Chants & Hymns rework

[Doctornull]

These are badly designed trees. It's currently optimal to invest in ONE of each and never swap them, which defeats the purpose of instant easy-swap sustains. Worse, for Hymns, there's one which is clearly better than all the others (Hymn of Moonlight), so really the rest of the tree is basically just a placeholder (or talent tax) until you get to the good one at the end.

My solution is to split up the talent benefits across the whole tree, so investment in one of them is an investment in all of them. No wasted points, and even if you have a favorite to sustain, you might swap to another one situationally.

Chants

Chant Acolyte - Passive; teaches the three Base Chant talents. Extra points add to the on-hit Light damage provided by each Chant.
Chant Adept - Passive; improves defensive benefits of each Chant.
Chant Illuminate - Passive; grants +1 Light radius per point.
Chant Solarian - Passive; grants +% damage to your Fire and Light attacks.

Base Chants
Chant of Fortitude - as it is now: +% lifebar and saves.
Chant of Fortress - as it is now: -% damage from enemies who are far away.
Chant of Fortune - new; grants luck, defense and crit reduction.


Hymns

Hymn Acolyte - Passive; teaches the three Base Hymn talents. Extra points add to their on-hit Darkness damage.
Hymn Adept - Passive; improves each Hymn (benefit A).
Hymn Incantor - Passive; improves each Hymn (benefit B).
Hymn Nocturnalist - Passive; grants the benefit of Hymn of Moonlight to each Hymn (maybe scaled down a bit).

Base Hymns
Hymn of Shadows - (a) +% Darkness damage, and (b) +Mental save.
Hymn of Detection - (a) Invisibility and Stealth Detection, and (b) -% damage from unseen foes.
Hymn of Perseverance - (a) Stun resistance, and (b) Blindness and Confusion resistance.


- - -

One more detail: No sustain cost. The + and - bars ought to be scaled to account for one of each always being on.

Thoughts?

[HousePet]

One of the main reasons the current Chants/Hymns don't work is that each one is useful in pretty much all situations.
Your base Chants/Hymns don't resolve that issue.
Also, theses talent effects here are quite weak, so you've kinda still got the point tax.
Other than that, I'm interested.

A possible mechanic idea for you: Have an effect scale with your current amount of positive/negative energy.

[0player]

Don't really think that max values should be adjusted. I've always view Hymn sustain cost in particular as suffocating in early game. 50 should be fine?

[Doctornull]

Don't really think that max values should be adjusted. I've always view Hymn sustain cost in particular as suffocating in early game. 50 should be fine?

Makes sense to me.

My main point is that we ought to assume both of these are always being used, so they're not sustains of the same type as Mana and Stamina based sustains. These don't represent an optional resource cost since they're not really optional.

[Doctornull]

One of the main reasons the current Chants/Hymns don't work is that each one is useful in pretty much all situations.
Your base Chants/Hymns don't resolve that issue.

I don't see that as an issue. If someone lazy wants to leave one on for the whole game, they're still getting a decent benefit.

What I want to change is that behavior being the only rational behavior.

Also, theses talent effects here are quite weak, so you've kinda still got the point tax.

I'm hoping to make them about as good as the current ones, plus add most of the benefits of the final two talents to all three of them. So... they're going to be stronger than the current ones.

Hope that's not "quite weak".

In terms of point tax? No. Each point you spend will benefit you even if you only use one on for the whole game. You don't pay for things you never use.

[HousePet]

But the three Chant effects are equally useful in most situations. So it will just come down to which one has the best values and no point in ever switching.
The Hymns have dramatically different effects, so anyone not exploiting them is silly.

To get the full effect of the old Chant of Fortitude, is going to cost 10 points, but does give three Chants.
To get the full effect of the old Hymn of Perseverance, is going to cost 15 points, but does give three Hymns.
If you had previously maxed out more than one Chant, then it will be cheaper.
Basically, these changes allow you to get more out of Chant/Hymns but also requires you to spend more to get the previous effect strength. 20 points to get two Chants/Hymns running at full at the same time might be worth it, 10/15 to get one Chant/Hymn running at full is not.
And nobody is going to spend more than one point in Chant Illuminate

[Bormoth]

Chant Acolyte Hymn Acolyte Don't see quite worth to put more then one point. Though if damage is high enough (40+ per hit each) I might get 5 for armor builds, not worth for for Robe high Def builds you don't deal damage if they miss. And doesn't help against spellcasters.
Chant AdeptHope it is worth 6 points you spend and effects are do correspond current strength
Chant Illuminate useless, what I noticed most put sun blast on autocast and just run around illuminating everything. Maybe make it 0 energy cost block type spell in terms(every time you take damage or do critical you drain 10%-40% of your positive energy to deal damage based on energy drained either to attacker or as cone) Gives light spender (If you really afraid darkest light you may forbid to use it while under) and rename it to Chant Shield
Chant Solarian Hope it wouldn't lose in bonuses because of fire damage other vice just make it Celestial/sun light and light damage. nothing changed seems to this one

Hymn AdeptHymn Incantor Pretty much the same if there is no ideas for abilities They should give like 175%-220%(1.75times-2.2times) of current or feels like intentional attempt to make them weaker. Though you now still get 3 at price of one
Hymn Nocturnalist Umm, yes and no, Dunno what to say main quirk is not Moonlight damage main quirk are crits so I dunno even with damage boost doesn't feel stronger or weaker(except now you gain 2(3 if adept and incantor are stronger) hymns at price of 1. Though spending to achieve it is 8 points more.

P.S. First skills look weak on their own it feels like if you take 1 you need to take at least second for chants and 2nd and 3rd for hymn. unless it is odd alchemist points you may miss or bad escorts not giving you bonus generic points
P.P.S though Hymns seem to get extra abilities to what they had so maybe hymn Incantor and adept shouldn't be stronger then Chant Adept

[Doctornull]

Basically, these changes allow you to get more out of Chant/Hymns but also requires you to spend more to get the previous effect strength.

Exactly.

Chant Acolyte Hymn Acolyte Don't see quite worth to put more then one point. Though if damage is high enough (40+ per hit each) I might get 5 for armor builds, not worth for for Robe high Def builds you don't deal damage if they miss. And doesn't help against spellcasters.

Sun Paladin is an armor build, Anorithil is not. So one might 5/5 the first skill, the other might not.

Chant Illuminate useless, what I noticed most put sun blast on autocast and just run around illuminating everything.

That is an entirely valid playstyle choice, and if you're on Normal it might work out for you. On higher difficulties, lite radius can be very useful.

P.S. First skills look weak on their own it feels like if you take 1 you need to take at least second for chants and 2nd and 3rd for hymn. unless it is odd alchemist points you may miss or bad escorts not giving you bonus generic points
P.P.S though Hymns seem to get extra abilities to what they had so maybe hymn Incantor and adept shouldn't be stronger then Chant Adept

Yep, one reason for making the first skill scale poorly is that the first skill can be acquired via Escorts.

Handing out three swappable talents as a single Escort prize is hefty, so I made the main source of improvement a talent which you can't have unless you pay for the whole tree.

[donkatsu]

I have to agree with Housepet here, on the Chants being too general-purpose. It's not as bad as the current setup because the extra chants are redundant instead of wasteful, but as long as we're rebuilding the tree from the ground up, we can do better than just "not as bad". There needs to be more incentive for swapping.

[Doctornull]

I am open to suggestions.

At the moment, I'm aiming for a small, clear goal which doesn't change much base functionality.

A more ambitious change is possible, but it's not necessary to do that right now -- and since there are no concrete proposals for well-balanced "total rewrite" mechanics, you're basically asking to sacrifice the good in hopes of gaining the perfect.

[donkatsu]

I already consider your rework a "total rewrite". This would just be along the same lines. Using your base structure:

Base Chants
Fortitude: % lifebar, light damage on-hit, and armor (anti-melee, anti-rogue, +life can be used at the start of a fight and then switched out, becoming a sort of weak pseudo damage shield)
Fortress: -% damage from far away enemies, +air capacity, and lite radius (anti-range, and I guess swimming too, I just imagine a light-bubble blocking out the water)
???: something positive energy related depending on how the resource turns out after rework, +% fire and light damage, +% light penetration (lots, to make up for loss of defensive chant),

Acolyte - Passive, teaches Base Chant talents, which only have the first two effects. Extra points increase those effects. Escort reward
??? - Boring all-purpose passive that doesn't tie to your sustain choice in any way 1 (Luck, defense, saves, crit reduction). Other escort reward.
Adept - Adds the third effect to each chant. Extra points increase those effects.
??? - Boring all-purpose passive that doesn't tie to your sustain choice in any way 2 (Luck, defense, saves, crit reduction). Also add a small effect like a minor heal when switching chants.

[HousePet]

I don't think that asking Anorithil to pay an extra 10+ generic talent points to get the same as before from Chants and Hymns is a good thing.

[Bormoth]

Chant of fortress 3rd effect hardly useful sunpaladin has light radius and anothiril has lighting spells, they don't need more light radius
??? the first- Defense bonus counteracts usefulness of armor and damage reflect of chant of fortress (prefered to have it as part of base chant somewhere.
Adept -if escort reward then sure else just get boring boosts Xp
??? the second Another boring, though heal is good. Maybe effect depending on chant activated (heal, shield+weak shield boost%, reflect% for 1 turn) If switching is instant though may make more valuable then chant itself.(Even if it is just heal only three heals + three chances to get crit ticks)
Somehow I liked older talent tree for chants more (except light radius)
Hymn was good except (Adept incantor did again sorta same thing) though these chants better imo.

[donkatsu]

Light radius is still nice for autoexplore.

[Doctornull]

to get the same as before from Chants and Hymns

Don't be obtuse. The benefits are different. They pay more to get more.

Light radius is still nice for autoexplore.

Yeah. Sometimes you might worry about being one-shotted from outside your lite radius.

On higher difficulties, this worry intensifies.