Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
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Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
0player I'm not seeing strength in the class description?
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
Additional concerns:
- I'm unaware of the exact formula, but I'm afraid of Willpower bonus thing, that apparently scales with Spellpower. (Oh though I found ridiculous amounts of +Wil items, as it seems now... oh well).
Also, the fatigue seems not to be factored into calculations, as it seems from Spacetime Tuning tooltip?..
Ah, sorry, my bad about Strength then, must've confused with something else.
If the swapping nerf is intentional, may I tell you that it's great and promotes planning ahead.
Threaded arrow, as a FREE "beam" (in a tribeam mage sense) on 4 second cooldown, seems a bit overpowered. I also happened to find Surefire, so now I have 2 spammable arrows and it feels quite dirty.
Not sure about Tuning: does it always tune to the value you set, e.g. the further it initially was, the faster? (Switching it to rest is a cool addition! It was always a "use when available" to me).
- I'm unaware of the exact formula, but I'm afraid of Willpower bonus thing, that apparently scales with Spellpower. (Oh though I found ridiculous amounts of +Wil items, as it seems now... oh well).
Also, the fatigue seems not to be factored into calculations, as it seems from Spacetime Tuning tooltip?..
Ah, sorry, my bad about Strength then, must've confused with something else.
If the swapping nerf is intentional, may I tell you that it's great and promotes planning ahead.
Threaded arrow, as a FREE "beam" (in a tribeam mage sense) on 4 second cooldown, seems a bit overpowered. I also happened to find Surefire, so now I have 2 spammable arrows and it feels quite dirty.
Not sure about Tuning: does it always tune to the value you set, e.g. the further it initially was, the faster? (Switching it to rest is a cool addition! It was always a "use when available" to me).
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
Alright, I lied about being done coding. Finally got weapon swap working and adjusting some things.
Warp Blade and Impact are now tier 1 and you'll start with both.
I bumped the resist all bonus on Fateweaver and Command Blink up.
Gave Warp Mines more damage at level one.
And copy/pasted Weapon of Light's more generous scaling function on to Weapon Folding and Impact.
I'm not sure if hounds need a taunt. I've played with them pretty extensively and once you get Blink they do a good job at blocking off monsters and pulling aggro naturally. That said maybe I could do a call back when the player takes damage and have the hounds focus on that target? Might mess up Blink targeting but it would be appropriate thematically for them to rush to your aid.
Warp Blade and Impact are now tier 1 and you'll start with both.
I bumped the resist all bonus on Fateweaver and Command Blink up.
Gave Warp Mines more damage at level one.
And copy/pasted Weapon of Light's more generous scaling function on to Weapon Folding and Impact.
I'm not sure if hounds need a taunt. I've played with them pretty extensively and once you get Blink they do a good job at blocking off monsters and pulling aggro naturally. That said maybe I could do a call back when the player takes damage and have the hounds focus on that target? Might mess up Blink targeting but it would be appropriate thematically for them to rush to your aid.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
Spellpower scaling is capped at -50%/+50%. It also runs through the rescaler so 80 *50% is not 140 but whatever it would be rescaled.0player wrote:Additional concerns:
- I'm unaware of the exact formula, but I'm afraid of Willpower bonus thing, that apparently scales with Spellpower. (Oh though I found ridiculous amounts of +Wil items, as it seems now... oh well).
Also, the fatigue seems not to be factored into calculations, as it seems from Spacetime Tuning tooltip?..
Ah, sorry, my bad about Strength then, must've confused with something else.
If the swapping nerf is intentional, may I tell you that it's great and promotes planning ahead.
Threaded arrow, as a FREE "beam" (in a tribeam mage sense) on 4 second cooldown, seems a bit overpowered. I also happened to find Surefire, so now I have 2 spammable arrows and it feels quite dirty.
Not sure about Tuning: does it always tune to the value you set, e.g. the further it initially was, the faster? (Switching it to rest is a cool addition! It was always a "use when available" to me).
Fatigue is factored in it's just not displayed by Spacetime Tuning. I didn't fool around with it. I'll see if I can add it to the spacetime tuning description though so it's clearer
Threaded Arrow shouldn't be a beam? It's practically Steady Shot copy pasted with some paradox reduction thrown in.
Yeah, Tuning adjusts by X over it's duration where it's the difference between the value and what's preferred. It's mostly so resting back paradox always takes X turns. But it scales down so you can try to sneak it in a bit by teleporting away and breaking LOS. I don't want the player leaning so heavily on this early game that other talents are useless but I figured it would be a nice tactic for high level paradox mages.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
Yeah, it's not the beam in the sense that it doesn't pass through targets, but the point stands. It costs nothing, it's on low cooldown.
Is Braided Blade only being able to apply on an actual target (and showing targeting not as frontal arc, but as single target) intentional? It's cumbersome and saddens me that I cannot use it when two targets are standing diagonally to me with no one in between.
Is Braided Blade only being able to apply on an actual target (and showing targeting not as frontal arc, but as single target) intentional? It's cumbersome and saddens me that I cannot use it when two targets are standing diagonally to me with no one in between.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
haven't loaded the new patch yet, due to it being a bit past sleep time... but one thing I noticed, and didnt catch if it was fixed or planned, but a item requirement conversion, like skirmisher or a couple others my memory is failing on.
So I can use a steel equivalent sword sometime. Or do i need to tap strength at some point?
So far, loving it, if a bit overwhelming on what to do... 1 pt everything or focus on a couple...
Thank ye for all your hard work
So I can use a steel equivalent sword sometime. Or do i need to tap strength at some point?
So far, loving it, if a bit overwhelming on what to do... 1 pt everything or focus on a couple...
Thank ye for all your hard work
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
Yeah, the item conversion seems to be odd... I found a randrare sword early on that required Str 16, and I needed to tap into Str to equip it. But now I'm wielding dwarven steel with no problem.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
I got some ideas for an alternative defensive/healing oriented talent tree for PM:
Induced Phenomena:
1. Reverse Causality (or Reverse Entropy)
Instant, any damage/debuffs dealt/applied to the player during the last X turns are undone.
This would be a unique type of "heal" in that it does not actually heal you but simply makes detrimental things that happened to you in the recent past un-happen. Maybe this could also restore buffs that where dispelled during said time, though not those whose time ran out naturally. It sounds powerful since it can heal you full easily and remove all kinds of debuffs, but that is only if you use it in time. Wait too long and this spell will not do much good for you.
2. Singularity
Active single target debuff. X% of all damage of creatures recieved in radius X will be transferred to this creature for X turns.
Alternatively or maybe additionally, X% of the damge recieved by the player will be transfered to the target regardless of distance.
This spell could be used both offensively and defensively. The offensive part could be quite overpowerd for nuking down single strong enemies so the damage transfered from enemies in radius X could be kept moderately lower, while the damage transfered from the player could be a bit higher. Also it may be better to have the players recieved damage be transferred regardless of range because it would otherwise potentially mean forcing a caster into close range in order to increase survivability which is... paradoxical.
3. Cosmic Cycle
Sustain, creates a cosmic cycle with radius X around the caster. every creature within the cycle deals X% less damage and/or has their physical and temporal resistance reduced by X%.
Every X% anomaly chance reduces the radius of the Cycle by 1 (lowering paradox and thus anomaly chance will increase the radius again). Every time a creature leaves the cycle (through death, banish, movement or the cycle getting smaller) you get a stacking buff that will increase the damage/effectiveness of your next anomaly by X%.
The basic idea here is that the cycle expands and contracts with the rising and falling of your paradox. Giving you bonuses for enemies entering the cycle which will make you want to use a lot of spells resulting in your paradox raising. Then the contraction of the cycle giving you different bonuses which will make you want to reduce your paradox again, maybe through anomalies. Killing and summoning within the cycle may also give special buffs (because creation and unmaking are part of the cycle). The buffs/bonuses given by the cycle could also be survival oriented if that is needed more.
4. Living Anomaly
Passive or maybe sustain, every point of paradox increases your resist all by 0,02% and your resist all cap by 0,01%, Every time an anomaly fires off you get a direct heal (life regeneration or damage shield may also be considered). there could be a cooldown on the healing or some other mechanic to limit it. The resist values are of course only examples and can be subject to more balancing.
This would be something that increases your survivability even at normal levels of paradox but expecially as you get more desperate and rise your paradox to high values. To also give an incentive to go back to normal again you can trade your increased resistance for a more restoring kind of survivability as you reduce your paradox again. The higher your paradox is, the greater the heals are you get when reducing it maybe.
Induced Phenomena:
1. Reverse Causality (or Reverse Entropy)
Instant, any damage/debuffs dealt/applied to the player during the last X turns are undone.
This would be a unique type of "heal" in that it does not actually heal you but simply makes detrimental things that happened to you in the recent past un-happen. Maybe this could also restore buffs that where dispelled during said time, though not those whose time ran out naturally. It sounds powerful since it can heal you full easily and remove all kinds of debuffs, but that is only if you use it in time. Wait too long and this spell will not do much good for you.
2. Singularity
Active single target debuff. X% of all damage of creatures recieved in radius X will be transferred to this creature for X turns.
Alternatively or maybe additionally, X% of the damge recieved by the player will be transfered to the target regardless of distance.
This spell could be used both offensively and defensively. The offensive part could be quite overpowerd for nuking down single strong enemies so the damage transfered from enemies in radius X could be kept moderately lower, while the damage transfered from the player could be a bit higher. Also it may be better to have the players recieved damage be transferred regardless of range because it would otherwise potentially mean forcing a caster into close range in order to increase survivability which is... paradoxical.
3. Cosmic Cycle
Sustain, creates a cosmic cycle with radius X around the caster. every creature within the cycle deals X% less damage and/or has their physical and temporal resistance reduced by X%.
Every X% anomaly chance reduces the radius of the Cycle by 1 (lowering paradox and thus anomaly chance will increase the radius again). Every time a creature leaves the cycle (through death, banish, movement or the cycle getting smaller) you get a stacking buff that will increase the damage/effectiveness of your next anomaly by X%.
The basic idea here is that the cycle expands and contracts with the rising and falling of your paradox. Giving you bonuses for enemies entering the cycle which will make you want to use a lot of spells resulting in your paradox raising. Then the contraction of the cycle giving you different bonuses which will make you want to reduce your paradox again, maybe through anomalies. Killing and summoning within the cycle may also give special buffs (because creation and unmaking are part of the cycle). The buffs/bonuses given by the cycle could also be survival oriented if that is needed more.
4. Living Anomaly
Passive or maybe sustain, every point of paradox increases your resist all by 0,02% and your resist all cap by 0,01%, Every time an anomaly fires off you get a direct heal (life regeneration or damage shield may also be considered). there could be a cooldown on the healing or some other mechanic to limit it. The resist values are of course only examples and can be subject to more balancing.
This would be something that increases your survivability even at normal levels of paradox but expecially as you get more desperate and rise your paradox to high values. To also give an incentive to go back to normal again you can trade your increased resistance for a more restoring kind of survivability as you reduce your paradox again. The higher your paradox is, the greater the heals are you get when reducing it maybe.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
Singularity Arrow and Contingency both have it's for its typos. I thought there was another but I can't find it.
On a more general note, what were your goals for the TW redesign? What I wanted to see most was to see the TW strengthened at lower levels and weakened at higher levels. The second goal has certainly been accomplished (possibly too well; the class looks pretty fragile now) but the first has not.
Thank you so much for your hard work, by the way. I can't wait for the PM changes to start rolling in!
On a more general note, what were your goals for the TW redesign? What I wanted to see most was to see the TW strengthened at lower levels and weakened at higher levels. The second goal has certainly been accomplished (possibly too well; the class looks pretty fragile now) but the first has not.
Thank you so much for your hard work, by the way. I can't wait for the PM changes to start rolling in!
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
Additional thoughts on unlocked trees:
100% of TWs are going to take Time Travel because it has lots of powerful stuff you can't get any other way. Most will also want to take two infusions. That leaves space for zero to two additional trees, depending on what you want from escorts and if you're a cornac. Most TWs will probably be able to unlocked one tree besides Time Travel. That can be Fate Weaving, which gives you a bunch of miscellaneous stuff; Temporal Hounds, which gives you a summon; or Threaded Combat, which gives you a summon AND a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. The choice seems pretty obvious.
Now, you could solve the problem by nerfing Threaded Combat, but the class really doesn't need a nerf as it stands, so the logical approach is instead to buff the other two trees. Since the class feels defensively weak, the obvious way to do so is by adding defense.
In short, my problem with Hounds isn't that they're weak on their own, it's that the position they occupy relative to other class talents makes it seem improbable that I would ever take the tree.
100% of TWs are going to take Time Travel because it has lots of powerful stuff you can't get any other way. Most will also want to take two infusions. That leaves space for zero to two additional trees, depending on what you want from escorts and if you're a cornac. Most TWs will probably be able to unlocked one tree besides Time Travel. That can be Fate Weaving, which gives you a bunch of miscellaneous stuff; Temporal Hounds, which gives you a summon; or Threaded Combat, which gives you a summon AND a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. The choice seems pretty obvious.
Now, you could solve the problem by nerfing Threaded Combat, but the class really doesn't need a nerf as it stands, so the logical approach is instead to buff the other two trees. Since the class feels defensively weak, the obvious way to do so is by adding defense.
In short, my problem with Hounds isn't that they're weak on their own, it's that the position they occupy relative to other class talents makes it seem improbable that I would ever take the tree.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
From what I've played, this area is pretty covered by Precog/Spin Fate trees and Displace Damage/Damage Smearing. Temporal Wardens seem to be more about insta-mobility and combat flexibilty (twice the weapons, twice the fun), it would seem that innate sustainability would lie in department of not being balanced. The pattern for old Warden "if you need to heal, that's what Distep/Banish/Wormhole are for" seems to persist, only with added Warp Mines. And it works pretty well.Kiba333 wrote: got some ideas for an alternative defensive/healing oriented talent tree for PM:
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
0player him and I were talking about a replacement tree for Life for PMs in game earlier.
kiba I like it
Parcae2, I've played extensively with the hounds and they provide quite a lot of defense at least on normal. I have some survivability concerns with them but I haven't invested in Fate Threading so I can't leverage Temporal Vigour as well as one could potentially. I did drop the cooldown a bit so they recover faster, it's still capped at ten turns so hopefully they won't be too annoying on rares. But I'm able to retreat fairly easily with DS + Time Stop to recover them.
That said I can't keep buffing the survivability because the player will have to deal with them sooner or later. Maybe I could put some defensive buffs for the player on the talents? Temporal Vigour could affect both the player and the hounds as could the passive bonus on Command Blink. Temporal Breath could give you some temporal damage affinity. Maybe the player would only get these effects at half what the hounds themselves do?
I've also been playing with Fate Weaving since I buffed the resist all on it and I feel it's pretty strong. Not overpowered necessarily but it feels like a good category point investment for my build.
I'm not sure how they have lower defense overall though. I see some other defensive options that I haven't seen come up yet in this thread like Preserve Pattern + Contingency, Time Dilation (which granted is better for melee), Time Stop, Phase Shift, Displace Damage, the Dimensional Step and Temporal Wake range buffs, Precognition (not the actual defense value but the sensing), Foresight's critical shrug off, and Invigorate's regeneration effect. Are these too weak to be considered? If they are I'd like to address that.
I realize Timetravel is a strong tree but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. The sustain cost on Damage Smearing felt very substantial to me. It ruled out a lot of other options. Coupled with Contingency/Temporal Reprieve you're looking at needing 60 Willpower to offset sustain costs assuming you want to maintain 100% or higher spellpower. Is the new Paradox system not encouraging 300 Paradox enough?
The other two talents in the tree aren't quite as good for a Warden as they used to be either as getting obscene amounts of Magic isn't as viable which makes landing Time Skip less likely. Echoes is still a great talent but I did adjust the cooldown and again it runs heavily on spellpower which isn't something my Warden has a lot of.
In other words I went Hounds + Fate Weaving partially because Damage Smearing is so expensive. Granted I wanted to balance Hounds too and I'm sure Time Travel builds will be strong. But I don't see it as the only build choice and if it is I'd like to look at buffing their other defenses, especially the defensive sustains that don't cost a category point (Displace Damage, Preserve Pattern, Contingency, Time Dilation). Are sustain costs too low on Damage Smearing and too high elsewhere?
I think I will give some hound talents some passive bonuses for the summoner though. Having talent points doing nothing when all your hounds are dead isn't much fun.
kiba I like it
Parcae2, I've played extensively with the hounds and they provide quite a lot of defense at least on normal. I have some survivability concerns with them but I haven't invested in Fate Threading so I can't leverage Temporal Vigour as well as one could potentially. I did drop the cooldown a bit so they recover faster, it's still capped at ten turns so hopefully they won't be too annoying on rares. But I'm able to retreat fairly easily with DS + Time Stop to recover them.
That said I can't keep buffing the survivability because the player will have to deal with them sooner or later. Maybe I could put some defensive buffs for the player on the talents? Temporal Vigour could affect both the player and the hounds as could the passive bonus on Command Blink. Temporal Breath could give you some temporal damage affinity. Maybe the player would only get these effects at half what the hounds themselves do?
I've also been playing with Fate Weaving since I buffed the resist all on it and I feel it's pretty strong. Not overpowered necessarily but it feels like a good category point investment for my build.
I'm not sure how they have lower defense overall though. I see some other defensive options that I haven't seen come up yet in this thread like Preserve Pattern + Contingency, Time Dilation (which granted is better for melee), Time Stop, Phase Shift, Displace Damage, the Dimensional Step and Temporal Wake range buffs, Precognition (not the actual defense value but the sensing), Foresight's critical shrug off, and Invigorate's regeneration effect. Are these too weak to be considered? If they are I'd like to address that.
I realize Timetravel is a strong tree but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. The sustain cost on Damage Smearing felt very substantial to me. It ruled out a lot of other options. Coupled with Contingency/Temporal Reprieve you're looking at needing 60 Willpower to offset sustain costs assuming you want to maintain 100% or higher spellpower. Is the new Paradox system not encouraging 300 Paradox enough?
The other two talents in the tree aren't quite as good for a Warden as they used to be either as getting obscene amounts of Magic isn't as viable which makes landing Time Skip less likely. Echoes is still a great talent but I did adjust the cooldown and again it runs heavily on spellpower which isn't something my Warden has a lot of.
In other words I went Hounds + Fate Weaving partially because Damage Smearing is so expensive. Granted I wanted to balance Hounds too and I'm sure Time Travel builds will be strong. But I don't see it as the only build choice and if it is I'd like to look at buffing their other defenses, especially the defensive sustains that don't cost a category point (Displace Damage, Preserve Pattern, Contingency, Time Dilation). Are sustain costs too low on Damage Smearing and too high elsewhere?
I think I will give some hound talents some passive bonuses for the summoner though. Having talent points doing nothing when all your hounds are dead isn't much fun.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
OK, let's get one thing out of the way first: TWs definitely are a lot weaker defensively than they used to be, and that's a GOOD thing. They used to be completely unkillable with the right setup. That's gone now, and I'm glad.
As for their new defensive options:
Regeneration is something that is nice to have but not something keeps you alive over the course of the game. Unless Invigorate is buffed to literally heal you to full each turn, it will be something that is useful, but that can't be your main form of defense. This even goes for healing in general - properly leveraged, Fungus gives you instant heal to full for quite a few turns before you run out of heals, but how many Insane winners go antimagic that didn't start that way? Sooner or later, you need to deal with that stealth flurry or Steady Shot that hits for 2k base damage.
Contingency is awesome and is probably their main form of defense now. I just don't think it's enough by itself to make up for the lack of other top-quality options.
Time Dilation? Does it ignore saves? If not, it's going to fail exactly when you need it most. Besides, being faster than your opponents is very nice, but it doesn't help you when they kill you in one hit. Same goes for Time Stop, the various escapes, Precognition, etc - they're all good, even great, but sooner or later it comes down to not being killed.
Phase Shift is the one that removes status effects, right? That's really powerful, but, again, not enough by itself.
Displace Damage is great, but it's a percentage chance. In any case, it reduces damage by an average of 16%. That's nice, but it won't save your life against massive spike damage.
Preserve Pattern is great! It'll save your life ... once.
Resist all? Lots of monsters have massive resist penetration. Again, it's good. It's just not consistent enough.
The bottom line is that it's a long game, and you need to prepare for the worst contingency because it WILL happen sooner or later. Shrugging off crits is great, escapes are great, resists are great, but you need to be ready for the time that you're facing your worst nightmare and the 80% chance fails three times in a row.
The baseline I like to use is: What happens when you run into a stair guardian that has Crystalline Focus and a 2k damage Swift Shot? If you can survive that, can you also survive a couple of Freezes from ridiculously high-level Orc High Cryomancers? How about a level that just has a bunch of nasty rares, and every escape only lands you in front of a new one?
Damage Smearing, even nerfed, is still mandatory because it's the only direct damage reduction you have that works 100% of the time. (Or almost - you can still get one-shotted by an enemy PM.) You want to make it less mandatory? Add a sustain that's expensive enough to be incompatible with Smearing, but also reduces damage 100% of the time.
...
Some math:
You see a Corrupter/Archer orc stair guardian that has a 1000 damage Steady Shot, 250% crit modifier, and 40% damage penetration. Can you be 100% confident of surviving the encounter, or are you going to risk, say, a 10% chance of throwing away the last twenty hours of progress?
Displace Damage MIGHT reduce the damage by half. Crit shrug-off MIGHT reduce it by a lot more than that. High resists might reduce the damage by ... let's be generous and say 40%, but at least it will work 100% of the time on this opponent.
If the first two fail, you're going to need to be at 1500 health to survive the Steady Shot. Otherwise, Preserve Pattern will fire. I don't remember the respective cooldowns on Swift Shot and Preserve Pattern, but I'm guessing the former is shorter than the latter.
You can retreat and try again, of course, assuming you have space to retreat - but you'll have the same problem.
As for their new defensive options:
Regeneration is something that is nice to have but not something keeps you alive over the course of the game. Unless Invigorate is buffed to literally heal you to full each turn, it will be something that is useful, but that can't be your main form of defense. This even goes for healing in general - properly leveraged, Fungus gives you instant heal to full for quite a few turns before you run out of heals, but how many Insane winners go antimagic that didn't start that way? Sooner or later, you need to deal with that stealth flurry or Steady Shot that hits for 2k base damage.
Contingency is awesome and is probably their main form of defense now. I just don't think it's enough by itself to make up for the lack of other top-quality options.
Time Dilation? Does it ignore saves? If not, it's going to fail exactly when you need it most. Besides, being faster than your opponents is very nice, but it doesn't help you when they kill you in one hit. Same goes for Time Stop, the various escapes, Precognition, etc - they're all good, even great, but sooner or later it comes down to not being killed.
Phase Shift is the one that removes status effects, right? That's really powerful, but, again, not enough by itself.
Displace Damage is great, but it's a percentage chance. In any case, it reduces damage by an average of 16%. That's nice, but it won't save your life against massive spike damage.
Preserve Pattern is great! It'll save your life ... once.
Resist all? Lots of monsters have massive resist penetration. Again, it's good. It's just not consistent enough.
The bottom line is that it's a long game, and you need to prepare for the worst contingency because it WILL happen sooner or later. Shrugging off crits is great, escapes are great, resists are great, but you need to be ready for the time that you're facing your worst nightmare and the 80% chance fails three times in a row.
The baseline I like to use is: What happens when you run into a stair guardian that has Crystalline Focus and a 2k damage Swift Shot? If you can survive that, can you also survive a couple of Freezes from ridiculously high-level Orc High Cryomancers? How about a level that just has a bunch of nasty rares, and every escape only lands you in front of a new one?
Damage Smearing, even nerfed, is still mandatory because it's the only direct damage reduction you have that works 100% of the time. (Or almost - you can still get one-shotted by an enemy PM.) You want to make it less mandatory? Add a sustain that's expensive enough to be incompatible with Smearing, but also reduces damage 100% of the time.
...
Some math:
You see a Corrupter/Archer orc stair guardian that has a 1000 damage Steady Shot, 250% crit modifier, and 40% damage penetration. Can you be 100% confident of surviving the encounter, or are you going to risk, say, a 10% chance of throwing away the last twenty hours of progress?
Displace Damage MIGHT reduce the damage by half. Crit shrug-off MIGHT reduce it by a lot more than that. High resists might reduce the damage by ... let's be generous and say 40%, but at least it will work 100% of the time on this opponent.
If the first two fail, you're going to need to be at 1500 health to survive the Steady Shot. Otherwise, Preserve Pattern will fire. I don't remember the respective cooldowns on Swift Shot and Preserve Pattern, but I'm guessing the former is shorter than the latter.
You can retreat and try again, of course, assuming you have space to retreat - but you'll have the same problem.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
By level 9 I found a 40% slow on weapon hit, and a 30% slow on weapon hit, for a total of 70% slow. This made Time Dilation completely undesirable, seeing as how the slows don't stack. Is this a bug with rare powers? I know this used to be a problem in the main branch but I remember it being patched.
On Nightmare Temporal Hounds are dying in about 2-3 hits, at least against things that matter. That means Temporal Vigor's regeneration is pointless. In their current state, you don't need to worry about Temporal Hounds being too strong against players, because they have no offensive presence. A player will know to simply ignore the hounds and go for the Warden.
Parcae is right on the money regarding defenses, on higher difficulties. As a start, it would be nice if Displace Damage worked all the time, and instead the scaling affected the reflection rate. I'm less optimistic about Contingency as a core defense-- it's certainly nifty, but it does nothing against a 2k Swift Shot either. I don't know if Time Travel being mandatory is that big of a problem, really-- don't a lot of classes have mandatory unlocks? I'd say as long as it's not the same two categories + two inscription slots being unlocked on every single character, that's good enough for design.
Honestly I think the main problem is how biased ToME is towards offense. Everything would be so much more tactically interesting if the game was more about choosing your moves wisely, and less "Try Not To Get Oneshot: The Game". This is partly why the old Damage Smearing was so good. But that's where we are now, so I guess we might as well make the most of it.
On Nightmare Temporal Hounds are dying in about 2-3 hits, at least against things that matter. That means Temporal Vigor's regeneration is pointless. In their current state, you don't need to worry about Temporal Hounds being too strong against players, because they have no offensive presence. A player will know to simply ignore the hounds and go for the Warden.
Parcae is right on the money regarding defenses, on higher difficulties. As a start, it would be nice if Displace Damage worked all the time, and instead the scaling affected the reflection rate. I'm less optimistic about Contingency as a core defense-- it's certainly nifty, but it does nothing against a 2k Swift Shot either. I don't know if Time Travel being mandatory is that big of a problem, really-- don't a lot of classes have mandatory unlocks? I'd say as long as it's not the same two categories + two inscription slots being unlocked on every single character, that's good enough for design.
Honestly I think the main problem is how biased ToME is towards offense. Everything would be so much more tactically interesting if the game was more about choosing your moves wisely, and less "Try Not To Get Oneshot: The Game". This is partly why the old Damage Smearing was so good. But that's where we are now, so I guess we might as well make the most of it.
Re: Reworking Chronomancy ver 2
I'm reworking Temporal Vigour and Command Blink.
Temporal Vigour will trigger off Command Blink. Additionally your hounds will unravel when life is reduced below 1, becoming invulnerable for X turns but with 50% reduced damage. Command Blink will have double effect on unraveling hounds. (Thanks SageAcrin for this idea).
Command Blink will also summon a new hound if you're not at your cap when used.
I think this will shore up some of the hound survivability issues nicely without punishing players that run into TW rares.
So... let's talk about Displace Damage a bit.
If I buffed it I would want to swap it and Phase Shift and bump the sustain cost up to discourage stacking it with Damage Smearing. The other thing is if I make it 100% I think the value displaced would need to be lowered so that it doesn't in turn become better than Damage Smearing. Statistically it's blocking 16.5% damage now at tl 6.5. I could see it displacing that amount at a 100% rate.
Does that sound fair?
Temporal Vigour will trigger off Command Blink. Additionally your hounds will unravel when life is reduced below 1, becoming invulnerable for X turns but with 50% reduced damage. Command Blink will have double effect on unraveling hounds. (Thanks SageAcrin for this idea).
Command Blink will also summon a new hound if you're not at your cap when used.
I think this will shore up some of the hound survivability issues nicely without punishing players that run into TW rares.
So... let's talk about Displace Damage a bit.
If I buffed it I would want to swap it and Phase Shift and bump the sustain cost up to discourage stacking it with Damage Smearing. The other thing is if I make it 100% I think the value displaced would need to be lowered so that it doesn't in turn become better than Damage Smearing. Statistically it's blocking 16.5% damage now at tl 6.5. I could see it displacing that amount at a 100% rate.
Does that sound fair?