All the classes in CQ2 are getting new perks in 1.16—and most are having a few rough edges filed off. I’ve got a good number of those perks and tweaks in now and they’re starting to feel good!
The Fighter’s changes are aimed at the concept of the Fighter as a sturdy veteran. I don’t want to overcomplicate the Fighter class, so these changes are fairly straightforward! The Fighter’s new perk, “Clinical”, gives +2 defense and the starting skill Vital Strike instead of Berserk. I’m hoping this will be viable everywhere and enable a tankier style of Fighter.
The other big change is to the “Intimidate” skill (above). I never much liked how random Intimidate was, so I’ve made it a targeted skill instead. Rather than debuffing and scaring nearby enemies at random, it now debuffs one target enemy and terrifies everyone near them. I’m hoping the extra control here will make it an invaluable Fighter skill for controlling enemy crowds.
Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to buff Intimidate without buffing Charge as well! Charge was lagging behind a bit, so I’ve made its cooldown almost four times faster than it was. That gives Fighters with Charge the same kind of mobility as Thief’s Dash when they’re in a melee, but with guaranteed hits on enemies as a bonus. I’m curious to see what Fighters can do with this and the game’s biggest, heaviest weapons…
The Wizard feels okay to me right now, so instead of a whole battery of tweaks they’re just getting one of the biggest new perks! The new perk “Classicist” gives the Wizard a mana bar, right under the character, that fuels all Magic (red) spells:
Having one mana pool for all your spells lets you do classic Wizard things, like spend your entire mana pool flinging Fireballs one after another until everything is dead.
Your mana pool starts off just big enough to cast two or three Fireballs in quick succession, then grows slowly as you gain Intelligence and put more Magic spells on your skill bar. Intelligence also speeds up the mana recharge rate a little. By the late game you might have 50+ mana, enough to cast eight Fireballs or any spell three times in a row—and Inspiration will extend those casts even further.
If that sounds too powerful, don’t worry! The big downside of linking all your spells to one mana pool is that when you’re out of mana, none of your spells work. Fireball doesn’t work. Any panic-button spells you’re carrying, like Blink and Charm, will also be exhausted by casting those Fireballs. You’ll have to wait for mana to recharge, and if you’re in a tight corner, that might get you murdered.
I don’t know what’ll be best here—collecting Magic spells to increase the mana bar, or picking up Holy spells that aren’t reliant on it so you have something to resort to when out of mana. Regardless, I’m sure there will be Wizards using this with terrifying burst damage. That should go a long way, right? 🙂