Rework/Expansion Idea for Wortox's Tree

[aidancode]

I find it very unlikely that Wortox will get the same treatment as Walter. That being said, his tree is definitely the weakest of the three now. As of now the tree is half QoL half combat which is pretty unfortunate if you ask me. Here's what I would change, keeping the core concept. Is this a shot in the dark or unrealistic? Absolutely! But I think it's fun to consider anyways.

Before starting I want to mention what I consider the core concept. Wortox's tree is based on tradeoffs with his nice and naughty sides both coming with advantages and disadvantages to create a different form of soul-sucker. However, since the tree still follows a branch structure I don't think it really capitalizes on the naughty-nice balance. Players are instead incentivized to choose a few trees to fully invest in and deal with the consequences.

The Scales

I'm going to start with the biggest change I'd like to see. Both sides feel alright to me conceptually but naughty inclination seems like mostly a punishment state for choosing the better perks. Naughty inclination could grant 25% more hunger from eating souls, since this is the inclination that ends up spending the most souls anyways. I also like the idea of both nice and naughty having their own affinities, giving 4 exclusive ways to spec instead of just 2. This would require a prerequisite to the affinities: have 14 skills, and have the correct inclination.

Affinity - Nice

With the idea of splitting affinities, I think that the current affinities should go to naughty since they're combat-oriented, and the new inclinations can go nice. For the shadow nice affinity, while I can see people not liking this, I think it might be neat for Wortox to have a 50% chance to gain a soul from a nightmare creature, and a 100% chance to gain a soul from ruins nightmares. I could see people calling this both under or overpowered and maybe some would say it breaks the lore or something but I think that's largely okay. For a lunar nice affinity, I think Wortox could get enlightenment effects while standing on lunar island or grotto turfs, no matter where they are, as well as instantly having access to the terra firma tamper crafting recipe for these turfs. These include Rocky Beach (rock + driftwood), Moon Crater (2 moon glass + moon rock), and mutated fungal (moon rock + 2 moon shrooms). I think Wortox megabasers would appreciate this since the Lunar Island is occasionally used a base location anyways.

Affinity - Naughty

These would remain the same, though I think that the effects should work with ANY lunar aligned shadow aligned gear at a lesser potency. Shadow gear, both weapon and armor, could grant the Reaper's effect at half damage, and lunar gear, both weapon and armor, could grant stun resistance and 50% damage reduction instead of the full 100% with a Brightshade Helm.

Improving Filler Skills

Right now, Wortox's skills are really branch-like which discourages customization. You HAVE to complete the branch to get anything good. Soul Thief and Reaching Souls should merge their two skills and just become standalone skills. Soul Bastion 1 can have no prerequisite beyond unlocking 5 nice skills, but Soul Pierce, being one of Wortox's higher potential skills, could be given a prereq that gives the soul pierce effect at half damage. Soul Decoy and Lifebringer both don't need their second and third skills to be in a line from one another. In my opinion, letting you go from the first to the third while skipping the second for both of these skills would be better since it encourages more customization.

Adding New Skills - Nice

I don't want to ask for any really major skills here since I don't think that's realistic at all. Here I want to mention some mini standalone perks that could be given to both naughty and nice to develop Wortox's skill tree more and give him decisions within each side. For the nice side, Wortox could get a skill that lets him use souls like salt, restoring freshness to a food item when used on one. This would complement his nice side's encouragement for using normal food to eat and make him able to support the team outside of combat. Another skill idea could be that any players healed by Wortox's souls gain +20% speed for 15 seconds, similar to how Lifted Spirits 1 behaves. Finally, Wortox could have a skill that gives 10 hunger to healed players. This last one might sound pointless but if you've ever played with a new player who will starve to death with food in their inventory you'll appreciate this kind of thing.

Adding New Skills - Naughty

I'm going to once again provide 3 skills that could be added, this time to the naughty inclination. First, Wortox could craft a Frenzying Shot with a booster shot and 2 souls that drains 50 HP from Wortox and gives him a 20% melee damage increase for 20 seconds (alternatively, for cool points, it could spawn a soul sentry for a minute at Wortox's location that zaps nearby things). This would be a much more straightforward damage skill that players not looking to become very skilled with abusing his other damage skills could take advantage of. Next, a branch off of the soul jar skill, dropped soul jars slowly gain souls over time (maybe 1 per minute idk). For players looking to spend their time elsewhere, I think stuff like this is fine. Especially considering most QoL skills are on the nice side, a naughty QoL could balance that out a bit and give people a better reason to spec fully into naughty. Finally, a skill that has a low chance to spawn a soul following you when you soul hop could be fun to combine with soul pierce and makes soul hopping around during bosses a little more efficient.

 

I highly doubt that every idea here is a winner. That being said I think there's a good chance that at least one idea is so maybe it'll all be worth it. Curious to hear other people's thoughts.

[SebsiaX]

Giving wortox affinities for nice/naughty side is cool idea for me

[Crimson Hollow]

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[Fyffnuft]

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