Let's talk Fire Spells

[Yosharian]

5 minutes ago, Livegood118 said:

By mid-level there's no reason why your wizard shouldn't be nomming crusted-swordfish most rests (wait 26 hours for ingredients to restock).

Ok this is a good suggestion

[Livegood118]

39 minutes ago, Yosharian said:

Ok but for AOE we better hope that there isn't a mix of weaknesses in a given group otherwise why bother using AOE at all.

I can't think of any encounter like this off the top of my head. There are enemies which will be strong vs. both by having general high DR, but generally speaking you won't find fire immunes and frost immunes in the same place (Beast of Winter probably contains a few exceptions)

[MaxQuest]

Jayd said:

Can Meteor Shower be spell shaped? I noticed that Storm of Holy Fire cannot be and they are very similar spells. I guess it's a balance thing since Storm would benefit too much from a smaller radius?

Meteor Shower and Storm of Holy Fire can't be spell shaped. Just checked it.

Jayd said:

I'm pretty sure SoHF projectiles just come down as they see fit.

Ooh, thank you for bringing this up.

I was under impression that each "projectile" hits 1 target every 3s. So if there are 2 rotghasts, there will be 8 main hits over 9s duration.
Turns out it was just a concidence)))

Have payed attention this time, and indeed SoHF projectiles are random. Also have made an experiment:
- casted SoHF with 1 rotghast being on just the edge of main AoE: he was usually hit 2-3 times, over 11s.
- casted SoHF with 1 rotghast being in the center of main AoE: and he was hit 14 times.

Livegood118 said:

I'm still not quite getting this. When you say "Each meteor targets one unit", do you mean either:

- there is a finite number of meteors that will fall down within the large AoE every 3 seconds, and, assuming enough units are present within the large AoE as there are meteors, each meteor will target one of the units (If there are more units than meteors, I assume the meteors are allocated to units at random)? or

- one meteor will hit each unit within the large AOE per three seconds?

I assume it's the former rather than the latter, as the latter would seem to run contrary to my experience of using an empowered meteor shower vs. Bel-Ranga and taking off about 50% of her health. 

Either way I can see how units being clumped together would drastically increase the power of the spell. Meteor shower also seems to really benefits from power level, gaining damage, accuracy, duration, penetration, area (and maybe number of meteors per 3 secs?).

I've meant the second as I've thought that to be the case at the time of posting... but it is actually random (although projectiles have a much higher chance to hit a target near the center of main AoE, rather than on edge)

Edited April 28, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Ivanfyodorovich]

8 hours ago, Boeroer said:

You shouldn't forget that you not only get Power Level scaling from additional (item) bonuses but also from your own level progression. Fireball is a tier 3 spell with 7 PEN. At the time you can cast it 7 base PEN isn't the end of the world. The you'll add PEN with every additional PL over 3 AND the bonuses you accumulate. A PL 7 char already gets a bonus on Fireball of +4.

You also get a .5 Pen per Ability Level -1 of the spell. Fireball should have +1 Pen just from Ability level (Ability Level 3-1=2*.5 pen=1 pen)

From Thelee's PL Compilation Thread:

Quote

General guidelines: First of all, tool-tip accuracy is inaccurate and inconsistent. The one you see when you right-click on an ability ignores ability and power level scaling. The one you see when you hover over the ability in your HUD ignores power level scaling, but counts ability level scaling. Anyway, regardless of power level, there is a scaling ability level accuracy bonus, which is equal to 2 * (power_level - 1) of the spell. So a PL3 spell will inherently have a +4 ability level accuracy bonus, whereas a PL1 spell will have none. There is also a scaling ability level penetration bonus, which is equal to +.5 per ability level.

Here's an example of the baked in bonuses to Pen you get before you ever add bonus PL (this doesn't include prestige, buffs, etc.). 

Ability Level	AL Pen Bonus	MC PL Pen Bonus at 20	SC PL Pen Bonus at 20	MC Total Base Pen Bonus	SC total Base Pen Bonus
1	0	1.5	2	1.5	2
2	0.5	1.25	1.75	1.75	2.25
3	1	1	1.5	2	2.5
4	1.5	0.75	1.25	2.25	2.75
5	2	0.5	1	2.5	3
6	2.5	0.25	0.75	2.75	3.25
7	3	0	0.5	3	3.5
8	3.5		0.25		3.75
9	4		0		4

So for a MC Wizard at level 20, that 7 pen Fireball is actually 9 pen before adding any bonus PL or other pen Buffs. Scion takes it to 10. Add 4 PL for 11. Add food or Tenacious for 13. The AL bonus is why higher level spells are better than the low level ones, even with PL scaling. Meteor Shower actually has a base pen of 11 (as well as +16 bonus Accuracy from Ability Level). 

Edited April 28, 2019 by Ivanfyodorovich

[Jayd]

4 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

Meteor Shower and Storm of Holy Fire can't be spell shaped. Just checked it.

Ooh, thank you for bringing this up.

I was under impression that each "projectile" hits 1 target every 3s. So if there are 2 rotghasts, there will be 8 main hits over 9s duration.
Turns out it was just a concidence)))

Have payed attention this time, and indeed SoHF projectiles are random. Also have made an experiment:
- casted SoHF with 1 rotghast being on just the edge of main AoE: he was usually hit 2-3 times, over 11s.
- casted SoHF with 1 rotghast being in the center of main AoE: and he was hit 14 times.

I've meant the second as I've thought that to be the case at the time of posting... but it is actually random (although projectiles have a much higher chance to hit a target near the center of main AoE, rather than on edge)

Nice; thank you for the testing. I felt like enemies at the edge took less damage but didn't know how dramatic it was. That's good info because it's really tempting to try to get some enemies right next to your party with just the edge of the circle.

 

As for the penetration controversy, doesn't seem like much of an issue. Ivan showed how much PEN you get just for existing so the base PEN listed on tooltips is silly to base an argument on and get upset about.

[Yosharian]

For ****'s sake.  So much math and mechanics that is hidden from the player.

Thanks for explaining, guys.

[Yosharian]

12 hours ago, Livegood118 said:

I can't think of any encounter like this off the top of my head. There are enemies which will be strong vs. both by having general high DR, but generally speaking you won't find fire immunes and frost immunes in the same place (Beast of Winter probably contains a few exceptions)

I wasn't referring to immunes, but relatively high armor creatures mixed in with other types

But with this food buff I think it's not so big an issue (although the food is quite expensive when you start dishing it out to every party member and using it every rest)

[heldred]

I know this topic has evolved, but returning to the original questions and considering the valuable insight as the string progressed, I find myself thinking about:

1) Delayed Fireball is rubbish, due to its absurd delay and the number of options that hit as hard with no delay.   This should do higher damage or enable the timer to be set with Spell Shaping mechanic (no AOE, just long or short timer - even then should do more damage).  It really is pointless in a game that moves relatively quickly and dynamically.   In turn-based, it would be like the spell going off 4 rounds later.  I know Delayed Fireball doesn't work this way in turn-based, but it shows how stupid this spell truly is.  I can't think of a situation where I would want my damage to be delayed, since I can always wait and buff, de-buff, cc, etc., until mobs align better.

2) Focusing on a specific type of damage is fine (Fire Caster, Ice Caster, etc.), but it should be a bit more efficient.  Last night I was starting a new party and I was thinking of designing a decay/poison Wizard.  There are spells for levels 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9...  which is very limited (gaps in a third of the levels).  In addition, the level 9 (Concelhaut's) option is an inferior spell (higher level than Cipher Disintegrate, which  basically does the same thing...  this doesn't compare well with other T8/T9 options).  In short, a caster should have a key specialization option at every level, even if CC or Debuff...  huge gaps are not fun, but more of a quality-of-life fix that could be adjusted with a Mod at this point.

3) Penetration on spells is fine for most of the game, but with the introduction of Megabosses, casters fall silent because: 1) Incredible defenses, with Fortitude, Reflex, Will, etc. being very high to hit... not impossible, but difficult with finite resources, 2) some insane Armor ratings to overcome for one boss, and 3) the enormous amount of hit points these  bosses have, when combined with the other factors, make finite spell casting vastly inferior to melee in this setting. 

As I go through the game, picking off god challenges on POTD, I find myself going back to multiclass-melee-casters, with a focus on renewable resources (pair with: cipher, monk, chanter, tactician, blood mage), since a pure caster really has a tough time reliably contributing to megabosses.  I have yet to see a video with a solo or group of casters take down Owhe or Doru, without degenerating into buffing up and melee.  To be clear, casters are top-tier in 98% of the game, but with the emergence of megabosses, casters need to fall back on a secondary class for melee survivability (fighter, paladin), or spec to have access to defensive buffs (trickster-rogue, wael-priest, wiz-martial-grimoire, etc.), and bring reliable, consistent weapon damage (mythic weapons, helpful weapon specializations, accuracy/penetration buffs, raw-damage weapons, DOT-raw weapons, unique weapon setups, damage/type options, etc.).

In summary, there really is no fix for megabosses, other than relying on melee.  However, I think 1) Delayed Fireball needs to be adjusted in patch, and 2) there should be more damage options for every class and damage type (probably a mod).   

Edited April 29, 2019 by heldred

[Jayd]

37 minutes ago, heldred said:

3) Penetration on spells is fine for most of the game, but with the introduction of Megabosses, casters fall silent because: 1) Incredible defenses, with Fortitude, Reflex, Will, etc. being very high to hit... not impossible, but difficult with finite resources, 2) some insane Armor ratings to overcome for one boss, and 3) the enormous amount of hit points these  bosses have, when combined with the other factors, make finite spell casting vastly inferior to melee in this setting. 

As I go through the game, picking off god challenges on POTD, I find myself going back to multiclass-melee-casters, with a focus on renewable resources (pair with: cipher, monk, chanter, tactician, blood mage), since a pure caster really has a tough time reliably contributing to megabosses.  I have yet to see a video with a solo or group of casters take down Owhe or Doru, without degenerating into buffing up and melee.  To be clear, casters are top-tier in 98% of the game, but with the emergence of megabosses, casters need to fall back on a secondary class for melee survivability (fighter, paladin), or spec to have access to defensive buffs (trickster-rogue, wael-priest, wiz-martial-grimoire, etc.), and bring reliable, consistent weapon damage (mythic weapons, helpful weapon specializations, accuracy/penetration buffs, raw-damage weapons, DOT-raw weapons, unique weapon setups, damage/type options, etc.).

In summary, there really is no fix for megabosses, other than relying on melee.  However, I think 1) Delayed Fireball needs to be adjusted in patch, and 2) there should be more damage options for every class and damage type (probably a mod).   

This is one of my favourite games of all time, and I do love a challenge, but stuff like this is why I don't care to fight megabosses. They are such sharp deviations from the normal parameters of combat in this game that character strength simply doesn't translate from context A (the whole game except megabosses) to context B (megabosses exclusively). Rather, they focus on making sure you have specific strategies that can pick apart the encounters, not because those strategies are inherently strong, but because they are the only way to deal with this or that aspect of a megaboss, where that aspect is often just how high a defense stat or their HP pool is.

That's a dull and awkward way to design endgame encounters. They should feel like culminations of the skills and knowledge you gained throughout the game, not utter departures from your previous challenges. It's like taking tennis players and having them do a challenge that requires good tennis skills but also demands other qualities that are only tangentially related to regular tennis rules (maybe only very tall people can do it comfortably). That wouldn't be taken seriously as an ultimate challenge for tennis players because it's not really the same game.

Encounters like Nemnok and the FS boss are more in line with what peak challenges should look like, though they are a bit easy for that. 

Anyway, the point is, I don't think megabosses should influence anyone's opinion on how "strong" any type of character is (not that that's what you were saying, heldred).

[Livegood118]

5 hours ago, heldred said:

I know this topic has evolved, but returning to the original questions and considering the valuable insight as the string progressed, I find myself thinking about:

1) Delayed Fireball is rubbish, due to its absurd delay and the number of options that hit as hard with no delay.   This should do higher damage or enable the timer to be set with Spell Shaping mechanic (no AOE, just long or short timer - even then should do more damage).  It really is pointless in a game that moves relatively quickly and dynamically.   In turn-based, it would be like the spell going off 4 rounds later.  I know Delayed Fireball doesn't work this way in turn-based, but it shows how stupid this spell truly is.  I can't think of a situation where I would want my damage to be delayed, since I can always wait and buff, de-buff, cc, etc., until mobs align better.

2) Focusing on a specific type of damage is fine (Fire Caster, Ice Caster, etc.), but it should be a bit more efficient.  Last night I was starting a new party and I was thinking of designing a decay/poison Wizard.  There are spells for levels 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9...  which is very limited (gaps in a third of the levels).  In addition, the level 9 (Concelhaut's) option is an inferior spell (higher level than Cipher Disintegrate, which  basically does the same thing...  this doesn't compare well with other T8/T9 options).  In short, a caster should have a key specialization option at every level, even if CC or Debuff...  huge gaps are not fun, but more of a quality-of-life fix that could be adjusted with a Mod at this point.

3) Penetration on spells is fine for most of the game, but with the introduction of Megabosses, casters fall silent because: 1) Incredible defenses, with Fortitude, Reflex, Will, etc. being very high to hit... not impossible, but difficult with finite resources, 2) some insane Armor ratings to overcome for one boss, and 3) the enormous amount of hit points these  bosses have, when combined with the other factors, make finite spell casting vastly inferior to melee in this setting. 

Agree with 1. I'm really not sure what the hell I'm supposed to use Delayed Blast Fireball for. 

Sort of disagree of with 2 - I think it's OK that classes have a few damage types that they're really good at and some they're weaker at. For example, the Wizard is strong in Fire, Frost, Missiles but not quite as proficient in raw, lightning, poison, corrode. Otherwise class diversity would potentially be undermined - think about the effect you're proposing would have on the usefulness of the Druid vis a vis the Wizard, for example. 

Disagree with 3. Other than against Dorudugan, my Wizard was invaluable vs. every megaboss. In these fights for every character in your squad you really need to be using everything you have at your disposal. In the case of a Wizard, this means using Brilliant, Wizard self-buffs and a range of buffs from elsewhere in combination with Wall of Draining for (effectively) infinite duration (similar approach needed with Priest + salvation of time). Bel-Ranga's Deflection and Reflex get to acceptable levels as the fight progresses, Auranic's defences aren't the issue in her fight and Haunai has lowish deflection and reflex which also get better as the fight progresses. I haven't found penetration to be an issue on any of the megabosses apart from Dorudugan whose whole shtick is that no class can really do good damage to him and you have to whittle him down over time.

[Boeroer]

I think the base dmg of Delayed Fireball is quite ok.

I use the delay (which of course is a downside in general) for:

- moving party members out of the AoE. I don't have to wait with the cast.

- I can cast Delayed Fireball first and Pull of Eora after (instead of the other way round) which gives me a somewhat longer use of PoE.

- timing attack rolls from one wizard so that the rolls happen at the same time (or close). What I mean is: if I fight some enemies with healing it's better to have attack rolls with not too much pause in between. So I can cast a delayed and a normal fireball and they go off at the same time, making healing in between impossible (and possibly killing the targets).

- what I didn't test but which might be a good use of the delay: if not the casting but instead the explosion breaks stealth (?) you maybe could first cast two delayed fireballs and another dmg spell right from stealth (remember the 85% recover bonus you get from stealth).

Edited April 29, 2019 by Boeroer
typo

[Livegood118]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

- what I didn't test but which might be a good use of the delay: if not the casting but instead the explosion breaks stealth (?) you maybe could first cast two delayed fireballs and another dmg spell right from stealth (remember the 85% recover bonus you get from stealth).

This is definitely doable with at least one DB Fireball. A second might not give your Wizard time to get away. 

[heldred]

On 4/29/2019 at 3:02 AM, Boeroer said:

I think the base dmg of Delayed Fireball is quite ok.

I use the delay (which of course is a downside in general) for:

- moving party members out of the AoE. I don't have to wait with the cast.

- I can cast Delayed Fireball first and Pull of Eora after (instead of the other way round) which gives me a somewhat longer use of PoE.

- timing attack rolls from one wizard so that the rolls happen at the same time (or close). What I mean is: if I fight some enemies with healing it's better to have attack rolls with not too much pause in between. So I can cast a delayed and a normal fireball and they go off at the same time, making healing in between impossible (and possibly killing the targets).

- what I didn't test but which might be a good use of the delay: if not the casting but instead the explosion breaks stealth (?) you maybe could first cast two delayed fireballs and another dmg spell right from stealth (remember the 85% recover bonus you get from stealth).

I think the damage of Delayed Fireball (DF) is substandard, for a couple of reasons...

1) I think 4.5 sec cast time is crazy for spell that has an inherent delay (should be 3.0 secs like standard Fireball, but just an opinion)

2) Same old Penetration of 7 (compared to standard Fireball) - yeah I know, every spell is basically Pen 7, but it could use a bump here, if no increase in damage

3) It does do higher base damage (compared to standard Fireball), but you need to consider a player can spam 2-3 spells (with 2-3x the chance to hit or crit) in the same time it takes to cast and wait for this spell.  It feels like this spell has a 5-6 second delayed explosion (or maybe I am impatient... scratch-that, I'm impatient), but I couldn't find a tooltip or online reference to the precise delay...  more hidden Obsidian math

 

Anyway, I suppose the use of DF comes down to play-style.  For me, the edge-cases of casting from stealth or timing with Pull of Eora are interesting considerations, but become less important in a game where most battle are settled in under 10 seconds (post level 10ish, when these spells become available).  

 

 

[brasilgringo]

So my two cents adjusted for the topic.

One of the cool things that my Deathless Thaumaturge build really liked doing was wading into groups of enemies and just casting SoHF and PoHF right on top of himself/them (since he couldn't die, largely).  With +PL items they both hit really hard, and the not-dying part was what made it fun.  It felt like priests in some cases get more mileage out of the fire spells, whereas with MC Wizard you can use the Ninagauth's teachings book and rely on ice-related AOEs etc.