Come Bitch About Skills! [Skills Rebalance Brainstorming]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!

 

Yes, I'm saying Switcheroo is the star of the tree as far as I can tell.

That is some insane scaling on Devouring Wound like whoa. Maybe I was using it on the wrong targets or something geez. I think I'm gonna go put Batty Stance on and suddenly ezmode my way through everything with that.

... did I mention that I think Batty Stance is way overpowered? But that's a discussion for another thread.

 

...batty stance?

 

Kung Fu

 

Oh, I don't tend to consider mod skills when considering the balance of core skills.

 

Feel free to bring that up in the CES thread,though. Ive been considering nerving that for a while, actually. More opinions would be good.

 

So, are we going to put the communist capstone on use, giving it a phylactery style?
You know, human body is fabolous. It would be a shame if anything happened to it. Like cool (and warm) radiations.
I think I will.

 

Yes. Yes I am.

 

OK, so, what think you all of these:

Anything else from CotW skills need nerfing, buffing, or just changing? Any particularly boring levels, for example?

 

This means magical law's capstone doesn't work with this? Cool.
Maybe it can combo too well with debuff removers, but we'll see. And with this there are just 3 skills to make a massproducing bomb.

Spoiler

Which could be funny.

Egyptian magic could be very interesting now.

 

Debuff removers won't work. it's not a bad="1" spell, so they don't even see it. There is no workaround.

 

I just wanted to hear that. Good night.

 

Well I got my beef with paranormal investigator, but I'm not sure anything can be done. Namely, the Alien Authopsy is to high on the tree, and the Door Opener doesn't work on locked doors which means you still got to kick locked doors down if they are zoo doors. And the big reason to take the skill in the first place is to not have to be right next to the zoo all the time...

 

Well....TBH, it would be easy to move the levels around, but I don't see Alien Autopsy as being something that ought to be lower level. The door opener thing, yeah, that's hardcoded.

 

Alien Autopsy is crazy powerful. Moving it sounds pretty unwise to me...

 

Crazy powerful how?

And speaking of science, could you put the Rouge Scientist's Aetheric Death Ray on a timer instead of giving it a mana cost? Using Baromatic Vortex Blast and Sonic Blast already drains a lot of your mana. Enough so that there won't be enough left to use the Death Ray more than once in a blue moon. You can still make it drop mana the same way as the blasts do, just don't make it a requirement to use the skill.

 

There's currently not enough demand to warrant messing with the YHTNTEP skills...unless other people have ideas?

 

If you're asking, Worlockery's Manacalypse does a pathetically small amount of damage to an even smaller range for a skill that both drains every ounce of mana you have and has a countdown of 384, even empowered. Especially for a level 8, and Arcane Captor kills you if you charge it for more than a few turns, but doesn't deal nearly enough extra damage to make up for such a huge downside. Also Rouge Scientist's Thaumomechnical Rebreather skill costs 1 mana every 3 turns just for some resistances (4 of them at +2 each), and doesn't need to be so expensive. Maybe buff it to every 5 turns.

 

Try a Wandcrafting/Tinkering/Paranormal Investigator build sometime. The encrusts will quickly break the game sideways.

I believe Ruigi said the poin of Aetheric Death Ray is, in part, to provide a mana sink for the rogue scientist (magic being unscientific.) Avoiding a cooldown and allowing the skill to be spammed is part of the point.

 

Arcane Capacitor is supposed to kill you if you charge it more than 4 turns. It says so on the tin. And the damage it deals varies quite a bit, for a lot of reasons. Before enemy defenses, the average damage is actually:

turn 1: 5.34+ (.267 * Magic Power)
turn 2: 14 + (.7 * Magic Power) with a 7%ish chance of knockback
turn 3: 22 + (1.1 * Magic Power) with a 34%ish chance of knockback
turn 4: 32.67 + (1.634 * Magic Power) with a 50% chance of knockback, a 25% chance of confusing the enemy, a, 23%ish chance of paralyzing the enemy for 2 turns, and a 15%ish chance of backlash.
turn 5: 50.67 + (2.534 * Magic Power) with a 75% chance of knockback, a 91.34% chance of confusing the enemy, a 52.67% chance of paralyzing the enemy for 2 turns, and a 71.67% chance of backlash.

Now, the packets it deals damage in are quite small (1+(.05 * Magic Power) each), and they're spread between several damage types ( ) -- so enemies with broad spectra of damage resistances can take significantly less damage. That said, 50 extra damage is definitely "enough extra damage" to warrant a 71% chance of getting your ass kicked, and more importantly, 22 is definitely enough to warrant "planning 3 turns ahead with no extra risk.", and those both assume you have a Magic Power of zero.


Manacalypse, on the other hand, deals a straight-up 4+(.4 * Magic Power) plus 2 + (.2 * Magic Power) plus 2 + (.2 * Magic Power) -- for a total of 8+(.8 * Magic Power) damage -- but it deals it with each of those little blasts you see going off as the spell erupts, so most monsters within range will get hit an average of just over 3 times with it (more the closer to you they are). Is 24+(2.4* Magic Power) "pathetically small"? Compare to: The Stars Aligned (28 + (.71 * Magic Power)). Sure, it's spread over three damage types and 2 of them are fairly commonly resisted, but an extra 1.69* Magic Power should be more than enough to overcome that little hitch.


I do agree about the rebreather, though. It's way too expensive for what it does.