Fundamental Skill function and design (long)

Sorry this post is long as hell and isn't formatted as well as normal.  I racked my brain over what would be a better way to present it but I couldn't.  When I'd post on sins forums I had real exact suggested changes that I can bullet-point and categorize.
In this case, i'm suggesting a "philosophy" so-to-speak, or an arguement.  Such a thing can't really be presented with categories and bulletpoints.  The only category here is the skills.

Just, to make it easier to read, I put the "most important" paragraphs in Purple.  So you could just skip and read them..

  To make it perfectly clear, when I say "synergy" and "synergize" i'm not talking about how it's done in Diablo2.  Not even remotely.

  Now that the beta is out, though granted I haven't played a ton yet with it coming out, I think my points will be equally valid far into the future.
  Basically.. I don't really like the skills.  Yes I haven't tried all 8 Demigods, just the three.  However, I have an idea of some others from information given in the preview, and I've given this all a lot of thought.  No I don't think I need to play 1000 hours then some magic subtleties in how the skills work and work together will come to mind, I think they need improvement(sometimes vast in some areas).
  The basic complaint is that the skills seem incrediably vanilla and shallow.  Shallow as in they lack depth in use and function.  Vanilla as in plain.
  I mean frankly.. I hate most of the skills, and how they're designed now.
  Don't get the wrong, the effects are awesome.  I just don't like what they actually do.  I love the distortion effects too!

  I think there are other issues in the gameplay, and the "flow", but I think GPG already has tons of ideas to how to improve that, not to mention this is an early beta, and I think there are lots of people who'd give better input here than me.  I mean, look at Forge Alliance.  But skills.. well that I think i can give my best input into..  And I worry that this isn't something that might not get "fixed"(quotations because it needing fixed, and how it'd be fixed, is my opinion) for the games shipping, while i'm sure controls, ui, and gameplay will have some nice work done to them.(though, skills are part of the gameplay.)

   http://forums.demigodthegame.com/321404 was a good conversation I thought.  And Demigod really seems to lack debuffs except for some AoE aura's.  But I'd really like to see the whole status effects.
   These are especially good because of how they can be modified.  They can be removed, enhanced, spread, so on.  An attack happens instantly, a debuff you can manipulate.  Ones that.. ya know, aren't Aura's.  Aura's can't be manipulated the same way.
   Like say Sedna has some debuff that enhances DoT debuffs.  Then she'd improve how good other Demigods do, like the Unclean Beasts poison/disease/whatever.
   I'd like to see a "standard" set of debuffs that always stay the same except for their duration.  With how many there could be, especially when new Demigods are added, it helps ease the learning curve and make things more intuitive. Yes this is very much like Guild Wars, but GW did that for a good reason and it worked will. With a number of debuffs, in a fast paced game, it works well.  Yeah Demigod wouldn't have nearly as many Debuffs, but it has no time to sit around and read.

   Like the two non-completely freezing Torchbearer skills could "frostbite" people, and 2 or 3 of the fire ones could "burn" them. Basically I was thinking of a list like(won't give any exact numbers.. i mean it'd have to be tested, it'd be a big change after all):
Frozen: Already have this.  Unit can't move.
And personally.. I'd like to see the current freezing last 2x-3x longer but the target take 1/2-1/3rd the damage while frozen so it's used more as control and is differentiated from stuns.
Frostbite: Slows movment, very small DoT, and to a greater degree slowing actions(attacking, casting spells) for a short duration.
Burning: Deals very high DoT, very short duration.
Dunno what to call..: Something that'd set someones health Regen to 0 and disable any life-leeching.  Any regen healing skills wouldn't work or life leach skills, and it'd effect different classes/builds differently. Very long duration.  I'd call it bleeding but.. there is no blood, so there'd be no good effect to it.  Maybe some injured thing?
Poison: Mediumish DoT, medium duration.
Blind: Makes a target extremely likely to miss, short duration.

   I mean, something like that, maybe more, maybe not having some of them, maybe different ones.  The whole point is that for frozen, you know you're frozen because of that pretty effect GPG has made that you can see in the screenshots, you know you can't move.  Burning, you'd see your demigod engulfed in flames. Poison, the green all around.  Blind.. well you aren't hitting thigns!  You don't have to but glance at the bottom of your screen and see the familiar icon and what time is left on it.  You know it's effected you when you see the pretty effect on your Demigod.  It really helps with the fast pace rather than having tons of different effects on debuff auras and attacks.  They could come more to life when more Demigods are added, aswell.

   A few of the Aura's could be replaced to instead of being debuffs, be something that buffs your allied troops so that if they're strucken they get a status effect.  Like Sedna could have a "holy fire" aura that buffs allies so that enemies that hit allies have a chanced to be burned for a duration based on its level.    Ontop of that have an AoE skill that debuffs all in the area, and lasts quite a while, that'd increase the duration of all DoT debuffs, so that burn would last long during it's duration.  But, for Sedna it would just make The burning be pretty good, but with a Torchbearer or Unclean Beast on the team, their burning or poison, it'd be far far more effect to their DoT's that start out better.

   I mean basically, you only have a few skills skills.  Each one should be REALLY awesome.  I'm not saying 8 or so is a bad number.  It sounds fine to me, it's a decent number, maybe 1-5 more, but the current number of skills is fine to me.  It's just that each one needs to be really awesome and be worth the point, it should be hard to decide which to pick, what direction to go, how to build your character.  But one thing to help your decision is that skills should work together between Demigods.  If you have such and such as teamates, you should figure you might want to go down this or that path, but not this or that other one, and use such and such items instead of such and such other items
To me 8 Demigods isn't a problem if they all have awesome list of skills.

   It isn't a problem when 2 or 3 Demigod combinations work together well, and all different ones.  Like the enemy should think their strategy differently if you have Rook, Sedna, Regulas, Vampire Lord than if you have Torchbearer, Sedna, Regulas, Unclean Beast.  With the rook, Sedna, Vampire lord, maybe the Rook would do a lot better at tanking and be able to drive right through better, and the Vampire Lord maybe could accumulate more minions if Sedna has an AoE heal over top.  If it is Sedna with Unclean Beast and Torchbearer then you're dealing with longer frostbite durations and dot's.
   I mean, just as an example, i'm not saying that's exactly how it should be.  I'm just saying people should consider who they're against not because of the singular Demigods, but how those Demigods will work together.

   And with the whole "need awesome skills thing, each one needs to be special" it just seems a lot are vanilla like i've said before, and like was said by people in Mooey's PAX impressions thread.  Like take Regulas for instance..

   A skill that increases range?  This just seems like a waste of one of those few skill tree spots to me.  Why not just have the "skill" that raises health/energy/regen/etc also increase attack range for the Regulas?  Probably do this for Torchbearer too, but for Regulas it'd do alot, while probably not increasing the Regulas' health much like it might for others.  And people could just get increased ranged Items!
   I'd MUCH rather see it be a chance to Penetrate through targets.  Like 20%/40%/60% chance.  Maybe critical hits should ALWAYS critical too.  A penetration skill is much more interesting as hitting multiple targets can do interesting things with other skills.

   I like that more because it opens more possibilities!  What if he had a skill that added damage to attacks? But not just damage to attacks.. something AWESOME like makes a bolt of lightning strike down on foes, by a chance, for extra damage.  Probably something like 30/60% chance.  (Regulas is an arch angel anyways.  I associate godly powers with lightning usually. Smiting and all.)
   So then you have these two skills working together.  If you're REALLY lucky, as more times than not you'll penetrate and do the lightning with the skill maxed, and if you have high crit the chance to penetrate is even higher, you could shoot at a big clump of creeps and have LIGHTNING LIGHTNING LIGHTNING LIGHTNING LIGHTNING LIGHTNING LIGHTNING LIGHTNING.  But also, even if you just went for single target attacking, it might be that extra little bit of damage on Snipe that is what is the difference between someone having 10 hp, and someone dying out right.  (Don't say it's not balancable.  Each time lightning is triggered it could use mana, it could just be low damage, it could use some sort of "burst timer" where it has sort of a timer with its damage.  If you just hit a single target, the damage would be higher.  But then if there was another lightning strike right after, it would do less damage, and less, and less, and less, so the more oftne the lightning strikes happen the less damage they do each strike, then after a time of no lightning it goes back to high damage)

That would be so amazing to see!

   Now what if an ally has an increased +critical chance aura?!  Then you have him and Regulas being a good combination!  Plus higher critical chance items.(but I think a biger benefit should come from having that ally with the aura)  In this case, this Demigod with the increased critical chance aura benefits them all but moreso for a Regulas.  That is, with the penetratoin+lightning strikes build, but with such a demigod on your team as a Regulas it might influence you more to take that build.
   Or if there is an Aura that gives a chance for attacks to deal splash damage for lesser damage.
   What if a rook got lucky with the hammer smash and that?  An already high damage attack that's splash, doing more splash damage.
With the regulas lightning bolts, and peircing.. When it peirces, that's another chance for splash.  And each splash is more units hit, which is more units for lightning strike to trigger on.  So while the lessened damage on the splash would be nothing with the Regulas normal attacks like the rooks, for the regulas the lightning bolts would add very high DPS in comparison.

   But if you had people with  damage aura's on your team, and no splash adding, no extra crit chance adding, you might want to go for single target damage, slower attacking high damage items and such.  And of course who you're against would be a factor.

   And instead of Stuns I wish they where knockdowns(granted.. how do you knockdown The Rook? Maybe he's immune, or when he's knocked down he damages nearby people? lmao.)  Rooks boulder could knock down, and he could have a footstomp that deals far far more damage to knocked down foes, or just his current hammer smash could.  But, the footstomp would cooldown MUCH MUCH faster, for example, than the rooks knockdown.  Now, with Regulas stun mine knocking down instead of stunning.. or any other classes knockdowns, the Rook can use his footstomp more often!
   Knockdowns open up more possibilities for "againsted knocked down" attacks which add more to the team-play.  "against stunned" doesn't make as much sense..  Also a nice knocked down animation makes it easy to see(though i do like the stun animation and effect you guys have done, KD is still cooler :P).  Knockdown and stun have the same exact effect.. can't move, can't attack. 

   Also many skills should have dual function I think. (such as both dealing extra damage, or being aoe, along with doing a status effect.  Or like Sedna could have a single target big heal that removes all debuffs from the healed person and makes the immune to all debuffs for 15 seconds or something!). This gets more use out of the limited spots.  Or conditional "do this if.. do this if.."

   What if Torchbearer had fire+ice combo skills?  Say you deal the fire nova or fire bolt skill to someone who is frozen, and it makes a steam explosion, doing AoE damage.  Ice nova freezing a group, then Fire nova them, and then you have lots of stacking AoE(but it would end the frozen state, and there would be no burning status.  Higher direct damage for less DoT, less freeze duration, but it'd be more damage overall especially with stacking AoE damage. 
   But the kicker to that would be making relive the immolation have a cooldown timer every time you use a skill(a cooldown that is longer than the longest possible freeze duration), so one torchbearer can't do the fire+ice combos, it'd require two people on one team being torchbearer working together!(Catching an enemy demigod surrounded by friendly units with all that stacking AoE could be devastating!)

   And maybe it's stupid.. but I wish each Demigod had 5 activatable skills instead of 4.  But maybe that's dumb of me to think.  I just think many more possibilities and builds could be made that way.  Or make it so your skill tree has more than 4, but you can only have 4 of them on the bar, so there could be more possibilities..

I went on too long but.. Just giving an examples to explain how I feel.  It seems the only real combinations are stun people, then do damage.

The reason I see this is a problem: because the balance of Demigods skill is based on such simple factors..  Its damage, its mana cost, its cooldown, whether it's AoE or not, the DoT.  This makes it so easy to "crack" the best builds with math, basically.  When you have so many factors with how allies attacks work with yours or not (like skills that make you do something extra to knocked down people.  If the Rook had a footstomp it would only make sense to use it with a Regulas to knockdown-mine people.  Set up a mine, rook lures them on, footsomp, rook uses knockdown, rook footstomps again! and all the other examples i gave..) it adds much more "dynamicness" and variaty because of people can't use "the best build" they will want to use the one or two skill builds there may be(not counting all the extra builds you'd get from items) based on who is on their team, and who they're against.
The reason DotA doesn't have the balanced "cracked" this way with singular type skills is because there are 91 heroes that mix things up, and mix up the stratergies.  Pretty much every hero only has one good way to be played.  The balance IS, essentially, "cracked" in DotA, on a per hero level, but it's a 5vs5 game with 91 different heroes which play against each other differently.
It's also.. rather boring and plain to me. :/

   All the skills are just examples.  Though the Regulas suggestion-examples I used I'm really fond of.  Footstomping knocked down people would be sweet too. :p  Actually I like them all, but better ones could be done, it's the "spirit" of the examples that is the important point.
  COULD I make a list for every class?  Well.. yeah, but i don't think GPG wants to read that.  The examples are for putting the point across on how I think this type of skill design would benefit the game.

Dimenishing returns:  Another thing I noticed is dimenishing returns on skills.  USUALLY I'm a fan of dimenishing returns, like stacking the same items having less effect.  For skills i'm not, because I think the skills should be designed where a balanced skillset is better than maxing out 2-3 skills.  Like snipe.. it's 200/300/400/500/600 damage or something like that..  The subsequent points have HALF the value.
If Regulas had a more synergetic skillset, and a more "interesting"(AWESOME) set of skills to choose from, people would often be more likely to spec another skill than want to raise snipe, even if it was 105/215/330/450/595 damage.  That's 100+(5^level) damage per level.  But, that's using up 5 skill points when the game might end at lvl 15 or 20,  That is 1/3rd-1/4th of your points.  Do you spend that many on one skill?  If the skill set was how I wanted it, this would be a very tough decision to make because of different combinations of skills you could make, or going for skills that make synergies possible for your allies like some aura or knockdown, or an arrow that "shoots someone in the eye" to blind them, or a poison one which would go along with my above examples.

Had another thing to say but I forgot it. ;)  Something like "think like Magic:The Gathering.  It isn't about the direct damage your cards do, or mana:damage ratio, or how big your creatures are.  You don't make a good Magic:The Gathering deck by putting your highest damage player-damage sorcery cards, and putting your biggest creatures, in it.  You put together cards that work together to serve a purpose for your strategy of winning, which has strengths against some decks, and weaknesses against others, and with a few backup cards you can swap into your deck the next round to handle what your deck is usually weak against, but lowering it's strengths and making it weaker against something else."(forgot what you call that little pile of cards you can substitute into your deck between matches..)

Sorry if anything sounds harsh, if it does it's because I wrote something wrong.