A way to buff hitters to wizards level

The issue
So clearly, we can see wizards are incredibly powerful in comparison to the damage and utility that every other class brings to the table. What logical things can we add to buff "mundane" hitters up to a wizards level.. What makes sense for characters with both grand mastery of spells and grand mastery of weaponry like warriors, thieves and adventurers. Well.. Imbuing special attacks with various spell schools. (so you don't have to create new spell/skill schools to enable ability use on these characters). The skill books should scale with MDM (or DEX and STR whichever works code wise) and be limited to warr/thief/adventurer use (imo- though maybe not needed).

This was designed around what is already available within the realm regarding spell schools - not trying to reinvent the wheel and add 6 new ui buttons and recode everything. Just new spells that scale MDM. Simple.. (i think?)

Some very quick ideas would be -
Sorc:
Conjured weapons : Reduces your damage by 50/60/70/80% (depending on no. of targets available), but each swing hits every target on screen - extra procs such as Dragons Breath (see below) will not combine with other targets beyond the main target. Lasts 2 rounds.

Myst:
(funny name) - Attacks have a 10% chance to disarm/fumble opponent (like the warr shield on beta) and deal 10% bonus myst damage to your main target. Lasts 2 rounds.

Ele:
Imbue your weapon with various elements
Dragons Breath = Weapon strikes cause fire damage in an AOE cone. Lasts 1 round.
Ymir's puncture = Grants high armor penetration. Lasts 2 rounds.
Lightning strikes = +1 attack and chance to stun. Lasts 2 rounds.
Gaias gambit = Reduces the damage you take by 10-15%. Lasts 2 rounds.

Necro:
Maledictive pummel - Each weapon strike has a chance to inflict a random curse that the opponent doesn't currently have. Lasts 2 rounds.

Thaum:
Paladin's Rebuke - Chance to heal yourself on hit, or allies if you are full health. Lasts 2 rounds.

• these abilities should trigger your regular attack sequence after casting or last 1-2 rounds longer so you can link them.

Why?
The reason for these changes would be two fold -
1) It opens up opportunities for hitters to do some really fun/interesting chains of abilities and learning different interactions depending on the situation.
2) It also goes some way to bringing them to the same kind of clear speed as wizards, obviously scaling and tuning could take some time and it may be that each of these would have to reduce the amount of attacks you do if they seem too powerful. Certain abilities should be slightly stronger but have no carry-over effect into next round, sort of like finishers.

As an example > You could open up with imbuing your weapon with Necro, then imbue sorcery, this would spread various curses around to all targets, next round necro would run out so you would imbue something that synergises with your 1 remaining round of sorc, such as Myst to attempt to disarm them all, next round sorc will run out so you have the option of cyling it back into your "rotation" or moving on and choosing your next imbue to synergise with the 1 remaining round of Myst, such as using Gaias gambit now you're in the thick of it, then the turn after that using Paladins rebuke to heal up while you have damage reduction active.

If done right it could create an incredibly rewarding and engaging playstyle for hitters instead of just pressing attack every turn.

I support the idea in itself as i did write my own feedback about the topic, however there are things in there that i would see needing some tuning:

The skills can be attached to the skill level of the chosen weapon instead of being enchanted on a weapon. They can either use mana crystals or have an internal cooldown with no cost.

Wizards can cast aoe without a multi-target penalty to damage, if they do not get a penalty, neither should conjured weapons.

2 rounds sounds too short in my opinion, because you take a full round to cast the spell, it should be more like 3 or 4 rounds, especially in combat, if you can survive 1 round of NPC attacks, some wizard spells can easily rivalize such abilities, like Hold Monster as an obvious example.

I'm not sure if the game has any "cone" detection coded in, it seems to be either all or single, and the way the battle goes it would be awkwardly aimed because the players and npcs move in sequences, they don't do their full turn, not to mention the player characters sometimes move in ways you don't want them to, on ranged weapons, this would require some pattern re-coding.

Not sure if armor penetration would do anything against PvE enemies, it would probably translate better into raw bonus damage.

10 - 15% damage reduction for 2 rounds is a skill everyone will not bother with because the bonus is too low and too short, especially if it make the caster skip a turn.

Variances of the Gambit ability would be Dodging for totally avoiding attacks, and Resist for harmful spells.

It would also be important to mention that non caster abilities should not require spell school levels to be learned, only attached to their innate weapon skill level (ex: Throwing weapons lvl 1 2 3 4 5) (Yes, it does sounds a bit redundant from the 2nd sentence in the post, but it hits a different subject)

Ignoring the specifics, Zewpi's idea is important… Make other play styles more fun and interactive instead of just nerfing wiz.

Is wiz OP? Probably. But the other play styles are pretty boring to me (Attack, Guard, maybe Death Wish). Any additional game play/mechanics to melee, throwing, tanking, healing, buffing would be awesome.

I support the idea in itself as i did write my own feedback about the topic, however there are things in there that i would see needing some tuning:

The skills can be attached to the skill level of the chosen weapon instead of being enchanted on a weapon. They can either use mana crystals or have an internal cooldown with no cost.

Wizards can cast aoe without a multi-target penalty to damage, if they do not get a penalty, neither should conjured weapons.

2 rounds sounds too short in my opinion, because you take a full round to cast the spell, it should be more like 3 or 4 rounds, especially in combat, if you can survive 1 round of NPC attacks, some wizard spells can easily rivalize such abilities, like Hold Monster as an obvious example.

I'm not sure if the game has any "cone" detection coded in, it seems to be either all or single, and the way the battle goes it would be awkwardly aimed because the players and npcs move in sequences, they don't do their full turn, not to mention the player characters sometimes move in ways you don't want them to, on ranged weapons, this would require some pattern re-coding.

Not sure if armor penetration would do anything against PvE enemies, it would probably translate better into raw bonus damage.

10 - 15% damage reduction for 2 rounds is a skill everyone will not bother with because the bonus is too low and too short, especially if it make the caster skip a turn.

Variances of the Gambit ability would be Dodging for totally avoiding attacks, and Resist for harmful spells.

It would also be important to mention that non caster abilities should not require spell school levels to be learned, only attached to their innate weapon skill level (ex: Throwing weapons lvl 1 2 3 4 5) (Yes, it does sounds a bit redundant from the 2nd sentence in the post, but it hits a different subject)

Appreciate the feedback on the ideas, I'll just go down the list.. but will add this snipper of my post:

So instead of these abilities being their own turn cast, it functions as "attack" would, but adds a buff to you just before your attacks trigger, causing the aforementioned effects.

Naturally there'd be teething with a huge concept design like this, nerfing, tuning and extensive testing would all come with development of enhancing the playstyle of the other classes.

"Wizard can cast aoe without a multi target penalty" Yeah, they can, but warriors/thieves/adventurers do a lot more single target damage end-game through their regular attack sequence than wizards, so when you think a warrior/thief can do 10-20k damage single target in 1 round in the best gear, maybe more (on MW at least). If numbers are similar, if you used conjured weapons you'd do 5-10k to 2 targets, which is incredibly strong still, then 4-8k to 3 targets, 3-6k to 4, 2-4k to 5, 1-3k to 6+ then it's roughly balanced compared to a wizard. The idea is to be balanced, not become gods of single target AND aoe simply because wizards have had their time in the spotlight.

2 rounds is too short - see above snippet, it definitely is too short if the casts can't trigger your regular attack sequence in the same turn, yes.

Cone detection - it wouldn't necessarily have to be scripted as a cone, but the game has 2x2 area of effects like acid rain etc, surely that should allow for a 2x3 aoe behind the initial hit square creating somewhat of a cone effect. If the devs did decide to create something akin to this i'm sure they can work out a creative way of implementing it.

Armor penetration - it may be useful, it may not, at the very least it would be applicable in pvp, and if a system like this did come in then it also gives the devs more freedom to introduce armour into pve content as well, creating more use for a wider variety of abilities.

10-15% damage reduction - it may not sound like a lot, but when combined with high armor, a good shield, and a life steal weapon, this ability in rotation with the proposed paladins rebuke may allow someone to infinitely sustain themselves. So the number cannot be too high, and at the very worst case scenario it can be used in an attempt to prevent 1-shots from things like death words, mob aoes etc if you know the mob ai. Though I do see your point of avoiding attacks as a proposed alternative, perhaps dodge the next 2-3 attacks, or immune 1 spell or something? (perhaps spell avoidance should be in sorcery.. though it sounds quite strong)

The importance of tying these abilities to weapon skill - while this a good idea and understand your reasoning, it sort of negates the entirety of the post. Introducing weapon skills would require a whole new skill tree adding, modifying the ui, extra "blips" in your spell book - or a new skill button being added. The whole reason i even thought about this is because at the most basic level it requires relatively small amount of development (compared to designing the new ui buttons, programming those skills in to their own separate branch etc). Realistically this is just (hah) adding in 9 new spells which have melee range unless mentioned otherwise with class restriction.

I may be trying to think of a quick fix instead of a long term solution, but as Khego mentions. Making the other 75% of the game more fun and interactive is a major issue, especially if we want to see consistent growth. Wizards get access to over 100 spells tailored around their class and stats.. Warriors, thieves and adventurers(ish) pick a weapon and press attack or guard sometimes. With little to no utility and reduced effectiveness of spell schools.
I hope this thread catches a bit of attention, as i don't expect this post to be a literally fully meshed out plan of EXACTLY what has to be implemented - but rather an alert to possible ideas and ways to create a flowing combo/finisher-esque system with the mechanics already in place within the realm.