More stuff to put in the sockets

[Arionthe]

Gemstones are all well and good for socket-ting. But they lack the oomph factor.

Basically they are just additive stats. Very useful at early/mid game. As players move towards the endgame, they become less interesting options.

So how about some multiplicative stats additions, instead of 5,20,50 flat stats, offer 1, 2, 5% bonus to the overall stat.

I envision the runestone alternative to gemstone.

5 tiers of quality corresponding to 1-5% of bonus to stats. Plus a final surprise at the end.

Earth Runestone -> Block

Wind Runestone -> LoH

Life Runestone -> Vitality

Fire Runestone -> Power

Water Runestone -> Damage Reflect

I purposely skipped haste, AR, and Armor because attack speed is already near limits of the game engine, too much skill spamming is already in the gameplay, and finally no one wants armor.

The final surprise.

If all that sets runestone aside from the gemstone is multiplicative instead of additive, they are not that interesting. Here lies the final surprise.

When socketting with the highest tier Runestone, this enables special procs.

Earth Runestone -> Gift of Earth: successful block has 25% chance to gain 700 HP (old defender set bonus that I miss)

Wind Runestone -> Gift of Wind: 5% chance to trigger shield bubble. (shield bubble for everyone!)

Life Runestone -> Gift of Life: 2% chance to reset potion CD per attack. (quaff quaff)

Fire Runestone -> Gift of Fire: 1% chance for a ring of fire bursting out like TBD minus the stun and push back (8000% dmg)

Water Runestone -> Gift of Water: 1% chance for a fan shaped wave soaking the enemies in front of the player, making them 50% more prone to damage for 3 seconds (amplified damage for everyone)

The strength of the procs will actually be dependent on how many max tier Runestones are socketted. The numbers above is reflective of mid-high level of socketting of the same stone.

Limits: only one proc will be active, that means someone socketting 3 types of runestones will only have the proc that is associated with the most socketted runestone active. The other runestones will only provide the stat bonus.

and One More Thing:

Down the road, those runestones can be like code. If some minimum number of different types of runestones are socketted, it enables a special Runestone skill. Let's make another draw symbol for it. Like the runeword skill.

For example 3 Fire, 3 Water, 3 Earth might enable something called Field of Thorns Skill. A castable Runeword skill that cast a ring of thorn/spikes around the caster doing 5000% damage, make mobs hit take 33% more damage and also gain 100HP per mob hit.

The possibilities are endless.

[Coda]

1) good ideas

2) devs unfortunately pretty-much ignore these kinds of ideas; they only comment on suggestions with extreme rarity

3) if implemented, when you cast the special Earth/Wind/Fire rune-enabled spell, your hero should be like:

[lama75]

I REALLY like this idea.

If the devs can make armor relevant, then it shouldn't be ignored. I know that's a big "if" at this point.

This is easily one of your best ideas Arionthe . Kudos.

[Oldmobilenewbie]

What I like about it is that the addition of Runes and top tier Rune bonuses, in combination with Gemstones (on jewelry or socketed) already multiplies by quite a factor the range of builds one could develop and explore within each hero type, and this is true even without the later envisioned combinatorial effects. Instead of just TWO types of playable BH builds at TL100+ more or less (and two is a bit generous given the predominance of the expected one Assault setup at top of leaderboard) there might be three or four ways of building both Assault and Stalker, and maybe, just maybe even a way of salvaging Adventure given enough or the right kind of Rune bonuses. At least that's what I like to think could happen.

[Deck]

Coda FTW on #3

[HyperBaroque]

I like the idea of using percentages. But should basic elements be tied to the various attributes? Have I missed something; are the various gemstones already associated with elements?

If say a fire rune doesn't do something to boost abilities related to fire, it sort of rings hollow.

[PeterK]

A way to make these could be by fusing different coloured gems resulting in runes of different strengths.

[Arionthe]

I was thinking more along the lines of high end trial drops or high end dungeon drops. Since they are more late-in-the-game tools, they should appear later in the game. This will encourage farming higher level trails etc. Mindless gemstone farming isn't exactly fun.

[SoulGaming2]

I was thinking more along the lines of high end trial drops or high end dungeon drops. Since they are more late-in-the-game tools, they should appear later in the game. This will encourage farming higher level trails etc. Mindless gemstone farming isn't exactly fun.

Exactly, since farming high level trials is not so rewarding as it should be..especially when considering the problems you get from white sisters.

[Coda]

. Mindless gemstone farming isn't exactly fun.

I have expressed this so many times and even done math to show the many dozens of hours it takes. It's easily the worst part of the game. Worse than the Elite Healers.

[Oldmobilenewbie]

I have expressed this so many times and even done math to show the many dozens of hours it takes. It's easily the worst part of the game. Worse than the Elite Healers.

My favorite part of this is the wonderful phrase "and even done math."

[Coda]

My favorite part of this is the wonderful phrase "and even done math."

Quoting myself:

~~~

With 'high end' jewelry, you may have one Primary-9 stat that is common to all 3 pieces, max-socketed. So you'll need 15 Brilliants for that stat, for each piece = 45 Brilliants of that color. Of course you can socket your creation differently than this to try to use fewer. It takes 343 roughs to make one Brilliant. For those 45 Brilliants you will need 343x45x6=92,610 roughs. The factor of 6, is because you are getting all six colors and unfortunately you need 45 of one color. Along the way you'll get enough of whatever other colors you need. At 60 per minute it will take about 25.7 hours of in-game time and ~52 boosters @ 75 gems each = 3900 gems. Most players consider this the most tedious part of the game, unless you spend gems ($) on the "Gemstone Selection" in the Store.~~~

[Oldmobilenewbie]

Quoting myself:

~~~

With 'high end' jewelry, you may have one Primary-9 stat that is common to all 3 pieces, max-socketed. So you'll need 15 Brilliants for that stat, for each piece = 45 Brilliants of that color. Of course you can socket your creation differently than this to try to use fewer. It takes 343 roughs to make one Brilliant. For those 45 Brilliants you will need 343x45x6=92,610 roughs. The factor of 6, is because you are getting all six colors and unfortunately you need 45 of one color. Along the way you'll get enough of whatever other colors you need. At 60 per minute it will take about 25.7 hours of in-game time and ~52 boosters @ 75 gems each = 3900 gems. Most players consider this the most tedious part of the game, unless you spend gems ($) on the "Gemstone Selection" in the Store.~~~

The factor is probably greater than 6--how much so I do not know--if you are going for Amethysts (AR) or Topazes (CR) as P1 or P2, since clearly the drop rate for those is lower than a strict 1/6 chance, no? By the time you have enough Topazes to make 3 P1 CR pieces of jewelry, you probably have close to twice as many Sapphires and Rubies, and close to three times as many Diamonds. Or am I wrong about this or the math thereof?

[Purple Potato]

Or am I wrong about this or the math thereof?

The drop rate seems pretty close. Just pop a 30 minute booster and see the results. For accurate info, do it 100x times

[Coda]

Oldmobilenewbie I dont have any data. Proving or disproving what in gaming is often called a "drop table" is very difficult . It takes a LOT of data and then one uses "chi-squared" analysis, with 'n' degrees of freedom, etc. Again it takes an absolute crap load of data and even then the results are subject to the caveat of having to state a confidence level.

My personal experience indicates that drops are approximately evenly random. 16.67% chance of any one color.

There's a saying: there are 3 kinds of falsehoods:
... Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics