Dev Post: Design a level 46 Ability

[Venaliter]

An interesting Dev Post was made earlier:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthrea...dit3873602

Since this is a rare situation (It's not everyday you are asked to design your own 46 spell, even with no guarantees) I thought I'd point it out, maybe get a little discussion going.

If you could design a new 46 ability, what would you make it?

[charleski]

(04-13-2012 04:08 PM)Venaliter Wrote:  If you could design a new 46 ability, what would you make it?

In terms of design, the crucial question is whether the new ability should provide a similar function or not. I'm guessing it probably should, and there's no point asking for buffs that would be useful in group content.

As a sorc, I never used this ability since my pet (Xalek with mods from the dailies) is the one doing the tanking on solo stuff. So if anything I'd want a skill that worked the other way around and took some of my health to heal the companion, but then that would be useless for assassins. I think the most generally 'fair' replacement would be a long-CD buff that provided a short spike in damage or healing output from the companion.


On a different note, I never played the PTS and all the debate about the 1.2 changes seemed to be centered around consumption. From my experiences last night, I'd agree with Adam that this isn't really a big deal. A far bigger deal, certainly in terms of healing spike damage, but also with regard to healing-ouput in general, is the change to force-bending's effects on DI. I'm wondering how this changes the crit vs alacrity argument. I used to favour crit, but am starting to feel that I should go the other way. It certainly increases the need to be able to predict damage rather than healing reactively.

[Kaedis]

Splitting this off into a new thread, since it doesn't really directly relate to healing.

As for me, the one thing I think the Sorc class is severely lacking is some form of defensive cooldown. Even Assassin tanks are hurting because of that. Perhaps an active version of the Elemental Shaman Astral Shift talent (since SIs seem to have gotten a fair portion of their inspiration from the Shaman class in Wow):

Force Barrier
Guard yourself with the Force, reducing all damage taken by 30% for 10 seconds, but also reducing all damage and healing done by 20% for the duration. 120 second cooldown.

[Sith_Happens]

Hm, how about an ability on a moderate cooldown (30-45s maybe?) that removes the Dionized/Force-imbalanced debuff from the target? Not sure how well that would work as a "defensive cooldown," but I can't count the number of times that it would have saved my butt if it existed.

EDIT: Only problem is that that would be Sorcerer/Sage specific, while the Sacrifice/Unity replacement would need to be a base class ability.

[Influence]

Drain Life. Sorcs need more dark force looking abilities.

[Dirtnap]

I actually like the drain life ability. Could be a low damage-high heal dot you throw on a target on a 45-60sec CD. This would work well with sorc/sage and still benefit sin/inf. it would be something that could break the monotony of the infiltration/deception rotation.

Drain Life(imps)/Force Diversion(pubs)
45sec CD
Places a dot on target that does 800 damage and heals you for 1400 over 12secs. Heals cannot crit and may be dispelled.

I'm not sure if there is some factors that need to be taken into account when creating this 46ability.

[gravleycj]

I always relate a Sorc to WoW's Priest class - and while I play an Assassin, I'd really love to see a Mind Control come into this game. That was one of the most fun PvP moves ever.

[Oramac]

Aura Master - Permanently creates a PowerAuras-like icon around the player to display buff information.

Can you tell I still hate watching for purple shadows to track my Harnessed Darkness stacks?

In all seriousness, I'd like an ability that immediately finishes the cooldown on all Inquisitor abilities. Something like:

Force Awareness (Instant; 30 min CD) - Immediately finishes the cooldown on all abilities.

Surely it'd need some tweaking, but it'd be really handy for those times when another Force Shroud or Deflection would have saved my ass.