Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1466854-20140726005931

It occurs to me the skill subset on DoS, while not miniscule, could use more variety. There are a lot of things I've thought at varying times would be useful, so I thought I'd make a list. The goal here is producing ideas for new -realistic- skills, and maybe if they're good enough getting them posted somewhere a game dev would take notice and maybe adopt a few. As such, looking for feedback and more ideas. When commenting with either, remember the idea isn't just to come up with things that'd make life easier, you also have to account for the fact that you don't want to risk chipping into profits for them (not only won't they include those skills, if you include too many reasons not to spend money on the game, it'll shut down and we all lose out) or making skills too overpowered (removes both the challenge and the enjoyment from excelling). So, without any more boilerplate, here are the ideas I've thought to write down so far. If I come up with more, I'll edit and add them in later.

Bodyguard: Take damage in place of another spirit. Support and battle versions feasible. Cost potentially high -or- low because usage carries the drawback of making the meatshield take heavy damage.

Potential Variations: percentage of damage intercepted rather than a flat 100%, Intercept chance percentage, a time limit on the battle version, a total intercept limit (similar to counterattacks). Some or all versions could make the shielding spirit stop attacking while the skill is active.

Lead Change: Change the leader in the current fight to another spirit at will. Battle only. Hired spirits -shouldn't- be selectable, or should "miss" on execution, but if desired could provide double boost when chosen. Due to potential power of this skill, it should likely cost a full 100 energy to use.

Potential Variations: Cost. I can't think of any other variations that'd be fitting.

Critical Damage Boost: Increase the damage dealt by critical hits. This would work exactly the same as the critical chance increase, likely with the same costs or slightly cheaper to account for lower trigger rate.

Potential Variations: Same pool as the critical chance increases that are already implemented.

Elemental Roulette: Randomly change the elements of the spirits on your side. Potentially could exist as an offensive version for the opponent as well, but if so should be lower cost to account for extremely limited usefulness. Support version could shift elements once at battle start (undesired most likely), every round (also likely undesired), or every x seconds (preferred and useful in certain situations). Battle version should likely be single-use. For the skill to be useful, ally elements should all be shifted independently, not all together. Cost is debatable, but should be high enough to prevent rapidly shifting until you get the perfect element spread.

Potential Variations: Frequency of shift for support version, cost and duration of shift for battle version. Due to the nature of the skill, permanent for battle version is an option.

Shield: Add a damage-absorbing shield to allied spirits. Support and battle possible, but battle version should likely be either expensive or limited size to prevent overuse against raid, zone, and continent bosses. Amount buffered could be based on percentage of spirit's max hp or a flat amount. Percentage runs the risk of being useless on low-hp spirits and too significant on high-hp ones, while flat would be equally useful on all spirits. If battle version is reused on a spirit with a shield active, should probably refill/replace shield, but could also fail or add to shield total (latter option is easily abusable, not recommended).

Potential Variations: Flat amount or percentage, total shield size, single ally or all allies (support should be all), duration (not preferable but could balance abuse potential), cost.

Damage Negation: Similar to Barong's support skill, it could also exist as a (very expensive) battle skill, or a low chance support skill. Allowing overuse in any way would be potentially gamebreaking, so if implemented it should never be spammable.

Potential Variations: Chance of triggering (low for support), cost, number of times possible during a battle/usage, duration.

Heal: Heal one or all allies for a certain amount of HP. Battle only. A staple of any RPG, this probably will never be implemented due to reducing the chance of people spending destiny orbs for heals, and if implemented would need to be limited in one or more ways to prevent making battles impossible to lose. Potential balancers include adding a spirit point cost to the usage of the skill or a use-per-battle limitation (may not be feasible without significant code adjustments), inability to heal above the current HP at the battle's start, or inability to heal self.

Potential Variations: Amount healed, percentage vs. flat amount, cost, spirit point cost (if implemented), use count (if implemented), cost.

Death Defy: Prevent what would have been a fatal blow. Support and battle versions both feasible. HP remaining would be reasonable to always be left at 1, but could potentially be a higher amount. Regardless of choice in that matter, should never "heal" the spirit even minimally. If support, should only work once per battle per spirit. If battle, should work once per execution and cost should likely be near or at 100.

Potential Variations: Negate the killing blow vs. drop hp to a preset amount (or 1), HP remaining if amount is preset, once per battle vs. only if killing blow is above a certain damage amount, single vs. all allies, chance of defying death (somewhat undesirable but doesn't negate usefulness fully).

Energy Boost: Increase the rate at which energy accumulates in battle. Battle version only feasible at all if the boost is for the battle's duration, and then only on long battles assuming cost is reasonably high. Likely should only exist as a support skill.

Potential Variations: Rate of increased gain, HP threshold (likely averaged), enabled only after spirit death (abuse potential via feeding L1 commons to enemies), enabled momentarily after taking damage (questionable usefulness), enabled temporarily after each spirit death (questionable usefulness), gain rate increase based on elemental presence, gain rate based on HP/level difference between allies and enemies (averaged).

Death Strike: Allies strike back at enemies before dying. Support only or battle-duration battle skill.

Potential Variations: Target (last targeted/last damaged by/all enemies), damage amount (flat/percentage/amount based on killing blow's damage), element (spirit's/preset/random/target's weakness).

Multistrike: Attack an enemy x times for x damage. If target dies, remaining attacks will carry over to next target.

Potential Variations: Attack count, set damage vs. percentage (probably lower than 100%), cost.

Weakpoint Strike: Attack a single target with the element they are weak to. Would be too powerful to have versions with multiplier over 100%, low cost, or striking all targets. Would be useless to have versions with multiplier under 100%. Would likely not function properly against light/dark without great blessing or bad luck in favor of the hit.

Potential Variations: Cost.

Rejected skill concepts:

Revive - would cut into developer profits too much and potentially make battles impossible to lose.

Anything involving "instant kill" - Even if you make it unusable on bosses, it'd be too overpowered any way you hash it out.

Damage Over Time attacks - Guaranteed to be a problem to program in and would likely be either useless or too powerful, either of which is an issue. 