New Skill Trees Sneak Peek Part IV

[Nate]

http://www.pitofwar.com/images/_Teasers/skillTreesSneakPeek4.jpg


RAGE (Tier 4)

Crippling Might
Activated (Offensive)
Requires Rage specialization.
Requires 55 trains in Rage skills.
Terrifying strike that crushes anything in its path with the chance of preventing defensive skills from activating for the current attack.

Heavy Scarring
Passive
Requires Rage specialization.
Requires 55 trains in Rage skills.
The barbarians of the Great Realm inflict beastly scars on themselves after each victory transforming their bodies into a living story and warning to any who would challenge them. With skin tougher than leather many a blade is met with failure.

Annihilate
Passive
Requires Rage specialization.
Requires 55 trains in Rage skills.
Sending bones and brains flying in all directions is what the crowd desires and with each hit delivering extra damage to any gladiators using the tank or parry fighting styles your gladiator will fill their cup to overflowing!


War (Tier 4)

Intercepting Guard
Passive
Requires War specialization.
Requires 55 trains in War skills.
A defensive guard that helps to reduce the damage received while tanking or using a parry fighting style. Gladiators fighting with a shield will enjoy a much greater reduction to the damage they receive.

Light as a Feather
Passive
Requires War specialization.
Requires 55 trains in War skills.
After hundreds of battles your gladiator has learned how to better handle the weight of armour and weapons allowing them to be less encumbered which offers numerous benefits on the sands such as increasing their initiative and the ability to get up off the ground quicker to name a few.

Create Distance
Activated (Defensive)
Requires War specialization.
Requires 55 trains in War skills.
A defensive move that stops the oncoming attack and has a chance of knocking the opponent far enough back that they lose an addition attack making up the lost ground.


Theatrics (Tier 4)

Knockout
Passive
Requires Theatrics specialization.
Requires 55 trains in Theatrics skills.
Every crowd loves a knockout and every hit your gladiator delivers to their opponent's head has a chance to do just that. In addition opponents wearing no helm or a lightly armoured helm are at risk of being dazed by each hit to the head leaving them unable to attack until they get their bearings again.

Overwhelming Presence
Passive
Requires Theatrics specialization.
Requires 55 trains in Theatrics skills.
Stories of your gladiator's legendary prowess on the sands have reached every corner of the Great Realm causing all opponents to second guess themselves reducing their initiative.

Surprise Ending
Activated (Defensive)
Requires Theatrics specialization.
Requires 55 trains in Theatrics skills.
In an amazing display of skill your gladiator will redirect the oncoming strike and possibly any skill effects back to the attacker. Surprise!

[Apoca1ypse]

Looks like I was right :P

[Kolodis]

Interesting. So this basically means the War tree is nothing but defense, mixed feelings about that...

Also, which has a greater effect, Intercepting Guard or Annihilate?

[Cynaidh]

Also, which has a greater effect, Intercepting Guard or Annihilate?

I'd think if the two glads had 10 in each they would balance out and and it would be like each glad had 0 in the skill. Now if one or the other doesnt have it wow nice effects.

My question is can activated attacks stack, like can crippling might and rampage happen on the same attack, cause rampage is what i would want the crippling might effect on as a rage.

[Nate]

Interesting. So this basically means the War tree is nothing but defense, mixed feelings about that...

Not really the case at all:

Battle Hardened - increases chance to hit
Master of Arms - allows the use of almost all weapons greatly expanding your offensive versatility
Death From Above - extra damage to downed opponents
War Cry - Stun or prevent the opponent from defending
Light as a Feather - decreases the penalty to your initiative from armour which is quite helpful offensively.

If you would like even more firepower you can dip into the Rage or Theatrics tree.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[sevenseas]

Boy oh boy, it's really going to be a totally new game isn't it? At first i thought the new skill tree would be minor update and balancing (I catch on slow i guess), but wow we're really going to have totally different battles now, and the old tried and true might not work anymore!
I know this was talked about once, but how is this new skill tree gonna work as far as Olympians are concerned...do they get to pick their skills and go straight to lvl 10?

[Cynaidh]

Nate has spoken of that in the chat a few times Sevenseas, this is my understanding of how it will work:

You'll log in that day and each gladiator will have the "average" amount of training points that it takes to get the skills you previously had based on your stats/previously learned skills (so if you have horrible stats and ten skills at rank 10, you would get a HUGE amount of points, where as someone with twenty skills at rank 5 would get much less). These "refunded" points will NOT reset at the end of the day like normal points, so if you're not available on respec day that's fine, they will be there next time you log on.

All your previous skills except the weapon skill you have will be gone, refunded into the above "refunded" points, Nate said he is considering a button to refund your weapon skill for those that would like to do so. The reason for leaving the weapon skill is so your glads are not defenseless if someone attacks them before your re-spend your points.

There will be a new button "Try till success" that you can toggle on and off, this will let you train whole points in one click of the mouse.

If you use the "Try till success" button you would then be clicking a max of 100 times on skills to relearn them if you previously had that many skills trained, less clicks if you had less trained skills. Of course since the refund was for the "average" amount of training points and since the new skills might use different stats it is possible that you roll good and have left over points, but at the same time you might roll badly and end up not having the same amount of trained skills at the end. Then you'd have to finish training up like normal.

[Alba Kebab]

Why didn't I see this before I picked a new slave, I could've planned a bit better or taken another slave...oh well.

[sevenseas]

Yeah I'm in the dunce corner too...i just paid to unlearn a bunch a skills on my guys:confused:

[sevenseas]

Wait....Nate how about enough skill points for 11-12 skills and the chance to unlearn 1-2 skills after the switch??;)....For us poor schmucks that paid good money to unlearn skills and might choose poorly again...you know...:cool:

[Team Kaos]

Intercepting Guard
Passive
Requires War specialization.
Requires 55 trains in War skills.
A defensive guard that helps to reduce the damage received while tanking or using a parry fighting style. Gladiators fighting with a shield will enjoy a much greater reduction to the damage they receive.

Along with the other War defensive skills, could we be seeing a return of the once devastating and outlawed Total Parry? what is now currently massively reduced and re-badged as Tank.

[Apoca1ypse]

It would be kinda cool to see

[Dainoji]

It would be kinda cool to see

No. No it wouldn't! Total Parry gave defensive glads near immunity without any regard to skill or gear or build. All one needed to do is set the drop down to Total Parry and you blocked 80% of all attacks.

I doubt we'll see something like the old Total Parry but certainly it looks like a 100 skill tree war glad will be tough to take down, although it would appear the rage tree will be their kryptonite.

[Kreegan]

Well, so far it seems that Theatrics will have very few chances against a defensive War and Rage will counter every attempt to play defensively, effectively keeping the Rage > War > Theatrics > Rage status quo. It all depends on how powerful each of the announced skills is compared to its "counter-skill" though.

[Apoca1ypse]

No. No it wouldn't! Total Parry gave defensive glads near immunity without any regard to skill or gear or build. All one needed to do is set the drop down to Total Parry and you blocked 80% of all attacks.

I doubt we'll see something like the old Total Parry but certainly it looks like a 100 skill tree war glad will be tough to take down, although it would appear the rage tree will be their kryptonite.

I should elaborate a tad: It would be cool to see defensive glads get a boost

[CaineDeSoulis]

you must not have fought a war in a while dain. a Warcry attack followed by a Round 1 Tank Blocks about 80% of attacks with a pretty massive reduction in damage. considering most of the higher level war glads use a Similar strat I could see why warcry was a tad too strong to keep around. Defensive based gladiators needed a pretty large increase in power. Most war gladiators currently are just Rage builds with armor and the best war skills available. personally i believe when a strategy starts becoming the "Only" strategy in conjunction with gladiator type there may be a problem with balance.

honestly if there were "Start of round x" trigger's we would be seeing a great deal of tanking.

[Dainoji]

I fight War glads all the time and Tank doesn't bother me too much, it can be hard to get through sometimes, but it isn't anywhere near as difficult as Total Parry was.

You are aware that there are triggers for rounds 1-6, yes?

[Prinny]

I believe Caine means that your glad starts with tank, switches to attacking and repeats this next round though I could be totally wrong Dain^^

[Cynaidh]

What he is talking about Dainoji is the strat that Oedi came up with that probably 90% of the higher end warriors use where they set their default attack to 10 bash 7(or something similar) and then their 2nd line is round 1 7 tank 1 (or something similar) what this is does is war cry wins initiative for the warrior they make 1 or 2 attacks (depending on 2h or duel wielding) and then the round 1 strat kicks in (your default fires off for the first 5ish seconds of a fight even if you have a round 1 trigger) putting them in tank, so they get off their attacks and then tank the rest of the round, its a great stratagy they do their damage and then tank all incoming damage for the rest of the round, war cry and armour movement is what makes it work. After the skill change warriors will no longer be able to do this strat.

I like the fact that the new trees give warriors a reason to use a shield, i know me and Prinny both where just trying out shields on warriors and it ended up working so much better to put a hammer in the off hand that it's not justifiable right now to run a shield.

What is surprising me the most with these changes is that the Theatrics tree is now going to be the old warrior tree + toys it looks like. If i had to pick the important warrior skills currently i'd go with a weapon skill, Create Distance, Armour Movement, War Cry, Hamstring, and Athleticism. The rest of the points go in other trees. Now lets look at the new theatrics tree, they don't get Create Distance but they get Crowd Pleaser and surprise ending instead (surprise ending is better then create distance in that it makes the attack hit the attacker rather then just avoiding it), they get armour movement, war cry (Overwhelming Presence just seems to be the old war cry under a new name), and hamstring. The only thing they didn't get was athleticism but instead they have KO, GV, and Sig Move to work with. With them having the old war cry (Overwhelming Presence) + counter attack... I think its safe to say they will always attack first, I think they will play a lot more like the current warriors duo then how theatrics currently play.

[AngryVermin]

Do you get extra points for a 10 in Tier 3 in another tree? That typically takes prob 30%+ more points to attain because your abilities prob do not align giving you a lower percentage and because of other items that you usually have unlearned?

[CaineDeSoulis]

yes what Cyn said is what i was referrin to. ragers are running snivler to circumvent this currently but the reduction in hp is really too severe to be anything but specialized can openers and fellow rage killers. a Killshot strategy is still best for taking out theatrics and will probably continue to be so.

[Cynaidh]

Got to be about time for the full tree revels so we can start working on builds. Nate said this was still on track to happen this year so only 3 weeks left, i don't know about the rest of you but i'd like some time to plan out my builds for all my guys before it goes out.

[sevenseas]

+1 from me on that one...i don't want to be guessing too much
:confused:

[Nate]

nsforusgrstrobdaooleytcrdoeaaarecaelmepttcl

[sevenseas]

lol...ok will someone solve this for me:confused: it must be written in Trug or something!

[Apoca1ypse]

Total Carnage and Armored Fortress leaves me with suobolycdeaceptl

currently working out what i can make from that

[Cynaidh]

hmm bloody spectacle but that leaves an extra "ua" from your left over letters.

[Apoca1ypse]

Bloody Cult Escape?

Place Bloody Cestus?

Acutely Bloody Pecs? lol :P

Edit: yeah, I had the same issue Cyn. The U does disappear if you spell armour correctly (ie, British English, but Nate is American so I think he'd spell it without the U)

[Prinny]

I disagree apoc seeing as there is a skill caleld "Armour Movement" :)
The extra A is a typo :P

[Cynaidh]

I disagree apoc seeing as there is a skill caleld "Armour Movement" :)
The extra A is a typo :P

hmm so if we do:


Total Carnage
Armoured Fortress
A Bloody Spectacle

then we have it all covered i guess...even the extra "a"

[Alba Kebab]

All you brainy people. :)

[Nate]

Total Carnage and Armored Fortress leaves me with suobolycdeaceptl

currently working out what i can make from that

I'll give you a hint. Apoc made a mistake. Didn't you make a mistake on the final letters in a previous one too? Always double check your work! ;)

[Lunarion199]

Isn't Cyn right? - Total Carnage, Armoured Fortress, Bloody Spectacle. Could perhaps also be Bloody Carnage, Armoured Fortress, Total Spectacle.

By the way in the skill tree the word is really spelt as 'Armour Movement' rather than 'Armor Movement'.

[Cynaidh]

Total Carnage
Armoured Fortress
Bloody Spectacle

Fits perfect, just tried it twice myself :) I guess the only thing that could be wrong is if we can make something else out of "Bloody Spectacle" but honestly that sounds like a theatrics skill to me.

[Nate]

You are correct. Apoc had an extra 'a' in his final letters.

Total Carnage - Rage
Armoured Fortress - War
Bloody Spectacle - Theatrics

Here's a sneak sneak peek into the tier 5 skills: They offer two abilities and at rank 10 a third is unlocked.

[Lunarion199]

Here's a sneak sneak peek into the tier 5 skills: They offer two abilities and at rank 10 a third is unlocked.

You have found our neve, Nate.. The knack to keep us curious everyday rather than saying "we are hoping to release the game updates very soon"
;)

I can imagine how much exceitment will build on while introducing conquests, stable matches, new schools and stuff as such.

[Cynaidh]

Interesting so at 10 points these tier 5 skills have 3 abilities?, 3 in 1... looking forward to the descriptions of what they do.

[Prinny]

Ill take a guess, 1 of Bloody Spectacle's 3 abilities is that of the current Finishing Blow, Total carnage is a combination of the current crippling might, devastating power and overwhelming presence :D, Armoured Fortress will have the current Combat Instincts and Battle Prowess along with some kind of attack + defensive bonus for carrying heavier armour :D

[sevenseas]

hey what if we want tier 4 skills in other specializations? Do we have to pay to unlearn unwanted skills so we can have the same "depth" of a build we have now?? Or are the training requirements going to be removed for the change?

[Alba Kebab]

Now if he'll just tell us when they are coming...;)

[Cynaidh]

hey what if we want tier 4 skills in other specializations? Do we have to pay to unlearn unwanted skills so we can have the same "depth" of a build we have now?? Or are the training requirements going to be removed for the change?

We don't even know if we can still unlearn pre-rec's at all and have skills still work after the change. Right now you can, the skills will go "grey" and they still work, but Nate said in a previous chat he had not made up his mind if he was going to allow this to continue after the skill change, it might be that they "grey" skills no longer work after the patch. He did say that yes all training requirements will have to be met when doing this respec, so to get these nifty tier 5 skills unlocked you'll need 85 points in the tree. And then after you put 10 points in the teir 5 that will only leave you 5 training points left until you use trophies to unlearn some skills in the tree. Or at least that was my understanding of it.

[Nate]

I'm currently balancing the new skill trees and testing other balancing changes in the game engine and in that process sometimes I need to modify how a skill works a little bit. Tier 5 skills being beefed up quite a bit require more careful consideration which is why I have not released details on them yet as they may change depending on how testing goes. I'm trying to keep changes to skills already released to a minimum, however if they do change I'll let you know. One thing I can tell you is tier 5 skills will require 90 points in that tree instead of 85.

When everything is ready I'll give you a decent heads up so you can work out new builds before going live, however with what you already have access to should get you the majority of the way there.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Team Kaos]

Maybe I missed it in the posts somewhere, but how will a gladiators current skills be affected by the new skill tree? Already earned skills, what will become of them once the new skill tree is activated. Will the glads current skills transfer over to the new skill tree or does everyone go back to zero skills and will rebuild their glads with the glads already earned skill points?

[Cynaidh]

Hey Kaos, this is my understanding of how it will work from Nate's telling us about it in chats:

You'll log in that day and each gladiator will have the "average" amount of training points that it takes to get the skills you previously had based on your stats/previously learned skills (so if you have horrible stats and ten skills at rank 10, you would get a HUGE amount of points, where as someone with twenty skills at rank 5 would get much less). These "refunded" points will NOT reset at the end of the day like normal points, so if you're not available on respec day that's fine, they will be there next time you log on.

All your previous skills except the weapon skill you have will be gone, refunded into the above "refunded" points, Nate said he is considering a button to refund your weapon skill for those that would like to do so. The reason for leaving the weapon skill is so your glads are not defenseless if someone attacks them before your re-spend your points.

There will be a new button "Try till success" that you can toggle on and off, this will let you train whole points in one click of the mouse.

If you use the "Try till success" button you would then be clicking a max of 100 times on skills to relearn them if you previously had that many skills trained, less clicks if you had less trained skills. Of course since the refund was for the "average" amount of training points and since the new skills might use different stats it is possible that you roll good and have left over points, but at the same time you might roll badly and end up not having the same amount of trained skills at the end. Then you'd have to finish training up like normal.

[Dainoji]

One thing I can tell you is tier 5 skills will require 90 points in that tree instead of 85.

So looks like to have a pure glad with a maxed T5 skill you'll have all your points in that tree. I like it. Any chance you can let us know what the T5 skills are now with the caveat that it might change due to your testing? That way we could still plan our new builds and have a plan B in case the skill changes and we don't like it. :)

[Nate]

I'll try and get an update out in the next day to satisfy your cravings!

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Lunarion199]

One thing I can tell you is tier 5 skills will require 90 points in that tree instead of 85.

I was just wondering.. War tree has five weapon skills available; theatrics has four while rage has just three. As such it will be rather easy for a war gladiator to reach the 90 skills mark, learn tier 5 skill and then unlearn unwanted skills cheaply; as compared to a rage. As such, wouldn't it be nice to keep the tier 5 skill requirement something like 90 for war, 85 for theatrics and 80 for rage?

Regards

[sevenseas]

Lunarion...you are a genius.....


Yeah, Nate, what he said:cool:

[Nate]

I was just wondering.. War tree has five weapon skills available; theatrics has four while rage has just three. As such it will be rather easy for a war gladiator to reach the 90 skills mark, learn tier 5 skill and then unlearn unwanted skills cheaply; as compared to a rage. As such, wouldn't it be nice to keep the tier 5 skill requirement something like 90 for war, 85 for theatrics and 80 for rage?


Thanks for the suggestion Lunarion. I honestly don't see this being a problem. If someone wants to waste their training points on all five weapons skills instead of just building out their gladiator properly because they think they'll eek out some minor advantage in getting their Tier 5 skill I think they'll find it really isn't worth the effort. Tier 5 skills represent a gladiator who is a master of their specialty and as such they'll need 90 points to unlock it.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Cynaidh]

I'll try and get an update out in the next day to satisfy your cravings!

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

Is it tomorrow yet? :)

[Nate]

New Skill Trees Sneak Peek Part V (http://forum.pitofwar.com/showthread.php?1614-New-Skill-Trees-Sneak-Peek-Part-V)

[Nate]

After some testing Create Distance has been modified. You can see the new description at the top of this thread.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

[Apoca1ypse]

CD changes make my 2H glad sad :(