In this post we will be discussing in fine detail how the salaman race of Forglar Swamp can arise from the ash and take back viability in rank game play. I want all ideas and thoughts on such progress and how we can fix these little guys. In an earlier post, it was said that they have a great stealth/melee field, but lack synergy and range dmg. This recent patch has buffed the S.Sniper to a viable state, but we need more. Our options for range salaman are limited atm but could easily be done. Salaman Pyrologist(salman are all tech based in lore. Names maybe should fit this?) or Pyromancer Currently this little guy is a 2-4 with meh dmg and meh abilities. What should we do with the little fella? We can easily make him a range squishy glass cannon that deals fire dmg and leaves DOT on enemies, or make him a melee guy who goes in and does a ton of passive dmg to the enemy(ex: Bog Toad) Now I understand, we want more range, so why make this guy into a melee? Well we can make any salaman into what we want, and personally when I see this art and lore, I imagine a salaman blowing stuff up everywhere and catching stuff on fire. Now onto range- We have Negamage which is good, but his kit lack's quality range material. He is more likely a range support. Hunter- who is a glass cannon at heart who seems fine. That's it. Literary 2 runes(not counting Flame Salaman). So I was thinking, we make Salaman Commando a range 1-3, we make Salaman Sentry a 2-5 with sentinel, and we give other salaman some range abilities again Such abilities stated would be like Lightning Skewer on daredevil again(reworking him so he isn't to pricey) giving bombs on Ninja and, giving Picket fire attack(he is holding a torch) We can rework salaman into a theme that is about 3 main points really. 1. Evasiveness 2. Cheap costs 3. Racial evolving around tech(equipment/relics) This is just scrapping the service because a lot of salaman runes need some loving, like my boy Dervish. They have a great foundation to start with, and we can make them viable again guys! I just want some feedback, and please lets be polite on these post. I don't want any harsh words. This is a zone of creativity and positive feedback right now, we are gonna fix this race, and move onto the next one! Sincerely, Rorschach
I do want to say that it hurts me a little bit on the inside each time I run Salaman Negamage. He just seems so lackluster for his cost unless you run into a summon-focused bg, at which point he is pretty good. Is anyone ever happy to run him? The only salaman I am completely satisfied with are Salaman Rook and Salaman Soldier. I do like your general idea of thematic focus. Would we be trading out the Immune: Fire racial for Evasive: 1 or is the plan to have this evasiveness expressed in some other manner? For daredevil a straight up trade of death nova: electricity for lightning skewer seems like it would work, assuming we ended up with a less expensive racial. Plus the idea of the salaman daredevil jumping out and immediately taking a shot at something with the skewer amuses me, no matter how infrequently it would actually happen.
In the general idea actually almost every salaman is gonna get changed with this new racial I am working on. I am really close to being done and once I am, I am gonna show Sok and if he green lights it I will show you guys what I am cooking
The Negamage rework will most likely in my own draft lose weaken spells but he will gain some pretty gnarly abilities
Give me a few more hours and later tonight you should hopefully see my ideas in Fs forums. Sorry but RL has been kicking my ass recently
One idea concerning trappers, which includes Salaman Trapper: Why don't we make these trapper champions a bit more eficient by introducing an ability that deploys a random trap(maybe not poison cloud) instead of occupying upgrades with one of each trap? I think some Salamans could get the new equipment abilities(surge, hunter), and reworking one of them(many options available) to get scrapper. I don't like the auto fire immunity, but it removing it would feel weird. Maybe I just got used to it. I'm not sure if we should implement a racial, but the fact that there are so many salamans and they have no reason to be played together sure sounds like a waste. One correction(unless you meant the non-basic fire attack), Picket already as Attack: Fire at base. Ah, and I only have one nerf to suggest: remove supercharged from Rook, it really makes her combat capabilities go to waste.
Why not just turn Nora Thief into a cooldown abilitiy? I see no overwhelming reason to make her use the charge mechanic.
Having multiple trap lines means you can layer them, or at least put out more of them. If you only have one random trap to put out, your output is reduced. Multiple trap lines is not a problem. On a related note, this is part of why I mentioned Grappling Hook as a potential upgrade line for Salaman Commando in Skullinferno's introduction thread. It'd be nice to have some more in-faction ways to dump enemies onto trap piles. Moog is great and all but... I still think this can and possibly should be handled without a racial, but of course I'm still willing to consider ideas. Just... I really hope they aren't all Equip based. Semi-Aquatic is annoying enough, as something that requires additional investment to tie together. And if it's "free" equips I feel like that overlaps too much with IS' booze. Er... what? I can understand maybe removing Supercharged as a nerf, but for completely different reasons. In no way does it reduce her combat effectiveness or make them "go to waste." If you're being overly cautious because of Nora Thief that's your own play error.
Her nora gen only takes time to work. She's doesn't have to fight, she just needs to stay stealthed, contest undefended fonts and steal nora to pay for herself. It's not a theory or possibility, that's how most players use her.
That's not reducing her ability to fight, it's just giving people an option. It's not like she'd become more combat capable with just Attack Charged or Death Charged. Sure, higher ranks of Attack Charged might make players more inclined to fight with her, but it doesn't improve her fighting prowess. Supercharged doesn't become less efficient if she's used to attack things occasionally. And she's not really a rune you can attack with more than occasionally regardless of which charge mechanic you choose. She's too squishy outside of stealth, and getting rid of Supercharged wouldn't fix that either. As long as you're using her for something (Font harass, threatening a 14DMG double-tap, whatever) her abilities aren't being "wasted."
You can just say you want her with supercharged. You can distort my point of view as much as you want, but her current role is stealthed nora gen. Having 0 dmg would make no difference.
Now I have the understanding that the community is willing to work with me on this, seeing how I proposed a extreme rework to the current salaman race, to make them very elusive and anti-range, instead of buffing their range. This will help them deal with the range gap that hurts their theme, and also help them gain some synergy together. First off, remove Fire Immunity from all salaman. That alone decreases all Salaman by 6 nora. Intended idea of the rework-All salaman will be getting a minor/extreme change to help flow with new racial ability. Salaman are going to be a weak hp wise race, with low nora cost(highest being high 70's/low 80's) New racial- Nora'Fusion: Whenever a friendly equipment or relic is played, you gain 1 nora for every friendly salaman in play(max 10). When a friendly relic is deployed from the runedock, friendly salaman's CD is reduced by 2. When a friendly equipment is played from the runedock, salaman gain +1 dmg for 10 turns(Max 5 dmg) This idea is to make a bg less oriented on spells, and more oriented on equip/relics, due to lore that the salaman are the best nora weapon smiths in all of poxnora. Cost+8 Champions are now intended to have at least 1 ability that has a CD so it will work with the new racial. Ambassador Berchani- Amphibious, attack physical, multi-attack 1, Nora Fusion, Tier 1 upgrades: Battle Harden 2(7) Coordination(6), Surge: Salaman(5) Tier 2 upgrades: Dodge 1(6),2(10) Nora Cost: Base stats alone= 45. Nora price with other base abilities= 62 nora. 73-79 nora max. Salaman Soldier- Base cost 44 nora. Melee physical, Amphibious, multi 1, nora fusion, Warrior Foe Nora Cost- 64 Upgrade Tier 1: Poison 2(5), Rend 2( 6), Vigorous Cries(10) Upgrade Tier 2: Dodge 1(6)/2(10), 74-84 Picket is on the fence atm(sorry that pun was to much to pass up) he either becomes the scout or a rogue. I would prefer scout, and we could rework Sentry into something different. That is up to you. If you agree, I can work him with the community. Rook- Base Amphibious, melee: physical, Stealth, Nora Thief, Nora Fusion. Keep her the same but one small touch. +2 for the new racial and a small nerf. Upgrade Tier 1: Supercharged 1, Attack Charge, Death Charged 1 Upgrade Tier 2: Pillage, Pilfer(10), Rdy 1(4) If you like what you see so far, I have reworked all the salaman except maybe 2 atm. I would type them out for you here, but frankly I am so tired and my fingers hurt, so if you like it so far, we can talk about this via in game or more through this. The idea is that every salaman will have a range evade or range ability to use, with the CD reduction of the racial they will be easy to use. I have reworked majorly some champs like Fire Salaman, Dervish, and Trapper.
I'd rather you not distort my views, and if you're going to say that I've misconstrued your points, point out how. I'm not against getting rid of Supercharged (and/or nerfing Supercharged), as I said in my original post on the subject. However, it's incredibly silly to make claims like her having "0 DMG would make no difference." It's dishonest to say that Supercharged makes her somehow less capable of fighting than any other charging mechanic of equivalent cost. If you're spending 70 Nora for her just as a nora gen, you need to wait at least 12 rounds for her to make a profit, including the amount lost by the opponent. Her ability to fight, and her presence on the battlefield is a large part of why she gets run, but, say, Deepcave Extractor doesn't.
This is what I have sent Sokolov so far. I agree that rook needs maybe a rework, but frankly atm I don't want to do the extra work. I still have a lot to go, and my RL stress is real. This business trip to NY is killing my sleep and my game time. I will try to post the full one tonight if I get to it, but I just worked a 12 hour day and now I am cooking my wife dinner. I plan on snuggling her and watching a movie until she is happily asleep. I have my laptop but idk how accurate my thinking will be on here. If not today, defo tomorrow.
By the way, I made some other designs that may or may not be relevant: http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php?threads/yet-more-salaman-concepts.12346/ I certainly have my own biases, as I'm sure your aware, so I'll try to set them aside for a moment, but it may color my views somewhat, keep that in mind. That out of the way; this is incredibly complicated. It does 3 different things. Nora Gen, Ability CD reduction (if I read that right, otherwise go go Salaman Attrition), and DMG boost. It's as complex as Jellebrium Mind, albeit with the bonus that it doesn't need to be on everything to function, and more intuitive/easier to keep track of. I don't think that's a good thing, but I'm not entirely against it purely based on complexity. This however bothers me. It restricts the design space. Also, it makes higher ranks of things like Dodge actually worse (sort of) compared to lower ranks. Using Dodge or Block multiple times in the same turn won't make it more efficient, which matters because: Of things like that. Not just that, but by having a cheap way to reduce CD, you have to worry about things like Nora Thief (which gained a CD for a reason). So not only are some abilities "useless" but some are too useful by far, and thus get locked out of the design space, as do Salaman that don't have some significant activated ability... which also means vulnerability to Distract (and possibly Confuse) on all the things. FWIW: I'd prefer Picket be Scout and Sentry reworked.
