Skill: Nimbus of Judgement buff

Suggestions for game development and improvements. One suggestion to a thread, please.
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Huojin
Posts: 51
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:07 pm

Skill: Nimbus of Judgement buff

Post by Huojin »

Nimbus of Death - Damage Floor raised by 2, all kills in the area give you 1 AP.
Nimbus of Conquest - +5% accuracy for Good characters, -5% accuracy for Evil characters, passive infusion effect doubled.
Nimbus of War - +2 damage to all attacks, including against characters, pets, wards, glyphs, and barricades.

Nimbus of Judgement - Good MO actions heal, Evil MO actions hurt?


One of these things is not like the other! I think it's pretty even between Death, Conquest and War as to which is the best choice in any given moment, but Judgement seems really underpowered compared to the other 3. In a practical sense, it seems very unlikely to come into play unless... there are a lot of injured people in your stronghold for some reason, or perhaps you want to jump in with the tanks on a raid to lay down the Nimbus and hop out, so they can try to snipe the pet masters. Very niche use, and unlikely situations at that.

It also has anti-synergy with Hand of Zealotry and raids by Good factions on Unaligned factions, with Good raiders accruing damage to themselves.


Alternative Proposals:

1. Nimbus of Judgement has a "Hand of Zealotry"-like effect, perhaps limited by status ticks and/or reducing Morality loss. If this were in place alongside the current effects, it would off set the anti-synergy with HoZ currently in place. If it were a replacement for that effect, it would actually be good. Lore-wise it also matches up as "the relentless hunter zeal of the Exalted Harbinger ... [draws] most strongly upon Namm's aspect of the Word." And as well all know, CopGod loves Hand of Zealotry and judging neutrals.

2. Nimbus of Judgement has an effect similar to Redeemed's "Candle of the Soul", and has a Defence penalty. Candle of the Soul is -10% on a targeted individual, but for a 90 CP skill this should be something more on the order of Dark Oppressor's Terrifying Aura (-15% defence, -15% accuracy). Perhaps -10% across the area is a good middle ground.

3. Keep the same premise of Good/Evil MO related actions, but just give the Good MO actions some added utility - perhaps flat additional damage as with Nimbus of War, or damage equivalent to the Morality Change that would be caused by the attack?

4. Just extend the duration of the Nimbus of Judgement from 15 minutes so that you could conceivably use it on your stronghold at large. Even the Holy Champion's Divine Resolve lasts almost 4 hours, c'maahhhn.


More ideas for how to buff Nimbus of Judgement to be less crap are, of course, welcome.
SaltedSalmon
Posts: 301
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:49 am

Re: Skill: Nimbus of Judgement buff

Post by SaltedSalmon »

What? Nimbus of Judgement is mostly entirely beneficial to you, since the Good gameplan is earning morality. You can pop it for raid defense OR attack and it'll go over well.
On the other hand, Nimbus of Conquest can generate evil infusion if you screw up raiding someone, Nimbus of War is outright neutral, and Nimbus of Death won't really generate you AP and is mostly for raid defense (I think).
It also has anti-synergy with Hand of Zealotry and raids by Good factions on Unaligned factions, with Good raiders accruing damage to themselves.
How so
Hand of Zealotry lets you gain morality by hitting neutral people. That's synergy, not anti-synergy.
Huojin
Posts: 51
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:07 pm

Re: Skill: Nimbus of Judgement buff

Post by Huojin »

Raid Defence scenarios are not a common enough occurrence that it justifies dropping 90 CP on this skill when all of the others have much more tangible and applicable benefits.

I don't have an issue with the downsides of Conquest. My point in comparing Judgement to the other 3 is that they all have promising active gains that warrant spending CP on them.

On the attack, Judgement is only useful if for some reason you and your raiding team are incurring damage that would be healed by the Good MO gains. Unless you're fighting active defenders (in which case the meta dictates you are largely screwed anyway), healing in that small an increment is not that helpful. Plus the Evil MO damage is like a Glyph of Pain at best.

The anti-synergy point is that if you're a Good faction raiding an Unaligned faction, particularly if they have any significant proportion of member with Neutral or Good MO, you're only harming yourself by attacking them under the Nimbus of Judgement. Which is fine, but there should be a more significant pay-off to warrant using it at all if that's the case.


Side note: Nimbus of Death is absolutely offensive, when else are you and a couple of friends busting into a room of 20-40 people to murder? It directly benefits you if you need to gain AP.
Klapaucius
Posts: 262
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 10:36 am

Re: Skill: Nimbus of Judgement buff

Post by Klapaucius »

I think by design it joins a number of skills which are only really valuable in active combat. I still think the best solution for a lot of those skills is more active combat!
Huojin
Posts: 51
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:07 pm

Re: Skill: Nimbus of Judgement buff

Post by Huojin »

I agree with that - more active combat would be nice. It's just a great pity that this skill (and others like it) are not particularly useful at present.

I'll concede that another use case for Nimbus of Judgement might be for an uberpet hunt, as with the Great Wyrm in Breath 4 (assuming the morality shifs were applicable). But considering that there aren't any uberpets at the moment, and that even when there are any the hunts have tended to be rare events, that's a big ask for a 90 CP skill.
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