Buff Aether Permeation and Secrets of Telos

[evouga]

Aether Permeation has the dubious distinction of being the only prodigy that can actually *harm* your character when you learn it. In fact, picking up Aether Permeation without arcane resistance at or close to the resistance cap is outright suicidal. This means that Aether Permeation is only worth considering when
1. You are playing a Higher, and
2. You were lucky enough to find several of the small handful of rare artifacts that give +arcane resistance.
Even then, your reward is... 50% resistance to everything. This probably improves some of your exotic resistances, and harms your basic elemental resistances. Worth it in some cases, I suppose, but laughable compared to the "classic" prodigies like Cauterize or Corrupted Shell.

To be worth the prodigy point I think a little spice needs to be added; some ideas include
- A bit of arcane resistance bundled in with the prodigy;
- Apply the regular resistances to the 33% that "leaks" through Permeation;
- Immunity to ordinary arcane damage? Free Spellcraft for aether archmages, in other words.


Secrets of Telos: there are several problems with this prodigy.
1. Useless unless you find the three staff pieces (far from certain on any given playthrough);
2. The characters that want the Spire are not necessarily dumping points into Cunning (although some will, for spell crit, of course);
3. The "best" use of this prodigy is on a trash character, who assembles the Spire and stashes it into the item vault;
4. The Spire is not that good of an artifact in the first place.

At least Legacy of the Naloren comes with some side benefits.

My suggestion here would be to move the prodigy from Cun to Mag-based, allow you to take the prodigy with only 2/3 of the pieces (giving you the last piece if necessary), and to buff the staff itself.

[Tharsonius]

i agree they could use changes.

as addition please check if the prodigy gives mind resistance, as on a character i played with the prodigy the mind resist increase wasnt shown (same as all res) but the description doesnt exclude mind or limit to elemental resistances

the 2nd point for aether permeation is a little overkill though i think, it would be far too strong

- Apply the regular resistances to the 33% that "leaks" through Permeation;

the prodigy is actually useable but a tiny bit is lacking. also in the new version there is now + all res cap ego on some items, which makes it possible to get more like 80-85% res maybe. maybe another artifact as addition to aetherwalk, which raises max arcane resistance, would do the trick.

especially the 45+ physical resist gained by right use of the prodigy is pretty worthy for an archmage with his shields, but usually low opportunitys to gain physical resist from gear without sacrificing something else major.

i also heard of ppl bursting their disruption shields to get to max ress, with a higher cap this could be a valueble tactic. and it would be a fun playstyle if this gets a valid tactic


the secrets of telos prodigy simply should get some really nice effect. especially with the short staves now it is really underwhelming, the only thing special being damage resonance. it also should be banned to vault imo.

[evouga]

Think about it this way:

Ok, suppose I really tailor my build for Aether Permeation: I keep up 90% resist arcane somehow (careful use of Disruption Shield), stack 30% resist all, and don't bother with any other resistances.

Before Permeation:
(1-.9)*(1-.3) = 7% arcane damage
(1-0)*(1-.3) = 70% of everything else.

After Permeation:
.33 + .66*(1-.9)*(1-.3) = 38% everything else

So in the best possible light, Aether Permeation adds 30% to all (non-arcane) resistances. This is of course very nice, but totally unrealistic. Let's take some more realistic numbers: I start with 75% resist arcane, 25% resist all, and 30% all other resistances.

Before permeation:
(1-.75)*(1-.25) = 19% arcane damage
(1-.3)*(1-.20) = 53% everything else.
After permeation:
.33 + .66*(1-.75)*(1-.25) = 45% everything else.

I'm not too impressed by an 8% reduction in (non-arcane) damage taken. And that's with all of the problems I mentioned above: you have to stack 75% arcane resistance somehow, and you've probably *reduced* your resistance to the most important elements, like cold and fire.

[evouga]

One consequence of Aether Permeation, though, is that it significantly decreases the effectiveness of resist all, particularly if you have very high arcane resistance. If you have 90% arcane resistance, the damage you take with 30% resist all is 38%, while with 0% resist all you take 40%.

So taking Aether Permeation frees up the 5 generic points you would have spent on Thick Skin. As an archmage I'm not particularly short on generic points, though, so I'm still not impressed.

[Grakor456]

Aether Permeation has the dubious distinction of being the only prodigy that can actually *harm* your character when you learn it.

A little off-topic, but "I Can Carry the World" can actually disadvantage Sun Paladins due to the way fatigue interacts with positive generation.

...nonetheless, Aether Permeation really should be more generally useful. Prodigies that are dependent on specific gear being found kind of suck. Being able to be consistent is a positive thing when it comes to character abilities.

[HousePet]

Aether Permeation could have +25% arcane resistance cap and +5 or 10% arcane resistance.

Secrets of Telos is fine for a cunning prodigy. The "Telos Spire of Power" itself is a bit lame unless you are a corruptor.
Its okay if you are a non fire/lightning archmage or anorithil.
And pretty much rubbish for an alchemist or paradox mage.
There should be an indication somewhere about what elements/classes it is good for.

I'm sure it could be made more interesting. I can't see damage resonance as ever being a useful effect without cheesing it.

[Delmuir]

Raising the cap on arcane resistance, in my opinion, is an absolute necessity in order to make this prodigy useful at all.

I'm not entirely sure that the prodigy needs to give a resistance boost… the cap increase should be enough of a buff, especially with Highers getting 25% already.

[SageAcrin]

As I understood it, the remaining 33% does have normal resists applied to it.

If it doesn't, it should. It really shouldn't make you worse under any intelligently-planned circumstances.

Secrets of Telos doesn't need a buff, it's just more of a defensive Prodigy than people realize. Huge lifedraining temporarily and affinity to a ton of elements gives you an insane tanking ability that can't be dealt with easily.

15% affinity can easily equate to nullifying an element with good healing modifier and resistances, as the Affinity heal is calculated before resistances and has Healing Modifier apply to it. It's really good, and the normal enemy way of dealing with it(resistance penetration) only gives limited benefits against it(in that it lowers its synergy with resistances, not its own impact).

Also, if the trash character thing is a problem, banning it from the vault's easy. Maybe that and Naloren should be banned, though I thought they already were actually.

[PureQuestion]

Pretty sure they already are banned from the item vault.

[SageAcrin]

Still, here's a thought on Spire, if it's still not good enough as it stands;

Allow it to be assembled using just the Top/Bottom, but have it check for the Gem and grant +5 to all stats, +2 Lite, +40% Fears resistance, and 15% Mind Affinity if it is included in the construction. (Also, remove the current 40% confusion resistance from the base Staff, then attach it to the gem's inclusion.)

This makes for a more thematic set of bonuses that are clearly granted by each part, and notably buffs the ease of use of the staff, while not making it crushingly more powerful.

(Incidentally, this is probably as much of a buff as you're going to see, as IIRC DarkGod and others are pretty adamantly against the staff being more powerful than the Awakened Staff of Absorption, with pretty good cause thematically.)

[evouga]

As I understood it, the remaining 33% does have normal resists applied to it.

I'm not an expert at navigating the codebase, but from the snippet posted in the Ideas forum it doesn't seem to be the case. Without Aether Permeation, your total resistance is

1 - (1-E)(1-A)

where E is the elemental resistance in question and A is your All resistance. After Aether Permeation, it is

.66 * (1 - (1-a)(1-A) )

where a is your arcane resistance. E doesn't figure into it at all, and the 66% nerfs your total resistance after applying All resistance, not just the part that comes from arcane resistance.

[Mewtarthio]

Relevant code:

Code: Select all

--- Returns the resistance
function _M:combatGetResist(type)
local power = 100
if self.force_use_resist and self.force_use_resist ~= type then
type = self.force_use_resist
power = self.force_use_resist_percent or 100
end

local a = math.min((self.resists.all or 0) / 100,1) -- Prevent large numbers from inverting the resist formulas
local b = math.min((self.resists[type] or 0) / 100,1)
local r = math.min(100 * (1 - (1 - a) * (1 - b)), (self.resists_cap.all or 0) + (self.resists_cap[type] or 0))
return r * power / 100
end

In other words, if you have Aether Permeation, then the calculation for any non-Arcane resistance is as follows:

1. Replace the resistance value with your arcane resistance
2. Calculate resistance normally (factoring in resist all)
3. Return 66% of that value

Your base resistance has no effect, and it even nerfs resist all. If your final Arcane resist (with resall included) is not half again as strong as your other elemental resist (again, resall included), you'd have been better off without the prodigy.

It'd be more sane to use 66% of your arcane resistance and 34% of the other resistance instead:

Code: Select all

--- Returns the resistance
function _M:combatGetResist(type)

local a = math.min((self.resists.all or 0) / 100,1) -- Prevent large numbers from inverting the resist formulas
local b = math.min((self.resists[type] or 0) / 100,1)

if self.force_use_resist and self.force_use_resist ~= type then
    local b2 = math.min((self.resists[self.force_use_resist] or 0) / 100,1)
    local power = self.force_use_resist_percent or 100
    b = b * (100 - power) / 100 + b2 * power / 100
end

local r = math.min(100 * (1 - (1 - a) * (1 - b)), (self.resists_cap.all or 0) + (self.resists_cap[type] or 0))
return r
end

That would make it so the prodigy only actively hurts you if your arcane resistance is strictly lower than some other resistance. Of course, we're talking about a prodigy, so I'm not sure why it needs a drawback at all (it's already a serious opportunity cost), so I'd rather change b2's declaration to:

Code: Select all

local b2 = math.max(math.min((self.resists[self.force_use_resist] or 0) / 100,1), b)

so that it lets you keep the old resistance if it's better. That way, you can use your arcane resistance to shore up your weaker resistances while still having the freedom to specifically gear for a particular damage type.

[evouga]

Thanks, yes I think that is a reasonable buff to make the prodigy useful.