Circles and glyphs

[supermini]

I've been looking at this thinking of ways to fix them, as they are not...really good at the moment. From looking at the char vault, people who unlock circles do it for the third and fourth talent, and glyphs don't get unlocked at all.

I have an idea on how to fix this: mix it up with wards.

We add ward abilities (like the ones on charms atm) and shuffle talents around. It would look something like this.

Celestial/Warding
1. Glyph of Paralysis
2. Elemental Ward (gives n fire/cold/lightning wards for 6 turns. n rises with talent
level) Instant use.
3. Glyph of Explosion
4. Circle of Warding

Celestial/Signs
1. Life Ward (gives n blight/acid/darkness wards for 6 turns, n rises with talent
level). Instant use.
2. Glyph of Repulsion
3. Circle of Sanctity
4. Glyph of Fatigue

Wards need to be instant cast because otherwise they are not really that good. I don't think it would be broken as right now we have bone shield which works on everything and is activated in advance. Plus, it costs energy, and energy shuffling already consumes turns.

As for glyphs, since they can't crit (as far as I know), I would up the damage on Glyph of Explosion. Lets say double it. The rest will probably be ok.

So what do you think?

[skein]

Hmm wards do need some love, they should certainly not be insta cast though. That would be way to overpowered.

Yes the celestial classes need some work and adding wards to them would both make alot of sense and make them better. I think you have also identified the best area to modify.

You just have not suggested the right modifications.

[HousePet]

For a start I'd make Glyphs more powerful and cost positive energy rather than generate it.

[supermini]

Hmm wards do need some love, they should certainly not be insta cast though. That would be way to overpowered.

Why? They can't be cast long time in advance due to short duration. You have to choose the type of damage it will protect against, and there's a cooldown to prevent you from keeping wards on 100% of the time.

No one is really falling over themselves to get a charm that gives wards at the moment. When people suggest strategies no one ever mentions wards. Why do you think that is? Certainly not because they are OP.

Yes the celestial classes need some work and adding wards to them would both make alot of sense and make them better. I think you have also identified the best area to modify.

You just have not suggested the right modifications.

Well, throw in some ideas of your own then, I'm all ears.

[eliotn]

The circles could use a redo, instead of having a damaging component, they could focus around protecting you from status eff

Darkness circle:
1. Protects you from blindness, blinds people who enter.
-or-
2. +darkness resist% for you while in the circle, -darkness resist% for enemies in the circle.

Light circle:
1. +light resist%, +fire resist%, protects you from burning (while you are in the circle) and inflicts burning to people in the circle, -light resist%, -fire resist% to people in the circle.

Silence circle needs no change.

Warding circle:
Protects you from knockback effects and reduces damage from projectiles by a small percent, slows projectiles (more) while trying to knock others out of the circle.


For glyps, increasing the range at which they can be placed could be helpful, and possibly increasing their damage. To seperate them from rogue traps they could affect someone at range with reduced effect if nobody steps on the glyph itself.

[skein]

It is weird but I HAVE gone ward before. Ward levels stack, having many different items that all add wards decreases the cooldown timing I believe.

The one game I went heavy wards I was using 3 warding items. A greater staff of warding, a charm of warding and some weird random that had ward. The cooldown was below the 9 turns wards last and there is nothing at all shaky about having the ability to 5 lightning or 5 physical ward yourself every 8 turns.

It made tempest trivial for instance.

They are FAR more powerful then most people give them credit for but like many things they require a strong investment.

The problem with the circles and glyhps now are that they are neither good offense or good defense. They need to be one or the other to see use. I like the idea of wards changing them over to strong defense but it should probably be the circles that go that route and then just make warding the 4th talent in the circle chain.

I think glyphs should be reworked as some kind of strong offensive tree. I like the trap mechanic but it need to do actual damage or create a real long lasting debuff and should probably do both. In any case the glyphs should probably be single use.

I kinda like the idea of something like
r1 - blinding glyph (blinds for some ridiculous amount of time and does light damage)
r2 - glyph of holding (stuns for a ridiculous amount of time and does mind damage)
r3 - glyph of death (poison cloud large area that lasts for a long time and does blight)
r4 - glyph of fire (fire damage in a large area with a burning debuff)