is rare, and it's even rarer that these bonuses will actually help you get away. dungeon rooms are pretty small and enemies catch up fast on straightaways. the evasion bonus should be higher, like 15 or 20%, then it would be useful for bandits [edit: it's OK if you're keeping distance, but it works for so little of the fight that you should just use your class's mobility skill instead. maybe make the buff much longer but a little weaker?]
  
• Reflect doesn't do enough damage to be good, but Fighter has enough good hotbar skills that you don't have any more slots, so you might as well put it in this passive. it should do more damage so you have a better reason to take it [edit: it does plenty of damage, but nowhere near as much as most Fighter actives]
  
• Nova only saves you from being surrounded for a couple seconds, and dashing away does the same thing. it doesn't do enough damage to be good for hitting with, so it should either do more damage or maybe get rid of aggro [edit: Mystic has very few AoE or close-range spells, and this one does OK damage, so as a close-quarters Mystic it's pretty good!]
  
• Fireball isn't useful except ignite chance, but Cryo Needle (for example) has damage AND debuff chance, so Fireball should always ignite or the orbiting fireball should do slight knockback [edit: Fireball has a niche in close-quarters Mystic, but its first two levels aren't very useful except the burn. maybe buff the burn chance or make every fireball orbit the caster?]

[PugKonfuzio]

No skill is supposed to get bad, several builds shine through them

You are also missing the point on prism, got it backwards even

Prism is useful for ranged builds, and its main purpose is being able to cast spells without being interrupted, hence the lack of knockback while being fragile

Restora and divine do more than just recover yourself, which is why they ain't as efficient than potions

Lifetap/Alacrity seems to be be more of a party healer/support build thing, people swear by it when combined with divine + the MP hungry restora

Leg up is a nice skill for ranged builds, you can dish out damage while not having to worry about dodging most attacks

Some people argue inner focus is a good desperation skill to nuke large groups of enemies, but personally I have not messed up with it so I dunno

Many fighter builds need sturdy + reflect to deal damage, should you take that away from them, all they got left is hammer jump attack, then you suggest to buff reflect, quite a contradiction...

Cryo needle is a very strong 1v1 skill, lowering the cooldown would annihilate bosses
Spire shines agains aligned enemies and big ones

Nova can also be used offensively, you can set up enemies with it for a very punishing follow up

Fireball... Yeah, that one kinda sucks outside pvp, or perhaps I haven't been able to figure it out so maybe it is a me problem...

[Venc Ganence]

Originally posted by admiralstiff:

Fireball... Yeah, that one kinda sucks outside pvp, or perhaps I haven't been able to figure it out so maybe it is a me problem...

That one took a while for me to figure out, 3 MND builds, actually. Fireball is for close range engagements and serves a similar role to Reflect. If your mage engages in CQC, Fireball's orbit will continue to damage the horde while you're parrying everything.

[wave]

hi!!!! based on your guys' comments i have a little more to say! thanks for responding, i love discussing this game
i also edited the first post in case someone comes in and reads it so they don't need to scroll to this one


you're right, that's a better use for Prism than what i was thinking, but it still has too little health for it to make much difference. it only saves you from one interruption every 30 seconds, and that's better than nothing, but you could also just blink away and have the hotbar slot free. it'd be better if there were more skills with long cast times so you have more chances to get interrupted. maybe future mystic skills will have long cast times?

Spire and Cryo Needle do OK damage to single targets and big areas! the best thing about them over Fluxbolt is that they only cost 3 skill points instead of 7, but right now Mystic doesn't have anywhere else to put those points, so that downside doesn't matter

i still hold that healing spells aren't worth using because health potions are cheap, heal more, and cool down faster. if the biggest potion in the game was 50 HP or the cooldown was a lot longer, healing spells would be good

Leg Up is fine i guess. it's good for getting away for a little bit, but it has such a long cooldown that it's not worth the points compared to your class's movement skill, which will be useful for much more of the fight. maybe if the buff were a little smaller and lasted much longer it'd be okay? the speed buff also works on your dash, so you dash much longer and you have more leeway to dodge out of the way of attacks
(bandit's Mist Veil has a pretty similar issue, but Mist Veil also gets rid of all your aggro and heals you, so it has a much higher chance to save your life...if you were out of healing potions or your potion was on cooldown. it'd be great if healing potions were worse)

Nova is also okay, actually. it'd be better for a close-quarters build, like Fireball is, because mystic doesn't have many aoe skills or close-quarters skills

it's a shame Fireball's first two levels barely do anything for it, but i can see the third level being good! maybe the burn chance should be higher to make it more worth casting? maybe the entire skill should be orbital fireballs instead?

Inner Focus can turn one 80-damage hit into one 300-damage hit, even for an AOE move like Lethal Jab, but you could also just aim Volley at that same group of enemies, or a couple Cyclones, or a couple Spires, or a couple Spread Shots in the amount of time it'd take Inner Focus to cool down once. it should last 1 or 2 seconds or give every hitbox for a single attack crit (like every hit of Fluxbolt, every arrow in Volley, every hit of Cyclone) to be anywhere near as good as Sturdy (even if you make Sturdy shorter)

if Sturdy were worse and Reflect were better, it'd balance out to make that strategy just as good as it is now while making each part of the strategy more balanced if you use them alone

and i think i found one use for Life Tap? but it isn't very good. if you play bandit with all ranged, your skills all use mana and have short cooldowns, but if you put your points in dex, you don't have much mana, so Life Tap can give it back to you quickly at the cost of a hotbar slot, half your health and a few skill points. but you could also just use a magiclove, so there's not much point

[Ghoul Hunter]

Balancing is irrelevant and a time sink, because we are only 2 dungeons into the game. Who knows how things will change when we are level 30, 50, 80, whatever.

I think I trust the devs balancing more, too. You can tell he loves this game, or is really good at game design, because a lot of stuff works well despite being very different from each other. He's been playing more than all of us, I'm sure.