Sanguis ideas

So, I've been thinking about this for awhile, especially after I've recently started playing again. I know that I've never done combat in Aetolia, but I have in other IRE games(quite extensively too), and I have to say after seeing all the changes done to the skills in Aetolia, it's kind of odd to see Sanguis languish like it has. Almost half the entire skillset is stuff that only applies if you have another player as your childer. Which is great, I love the system, I always have. That's one of the reasons I've always been Praenomen. I think the skillset has a lot of room for change and condensing to make room for said changes to make it actually generally useful. Below are some thoughts I have on making it better.

  • Take the skills Will, Monitor, Vision, Sire, Embrace and put them into a single skill named 'Progeny', this frees up 5 or 4(if you don't want Embrace being a part of it, which I'd wholly understand) skills.
  • I really feel like a lot of the minion manipulation skills could be condensed as well maybe into a 'Minion' skill?
  • Make some of the minions more useful in combat. I understand the ones there are great now, but not all of them are, only a small portion. Combat customization is always better than not.

I mean, this skillset has largely been the same for the past 8 or 9 years that I've had a character with it. It just seems so blah compared to what's came out recently. I want to stay a Praenomen and I want to do combat with it once I make a system, I'd just like to be able to use it a little more than for a passive offense(wraith, ghast). The Hematurgy skillset the Bloodborn get is so much more interesting than what Sanguis has stagnated into. Maybe tie some changes into it into something Abhorash does, since it came from him in the first place?

Thoughts?
"Hell hath no hold on a warrior’s mind, see how the snow has made each of us blind. Vibrant colors spray from new dead, staining the earth such a beautiful red."
Calipso
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Comments

  • EzalorEzalor Emperor D'baen Canada
    edited March 2013
    Yeah, you kind of -just- missed Liaison submissions.

    EDIT: And Hematurgy is really cool when you first get it, but it grows stale quickly. Both are moreso tertiary skillsets - mostly defenses and passives and stuff. Mentis is where the true meat of vampire PK comes from.
    image
  • Eh, this idea sort of strikes me as being outside the scope of liaisons.

    I do gotta say I disagree with you on hematurgy. I was -never- bored with it. So many neat roleplay hooks.

    That said, you're right about them being tertiary skills, though without them combat as a vampire gets very hard.

    Erzsebet
  • RiluoRiluo The Doctor
    Hematurgy is fun for a while. But in the end you use mindsurge and a few defenses, coupled with invoke. Its not a bad class by any standards, but it is dull after a while. I think in general vamps just need a bit of a update all round. Nothing huge, just a few updates and skills modified. 

    Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."

    Amara
  • I understand them being Tertiary skills, really. But lets say you're in a situation like myself in Bahir'an where the 1 person you've Sired is completely inactive, and 90% of new people get Sired or whatever by 1 person in the House(Sarita)...all of a sudden I have a skillset that is almost completely useless on a day to day basis. The only skill in it useful to me on a day to day basis is Affinity. Seriously. Transcendent. 1 skill I use, like ever. That and Wraith to use it.

    Just seems like a waste. But yeah, maybe it just is Vampires in general needing a revamp. I'd certainly argue though that Hematurgy is a lot cooler than Sanguis right now.
    "Hell hath no hold on a warrior’s mind, see how the snow has made each of us blind. Vibrant colors spray from new dead, staining the earth such a beautiful red."
    Amara
  • edited March 2013
    Malok said:
    The only skill in it useful to me on a day to day basis is Affinity. Seriously. Transcendent. 1 skill I use, like ever. That and Wraith to use it.
    While true, this is not a situation specific to Sanguis or vampires - the vast majority of skills in most skillsets is geared towards PK, and you won't get much use out of them otherwise.

    Hematurgy isn't really much better from this perspective, by the way - all you'd use outside of combat is wisp shield and three passive put-it-up-and-forget-about-it defences.

    Riluo
  • EzalorEzalor Emperor D'baen Canada
    edited March 2013
    Malok said:
    I understand them being Tertiary skills, really. But lets say you're in a situation like myself in Bahir'an where the 1 person you've Sired is completely inactive, and 90% of new people get Sired or whatever by 1 person in the House(Sarita)...all of a sudden I have a skillset that is almost completely useless on a day to day basis. The only skill in it useful to me on a day to day basis is Affinity. Seriously. Transcendent. 1 skill I use, like ever. That and Wraith to use it.

    Just seems like a waste. But yeah, maybe it just is Vampires in general needing a revamp. I'd certainly argue though that Hematurgy is a lot cooler than Sanguis right now.

    You could go RP through your minion!

    Really, Hematurgy is super cool until you get it. Like @Ilyon said, there aren't many outside uses. A few defenses, that's about it.

    As for the Siring thing, well Sarita is the highest Blood rank AND House head. That's bound to attract all the new Childer. Add onto that that she is one of the most active and, well, there's really not much you can do about that unless she decides to make herself unavailable to Sire.

    Hematurgy has the cool scholar RP stuff you can do with it but I like Sanguis's RP far better. Controlling your Childer through your blood and all that opens up a lot of cool RP venues.
    image
  • ErzsebetErzsebet Altaholic
    I use Hematurgy stuff, including skills in RP all the time? Also I'm probably the only person who ever bothers to use sacrifice. >.>

    Some updates to vamp skills might be neat though, across the board. All of your 'childer' skills are also applicable to your minions, as it were, so you -can- use those when you RP, when childer are short on the finding.


    imageimage
  • SeirSeir Seein' All the Things Getting high off your emotion
    edited March 2013
    A lot of the rituals are pretty trivial and only fit within a roleplay context as with the interactions between sire and progeny.

    While I didn't play back then, a lot of the Bloodborn rituals used to be immensely powerful (too powerful) as was the case with Acino. While I think that some improvements can be made on the subject of rituals, I can't comment too much on whether or not individual tweaks and improvements could be made for better utility and combat versatility as even when I did play more frequently, I did not see many Bloodborn fighters. I could be wrong, but I suspect it is because Praenomen just offers so much more as a class in terms of pressure and offense if you want to fight as a vampire.

    Too many changes wouldn't be beneficial though, I can comment with certainty that Praenomen remains the strongest affliction class out there given its sheer amount of health and mana pressure, affliction potential, etc. , so buffing or changing the other minions to make them more powerful for Bloodborn gives more to a class like Praenomen that is not struggling by any means. I would like to see Bloodborn and Praenomen get their skillsets made completely independent of one another. A problem with classes with shared skillsets, as seen on Lusternia, is that changes that would vastly benefit one class would make another class with the skills too powerful. For what it is worth though, I do think Bloodborn could use a bit more instead of just a cheesy gimmick like Eldritch Invocation which is easy to set your system to detect and counter.
  • Eh. We've seen in Aetolia already that we can make changes to a specific class within a 'shared' skillset for one class but not the other - things like the now-defunct screech-while-off-balance, bone dagger, bone helm, etc. I believe there were also some differences created in tekura for monks and zealots? As well as differences in devotion for paladins and luminaries.

  • HavenHaven World Burner Flight School
    What do each of the minions do? The only one I know for sure is the Ghast which alternates between passive paralysis and damage (possibly bleed damage but damage all the same.)
    ¤ Si vis pacem, para bellum. ¤
    Someone powerful says, "We're going to have to delete you."
    havenbanner2
  • SeirSeir Seein' All the Things Getting high off your emotion
    edited March 2013
    The Necromancy difference is pretty accurate, so I agree with you there.

    As far as I know, there isn't any difference between the tekura of Daru and Sentaari. Pretty sure Daru don't have Kainet in Telepathy, but I think their main real difference lies in Kaido and Illumination. Daru also share skillsets with Luminaries and have a few Illumination abilities that set them apart from Luminaries such as Discharge.


  • HavenHaven World Burner Flight School
    edited March 2013
    So this is what we got:

    • Skeleton - The bones of the dead, heed your call. [0% Novice]
    Create a skeleton from a dead corpse to act as your minion. (I want to say the minion just does damage.)
    • Ghoul - And the walking dead shall do thy bidding. [20% Skilled]
    Imbues a corpse with the power of your blood, reanimating it as a vicious ghoul. (I want to say it's just a stronger version of Skeleton)
    • Zombie - A rotting corpse of frightening visage. [83% Gifted]
    Imbues a corpse with the power of your blood, reanimating it as a terrifying zombie. (I want to say a stronger version of the ghoul, maybe passive fear? 'Terrifying')
    • Ghast - A paralyzing undead minion. [22% Virtuoso]
    Imbues a corpse with the power of your blood, reanimating it as a paralyzing ghast. (Alternates between paralysis & damage)
    • Banshee - All fear the shrieking undead. [0% Fabled]
    One of the most powerful types of the undead, they will shatter the shield of your foes. (Apparently breaks shield. I wonder what's the speed on this minion cause it might be redundant since frenzy is supposed to do the same?)
    • Wight - A mummified fiend. [36% Fabled]
    Imbues a corpse with the power of your blood, reanimating it as a leeching wight. (Not sure what this one does. Maybe just damage? Or perhaps it's bleeding damage? 'Leeching')
    • Wraith - A mana-draining apparition. [23% Mythical]
    Imbues a corpse with the power of your blood, reanimating it as a mana-draining wraith. (Apparantly drains mana.)

    Can a vampire verify the functions of these minions? :D
    ¤ Si vis pacem, para bellum. ¤
    Someone powerful says, "We're going to have to delete you."
    havenbanner2
  • It's important to remember that most of the sanguis ents that have a 'special attack' don't do it every time they hit. For example, a wraith doesn't -always- drain mana, sometimes it's a hit to health.

  • EzalorEzalor Emperor D'baen Canada
    Not like you ever see anything but the ghast anyways :D.
    image
  • A few weeks ago, I got an irl friend of mine to get on his character on Aetolia and we were on Teamspeak together. We did a bunch of arena fights to test the different nuances of Praenomen for my own benefit. I tested both ghast and wraith, and I can say that the paralysis and mana damage hits are not very often at all. During one test, the ghast only caused paralysis in 1 hit of 10. Not saying that's overly bad or anything, as one could make a trigger to highlight said paralysis hit and time other afflictions with it.

    It is interesting to note though that when the wraith does the mana damage, it also does psychic damage of your health at the same time. I was testing an offense that relies on passive health damage while doing contemplate/siphon, so since thats basically the only offense I have set up right now, thats why I use wraith all the time.

    I can't speak for what the wight or zombie do though. The banshee would be an interesting test though, because if it only does the shield shatter every 1 of 10 hits like the ghast/wraith do, it'd be pretty awful, and as for frenzy shattering shields, also in my testing, Sunder only really hits maybe once every 4 hits? Most of the time you frenzies continue to bounce off the shield tattoo.
    "Hell hath no hold on a warrior’s mind, see how the snow has made each of us blind. Vibrant colors spray from new dead, staining the earth such a beautiful red."
  • EzalorEzalor Emperor D'baen Canada
    edited March 2013
    Did you do blood rage minion? If I'm not mistaken, that greatly increases the chance of the special hit.

    And the beauty with Frenzy is that it takes balance when it bounces off the shield, so you can continue whispering. This is a luxury most other classes don't have. It's also ~33% chance to break the shield.

    Praenomen affliction output is already insane with Wise + Crown + Biles. The minion shouldn't be contributing another very steady source of passive afflicts. Get a high level minion + Insidiae + blood rage and it's very good already, the only problem I have with it is that the minion dies in like 4 hits.
    image
  • HavenHaven World Burner Flight School
    I have to say I wonder why. Are the other minions not nearly as good as the ghast? Just looking at the skillset, seems like there's so much untapped potential.
    ¤ Si vis pacem, para bellum. ¤
    Someone powerful says, "We're going to have to delete you."
    havenbanner2
  • Ah, I didn't know that about the whispering while off balance thing. That changes quite a bit. And yeah, when I did the testing, I did have both minions with blood rage going. Since it doesn't take balance to use blood rage, I incorporate it into my macros, just to make sure I don't forget to use it.
    "Hell hath no hold on a warrior’s mind, see how the snow has made each of us blind. Vibrant colors spray from new dead, staining the earth such a beautiful red."
  • edited March 2013
    I did some quick testing of sanguis ents. The appropriate audits I had at the time of testing are listed.

    Cutting        20%          0%           46%          38%
    Blunt          20%          0%           46%          38%
    Magic          40%          24%          0%           53%
    Psychic        20%          24%          0%           39%

    skeleton
    attacks every 5 seconds
    -- light cutting damage (150's) every 5 seconds

    ghoul
    attacks every 5 seconds
    -- moderate cutting damage (mid to high 400's) every 5 seconds, gives a bit of bleeding

    zombie
    attacks every 5 seconds
    -- moderate cutting damage (high 300's to low 400's)
    -- fear affliction with no damage

    ghast
    attacks every 5 seconds
    -- moderate cutting damage (400's)
    -- paralysis with no damage

    banshee
    attacks every 5 seconds
    -- light magical damage (low-mid 200's)
    -- if the banshee attacks a shielded target, it breaks the shield (seems to have a 100% success rate)

    wight
    attacks every 5 seconds
    --moderate to moderate-high cutting damage (low-mid 400's to low 500's)
    --high-moderate unblockable damage (low 500's)
    --leech hp, regaining hp as it attacks, making it a more resilient mob for affinity

    wraith
    attacks every 5 seconds
    --moderate cutting damage (high 400's)
    --moderate psychic damage (low 400's) paired with moderate mana damage(7% max mana)

    Haven
  • EzalorEzalor Emperor D'baen Canada
    edited March 2013
    Cause it's a herb-affliction based class and the ghast is the only one that helps with that. I guess the wraith would be alright to help set up annihilate kills. The wight's special attack is unblockable damage. Zombie's special attack is fear affliction (lol). Ghoul and skeleton don't have specials.
    image
  • Yeah, I certainly like the wraith better than the ghast, because for another thing, a lot of people don't have a ton of psychic resistance, so that mana hit can hurt the health pretty good at the same time. When my defenses are all up, I have like 59% total Magic resist and 63% of Fire/Electric/Cold and 63/64 physical...but a mere 43% Psychic with Trans Philosophy. I know the free paralysis is key to a lot of affliction strategies, but I'd like to think one of the key things about Praenomen is its ability to do a ton of health and mana damage both simultaneously, and then kill with either Annihilate or sheer damage.

    I suppose it comes down to combat philosophy and preferred playstyle with the ghast vs wraith thing. The banshee and wight seem decent, but very niche.
    "Hell hath no hold on a warrior’s mind, see how the snow has made each of us blind. Vibrant colors spray from new dead, staining the earth such a beautiful red."
  • EzalorEzalor Emperor D'baen Canada
    Yeah, but when you run into someone like Daskalos/Illidan/Tina who have 7500+ HP and Mana, that wraith gets awfully useless. Whereas afflictions are great no matter who you are fighting!  
    image
  • HavenHaven World Burner Flight School
    lol fear. Did vampires used to have a skill similar to engage where someone gets stunned if they flee? Otherwise I don't understand fear's usefulness to vampires.

    Another question! Are the specializations Sapivi, Phreneses, and Insidiae only for the Bloodborn? Or are they specializations granted to any vampire by a Bloodborn? Either way they seem interesting!

    [spoiler]
    Insidiae Advantages
    - Minions are of a higher level
    - Minions attack faster
    - Less blood use with all Sanguis skills
    - Severence will not work on your minions

    Insidiae Disadvantages
    - -1 to Dexterity
    - Slower mending balance recovery
    - 15% less damage from Frenzy

    Sapivi Advantages
    - No Additional Fire Damage
    - No disadvantage to health serum (instead of level 1).
    - +1 to Constitution
    - Increased Natural Avoidance
    - 10% increase to health healed from mending.

    Sapivi Disadvantages
    - -1 to Strength
    - Minions are of a lower level
    - Shorter Stun time on Frenzy

    Phreneses Advantages
    - Longer Stun from Frenzy
    - Increased Bleed Damage with Frenzy
    - Less blood consumed with Celerity, Potence, Disrupt, Siphon,
      Annihilate, Mesmerize, Effuse, and all whispers

    Phreneses Disadvantages
    - Do not receive the Cold, Poison, Asphyxiation, and Electrical
      Damage Reductions
    - Minions are of a lower level
    - 10% decrease to health healed from mending.
    - Longer EQ time with Purify and Restoration.
    [/spoiler]
    ¤ Si vis pacem, para bellum. ¤
    Someone powerful says, "We're going to have to delete you."
    havenbanner2
  • EzalorEzalor Emperor D'baen Canada
    edited March 2013
    They're Praenomen only, Bloodborn can't get them. And they're given by Bloodborn ritual though Ilyon has a liaison report up changing it to a Sanguis skill (probably sick of everyone asking him for the ritual :D).

    Insidiae is king for PvP, Sapivi is super OP for bashing. Phreneses just sucks period.
    image
  • edited March 2013
    What Ezalor said. However, that report (1231) was advanced by the liaisons and then rejected with the following reason:

    --
    Decision:
    2013/03/09 08:42:56
    I don't think a little forced interaction is a bad thing. It won't be the end of the world if you can't get your path switched straight away.
    --

    In essence, the admin stance is that a bit of forced interaction will do you good.

    Edit: And remember, not -every skill- is going to be super useful in combat.

  • HavenHaven World Burner Flight School
    Ah, that's cool. I respect that decision.
    Xavin said:
    skeleton
    attacks every 5 seconds
    -- light cutting damage (150's) every 5 seconds

    ghoul
    attacks every 5 seconds
    -- moderate cutting damage (mid to high 400's) every 5 seconds

    zombie
    attacks every 5 seconds
    -- moderate cutting damage (high 300's to low 400's)
    -- fear affliction with no damage
    Even if the minion is learned very early on, it seems odd that the skeleton appears to be the only relatively useless minion. Especially in comparison to the others in the skill set. I think the Skeleton's cutting damage should be increased to match the Ghoul's output while the Ghoul's damage type is changed from cutting to blunt.

    Someone should also liaison a change to the Zombie minion to have a specialty that's more useful than fear. If it weren't for frenzy, I'd suggest a stun proc. Perhaps the zombie can take the Banshee's speciality of shield-shattering while the Banshee gains the ability to strip a small pool of defenses like blindness/deafness/sileris/etc.
    ¤ Si vis pacem, para bellum. ¤
    Someone powerful says, "We're going to have to delete you."
    havenbanner2
    Malok
  • edited March 2013
    I'd be careful with defense strips, since praenomen already put very good pressure on curative balances and have access to stun.

    You don't want to make a class that has decent hindering, aff output and damage into a class with -amazing- hindering, aff output and damage.

  • HavenHaven World Burner Flight School
    Xavin said:
    I'd be careful with defense strips, since praenomen already put very good pressure on curative balances and have access to stun.

    You don't want to make a class that has decent hindering, aff output and damage into a class with -amazing- hindering, aff output and damage.
    Touche! Just some ideas that popped into my head. I'd have to look at the class as a whole more.

    Another question! Do all these minions have the same amount of HP? Or is that based on the corpse their risen from?
    ¤ Si vis pacem, para bellum. ¤
    Someone powerful says, "We're going to have to delete you."
    havenbanner2
  • EzalorEzalor Emperor D'baen Canada
    edited March 2013
    Based on corpses I believe but regardless they die insanely fast. I want to say they have ~6k HP when raised from the strongest possible corpse. Which is 3-4 rounds for me to kill them, and like...2 rounds for someone like Daskalos. I'll test it out with a Xorani corpse, sec.
    image
  • edited March 2013
    The corpse doesn't matter, but I'm not certain if there is any difference between the different minions. Wight is going to be the most tanky, though because of how it heals itself while it attacks.

    The more I think about it, the more I think that banshee might be -really good-. Consider: it attacks every 5 seconds, and if your target has shield up it will break it 100% of the time. That makes it a passive hammer tattoo. Now, shield is on a 4 second static eq. Which means that, most likely, your opponent will touch shield and still be off eq when the banshee breaks it.

    Edit: and I added a bit more info about the minions. Namely, ghouls dealing some bleeding and the fact that wraiths drain 7% of the target's max mana on their mana drain hit.

    Haven
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