I've complained about Contamination and Ignition being awful skills, so I decided to help think up some others.

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I don't like the starting Earth skills. One is Contamination, which will turn a large chunk of the battlefield into toxic, flammable pools which are more likely to hurt you than the enemy.

Another is Magical Poison Dart. Okay, but not that great for the undead-infested second half of the island.

The only Earth-damage skill is Fossil Strike, which is earth damage, but also produces a huge oil slick which is flammable and has an slow effect which can't be resisted by armor. This contributes to the messy battlefields which can easily backfire on your own party or hamper their advances.

I think Contamination should be removed, and another Earth-damage skill should be added, one which doesn't spam oil everywhere. I have a few possible candidates:


Earth - Skipping Stone
A stone which bounces between enemies, doing Earth damage, but doing less damage with each hit. Maximum 4 hits. Produces NO SURFACE if ground-targeted. Larian will probably hate this because it's just a reskinned Ricochet.


Earth - Splitting Stone
An Earth damage spell which hits one enemy and splits off into two 45-degree angles in different directions with a wide hit cylinder for the split rocks. You can see the preview of the split lines and where the projectiles will go before casting.


Earth - Stalagmite
Impales a single enemy with a spike for heavy damage. No surface produced. 3 AP, 4-5 Turn cooldown.


Earth - Stalagmite Swarm
Select three targets, which are then impaled with spikes from the earth. Low-moderate damage, 2 AP, 2-3 Turn cooldown. D:OS 1's Firefly worked along similar lines, letting you target specific points before the spell was cast.

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Pyrokinetic - Fire Breath
This is the exact skill which used to be the Lizard's Racial, but was moved to Pyrokinetic because it was worse than a candle. This version is buffed up more and benefits from points into INT as well as Pyro.



Necromancy - Sacrificial Gift
AP: 1 // Duration: Instant. // Cooldown: 4 turns.

The caster sacrifices 50% of their maximum health to heal a targeted ally for half that amount. If the caster is under 50% health when casting it, they are reduced to 1 health.
  • Possible additional rule: If the caster is under 50% health, the target is only healed to 50% of the caster's CURRENT HP.
  • Possible variation: The caster sacrifices half of their current HP to heal the targeted ally for half that amount, which greatly simplifies how it works.


Example 1: A Necromancer has 552/552 health. They cast this spell on an ally, and the Necromancer loses 276 health, and the ally is healed for 138 heath. Both effects are instant.

Example 2: A Necromancer has 300/552 health. They cast this spell on an ally, and the Necromancer loses 276 health - reducing them to 24 health - and the ally is healed for 138 heath. Both effects are instant.

Example 3: A Necromancer has 140/400 health. They cast this spell on an ally. But because the Necromancer is under 200 health, the Necromancer loses 139 health - reducing them to 1 health - and the ally is healed for only 70 heath. Both effects are instant.


Necromancy - Shackles of Pain (Alteration)

Shackles of Pain is changed to allow targeting of any two combatants. Any damage received by one of them is split equally with the other. (Note: Something is done so that if both targets have Pain reflection, there is no infinite feedback loop of reflected pain)

This makes Shackles of pain more useful:
Enemy-Ally: Half the damage done to the ally is reduced and given to an enemy.
Ally-Ally: Allies spread the damage out between themselves, instead of one larger hit on one of them.
Enemy-Enemy: Damage two enemies at once, even though it's for less damage.