Augment brainstorming

So obviously this falls more on the devteam than community members, but hey, maybe they need ideas too. I want to make a thread about brainstorming what each class's augments will look like, and see how they might be applied. Spitball ideas, no matter how stupid you might think they are.

Remember that at present there are expected to be four augment types for each class. Explain your 'vision' of the class, so if other people read about your augments, they can try to follow your train of thought as to why those augments are the way they are. Try to define the "theme" of the augment, because remember the same augment can be applied to every other class' skills in the game. Obviously, because we don't know every class' skills in the game, we can't give exact mechanical effects, so the augment needs to have enough thematic elements in it help see how it would manifest in other skills. It should also be broad enough to where it could apply to everything from a Mage to a Fighter, since all augments are supposed to be able to apply to every class's skills. To top it off, try to give an example of it in action as it relates to a class's skills we already know about. Try to do it with both a martial and a magical archetype; if your description only really makes sense with one type of archetype, it needs a little work.

For example, the Rogue. When we think of Rogues in games, we usually think of opportunistic stealthy melee dps. They use poisons, and sneak around, they find traps. They're agile, they fight dirty, and they shank you when you least expect it. Here's how I think it's augments might look;

Venomous Arts - Exactly what it sounds like; using poison to help your skills. Worded to give it a slightly more applicability to spells in the case of a Primary archetype that is a spellcaster.
Example: Nightshield (Tank/Rogue) Longsword Combo augment effect: Poison damage over time. The DoT stacks with itself up to a point, making him more lethal the more he focuses on one target
Example 2: Shadow Caster (Mage/Rogue) Lava Storm Augment effect: Compounding poison damage over time effect. The longer they remain in the boiling pit of poison, the worse the DoT damage they take.

Shadow Mastery - Adding "stealthy" effects to abilities. Not sure how comfortable the team would be with non-rogues having any stealthing abilities at all, but this augment should focus on making skills interfere with perception or visibility in some way
Example: Shadow Disciple (Cleric/Rogue) Hallowed Ground augment effect: Allies in the circle's effect are stealthed for a few seconds, or until they use an ability, whichever comes first.
Example 2: Shadowblade (Fighter/Rogue) Rush augment effect: Provides stealth during the charge effect, and for another few seconds after the Rush connects with its target.
Example 3: Shadow Caster (Mage/Rogue) Blackhole augment effect: Enemies within the black hole effect have no vision beyond the black hole's area of effect for as long they remain within the black hole.

Skullduggery - 'Cheap' shots, hitting below the belt, all that dirty fighting type stuff. Adds opportunistic attacks to abilities. These should be characterized as conditional augments that apply some really good effect if the condition is met for the skill. Not sure if there couldn't be a better name.
Example: .Nightshield (Tank/Rogue) Javelin augment effect: If the target's back was turned to the Tank, this skill also snares the victim after any other status effects have resolved (so, if you have level 3 Javelin, the target is snared after the stun effect)
Example 2: Scout (Ranger/Rogue) Jump augment effect: At the beginning and the end of the Jump, any adjacent target that is stuck in a bear trap takes damage as if you had used Slice on them.
Example 3: Shadow Disciple (Cleric/Rogue) Benediction augment effect: The target of your heals receive a very brief buff (1-2 seconds long or so). If they receive damage from an enemy during that time, they steal a portion of hp from their attacker.

To be perfectly honest, I can't think of a decent fourth augment for Rogue. Maybe you can, though!

Effortposters, come share your thoughts.

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Comments

Damokles

What I think/hope will be augment schools for the classes:

Rogue - Stealth, Bleed, Evasion, Armor Rend
Example:
Fighter/Rogue with Bleed- Charges and inflicts on all enemies he travels through a bleed effect.

Ranger - Poisons, Ranged, Slows, Mobility (something like a backflip maybe)
Example:
Rogue/Ranger with Ranged - Backstab gets a 30m range

Fighter - Parry, Life Leach, Armor Rend, Stun
Example:
Fighter/Fighter with Parry - While you charge you get a parry effect that reflects ranged attacks for 25% of its original damage back to enemy.

Bard - Buffs, Debuffs, Mobility, Evasion
Rogue/Bard with Debuff - Backstab gets a debuff on it

Lore Dynamic

Damokles wrote: »

What I think/hope will be augment schools for the classes:

Rogue - Stealth, Bleed, Evasion, Armor Rend

I was thinking that, for the "Cultist" (Rogue/Cleric) - It might be interesting to have the 'Bleed' effect also be a means to replenish the Cultist's life.

Sort of like how Artemis Entreri uses his vampiric dagger in the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novels.

Honshu

Damokles wrote: »

See, the problem I foresee the devs running into, and the issue I see here, is that there's a lot of spillover between augments offered by these classes. Ostensibly, augments are supposed to be a way of mixing a second class's "flavor" into a primary class. But if you can't isolate something as being conceptually exclusive to a given class, it dilutes the flavor of that class, and those augments.

For example, in this example you've given, both Rangers and Bards have "mobility" as an augment. I understand that when we think of Rangers and Bards in D&D, they are often characterized by light armor, by having movement abilities that exceed some other class's. But, say I went Tank/Ranger, and there was a Tank/Bard party member of mine. Suppose we both used "mobility" on our tank skills in the same way. Do you think it's right for a Tank/Ranger and a Tank/Bard to be completely identical, as they would be if they share the same conceptual augment?

This is what makes it so tricky. You have to make *themes* that evoke the characteristics of the *class*, which should be exclusive, separate, and apart from *other* classes, and figure out gameplay effects afterwards.

Incidentally, this is also why Summoner stands out to me as an archetype, because it's honestly thematically more defined by its secondary archetype than its primary one. There's so many different flavors of "summoner" out there; but when you strip away that "secondary class flavor," what does the primary summoner's augments look like?

I hope they figure out a way to give the Summoner more flavor based on the game's lore. Otherwise, I worry that Summoner augments are going to feel very "off" and tacked on, because there won't be enough thematic elements to make a class that feels iconic, which will lead to its augments not feeling like the class they're supposed to embody elements of. "Summons stuff" only gets you so far when you're trying to make a class that feels iconic.

maouw

Summoner Augments:

Flank - bonus effect procs when another unit strikes the foe
Gargantuan - skill/ability hit box is larger
Frenzy - using a skill/ability within 2 seconds of it coming off cooldown triggers bonus effects
Sentience(Autonomy?) - ability/skill will auto-trigger when there is an appropriate target even if you are stunned/knocked down etc. [toggle on/off]
Echo - skills/abilities are weaker but strike twice (more for Bard augments?)

Tank Augments:

Sturdy - you cannot be interrupted and take reduced damage while casting this skill/ability
Presence - skills/abilities generate more threat/taunt enemies
Impact - knock down chance on skill/ability
Resilience - increased cooldown on skill/ability, the ability can be used to break free from cc

Warth

@maouw wouldn't echo be bard?

maouw

Warth wrote: »

@maouw wouldn't echo be bard?

True!
In my mind, I was thinking of a mirror image of yourself casting the spells.
But it does sound more Bardy, doesn't it?

Damokles

maouw wrote: »

Warth wrote: »

@maouw wouldn't echo be bard?

True!
In my mind, I was thinking of a mirror image of yourself casting the spells.
But it does sound more Bardy, doesn't it?

I think that it fits the summoner better, but yes it would also fit the bard.

Everdark

Here's my ideas for the first two classes.

Fighter:

1. Weapon Mastery: increase attack cone for all weapons and crit chance on strike and skill. Wepon skills have increased crit chances depending on nature of skill.

2. Martial Focus: small constant health regen effect while in battle, some skills can increase the health regen rate temporarily while others put the regen on cooldown in order to proc extra damage or activate a CC effect.

3. Berserker: increased attack speed and damage at the expense of reduced armor. Skills can proc armor rend.

4. Relentless: subsequent strikes or skills in short succession create short duration damage buff that grows as the number of strikes or skills increases (to some predetermined maximum). Subsequent strikes shortly after inital proc renew the effect.

Tank:

1. Defenders Resolve: increased block chance, elemental resistance and armor. Skills can proc armor buff against damage and add protection against CC effects.

2. Inescapable Figure: skills and attacks induce rage in enemies that focus on the tank more greatly as that rage level grows. Enraged enemies take more damage from the tank.

3. Imposing Figure: attacks have a small chance to proc fear and the tank does additional damage to foes afflicted by fear, skills can also proc fear. Fear in this context is a damage reduction debuff that lasts for a short time.

4. Insurmountable: Tank receives a health boon that increases maximum health the longer they are in combat. Skills can speed up this process, or sacrifice some of the boon for adding damage or effects.

Everdark

Two more classes:

Rogue:

1. Knife Trick: Increased attack speed and damage while wielding short bladed weapons. Skills have effects that increase attack speed, damage, and crit chance further.

2. Serpents kiss: Strikes have small chance to proc selected poison (DoT, mana loss, or paralytic). Skills induce stacks of the poison above, multiply stacks, or extend duration of stacks.

3. Smoke and mirrors: Extends duration of all stealth/invisibility effects. Strikes while invisible or to a foe's back deal additional damage. Skills can proc invisibility, and misdirection (minor stun allowing for repositioning at opponents back).

4. Bloodletting: Attacks can proc bleed on hit causing minor DoT. Attacks against bleeding targets have damage bonus. Skills increase bleed stacks, extend duration of existing stacks, or remove stacks in exchange for spike damage (obviously spike damage is a reduced amount then if the DoT was allowed to play out).

Ranger:

Marksmanship: Increased attack speed while wielding a ranged weapon and small chance at ranged attack ricochet. Ranged damage has small armor penetration effect. Skills create stacks of 'eye of the marksman' which increases ranged attack and skill damage for each stack and can be sacrificed for tremendous damage skills.

Field expert: Increased resistance to CC effects from foes and increases the effectiveness of the rangers CC skills and those of all allies within a predetermined range. Traps also receive this benefit. Skills proc slow, stun, silence, and snare effects.

Trapper: Traps do additional damage, last longer, have extended AOE areas, and have their effects extended. Enemies suffer from extended trap effects when afflicted by more than one trap type.

Natures Warden: Increased elemental resistance. Strikes can proc elemental payload based on selection causing minor elemental damage effects. Skills proc elemental payload with enhanced effects.

McMackMuck

I think if Intrepid can state four things that each Primary Archetype (hereafter "PAT") is known for (like the three word summary for each race) then it would be a lot easier for Secondary Archetypes (hereafter "SAT") to pick one of those four things and get a relevant set of augments from it.

Some PATs have overlapping fields in classical RPGs (eg. Ranger and Rogue; Stealth and Traps) but from what I have read in the preliminary wiki content AoC Rangers don't have Stealth and AoC Rogues don't have traps. That is absolutely fine, there's nothing to say that an AoC archetype has to comply with the general MMO precedent or individual expectation.

I love seeing everyone's ideas, accepting that capability creepage of your favored PAT (outside it's normally expected remit) is par for the course! I think the old RPG-ing adage was "If you could argue with God for a better deal, would you?" ("Hell yeah!" is the answer!)

Hopefully some of these ideas will resonate with Steven's PAT/SAT/class capability scope and we will see them in game.

McMackMuck

I thought I'd throw some ideas into the mix...

Based on the idea that a Secondary Archetype (SAT) would have to pick ONE of FOUR augments I came up with the following ideas:
The Primary Archetype (PAT) would have access to all four PAT areas, although they would need to allocate points into the various active and passive abilities.

BARD
SONGS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
PAT: small area team buffs (resistance +%, attack speed +%, cooldown -%, CC removal speed, natural regen +%, other types?).
SAT: personal buff from attacking whilst singing/humming to yourself
SONGS OF DISTRACTION
PAT: small area enemy crowd control (root, stun, -% attack, +% cooldown, -% slow, resistance -%, other types)
SAT: add CC debuff to any attacks against targets within melee range (or close enough to hear you in battle)
CUTTING WORDS
PAT: words that hurt, short range but range can be improved by PUBLIC PERFORMANCE. Inferior to mage DPS.
SAT: add sonic? damage to attacks
PUBLIC PERFORMANCE
PAT: reaching more targets (larger radius for area or cone for single targets) with other BARD abilities.
SAT: add area diameter for some self targeting abilities. If an ability, spell or prayer has a verbal component then it might get increased range if applicable.
The only protection against BARD abilities is to not hear them or not understand them. Unintelligent monsters and animals may be immune.
Bard abilities are more difficult to avoid for players; the sonic component partially ignores armor (helmets).
BARDs speak many languages and learn more as part of character development, maybe due to travelling to great libraries or finding quest item books.
Once debuffs are heard the damage is done and it takes time to remove debuffs or for them to wear off.
An obvious counter would be a Mage 'silence' spell, although it will affect all spells, prayers or abilities to an extent if there is a verbal component.

CLERIC
LIFE
PAT: healing prayers, removal of poisons and toxins
SAT: Slightly improved natural health regen (personal)
DEATH
PAT: harming prayers and lifesteal abilities
SAT: attacks gain a death? damage buff
SPIRIT
PAT: removal of CC and debuffs related to morale. Limited morale buffs
SAT: melee and missle attacks gain a small lifestealing buff. Spell attacks gain a small mana stealing buff.
SANCTUARY
PAT: temporary immunity bubbles for different damage types, bubble has HP soak which decays with time, giving a duration.
The intention is that the Sanctuary wouldn't get out of hand if the enemy DPS focuses on it and brings it down.
SAT: Dealing critical hits gives 1? second of damage immunity, maxed at 3? seconds every 10? seconds (using a cooldown?)

FIGHTER
MELEE DPS
PAT: Melee abilities, single target, area attacks, etc.
SAT: Melee attack damage bonus or melee attack speed bonus (either way increases DPS)
MELEE MOVEMENT
PAT: Combat manoeuvring abilities
SAT: brief burst of movement speed buff after dealing melee damage (might need cooldown to avoid abuse)
BATTLE CRY
PAT: A variety of personal melee buffs can be shouted.
SAT: A small radius leadership type buff based on your PAT (Melee attack for FIGHTER, damage reduction for TANK, ranged attack for RANGER, mana regen for MAGE, additional holy damage for Cleric, Stun ability for Rogue)
MOUNTED COMBAT
PAT: Mounted melee charge attacks that do bonus damage, mount kicks/stomps for knockback, ability to use a missile weapon whilst mounted.
SAT: The ability to use a melee weapon whilst mounted.

MAGE
I'm not sure how AoC will fit all the elements previosuly mentioned into four fields of Augmentation.
Because of this, this section is a little vague and lacks the coolness of some of the other Archetypes.
FIRE
PAT: An obvious selection of Mage abilities both offensive and defensive using a fire theme.
SAT: A fire buff on attacks that may also cause burn over time damage. Less effectve against metal armor. More effective on single targets.
FROST
PAT: An obvious selection of Mage abilities both offensive and defensive using a frost theme.
SAT: A frost buff on attacks that may also cause slow effects in targets. Less effective against padded armor. More effective on single targets.
PLANAR
PAT: An unusual selection of Mage abilities with a magical movement theme.
SAT: Improvement on movement based abilities.
ELECTRICAL
PAT: An obvious selection of Mage abilities both offensive and defensive using a lightning theme.
SAT: An electrical buff on attacks that may interrupt target's actions/abilities. More effective against metal armor types. More effective against single targets.

RANGER
RANGED
PAT: Reduce min range, Max Range +%, Missile Attack speed +%, missile based abilities.
SAT: Missile Attack speed +%
TRAPS AND TRACKS
PAT: A variety of place and forget traps. Snare, Trap Max 3 in existence at once? Tracking abilities.
SAT: Taking damage triggers 3 seconds of caltrops left behind when you move. short duration. They deal physical damage when walked on.
MOVEMENT
PAT: Abilities aimed at keeping the player out of melee. Jump
SAT: brief movement speed boost when enemy within melee range. Cooldown.
MOUNTED COMBAT
PAT: Missile attacks whilst mounted. Easy kiting. Ability to use a melee weapon whilst mounted, but without any related special abilities.
SAT: The ability to use a missile weapon whilst mounted.

ROGUE
STEALTH
PAT: Stealth. Not sure how add abilities without it becoming OP.
SAT: Rear attacks deal bonus damage. Not as good as backstab (=daggers), but works with any melee or missile attack.
SMALL BLADES
PAT: Melee attacks specialising in crits and bleeds (damage/sec), attack speed with daggers, dagger based abilities
SAT: daggers and thrown daggers attack speed +%
POISON
PAT: An array of poison, toxin and other underhanded trick based abilities
SAT: Adds poison (damage over time) damage to melee / missile attacks / spell attacks?.
OBSERVANT
PAT: This allows backstab crit and bleeds against armoured opponents, spotting weaknesses in armour. Finding secret doors.
SAT: A crit% buff. You know how to hit where it hurts and find opportunities more often.

SUMMONER
TANK SUMMONS
PAT: Various abilities that improve the tankiness of the summoned tank entity
SAT: Once per game day? a death blow will be negated by a flying squirrel or some other kamikaze animal.
DPS SUMMONS
PAT: Various abilities that determine melee / missile / spell options for the summoned entity
SAT: Gain a vicious pet of a type decided your PAT. It attacks doing damage based on your PAT related primary stats.
SUPPORT SUMMONS
PAT: Various abilities that determine the healing or CC options for the summoned entity
SAT: Gain a pet that heals you slowly when you have been out of combat for more than 30 seconds and are stationary.
SUMMONING MASTERY
PAT: Multiple smaller summons, single larger summons, cooperative summons
SAT: Can support group summons, but not lead them. If you attack summoned creatures then they take additional damage.

TANK
We will see how Intrepid decide to resolve this.
Taunts need to work in such a way as both PvE and PvP must choose to target the Tank or suffer a consequence.
Maybe once you are provoked you can't tab target anyone else until the provoke times out or someone else provokes you more?
A War Cry could be used as a initial taunt to provoke enemies.
They could also fit into Block, Parry and Dodge as a passive counter ability. i.e. enemy attacks, Tank dodges and taunts enemy.
Tanks will have melee abilities, but tied in with their role as a Tank, which makes them more likely to be a counter attack.
BLOCK
PAT: Various abilities related to using a shield or heavy armor. Both versus melee and missile.
SAT: an improved passive blocking ability with a shield or heavy armour.
PARRY
PAT: Various abilities related to melee parry with "free" counter attacks.
SAT: an improved passive melee parrying ability with a melee weapon.
DODGE
PAT: Various abilities related to movement, avoiding attacks, including AoE.
SAT: an improved passive dodge ability.
RESISTANCE
PAT: Various abilites related to reducing damage from elemental attacks (maybe with a reflection %age to nearest enemy?), poisons, or making CC less effective.
SAT: Resistance %age to elemental attacks and poisons. Small but worthwhile.

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