Given the visions, I'm pretty sure geochem is cyborgs. Clockwork cyborgs.
Half-viscanti, all awesome.
EDIT: For those without wheels, the most relevant vision:
Throwing his weapon at Stepasha, the half-viscanti abomination lunges at her. His body and joints hiss and whine with a mechanical fury, one clawed hand pinning a wrist down while he pins her body with his own. What little momentum she can gain in her punches and claws seem to be mildly effective, though it will take her time to get through him. You inhale and then exhale, the air passing through you and out in a deep and characteristic 'hoom'. You ponder whether to act or to watch or to leave. Padding over to the crystal-man, the sea-woman says he should leave with them. He shakes his head and waves her away, saying he has things to do. 'Hooooom,' you exhale again. This was getting mildly annoying. Maybe you should help? The crack of machinery denotes the joints failing on the half-creature. Pushing the sea-woman towards you, the crystal-man tells you to go. What else can you do? You wrap her in your branches and carry her away. 'Hoom,' you exhale for a third time. She was fiesty and angry - she wanted to fight. Maybe you should let her fight. No, no reason for more life to be lost. 'Hoom'.
Not this one?
'ARE YOU JUST GOING TO HELP OR ARE YOU GOING TO LET ME FALL APART HERE?' A bit too harsh, too much of a snarl, but it's all you could get out. Holding her down was an effort. Yeah, there goes one of your leg hydraulics. Not good, you think to yourself. Even if you survive the encounter, you'll need almost total reconstruction. Nails dig into your neck. Yeah, you won't be getting out of this you think with almost amusement. You snarl and sink your teeth into Stepasha's face, edged with razor-sharp iron they cut easily into her. You jerk about, rending and ripping. Bitch deserves it. 'I am nearly done.' How could that damn lucidian be so calm? The sickening crack of your ribs draws your attention. Damn, the lacing broke.
It's been a while since I've been back, and I haven't played around with the Wyrdenwood stuff quite yet, but I've been reading everything I can find. The general consensus seems to be that the 10p skills are lackluster, at least for -woods. If they're meant to be boosted by the afflictions, but we can't give enough afflictions to do much 1v1, what if we incorporate the leaves into it?
Using the skill kills your leaves, and unless you can summon them back soon enough after using the skill and figure out how to make them hit (and none of this seems theoretically possible), you don't really have much. Groups is different, of course. If we team up, boom, I can time my bomb to hit with Elanorwen's leaves, she can doublesling while I have my ecology familiar hitting with hemophilia/charybdon and I can hit with a possible charybdon/entangle. That sounds bad. But that's two people coordinating, and that's what's gonna happen when two people coordinate anything.
So! What if the last bomb kept the damage increase for group fights. However, if I have my leaves focused on Elanorwen when I cast my bomb (as a trade-off for losing them), the effects of the bomb change. Not only does Elanorwen suffer the same damage boosted from the afflictions (as do the other enemies), but... something else happens?
I have no idea how to balance something like this. I would suggest that for each affliction on Elanorwen (my focus) at the time of detonation, a particular threshold is reached for an instakill. All these thresholds could be different for flavor. For example, for Wyrdenwood, the threshold could be bleeding (or perhaps mana - but that seems like it has 1 - not enough originality, and 2 - is just another stack on the mana-kills Glomdoring has).
These numbers can be adjusted (especially considering I don't know much about this stuff): There are five enhancing afflictions. The threshold starts at 2000 bleeding. If Elanorwen has none of the afflictions and is at 2000 bleeding or over, the swarm of insects is able to find their way into her body to eat her from the inside out. If she has one affliction, the threshold is 1800. Two: 1500, three: 1300, four : 1000 : five 800.
Like I said, this is coming from someone who doesn't have any real experience with this, and has lost all his old experience (which wasn't much anyway). But hey - it's a thought, right?
edit: This is totally just a "hey - think about something like this." Getting that much bleeding would probably be tough for a Wyrdenwood (I'm ecology, so I'd have desertsmudge to help, at least). It could of course be changed to something that *is* possible.
The tricky bit is that even with all 5 of the affs (impossible without good help), you aren't going to output enough straight damage to kill someone, and there isn't really much setup you can realistically do ahead of time to lower them into kill range. At least, you can't do that setup and the affliction setup at the same time.
I don't think it's reasonable to ask for the 10p skill to be an insta kill, at least not for Wyrdenwood's case where (as far as we know at the moment) Shuyin's idea of burst-afflicting into the bomb remains viable. If all the wood-chems are going to revolve around damage kills, then they need ways to pressure vitals curing, look into boosting that instead, but keep the bombs as they are. We've finally gotten to a stage where the bombs are of a (generally speaking) more comfortable damage range, we don't want to boost them again.
Generally speaking, my opinion is that making the bombs a finisher is fine, as long as the wood-chems have to do some actual, strategical work to set it up beforehand. If the bombs are meant to be damage based, then they need tools to pressure vitals curing, and have to work to achieve it, and not just mash the bashing attack on their target for 10 balances.
Shadowdancers should get Shazbat as evidenced from Rowena's shadowbomb during the event.
Viravain, Lady of the Thorns shouts, "And You would seize Me? Fool! I am the Glomdoring! I am the Wyrd, and beneath the cloak of Night, the shadows of the Silent stir!"
Comments
Not this one?
'ARE YOU JUST GOING TO HELP OR ARE YOU GOING TO LET ME FALL APART HERE?' A bit too harsh, too much of a snarl, but it's all you could get out. Holding her down was an effort. Yeah, there goes one of your leg hydraulics. Not good, you think to yourself. Even if you survive the encounter, you'll need almost total reconstruction. Nails dig into your neck. Yeah, you won't be getting out of this you think with almost amusement. You snarl and sink your teeth into Stepasha's face, edged with razor-sharp iron they cut easily into her. You jerk about, rending and ripping. Bitch deserves it. 'I am nearly done.' How could that damn lucidian be so calm? The sickening crack of your ribs draws your attention. Damn, the lacing broke.
Signature!
Generally speaking, my opinion is that making the bombs a finisher is fine, as long as the wood-chems have to do some actual, strategical work to set it up beforehand. If the bombs are meant to be damage based, then they need tools to pressure vitals curing, and have to work to achieve it, and not just mash the bashing attack on their target for 10 balances.