Wortox "naughty" side deep analysis + feedback

[HowlVoid]

Tl;Dr at end

Soul decoy 2:

Given the souls are ethereal they shouldn't dissappear by number of hits and instead be timer based. I find the whole skill redundant to a character that is already easily escaping by teleporting away. At least this would help it be a better bomb by having more time to be crowded by enemies or giving other characters some actual time to escape. Also needs a boost to it's aggro, make it do the chicken dance (lol).

Soul thief 1-2

2 tiers of this feels underwhelming and not really thematically cohesive to the whole "naughty" thing other than the name. Boost Soul thief 1 and rework soul thief 2; when you teleport around/through butteflies you rip the souls from their bodies instantly adding it to your inventory and killing them in the process (not very strong willed, eh?). This would later be buffed to be better with soul pierce 2 to instantly kill birds and rabbits.

Hobo sac(Knabsack)-> Soul branding

Honestly would scrap the whole thing, as it feels unnecessarily convoluted and has rather poor synergy with the rest of the skill trees other than the forced synergy by giving other skills added passives. Skills needing other skills on separate skill lines makes things feel less versatile imo.

It would be a lot better if Wortox could infuse his weapons with soul energy (indicated by a red glow) giving them a x% attack boost. Does a couple things better

• Lends itself to the games natural weapon progression with a higher damage ceiling (endgame weapons) compared to having enough jars filled at all times crowding your inventory (the weapons have innate cost) and capped 68? Damage.
• Uses the huge amount of souls at his disposal (capped at 230 souls iirc) if every x hits consumed a soul OR pre-buffed the weapons and giving them "charges" (1soul=1charge, 1charge=x number of hits) depending on how many souls a weapon is inbued with. (Only wortox can use soul tagged weapons/characters can use them but don't get added damage/other characters can fully use them).

For the second tier of soul jars (covetous collector->Soul smithy), it can simply increase the number of hits before consuming a soul from the inventory/jar after a weapon is branded or increase the number of hits per charge. Also soul smithy has the second effect of increasing the damage of the soul infused weapon.

Spoiler

You can increase the damage based on the number of filled jars if you wanna keep that balance. I'd say the buff goes from 5%-> to max 15% boost. That makes the hambat have the same damage as the capped knabsack to keep it similar? *shrug*.

I feel like giving each character new things to craft is just bloat when it can be more intuitive and clean/natural. 

This skill can then be moved as the final tier in the soul jar skill line. This doesn't change much as the knobsack is very underwhelming without the other 2 skills that buff it. 

P.S. This is a skill thats worth getting rid of later in the game. If this skill is required as balance for soul jars to have a cost of 2 skill points, then I'd rather the number of souls each jar can hold be limited to 20 and then have that amount increased to 40 with covetous collector. 

Soul pierce 1-2

I can see the direction this is going for but due to the overall random nature of how battles go i feel like you'll only get a few accidental hits. The only mob clustered enough where I can see this working well is spiders. 

I think this skill needs rework, instead changing Wortox's telepoofs into dimensional phasing/ghosting quickly moving across another plane disrupting the soul of every enemy he phases through, aka telepoofs do damage. Along with the change to soul thief 2 he could quickly phase through a pack of Bees/spiders/pigs and rip the souls out of their bodies without backtracking.

Soul pierce 2 increases the damage.

Ps. If you really wanted to you can keep the connection to the jar line by increasing the damage of soul pierce 2 if you have a branded weapon. 

Soul decoy 3

Should deal damage based on the number of souls held. I don't think it needs to be attached to the hobo sac. Soul decoy already needs 3 skills to not be redundant to wortox's toolkit to then also need the sac, the jars, and skill that increases the damage of the sac based on the number of jars held. This is overkill to then make said skill useful.

Conclusion

If soul branding was made a thing and moved higher in the jar skill tier you have more versatility in choosing between explosives souls that do decent damage for overall less investment (4 skills instead of 6). You could still go for the increased damage but now has far smoother progression (as well as higher progression) while still requiring the overall investment the hobo sac (knabsac) requires to do full damage (4skills). Soul thief and soul pierce are a lot more intuitive and precise in their control while overall having the same utility. On top of also allowing far more in crowd control/finishing off weak enemies in a pack and easy soul harvesting in said chaotic situation. 

Tl;Dr:

Changes does this: Imagine a wortox with a red glowing shadow reaper, says "nothing personal kid" and souls hops through a group of spiders instantly tearing dimensional holes in all their bodies, sundering soul from flesh. Reaping a bountiful harvest.