Trigger isn't even a trans skill. One could fight (albeit less effectively) without transing Pioneering. You know what needs to not be a trans skill? The ability to one shot crit shot an ouroboros "Say goodbye to 27 skills, baby"
But you're right, Trigger isn't fun because you're almost forcing the opponents hand. One can imagine rebalancing to make Rupture easier to achieve with Triggers as Ahkan describes.
(one day I should draw a spreadsheet of finishers by circle...)
I really can't understand why any profession wouldn't be balanced around tri trans, especially with the (sorta) recent advent of super neocredits from leveling and even more importantly, that they finally implemented what we've all been begging for for several years if not longer, which is cheap intro one (or two in this case) and done lesson packages.
You balance around tri-trans, yes, but the lowbie experience is still hugely important because the lowbie experience is what convinces people to go up to tri-trans.
Here's a quick comparison:
Newbie picks Cleric:
Bashing skill is the main PvP skill
Trans Fayth is Contemplate/Smite|Sap/Absolve
Just Skilled Kanai will give inkburning.
This newbie is doing pretty well. The "pour all your lessons into Fayth" learning plan will max out their bashing skill while giving them a solid spread of group PvP abilities. When they go to a shardfall, they can actually fight and get kills in the way their class is designed to do so.
Newbie picks Hunter:
Bashing skill is not the main PvP skill
Need Mythical Shapeshifting to bash or PvP well, due to natureaura.
Need Trans Supremacy to actually fight well, due to brainmelt.
This newbie is sort of screwed. He needs to be damn near dual-trans before he can even TRY to fight the way a hunter is supposed to fight. Prior to that, he goes into shardfalls mashing claw/lash or iceblast/lash and basically sucking. His newbie experience is going to suck compared to the newbie who picks priest because Hunter is laid out in a way that makes it horribly inaccessible.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Since the end of classleads is coming up, I thought I'd take this time to get them in. Since I'd just picked up Defiler, a lot of my ideas were for Defiler. Things like Torment scaling, etc, etc.
However, I have decided that those would all be wasted classleads, because the class honestly cannot be addressed with classleads because the main kill mechanics are so fundamentally unbalanced. Here's a timeline to understand what I mean:
t+22.14 :Khizan's condition stands at 464/490 health and 558/610 mana. Following your command, a hideously warped treant releases a strangely smelling substance that seems into your pores. The hawthorn seed inside you suddenly erupts into life before withering away. The expanding seed cuts through your veins, causing massive bleeding. Following your command, a hideously warped treant releases a strangely smelling substance that seems into your pores. The elder seed inside you suddenly erupts into life before withering away. The expanding seed releases a dark substance, poisoning your open wounds. Damage Taken: 121 poison (raw damage: 164) You whirl your arm stump mightily towards yourself, releasing a spore of the elder tree that swiftly burrows into your skin. Following your command, a hideously warped treant releases a strangely smelling substance that seems into your pores. The elder seed inside you suddenly erupts into life before withering away. The expanding seed releases a dark substance, poisoning your open wounds. Damage Taken: 87 poison (raw damage: 117) Following your command, a hideously warped treant releases a strangely smelling substance that seems into your pores. The blackthorn seed inside you suddenly erupts into life before withering away. The expanding seed releases sharp thorns, cutting you painfully. Damage Taken: 53 poison (raw damage: 72) You rub some aconite on a mercurial flail. You swing a mercurial flail powerfully at yourself, ravaging your flesh. Damage Taken: 55 blunt, physical (raw damage: 134) Strange, everything doesn't quite seem so simple anymore. You are afflicted with stupidity. Sudden pain washes over you as the torment strikes you. Damage Taken: 21 psychic (raw damage: 28) You wince as the curved thorns on a mercurial flail tear lacerations into your skin. Balance Taken: 3.65s At your order, a hideously warped treant bellows loudly at yourself and the demonic seed implanted deep in your body explodes in a massive outburst of blood and gore. You have lost the insomnia defence. You have been slain by a hideously warped treant. You have nothing that can be stored in the Rift. A gritty sandling falls out of your inventory. Your starburst tattoo flares as the world is momentarily blurred in white light. Damage Taken: 125 psychic (raw damage: 167)
There is no way to fix this with classleads. With this defilers are horrifyingly overpowered, but this is all they have. The fixes needed to bring Defilers into balance are beyond the scope of classleads.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I want to thank everyone mentioning the novices, and their experience with the skills.
When I first started this (Holy crap, was that seven years ago?) And took up Outrider skills, one of the best things about it was the plethora of little utility skills that simply made the roleplay and the day-to-day functions or life in Aetherius a little better. They were crap combat skills, but they were fun to play with, and they made spending time on the character absorbing. I had things I could do that other professions couldn't. And they the same as I.
I have a True Novice come in the other day (Yes, they still exist!) and kinda wrinkled their nose at some of the skillsets available to them. They pointed out one specific fact that's been dismaying: All the skills are geared towards killing people or killing mobs. And even then, they all seem to be support skills, that far down. Trouble is, I couldn't argue with him. And I couldn't even tell you when the last time was I used half those skills, combat or not. Is a little utility a bad thing? If you're clever, you'll find a way to use it to your advantage.
Even without that, though, it's gonna be rough trying to explain that they can't get any experience, can't figure out what they're doing till they're Aspect, Tri-trans and suddenly people EXPECT you to know how to use it all. Having a whole bunch of skills only to hear people say "Well, that'll be useful later, and that'lll be useful later, and that'll be useful later..." Well, what's useful to them now?
Comments
You balance around tri-trans, yes, but the lowbie experience is still hugely important because the lowbie experience is what convinces people to go up to tri-trans.
Here's a quick comparison:
Newbie picks Cleric:
This newbie is doing pretty well. The "pour all your lessons into Fayth" learning plan will max out their bashing skill while giving them a solid spread of group PvP abilities. When they go to a shardfall, they can actually fight and get kills in the way their class is designed to do so.
Newbie picks Hunter:
This newbie is sort of screwed. He needs to be damn near dual-trans before he can even TRY to fight the way a hunter is supposed to fight. Prior to that, he goes into shardfalls mashing claw/lash or iceblast/lash and basically sucking. His newbie experience is going to suck compared to the newbie who picks priest because Hunter is laid out in a way that makes it horribly inaccessible.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Since the end of classleads is coming up, I thought I'd take this time to get them in. Since I'd just picked up Defiler, a lot of my ideas were for Defiler. Things like Torment scaling, etc, etc.
However, I have decided that those would all be wasted classleads, because the class honestly cannot be addressed with classleads because the main kill mechanics are so fundamentally unbalanced. Here's a timeline to understand what I mean:
Following your command, a hideously warped treant releases a strangely smelling substance that seems into your pores.
The hawthorn seed inside you suddenly erupts into life before withering away.
The expanding seed cuts through your veins, causing massive bleeding.
Following your command, a hideously warped treant releases a strangely smelling substance that seems into your pores.
The elder seed inside you suddenly erupts into life before withering away.
The expanding seed releases a dark substance, poisoning your open wounds.
Damage Taken: 121 poison (raw damage: 164)
You whirl your arm stump mightily towards yourself, releasing a spore of the elder tree that swiftly burrows into your
skin.
Following your command, a hideously warped treant releases a strangely smelling substance that seems into your pores.
The elder seed inside you suddenly erupts into life before withering away.
The expanding seed releases a dark substance, poisoning your open wounds.
Damage Taken: 87 poison (raw damage: 117)
Following your command, a hideously warped treant releases a strangely smelling substance that seems into your pores.
The blackthorn seed inside you suddenly erupts into life before withering away.
The expanding seed releases sharp thorns, cutting you painfully.
Damage Taken: 53 poison (raw damage: 72)
You rub some aconite on a mercurial flail.
You swing a mercurial flail powerfully at yourself, ravaging your flesh.
Damage Taken: 55 blunt, physical (raw damage: 134)
Strange, everything doesn't quite seem so simple anymore.
You are afflicted with stupidity.
Sudden pain washes over you as the torment strikes you.
Damage Taken: 21 psychic (raw damage: 28)
You wince as the curved thorns on a mercurial flail tear lacerations into your skin.
Balance Taken: 3.65s
At your order, a hideously warped treant bellows loudly at yourself and the demonic seed implanted deep in your body
explodes in a massive outburst of blood and gore.
You have lost the insomnia defence.
You have been slain by a hideously warped treant.
You have nothing that can be stored in the Rift.
A gritty sandling falls out of your inventory.
Your starburst tattoo flares as the world is momentarily blurred in white light.
Damage Taken: 125 psychic (raw damage: 167)
There is no way to fix this with classleads. With this defilers are horrifyingly overpowered, but this is all they have. The fixes needed to bring Defilers into balance are beyond the scope of classleads.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
When I first started this (Holy crap, was that seven years ago?) And took up Outrider skills, one of the best things about it was the plethora of little utility skills that simply made the roleplay and the day-to-day functions or life in Aetherius a little better. They were crap combat skills, but they were fun to play with, and they made spending time on the character absorbing. I had things I could do that other professions couldn't. And they the same as I.
I have a True Novice come in the other day (Yes, they still exist!) and kinda wrinkled their nose at some of the skillsets available to them. They pointed out one specific fact that's been dismaying: All the skills are geared towards killing people or killing mobs. And even then, they all seem to be support skills, that far down. Trouble is, I couldn't argue with him. And I couldn't even tell you when the last time was I used half those skills, combat or not. Is a little utility a bad thing? If you're clever, you'll find a way to use it to your advantage.
Even without that, though, it's gonna be rough trying to explain that they can't get any experience, can't figure out what they're doing till they're Aspect, Tri-trans and suddenly people EXPECT you to know how to use it all. Having a whole bunch of skills only to hear people say "Well, that'll be useful later, and that'lll be useful later, and that'll be useful later..." Well, what's useful to them now?