RobynJoanne
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Now that the entire Mermazon Champion set has been released, I think it's a good time to review it.
Firstly, I'd like to thank Kam and Ianthe for their hard work. Kam's been taking feedback from the community regarding the set and has already implemented some changes that people have requested, and what I've seen from the Mermazon Champion armor's mechanics show a mechanically complex item that would have taken a lot of time to make, especially considering Ianthe also seems to have made the Voidforged Celestial Arsenal items this week.
Let's take a look at the items' effects before their specific implementations of the effects.
Pet: DefBoost/EleShield
Shield: Regen
Misc: Heal Resist Poison and Regen damage increase
Weapon: EleVuln/Siphon Poison
Armor: Drowning/Status Cleanse and Regen/Poison eaters
That's a lot of status effects, which is not inherently a bad thing (I can hardly make any accusations when my Wingweaver Set suggestion is a monster of many different status effects). However, there is a clear division in how the effects work. Defboost, EleShield, and Drowning all work to reduce damage the player takes through dodging, reducing damage, or stunning the monster. Regen and Siphon heal the player after damage is dealt while EleVuln supports Siphon's heal. They're two distinct but somewhat contradictory paths to a defensive set. Healing is limited to how much damage one's taken, and those damage reduction effects should ideally minimize damage taken, thus limiting healing. Thus, Mermazon seems to have an inherent dissonance in its methods to reach its design goals. The set would benefit from focusing on either approach instead of doing both at once. I'm the healing fanatic, so I, of course, support the healing approach, but one person should not speak for the entire community. Still, from a purely practical standpoint, it's easier to take the healing approach because more items already support that, so it would take less work to shift the set in that direction.
To change the pet in this way, there are many potential options. The easiest is to follow the same template as is used for the current pet. Pay 50% damage + MC and apply a Siphon/Regen corresponding to that amount of power. A more involved approach would be to somehow use the new status valuation code used in the armor.
The armor is the controversial piece. Before we explore it, I'd like us to take a look at a more successful status eating set that this set inevitably draws comparisons towards due to being of the same element and from a Donation Contest. That's right, let's discuss Paleskull. Paleskull has three items that eat status effects: the weapon, pet, and armor. The weapon can eat EleEmpower to inflict Choke with a save roll. The pet can either inflict Choke with a save roll or eat Choke to give the player EleEmpower. The armor can either inflict Choke with a save roll or eat Choke to give the player EleEmpower, essentially acting as a bigger version of the pet. There are multiple themes here. Firstly, the items all have save rolls. This lets players double the effectiveness of the resources they pay. Secondly, two of the three items can inflict the same status they eat, letting them be essentially self-sufficient. Finally, when combined together, the items can form a cycle and use the save rolls to double the effectiveness with each iteration (up to a point due to eater caps), which also lets the player choose to have either status effect applied at a given time depending on needs. These are what make Paleskull work so well both as a full set and as singular items.
How does Mermazon Champion armor work? The first skill inflicts Drowning with a save. The second skill eats Regen to randomly remove a negative status effect on you with no save. This is QC but locks you to the armor and is usable once per turn. The third skill eats Poison to inflict Drowning with a save. This is also QC but locks you to the armor and is usable once per turn. I think there's a clear difference in how Mermazon works compared to Paleskull. On its own, Mermazon cannot inflict any of the status effects that it eats. When it does eat a status effect, there's not always a save roll involved (Regen, as a beneficial status effect, usually doesn't have a save roll, and indeed, there are no sources of Regen that have a save roll). Without a save roll, what's the reason for a status eater? Why not just pay the 50% Melee SP directly instead? You have to pay the same amount of resources to gain the Regen, so adding that extra step just means needing other items. There is no way to make the status eaters into a cycle, as they do not lead into each other.
On top of those differences, Mermazon also has some confounding design choices. Both status eaters are QC but then lock the player to the armor. The main benefit of QC effects is that they give the player more leeway to act after using the effect. This removes that. The main benefit of staying in an armor is to be able to add the power of a turn to augment an effect. QC effects have no such thing. This is essentially the worst aspects of both with none of the benefits. Now, it's understandable why the devs have chosen to lock the armor after using the QC skills. A major source of the problem that is AQ powercreep is caused by rampant QC effects. Still, this choice only adds to the problem with the armor. The randomness of the second skill is also a problem when it's only usable once per turn. There are many monsters that inflict multiple status effects on the player, and the player has no control over the effect. Players never like losing control over an outcome. Drowning increasing Energy resist also has no synergy with a set that has no way to deal Energy damage on its own, though that's not as big of an issue as some may think it is since this is an FD set; you're expected to sit in the armor for its defenses not for a high damage EleLocked skill.
That's not to say Mermazon armor has nothing going for it. Eating Poison to inflict Drowning is a great concept. In fact, Mermazon's QC Drowning skill should be one of the cheapest ways to inflict a Freeze effect since there will almost always be two save rolls involved with its use: one to inflict the Poison and one to eat the Poison to inflict Drowning. Two save rolls means x4 to the effectiveness of the resources paid at first. The Drowning SPell is also not bad for Freeze infliction. It's a -10 Penalty save roll, making it easier to inflict, and stuns protect against the dangers of using an EleLocked attack. It's a bit of a mystery why one'd need multiple sources of a single status effect in an armor, but the skills aren't bad on their own.
We can also follow Paleskull design principles to help Mermazon. The current amount skill pays 110% Melee, and it could be slightly overcharged to pay double that to inflict two turns of Drowning (or shift the save to a neutral one and not have to pay more SP). Then, the third skill could be flipped and eat Drowning to inflict Water Siphon. You need two turns of Drowning since one turn will be lost when you lose a turn after inflicting the status effect. I know I praised the third skill in its current iteration, but the concept of having multiple save rolls for an eater is still there if reversed like this. Since you're locked to the armor, the Siphon should then get EleComp. Finally, the second skill could be changed to eat Poison to remove harmful status effects with no limit besides the Melee % value of the Poison on the monster. Thus, all the skills work on the armor by themselves, and there's a clear point to the status eaters.
That's just one idea and not even one I necessarily think is the best. After all, I did say in the start to focus on just the effects that benefit the healing effects, and Drowning isn't one of them. Instead, think of this as an elucidation of how an idea for how the set could change. I hope this can start this discussion on ideas to help make the set better.
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