Nightsisters Revamped: Old Daka & Nightsister Initiate
I'm thinking about how to make the NightSisters a viable faction. I recently put up a post about Ventress, and giving her Stealth synergy as an assassin. The core concept is that she gains Stealth for two turns at the start of any battle as well as when any toon dies. Her passive (rampage) gets renamed Assassin, and she gets a passive boost to offense and crit chance whenever she attacks from stealth. Lose track of her in the battle? She jumps out from nowhere and deals massive damage. The TM bump occurs either when entering stealth or whenever she does damage while stealthed, I'm not sure which is better, though I tend to think it's better on leaving stealth. This means she would still get a TM bump when a toon is defeated, but she gets the bump after the next time she does damage, not right away.
This stealth is automatically dispelled after Ventress causes any damage. So even though it says that she gets two turns, the damage/crit boost won't last any longer than it does now: one action.
But what about the rest of the Nightsisters?
Old Daka is the NS that I like best at my current level. Her stun lands fairly often and she has a heal as backup. But just like Ventress, her survivability is fairly low, and it's almost always true that stunning two opponents is better than healing, so you have to wonder if you should trust the RNG gods or go with the heal. Also, sometimes you're going for the resurrection of a toon, and if you don't get it, the heal is mostly wasted.
The NS also have no Taunter (though I use RG with Ventress, Talia, Old Daka, & Dooku). So, I was thinking that a good way to tweak Old Daka without making her too powerful is to address her survivability, make the heal most consistently useful, and give her synergy with one other NightSister that currently has little value: the idea is to make the toons more fun and viable when played together, but without contributing to power creep. They would still be way behind the meta - but they might be improved enough that they become a fun team to play in some locations, like DS missions or Galactic War's first 8 nodes.
So, how to do this?
Old Daka: Chant of Resurrection should be augmented, and possibly renamed Chant of Restoration.
Except for Level 1, I am only listing what is added to her special (or taken away). She still gains all other abilities.
Level 1: All Allies recover 20% of Daka's Max Health. 25% chance to revive defeated allies. If no ally is revived, Daka recovers 25% protection.
Level 3: +25% protection recovery
Level 5: +25% protection recovery
Level 7: Cooldown -1. Do not gain +2.5% Heal as you currently do at this level.
Level 8: +2.5% heal, no reduction in Cooldown. Restores 25% protection to all NightSister allies.
Daka would then be the only healer in the game that restores protection as well as health. At Level 8, when she resurrects someone, she gets back 25% of her own protection just for being a NightSister. When she doesn't resurrect someone, she gets that 25% that all NightSisters get +75% for a total of +100% of her own protection, though other NS just get the +25%.
Leadership: NightSister Elder
Scrap the bonus to defense. Instead, Daka grants a boost to protection of % = the defense boost. Instead of a MaxHealthUp, grant Protection Regeneration of the same percentage on a critical hit. It's a bit like the massive health steal granted by Darth Nihilus, but it's not as good, particularly because the Sith don't need crits. It's also a bit like Wedge's Health regeneration on a Crit and on defeating an enemy, but the percentage isn't as high and the NightSisters don't get anything for defeating an enemy.
All in all, it's much better than her nearly worthless leadership ability, but not nearly as good as either Nihilus or Wedge, so it clearly is not going to remotely threaten the meta or contribute to power creep. In fact, for many people this leadership ability won't even top that of Ventress, and they'll continue to use Ventress' leadership when they use a NightSister lead at all.
Written out longhand, Daka's new Leadership would look like this:
Level 1: NightSister Allies gain 20% starting Protection.
Level 2: +5% starting Protection
Level 3: Recover 5% Protection on a critical hit.
Level 4: +5% starting Protection
Level 5: +5% starting Protection
Level 6: +2.5% Protection Recovery.
Level 7: +5% starting Protection
Level 8: +2.5% Protection Recovery.
Unique: Serve Again
This is untouched EXCEPT for the fact that certain bonuses now apply to any character revived by Daka - including those revived by Chant of Restoration - and that NightSisters get better health and longer buff durations when revived. Anything not mentioned below stays the same, the changes look like this:
Level 1: Any Nightsister revived by Old Daka immediately heals 10% of their own Max Health. This is in addition to the starting health of a character revived through serve again or the healing provided by Chant of Restoration. The OffenseUp buff provided to any revived ally for 1 turn lasts for 2 turns instead when the revived ally is a NightSister.
Level 3: Any ally revived by Old Daka gains Defense Up for 1 turn. If the ally is a NightSister, DefenseUp lasts for 2 turns.
Level 5: Any ally revived by Old Daka gains +20% Turn Meter. If the ally is a NightSister, this +20% is in addition to any Turn Meter the character may have had when defeated.
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Now, the NightSister Initiate:
The NSI gains a Unique that provides special Synergies when used with Old Daka.
Unique: Elder's Defense
Whenever a defeated ally is revived or Old Daka uses the ability Chant of Resurrection/Restoration, NSI automatically taunts for 1 turn. Whenever Ahsoka Tano or a Nightsister takes damage to Health, the NSI has a 25% chance to counterattack on behalf of that character if that character is providing a leadership benefit to NSI. If Old Daka is among NSI's allies, this chance also applies whenever Old Daka takes damage to Health, even if she is not NSI's leader. Whenever Ahsoka Tano or a NightSister ally is defeated, even if that character was not providing a leadership bonus to NSI, the counterattack chance is doubled and NSI gains a percentage bonus to damage on this counterattack equal to the counterattack chance.
Level 2: +5% counterattack chance
Level 3: +5% counterattack chance
Level 4: +1 Turn duration Taunt
Level 5: +5% counterattack chance
Level 6: +5% counterattack chance
Level 7: +5% counterattack chance
At its highest level, she counterattacks 50% of the time her NightSister leader is damaged, and 50% of the time Old Daka is damaged. Also, when any NightSister or Ahsoka Tano is defeated, she counters 100% of the time and deals +100% damage.
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The NSI and Old Daka are now tightly paired. Although none of the NightSisters do a good amount of damage for their Stars and Level, except perhaps Ventress, the increased survivability granted to revived characters by NSI's auto-taunt and whenever Old Daka casts Chant of Resurrection should help the NightSisters to stay around long enough to do something.
If NSI is defeated last, she will get only 4 automatic counterattacks with bonus damage... unless allies are revived and defeated more than once. Since she's a tank without great damage, this is well within the power scope of the current game.
==================================================
I don't think that Ahsoka's character was tied particularly tightly to the NightSisters in any of the Star Wars source material, but EA/CG decided to tie Ahsoka in to the NightSisters for the purposes of the game. The wording above could be tightened up a lot of EA/CG would simply add the NightSister faction to Ahsoka.
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Because of the changes to Ventress that focus on Stealth, the upcoming NightSister Acolyte proposal will focus on synergy between Ventress and the NSA, but the NSA will hopefully work well with Talia as well.
When I propose some tweaks to Talia, I'm going to share my proposal for Mother Talzin at the same time and make Talia most tightly coupled with Talzin. I think this is justified not merely because NSA has stealth abilities and the proposed Ventress tweak focuses on the Assassin angle & the Stealth buff, but also because Ventress went off into the galaxy with Dooku while Talia stayed behind and worked very closely with Mother Talzin.
This stealth is automatically dispelled after Ventress causes any damage. So even though it says that she gets two turns, the damage/crit boost won't last any longer than it does now: one action.
But what about the rest of the Nightsisters?
Old Daka is the NS that I like best at my current level. Her stun lands fairly often and she has a heal as backup. But just like Ventress, her survivability is fairly low, and it's almost always true that stunning two opponents is better than healing, so you have to wonder if you should trust the RNG gods or go with the heal. Also, sometimes you're going for the resurrection of a toon, and if you don't get it, the heal is mostly wasted.
The NS also have no Taunter (though I use RG with Ventress, Talia, Old Daka, & Dooku). So, I was thinking that a good way to tweak Old Daka without making her too powerful is to address her survivability, make the heal most consistently useful, and give her synergy with one other NightSister that currently has little value: the idea is to make the toons more fun and viable when played together, but without contributing to power creep. They would still be way behind the meta - but they might be improved enough that they become a fun team to play in some locations, like DS missions or Galactic War's first 8 nodes.
So, how to do this?
Old Daka: Chant of Resurrection should be augmented, and possibly renamed Chant of Restoration.
Except for Level 1, I am only listing what is added to her special (or taken away). She still gains all other abilities.
Level 1: All Allies recover 20% of Daka's Max Health. 25% chance to revive defeated allies. If no ally is revived, Daka recovers 25% protection.
Level 3: +25% protection recovery
Level 5: +25% protection recovery
Level 7: Cooldown -1. Do not gain +2.5% Heal as you currently do at this level.
Level 8: +2.5% heal, no reduction in Cooldown. Restores 25% protection to all NightSister allies.
Daka would then be the only healer in the game that restores protection as well as health. At Level 8, when she resurrects someone, she gets back 25% of her own protection just for being a NightSister. When she doesn't resurrect someone, she gets that 25% that all NightSisters get +75% for a total of +100% of her own protection, though other NS just get the +25%.
Leadership: NightSister Elder
Scrap the bonus to defense. Instead, Daka grants a boost to protection of % = the defense boost. Instead of a MaxHealthUp, grant Protection Regeneration of the same percentage on a critical hit. It's a bit like the massive health steal granted by Darth Nihilus, but it's not as good, particularly because the Sith don't need crits. It's also a bit like Wedge's Health regeneration on a Crit and on defeating an enemy, but the percentage isn't as high and the NightSisters don't get anything for defeating an enemy.
All in all, it's much better than her nearly worthless leadership ability, but not nearly as good as either Nihilus or Wedge, so it clearly is not going to remotely threaten the meta or contribute to power creep. In fact, for many people this leadership ability won't even top that of Ventress, and they'll continue to use Ventress' leadership when they use a NightSister lead at all.
Written out longhand, Daka's new Leadership would look like this:
Level 1: NightSister Allies gain 20% starting Protection.
Level 2: +5% starting Protection
Level 3: Recover 5% Protection on a critical hit.
Level 4: +5% starting Protection
Level 5: +5% starting Protection
Level 6: +2.5% Protection Recovery.
Level 7: +5% starting Protection
Level 8: +2.5% Protection Recovery.
Unique: Serve Again
This is untouched EXCEPT for the fact that certain bonuses now apply to any character revived by Daka - including those revived by Chant of Restoration - and that NightSisters get better health and longer buff durations when revived. Anything not mentioned below stays the same, the changes look like this:
Level 1: Any Nightsister revived by Old Daka immediately heals 10% of their own Max Health. This is in addition to the starting health of a character revived through serve again or the healing provided by Chant of Restoration. The OffenseUp buff provided to any revived ally for 1 turn lasts for 2 turns instead when the revived ally is a NightSister.
Level 3: Any ally revived by Old Daka gains Defense Up for 1 turn. If the ally is a NightSister, DefenseUp lasts for 2 turns.
Level 5: Any ally revived by Old Daka gains +20% Turn Meter. If the ally is a NightSister, this +20% is in addition to any Turn Meter the character may have had when defeated.
=================================================
Now, the NightSister Initiate:
The NSI gains a Unique that provides special Synergies when used with Old Daka.
Unique: Elder's Defense
Whenever a defeated ally is revived or Old Daka uses the ability Chant of Resurrection/Restoration, NSI automatically taunts for 1 turn. Whenever Ahsoka Tano or a Nightsister takes damage to Health, the NSI has a 25% chance to counterattack on behalf of that character if that character is providing a leadership benefit to NSI. If Old Daka is among NSI's allies, this chance also applies whenever Old Daka takes damage to Health, even if she is not NSI's leader. Whenever Ahsoka Tano or a NightSister ally is defeated, even if that character was not providing a leadership bonus to NSI, the counterattack chance is doubled and NSI gains a percentage bonus to damage on this counterattack equal to the counterattack chance.
Level 2: +5% counterattack chance
Level 3: +5% counterattack chance
Level 4: +1 Turn duration Taunt
Level 5: +5% counterattack chance
Level 6: +5% counterattack chance
Level 7: +5% counterattack chance
At its highest level, she counterattacks 50% of the time her NightSister leader is damaged, and 50% of the time Old Daka is damaged. Also, when any NightSister or Ahsoka Tano is defeated, she counters 100% of the time and deals +100% damage.
==================================================
The NSI and Old Daka are now tightly paired. Although none of the NightSisters do a good amount of damage for their Stars and Level, except perhaps Ventress, the increased survivability granted to revived characters by NSI's auto-taunt and whenever Old Daka casts Chant of Resurrection should help the NightSisters to stay around long enough to do something.
If NSI is defeated last, she will get only 4 automatic counterattacks with bonus damage... unless allies are revived and defeated more than once. Since she's a tank without great damage, this is well within the power scope of the current game.
==================================================
I don't think that Ahsoka's character was tied particularly tightly to the NightSisters in any of the Star Wars source material, but EA/CG decided to tie Ahsoka in to the NightSisters for the purposes of the game. The wording above could be tightened up a lot of EA/CG would simply add the NightSister faction to Ahsoka.
==================================================
Because of the changes to Ventress that focus on Stealth, the upcoming NightSister Acolyte proposal will focus on synergy between Ventress and the NSA, but the NSA will hopefully work well with Talia as well.
When I propose some tweaks to Talia, I'm going to share my proposal for Mother Talzin at the same time and make Talia most tightly coupled with Talzin. I think this is justified not merely because NSA has stealth abilities and the proposed Ventress tweak focuses on the Assassin angle & the Stealth buff, but also because Ventress went off into the galaxy with Dooku while Talia stayed behind and worked very closely with Mother Talzin.
