ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

As is made apparent by the glaring bug I encountered and reported, no one uses attack runes. At all. Why? Well a few reasons:

1. They often do mediocre damage, significantly less or maybe slightly above a character's average talent damage
2. They have incredibly long cooldowns, 10-20+ turns.
3. Perhaps most importantly, they take up an inscription slot usable for survivability.

So what can we do about this? A few things, perhaps.

1. We could increase attack runes' damage. By a lot. How about 500 for the average rank 3 rune?
The result of this would be a huge, high power blast every fourty turns or so. It wouldn't trivialize bosses, because stacking these would mean fewer healing/wild/shielding inscriptions. Obviously this would go along with removing their instant cast effect.

2. We could significantly reduce cooldowns, to the 5-10 turns range, while slightly reducing their current damage.
This would result in a character that adds an attack rune receiving a slight increase to their normal DPS during fights. This would probably necessitate reducing all but the rarest runes to single targets, but it wouldn't necessarily be a bad change.

Either of these could possibly add offensive runes as a viable alternative to constantly stacking defensive abilities.

Another, more severe, and likely not really helpful option would be to allow only one duplicate inscription. It's not really viable, in my opinion, because dual shielding runes and/or regeneration runes are kind of necessary for classes with little to no health regeneration. It would still force attack runes to actually be used, however.

NOOB DISCLAIMER: No, I haven't actually beaten the game. I would, however, -like- to use these runes, but I can't, because they're just that useless. Feel free to berate me about my wanting to make something useless useful.

Duel shielding runes are absolutely essential for most undead builds (who, after all, can't use infusions.) So changing that is a no-go.

I had a suggestion I mentioned a few times where the number of inscription slots players have is multiplied by some number (say, by three, so you start with 9 slots) and most inscriptions would take up more than one slot (the ones that are most commonly-used currently would of course be multiplied by the same amount -- so regen, shield, etc. inscriptions would take up 3 slots and you could use the same number you do currently.) Then an attack rune could take up only 2 or even only 1 slot.

Of course, the number could allow for even more granularity if you want -- 15 initial slots, 5 per category point, and 5 slots required for the current commonly-used runes might be good, since it would match up well with the 5/5 talents and let you make, say, a talent that gives you +1 slot (not sure if that's exactly the right number for it -- but adjusting the numbers so one generic or class point can buy you 1 slot seems like a good idea, even if it's not immediately used in any classes.)

This would allow for another number to fiddle with in balancing inscriptions.

Yeah, I've seen that idea, and I kinda like it, but this is just another alternative.

And after thinking about it, the high cd high damage is probably a no go, as any monster with one would likely just oneshot a PC. Unfortunate, because I like the idea of sacrificing a slot for an "oh shit, I need that archer dead NOW" button.

The low-cd-low-damage is still an option, though. Say like a rune with 4 cd 100 fire damage bolt. It would be a significant power boost at the expense of an inscription slot.

Another option would be to remove them entirely and replace them with sustained (and dispellable) +% specific damage runes. Or with a short duration/cooldown like wild runes. This would have the same effect of boosting player attack power with an inscription slot, and might be a little more effective.

I like attack runes, really. I love glass cannons (Even though they're always a horrible idea in any roguelike, they're fun to play, for me at least). And adding attack runes as a viable tactical option instead of what to use if you can't stuff anything else there would be cool, as well.

Upping attack rune damage would absolutely wreck players. Aquillion's idea is probably the best solution. The problem with attack runes isn't their damage, it's that they take up a slot that is meant for utility (which attack runes only just barely qualify for). They would be much more appealing if they could be used to fill gaps that larger, more valuable runes couldn't fit in. It's a big change, but it would mean that many new inscriptions could be added to the game without fear that they would not balance equally with any other inscription (and there are many neglected inscriptions already).

I think the damage is fine. I high level, ego'd attack rune can do 300-400 damage. Buffing it much more than that would make npcs--the main actors who use attack runes--that much more dangerous.

I have used attack runes before on melee characters--it's actually pretty nice to have an instant, ranged attack--but this has been rare. My main issue is finding a suitably good rune with short cooldown, long range, and high damage. It seems uncommon to get all three attributes where you want them.

So... how 'bout just reducing the cooldown a little?

As to Aquillion idea: it's neat, but it may add unnecessary complexity. New players are already a little confused by inscription slots at first, and this would make the learning curve that much steeper. I'm not strongly opinionated on this, though.

bricks wrote:The problem with attack runes isn't their damage, it's that they take up a slot that is meant for utility (which attack runes only just barely qualify for)

That's what my post was about: Making their power match a defensive rune of similar value, so the decision to use one is a viable tactical one, rather than nearly a no-brainer.

I think Aquillion's idea is the best myself as well, enabling inscriptions of varying power levels (like speed and invisibility runes) to coexist with regular inscriptions and inferior ones. But that also sounds like a huge overhaul to the entire system, and a nightmare to implement. Thus why I think a more immediate solution is probably possible.

Something like that would also add the versatility required to create a rune mage or some similar class focusing on inscriptions and manipulating them. Extra slots, maybe with a very high tier skill that eventually reduces the number of slots large and powerful runes take up. Maybe even an alchemist style skill to convert equips into runes of same tier. Though that last bit might be slightly OP, and this is definitely off-topic.

More offensive defense options for runes might be good.

For instance a Flame Shock rune would be way more valuable then just a flame beam, Icy Spear would be more valuable if it was just Freeze, Acid Wave would be nicer if it had a chance to blind or lower resists (as it eats through the target), and a daze effect would pair nicely with a Lightning Rune.

For new rune ideas that follow this same line of thinking, Banish would make a good rune as would Repulsion Blast.

Defense is almost always better then offense once you're doing enough damage. I think that's the major issue with runes. Every class has access to damage options and the damage is internally balanced to where no class really gets the shaft. Defense and utility on the other hand are harder to come by and runes and infusions are often used to shore up those weaknesses.

I'd personally prefer to see them removed entirely, or replaced with more utility based attacks (like insidious poison and sun infusions). A dazing rune, a shield-destroying rune and a knockback rune would all be more interesting, and could do a bit of damage as well.

I use attack runes quite a bit, specially if I find a high damage one early on... however, their damage becomes subpar by midgame and I stop using them mostly because of their high cd.
Anyway I must say that I once found a 300+ acid wave rune in Angolwen and it was pretty much steamroll on my way east.

I like edge's idea of having them be supplemental attack runes, but that might not quiet be enough. I would prefer for them to be instant or 'half energy' use instead of a full turn. That would really help making comboing with them a lot easier.

To echo some things said in IRC.

The rune of the rift is great, granted it's an artifact but it has three things going for it...

1: High Damage
2: Low cooldown
3: A crowd control component

If non-artifact runes all took two of the above things each I think they'd be much improved. In other words Acid Wave could be a High Damage/Low Cooldown rune (it's already great AoE so the damage is already there, just needs less cooldown). Icy Spear could be a low cooldown/cc rune (just make it's freeze chance 100% and cut it's cooldown). Flamebeam and lightning both are beams so their damage is good, giving them a lower cooldown or a cc component would make them both much improved.

yea, I tend to agree with edge's ideas here.
Perhaps, add burning shock effect for firebeam (and leave it's cooldown reasonably long), and add daze to lightning beam?

edge2054 wrote:To echo some things said in IRC.

The rune of the rift is great, granted it's an artifact but it has three things going for it...

1: High Damage
2: Low cooldown
3: A crowd control component

Don't forget that it also recovers your resources if you use Paradox (which only a Paradox Mage can apply it for IIRC, and good luck getting it as one, but it's a substantial advantage if you manage it.)

Didn't have much trouble in the Rift as a PM, though Gravity spells helped avoid the temporal resist on the elementals. I think TWs can get it somehow, though I think it involves killing both Epoch and your future self. (Or maybe just the latter, but that's very tricky.)

For attack runes that also have nice utility, I have some ideas here.

So how about we give the attack runes some other properties in addition to the Damage.
Could leave the cooldown higher, but might make them tempting to keep around.

Could do this by adding egoish things to them...

... of Martyrs (user gets +Crit% or +CritDam for x turns)
... of The Imp (does three phase doors (1/turn) immediately after players next three moves, including this one)
... of Enervation (some stamina and/or hr regen bonus for user)
... of Parting (Teleports target after damage is dealt)
... of Defamation (puts a single rune/inscription on cooldown on target)
... of The Mad Dwarf (Creates wall spaces between user and target)
... of Leaders-bane (Confuses target and allies in a radius around target)
... of Legerdemain (Turns user invis for very short period)
... of Beguilement (Dazes target and allies in a radius around target)
... of Hokum (Fears target and allies in a radius around target)
... of Desperation (max damage 2x normal, strong chance to fear/confuse/blind/stun/arcane damage user)


Etc.

The idea is not to replace the other runes - so the cooldowns would still be very high and their utility as a defensive item wont equal normal defensive runes - but to offer items which offer a lesser defensive bonus (or lesser offensive bonus, or crazy stuff) as an accompaniment to the normal offensive bonus.