ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Why need a fix:
Example talents: Momentum, True Grit, Blood shield(Demon seed) etc. (I'm sure I miss a lot of them). A sustain with turn based cost can't be used like a normal sustain, if you leave them on while exploring, you won't have any resource left when the fight begins. So in truth, they are more like an active buff with a flexible duration, as long as you remember to turn them on and off every fight! Moreover, unlike most buff talents, they take a precious turn. It is pretty sad to see those annoying mechanics keep player from using this kind of talents despite whatever it does.

How to fix:

My suggestion is pretty simple, they are existing solutions for two of such sustain, I merely suggest to apply to others:
Solution 1. make them really work like a sustain. Example: Berserker Rage. Even on sustain, only active when foes are in sight.
Solution 2. make them work like a buff. (1) Instant active. (2) not to worry about turning off every time, example: Rain of Fire(Demonologist): auto disable on rest or run.

P.S. something totally irrelevant just for a quick answer: I notice Corrosive Slashes(Demon seeds) give 100% acid damage conversion plus some armor penetration, so I have to ask, if you are doing 100% acid damage, does armor of your foe really matter in the damage calculation? My instinct tells me no, but then this talent doesn't make any sense.

Armour reduces weapon damage, not physical damage.

fateriddle wrote:Why need a fix:
Example talents: Momentum, True Grit, Blood shield(Demon seed) etc. (I'm sure I miss a lot of them). A sustain with turn based cost can't be used like a normal sustain, if you leave them on while exploring, you won't have any resource left when the fight begins. So in truth, they are more like an active buff with a flexible duration, as long as you remember to turn them on and off every fight! Moreover, unlike most buff talents, they take a precious turn. It is pretty sad to see those annoying mechanics keep player from using this kind of talents despite whatever it does.

I don't see how pressing a button to turn on momentum is more annoying than pressing a button to turn on blinding speed.

supermini wrote: I don't see how pressing a button to turn on momentum is more annoying than pressing a button to turn on blinding speed.

its about the resource drain, if you don't turn it off after wards.
blinding speed works for some ammount of time and is done.
momentum, if you leave on will drain you dry, and you will be useless on the next fight.

I'd be for supporting a change so that talent sustains like Momentum sort of work more like Berserker's Rage; or perhaps more like the Arcane Combat or Shadow Combat to throw in a couple alternative talent sustain concepts. Making a sustain drain resources per turn until turned off really doesn't work well with the flow of this game where a lot of other things are just automatically turned off.

I don't really see why you can't just turn it off.
And do you really need to turn it on for every fight?

I actually ran Blood Shield with my daemonologist almost the entire run. Just stuck equipment to offset the cost and left it always on.

Would've sucked to have an auto-off.

Dracos wrote:Would've sucked to have an auto-off.

what's wrong with a talent not draining a resource when you don't need it?

the idea is not to auto turn off the sustain when no enemies are in sight. its to stop it from draining your resources, when it has no way of being useful.

if a ... wiki doesn't show a talent called "blood shield", and no item either, so i cannot comment on it.

if whatever talent you may be thinking about has a "on use" or "on trigger" cost, it will not be affected by the change.
only talents that drain your resource "per turn", and only while there are no enemies in sight will be affected.
unless you yourself turn it off, the talent should come back online as soon as enemy is in sight. i don't see anything sucky about that.
if you yourself don't turn it of, such talent would run you dry and defenceless for the next fight otherwise.
and no, "unseen" enemies are not an argument, since you yourself also wouldn't turn it on, before seeing that enemy.

edit, how about "spotting an enemy", or "receiving non-environmental damage" would turn them off, and force them to stay on for the next, lets say, 5 turns (as long as sustained ofc). that way you don't lose the sustain as soon as the enemy goes invisible.

Dracos wrote:I actually ran Blood Shield with my daemonologist almost the entire run. Just stuck equipment to offset the cost and left it always on.

Would've sucked to have an auto-off.

So in your opinion berserker rage suchs? It turns off with no enemy in sight.

"Entire run" is also an overstatement, natural vim regen equipment is extremely rare, if exists at all. You can offset vim draining by the time you get level 6 finger demon seed(level 24+) for both fingers, but that's late game, and I do prefer 3 vim on hit to 1 vim per turn.

But these points are all off the topic, you might be able to sustain blood shield, and that's where your argument stands on, but what if you can't? I'm pretty should you can't sustain true grit/ momentum, and that's where my suggestions base on.

1. If you can't sustain a "sustain", why not allow it to turn off? There's zero benefit to leave it on when no foes in sight anyway. For those who argue "I can live with manual turn off every time", they've already admit auto turn-off is better, because manual turn-off is something they have to "live with".

2. It also sucks that those sustains take a turn to turn on. So if you want both true grit/ momentum for your fight, that's two turn just turning them on, a lot can happen in two turns.

Radon26 wrote:

Dracos wrote:Would've sucked to have an auto-off.

what's wrong with a talent not draining a resource when you don't need it?

the idea is not to auto turn off the sustain when no enemies are in sight. its to stop it from draining your resources, when it has no way of being useful.

if a ... wiki doesn't show a talent called "blood shield", and no item either, so i cannot comment on it.

if whatever talent you may be thinking about has a "on use" or "on trigger" cost, it will not be affected by the change.
only talents that drain your resource "per turn", and only while there are no enemies in sight will be affected.
unless you yourself turn it off, the talent should come back online as soon as enemy is in sight. i don't see anything sucky about that.
if you yourself don't turn it of, such talent would run you dry and defenceless for the next fight otherwise.
and no, "unseen" enemies are not an argument, since you yourself also wouldn't turn it on, before seeing that enemy.

edit, how about "spotting an enemy", or "receiving non-environmental damage" would turn them off, and force them to stay on for the next, lets say, 5 turns (as long as sustained ofc). that way you don't lose the sustain as soon as the enemy goes invisible.

Sure, having it not drain when outside of combat would've been nice...though also cheap since it provided a defense against surprise and out of sight attacks, ...so not quite seeing how just leaving defense shield up all the time for a cost isn't a thing. Wiki is down, so I can't link anyhow. The classic Archmage builds all depend on a similar situation with disruption shield to avoid getting one-shotted in higher difficulties.

Anyhow, what was suggested wasn't "Hey they don't cost when we're not in combat". It was "Turn them off automatically".

And that would suck. Plain and simple.

Dracos wrote: Plain and simple.

and wrong.

Dracos wrote:Anyhow, what was suggested wasn't "Hey they don't cost when we're not in combat". It was "Turn them off automatically".

fateriddle wrote:Solution 1. make them really work like a sustain. Example: Berserker Rage. Even on sustain, only active when foes are in sight.

what i understand, is that you think the talent will be unsustained and goes on cooldown, while in the actually idea, the only thing that is turned off, is the resource drain.

Dracos wrote:though also cheap since it provided a defense against surprise and out of sight attacks,

can be coded not to.
so resource drain AND the bonuses, and will both be turned back on AFTER you are hit or see an enemy.


another solution would be to make their use speed be 0%. that way the above is irrelevant, and you dont waste turns turning on all the sustains

I agree that turning off momentum is very easy to forget and quite tedious. I usually don't notice I forgot to turn it off until I start resting, at which point my stamina drains to empty, it turns off, and then fills to full again. Working like berserker rage would be a lot nicer and much more manageable.

zemdu wrote:I agree that turning off momentum is very easy to forget and quite tedious. I usually don't notice I forgot to turn it off until I start resting, at which point my stamina drains to empty, it turns off, and then fills to full again. Working like berserker rage would be a lot nicer and much more manageable.

Agreed.

Rain of Fire could also /really/ use this. I have it set to auto-use on seeing an enemy, which makes it functionally identical to only costing vim when enemies are visible, except that it costs a turn.

Rain of Fire would be best if it cost Vim per meteor dropped.
Osmosis Shield would be best if it cost Vim on any turn that it converted damage into healing.