Essence Mastery

I have faint memories of posting something like this years ago. But this one's better!


Half-Baked Introduction

So you say you're a Kheldian without an epic powerset? Well, there's already too many powers available in your primary and secondary to even take them all, but let's not ruin a perfectly good reason to get additional powers!

If you're fully integrated with your Kheldian essence, then you wouldn't have been granted the shape-shifting abilities. These few brave souls are the ones who get access to a new epic powerset for human-only Kheldians: Essence Mastery!


Formal Powerset Article

My user space on Paragon Wiki: Essence Mastery


Design Specification

Available only to Kheldian characters with neither the Nova nor Dwarf powers. This presents an alternate, viable "third form" for players who choose to remain human-only.

The level 41 powers should be team-centric so as to sort of "give back" for the inherent buffs that all teammates grant to the Kheldian archetypes. You can't pick anything else unless you take one of these.

Being an epic powerset, these powers should somehow fill in the gaps left by the primaries and secondaries, but for an epic archetype that's not all that easy to do.

Power 1: Something helpful for active teammates
Power 2: Something helpful for defeated teammates
Power 3: The long-requested mez protect toggle
Power 4: Self buff (Peacebringer) and enemy debuff (Warshade)
Power 5: Something uber that affects multiple enemy targets (not an attack)


Peacebringer

Astral Emanation - 41
Toggle PBAoE, Team: +ToHit +Perception +Def +Res(-ToHit, -Perception)
Your Kheldian energy can be used to unify your team and improve their combat skills. By emitting a warm, soft light, you can increase you and your team's ToHit and Perception, provide defense to all attacks, and provide resistance to ToHit and Perception debuffs.

Note: This is sort of an alternate Leadership power that combines the effects of Maneuvers and Tactics into one power. With the pitiful Kheldian team buff values, though, it shouldn't be overpowered. (-:

Celestial Twilight - 41
PBAoE, Ally: Rez +Dmg +Res(All)
Focusing the power of the stars, you can revive any fallen friends around you from the brink of death. Revived allies are charged with the cosmic energy and will recover full Hit Points and Endurance, and will deal more damage and be more resistant to all damage types for 30 seconds. Revived allies will be protected from XP debt for 20 seconds.

Note: I smell a Rikti Mother Ship raid.

Light of Reason - 44
Toggle, Self: +Res(All Mez, Psionic) +Def(Psionic)
When you toggle on your Light of Reason, you create an energy barrier that grants you moderate protection to most status effects, including disorient, sleep, hold, immobilize, knockback, confuse and terrorize. You will also receive moderate resistance and defense to Psionic attacks. You must be at least level 44 and have Astral Emanation or Celestial Twilight before selecting this power.

Note: This power intends to fill in the gaps between Peacebringers, which get no Psionic protection, and Eclipse, which grants good damage resistance to ALL damage types for Warshades.

Renew Essence - 44
Click, Self: +Endurance
Through perfect control of your body and energy, you can concentrate for a few moments and replenish some of your Endurance. You must be at least level 44 and have Astral Emanation or Celestial Twilight before selecting this power.

Note: Basically a rechargeable, enhanceable Catch a Breath. This power is intended to bring parity between Peacebringers, which have no means of replenishing their Endurance (Conserve Energy just makes it last longer before it goes out), and Stygian Circle, which is generally used to fully refill Warshades.

Bow Shock - 47
PBAoE, Foe: -Dmg -ToHit -Def -Res
You can create a devastating flash of ionizing light energy, weakening all enemies around you. Bow Shock deals no damage, but is extremely accurate and can dramatically reduce the damage, ToHit, defense and damage resistance of your foes. You must be at least level 47 and have two other Essence Mastery powers before selecting this power.

Note: Essentially a one-shot, PBAoE version of Noxious Gas. Anguishing Cry is very much the same as it is, so why not take it a step further and debuff their damage and ToHit while we're at it?


Warshade

Astral Diversion - 41
Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe: -ToHit -Def, Team: +ToHit +Def
Your Kheldian energy can be used to unify your team and improve their combat skills while weakening enemies. For all entities around a targeted foe, all foes are drained of energy and all teammates receive energy. You and your team will receive increased ToHit and Perception, defense to all attacks, and resistance to ToHit and Perception debuffs. Affected foes suffer decreased ToHit and Defense.

Note: This should be a good analog to Astral Emanation without having the questionable utility of a team recall.

Cosmic Vengeance - 41
PBAoE, Team: +Dmg +ToHit +Def +Res(Effects), Foe: -Res(Effects)
The loss of a comrade enrages the team. Should you be defeated in combat, activate this power to drain the essence of nearby foes to grant your teammates a bonus to ToHit, Damage and Defense to all attacks. A Vengeful team has no fear, and Cosmic Vengeance protects your Teammates from Fear effects. It also gives your team great resistance to all status effects, Placate and Knockback. At least one foe is required to activate this power, and the more foes there are to fuel this power, the more bonuses are applied to your team. Affected foes become less tolerant to all status effects.

Note: Is now a self-defeat-cast power.

Veil the Mind - 44
Toggle, Self: +Res(All Mez)
When you toggle on Veil the Mind, you create an energy barrier that grants you moderate protection to most status effects, including disorient, sleep, hold, immobilize, knockback, confuse and terrorize. You must be at least level 44 and have Astral Diversion or Cosmic Vengeance before selecting this power.

Note: Note: Specifically lacks the Psionic protection granted by Light of Reason, since that comes from Eclipse instead.

Suppress Essence - 44
Ranged, Foe: -Recov -Regen
By smothering the life force of a single foe, you can dramatically decrease their Recovery and Regeneration rate for a while. You must be at least level 44 and have Astral Diversion or Cosmic Vengeance before selecting this power.

Note: Since a Warshade self-buff doesn't look to feasible, a simple but effective enemy debuff seemed appropriate.

Gravimetric Disposition - 47
Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe: Teleport Immob
You can open a gravitational wormhole behind a targeted foe and violently push him, and all nearby foes, through it. The victims are transferred to the other end of the wormhole and are left Immobilized in a crushing field of gravity. You determine the location of the wormhole's end, but it must be placed on the ground. More powerful foes may be resistant to the wormhole effects. You must be at least level 47 and have two other Essence Mastery powers before selecting this power.

Note: It doesn't show it in the overview, but the power applies a short-duration sleep on cast and grants knockback protection to immobilized targets.

1) Why should it only be limited to human-only builds? I'm not sure I see a good reason to block form users from a non-overpowering ancillary pool.

2) The pb ones look FREAKING AWESOME!!!1!!11

3) Not really liking the ws ones Fold space would be really really not necessary/helpful; it's just a minor convenience thing to teleport everyone at the same time. You can already get Veng from a normal pool, so... I personally don't like Power Boost, and don't really find myself needing extension of the mez effects on my powers at all, plus stygian is extremely powerful as a heal anyway. Veil looks great obviously. And actually, I think I would pee your pants if I could get wormhole on my ws (my pants are a bit too awesome and dapper to pee at the moment). Maybe change "Wormhole" to "Black Hole" to fit the darknessnessness of warshades, and make it clump them together instead of flinging them about (more like a black hole and also great for our buffing needs).

Overall though, I would nominate you for kheldian ancillary pool committee.

I would suggest instead of using Cosmic Vengeance use a warshade version of fallout either using npcs, teammates, or both.

I remember that; Castle said basically that it was the intended design for khelds to take the forms, so giving them the mez protection let them not do that and was not something they were willing to do. If the problem with mez protection was that they wanted you to take dwarf, and you want them to give it to people who don't take dwarf, why lock those that took that form out of the power? I don't see the reason for the lockout still.

Anyway, something I forgot, I think it would be extremely helpful for some people if there was an option for an AoE immob that had -kb, for some obvious reasons.

The peacebringer ones are really nice, I think. I especially like Bow Shock, both the name and the idea. I'm not too enthused on the warshade ones, though.

Fold space is ok, I guess - not super amazing, but at least it's potentially useful. Although I'd really like something to further differentiate between it and shadow recall (which, remember, every warshade gets for free) - is the ability to recall everyone at once worth a power pick when I automatically have the ability to do the same thing with a bit more time investment? Perhaps give it a very long recharge but have it give some sort of moderate duration buff to the recalled teammates (so if you're stealthing to the AV, when you recall your friends they get a buff to help beat him down)?

Vengeance is something you can already get from a pool. The devs don't usually like the ability to duplicate powers, and honestly it's a bit boring - I'd rather have something new and unique. Apart from the 'cast veng on self' idea (which would be fine if you don't want to change this power too much), if we want to keep to the 'dead bodies' theme but involve teammates in some way, perhaps something along the lines of a team-affecting mashup of mire and a rez? Drain the energy of enemies to rez your friends, each affected foe making them get up with more health/end along with some sort of debuff on the foes (maybe slow plus -damage and -tohit, sorta like a reverse mire)?

Power boost seems useful at first, but then you have to ask, 'what would I actually use this on?' The human powers it would affect would be: grav well's hold and grav snare's immob, grav em's stun, essence drain's small heal, stygan's heal and end boost, unchain's minor stun, mire's tohit boost, inky aspect's stun, and the movement slows in various powers. Unless I've missed any powers, I don't see anything in that list that would actually be usefully boosted by power boost with the exception of grav em. Everything else is either a relatively minor effect like the movement slows, already overkill like stygan or mire's tohit, or not significantly affected by power boost like inky. I honestly don't see much actual use in taking up an ancillary pool slot with power boost.

The problem is, like you said, what else can you buff? I'm not sure, really. One thing that comes to mind, though, is to make it a combination self-buff and foe debuff like something out of kin (like siphon speed), in keeping with the warshade's vampiric theme. Maybe foe -special, -end, slow, warshade +special, +end, +slow resistance? Stygan is great for filling up after fights, but not during them, so combined with the -special and the slow resistance this would be more useful. Give it a fairly long recharge and short duration on the (de)buffs, though, so it doesn't step on the toes of stuff like benumb or that poison debuff. (maybe 120s rech, 15s duration on everything except the slow resist and 30-45s duration on that?)

A wormhole-esque power at 47 is great. I agree that a carbon copy of wormhole would overlap a bit too much with grav em, though, and think a -KB immob is a good alternate version. However, removing the stun and KB leaves it with an amplified version of the same problem wormhole has - you'll get your face shot off using it. I would personally suggest having it inflict KD simultaneously with the teleport (so the KB protection would have to kick in a fraction of a second after that, but no biggie), and giving it a ~30-40% chance for a ~5s mag 2 hold. This doesn't completely negate incoming damage like a mez, but it would delay and stagger the alpha and give you time to hit a mire or grav em.

One thing I would definitely suggest is that all of these powers should have short animations. This opens up possibilities like 'recover from a wipe by grav em'ing baddies into a corner, team recall all the bodies on top of you/the baddies and then hit the rez', or 'recover from a wipe where you managed to finish off the enemy spawn by wormholing a fresh spawn in and then hitting the rez', or 'wormhole + grav em + mire', or 'use the power/end boost as a mid-fight refill', or whatever.

(Also, an aside - is it just me, or are both sets of icons the same color? Shouldn't the peacebringer ones be bluer?)

I've revised the Warshade powers based on thread feedback. It now looks like this:

Warshade

Astral Diversion - 41
Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe: -ToHit -Def, Team: +ToHit +Def
Your Kheldian energy can be used to unify your team and improve their combat skills while weakening enemies. For all entities around a targeted foe, all foes are drained of energy and all teammates receive energy. You and your team will receive increased ToHit and Perception, defense to all attacks, and resistance to ToHit and Perception debuffs. Affected foes suffer decreased ToHit and Defense.

Note: This should be a good analog to Astral Emanation without having the questionable utility of a team recall.

Cosmic Vengeance - 41
PBAoE, Team: +Dmg +ToHit +Def +Res(Effects), Foe: -Res(Effects)
The loss of a comrade enrages the team. Should you be defeated in combat, activate this power to drain the essence of nearby foes to grant your teammates a bonus to ToHit, Damage and Defense to all attacks. A Vengeful team has no fear, and Cosmic Vengeance protects your Teammates from Fear effects. It also gives your team great resistance to all status effects, Placate and Knockback. At least one foe is required to activate this power, and the more foes there are to fuel this power, the more bonuses are applied to your team. Affected foes become less tolerant to all status effects.

Note: Is now a self-defeat-cast power.

Veil the Mind - 44
Toggle, Self: +Res(All Mez)
When you toggle on Veil the Mind, you create an energy barrier that grants you moderate protection to most status effects, including disorient, sleep, hold, immobilize, knockback, confuse and terrorize. You must be at least level 44 and have Astral Diversion or Cosmic Vengeance before selecting this power.

Note: Note: Specifically lacks the Psionic protection granted by Light of Reason, since that comes from Eclipse instead.

Suppress Essence - 44
Ranged, Foe: -Recov -Regen
By smothering the life force of a single foe, you can dramatically decrease their Recovery and Regeneration rate for a while. You must be at least level 44 and have Astral Diversion or Cosmic Vengeance before selecting this power.

Note: Since a Warshade self-buff doesn't look to feasible, a simple but effective enemy debuff seemed appropriate.

Gravimetric Disposition - 47
Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe: Teleport Immob
You can open a gravitational wormhole behind a targeted foe and violently push him, and all nearby foes, through it. The victims are transferred to the other end of the wormhole and are left Immobilized in a crushing field of gravity. You determine the location of the wormhole's end, but it must be placed on the ground. More powerful foes may be resistant to the wormhole effects. You must be at least level 47 and have two other Essence Mastery powers before selecting this power.

Note: It doesn't show it in the overview, but the power applies a short-duration sleep on cast and grants knockback protection to immobilized targets.

Edit: hmm, we cross-posted. About the first power, though - I don't think the name sounds very warshade-y. 'Astral' sounds like a peacebringer power to me. And were you thinking it'd work like fulcrum where it gets stronger based on the number of foes? That sounds a bit iffy to me, since to keep it from being overpowered the base values would have to be extremely small to the point where they'd be nearly useless when not saturated.

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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect I'll admit I got kinda caught up on the idea of an archetype-granted team recall, but you're right about Shadow Recall: every Warshade gets it; what's the point of saving yourself 60 seconds by taking something that does roughly the same thing? The thing with buffing teammates is problematic with Warshade, though, since the whole Nictus lore revolves around how they're sucking power out of other people. I do see potential for something Kineticsy here, though. Perhaps as an analogue to Astral Emanation, the power can emit a one-pulse buff/debuff around a targeted enemy: foes get -ToHit -Def, friends (and self) get +ToHit +Def. Nothing to the extent of Fulcrum Shift or even necessarily noteworthy, but but a buff/debuff diatomic power might be just the ticket.

I could definitely see this working. +Tohit and +def are good fits here, too, since neither one does much of anything for the warshade himself so you don't need to worry about this being too strong for the caster.

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What you've described sounds like Howling Twilight. Again, the problem I have with giving an ally rez power to a Warshade is that it's a bit backwards from the Nictus lore. Even Stygian Return is reaching a bit, but at least it's self-serving. I'd like to avoid the ally rez concept if at all possible.

Out of curiosity, where are you gettting that rezzes wouldn't fit with warshade lore? I'm not aware of any particular piece of lore to that effect. I was thinking that as long as it had that sort of vampiric warshade vibe to it, it would be ok.

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I think it'd be fun to mix it up a bit. I like the self-casting Vengeance idea, but let's toss in a twist: you need at least one enemy around for it to work, and the more enemies, the bigger the buff to your team. That will let the Warshade buff the teammates without just saying, "here have a buff," and would make the power situational enough that you wouldn't feel compelled to take it.

This can definitely work, too. Thinking about the whole idea some more, though, I begin to wonder how you'd justify it, conceptually. Why is the warshade only able to pull off this energy-transferring trick while dead (given that it's got the usual warshade foe-leeching scaling, it seems hard to use the same sort of justification the original venge does)? If you can deal with that, though, I don't see any reason why this couldn't work. You'd probably want to add some sort of debuff to the affected foes, too.

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I'm thinkin' a strong, single-target -Regen -Recov. No other debuffs; just the "life force" ones. It will help harder targets go down easier, either solo or on a team.

Sounds good to me, though I'd add a moderately strong slow, too - not much use against EB/AVs thanks to their debuff resistance, but it'd make it more useful against regular bosses solo. Plus basically everything warshades do slows baddies, it seems odd to me that this wouldn't

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Just for the sake of keeping the Warshade from unconditionally absorbing the alpha strike of a spawn, how about a 2-second, 2-magnitude, gravity-themed Sleep? If nothing else, it'll keep the minions and lieutenants occupied long enough for the Extracted Essences to draw their attention.

Thing is, warshades can already absorb alpha strikes with stealth + grav em. I don't think that a KD would be that worrisome, especially since it'd only delay the alpha for a short duration and you'd still need to use something like grav em to keep them controlled. A sleep could work too, though - although I'd strongly suggest making it mag 3 instead of 2 (mag 2 is minion only), and probably 5 or 6 seconds instead of 2 since mez durations scale down against up-level foes.

like it but the pb renew essence is not needed we already have conserve.. i would trade that for a damage buff clicky which will fill the hold of build up recharging.. or a dmg toggle like Assualt

Some really great ideas in this thread. I never thought Kheldians even needed an ancillary pool until reading it. One epic power I'd like to have for both Kheldian AT's is a way to get an Air Superiority clone since we are locked out of taking the Flight pool.