Activatable Abilities for Companions

General
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I really like all those improvement, good work :slight_smile:
I’ve suggested similar ideas some time ago, so I really glad to see such things in development.
And I hope you’re interested in some remarks :blush:.

The idea is to reduce player’s passiveness while using primalist built around companions. And active skill for every companion - is great. It also allows to add some control over companions’ actions, add some tactics which involves companions’ new abilities. But …

  • Scorpion, Poison Nova: “Poisons enemies around your Scorpion”. Nothing wrong with it, except that you still unable to use this poison just when and where you need it. I can assume that there will be or may be a skill node which allows targeted usage, but such node may become “must have” for a player to build his skill-combo.

  • Sabertooth, Flurry Swipes: “Sabertooth makes three melee attacks in short succession”. Same here. This skill allows to increase Sabertooth’s damage against something your Sabertooth finds worthy of being attacked. Also this skill does nothing more - increases damage only. How about something like that:

    Crippling pounce: Sabertooth leaps to selected group of enemies and cripples them with his fierce attacks. Crippled enemies have their movement speed reduced by 50% for 3 seconds.

  • Spriggan, Healing Winds: “Heals all allies in a large area over time”. Can’t say much here. If area of effect is large enough then targeted cast is not needed or obligatory at least. Otherwise we’ll get similar problems as with scorpion. Also, in my opinion, it would be preferred as “critical heal” rather than a temporal buff to character’s regeneration (let’s say, significant cooldown, but great heal every second for 3-4 seconds). And may be add some kind of loss mechanics, like “Spriggan can’t attack or cast while performing Heal”.

  • Wolf, Howl: “stacking buff that increases your damage and your minions’ damage”. I’m confused with “stacking buff”. Is this something that lasts longer than skill’s cooldown? and we should use it every time when it’s available just to keep those stacks? If so, it may become second Fire Shield :thinking: or sort of. I don’t know what you are planning guys, but, as I understand, there’s two ways for solving this “buff maintain” problem …

    1. Skill has significant cooldown and its buff is very short-lived. Though its damage bonus may grant vital battle advantage. Buff still can be stackable if you wish to increase skill’s effectiveness when it’s used with several wolves. But I’m not sure that it should be a default mechanics.

    2. Skill has very low cooldown and it grants pretty long lasting, but minor buff. The buff is stackable (individual duration of every stack), so with several stacks their damage bonus can be significant. But every skill usage costs more with every buff stack that caster has. Such mechanics limits player’s ability to keep maximum stack number.

  • Bear, Roar: “A debuff which fears all enemies near your Bear causing them to run away”. …

… well… there’s a lot of posts here :slight_smile:

  1. about defense buff instead of roar: can’t say I agree with that :thinking:. Roar skill fits its nature very well, in my opinion. Also, crowd control often IS the defense. Though it doesn’t mean that Bear can’t protect its master. I’ve suggested few mechanics for this skill and some of them are defensive.

  2. about taunt instead of roar: if to be honest, I hate those kind of mechanics. Because they work against main goal, against main idea - to make summoner more active. And it’s not bad that you’re able to taunt an enemy coming to you once every 10-15 seconds, and that enemy remains taunted for 2-3 seconds. But when it becomes a play style, it’s just… meh :slightly_frowning_face:.

  3. about fear: well, it fits Roar, it’s natural. Though it’s good for ranged characters and not so good for melee characters. And that’s why I’ve suggested to stun enemies with the Roar, not fearing them. At the same time there probable can exist a node which transforms stun to a longer fear, or event fears enemies AFTER stun effect ends. Also enemies can be slowed by that fear, as they’re thrown into despair rather just feared :smiling_imp:.

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