Chronomancy Transversion Discussion

[HousePet]

I didn't say anything about reducing spellpower by moving closer to magic. Then again, I didn't say anything about increasing it either. My bad.

I would still keep Magic as a secondary stat, and would have Quantum Feed still boost Magic.

Magic without Willpower means:
- Paradox talents have to be used sparingly. Limited Paradox power boost.
- Rune of the Rift will have low damage and duration as it scales with Willpower.
- Tons of Spellpower, but no resources to use it.
- No stamina on a class that uses weapon talents. (Arcane Blade has Burning Hands for regenerating Stamina)

So really, Willpower and Spellpower are the important stats. Magic is just a source of Spellpower. Maybe change Quantum Feed to be a source of Spellpower? Talent requirement can be easily changed from Magic to Willpower, or even have it pick whichever is higher. Since you aren't weilding staves, you don't need Magic for item requirements.

There are stamina using talents, but there should be more.

Paradox Mastery could be buffed a bit.

[Doctornull]

My only thought on this is that it seems like a lot of PM talents could do a bit more damage.

PM attacks do seem lower damage than Archmage attacks, but for some reason my PM characters survive quite well (on Normal and Nightmare, haven't tried Insane or Madness).

I think willpower should be *more* central to a TW.
As it is, it's mostly used for talent requirements, and magic provides a better effect for your stat points.
If paradox were to be changed to be more willpower-focused, it would make wil a good choice for both TW and PM.

I think we all agree that:
- Currently the only reason a TW cares about Willpower is to qualify for talents; and
- Whatever stat the Chronomancy talents rely on should be more central to the character.

IMHO it is much more natural for a Spellpower-based character to build Magic for Spellpower directly, rather than build Willpower for a sustain that pays 20% of Willpower as Magic.

The fact is, the TW pays 100 Stamina for two sustains pretty much only to make Stamina artificially scarce. Get rid of that 100 point Stamina tax, and you don't need to build Willpower to use your very limited supply of Stamina talents.

I didn't say anything about reducing spellpower by moving closer to magic. Then again, I didn't say anything about increasing it either. My bad.

Are you responding to me? If you could quote what you mean, I might be able to clarify?

Magic without Willpower means:
- Paradox talents have to be used sparingly. Limited Paradox power boost.
- Rune of the Rift will have low damage and duration as it scales with Willpower.
- Tons of Spellpower, but no resources to use it.
- No stamina on a class that uses weapon talents. (Arcane Blade has Burning Hands for regenerating Stamina)

In reverse order:
- TW has Invigorate, which is better than Flaming Hands. If you use my addon pack, which you'd have to do to get these proposed addon changes, you'd also have access to Reversion Cache which is also good at restoring Stamina.
- Tons of Spellpower = your Temporal Wake lands its Stuns = high damage from Weapon Folding = more damage and reliable effects from Stop and Slow = more reliable Swap. Every activated talent, and several of the powerful Sustains, care about Spellpower.
- If you fail your Spellpower apply check, the Rune of the Rift has zero duration. That sucks worse than cutting a round or two off the end.
- Currently, with 400 Paradox worth of sustains, Paradox indeed must be used sparingly. I'm giving the TW 300 Paradox headroom over the current situation.

The TW is a great case of manufactured scarcity. That scarcity is artificial and can be very easily removed. Removing that scarcity creates design space for cool things, and allows the TW to actually land effects reliably.

[HousePet]

Your main (only?) objection to reducing Magic in favour of Willpower is that you would then have bad Spellpower.
There is no reason not to have both high Willpower and Spellpower. We just need something a bit better than Quantum Feed. Or maybe just a better Quantum feed. Other arcane fighter hybrid classes do it okay.

[Doctornull]

Your main (only?) objection to reducing Magic in favour of Willpower is that you would then have bad Spellpower.

Spellpower is a thing that impacts the TW heavily.
Willpower is a thing that does not.
Thus, if the TW can afford only one of them, let's make it pay for the one that has impact.

Getting rid of the Willpower requirements (and scaling for Strength of Purpose) removes the only justification for building high Willpower.

There is no reason not to have both high Willpower and Spellpower. We just need something a bit better than Quantum Feed. Or maybe just a better Quantum feed. Other arcane fighter hybrid classes do it okay.

I'll tell you what's a better Quantum Feed: building Magic so you get Spellpower.

Other arcane hybrid classes use Magic. They have ways to pump Spellpower in addition to the Magic investment, not instead of it.

[malboro_urchin]

Doc, I have to say I agree with streamlining the TW into dex/mag. Classes dependent on 4 stats are just...ugh.

I assume you'll change a thread title or some such when these changes show up in Nulltweaks?

[Doctornull]

I assume you'll change a thread title or some such when these changes show up in Nulltweaks?

Absolutely, yes.

[HousePet]

Arcane Blade doesn't seem to have major issues with lots of useful stats.

But anyway, what if the paradox modifier improved your spellpower for beating spellsave purposes?

Then with some sort of dexterity boosting sustain, the class could have no required stats, they would all be optional.

[Doctornull]

Arcane Blades have a major issue in their widely discussed difficult start, due to needing lots of different stats. You've been here for a while, you ought to know this. AB can be very successful in spite of their difficult stat spread, because being a gear packrat will pay off heavily and their late-game power is brutally awesome. Also note that their stat boosting talent scales with Spellpower (Magic) so they're not as bad off as the TW who has to build Willpower for stat boosts.

If you tie status landing to high Paradox, then the TW will either fail to land status because of low Paradox, or fail to cast at all because of high Paradox. It would be very suboptimal for the TW unless you substantially change how Paradox works, since unlike the PM, the TW has no good ways of operating at high Paradox... except maybe Temporal Form, but that would mean having high Magic and OH LOOK HIGH MAGIC IS A GOOD IDEA.

Then with some sort of dexterity boosting sustain, the class could have no required stats, they would all be optional.

You are seriously proposing adding more sustains to the Temporal Warden.

Are you just joking around?

[HousePet]

Well Temporal Warden could raise willpower to manage high paradox. That is what the stat is supposed to do.

Why not have more sustains? You only need to use the ones that cover your stat gaps.
Then you can pick whichever stats you want to focus in and use the sustains to make it work.

Thematically, you need willpower and magic to use chronomancy. Unfortunately willpower isn't that useful mechanically. It seems wrong to be saying that Paradox Mage needs more reasons to take willpower and that Temporal Warden needs less at the same time.

By using chronomancy you can buff other stats up. Should this class need to focus in dexterity? I would expect that to be easier to improve with chronomancy than strength.

Magic being only decent source of spellpower is clearly evidence of a hidden magocracy, maybe Zigur are right?!
That bit was joking.

I am mostly arguing for willpower on thematic grounds, but also on the grounds of improving stat diversity. There are 4 types of magic available in the game, and they all basically just use the magic stat. It doesn't help that the magic stat is basically the only reasonable source of spellpower.

As you are suggesting making it more feasible for Paradox Mage to choose between levelling willpower or constitution as a secondary stat, I would like to this hybrid class not pidgeon holed into requiring high magic, especially as it isn't a primary caster.

Sorry, rambling.

[Orangeflame]

How about...

Quantum Feed
+X Magic (a little lower than currently)
Willpower grants Spellpower equal to X (20%-60%?) of Willpower
Magic grants (100% minus X) Spellpower.

and similar changes to Strength of Purpose?

[Doctornull]

Well Temporal Warden could raise willpower to manage high paradox. That is what the stat is supposed to do.

The thing is, this whole thread is predicated on the discovery that TW willpower cannot mitigate high paradox. PM can do exactly that, because they get Paradox Mastery and because they depend on fewer stats so they can stack Willpower.

Thematically, you need willpower and magic to use chronomancy. Unfortunately willpower isn't that useful mechanically. It seems wrong to be saying that Paradox Mage needs more reasons to take willpower and that Temporal Warden needs less at the same time.

The one who can make good mechanical use of high Willpower should do exactly that, and the other one should not do. What the heck seems wrong about that?

Should this class need to focus in dexterity?

A bow class needs Dexterity for bows. A dual-dagger class needs Dexterity for its daggers and for its dual-wielding of the aforementioned daggers.

Quantum Feed (...)

It might be possible to twist every talent until a pure-Willpower build was viable, but why do that when it's not necessary?

What's the motivation for keeping Will as the dominant stat for the TW?

[Orangeflame]

What's the motivation for keeping Will as the dominant stat for the TW?

Lore and Canon, all Hail!


In seriousness, even without the lore, I'd prefer that chronomancy is willpower-based, rather than magic-based, just to be different from the other schools of magic.

[Doctornull]

What's the motivation for keeping Will as the dominant stat for the TW?

Lore and Canon, all Hail!

Still applies for PM, who still favors maxing out Magic as well as Willpower.

In seriousness, even without the lore, I'd prefer that chronomancy is willpower-based, rather than magic-based, just to be different from the other schools of magic.

Vim, Mana and Paradox all reward Willpower to some degree. TW uses Stamina, and that rewards some Willpower investment also.

Having Will as a tertiary rather than as the primary stat means the TW will still put some value in Will, just not as much as before.

PM will still value high Willpower, just like before.

[malboro_urchin]

I think it's best if Wil becomes a tertiary stat for TW's (with Dex and Mag as primary, and I'd say Con as secondary). Having skill prereqs based on a stat requires too much investment for that stat to be a tertiary stat, imo.

Aside: Docnull, do you think you'll be coming up with new skills to replace the TW's MAD-syndrome-based sustains (Quantum Feed, and maybe the other one, I dunno)?

[Doctornull]

Aside: Docnull, do you think you'll be coming up with new skills to replace the TW's MAD-syndrome-based sustains (Quantum Feed, and maybe the other one, I dunno)?

Yeah upthread I outlined an inverse "Timeless" effect which would basically reduce the duration of the target's beneficial effects, add some turns to its cooldowns, etc., to replace Quantum Feed.

Strength of Purpose is boring and weak but serviceable as-is, at a lower sustain cost.