klokwerkaos

Long Dead
Herald of the Dead
Immemorial
Malleus Monday
OG 2020
Old World
Harbinger
Nov 8, 2020
117
72
63
Being excited most for the Liche my brain has been on that for a bit.

Personally I'd like the option to be able to play them more as a pure caster rather than just a pet class if possible. Having the option for a pet class is nice, but pure casters are my jam. These are just some ideas I've got as kind of "immediate desires" and I'm sure I'd have a lot more if there was more to go on for this class, but really, I'd like to see it expanded a lot more from the traditional D3 nekromancer and allow it to fill several different kinds of roles in both solo and party excursions depending on how the character is specc'd.

Side note: speaking of specs, please don't have cooldowns on specs or overly obnoxious costs to do this. Please just let players swap for a reasonable cost that scales with progression at a hub, that's plenty. Alternately if spec swapping on the fly is allowed, having that be channeled so it's not instant would be good (ie, so you can swap to your boss spec before the boss fight in a raid or something).

I find pets are usually great for leveling characters, but generally speaking, terrible in late game scenarios across the board or worse, they steam roll everything and make it so you're not engaging with the game, which for me isn't fun after the first five minutes. The only exception to this being a class that specializes in summoning very powerful eidolons and such, which is a possible different specialization that might be afforded. I would think something like a summon shadow creature is a mainline ability (a small group of 1-5 shadow nuissances that are mostly enemy distractions), but more advanced creatures would take a specialized focus.

Overall I see the liche as the slow moving glass cannon, that if arranged properly with gear and passives, can be highly potent and resiliant, as opposed to the banshee which might be more of a front line battle caster (spellblade sort) or a wraith being more of a speedy support caster, ie, more boom, less utility (like a sorcerer in DnD or PF).

The liche description as is leads me to believe the animation style would likely find a good visual home with "defiling magic" a concept presented in the old DnD Dark Sun games (fantastic setting if you're not familiar, it's not overtly focussed on the undead, but very much an interesting and fresh take on dark and gritty settings, particularly the desert), except that while they might defile the land, they likely could defile living beings as well.

This would be especially applicable with things like DoT powers (where the target might show physical signs of being drained of life) or channeled abilities (where they might drain certain life around them, including light, creating a shadowy area around them to a degree that might heighten any emissive energies on the model. I would think also that their drain should have more range than typical, being that they are rear line combatants.

mechanically speaking this could even represent an ability to do something like drain essence or blood from a target to provide them with additional mana regen.

I can also picture stuff like for a passive tree that you could apply a % stun mechanic to said actions that increases per point.

Additionally I like the concept that there can be an "Overload state" that allows them to hold extra mana and imbues spells cast with that mana with additional damage output or other potency, but that how much they can safely go over that is determined by other passives, ie, too much and it will start to give them mana burn (physical or essence damage as appropriate, not sure how those work yet) or even cause them to go critical (potentially on purpose) and turn their body into an AoE bomb, which would be only a minor inconvenience since they can just build themselves another body.

Some passives might exist to allow them to ignore X points/% of overload damage, which if capped might turn them into a walking constantly exploding bomb, and that would be pretty cool, though it would need a mitigator to offset it, such as overload not being as effective in damage/potency output and perhaps a cool down on say 50% of it, ie, you can say get 53% overload damage reduction or whatever from other passives and gear and then +50% more from a cooldown ability that has X time on it, so you can't just constantly walk around as a forever exploding AoE bomb, plus you also need to be constantly draining enemies to feed said explosion otherwise you'll run out of overload and not be able to go critical. This also indicates overload mana would have a slow bleed off so that it could be maintained between fights, but the longer you go in between the less overload you have for the next fight.

Having passives that reduce cooldowns of physical and essence body reconstructions might also be handy, since they'll be comparatively weak in those areas.

I also like the concept of a low life/shield build (reminiscent of PoE or last epoch) that really plays to these strengths as well.

Also on the passive tree, given that these are likely more "skeletal forms" I'd think a passive reduction in bleed affects and possibly % ignore bleed might also be handy as point investments, likely coming with the trade off of reduced physical health.

I also feel like a toggle skill for a floating mechanic that uses reserved mana would be thematically good, which would allow them to bypass a lot of terrain obstacles and with additional investment might allow more advanced low speed fly mechanics, so they can sit above the battlefield and drop spells on the enemy, this of course has the advantage of allowing the to harrass and bypass strong melee units (which should also have a minor range attack as back up) but also makes them a very easy to spot high threat target for ranged enemies (archers and other casters). With that they'll of course need some mage armor to help defend against projectiles. Additionally it makes some sense that certain enemies may have an ability to inflict massive damage and clear the toggle, grounding the caster. Floating should also remove penalties from footsteps for stealth purposes.

I'd also like to see a teleport at higher levels, but while other casters may be speedier, this could be possibly interrupted during a caster animation. This allows them to have the mobility necessary to keep up with the party while maintaining levitation, but also allows for better battle positioning mid fight. Unlike the levitation though, this would need to teleport them to a surface (not necessarily the ground, could be a wall since they can teleport).

I think when arranging the abilities that the banshee and wraith should have more immediately usable and useful abilities, but that the liche has more utility and boom potential based on selections to tailor the class, and what I mean by that is you could make a generic liche that is mediocre across the board by slotting in all specialties, but if you hyperfocus on a particular area it ends up with more potency (which is the traditional caster trade off).

Another notion I had if the mana burn/overload state is liked, you could also have an ability that converts overload mana into mana shards that hover around the caster that convert at X% ratio ie 4 overload mana = 3 shard mana or something like that, with a max number of shards that float around the caster. These can then be attached to certain spells that when they are cast to increase their potency as a sort of "store damage for later" which can be handy for boss fights. This would obviously mean you'd have to have a max amount of them which could be adjusted with further investment.

I also like the idea of being able to specialize in a witch familiar of sorts, which would also present another opportunity for skins (why yes, I would like an animated transforming knock off lament configuration cube for my familiar skin, thank you very much apocalypse!). The familiar wouldn't be a frontline pet per se in the sense of summoned skeletons and such, but rather a caster aid that follows along behind the caster, though it would also be targetable by enemies. Familiars could grant various offensive/defensive buffs to the liche and familiar, and possibly the party if you dump enough points into it to expand either it's radius or targets affected, this could also be used to apply debuffs to enemy targets that wander close to the lich/familiar.

A counter spell/spell reflect as an ability option seems also like a good fit here.

Lastly I feel like the "create portal" to hub wizard ability in WoW is a staple things that should be in all games. It gives the wizard greater fast travel but also at the cost of losing out on experience and treasure from overland travel, and also just makes them generally useful to a party.

So that's my initial thoughts, I'd like to add more, but I feel like this is already a huge wishlist so I'll leave if there for now.
 
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I'd like to add something I'd like to see for the liche's progression.

I'd like the magic that manifests in the body to be in the bones. This makes the flesh itself more like clothing that contributes to your weight burden and, outside of the protection it provides the bones, is essentially dead weight that slows your movements. Shedding the flesh makes your movements faster at the cost of losing its protection. It'd be neat if the flesh went through the stages of decay as time passes in game with the corresponding increase in movement speed.

With advancement in your magic its possible to allocate mana towards rejuvenating the the flesh, reducing the weight burden as you do so at the cost of shortening the mana bar until it could be possible to have a body of flesh that is full of vitality at the price of being greatly limited in terms of mana for other magic.

Edit
When it comes to the subject of pets as they pertain to the mindless undead I'm hoping for some utilitarian functions, outside of crafting or harvesting stuff for crafting.

Picture you want to get to a dungeon in an area you have yet to explore and acquire a certain relic. Instead of going yourself you conjure a spirit from the underworld, a spirit that knows this area and has unfinished business. You make the deal that they'll be able to finish said business and then go into the tomb. You infuse one of your mindless with the spirit, along with half of a portal spell and send them on their way. Now there might be warnings that the journey could be too dangerous for a single, insignificant undead to make so you pair it up with numerous other undead drones or something more destructive and task them with protecting it at all costs. If for whatever reason they perish while making the journey then their half of the portal spell activates where they fell and you travel through the portal to either carry on the journey yourself or remove what caused the first to fail before sending out another.
 
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