Snazz up Cryo

[parcel]

Also note there's only one water spell in the water school. Something based on the old T2 Geyser would make a more playable build and fit the tree name better.

I was thinking maybe a cyclone might be good too, since the water tree is already sort of themed around vortical map effects, but AV is the weakest multihit and the only one that can be thrown at range. So have a water spell that pulls things in slightly, a water spell that pushes things out slightly, an ice vortex that follows you, and maybe put the big kahuna freeze spell at the the first slot in the tree, and you are looking pretty good. Maybe don't have a punishing cooldown on freeze spell but run it as a sustain that cools down starting from the time the iceblock is gone, and maybe give a movement bonus to yourself when going (in an appropriate direction) through your water effects, and the tree will look a lot better by itself. Water is about flowing around things, but can't spread as well as fire, so I think it's justifiable to give you a movement bonus in some limited way in the local areas where your water spells dominate.

For purity's sake maybe make water damage into something slightly different than a raw combination of cold and physical. For instance you could have it be cold damage for the purposes of determining your damage bonuses and resistance penetration, but a combination of cold and physical for the purposes of defense. Thus water damage is still an aspect of the cold element in essence, but diluted, less able to hit cold weaknesses hard, but harder for cold elemental resistance to actually stop. The way of water is a relatively soft way; moving around obstacles is one of the main outward aspects of 'deep' cold.

[jinsediaoying]

A quick idea:
Make Ice Nova try to freeze those who stand inside the Flood instead of just pin them, because now they are "wet"

and I think water/ice could be more interesting if we can do some thing around this water->wet ice->freeze aspect

[Atarlost]

I think I like the idea of making "wet" a physical effect that makes cold or ice damage more dangerous.

How about giving Water:
Geyser (3 cooldown beam with knockback, wetness, and whatever damage is deemed appropriate)
Freeze (reduce cooldown (or make it not increase or increase more slowly) but only freezes wet targets)
Tidal Wave (no cold damage, but makes things wet)
Glacial Vapor (makes things wet and can freeze wet targets so it becomes a lockdown spell)

and give Ice:
Ice Shards (fix it so it does what the description says: I'm not sure the shards are actually hitting everything adjacent to impact. Also please boost the speed to at least 600% if not 800% so it doesn't take 3 rounds to reach distant targets.)
Shivgoroth Form (The elemental form spells are in the advanced tree for mana/aether and earth/stone. And I'm not sure Frozen Ground is actually anything special.)
Shatter (as now)
Uttercold (also does 10%-50% damage conversion to cold on any spell that makes things wet that doesn't already do cold damage)

That keeps a nice single target nuke in slot 2, but requires it to be set up to act as a lockdown spell. Using freeze as a nuke is a lot of the current character of the school and it's a good tier 2 and moving it would probably make some people unhappy. This also puts something that uses the wet mechanic in the first tree so it's not locked until level 10 and an unlock that most new players won't get for several cryomancer attempts.

[parcel]

Wetness effects may be another way to go, but I feel the need to voice the obligatory criticism of the lower tree that has probably arisen before in other discussions: do we really need another tree based around a 3-4 cooldown low-slot beam? Wouldn't it be more interesting if the tree had no cone of any kind, just for a change of pace?

The main virtue of the low cooldown low-slot beam is that:

• 1. you can cast it rapidly while your other talents cool down, so it's a way to help mop up after the initial burst
  2. it's instant, preventing dodging and giving a burst damage premium -- again, good for mopping up
  3. it can be thrown at range, allowing some first strike capacity and enabling some degree of damage-control for yourself since you can work outside the range of many enemy talents, and
  4. it has poly-hit potential without being too crazy in always hitting many targets, allowing for tactical flexiblility and requiring tactical choices.

But all of these features can be implemented in a spell that is not a beam, so variety's sake we shouldn't always choose to implement the beam.

[HousePet]

Wetting then freezing could be quite a good mechanic. Partly because it adds more tactical considerations than just 'blast blast blast'. Partly because its adds a buffer to reduce instant locking.

However, I don't think Water needs to be made as nukey as Fire. I like its current relaxed patiently destroying enemies feel.
To enhance those aspects:

Glacial Vapour: Add an attack/spell/mind speed debuff to afflicted enemies. This helps you survive while waiting for them to die. Also set the Wet debuff on them for 2 turns every time it hits them.
Freeze: Change from Cold/Freeze to Ice damage.
Tidal Wave: Set the Wet debuff on enemies for 10 turns when they are hit.
Shivgoroth Form: Swap with Frozen Ground.
Frozen Ground: If enemies are Wet, have a chance of inflicting Freeze and remove Wet, in addition to existing talent effects.

Ice Shards: The confusion with this one is that it fires a shard at you target, and any enemies adjacent to the target at casting time, the shards don't actually have an explosion radius. I think it would be great to change this talent to fire a shard at your target and also fire a few extra shards at adjacent tiles even when there aren't enemies there. No other talent in the game does that yet.
Frozen Ground: Swapped with Shivgoroth Form.
Shivgoroth Form: No change needed, except that which comes from a tweak to the Ice damage type explained later.
Shatter: Ice's finishing talent. Start by Wetting your enemies, Freeze them, then Shatter them. Ahahahaaa! No change needed.
Uttercold: Is pretty cool as is.

Now then, the adjustment to the Ice effect is as follows: Chance of inflicting Freeze is still 25%, unless the target is Wet, then it is 75%. Applying Freeze removes the Wet effect.

How does that sound?

[Atarlost]

Wetness effects may be another way to go, but I feel the need to voice the obligatory criticism of the lower tree that has probably arisen before in other discussions: do we really need another tree based around a 3-4 cooldown low-slot beam? Wouldn't it be more interesting if the tree had no cone of any kind, just for a change of pace?

The main virtue of the low cooldown low-slot beam is that:

• 1. you can cast it rapidly while your other talents cool down, so it's a way to help mop up after the initial burst
  2. it's instant, preventing dodging and giving a burst damage premium -- again, good for mopping up
  3. it can be thrown at range, allowing some first strike capacity and enabling some degree of damage-control for yourself since you can work outside the range of many enemy talents, and
  4. it has poly-hit potential without being too crazy in always hitting many targets, allowing for tactical flexiblility and requiring tactical choices.

But all of these features can be implemented in a spell that is not a beam, so variety's sake we shouldn't always choose to implement the beam.

Water makes more sense as a beam than fire or mana. If there are too many low cooldown beams I'd take away those.

T2 water had two low level spells: vapor and geyser. Geyser was the original beam when manathrust was always a bolt. Vapor existed to handle extremely low HP extremely rapidly breeding enemies that do not exist in T4. The wrong spell was carried over. Geyser was a beam because it makes sense for it to be one. The only school that might possibly have greater claim to a beam spell is air.

[jinsediaoying]

what about a "water missile" spell?
A bolt that will splash water on hit, which will left a ground AOE.

[parcel]

what about a "water missile" spell?
A bolt that will splash water on hit, which will left a ground AOE.

Call it an upwelling, or geyser, and I think we're talking. Directed kinetic energy is more the business of the masters of stone, as breaking through obstacles is a primary feature of their element. Water flows around obstacles, but is very localized in general since it is inclined to flow in all available channels. The masters of water can clearly create water out of nothing; with their knowledge of elemental cold they can also rip out the water that is held captive by the air. Water summoned into existence from nothing is incompressible and can rapidly fill a space with tremendous pressure, so can clearly be damaging, but it's not so easy to channel that pressure into a focused beam that goes in one direction only.

So maybe make it another pointing/smiting attack, like freeze. You choose a target location and then get a 1 radius ball that leaves wetness and maybe knockback. Perhaps there's a one turn delay to reflect the relatively slow process of bringing water directly into being at a distance from the water-mancer, and perhaps the delay is relieved if the target is sufficiently close to the caster. At level 5 either increase the splash radius or allow a second upwelling.

[Atarlost]

An upwelling doesn't make sense because only moving water deals damage. Except to water soluble golems and the wicked witch of the west.

[parcel]

An upwelling doesn't make sense because only moving water deals damage. Except to water soluble golems and the wicked witch of the west.

Summon 1000 liters of water into a 1 liter space in the span of 1 second, and the water has no choice but to flow outward in all directions. Quite explosively, we might add. This sort of method is the main way for mages to do damage using water at range, since they are limited in the quantity of water that they can bring into being far from themselves; they manage the summoning process precisely so that the water is extremely pressurized. Cold, once more, is a localized element in its basic character, like stone but unlike storm and fire.

Maybe 'upwelling' is a bad term, though it is an upwelling of water from a great concentration of the 'deep' cold element managed by the mage rather than an upwelling from the ground. Water bomb sounds too explosive, and the water is not actually hot since it is forced into being as an outward manifestation of cold, so maybe instead something like 'water ball' is the better term? It's not a thrown missile, but a targeted summon of a helluva lot of water in 1 to a few spots concentrated within the target area. The result is a powerful outward flow and some pretty strong turbulence, depending on the number of sources in the summon.

Maybe there's another way to conceive of the same attack pattern, too. You could summon a lot of water into the area as before and use your mastery of water to

• a)hold it there through surface tension in a really big droplet, and
  b) swirl the water in that confined volume really hard

Then the attack power is released, the water falls to the ground without any specially enhanced surface tension, hangs there loosely for a while and then gradually vanishes as the disturbance in the background cold element fades away and the summon is no longer supported. Again water is not really a projectile, in nature, but a medium for powerful currents...

[Edit] Actually, it could be a different attack pattern, too. Think of a smiting ball attack that randomly permutes the positions of things caught in the ball, and leaves wetness. Could be kind of interesting gameplay.

[Atarlost]

Why is it a manifestation of cold? This is the water tree, not the cold tree.

[parcel]

Why is it a manifestation of cold? This is the water tree, not the cold tree.

It's locked into a manifestation of cold because of the symmetry in the magic trees. There are two elementally aligned with aethermancers, two elementally aligned with geomancers, two elementally aligned with tempests, two elementally aligned with pyromancers, and cryomancy exists on par with the other disciplines. Therefore for gameplay purposes the cryomancers should also be entitled to two trees that are aligned with their element.

The presumption of other trees is that the unlocked tree is a more basic version of the locked one, which has deeper techniques of elemental manipulation and which we could postulate as connected with the deeper aspects of that element. No one complains that the 'air' tree has lightning-themed attacks, and the manipulation of cold is directly invoked in the existing 'water' tree. It's clear enough that the air school is connected to the deeper storm school, with their main form of damage to mobs being called 'lightning' so why isn't the water school hard to see as connected with the deeper ice school, with both being linked through a damage type called 'cold'?

[Atarlost]

Fire and Earth are actually named for their elements.

Air has an ability actually connected to air and not lightning. It's not just the junior storm tree.

The water tree doesn't need to lose all cold associations, but they shouldn't be omnipresent because it's not the cold tree.

[parcel]

Fire and Earth are actually named for their elements.

Air has an ability actually connected to air and not lightning. It's not just the junior storm tree.

The water tree doesn't need to lose all cold associations, but they shouldn't be omnipresent because it's not the cold tree.

Fire and Earth are named for their elements, but why isn't Air named for its element? Air is not the lightning tree and lightning damage should therefore not be omnipresent, as it basically is in both Air and Storm. Yes, an air-related ability is present along with lightning but to me that just seems to indicate that lightning and the manipulation of air are of a similar elemental aspect. Given all the lightning in both trees and the way the superior tree modifies the lightning attacks in Air to daze, I'd say that one of these trees is definitely playing a senior role, and one the junior. Wildfire is not the wildfire tree, it's just more rampant elemental fire, and it plays a senior role to the lower tree. Ditto with stone; it's more resolute and hard-core elemental earth, and it plays a senior role to the Earth tree. All these relationships cover the same damage type, which is presumably connected with elemental affinity. Why shouldn't Water be the same with respect to Ice? Is it just that you want to regard water and ice as fundamentally different things from coldness? But what about lightning and airness? 'Cryo-' means 'icy-cold' -- why not have the profane version of the cryomancer's elementally-aligned art deal with the watery-cool?

[Atarlost]

Fire and Earth are actually named for their elements.

Air has an ability actually connected to air and not lightning. It's not just the junior storm tree.

The water tree doesn't need to lose all cold associations, but they shouldn't be omnipresent because it's not the cold tree.

Fire and Earth are named for their elements, but why isn't Air named for its element? Air is not the lightning tree and lightning damage should therefore not be omnipresent, as it basically is in both Air and Storm. Yes, an air-related ability is present along with lightning but to me that just seems to indicate that lightning and the manipulation of air are of a similar elemental aspect. Given all the lightning in both trees and the way the superior tree modifies the lightning attacks in Air to daze, I'd say that one of these trees is definitely playing a senior role, and one the junior. Wildfire is not the wildfire tree, it's just more rampant elemental fire, and it plays a senior role to the lower tree. Ditto with stone; it's more resolute and hard-core elemental earth, and it plays a senior role to the Earth tree. All these relationships cover the same damage type, which is presumably connected with elemental affinity. Why shouldn't Water be the same with respect to Ice? Is it just that you want to regard water and ice as fundamentally different things from coldness? But what about lightning and airness? 'Cryo-' means 'icy-cold' -- why not have the profane version of the cryomancer's elementally-aligned art deal with the watery-cool?

Because of T2 tradition and because the trees aren't supposed to be clones. Water can either get some type variety and use decent spell formats or it can become yet another monotonic elemental tree that sucks because it doesn't get the basic boring but functional rays, cones, and balls.