Elric Galad

Believe it or not, I was thinking about this spell during this weak. I was unsure. Basically it is a slower Disintigrate (with about the same damages... except it benefits less from PL as a Tier 9, with an affliction on top of it that synergizes pretty well. I think that Cipher zre supposed to be a bit better at Single Target damages. Enfeebled tends to synergizes with itself, which implies I would have to reduce the base duration so the final duration doesn't change. Reflexion in progress, share your thoughts. EDIT : It could also be a hard -100% healing, replacing CON Affliction. This won't necessarily stronger, but at least unique. At Tier 9, tools bypassing Resistance are neat.

Do copies also copy your accessories ? For some reasons, I thought it was only Armor and Weapons (except for Dichotomous case for the later)

Thanks ! Feedback is always appreciated ! I think the only Per Rest ability that I remember using is Marux Amanth Worthy Sacrifice, obviously because of its -25% Megaboss headache trait.

Not the BPM nerfs, though 🙂 (because it adds 3s recovery to Blood Sacrifice 🙂 )

Beware, this 25 Max Focus (actually 5+lvl) per kill is a BPM feature. Without BPM it is only 10 Max Focus (which is totally unsignificant later on to say the least). It's not that much that Soulblades needed a buff, just that unsignificant features are dumb.

That was my point. Creating something that is cool but inferior to Spark the Souls overall. Still 12-20 RAW per vessels damages in bigger AoE than Spark the Soul, a bit of Distracted spamming should be neat when built around. But yeah, it is strong with Death of 1000 cuts, but this was intended too as a way to buff SC Ciphers last Tiers.

Eventually, I will go for this Entropy as a Single Target 15s autohit go guaranteed Hit to Crit. This would be ideal as a Wildstrike Frenzy enabler without being OP. Bouncing version was a bit too good. Also I will set Hand of Berath to 42s fixed (7 TB rounds) instead of mere 30s. It was already -10 PL autohit. The idea is that the few targets deserving it had so much Resolve that it was hardly worth casting. I like the idea that a god intervention toward a specific target basically negates all defenses, and the caster is a mere conduct in this very case. EDIT : second thought, not a bright idea, only Dorudugan has Resolve above 30, Resolve can be lowered anyway, and creating exception is never great on a ruleset. I'm simply going to rise the duration of Hand of Berath to 45s since it is a Tier 9 that simply debuff . (It was already -10 PL autohit.) Also buffing Skaen Sphere to -25 accuracy so it worth the Tier 9 spot.

BPM and CP didn't touch Ancient Weapons though. They were always fine.

I've set Play Dead to 12s to get 2 round in TB. For Withdraw, I'm hesitating. Rounding up to 24s (4 TB Turns) would be the closest to the original duration, but I fear it could make Hylea's challenge very tedious. That's why I'm leaning toward 30s (5 TB Turns). With a reasonable Intellect and a few PL, that's what a Priest will get anyway. What do you think ?

That's what I'm going to tweak to only 10% less per hit indeed. It matters a bit, though, if you use a Whale of a Wand (and still cast it) 🙂 But there's better spell to abuse with the wand anyway. I'll make sure it can boost twice on the same target. 10% reduction per bounce still lead to 43% damages on the 8th bounce (boucing reduction is multiplicative, not additive, fortunately). That's more damages on each of 2 targets than Sunlance for 1 target (provided PEN matches AR of course). It also benefits from higher PL. It targets Deflection, which is usually a good idea. I think the spell would be OK. Still a bit meh compared to the widespread corrode and utility from Circle of Death and sheer damages of MPPB. That's why I think bouncing back to the same target is necessary and sufficient to make this spell good. Yeah that's how it is displayed. Your hypothesis is believable. I don't mind the decreasing damages, provided the overall damages are OK. Eld Nary is also fun because it is so slow at bouncing that it is somewhat of a DoT. Bouncing damages spell are indeed more interesting with bouncing back to same target, because it is what make them different, and more efficient when only 2-3 targets. By the way, BPM did something similar with Healing Chain which was a meh and uninspired AoE heal : it set to bouncing back slowly between friendly targets for a high number of bounce and now it is a strange HoT that can be focused on a small detachment from your party. The bouncing mechanics are really fun toplay around, but it seems the devs didn't seize the opportunity to make fun spells based on the mechanics they implemented.

Sorry, I poorly explained. Damages shield does not require fixed duration. BPM's BDD is a 12s damages shield that activate when near death. The duration scales normally with INT and PL (the near death conditional has infinite duration, same as Watchful Presence). I thought somehow that Beetle Shell should at least have a greater base duration. Comparing fixed and non-fixed duration was a bit misleading. But now that I'm thinking about it, Beetle Shell probably does not require fixed duration as much as Withdraw and Play Dead. So I'm probably going to leave it alone with its 10s scaling duration. (Note that BPM set Beetle Shell casting time to 0,5s, which was quite necessary for it to be useful) Beetle Shell does have a much superior range (15m vs 5m). This is a good point.

Good point. I think this could be changed. For both.

I think this spell aren't top tiers, but I don't plan to buff spells unless really subpar OR in case they have a very similar spell on the same level (Nature's Terror was a case) in direct concurrence for ressources. The approach is different for other classes with a singel pool of ressources. Bounce spells are party friendly and can be described as top cast when only 2 foes are standing so I think there are more or less fine. That said Firebug damages/PEN/bounce damages reduction seems too low. Boiling Spray can save a clothling by pushing. Malignant cloud deals Raw damages and poison type can somewhat be abused with Poison Immune party memeber acting as lures. So I think most of these spells are okayish. There are not top pick, but if for some reasons you want to pick them for a build, they will probably be useful under the right circonstances. But I'm going to address firebug. You can make suggestion about this one. I'm currently thinking only about setting the bounce damage reduction to -10% per bounce only (so -19% on the second bounce, etc...) instead of -25%.

Well, it's not that shocking to have an ability that doesn't scale. Most brisk Troubadour chants don't. Ironskin doesn't. I have a tiny doubt about durations. I'm usually not concerned about Turn-Based (I haven't experienced it enough to pretend BPM is in line with it), but when it comes to fixed durations (which can't scale with any means), I tend to round them as close as possible for multiple of 6s (1 round) Therefore I propose : Withdraw : 30s -> fixed 30s Play Death & upgrade : 10s -> fixed 12s Beetle Shell : 10s -> fixed 18s ??? I tend to think low duration is a bit less critical for this one, and a bit more duration can be useful for soaking damages. Also I wished it could be superior in some way to BPM's BDD (which provide 12s of 300 damages shield without side effect)

Beware about KW. Missing the KW on the status doesn't mean the status does not count as tagged, since I think it carries the ability/attack KW property.

That being said, the question from the OP is interesting, even if we leave apart Megabosses. Writ of Sorcery is pretty clear about what it target, and probably prevent effects the same way as I have more interrogation about Writ of War though. I guest that a Priest of Woedica/Berzeker can be ideal to test it on your own party, and adding Druids / Chanters / etc... can help testing it on various (summoned) monsters.

Scordeo's Edge accuracy buff... and Blade Cascade too by the way. Beza's Toothed blade debuff Armor Rating on Crit... for the whole party including your own abilities.

You should be careful about another point : Megabosses have huge Resolve. Debuffs tend to not last for long. And their sky high defenses mean you won't even debuff them reliably.

Ups, I meant Withdraw.

This would also make these spells much stronger, Sanctuary would become strictly better than beetle shell, and play dead basically an instant full heal ! Basically they would become "other abilities", something that I ususally don't want to do. And yeah, from a technical point of view, adding an off button to Sanctuary and Beetle Shell feels quite complicated and possibly impossible to do (play dead should be doable, but as stated above, would be almost broken). Also I don't know how AI would handle them. So yeah, I think I will go with fixed duration 🙂

I would be tempted to say that Play Dead, Withdraw and Beetle Shell should have fixed durations. Scaling with INT and PL being detrimental isn't super intuitive. It would at least be still compatible with low INT builds. What would you think about it ?

Well I like Ooblit being a bit different from the other, and there's a couple of short duration effect that still benefit a lot from it (Escape, Blade Turning, Lay on Hand, probably most chants). It is also important as a selling point for Eder as a SC Rogue if one want to use Vanishing Strikes.

I previously set Wall of Draining to -2s buff to foes / +0.25s buff to self in order to prevent abuses. Now I'm realizing this makes this spell almost useless and I plan to set it back to -2s buff to foes / +0.5s buff to self. At least 3 foes would still be required for infinite duration (due to wall missing), which is not that easy to set up (and to keep for long). Previously, the greatest offenders using WoD have been tweaked/nerfed : Unbending secondary effects can't be extended anymore, BDD and Shieldbearer's version only gives a damage shield (so can be extended to limited effect)... So even if WoD could still be abused in some ways, it won't break the game through them. There are still a couple of effects that could theoritically break the game with WoD : Scordeo's Blade Cascade and the 2 remaning prevent death effects : Potion of the Final Stand and Resurection. I plan to set these to FIXED duration to avoid any side effect : - Blade Cascade : 5s -> Fixed 6s - Resurrection Prevent Death : 20s -> Fixed 30s - Potion of the Final Stand : 6s -> Fixed 18s (could be extended through Alchemy, so deserves a bit better) Anyway I think it's better that such poweful effects can't be extended by any means. Note that the durations are multiple of 6s for better compatibility with TB (though I have no idea how Blade Cascade works in TB) Also note that BDD problem couldn't have been fixed through fixed duration cause one can recast it potentially infinitely (Potion of the Final Stand is limited as a consumable and Resurrection is limited by Wound limit - and supplies of Luminous Adra Potions)

I think the main issue is that your copy won't get your ability, so no Wildstrike. Spiritshift weapons on their own are rather meh (compared to top tier weapons). Cat, of course, isn't too bad, but still inferior to best weapons. Spiritshift Armor on the other hand is awesome. 8 base AR 0% recovery is equivalent to a +5 AR robe. +7 AR for bear. Hard to get better.

OK, I've tried adding the "Offensive" KW to Thunder Rolled attack (after spotting the bug by myself on this ability) and iyt does not work. Arcane Archer penalty check for Offensive KW, so it should have worked. This was weird from the beginning because Attacks normally inherit KW from abilities even if not present on the attack itself. AA should have checked the ability KW before appplying the penalty. To make it short, there is something weird going on and I can't fix it.