Spell takes forever to cast

[MaxQuest]

It's also a lot harder to gain focus now than it used to be (partly due to the grazing mechanics, partly the armor penetration system, partly the absence of the general open talents like marksman and gunner etc).

Base focus gain was also reduced from 0.35 to 0.25 btw.

 

Mental Binding has a cast time of six seconds, a recovery time of three seconds, and a duration of . .  . six seconds. You're functionally paralyzing yourself more by casting it than you are the target.

The duration of some cipher powers is also affected by power level.

 

@power level = 3, cipher gets:

> +10% to duration of Tenuous Grasp and Whisper of Treason

> +5% to duration of Mental Binding

 

@power level = 5, cipher gets:

> +20% to duration of Tenuous Grasp and Whisper of Treason

> +15% to duration of Mental Binding

> +5% to duration of Body Atonement

 

This increase stacks multiplicatively with INT bonus. But still, it feels like power level affecting the duration of spells belongs to the old multiclass system; as currently cc-oriented characters are too weak in the early-mid game.

[SaruNi]

If you cast CC / damaging spells with a location-based duration (i.e. web, fog) before combat starts and don't immediately hit the enemy, you can get the spell point back before combat starts and before the spell's duration ends. When they walk into it, if it's not a Wall or a Seal spell, combat starts and the caster automatically emerges from stealth. (Wall and Seal spells can do damage / apply effects without the caster leaving stealth.) If you get the timing right, you can cast multiple location-based duration effects and/or open combat with another long casting time debilitating/offensive spell. (However, loud spells will cause enemies to run towards them to investigate....)

 

Though once better enemy AI is implemented, they'll probably just walk around it---except when they can't.... (Incidentally, the Darcozzi paladin's lay on hands' minor flame shield might not be so bad if it will make future AI less likely to attack the recipient.)

Edited November 25, 2017 by SaruNi

[theBalthazar]

If still the spells were doing heavy damage. But there, not only they do less damage than the melees, but more they miss more often. (I do not know why)

Edited November 25, 2017 by theBalthazar

[SaruNi]

Drugs can be used to buff *before* combat starts... Coral Snuff, the one we first get access to in the beta, increases action speed.

 

As for spells hitting: max Perception, use Eldritch Aim, and you can multi-class monk for Dance of Death or fighter for Tactical Barrage (if some weapons let you cast spells from them once/encounter, Black Jacket could also get a bunch of free spells)....

 

Spell damage is underwhelming because of low penetration. A Berserker's Frenzy adds +4 penetration to spells and triggers Nature Godlike's +2 power levels which at 0.25 penetration / power level gives you a total of +6 penetration (if you're casting a spell from your specialty school, the +2 power level cancels out the -2 power level from multi-classing). 

 

Cat Druid / Barbarian is the fastest caster, at least for a limited time. Cat form adds +33% action speed, Frenzy +25%, Wild Sprint +15%, and spells trigger Bloodlust (+20% which stacks, and you can kill your party's own summons). 

 

But Evoker is better than the character creation screen indicates: it's not a "small chance" of the spell being repeated instantly, it's a 30% chance. So for longer fights an Evoker Corpse Eater (replenishing the Fury resource to recast Frenzy) is the fastest caster.

[Throxus]

This was my biggest problem when I started off with my main being a wizard, with the other party wizard I had two chars that didnt help alot at times.

[SaruNi]

Currently, having all your party stealthed or invisible does not cause combat to end. 

 

This means that you can send a Rogue in, backstab, and use Shadowing Beyond (base duration 10 seconds, more with high int). (A firearm attack has no recovery, so the Rogue can immediately use Shadowing Beyond with no risk except potentially AoE. However backstab for firearms isn't working yet.) That gives you plenty of time to cast your buffs, timing it so that you don't waste the short casting time / short duration ones. Then start casting your debuffs/CC from stealth. Since your Rogue gets 3 uses of Shadowing Beyond, they should get in another backstab / invisibility combo. With fully buffed casters, at least some of your CC is almost guaranteed to hit. Now you cast your damaging spells.

Edited November 29, 2017 by SaruNi

[SaruNi]

(Of course, one problem with buffing before casting is that you give your enemies time to buff themselves. Having your Rogue assassinate one of the spellcasters helps, but the strongest solution is to time your debuffs so that you hit your enemies with an Arcane Dampener to remove their buffs right before your buffed debuffs/CC hit.)

[draego]

Here is some information about spell cast times. Also they are changing combat by making recovery longer for melee and shorter for spells. 

Edited December 1, 2017 by draego

[SaruNi]

Here is some information about spell cast times.

 

Interesting. They also say that they don't want to decrease summons cast times too much because they're extremely powerful. Aside from Chanters the only summoning spells that work right now (not counting the crappy familiar) are Druid summons... are they really anywhere near OP right now? What you get is random, and even the 5th level version doesn't seem extremely powerful, especially since you can only have one summons per character at a time. Plus the different summons seem suited to different roles---the Earth Blight is tanky, the Fire Blight is elemental damage oriented---so you can't plan your party build around getting a specific one. Beetle's Shell can make any blight sort of tanky (for 10 seconds), but the Stunned status reduces defenses by so much that the target ends up getting critted heavily and losing the 200 damage shield in less than 10 seconds. If you want to buff your Lesser Blight using Woodskin or your Blight with Form of the Delemgan, then you lose the ability to summon a second one, because Lesser Blight and Woodskin are both 2nd level, and Blight and FotD are both 4th level. And to get the full Blights in the beta you have to go single-class druid. While I didn't play with it for very long, summons-focused Druid seemed extremely underwhelming (especially since it can't be used with Lifegiver, and doesn't go well with Fury).

 

They'd be great against specific enemies if you could choose what type of Blight you get, but with a 1 in 5 (or is it less than that? Sand, Earth, Storm, Ice, Fire...) chance of getting a good one (and an equal chance of getting one that's extra vulnerable to that specific enemy), it doesn't seem practical. If anything they should either buff the Druid summons to make them worth the gamble, let us choose which we summon (maybe first we summon an indeterminate blight, then it has a once per-encounter instant cast ability that turns it into the blight of our choosing), or move the buffing spell levels so they don't conflict with the summoning spell levels.

Edited December 1, 2017 by SaruNi

[cheesevillain]

Interesting. They also say that they don't want to decrease summons cast times too much because they're extremely powerful. Aside from Chanters the only summoning spells that work right now (not counting the crappy familiar) are Druid summons... are they really anywhere near OP right now? What you get is random, and even the 5th level version doesn't seem extremely powerful, especially since you can only have one summons per character at a time. Plus the different summons seem suited to different roles---the Earth Blight is tanky, the Fire Blight is elemental damage oriented---so you can't plan your party build around getting a specific one. Beetle's Shell can make any blight sort of tanky (for 10 seconds), but the Stunned status reduces defenses by so much that the target ends up getting critted heavily and losing the 200 damage shield in less than 10 seconds. If you want to buff your Lesser Blight using Woodskin or your Blight with Form of the Delemgan, then you lose the ability to summon a second one, because Lesser Blight and Woodskin are both 2nd level, and Blight and FotD are both 4th level. And to get the full Blights in the beta you have to go single-class druid. While I didn't play with it for very long, summons-focused Druid seemed extremely underwhelming (especially since it can't be used with Lifegiver, and doesn't go well with Fury).

 

 

 

 

Summons are useful just because another warm body on the field diverting damage from your other characters is always very useful. The figurines in PoE1 were very useful, and were essential for POTD just for this reason.

Edited December 1, 2017 by cheesevillain

[dunehunter]

I'm glad that they make a 15% reduction on the movement speed. I hope it will slow down the pace of combat so it won't feel so fast as it is now.

[SaruNi]

 

Interesting. They also say that they don't want to decrease summons cast times too much because they're extremely powerful. Aside from Chanters the only summoning spells that work right now (not counting the crappy familiar) are Druid summons... are they really anywhere near OP right now? What you get is random, and even the 5th level version doesn't seem extremely powerful, especially since you can only have one summons per character at a time. Plus the different summons seem suited to different roles---the Earth Blight is tanky, the Fire Blight is elemental damage oriented---so you can't plan your party build around getting a specific one. Beetle's Shell can make any blight sort of tanky (for 10 seconds), but the Stunned status reduces defenses by so much that the target ends up getting critted heavily and losing the 200 damage shield in less than 10 seconds. If you want to buff your Lesser Blight using Woodskin or your Blight with Form of the Delemgan, then you lose the ability to summon a second one, because Lesser Blight and Woodskin are both 2nd level, and Blight and FotD are both 4th level. And to get the full Blights in the beta you have to go single-class druid. While I didn't play with it for very long, summons-focused Druid seemed extremely underwhelming (especially since it can't be used with Lifegiver, and doesn't go well with Fury).

 

 

 

 

Summons are useful just because another warm body on the field diverting damage from your other characters is always very useful. The figurines in PoE1 were very useful, and were essential for POTD just for this reason.

 

 

Sure, and you could get enemies to waste spells and per-encounter abilities on them. Once spells are improved maybe it will be better, particularly if you have your Druid do more than just summon, buff, and heal. But Beckoner is so much better for this (even most vanilla Chanter summons bring multiple creatures at once). Conjuror once it's fixed will have 3 tentacles at once. And if the Figurines are anywhere near as common as in PoE 1, the relative usefulness of random Druid summons will suffer even more.  Plus iirc the tanky Earth Blight is slow-moving. Several of the blights have a nice "do damage when hit" ability, but when enemy AI is implemented they'll probably refuse to attack the blights and go straight for squishies....

 

And the long casting time means that even if your Druid isn't focused around being a Summoner, a large part of combat will be spent casting the summons (and hoping you don't get interrupted)....

Edited December 1, 2017 by SaruNi

[cheesevillain]

And the long casting time means that even if your Druid isn't focused around being a Summoner, a large part of combat will be spent casting the summons (and hoping you don't get interrupted)....

 

 

This is an excellent argument. Druids are a very flexible class, but they won't feel flexible if they can't cast that many different types of spells in a single combat.

[Breckmoney]

I think it's fine if they're flexible in terms of options without necessarily being able to exploit all of those options to the fullest every battle. Just having the ability to adapt to lots of encounters is pretty powerful already.

[AndreaColombo]

Longer recovery: When a 2-hander in Plate armor isn’t enough of a slugfest already!

 

Also, a very poor solution compared to bringing back the slow speed option.

Edited December 1, 2017 by AndreaColombo

[Climhazzard]

Longer recovery: When a 2-hander in Plate armor isn’t enough of a slugfest already!

 

Also, a very poor solution compared to bringing back the slow speed option.

 

They mentioned that the animation speeds look more normal now.

 

But what's more normal, animations in slow motion?  Or huge recovery times after every swing?  Cause in real life it doesn't take 3 seconds to recover from swinging a sword, lol.

Edited December 1, 2017 by Climhazzard

[Answermancer]

Yeah I really don't like this obsession with getting rid of slow mode. I totally understand Josh's point of view and appreciate that they want the "default" mode to be slower and more manageable... but I still want slow mode, ideally with a slider so I can set it to a value of my choice.
 

Longer recovery: When a 2-hander in Plate armor isn’t enough of a slugfest already!

Also, a very poor solution compared to bringing back the slow speed option.

Totally agreed.

As someone who's worked on a game with animators before, I am very confident that their animators hate how the game looked in slow mode.

 

But I'm sorry, I think "normal speed" attacks with 6 seconds of recovery look and feel a thousand times worse than reasonable "real time" recovery in slow motion.