Fixing up Stun Skills


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Fixing up Stun Skills

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7/19/2015 15:32:11

Exploding Penguin
Moderator

In a strategy game random luck that is extremely impactful in battles should not exist. Like stuns.

Here are some ideas on how to change the current stun skills to still maintain an interesting secondary effect which can be used with other builds while removing the whole random luck factor. The skills might still need some buffs on their damage numbers but this thread will be focused on replacing the 25% stun chance secondary effect with other ones.

Overload:
The next turn your opponent's deflect damage reduction is reduced by 65% of its original value. For example, if they would deflect 100% damage (which is never possible but we will use this for example's sake) then instead they will deflect you for 35% damage should they deflect a ranged attack used next turn.

What this does is provide a far more reliable effect which supplements a lot of problems that overload has, mainly that building high support leaves you vulnerable to deflections. Overload now serves as a skill with a secondary which provides more consistent damage on the following turn.

Stun Grenade -> Frag Grenade (renamed):
Ignores 10% of the target's defense and improves the damage of the next attack by 8% (+1% per skill point invested) for a maximum of +17% more damage.

This buffs the overall usefulness of the skill as it will do more damage on initial impact and can be used in conjunction with other skills like multi shot to deal tons of damage. If you have a well-invested grenade your opponent will have to be cautious as the extra % damage is not too much (+102 damage on a move that does 600 damage base) given the skill's cost but can be used to threaten opponents into recovering energy earlier so that they can use field medic.

Plasma Grenade:
Base damage: -20 at all levels
Scaling damage: -5% scaling ratio
For each 1% of the target's missing energy this skill does 1.35 + (0.15%) damage. At max the damage boost is 135 flat damage + 15% more base damage.

This cranks up CH's ability to drain very large amounts of energy in a single turn, as it is now combined with a threat. High-tech builds now have a bit more synergy and the unreliable stun effect has been replaced with a damage upgrade to a skill, although prerequisites must be met for the skill to do very threatening amounts of damage. The flat damage allows the bonus damage to still be noteworthy on builds that don't put 100+ points into technology, although the synergy with EMP grenade will be weaker and the bonus damage slightly less.

Maul:
Performs a melee attack which ignores 20% defense/resistance and grants bonus rage whist reducing the damage dealt by the opponent's next attack within 3 turns.
Bonus Rage: 15% (+3% of normal rage gained per skill point)
Damage reduction on opponent's next attack: 8% (+2% per skill point)

Fits into merc's theme of having the best control over rage gain. Damage reduction on an opponent reduces the rage they would normally gain on their next attack and the at max +42% more rage on the attack itself gives a nice boost. Aside from that the skill itself at level 1 maintains its ability to be a one-point wonder where the 20% defense/resistance ignoring is very applicable and useful.

The whole goal is to remove stuns from the game in favor of more reliable secondary effects. Stuns should not be completely random game-winning moves because that drains a lot of the strategy out of a PvP game which is supposed to focus on it. These suggestions are probably not entirely balanced but they do offer an alternative to the current problem concerning stun skills' impact being absolutely random, arguably almost doubling in effect every 25% of the time which in my opinion should not be happening.

< Message edited by Exploding Penguin -- 7/20/2015 15:58:00 >