Skills Preview v1 discussion thread [MODERATOR TITLE]

[Silverfire]

It's late and I'm tired, but I'll make notes on skills as I look through them.

Chain Lightning - Looks a LOT cooler now. rather fun from what i saw messing with it.

Poltergeist - minor brightness graphic error around you when used but a nice skill from what i've seen.

Unholy Shadow - Due to the fact that the aura part isn't effected by the poison mastery, more likely than not, this skill will be mainly used as an anti-heal device.

EDIT: changed title -Mishy

[mishy23]

Glad to hear you have everything up and running.

I'll look into the brightness of poltergeist, your right this spell shouldn't be bright. Good ot hear feedback.

Unholy shadow was designed to only be boosted in melee damage by posion mastery. It is the replacement for poison dagger, and the AoE starts to get way to powerful if boosted, especially for a free to use, always one aura.

One quick note: The bunny animation for haunting will be fixed and he won't blink in and out anymore, though i sorta like the blinking, gives it a sorta illusionary feel. And for those who haven't seen the haunting spell, yes it summons a BUNNY, i was hoping to give it that ghostbusters one feeling with the ghost in the library, oh look a cute bunny, but if you get to close...BOO

Quick note #2: damages will be changd, and if you have any advice on lowlevel spells doing to much damage or high level spells not doing enough, feel free to discuss. As the damage balancing is gonna be a bit hard.

-Mishy23

EDIT: while it doesn't display, you can summon two golems at same time of any combination. I am working on getting the icon display working for this at top of screen. Matter of fact a few summon icons need fixing up.

EDIT2: slow couple of days it seems, no one else has any thoughts to share?

[Silverfire]

Just been busy really, I'll get some more thoughts before work tomorrow >_>

[Silverfire]

Ok, Fire spells, both the fire orb and flamestrike (I'm lazy to not check the names) are graphically sound.. but on a balance standpoint, when you look at them in comparison to meteor... [sure, different spell levels, but]... and the new warmth is just fun. (Which brings up problem b. firebolt wand doesn't work since there's no firebolt spell anymore, check that.

Cold tree - Level 1 freeze skill is just WRONG. graphically ok, but being able to cube things at that low..
Absolute zero has to be a fun spell, chain cold is a fun idea.

What are the base ice familiar stats anyway?

[mishy23]

The beginning items will defintely be changed. I'll note it again to make sure I remember, thanks silverfire, what would I do without your help
And I will definately be balancing spell damage, is meteor too strong, or the rest to weak? I didnt want fire orb to be to strong as it htis so much, but maybe i have to up it a bit.
I have no problems changing around what spells come first and last and all that.
If I move icebolt down to a higher level spell which one should become the new level 1 spell? I also saw the power in this spell, but almost all the cold spells are powerful I like cold to much.
No stats with me at the moment but I believe Ice familar base stats are around 100ATT 100DEF damage was smallish ~10-20, though its possible the bat has a special cold attack and sometimes i know elemental dmg combines with their normal phy damage, so thats the problem if you see too much damage. Familar gets holy freeze aura at level 5, as the holy freeze level is (lvl of familar skill -4).
Holy freeze is slightly nerfed when I get to paladin skills, so that might effect it too. Not sure if you can tell but familar HP is modified by cold mastery also.

Glad to hear most things are graphically sound.
-Mishy23

Skill Descriptions seem decent?

[godheadslament]

So far everything is going pretty well. You're already aware of the starting items problem (same goes for Druid). I'm absolutely loving the necro's new skills. They've definately resparked my love afair with the undead (ew). Anyway, everything is 100% likable at the moment, however the Druid still doesn't appeal to me... Maybe make it so he can have multiple summons out as well?

[mishy23]

Well the druid is hard to make people like, he's jut odd.
I tried to spice up the elemental spells, his acid rain is pretty powerful now,
and I havent thought of a way to make armageddon better. And atleast he isn't full of crappy timer spells that are weak.

The summons have had an upgrade, the number you can have now is increased but raises more slowly now.
I.E- Spirit wolves at level 20 you can have 7!
Dire wolves I believe you can have 4 or 5 at level 20
And you can even get 2 Grizzly bears at a high level.

I tried having it so you can have wolves and bears out at same time....WAY to overpowered sorry.

I thought corpse explode might attract some ppl, and unfortunately not much really to change in the morphing skill tab, except i tried to make things alittle more appealing, like lycanthropy adds regen, and bears get a IAS bonus.

Your just not a druid person, me either


So whats your favorite Necro spell, just wonder
Glad everything seems to be working and likable.

One change in the plans is that unholy shadow will have a longer poison duration, to be usable as a regen stopper. And poison mastery is going to get a built in poison length reduction bonus.

I thought you had dibs on the sorc GHL?
Hmm your name is close to spelling ghoul...
that explains the love affair...

I'm 1/3rd the way complete with Paladins now too,
i'm hope the melee attacks arent harder to edit then I think.


BEWARE of the RABBIT

-Mish23

[godheadslament]

Haha, Haunting is definately one of my favorite spells so far. It's MAD man. I love it.

As far as the sorcs go, absolute zero is absolutely fun. Chain frost makes for a great skill. I'll get more specific when I have more time.

More later...

[mishy23]

Oh yeah forgot to mention, i made druid spells castable in wereform, i havent tested that so if anyone has a chance let me know how that goes,
i'm suddenly disturbed that they possibly dont have the correct casting animation.


It figures you'd like the only spell in the game that does magical damage.
Just for informational sake: Resistances of monsters will change, and nothing will have magical resistance EXCEPT ghosts.
Can't haunt a ghost can you?

-mishy23

If anyone has the chance let me know what seems to be the blandest, boringest, suckiest spell for each class and i'll ponder making it better, i just learned how to use some neat tricks, i can add to some skills...

[Silverfire]

While we are at it, how bout some of you that brought up skill testing, and a beta version SPEAK UP!

[godheadslament]

The zon's definate most boring skill of all time is probably Inner Sight. But if you edited that, you'd have to edit rogue merc skills. For a backup... Power Strike.
Barbs most boring is probably bash... I mean really, even for a level 1 skill its just awful. I hate any skill with knockback if you're melee.
Asn most boring skill to me would be... Venom. It wouldnt be so bad if you could use fade, BoS, and venom at once, but the other two one cast passives are much better.
Pal most boring skill is probably any number of the defensive auras. The only D auras I use are cleansing and the resist auras, sometimes meditation depending on the char build.

EDIT: As for the wrong anims I have no idea, I'll test it when I've got more time. Couldn't you just use the anim from casting a summonable?

[crazymoronx]

I like all the new skills, one of the biggest things I look for in mods is skill changes, since the same skills get boring quickly mod after mod.

Fire orb is pretty great, and so is absolute zero, the necromancers new skills are all pretty good too. I wasn't as impressed with the druid, but they are still fair, but I was never a fan of an elemental druid. The increased damage radius on meteor was nice, not sure if that's new, but it's been a while since I played rune mod...

As far as boring skills... paladins defensive auras where always boring, I never really liked any of the assasin's skills, other than the traps because they focus on one monster at a time for the most part. Plenty of necro curses you could get rid of I'm sure, most people only use decripfiy, amp damage, maybe iron maiden, usually not much else from my experience. I've never seen anyone use Taunt for the barbarian, I know I never did, it's pretty boring I think. Amazon... hmm fire, cold, and explosion arrows are all pretty boring to me, and Imaple is kinda boring as well as slow as it is. Druid, I'd say poison creeper usually not used, solar creeper either, the only good vine I can remember ever using is carrion vine. For the sorc, most of her spells aren't boring, especially with the new ones, so she's probably good for now..

Well that's quite a lot of boring stuff. On a side note (I'll get yelled at for this if nothing else) paladins auras... I've always wanted those on the left hand side so you can use auto target attacks on the right hand. Just a side thought... I'll shut up now.

[mishy23]

You definately won't get yelled at, i'm definately pondering having auras on both sides, gonna test it out, if may allow paladins to get two auras, but if it is only gonna leave normal attack, or worse no attack at all, i really think I will allow this, as long as there is nothing preventing left handed auras.

Just some quick feedback, first for GHL:
Inner sight is gone for amazons, definately planned, as they are getting blessed aim, paldins no longer will use this instead getting a demon fighting aura, Fervor.
And bash is on my list to change, I am unsure of what to replace this with so far.
I am definately going to do something with venom too, either passive, change totally to make it a nice level 20 spell, or something.

Defensive auras definatley going to have some changes, i've actually completed defensive auras. The three resists are gone, in there place are three passives, Sceptre Mastery, Knight Sword Mastery, Knight Armor Mastery. The holy spells now gain a resist bonus to their element.
The other auras have some nice bonuses at higher levels that might make it worth to get. Meditation will be item collectors favorite, as it will add MF% at higher levels. And your right the animation for morphed druids shouldnt be too hard, and it seems without a total rehaul no one likes druids

Crazy: thanks for the feedback, glad to hear everyone is liking the sorc spells, and yes the meteor change is new, all skill chanegs are new, originally this mod was using base skills from D2, this is a sort of new area i've taqken the mod, of course after skills are finished, it will go back to focusing on runewords.

Necro skills are done, maybe i'll spruce up a curse or two, though i succeeded in making htem one point wonders and hopefully made them stronger in the end. And necros got solar creeper sorta so druids dont have that, instead they got corpse explode, surprised no one likes druids because of that.

Amazons will probably have the biggest changes thats why i think they are being done last, i think i'll wind up redoing most spear skills and most of the elemental bow skills.

I love hearing the feedback, and as always it helps spark my imagination for new ideas, gracious everyone!

Just remember this is a skills preview, dont fear dumping lots of points somewhere, skills get alot better at higher levels, espcially next preview where alot of pala/barb passives give new abilities at the higher levels.

When paladins are done i will need to redo the hireling skills, I will be changing atleast act2/act3 hirelings with new spells/aura, i'll probably make each new difficulty be different. I want to make act3 hirelings fun.

-Mishy23

[godheadslament]

Ah, great minds think alike. Lol. Anyway... I'm curious to know exactly WHICH skills get bonuses with more levels. This would be very beneficial information so one does not waste skill points in hopes of a bonus where one cannot be gained.

EDIT: BE CAREFUL WITH EDITING A2 MERCS! I've seen so many mods ruined because they fudged with them and now they don't do anything except stand around.

[mishy23]

Well thats what skills preview is for, i'll definately release two more skill releases. One more after paladins and barbarians are done, and once for a final one, and the final preview can be used as a sort of character tester, you can level to level99 in 5 minutes then pick the skills you want and see what the bonuses are.
Eventually at one point I will draft up a huge readme with all changes in entire mod but its been so much, not sure if i can remember all of it
-Mishy23

[godheadslament]

Don't forget to unedit the monsters EXP gain lol. I've had experiences where someone has forgotten to do this and it became a widely exploited bug.

[mishy23]

I actually editted the experience table in experience.txt, I have the back-up with the original experience set correctly, no fear

Okay since you asked and i'm here and i'm putting finishing touches on auras:
Meditation: adds MF at higher levels
Prayer: adds AR at higher levels
Might: adds CB at very high levels
Holy fire: adds fire resist to paladin only
Holy shock: adds ltng resist to paladin only
Holy freeze: adds cold resist to paladin only
Sanctuary: adds magic resistance to paladin only (though rare some monsters will do magic damage)
Salvation: adds max resist all at higher levels
Defiance: adds pdr at higher levels
Vigor: adds FHR at higher levels
Cleansing: adds poison resist at higher levels
Fervor: adds lifeleech at higher levels
Thorns: adds dmg% at higher levels

EDIT:
Auras with no new abilities:
Concentration: though now the uninruptability(sp?) raises with level
Fanatacism: It doesn't need any more of a bonus, its already probably the best Aura.
Conviction: Actually weakened, since no natural immunes exist even in hell this is very powerful, bonuses have been reduced but still strong.
/EndEdit

And no worries i wont let me act2 mercs stand around doing nothing, if i cant get them working they just wont change, but i plan different auras only, and will not change there basic jab attack so shouldn't have to many problems. While i'm on merc's act3 cold mercs will lose shiver armor, its just too powerful now. plus hell version i plan on giving absolute zero soo...i think it balances out.

Any thoughts on Ice Wall spell, this was the one skill I almost thought of scrapping, so let me know if it seems cool, otherwise I might still change it, it just doesn't really seem like a wall.

-Mishy23

[godheadslament]

I agree it doesn't seem much like a wall... I have no idea what to do with it though lol.

As for the pally auras, I like them all so far. What exactly does Fervor do? Does it give bonus to AS? I believe I read something about extra damage to demons... If it added to AS I could see it easily being overused unless the bonuses were small.

[mishy23]

Fervor is still being worked on, its a combination of extra damage to demons and lifeleech (lifeleech will not go up each level, but it is powerful) Plus there may be a bonus it gains at level 18+, but unsure so i'll not mention it yet.
Life leech may be changed to life-per-demonkill, or just life-per-kill, unsure still, as i wanted a lifeleech aura once, but it may be to powerful, it defiantely won't increase IAS, only fanaticism will do that still.
Well also sceptre mastery will increase IAS, maybe paladins will use them more often eh?


Well I gotta go to sleep, nice chatting with you GHL
-Mishy23

[godheadslament]

Yeah, I've always felt Paladins should use sceptres, and maybe this is just what they needed. You're a good man Otto, get some sleep.

[crazymoronx]

Glad to see you're looking at the auras on left hand, if you could pull that off, I'd probably play paladins more since that's the only thing keeping me from him.

Ice wall is a fun idea, but like fire wall it's probably limited to functionality, while fire wall has its uses, I never found it too effective because it's a small line and monsters can just walk right through it. Maybe if the ice wall froze them and kept them in the wall, but that might not go too well.

Armageddon is pretty good as is, one way to make it better is making the rate that the meteors fall faster/more meteors fall which I've seen in another mod. Not sure if it needs to be better though.

[mishy23]

Funny you mention armageddon, just last night I increased the drop rate, to be insane, higher than even other mods i've seen. But the duration is VERY short now.

I thought about the freeze to, but ice wall also damages every few ticks and freezing them in it would be over powered unfortunately (nothing stops you from using a freeze spell first, then ice wall though.

I still haven't thought up any good spell to replace ice wall so it'll probably stay for now. I am looking for a new skill to replace fire claws with to hoepfully give a new druid skill, as the morphing tab had not many changes (will probably be a area of effect fire melee attack)

I just finished Inquisition, its pretty neat, replacing sacrifice.
Adds fire damage to melee, and charges for a short time and during this time every hit you land causes monster to flee.
-Mishy23

[godheadslament]

Inquisition sounds like it would be a good combo for a magic-reliant Paladin (ie Hammerdin, FoHer, etc etc).

[Sir Xavius]

Sorry if i interrupt.

Hey mishy, as SOON as you get the chance, let us know how you're doing some of the things with skills. Everytime i edit my skills.txt file with Excel, it screws up something somewhere. (I know i'm supposed to open it under Excel's "text" importing rather than "general" but i think saving it adds a bit or something somewhere...)
I'm also curious how to simply ADD what you're developing to other mods, and if you even recommend it.

(And if it matters, i'm using D2LOD under System 8.6 on a Mac...)[/b]

[mishy23]

Well you'll get more help in general forums Sir Xavius but i'll share what I know to help you out.
First thing I learned is never to use microssoft excel for editting the text files, as it changes any cells that use a '-' or a '=' as the first character (thinking its a formula).
You can do it but you must open it a special way, i'm not sure how as I don't use MS excel for skills.txt. Though I know how to save correctly, when your saving, use save as.. and change the type of file your saving as to something similar to: text file (tab delimited) hopefully that option is available on macs. tab delimitted is important its how these text files are stored and how D2 knows where one line ends and the other begins.
I would say use d2excel or other great text file modding tools, but dont think there are any good ports for the mac

Also I run my mod using -direct method (test in -text -direct) for running my mod. I do not repack all my files into the MPQ (maybe when mod is final I will but I really like direct method)
Now Macs can't run -text -direct as far as I hear so you would need to pack all your files back into a MPQ and run it normally that way)
MAC forum probably has alot better descriptions.


And when you ask:
I'm also curious how to simply ADD what you're developing to other mods, and if you even recommend it.
Do you mean add what I am doing to other mods? First I am developing my own mod, so I wouldnt want to share what i've donw with other modders just yet. And for other mods you usually should ask permission before borrowing stuff they did.
Now if you mean adding your own stuff to other mods, well its hard to know if they will be compatible, its best to start with unmodded files and make your changes how you want them.
The only way to add for example my spells to another mod would be to use my text files, and i have so much changed right now they wouldnt be compatible with most other mods out there.
Let me know if youn eed clarification on anything, and try the MAC forum for how to run your modded files correctly, and use that forum with questions alot of nice ppl will help you out, in this forum you only have me and im no expert, I'm learning as I go
-Mishy23

EDIT: you'll have to be more specific on how I am doing things with the skills, different skills require different things.
Most skills borrow stuff from other skills, so there is no editting wahtsoever, and graphics are borrowed from other places in the game, all recycled and made better

All my skills only required changes in the following text files:
skills.txt
skillsdesc.txt
missiles.txt
monstats.txt
monstats2.txt

EDIT: Now back to ORM skills preview discusion
-Mishy23