Cold/Ice ideas and the "Wet" effect...

[Delmuir]

If I understand this effect correctly, the only things that causes it is Tidal Wave and Shatter. This, to be honest, doesn't make any sense to me and I think it misses a good opportunity. More so, cold mages have a weird skill-set. Here's why:

1. The wet effect is pointlessly contrived and irritatingly limited.

2. Cold archmages have a freeze-oriented skill in Shatter but can't really ever freeze more than one or two things?!? The best freeze-oriented skill is a rune. It just doesn't make any sense.

3. There's no synergy with any other archmage skills.

Here's what I think should done about it:

1. Make every skill in the Water category cause the wet effect.

2. Remove the increased damage from Glacial Vapors. Instead, turn 1 causes wet and every turn thereafter you have the chance to freeze.

3. Make it such that Freeze only puts you in a ice block if you're already wet. That would make sense and would avoid the annoying "I just turned a corner and now I'm frozen" experience that signals an enemy. This would also encourage use of Glacial Vapors.

4. Wet can be added to the Hurricane skill. This also makes sense and would add a nice synergy.

5. When an enemy is wet, have it give a 10% resistance to fire. This also makes sense as you would actually have a comparable effect in real life if you were soaking wet and hit with fire.

6. Tidal Wave… I have a perhaps irrational disdain for this skill in the water category on an archmage. I don't mind the skill existing but I think it should have a new home.

My biggest complaint is that it pushes enemies away from you but you actually want them to remain close in order to use Ice Storm to maximum effect. What the Water category really needs is something to increase your ability to inflict the wet effect on a large number of enemies.

To that end, I propose a new version of my "Rainstorm" talent.

Rainstorm:
Active skill that costs 25 mana and has a 16-turn cool-down. This skill rains water down on a 2-5 radius from your tile over 3 turns. It would only affect 70% of the tiles in the affected area each turn, but it's random and changes with each turn. Thus, enemies could theoretically avoid it but probably not.

There would be a 1-radius "eye of the storm" immediately surrounding you in which this would have no effect. Thus, the skill would only affect tiles at 2 or further away. The storm would be static though so you could move into it rather than it moving around with you a la IceStorm.

This skill would do low damage and inflict wet effect… HOWEVER, when in Shivgoroth form, this skill would change into Hailstorm. This would increase the duration by 1-2 turns and add physical damage in the form of hailstones. The hailstorm would cause moderate to high physical damage with % chance to cause bleeding. Hailstorm would be rain and ice so it would still cause the wet effect.

In addition, if Glacial Vapors is up and this spell affects one of those tiles, it always does hailstorm damage on those tiles even when not in Shivgoroth Form.

This would have a nice synergy with the Earth (physical damage) category and the Storm category with Hurricane. Also, I think it would be fun.

7. Shatter… this should go away and be replaced with a passive skill Ice Shield. This shield reduces fire damage by a flat amount per turn. In addition, it increases your cold affinity by some %.

Lastly, when you're in Shivgoroth Form, it allows all cold damage to penetrate all of your damage shields.

Now, to replace the Shatter effect, I suggest this: When UtterCold is active and have whatever % to penetrate ice blocks, any skill that does hard-ice damage or physical damage should have % chance to cause the Shatter effect.

This would include Ice Shards, Hailstorm, or any physical damage above "x" amount. In addition, the shatter effect would have a radius-1 burst damage that could cause a chain reaction if it hits frozen enemies who are close to one another.

Well, those are my thoughts. What do you think?

[Planetus]

I like the rainstorm/hailstorm idea, but I'd suggest it cause confusion/daze instead of bleeding (from large hail stones hitting you in the head/brainsac/whatever). I'd also suggest both Ice Storm and Rain Storm be targeted, not self-centered. Unless the cold Archmage gets some vastly improved survivability, it doesn't really make much sense to require them to be in or near melee to effectively do damage. Even a radius of 5 is, IMO, too close for regular combat.

With that in mind, Tidal Wave is actually intended as a way to get enemies out of melee. It doesn't synergize with Ice Storm well, but it does have a purpose. Just like the wildfire tree's Blastwave.

Ideally, I'd like to see the cold Archmage be focused on disabling (though iceblock, and maybe some other status effects) large groups and then damaging them over time, as opposed to wildfire which tends to kill quickly, lightning which tends to be more random, and stone which tends to be more powerful but closer-ranged.

Either that or decide the entire Archmage class is a dedicated glass cannon/nuker and change the ice tree to reflect that. After all, we have other classes that do a lot of DoT effects.

[Effigy]

I think it would be good if the Wet effect reduced the target's freeze immunity as well as giving a chance to freeze. Immunities become very common in the higher difficulties, so freeze won't be a reliable tactic there unless there's a way to reduce the target's immunity.

[jaumito]

By the way, how do the 'wet' and 'burning' effects interact with each other, if they do at all? It'd make sense for 'wet' to prevent or cancel the other (or at least give a chance to -), wouldn't it?

[edge2054]

Shatter works on Frozen Feet I believe. I know the text is really vague but I remember checking the code last time I played an ice mage.

[Delmuir]

Planetus,
when I suggest a radius 5 from you that's actually a range that is 10 tiles wide. That's pretty huge.

As for Tidal Wave… yes, I understand that it has a function but I think if you improve the freeze/synergy then you don't really need that skill.

I think Fire does kill over time, albeit not that slowly. What I'm trying to do is make Ice more viable by giving it a reliable status-effect in freeze. I would like to see cold freeze more enemies, more often. If it can do that, you don't necessarily NEED more defense or a means of pushing enemies back.

Ideally, the wet-effect can reduce freeze resistance (ideally rendering little immune) such that you can keep enemies frozen in bursts of time, while you whittle away and eventually nuke them when you get UtterCold up and maxed.

Effigy,
The wet-effect actually does reduce freeze resistance, by 50% I believe. That's the point… it would make it viable to freeze lots of enemies.

Jaumito,
Good question. I don't think they interact at all currently but I think it'd be really cool if they did, in fact, cancel each other out.

Edge,
Frozen Feet? I don't think it does work on that and it'd be weird if it did.

No one asked about Ice Shield but I do think the shield penetration is a good idea (brought it from another thread I had on this subject) and I really like the flat fire damage reduction… it be damage reduction on every hit, every turn with no cool-down. It wouldn't require a lot of damage reduction to be a life-saver.

I also imagine using Elemental Surge (or whatever the prodigy is called) as you get the guaranteed or % chance of crit with the shatter effect… you can get a lot of really neat bonuses and synergy.

[edge2054]

Code: Select all

		eff.frozid = self:addTemporaryValue("frozen", 1)

Yeah, shatter works on frozen feet.

[HousePet]

I wouldn't mind some tweaking to the Water/Ice categories. Apparently it is the weakest Archmage element.
I like the idea of Shivgoroth form changing water effects into ice.
I don't think it is a good idea to remove the knockback of Tidal Wave in favour of more freezing. Air/Lightning is already a horrid one trick pony. Let's not have another one.

[Effigy]

The wet-effect actually does reduce freeze resistance, by 50% I believe. That's the point… it would make it viable to freeze lots of enemies.

Ah, you're right. It's been a while since I used cold spells.

[Delmuir]

I don't think it is a good idea to remove the knockback of Tidal Wave in favour of more freezing. Air/Lightning is already a horrid one trick pony. Let's not have another one.

The only reason lightning/air suffers is because the primary bonus is shut down when something is stun/daze immune. That isn't a problem with water/ice because it does enough damage on its own. It doesn't need a status effect to trigger in order to do damage.

In that sense, water/ice is the second best (only to Arcane/aether) element. I actually prefer it to wildfire but it's just not quite good enough and doesn't hold up on higher difficulty levels.

Having said that, you wouldn't be replacing it JUST for more freezing. You'd also get bleeding and extra damage with the Shivgoroth synergy. Thus, I don't really think it'd be a one-trick pony.

However, I see your point. Thus, I propose that Rainstorm do a bit more than just damage and wet effect. What if it reduces vision? After all, you can't see well in a good storm. Thus, have Rainstorm reduce enemy vision range in half (excluding any unaffected tiles).

When combined with the Freeze resistance reduction effect of wet, theoretically very little to nothing should be freeze immune. That way, enemies couldn't see until they were already within your Ice Storm or Frozen Ground range… I think that's a good set-up.

[HousePet]

I've put some ideas together for redoing Water/Ice.

Water
Geyser: Radius 0->1, non projectile, water damage ball. +Freeze with Shiv.
Blinding Fog: Cloud that inflicts wet and weak blindness. +Slow with Shiv.
Tidal Wave: Physical/cold/knockback zone. Changes to Ice Storm with Shiv.
Flashfreeze: Projectile ball that freezes wet creatures and cold damage. If Shiv, it shatters ice instead of freezing.

Ice
Ice Shards: No change
Shivgoroth Form: No longer grants Ice Storm.
Frozen Ground: No change.
Uttercold: Gives your spells a chance to cause a shatter effect.

Overall, it means that you don't get an instant freeze with just Water magic, but you can still mass freeze with two turns.
Shivgoroth Form and Uttercold change freezing from a defensive effect to an offensive effect.

[Sradac]

I like the idea of target-able storms. I can finally launch a preemptive weather strike on my enemies instead of having to wait until they walk right next to me

[Planetus]

HousePet, the only big issue I see with what you've proposed is the issue I currently see with cold/ice magic: there's really not a lot of options to inflict freeze. With what you've proposed, I see one spell that can freeze while Shivgoroth, one that can freeze while NOT Shivgoroth, and I assume Frozen Ground can (effectively) freeze regardless. I'm assuming, but given the current cold/ice setup, I'm also assuming most if not all of those would have long cooldown times. If Freeze is going to be 'the thing' for ice, then it needs to be more easily accessible.

Basically, as I see it, you're proposing that Blinding Fog + Flashfreeze be the standard tactic (not the only one, mind you) for ice mages: two-turn AoE freeze of all enemies in a probably large range. Provided that you can see them all. And none resist/dispell. And no more come around a corner. And that they're all lumped together rather well, as opposed to coming at you from multiple directions. Again, I'm assuming that at least one of the two will end up with a cooldown of 10-15 turns, as opposed to the 3-5 turns I would see as a quick turnaround option.

I'd rather see everything that causes wet effect have a chance to freeze creatures that are already wet. That way you've still probably got a 2-turn setup, but one spell (doing DoT) can do it, and it can do it repeatedly, and you'll probably have several options to do that if targets come at you from several directions.

[Delmuir]

I've put some ideas together for redoing Water/Ice.

Water
Geyser: Radius 0->1, non projectile, water damage ball. +Freeze with Shiv.
Blinding Fog: Cloud that inflicts wet and weak blindness. +Slow with Shiv.
Tidal Wave: Physical/cold/knockback zone. Changes to Ice Storm with Shiv.
Flashfreeze: Projectile ball that freezes wet creatures and cold damage. If Shiv, it shatters ice instead of freezing.

Ice
Ice Shards: No change
Shivgoroth Form: No longer grants Ice Storm.
Frozen Ground: No change.
Uttercold: Gives your spells a chance to cause a shatter effect.

Overall, it means that you don't get an instant freeze with just Water magic, but you can still mass freeze with two turns.
Shivgoroth Form and Uttercold change freezing from a defensive effect to an offensive effect.

I suppose this would work fine… it just doesn't really address my concerns with the class.

More so, the flash freeze is basically just a clone of Chill of the Tomb, which is just a clone of Fireflash. That all produces the same type of play-style and I just don't see the point. Also, I have a real dislike of those skills but I'm sure that's just me.

I really don't want to see ice just become another long-distance sniping class. I'd rather that it became better at surviving at closer range. Improved ability to freeze would do that.

If you use the rainstorm idea to reduce vision, you basically have a pseudo-stealth. That could easily be adapted to other skills… perhaps improve movement through glacial vapors and rainstorm when in Shivgoroth form. That would give the cold mage excellent mobility and would also reduce concerns about close-quarter combat.

Also, I'd really to like to create some synergy with the lightning/storm trees. Given that daze/stun immunity shuts down that element pretty effectively, why not simply make it such that lightning gets a bonus to crit chance and crit multiplier when hitting a wet target? That also makes thematic sense.

[HousePet]

Planteus: With Shivgoroth Form active you can freeze with Geyser, Tidal Wave/Ice Storm, Ice Shards and Frozen Ground.

Blinding Fog + Flash Freeze would be the standard mass nuke for Water Mages, with Geyser as the short cooldown single nuke and Tidal Wave as a semi defensive spell.
Once you have Shivgoroth Form running, you have access to freezes that don't require the target to be wet first, and you can use Geyser and Blinding Fog to make creatures wet if they are freeze resistant.

Delmur: Flashfreeze wouldn't have as high damage as Chill of the Tomb, since it also freezes. Unless you are using it to Shatter.

I'm not sure what you are using here to snipe with and it does have improved ability to freeze?

Blinding Fog does a similar pseudo stealth as rainstorm.

The Wet status effect halves stun resistance. How is that not already a great synergy with Storm?