Playtesters needed! (1.3 Chronomancers)

[Thasero]

Some Temporal Warden comments:

1. Invigorate - It still grants stamina regeneration, even though Wardens no longer have skills that cost stamina.

2. Time Dilation - In practice this just means you have a speed bonus for the first 3 turns of any combat, because you'll have max stacks from walking around.

3. Haste / Time Stop - I don't enjoy micromanaging the different bonus stacks in order to make these spells work. Cut out the red tape and just let them work, please. The talents will still have synergy because the extra actions you take during Haste/Time Stop will build up your Celerity/Time Dilation stacks faster and those stacks will let you get more actions before the Haste/Time Stop wears off; there's no need to force it.

3a. Time Stop, Still - I can see your post saying that you didn't want people to just use Time Stop to launch nukes, and that's why it comes with a damage reduction. Why do you hate fun, sir? Let my people nuke. If Time Stop -> nuke is powerful, then give Time Stop a high paradox cost. Or perhaps it gives you a debuff that forces you to "repay" the lost time with a global speed penalty, so you have a good reason to finish the fight as quickly as possible. Whatever - I think there are more interesting ways to balance the possibilities than just ruling out all attacks. Plus, as it currently works, the damage penalty makes your attacks fail to be effective - but you can still try, and accidentally put all your best skills on cooldown without realizing it's a waste!

4. Strength of Purpose - I like the idea of covering all the Warden's possible weaponry in one mastery because it removes any min-max motivation to only wield one type of weapon. I don't like using MAG as a substitute for STR, because it makes STR bonuses not work for Wardens, which makes a lot of equipment and some talents not function as intended. I would rather have this skill back as a sustain that grants +STR (or possibly +STR/+DEX to emphasize using both melee and bows) and split the weapon mastery bonus into a separate talent.

5. Warp Mines - I find this skill mostly awkward, because you're moving monsters around when it's not your turn, but only if they take a step. It's not much in flavor for a chronomancy spell to create a minefield that waits around for enemies instead of, say, a horrifying gash in reality that screws up whatever is standing there at the time.

6. Dimensional Anchor - It's hard to justify putting points in this just so you can nerf the very specific subset of monsters that teleport. You can combo it with a hostile teleport skill to deal damage, but it's easier to just use 2 real damage skills in a row and save your hostile teleport cooldown for when you actually need to make an enemy teleport. Suggestion: Make it a sustain that anchors enemies near you, and rather than preventing teleportation, have the teleport succeed, but with the damage and perhaps a chance of inflicting a nasty status. That would let you punish enemy teleporters and form a combo with your own hostile teleport skills without consuming a turn or removing the teleportation effect from your own skills.

7. Braided Blade - As much as I enjoy swordbeams, it would feel a bit more in-character if the skill was one where the Warden teleports through several targets, dealing damage as s/he went - i.e. a version of Temporal Wake, which I feel is one of the most fun 1.2 Warden skills and sadly missing now.

8. Threaded Arrow - The skill has no cost, not even ammo usage. It's also the only way for the Warden to reduce Paradox during combat. I'd rather have the Paradox reduction back on the Weapon Folding sustain; boring-but-necessary bonuses belong on sustained talents you turn on and then don't have to think about, because that lets the active talents be talents you do think about. If Threaded Arrow no longer had to be a default "help your Paradox reduction" talent, it could be reworked as an entirely different talent.

Also, some general notes:
- All of the sustained talents have far too low costs, and the activated skills don't have notably different Paradox costs - in practice I find that I can set my tuned Paradox to 0 and act as if resource costs don't exist at all.
- All of the talent categories require MAG as the stat. It's OK to have more than one stat used by a class! There's no need to over-correct from Wardens requiring 4 different stats! For one thing, stat requirements help give a hint to new players about where they should put their stat points. I think it would make sense for Wardens to have a mix of WIL and MAG requirements, with talents that help cover equipment requirements.
- Thank you for color-coding the skills by the weapon you need. Having the toolbar be readable at-a-glance makes it much more pleasant.

[edge2054]

1. I answered this up thread. It's for an addon class that may be added to the game at some point. Temporal Combat isn't Warden centric.

2, 3, 3a, I hear you on Time Dilation and I'm open to suggestions on it and Celerity. I'll consider what you're saying about Haste and Time Stop casting requirements. Probably won't remove the damage penalty on Time Stop. If you want to kill stuff via Time Stop I'd prefer people get creative.

4. I don't like using MAG as a substitute for STR, because it makes STR bonuses not work for Wardens, which makes a lot of equipment and some talents not function as intended.

What talents, what bonuses, and what equipment?

5. It's staying for now. If you don't enjoy the tree you have others to choose from.

6. As above.

7. I miss Temporal Wake too but another teleport attack isn't what TWs need right now. And I'm more fond of Blink Blade.

8. You can Tune in combat.

The rest...

I tried this. Landing status effects with a 50% spellpower penalty is very hard.

Sure it's okay, it's also okay not too. Willpower is the resource stat. Bows require Dexterity to use. I'm sure a player can figure out where to put stats by the time they unlock the class.

Thank jotwebe, he's been going through them.

[edge2054]

Played around with the starting zone.

If it's to hard let me know and I'll tone down the number of monsters that spawn.

[elboyo]

I don't know if it's intentional or not, but if you learn Bathe in Light from an escort quest, it does not interact in any way with Time Shield.

I know that there are different shield types in the game, but if you are supposed to be able to extend the shield duration with Bathe in Light, it does not currently work.

[IejirIsk]

Having finished (my first) with a temporal combat warden..

with one exception, an even mix of dex/mag/will works rather well... the paradox becomes a major issue in prolonged fights, with the stasis passive 4/5. but, i never set basic at 0. how exactly do you use tuning in combat?

braid blade i rarely had enemies braided cause the braiding itself usually killed them. blink blade + dstep tree is awesomesauce, meant with that, and a couple blinking items + voidstalker equip meant status effects didnt matter (not to mention vigilance + far east skill).

breach is almost a req skill (or at least for I, even at 1 point) and the spinning meant statuses are funny... and a blind ring on melee/ranged stayed with me full game.

never touched the celerity until the end, sadly.

edit: and main time i had trouble, was ulrik. absolutely wrecked me...
edit2: And, while i may be sadistic, it would be nice to know if i got the extra damages (for throwing enemy into a wall or another enemy, and the other enemy being hit)
edit3: ^ on repulse. And if you aren't cornac, how do you manage dox at the beginning? just run until they stop chasing you then rest?

[Razakai]

Some feedback on trees after spending a few hours playing PM last night on Nightmare:

- Gravity is very, very good. The damage is high, precog means you can spike/well people from offscreen, and the slow on well is absurd. I think I saw it getting nerfed so that's probably for the best, even if I'll miss taking twice as many turns as everyone else.

- However, Gravity Locus really feels like a 2 point wonder, as that gets you 50% or so on the knockback reduction and points beyond that only give a small amount. Maybe it should get a TL3/4/5 bonus or some other effect that scales, like the old knockback retaliation or maybe a passive pin (if pin wouldn't mess up your knockbacks) aura like a gravity themed version of the old Time Dilation?

- Matter is pretty useful so far, although I've only invested into the first 2 talents. Dust to Dust is a handy basic nuke, although I've never really used the alt fire on it.

- Matter Weaving is very handy, but the 5th talent point does virtually nothing due to scaling (I'm seeing a pattern in ToME in general with this).

- I second the earlier suggestion of letting DtD+Disintegrate shoot through walls, if it doesn't do that already. I have some concern about Disintegrate's scaling, as you get the majority of the bonuses after 2-3 points. Maybe a TL5/6 bonus that lets you strip another sustain or the like?

- Looking at the code for Materialize Barrier, would I be correct in saying that blowing up the wall does a 120 scaling bleed over 6 turns? That feels a little low for a 'combo' effect. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it though.

- Not played with Spacetime Weaving and Speed Control is getting changed again, so nothing here unfortunately.

- Timetravel is pretty great, although I'm not building it on this character. Perfect as-is.

- Flux is a great tree all round, and Attenuate is a nice secondary nuke for physical PM if somehow your spike doesn't 1 shot everything. Not reached Twist Fate yet, will be interesting to try.

- Spellbinding is good. Not much to add there. Would be interesting to see ability modifying mechanics of this type with other classes.

- Timeline Threading is pretty solid for a temporal PM. Kind of a shame that Rethread doesn't get the Gravity Locus treatment like other locked spells to make this more attractive for physical PM, but it would be a little weird thematically.

- Stasis is... well, odd. I'm not sure I'm a fan of it. Spacetime Stability is ok, although I've yet to have so many paradox problems that I'd want to 5/5 it. Maybe later in the game? Time Shield is great obviously, but really weird having it shared with an existing skill. I'd be inclined to slightly tweak and rename it just to avoid that. Stop just isn't terribly exciting. Low damage+AoE stun is something lots of other classes get, considering how unique and cool most PM spells are this is a shame. Static History is kinda neat, but 'Time Skip but AoE with worse damage' doesn't really seem worthy of a capstone skill for a locked tree. Sorry for the negativity!

- Chronomancy is great, even if Precognition/See the Threads are 1 point wonders.

- Fate Weaving is good, even if miss the old stun cleanse for my TW. I think the numbers might be a little low in some cases but could be wrong. Might be nice to have an alternate way to gain spin apart from getting hit, maybe let it proc off attacks while Seal Fate is active?

- Spacetime Weaving is, as always, great. Not played much with Wormhole/Phase Pulse though, but PP would be more suited for a TW to make Blink Blade a massive status applier.

- Energy is good. Entropy feels a little less useful now we have Disintegrate, but it's still a cool effect.

- Not a strictly class related thing, but it would be nice to see some caster egos with physical penetration. Temporal gets the obvious choice of Cease to Exist, but Gravity could do with a way to deal with the occasional rare physical resistant mob that doesn't involve plinking them down with Dust to Dust.


When I get off work tonight I'll play some more, having a lot of fun. I was initially worried about their damage output with Spatial Tears vanishing, but Gravity is fantastic.

[IejirIsk]

I've found the precog useful for higher than 1 pt, if for the duration boost. but, main reason i want to go through walls, so i can do soemthing with those enemies i can see on the other side.

though, I admit, would like to see more stuff for tw armour-wise.

[Razakai]

I've found the precog useful for higher than 1 pt, if for the duration boost. but, main reason i want to go through walls, so i can do soemthing with those enemies i can see on the other side.

though, I admit, would like to see more stuff for tw armour-wise.

yeah, I suppose what with the defence/crit reduction bonus you get it's not actually bad to put more than 1 point in. It's nice only needing 1 point to get the best result though.

Question: is there a way to update/re-check-out the latest version after changes get made? Until now I've been recreating the whole directory from git, but I'd like to keep my current PM but check out the changes to Speed Control etc.

[IejirIsk]

not counting nightly's. if you use the program in the first page, once you get it setup (may require bookmarks, and telling your comp what the 'working directory' is, then just 'pull' the new changes, and it'll update for you.

edit: Edge, the summon wall still kinda just does nothing when cast on a target and puts up a partial wall if cast on player
edit2: the spellpower on spacetime tuning. is that including your base spell power? and how does paradox & spell power interact?
edit3: so some digging, and tweaking in game, you can get up to 60 spell power at 675 paradox? and no more? then costs and/or power caps there? 300 is baseline, So, am i understanding that correcT? that the '60' spell power gets added to what i have anyway? for space being borked around me at that point.
edit4: Is there a way i can see the game time?
edit5: I hit haste, get a chat confirmation, no change in speed, etc?

[edge2054]

You can Tune in combat by waiting a turn. It's five on the number pad. Early game at least I've found that dodging around a corner with Dimensional Step and pressing 5 a few times is an effective way to recover Paradox. Spacetime Stability lets you Tune faster. Additionally getting hit does not interrupt Tuning.

Spellpower scaling for Paradox ranges from 50% to 150%. It's rescaled like other stats in the game but for the sake of simplicity, if you would normally have 18 spellpower, at 0 Paradox you would have 9. The number listed on Spacetime Tuning substitutes the number on your character sheet and mouseover for Chronomancy spells.

I'll look at the damage on Materialize Barrier. Keep in mind that you can pop three walls a turn with the Ashes version of Dust to Dust going.

I'll probably lower the cooldowns on some of the Spacetime Folding stuff too. Those talents have built in diminishing returns anyway as far as crowd control goes. So Banish on a 6 or 10 turn cooldown won't make much difference. Warp Mines with a 4 cooldown would probably be more fun too. I'll play with the numbers today.

I'll look at scaling but the formulas ToME uses are intended to prevent over specialization. The first and second points are almost always the best and the fifth almost always a steep drop off.

[IejirIsk]

The haste looks like a typo of speend in the 'set effect' but doesnt cost, or anything else... or put an error in the log?

[edge2054]

Ah.. sorry, forgot to push last night before bed.

Should be fixed now.

[elboyo]

One other thing that I noticed.

Using Disintegrate to shoot your beam through walls still makes the the beam stop at the wall when destroying it. I was excited at the prospect of using Precognition and then blasting enemies through a wall to gain the first-strike advantage indoors, but the beam doesn't seem to continue through to the enemy. Is this intentional or a bug?

[edge2054]

I want to shoot through walls too I'll see if I can get it working.

[Razakai]

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't want to have to 5/5 everything so I'm happier being able to splash a few points around and saving 5/5 for the big ticket spells like main attacks. The tweaks in the latest build look to be a great improvement, especially Barrier being a 220 scaling nuke now. That alone is decent damage, detonating 3 walls at once will be a strong strategy.

Suggestion for Speed Control - perhaps Haste could also max out your Celerity/Time Dilation stacks on use? Makes it a little more exciting.