ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Anorthil have become a rather dated class compared to the other celestial class. There's been a lot of talk about reworking their resources but nothing has come of it so I'm going to suggest a less ambitious update.

First, remove the obsolete Sunlight category in favor of the new Sun category (at 1.3). Second, add Radiance as a locked tree (at 1.3). Third, revise the Eclipse tree to account for the way Sun would interact with the Corona engine.

Sun's Vengeance appears to give 2/3 as much crit rate as Blood Red Moon. Sun Ray cast off of Sun's Vengeance provides a free cast as frequently as every 5 turns that can trigger Corona and reduces the action cost of keeping positive energy up. Suncloak boosts casting speed and cuts cooldowns, but the Anorthil doesn't appear to have enough non-instant cast spells to really leverage it.

Heavy investment in the Radiance tree would produce a constant flow of free crits, but the opportunity cost is one of two trees of instant cast spells that can be used to nova Corona I don't expect it to be a problem. It does include a non-sustain with a positive positive energy cost, which could be used to extend Darkest Light, but since it also generates light radius that can't be turned off it makes extending Darkest Light completely pointless as well.

The main issue would be finding something to replace Blood Red Moon since Sun's Vengeance is doing its old job. I don't actually have an idea to suggest yet.

Alternately, Sun could be added at 1.0 and Eclipse reduced to 1.0 and the reduction in the power of Corona would probably balance out with the more frequent crits in the midgame, though the Corona engine would be weaker in the end.

Disclaimer : I didn't try the Ano in the latest patch yet. But I don't think anything changed right ?


Some time ago I tried playing an Anorithil adventurer with Sun instead of Sunlight indeed. I do think it fits a lot and works great to give them some kind of mobility which is something they lack a lot. It also gives a source of Positive Energy that takes no turns to cast which is great. This is completely something I would like to see.

About Radiance. Using it to proc Corona might not work without some changes. This is because Hymn of Moonlight actually is coded to throw a spell at up to 6 targets per round. Aka, it throws 6 spells per round, and does 6 crit rolls per round. Isn't Searing Sight burn effect coded as some simple point blank AoE spell? Which means like most AoE spells it does a single crit roll per round. Still, it might be much better than investing in the rather useless traps line :p Still, I don't think the class lacks ways to proc crits as much as ways to fuel the corona engine with energy later on. The circles line is nice to proc corona but it's mostly taken for the survivability it gives on top of those procs.


To keep Blood Red Moon thematicaly as some (passive) talent that makes Corona better, we could change it into some energy management skill? Energy regen/cost reduction/max energy pool increase? Or you can leave it at that. It'd be a kind of nerf to the Shalore Anorithil by allowing the other races to get as easily the high crit chance the class likes.


After that, I find that what Ano needs is some tweak to ressource management, which is kind of a lot of work like you say. But a few tweaks could be enough. Twilight already changes your baseline energy levels to 22%-36% of your maximum. There are a few problems with that :
- at low level, 22% of your maximum isn't enough to even cast one Moonlight Ray. Possible solution : make it an absolute value and not a % of max?
- The game rest command completely ignores that feature. You cannot rest to regen your pools to their baseline, even if both are under the threshold.
- 36% of your maximum, even at high levels might be too little
- that notion is useless since you can micromanage your pools to full between fights. Which is something very annoying to do. And I think the class is balanced on the notion that your are at max energy before each fight
- leveling Twilight is further useless since with a high Cun, you get to refil your whole negative energy with a single cast no matter what anyway

Possible improvements :
- make rest aware of the class and wait to refill our energy. At least do it when both bars are under the baseline
- make the baseline some absolute value that doesn't depend on your max energy and make it so that level 1 is enough to cast at least one moonlight ray
- make it worth it to level Twilight by improving either the energy regen or the baseline energy at max level or improving the negative energy generation. Since the generation is blocked by the size of our pool currently, I guess one could rescale the cooldown instead of how much it gives
- nerf energy generation outside of combat somehow. All the improvements to Twilight are useless if you can micromanage your way to a full energy pool between fights. This would require, say, Twilight and Twilight Surge to only work when there are enemies nearby. Or I had the idea to make Twilight active just instantly put your energy back to their baseline values, no matter if they were higher or lower.


Side note : can the Anorithil at least get a better spell to illuminate the world around them than Archmages? Or at least something that can remove magical darkness?

I've heard Corona is absurdly good late game, but it is hearsay. I can't get them that far myself. If Corona isn't currently overpowered then keeping BRM isn't a problem. In that case all the class needs is the tree swaps.

I'm trying to propose the bare minimum update that should have been made when the Paladin was updated in hopes it might actually have some chance of happening.

A real fix would, indeed, be better but it just doesn't seem like there's any hope of consensus.

Corona is never really that great. Its okay as a bit of extra damage and proc gimmicks, but its not something you can expect to do serious damage with.