Dragging Sun Infusions into the Light of Day

[HousePet]

The point is that creating sudden light underground seems more like a magical effect, at least if you aren't starting a fire.

Ever heard of bioluminescence? Making light isn't just a magical thing.

[SDY]

Some things to consider:

-Give it an additional useful effect that players might actually care about but doesn't make it even more anti-fun for the annoying swarm enemies likely to spam it. Potential effects:
1. A short-term buff that absorbs one status effect
2. Heals all living things in radius
3. Adds a buff or a terrain effect that gives +healing%
4. Generate light and maybe darkness energy (manasurge rune for anorithil)
5. Adds a buff or a terrain effect that boosts light and fire damage
6. Adds a buff that or a terrain effect that gives a defense bonus
7. Adds a buff that gives a high value darkness resist and one other randomly chosen resist or resists.
8. Adds a buff that gives bonus experience while active ("enlightenment" indeed).
9. Reveals traps in radius.
10. Dispels hostile magical effects in radius - terrain effects, sustains, etc...

-Instead of adding the illuminated status, the infusion could add a buff or a terrain effect that improves detect hidden.

ed: added a few more options.

[HousePet]

I'd say add a defence penalty to the illuminated effect.

Alternatively make a new infusion that grants a temporary bonus to see stealth/invisible and increased infravision or telepathy-all.
And since that overlaps a bit with Vision Runes, make a new rune that instantly reveals everything in range x from you and lites tiles when used.
Stick the blinding effect from Sun Infusion on the Poison Infusion.

[Dracos]

4) I tend to favor defensive inscriptions over offensive inscriptions since most classes do plenty of damage. Its just staying alive long enough to do that damage.

4) is really the crux of the issue with all bad inscriptions.

Staying alive is just the best option and Shielding Runes, Regen, Heroism, and Healing all do this so much better than any debuffing ever will.

That said I actually use Sun Infusions early game both for debuffing and lighting up the dungeon.

Strong agreement. Additionally, in general, inscriptions that take a turn are significantly disadvantaged against ones that don't and inscriptions that have to 'beat' enemies traits are also such.

Sun is both of these, which really hurts it.

I've been using a Cross-Tier Luminiscence addon for a while, and it really does make it a whole sight better. +1 to that idea

Housepet lists the case against use very well. I found too many things were blind resistant as well, on top of having to have it have enough power to beat their defenses and it lacking any secondary benefit to help it out.

I want to use them, because blinding seems cool for Rogues and Paladins...but it just doesn't really work.

[Atarlost]

One of the problems is that there's a bit too much competition for infusion slots, and it's worst at the times when the problem the infusion is supposed to solve is prevalent. If there are any unerutilized infusions that fill late game niches we might start to see them on ogres, but not this one.

Back in the ancestral games where we had consumable items instead of infusions we could carry 23 kinds of items and typically devoted several of those slots to consumables. With a soft cap dictated by looting efficiency the decision as to whether to carry a weak consumable or not could actually go either way and ditching them temporarily didn't make it impossible to get the same thing again.

If you started with 4 infusion slots and the wyrm bile were removed sun infusions might be used as is. If you could also change your inscription load without losing the old inscriptions or if you could be certain of getting equivalent or better infusions on demand they probably would be used as is.

[Dracos]

Sun Infusion as it is loses out to doubling up on runes for me right now.

I don't think the logic on opportunity cost is right here. Even if there was a lot more slots, it'd still not get one over extra defensive and offensive buffs, status removers, or shields. It'd probably still not get one going to the point where managing those slots is digging into your available first few rows of hotkeys. It'd be behind moves that (while okay) are just not good enough to keep in direct view when managing the fight.

It's problem, before even discussing opportunity cost on slots, is that it isn't a compelling mid or late game option of its own. Even with high power to ensure success, enemies just aren't that bothered by blindness, when they aren't just flat out immune to it.

It's big early thing right now is that it's just really annoying to players.

[Zonk]

The point is that creating sudden light underground seems more like a magical effect, at least if you aren't starting a fire.

Ever heard of bioluminescence? Making light isn't just a magical thing.

Well, in tome all other light-related effects are magical though, aren't they?

[grayswandir]

Well, in tome all other light-related effects are magical though, aren't they?

There's the Summertide Phial.

[edge2054]

It could go either way. Bioluminescence is definitely observable in nature (hence luminescence being the name of the debuff, the actor is covered in glowing spores).

Rather or not it should be a rune really depends on keeping things symmetrical imo. Right now we have 7 Infusions and 11 Runes by my count (not counting artifacts). I don't think we really need more runes at this point.

[Zonk]

Yeah, but it looks weird when there are no Wild based talents that actually cause light and bursts of light strong enough to blind people (pretty different from 'just' bioluminiscence ) is solidly a part of Magic (barring the Summertide Phial which is ONE artifact).

It could be made into a rune and a new, unrelated infusion could be added to prevent the disparity between the # of runes and infusions getting too big.

[jaumito]

...and Protector Missyl wants you to see the light, anyway.

[Atarlost]

It's problem, before even discussing opportunity cost on slots, is that it isn't a compelling mid or late game option of its own. Even with high power to ensure success, enemies just aren't that bothered by blindness, when they aren't just flat out immune to it.

I don't think it's meant to be a compelling mid or late game option. It was put in as a solution to stealth spam. That happens in the alternate kor-pul and the lost merchant quest and the maze. One might stretch to call the maze mid game, but as the solution to an early game problem I think you're just supposed to ditch it for something more universal when you're done with those dungeons.

[grayswandir]

I don't think it's meant to be a compelling mid or late game option. It was put in as a solution to stealth spam. That happens in the alternate kor-pul and the lost merchant quest and the maze. One might stretch to call the maze mid game, but as the solution to an early game problem I think you're just supposed to ditch it for something more universal when you're done with those dungeons.

Generally, inscriptions are a permanent thing - you only switch because you want a permanent upgrade, not to counter some specific up-coming situation. If you could get inscriptions back instead of overwriting them, I think this'd make some of the more situational inscriptions used more. In order to keep you from just swapping them repeatedly, I propose that you need to "recharge" them in town for about 10 gold. (Perhaps with an ever increasing cost?)

Yeah, but it looks weird when there are no Wild based talents that actually cause light and bursts of light strong enough to blind people (pretty different from 'just' bioluminiscence ) is solidly a part of Magic (barring the Summertide Phial which is ONE artifact).

There's also Summertide itself. And a couple of nature-based artifacts that add some light damage on hit. Unless you're also planning on removing all of those as well, I don't think this argument has any merit.

[Burb Lulls]

Yeah, but it looks weird when there are no Wild based talents that actually cause light and bursts of light strong enough to blind people

Shining molds.