Archmage Elements Rework

[HousePet]

Let's see what we can do with this Fire stuff.

Starting from the top (aka reverse order) with lots of burning manipulation in Wildfire...

Wildfire
4 Wildfire: sustain. Fire res pen and damage bonus. Allows your burning tiles and status effects to spread.
3 Dragon Whirl: active. The Fire super nuke. Does damage to an area based on the number of burning tiles in it and sets enemies on fire.
2 Cleansing Flames: passive. Nerf it from prodigy level to talent level by making it reduce duration instead of flat removal. Add the self fire damage resistance here.
1 Gather Flames: active. Consumes burning tiles around you to enhance your spellcasting for a few turns.

Fire
4 Burning Wake: sustain. All your Fire spells leave burning tiles.
3 Flameshock: active. Cone of fire that inflicts Burning Shock.
2 Flare Shield: active. Temporary bonus to defense, fire and cold resistance, and light radius. Burns melee attackers. Leaves a trail of fire with Burning Wake.
1 Fireball: active. Radius 1 fire damage bolt. Doesn't hit yourself.

Pros: Lots of utility. Useful for Arcane Blade. Funsies with burning effects.
Cons: Only 3 damage talents...
It really needs another offensive talent where Gather Flames is. Blastwave would be ideal. The question is what goes, Cleansing Flames or Gather Flames? Maybe merge them and have Gather Flames burn off debuffs on you? The self fire damage resistance can be moved back to Wildfire. Maybe drop the spreading flames effect from Wildfire, it wouldn't be easy to code. Dragon Whirl could burn buffs instead of setting enemies on fire?

[Planetus]

Given the Flare Shield name, maybe also give it a chance to blind? Maybe a high chance as retribution for melee attacks, or just a low chance for anyone in a small range?

Also, I recently though up another interesting fire attack spell, not sure how to fit it in, though:

Fire Snake - Active - Target an enemy in range (4-7?) and launch a long fiery serpent at it. The serpent of burning tiles is 4 tiles long and will follow the target at 400% movement speed, doing fire damage to any target it crosses. Once it reaches the target, it will select another target in range (4-7) and repeat continuously for a total of (5-11?) turns. Think Chain Lightning, except projectile instead of beam and moves slowly, leaving a small automatic wake (longer if you've got Burning Wake up). Maybe every time it moves over an already burning tile it either gets extra move or another turn duration?

Inspired by the 'Fire Wurm' in 13th Warrior, a terrifying line of fire winding it's way down the mountain in the middle of the night, which turned out to be a hoard of barbarians, each one carrying a torch.

As for how to avoid the entire map going up in flames, that's just a matter of balancing the spread chance vs the duration, or maybe even setting a fixed number of times each initial tile can spread, which decreases for each spread tile (i.e. the first tile can spread 5 times, the next 4, the next 3, etc).

[HousePet]

Yeah blinding could work.

Elemental Snakes everywhere!

I wasn't concerned about the whole map being covered in flames. My concern is that there is little point on having a fire spreading talent when your talents will already cover everything in flames.

[astralInferno]

fire everywhere could get laggy...
(fire snake sounds cool)

[terri]

imho: gather flames: consume burning tiles to reduce cd of fire damage spells for a total amount of turns if there is an enemy on a burning tile on cast, enemies standing on a burning tile take some damage
it should be good for avoiding the issue of not having that much damagin spells

[astralInferno]

(I just published my Acid archmage addon. Won't bring it up here again, as it's only tangentially relevant)

[HousePet]

Yes I got carried away...

Water
Geyser: active. Radius 0->1, non projectile, water damage ball. +Freeze with Shiv.
Blinding Fog: active. Cloud that inflicts wet and weak blindness. +Slow with Shiv.
Tidal Wave: active. Physical/cold/knockback zone. Changes to Ice Storm with Shiv.
Water Serpent: active. Chaining watery beam that attempts to strangle and drown enemies. +Frozen Feet with Shiv.

Ice
Cryolock: active. Encase the target in thick block of ice. Does no damage. Can also be used to create a single wall block, or on yourself for a damage shield when in Shiv form. At TL5 it will damage in a radius of 1 when shattered.
Shivgoroth Form: active. Ice elemental shapechange. Alters Water talents.
Flashfreeze: active. Projectile ball that freezes wet creatures and cold damage. If Shiv, it shatters ice as well.
Uttercold: sustain. Cold mastery + iceblock pierce + chance of shattering.


Fire
Fireball: active. Radius 1 fire damage bolt. Doesn't hit caster.
Flare Shield: active. Temporary fire/cold damage reduction, defense and lite bonus. Blinds melee attackers at TL5. Leaves a trail of flames with Burning Wake.
Flameshock: active. Cone of fire that also inflicts Burning Shock.
Burning Wake: sustain All your Fire spells leave flames on the ground.

Wildfire
Blastwave: active. Fire/knockback damage nova.
Gather Flames: active. Consumes burning tiles around you to give increased spellpower. Also burns detrimental effects from you.
Dragon Whirl: active. Fire damage ball that gains power from burning tiles inside it. Burns beneficial effects.
Wildfire: sustain. Fire mastery. Reduces self inflicted fire damage.


Air
Chain Lightning: active. Change to lightning with daze chance and give it good damage.
Wind Step: active. Teleport to target location. Enemies in the way are thrown off balance. If Energise is active, they also take lightning damage.
Shock Nova: active. Lightning damage nova that inflicts daze. If Energise is active, it also lowers stun resistance.
Featherwind: sustain. buff

Storm
Thunderstorm: sustain. buff, reduce hits to radius 0.
Energise: active. Temporary spell speed, crit chance bonus and lightning affinity.
Electrocute: active. Target takes lightning damage over time. A penalty as well?
Tempest: sustain. Lightning mastery. Your lightning damage has a chance to arc to an adjacent enemy.


Earth
Pulverising Augur: active. Weak physical damage beam. If it hits a wall, the wall is destroyed and there is a radius 1 explosion.
Stoneskin: sustain. Physical damage reduction and phys save. Extends to all damage with Crystalline Focus.
Chasm: active. Radius 1->2 ball which does physical damage and pins.
Raise Wall: active. Creates a temporary 3 tile wide stone wall at the target. Damages and pushes aside in the way enemies.

Stone
Shard Storm: active. Radius 2 physical+bleed damage storm. Blocks incoming projectiles.
Petrification: active. Short range radius 1 ball which turns enemies to stone, slows if they save.
Earthwave: active. Cone of physical damage and knockback that creates a few random walls.
Crystalline Focus: sustain. Physical damage mastery. Spell save bonus. Skipping turns makes talents cooldown faster.


Arcane
Manathrust: active. Make it always a beam. At TL5 it gains a crosstier check to apply spellshock.
Mana Syphon: active. Cone of arcane/manaburn damage that restores mana based on damage done.
Arcane Sentry: active. Fires arcane bolts at random nearby enemies. Explodes if stepped on.
Disruption Shield: sustain. As is.

Aether
Aether Avatar: active. Remove arcane damage bonus. Add arcane damage resistance and increased spellpower.
Aether Breach: sustain. Randomly blasts arcane energy around you when Aether Avatar is active.
Arcane Torrent: active. Radius 1 beam of disarming arcane damage. Drain a percentage of your mana to increase its damage.
Pure Aether: Arcane Mastery. Allows Aegis in Aether Avatar mode. Increased mana regen.


Phantasm
Illuminate: active. As is.
Blur Sight: sustain. Increases defence and deflects incoming projectiles.
Invisibility: active. As is?
Phantasmal Armour: sustain. Increases armour and hardiness, does light damage to melee and ranged attackers.

Meta
Disperse Magic: active. Removes magical effects.
Quicken Spells: sustain. Reduced spell cooldown.
Magelock: active. Silences target.
Spellcraft: sustain. Damage spells spellshock. Reduced chance to hurt self.

Body - Also for Arcane Blades
Recovery: active. Instantly cures poisons/cuts/diseases. Investment reduces cooldown.
Overgrowth: active. Radius 2 pinning ball. Chance to create blocking trees. Inflicts poison at raw level 5.
Fatigue: active. Target enemy loses stamina/psi and gains equilibrium.
Regeneration: sustain. Life regen. Negative life bonus.

Mind - Also for Shadowblades
Sleep: active. Nearby enemies fall asleep.
Confusion: active. Nearby enemies are confused.
Metaflow: active. Resets spell cooldowns. Removes silence.
Dominate: active. Target becomes allied.

[Planetus]

HousePet

I love the interplay you have in Water/Ice, where each spell is decent on it's own, but also gets a different flavor from Shivgoroth.

I kind of like it in Fire/Wildfire as well, but it doesn't seem as much. Mostly just burning tiles and their use. Was that intentional? Is Fireball always radius 1, or does that grow with investment? Is Dragon Whirl a DoT, or instant ball? I like removing effects being split up and put into particular active abilities with cooldowns. I still don't think they thematically fit, myself, but I realize they're too popular to just abandon, and this is a good way to keep the option without making it quite as ubiquitous and OP.

Air/Lightning doesn't seem to have much interplay/synergy, but it is a decently offensive stand-alone element now.

Earth/Stone looks reworked to be more offensively viable, but I see no real synergy aside from the mastery. I liked the idea of doing something with the stones you created. Maybe at least give spells knockback, and if the target hits a wall (which you've made some) they take extra damage? Also, Crystalline Focus lets 'skipping turns' makes talents cool down faster? I'm not attracted by that idea too much, wasting one turn to get spells to cooldown for two. Maybe boost cooldown by how many turns you've stood still, with a cap that increases with talent level? Maybe a range of 50% faster (3 cooldown every 2 turns) to 150% faster (5 cooldown every 2 turns), but gets reset if you move by any means? So they can still cast spells and heal and generally do something in the battle, but are still somewhat limited, and the effect can be ended with sufficient knockback.

Arcane/Aether look good, but what do you mean by a 'radius 1 beam' for Aether Torrent? Is it basically a beam that's 3 tiles thick instead of 1? If so, cool. If not, I'm confused.

In Phantasm, maybe make Blur Sight give enemies a chance to target a tile next to you, similar to one of the rogue skills? Deflecting projectiles is good and all, but limited. Also, I've never been clear if that includes spell projectiles, or just arrows and bullets. I also like that it grants both armor AND defense, though they'd have to be in numbers that increase well with increased spellpower. 30 raw defense at level 50 isn't much if it's all you have, and while 30 armor is still 30 armor, it's not much if you're taking 500 damage.

I love the idea of Body and Mind, but Body seems a little more like Plant or Nature to me. Recovery could just be reconstructing the body, that works. Overgrowth is clearly plant-based. Fatigue boosting equilibrium sounds nature based, and I'd want to see the numbers be big at high spellpower. A sustained regen spell feels like it's co-opting the Fungus tree, and doing better since it saves you 2 inscription slots and 2 talents to invest heavily in. Also, I'm assuming that Metaflow would somehow be available while silenced.

[HousePet]

One of the tricky things when you have 5 different elements to fit is finding 5 different synergy mechanics.
So while Water has Wet/Freeze/Shatter and Shiv Form, Fire only has burning tile usage.
Fireball is always radius 1. Dragon Whirl is instant ball, but will add burning tiles.

Air and Earth didn't come out as well as Water and Fire.
Was thinking along the lines of strong single hits which could be spread with Tempest and was trying to fit some stun resist reduction and dazing spells in there too, while adding some mobility and utility...
Looking at it again, it might not really need some stun resistance reduction, since it isn't relying on something like Hurricane triggering to do sensible damage. Maybe move the stun resistance reduction to Electrocute and have Shock Nova inflict stun if Energise is active instead.

Earth/Stone does need another way to use walls. With two knockback talents, doing extra damage if enemies hit a wall sounds good.
The skipping turns for faster cooldowns thing came about as I thought that Body of Stone was just thematically too similar to Stoneskin. Could change it to give stacks of spell cooldown reduction and stun resist while you are not moving?

Aether Torrent is a beam that is 3 tiles thick.

For Blur Sight, I did mean the effect that causes incoming projectiles to target a tile adjacent to you. Boosting the existing numbers is not an issue.

Body was Nature in design, but for some reason I thought at the last second that it wasn't really Naturey enough and somehow forgot that Overgrowth was there.
Regeneration will not be stronger than going Fungus with continuous Regeneration Infusions.

Yes, Metaflow would be available when silenced...

Undecided whether Nature or Mind should be locked by default or not.

[Planetus]

So, Water changes form as you change your use of it (the various effects of Shivgoroth form), Fire spreads and feeds on itself as it spreads, Earth uses itself to work with itself, and Air/Lightning...? I think spreading itself to others would be a good theme somehow, so maybe have something that causes any target hit by an air/lightning spell to have a chance to trigger a different air/lightning spell targetting another enemy? Each enemy you yourself hit with Chain Lightning has a chance to trigger Shock Nova. Any enemy you yourself hit with Shock Nova has a chance to trigger Electrocute. The enemy you target with Electrocute has a chance each turn to cast Lightning (Chain Lightning without chaining) at a nearby enemy.

And Aether? Does it feed on the enemies, draining mana from them to you sometimes? Maybe even have one of the talents give a passive life leech chance and percentage.

I'd also say Body and Mind should be locked for an Archmage, but not for the AB and SB, and given the classic conflict between nature and magic, I wouldn't theme Body off nature too much. Make it more structure themed:
Cleanse - Active - Cleanse your body of physical imperfections, removing poisons, diseases (yes, they're magical, but still removed), cuts, deep wounds, etc.
Integrate - Sustained/Passive? - Every time you cast a spell of any of the following elements, you gain an associated effect for X turns:
Fire - Increase global speed by X%
Cold - Gain a damage shield of power X for 3 turns
Lightning - Increase all critical chances by X% and critical multiplier by X%
Earth - Increase Resist All by X%
Arcane - Increase physical, mental, and spellpower by X
Temporal - Increase all saves by X
Darkness - Increase Affinity All by X(small)%
Light - Increase Damage All by X%
Fatigue - Active - Drain the target of resources (can hit any resource, increasing Paradox and Equilibrium) while feeding yourself stamina based on resources hit
Reintegration - Sustained - Continuous HP regen, low compared to Fungus, decrease any new negative status effect duration by X while active, and allow to survive up to -X HP

[HousePet]

Magic doesn't care if Nature is all grumpy, it can still do Naturey things and reverse Corruption if it wants to.
Doesn't make sense to give a Nature category to Arcane Blade though, so I'll just have to make a Body and a Nature category!
Archmage can have Nature. Arcane Blade and Necromancer can have Body.

[astralInferno]

Integrate - Sustained/Passive? - Every time you cast a spell of any of the following elements, you gain an associated effect for X turns:
Fire - Increase global speed by X%
Cold - Gain a damage shield of power X for 3 turns
Lightning - Increase all critical chances by X% and critical multiplier by X%
Earth - Increase Resist All by X%
Arcane - Increase physical, mental, and spellpower by X
Temporal - Increase all saves by X
Darkness - Increase Affinity All by X(small)%
Light - Increase Damage All by X%

Mm. This makes me think, I'd really like a generic (the word, not the game term) category to allow you to go All-In on one element. Something like (10 second ideation)
-Energy blast: Choose an element (via sustain?). Activate for Bolt of that damage.
-Child of Energy: heavy resistance to that element. (This is how Urkis gets his massive lightning resist...)
-Energy Call: Summon either elementals or dragons. (Random which, but always of your element. wyrms/greaters at high level?)
-specialist Supreme: high resist pen for your element. (No-one else deserves it. those fire drakes will burn)

...2 and 4 should maybe be the same talent. idk? then maybe another damage talent? meh.

[HousePet]

How about Air having a mechanic where you inflict a Charged debuff on enemies, then when you hit them with lightning damage it makes a small lightning explosion?