[.914][Balance] Useless traits . . .

I take Adventurer's boon if it pops at level 2, because early game, I find it worth it on a tank-like character.  But yes, by even mid game, it is near worthless.   I wonder if scaling it would be good?  Like 10 + 2 per level.

You need Quick to get Fast, it's a prerequisite.

So that's why I have never seen Fast.  haha  =D

I'm fairly certain I've had Fast and Quick show up in the same level up screen before but you might be right. I guess the rarity of the trait in this case determines how often the first level of it will show up. Making it's child trait common makes sense.

In that case then I suggest it follow the other traits and be named Quick I and Quick II.

• Adventurer's Boon (+10HP)
• Finesse (+3 ATK vs lower initiative)
• Potential I (+10% XP)
• Quick (+1 I)
• Apprentice Swordsman (+10% cutting)
• Enmity (25% ATK boost against != alignment)
• Graceful (immune to knock-back)
• Healer (+1 HP / turn)
• Spell Resistance I (+10% Spell Resistance)
• Strength (+20 Strength)
• Trainer I (+5% XP for the army)

Adventurer's Boon:

• Towards the start of the game it is a 33% increase in HP.
• At level 20 it amounts to a 5% boost depending on spec.
• I pick it virtually every game; especially if I am playing Kraxis.  I do not regret it at any point, even late game I appreciate the extra HP.

Potential I:

• 1 or 2 extra levels do matter to me because of the prestige and stat gains (especially +/level gains).
• Potential II and III are increasingly less desirable at a 5% boost per tick, thankfully at that point I am likely to have reached level 4 and will have better choices available.
• Knowledge is WAY better and the two are clearly out of balance. On the other hand; knowledge cannot be taken unless you have chosen to be a mage (it's exclusive to PoTM, which can be chosen at LV4).

Quick / Apprentice Swordsman / Finesse:

• The gains are entirely lackluster, but, I consider it better than most of the other "free" choices. I tend to like finesse better than quick or swordsman, but, am not thrilled about any of them.

• Enmity: I never feel threatened by the AI and this seems AI specific.
• Graceful: I rarely am knocked back, I would guesstimate maybe once every 500 battles or so...
• Healer: 1 HP per turn seems pretty trivial to me.
• Spell Resistance: I rarely feel threatened by debuff magic.
• Strength: I do need strength, but, I find a horse suffices and costs only 100 gildar.
• Trainer: At 5% it is too low for me, especially given that leading an army means splitting the XP. 

Note: While I do not believe the specific traits mentioned in the OP are useless; I am a huge fan of bigger boosts and more interesting choices across the board. I find most of the choices on this list to be lackluster.

There are a few traits that are really lacking imo, but Quick/Fast aren't among them. Finesse I think is among the most worthless of upgrades. +3 Accuracy if they have a lower initiative? Even though I often create initiative monsters this is practically worthless. It really needs to be changed drastically. +10 to +20 range, not +3, and even then Accuracy tends not to be a problem later on unless you're fighting other heroes (although with how the AI plays, they don't create 50+ Dodge assassins often).

Adventurer's Boon... I kinda wish there was a better ability with it as a prerequisite. I take it sometimes when I'm having a rough early game or playing a low-hp character but otherwise it's not a very enticing option as things stand. For options like Quick or the Apprentice X lines I know that I'm getting even more awesome options later on so I grab those early.

I agree 100% based on the in-game description of Finesse. I am under the impression that the level-up description is wrong and the in-game result is a +3 attack (not accuracy) bonus. 

The following are snippets from the coreabilities.xml document:

<Description>+3 Attack vs opponents with a lower Initiative</Description>
  <StrVal>UnitStat_Attack_Boost</StrVal> <---- Would be 'unitstat_accuracy' if the net effect was a +3 in accuracy.
 <StrVal2>UnitStat_Initiative</StrVal2>
  <Value>3</Value>
 <Provides>+3 Accuracy vs opponents with a lower Initiative</Provides> <---- This is the in-game text at level up
 <vsLower>1</vsLower>

Link to a bug report on the topic: https://forums.elementalgame.com/422950

Graceful is by far the worst trait in the game... for the price of 100 gold (cost of a horse/wrag) you have the trait (mounts give the same bonus as the trait) and more. So yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing it reworked or removed completely.

Other traits are situational. Some traits aren't too great at the moment, but may become useful later when the game gets more content (Enmity, Spell resist). While others do seem like they could use a bit of a buff. Potential might not be great, but I still pick it if there aren't any other really useful traits to pick. It's kind of like hitting "wait" for your next turn to come faster... except it affects all later turns. Also, I'm pretty sure potential I and potential II stacks, so if you have potential II, you actually have 25% more EXP instead of 15% (the tool tip just doesn't show potential I's bonus). It's kind of like how dodge works.

Oh, I played a game last night, and right at level 2, the trait Fast came up, without having ever even seen Quick.  So quick definitely not a prereq.

I don't know how or where to check the prerequisites but I could have sworn I've had Fast without Quick before too.

Adventurer's Boon I only find useful on low level, low HP heroes to help them get past that "hump" where they are always dieing. Or I could just leave them in the back row for a few levels and pick something more useful overall like spell level traits.

Yazari: Good write up. I agree with most of your points. I believe you are right in Potential stacking but I think in the grand scheme of things it might not be worth it. You might only get 3 or 4 extra levels from it in the course of the game and those extra levels towards the end when you are steam rolling are pretty useless. It would be better to pick something more useful earlier on in my opinion.

Yea overall the the traits need an overhaul to make them more interesting. Some are completely useless some are definite must haves. There should be a better balance of choices. I for one find more fun out of this game levelling my heroes and pimping them out with traits and equipment.

I also suggest a tool tip or something that tells what future traits the trait you are about to pick will open up. It will go a long way in helping you plan your character.

Weird! fast has quick listed as a required prerequisite in the XML. This is definitely a bug, do you have a save of that game so that a bug report can be made?

I did a simple conversion from XML to XLS for anyone who finds XML tedious and is interested in knowing which level-up traits (are supposed to) require which prerequisites

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ls6iq0y15navw5/coreabilities.xls

For conciseness; this conversion only includes the ability, description, rarity and prerequisite fields. It is sorted by prerequisite.

I thought potential ii and potential iii values were cumulative not just 5% boost for tick...

I lean towards thinking that you and Kalin are both right. When I wrote that, I  assumed that PII and PIII replaced their predecessors, but, it seems unlikely given the way the other bonuses stack. This definitely makes PII and PIII a lot more valuable than I had originally considered  (I do think the description needs to be updated to state the effect is cumulative though).

Oh wow, good to know, then, actually.  I will see if I have the save game, though I think it was a game where an umberdroth rampaged me on turn 50ish, so probably deleted them all when I started anew.

I was thinking, too.  I wonder if any of the champions have Quick as a native trait.  That might explain why it popped up at lv 2.  I will keep an eye out for all of these details to try to confirm or deny that this is happening.

Early in the game, in a stack that's badly hurt, this can make the difference between attacking your next lair or waiting a couple of dozen turns to heal up, or using consumables, or heading back to your nearest outpost/city.  I'm not suggesting you should reevaluate your opinion, but I've found it pretty helpful in the early game.  And for a party that doesn't have any heal spells, it can still be pretty decent in midgame, too.

I have to disagree with Apprentice Swordsman being useless.  It's a prerequisite for the rest of the Swordsman perks, and by the end those net you +3 initiative and a non-trivial (about 60%) increase in cutting damage

Part of the problem determining what is useless and what isn't, especially for new players, is that the game does such a poor job letting you know which traits are gateway traits and what traits you are forgoing ever having a shot at by skipping a seemingly useless gateway trait.  

I get the feeling the devs are not looking to do any form of talent tree (which would alleviate this problem) but some sort of UI mechanism needs to be added to tell the player what traits are linked to each other and in what ways. 

Graceful should give something else in addition to its protection against bash.  Bash is pretty rare as is.

Brute and those other traits that only work vs weaker/slower creatures are pretty useless as well, never pick those.

Awsome thanks Yazari! I will look this over when I get a chance.

Agree that 'graceful' is seriously useless.

"Potential", "trainer", "knowledge" & the odd stray artifact work nicely the "paragon" spell, to get up to 4 levels per cast.  If you think that is useless, explain in to my level-90 champions          Granted, they might not be worth much without "paragon".

I never thought about pairing those traits with the paragon spell. Good idea! Seems like more of an exploit though but I will definitely try it now

Those traits run through their normal course account for on average an extra 3-4 levels per game when it matters. Which like I said more useful traits could have been taken in their place earlier anyways. When they really give a good bonus though is when you are already steamrolling so it's pretty much pointless . . .

One thing I'm getting from reading this thread is that there are a lot of traits we don't know about simply because they have prerequisites.  I would like to see some improvements to the UI to help us know more about the trait possibilities.

Very true. I've suggested a tool tip when you hover over the trait in the level up screen that shows what other traits it unlocks.