Duelist sucks, let's make it better

These are some amazing ideas. The forte of accuracy for the duelist with both offensive and defensive synergies sounds generally useful regardless of DW/1h. We need to design some kind of draft and submit it to Chris/Qarl or at least get their attention on this, for at least some feedback on what they think.

"

ransagy написал:

These are some amazing ideas. The forte of accuracy for the duelist with both offensive and defensive synergies sounds generally useful regardless of DW/1h. We need to design some kind of draft and submit it to Chris/Qarl or at least get their attention on this, for at least some feedback on what they think.

I think the guy who donated a week's paycheck to them is a perfect candidate.

Okay, read through the thread. General comments on existing suggestions:

- There no is need to keep boosting duelist shields. I would rather help the game accommodate different people's visions of the consummate duelist, and enhancing only one aspect is not the best way to go.

- Conversion from accuracy to parry chance is good. Works with only melee weapons. As long as Duelists get Parry they don't need Acro.

Personally speaking, I think of Syrio as a duelist specialising in blades. I prefer that all duelists be more flexible with weapons, and the definitive class that can most utilise the weapon-swap feature that isn't being used much at the moment. This ties into the tree changes below.

= = =
On modifying the passive tree:

- Swap the Arena Lord cluster next to Elemental Equilibrium with the Gallantry cluster. Witches and templars have little business being anything resembling "arena". Duelists could use more accuracy to convert to his unique aspects. Rename it.

- The five sword notables and four axe notables in the duelist should be compacted. I would definitely merge the axe/sword cluster-fuck next to Berserking and Eagle Eye into a single "1-handed melee weapons" cluster.

Keystones:

- Arena Lord
- 50% of passive bonuses that apply to a specific melee-weapon apply to other weapons.
- 50% of passive bonuses to any form of blocking applies to other forms of blocking.
- Malus: Not easy to get to. Located in the center of the trio 2-H/1-H/DW clusters, meaning you need to get 6 bonuses in there.
- How may I end thee? Oh, let me count the ways.

The reason I'm suggesting this:
- reduce the gear problem of leveling Duelists (and just Dueslista), especially limitations in not having OP-ground slam.
- It's very illogical for me that all duelist passive trees force specialisation. They're masters of one-on-one combat, there should be builds that doesn't have to do that.
- One common L2P response towards noobies on, e.g. Brutus is to pick up a bow. Really? With no bonuses? Fix.
- Combine the block-chance bonuses here with Parry keystone set elsewhere.

= = =
I'm going to Koln for Xmas, will suss out more later.

Parry -> Improved Parry -> Phased Parry
...

@zharmad - I feel the same away about duelists. I always thought of them as a weapon specialist, not in the sense that they hold to one but they are good with whatever is in sight. The speciality nodes have always bothered me but I wanted to tackle making swords useful as I hardly see anyone using actual swords, it's usually daggers or rapiers.

Keystone: "Deflection"

When a player Blocks, there is a chance for the damage to be deflected to the attacker depending on player's accuracy and enemy's evasion.

- I assume that a player with resolute technique has just a 100% chance to hit and bypasses the accuracy vs evasion calculation.

IIRC one of the dev responded in RT discussions that the keystone indeed just skips the calculation.

On making the accuracy of RT-users nominally zero, the other main thing in the game that has an analogous mechanic is CI. Shock and freeze are still calculated as if you didn't have CI - which by analogy means RT users still have their default accuracy unmodified.
I think what is best done is to specify the keystone such that they disable each other. Midnight Bargain wand says explicitly "cannot be used with CI".

= = =
I'll summarise Parry so far and add a little bit extra. say we locate the Parry keystone where Diamond skin is. Move Diamond skin elsewhere. I think there isn't really any space between Icebite and the sword cluster, and duelists are likely to obtain frenzy charges.

What I'd prefer to do is to try to keep the keystone choices as general as possible. So, Parry is a gateway keystone to two other choices, and itself reads:
- 25% reduced accuracy rating (multiplicative)
- 25% to parry melee attacks (avoids overlap with arrow dodging)

The other suggestions so far in the thread are (might have a couple I missed):


Thematically, either an offensive/defensive split (my preference) or physical/spell split depending on what we take above.

For example, we can pair spell parry (purely defensive, anti-mage) with deflection or whirling parry (physical, anti-fighter). I think there's a good argument for stun on parry as a choice, because you're reducing incoming DPS in the same way that stun-GS marauders do and will not over-complicate the balance system there. Mace wielders stun offensively, and parry-users stun defensively.

There will probably be conceptual problems, however, if we start to allow weapon-users to deflect flame-totems fires. There is also the potential for rangers to have access to both acrobatics and parry at the same time, although there is a bit of diminishing returns there for the number of passives required.

Given the above, perhaps something like the following, mixing and matching everyone's names and abilities... :P

(A) is a shared node between the two paths.

Parry -> (A) -> stun length +20% -> stun length +20% -> "Disarmament": accuracy check to stun on parry, disables offhand. -> stun length +20%.
(A) -> 3% reduced Accuracy / increased parry -> 2% reduced Accuracy / increased parry -> "Impenetrable": all block chances converted to parry chances, disables offhand.

Note that mechanically speaking you cannot 'disable' your offhand twice. These specialisations also means it's unrealistic to take both

Sound great, only thing I'm confused about is:

"

all block chances converted to parry chances, disables offhand.

Does this mean you'd be wearing a shield but the only benefit being it's block chance being converted to parry? In that case get that 40% block shield and you'd have 65% parry (just from 2 nodes).

Unless you mean passives that would give block % (DW and/or shield) are converted to parry which would make sense.

Thanks for summing things up, zharmad - It'll help a lot to get it across to GGG.
Let's hope Chris and Qarl (Carl?) will comment on it after the holidays.

I think we need to find a way to differentiate Parry from just blocking (but that creates a new mechanism, so harder and longer to implement) or turn blocking into something extra (to add a possible stun or other defensive capability). I'm all for the single-weapon only idea, But i also recall enough dual wield defensive moves from my fantasy books (Drizzt Do'Urden, again, comes to mind).