What Collective Unconcious could be

[Seeri]

Let's face it, even if they buff the numbers on Collective Unconcious to 3000 potency per tick and 90% DR it's still going to be a really boring ability. The animation for it is totally sweet so it needs two totally sweet and unique effects tied to it.

Let's see some ideas, the only guidelines are that you can't just copy the effect from some other class and avoid numbers, just put X potency or X%, values are for tuning and this is just about ideas. You also can't change the animation of the ability so it needs to be an AoE spell. You don't have to have the effect for both sects but it's nice if you do!

Here's my take on it.

Diurnal Sect:
Time Heals All Wounds
X% of damage taken while under the effect of Time Heals All Wounds is healed back over Y seconds.

The idea is trying to stay within the theme of the Diurnal Sect by providing a heal over time effect but doing so in a more interesting fashion. It would still require you to be channeling and stand still to maintain the effect but depending on the damage pattern you don't need to maintain it for a long time to get a powerful effect that would be kept in check due to the nature of scaling to incoming damage.

Nocturnal Sect:
Stasis Field (Yes, it would change name depending on the currently active sect!)
Prevent all damage taken by players while under the effect of Stasis Field. When the effect ends each player takes X% of damage prevented this way over Y seconds.

Again, the idea here is to try to stay within the theme of the associated sect and that means preventing damage (or delaying it, in this case). Dispersing damage spikes over a span of time feels very Astrologian to me. Again, you'd need to channel and remain stationary but you're rewarded with a powerful effect. Some mechanics may need to pierce this effect or alternatively the effect may have to "shatter" if a player prevents more than a set percentage of their maximum health in damage.

Also, as a final addition, there's nothing saying that the value of X in any of these effects HAS to be below 100%. it could be absolutely anything so please don't get hung up on the numbers themselves!

Thoughts? Ideas?

[Lastelli]

Nice thread! I really like your idea about noct CU (stasis field). My idea is the following:

Diurnal Sect:
Every player in the bubble is healed by #players inside*5% of (max hp - current hp) per tick.

Nocturnal Sect:
Damage mitigation for every player in the bubble by #players inside*2.5% of damage taken and damage is equally shared by all the players inside the bubble.

I wouldn't change the name of the skill. I linked the effectiveness of the skill to the number of players inside the bubble, so the word "collective" is fine.

I also know that they might be a little OP with those numbers, but simply adjusting the % value would be enough to make them "right". However, since you can't move while channelling it, I think it should be very powerful in its base effect.

[Zholi]

I think just adding MP refresh to it would go a long way.

[Evane]

I think just adding MP refresh to it would go a long way.

I second this.

[Seeri]

I wouldn't change the name of the skill. I linked the effectiveness of the skill to the number of players inside the bubble, so the word "collective" is fine.

I also know that they might be a little OP with those numbers, but simply adjusting the % value would be enough to make them "right". However, since you can't move while channelling it, I think it should be very powerful in its base effect.

I really like this, this is cool.
The thing with forcing you to stand still and channel a spell is that it's a very high price to pay so the effect has to be very strong. If you can coordinate in such a way that you have 8 players standing in one for a while you deserve to get something totally sweet out of it so I'm very on board with this.

I think just adding MP refresh to it would go a long way.

It's so boring though
Also, I fear this would just turn it into a mana cooldown more than anything else. While that would make it more useful I feel it might defeat the purpose of giving AST a useful cooldown to aid healing but still being something with an AST twist to it.

[Muahbec]

This thread <3

[Rajeme]

Snip

I really like your idea as well. And the idea of the more people inside, the more potency it increases, kinda like how Essential dignity work, but in term of number of people.

In addition, I also don't like the fact that we cannot move within the duration. I would very much prefer if they adjust so:
-CU has bigger range of effect, like 1.5-2 times bigger.
-You can move and use skills inside the bubble, but you cannot move out. If you move outside, the spell is broken.

[AlexanderThorolund]

I don't like the ideas that you should be able to move when using CU. In my opinion it really gives the skill visual flare that you can't. I like the idea though that it gets stronger the more people are inside the bubble, it's like more people submitting their minds to you the more powerful you get. I love it!!

[Zholi]

It's so boring though
Also, I fear this would just turn it into a mana cooldown more than anything else. While that would make it more useful I feel it might defeat the purpose of giving AST a useful cooldown to aid healing but still being something with an AST twist to it.

I agree with you on both points. It is boring, but it's just boring enough that it might actually make it into the game. I thought about making it AOE refresh, but that seems like it might be a little overpowered, like a ballad on steroids. Yet, the skill almost HAS to be overpowered. A lot of people, and especially the designers, seem to underestimate just how severe a penalty being unable to move and unable to act for 18 seconds is. In my opinion this is by far the most costly skill in the game, and if they are going to keep that aspect of it, the payoff needs to be huge.

And honestly, the design of this skill obviously began with "look cool like Y'shtola," and not "be useful." The skill has a lot of nice "flavor" to it, but it just isn't really usable.

[Tayolynn]

It's probably considered too OP if I share my idea, but if C.U. wasn't tied with what sect you're in, and did both diurnal and nocturnal effects throughout the duration of C.U., I'd use it every chance I get and finally feel uniquely valuable. I think it'd be fair since we sacrifice any movement and can't do extra heals if AoE's encompass the C.U. radius. Regen (aspected diurnal + aspected helios diurnal) wouldn't be enough to make up the extra damage taken while I can't move, unless there's a tip I'm missing. I also don't feel that this would make AST any better than SCH or WHM if C.U. did both diurnal and nocturnal effects.