Samurai Development Thread

[Ilium Class]

I did not include the elemental aspect of Draw Cut in the above build. I implemented it as an Equip Change + Attack command. Though to be honest I have not given up on that idea, and you might here me bring it up again in the future, if not for a base class than perhaps for a prestige.

[sunspawn]

Replacing the weapon to an elemental one makes it an elemental attack. It might be limited to the katanas the samurai has, but eventually it will be like the Rune Knight.

Though, the costs of maintenance might balance the OP-ness of an elemental Draw-Cut.

[Schwerpunkt]

Apr 30, 2013 9:06:04 GMT -6 Ilium Class said:

I did not include the elemental aspect of Draw Cut in the above build. I implemented it as an Equip Change + Attack command. Though to be honest I have not given up on that idea, and you might here me bring it up again in the future, if not for a base class than perhaps for a prestige.

Going back, yeah, I did misread it. But if the katanas don't have elemental effects, what's the purpose of an equip change? Aside from the ambiguity in the description (does the 100% success rate apply to the normal melee attack?), it doesn't seem to have much of a purpose unless there's a direct incentive to changing katanas (ie, to get an elemental effect off another). Unless there's a strong reason to own multiple katanas (which I just don't see without them having elemental effects or being required to use in certain skills -- which brings us back to the 'gil eater' problem), I don't see why there's an equip change factor in it at all.

If it's just a regular attack, it might as well just be "you make a regular attack with a higher crit%."

[kablizzy]

Ability	Description	Range	Effect	Speed	JP
Skyfury Blade	Calls upon the spirit of the sky to imbue  Success: 100% (Hit Rate) 5% (Berserk) System: Inflicts Thunder damage and small chance to cause Berserk. Requires a Katana.	1	1	Now	100
Hayate	Strengthen your focus on your enemy's next movement. Success: 100% System: M-Ev by 15% until next turn.	0	1	Now	150
Asura	Calling upon the ancient spirits within his blade, the Samurai commands them to assault his foes. Success: 100% System: Deals non-elemental magick damage to adjacent foes, equal to 70% of Attack command.	0	2	Now	250
Kusarigama	A weapon attached to a chain used to disarm opponents and drag them closer. Success: 100% (Hit Rate) 50% (Pull) 10% (Disarm) System: Attack command. 50% chance of pulling the target into adjacent tile, 10% chance of Disarming target.	2	1	Now	300
Empowerer	Use your ki to transfer damage. Success: 100% (Hit Rate) System: Attack command. Damage is dealt to MP instead of HP. Samurai regains 25% of damage dealt in MP.	3	1	Now	350
Purifying Breeze	A technique that releases the spirit in the user's katana, bestowing the protection of its effervescent life force. Success: 100% (Heal) 25% (Protect) 75% (Shell) Effect: Heal, Protect, Shell Quote: "Innocent sword, slash evils and protect! Purifying Breeze!". System: Heals user equal to 20% of max HP. 25% chance of inflicting Protect, 75% chance of inflicting Shell.	1	3	Now	500
Tempest	Performs a flowing, 4-strike combo while floating gracefully among enemies. Success: 100% System: Four attacks divided at random between the number of opponents, each at 20% strength, +5% for each target beyond the first (Four targets would mean each attack is at 40% strength)	1	1	Now	550
Dismissal	Strike the foe in a way to disrupt his focus. Success: 100% (Hit Rate) System: 70% damage of Attack command. Cancels the target's pending action and resets the target's CT to 75.	4	8	Now	600
Ethereal Embrace	A technique that releases the spirit in the user's katana, bestowing physical healing and increased speed. Effect: Regen, Haste Quote: "Sword of fury, inject power! Ethereal Embrace!" System: Casts Regen and Haste on user.	1	3	Now	700

Reaction

Name	Description	Trigger	JP
Meatbone Slash	Deal damage equal to own maximum HP when critically wounded.	Critical	200
Runic Blade / Calm Mind	Focus on the spirit of the blade, protecting the Samurai from mystical harm.	Magical Attack	700

Support

Name	Description	JP
Equip Katana	Equip Katana, regardless of job.	400
Death Strike	Increases Critical Strike chance on 'Attack' command.	550
Momentum	Crit / damage increased with each additional kill / hit

Movement

Name	Description	JP
Swim	Swim through and even act in deep water.	300

Alrighty, here's my preliminary response to Ilium's build - couple suggestions:

• Hayate: I like Hayate, but we have Purifying Breeze, which provides Shell. Is that too much M-EV? 
  
• Runic Blade / Calm Mind: Added a new conceptual ability to Reaction. I know the naming is off, but it immediately hit me that Celes had something similar with Magic, so I figured we'd do a bit of homage there. Dunno what
• Draw-Cut: Also not a huge fan. I'd suggest dipping into FFTA a bit with Skyfury Blade - Does a similar thing, single element, and a small chance for Berserk. Also, doesn't do any additional damage, just changes the element to Thunder. There are also three other options - Shimmering, Hoarfrost, and Lifethread? All are in my first post.
• Kusarigama: I also like absorbing both Kusarigama abilities into one. I didn't even think of doing that. Makes room for an extra ability.
• Magicide: I'd also like to take a look at merging Magicide and Empowerer / Dragon in some form, as I loved that from FF6. Also staying true to the X-2 Magicide and staying true to FFTA.
• Dismissal: Suggested change to make it just interrupt and damage. Moved Berserk effect to Skyfury Blade.
• Ethereal Embrace: Ethereal Embrace and most abilities really are supposed to have a chance to hit, instead of it being 100%. I'd like to see a lower chance than 100 on this.
• Range and Effect: Also, I'm confused by Range and Effect as it is here. Are they accurate, or are they just placeholders?
• Momentum: Another FFX-2 Gem, edited.
  
• Zantetsuken: We always have Odin's Zantetsuken to fall on as well. Speaking of falling on, we can totally make a Seppuku ability.
• 5650 JP as-is, 5250 relevant to master.

[Schwerpunkt]

Hayate just sounds like Magic Defense, so I don't see the problem.

Runic Blade / Calm Mind is inherently misleading since I'm expecting 'Runic Blade' to be a sub-class of swords for the Spellsword (and similar prestiges -- Rune Knight, Ark Knight, and whatever that other one was). Not sure what it's actually doing.

Draw-Cut I can live with, or maybe Skyfury Blade. I don't really care.

Kusarigama may be somewhat unbalanced if it can both pull and disarm someone, but the odds of that happening are pretty low (basically a crit on a d20), so I guess.

Empowerer I like, but the name is silly. Also, how would it work when the guy has no MP?

Dismissal having an interrupt is not something I want to see. I was trying to keep the interrupts to strictly shield-based actions insofar as was feasible. I'd rather not have every POJ get one.

Ethereal Embrace I agree with. 100% to apply status effects that the conventional spells can miss doesn't make much sense. If anything, it should be lower than their respective spells.

Momentum may be problematic to code. Otherwise I like it. Stacking 2% damage increases for every consecutive hit and 10% for every KO? Epic.

Zantetsuken would do what, exactly? Instagib?

[kablizzy]

Hayate: I was just thinking of stacking M-EV, if it's not a problem, I'm good.

Runic Blade: Aye. It can do anything we want it to, really. I was thinking raise M-EV, absorb Magic Damage, chance to dodge, I dunno. Something cool. But Runic Blade is more of a spellsword thing.

Empowerer's name is a bit silly, but the other thing they called it was 'Dragon' in FF6, and eh. We can stick with Magicide if need be. Just wanted to pay s'more homage to Cyan.

Dismissal, I kinda agree with. I don't mind having a spellcasting interrupt on a Mage Tank, but I also don't want every class to have one, you're right.

Momentum may be hard to run by hand also. Thought it'd be really cool, though.

Zantetsuken had an alternate ability that didn't insta-gib, just another concept for us to toy with.

[Ilium]

Yeah sorry, alot of the Range and Effect were placeholders. I started to edit the first few, but didn't do any of the rest, which probably only added to the confusion.

Draw-Cut: Are we going to add Equip Change as a basic action in combat for all classes? If so, what if we expand Draw-Cut to include all melee weapons? An Archer with Samurai as their Tertiary would be able to Equip Change to a Dagger or what not, and Attack with it instead of using a full turn to just switch the weapons. Just a thought.

[kablizzy]

Depends on what we do with Squire. I think an equipment change option as a command (Uses your action for the turn) may be standard. Squire, if we keep it, may get a free Equip Change.

If we're not going forward with Dismissal, we'll likely need one more ability here to take its place. Updated first post. 6250 JP as-is.

Edit: Howabout moving Rend Magick from Knight? There is a lot of precedence for Samurai having Rend abilities, and it fits our concept build.

[sunspawn]

Actually, how about letting both have under different names and slightly different functions. Because, while each class wants to be unique, having some intersections won't make them moot.

[kablizzy]

Indeed. Maybe my worry was more that Lancer also had an MP rending ability as well, so we'd have four classes instead of two, which I'd prefer. If we bring Lancer back into line on that, I think I can compromise with Knight, Samurai, Ninja.

[sunspawn]

Say, how about giving each a different anti-magic skill? Say, Ninjas has his passive MP-buster, knight has... lesse... halving MP and some CT reduction, Samurai... again has that MP dmg thing... booooooooring!

I say give knight a MA-debuff instead - knights had stat debuffs in some of the games as I remember and it was helpful to a degree.

And lancer can get some "unfocus" debuff or something, say dazing the guy so it takes more mp to work his mojo.

[Mordred]

Is it a good idea to give every strong physical attacker the ability to interfere with mages' mojo? If too many options exist to counter magic attacks, then mages are right back down the craphole we've been trying to dredge them out of.

[sunspawn]

Which will bring me to some MOJ ideas I have once we start with them. It involves geomancy messing your footing, wizards blasting the ground from under you into slag and other things.

Besides, status effects like blind are natural impediments for POJs even more than they are to MOJs.. Giving the physical guys some ways to reduce magic damage at it's source is only fair... is it? I'm not too great at balance stuff.

[Mordred]

Too much of the page is blank right now for me to say what's fair or balanced, I'm just being cautious.

[Schwerpunkt]

Yeah, I really don't want to keep giving out "this ability rapes MOJs" abilities to various classes. MOJs will already have enough of a hill to climb (being slower, having less health, and having less movie than basically every single POJ) without giving them hard counter abilities like nobody's business.

Similarly, I'd rather not give too many roots or snares to MOJs. Because then we basically start down the path of the unsolvable balance dilemma that has plagued every MMO since ever.