[WIP] Diablo 2 Immortal - Development

[jaelrin]

Paladin would be amazing.

It was my favourite class in D2 (Assasin next after him), and loot, especially high-lvl one can be added later, while people are slowly leveling classes they want.
Btw, in older versions of D2I Paladin's Ascension had reduced shield recovery time, and in new one there's +1% health. Did your vision of the class changed, or reduced shield recovery time would be present in another skill (Holy Shield, perhaps?).

I'm so eager to try either Holy Freeze+Zeal or Conviction+Vengeance builds.

[csabadns]

I think that adding the Paladin as well, would really be a good idea. People will have time to play with this builds for now, and even make new ones.

[flix]

Oh, I think you should make the Paladin dude. He was my first choice as a character.

[jaelrin]

Is it possible to remake Whirlwind and Fend into point-blank AoE skills (like Frost Nova)? This way it would be possible to have Jab/Concentrate on LMB, Impale/Leap on RMB, while using these skills from keyboard without targeting, anyways they hit everyone around the character.

[Violos]

That is possible, but not without turning them into fake attacks which are actually spells, thus losing the weapon component.
Even though Fend is mosty about defense, that is never a good thing.

Unfortunately "does % weapon damage" as not a universal ability in TQ. Would make many things easier.

[jaelrin]

Those lucky (and high leveled) enough to find the legendary sword of the Heavens, Azurewrath, can even get a first taste of playing a Paladin.

I'm curious about your approach to creating paladin skills, considering that Diablo's version didn't have any passive skills, and TQ skill design is quite "passives-heavy". Auras were strong but had a restriction of one aura at a time... Of course it's possible to "bake" Might-Concentration-Fanaticism in one skill with passive upgrades, because they're too similar for making them different skills.

[flix]

I'm curious about your approach to creating paladin skills, considering that Diablo's version didn't have any passive skills, and TQ skill design is quite "passives-heavy". Auras were strong but had a restriction of one aura at a time... Of course it's possible to "bake" Might-Concentration-Fanaticism in one skill with passive upgrades, because they're too similar for making them different skills.

Blessed Aim could go in that lineup as well.

Others of the Paladin auras could be combined that way. Resist Fire/Cold/Lightning and Salvation.
Same for Holy Fire/Freeze/Shock and Conviction.

Prayer and Meditation.

There's no corpses in TQ, so Redemption would have to be overhauled. And there's no Stamina so Vigor will have to be enhanced in some way. As for others like Sanctuary and Cleansing (and all the Combat Skills) I'd be really interested to see what Violos does.

[Violos]

You guys are right. In fact, TQ requires me to make a few "passives". Not so much because they are similar, but because of the one major thing from the later D2 that TQ does not have: Skill synergies, and the kind of building/scaling they allow.

So I did indeed pair some of them up in a similar fashion as I did with other classes' skills before, in order to emulate that kind of mutual boosting. Making Fanaticism an addition to Might (mainly for physicals), Blessed Aim combine with Concentration (for all damage), Meditation combine with Prayer (as it did) and Cleansing an extension of Defiance which protects against "mental" status effects.

Though some still work on their own - like Azurewrath's Sanctuary, which mainly does status effects.

And they will be stronger than similar skills of other classes. As they should be, because the exclusivity is still there, and you basically pick the entire mastery for that one aura.

Well, almost...



Since you brought it up - the one HUGE question, from the day I chose which 6 classes to do, was how I could possibly recreate the Holy (Element)/Resist (Element) complex, also in connection with Vengeance and Salvation. Does not seem too complicated at first, but if you look at it:


Holy Fire/Frost/Shock does
- periodic AoE damage
- add element damage to the weapon
- increase FoH damage (Holy Shock)

Resist Fire/Cold/Lightning does
- an active AoE resistance aura
- an active AoE increase to maximum resistance
- a passive personal increase of maximum resistance
- increase the damage of its offensive counterpart
- increase the damage of its element on Vengeance


The first two points are both possible to do, but are opposed skill types in TQ, so you can only have one or the other. And while the Onslaught template (which I used excessively on the Barbarian and Assassin) has the unique ability of combining weapon attacks with auras, it is only a personal buff aura. Making every melee hit trigger a secondary AoE effect (like Psionic Burn) would have been a possible idea, but proves impractical, and not true to the feeling of a "ticking" aura.

The second part... don't even get me started.
Weird workarounds like hidden secondary modifiers come to mind, but besides preventing you from un-learning a skill with those, they cannot be upgraded.

TL;DR: This cannot possibly be copied the way it works in D2.


So I had to come up with a new system. In the end, the design I ended up with is an intersection of what was possible and what people usually got those skills for, disregarding the strict offensive/defensive classification for the sake of synergies and effectiveness.

On these grounds, Resist Fire/Cold/Lightning are now passives, permanently increasing your personal resistances (for that tanky Paladin style), as well as boosting any damage you inflict with the respective elements via auras, Vengeance, FoH and other skills (the "synergy effects").

The entire "party resistance aura" job thus falls solely to Salvation - where it has always been, anyway.

The offensive auras, too, first of all fulfill their most noted function: Ticking AoE damage.
As explained above, this means that that they will not add element damage to the weapon anymore (we have Assassin skills for this).
However I found out that such AoE attack auras still apply any defensive stats to the player rather thah hi targets, so I was able to add melee retaliation - enabling a similar, if not even more paladin-like, style of elemental melee play.

Last but not least, the offensive elemental auras, while active, now also grant damage absorption for their element, cutting 1/3rd off every incoming attack, and effectively boosting the maximum possible resistance beyond its natural cap.



This is all still in the rough and needs a lot more playtesting, but so far I'm happy with how it is turning out.

EDIT: Here's a sketch.

Thanks for your input.

[jaelrin]

Holy Fire/Frost/Shock does
- periodic AoE damage
- add element damage to the weapon
- increase FoH damage (Holy Shock)


The first two (ignoring the FoH part) are both possible but opposed types of Skills in TQ, so you can only have one effect. And while the Onslaught template I used excessively on the Barbarian and Assassin has the unique ability of combining a weapon attack with an aura, it's only for personal buffs. Making every melee hit trigger a secondary AoE attack (like Psionic Burn) would have been one possible workaround, but impractical in terms of skills and not true to the feeling of a ticking aura.

I don't think I follow what you're saying. Isn't Holy Fire a combination of TQ's Ring of Flame and Storm Nimbus?

Here's my idea how Paladin's skills translate to TQ language:

Holy Fire - Ring of Flame + Storm Nimbus
if you need additional effects, then add burn to holy fire, skill discuption to holy shock, -% total speed to holy freeze

Might - damage (physical damage)
Blessed aim - % offensive ability
Concentration - total damage+skill disruption resistance
Fanaticism - damage, attack speed, offensive ability

Thorns - same as trance of empathy

Conviction - deathchill type debuff that affects either defensive ability or armor and elemental resistances.
Sanctuary - some spirit ward+spirit bane combination, maybe with flat damage component like Ritual jewelry

Prayer - trance of convalescence
Cleansing - poison + life leech + energy leech + vitality resistance
Defiance - % armor, +% armor absorbtion, maybe minor DA or stun resistance
Meditation - same +% mana regen as on items, maybe add some flat regen, maybe some cast speed increase
Vigor - movement speed+resist slowing+reduced entrapment duration?

Redemption - is there some "on enemy kill" trigger in TQ? if yes - some flat HP and MP after killing an enemy.

Zeal - similar to amazon's Jab
Vengeance - archimedes' cogwheel in skill form
Holy shield - %block, reduced shield recovery time
Smite and Charge are obvious

[flix]

@jaelrin: Really wouldn't Holy Fire be more like Ring of Flame + Earth Enchantment? Regardless, judging by what Violos said you can't combine those two effects into a single skill.

I like your ideas on how the skills translate to TQ. Vigor, for example.

For Sanctuary, that might be the best way to handle it. Too bad there's no knockback effect though.

@Violos: that actually sounds like a fairly elegant solution to handling the Holy (element) auras.

I also wonder: will you stick to D2's "only one aura at a time" rule? Or perhaps one aura of a certain type (one offensive, one defensive)?