Vote Here for Your Phrozen Idol!

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<t><t><t>Which Skill's Creator is Your Phrozen Idol?</t></t></t>

Poll ended at Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:29 pm

Eye of the Tiger
1
2%
Heavenly Wrath
13
26%
Magewrath
5
10%
Pentagram
31
62%
 
Total votes: 50

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Kraj
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Vote Here for Your Phrozen Idol!

Post by Kraj » Wed Feb 01, 2006 6:29 pm

Alright folks! Here's your chance to weigh in and choose your first-ever Phrozen Idol! Four talented contestants submitted entries and they are listed above in alphabetical order. In the posts below, our three judges lend their expert opinion to help you make a wise choice. Please refrain from adding your own comments. If you want to try the skills yourself, use the link below.

http://www.filefactory.com/get/f.php?f= ... 7ec1bbc166

The skills are organized into individual folders for -direct -txt. The best way to try them is to make a new shortcut for each and change the 'start in' to the appropriate folder.

When you've made a decision, choose your favorite in the poll at the top. In about two weeks, we'll have our winner! Good luck to each contestant!

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Re: Vote Here for Your Phrozen Idol!

Post by Kraj » Wed Feb 01, 2006 6:29 pm

Eye of the Tiger is a fire-based missile skill. The author used it replace Frozen Orb for submission purposes, but it clearly is not intended for use on a skill tree. It would instead find a home as a splashy item skill or as a boss attack. As you might guess from the skill name and especially the description, this skill is an excersize in fun skill design.

Skill Description:
album_page.php?pic_id=1386

There's not much more to say about the skill as far as player strategy since it's not intended for that. The skill itself is fairly complex so I'm going to accompany the screenshots with an explanation of what occurs.

Eye of the Tiger send a firebolt in the cast direction. The bolt itself does no damage, travels to a range just off the screen and explodes. As it travels, it spawns a trail of Meteors.

album_page.php?pic_id=1387

When the original firebolt explodes it spawns a nova of non-damaging firebolts.

album_page.php?pic_id=1388

Each of those firebolts in turn spawns another Meteor.

album_page.php?pic_id=1389

Immediately after that, the trail of Meteors hit,

album_page.php?pic_id=1391

followed by the nova of Meteors,

album_page.php?pic_id=1392

which explode into a giant fireball.

album_page.php?pic_id=1393

The Meteors themselves leave fire for only a short time after impact. The damage comes primarily from the impact of the Meteors.

***Judges Comments***

Joel: This skill is a nice attempt at eye candy but it doesn't have a home in the game. It is far too powerful for a player or item-based skill and too easily avoided for a boss skill.

Kraj: The skill is supposed to capture the fun of blowing things up and it does that very well. It could be wild as a monster skill in levels with tight quarters, like the towers in the Arcane Sanctuary.

Brother Laz: This skill is incomplete. It's missing the part where it shoots a nova of guided frozen orb multishots that spawn lightning fury bolts which drop blizzards on impact. And the whole volcanoes of molten boulder thunderstorms part is also missing.

On the bright side, it does indeed involve some non-basic missile editing. Still more of an exercise in masturbation than an actual skill for an actual mod.
Last edited by Kraj on Wed Feb 01, 2006 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Vote Here for Your Phrozen Idol!

Post by Kraj » Wed Feb 01, 2006 6:30 pm

Heavenly Wrath is a skill intended as a get-hit skill or potentially a replacement for Blessed Hammer. The skill is similar to Hurricane in that it surrounds the caster with a circle of rotating "debris" of light and spirits that follows you as you move for a duration (approx. .5 seconds per level). It differs form Hurricane in that monsters within the radius of the skill are not effected; only monsters in contact with the "debris" take damage as if it were a circular firewall.

The skill has a strategic element in that it will not help you kill monsters that are nearby or too far away. As an item-based skill, this makes for an interesting bonus effect. As a casted skill, the best strategy is to cast it and run through a monster pack, but the damage is low enough that it will not crush everything in its path; the caster must avoid danger.

Skill Description:
album_page.php?pic_id=1394

Skill in Action:
album_page.php?pic_id=1395
album_page.php?pic_id=1396
album_page.php?pic_id=1397

***Judges Comments***

Joel: A very neat and well-thought tactical skill that complements the skill tree very well. Some poor choices were made for the overlay, though.

Kraj: I like this skill alot. It's different from any other skill available and has a strategic element to how you use it. It adds something new to the Paladin tree without being imbalanced or out of flavor. It also combines very well with a melee strategy.

Brother Laz: As a blessed hammer replacement, it would actually be a fine and balanced skill. The twinkles are a nice indicator of minimum and maximum range and the light beams don't get in the way, so all that's needed is the removal of the godawful redemption effect and it would live happily forever thereafter. It is not much of an item skill, though.

Technically a pretty nice skill and it provides something the paladin always needed: area effect damage. Far from ruining the class concept, this actually adds to the class by doing something similar to BH, but doing it better.

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Re: Vote Here for Your Phrozen Idol!

Post by Kraj » Wed Feb 01, 2006 6:30 pm

Magewrath is a sorceress skill to replace Frozen Orb. It releases three elemental novas simultaneously. The lightning and ice novas are made of bolts with space betwen them. Some strategy comes into play since the further the enemies are the more likely a missile will miss them.

Skill Description:
album_page.php?pic_id=1378

Maxed Out:
album_page.php?pic_id=1379

Skill in Action:
album_page.php?pic_id=1380

***Judges Comments***

Joel: Nice tech for the multi nova, however it looks like a pile of stuff and is a really overpowered skill.

Kraj: The skill is nifty to look at and offers a big challenge in build design. Sure, you can kill any monster in Hell with it, but even with devoting every single skill point you earn to maximizing the skill, immunities will keep it from ever dealing a whole lot of damage.

The tri-elemental nova theme is always popular, which may be the skill's strongest point.

Brother Laz: On a character with only one element per skill, this triple-elemental thing is just too useful for its own good. Sure there may be immunes, but you can still damage all those immunes with just this one skill, even if the damage is lower than that of OMGWTF!!!4KDMG!!FIREBALLZ!!!. And it hardly ever misses unless you try to snipe with it.

You end up with the same balance problems as paladins with vengeance. It costs 20 points and kills any monster in the game. A regular sorc needs at least 20 points into a cold skill and 40 points into a fire skill to be useful in Hell, more so with synergies.

Technically, it is beyond basic missile editing, but not too l33t either.

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Re: Vote Here for Your Phrozen Idol!

Post by Kraj » Sun Feb 18, 2018 1:24 pm

Pentagram is a sorceress skill to replace Hydra. It creates a pentagram-shaped nova emanating from the caster.

The synergies for Pentragram are Blaze and Firewall. Both of the skills do not synergize with any other skills, making it difficult to efficiently use any other fire skill.

When completely maxed, the skill does 11-12k damage per second. At first glance this is huge, but unlike other damage-per-second fire skills, the damage source for Pentagram is not stationary. Slow and freeze effects do little to aid this skill.

Skill Description:
album_page.php?pic_id=1382

Maxed Out:
album_page.php?pic_id=1383

Skill in Action:
album_page.php?pic_id=1384
album_page.php?pic_id=1385

***Judges Comments***

Joel: Clearly superior in execution, but a bit too easy to use.

Kraj: I think this skill is incredibly impressive to look at. It appears that great attention has been paid to damage, and the synergy choices are ideal. On the other hand, it just doesn't strike me as a skill that's interesting to play with. While it makes sense to give fire a nova since the other two elements have it, the other novas require more strategy to use and are not easy kill spells. This one just does damage over the whole screen.

Brother Laz: This must have taken lots of tweaking to get it to look just right. Even I am impressed. It may be just another sorceress nova, but it looks great and it actually does double damage from certain angles, so there is a certain strategy factor; other than futilely attempting to get the enemies in the right spots, there is not much thinking involved, though.

I can easily see Diablo rocking the CS'bah with it. Never liked that puny fire nova of his anyway.

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