ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

donkatsu wrote:
Luminosity: (n) The relative quantity of radiation emitted by a celestial source (as a star)
Might need a different name due to Sun infusion's Luminosity effect, but honestly that effect is pretty lame anyway. That's a whole different can of worms though. Let's just consider this a working name for now. Obviously there are a lot of Anorithil talents that could use some work, to make them more useful or interesting, but these are just minimal changes that would be necessary to make the new resource system work.

New resource: Luminosity.
-New name for positive energy
-Negative energy costs are changed to actual negative luminosity costs.
-Former negative energy sustains now increase your luminosity floor; former positive energy sustains still decrease your luminosity ceiling.
-Everyone with a luminosity bar regains +0.5 per turn, instead of decaying. Sun Paladins no longer need to autocast outside of combat to keep a full bar but otherwise stay the same. Taking Chants or Light escort trees makes you vulnerable to manaburn damage, if you weren't already. Former positive energy sustains can now be shut down with manaburn.
-You can't use spells that cost luminosity if your luminosity is at its minimum, but you can still use spells that cost negative luminosity (ie generate it) if your luminosity is at its maximum.

Complete rewrite: Twilight
Use mode: Sustain
Talent description: Passively allows your luminosity to become negative, with the same negative capacity as your current positive capacity (before sustains). The effects of Chants, Light, Glyphs and Sun talents receive a bonus or penalty proportional to your current luminosity, while the effects of Hymns, Eclipse, Star Fury, and other Twilight talents receive a bonus or penalty proportional to your current negative luminosity. Activate the sustain to set your resting luminosity level and prevent the natural luminosity gain. Further points in Twilight increase your luminosity-based bonuses by X%.

Comments: The sustain part is like Spacetime Tuning, but most of the effects are passive. The bonus/penalty is a multiplier that scales with current luminosity divided by max luminosity. The final bonus or penalty from Twilight is capped at a certain percentage (50%? 100%? Something in between?), or at least give it severely diminishing returns so you don't end up with NPCs with Moonlight Rays that deal a million damage. It would be nice if the talent descriptions for the affected talents took Twilight and the user's current luminosity into account, like Shield Expertise.

Minor tweak: Jumpgate
No longer has a maximum range, instead has an accuracy radius that scales with talent level. Starts out rather large, like on the order of 50 (pretty much the entire map). No more constantly sustaining and unsustaining Jumpgate as you autoexplore, just set it at the start of the level. I promised minimal changes but man is Jumpgate such a hassle to use right now.

Minor tweak: Twilight Surge
Luminosity cost: -20
If your luminosity is negative, Twilight Surge's luminosity cost becomes positive.

Minor tweak: Corona
Generates only shadow bolts at negative luminosity, and light bolts at positive luminosity. Only activates if your luminosity is between -X and +X, where X increases with talent level. Coronas are intersections of darkness and light, and this mechanic thematically encourages balance.

Minor tweak: Circle of Sanctity
Luminosity cost: 10

Minor tweak: Circle of Warding
Luminosity cost: -10

Minor tweak: Darkest Light
Generates luminosity each turn. When your luminosity reaches its maximum or you deactivate the talent, your luminosity is lowered to its minimum and does damage based on the luminosity lost. Does not disable your sustains. Replaces the old Twilight as a way to recover a large amount of negative energy all at once.

Minor tweak: Searing Light
Luminosity cost: 10
Cooldown: 3
Increase damage so that the initial hit matches Moonlight Ray. The DoT is Searing Light's advantage. Range and beam coverage is Moonlight Ray's.

Minor tweak: Sun Flare
Luminosity cost: 15
Cooldown: 18
Blind duration matches Flameshock's duration, to compensate for lower cooldown. Deals damage at all talent levels instead of requiring level 3.

Minor tweak: Firebeam
Luminosity Cost: 20
Cooldown: 7
Deals half fireburn and half light damage. Rolls for crit twice, like Dust to Dust. Increase damage to match Flame.

Minor tweak: Sunburst
Luminosity Cost: 40
Cooldown: 15
Increase damage to match Flame. Cost is doubled, giving it a niche as a quick way to shift from positive to negative, when desired.

Minor tweak: Starfall
Luminosity Cost: -40
Cooldown: 12
Cost is doubled, giving it an additional niche as a quick way to shift from negative to positive when desired.

Final comments:
Ultimately, you have three choices. 1.) Specialize in darkness damage, setting your Twilight level to its minimum and only using Sun spells to keep your darkness spells powered up. This also gives you better utility from the Eclipse tree. 2.) Specialize in light damage, in which case you don't need to sustain Twilight at all (but you can still benefit from its passive effects). Only use Star fury spells to keep your light spells powered up. This has the utility benefit of powering up your Light tree. 3.) Specialize in a balance, setting your Twilight level to 0, bouncing back and forth between positive and negative, allowing your light and dark spells to power each other up. This choice is supported by Corona, which only works within a certain range centered at 0.

HousePet wrote:Also, I'm mildly sad my suggestion for keeping the original system but nuking Twilight wasn't mentioned in the thread.