Version 0.267 really ruins Lara in multiple ways taking away her uniqueness, gameplay style, player autonomy to play Lara how you want to play her, removing options for a more comfortable and enjoyable play experience, forcing the player to play a style of Lara they never wanted to play for mobbing and/or bossing, etc.
Lara needs everything from this update reverted and then make proper skill changes that improves Lara based on how she was.
The only skill I say that needs a complete overhaul is "Manifestation: Where the River Courses" to become a support skill that functions in a similar way to its counterparts of Wind and Sunlight.
Lara's fun is letting players choose which distinct playstyle they want to play as and then building for it, playing around Dragon Veins, and having randomness and variance - especially for the Absorb Skill Lara playstyle with Chance to Skip Cooldowns.
Even if this has to be a GMS only version of Lara that is way different to the KMS version, I want jobs to be unique and fun and embrace this aspect, and not have their identity and reason we chose our job ruined. Make skill changes to jobs that reflect and improve upon what they already do instead of thrash their gameplay style.
Skill Breakdown of Changes for Lara Based on How She was Before Version 0.267:
JOB 1:
Leap Up:
Important Functions to Retain:
~ Ability to set this skill as a direct key bind.
~ Ability to disable the shortcut key command with right-click in the skill window.
~ Ability to jump from the ground.
~ Ability to use Jump for Joy! after using Leap Up.
New Function Added: Ability to use the skill while in the air, in addition to using the skill on the ground.
Mountain Crash:
Delete this skill.
(Reason to why is below. Simple answer is that it is not needed, does not fit into Lara's playstyle at all, and will be made redundant.)
JOB 2:
Dragon Vein Reading:
Improvement: Maximum of 10 Dragon Veins will appear randomly on the map to instead be 10 Dragon Veins will always appear randomly on the map near Lara.
(The change being going from a Maximum of up to 10 Dragon Veins to always being a Minimum and Maximum of 10 Dragon Veins, regardless of the map size.)
Dragon Vein Eruption:
Old: Passively granting Eruption Skills +1% Damage per +2% Summon Duration is removed.
New: Passively grants Eruption Skills the ability to perform a Super Critical Strike at a +1% chance per +2% Summon Duration. Super Critical Strikes deal anywhere between 20% to 50% increased Final Damage.
FEEDBACK: This is to provide some variable fun for Eruption Skill gameplay and offer a more fun and unique build setting for Eruption Skill Lara players like how Absorb Skill Lara players want Chance to Skip Cooldowns to enhance their fun.
This does not change how you play Eruption Style gameplay, which is the good part, but offers more excitement and a more noticeable effect than a little bit of passive damage %.
JOB 3:
Manifestation: Where the River Courses:
Full Remake:
Manifest the power of the river to create a zone of water for 30 seconds.
When making contact with the area, receive a buff for 120 seconds for self and 20 seconds for party members, granting them 3% +1 % per 8,000 of their Defense, up to 12%, Damage Reduction, including against % HP attacks.
When self or party members are inside of the area and perform a skill that deals damage, it sends out a shockwave that ripples throughout the aquatic area, dealing anywhere between 1% to 30% of the skill's damage as ice elemental magic damage to monsters that are also within the aquatic area.
If Lara is solo or duo, this damage increases for Lara to be a random value between 50% to 80% of Lara's skill damage.
(No Cooldown.)
FEEEBACK: There are two aspects about this which is fun.
1. It makes the Defense stat relevant again while retaining the Defense stat's intended purpose which is to take less damage.
2. The damage the aquatic area does is effectively bonus final damage for the party, but as a more fun effect of the value of damage is random and provides a cool aspect of giving party members ice elemental damage, magic damage, and most relevant aspect is area damage for those that normally lack area damage.
The aquatic damage effect is something where we can allow Lara to become a powerful buffer and balance it out well with an enhanced solo/duo effect for Lara. Meaning in party play, Lara's damage is a lot lower than the average job, but while solo/duo does somewhat comparable damage to jobs because the party aspect is not being utilized while solo (and barely as a duo).
IMPORTANT NOTE: This skill will be the same size as the new increased size that Sunlight and Wind should be at (these skills are currently way to small).
Manifestation: Wind Swing:
Quality of Life: Key command to enter into and retain flight change to simply Hold Jump (from Up Directional Key + Jump and then Hold Jump to retain flight).
Quality of Life: Duration for the area itself increase from 30 seconds to 600 seconds. (Buff duration remains the same.)
Quality of Life: Cooldown is removed.
Buff: Increase the area size by at least 100% Horizontally and 100% Vertically.
Manifestation: Sunlight-Filled Ground:
Quality of Life: Duration for the area itself increase from 20 seconds to 30 seconds. (Buff duration remains the same.)
Quality of Life: Cooldown is removed.
Buff: Increase the area size by at least 100% Horizontally and 100% Vertically.
Buff and Improvement: Healing increased from 10% HP every 2 seconds to 25% HP every 1 second.
Manifest Manifestation!: Mastery Level 1:
New Skill: Active: Manifest either Manifestation: Where the River Courses, Manifestation: Wind Swing, or Manifestation: Sunlight-Fill Ground depending on what type of Dragon Vein this skill was used on.
Quality of Life Change: All 3 Manifestation Skills are now directly passive skills and this one skill will be the active for all 3 skills.
No other functionality change, can still summon all 3 manifestations at the same time, it is now used as one active skill key instead of three different active skill keys.
Dragon Vein Traces:
Quality of Life: Cooldown deleted.
Quality of Life: Recharge time and charges deleted.
Rework: Perform a different kind of teleport depending on if this skill was tapped or held down.
Tap: Lara teleports a set distance in one-of-four directions.
Hold: Lara selects a Dragon Vein to teleport to using the directional keys, upon skill release, teleport to that Dragon Vein.
Once every 30 seconds, when teleporting directly to a Dragon Vein, Lara consumes it to cause it to bloom in a large area and if this strikes other Dragon Veins then they will be consumed and bloom at 50% of the size than the last, dealing damage to monsters and stunning them for 4 seconds, including boss monsters. The same monster can be stunned by this once every 25 seconds.
Dragon Vein Traces Reduction: Mastery Level 1:
New Skill: Toggle: Reduce the teleport distance for tapping Dragon Vein Traces by 50% while active.
Dragon Vein Echo:
Rework: Passive: Upon consuming a Dragon Vein, Lara gains 5% Final Damage and regenerates 2% MP every 1 second for 20 seconds.
JOB 4:
Dragon Vein Absorption:
Important Function: Allow for all 3 Absorption Skills to always be affected by cooldown reset effects!
Important Function: How all 3 Absorption Skills worked before Version 0.267 must be retained! Notably Version 0.267 Absorption: Fierce Wind is a huge downgrade to what it was before this update.
New Addition: Passively grants Absorption Skills bonus Chance to Skip Cooldown equal to +1% per +5% Buff Duration.
Dragon Vein Conversion:
Quality of Life: Cooldown is deleted.
FEEDBACK: This skill will serve as the Wild Card Dragon Veins, making the Purple-Greyish Dragon Veins become completely deleted, removing the selection process entirely unless you specifically use Dragon Vein Conversion to change the Dragon Vein type.
This would be a huge boost to the enjoyment and smoothness of gameplay to this version of Lara making it where the Dragon Veins can only be River, Wind, or Sunlight.
Nature Master:
Quality of Life Buff: Eruption Skill duration increases to 30 seconds for all 3 Eruption Skills.
Mountain Embrace:
Important Note: As a reminder, this is the version of the skill before Version 0.267. This includes reducing the cooldown for every second of remaining max duration the skill had.
Modified: The size of the skill is greatly increased and now provides the same protection benefits to Lara and her party members when they are within the boundaries of the skill.
Improvement New Addition: While under the effects of Mountain Embrace, increase healing from Skills and Potions for self and party members by 50% and allow healing from Manifestation: Sunlight-Filled Ground to ignore all anti-healing effects.
HYPER SKILLS:
Dragon Vein Creation:
Renamed: From Unconstrained Dragon Vein.
Old Effect: Create an unconstrained Dragon Vein. (This is the Purple-Greyish Wild Card Dragon Vein which is now completely deleted entirely.)
New Effect: Create a random Dragon Vein at your location of River, Sunlight, or Wind.
JOB 5:
Big Stretch:
Mechanic Change: (Damage readjusted with this.) Can consume up to 10 Dragon Veins to create Intangible Forces at each location to attack nearby monsters. Every Dragon Vein that was not consumed will reduce the cooldown of Big Stretch by -6 seconds. (If only 1 Intangible Force was consumed this would be a 6 seconds cooldown.)
FEEDBACK: There are two aspects which makes this skill fun to use and for these changes.
1. See a bunch of elemental missiles explode out and fly out every way is always satisfying and fun to see, so increasing the number to up to 10 Dragon Veins can be consumed will really push towards this fun aspect to the skill. It also helps it become a better mobbing skill.
2. This allows for skill expression to occur by trying to intentionally summon as little amount of Intangible Forces as possible to get the lowest cooldown possible to maximize your damage if you have any amount of Flat Cooldown Reduction. Offering Lara players a higher skill ceiling of mastery and freedom of playstyle of how they want to use the skill allows for a lot more fun and enjoyment for the player.
Winding Mountain Ridge:
New Additional Mechanic: The summons can now stomp on Dragon Veins they step on, causing them to explode (consume) and deal damage to nearby monsters. The same summon can stomp on a Dragon Vein once every 3 seconds.
JOB 6:
HEXA Wakeup Call:
Bonus Effect Change: No longer creates an Unconstrained Dragon Vein after use, instead replaces the consumed Dragon Vein with a random Dragon Vein between River, Sunlight, or Wind.
