Awakening (Ultimate Skills)

I would love to see Path of Exile introduce the concept of Ultimates/Limit Breaks/Overdrives such as the ones you see in games like Bloodline Champions, FFVII and FFX.

Awakening is a placeholder name. It's the same as Ultimates.


How would it work:
1 - Awakening are powerful Skills that consume Spirit, a Resource that builds according to your Karma.
1.1 - Awakening are more powerful than Gem Skills
1.2 - Awakening are NOT Skill Gems
1.3 - By default, you can only have 2 Awakening equipped at any given time.
1.3.1 - You can only equip an Awakening in town.
1.4 - You start with 1 Awakening and can learn +1 every X Karma Nodes activated.
1.4.1 - Each Awakening has a "# of Karma Node activated" requirement.
1.5 - Spirit starts decaying after a few seconds of inactivity - you're not meant to start a fight at full Spirit.
1.6 - Different Awakening require different amounts of Spirit.
1.6.1 - Examples of different Types of Awakening:

• Toggle Continuous - While toggled, continuously drains your Spirit while providing a continuous effect, like Shapeshifting
• Toggle Passive - While toggled, causes certain events (like hits or crits) to use up X Spirit and trigger an effect
• Greater Active - Cost a high amount of Spirit to produce a powerful effect, like making you unkillable for a few seconds, or firing a powerful nuke
• Lesser Active - Cost a small amount of Spirit to enhance a skill or grant a small buff

2 - Karma Nodes are the Passive Nodes from the Spirit Tree that grant you Spirit when you perform certain actions.
2.1 - You have a default Spirit gain without any Karma Nodes, and Karma merely modifies your gains under certain conditions.
Following this concept, you gain Spirit for:
Offensive - Attacking an enemy (even if evaded/dodged)
This means attacking into empty field will not give you any Spirit.
Defensive - Being attacked (even if you evade/dodge)

EDIT: Initially, I suggested Karma nodes determine exactly how you gain Spirit, like +10 Spirit for casting a Fire Spell, meaning you do not gain Spirit until you invest in at least 1 Karma Node.

2.2 - Examples of Karma Passives (nevermind the numbers):

• Karma Passive - Karma - Max Spirit increased by 10
• Karma Passive - Pyromaniac - Spirit gain from hitting a target with Fire Spells is increased by X%.
• Karma Notable - Honorable Duelist - You gain 100% more Spirit when one of your skills attacks/threatens a single enemy.
• Karma Notable - Pure Heart - Your Awakening use 5% less Spirit.
• Karma Keystone - Equilibrium - You gain 50% more Spirit while below 50% of your maximum Spirit.
• Karma Keystone - Sinister Calling - Your base Spirit gain is reduced by 25%.
  Double your Spirit gains for 5 seconds when you crit.

3 - There would be a Spirit Tree.
3.1 - It would consist of Karma (passives)
3.2 - Class starting location would be the same as in (overlap with) the Passive Tree.
3.3 - There would be alot less Nodes than in the Passive Tree.
3.3.1 - You would be able to cover a larger portion of the Spirit Tree with any given Class, compared to the Skill Tree.
3.4 - Every Class would be able to reach any Spirit node fairly easily.
3.5 - You would be able to get less than 40% of the available Spirit Nodes.
3.6 - You gain 1 Spirit Point every 5 Levels or so, so that at level 5 you get one Karma and one Awakening.

4 - Belts, Amulets and Rings would be able to have 1 Gem Slot each.
Support Gems placed in those slots would affect your Awakening or Spirit-enhanced version of Skills (see #5).

5 - Each Gem skill might also have a Spirit-enhanced version, wich uses some Spirit as well as the normal cost (mana, health, etc).
This actually removes the need to have an Ultimate ready at the start of the Spirit tree.
You would build Karma and use the Spirit-enhanced skills, until you obtain an Ultimate, at wich point you make strategic decisions between using Awakenings and Spirit-enhanced Gem Skills.

Using the Spirit Enhanced version would be done through a specific toggleable Awakening Skill that enables all enhanced skill versions while active.

Imho for this to work and make them feel like ultimates they would have to be overpowered. That inturn would make them "must have" skills which hours against how this game is suppose to be.

No need to make them overpowered at all.

Just strong.

They would be mandatory skills, but you can only "equip" 1 (or 2).
They are NOT Gems.

Editing OP to indicate that.

Again all of what I'm saying is just my views on this...


If they aren't overpowered and just strong skills they would feel like... well, strong skills. To make them ultimate skills implies they are the best of the best. Now this could work if they had some massive CD but do some massive effect/s.

To make them mandatory would mean you could use most likely just that one skill as your offense/defense and get utility skills for the rest. It shouldn't be about one skill you must have and/or only one offensive skill.

I'm already kind of annoyed at how much passive points you need to spend on defensive nodes... over 60% of mine need to be defensive. My passive choices feel a bit limited as it is so putting in skill gems they are nearly required doesn't sit right with me. Pulling to close to class based system.

Something tells me you didn't really read my suggestion properly.

Ultimates can't be used all the time - they require Spirit.
Spirit is a Resource, and it functions as a cooldown.
If it takes you 60 seconds to build the amount of Spirit needed to use your Ultimate, then it's just as if your Ultimate had 60 second cooldown.

However, unlike Cooldowns, Spirit isn't built based on Time, but based on Actions.
The Actions that build Spirit depend on your Karma (passives from the Spirit Tree).

So Ultimates can be the strongest Skills, without being overpowered, and without making Gem Skills any less awesome.

I guess I don't get it. To me they won't feel like ultimate skills at all. Just skills with a large cooldown.

we dont need this,some skills are already way too OP.This sort of skills whould just bring complete destruction of PVP,its already too hard to balance this that we have now

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korn7809 wrote:

I guess I don't get it. To me they won't feel like ultimate skills at all. Just skills with a large cooldown.

How can you say they don't feel ultimate skills at all, if no numbers or animations were discussed...

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sallee wrote:

we dont need this,some skills are already way too OP.This sort of skills whould just bring complete destruction of PVP,its already too hard to balance this that we have now

The current skills must be balanced, regardless of whether Ultimate skills are introduced or not.

But a few things to note about Ultimates:
1 - You can't use them right away, as you need to build Spirit first.
2 - Spirit decays after a few seconds of inactivity
3 - There would be both offensive and defensive ultimate skills, so Glass Cannons using offensive Ultimates would either require very good timing or risk getting destroyed by someone using the defensive Ultimate at the right time.
4 - The name Ultimate is a placeholder - could be Oversoul, Apotheosis, whatever.

One of the biggest flaws with the game currently is that one skill gem to kill all (aka LA, EK, FP, etc.) is the most effective way to build a high DPS char, resulting in a combat system of just spamming that one skill. I don't think I need to say more to make the point that it's bad game-design. An almost universal lack of cooldowns worsens the situation in my opinion.

I like your idea because it gives everyone more skills to use, in tune with what they use already, this will diversify both passive builds and what people choose to kill stuff with. Here's my 2 cents on a few fine points of your suggestion:

You would get spirit tree points parallel to passive tree points(your suggestion) but you would be able to choose the starting location on the spirit tree independently from your class choice. Starting location on the spirit tree could be called your Diety of choice, for example. These could include Light, War, Elements, Godless - possibilities are endless. Some classes could be locked out of some choices though, like Templar not being able to go godless :). 2 parallel skill trees practically doubles the possible diversity of builds.

The skills themselves could be called powers - powers your character inherently possesses through his/hers choice of worship, that cannot be swapped out by changing gems.

2. The powers could be very diverse to best complement your existing skill-gems. You would be inclined to choose a utility power to a DPS one if your DPS output is strong already.

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Nurvus wrote:

It will be really nice if Path of Exile gets some kind of Ultimates/Limit Breaks/Overdrives such as the ones you see in games like League of Legends, Bloodline Champions, FFVII and FFX.

TL;DR
Ultimates are the most powerful Skills, obtained through the Spirit Tree, and require Spirit - a new Resource.
Spirit is built according to actions - such as casting a lightning spell or taking damage - determined by Karma, wich are passives from the Spirit Tree.
Amulets and Rings would be able to have a Gem Slot, and any Support Gems you put there apply to your Ultimate.

How would it work:
1 - Ultimates are powerful (but not overpowered) Skills that require Spirit, a Resource that builds according to your Karma.
- Ultimates are NOT Gems
- You can only have 2 Ultimates.
- Learning a new Ultimate when you already have the maximum amount of Ultimates prompts you to unlearn/replace one of your old Ultimates.
- Spirit starts decaying after a few seconds of inactivity
- Different Ultimates require different amounts of Spirit.
Examples of Ultimates:
Some would drain your Spirit slowly while active (examples: Shapeshifting)
Some would cost a small amount of Spirit (example: your next Skill is empowered)
Some would cost a high amount of Spirit (example: You cannot die for a few seconds)
Some would be passive (example: all crits use up X Spirit to gain additional properties)

2 - Karma are passives from the Spirit Tree that grant you Spirit when you perform certain actions.
Examples of Karma:
Karma Passive - Karma - Max Karma increased by 10
Karma Passive - Pyromaniac - You gain 3 Karma for casting a Fire Spell.
Karma Notable - Honorable Duelist - You gain 5 Karma each time you only hit 1 enemy with a Skill.
Karma Notable - Pure Heart - Reduces the amount of Spirit used by your Ultimate by 1%.
Karma Keystone - Equilibrium - You gain 3 Spirit every 3 seconds while below 50% Spirit.
Karma Keystone - Sinister Calling - Double your Karma generation for 5 seconds when you crit, but your base Karma generation is reduced by 33%.

3 - There would be a Spirit Tree.
- It would consist of Karma (passives) and Ultimates (actives)
- Class starting location would be the same as in (overlap with) the Passive Tree.
- There would be alot less Nodes.
- Each Class would start with access to 1 Ultimate Skill and 1 Karma Passive.
- Every Class would be able to reach any Spirit node.
- You would be able to get less than 20% of the available Spirit Nodes.
- You would gain 1 Spirit Point every 5 Levels or so, such that by Level 10 you have 1 Ultimate and 1 Karma (otherwise you can't build Spirit).

4 - Amulets and Rings would be able to have 1 Gem Slot each.
Support Gems placed in those Amulets and Rings would affect your Ultimate.

This ggg would be awesome hope you will read this