Thistle, the Dryad

[NIkuno]

It has been awhile since I have done this, but I wanted to get it out. Heavily based on WoW Druid abilities, mixed with the Warframe mindset.

Spoiler

Quote

This is Thistle, the guardian, the unyielding.

Can you withstand the force of nature, Tenno?

Passive: Allies of Nature - Each ally* within affinity range boosts Thistle's Ability Strength by 10% (player number/balance/synergy detailed later)

 

First Ability:

Entangling Roots - Roots and vines sprout from the ground and entangles all enemies near Thistle, immobilizing and dealing damage over time.

^Strength:

^{100 Slash damage per second, 25% status chance} 

^{100 Toxin damage per second, 25% status chance}

^Duration:

^{10 Seconds}

^Range:

^{20m radius}

 

Second Ability:

Thorns - Thistle sprouts a protective coating of thorns that reflects damage back at attackers and boosts the damage of allies.

^Strength:

^{100% Damage reflection}

^{10% damage boost to allies}

^Duration:

^{10 seconds}

^Range:

^{10m radius (propagates like Desolate Hands, but uses remaining duration instead. Not affected by range mods)}

 

Third Ability:

Soothing Grove - A zone of healing plants emerge from the ground, aiding Thistle and her allies while slowing down her enemies.

^Strength:

^{50 Health Per Second}

^{100% Cold status chance (not affected by ability strength)}

^Duration:

^{20 seconds}

^{Range: (shares behavior of Hallowed Ground, but can only have one instance)}

^{180 degree angle}

^{10m radius}

^Misc:

^{Halts the timers of all of Thistle's abilities while they are in the zone.}

 

Fourth Ability:

Force of Nature - Summon friendly treants to aid in battle.

^Strength: 

^{400 Armor}

^{3000 Health}

^{1000 Melee Damage}

^{5% Allies of Nature Per Treant (not affected by strength)}

^Duration:

^{30 Seconds}

^Misc:

^{Number of Treants inversely affected by number of players in the squad (solo = 4, full party = 1)}

^{Strength of Treants is divided among number of Treants (solo = 25% each, full party = 100%, base stats still modified by ability strength)}

^{Treants can propagate Thorns if present, and instances of Earthen Grasp will sprout in a 5m radius of them when cast.}

I think I did pretty well on this one. All theorycraft, of course.

Edited May 28, 2019 by NIkuno
Updated some wording.

[Metal_Sign]

I can throw some words at it if you'd like.

 

Passive is fine. it's never harmful, and reasonably accessible. can't be relied upon, however.

• "Ally" looks like it's marked for explanation: to include pets, Smeeta clones, Spectres, and Operatives, I'd guess?
  • If so, then it can be relied upon, so disregard that concern.

1's nice. it's a panic button. If CC wasn't so often getting nullified or ignored, I'd say it's way over the top to have such a long stun over such a large range.

• Damage is so insignificant, it'd probably be better to not do damage at all, so that you could use it to like, not trigger Sensor Regulators or something.

2: please, please don't suggest 100% damage reflect. Unless it's like, you're invincible and also reflect the damage you would have taken. Either way, a reflect that low is almost never going to be helpful in and of itself.

• Allies do like damage boosts. that part is good. Could it stand to have higher numbers?

3's main functional function seems like it's to pause ability timers? sounds particularly useful for people that use CC. you could have a Counter Pulse literally never end ever if a Mag stood on that.

• since turning off the entire game is a bit much, might be worth doing something that like, increases people's duration based on power strength or something.
  • unless that means Thistle's own abilities get paused while on the carpet. If that's what you mean then sure, that's a nice thing, so why not? 
• Healing is pretty tasty, so cool.

4: distractions ❤️ ~ depending on attack speed and AI, these could be nice damage sources too. maybe. depends on damage type and secondary stats (crit, status, range, etc.)

• an ability that functions fundamentally differently based on the number of players in a squad is a first. May I ask the thought process?

 

Conclusion:

• All four abilities and the passive are useful!
  • There is a situation for every ability,  and none makes another obsolete or unusable.
• Thistle is a god of Condition Overload: three status proc promises, and a damage boost doubledip.
• Might be invincible via 2, eliminating the need to heal or cc: rendering two other abilities less relevant/useful.

[NIkuno]

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

I can throw some words at it if you'd like.

Yes ❤️

And thank you for stopping by and having a chat.

 

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

"Ally" looks like it's marked for explanation: to include pets, Smeeta clones, Spectres, and Operatives, I'd guess?

• If so, then it can be relied upon, so disregard that concern.

I meant allies to only include players and treants from the fourth ability, mainly to balance. At the low end, playing solo, you would get a 20% strength increase when the ability is active, so that the solo players do not feel like they are missing out completely. At the top end, it would be 45% increase. It sounded fair while not being overpowered.

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

I'd say it's way over the top to have such a long stun over such a large range

Perhaps I should clarify, its not a stun, just immobilization. (and ended up changing the name here to Entangling Roots, from Earthen Grasp. Used the spell names for the other abilities so why not here too)

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

Damage is so insignificant

I based the damage off of Strangledome mostly. Dealing 200 dps with the ability to proc slash and toxin BEFORE ability strength sounded good enough for a CC/damage ability. 

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

Allies do like damage boosts. that part is good. Could it stand to have higher numbers?

It could. That is what the passive is for, if it were to be additive. Flat 30%-55% damage boost, and perhaps some high scaling for the damage reflect. I thought it was ok for a hybrid ability, but if you would like to discuss this some more I am all for it.

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

unless that means Thistle's own abilities get paused while on the carpet. If that's what you mean then sure, that's a nice thing, so why not?

This is correct. Though the main draw of this is the healing, the cold status fit the theme and the timer stop was to provide what I thought was an interesting synergy. Keep enemies rooted longer and keep the buffs on allies longer all while healing.

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

distractions ❤️ ~ depending on attack speed and AI, these could be nice damage sources too. maybe. depends on damage type and secondary stats (crit, status, range, etc.)

Exactly. Stats are placeholders and tweaked from Rumblers to what I thought sounded balanced for what they are. Wanted the single one to be powerful while the smaller ones were not squishy and were actually useful.

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

an ability that functions fundamentally differently based on the number of players in a squad is a first. May I ask the thought process?

Of course. The idea here was to be able to benefit from the passive while playing solo. It would not be as powerful as a full squad of players, but it is not completely useless either. I had a tough time of how to solve this problem and then it hit me to use the summons as a buffer. I thought it wrapped it up quite neatly.

On 2019-05-25 at 11:33 PM, Metal_Sign said:

Might be invincible via 2, eliminating the need to heal or cc: rendering two other abilities less relevant/useful.

I did my best to think of that as well. To keep it active, it would require a lot of footwork due to the short timer (when not using the 3) and fixed propagation range. Took more than a little inspiration from Wisp for this and tried to make it unique for the theme. Also, I am basing this on Ice Chroma and the assumption that "reflection" in his case does not stop the damage from being dealt to him. I could be completely wrong so feel free to correct me. Perhaps I was just getting hit by melee or something when I came to that conclusion.

Edited May 28, 2019 by NIkuno