Aether Permeation 1.5 - make it check arcane affinity-UPDATE

[Delmuir]

A simple fix for a terrible prodigy. Make it check arcane affinity at the same 2/3 percentage, thus essentially granting you a "+affinity all" IF you find some gear that grants arcane affinity.

Seeing as how you incur the damage fully before the affinity restores it, this wouldn't make you immune to all damage.

More so, if I have the math crudely accurate, your resistances would lower the damage before the affinity is applied, so if you were to suffer 100 physical damage with max arcane resistance then you'd suffer 47 damage but then if you had +20 arcane affinity, you'd have roughly 13% affinity which would recover roughly 6 damage, thus your end result would be incurring roughly 41 damage or maybe it'd be a 13 reduction (I'm not sure) and so it'd be 34 total. Either way, it'd be a worthwhile addition.

The prodigy could also grant some small amount of arcane affinity, maybe 5%, but I'm less sure of that.

Thoughts?

[Arcvasti]

There are three sources of arcane affinity in the game that aren't affinity to all: Penitence, Crystal Shard and verdant gloves. The latter are an antimagic glove ego, so useless for the only class that might want to take aether permeation anyways. Since Penitence and Crystal Shard are mutually exclusive, you're not ever going to get more then 25% arcane affinity with your proposed values on the prodigy. That would be around 17% affinity to all with the 2/3 ratio. That's actually not bad at all, but making a prodigy require one of two fixedart staves to drop in order to do anything at all is pretty bad. Even assuming that it doesn't, there's already a prodigy that does just that: Secrets of Telos.

That problem would be partially solved if you made it give 20% arcane affinity straight-up, but then you'd have the issue where those fixedart staves would make the prodigy way better. Archmage also has very little use for affinity since IIRC it doesn't trigger on damage done to damage shields and they don't have enough life to reliably survive a hit to their actual life bar, which as you mention is a prerequisite for affinity to do anything.

Aether Permeation has a few problems:

1: The effect is worse then useless even on the one class which can get substantial arcane resistance. That isn't really hard to fix, which makes the half-hearted buff it got in 1.5 even sadder.
2: You basically only ever dream of taking it on a single class. Even Crafty Hands could theoretically be taken on Stone Warden.
3: The effect is just boring, especially for a prodigy.

It'd be easier to replace it then fix those problems(Or just remove it and one other awful prodigy from each stat without compensation).

[Delmuir]

Well, you make an awfully good case for getting rid of it entirely. Hard to argue. By design it's essentially supposed to be a prodigy for mages but, as noted, it's just awful. How to fix it without getting rid of it, just as a thought experiment? Here's another crack at it:

What would happen if it checked resistances BEFORE shields? Would that make it overpowered on an Archmage? Would that make it more appealing for other classes? I can't tell.

I still think it should check and grant arcane affinity.

[Arcvasti]

What would happen if it checked resistances BEFORE shields? Would that make it overpowered on an Archmage? Would that make it more appealing for other classes? I can't tell.

Resistances do apply before shields though. Resistances are checked in the damage projector before it calls takeHit and shields are checked in onTakeHit which is called at the beginning of takeHit. Affinity is applied in the damage projector after it calls takeHit, but it uses the damage value from before resistances or shields were calculated, so I was wrong earlier about it not working with damage shields. Affinity on the player is just so rare I don't have a good grasp on how it works. I still stand by the fact that affinity isn't very useful on archmage since your life pool is so small.

The best idea I have for fixing it is throwing out the whole arcane theme and making it about out of phase instead, like a really buff threaded combat. Opens it up to a lot more classes since even oozemancer has blindside boots and slime roots and still fills the niche of a "resist" prodigy. Not sure how to deal with the unique unlock requirement since I don't know what exactly triggers it to begin with though.

[HousePet]

You can unlock it via the Archmage starting area or a Fearscape Invasion portal.

[Candesce]

IIRC, affinity heal is subject to healmod, right?

That's something to keep in mind, when judging just how much affinity all is safe to give to a player.

[Delmuir]

Good input...

So if resistances are checked before shields (clearly, I don't pay that much attention to the underlying mechanics) and an affinity boost isn't terribly useful (though I still think it'd be thematically appropriate) then what's to be done, other than eliminating it entirely (though that might be the best idea)? How about some combination from this selection:

1. Grants the normal 2/3 Arcane resistance and the +10% arcane resistance cap.

2. Also checks arcane affinity

3. Now converts 2/3 arcane outgoing damage (everything that passes through that thin layer of aether) to arcane. This would have to be able to

4. Grants +10% arcane damage

5. Grants +10% arcane penetration (more? less?)

6. Grant a bonus to mana regen, like +.5 or so, which would be helpful on the Arcane Blade or any other class without natural mana regen. This would free up an infusion slot on at least that one class.

7. Increase mana pool by some flat amount (or percentage?).

8. Perhaps make it a sustain...

Workable, or some combination of the above?

[Doctornull]

It's a Prodigy, so it's got to stack up with stuff like Cauterize / Arcane Might / Temporal Form, and it should be relevant to more classes than just Archmage (just as Temporal Form is useful to more than just Paradox Mage).

Some ideas (pick 3-4 of these):

+30% Resistance to all "space"-themed damage types: Arcane, Darkness, Light, Temporal; double for Arcane (+60%)

+15% Affinity to all "space"-themed damage types: Arcane, Darkness, Light, Temporal; also double for Arcane (+30%)

+10% bonus damage for all "space"-themed damage types, again double for Arcane (+20%)

You get some kind of mana-draining attack, themed like what's done by a Manaworm (from the Abashed Expanse).

You get passive Mana recovery (to make more useful those escort categories).

Activate the talent to start surging Mana and also create a relatively strong damage shield.

When you crit with a spell or a melee attack, your target also suffers Echoes of the Void (like what the Void Star item imposes).

You passively summon 3 Manaworms and/or Loser-goroths so now everybody can have Temporal Hounds, yay

[Delmuir]

Alright Doc, I think you have some good ideas. My favorite are these two:

1. Bonus damage

2. Echoes from the Void on crit

So my proposal would be this:

1. The normal 2/3 resistance, increase in Arcane resistance and cap

2. Have it check affinities as well

3. All attacks gain bonus damage of an additional 10% as arcane damage

4. Bonus passive mana regen... something 0.5 or 1.0

5. 10% chance of casting Echoes from the Void on hit (any kind, spell, mental, or physical)

Echoes from the Void does resource drain which would be pretty useful on any class, as well as the bonus damage being helpful.