Probability Travel can get some love

[St_ranger_er]

I found that skill very mechanicaly enjoying. It's like dwarven stonewalking but you doesn't need to be a dwarf, break LoS or make some distance between you and enemies in one move into the wall.

Unfortuantely this doesn't come without a flaws.
First - 200 mana Is a no joke even for lategame. this cost is ridiculous, on par with alchemist body of fire. When you have Essence of Speed for 250. Good luck to get both on Shadowblade.
Second - Clunkiness. Wanna open the door when have that sustain activated? Nope, enjoy your TP behind it instead, or do nothing on vault doors. Stumbled/misclicked into the wall? Praise the gods if there is no exit point and move do nothing. Same situation with knockback. Although the last one I can see as intended game mechanic.

As you may notice the main issue is manacost and door interaction.

Fixing the door interaction, I believe, somewhat harder then tweak few numbers, although there is a main way to get skill more apealing. It can be achieved by granting activatable power while sustain is on (think of jumpgate, kinda similar, but not exactly), That also prevented unwilling moves. Or main focus should be on door interaction, that way old mechanics would preserve their state.

As for manacost, I see 2 ways to workaround: make activate susutain instant with high manacost (emergency button), or reduce manacost, but keep activation time.


For reference: http://tometips.github.io/#talents/spell/conveyance

[Chronosplit]

Doors and probability travel can have LoS trickery if you're crafty. For example scout behind the door, if something huge is in there just teleport out by Phase Door or Teleport (or even a rune/Haste of the Doomed for OOP buff). You have just checked the door, but the enemy still needs to open the door to get to you. It's gimmicky and only has uses for a couple of situations (doors aren't exactly walls), but it can be a thing on an Arcane Blade or something.

As for the mana cost, yeah that's pretty large and it's one of the main reasons why people don't pick it up. Maybe if it just drained Mana every time you used the ability instead, like Shadow Combat but much larger? Making it activatable for a few turns just makes it a worse Gem Portal IMO.

[Lokean]

Second - Clunkiness. Wanna open the door when have that sustain activated? Nope, enjoy your TP behind it instead, or do nothing on vault doors. Stumbled/misclicked into the wall? Praise the gods if there is no exit point and move do nothing. Same situation with knockback. Although the last one I can see as intended game mechanic.

Fixing the door interaction, I believe, somewhat harder then tweak few numbers

Knockback tags movement as forced, and forced movement shouldn't trigger probability travel. Misclicking into a wall is entirely the player's error, so I don't see that as something in need of addressing; just don't move into walls you don't want to move through.

For doors, here's a fix:
https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/probability_fix_door

This is managed from an option under Game Options - Gameplay - Zero-probability doors, in case you decide you don't like the behaviour.