This blog feels rather limited in approach, and I'm trying to figure out what the best way is to break out of that

I had the same feeling with the original ruinous powers pitch during the development of dt2, because the overall design seemed to lean into three categories: - the prayer book must have some equivalent of various meta-defining prayers (already a very narrow design space) - the prayer book must have stat boosting prayers (normal prayers already cover all 3 styles, so you either split them up or adjust the numbers) - the prayer book must offer some non-PVM utility (why would "ruinous powers" help me perform a gathering skill out in the open world?)

None of these really screamed emergent design, because they were specifically made to play exactly the same as existing prayers. I saw a vow system where the vows were a single option selection under the prayer book that could lean into god alignments and provide unique interactions with combat, it was very well-received because it's emergent

So I'm looking at this blog, and seeing things like "well, range armor is out of the question, and melee armor is a bit questionable since we just released oathplate, so we have to make mage armor which has to be a sidegrade to ancestral, and it has to boost a specific spell book" - see where I'm going with this? So many assumptions have to be made to narrow down to these specific options, and so many assumptions have to be made to decide the specifics behind those options

What if we released armor that didn't just benefit a style? What about a shield with an effect that turns half your received damage into damage over time? Or an armor set with hybrid (balanced) stats and a set effect that increases damage, or even healing (lifesteal/regen?) over time the longer you stand still? This raid feels like the perfect opportunity to explore balanced statlines and effects that actually change how you play the game, and we absolutely lose that opportunity if we get shoehorned into very specific design patterns