Introducing a new equipped item for ships in the Siege Weapons slot, the lightning rod.
Its stats will be as follows:
-1000 Defense
+300 Magic storage
+5 Turning speed
Details/background on your proposal
With the lightning rod equipped, any lightning strikes that are to land on or nearby the ship will be attracted to the rod and charge the ship’s magic storage if its not full.
Magic attacks that land on the mast (the sail part) of the ship will also charge the ship’s magic storage when equipped.
Reason to add/change
A way to mitigate lightning strikes on the player really, the magic storage mechanic is just adding a niche to it outside of not randomly dying in the dark seas.
Why the siege weapons slot? It’s mechanic doesn’t really fit to become a deckhand artifact since I’m not sure how it can be designed to work with multiple at the same time, but feel free to suggest anything.
So it’s eat up a siege weapon slot while not actually being a siege weapon? I think it’ll be better if it’s an attachment slot, also why increase turning speed of a ship?
I actually had an idea for this as a quest item that you’d obtain by helping a very rich siren who found her way into the warseas and began to start hoarding wealth via trading and singing for crowds and royal families.
She wanted to start expanding her horizons into the dark sea and needs you to do some fetch quests for her to help her and her team of researchers develop the first ever lightning rod.
Not only does it give a cool lore explanation for how lightning rods came to be, but it also would be fun to add some diversity to the cast of characters we have in AO currently by adding some more exotic species as NPCs
Anyway, assuming if lightning rod is an attachment item.
+5 turning speed just for equipping it is HUGE because the only source of turning speed outside of ship’s base turning speed is from hull armor, and deckhand.
Also ship attachments are not very useful currently (the only practical use I believe is for hunting sea monsters which can be easily avoided) so the fact that it’s possible to get +20 turning speed just from equipping 4 lightning rods make it BROKEN. The difference between 50 turning speed and 70 turning speed is massive.
i just thought of making it take up the siege weapons slot would come off as a tradeoff the player could make, taking the utility of a lightning rod or the firepower of weapons
making it an attachment could spell balancing issues potentially
I think it’ll be better if it only use ship attachment slot but don’t give any stat. That’s because ship attachment are not as essential component as other components like hull armor, sails, cannons, seige weapons, etc.
As for how to make it work with multiple lightning rods, I guess just increase the amount of magic energy you get from lightning or increase the radius of attracting lightning.
This. But as you described it, it should be an attachment.
If it were a siege weapon, there should be a feature where it uses up magic storage equal to the amount you get from one lightning bolt to call down lightning of your own
i think the opportunity cost of using this over a siege weapon is entirely fair, attachment slots do not have enough diversity or actual reason to use so this would basically be free otherwise. siege weapons are great in pvp, but when’s the last time you used one in the dark sea? to tack on another 600 damage to an atlantean brig, when your cannons do 8000?
chopping off 1000 defense seems harsh though, as the whole purpose im gathering is to conserve ship health (and not get flung off your ship by Paralyzed!)
1, people barely use magic storage (some cant due to their stat alinement)
2, rams are so powerfull that most of the time you only need 1 hit, thus preventing the need for extra recharge
3, lightning rarely strikes the boat
4, siege weapon slot is more usefull
1, 2, and 4 are all valid criticism (although 4 is a bit debatable) but I just wanna say that 3 is mainly targeted towards strikes that are to land on the player in the dark seas
doesnt happen often but i get your point
still, if you get struck by lightning chances are you get paralysed, have to swim back to the boat and if youre single player, by the time youre back on your boat the magic storage already refilled without lightning rod help
