Thoughts on these skills being too good?

[Shaiandra]

Firstly I'd like to say I'm loving this game, so kudos for it!

I've been playing with a friend for around 2 months now, and have somehow clocked in over 90 hours but we haven't quite finished the game, though I'm sure we're very close to the end. We've been playing on the Very Hard preset, which has been a reasonable challenge.

We've been playing without any guides or reading discussions like here for the most part, so any tactics we've tried were just our own experimentation; we haven't tried absolutely everything. And I feel there are a handful of skills which just seem a bit too good.. I would've started with Quicken, but I see from recent threads that 6 Eyes already has its.. eyes.. on abuse cases with multiple Quicken casters.

But then I'll touch on the Critical: Quicken counter. While somewhat less abusable comparatively, I feel it's wrong that it can trigger from your own attacks. If I'm keeping Anadine at low HP for a Desperate Blow build, now not only can my casters Quicken her, I can have others Heavy Hit her to give her another turn (or really two turns most of the time). I've asked my friend to throw a Rock at her once.

And the above relates to my next concern, which is Desperate Blow. We only recently started using it and only with a melee weapon (so we haven't tried it when it was even more broken until recently), and I still feel it's too powerful for its cost. While it can be somewhat risky keeping your HP low (but Rebirth and Critical Quicken exist..), I think having a very potent and reliable attack (ignores Def, doesn't need offensive passives to do high damage, and such) for 6 MP is devastating. I don't know if its damage formula should be changed, but I think at the least, its MP cost should be increased so that it's not so easy to sustain two Desperate Blows per turn (with Cleave) for a while.

Past that, I've concerns with the apparently famous Gunner/Knight combo. While not as gamebreaking, I dislike that both Heavy Hit and One For All have their risk:reward ratios skewed so favourably for ranged weapons. The standard of melee doing more damage than ranged currently doesn't apply to Heavy Hit, and OFA needs no explanation.

While not so necessary, I personally think Heavy Hit could use the Sorcerer Storm treatment; do only say 1/5 or 1/4 when used at a long distance, increasing to 1/3 when within 2 range (since Knights can use spears).

But regarding OFA, I don't know what I'd like to see. It's possible ranged OFA doesn't need any nerfs (and OFA is fun so I don't want it gutted), but then instead I'd like to see if melee OFA can be made more practical so it's not as inferior compared to the ranged version, but I don't really have any suggestions for that..

(If it matters, I'd say Taunt and Sabotage are our next two favourite skills which we've relied on pretty heavily, but I don't think they need changes.)

I think that's everything. Like I'm sure everyone else here, I enjoyed coming up with cool class combinations and such, so I don't want the core ideas of any skills to be nerfed hard, but some of the above seem like they could potentially get out of hand to me.

Thanks for reading!

[Mechalibur]

While I don't necessarily think OFA needs a nerf, I'd like to see it moved to a different class, and replaced with something else. It has virtually no synergy with Knight, and is just about only useful for ranged classes.

Of course, if you give it to, for example, gunner, they'd probably have too much going on for them in their main skill set. So it's not a super simple change unfortunately.

[Shaiandra]

I actually have considered OFA possibly belonging to a different class too, but I wasn't sure which. In one way I do envision OFA should be usable by a melee character in the thick of things, so something like Knight, Templar, or maaybe even Mercenary seemed reasonable, but I wasn't sure if that would've really fixed anything so I didn't suggest it.

But you're right that it doesn't really synergize with Knight, being a purely damage skill that scales with weapon, and oddly is only practical on ranged.

[Conan The Librarian]

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

While I don't necessarily think OFA needs a nerf, I'd like to see it moved to a different class, and replaced with something else. It has virtually no synergy with Knight, and is just about only useful for ranged classes.

Of course, if you give it to, for example, gunner, they'd probably have too much going on for them in their main skill set. So it's not a super simple change unfortunately.

Mechalibur-

I quite disagree with "no synergy with Knight" in the fact that Knights can use spears, which have a range of 2. You can still position a Knight in the fray of combat and get some pokes in there with it.

I also agree that giving OFA directly to Gunner would be a bit much in its current form. I know that I've mentioned this in other threads before, but when it comes to class design, both internal and external class synergies are taken into account. As I mentioned just above, I'd say OFA has synergy with the Knight class while simultaneously having "quite good" synergy with classes which can use ranged weapons (which is the same for [Heavy Hit]).

Shalandra-

For [Desperate Blow], I'll admit that I personally don't strong feelings on this one, so I can't say for sure, but I have heard from some players who play on quite difficult settings that the harder you go, the harder it is to properly utilize this move due to having a character in such low health. All the same, it's good to get feedback on abilities.

For [Heavy Hit], given that bosses tend to have the "minus percentile damage" passive on them, my concern really isn't there for this ability being too strong, and therefore needing a nerf akin to the distance thing like Sorcerers have. Being able to use this ability at its "full 1/3" effectiveness whether it be at melee or spear (2) range or further is part of the Knight skillset being good to utilize as a primary or secondary skillset. It's true that it can be potent, but having this tool available is great to counter high defense enemies (and of course, to be used against the player).

For [One for All], this was brought up in another thread recently, in which I stated:

Originally posted by Conan The Librarian:

Originally posted by Darkstranger:

3) about Gunner\Knight combo with “dual wield” and One for All. True, this combo very fun. But its a little bit OP, because gives too big value and too easy to use without any risk. Even dont know how it can be balanced.

Indeed, double guns and [One for All] is a potent combo, which is precisely why [One for All] was nerfed to have a mana cost of 18, so it can't be spammed every turn. Obviously there are ways and strategies around this, but for the most part, it can (on average) be used every other turn assuming you don't use other abilities which use mana. Granted, a lot of the skillsets you'd potentially use (i.e. Gunner) don't use mana (or commonly don't use mana), but the point still stands that there is a decent mana cost for it.

To quote myself from another thread in which someone mentioned about the OFA / double guns combo:

Originally posted by Conan The Librarian:

That being said, you can still shut down such a unit with crowd control and debuffs. Cripple to stop skills, Charm to stop him from attacking you, attack down to marginalize his damage, sleep to keep him on ice till you're ready to deal with him, or slow to make sure he doesn't get too many actions.

Basically, just because something is strong doesn't mean that there aren't ways to counter it. All the same, voicing your opinions / feedback is a good thing for general balance considerations.

Originally posted by Shaiandra:

But then I'll touch on the Critical: Quicken counter. While somewhat less abusable comparatively, I feel it's wrong that it can trigger from your own attacks. If I'm keeping Anadine at low HP for a Desperate Blow build, now not only can my casters Quicken her, I can have others Heavy Hit her to give her another turn (or really two turns most of the time). I've asked my friend to throw a Rock at her once.

With anything in a game (or this game specifically), there is a fine line between "something being OP" and "a good combo". So, unless I misunderstand something, it sounds like you are utilizing the mechanics of [Critical: Quicken] to let your hero get another turn, but it's not fueling any sort of "endless chains of turns by itself", right? All the examples you mentioned include someone ELSE using their turn to trigger it on your Anadine, correct? If that's the case, then I personally see no problem with that because you're just utilizing a mechanic to create a combo. There is still a "cost" involved in it (i.e. the small amount of damage done and more importantly that the other heroes are using their turns to basically give Anadine another turn) so it seems fine.

So, thanks for taking the time to jot down some thoughts for balancing considerations, and yeah, I love this game a ton as well.

Edit: Formatting being troublesome for me.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Re: Quicken + Critical: Quicken - assuming 6Eyes chooses to "fix" Quicken issues by making Quicken once-per-round, as long as it also extends to Critical: Quicken, that would be the main thing I would say needs to be done to address this strategy. While it's very powerful, its practicality fluctuates heavily based on the Injury settings. On None or Default, the unit dying isn't a big deal, so this strategy is quite viable. On AP Malus, any deaths incurred from this kind of strategy are rather obnoxious and can turn into a time-waste on the macro level unless the unit no longer needs AP. On Permanent Injury or Permadeath settings, such a strategy is quite risky for obvious reasons. Combos whose viability fluctuate based on difficulty settings aren't ones I'd class as "OP", although if they snowball too easily there's nothing wrong with a minor adjustment.

Re: One For All / Heavy Hit Gunners - both are powerful, but, again, their power fluctuates based on settings. On Very Hard or higher, Heavy Hit is a really valuable move as units have thick defenses, whereas on lower difficulties, its value is a lot more situational since your main damage output is higher due to the enemy's defenses being lower. On lower settings, One For All Gunners can be oppressively powerful, while on higher ones, they tend to serve more as the clean-up-crew or status propagators, counters to enemy Mystic Shield users, etc. Although, you did note you played on Very Hard. While there's still some upward mobility from there in difficulty, I'm a bit surprised it's that useful on Very Hard. Perhaps the MP cost could be raised to be a bit less spammable - something like 24-28 MP to put it in line with other "ultimate" moves like Righteous Blade.

While all good combos, since they're not ubiquitously broken on all play-settings (like an infinite-turn Quicken loop is, for example), I don't think they need to see any particularly aggressive nerfing. Since they're good on most stock settings, something minor might be in line, but Fell Seal, like many SRPGs, has a lot of powerful combos, and being able to discover and apply them is part of the fun, after all.

[Mechalibur]

I disagree on knights having OFA synergy. I don't think 2 range is really that much synergy, considering guns usually have 7 range. That's 12 squares vs 112, I think. It really doesn't compare well, especially since knights tend to be better at defense than offense and aren't hitting very hard on regular attqcks anyway (heavy hit and defensive hit both play to the strengths of having more defense than offense, for example).

[Shaiandra]

Thanks for the reply Conan!

Regarding Desperate Blow, as I've stated I'm playing on the Very Hard preset. I know that I can tune enemy stats up even higher to +50%, but I wonder if it'll do much to make Desperate Blow less powerful. If I keep Anadine at minimum HP (where she'd get killed in one hit anyway), and Desperate Blow ignores defenses, the only stats the enemy gains that are relevant are increased HP and Spd. And I would still be able to one-shot squishier enemies if Anadine's at low enough HP (and I'm not even running Health Expert on her at the moment).

Turning up enemy stats might even make Desperate Blow more powerful compared to other attacks due to its defense ignore...

It is possible enemies' increased Spd could be a problem... but then with Critical Quicken, most of my teammates are able to quicken our highest DPT carry. It isn't an infinite loop or anything, but ehh, I think it seems wrong when a strategy could revolve around the most efficient action for other DPS or tanks to do is shoot or stab a more powerful ally so she can off another two enemies.

I admit a Desperate Blow-centric spec might not be the safest choice in every stage, especially if a lot of enemies have Collect Bounty or the like such that your safety nets are gone. But I think it's incredibly powerful in more stages than not, and if you ask me, I think balance considerations should be regarding the best-case/most abusable scenario, not average case.

I think being able to do so much damage that frequently is broken; as I've suggested, it's possible that the damage per hit can stay, and tuning down how often you can use it (just by upping its MP cost a bit) might be enough to keep the best-case scenario in check.

Out of curiosity, would you use OFA (or Knight skills) on a designated melee DPS character? Knight skills are great for tanks and ranged damage, but I don't know, do you think it should be more appealing for melee DPS if it is suitable for at least some DPS?

I can accept ranged OFA staying as is, but then I would like to see melee OFA not suck comparatively..

[Conan The Librarian]

Originally posted by Shaiandra:

I think being able to do so much damage that frequently is broken; as I've suggested, it's possible that the damage per hit can stay, and tuning down how often you can use it (just by upping its MP cost a bit) might be enough to keep the best-case scenario in check.

Out of curiosity, would you use OFA (or Knight skills) on a designated melee DPS character? Knight skills are great for tanks and ranged damage, but I don't know, do you think it should be more appealing for melee DPS if it is suitable for at least some DPS?

I can accept ranged OFA staying as is, but then I would like to see melee OFA not suck comparatively..

I'll admit that "I'm not certain" in terms of "What, if anything, should be adjusted on OFA". But, to directly answer your inquiry, I'd put it at a couple of scenarios:

1. My gut feeling is that under "ideal situations" I wouldn't choose Knight as my general secondary class for a melee-oriented unit. What I mean by this is, any melee unit whose range is only ONE (if TWO, then it makes a big difference).
   
   
2. However, since in this game, you'll come across situations where "Hey, I have a lot of Knight skills (or max'd out), I should use this as a secondary class because I don't have other more-developed classes with a good toolkit selection", then I could think of some good application for Knight offclass with [Defensive Hit] oftentimes doing more damage than a regular attack, [Heavy Hit] being great in many situations, and of course [One for All] when positioned well. For sake of argument, I'd even include [Defend] as a good "OH CRAP" button when you don't have potions or heals (etc) available and you don't want that unit to die.

Basically, while Knight isn't my first choice as a secondary class for melee-oriented units, if you have the skills learned, sometimes it works well. Things revolve around "doing with what you have", so if I have it, yeah, I would find uses for it. Hope that semi-answered your question, do tell if I didn't quite talk about what you were getting at.

Edit: For some reason I forgot about [Taunt], which is just great to have in almost any situation, so, that further helps their feel / toolkit, regardless of what kind of hero has it.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

I disagree on knights having OFA synergy. I don't think 2 range is really that much synergy, considering guns usually have 7 range. That's 12 squares vs 112, I think. It really doesn't compare well, especially since knights tend to be better at defense than offense and aren't hitting very hard on regular attqcks anyway (heavy hit and defensive hit both play to the strengths of having more defense than offense, for example).

Keep in mind the intended playstyle of the Knight. It goes in and serves as point, taking hits. (Defensive Hit, Heavy Hit, Taunt, Spears, etc.) In the context of a Knight's core strategy, One for All certainly synergizes with it - it casts it then moves forward as bait, drawing the enemy in, then following up on allies' attacks as they punish the enemy for falling for the trap. Their Spears obviously are nothing compared to even a shorter-ranged Gun, but a Knight being used for its intended purpose of frontline fighter is already that much closer to the enemy formation to begin with.

In terms of raw utility, yes, the Gunner is definitely superior, but that's because it can utilize the Weapon Range component of One for All to use it in ways outside of its intended context. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it's one of the fun parts of SRPGs, even - but it doesn't make One for All not have a purpose as part of the Knight's toolkit even if another class can use it "better".

[Shaiandra]

Originally posted by RavenOfRazgriz:

Re: Quicken + Critical: Quicken - assuming 6Eyes chooses to "fix" Quicken issues by making Quicken once-per-round, as long as it also extends to Critical: Quicken, that would be the main thing I would say needs to be done to address this strategy. While it's very powerful, its practicality fluctuates heavily based on the Injury settings. On None or Default, the unit dying isn't a big deal, so this strategy is quite viable. On AP Malus, any deaths incurred from this kind of strategy are rather obnoxious and can turn into a time-waste on the macro level unless the unit no longer needs AP. On Permanent Injury or Permadeath settings, such a strategy is quite risky for obvious reasons. Combos whose viability fluctuate based on difficulty settings aren't ones I'd class as "OP", although if they snowball too easily there's nothing wrong with a minor adjustment.

That's true, depending on how Quicken is changed it's possible Critical: Quicken will be brought in line too.

I haven't bothered to turn up the Injury settings... mostly since I imagine that all it means is most of our characters will lose one passive as it'd be replaced with Fortitude, and that's less "fun". =p

As for gunner OFA, we have been using it somewhat less lately, but it has been quite potent throughout the majority of the game. Sure there are some stages where enemies have high defense and we can't get Height Advantage, but overall it's been a useful trick; standard best-case, without any Double Casting, it can be 5 regular attacks for its mp cost (and when dual-wielding, that's much more than 5x total multiplier). It might not always be best-case if a character needs to spend a turn healing or whatnot instead of contributing an offensive action, but when it's the right time to use it, it's very efficient damage.

[Corence]

There's some discussions about avoiding Quicken abuse and perhaps this would apply to Critical: Quicken as well. Many of the most broken builds in the game have been centered around that so maybe wait to see what 6 Eyes comes up with.

And yeah, I agree that OFA doesn't really feel great, thematically or mechanically, on Knight. Every other ability works as a tank class: Heavy Hit and Defensive Hit both work for a DEF focused character, Taunt synergizes with their identity, etc. Aside from OFA I think their skillset works well for them. I could see OFA fitting better with Templar. Even there it isn't mechanically great since Templar has only range 1 weapons, but at least it's a damage skill in a damaging class that is intended to get in people's faces. It'd also be a slight nerf to OFA Gunner since they'd have to put on a weaker secondary. Most of Templar abilities don't work well on a ranged unit, whereas with Knight today they get OFA, Taunt, and Heavy Hit.

But like Conan said, this just seems to be a design choice where some abilities don't quite fit in with the class and are intended to be used somewhere else. I don't agree with this and think it feels awkward at times. For example, Scoundrel having Attack Mastery when they have low natural ATK, or Into the Fray being on Plague Doctor instead of something like Warmage or Templar. This is intended to support cross-class synergies, but IMO it results in some instances where a class doesn't feel like it has its own identity sorted out.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Originally posted by Shaiandra:

I haven't bothered to turn up the Injury settings... mostly since I imagine that all it means is most of our characters will lose one passive as it'd be replaced with Fortitude, and that's less "fun". =p

If you wanted to try utilizing risky strategies like Desperate Blow, yes, you'd have to adjust your builds to fit in Fortitude to prevent the blowback. On average, you really don't. Most main story fights are winnable without receiving a K.O., and Kyrie doesn't get Injured on any settings, so she can be used sacrificially when-needed. The Passive you're much more likely to duct-tape all over your body is Health Expert, due to the high damage numbers enemies can put out, but that's independent of the Injury settings.

Originally posted by Shaiandra:

As for gunner OFA, we have been using it somewhat less lately, but it has been quite potent throughout the majority of the game. Sure there are some stages where enemies have high defense and we can't get Height Advantage, but overall it's been a useful trick; standard best-case, without any Double Casting, it can be 5 regular attacks for its mp cost (and when dual-wielding, that's much more than 5x total multiplier). It might not always be best-case if a character needs to spend a turn healing or whatnot instead of contributing an offensive action, but when it's the right time to use it, it's very efficient damage.

It's more that I'm surprised a baseline Attack command is still valuable at Stats+25%, rather than it being used for pushing through on-hit status effects. When playing on Stats+50%, it can take a lot to bring down enemy units, so its harder to get damage value out of something like One for All simply because the opponents have a lot more opportunity to recover. Although, I also imagine that, on Default Injury settings, your Desperate Blow shenanigans followed up by a One for All Gun-strike are enough to K.O. most things not just outright killed by Desperate Blow, so that's probably helped maintain its value much further into the game than it might've otherwise.

[Conan The Librarian]

Originally posted by Corence:

And yeah, I agree that OFA doesn't really feel great, thematically or mechanically, on Knight. Every other ability works as a tank class: Heavy Hit and Defensive Hit both work for a DEF focused character, Taunt synergizes with their identity, etc. Aside from OFA I think their skillset works well for them. I could see OFA fitting better with Templar. Even there it isn't mechanically great since Templar has only range 1 weapons, but at least it's a damage skill in a damaging class that is intended to get in people's faces. It'd also be a slight nerf to OFA Gunner since they'd have to put on a weaker secondary. Most of Templar abilities don't work well on a ranged unit, whereas with Knight today they get OFA, Taunt, and Heavy Hit.

In my opinion, I don't think it would fit well on Templar since the Templar's skillset it very melee-oriented in the first place with zero abilities being range = weapon. This would further make OFA more awkward since Templars don't have Spears, so it would be "only melee". Not only this, but Templar's skillset it already pretty strong, so giving them a key ability like this would be "a bit much".

Originally posted by Corence:

But like Conan said, this just seems to be a design choice where some abilities don't quite fit in with the class and are intended to be used somewhere else. I don't agree with this and think it feels awkward at times. For example, Scoundrel having Attack Mastery when they have low natural ATK, or Into the Fray being on Plague Doctor instead of something like Warmage or Templar. This is intended to support cross-class synergies, but IMO it results in some instances where a class doesn't feel like it has its own identity sorted out.

To be fair, I'm not saying that these skills are "purposefully sprinkled around the various classes to force external synergies". Instead, I would propose the following with those as examples:

• Scoundrel & [Attack Mastery]--I get that Scoundrel doesn't have Reaver attack level growths, but it fits thematically in the fact that rogue-type classes are supposed to be "damage dealers". I don't look at it as "it has bad synergy in itself", I'd see it as A. Increases their attack to be more effective and B. Works well on others too. Yes, it may "raise it by more literal attack #s" when used by someone of a different class who has been in said class for longer and has more "overall attack", but I really don't see the issue with it.
  
  
• Plague Doctor & [Into the Fray]--Since their reword in the early part of early access, this ability thematically makes sense as PD are designed to be an "in the middle of the fray" kind of hybrid unit who has higher defensive capabilities in comparison to a "pure caster", has self-centered AoE, etc. I'll admit that "there are other classes which this passive works with" as well, but I wouldn't claim that the main impetus for this being on PD was "to force cross-class synergy".

So, yeah, I'd say it's about both external and internal, and sometimes yes, "external works better compared to internal", but doesn't mean that it's "forced" or that the internal synergy is not there.

[Shaiandra]

Originally posted by RavenOfRazgriz:

Although, I also imagine that, on Default Injury settings, your Desperate Blow shenanigans followed up by a One for All Gun-strike are enough to K.O. most things not just outright killed by Desperate Blow, so that's probably helped maintain its value much further into the game than it might've otherwise.

We actually didn't use OFA and Desperate Blow together; if the gunner got the kill, Anadine wouldn't get an extra turn through Cleave, right?

Anadine was also only a relatively recent addition to our team. I wasn't sure if a rampaging berserker was safe to use or not so we relied on less suicidal characters for a lot of our playthrough.

I don't think I'd say OFA was so overpowered that it trivialized encounters, but it did help substantially. Though there is also the part that since we used it so often, our Gunner became the our highest level party member and has stayed there since... I think he's like 69-70 while our Kyrie is 65-66ish.

I wouldn't be surprised if we might have gained more levels than the average player, but does that make it any easier (or even harder) when enemies have a stat boost?

[Corence]

I guess I don't see Scoundrel as a damage dealing class. They can only equip daggers and crossbows which are the two weakest physical damage weapons in the game, and their only skill that deals more than base damage is Sneak Attack. I guess if you get their crit chance up enough that might work, but even then I felt like the idea is that you'd be using crits to get the on hit statuses from daggers rather than raw damage. In this sense, boosting their ATK helps out but doesn't do the job I'd be expecting from a Scoundrel if I added one to my party. If I wanted physical damage, there are many better options. Maybe that's just my narrow view of what I'd expect the class to be doing.

I agree that a Plague Doctor can easily trigger the passive, but they can't take advantage of it particularly well. Poison Burst is just a difficult to use AOE compared to other options.

[Mechalibur]

Originally posted by RavenOfRazgriz:

Keep in mind the intended playstyle of the Knight. It goes in and serves as point, taking hits. (Defensive Hit, Heavy Hit, Taunt, Spears, etc.) In the context of a Knight's core strategy, One for All certainly synergizes with it - it casts it then moves forward as bait, drawing the enemy in, then following up on allies' attacks as they punish the enemy for falling for the trap. Their Spears obviously are nothing compared to even a shorter-ranged Gun, but a Knight being used for its intended purpose of frontline fighter is already that much closer to the enemy formation to begin with.

In terms of raw utility, yes, the Gunner is definitely superior, but that's because it can utilize the Weapon Range component of One for All to use it in ways outside of its intended context. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it's one of the fun parts of SRPGs, even - but it doesn't make One for All not have a purpose as part of the Knight's toolkit even if another class can use it "better".

Theoretically it makes sense, and it's definitely a good fit thematically. Have a defensive unit take point and get free attacks at anything within spear range. The problem is to be worth it, you need to get at least 2 hits in (which probably still isn't worth 16 MP), which requires the enemies to stay within range 2 of your knight. Since the AI typically goes for the highest damage potential, I've found they tend to completely ignore my knight, unless they're using magic damage, which is typically ranged anyway. I guess that's my biggest issue, the AI won't usually fall for the trap.

Then you need to hope they stay within range 2, or that you have several allied units going immediately after your knight that can all attack the target. It's not impossible to make use of it, but on a class with extremely powerful abilities like Taunt, and generally mediocre offense, I feel like there's almost always a better use of your action and MP

Even the AI seems to agree. I've seen a total of 3 enemies use One for All, and every single one of them had a ranged weapon equipped. That makes me consider One for All's intended purpose is actually range damage to begin with - I have not seen a single enemy knight make use of it.

This isn't a huge deal, and I realize I'm kinda veering off into a different topic altogether, but it always struck me as an unusual decision.