ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Anorithils are a class with a very interesting premise and a great potential for advanced resource management, but currently, they have mostly useless Positive bar, a couple of bad skills (Darkest Light, for example), and one too little late-game skills. Following are some ideas on what could have been done with it, but please take it with the grain of salt.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q9I ... IyJcIU-S_A

The biggest and easiest to address issue is the resource drain. It's completely pointless tedium that adds no strategic value whatsoever. You always start the fight with full energy ANYWAY, since you can just hit your energy generating spells, wait for them to come off cooldown, then go. Let's not pretend that's not the case. This is not Hate. It's not a resource that can't be freely replenished out of combat. So WHY do we still have to press extra buttons or patch up an embarrassing design flaw using autocast? People have been commenting on this contradiction in design for years now and all it would take would be to change one - to a +. There are absolutely no upsides to keeping it the way it is. I see what the original intent was (you start with low resources and build up as the fight progresses) and that's not how it's playing out right now.

0player, if you are interested I had some ideas, to put positive energy in use. (currently spells are already weak, no need make them weaker, and add additional cost. (the only bad thing they are practically resource generation buttons.)
You have some interesting ideas but it is practically not anorithil already. (and it makes pretty hard to manage class with lot's of ifs. If in order to setup stun or refresh I need to spend turn I wouldn't use such stun or refresh. This goes to your idea, if abilities, keep it in mind. Most time you want to have them now not some time later.)
So I'd made to work them differently like you made it for your sunlight abilities. Another problem is itemization you either gear up for darkness or for light.

If you are interested you may check my Idea to give some use to light energy (added new category to use for light energy 3 of four skills spend energy and fairly good as support and damage not really requiring large light scaling and sorta in terms of last skill bad for it you may kill yourself.
It is also makes quite useful circle of blazing light. And learning all chants and hymns.
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=42550

Hmm though add some positive cost for twilight, and other similar skills would benefit farther for hybrid Anorithils.
Btw you are underestimating darkest hour it is pretty good, as invisibility for some other classes.(Though invisibility in most times too harsh.) More often then, not I find I deal too much damage, so reduced damage is not as large of problem. And anorithils being being sustain class I it is not really deterrent(drop circles, shadow blast, twilight, darkest hour, wait for cooldowns, explode, repeat.). Not saying it is just 50% damage reduction. Same goes to ruined earth and meditation.

donkatsu wrote:The biggest and easiest to address issue is the resource drain. It's completely pointless tedium that adds no strategic value whatsoever. You always start the fight with full energy ANYWAY, since you can just hit your energy generating spells, wait for them to come off cooldown, then go. Let's not pretend that's not the case.

Ideally, I'd like to set this up like Paradox somehow - make it so there is strategic value to having lower than maximum positive/negative. I had a few ideas for accomplishing this:

• A (class defining) passive with different effects depending on relative pos/neg value.
• Prevent or have some negative effect for overcharging a meter. (At max positive? Then you can't cast barrier!)
• Have talents that do different effects at different levels, like the mindslayer thermal thing.
• Some sort of disruption shield like effect that drains from one meter to another? Maybe as a passive enhancement to any damage shield, since they have so many already.

Dunno on that one. It is sorta makes playing anorithil gimmicky and uncontrollable. You cast spell and all your effects change. I thought had idea of class balancing between night and moon sides of gauge, and effects depending on position, but in the end had to scrap it because it is just promotes non optimal floating or unstable gameplay.(which makes so it is much harder to use) In fact I think if you haven't cast spell for 2-3 turns your energies should cover half distance to twilight level per turn.(this would make rapid drain and solve autocast management issue)

Thinking about effects for various states of the +/- bars... it seems like the normal "optimal" state of affairs is for the Ano to have a full - bar and a mostly empty + bar, because she just cast Twilight and she's good to go.

Thus, reward the alternate configurations:
- Some kind of bonus for low Negative energy
- Some kind of bonus for high Positive energy

Example effects might be:
- Higher spellpower when your Negative bar is low
- Bonus to healing factor when your Positive is high

Bormoth wrote:0player, if you are interested I had some ideas, to put positive energy in use. (currently spells are already weak, no need make them weaker, and add additional cost. (the only bad thing they are practically resource generation buttons.)
You have some interesting ideas but it is practically not anorithil already. (and it makes pretty hard to manage class with lot's of ifs. If in order to setup stun or refresh I need to spend turn I wouldn't use such stun or refresh. This goes to your idea, if abilities, keep it in mind. Most time you want to have them now not some time later.)
So I'd made to work them differently like you made it for your sunlight abilities. Another problem is itemization you either gear up for darkness or for light.

If you are interested you may check my Idea to give some use to light energy (added new category to use for light energy 3 of four skills spend energy and fairly good as support and damage not really requiring large light scaling and sorta in terms of last skill bad for it you may kill yourself.
It is also makes quite useful circle of blazing light. And learning all chants and hymns.
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=42550

Hmm though add some positive cost for twilight, and other similar skills would benefit farther for hybrid Anorithils.
Btw you are underestimating darkest hour it is pretty good, as invisibility for some other classes.(Though invisibility in most times too harsh.) More often then, not I find I deal too much damage, so reduced damage is not as large of problem. And anorithils being being sustain class I it is not really deterrent(drop circles, shadow blast, twilight, darkest hour, wait for cooldowns, explode, repeat.). Not saying it is just 50% damage reduction. Same goes to ruined earth and meditation.

Hm, I think I kept all of the signature spells more or less intact. Why is that not Anorithil?
The Darkest Light requires two turns of setup to be useful => not very reactive, also requires you to be close to enemies to make use of damage, but invis was presumably for running away? False Light in the Moonlight tree provides a taunt, which is often an adequate alternative that doesn't harm your damage output.
Pure Light-based Anorithils, while interesting, are a pretty different concept.
Itemization is not a problem, dual darkness/light is heavily supported by egos and artifacts on practically every slot except rings, and you can have 2 rings.
Chants & Hymns doctornull promised to make a post about at some point, the idea is they're instant cast without cooldown, all learned with the first talent in the tree, the rest scales different aspects of the, and they switch off if you overflow on energy.
I've read through your ideas, and they sound very interesting, but unreasonably powerful to me. They almost guarantee a damage output without investing into any other tree.

Bormoth wrote:Dunno on that one. It is sorta makes playing anorithil gimmicky and uncontrollable. You cast spell and all your effects change.

No, you'll just need to plan your moves a few turns in advance. That's called strategy.

Not to say that it couldn't end up being gimmicky. But if it's pulled off I think it'll be really, really fun.

0player wrote:Chants & Hymns doctornull promised to make a post about at some point, the idea is they're instant cast without cooldown, all learned with the first talent in the tree, the rest scales different aspects of the, and they switch off if you overflow on energy.

Here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=42583

I don't think the general mechanic of source and sink energy usage is a bad mechanic, but it hasn't been implemented well.
Turn 1: Positive source.
Turn 2: Twilight.
Turn 3: Negative sink.
The problem with the current implementation is that turn 2 does nothing but convert resources. We need this condensed into two turns.

Possible solution 1:
Turn 1: Positive source. Either an attack or a buff. eg. Searing Light or Barrier.
Turn 2: Positive sink, Negative source. Attack. eg. Moonlight Ray.
Turn 3: Negative sink, possibly a Positive source. Nuke. eg. Starfall.
This gives no downtime while you are converting the resource.

Possible solution 2:
Positive energy regenerates instead of degenerates.
Turn 1: Positive sink, Negative source. Attack or buff. Searing Light or Barrier.
Turn 2: Negative sink. Nuke. eg. Moonlight Ray.

I think I prefer solution 1, as then Sun Paladin will have regenerative stamina and degenerating positive. Items and possible high level talents could be used to allow an effective solution 2. Would also make it easier to have a class that starts with Negative energy and converts it to Positive energy.

For flavour stuff:
The Sun is the obvious source for Positive energy.
The Moons could be associated with converting Positive energy into Negative energy.
The Void could be a source of Negative energy.
And the Stars could be the conversion of Negative energy into Positive energy.
So, Sun and Star do light damage and generate Positive energy.
Void and Moon do darkness damage and generate Negative energy.
Which gives the interesting situation of the damage type being based on the energy being generated, rather than the energy being spent.

Could also use both Moons for conversion, and Stars for pure negative generation. Void is not very associated with celestials, I fear, it's more about arcane.

I really like the idea. You have 2 moons, so one for each direction. And you could make them be the class focused on the moons - which is why they deal with both energy types.

donkatsu wrote:The biggest and easiest to address issue is the resource drain. It's completely pointless tedium that adds no strategic value whatsoever.

^This. Anotrithil is the only class in the game that I haven't bothered playing very far with. This is big part of the reason why.

Anorithil is really fun and powerful, you are missing out.

0player wrote: Hm, I think I kept all of the signature spells more or less intact. Why is that not Anorithil?
The Darkest Light requires two turns of setup to be useful => not very reactive, also requires you to be close to enemies to make use of damage, but invis was presumably for running away? False Light in the Moonlight tree provides a taunt, which is often an adequate alternative that doesn't harm your damage output.
Pure Light-based Anorithils, while interesting, are a pretty different concept.
Itemization is not a problem, dual darkness/light is heavily supported by egos and artifacts on practically every slot except rings, and you can have 2 rings.
Chants & Hymns doctornull promised to make a post about at some point, the idea is they're instant cast without cooldown, all learned with the first talent in the tree, the rest scales different aspects of the, and they switch off if you overflow on energy.
I've read through your ideas, and they sound very interesting, but unreasonably powerful to me. They almost guarantee a damage output without investing into any other tree.

True and wrong At same time. Sunlight is not so bad though it looks same. sunbeams- ice shards, earthern missiles, and new CM from edge spatial shards. And too random.
Searing light is a bit weaker version of itself(though not bad per se but it's only problem enemies move away from field anyway.). Though damage may be amped.
Sun Burn Removes one more spell to get more light energy.
Sun's furry not only different but also too random.
Moonlit beam works
Constelation different, but works Hope it is beam speed. There is problem with jumping projectiles.(if they don't hit they diappear)
starfall hope it has some AoE or it is one more random hit or miss(not saying it comes turn too late.)
Star rain looks like weaker version of moonlite hymn, maybe make it target enemies?
E.t.C. I see you are editing though So I would wait with farther feedback. If you just make it work then ok. Just keep in mind +% damage is not problem. Damage pen is. And Light+dark is always weaker then just light or just dark. 5% light and dark against 10% of dark.
Darkest Light is not run away tool, although it is only use for it till you reach level 3 at least. It is more of sustain tool. You drop circles (0 turn 20 pos 30 neg). Then either hide or shadow blast. If you have time to shadow blast it is 20 more. with turn 20 110 max energies it is at somewhere near 0 positive and 60 negative.(10 turns without twilight burst or totality at level one, 60 tuns at lvl 5, which means you may cast spells). Oh and already dropped shadow blast is unaffected by invisibility, same goes for dot's.
The only bad thing you have to keep your darkness gauge full. So later it is not really run away tool, but sustain tool. Just see FreegamingTanaka's channel how it works. The video she clears room of death in vor's armory.
Most precious skills are short range anyway.

As for mine, idea you could leave at least detailed feedback, and I could find what you don't like conceptually. Numbers may change, same for some OP concept may go. And I don't like last ability myself so I keep it as placeholder, though 9 turns to setup for max damage to die yourself is not really short and yo teleport it with you .
It also quite encourages usage of twilight, and eclipse categories, as for Starfury well star fall is too good stun to pass. And twilight sure hey free positive you need.
For long range you still have shadow blast, and moonlight beam sniping to do.(So it is not really forbidding if you want to play hybrid you can.

P.s. I try to explain that current Anrithil is quite fun and powerfull, and instead of reworking it it is wise to solve it's shorts and maybe make few skills more accessible. (darkest light 3/3/2/2/1 negative drain? )