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Nov 7th, 2017
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  1. Here are the changes I'd propose to go in line with what amethyst is proposing in crawl-dev:
  2.  
  3. ---WALL JUMP---
  4.  
  5. - Wall jump loses the restriction, can be used anywhere. However, it is not faster than walking (20 auts base to move 2 spaces) so other than traversing lava or water, it can not be used to facilitate fast travel or escape enemies.
  6. - Wall jump deals a normal amount of damage, accounting for attack speed adjustments as is usual for WJC; no direct modifier. However, considering that you spent twice as many AUTs, attack damage grows proportionally.
  7. - Wall jump gives you a *non-stacking* EV boost per enemy hit (e.g. 2 EV per enemy hit, fixed duration).
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  9. It has been my opinion for a while that wall jumping just doesn't work with the enemy restriction, and it wouldn't quite work either with cooldowns. It's a very haptic, fun ability that you'd really want to use freely to traverse lava pits and move organically without worrying about the interface. However, I fully understand now the problems with both speed, as it trivializes kiting and game count speedrunning, and combat effectiveness, because nobody wants to feel forced to use Wall Jump in every fight.
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  11. I think making Wall Jump give an EV boost is interesting for a few reasons. First, it offers a real risk-reward tradeoff. By asking the player to jump into a group of enemies and essentially frontloading two turns of damage, you are also demanding them to suffer two consecutive turns of damage from that group of enemies. This creates an interesting dynamic where Wall Jump is good when you can expect to alpha strike a group of small enemies and enjoy the EV boost for the extended fight, but not a brainless ability for every conflict. Making the boost non-stacking is essential so you don't have an incentive to keep wall jumping in a fight. Finally, it indirectly enhances Serpent's Lash by enforcing synergy: Serpent's Lash allows you powerful Wall Jump attacks without being hit back, and also allows you to position yourself perfectly for a big EV boost.
  12.  
  13. ---WHIRLWIND---
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  15. - Whirlwind does slightly lower damage than a normal attack (80%), with number of attacks compensated by attack speed.
  16. - Whirlwind pins the enemy in place for one "turn" (measured in your movement speed).
  17.  
  18. These changes make whirlwind essentially useless as a spammable ability, since you might as well tab with better attack damage. However, it turns into a limited defensive tool by allowing you to deterministically gain one tile of distance, on the condition that you were not fighting in safe terrain (e.g. corridors). It goes back to the roots of the god which were meant to reward fighting in unsafe and difficult terrain, but doesn't do so by forcing you to repeteadly use a move-attack ability over and over. Thinking ahead, you can also use the pin ability to set up Wall Jump, but the recurring theme here is that it's definitely not necessary to play optimally in every fight. Lastly, it also helps Serpent's Lash by allowing you to stack the pin down time.
  19.  
  20. I want to take some time here to proactively address the criticism of allowing the player to gain a tile of distance at will and the implications it has on kiting. Regardless of arguments about whether or not Centaurs are a healthy part of Crawl, it is obvious that there are many mechanics in the game that allow you to gain distance for a price, implicit or explicit. Of these, the worst one in my opinion is randomized monster energy, because the price paid for gaining that tile is almost exclusively tedium. This incarnation of whirlwind would have a price as well, which is fighting in an open space to begin with, and the tile gained being deterministic is honestly a positive compared to the roll of the dice that is relying on randomized monster energy.
  21.  
  22. ---LUNGE---
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  24. - Lunge does slightly higher damage than a normal attack (120%) with number of attacks compensated by attack speed, and has no other effects.
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  26. I chose the damage number precisely to make sure that constantly alternating between whirlwind and lunge is no better than tabbing. This is important to discourage the disliked "forced" movement combat. By being above the curve however Lunge remains viable as an initiator and as a stabbing tool, as well as part of max damage combos with Serpent's Lash.
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  28.  
  29. ---SERPENT'S LASH---
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  31. I would honestly leave Serpent's Lash unchanged, as I think it is a good ability which sadly suffers from Whirlwind and Wall Jump being underwhelming. With the changes above, I think Serpent's Lash gains a lot of utility by minimizing the incoming damage after WJ and extending the control afforded by Whirlwind, as well as its older uses (bigger bursts of damage and longer Heavenly Storm duration)
  32.  
  33. ---HEAVENLY STORM---
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  35. This ability seems to be generally well received so I would leave it as is.
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