Some speculations about further ability development

[Jolly Joker]

Okay, this may be fun to discuss. As everyone knows I'm playing the addon for a while. Let's base all further considerations on the premise that there will be another addon with supposedly 2 more races.

A closer look on the "structure" of the abilities shows, that there are 3 "basic" abilities for each of the common skills and 6 "advanced" abilities. It looks like each hero should have an advanced ability that could be called "native" for a hero, because it's either only available for one hero type or you need at most 2 very basic prerequisites or both, and IN THEORY there should be another more complex one (that may be shared with others).

In practise, however, not all heroes have two advanced abilities for each skill. Here's a list of one-ability skills of each hero type SO FAR: (exclamation mark behind those that are unexplainable with the "rare skill" argument)
Knight: Destructive Magic, Sorcery, Summoning Magic, War Machines (!)
Demon Lord: Leadership, Light Magic
Necromancer: Leadership, Light Magic, Luck, War Machines
Warlock: Dark Magic, Leadership, Summoning Magic (!)
Ranger: Leadership (!)
Wizard: Leadership

I've seen already, that Mana Burst will be available for Dwarves in Destructive Magic as already known skill. We will get 16 new abilities for the Dwarves, bringing the total to 88 (Dwarves will get 2 completely new abilities for Defense, Enlightenment, Leadership and Logistics and 1 for the rest).

I'm making the wild guess now, that after addon 2 we will have 108 abilities, 9 for each skill, with every hero having a native ability and a complex one.

I'm going to check this theory by trying to get one of the new Dwarven abilities for one of the old heroes.

Of course the prime candidate here for checking this theory is Leadership, since here are 5 out of 6 heroes missing their 2nd ability. Dwarves bring 2 new ones into play which would leave only ONE additional ability (if the theory is right.
The first Leadership ability of the Dwarves has something to do with Runes, so no other hero will get it. Now the second one:

EMPATHY: Each time when the Morale effect is triggered with any of the creatures in the hero’s army, the hero moves 10 percent forward along the ATB bar. (If the creature has a negative Morale effect, the hero is moved backwards).

Now, this is an abilty that everyone could get as a complex ability for Leadership EXCEPT the Necromancer. That would leave for the 9th ability one that must fit for Necros as well. (I can imagine some without problems, for example a fear effect (strengthening Banshee Howl) would be possible, an ability that might be native to Barbarians (Weapons Clatter or Battle Roar or something).)

Anyway, it looks rather interesting. I'm going to try and find Empathy for
Kythra (warlock, starts with Leadership)
Talanar (Ranger, starts with Leadership).

Worth a shot, since there are two Dungeon Heroes starting with Dark Magic is trying to find
SHRUG DARKNESS: Enemy Dark Magic spells will be cast with only 50% of effective Spellpower.
even though there are still TWO Dark Magic abilities missing.

Your thoughts?

[Mytical]

Ok not sure I understand this post (am distracted by other things right now) but I think the jist of it is that you want us to guess at what some of the new skills could be?

Well for leadership I could see something like "Dark Cover" for Necromancy that lowers morale and/or luck as Necromancers love to black out the sun before attacking (to heighten panic, ect). This would be in leadership of course. Of course it could easily be "Mercenairy's guile" which would allow them to use non-undead with no penalties with undead. Of course this is just a name I came up with, I am sure theirs would be more interesting.

In summonings you could have the skill "Greater Summoning." which would (according to how advance your summons skill is) instead of summoning elementals that spell would call units like your own. (something like level 4's for basic, 5's for advance, 6's for expert?). Or even something like add a certain % (based on skill) to all summoning spells (for duration or damage or ect).

hmm have to think on this some more, and may not be what you are asking for.

[asandir]

that greater summoning could be very powerful, but if done right might be interesting

[Mytical]

Yes but how many of the tier would still depend on Spellpower if it summons temporairy help in that fashion. As for the adding % it could be not much so again controllable.

[Jolly Joker]

I'm going to add a bit to make things a bit clearer by giving the example of Dark Magic:

3 basic abilities:
Masster of Curses, Master of Mind, Master of Pain
6 advanced abilities:
Knight: native: Fallen Knight; complex: Weakening Strike
Demon Lord: native: Weakening Strike; complex: Dark Renewal
Necro: native: Mark of the Necromancer; complex: Corrupted Soil
Warlock: native: Dark Renewal: complex none yet
Ranger: native: Corrupted Soil; complex: Seal of Darkness
Wizard: native: Seal of Darkness; complex: Dark Renewal
Dwarven: Shrug Darkness

Would be worth to check out Dwarvish Dark Magic.

[Mytical]

Sorry guess I am especially distracted here. Anyhow it is speculation right? (ie not something you know for a fact and just want to see who might be smart enough to figure it out). Well I am speculating. I will have a more complete list on the summoning one when I get my mind clearer.

Since Knight and Warlock are the only two missing that special in summoning, I think that Greater Summoning pobably wont be used. Knigths could get 'purify summoning' which weakens any summoning spells, and Warlock could get "Darker Summoning" which would cast a curse on anything 'buffed' or summoned I guess. Or even Syphon Summons - which along with the one that balances the summoning also gives the warlock some of the mana that is used to invoke the spell.

[Jolly Joker]

I'm just speculating.
If you look at the skill wheels (or any other skill and ability listing) it looks incomplete. Some of the "missing" abilities (like a second War Machines ability for the Knight) cannot be explained with the argument that it would be a rare skill for them and therefore a second one wouldn't be needed. Moreover there ARE already two abilities for "rare" skills; for example Warlocks have two Light Magic abilities.

So my guess is, when all is said and done, after the second addon, each of the supposedly nine races will have two abilities for each skill.
This theory in itself is debatable (but I will try to find proof).
Then there is some room for speculation about what the missing complex abilities for the already known heroes would be.

[okrane]

IMHO speculating about what Nival will do is kind of pointless, since we all know that they aren't very good at developping a game... so in this case what a game SHOULD be like has nothing to do with what it will be like...

As for the complex skills I find them almost useless. Well, not useless by their bonuses but by the fact that they are really hard to get. It's almost the same problem as with ultimates. Since you must be lucky to get them at a reasonable level it becomes more clear that it's better to settle for a well customised skill tree of "basic" and "native" perks that are not so difficult to achieve...
I don't believe I've ever got one of the complex perks...

The problem here is the huge part randomness plays in this game. If you could choose more accurately which skills to receive we would see more of those perks.
I do believe that a more Diablo-like approach to leveling would be better and it would encourage the use of more interesting skill combos. Or at least there should be more adventure map locations where a hero can learn specific perks or skills, like in H4 ....

[Shauku]

Ok, I'll jump in even though I don't really belive they are filling the holes. I thought Leadership for example has less abilities because of balance reasons.. And btw, you can't get the complex ability with Kythra, as the chain should go Recruitment -> Aura of Swiftness -> Empathy. Kythra starts with Estates.

What could be found in Dark Magic...I would like to see Wicked Luck. Everytime the Hero casts a Dark magic spell, a random enemy stack has a change to roll bad luck next turn, regardless of his luck value. Change depends on Hero level.

[Jolly Joker]

Couldn't disagree more. What's so difficult?
For example, the Attack skill for Necro you have
the 3 basics Battle Frenzy, Archery and Tactics
you have Cold Steel
and you have Power of Speed.
There is only one way to Power of Speed:
Battle Frenzy -> Cold Steel -> Power of Speed
Alternatively you can take Battle Frenzy and two out of Archery, Tactics and Cold Steel.
Sure, there are more complex variants, but if you start with a hero it pays to check on the skill wheel what he can (and should) get with what he already has. Then things become a bit more clear.

[okrane]

Well cold steel is not difficult, because it's a native... from what I understood. I'm talking here about Corrupted Soil for example for necro, or CounterSpell for a warlock... or any other perks that also require perks from other skills.
I mean... to get Corrupted Soil with a necro you need 13 skill points
Expert Dark, M of Curses, Mark of the Necro,
Expert Enlightment, Scholar, Lord of the undead, Dark Revelation
Skeleton Archers

This ability is useful early on, when fighting small armies, but you won't get it very soon. In fact it is a quite difficult to get this one wouldn't you agree?
you are not always offered Dark magic and Enlightment and you must get the perks you want... Additionally there are some skills that are a must and you can't sacrifice your developement in order to get this one: like Expert Necromancy in this case, or Attack, Archery and Battle Frenzy.So I guess I don't exagerate when I say that you would get this perk if lucky around level 20. So it's hard to get... and not really that strong IMO to worth the trouble...

[Jolly Joker]

I don't think, that's the way to see it. I mean, you don't start the game and make a plan for the development of your hero. And it depends. I mean, Mark of the Necro is very cool, but if you don't have neither Suffering nor Weakness in your guild Master of Curses is crap - in other words, if you get Slow and Confusion in your guild you'll probably WANT Master of Mind - badly - foregoing corrupted soil. On the other hand, if you HAVE Master of Curses for whatever reason, you'll want Mark of the Necro anyway - if Enlightenment is offered then you may just take it and THEN go for corrupted soil.
I mean, I like the way the path changes, depending on what is offered in the guild, what is offered in skills and so on. It's not fixed.

[okrane]

Yeah... but you could do this better if you could choose more accurately the perks to get. I mean let's say you have in your guild Slow and Confusion, but you are not offered M of Mind... it can happen. I would prefer if the randomness in getting the skills would not be so crucial. I mean let's say in stead of 2 primary skills ofered each time you get 4(2 to advance, and 2 new ones) and 4 perks... it would be much easier to obtain the skill you want, but still some randomness would occur... so the game won't be completely linear.... I find it better this way than waiting 4 or 5 levels in a row sometime and not getting what you need...

[Elvin]

So you believe(or at least hope ) that the blank spaces for abilities will be filled.Ok I'll give it a shot!
Light magic->Inner peace:Light blessed creatures get +1 morale.
Dark magic->Shadow embrace:Dark magic are 50% harder to dispel.
Destructive->Scorcher:Fire spells deal +20% damage for each subsequent casting on the same creature.
Summoning->Element manipulation:Allows choosing the type of summoned elementals for casting SE.
Enlightenment->Master of secrets:Gain a random spell from 1-3 lvl for each spell school you have.
Defence->Spike armour:Reflects a portion of enemy damage back to them.
Luck->Treasure hunter:Chance for getting artifacts(or getting more powerful artifacts) in chests/adventure locations(dragon utopias etc) increases.
Logistics->Stealthy:creatures ambush enemies in native terrain,gaining +5% initiative.
Sorcery->Battlemage:Spellcasting creatures get +10% initiative each time they cast a spell.
Warmachines->Engineering:Warmachines are designed to act faster.

...are some generic abilities I've come up with.Don't mind the descriptions and (sometimes)unappropriate effects as I didn't give them much thought

[Caradoc]

The new skills are something I'm really looking forward to. JJs predictions make sense to me and explain some of the oddities we see now. However, I have never pictured dwarves as a particulary Empathetic race. I was expecting skill related to arms and armor.

I would very much like to see some revisions to the skill trees. Some of the perks have requirements that no one would want to pursue them. Consider Counterstrike for the Ranger, which needs Light Magic (OK), Summoning Magic (Maybe), Enlightenment (Umm), and Sorcery (Yuk). That does not leave much for fighting does it?

[Jolly Joker]

@Okrane
Well, yes, I understand what you mean and I understand why you would like it. Me, I find it the other way more interesting. You know, seeing a very limited choice and form a plan on the fly instead of having a plan and evry chance to get it done. But surely that's a matter of taste.
@Elvin
Verny nice! Actually, Shadow Embrace is there, however it's called Eternal Light and is a Dwarven perk.
Treasure Hunter, Stealthy and Engineering I find brillant. Inner Peace is a bit redundant, I fear. I think, it makes more sense the other way round: Leadership: Power of Darkness: Enemy units lose -2 Morale (needs Dark Magic of course)

[Kilop]

50 % harder to dispell ???
This is gonna be uber !!!

[Adicto]

I would like too see this new ones (I think the game needs some things to counter light magic):

Sorcery --> Spellbreaker (The enemy hero cannot cast the same light or summoning spell 2 consecutive times)
Dark Magic --> Sudden Darkness (Dark Spells cannot be annulled by light magic spells, only weakened if the light spell is not casted with the same mastery. Ex: Expert Suffering - Advanced Righteous Might = -3 DF; Expert Suffering - Expert Righteous Might = Both spells annulled)

[ThunderTitan]

Sorcery --> Spellbreaker (The enemy hero cannot cast the same light or summoning spell 2 consecutive times)

I belive there's a hero that already does that.

[DaemianLucifer]

No,not really.He has a chance to block the spell from ever being repeated in that combat.With this feat you would be able to repeat it,but not the round after the casting.Still,this one requires quite a lot of explanation for it.How about each new casting of the same spell costs 50% more than the last one?