With all the concerns about a lack of techniques compared to spells, I was thinking: What can you do with punching things? I tried to think of moves that would add to a strength build’s options, for hybrid and pure builds, for the big wrecking balls and the precise martial artists; here is what I thought of:
Pound
A quick smashing attack to beat down any nearby enemies.
Details
Strength requirement: 60
A relatively fast and low AoE smashing move with a very low cooldown
Customization:
- Size: Higher Size increases AoE, but decreases damage
- Embodiment: Can modify size, cost, attack speed, damage
- Ultimate Art: Increased damage and size, but goes on a long cooldown if not used repeatedly
The use case for this move is simple: if your enemy isn’t moving, or can’t move, beat the crap out of them.
Toss
Pick up a nearby object and throw it.
Details
Strength requirement: 80, but more strength will let you pick up larger objects
If no valid objects are nearby, player lifts up a chunk of ground and throws that instead. The more attack size and strength you have, the bigger object you can throw, up to smaller buildings if you really invest in those stats.
Imbuements will imbue the objects with whatever imbuement you use. Imbued with Fire magic? That tree you picked up is now on fire.
Customization:
- Size: Increasing Size affects max object size, but smaller objects can be thrown faster
- Embodiment: Can affect max object size, throwing speed, damage, throwing distance
- Ultimate Art: Increased object size and throwing speed
The use case for this move in combat is a slower moving projectile to provide some pressure. Also, the spectacle of throwing crates and buildings would be a whole lot of fun. I wonder if gunpowder barrels could be thrown?
Rapid Strike
Repeatedly strike all enemies in front of you.
Details
Strength requirement: 90
Functions like a shorter range Surge, but with fists/kicks/cannonballs. You can move, albeit slower, while using this technique.
Customization:
- Angle: Increases the width of the AoE cone, but also decreases the distance of the AoE
- Duration: Increases amount of time the move can be active, decreases damage with higher duration
- Movement Speed: Increased Movement Speed decreases the movement speed penalty down to 0%, but also decreases damage
- Embodiment: Affects above stats, could also affect damage and destruction (Movement speed cannot go above 100%, to avoid it becoming an escape tool)
- Ultimate Art: Increased size and damage
The use case for this move can be two depending on customization: A high damage punishing move for people standing still, or a medium damage pressure tool while chasing someone.
Splitter
A powerful strike that can destroy obstacles and enemy projectiles in its path.
Details
Strength requirement: 100
Medium range like Shot, but has very high destruction. Think of it like Cannon, but shorter range. Low damage.
Imbuements will leave a trail of any applicable imbuement materials and affect the surroundings with the imbuement (eg. a trail of magma puddles, poison clouds, nearby objects iced over)
Customization:
- Width: Increasing makes the area of effect wider, but decreases the total distance.
- Distance: Inversely tied to Width, increasing Distance makes the Splitter effect go farther, but the effect is narrower
- Destruction: Increasing adds more destruction, but decreases the size of the attack
- Travel: A toggle - if on, instead of an instant shot, you will bulldoze through obstacles with a Crash-like move.
- Embodiment: Affects distance, size, destruction.
The use case for this move is to clash with other attacks, or to clear a path through obstacles.
Gouge
Strike at your enemy’s eyes, blinding them temporarily.
Details
Strength requirement: 100
A slightly faster Crash with low AoE and destruction, with the added effect of blinding enemies hit for a time.
Customization:
- Duration: Increases blind duration, decreases damage
- Size: Increases attack size, decreases distance traveled during attack
- Embodiment: Modifies above stats
- Ultimate Art: Boosts all of the above stats
Players that like debuffs or to disorient their enemy may like this move.
Disable
A tactical strike to disarm your enemy or disrupt your enemy’s spells and techniques
Details
Strength requirement: 120
Weapon/Spirit - the currently held weapon/relic becomes disabled for a significant amount of time (15 seconds for sake of scale, the numbers are never final in these things), and the tool flies away and lands on the ground, an indicator showing where it fell to all players. If the disarmed player reaches this indicator, the disable effect ends immediately.
Magic - the current spell being cast, or the next spell being cast if not casting, cannot be cast for 10 seconds.
Strength - unable to attack using the selected fighting style for 6 seconds.
Customization:
- Size: Increases hitbox size, decreases disable duration and weapon disarm distance.
- Embodiment: Modifies above stats, perhaps allows specialization against certain combat tools? eg. Increase the magic disable slightly
- Ultimate Art: Increased disable duration/disarm distance, even longer cooldown
This move could be useful to force your opponent to use their less favored moves; they won’t be without options, but it’ll throw them off their game plan.
Grapple
Grab an opponent, and throw them in any direction you choose.
Details
Strength requirement: 120
Functions like other grab moves eg. rushdown, but after grabbing, you have a short time to throw your enemy like a projectile. The throw effect won’t last too long, but if you throw them into something they’ll take extra damage.
Customization:
- Size: Increases grab hitbox size, decreases throwing distance and damage
- Duration: Increases amount of time you can hold onto your opponent, decreases grab hitbox size
- Embodiment: Modifies the above stats
- Ultimate Art: Increased throwing distance and grab hitbox size
Use case is to control enemy positioning, set them up for a follow up attack, hold them in place while your ally drops a nuke on the both of you (you did remember to turn friendly fire back off, right?), throw your enemies off of sky islands
Burst
A precision strike that causes any damaging effects to deal a portion of their full damage immediately.
Details
Strength requirement: 140
Landing this attack causes a portion of the remaining duration of any damage over time effects to be applied instantly, reducing the DoT’s duration. For example, if a poison has 75% of its duration left, and you hit the enemy with a Burst that has 50% effectiveness, the poison will deal 50% of its total damage immediately, and the duration will be reduced to 25%.
This move should be fairly high risk, high reward, so it should have a good bit of end lag.
Customization:
- Effectiveness: Increasing this increases the amount of duration consumed and the amount of damage done accordingly, but also increases the cooldown of Burst
- Size: Increases hitbox size, decreases effectiveness
- Ultimate Art: Further increases effectiveness, can potentially increase effectiveness beyond 100% (for example, a 125% effective Ultimate Art Burst would make a poison with 10% duration left deal 35% (10+(125-100) of its poison damage), but has a longer cooldown
I feel like this would be an interesting move; aggressive players would be able to make better use of longer duration damage over time effects, cautious players would have a risk-reward to go in and end their damage over time early.
Piledriver
Grab an enemy, and slam them into the ground with great force.
Details
Strength requirement: 140
Grab an enemy, both you and your enemy will crash down into the ground. You will be able to move before your enemy. This has a longer cooldown than similar moves such as Rushdown.
Customization:
- Size: Increases grab hitbox size and area of effect upon landing, decreases damage and endlag for enemy grabbed
- Embodiment: Modifies size, damage, recovery speed
- Ultimate Art: Boosts size, damage, recovery speed
Use case is to get you and your enemy to ground quickly, and allow you to follow up more easily - either to avoid the counter-pillar, or throw out an attack of your own.
Shrapnel
Strike the earth or a destroyable object, sending debris flying in the direction you attacked.
Details
Strength requirement: 140
The effectiveness of this move scales with destruction - bigger object destroyed means more and larger projectiles. This can also be used to counter solid projectiles as well.
Customization:
- Size: Increases size and damage of projectiles, but decreases the amount of projectiles
- Speed: Increases the speed at which the projectiles travel
- Scatter: Increases projectile spread
- Embodiment: Modifies the above stats, as well as the initial attack’s destruction
- Ultimate Art: Greater destruction and projectile speed
Use case is to take cover and then throw out some projectiles. You may want to have lower speed projectiles to keep your screen of projectiles closer together longer.
Mark
Mark the last enemy you hit, revealing them, and then reactivate to move to their location.
Details
Strength requirement: 150
This move is toggled on and off: While on, your energy gets drained. When you hit an enemy (if multiple are hit, it prioritizes higher damage dealt, lower distance to player, and lower current health in that order), they are marked, revealing them as long as they are in range. Deactivating Mark will make you teleport to them if they are still in range. You cannot deactivate the Mark while holding objects (as fun as that would be). Vanishing Style is not revealed by Mark and cannot be teleported to while invisible.
Customization:
- Range: Increasing Range increases the distance of Mark’s effect as well as energy cost
- Usable Mid-Attack: Toggle; if active, doubles cost but you can deactivate the Mark while charging an attack
- Ultimate Art: Significantly increases range, cost is slightly reduced
Use case is to chase enemies, it could also be used to dodge big attacks. It’d also be useful in low visibility situations.
Quickstep
A quick strike where you can move around while charging the attack.
Details
Strength requirement: 150
While charging, you can move like normal and dash very quickly, at an increasing stamina cost based on distance to the nearest enemy, before using a crash-like move. The move will fail and apply a movement and stamina debuff if you run out of stamina or are too far away from an enemy when the attack is launched. You can hold down this move indefinitely, though you don’t get any more benefit from charging than normal.
Customization:
- Dash Distance: Decreases the distance your dashes travel while Quickstep is being charged, but also decreases stamina cost of dashing.
- Size: Increases area of effect of the attack, reduces damage
- Power: Increases damage dealt and stamina cost
- Embodiment: Modifies damage, dash distance, size, resistance, stamina cost
- Ultimate Art: Your dashes will leave an afterimage that will either dash around some more or finish using Quickstep, aiming at the nearest enemy, but it won’t deal damage.
Use case: Mind games and rapid approaching. The debuff is to avoid the move being used too much and to avoid it becoming an escape tool.
Frenzy
Go on a rampage, becoming immune to movement impairing effects and greatly empowering your basic attacks.
Details
Strength requirement: 160
Buff, you cannot be slowed/stunned/grabbed/pushed, your basic attacks have greatly increased speed, size, and destruction, and they move you further forward compared to normal, stopping at any enemies. Other techniques have triple cost during this effect.
Customization:
- Duration: Frenzy lasts longer, but has reduced basic attack effect.
- Embodiment: Significantly modifies the above stats (eg. If you have an embodiment that reduces speed, your speed will go down compared to normal)
- Ultimate Art: Boosts the stat increase effect and increases duration
Use case is to go wild and tear up anything in your path. Sometimes, all you need to do is punch.
Burrow
Hide within the ground, and burst forth with a mighty rising strike.
Details
Strength requirement: 180
Toggle: Burrow into the ground. Deactivating will make you pop out of the ground after a short delay with a rising attack and a shockwave. You cannot be revealed when burrowed, but will still take damage. If the ground you are hiding in is destroyed, you will take extra damage, the burrow will end, and you will be inflicted with a 50% slow for a short time.
Customization:
- Safety: Higher safety decreases damage taken while burrowed, increases delay when entering and exiting the ground.
- Speed: Decreases delay when entering and leaving the ground, increases height of rising attack, decreases damage
- Magnitude: Increases size of shockwave AoE when leaving ground, decreases height of attack when leaving ground
- Embodiment: Modifies above stats
- Ultimate Art: Decreases damage taken when burrowed, increases damage dealt and attack size
Use case is hiding and ambushes. It’d also probably be funny, hiding in the ground and pretending to be a cactus or something.
Whirl
Grab an enemy or ally and spin them around before releasing them, sending them flying.
Details
Strength requirement: 180
You can keep this move held down for as long as you have energy to spend on it. It takes a second to wind up to full spinning speed. Nearby enemies will take constant damage similar to Surge’s effect. Releasing Whirl will send your grabbed target flying in the direction you are aiming. The enemy can block to break out of the Whirl early, ending it and flying in a random direction, at a significantly reduced distance. If you throw the enemy yourself, there’ll be a delay before they can move of their own accord similar to knockback effects. Allies thrown will be able to control their movement immediately after the throw, as well as being able to break free immediately without getting sent flying. Throwing or spinning an enemy into an obstacle will cause damage; allies will naturally take no damage. You can move (slower) during this technique.
Customization:
- Size: Increases area of effect for damage and grab, decreases damage tick rate against nearby enemies
- Movement Speed: Increases how fast you can move during the spin, increases energy cost
- Throwing Speed: Increases how fast the target will get thrown, decreases time it takes for enemies to be able to break free
- Embodiment: Increases the above stats
- Ultimate Art: Faster tick rate, faster throwing speed, greater size
Use case is to help your allies move around quickly, to control enemy positioning, and to be a spinning top of death.
Eruption
Slam the ground, creating a shockwave sending rubble flying into the air.
Details
Strength requirement: 200
The rubble will fall back down, anything it hits will take damage. When it lands, it will explode for a larger AoE compared to the rubble’s size.
Customization:
- Speed: Increases the distance the rubble travels through the air, and increases damage
- Angle: Determines the rubble goes straight up or scatters away from the player, with some variance. Rubble moving at an angle won’t get as much height
- Amount: Increases the amount of rubble created, but decreases damage and rubble size.
- Size: Increases the size of the rubble and the initial shockwave, decreases speed and amount
- Embodiment: Modifies the above stats
- Ultimate Art: A second wave of rubble will fly out after the first, in a ring around the player starting from the first shockwave’s end
Use case is anti-air and a way to create pressure in a scattered area.
Meditation
Enter a state of meditation, gaining increased bonuses to charging other moves the longer you meditate.
Details
Strength requirement: 210
Can be charged indefinitely. For the next let’s say 30 seconds (10 if not in combat) after ending your meditation, the effect of charging up moves is doubled, lasting based on how long you were Meditating. If you meditated for 10 seconds, every non-Meditation move you charge that will benefit from charging will take from that time to double the effect of their own charging - if you charge a move for .5 seconds, it behaves as if charged for a full second.
Customization:
- Charge Rate: Multiplies the benefit you receive from Meditating, but decreases the amount of time Meditation’s effect will last.
- Embodiment: Modifies the effects of charging moves while you have Meditation bonus (eg. more bonus damage, but less bonus size), could also modify Meditation’s stats
- Ultimate Art: You do not need to charge to gain bonuses from charging while Meditation is available - if you just throw out an attack, it gets charge equal to if you fully charged it + the Meditation bonus.
Use case is as a downtime move - if you got nothing better to do in the combat, invest that time into contemplating the mysteries of punching even harder.
Deflect
Take a defensive stance, deflecting projectiles and absorbing melee attacks at the cost of stamina.
Details
Strength requirement: 220
Holding this move drains stamina over time. While held, incoming enemy projectiles in the direction you are facing will be turned away at a random angle, draining some stamina. Melee attacks will be partially absorbed, damaging your stamina instead. Explosions will still deal full damage. Clash rates, attack size, and destruction play a factor in how much stamina is lost. If an attack would deplete the player’s stamina, the deflection fails, the attack is not stopped, and the player’s stamina is depleted. Blocking power increases the effectiveness of the damage mitigation.
Customization:
- Defense: Increases amount of damage mitigated, but also increases stamina drained due to damage
- Size: Increases passive stamina drain, but allows the deflection of projectiles and melee attacks further away, allowing you to defend allies
- Embodiment: Modifies the above stats
- Ultimate Art: Significantly decreases passive stamina drain, decreases stamina loss from hits, increases defense
Use case is as a sidegrade to block with no parry but better damage reduction, as well as being able to defend allies
Diehard
While active, you will shake off fatal damage and get back up with some health recovered.
Details
Strength requirement: 320
Toggle: After reaching 0 health, you can get back up at 50% health. All effects from death still apply (enemy HP restore, fame loss, etc.) except for those that would relocate you (respawning, jail). This can only trigger once, refreshing after being out of combat for 1 minute.
Customization:
- Recovery: Top amount is 50%, but reducing it will allow for more uses of Diehard before needing to recharge
- Regeneration: Makes a portion of the health recovered apply over time at double effect; 100% regeneration and 50% recovery will make the player recover 100% of their health over 20 seconds.
- Embodiment: Modifies above stats, as well as providing a temporary health barrier upon revive, or modifying the amount of uses/recovery timer of Diehard
- Ultimate Art: Recovery is doubled, up to 100%. If regeneration would increase this beyond 100%, the regeneration duration is decreased.
Use case: Boss fights, PvP where you don’t want the travel time to get back, and I think it’d be very thematic for Strength character to be just too tough to put down.
Earthshaper
Impact the ground to displace it into different shapes and send enemies flying.
Details
Strength requirement: 300
After impacting the ground, the terrain around you will rise up into a shape of your choosing. This created terrain will last for a while or until Earthshaper is used again by the same player, but it can be destroyed like other terrain. The creation will match the ground impacted, or if imbued with a solid magic, it will be made of that solid imbue. Enemies in the way will be bounced into the air and take damage, increasing based on the height of the construct.
Customization:
- Shape: What shape will the created terrain be in? This would include options such as pillars, walls, spheres, paths
- Additional customization options would be available based on shape type, such as angle for curved constructions, height, width, distance from the player, durability would probably be a general customization option
- Ultimate Art would boost the size of the construction
Use case is to create some cover, something to stand on, a directional shockwave perhaps, it could also be useful for those moves that destroy the terrain.
