Reworking Chronomancy ver 2

[Parcae2]

It sounds fine, but the class still needs another defensive talent. I don't see a reason to penalize stacking Smearing and Displace, at least until another defensive talent is added.

[edge2054]

Can you give me an idea of what else they need? I really don't play on much on harder difficulties.

[donkatsu]

Yeah, that's what I meant about Displace Damage. Same mean protection value, just less variance. The mean value right now is fine, taking ~16% less damage with 5 generic points is a great deal. I don't know if high sustain cost would be a great deterrent though; personally I'd almost certainly double up on Displace Damage + Damage Smearing regardless of their cost. It means I have to be more careful with resource management, and I'll have less offensive power due to the loss of Paradox spellpower... but it's hard to put a price tag on that kind of defense. Insane deaths rarely happen because you couldn't do enough damage, they happen because you get nuked too quickly.

That unraveling thing sounds amazing, maybe almost too good. I have no idea how aggro works though, so I'll just have to test it and see. I think the 50% reduced damage would be meaningless because they don't really do damage to begin with, but if it affects how well they pull aggro then it could be an interesting mechanic.

On a lighter note, can I name my doggies? I like to think that when I summon a "new" temporal hound, I'm actually just rewinding time to when my dead temporal hound was alive, and it's the same three hounds that are with me for the entire game.

[edge2054]

Haha.. naming them would be kinda nice. If I can think of an easy way to do it I will.

The AI doesn't like to attack invulnerable targets so they won't hold aggro well but they'll still block or whatever.

I'm not planning to make the sustain cost on Displace Damage too high. Probably as high as Preserve Pattern. If people want to stack Damage Smearing and make the sacrifices for it I won't make it impossible but I definately want you to feel it.

[edge2054]

Hey, how about putting some resist on Warden's Focus? I don't believe that kind of resistance can be penetrated. It would be really situational but would help a lot in certain areas of the game I think.

[IejirIsk]

as a design choice, is there a reason all lvl 10 talent trees are locked? Can think of only one exception where the progression is a little funny, otherwise.

It also is seeming that TW is becoming a 1 talent wonder for class points with so many delicious skill choices (9?!). good/bad/indifferent i dont know.

and am i understanding that lower paradox is stronger for TW or am i just getting confused?

[donkatsu]

Can you give me an idea of what else they need? I really don't play on much on harder difficulties.

I think what they need most is some sort of active, non-situational, high cost burst defense that can handle huge amounts of damage, with whatever drawback you want. Notable examples of already existing defenses like this include:

Aegis-powered shields - can comfortably absorb like 3k damage, at the player's discretion, but limited by cooldowns
Bone Shield - can absorb unlimited damage, but wears off after a few hits
Bloated Oozes - 50-75% damage reduction, but only for as long as you have at least one Bloated Ooze out
Mindslayer Forcefield - 68% damage reduction, but only for a few turns and with a large resource drain
Unstoppable - 100% damage reduction, but only for... well, okay, for a whole bunch of turns...

I actually really liked the old Damage Smearing in the google doc, the one that only kicked in for large damage values. Something like that would round out TW defenses nicely. Definitely not something that requires you to kill a specific creature type first.

[SageAcrin]

In fairness, unraveling hounds can be seen as a form of that.

It's extremely powerful defensively but the downside is that you have to make the hound be the one taking the hits, not you. It's on the order of Unstoppable, if not better, otherwise, though. I'm not sure if you can make it competitive in practice, but it's interesting.

[Parcae2]

I love the idea of naming your dogs! Maybe you can borrow some of the golem code ...

Anyway, in terms of what they need - you're better at coming up with talents than I am, but here are some general thoughts:

-Warden's Focus strikes me as pretty hard to balance, given that it varies between useless in some circumstances and powerful in others. I don't think that's a good approach for a primary defensive talent.

-Talents to look at that are, to my knowledge, effective defenses on Insane: Bone Shield, Forcefield, the old Damage Smearing, Sacrifice (the Necromancer talent), the ghoul damage reduction talent, that one Brawler talent that reduces all incoming damage above a certain amount, etc. What they have in common is that they are effective against spike damage. Generally, they are balanced in one of two ways: 1. they are useless against smaller amounts of damage over time, or 2. they must be carefully managed to avoid running out before the battle is over.

-When planning an Insane character, I like to ask myself: Would I be one-shotted by a player-controlled Corrupter of equivalent level? If so, then I am also likely to be one-shotted by an AI-controlled randboss of much higher level.

With this in mind, some effective mechanics might be along the lines of:

- You teleport damage to a summon (balanced by the fact that you can run out of summons)
- Incoming damage is in some way affected by your paradox level (e.g.: you cannot take damage of more than x% of your current paradox level, with a hard minimum of Y)
- Incoming damage causes you to split into paradox clones. (What happened to the "dimensional step turns you into a shower of Mini-Mes" idea, anyway? That one was really neat)

And so on.

Edit: Or what Donkatsu said. I really don't think that unstoppable summons are in the same league as an unstoppable you.

[edge2054]

The Phase Door + Clones thing will show up in the new Timeline Threading tree.

I like the idea of splitting off into clones. Maybe something like the ghoul talent when the damage exceeds a % of max life you summon a clone and the damage is split between the two of you? I built a cloning function so this should be really easy to do.

The question is where to put it. I could replace Warden's Focus I suppose. Swap it around with Breach. Maybe call it Brotherhood of the Blade? Too sexist? Maybe Fraternity but that doesn't sound as good.

[Parcae2]

A more fleshed-out sample idea:

When you take damage above a certain % of your max health (say 40% at max level), you instead summon a copy of yourself from another timeline who hangs around for a few turns before disappearing. The monster that damaged you will switch its focus to the copy. The ability cannot fire if your copy is around. Your meddling with the spacetime continuum also summons a bunch of angry elementals.

Edit: Fraternity literally means brotherhood, so it's six of one, etc. Blade Companion?

Edit2: There was also a Twins class idea posted in the addons forum a while back. It was basically a sustain that split you in two. The two halves each had lower health and damage, but you could only die if both were dead.

I think, anyway. It's been a while.

[donkatsu]

If there's only going to be one clone, then the talent must be called Double Edge. It's weapon-y, it fits the twin concept, and how did you even manage to write three classes' worth of talents without having a talent with the word edge in it???

[IejirIsk]

One bug(?) i noticed with previous version. with the precog (whichever gave you a location for mobs) it seems they learn where you are? cause i had one trying to shoot me outside it's LOS in the temporal starting dungeon.

[jotwebe]

Concerning Fate Weaving: If it's mostly intended for Paradox Mages, it seems a bit strange that Spin Fate provides defense - unless they will be getting other means to stack it, I don't know how useful just that at the bit from Foresight are going to be.

I'm also enjoying the lack of the old celerity instant-switching - if some help for weapon swaps is needed, perhaps gaining a 1-turn boost of combat speed after switching would work.

[Parcae2]

I think all it needs is a better description. It's a bit counterintuitive right now.