How would you rate all the skills in the game?

[Own]

In two categories. 'Fun' (Mechanically/Visually) and 'Power' (Damage/Usability).

For me:

Piercing Dash: Fun, Weak. (Most people use it as a dash. Using it vs enemies is a good way to take damage. Not enough actual damage until maximum charge.)
Blade Flurry: Fun, Weak. (Too much sitting still, too long an attack speed, not enough payoff)
Spirit Slash: Fun, Powerful.
Shadowclone: Eh, Powerful. (Boring mechanically but cool visually.)
Dodging Strike: Fun, Weak. (For being a high-skill and very vulnerable ability, it doesn't do as much as you would expect.)

Heroic Slam: Fun, Powerful. (Even the animation -feels- powerful.)
Whirlslash: Fun, Powerful. (At gold charge, at least. Feels like at silver you should be able to spin towards one direction vs any direction at gold.)
Titan's Throw: Fun, Powerful. (At gold charge, at least. 'Eh' in powerful until then.)
Smash: Weak, Weak. (Very niche with no payoff, lacks the tools to be more than a gimmick.)
Berserker Style: Boring, Weak. (Much less interesting version of Shadowclone. Red outline, the only visually interesting thing happens when you first cast it. While active you have a number of debuffs, but if you basic attack enough maybe you'll counteract them. Used to be better when skill hits refilled EP. Could be improved on in so many ways.)

Fireball: Eh, Powerful. (Just lobbing fireballs. Safe hit and runner.)
Meteor: Fun, Eh. (Good luck hitting anything. Or avoiding taking damage while you aim.)
Flamethrower: Fun, Powerful. (Flying around spewing flames is -very- satisfying.)

Ice Spikes: Eh, Weak. (Fireball that doesn't travel as far, does less damage.)
Ice Nova: Eh, Weak. (Whirlslash that doesn't deal as much damage. Feels like the surrounding blizzard should last longer to seperate it from whirlslash. Twirling burst vs Lingering AoE.)
Frosty Friend: Fun, Powerful. (Cute, soaks damage, punches enemies, immune to a lot of boss attacks. What's not to love?)

Earth Spike: Eh, Powerful. (Less visually interesting meteor, but more usable due to spammability.)
Summon Plant: Fun, Powerful. (But Boring and Weak until Silver Charge.)
Insect Swarm: Fun, Powerful. (Kind of a gimmicky fireball, but with less precision needed. Ultimate hit and run.)

Chain Lightning: Eh, Weak. (Good if you're grinding significantly weaker enemies?)
Cloud Strike: Fun, Eh. (Adorable! Great vs bees! But not too strong with it's tight leash.)
Static Touch: Fun, Powerful. (Provided you have the skill needed to chain up powerful cubes.)

 

[The G-Meister]

Agreed for all the skills I've used extensively (or enough to understand they're not viable on Hard). Only thing I'd add is that Plant Summon is definitely enjoyable and strong at lower charges if you know what you're doing. In areas where all of the enemies move towards you, basic plants around Boss Plant do a fantastic job, especially when you can spam them quickly with the right build.

Also I still think Plant Summon's Gold Charge is a little eh. Boss Plant looks cool and is mechanically powerful, but he isn't particularly fun. He's also OP in the sense that you only have to cast him once to give you a free, quite effective DoT that you can move. He would work better as an EP block if he's gonna stick around (a block that you can still charge even if you don't have the EP to cast the charge before, because your blocks already stack up too much).

 

[Own]

He's not really that OP. All he does is buff nearby plants and comes with two basic plants to hit enemies with. Him costing no EP blockage makes him balanced to the other summons.

Snowman: Can go far away, blocks a lot of EP.
Cloud: Tethered immediately around you, blocks a little EP.
Plant: Stuck in one position, blocks no EP. His 'cost' is needing to resummon him every time you want to move to a new target (unless you're just circlestrafing constantly, in which case other skills are better for this), and you can't even move him if you don't have the minimum EP to move him.

Making him block EP seems unnecessary.

 

[The G-Meister]

The thing is you don't resummon him when you move him, because it doesn't cost any EP. Once he's out, he's free (apart from some extra time) to move around, along with all the plants in his radius.

Also Plant Summon is *the best* skill for grinding. If you can strafe correctly, you barely even have to watch your surroundings and can focus more on when you can recast another plant. You put your peashooters down in his AoE and they absolutely destroy, even on Hard, making it the best standalone skill to circle strafe with, right?

 

[Teddy]

Just popping in to say that while I seldom join "player experience" discussions, I do read all of them and bookmark a lot of them for future reference! Lists and discussions like these will be very helpful when the time comes to tune stuff

 

[Megabyte]

I don't like Frosty Friend so much. Sure, it's a strong spell at first. But as soon as the game gets harder, the snowman gets knocked out very easily, and takes too long to recover. Compare that to Cloud Strike, which is an invincible spell. The only thing that is better in Frosty Friend than Cloud Strike is that the snowman can block some prototypes, acting as a shield. But that doesn't last at all.

To make Frosty Friend useful, I would suggest:

• KO: either remove the KO (remember, Cloud Strike is invincible) or make it very short.

• Guard: give snowman more health and make it guard your back – we all know how guarding the back is usually problematic, and it certainly is in this game. Just by making snowman guarding your back would make this spell very, very useful.

 

[Own]

You're supposed to tactically put the snowman into Shield position when he takes too much damage. It immediately makes him lose all aggro and quickly regain his HP.

The only reason I assume most people don't do this is because the icon is a little confusing. They look at it, see a shield and wonder, "Why would I ever want him to defend?" They try the button out and see that it does nothing, because he's already at full HP. Most people don't seem to look at the More Info for any of the skills and just learn by experience, though.

I think Frosty also gains HP as you can HP, or at least that's the intent. I can't for sure say his HP scales with yours because it's hard to test that. But if you wanted him alive longer, there's a ton of gear that boosts your HP. I think he also has a ton of HP naturally at maximum charge, giant form.

 

[Megabyte]

The only reason I assume most people don't do this is because the icon is a little confusing. They look at it, see a shield and wonder, "Why would I ever want him to defend?" They try the button out and see that it does nothing, because he's already at full HP. Most people don't seem to look at the More Info for any of the skills and just learn by experience, though.

Nope. It's actually because it's too much work. As I said in a thread I just posted (http://secretsofgrindea.com/forum/i...s-too-fast-enemies-with-too-much-health.7109/), hard mode is so fast that even trying to land an attack with the wrong timing might get you killed (you can barely stand still)! Not only that, but setting the snowman to defense mode makes him vulnerable for a few seconds, and it doesn't make him that much stronger, either. So, considering you might get killed for something that will give you little benefit to use, it's much easier to simply use Cloud Strike.