Warrior Skill suggestions

[Grunwave]

Hey community =)

Each class in my game has 25 skills. So far for my warrior class I have:

-Berserk(+att, -def, lose control)
-Disarm(att debuff on enemy)
-Bash(agility debuff on enemy)
-Counter Attack
-Intimidate(M. Att debuff on enemy)
-Rage(every % of health missing = + % damage dealt)
-BerserkTwo(unkillable for 3 turns)
-Stalwart(immunity to certain states: poison, stone, et cetera)
-Taunt(temporarily raise target rate)
-Improved defense(reduce all incoming damage by 25%)
-Wound(reduce enemy healing received by 25%)


So I am at 11/25. I looked through WOW, FF14, Pathfinder, D&D, and even L5R skill trees and did not see any others that seemed good for my games meta.

Anyone have any interesting suggestions, or maybe have a basic one that I have overlooked?


Thanks in advance,

GEA

 

[atreyoauron]

What about a fear skill that makes a enemy flee from battle?

 

[Poryg]

Noticed you have no damage skills. Is it on purpose?

 

[gstv87]

summoning?
alter self?
if it's a warrior, you can summon a golem maybe, or a pet.
alter self would be enlarge or outright change of skill set (Hulk-like abilities, from scientist to smashing machine)

 

[Kes]

[move]Game Mechanics Design[/move]

Please note that G.M.D. is not for feedback on specific, individual projects. Replies may not, therefore, relate directly to the needs of your game, as the discussion broadens out.

 

[jonthefox]

Just a quick note, I'd recommend using a different name than "BerserkTwo" - you could come up with something better and unique here, like "Undying Will" or "Tireless Warrior" etc.

Anyway, some other ideas that I like to use for my warrior classes:

-Adrenaline: when below a certain HP (either 50% or 25%), recover MP or TP and maybe buff some stats for 1 turn)

-Parry: deal 50% dmg, but increase defense by 50% for 1 turn. Has higher attack speed.

-Lunge: ignores 50% of target's defense, but reduces your own defense by 25% for 1 turn

 

[bgillisp]

Here's two from my game that I used for my Warrior skill set:

-Shatter Guard: Remove the Guard state from an enemy. Useful if you have enemies that actually guard from time to time, and would give you a way to get around it.

-Stunning Punch: Chance to Stun an enemy, does damage even if the stun fails. It's a very high level skill in my game, usually learned around level 40 - 50. You'll have to decide though how you want bosses to handle this one, as you'll either need to make them immune to it, grant them a resistance to it, or make the stun chance low enough that someone can't just stun lock all your bosses all day. Myself, I use a high cooldown on these skills, and the stun skill only lasts for the current round (which also means, if your Agility is low, it's useless, as you'll go after the enemy anyways! So think ahead).

 

[Calvynne]

I would suggest you take a look at what Diablo II/III have done with various melee class skills. They also have some compelling game play mechanics that you can modify for your game with some creativity.

The next aspect I would look at is do you really need 25 skills? I would rather have 6-8 really useful, situational skills, than 25 skills that each cover a different edge case where they should be used. Or worse, 25 skills that accomplish largely the same thing.

Looking at what you have, your warrior class seems to be both an debuffer and a buffer, which means that unless you can have two of that class present you'll only ever be digging into 1/2 their skill set at any given time. I would encourage you to give them a singular focus, like "Dealing Offensive Debuffs" or focusing on party protection and survival, or giving them only one or two secondary skills that serve the purpose of either inflicting debuffs, or buffing the party.

I don't know how many classes you have present, but if you have a hybrid class, and a pure class, unless there is a compelling reason to take the hybrid that lacks the ability focus, you run the risk of having your pure classes that do a singular job really well outshine your hybrids.

 

[gstv87]

The next aspect I would look at is do you really need 25 skills?

I have characters with around that number of skills...
many have different levels, so you can manage MP and effects in combat.
depends on the battle system and the actual gameplay.

 

[Grunwave]

Noticed you have no damage skills. Is it on purpose?

I would suggest you take a look at what Diablo II/III have done with various melee class skills. They also have some compelling game play mechanics that you can modify for your game with some creativity.

The next aspect I would look at is do you really need 25 skills? I would rather have 6-8 really useful, situational skills, than 25 skills that each cover a different edge case where they should be used. Or worse, 25 skills that accomplish largely the same thing.

Looking at what you have, your warrior class seems to be both an debuffer and a buffer, which means that unless you can have two of that class present you'll only ever be digging into 1/2 their skill set at any given time. I would encourage you to give them a singular focus, like "Dealing Offensive Debuffs" or focusing on party protection and survival, or giving them only one or two secondary skills that serve the purpose of either inflicting debuffs, or buffing the party.

I don't know how many classes you have present, but if you have a hybrid class, and a pure class, unless there is a compelling reason to take the hybrid that lacks the ability focus, you run the risk of having your pure classes that do a singular job really well outshine your hybrids.

11 Classes. 7 Hybrids. Definitely hard to balance, but give a ranger a pet here, give pally some melee life drain.... Im a numbers nerd, so that aspect gives me a nerd bonner.

I will check out Diablo.

Every monster (especially bosses) has unique AI, so all the skills in there matter so far. So much easier to come up with spells though. Poor non-magic users.

 

[Grunwave]

Thank you for all your suggestions so far. Please keep them coming.

 

[Ryzler]

Stronger, more advanced guards. Like a Heavy Guard skill that not only guards but increase defense while you're guarding. Or a Mirror Guard skill that will reflect damage when guarding. You have a Taunt skill but later in the game you may want something more reliable like a Substitute skill to take damage in place of allies ???

 

[AmazingKazuki]

It may have been said and I am sorry if it has because I didn't read every reply...

But I read an article once about skills for a game. It said that instead of loading up on a ton of skills that the player will probably find one to three they'll keep using, give them a lower amount of the skills they need. So instead of making a class with tons of skills based on the class, make them based on what they need for the monsters.

One thing you could is make 5 or 6 skills, then use the others as power-ups for upgrading or replacing skills. Maybe a skill upgrade in the form of usage, an NPC shop, crafting an item, or while in Rage, the other skills turn into their stronger counterparts.

Also for a class with no damaging skills and abilities, you're going to have to keep their strength power pretty high or even their critical chance up for players to really favor the particular class.

 

[Tai_MT]

I have a question. Why do you need 25 skills?

The way I think characters should be designed is based around a "role" for combat, or a "gimmick". Something specific that they should be trying to accomplish in combat. You've got so many skills that are just all over the map and no real "theme" to them.

I ended up splitting up all my "skills" across 9 characters, at about 6 a piece, to better cover a specific gameplay role.

If you're just looking for some ideas for typical "Warrior" classes, I could probably provide my list (since I have 3 "warrior" archetypes with other skills traditional to warriors spread out among other classes).

Second Wind - Restores a tiny percentage of HP to the user (only the user) as well as gives a percentage buff to Defense.
Battle Cry - Party wide attack up by percentage. Lasts 3 turns.
Berserker - Inflicts "Berserk" and "TP Gain x2" on the user. "Berserk" is an auto attack that doubles your Attack stat. You gain x2 TP for the 3 turns it's active.
Opportunity - Inflicts a state that gives you a high chance for a Counter Attack. It also allows you to hit x2 times. Lasts 3 turns.
Last Stand - A skill that does more damage, the less HP you have. (a.mhp - a.hp) * 1.5.
Painless - Inflicts a state that gives you immunity to the "Death" state for 3 turns at the cost of a percentage of your maximum HP. Combine this with Last Stand, and it's powerful.
Defender - A skill that inflicts the state "Substitute" for 3 turns.
Divine Shield - Party wide defense up by percentage. Lasts 3 turns.
Divine Light - Party wide evade up by 10% with 2% HP Recovery for 3 turns. Also comes in a magical variety where you get 10% Magic Evasion and 2% MP Recovery for 3 turns.
Smite - A Paladin skill where you do "Holy" damage to enemies.
Divine Favor - Turns all weapons into "Holy" elemental weapons for 3 turns. Party wide effect. Also has +10% Hit Rate.
Siege Breaker - TP based skill that does more damage, the more Defense you have. (a.def - b.atk) * 1.5.
Threaten - Increases Target Rate to 100%. Also increases Critical Hit Rate by a percentage.
Rally - Party Wide increase to the Agility stat by percentage.
Return Magic - "A Secret Sword Technique" that reflects magic back to casters as a percentage chance for 3 Turns.
Cleave - Must equip a Battle Axe to use. Massive amount of damage with a small percentage chance to inflict "Death" instantly.
Inspire - Transfers MP from the user to a specified ally target (or the whole party).
Sever - An attack that hits through enemy armor. Does a percentage amount of damage to an enemy in either HP or MP variants. 10% is the default amount of damage done. It goes up to 25%.
Elemental Weapon Attacks - I have a big list of these. Essentially, they require specific weapon types be equipped to execute specific types of elemental attacks that use Attack as the main stat instead of Magic.
Cheap Shot - Throw sand in the face of your opponent. Minor bit of damage and a chance to inflict "Blind" on an enemy for a few turns.


That's all I got right now. Hope that helps inspire some ideas in you.

 

[Grunwave]

Thank you for sharing Tai. Some solid ideas in there.

To 25 skills per class -- Without skills, all you are really doing is scaling everything. IE: as your damage output goes up, the enemies' hit points go up.

Creating dynamic ways to interact with enemies makes for a more involved game, which will have potential for a better game. The last thing you want is to auto attack every fight.

 

[Tai_MT]

No, I get why you need skills in general. I don't understand why it has to be a set 25.

Every character of mine has 6 skills minimum (there's characters who get more, but that's either story related or required of the particular class they are). But, the skills "level up" over time. I have 10 versions of each skill. It's a way of letting the player decide what is most important in combat and in the skills they use. The old versions of the skills are replaced by the new versions and the names remain the same, but the descriptions change. The effects change. I do this because limiting the amount of skills I have does two things:

1. Prevents players from ignoring half of their skills because they're "not very useful" or "not to my playstyle". With only six skills a piece to choose from, and only half of them being actual attacks, it tells the players that everything is useful to an extent and winning combat may not be as simple as mashing "Attack" or spamming your best skill to win.
2. Allows me to create characters with a unique feel who can play off of each other with their skills. A limited pool of skills inevitably creates a lot of "interplay" when they have to be unique to each character. My Warrior class who can improve Critical Hit rate to the whole party inevitably buffs my "Rogue" characters and lets them do more damage. My Mage classes have skills that boost elemental damage, so the warrior elemental strikes can do more damage.

I'm just not entirely sure why you need to have 25 skills. Especially if they're going to all be in your Skill list all at once. That's a lot of scrolling to find what you want or need/want. It's also a lot of skills to have to plan for and to try to work around with other party members.

 

[Tiamat-86]

No, I get why you need skills in general. I don't understand why it has to be a set 25.

Every character of mine has 6 skills minimum (there's characters who get more, but that's either story related or required of the particular class they are). But, the skills "level up" over time. I have 10 versions of each skill. It's a way of letting the player decide what is most important in combat and in the skills they use. The old versions of the skills are replaced by the new versions and the names remain the same, but the descriptions change. The effects change. I do this because limiting the amount of skills I have does two things:

1. Prevents players from ignoring half of their skills because they're "not very useful" or "not to my playstyle". With only six skills a piece to choose from, and only half of them being actual attacks, it tells the players that everything is useful to an extent and winning combat may not be as simple as mashing "Attack" or spamming your best skill to win.
2. Allows me to create characters with a unique feel who can play off of each other with their skills. A limited pool of skills inevitably creates a lot of "interplay" when they have to be unique to each character. My Warrior class who can improve Critical Hit rate to the whole party inevitably buffs my "Rogue" characters and lets them do more damage. My Mage classes have skills that boost elemental damage, so the warrior elemental strikes can do more damage.

I'm just not entirely sure why you need to have 25 skills. Especially if they're going to all be in your Skill list all at once. That's a lot of scrolling to find what you want or need/want. It's also a lot of skills to have to plan for and to try to work around with other party members.

the same could be said for keeping the upgrades separate. why spend 3 times as much TP/MP for an upgraded version when the tier1 version will make 1 turn quick fight of a random encounter and not even phase your ability points?


@OT Weapon Break/Armor Break - damage and debuff
Total Enrage - uncontrollable and only attack all enemies
Combat Challenge - counter control plugin - trade counter attacks till one of you dies (lose 2 turns after)
Inner Beast - guaranteed critical hit

 

[Tai_MT]

the same could be said for keeping the upgrades separate. why spend 3 times as much TP/MP for an upgraded version when the tier1 version will make 1 turn quick fight of a random encounter and not even phase your ability points?

I'm not really sure what you're asking about, but I'll try to address all the possibilities since you weren't very specific, especially after quoting my post, which is a specific example of my RPG.

In almost every RPG I've ever played, MP is the absolute most renewable resource in the game. It regenerates on its own, the dev has sprinkled MP healing items everywhere in the game, Inns restore MP for a fraction of the cost of a consumable, spell costs are so low as to be nearly pointless, etcetera. So the "using TP/MP" thing is basically a non-issue unless you have no idea how to heal up after combat and are a newbie to RPGs (which, I guess some people are, but most really aren't, and they'll hit the next two towns on the journey before needing to recover their MP again, unless they've been grinding enemies for levels, in which case... they should come prepared).
---
If you're asking about simply "I get more spells and keep my old ones", that's the argument about point 1. If you've got Firaga, how often do you ever bother to use Fire? I'd wager "none" since anything weak enough to be killed by Fire at that point, is weak enough to be killed by expending 0 MP and by just mashing "Attack". What you end up with is this large list of Skills a player doesn't use all that much. A large list which they then have to scroll through to get to the spells they want to use. I want to cast Firaja, but I have to scroll past Fire, Ice, Lightning, Poison, Fira, Blizzara, Lightning 2 (for the life of me, I can't remember the stupid FF names for these spells), Poison 2, Fire 3, Ice 3, Lightning 3, Poison 3, and oop, right there, there's my Firaja. I had to scroll past a whole bunch of spells I no longer use... just to get to the one I do use. Two great examples of this in Final Fantasy are FF6 and FFX. Or maybe FF9 and FF7 as well. pretty much anything after FF5, to be quite honest.

Maybe this is design philosophy you don't agree with. But, some devs, like myself, believe that every skill should always be useful (as in, for every single fight, including the end boss fight) or older skills should be absolutely replaced by newer ones in order to cut down on menu clutter.

My solution was to attach States, buffs, etcetera to my Skills, use percentages, and to limit myself to 6 or up to 9 skills a character. It is, by no means, the only solution.

But, you should go through every RPG you've ever played and try to tally up how many times you used "low level" skills once you got their next iteration. How many times did you use Fire once you got Fira? How many times did you use Fire and Fira once you got Firaga? How many times did you use Fire, Fira, and Firaga once you got Firaja? How many times did you use ANY elemental skill once you got Ultima/Flare/Meteor?

How many times did you use Lightning in Chrono Trigger once you got Lightning 2? How many times did you use either of them once you got Luminaire?

I think you'll find the answer is somewhere along the lines of "rarely". Or maybe, "only when I was low on MP and couldn't cast my big spells".

While you're at it, go ahead and go through every RPG you've ever played and try to count up the amount of times you've ever "run out of MP" or didn't cast a spell because "you didn't have enough MP". I'd wager that amount is pretty low as well.

It's one of the reasons the White Mage (or Dedicated Healer) is always in the player's party. MP is so plentiful and healing with Skills is more cost effective than buying Potions in town.
---
If you're asking about my specific combat system then... here ya go:

My combat system doesn't revolve around "one hit kill random encounters". It is balanced for "four hits to kill a single enemy". Does that mean you can gain a bunch of stats and come back to beat up on those monsters in a single hit? Yes, you absolutely can. But, level ups in my game don't grant stats. So, the only way to gain your stats is to keep moving forward, keep buying equipment, keep completing quests. You gain stat points via Quest Completion. So, it's fairly easy for me to balance the "four hit kill" rule across most every random encounter.

The rule, however, has exceptions. The first time you encounter a monster, you are meant to take at least 4 hits (one move for each party member) to figure out how to kill the enemy. If you figure out its weaknesses quickly, then you can kill it in less than 4 hits. Maybe you discover its weak to piercing damage. Maybe you discover it's also weak to ice damage. Maybe you discover it can be easily put to sleep. Your next encounter will go much more smoothly after that. Those four hits could turn into two. Maybe even into one if you are clever. But, the rule is "four hits to kill".

But, my combat system isn't about "ending combat quickly". It's about combat teaching you things. The random encounters teach you mechanics and combat concepts. The boss fights are the tests on those things. I dislike games that don't treat combat in this way, so I am making a game that treats combat in this way.

As for the reason you'd want to spend as much... It's because they get more powerful. If you'd like a little insight... a peek under the hood, I'll give you an example.

Fire (Tier 1).
MP Cost: 3
a.mat +10 - b.mdf
50% Chance of inflicting Level 1 Burn.
Level 1 Burn removes 3% of your HP a turn for 3 to 5 turns and removes 3% of your Defense stat.

Fire (Tier 2, Effect Path)
MP Cost: 6
a.mat + 20 - b.mdf
60% Chance of inflicting Level 2 Burn.
Level 2 Burn removes 5% of your HP a turn for 3 to 6 turns and removes 5% of your Defense stat.

Fire (Tier 2, Power Path)
MP Cost: 6
a.mat + 30 - b.mdf
60% Chance of inflicting Level 1 Burn.
Refer to the above Level 1 Burn description.

Immediately, your MP usage doubles, but you're getting something useful out of it. Higher levels of states. Higher damage output. Higher rates of inflicting states. It inflates wildly after Tier 2 and into Tier 3 and even Tier 4 (Burn goes up to Level 4 with 20% HP removal a turn for 3 to 10 turns and 20% Defense stat down. Attack power goes up to a whopping +100 bonus to your Skill. You can also "mix and match" to an extent).

The skill is "tactical" in nature. It isn't about pure damage output, because if you just want to "one shot" a low level enemy, mash "Attack" or use my "Zero MP Cost" skills that do the same thing as Attack with a different element. Final MP Cost ends up being 50 a cast, but by the time you reach that far, you'll have a decent enough pool of MP that it's only a restriction of builds.
---

Hope that helps.

 

[Failivrin]

Depends a little on what you mean by Warrior class. Is it something like a Fighter, Berserker, or Knight? Does the player learn 25 skills by default or is there something like a skill tree allowing them to specialize? If these skills are default, I would combine skills related to heavy offense or heavy defense, but not both unless you can come up with some handicap such as low AGI or LUK. Those three classes I mentioned typically break down as follows:
- Fighter: intermediate attack and defense skills, with various specialties like stun resistance
- Berserker: Advanced attack skills, very low level defense, few specialties
- Knight: Advanced attack and defense, few specialties, often handicapped

 

[M.I.A.]

Lots of wonderful suggestions. One of my favorite Warrior skill's I'd given my champ was Keep Fightin'.

Keep Fightin' is a desperation skill that adds a state to the Warrior that allows him to continue fighting even below Zero HP.
It entails:
- State lasts for 3 turns
- Warrior taunts all Foes (Physical) attacks
- Warrior gets an ATK buff
- Warrior cannot use Items or Magic. On PHYS attacks
- Warrior cannot be healed while state is active
- Skill can only be used once per battle (Unless a Time Mage is in the party and casts Reset on the Warrior)
- When the state expires, a new state is added: Exhaustion
- Exhaustion state allows the Warrior to be healed
- Exhaustion only lasts the duration of that 1 turn
- ALL HP must be recovered from the Warrior, or else he KO's in an explosion that deals 4x the damage hes taken to all Allies and Foes (The only skill that protects against this explosion is the Druid's skill Safeguard)
- If the Heroes win the battle while Keep Fightin' is active, then the Warrior is set into a new state Exhaustion2.0.
- In Exhaustion2.0, the Warrior must be healed entirely before the state is removed

It's a very powerful skill, but very impractical. To be used as a last ditch effort, and kind of risky.
I've always found Warrior skills to be mostly bland.. so I try to give them interesting skills that can turn the tide of battle.


-MIA