Relieving the slot crunch on Tri-Form Kheldians

[Redlynne]

So Homecoming did "A Thing" for Kheldians in that they allowed the T2 Human power to be used in Nova Form and the T1 Human power to be used in Dwarf Form.  This is certainly NICE ... but when it comes to build planning it just means I've got more powers demanding slots than if I didn't have a multi-form use for the T1 and T2 powers.

 

I propose taking this notion of allowing the T1 and T2 Human Form powers in Nova and Dwarf Forms to the next level.

 

Simply DROP the T1 Nova power (Nova Bolt) and the T1 Dwarf power (Dwarf Strike) completely ... and simply allow both the T1 and T2 Human powers to be used in both Nova and Dwarf Forms (spoiler alert, the animations work just fine in both forms).

 

Doing this would give Nova Forms access to 3 single target, 1 cone and 1 target AoE ... and Dwarf Forms access to 3 single target, 1 PBAoE, 1 heal, and 1 taunt, along with the obligatory Dwarf Teleport.

 

The key here is that by slotting up the T1 and T2 Human Form powers you get to keep using those same slots in powers while in Nova and Dwarf Form.

In practical terms, this means you'd only "need" to slot the T1-2 Human powers (2) along with the T2-4 Nova powers (3) and the T2-4 Dwarf powers (3), for a total of 8 powers that need Lots Of Slots to fill out a Tri-Former before dedicating the rest to your (other) Human Form powers.  Compare that to the current situation on Homecoming where you can slot the T1-2 Human powers (2) along with the T1-4 Nova powers (4) and the T1-4 Dwarf powers (4), for a total of 10 powers that need Lots Of Slots.  Even just 5-slotting 8 powers will require +32 slots (+4 each on 8 powers) and that's very nearly HALF your available slots to add of 67 total added slots.  Trying to 5-slot 9 or 10 powers costs 36-40 added slots out of 67 total slots, which is just getting ruinously expensive.

 

From where I'm looking at things, the T1 Nova and T1 Dwarf powers are just ... redundant ... if you have access to the T1 and T2 Human powers AT ALL TIMES in all forms.

 

Be nice if we could mitigate some of the "Form Taxes" that Tri-Form Kheldians have to pay simply to exist in a semi-competent build state.

[Galaxy Brain]

Itd be nice if just, some of the powers were shared outright. I havent played khelds in a bit, but dont versions of the melee, ranged and AoE attacks appear in both the human and form change? Why not just let them be used with different stats

[Black Zot]

15 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Itd be nice if just, some of the powers were shared outright. I havent played khelds in a bit, but dont versions of the melee, ranged and AoE attacks appear in both the human and form change? Why not just let them be used with different stats

 

For PBs and ranged WS powers yeah, but warshades have no melee attacks outside Dwarf form.

 

Well, they have a useless melee-ranged hold, but that only counts under Jack Emmert rules.

[Zepp]

I was coming into this topic thinking I would likely disagree. That being said, this is a very reasonable proposal.

[General Idiot]

21 hours ago, Black Zot said:

 

For PBs and ranged WS powers yeah, but warshades have no melee attacks outside Dwarf form.

 

Well, they have a useless melee-ranged hold, but that only counts under Jack Emmert rules.

That 'useless' melee range hold is the highest damage single target power a warshade has though. The actually useless one is Essence Drain, their other melee attack which is a clone of Dark Melee's Siphon Life power. But while Siphon Life was long ago buffed to deal decent damage in addition to its self heal, Essence Drain remains so lackluster that a lot of people forget it even exists.

 

The bigger issue of using the normal melee powers for dwarf is a matter of cooldowns. Most notably Sunless Mire and it's two minute cooldown compared to Black Dwarf Mire having if I remember rightly a 20 second cooldown. You can adjust cooldowns on them in different forms (the two T2 powers already do that, being 4 seconds in human form and I think 6 in nova) but if they're on cooldown already when you shift they stay on cooldown. Not a huge issue with a two second difference between forms, especially with how much recharge a lot of kheldians build for, but much more of one with a minute and 40 seconds difference.

 

To remove the form specific powers entirely and simply use the normal versions in forms as well would likely require giving both archetypes a full on revamp because of this. Not that I'd be against such a thing, but that may be beyond the available development resources we have currently. And then there's the cottage rule to consider as well, though whether merging two copies of effectively the same powers into one actually breaks that is debatable.

[Galaxy Brain]

I wouldnt think that merging two nigh identical powers into one power breaks the cottage rule

[biostem]

Isn't there basically a non nova/non dwarf version of each power that they get?  What if the forms didn't have any of their own attacks, and instead used those powers, including their slots?

[Black Zot]

19 hours ago, biostem said:

Isn't there basically a non nova/non dwarf version of each power that they get?  What if the forms didn't have any of their own attacks, and instead used those powers, including their slots?

 

Not all of them.  And not all the ones that are duplicates work the same.

 

[Zepp]

Alternative proposal: T₁/T₂ powers share slots/timers [melee timers will be reduced] but retain their other current stats (some adjustments will need to be made to allow both melee and ranged slotting [among other slotting]). This will deal with slots without removing the unique attacks of each form. It may not be perfect, but will make tri-form a lot easier to slot while maintaining the flavor of each form.