Lots of Suggestion on Spell Balance (spoilers?)

[NerdCommando]

Not sure if this is the right subforum from it but I guess some people may find talking about spells which they haven't seen spoilers so it's better to be safe than sorry.

 

Disclaimer: at the moment, some hardcore rpg players think that Pillars are not exactly fun and are devoid of tactics. There is, ahem, a certain place where that's quite a pervasive abilty and a lots of joke about “balance killing fun” go around. Now, my opinion is the contrary – it's not the balance that kills the fun and tactics, it's the lack of it that does so.

 

PoE combat is not exactly mobile (which isn't necessary a bad thing) and most tactics here lie in choosing the right spell/ability to apply and the right time/place to do so. Considering how many spells and abilities each class haves (especially after adding scrolls and spellbound items into equation), a myriad of tricky question is supposed to be here. On practice, however, it's often almost unfelt – way too many classes have one spell to rule them all on each of their level. Hence, instead of tough decisions and choices we often have dumb repetition.

 

And even if you restrict yourself from using the most overpowered (and thus game-breaking and boring) stuff, the problem is also that many of the spells are way too underpowered to actually do anything. More so on the Path of the Damned (which is pretty much the only difficulty that's actually difficult).

 

So what I want to write are some (well, lots of, actually) suggestions to the spells of the game (and maybe even abilities later on – I'll see how lazy I am) to make them more or less balanced. Now, I'm a reasonable man and I don't expect the devs to put all of them (or any) into the game and I don't really expect them to read this wall of text, lol, but I love game design so I'm never against doing some exercises in it.

 

 

Priest level 1:

 

Divine Terror: frightened is a good early game debuff but this is lackluster, especially when compared to Barbaric Yell. It needs either better cast range, cast speed or area of effect – just one will suffice.

 

Withdraw: needs bigger cast range. You generally want to cast this in the last second and short range of this spell may make this too come too late.

 

Priest level 2:

 

Holy Power: it's almost good and needs just a little push. Either somewhat bigger radius (so you don't need to risk your priest that much when buffing frontliners – they need resolve the most) or perception instead of resolve (so this thing can be useful in the backrow).

 

Iconic Projection: too good at the moment. Due to it's large template, it almost always hits your entire enemies and a lot of foes. So compare this heal 24.8/deal 24.8 spell (I'm taking the stats with good might and intellect here, if you don't mind) to the 22.3 heal of Restore Light Endurance. I think that projection either needs to be thinner (so it doesn't hit as much foes) or have the average casting time (so restore is better during emergencies which is the entire point of that chain of spells).

 

Repulsing Seal: one of the most game-breaking spells at the moment. Unbelievably high accuracy (is it a bug), good area, foe only, long disable duration (more so since it's either hits or crits – grazes are rare). The entire seal line needs to have a reasonable accuracy and this one needs either weaker effect (stuck will do just nice – it's a rather underused condition) or shorter duration. An alternative here is to make seals castable only outside of combat – that will be rather atmospheric and will solve the problem without other nerfs.

 

Priest level 3 spells:

 

Circle of Protection: somewhat lackluster. Needs either bigger duration or fast cast rate. I prefer the latter option – it makes it similar to the Restore Endurance spells, something that doesn't provide really good benefits for the investment, but you'll still want when in a pinch.

 

Despondent Blows: it has several issues. First, effects themselves don't mesh with each other too well. Even on the PoTD -15 accuracy means your foes won't do that much criticals. Well, maybe if they're hitting the most vulnerable members of your party, but those are usually so frail that they'll drop dead whether this spell is applied or not. So first effect makes criticals almost nonexistent and second effect applies to criticals only. Meaning that if there's 10% critical chance for the monster (that's generous), the second effect will affect only 1.5% of his blows. That's almost nothing. Second, this spell is not much better than 1st level Divine Terror or 2nd level Instill Doubt. It's -15 accuracy instead of -10, but those spells provide other penalties and this one is melee only. Third, it doesn't really compete with its neighbor Pillar of Faith – 15 seconds of prone will prevent more damage than 45 seconds of -15 accuracy. And Pillar even does some damage to its main target. I think this spell needs either a much bigger Area of Effect (something like 5 meters) or somewhat different main ability – maybe no accuracy penalties and just a percentage of crit to hit and hit to graze conversion?

 

Warding Seal: same problem as with other seals – way too high accuracy. Same solutions, I think.

 

Watchful Presence: it's almost good, but needs a faster cast rate to be useful. As an average speed spell, I'd better use Consecrated Ground (or, if to compare spells of the same level, Pillar of Faith – just disable the foes so that 43 damage doesn't get dealt) and eliminate that risk of “when Endurance below 20%” altogether.

 

Priest level 4 spells:

 

Barring Death's Door: same as with Withdraw, needs bigger casting range.

 

Devotions for the Faithful: way, way, way too good. Even without the “foe only” part it would've been really good, as it is it almost like a cheat. Gives you a colossal amounts of extra damage and for the most foes that's like a half of their damage output gone. For the 45 seconds! I think this needs to be a slow spell and with either much smaller radius or duration.

 

Searing Seal: the effect here is actually fine, but once again, Carthage must be destroyed.

 

Shining Beacon: a bit too powerful – compare it with a Pillar of Holy Fire which is one level higher. Sure, it is DoT instead of instant damage, but on PoTD that rarely matters that much. Not for the average speed spells, at least. So the damage output here is very strong as well as the radius and it is foe only. I think making it a slow spell will do the trick. You can also cut the damage, of course, but slow cast is a more interesting option tactically – slow casting speed is somewhat underused, in my opinion.

 

Priest level 5 spells:

 

Pillar of Holy Fire: needs better damage or casting speed. It's much worse than both Shining Beacon and the offensive level 5 spells of the Druid and Wizard. Sure, nuking may not be the Priest's forte, but at the moment it's not even useful as a side option – I'd rather use Champion's boon on my other damage dealer (said Druid or Wizard, for example) and do lots of extra damage that way than cast this.

 

Salvation of Time: I really dig the concept here but the effect is too weak to be truly useful. With 20 seconds of bonus duration, this would lead to some great combo parties. Or, if that's too much (but I think this spell can be a bit crazy – even with long duration, it will benefit only the properly built parties & spell combos, it'll never be an auto-cast to win), at least make this is a fast cast – for example, one of the best usages here is to amplify paladin's Lay on Hands. Even extra 10 seconds is what, +200 endurance healed? Cool. But with lay on lasting only 5 seconds and this being an average speed spell, it's not that easy to apply this in time.

 

Shields for the Faithful: gives extremely big amount of protection for the entire crew. Needs to get nerfed in either amount (20 is a fine number, I think) or casting speed.

 

Priest level 6 spells:

 

Crowns for the Faitful: way too good. Combine shields for the faithful with the crowns for the faithful and your party stops caring about incoming attacks. Even alone it's +31 deflection, +12 reflexes, +75 concentration and +62 will to your entire crew (or, at the very least, the larger part of it). Oh, and some bonuses to spell duration and area – significant bonuses, actually. At the very least, make this a slow casting spell – it absolutely deserves this.

 

Minor Intercession: a bit too minor. I guess on the higher levels in the addons we'll get a Major one, but still, 5 seconds is way too skimpy when in the late game you can easily receive 10-20-30 second debuffs and disables (hello, vithracks). Some extra seconds removed are needed here.

 

 

Druid Level 1 spells:

 

Charm Beast: simply insane. Yes, it's only against beasts, but that's one of the most common enemy types in the game. And this makes most of those encounters much, much easier (if not trivial). I understand that this may be the druid's specialty, but not to this degree. I think it needs to be a signle target spell, maybe with a bit longer duration or cast distance – after all, it's charm beast, not charm beasts.

 

Dancing Bolts: lackluster. I understand that it's supposed to be safe & easy to use option, but the damage here is way too negligible. I think adding a Daze debuff will be great here – it fits the flavor and Daze is somewhat underused in the game.

 

Sunbeam: overpowered. Decent damage plus the insane 22 second of blinding (which is a very, very strong debuff). Compare this to the Wizard's 2nd level Curse of Blackened Sight that is debuff only. This deserves either a slow casting speed or significant reduction of damage.

 

Vile Thorns: even after the buff it's still mediocre. Sicken is a very mild disable so I think this needs to give a much bigger duration of it – something like 45 seconds. 14.5 seconds sicken when you can give 22 seconds of blind for the same spell slot is a joke.

 

Winter Wind – overnerfed. Even before the nerf, it wasn't broken and most of the time you used Sunbeam. Despite the great damage, it's wide cone was not easy to place without touching most of your crew. Which made it actually balanced and not useless. Now it's just worthless. If you want to keep it as it is now, make it foe only, at the very least, so you can use it to break the engagement off your guys without killing them. Sure, you can do this now by placing the yellow part of the template on them but that's not that easy – what if the druid himself is engaged and can't move? What if it's the narrow dungeon and there's nowhere to move? As of now, the payoff here is not worth the trouble. And, with the current crappy damage, fast casting speed would've been nice too.

 

Druid Level 2 Spells:

 

Blizzard: overnerfed. Sure, 80% to the enemy attack speed was probably too much (though, if it works as every other attack bonus or penalty in the game, that's applied only to the recovery time so it's not actually 80% - it's from 40% to 53%), but 20% is too little (especially when it's more like 10% to 13,3%). And the damage is also negligible now. Nerfing one of the aspects is fine, nerfing both doesn't make sense. So either give this a 40% of slow (that should be reasonable) or return its previous damage.

 

Burst of Summer Flame: absolutely worth it. I get that it's the fast and long-ranged spell. But if I need fast casting, I'll use 1st level Talon's Reach – better damage and much greater interrupt time. If I need to begin combat from the long range (that's where the 15 meter range is usually used – for the actual battle that's mostly an overkill), I'll use 2nd level Insect Swarm – much better damage there coupled with some disables. So what's the point of this? Its absent. This needs a serious damage buff.

 

Conjure Lesser Blight: small blights are really, really weak. Especially on PoTD where they pop almost instantly. They're not really enough to be a 2nd level summon. Not sure what can be done, though – maybe upping the cast speed? But then this probably needs to be in line with the other conjure blight spells (which are fine and shouldn't be changed). Mb downgrading this to level 1?

 

Hold Beast: same as with Charm Beast. Paralyze is incredibly strong and this is even a fast cast spell. Beasts are too common to be bypassed this easily. It should be either Stuck (a much safer form of disable) or single target only.

 

Taste of the Hunt: needs to be demoted to level 1 to work. As of now, the best reason to go for melee druid is not the Animal Form – it scales too badly and just isn't worth it. It's the Firebrand – the damage is great there. And, well, Firebrand is also a 2nd level spell so if you cast it (on PoTD, you'll probably need to cast it twice per battle), you don't get to taste much. If at all. So it's just on the wrong spell slot to be efficient – make it 1 and this problem vanishes.

 

Druid level 3 spells:

 

Returning Storm: even with the slow casting speed, it's still too good. Lots of procs over its long duration leading to great amount of damage and stuns. I think one of the aspects needs to get the significant reduction here else there isn't much point to most of the spells on this level, pretty much.

 

Spreading Plague: this one needs a slight improvement. The time between the jumps is too slow at the moment – after all, you lower their saves (which is the main effect of hobbled & weakened) to hit them with some other spells and the wait doesn't make that convenient. Faster spread would've made this much better.

 

Stag's Horn: was perfectly fine before the nerf. Combined to the Returning Storm, the horn is much weaker. Heck, combined to the Sunbeam it's not that insane – Sunbeam is just 20 damage and 5 deflection less, but it's AoE and 1st level. I understand that they're currently overpowered, but that still makes Stag's Horn not that crazy for its level – it's a single target spell, after all.

 

Twin Stones: it's an interesting spell due to the weird template but at the moment the damage doesn't make it worth to suffer through the problems of aiming it. Needs a buff to compensate for the aiming issues.

Druid level 4 spells:

 

Boiling Spray: just as the Winter Wind, is not exactly convenient to use and also it can't compete with both Overwhelming Wave (worse damage but great disable added), Hail Storm (same damage, bigger and more convenient template) and Calling the World's Maw (slightly less damage, convenient template, decent disable added). I think this needs a fast casting time to become useful (or simply bigger amount of damage but fast cast is a more interesting choice – the druid lacks those on higher levels).

 

Druid level 5 spells:

 

Cleansing Wind: doesn't do enough to merit the cost. I understand that instant heals is not the druid's forte, but healing here is really weak and pushing is not that strong of an effect. Especially when it's only 3 meters – perhaps something like seven or even ten would've been nicer? Even then, it'll probably need a fast casting speed to become good. Or maybe some debuff removal? Like, -5 seconds to all afflictions? It's a cleansing wind, after all. And it's actually a bad thing that most of the anti-debuff and disables in the game belong to the priest atm.

 

Nature's Terror: needs either bigger damage or faster attack rate. I like the idea of tanky druid who goes up close and personal, but in current form this is hardly enough to enable that. And can't really compare with the Relentless Storm. Sure, this is fast cast, Storm is slow (and overpowered), but the problem here is not the casting time – it's the fact that your average druid is too squishy to go to the frontline. To make him sturdy, you'll need to make sacrifices. And while this could pay off for those sacrifices theoretically, in the current shape it hardly does that.

 

Plague of Insects: probably needs slight nerfing. 150 raw damage in one spell is just too much, even at the level 5.

 

Relentless Storm: needs slight nerfing. Considering it's higher level, it's not as overpowered as the Returning Storm is, but is still probably too strong. I guess a bit lesser stun duration (or maybe no accuracy bonuses?) would do it.

 

Druid level 6 spells:

 

Sunlance: incredibly weak for it's level. Yeah, it's 70-80 damage but that's one target only. Make it a fast cast, at least. Even then, it needs bigger damage to get actually used.

 

Venombloom: it's almost good, but the damage could've used a slight buff. I mean, compare it to the wizard's Noxious Cloud (which has been buffed in the previous patch). And this one is an ultimate lvl 6 spell, after all, it needs to be flashy.

 

Wizard level 1 spells:

 

Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights: it's really lackluster when compared to the innate Arcane Assault of the wizard. Daze here lasts longer, of course, but it's not a per encounter ability (not until level 9, at least) and Assault is a fast cast ability. I think it either needs the area increase or a greater Will debuff.

 

Chill Fog: needs slight nerfing. As of now, it just does everything well – long duration, good area of effect and cast range, strong debuff, decent damage. It's extremely hard for the other spells to compete with this. I think the easiest way is to make the damage here really negligible – then it will be more about debuffing and less about being the ultimate answer.

 

Ghost Blades: after the recent patch it got almost alright, but the Hobbled duration here needs to be longer for this to compete with other spells on the level. At least a dozen of seconds, I think.

 

Jolting Touch: while it's great at the enchanted items, it doesn't serve any purpose for the wizard. First, getting into the close combat is something that your average caster doesn't want. Now, after the 1.05, the wizard can play as a tank, but even then he'd rather cast Fan of Flames than this (or Concelhaut's Parasitic staff – that also works great). If the wizard is ambushed by someone, that's also not what you use to survive – it's an average cast time spell and the damage is not that great so it kills your assaulter faster than he kills you. Hence, this thing needs either more damage or a faster cast rate. I guess the second is a safer option as it won't do anything to the spell striking weapon damage.

 

Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp: same reasoning as above. This spell needs a faster cast rate (it's a touch, after all) and a bigger accuracy penalty. Something like -20 would make it useful as an alternative last ditch attempt.

 

Minoletta's Minor Missiles: needs a minor buff. It's a fine spell as it is a fast one, but the damage done here could've been made a bit more competitive. You're fighting hordes of monsters most of the time which really devalues reasonably done single-target spells, that's the problem.

 

Wizard level 2 spells:

 

Binding Web: it's really pathetic. Compare it to the druid's Tanglefoot which is a fast cast, huge area of effect and larger duration. Oh, and a 15 accuracy difference (+10 instead of -5). It's also the same problems with the scrolls – why would I craft 2nd level web over 1st level Tanglefoot? This needs to be stuck to not suck.

 

Combusting Wounds: it's almost fine but could've used a bit bigger radius. Nothing crazy, just 25 centimeters or so.

 

Curse of Blackened Sight: overbuffed. It was fine as the affect all spell, as the foe only it is overpowered – blind is too strong of debuff to last almost half a minute. Needs either shorter duration or the old friendly fire mode.

 

Miasma of Dull-Mindedness: deserves either a huge nerfbat or a shift to the higher level. Sorry, but this makes the victims lose 20 deflection, 20 reflexes, 40 will and 30 concentration. Oh, and they'd better not try to cast any spells as those will be absolutely pathetic. The Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (which is a fifth level spell, mind you) cannot compare to this. I think this needs to be a slow casted spell with a single target – then it will be sorta ok. Weaker effects (-5 to all, I guess) could also work.

 

Necrotic Lance: a bit lackluster. The damage seems great but it Concelhaut's Syphon does almost the same to a small group of foes. I guess fast casting speed would make this fine.

 

Rolling Flame: seriously needs to have more damage. While it sounds potentially strong (roll it over enemies several times to drown them in damage), practically it's a very hard thing to do – isometric perspective makes it really difficult to predict the ball's deflection angle. I guess you can learn to do that if you invest enough effort, but there really isn't any reward for this atm – much easier to use Concelhaut's syphon, realiably dealing twice as much damage than this.

 

Wizard level 3 spells:

 

Arduous Delay of Motion: needs stronger speed debuff. Unless I'm wrong, it goes to recovery only and so it's just 15%-20% of enemy speed lost. Some movement too but that doesn't matter often enough. For a third level spell that's weak – Curse of Blackened sight provides much bigger penalties to enemy's damage output than this. So I guess it needs to be 50% base – would mirror Deleterious Alacrity nicely.

 

Concelhaut's Draining Touch: same as with the other touches, needs to be fast. Maybe a bit bigger damage too – it's a very weak spell atm.

 

Minoletta's Bounding Missiles: could've used just a little bit of improvement. About 5 damage to both damage values and it's fine – at the moment, it's slightly below average.

 

Ryngrim's Repulsive Image: needs a fast cast rate and a longer duration (seriously longer – a minute or so). At the very least. Compare it to Llengrath's Displaced Image – it serves the similar purpose of protecting the wizard but it gives reliable protection and much more of it. I guess you can use this to stand nearby enemies and prevent them from hitting your allies, but most wizards don't want to operate that closely and even for tanky ones it's probably more reliable to just use Curse of Blackened Sight instead – gives the same accuracy debuff but is much more convenient to use.

 

Wizard level 4 spells:

 

Flame Shield: the damage is too pathetic at the moment. Especially since the retaliate attack still needs to hit. Needs bigger damage to be worth it.

 

Ironskin: really weak. Let's compare it to the 2nd level Infuse with Vital Essence – that gives you 50 endurance and 50 health. This gives you 8 damage reduction, meaning up to 80 endurance and no health. And mind you, health is a huge issue as the wizard is really easy to knock into the red territory. Not to mention that pure health&endurance protect better against certain things – lots of really weak hits or raw damage, for example. So, in many cases, Vital essence will provide as much endurance as this one. Only, thanks to its health bonus, that endurance will be “free”. Ironskin needs to have a much stronger DR bonus to compete with it.

 

Minor Grimoire Reprint: that's really useless and the only way to fix that is to downgrade the level. Why would I spend a 4th level spell to gain an 1 to 3rd level spell which I may not even need? Now, if this was a 2nd level spell that allowed stealing 3rd level spells – then we'd be talking. As of now, it's useless.

 

Wizard level 5 spells:

 

Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment: as I've said before, it's weaker than a 2nd level Miasma of Dull-Mindedness. And even if you fix that, the duration here is still rather disappointing. I think it needs to be 30 seconds at least to be ever considered.

 

Call to Slumber: a bit lackluster. At this point Slicken becomes per encounter so you can get all your prone needs by that (more casting time involved, of course, but less investment) and it also isn't that great when compared to the 4th level Confusion. I think 11.6 seconds of confused is much better than 14.5 seconds of prone – mostly because the majority of your foes have various disables which are very strong when applied to the monsters themselves. So this could use somewhat better duration.

 

Ryngrim's Enervating Terror: almost decent. Almost. I think that 29 seconds is a bit short for this (when compared to what level 5 spells can do) so something like 40-50 would fit the bill better.

 

Wizard level 6 spells:

 

Arkemyr's Capricious Hex: you really hate Arkemyr, you know? I think the disparity between the disables is too great here – sure, 29 seconds of paralyze is very strong, but 29 seconds of either daze or sicken is almost nothing by this point. So it's a 33% success rate spell – less than a coinflip. It just can't compete with the Gaze of the Adragan – sure, its radius is much smaller and its duration has been nerfed, but it always delivers what's promised. I think daze and sickened need to be swapped with the blinded and stuck here – the spell would remain whimsy but at least non-paralyze options wouldn't be blank anymore.

 

Chain Lightning: needs higher damage. At the moment, it has exactly the same damage as 3rd level Crackling Bolt. And a slower cast speed. Sure, it's easier to aim but that isn't worth extra 3 levels of casting. Or compare it to the druid's 5th level firebug – firebug does pretty much the same damage only it's 1 level below (and it also can bounce nicely between two foes). And the precision of Chain Lightning's aim became very irrelevant once all other spells on this level became foe only.

 

Death Ring: needs higher damage. The potential destruciton is more of a gimmick than actual utility and in terms of damage output this absolutely loses to the Minoletta's Precisely Piercing burst (that is also a fast cast).

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2015 by NerdCommando

[Fardragon]

I think Obsidian spend far to much time fiddling with game balance as it is. The game is never going to be balanced, and in a single player game that doesn't matter one bit.

 

Their time would be better spent hammering out bugs and working on new content.

[HoopleDoople]

A single player game doesn't need perfect balance but the game would be a lot more fun with better balance. My favorite part of crpgs is puzzling out the tactics needed to win a particular battle with my specific group. In Pillars of Eternity the same tactics tend to serve you well for the vast majority of battles. There are other issues contributing to this problem but having notably overpowered spells/abilities is definitely a big part of it.

 

If I need CC from my Cipher, Mental Binding is always a good answer and usually the best one too. If I want to use a level 1 Druid spell the element of the spell and the defense are irrelevant because the blind from Sunbeam is so useful. Any of the pitifully weak spells is one less viable option we have at our disposal.

 

Ultimately I think the goal should be to implement minor nerfs to the outlier spells/abilities, major buffs to the useless ones, and have the max difficulty increased (either PoTD gets harder or a new difficulty beyond it is introduced). Hopefully that would get us a lot closer to each battle being its own unique challenge.