Shattered Kingdoms

I vaguely recall speaking with Algorab (and Meissa maybe?) about Hellions when I played one last year.

I believe tweaking the concentration and mana drain on Dominate was actually something that was on the table, and part of me thinks maybe the mana did actually get tweaked?

I honestly can't remember.

My personal recommendation to "fix" hellions is still a pretty simple one.

Give them a passive combat skill that is essentially "Hellions are considered to be Specialized with all weapons of the polearm subtype".

This is my recommendation because it seems the simplest to implement.

Trying to fix maledictions/saves/etc just seems like way more work and an extra halberd/bill/glaive auto attack from a hellion is IMO enough to bump them to be competitive and useful.

Making hellfire a ranged spell was something I think Algorab had suggested, but IDK how well that would fit the class and that wouldn't really be something that'd fix them.

The biggest thing that sucks is that while Hellions never really ate any specific nerfs, and Paladins never got any specific buffs, a bunch of little things over the years just slowly widened the gap between them to astounding levels.

Even when I was playing my hellion, I didn't really care that Paladin easily 1v1's hellion (barring huge eq/player knowledge disparity), my issue with this dichotomy is simply that Paladin is an infinitely better class all around than Hellion.

Paladin is quite possibly the best class in the game for pvp and pve, with no real peer. Something that is sort of influenced by how astoundingly well the 2 lightie Cabal ability sets stack on top of the Paladin one. (Where the Hellion cabal options are 'nice' they don't really promote the class's power level to a whole new tier.)

IDK how long you've been playing again, but if you had experienced Asither or Trag's paladin at all (sorry trag, I forget the name), you'd probably be laughing. IDK if there's currently a paladin of that tier of knowledge/eq/player skill around, but the class basically just wins SK, the end. And I'm saying this as someone who played alongside them both a ton, not out of any "saltiness". I played an Aludra priest with Trag's paladin and honestly, that particular combo is just game breaking.

Hellion meanwhile is almost always an inferior option in a formation to some other class.

It's really sad because Hellion has probably the best lore/theme/rp identity as a class in the game, except for the fact that none of their RP identity is backed up by their ability as a class.

Edited Continuations -- Even when you get away from things like "direct power" in combat, Paladin has some of the best utility in the game in the form of Locate Object and Call Armor. Hellion utility is...rift.

Paladins get CONSECRATE ARMOR.

Hellions get CONSECRATE WEAPON.

The disparity just between those two things is pretty laughable in and of itself. Paladins can completely enchant their entire armor set. All 7 pieces, with MP or AP, the desired enchants. Hellions can enchant their 1 weapon. Except they can't even put speed on them because it's not enchant, so rip.

Some very simple fixes that would require absolutely no coding beyond putting a new spell on Hellions is give them Locate Object and Consecrate Armor.

Consecrate Armor would honestly be huge for another reason too. That reason being that, every time I come back to SK, darkie priests seem to be incredibly rare. Due to the fact that the entirety of the Darkie religious spell list is awful and brings no utility to anything. Then lighties have things like Devotion and Accelerated Healing.

That's honestly another issue that really needs to be addressed some day.

Like, there's a reason that for years now, the vast majority of priests are lighties. The spells are just flat out better, and it's not even close.

I personally flat out won't play a priest that isn't Aludran. Devotion is just that absurd. Accelerated healing is good now too, but not that crazy.

Darkie priests get, uh...

Yeah.

And the answer is not to nerf the lightie spells (or Paladins for that matter), it's to make the darkie ones better.

Nerfs = No fun and kill interest.
Buffs = Fun and spark interest.

Warpath should work on any same-aura character/NPC the protest casts it on (dark aura, generally).

Feast of Fear should be group affecting. It should apply a max of +2 to each group member with the priest while debuffing the opposing party.

These things make it really super nice to party up with a darkie priest. You're not only getting healed, you're getting buffed up, too.

I also think vamp touch should heal the group but that's a different topic.

Thanks for taking the time to jump in on the random recommendations and offer up some good ideas.

I like the idea of Feast of Fear almost being like a spell-based rally for stats. It might be overpowered, but then again I am not certain how heavily stats factor into the facets of being OP versus enchants. Maybe have it add peak wis/str or some odd pair of stats for the group, but allow it to still supplement all stats up to max like it does now. Or only peak for priest but everybody gets topped off stat wise?

I also like the idea of warpath being aura limited rather than religion limited. None of the lightie religion spells are religion limited, are they?

Thuban still seems like the best spell for flipping a PvE switch on hellions.

I agree with a lot of what TacoRobot said - important to highlight that few games have ever got more fun when the nerf bat was taken as a balancing tool (as a general rule), but I think Dulrik does really know that so I don't say it to be pithy. Call armor was actually a really fun mechanic that highlights the fun of just adding quality of life things. I didn't want to harp on hellions too hard as I putzed with adventurer classes that could use a little quality of life love as well. I just landed on hellion as an inn-camping RP masochist. Adding some quality of life or fun things would just be nice.

I agree with locate object + consecrate armor. Give paladins consecrate weapon. I have to offer a decent counteroffer for Aludra + Paladin is Thuban + Hellion, which mainly just turns a Hellion into a Great Value (tm) paladin. It's nice how useful GM protection and hellion debuffs are in PvE - I've been enjoying max art (I think art affects casting on NPCs, right? feels like spells land pretty easily). It's just hard to overstate how rough it feels with slowing down combat and dealing with mana issues as a hybrid class.

I was hoping envenom would be a plug and play fix that fits with the idea of more damage combined with the magical damage/malediction theme. Almost 0 coding burden, but I'm in the process of tinkering with it to understand if that's actually a meaningful boost. I love the sound of it on paper.

I always thought that hellions needed frenzy, not consecrate armor or locate object. But I also think TacoRobot knows a fair bit more than I do so probably they have a better suggestion.

I thought Truesight and Phoenix Heart both required someone to be in the same religion to receive (unless truesight is self-cast only?). I don't see an issue with them being cast on white-aura only characters just like frenzy from a white-aura priest.

The idea about Feast of Fear benefiting the group was a response to the observation that people do not tend to play dark-aura priests. The point is that dark-aura priests should be casting spells that benefit a group to entice people into grouping with them. Feast of Fear would be nice to have as any class. Warpath is also good for anyone who wants to attack someone that might have sanctuary. As you mentioned, distort aura has some nice interactions, also. Priest spells should benefit the group.

On that note, the Nashira spell is bad. Maybe it should be more like accelerated healing but for refresh (like, it should keep on regening movement points).

Frenzy is honestly also a good option.

Paladins get it, hellions don't, again. Which is pretty weird in and of itself on like a thematic level for me and it would help hellions be whatever this hybrid support melee/magic dmg thing they're supposed to be is.

Truesight is selfcast only unless it's changed over the years (which it very well might have, I've missed quite a lot in the year-long breaks I tend to take here and there).

I honestly think all the "religion only" spells could probably do with losing that restriction. They might need a small tweak or something to compensate here and there (like the Alshain one would probably need to lose the revive thing? idk).

I'm personally not actually directly familiar with Feast of Fear, so I can't say much on it aside from knowing that it's definitely nothing impressive.

And yeah, the Nashira spell is pretty rough. A couple CON, some HP, and fortitude, just uh. Doesn't feel like it does anything. Especially when you weigh it against similar buffs that boost 'survivability'. Devotion/acc healing/luck/etc. None of them do the exact same thing, but they are effectively just that, an extra defensive buff you can give your peeps, which makes them easier to "tier", imo.

What about changing up poison?

There is no save against poison. If the casting of the spell is successful then the poison effect lands. The victim can save for reduced damage, but they still have the affect.

Now cure poison is suddenly a viable spell because it counters an actual problem. Poison is an effective strategy. Debuffing is an effective strategy.

IS WILL PLAYING NOW

here to prove with my now limited game knowledge hellions are at least fun if not s tier

(help im in danger.jpg)

This happened at the same time the mana cost to cast and maintain dominate was reduced last October, so about a year back. It looks like the helpfile edit either didn't take on hellfire or got reverted during the changeover, but that has been re-edited as well as of a few minutes ago.

I think the change fit the class theme alright, but wasn't expected to be a large powershift. Main intent was to try and give them their own take on a bit of the toolbox stuff Paladins have had in a slightly different form by adding some of the ranged functionality from flamestrike to what was already one of a hellion's more powerful unique abilities in a low/no-code way. More damaging than the crossbow bolt they previously had available, but realistically more of a buff around the fringes of an already decent damage ability than a game changer.