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 OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo

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Lorenzo




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OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo Empty
PostSubject: OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo   OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo I_icon_minitimeThu Nov 14, 2013 6:26 pm

Now, with all the other threads so far, I thought it was best to separate them out in such a way that we can discuss each individual topic fully and completely, without having arguments brought up in the other threads getting in the way. It's more organized, it's easier to keep on track, and it just feels more natural. However, that's really not possible when discussing characters/abilities. True, this is primarily a PvE site, but because PvP is always a possibility, we are still going to end up comparing characters to one another in some capacity. Even so, I feel like we should focus on one issue at a time. And so, I figured a thread for each character might be the best way to do that. And, I figured we'd start off with an easy one, Lorenzo. My own character. Is Lorenzo broken, and if so, what can we do to fix him?

Lorenzo's history and personality are somewhat straightforward, when he was seven Sorceress Adel was first starting her crazy kidnapping little girls phase. His little sister was taken, and when his parents fought back, they were killed. Brutally, I might add. Lorenzo was hiding in a cabinet, and saw the whole thing. That is the incident that caused him to dive into his religion. It is unclear what he did with his life then, and I have written nothing of his history up until adulthood when he left Esthar to learn more about magic and Sorceresses, fueled at least partially by revenge... though I have mentioned that he had met President Laguna Loire once, nothing about his life is official beyond that. Sorta been making it up as I go.

Now, Lorenzo's fighting style is set up like a typical anti-magic utility caster. Mal has compared him to the Templar class in the Dragon Age games. He has many abilities that deal with preventing enemies from casting spells, while continuing to allow himself and allies to cast. His regular abilities are as follows...

  • Shell Shield/Mirror Mail/Opal Ring: The level 1, Shell Shield gave an auto-shell. Originally it was written that the shell could not be removed by any means (because it was meant to represent his body's natural magical protection), but that was deemed too powerful. So instead the ability auto-renews itself on every third post Lorenzo makes, meaning if it is dispelled, it will come back later, but the enemy will still have a turn or two to get some good shots in. Mirror Mail replaces the shell with reflect, but is otherwise the exact same. And Opal Ring allows Lorenzo to cast magic through the reflect status, meaning he can still heal himself, despite his own reflect, and he can also hit enemies who are reflected. Now, I don't see this as over powered in any way at all. In fact, in this most recent thread, it's actually been more of a hindrance to have auto-reflect, since he can't be hasted by allies. But, since we're supposed to be discussing the character in full, I'm putting this here anyway.

  • Draw: This ability is more or less a carbon copy of the "draw cast" command in FFVIII. Lorenzo can choose any spell that the opponent knows and cast it immediately. This allows Lorenzo to use magic that he does not already know. The ONLY differences between this draw and the game's draw is a) Lorenzo can use his draw even when he's silenced, unlike in the game and b) Lorenzo is limited to only drawing three spells per battle. Now, depending on the enemies' and allies' magic, this can be either Lorenzo's most powerful or his most useless ability. But is it over powered? I dont think so. In fact, with the three cast limit, I would say this ability might be under-powered in some fights. I would say it'd be better if his castings were limited by MP alone, especially since it looks like MP will no longer recharge. But that could just be my own bias.

  • Bathed in Light/Radiating Light/Saved by the Light: This ability is a bit different as it levels up into different effects. The level 1 Bathed in Light is a very simple immunity to holy element attacks. No problems there, I don't think.

    The Level 2 is Radiating Light. This is a physical holy element attack. It deals 200 CA damage, and this damage is doubled if another holy element attack has been used by anyone within the last two rounds. Now, according to Mal's suggested damage output, a level 2 CA should deal between 200 and 500 damage, so EVEN WITH the double damage in effect, this ability still isn't as strong as it could be. Unless of course the enemy happens to be weak to Holy, but that practically never happens, so isn't really worth discussing. The point is, I don't feel that this is OP, but feel free to disagree with me there.

    Now, the final level of this CA tree is Saved by the Light, and this one is a bit different. It's his auto-life ability. When Lorenzo's HP hits 0, he is restored to full health, at the cost of 75% of his maximum MP. Now, on the one hand, this is essentially 4 times as effective as the Auto-Life spell, which restores you to 25% HP... but at the same time, it can be completely and totally negated if Lorenzo drops below 75% MP, which means if he's been in battle for more than two or three turns, he likely can't use it. So, again, this is one of those that, I can see why people might think it's over powered, but personally, I think it is actually under-powered. I kinda think it's MP cost should be similar to the auto-life spell. Especially if we're taking away MP regen. There's no way he'd have more than 75% MP in the middle of a fight. But again, I may be biased here.

  • Spellslinger: Spellslinger level 1 grants a 25% discount to the MP cost of spells. His CA's still cost full MP. I don't see too much problem with this, especially if we're removing MP regen. Spellslinger level 2, however, is something we need to talk about. Lorenzo's MP regenerates at twice the normal rate. Well, if mal is agreeing to change that system, then there IS no normal rate anymore. Obviously this would need to be reworded and tweaked, but to what? What number do you guys feel is fair? I am thinking less than or equal to 5% maximum MP each turn, probably more like 2-3%. But, that's something I would want feedback on. Now, spellslinger doesn't have a level 3 yet. So, moving on.

  • Hyne's Lifeblood: Lorenzo can convert his MP directly into HP, it's a 2 to 1 ratio. Yeah, I'll be honest, this ability is kinda totally useless. It's a healing ability, but it costs a LOT of MP, for very little restore. I made it because Lorenzo is NOT immune to silence, and this would allow me to cure, even if he gets silenced. But, he's never been silenced before, so what's the point? At higher levels, I intended on tweaking the ratio a bit, but right now this level 1 CA is kinda a waste of space, and not AT ALL over powered. But, as always, feel free to disagree with me.

  • Purify: Now, this is simply a class evolution ability. ANY character who becomes a paladin will learn this ability. The effect is, all status effects (positive and negative) are removed from all combatants (allies and enemies) AND all black magic is negated (from both allies and enemies). This lasts three turns. I don't honestly know if this might be overpowered or not, but I do know that this is a pre-made ability. If we do decide it's over powered, we have to change the entire Paladin Class Evo, not just Lorenzo.

  • Inominae Padre: Like Purify, this is also a class evolution ability tied to the Paladin class evolution. It is a magic attack that deals 200 damage, it is considered Holy elemental, and it also inflicts Spirit Break on its targets. Now, Spirit Break halves the target's Magic Defense stat, meaning whenever they block magical attacks, the blocks aren't as effective. However, with weapon bonuses being able to boost overall attack resistance, that makes Spirit Break nearly completely useless in PvP, and with Bosses never bothering to block any attacks, it makes it literally useless in PvE. So, ultimately, the status ailment is negligible, and the damage is minimal. NOT my idea of an over powered ability.

  • Manafall: But, now we get to the admin-granted stuff. Admin-granted abilities are rewards for major threads, events, things of that nature. They also rarely level up; typically whatever you start with is what you have permanently. So, it makes sense that they'd be quite a bit more powerful than regular abilities... but how powerful is too powerful? Well, that's what we're here to discuss. Now, Manafall is an ability that does several things at once. It deals damage (no additional CA damage, just regular MAG + weapon damage), drains MP (100%), removes all status ailments on allies (Esuna for everyone), and heals the allied party a variable amount (20% of MP stolen is restored as HP to allies). Now, as of yesterday, this ability was completely fine, I thought. After all, the damage is less than that of a level 1 attack spell, and the HP restore is less than a level 1 cure spell. Esuna was nice, but only useful a fraction of the time. The MP drain was the biggest part of the ability. Before, it wasn't a big deal, because two turns after Manafall, the enemy would be kicking again. Less than that, for some enemies. But, now that we've talked about removing MP regen, the drain effect of Manafall goes from being no big deal, to being a VERY big deal. There's no denying manafall's usefulness would be boosted if MP didn't regen. But... is that a bad thing? Does that make it OP? I can go either way on this. Because, on the one hand, changing the MP regen system doesn't really change the ability itself any. It wasn't OP before, why would it be now? Just means other players would need to be prepared with Ethers, as they should be in any fight situation where they expect to use a lot of MP. On the other hand, manafall can cripple someone for the entire fight, now, instead of just a few turns. On the other, other hand, it's only usable once per thread, and most threads, especially events, would have two or three bosses, or more, in them. So, even if I did cripple an enemy in a fight, I wouldn't be able to do it again. So, yeah, I can go either way on this being OP or not, and would like feedback from the rest of you guys.

  • The Eyes of Hyne: Another Admin-Granted ability. Like most Admin-Granted abilities, you would expect this would be pretty powerful. But, really, it's mostly there for plot purposes. Whenever Lorenzo closes his eyes, he can see magical energy. This allows him to detect and track his prey, the Sorceresses. It also gives him the ability to read magical runes, apparently. And whatever other plot uses Mal wants to throw at me. I have discussed the idea of upgrading these eyes with mal, giving Lorenzo an auto-scan effect, or something similar, and thus making the eyes useful in combat. But, for the time being, this ability is entirely plot-related, and has little use in a fight, except to add flavor to my posts.

  • Sorceress' Font: Now, this... this is the big one. Sorceress' Font allows Lorenzo to temporarily tap into the same internal pool of magic that the Sorceresses use. This gives Lorenzo an additional 750 points to his magic stat, and grants him infinite MP for three turns. Now, the stat boost is sorta, whatever. Because 750 points equates to 75 damage, which is not significant to bosses or high level characters. Especially compared to when Rinoa accesses her Sorceress Powers in the game; her spells all do five times normal damage. But, that's off topic. The real power of this ability comes from the infinite MP. And, without regular MP regen, this is made even more useful. Now, right now, it isn't really that big of a deal, anyway. Even with finite MP. Because, frankly, he doesn't have any big attacks. But, we have to consider future possibilities. EVENTUALLY he's bound to get spells like Auto-Life, Flare, and Comet. Would this ability be fair then? Again, this is an ability that I find a grey area. One side is, it is obviously massively useful, on the other side, is that a bad thing? As an admin-granted ability, it should be useful. That being said, I kinda think the "once per battle" part of this ability should be changed to "once per thread". Maybe we can have his MP be drained after using it too. But ultimately, I don't really think this is all that big of an issue.

  • Summon Odin: This is technically not a CA, but a weapon ability. It is also admin-granted. I didn't ask for Odin, Lorenzo just sorta stumbled upon him while wandering the Cetra continent. The ability is simple. So long as Lorenzo carries the Gungnir, whenever he enters battle, I roll the dice, which gives a read out of "failed" or "successful", if the roll is "successful", then the entire enemy party is instantly defeated. Now, the ability itself does not say this, but after talking to mal about it, he has told me that, yes, Lorenzo would still receive end-of-battle rewards, as if he had gone through the entire fight, and the odds of success are 1 in 6, which is (roughly) the odds that Odin will appear in FFVIII. Now, there's two ways of looking at this ability... in PvE, mal decides which bosses are immune to Death, and which arent. You'll notice in the event, there was an Odin roll for Ultros, but not for Necron. So, really, so long as mal keeps Odin in mind, when forming enemy bosses and deciding their immunities, I don't see the PvE side as an issue. The PvP side, on the other hand... well... yes, it's 1 in 6 odds of instant death, but it's no different than casting the Death spell... which IS instant death, no "odds" about it. And, any character can get immunity to instant death if they wanted. So, while Odin SEEMS unstoppable, and super powered, I am not so convinced that it is.


There is also one MAJOR issue with Lorenzo's bio. A lot of his attack abilities don't have any MP costs listed. I have always played with the assumption that they DO in fact, cost MP. But Mal has never assigned numbers to them, so that actually makes it a bit harder to judge Lorenzo's power. Take manafall for instance... some of you might think it's a super-powerful ability. I don't really agree, but whatever. Would it not make a difference in your eyes to know that the ability uses up like 8000 MP, or something outrageous like that? So, while this thread is about talking about Lorenzo's abilities, and deciding which of them are OP, and which aren't, it is kind of hard to do that, without knowing the downside to all of these abilities. Still, doesn't hurt to have general discussion about the abilities... so, what are your thoughts? Give me feed back. Don't hold back, really tear my character apart... if you think he deserves it, I mean. >_>
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Squall Leonhart

Squall Leonhart


Level : 10
Male Posts : 68

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PostSubject: Re: OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo   OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo I_icon_minitimeThu Nov 14, 2013 7:43 pm

After reading through this, I have a couple of comments.
Opal Ring - I think this essentially negates Magic Users fighting against you. While it can certainly be negated, Reflect forces the magic user to waste a turn just to remove that every 3 turns, with no drawback because you can cast through it. Shell is no biggy, since it does reduces damage, but does not renders magic users completely useless against you with it on. That's about it.

Sorceress Font is the one that strikes big, maybe the wording would sound less ridiculous if it said "Add +75 Magic Damage to his attacks" instead of the "increase his Magic stat by 750", this is just a cosmetic change anyways. But yes, the infinite MP is an issue. I do think there should be some kind of change on this one.

But, besides that, I don't think any of your other abilities are OP.
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Lorenzo




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PostSubject: Re: OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo   OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo I_icon_minitimeThu Nov 14, 2013 7:54 pm

Well I see your point with Opal Ring, it's not entirely true. Sure, Lorenzo can bypass his own cure, healing himself, but that doesn't mean his allies can. Take the event as an example... Rena WAS going to cast Haste on me, and I had to pull her aside in chat, and tell her not to, because it wouldn't work. Lorenzo can help HIMSELF in combat, but others can't help him. Haste, Shell, Cure, Esuna... these are abilities that Lorenzo does NOT have, that allies do. And they cant help him. So, while I see your point... I think Mirror Mail still has plenty of draw back.

Also, Sorceress Font, yeah, I don't really know how to fix that.
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Arc Bedlam

Arc Bedlam


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PostSubject: Re: OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo   OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo I_icon_minitimeThu Nov 14, 2013 8:07 pm

Here are my 2 cents Lorenzo, this is on the Sorceress Font CA.

To avoid the Infinite Mana issue you can simply reword it to "Fully recovers Lorenzo's mana at the end of the turn". Now this would force you to be very high level to abuse expensive spells like Flare, Autolife or Comet, and also would help you only on the next turns to activation.

Next is determining if a 3 turns effect is fair for a CA, but that's another matter.

What do you think?
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Lorenzo




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PostSubject: Re: OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo   OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo I_icon_minitimeThu Nov 14, 2013 8:14 pm

Well, while that would certainly de-power the ability, it also removes the entire premise of the ability; which is to access power on par with a Sorceress. And according to the lore of the site and the games, Sorceresses have infinite magic. While I wouldn't be opposed to an ability that refills MP each turn, instead of infinite MP, that kinda takes away Lorenzo's tie to the Sorceresses, which is a big part of his character. So, from a system stand point, I can see that working, from a plot standpoint I really don't like that, and feel like there could be a better solution. I am not 100% convinced there's anything wrong with the ability, honestly. Like I said in the original post, change the "once per battle" to "once per thread" and it could be fine. Maybe have his MP drained afterwards, you know?
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Squall Leonhart

Squall Leonhart


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PostSubject: Re: OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo   OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo I_icon_minitimeThu Nov 14, 2013 8:25 pm

Having his MP drain after the ability is done might work, actually, along with the once per thread.
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Lorenzo




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PostSubject: Re: OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo   OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo I_icon_minitimeFri Nov 15, 2013 2:07 am

I agree with Squall, and would be absolutely willing to alter my Sorceress Font to match that. However, I'm a bit surprised, I would have thought, given our discussion on MP regeneration, that you might find that ability more overpowered. No one has any issues with Spellslinger or Manafall or Summon Odin? Those were the three I thought people would be most concerned with...
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PostSubject: Re: OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo   OP Characters/Abilities : Lorenzo I_icon_minitime

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