Reworking Chronomancy ver 2

[0player]

Would be nice to have some indication on Repulsion Blast about exactly how much additional damage it does.
A little thing that bothers me: (damage numbers) in combat log generally use verbs (except for Striking Stance flat resist, I think?) so can it be (foreseen) instead of (foresight)? A bit more flavorful, too.
P.S. I really like Matter and new Paradox so far.

[edge2054]

Yeah, I like Matter too. I've been playing a Paradox/Fate/Timeline build and not enjoying it as much. Really want to figure out how to sneak in some debuffs since the physical trees are so heavy on AoEs.

I get these all the time while playing around with a warp build:

Yeah, it's seal fate. I had the same problem. Should be fixed.

Also, before updating be sure to deactivate your sustains and save the game. I've been fooling around with a few of the sustains today to rebalance them.

[0player]

I've hit Disentangle, and it didn't trigger any anomaly. There weren't even any anomalies in the last few turns.
(Duh, should've seen if it reduced my Paradox or not, my bad. But it did go on a cooldown.)

This reminds me that in the earliest days of Temporal Wardens, Preserve Pattern was able to produce messages like "Anomaly: Dig is still on cooldown for 5 turns." That looked really weird.

[edge2054]

Debating swapping Paradox Twin for Temporal Fugue, putting damage on Cease To Exist, and saying goodbye to Timeline Threading. Braid Lifelines is neat but I think I could sneak this effect back in Induced Phenomena.

Snip and Rethread are really boring right now.

That would give the class.

Two Physical Trees that are heavy on damage, two temporal trees that are heavy on utility, one pure utility tree (Speed-Control), and one split damage tree (spacetime folding).

I think this would really streamline things.

But I wanted to get some feedback first.

I've hit Disentangle, and it didn't trigger any anomaly. There weren't even any anomalies in the last few turns.
(Duh, should've seen if it reduced my Paradox or not, my bad. But it did go on a cooldown.)

This reminds me that in the earliest days of Temporal Wardens, Preserve Pattern was able to produce messages like "Anomaly: Dig is still on cooldown for 5 turns." That looked really weird.

Yeah, I think I saw this happen to me too. I wonder if one of the anomalies is bugged.

On the verb vs. noun thing, I'm not against it but I prefer to follow the established precedent for stuff like this.

[Parcae2]

I like the idea of consolidating trees, yeah.

[edge2054]

I like the idea of consolidating trees, yeah.

Yeah, I'm really happy with TWs right now but PMs are starting to feel bloated and way to spread out. When I fired one up before starting this project they felt like they didn't have enough trees and I think I've gone a bit overboard.

I'm thinking I can cut down on some overlap too. Webs of Fate and Fateweaver both overlap with other talents (Celerity and Dimensional Shift). Fateweaver could probably get the Braid Lifelines effect. Webs of Fate could get Preserve Pattern. Maybe bring Shear back to give Temporal some decent AoE and put it in Fate-Threading.

Maybe Celerity could give some pin immunity or something since it's a bit weak.

[donkatsu]

Thanks for coding and for being such a good sport about all the criticism so far. I came up with an idea to make Paradox Shield have more interesting interactions with paradox management: have the absorption rate scale with paradox, rather than absorbing 100% of the damage all the time. So if you run around with 0 paradox, then Paradox Shield absorbs 0% of the damage and you take all of it as health damage. At 300 paradox, Paradox Shield absorbs 50% of the damage, and at 600 paradox it absorbs all the damage like it does now. This way it's a balancing act between Paradox Shield not breaking, and Paradox Shield being useful.

[grayswandir]

Oh, I really like it blocking more damage the more paradox you get. I mentioned the opposite to edge earlier, but this looks a lot more fun.

For celerity, maybe a bit of energy gain on any turn you take damage? That's already an ego effect, so it probably wouldn't be too disruptive.

They have so many teleports, I feel like movement speed stuff like celerity will end up being underused. Maybe if you got some other buff with it than increased movement speed? Maybe give it some of the on_teleport bonuses, like you start moving so fast you fade out of existence? I dunno.

[Kiba333]

Consolidating talent trees is fine, i just hope that pure temporal damage PM's will still be viable afterwards since they don't have that many pure temporal damage spells in the first place (and those are all spread out across different trees). Right now there are 2 physical trees unlocked from the start, both packed with damage talents. On the other hand Fate threading has 1 damage spell, Paradox has 1, timeline threading has 2 (which you plan to remove?), the total being about 1 talent tree worth of temporal damage spells. there also are Energy Drain, Time Stop and Echoes From The Past but those three have to be expensively unlocked and Timestop and Energy Drain have a tendency to be resisted too often to be a comfortable DPT solution. I'd be very sad if the class is turned away from the only damage type that is unique to them and a core part of their theme.
two bugs i found:
-If you sustain a spellbinding spell at for example talent level 5, then go into town and take points out of the spellbind down to talent level 1, the sustain will not be recast by the game and it's effect will stay that of level 5 even though you got 4 talent points back. You can theoretically sustain all four spellbinds at level 5 with only 4 spent talent points and 4 floating ones this way. I also fear that the same thing might work with contingency.

-If you cast wormhole and manage to get the two wormholes on directly adjecant tiles, then moving from one to the other takes no turn. This way you can deal infinite damage with phase pulse by simply holding down the movement button, resulting in unending instant teleports.

*edit I always create a new character after a pull. i do this mainly to prevent bugs, or do you say that all your recent changes are backwards compatible? I also i don't really know how to reassign talent points via debugging commands.

[0player]

If an actor gets to act after Temporal Bolt flies right onto him (and stops there), and then steps towards me, like dumb AI does basically every turn, they will be twice-hit by the same bolt, resulting, naturally, in double damage. If there's a simple way to fix it, please look into it.

[jotwebe]

I third donkatsu's Paradox Shield idea. Sounds great fun.

I think braided lifelines are pretty interesting and you could see if you could squeeze it in a couple of different talents, and have some others riff off this effect. Rethread for example could braid lifelines and/or reduce more paradox on braided targets. Or Paradox Bolt could braid. So could Temporal Wake.

Cosmic Cycle
While expanding increases your temporal resist penetration by X%. While contracting increases your Willpower for Paradox by X%. (Basically Paradox Mastery but in a more interesting form).

Make it temporal and physical penetration, makes the tree more flexible - more synergy with Matter, Gravity, Warp.

Polarity Shift
Shifts the Polarity of your Cosmic Cycle. If it starts expanding it fires temporal bolts at targets within range. If it begins contracting (not sure, could put a heal here but it's already on Reverse Causality, of course Reverse Causality could be changed).

Warp damage bolts instead of temporal. On contracting: Time Shield (if a TS exists, extend for X turns and add Y points)? Cooldowns? Heal sounds fine here actually, these could go to Reverse Causality. Knockback on contracting (combo with Reverse causality).

Some talent name here
Creatures in your contracting Cosmic Cycle have their three highest stats reduced by X. Creatures in your expanding Cosmic Cycle have an X% chance each turn to be blinded, pinned, or confused (this is an age manipulation effect as that's something thematically I've kinda brushed off this go).

Background Noise. Background Radiation. Echoes of the Origin. Echoes of Creation. Genesis Echoes.

Reverse Causality
Creatures leaving your contracting Cosmic Cycle heal you by X. Creatures entering your expanding Cosmic Cycle grant you X% of a turn.

Or a displacement shield-like effect (on contracting). Braid the lifelines of newcomers with those all creatures already braided. Or do something with braided lifelines.

[0player]

While fighting Bringer of Doom in the form of wretchling pack, I unleashed a pair of wormholes. They didn't disappear, but are unable to be passed through.

[donkatsu]

The new Preserve Pattern is significantly weaker for players as well. The appeal of Second Life is that it'll save you even if you get killed by a 3k damage hit, and it looks like the new Preserve Pattern loses that property, as you'll go to negative 2000 health, heal for 500, and still be dead. I mean it's still decent, like a stronger Blurred Mortality with quadruple the cost (24 Wil worth of resources compared to 6 Wil worth of resources), but it means that player chronomancers are more vulnerable to oneshots compared to the old Preserve Pattern.

edit: Let's compare Carbon Spikes to Trim Threads for a moment.
Damage and cooldown are similar. They're both DoTs. But then there are a whole slew of disadvantages to Carbon Spikes that make it not worth considering:

-Deals only half damage against bleed immune enemies
-Doesn't restore paradox like Trim Threads
-Physical damage is harder to stack
-Requires a 24 Wil sustain, whose effects you lose when you use Carbon Spikes
-Single target
-Requires line of sight
-Slow projectile

Shard Storm on the other hand is like triple the damage of Carbon Spikes, albeit at a short range and higher cooldown and over the course of 11 turns, but at least thanks to its raw power, it isn't strictly outclassed by something else in the PM arsenal.

[edge2054]

@Kiba

My thought is to make Webs of Fate into Preserve Pattern and Fateweaver into Braid Lifelines as I think these talent names would still be suitable. I'll drop the sustain cost on Webs of Fate/Preserve Pattern too. That will leave one open spot in Fate-Threading for a temporal damage talent.

Trim Threads I'll probably turn into a nuke so Cease to Exist can have some dot damage. Maybe I'll put Rethread in Fate-Threading and give it back its Paradox Reduction.

This would leave Fate-Threading looking like this.

Rethread - As is but put the Paradox reduction back in.
Disentangle
Trim Threads - Paradox reduction on kill, AoE ball. Instant damage. Kills if targets are reduced below 20%
Bias Weave

Paradox like this.

Paradox Bolt
Temporal Fugue - Probably strip the teleport out.
Paradox Shield
Cease to Exist - With added dot component

And Fate-Weaving like this.
Spin Fate
Fateweaver - Braid Lifelines; probably with Spin Fate scaling.
Webs of Fate - Preserve Pattern with reduced sustain cost and probably Spin Fate scaling.
Seal Fate

That will give temporal casters two beams, a ball, and a strong dot.

I'll look at putting a minimum range on Wormhole. I think someone suggested earlier giving the exit precise targeting and putting the random effect on the teleport itself. I think this would work well to prevent the abuse you mentioned.

Thanks for the bug reports on Contingency/Spellbinding. I've got stuff to do this morning but I'll fix this stuff after lunch.

As far as backwards compatibility, the recent changes should be fine. When I start pulling apart trees and renaming talents you'll run into issues. That said I did change several sustains yesterday so you'll want to deactivate them and save before you pull if you want to keep the character.

@donkatsu
I like the Paradox Shield idea too and will probably introduce it. I'll look at the damage on Carbon Spikes though I wouldn't mind dropping the bleed and giving it some other sort of debuff instead if we can think of something suitable. I've considered using Impact damage but that feels more appropriate for Gravity if anything. Right now the tree has a lot of bleed, which is thematically appropriate but without some other sort of synergy with bleed it's not all that interesting. The talent name could be changed if need be.

@Oplayer
I've tried to balance the damage on Paradox Bolt around this. It's kinda built to hit things multiple times (Dimensional Step being a great way to accomplish this). But the damage may be a bit high right now, especially when factoring in spellshock and the bonus damage the further it travels. Maybe I could drop the damage some more to really encourage trying to hit things twice.

As far as Repulsion Blast, each time bonus damage is applied it should be logged separately? I was seeing foo is hit for X physical, X physical if I slammed something into a wall or actor with it.

Also I think Quake may be the anomaly we're not seeing. I put a sanity check in it to make sure players don't get trapped. Basically it checks to see if you know Dig and doesn't do anything if you don't. Maybe I should have it stun too so something still happens if it doesn't wreck the map.

@jotwebe
I'd like for Induced Phenomena to be the 'advanced temporal' tree like how phasing is the 'advanced split damage tree'. I'd like to do another one for physical but I'm still debating exactly what (and this tree may or may not make it into 1.3, some ideas take a long time to mature). The main reason for this is that between Paradox Shield, Paradox cost returns in the Paradox tree, and Fate-Threading, temporal PMs should be adjusting their Paradox up and down a lot more than physical PMs. I want to make that synergy really obvious to the player so we encourage workable builds.

Cooldowns or a Time Shield on Polarity Shift might work.

@grayswandir
Yeah, Celerity needs something. Whatever it is I'd like to keep it in theme though. Like +energy when on move I'd be more inclined to do then on damage (but is sorta redundant). Pin and Stun resistance might work here too (staying in motion). Defense and Ranged Defense would also fit thematically as would out of phase bonuses. Another idea is allowing you to Probability Travel when it's fully stacked but stripping the stack off when you do so. This is a common theme in comic books (vibrating yourself so fast you can move through walls) and an effect I've been wanting PMs to have.

@Everyone
We haven't talked a lot about Spacetime Folding/Weaving/Warp. Can I assume these trees are feeling pretty solid by the lack of discussion?

Also I think I'm convinced on making energy generic. I think Speed-Control and it have a lot of good synergy and that spreading out the point spread on these two trees between class and generic would be good for the class.

[0player]

Another idea is allowing you to Probability Travel when it's fully stacked but stripping the stack off when you do so.

It seems to me that it looks too much like Fast As Lightning prodigy. Move fast, blink walls.
Does this mean that Fate-Spinning gets more actual abilities to use? That's glorious.