Various gem related ideas.

A few ideas I had regarding the gem system. Of course, the last few are a straight increase in the overall power of magic and gems in general, so there's definitely balance issues with them, haha.

1) Weapon-related gems. Instead of mana and energy being used for different schools of spells, mana is strictly for magic, with energy being used for physical abilities, tied to your weapon skills, or maybe a new skill entirely. Basically, fancy combat moves instead of magical spells.
A few example ideas:

Armor Piercing Jab : Attack with a Piercing Weapon that ignores the opponent's armor. (or a certain amount of armor)
Stunning Crush : Attack with a Crushing Weapon that has a chance of stunning the opponent for X seconds. A stunned opponent can't attack, use gems, block, or parry.
Bleeding Slash : Attack with a Slashing Weapon that causes the opponent to bleed, dealing an additional X damage over Y seconds.
Aimed Shot : An Archery attack that never misses, but deals half normal damage.
Siphoning Strike : A Staff attack that saps some of the opponents Mana, replenishing your own.
Disarming Lash : A Whip attack that disarms the opponent, causing their autoattacks and autoshots to stop for X seconds, if it hits.

2) Pre-load gem slot, or aura-slot. At a certain level of wizardry, your gem pouch(es) would gain a special slot. The first idea, a pre-load slot, lets you start combat with a gem already waiting in your gem draw slot, allowing you to pull whatever gem you want right at the start of combat. If you replace it, it goes back in the bag, but pops up again at the start of the next fight. Alternately, it could just be used for auras. Definitely adds a lot of power to auras in general, and gems as a whole.

3) Multiple draw slots. When you gain your second gem pouch from wizardry, instead of the current mechaninc, which involves switching pouches and emptying all your active gems slots, you actually draw from BOTH (or all three) pouches during combat. This would mean you have two or three gem draw slots, and draw from each one when you draw, allowing you to customize your pouches and use them all. One bag for healing, one for damage, or have a once-per-draw bag and a recastables bag. Tons of options, but again, GREATLY increases the power of magic.

4) Magical jewelry (guaranteed gems). Similar to the pre-load slot suggestion, this idea involves rings set with magical gems (possibly costing a LOT more than the normal ones). Wearing say, a "Gradual Repair" ring would cause the spell to function all the time in combat, draining energy and healing you. Wearing a "Flung Candles" ring would let you cast the spell as if you had the Flung Candles gem in your active slots (Ring slots appearing somewhere else in the combat window).
Basically, it would be extra gem slots that you can't change in battle, and couldn't be once-per-draw gems (No mana and energy restorers, of course!). Maybe necklaces or something for aura gems. Essentially, another way to circumvent the random nature of the gem draw system.

I mean, most of these ideas are going to sound great to the players because they all give us more power! Mostly what I'm going for is adding versatility, and more interactivity to the combat, instead of the typical "Auto attack and slot a bunch of gradual heal gems" that seems to be the most effective strategy.

So, thoughts, comments, criticism?

[Archer of Crosis]

1. i think this suggestion is kickass. especially the ideas about staves and whips.

2. i also like this idea as most my chars use auras. but i wonder if it would be too much of an advantage, is it something you wanted for just magic classes? or can any class utilize this preload gem slot?

3. i can't see the multiple gem slot drawing working effectively as we already have a lot of new players constantly complaining about the gem system as is, or being utterly confused on even how to buy a gem. i can't see players like that, and there are a lot of them, agreeing to this change as it would cause more confusion for them. you should however post some polls about these ideas

4. I like the idea of magical jewellry, but not the way you have laid out.
there is a skill for archeorunology, raises the ability to equip powerful runes. there are rune slots, and im sure there are going to be some kickass runes. so that in all actuality would be the magical jewellry.

but ya good ideas , thanks for sharing

1. i like the general idea,
or a variation of this, maybe you can get weapon class specific skills at like, lvl 25 of that class, eg. at lvl 25 piercing, you get Armor Piercing Jab, and can use it every x seconds

2. IMO, this would overpower magic.

3. i could see this happening, but the 2nd gem bag should stay at wizardy lvl 25 requirement

4. i think this is basically what runes will be

I agree entirely with AoC, definite yes to the weapon related gems, and to jewelry. And if noobs can't figure out how to buy a simple gem on there own like most of us did, then they really shouldn't be playing, but yeah great ideas camli, you should do some polls about some of these.

[doctor-warlord]

i like some of it and heres my opnions

1. i like this idea might be fun

2. would be usefull to spellcasters but non magic users wont gain much from it

3. i think 1 draw slot is enough

4. that sounds an awfull lot like what i think the rune system is going to be like

[Claudia]

And now we have weapon related gems/auras. This is good