Shattered Kingdoms

paladins are better than hellions
everything is better than necromancers
crucible skillsets are worse than hammer/fist
imperial skillsets are okay but only really effective in a large pbase/large numbers of imperials

@dulrik

I don't think one cabal skill or spell set sets them apart. They are different for different reasons and each pay dividends to certain classes over others. The fact that hellions and necros are under powered is very true though.

excited to see your up-and-coming MC or Crucible character

Yeah me too. Giant necro 4 life.

Would it be broken to have shield wall give a strong boost to shield block when fighting alone, or outside of shield wall? Nothing major, but enough to play a front row fighter without another front row fighter to make the skill active? Partying up should still be more advantageous, if only just. Also consider shield wall working when standing g beside a legions guard?

I’ve always thought the crucible skill set to be fairly beefy for casters. Can anyone think of a minor boost to an already in-place spell? Perhaps a summonable mana dork that any cruci member can summon. You don’t have to be a sorc or priest to get those condors or whatever the common summon is.

Necros should revive minimal order lag. O all bash is a death sentence when you have 2 rounds of order lag. Technically speaking, they’re probably communicating telepathically. Make their order lag dependent on intelligence instead of charisma?
Also someone mentioned evasion. That’s not a bad idea, at a glance. If these two fail, increase the abilities of undead, or add one OP undead that’s always gonna be that tanky front row fighter.

Lower concentration on Dominate and slightly increase the max skill level thats dom-able.

Also, re-implement CRS and relic stealing, but don’t tie it to cabal skills. Inner guardian strength increases, but you don’t lose your abilities if you don’t have your relic. the RP of dominating your enemy is something lacking between warring factions. Off topic, but think about it.

CRS was a failure and should not be re-implemented.

Necromancers should have an ability that allows them to order undead, including order all undead, without any order lag on success. I advocated for this 4 years ago, still think it would be good now. That'd be all they need to be competitive, because it would let them spellcast while still being able to use an undead army.

I think removing order lag is a good start for necros.

I don't think shield wall should work alone, but I think it could work 50% of normal shield wall when grouped with an npc or pc that is wearing a shield without the shield wall skill.

Dominate is just crap, and I don't see any redeeming in that spell. I rather see Necros and Hellions get an evasion like protection to help not get raped by paladins and warlocks. Maybe let intimidate give sanc type protection for damage and spells when fighting through it as well as death shroud.

Shield wall should work with anyone in your group if they are in the same row as you. The player base is just not large enough to support the MC having that many people in it.

Dominate shouldn't use concentration and just have it last a certain amount of time.

Necromancers need something defensive. Evasion probably provides the right type of buff, but it isn't very thematic. What if vamp touch was a persistent effect that kept healing the necro?

I agree with all of the points in Jenn's post. If pbase numbers were higher the MC would be better off. There's have been many times where the MC dominated everyone.

Crucible skills need very minor tweaks in order to be made effective. TB needs to be changed from AoE to a group-effect, like cone of cold. The saving throw for UM needs a large buff. I also think GL needs an additional effect such as a penalty to concentration or casting speed. EN and CN are fine. These changes would inadvertently buff hellions and necros in ways they both need, as all necromancers should be in the Crucible.

Doesn't address the broken and OP nature of the Fist skillset which is perpetuated by ki-straps - a weapon sub-type created solely to buff a cabal that needed zero buffs. Guerrilla EQ-explosions by cloth priests who just word out, rinse repeat, is BS.