Additional Skill to Shivgoroth form: Ice Shield

[Delmuir]

My proposal is to add a second skill to Shivgoroth form, on top of Ice Storm, akin to the Temporal Form prodigy. I had two different ideas as to how this could work so I'll offer them both up:

Ice Shield
Type: Sustain
Time: Instant
Cost: 100 mana

Version #1: This makes all water/ice damage penetrate any and all of your shields at 20-100%, thus making it possible to heal yourself in Shivgoroth form while having your damage shields up.

Version #2: This converts 5-25% of all incoming damage to water/ice.

Thoughts?

[Doctornull]

I like it, but I'd just have it be automatic -- a fixed part of Shivgoroth Form.

Also, I'd like it to add 50% fire resist to your damage shields.

[Delmuir]

I like it, but I'd just have it be automatic -- a fixed part of Shivgoroth Form.

Also, I'd like it to add 50% fire resist to your damage shields.

Don't you think that might make it a bit too powerful? I mean, 25 mana and a 20 cool-down (which can be reduced to about 10 with optimal gear and Meta) can essentially create a situation in which you're running around in permanent Shivgoroth form at very little cost. Do you really want to add the shield on without additional cost?

Maybe if it were a locked category, but it isn't. If people think Shivgoroth form is automatic now, wait until that buff, ha ha…

[Red]

The only issue I'd have with this is that you can't sustain the sustain. Every time the form goes down, you have to start it anew, and auto cast is finicky enough with regualr skills. God knows what kind of failures would occur if you were trying to use autocast on a skill that's not always actually usable.

It'd be nice if there was a way to make the shield automatic, though not without cost. Perhaps just have T5 Shivgoroth form add a second skill for significantly increased mana cost that includes the shield?

[Delmuir]

The only issue I'd have with this is that you can't sustain the sustain. Every time the form goes down, you have to start it anew, and auto cast is finicky enough with regualr skills. God knows what kind of failures would occur if you were trying to use autocast on a skill that's not always actually usable.

It'd be nice if there was a way to make the shield automatic, though not without cost. Perhaps just have T5 Shivgoroth form add a second skill for significantly increased mana cost that includes the shield?

Good point Red…

Well, how about this as a solution: the Water category is set to 1.3 which makes a level 5 Shivgoroth set to 6.5. Why not make the second skill available if, and only if, you can get the skill past 7.0. Thus, either add a category point or find some boosting gear for it.

The reason I suggest that is that I don't want the Shivgoroth form to become game-breaking for archmages, who are already powerful enough. Rather, I'd like it to be better… at least for Ice-oriented mages.

Thus, if the skill is at 7.0 or better, then the Ice Shield effect is added as a passive effect. Then, you just scale up the mana cost of Shivgoroth… make it 15 at level 1 and add 5 for every 1.0 points you add to it, bringing its cost up to 40 at talent point 5 (6.5). Then, just add a big mana cost when it crosses 7.0… make it cost 75 at that point.

[Doctornull]

I like it, but I'd just have it be automatic -- a fixed part of Shivgoroth Form.

Also, I'd like it to add 50% fire resist to your damage shields.

Don't you think that might make it a bit too powerful? I mean, 25 mana and a 20 cool-down (which can be reduced to about 10 with optimal gear and Meta) can essentially create a situation in which you're running around in permanent Shivgoroth form at very little cost. Do you really want to add the shield on without additional cost?

Not necessarily. Make it happen automatically but only if you have Uttercold sustained, and add +50 mana to the sustain cost of Uttercold.

The point is you can't hang a sustain on a timed effect. But you can augment a timed effect with a separate, independent sustain.

[Delmuir]

The point is you can't hang a sustain on a timed effect. But you can augment a timed effect with a separate, independent sustain.

Well, your proposed solution of tying it to Uttercold works for me. I like it!

I've assumed this would include enemy cold damage as well? I suppose that would really make cauterize even more valuable...

I think someone should get on this, ha ha…

That would probably be enough to bump up the cold mage as viable on higher difficulty settings… not quite on par with Wildfire but close. The only negative for this build would be that it's relatively close-quarters for a mage which would mage Atamathon pretty tough. Still, a considerable improvement I think and one that doesn't OP the other mage builds.

Imagine walking around with this, Cauterize and Elemental Surge… through up an effect that does light damage (and they're numerous) and get a high crit rate and you'd have a close-quarter beast of a mage. I really would love to see this!