Anorothil reworking

[jenx]

I've been playing Anorithils now for about two weeks and they are very hard to play once you hit the new [b28] prides.

Their biggest problem is defence:
1. Against similar characters (luminous horrors etc) they quickly get fried
2. Against invisible master assasins etc they get smasehd by physical damage
3. Against wyrms they get smashed

This is even with Circle of Warding level 5, shielding runes, Providence, Bathe in Light, etc. They struggle to dish out enough damage before major damage gets them. Once their hps start to drop, valuable turns spent in attacking are taken up with healing talents, totality, etc. Alternatively, one can cast totality FIRST, to reduce npcs defences against damage, but then an option for a quick reset of healing talents is lost.

They are like archmages with regard to defence, but don't have the new Aegis tree to help.

Mind you, they do have some impressive attack options, such as:
1. Casting Shadow simulcrum at talent 5 and maxxed CUN against elite multi-hued wyrms. These are friendly wyrms who don't spray the character. They can clean out a room in no time. Even better IMHO is orc mage summoners, who quickly supply you an army of friendly critters. Most NPCs are weak at defending against their own attacks, so this works great.
2. In certain battles I switch to Chant of Light, which gives 40% plus light damage alone at t5. When combined with other damages I can get light to 80% or higher. Then this criticals and wham, 2,000 damage can pop out.

Here are my suggestions for improving the class:
1. The BIG problem with Shadow Simulcrum, in addition to endless LUA errors duly submitted, is the 5 range. It should be 7-10 in my view. Anorithils work by staying still and casting lots of spells, but getting to 5 range is often hopeless. For example, you have to step outside your radius 4 circles to get to many critters.
2. Corona and Hymn of Moonlight together are great, but when maxed out they drain up to 36 energy per turn, and socan't be replenished in time. So they both get deactivated and you have to rebuild again. Either reduce cost or stop them deactivating. Hymn of Moonlight also ranges from 1 to 60 or so at lvl 50 char, but why 1? It's not very satisfying to see an elite go for 1 damage at lvl 50!
3. Circle radius could be increased to 5 for talent 5. Having 3 ciricles at once at this radius would make the tree worth investing in heavily. The damages should be slightly increased as well.
4. Can they be given an Aegis tree or equivalent, to help with defence?
5. They have no detection (Hymn of Detection is useless) and no speed talents and no teleport talents! So they can't be sped up except with infusions and gear (whoopee!), and can't be teleported ior phase door. So compared to mages or even shadowblades they suffer a lot. You have to then use phase door, teleport, and movement slots, reducing shielding and regen, and forcing extra talent points to go to making up 5 slots.Why is it that compared to mages, they get none of these? Can we give them conveyance at least? (If only DG loved playing Anorithils as much as Archmages!!!)
6. They are normally heavily dependent on their blinding and stunning and confusing spells working, but because they never invest in willpower, their mindpower is much lower, and so at high levels, bosses and elites mostly resist, making them useless.
7. The invisibility talent (I can't remember the name) has low invisibility lvl at talent 5 even, and plenty of critters see you. Also, with Moonlight and Corona, it is near impossible to keep this going for long.
8. Glyphs seem almost useless. To get them to high enough levels requires compromising on too many other vital talents. I've experimented in the Arena with them and the results are UGLY!
9. A great option would be to allow hymns and chants to stack, but at reduced power, or a particular talent could allow stacking of a combination of hymns and chants. So lvl 1 would allow 3 in total, 2 would allow 4, and 5 would allow 7. This way, you could get damage and resists happening for chants and the same for hymns. The additional sustain cost would be a penalty in itself, and perhaps these extra hymns/chants could take a reduction in effectiveness.
10. The circles are great, provided you stay in the centre! But knockbacks and teleports often move you out of them. Can one of the circles, perhaps Warding, provide increased knockback and teleport resistance during the circle, in 20% increments? Then lvl 5 would guarantee that you can't be displaced. This is what was killing me in high level vaults and prides. I would set up, pop shield, movement, then set off 3 circles of defence, light, and warding, and then presto, I'm relocated elsewhere, surrounded by fast hitting physical attacks, dead in one or two rounds!!

Besides this, they are great fun to play, but it is depressing to see a powerful character get to Vor Pride and get creamed at the first room!!

[edge2054]

Mostly just want to set the record straight. Sorry Jenx, I'm not trying to flame your post but there's a lot of misinformation here and stuff that goes against the class design.

Here are my suggestions for improving the class:
1. The BIG problem with Shadow Simulcrum, in addition to endless LUA errors duly submitted, is the 5 range. It should be 7-10 in my view. Anorithils work by staying still and casting lots of spells, but getting to 5 range is often hopeless. For example, you have to step outside your radius 4 circles to get to many critters.

The class was meant to be shorter range then a mage. Most of their spells operate in this range (except Moonlight Ray).

2. Corona and Hymn of Moonlight together are great, but when maxed out they drain up to 36 energy per turn, and socan't be replenished in time. So they both get deactivated and you have to rebuild again. Either reduce cost or stop them deactivating. Hymn of Moonlight also ranges from 1 to 60 or so at lvl 50 char, but why 1? It's not very satisfying to see an elite go for 1 damage at lvl 50!

I can see them not auto-deactivating. Hymn of Moonlight is a generic so yes the damage is going to be poor compared to other talents. As to reducing the cost the cost is balanced to prevent keeping the two spells active at the same time. It's a nice option (especially considering Hymns take no time to cast) to use when you have a lot of energy but not something you should keep going constantly.

3. Circle radius could be increased to 5 for talent 5. Having 3 ciricles at once at this radius would make the tree worth investing in heavily. The damages should be slightly increased as well.

Yeah, maybe. I think the Circle tree is okay but other's may have differing opinions and mine is biased.

4. Can they be given an Aegis tree or equivalent, to help with defence?

The Light tree?

5. They have no detection (Hymn of Detection is useless) and no speed talents and no teleport talents! So they can't be sped up except with infusions and gear (whoopee!), and can't be teleported ior phase door. So compared to mages or even shadowblades they suffer a lot. You have to then use phase door, teleport, and movement slots, reducing shielding and regen, and forcing extra talent points to go to making up 5 slots.Why is it that compared to mages, they get none of these? Can we give them conveyance at least? (If only DG loved playing Anorithils as much as Archmages!!!)

They get one of the best teleports in the game >.> Jumpgate.

6. They are normally heavily dependent on their blinding and stunning and confusing spells working, but because they never invest in willpower, their mindpower is much lower, and so at high levels, bosses and elites mostly resist, making them useless.

All of these effects work off spellpower for the Anorithil, not mindpower.

7. The invisibility talent (I can't remember the name) has low invisibility lvl at talent 5 even, and plenty of critters see you. Also, with Moonlight and Corona, it is near impossible to keep this going for long.

Most creatures don't have see invis at all and most that do have it at such a high level that invis power is practically irrelevant. As to the last bit that's by design. Invisibility is a very powerful effect and much as the mage spell constantly drains mana to stay active, Darkest Light isn't meant to be 'on' all the time.

8. Glyphs seem almost useless. To get them to high enough levels requires compromising on too many other vital talents. I've experimented in the Arena with them and the results are UGLY!

You may be right here. I buffed them quite a bit when I added the Circles and Eclipse trees but it may not have been enough. I will say this though, indirect damage is very powerful in it's own right for the main campaign (though not so much for the arena I imagine).

9. A great option would be to allow hymns and chants to stack, but at reduced power, or a particular talent could allow stacking of a combination of hymns and chants. So lvl 1 would allow 3 in total, 2 would allow 4, and 5 would allow 7. This way, you could get damage and resists happening for chants and the same for hymns. The additional sustain cost would be a penalty in itself, and perhaps these extra hymns/chants could take a reduction in effectiveness.

Interesting thought, reducing the power if you have more then one active. Even a fifty/fifty split and allowing two of each could work. But for a class that's already kinda starved on generic points I can't see many people taking advantage of anything less then full power chants and hymns.

10. The circles are great, provided you stay in the centre! But knockbacks and teleports often move you out of them. Can one of the circles, perhaps Warding, provide increased knockback and teleport resistance during the circle, in 20% increments? Then lvl 5 would guarantee that you can't be displaced. This is what was killing me in high level vaults and prides. I would set up, pop shield, movement, then set off 3 circles of defence, light, and warding, and then presto, I'm relocated elsewhere, surrounded by fast hitting physical attacks, dead in one or two rounds!!

Saving throws can help greatly with both of these effects I believe. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a fair addition to Warding, just saying the class already has a talent that helps lower the chance of this happening. Anyway a knockback or teleport resistance instead of slowing projectiles would work.

[edge2054]

Just reread this post and it gave me a thought on how to buff Anorithil survivability and the Glyph tree. Each Glyph could give the character a buff each time they're cast for the same amount of time as the glyphs last for. For instance.

Paralysis - Free Action for 5 + tl turns.
Repulsion - Grants a damage shield for 5 + tl turns.
Explosion - Increases Positive Energy generation by X% (basically each time you cast a spell with a negative PE cost the cost is increased, giving the character more PE) for 5 + tl turns.
Fatigue - Speed for 5 + tl turns.

Would drastically alter the use and functionality of the tree and reward using Glyphs to generate PE. At 5 talent points each of these buffs would last half the cooldown of the talent, giving good uptime on the buffs themselves. I think it could add an interesting dynamic to Glyph usage.

[jenx]

hi edge, thanks for your thoughtful replies. I was probably too frustrated when I wrote it, and some things, as you point out, I overstated.

My frustration comes from building a pretty powerful character, who then can be killed in just a few turns by particular sorts of enemies, particularly hard-hitting close ones! So I could build with this in mind, but then I'd have to give up certain design options. For instance, I LOVE chant of light. On my current lvl 45 Anorithil, it is knocking out 66% increased light damage.

I'd have to forgo this and opt for Chants 2 or 3 for Resistance. There are not enough generic point for characters to develop multiple hymns and chants to high levels and then switch them around as need be.

And if I wanted to build protection, I'd have to pump up armour and strength, in lieu of other options. For example, I love the Corruption Hexes and like to save generic poits for them. They make a massive difference for an Anorithil in my experience.

Hence my ideas of multiple hymns/chants.

I've studied some other characters in the vault and some max out the Eclipse Tree. PErhaps this is another avenue to explore. This way, you use Totality not to shorten cooldowns, but to increase resistance penetration. These are two different functions wrapped in one talent - is this the best design? Also, I have a question about this Tactic - if you have 50% resistance penetration against a monster with 10% all, for example, does it work AS IF the monster has -40%, thereby giving you massive increase in damage? If so, I should explore this approach.

So my questions are about how to balance the character to they can make it to the end. I find the West pretty easy with Anorithils, but the East is often too tough. (And I've played two TW winners, so I have an idea of what to do there).

Thanks also for the info re using spellpower rather than willpower - can this be addded to the descriptions?

[jenx]

Regarding short range, the problem is that they are most vulnerable at short range to melee attacks, yet have very powerful spells at short range. So it is a tricky combo. This is why Circle of Warding is so essential in my view. If activated at the right time, it keeps monsters close enough to Twilgiht Surge, but not too close to hit you. I haven't tried combining Circles with Glyphs, but this might also be interesting, to lay Circles and then sourrounded yourself with glyphs.

But the other problem is archers and the like who don't come close. Moonlight ray is fine but they get too many attacks in first when you are surrounded.

[edge2054]

Totality could probably be split into two talents or even have it's penetration effect moved to Twilight. Either one of those effects alone though feels pretty weak for a class skill so I tried to kill two birds with one stone (the lack of penetration on a class that deals only two damage types) and having nothing to do because you're waiting on long cooldowns (of the attack spells only moonlight ray has a cooldown of 3, compared to a mage who can cycle a beam every turn).

Aside from design principles the theme of the spell was you're bringing the light and the darkness into harmony, which refreshes cooldowns, and allows you to more easily defeat enemy defenses for a few turns.

Another idea on how to increase the class survivability would be to buff Circles.

Shifting Shadows could give ranged defense as well as regular defense (would help with archers, you're talking 80 combined defense or so from one source for arrow attacks).

Blazing Light could give a chance to blind creatures each turn (25% or so).

Sanctity could add confuse and confusion resistance so it's not such a one trick pony (when I wrote it there was no tactical AI so catching casters with it was a lot easier and thus the talent was a lot more powerful).

Finally Warding could give knockback resist as you suggested.

[Grey]

I really don't think Jumpgate is all that useful as a mobility spell. It can be handy as a get out of danger spell, but that only works if it is set up in advance (boring to do every level), you're in range and the danger isn't at the start of the level anyway (or anywhere in sight of it). It's of much more limited use in the East.

One way of improving it would be to make it auto-cast on the stairs upon level entrance. Another would be (as I've suggested before) to let it give you a choice of where to teleport to along a straight line from the character's position to the portal, as long as it's within the spell range. This would make it a true mobility spell rather than a simple one-trick escape spell (for which you may as well use a teleport wand).