Arcane Blade tweaks

[Grey]

Putting those spells on a cooldown of 3 would make relying on normal attacks to proc the spells very unatractive

It's still combining two actions into one round, and it still crosses over multiple talents. It's extra damage on every attack, for a miniscule mana cost. If you use a cooldown system without using a per turn limit then there's still the chance of multiple procs per round, letting you get off some massive burst damage. This is great for bosses in particular. And for most of the game the cooldowns wouldn't even be noticeable, as you don't proc that often till late on. The complaint here is that late-game ABs are too powerful, and this helps focus on that without harming the early game.

[Dwindlehop]

I don't think Arcane Combat needs a cooldown on bolts to balance DW. I think the modifier to proc chance needs to acknowledge that one half the chance per DW weapon results in an Expected Value of procs greater than that of 1H. Change the DW penalty to proc with an EV(2H) = EV(1H) and DW is golden.

[Grey]

Dual wield still stacks with GWF though, for increased procs. And of course there is the awe-inspiring fully procced Flurry. There has to be a limit on number of procs per round, either through a cap of 1 per turn or use of the cooldown system.

[wobbly]

A cooldown means there's a point to having multiple spells (flame/lightning/earthen missiles), so 1 is always avaliable to proc whether dual-wielding or not. It'd also mean more attacks/round would give you a fast burst of damage at the cost of a slight recharge period. This to me seems to create the most interesting choice between being able to proc as quickly as you can or choosing a more steady rate. Currently almost everyone seems to be dual-wielding, the lack of variety is kinda dull.

[Judecca]

A cooldown means there's a point to having multiple spells (flame/lightning/earthen missiles), so 1 is always avaliable to proc whether dual-wielding or not. It'd also mean more attacks/round would give you a fast burst of damage at the cost of a slight recharge period. This to me seems to create the most interesting choice between being able to proc as quickly as you can or choosing a more steady rate. Currently almost everyone seems to be dual-wielding, the lack of variety is kinda dull.

Are they really, though? Looking at the most recent AB winners (of which there's still less than a total page of in the vault) as far as 3 weeks ago, more people are using shield offense or 2-handers.

[SageAcrin]

Yeah, it's hard to say if there's momentum here(people going with what previous builds worked, etc.) or if the build, overall, is actually really hard to get off the ground, but from what I know the latter sounds right.

This is why I don't really think the cooldown needs to happen. There should be payoff for a hard build, if it can be made reasonably possible to grant it without skewing the game's balance.

Still, 12k is too much endgame damage, that's for sure.

[Grey]

Still, 12k is too much endgame damage, that's for sure.

Yeah, no build should be making the last battle trivial.

[Judecca]

There's a lot more to worry about than just AB/GWF/arcane combat interactions if it's about trivializing the last battle, honestly. Yeah, the vast majority of anything else in the game won't one-shot them (thankfully!), but they won't have the slightest issue either.

[Ragnarok]

If your going to nerf their late game then buff their early game, the only thing arcane blades have going for them is the fact that they rape if you make it that far.

It's an class with extremely high payoff but horrid early game and very problematic mid game.

There isn't even an arcane blade winner in nightmare.

[wobbly]

Is their early game actually difficult? With 5 in flame they take out large sections of the start just by spaming flame.

[SageAcrin]

There's nothing wrong with them having a high payoff lategame.

Having said that, I can definitely attest to the fact that they had a high payoff lategame without GWF or Dual Weapon Offense.

They were rarely winning because of their weaker earlygame...that was the idea behind giving them the three weapon trees, because people were A: Having problems early, and B: People missed Stunning Blow often enough so that it made sense. Lategame was never the problem.

That doesn't mean they should do five digit damage, though. They'll be fine, they've been given multiple buffs recently, and while I don't want to see that get entirely unraveled either-I agree, there was a purpose to them-that's perfectly possible to do without letting them be absolutely ridiculous lategame.

Oh, and there's the question of it unbalancing the various builds. This is mostly about dualwielding apparently being overcentralizingly good...but many builds have been winning without dualwield, probably because it's less of a pain to get going.

IIRC Jinsediaoying noted that dualwield would still do 5000-6000 with Flurry even with the changes proposed in the initial post. That's still really, really good payoff, just not 12k.

[Frumple]

I've always kinda' wondered about the "weak early game" thing for ABs, t'be honest. Maybe it's worse on higher difficulties, but on normal... put down the sword and dagger, pick up a staff. Blasting your way to your mid teens with flame and lightning is basically a non-thing -- a caster AB can play more or less like an archmage with somewhat worse regen, and if there's anything that doesn't exactly have early game problems...

I just started a normal run with intent of running a primarily caster AB. Might have to try it with a nightmare run or somethin', but... like I've said in the past, flame -- and flame alone, nevermind lightning or the various second tier+ offensive spells -- trivializes the first tier dungeons and most of the second tier ones. You can (and I have) lay waste to the first six(+) dungeons using literally nothing but flame and have zero problems doing so. E: Well, okay, barring red crystals and the occasional red dragon hatchling pack. But, you know what? You've got lightning. Problem solved.

They do occasionally have problems meleeing their way through the early game, but, well. They don't have to do that. And thanks to arcane combat, transitioning into melee later, if they feel like it, is pretty easy.

As for the proposed tweaks. The one per eligible spell per turn sounds alright. What'd be really neat, to me, would be instead of straight downgrading things shift the utility from damage to something else. If you proc more than one spell in a turn, you could have synergistic effects, probably with a damage malus. Fire+stone could lay out a lava-floor beam, fire and lightning cause a chain effect, lightning and stone have a chance to freeze, causing the damage to go half and half for the lot of 'em. Stuff like that.

Then you'd just have to give something interesting to the other styles (2hand, sword/board, possibly staff) so it'd be a sidegrade and you'd be good to go. Expand the AB gameplay and reign in the upper bounds of the damage possibilities in one go.

[SageAcrin]

AB weak earlygame got buffed when they lost the cooldown penalty to Fire/Lightning/Earthen Missiles they had.

Though it was never terrible. 6 CD Lightning/Flame isn't that bad, usually you can drop most grunt enemies fairly fast.

Now, the midgame, that was rough, and I don't have a good read on how well that works out now, but I'd imagine it's still their relative worst point. Basically, a fully fledged AB has a ton of power from passives, but getting all of those passives running takes forever-tons of stat points and class points required to really get everything smoothly running.

[notmiki]

My 2 cents:

battle tactics needs to go, which is a shame because ABs get a lot out of true grit.

one proc per player turn per spell is an appropriate speed limit that limits endgame ridiculousness while preserving the benefits of dual wielding/sword & board builds.

I'm strongly against having arcane combat put spells on cooldown, even if it's only a 1 turn CD. In the lategame that could easily produce a scenario where AB uses blinding speed, then uses a multihit attack, all 3 spells proc, and AB has no chance of any proccing on the next attack. Seems wrong.