Reaping Strike | Suggestions

For those that have eliminate, farming is quite easier right now, but for casual people with not that much time in their hands, farming the coliseum without at least one is incredibly painfull. It doesn't seem that they are going to be made less rare, and the prices just keeps going up and beyond (500 gems and 415000 treasure right now), leaving many fresh players without it for as long as lady luck is out of mercy.

I have though that maybe it would be a good idea to create a new ability stone called "Reaping Strike", with a way higher drop chance, and aimed to farming in low lvl venues, while Eliminate, due to how much damage it does, can be used in higher level where Reaping Strike wouldn't cut it.

Reaping Strike
A weak attack that reaps the vital energy out of the slain and grows stronger with each fallen enemy

At the beginning, this technique would do as much damage as half scratch, so its actually quite weak, but as you keep killing enemy units, it adds its base damage over and over, so it actually becomes overkill after some battles, if you are against lower leveled enemy units, naturally, as equal or higher leveled would wreck your dragons before you could get even 5 stacks on this skill, while Eliminate would be way more usefull in those venues, for people that are lucky enough to have it, or at least are rich enough to buy it

Arater

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December 29, 2017 06:16:09

For those that have eliminate, farming is quite easier right now, but for casual people with not that much time in their hands, farming the coliseum without at least one is incredibly painfull. It doesn't seem that they are going to be made less rare, and the prices just keeps going up and beyond (500 gems and 415000 treasure right now), leaving many fresh players without it for as long as lady luck is out of mercy.

I have though that maybe it would be a good idea to create a new ability stone called "Reaping Strike", with a way higher drop chance, and aimed to farming in low lvl venues, while Eliminate, due to how much damage it does, can be used in higher level where Reaping Strike wouldn't cut it.

Reaping Strike
A weak attack that reaps the vital energy out of the slain and grows stronger with each fallen enemy

At the beginning, this technique would do as much damage as half scratch, so its actually quite weak, but as you keep killing enemy units, it adds its base damage over and over, so it actually becomes overkill after some battles, if you are against lower leveled enemy units, naturally, as equal or higher leveled would wreck your dragons before you could get even 5 stacks on this skill, while Eliminate would be way more usefull in those venues, for people that are lucky enough to have it, or at least are rich enough to buy it

Support!
Make the climb more fun and less hopeless-feeling for lower levels.

Incandescent

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December 29, 2017 08:33:22

Support!
Make the climb more fun and less hopeless-feeling for lower levels.

Just doing a bit of Light alchemy...

Hmm. This is interesting. Firstly, I think we should wait to see what the Coli revamp does with Eliminate before suggesting alternatives, but this actually works quite well. It would be difficult to balance, though.

Some questions:

Would it become more powerful if another stone is used to get the kill?
Would it become more powerful if another dragon on the team gets the kill?
How high could it be stacked?
How difficult would this be to code? Everything except hp and Breath gets reset each battle, so how would this be tracked?

It should be noted, though, that this may be unnecessary. Eliminate isn't necessary when farming the lower levels- Scratch does just fine with a team of 25's. Therefore, this would only be used by just-starting-out dragons as they level. But remember, low-level dragons don't get Eliminate until Level 7, anyway, so they don't need a replacement. And even then, doing half damage for multiple battles until Reaping Strike powers up might be a death sentence for a team in an equal-level venue. This would need to be balanced very carefully.

WyvernVenom

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December 29, 2017 09:17:29

Hmm. This is interesting. Firstly, I think we should wait to see what the Coli revamp does with Eliminate before suggesting alternatives, but this actually works quite well. It would be difficult to balance, though.

Some questions:

Would it become more powerful if another stone is used to get the kill?
Would it become more powerful if another dragon on the team gets the kill?
How high could it be stacked?
How difficult would this be to code? Everything except hp and Breath gets reset each battle, so how would this be tracked?

It should be noted, though, that this may be unnecessary. Eliminate isn't necessary when farming the lower levels- Scratch does just fine with a team of 25's. Therefore, this would only be used by just-starting-out dragons as they level. But remember, low-level dragons don't get Eliminate until Level 7, anyway, so they don't need a replacement. And even then, doing half damage for multiple battles until Reaping Strike powers up might be a death sentence for a team in an equal-level venue. This would need to be balanced very carefully.

Last edited on Dec 29, 2017 09:18:13 by WyvernVenom

@WyvernVenom

To be honest, I would really prefer that with the coli revamp eliminate was just made way way way easier to be found, instead of just adding a new battle stone and the whole accumulation system, but its never a good idea to mess with a player made economy, so if they don't want to do it in the end, the only thing we could do is actually propose some solutions like this one.

1. It should become stronger if you kill with any skill, even if its not that one, it would be seriously frustrating another way.

2. I think it would be fair if every dragon got the bonus for every monster they kill individually, but i don't have any preference, so it could be change in order to get it balanced

3. the idea would be that it becomes infinite, so devs wouldn't have to calculate a cap for the monsters in every stage, but its a matter of comfort more than anything.

4. i don't really know what computer language are they using for this, as i haven't really learned web design and so, but it should be fairly complex to create a counter for each dragon, adding 1 every time they kill one enemy, that 1 being +x damage (x being base of reaping strike), being these stacks able to remain beyond battles in the same venue.

It is neccesary when you can't have both time and ressources to lvl up, actually myself have lvl 15 dragons, and farming in these venues but the first ones is quite time consuming due to the monsters being able to withstand even 2 scratch per monsters, this would be really easy if I had eliminate, but bad RNG and poorly optimiced farm set makes it extremelly time consuming and exhausting. Its focused to starting players in general, that still haven't had time to level up their dragons, as its expected that when a player is already lvl 25 the farming becomes way easier due to natural scalling. To avoid the problem of dealing too low damage, it would be better to add the stack to the killer, without being necessary to kill them with Reaping Strike, but it wouldn't really be usefull for venues of equal level to your dragon's, as you usually can't kill enough dragons there for the damage boost to actually be meaningful in any way

Arater

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December 29, 2017 18:01:47

@WyvernVenom

To be honest, I would really prefer that with the coli revamp eliminate was just made way way way easier to be found, instead of just adding a new battle stone and the whole accumulation system, but its never a good idea to mess with a player made economy, so if they don't want to do it in the end, the only thing we could do is actually propose some solutions like this one.

1. It should become stronger if you kill with any skill, even if its not that one, it would be seriously frustrating another way.

2. I think it would be fair if every dragon got the bonus for every monster they kill individually, but i don't have any preference, so it could be change in order to get it balanced

3. the idea would be that it becomes infinite, so devs wouldn't have to calculate a cap for the monsters in every stage, but its a matter of comfort more than anything.

4. i don't really know what computer language are they using for this, as i haven't really learned web design and so, but it should be fairly complex to create a counter for each dragon, adding 1 every time they kill one enemy, that 1 being +x damage (x being base of reaping strike), being these stacks able to remain beyond battles in the same venue.

It is neccesary when you can't have both time and ressources to lvl up, actually myself have lvl 15 dragons, and farming in these venues but the first ones is quite time consuming due to the monsters being able to withstand even 2 scratch per monsters, this would be really easy if I had eliminate, but bad RNG and poorly optimiced farm set makes it extremelly time consuming and exhausting. Its focused to starting players in general, that still haven't had time to level up their dragons, as its expected that when a player is already lvl 25 the farming becomes way easier due to natural scalling. To avoid the problem of dealing too low damage, it would be better to add the stack to the killer, without being necessary to kill them with Reaping Strike, but it wouldn't really be usefull for venues of equal level to your dragon's, as you usually can't kill enough dragons there for the damage boost to actually be meaningful in any way

Last edited on Dec 29, 2017 18:03:55 by Arater

@Arater

Some issues that I can see:

1) Infinite stacking is ridiculously OP. Imagine a team of 25s, stacking it until they can one-shot everything in the Golem Workshop (including bosses). It should probably cap at about 6 times its base damage (roughly what Eliminate does).

2) If the bonus can be obtained using any skill, then what would be the point of it doing half Scratch's damage? Nobody would use it until it had stacked enough to be worth it. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it does merit consideration.

Also, one other question: would it generate Breath or cost it? Either way, how much?

I do support more common Eliminates. In my opinion, the best way to do this is to keep drop rates the same, but add it to the Mire. This way all that grinding would have a chance of producing more Eliminates.

WyvernVenom

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December 29, 2017 23:30:28

@Arater

Some issues that I can see:

1) Infinite stacking is ridiculously OP. Imagine a team of 25s, stacking it until they can one-shot everything in the Golem Workshop (including bosses). It should probably cap at about 6 times its base damage (roughly what Eliminate does).

2) If the bonus can be obtained using any skill, then what would be the point of it doing half Scratch's damage? Nobody would use it until it had stacked enough to be worth it. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it does merit consideration.

Also, one other question: would it generate Breath or cost it? Either way, how much?

I do support more common Eliminates. In my opinion, the best way to do this is to keep drop rates the same, but add it to the Mire. This way all that grinding would have a chance of producing more Eliminates.

@WyvernVenom

Keep in mind that scratch's base damage should be 4, more or less, based on damage done by lvl 15 dragons on the first venue

If scrach's damage is 4xdragon strenght, it makes more or less 250-263 in my tests
but Reaping Strike doesn't use dragon strenght just base, so it would go up REALLY slowly (if its too much, measures could be taken, like adding scratch's base damage instead of half, or even adding a percentage of dragon's strenght stat to the damage formula (that should be the case, as its growth rate is way too low in larger venues). This battle stone is easy to get because it is aimed to really easy farm where your dragons can kill many monsters, but you lose way too much time because you can't oneshot them (Festival farm), so yes, over time you will be able to oneshot everything, but after that long you already deserve it, because you have been farming for a while now and lady luck has been really cruel to you.

Is still usefull for lvl 25 full leveled teams, but are way more usefull for casual people that don't have time to reach lvl 25 but still wants to be able to farm something

The "half the scratch damage" part is to have a base to add to, even if its really low, you are not supposed to use it with so low damage, but use it when it has been empowered

The breath cost should be 0, while generation 6, same as scratch, there isn't so much to that, as for the point it is actually usefull for what's intended, you already need it to be perfect

Arater

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December 30, 2017 08:58:47

@WyvernVenom

Keep in mind that scratch's base damage should be 4, more or less, based on damage done by lvl 15 dragons on the first venue

If scrach's damage is 4xdragon strenght, it makes more or less 250-263 in my tests
but Reaping Strike doesn't use dragon strenght just base, so it would go up REALLY slowly (if its too much, measures could be taken, like adding scratch's base damage instead of half, or even adding a percentage of dragon's strenght stat to the damage formula (that should be the case, as its growth rate is way too low in larger venues). This battle stone is easy to get because it is aimed to really easy farm where your dragons can kill many monsters, but you lose way too much time because you can't oneshot them (Festival farm), so yes, over time you will be able to oneshot everything, but after that long you already deserve it, because you have been farming for a while now and lady luck has been really cruel to you.

Is still usefull for lvl 25 full leveled teams, but are way more usefull for casual people that don't have time to reach lvl 25 but still wants to be able to farm something

The "half the scratch damage" part is to have a base to add to, even if its really low, you are not supposed to use it with so low damage, but use it when it has been empowered

The breath cost should be 0, while generation 6, same as scratch, there isn't so much to that, as for the point it is actually usefull for what's intended, you already need it to be perfect

Last edited on Dec 30, 2017 09:12:28 by Arater

@Arater

Actually, Scratch's damage formula is:

(4 * STR + 12) - (floor(DEF / 3) * 4 + (DEF % 3))

Source

I was looking at this as being a stone that did somewhere around (2*STR + 6) - (floor(DEF / 3) * 4 + (DEF % 3)): half Scratch's damage. It absolutely should be based on Strength (after all, it is a physical attack).

Besides, going up by just the base is far too small. Scratch's base damage is 12, and a level 25 deals about 500 damage to a low-level enemy. For Reaping Strike to go from half Scratch's damage to Scratch's full damage would therefore take many, many turns. It starts at half Scratch (250 damage) and must reach 500, a difference of 250 points. That would require 20 kills, if damage went up by 12 each time. If it's limited to each dragon's kills, that's 60 enemies they'd have to kill, or two dozen fights. And that's just to make it as effective as Scratch. To reach Eliminate levels, it would take a hundred kills per dragon- 120 fights. That's a very long time.

And even if we used, say, level 15 dragons in the Redrock Cove, it's 10 kills a dragon to go from half Scratch to Scratch, and 50 kills to reach Eliminate. But remember, it takes a lot longer to go through the same number of fights in the Cove. At 50 kills a dragon, that's 150 kills total, or around 50 fights. If you do three fights a minute (generous) that's almost 20 minutes before you reach Eliminate effectiveness, assuming you never ran into a boss and had to reload.

Plus, if it went up by four as you suggest instead of 12 (the actual base), you'd triple all these times.

In conclusion, it's an interesting and worthwhile concept, but these numbers aren't really effective. Perhaps its base damage is roughly 2*STR (half Scratch), but increases by 1*STR for every kill made with it, up to a maximum of 8*STR (two Scratches). That way it's as effective as Scratch after two kills and at maximum- two-thirds of an Eliminate, or two Scratches- after six kills. That's generally under five minutes for most grinding locations. It should also only increase in power if it's used to make the kill, which would encourage its use and also present more interesting tactics. For Breath cost, it should be around 12. That's two Scratches' worth, since at maximum power most enemies would take about two Scratches and a Reaping Strike to kill. This would lead to a nice equilibrium.

Finally, I'm not sure if I can support something for people who 'don't have the time to reach 25'. Reaching 25 is valuable because it makes grinding easy. I do support an interim solution enabling people to grind as they train towards 25, but not enabling people to grind without ever putting in the effort to do so.

WyvernVenom

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December 30, 2017 21:24:11

@Arater

Actually, Scratch's damage formula is:

(4 * STR + 12) - (floor(DEF / 3) * 4 + (DEF % 3))

Source

I was looking at this as being a stone that did somewhere around (2*STR + 6) - (floor(DEF / 3) * 4 + (DEF % 3)): half Scratch's damage. It absolutely should be based on Strength (after all, it is a physical attack).

Besides, going up by just the base is far too small. Scratch's base damage is 12, and a level 25 deals about 500 damage to a low-level enemy. For Reaping Strike to go from half Scratch's damage to Scratch's full damage would therefore take many, many turns. It starts at half Scratch (250 damage) and must reach 500, a difference of 250 points. That would require 20 kills, if damage went up by 12 each time. If it's limited to each dragon's kills, that's 60 enemies they'd have to kill, or two dozen fights. And that's just to make it as effective as Scratch. To reach Eliminate levels, it would take a hundred kills per dragon- 120 fights. That's a very long time.

And even if we used, say, level 15 dragons in the Redrock Cove, it's 10 kills a dragon to go from half Scratch to Scratch, and 50 kills to reach Eliminate. But remember, it takes a lot longer to go through the same number of fights in the Cove. At 50 kills a dragon, that's 150 kills total, or around 50 fights. If you do three fights a minute (generous) that's almost 20 minutes before you reach Eliminate effectiveness, assuming you never ran into a boss and had to reload.

Plus, if it went up by four as you suggest instead of 12 (the actual base), you'd triple all these times.

In conclusion, it's an interesting and worthwhile concept, but these numbers aren't really effective. Perhaps its base damage is roughly 2*STR (half Scratch), but increases by 1*STR for every kill made with it, up to a maximum of 8*STR (two Scratches). That way it's as effective as Scratch after two kills and at maximum- two-thirds of an Eliminate, or two Scratches- after six kills. That's generally under five minutes for most grinding locations. It should also only increase in power if it's used to make the kill, which would encourage its use and also present more interesting tactics. For Breath cost, it should be around 12. That's two Scratches' worth, since at maximum power most enemies would take about two Scratches and a Reaping Strike to kill. This would lead to a nice equilibrium.

Finally, I'm not sure if I can support something for people who 'don't have the time to reach 25'. Reaching 25 is valuable because it makes grinding easy. I do support an interim solution enabling people to grind as they train towards 25, but not enabling people to grind without ever putting in the effort to do so.