Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Elric Galad]

7 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Not technically an issue with this mod, but still a useful bugfix if possible: Chanter invocations count as spells for Shifters (cannot use invocations while shifted) but not for Arcane Archers (non-elemental invocations suffer an accuracy penalty as Arcane Archer). Would be more consistent if it counted as spells for both scenarios.

This is a nasty one.

Of course, both effects are not implemented the same, and the AA one is weird : it basically check all possible spell Keywords and if not, applies a penalty.

Both Offensive and non Offensive Invocation are listed though.

So my hypothesis (at 7am ) is that the cause is that the Attack component is missing the KW.

I should be able to individually add the KW to Invocation and check if it does the trick. Do you have an example of a non working one ?

I hope the same missing tags aren't causing similar effects on other classes because adding KW is a pain. Especially because it can conflict with other changes...

[NotDumbEnough]

Testing in the first combat, the -AR invocation has an accuracy penalty while the lightning one does not. Chants also have an accuracy penalty though I guess whether or not they really count as spells is arguable, as shifters can chant while transformed.

[NotDumbEnough]

Tested Trickster's Wall of Many Colors at the Wild Mare -- it seems that Murderous Intent does not work with Wall of Many Colors procs, but Wall of Flashing Steel does. Not sure if it's an issue with WoMC or Murderous Intent or just this particular combination, as well as whether or not it's caused by this mod.

[Elric Galad]

31 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Tested Trickster's Wall of Many Colors at the Wild Mare -- it seems that Murderous Intent does not work with Wall of Many Colors procs, but Wall of Flashing Steel does. Not sure if it's an issue with WoMC or Murderous Intent or just this particular combination, as well as whether or not it's caused by this mod.

Wall of Flashing Steel isn't tagged "weapon only" so it's normal if it works.

"Empowered bonuses" work a tad weird sometimes. I suspect they simply don't apply to hazard spells...

[Elric Galad]

On 11/9/2021 at 8:48 AM, NotDumbEnough said:

Testing in the first combat, the -AR invocation has an accuracy penalty while the lightning one does not. Chants also have an accuracy penalty though I guess whether or not they really count as spells is arguable, as shifters can chant while transformed.

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.

[Elric Galad]

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)

[NotDumbEnough]

I suggest a change to Ooblit, the pet that you get in FS. It offers +3 sec duration to beneficial effects, which was very underwhelming in most cases but pretty broken in edge cases like the ones you give above. With most of these being fixed duration now, +3 sec duration is not very good for most other effects. Maybe change it to +15-20% duration of beneficial effects so that it can be more useful in generic situations.

[Elric Galad]

9 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I suggest a change to Ooblit, the pet that you get in FS. It offers +3 sec duration to beneficial effects, which was very underwhelming in most cases but pretty broken in edge cases like the ones you give above. With most of these being fixed duration now, +3 sec duration is not very good for most other effects. Maybe change it to +15-20% duration of beneficial effects so that it can be more useful in generic situations.

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.

[NotDumbEnough]

Your thoughts on buffing certain weak druid and wizard spells? Some of them feel rather weak to the point where I never bother using them, such as Malignant Cloud, Chain Lightning, Firebug, Boiling Spray, etc. Personally I feel that some of the bouncing abilities lose too much damage from each bounce and quickly lose usefulness.

[Elric Galad]

18 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Your thoughts on buffing certain weak druid and wizard spells? Some of them feel rather weak to the point where I never bother using them, such as Malignant Cloud, Chain Lightning, Firebug, Boiling Spray, etc. Personally I feel that some of the bouncing abilities lose too much damage from each bounce and quickly lose usefulness.

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%.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Elric Galad

[NotDumbEnough]

Note that chain lightning cannot bounce back and forth between 2 enemies. Not sure about firebug.

[Elric Galad]

41 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Note that chain lightning cannot bounce back and forth between 2 enemies. Not sure about firebug.

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

[thelee]

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

That said Firebug damages/PEN/bounce damages reduction seems too low.

it almost seems to me that chain lightning and firebug was balanced in a way that forgot there is bounce penalty to damage, because it specifies a lower damage for jump targets. firebug in particular is extremely disappointing in practice, like the third bounce does like 6 damage. at that point it doesn't even matter if it does re-bounce to earlier hit targets, i'd rather just cast sunbeam.

 

chain lightning has a case in that at least its base damage is high enough and it does a valuable enough damage type (shock) that i'm ok using it. plus you occasionally get interrupts from crits.

[NotDumbEnough]

The lower bounce damage in the tooltip is simply the initial damage with one stack of the bounce penalty factored in. It's rather confusing, since even spells like Rolling Flame actually have a bounce penalty stated in their spell description. The way it's written in Chain Lightning, Firebug, Mind Blades etc imply that the secondary hits have lower damage but do not reduce further. I suspect that whoever balanced these abilities got misled by the description as well.

 

Personally I think that bouncing abilities should simply be standardized to have lower base damage but no bounce penalty, and can bounce back and forth. Something like Eld Nary's Curse.

Edited November 17, 2021 by NotDumbEnough

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, thelee said:

it almost seems to me that chain lightning and firebug was balanced in a way that forgot there is bounce penalty to damage, because it specifies a lower damage for jump targets. firebug in particular is extremely disappointing in practice, like the third bounce does like 6 damage. at that point it doesn't even matter if it does re-bounce to earlier hit targets, i'd rather just cast sunbeam.

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.

4 hours ago, thelee said:

chain lightning has a case in that at least its base damage is high enough and it does a valuable enough damage type (shock) that i'm ok using it. plus you occasionally get interrupts from crits.

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.

4 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

The lower bounce damage in the tooltip is simply the initial damage with one stack of the bounce penalty factored in. It's rather confusing, since even spells like Rolling Flame actually have a bounce penalty stated in their spell description. The way it's written in Chain Lightning, Firebug, Mind Blades etc imply that the secondary hits have lower damage but do not reduce further. I suspect that whoever balanced these abilities got misled by the description as well.

Yeah that's how it is displayed. Your hypothesis is believable.

4 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Personally I think that bouncing abilities should simply be standardized to have lower base damage but no bounce penalty, and can bounce back and forth. Something like Eld Nary's Curse.

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.

[Not So Clever Hound]

On 11/17/2021 at 1:24 PM, Elric Galad said:

Malignant cloud deals Raw damages and poison type can somewhat be abused with Poison Immune party memeber acting as lures.

A pulsing spell dealing Raw DMG is not rubbish in my opinion. It scales relatively nicely. Sure it's not the strongest spell but I've used it to great effect against Jadaferlas for example:

• Get surrounded by a barrier of magma oozes so Jada cannot reach you and just paces around like an angry lizard.
• Get your buffs and some healing going or BDD/Final Stand and cast Wall of Draining on the oozes to crit like crazy.
• Slowly kill Jada with Chillfog, Malignant Cloud, all the pulsing spells you want while chilling with the oozes and replenishing spells with Blood Sacrifice.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[NotDumbEnough]

The problem is that Malignant Cloud damage is inherently not that great. Base 13 dmg/3 sec for 10 sec is not good compared to, say, Venombloom, which only does 10 dmg/3 sec but also weakens and frightens and lasts twice as long.

[Not So Clever Hound]

30 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Base 13 dmg/3 sec for 10 sec is not good compared to, say, Venombloom, which only does 10 dmg/3 sec but also weakens and frightens and lasts twice as long.

No doubt Venombloom is stronger. It lasts much longer, comes with 2 pulsing afflictions, each attack component targets different defenses and not just FORT. All its components benefit from Helm of the White Void. But Venombloom is also Tier 6 while Malignant Cloud is Tier 5.

Quantity can trump quality in certain situations. A Blood Mage with some healing or cannot-die ability going can spam and stack Malignant Cloud all day, which as I wrote is enough with a bit of patience to kill Jadaferlas on upscaled PotD. Druid only has 2 Venombloom casts by default.

Finally, both will interact very nicely with Combusting Wounds and other pulsing spells.

[Elric Galad]

On 11/7/2021 at 5:55 PM, NotDumbEnough said:

Personally I think it should be an auto-hit single target ability much like Hand of Berath. It's not worth using against anything other than extremely durable targets so the ability should double down on that.

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.

Edited November 21, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

I can't remember if this was already discussed or even modded (sorry if that's the case) - but don't you think Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin should cause Enfeebled instead of Weakened? According to the desciption the spell should "prevent" healing. That would be the case with Enfeebled, not Weakened (50% healing still applies). Also the spell is notably weaker than some other PL9 alternatives...

Edited November 24, 2021 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

53 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I can't remember if this was already discussed or even modded (sorry if that's the case) - but don't you think Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin should cause Enfeebled instead of Weakened? According to the desciption the spell should "prevent" healing. That would be the case with Enfeebled, not Weakened (50% healing still applies). Also the spell is notably weaker than some other PL9 alternatives...

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.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Corrosive Skion at PL9 is 1 spell/encounter and it "only" does corrode dmg (9 PEN).
I cannot really see how this is as good as Disintegrate which gets paid with focus, does more overall raw damage and isn't even expensive. 

It's just too weak for PL9 imo. Not counting when Bloodmage - but that's another story.

I'm pretty sure not many SC Wizard players ever take it...  

Lowering the base duration in order to set it to overall 30 secs again wouldn't be nice - since that would be bad for scaling with INT.
-100% healing instead of enfeebled would be a solution, but I prefer systemic approaches. Introducing a "special" effect instead of using an exisiting affliction is not what I would do personally. Also it would make it kind of a more potent death sentence - since you wouldn't be able to counter it with an inspiration.

I personally would be totally fine with enfeebled raising the duration to 45 secs immediately. 8 corrode dmg per sec would mean 360 corrode dmg (with 10 MIG and INT). That's not unbelievably high in the late game and most tough enemies have way more health than that. They also might have high AR so with underpenetration that would result in rel. low damage overall. And there's always the risk of grazing or missing that precious 1/encounter spell. Also it takes a long time to actually kill a late game enemy because of the rel. low ticks. So - dps is not stellar. 

Then it's rel. easy to dispel enfeebled with any CON inspiration and then heal the victim back up. A resistance would even prevent enfeebled and only result in weakened.
At the same time: when you can't do/have any of that then it will be pretty devastating - as a PL9 single target, 1/encounter spell should be imo.

In theory it's a cool spell - could be cooler though.  

   

[Constentin Lévine]

And a Woedica priest can enfeebled many ennemies with Writ of Mending at PL9 ; enfeebled one of them with DoT seems equivalent, what do you think about?

[thelee]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

According to the desciption the spell should "prevent" healing

i think this is mostly just dated wording, back when the constitution afflictions used to be: sickened -50% healing, weakened -100% healing, enfeebled -100% healing + duration malus

 

as a possible alternate or additional balancing solution - what if concelhaut's corrosive skin was auto-hit ? i think the biggest problem is that for a tier 9 spell that targets only a single creature and a generally tough defense, the spell effect itself is not worth the risk or even worth the morningstar modal; i'd rather just cast missile barrage, meteor swarm, crushing doom, etc (the first two will end many trash fights on their own). if it was like a fire-and-forget, eventually fatal (to casters and weaker tanks) spell, or a guaranteed source of damage/debuff on tough bosses, that would be more on par for a top level transmutation spell.

Edited November 24, 2021 by thelee

[Elric Galad]

Funny thing is that Heart Seeker is an auto hit, applies Enfeebled (including without BPM) BPM has set it to Infinite duration. But it costs 4 Bonds, which is the maximum (with BPM) of any Martial only equal to BPM's Light of Pure Zeal and Gambit (but Gambit refunds). I usually estimate 4 martial ressources to be even higher than a Tier 9 spell.

All this to say we're discussing about abilities of similar power level.

Enfeebled instead of Weakened for 30s does not seem especially OP indeed.

Auto hit as @thelee suggests is tempting too. I've already made this choice for Hand of Berath and next BPM version of Entropy. Yep Auto Hit is always tempting for single target ability since there's a significant chance of failing entirely.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Elric Galad