Reworking Chronomancy ver 2

[0player]

There are only so many projectiles in here, or else I'd suggest increasing projectile speed.
On the other hand, timed effects are also far from numerous.

[edge2054]

So is the general feeling that the early game defensive options are too weak?

If so I see a few places where things could be improved.

Contingency could be moved to tier 1, I don't see how much this would help unless I changed it so it could trigger regeneration infusions. I'm really hesitant to do this for thematic reasons.

Foresight could give something other than defense. Something that would improve EHP would be good. Any thoughts?

Energy could be moved to generic and could start out unlocked. Giving early access to Energy Absorption. This would give PMs four unlocked generic trees which feels a bit much.

Fateweaver I can't really move without rewriting it. I'm pretty happy with that whole tree really and find myself playing with it quite a bit. Fateweaver is the big draw though and waiting till level 8 to get it might be hard on higher difficulties.

Cease To Exist and Paradox Twin could be switched around and the Paradox costs in that tree could be lowered. I think I'll do this actually.

I'd really like some suggestions on the Chronomancy tree though. I get people not being big on defense as a stat but without alternatives being presented I'm not sure what to replace it with.

[Parcae2]

Why would you feel the need to unlock Energy just because you move it to Generic?

The thing about Matter isn't so much that it's weak as that it feels weird for a locked tree because it's mostly damage. Maybe tone the damage down a lot and have it start unlocked, or be unlocked by a quest?

Instead of defense, maybe those talents could give a very small, flat, non-scaling damage reduction? Maybe one that only works for physical damage? Just off the top of my head.

Maybe move Fateweaver to tier 2? And I definitely think it needs to stop scaling with spellpower, and probably also scale less with talent level.

I am inclined to agree with Housepet that Spellbinding could be revamped and given to another class. PMs already have a crapload of trees.

To me, enabling Contingency to use regen/heal infusions would actually help the thematic differentiation from Archmages.

[Kiba333]

I found a bug with Temporal Fugue. If you have unspent talent points and cast temporal fugue you can then as a clone open your talent sheet and put points into temporal fugue (or other "disabled spells"). It will be initially on cooldown but if you have used matrix on it before it's cooldown will be very low and you can instantly reduce it to 0 with timeless, you can then cast Temporal fugue as a clone and switch between your initial clones to repeat the process, resulting in this:


The first time i did this after all the clones time ran out i DIED and after i resurrected there was one of those usual bug character copies.

As for alternatives to defense on chronomancy, there could be the usual all resistance, or damage affinity or effect resistances or maybe a paradox shield: Absorbs up to X damage, Adds X% of the damage recieved to your paradox, if the shields threshold is reached a random (maybe major?) anomaly fires off.

Also as you said right now there are no straight defensive options for early game. The earliest somewhat defensive spells are Paradox Twin at level 8 and fateweaver at level 12, with the former being more situational in most cases. Other than that you would be forced to invest into Spacetime Folding, which also happens to be right now pretty much the only source of timed debuffs that pm's can apply. Debuffing enemies used to be (in my book) one of the most effective keys of a good defense, the only ones available right now in unlocked trees are paradox bolt stat reduction (which gets kind of weak once you reach higher level enemies) and stun from temporal wake. As for unlockable debuffs, most enemies aren't tickled by energy drain since they have plenty talents. This leaves only the warp tree which is packed to the brim full with all kinds of debuffs. Pretty much forcing to go split temporal/physical, skilling warp and spacetime folding in case you want to debuff enemies reliably.

edit* Extension let's you choose Tempral Reprieve but has no effect.

[edge2054]

Thanks for the bug report Kiba. I'll have to figure out how to prevent clones from opening the talent selection screen so they can't relearn talents they shouldn't have.

I like the Paradox Shield idea. It sounds neat

Spellbinding can't really be 'moved'. At least not easily. I rewrote Chronomancy from the ground up with Spellbinding in mind.

To give you some idea how spellbinding works.

Code: Select all

	getDuration = function(self, t) return getExtensionModifier(self, t, math.floor(self:combatTalentScale(t, 3, 7))) end,
	getPower = function(self, t) return self:combatTalentSpellDamage(t, 10, 50, getParadoxSpellpower(self, t)) end,

Code: Select all

-- Paradox Spellpower (regulates spellpower for chronomancy)
getParadoxSpellpower = function(self, t, mod, add)
	local pm = getParadoxModifier(self)
	local mod = mod or 1
	
	-- Empower?
	local p = self:isTalentActive(self.T_EMPOWER)
	if p and p.talent == t.id then
		pm = pm + p.power
	end
	
	local spellpower = self:combatSpellpower(mod * pm, add)
	return spellpower
end

Code: Select all

-- Extension Spellbinding
getExtensionModifier = function(self, t, value)
	local mod = 1
	local p = self:isTalentActive(self.T_EXTENSION)
	if p and p.talent == t.id then
		mod = mod + p.power
	end
	value = math.floor(value * mod)
	return value
end

Quicken and Matrix would be easier to move.

[Parcae2]

Some thoughts on the "talent point tax" concept:

First of all, the terminology is a bit unfair, because it implies that those talents are boring. On the contrary, what seems to be happening is that PMs have a multiplicity of interesting talents which fill slightly overlapping but mostly non-combat niches. In particular, where most classes have 1-2 signature defenses (Call of the Ooze, Bone Shield, etc) and 0-1 cooldown reduction talents (Snap, Metaflow, etc), PMs have half a dozen in each category. They're all interesting, useful talents, but the upshot is that not many talent points are left over to enable variegated approaches to actual combat, since damage talents always have a lower priority than defense and utility talents.

My suggestions:

-Consider moving some talents or trees to other classes. Spellbinding is a great tree in terms of both theme and power, but it would be just as great if it were moved to Bulwark and called Practiced Abilities or something, and Bulwarks need the extra tree a whole lot more.

- Consider either consolidating some abilities, or changing them to avoid overlap. For example, Redux could apply only to spells that deal damage. That would change its niche completely, since, as-is, it will probably almost always be used for defensive spells. Energy Drain could also be retooled to focus on putting enemy abilities on cooldown rather than taking your own spells off cooldown.

- Other abilities could have their scaling changed so as to function better as one point wonders. For example, cloning spells could have only the damage scale with talent level, meaning that only those who use them as damage abilities would have to level them.

Overall, I think that you should consider thinking about how many points you want a level 50 PM to have sunk into defensive and cooldown-reduction abilities, and consolidate/remove/alter until the class reaches that point.

Good luck. Trimming down is always the hardest part of any project, because you've put so much work into parts of it that you don't want to see them go.

[Kiba333]

Overall, I think that you should consider thinking about how many points you want a level 50 PM to have sunk into defensive and cooldown-reduction abilities, and consolidate/remove/alter until the class reaches that point.

This.

[edge2054]

Spellbinding is probably going to stay. This doesn't mean other classes can't use similar mechanics. If someone wants to make a Practiced Abilities tree for Bulwarks, more power to them.

Paradox Shield will probably replace Paradox Mastery and I'll rearrange the tree again. It will probably be tier one or tier 2.

I'll take a look at the number of defensive/utility options and see if I can cut some out or consolidate them and I'll look at the debuffing situation.

[Kiba333]

I also think that spell binding is pretty good and should stay. It may fall into the same problem category mentioned before about having too much utility talents but among those i would count spellbinding as probably one of the most rounded trees. It's simple yet versatile and synergetic to all possible playstyles, plus it fits thematic wise. The only change i could think of which i'd consider pretty low priority though, is in order to reduce some misconceptions about it being archmage'ish to rename some parts of it. The tree itself could be renamed into something like "Chrono-molding" or along that line. Empower maybe into "Condensation" this could be more in sync with the nature of change present in the other spell names. Quicken, Matrix and Extension fit pretty well i think.

As a side note, i looked over some of my previous posts and noticed that i am coming forth with mostly blunt critique.
Let me say that i really enjoy what you have accomplished with chronomancers so far. I'm just striking out at all the rough edges i glimpse in order to maybe get your inspiration machine running a little harder so that this can have a higher chance of being the best it can be. That said i can't friggin wait to get playing for real with this!

[edge2054]

Why would you feel the need to unlock Energy just because you move it to Generic?

The thing about Matter isn't so much that it's weak as that it feels weird for a locked tree because it's mostly damage. Maybe tone the damage down a lot and have it start unlocked, or be unlocked by a quest?

Instead of defense, maybe those talents could give a very small, flat, non-scaling damage reduction? Maybe one that only works for physical damage? Just off the top of my head.

Maybe move Fateweaver to tier 2? And I definitely think it needs to stop scaling with spellpower, and probably also scale less with talent level.

If I unlock matter and move energy to generic that leaves Warp, Induced Phenomena, Spellbinding, and Timetravel as unlockable trees. Doesn't leave much room for quest unlocks. That said I am considering it but try to think of the how the class is going to look to people that don't have Warp, Induced Phenomena, and probably Spellbinding.

If I do go through with this I'll probably end up locking two of the other trees. Speed-Control maybe? Not sure what else.

Flat damage reduction is a pita to balance. It cripples classes that rely on smaller hits and doesn't help much with overall survival on higher difficulties. It's also not very fitting for Foresight.

Fateweaver might be too good and I'll look at the values on it. I'm debating moving this effect to Foresight (as it kinda fits) and doing something else with Fateweaver. Maybe some kind of negative effect duration reduction.

[HousePet]

Well I'm happy with defence bonuses.

Spellbinding however, doesn't seem like value for talent points. It is a nice idea, and I realise it was a lot of work, but I can't think of many instances where I would know ahead of time which talents I want to buff in what way.

Merging the time effect talents into one talent would make it much more cost effective.

Yep, its time to apply Length Contraction to the class.

[donkatsu]

Energy Absorption values are fine, you'll hit it pretty much every turn of every fight on high difficulties. For lower difficulties you can just leave it at 1/5 if you want. It is sort of weird that it gets situationally weaker at higher levels though.

Regarding Time Shift, players don't worry about DoTs. In fact we want to get hit by DoTs. That's why Damage Smearing was so strong, despite not actually reducing overall damage taken. Projectiles may be a bit of an issue though. How about just reducing damage for 1 turn after cast? If the projectile isn't hitting them before they can act, then it's their own fault if they choose to get hit by it.

Wasn't there going to be something that boosted physical damage/respen? You generally want to be stacking one damage type, and right now in the balance between temporal and physical damage, temporal is the obvious choice, leaving Gravity and Matter with the short end of the stick.

[Parcae2]

Right now, I don't know if I would spend a cat point to unlock Spellbinding, and it's certainly the case that PMs are hurting for class points at the moment. But I really, really don't think that the category is underpowered as such. If anything, I would say that the problem comes from the fact that it makes more sense for PMs to specialize into two or three low-cooldown attack talents and spend most of their class points on defense and cooldown reduction.

[donkatsu]

Time Skip appears to be shutting down all sustains when the target returns.

A Paradox Twin that was triggered by Contingency can itself use Paradox Twin, for a total of two twins.

In general, I feel like PMs have too much AoE right out the gate. Paradox Bolt has the least AoE, being only a beam, while Trim Threads and Rethread will basically hit everything you can see, and then some. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does waste design space when everything hits everything. The unlocked skillset for PMs doesn't have a single damage spell that can be said to be good against single targets but weak against crowds, for example, and being able to trade AoE for single-target power was an interesting decision that the original PM had to make. I'd like to see that come back in some form, by having at least one of the tier 1 damage spells (Trim Threads, Rethread, Paradox Bolt, Repulsion Blast) only able to hit one target, but be a little stronger than the others to compensate. My vote would either be to Trim Threads, since it's a DoT and DoTs are already suited for bosses, or Paradox Bolt, since it's a bolt and bolts usually don't beam.

[grayswandir]

My vote would either be to Trim Threads, since it's a DoT and DoTs are already suited for bosses, or Paradox Bolt, since it's a bolt and bolts usually don't beam.

Trim Threads is pretty much the only AoE that TWs get.