ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I think that more abilities should be instant cast, as they seem to involve less of an actual action, as a change in style. The ones I noticed are:

Gloom
Beyond the Flesh
Rampage
Augmentation

and maybe Focus Shadows and Enrage as well. It could also be extended to many sustained abilities (Precision, Shield Wall, Berserker, etc...) but that might be too far.

Hrm... Is it possible to have talents become instant at a certain talent level? Many one-point-wonder talents could benefit from this.

Alchemist abilities:

Life Tap. As a healing talent, this might be a bit much, but the fact that it hurts your golem for the same amount sort of sucks.

Invoke Golem could become instant when leveled up -- possibly at level 5? It's not a talent that anyone levels right now.

Defensive Posture. It wouldn't hurt to be able to put this up instantly when an enemy gets too close, though I still doubt anyone would use it.

Temporal Wardens already have a lot of instant talents (haste, wormhole, foresight -- huh, Celerity and Displace Damage are already instant, too.) A few of their other sustains could benefit from it too, though, especially Probability Weaving and their stat-shifters -- it'd make investing in a wide variety of sustains more useful to them.

Momentum could also do with being instant.

Probability Weaving will be passive next beta.

edge2054 wrote:Probability Weaving will be passive next beta.

Ah, that's good. I never used it -- it was nice, but there were just so many other talents to sustain...

For summoners, I was just thinking that summon control should be instant cast. You still spend a turn when you take any action with your summon. It doesn't make much sense to spend a turn to switch control.

marvalis wrote:For summoners, I was just thinking that summon control should be instant cast. You still spend a turn when you take any action with your summon. It doesn't make much sense to spend a turn to switch control.

It's not that. Switching control with anyone by any means period takes a turn, I think? I know I lose at least a turn when swapping control to my golem as an Alchemist, at least. Or maybe it was just switching back?

Anyway, it'd be nice to change that, yes.

Aquillion wrote:

marvalis wrote:Switching control with anyone by any means period takes a turn, I think?

Yes, switching control still takes a turn. To clarify what I meant in my previous post: Switching control should not consume a turn, but taking an action while switched should still consume a turn. For this reason I think that the suggested change is not overpowered.

Also, Waters of Life seems like it would be a very good talent to autocast if it was instant.

The Anorithil's Glyphs are another good candidate for instantization. They might actually be worth the skill point investment when they become instants at level 4 or 5.
As it is now, I've tried them, and concluded that the way they are, they're not quite worth the category and skill point investment, and I plan on skipping them altogether in my next Anorithil build.

Another Anorithil talent: Jumpgate. Not the teleport, but the talent to set it up -- making it instant would open up a few more options for using it, and would make it more useful in ambushes and those "locked room" fights where you don't have a chance to set up a teleport in advance.

for summoner, rage is a fairly craptastic talent that could benefit from being instant cast.

See The Threads will be instant cast next beta as well as having its paradox cost cut in half. I also doubled the number of turns for Precognition (but it will still take a turn to cast).

In essence Precognition will become a semi-safe scouting spell and See the Threads will become a 'oh crap, what's the best way to beat this encounter' spell (with the later giving you your pick of which three outcomes to take).

My most successful rogue learned that Evasion is really an unpleasant gamble. It never saved me from any dire situations, and often I got hit in the turn right after using it. Unless it becomes instant-cast, I don't think I'll ever invest in it again.

I used evasion a bit on my level 50 rogue but it was a pretty situational talent the way it is now. If it was insta-cast I would have been using it constantly (which may not be a good thing either, it's pretty potent).