Reworking Chronomancy ver 2

[edge2054]

What is Icarus Paradox going to be when it's done? That would help with suggesting names, if you're looking for suggestions.

I posted it back a bit. But I'll retype it.

But it will deal temporal damage to a single target and probably stun. Low ranked targets take 50% less damage (rank 1) high ranked targets take 50% more (rank 5). The stun duration will probably scale as well.

[edge2054]

Temporal Wake is consistently doing twice the damage listed in the tooltip. Warp Mines are consistently doing less damage than listed in the tooltip.

I fixed Temporal Wake's tooltip, I was dividing the damage for display to many times.

I can't reproduce the Warp Mines one though.

[Parcae2]

Overall, I like the new Induced Phenomena. I think that it is the weakest of the locked trees, but that is a problem of the other trees being too strong (much too strong in the case of Phase Shift) rather than Induced Phenomena being too weak.

(By the way, with maxed Phase Shift, Extend and Matrix, Phase Shift has a duration equal to its own cooldown. Yeah.)

[edge2054]

Yeah, Phase Shift is on my radar.

*edit* And glad Induced Phenomena is looking good

[donkatsu]

Personally, I don't know if I would take Spellbinding. If you take all four talents, that's a LOT of paradox sustained: 72 Wil worth of sustains, or like 430 health worth of paradox, going by a 3:1 ratio with Paradox Shield. With extreme outlier talents like Paradox Twin, Temporal Fugue, or Phase Shift either balanced or removed, and Temporal Reprieve made incompatible, the benefit from stacking all your spellbinds on a single overpowered spell is gone as well.

But this is just theorycrafting; I haven't actually tried playing a Spellbinding build. Does anyone have a different opinion?

[Parcae2]

IF Phase Shift is nerfed sufficiently, then yeah, I think Spellbinding is OK. Bear in mind that you don't need to take all four sustains. Without Phase Shift, I see it as a decent but not obvious choice, which is exactly where we want it to be.

That said, like any locked category, it really depends on how good the other locked categories are. I'd say that Spellbinding is more or less on a level with Induced Phenomena, mostly because the latter has resistance penetration. (Although I'm still waiting to hear about whether Cosmic Cycle is supposed to scale with Spellpower or not. Currently it doesn't.) Warp is clearly better because of Phase Shift, and Time Travel and Energy are a bit better because of Temporal Reprieve and Redux. But I'd say that it's Warp, Time Travel, and Energy that need to be nerfed, rather than Spellbinding needing a buff.

[donkatsu]

The thing is, Spellbinding as a tree is purely a multiplier of other talents. Nerf Phase Shift, and you nerf Spellbinding. Nerf Redux, and you nerf Spellbinding. As you balance the other outlier talents, and by extension, the trees that those talents belong to, Spellbinding is also affected.

[Parcae2]

Yeah, but it's still a 56% increase to your spellpower for your best debuff, the ability to use your most used spell for reduced energy cost, etc. Eliminating overpowered combos won't make it useless; it'll just mean that people will have to use it for its intended purpose. I mean, "halve the cooldown on your most used damage spell" might not be imbalanced but it's pretty powerful.

I think it's a case of needing to release it as-is and seeing if people take it. If nobody takes it, that's a problem. If, however, Edge:

1. Fixes Phase Shift
2. Nerfs Redux
3. Moves Temporal Reprieve to a different tree

...then I think that the unlocked trees will all be about equal in power.

[Parcae2]

I mean, Empowered Time Skip alone is worth the price of admission. That's automatic victory in every 1v1 fight you might encounter. Atamathon will think he ran into a lag spike.

(Speaking of which, Time Skip needs a longer cooldown.)

[Kiba333]

(Speaking of which, Time Skip needs a longer cooldown.)

Or if an enemy that already has quantum destabilization gets banished by time skip, that enemy gains the buff "Temporal Recursion" when returning to the flow of time. That buff makes the creature immune to the banishing effect (not the damage though) from time skip for 2 turns. This would limit the abuse of endless time skipping somewhat and could not be circumvented by extend or matrix.

The implementation of a buff like this would in fact also reduce the severity of the continuous timeskip spam done by temporal- and fugue clones.

[edge2054]

I'm still debating between making Cosmic Cycle not reset and making it scale with spellpower. I don't like the idea of the player switching gear to move it into expansion mode so it probably won't scale (to prevent equipping a bunch of gear, casting it, and taking the gear back off).

I'm considering dropping Damage Smearing which would leave Time Travel with Time Skip, Temporal Reprieve, Echoes, and probably a heal along the lines of Body Reversion in Damage Smearing's place.

Time Skip applies Continuum Destabilization. If you can cast it on the same monster more than three times in a 100 turn time period there's a bug someplace.

What do you guys think about Phase Shift dropping to 50% damage reduction or removing the proc limit but putting a proc chance on it instead?

[donkatsu]

I'd actually say all of the above for Phase Shift. 50% damage reduction, can proc up to 2-4 times per turn, at an X% chance. This way it's still weak to multi-hit attacks and DoTs, but it's not all-or-nothing.

Personally I like Damage Smearing. It's damage mitigation that's unique in that it doesn't actually reduce damage. What don't you like about it?

[edge2054]

It feels like it has a lot of overlap at this point between Phase Shift, Preserve Pattern, Guardian Unity, and Fateweaving. It's not that it's a bad talent on its own. I just don't see it really filling a niche.

The heal I had in mind would probably an instant that would reset your life to whatever it was at the start of your last turn. I might have it do something neat with timed effects too.

[Kiba333]

I'm still debating between making Cosmic Cycle not reset and making it scale with spellpower. I don't like the idea of the player switching gear to move it into expansion mode so it probably won't scale (to prevent equipping a bunch of gear, casting it, and taking the gear back off).

I'm considering dropping Damage Smearing which would leave Time Travel with Time Skip, Temporal Reprieve, Echoes, and probably a heal along the lines of Body Reversion in Damage Smearing's place.

Time Skip applies Continuum Destabilization. If you can cast it on the same monster more than three times in a 100 turn time period there's a bug someplace.

What do you guys think about Phase Shift dropping to 50% damage reduction or removing the proc limit but putting a proc chance on it instead?

Can you explain how continuum destabilization works exactly? As far as i remember it increases the targets spellsave against timeskip by X. Does that spellsave stack ontop of itself everytime it is reapplied, so that the target gets ever increasing spellsave against timeskip unless you wait 100 turns before casting it again?

I am in favor of replacing damage smearing. pm has more than enough sustains as is, especially defensive sustains. On the other hand they have no reliable way of restoring life, every other caster has that in one form or another (life drain, aegis heal etc.).

Also what donkatsu said about phase shift sounds good. Even with 50% damage reduction and a proc chance of 50% that is only 25% effective damage reduction. Not too powerful for 8 turns with 23 turn cooldown i think. I don't think the amount of procs per turn need to be limited as long as the proc chance doesn't exceed 50% to 60%.

[edge2054]

I'm debating on Phase Shift. The thing about the proc chance and removing the proc limit is that it opens the door to double Phase Pulses, especially against targets that deal damage in smaller increments. As an example, take a Shadowblade or Rogue using a weapon with a lot of melee project that chooses to use Flurry on a Phase Shifted actor, and imagine how many Phase Pulses they could eat from that single attack. And this is just the damage portion of it, odds are they may end up with a lot of debuffs too from Warp Mastery.

I guess I could just put a smaller proc limit on it. I don't know. I'll experiment with it probably right after I finish up Icarus (or whatever) Paradox.

Continuum Destabilization is a stacking buff. It's other so it can't be purged in anyway. It increases the target's spellsave by 30% of your spellpower against certain effects (mostly hostile teleports but also Time Skip, Time Prison, and maybe some other spells I'm not aware of.). In the case of Paradox Mages, it uses the same spellpower you use to apply the effect (so counting Empower or high Paradox).