Variation in Magic Tree

Okay, so, the discussion in the Soul Hunter post went a bit... out of hand. Most of it revolved around how to make the Magic tree better. I'm going to try to attempt a very simple fix, trying to keep existing mechanics, but I will go out of the box if it is really required.
First, we need to get some foundational points we can build upon:

• Finale, in concept, is actually like Megumin's Explosion. You are the mage, so you will be weak while casting it, cost you a lot of energy, and you will do a lot of damage. Now I know most of you don't like its current iteration.
  • It does way less damage than crossfire, it can mechanically 'miss' and nobody cares about the mage to protect them while they are casting their most powerful move.
  • But I like the power, the impact that's supposed to be behind Finale. If you've cast Finale while wearing 5th anniv Wings, you would know how it looks and feels like. That's a cool-looking animation. I want to keep the intensity, the feel.
  • So, we are going to do something in this post that allows that power, intensity associated with being Megumin alive.
• Magic. There can be lots of variations in magic form. We know and have seen magic usage in pop culture, so there is a lot of variation in which one can use it. I will try to get some of it, although I don't want to detract terribly from it.
• Scalability. Since level 0 and level 1 skills are available to players at the beginner stages, but become useless later, we have to redesign them in such a way that they are weak at early levels. However, they have to catch up with the increase in level, and access to better equipment and more stats.
  
• A magic weapon is compulsory to use a Magic Skill from the MAIN branches (top ones).

With that, let's begin. Do note that I only made these considering staff and not Magic device (yet), because I'm unsure how to translate them onto Magic device yet. I'm sure some of you will have some ideas.

Spoiler: Magic: Arrows and Magic: Javelin

• I am keeping the MP cost AND the Cast times the same.
• Why Arrows and Javelin together?
  • Now, herein lies a problem. With the way the game is coded, where an attack is not a standalone object (although traps, decoy, and mana crystal are), the following bullet point may not work.
  • Cast multiple portals to summon Arrows from. Unleash all portals together by using one Javelin.
    • One portal stays for (level of arrows)*2 + (level of javelin) seconds.
    • Max portal count = floor(Number of points invested in offensive Magic skill tree/10)
    • All other stats are the same.
  • This also provides Scalability, because as the number of skill points invested goes up, so does the Portal number.
  • It allows you to move around between setting up the portals and doesn't consume ALL your MP at once.
• Javelin's Animation time can be modified by AGI (To help Staff Knux users), separately from Motion speed.
  • Javelin used alone is still Javelin.
• This gives a 'SETUP' playstyle, setting up lots of little portals for a massive bombardment of arrows.
• Javelin might destroy the magic proration of arrows, but all the portals don't interfere with each other's proration.
  • However, the Proration of the skill after the Bombardment will be as if each portal was cast separately. (Nice for DPS users, sad for Soul Hunt)
• READER'S CHOICE: Should Magic Flinch affect the current Magic: Arrows portal you're setting up, or ALL of them?

Spoiler: Magic: Wall

• I am keeping the MP cost as 300 AND the Cast times the same.
• Magic: Wall will NO LONGER BE AN ATTACK SKILL.
  • Cannot be used in a Combo.
• Create a ring around the caster (placed skill), which prevents any attack from coming inside it.
  • I know what you're thinking, That's too OP!!!! But think about it. This is what Wall sounds like. Sanctuary reduces the damage you take, but Wall can actually prevent AOE from even getting in.
  • With a cast time, it isn't very good on fast bosses which can attack way faster than you can set up a wall. Simple fix: Cannot be used redundantly.
  • Also, it scales well too, as with a higher level comes higher DEX and higher cast time, which means better to use.
• Also, you have to time it really well or else you will die in between - this is especially true at lower levels with less MP, don't want to waste all MP just saving oneself.
  
• It is also good for DPS, they can rush to a Wall user to safeguard from Full MAP AOEs, away from the tank.
• Seriously, a mage shouldn't rely on a strong body/physical shield to defend oneself.
• READER'S CHOICE: Should this be limited to Fractionals and Magic attacks only?

Spoiler: Magic: Lances

• To be fair, I don't really think it needs much of a change in the DPS section, don't want to introduce too many Damage skills here.
  • Same cast time.
• Change the style to like Tenryu Ransei, where the first cast makes Multiple portals, and each successive cast releasing them on 100 MP per lance.
  
• But, the 'stop' ailment can be reworked across the board to ACTUALLY STOP bosses.
  • The stop chance is still the same.
• This skill, along with Magic: Wall, does wonders for survivability and also helps out the party. Once can actually have the Stop Ailemnt work as intended whenever needed, and is Not OP due to the cooldown.
• As a mage, you are controlling the battlefield, just like the bosses do with meteors and compulsory ailments.
• Scalability-wise, since it is not a DPS skill, it only is utility, it will retain its prominence.
• READER'S CHOICE: Should the 100 MP button release be usable while casting another skill to stop the boss from coming to you?

Spoiler: Magic: Blast

• I am keeping the MP cost the same.
  
• Cast time reduced to 3 seconds
  • Good Scalability, with Registlet and CSPD at higher levels, reduce it to 1 second or less.
• Cooler and more sensible animation, resembling a blast.
• Friendly Fire: ON
  • Reduced damage to allies, but will damage.
• More of an INSTANT attack option, (meaning increase Multiplier) but with added risk.
  • This is like a standard Mage attack.
  • Not a placed skill, will attack AOE from within the last position of the target.
• READER'S CHOICE: Too similar to Burst below?

Spoiler: Magic: Storm and Magic Impact

• Storm: Pretty balanced, probably increase suction a bit.
• Impact: Now that cannot be used by non-mages, will be more balanced and inspire creativity. Nothing else changes.

Spoiler: Magic: Burst

• 500 MP, Cast time reduced to 4 seconds.
• Now, with Impact, 1k CSPD, and some other magic skill, Burst doesn't seem a bad fast DPS option.
• Also, make Knockback an actual Interrupt skill (0.5 sec) with no break time.
  • Not to break or buy time, but to stop the attack from taking place.

Spoiler: Magic: Finale

• And we're finally here.
• We'll keep the Cast time and the animation time the same. Annoying, yes.
  • Make the Finale Animation a bit more dramatic. Give it music, make it interrupt boss music when Finale starts.
• But now we have Magic: Wall and Magic: Lances to help us a bit more.
• Let's make Finale Broken.
  • Every Magic skill (Magic/Wizard/ Holy Light) increases Finale counter by 1, max 10.
    • Magic: Arrows count only as one if used in succession.
    • Use Javelin to break the line of succession.
  • Finale multipliers :
    • 30 + Finale counter
    • 10 + Finale counter
    • 5 + Finale counter
  • If counter 10:
    • Interrupt the boss' attack
    • Give the boss 0 Physical defense due to the sheer force of the magic thrust on it.
  • Leave the stop/stun/flinch/tumble/knockback/slow to the party members. Trust them, for you're gonna deliver the Finale.
• The MP cost for Finale is taken 100 MP by 100 MP as you cast it, not all at once. So, magic flinch is bearable.
• READER'S CHOICE: Should we allow Mana explosion ailment after use of Magic: Finale, for risky mana usage?

Spoiler: Magic Mastery

• The same, add a feature: Make non-mages use up to level 2 skills too.

Spoiler: Mana

• MP charge becomes Recharge; regen (skill level * 2) MP per second.
• Maximizer becomes Supercharge; regen (skill level * 5) MP per second additionally.
• Notice that non-mages cannot use Supercharge.

I have ideas for a better Wizard tree and also Holy light which can complement those too!
(Holy light having innate pierce, Mana crystal being able to hold a variable amount of Mana, etc.)

 

Basically a combination skill is what you're offering here. Not bad but if you do this, you essentially lock mages out of their first ever skill by design and they have to wait until they get magic Javelin to truly cast magic. Not the best way to introduce mages at all. Setup gameplay is also possible by maximizing cast speed. chaining arrows and lances together give near continuous spell bombardment.

This is simply ridiculously OP. The current problems with wall is:
1) You need lv10 for effective knockback rate
2) It's too small for staff users
3) Knockback doesn't work for some enemies when they simply could have coded in a ranged option for them.

Better would be to modify a general skill tree skill like sanctuary to actually do this instead.

In this instance, won't guardian beam be the better skill to modify here then since it shouldn't take much more code to make guardian beam target aggroed enemies every x seconds for it's duration instead of working like it currently does.

Stop has a global 50 second cooldown. You won't get much CC done with that and on bosses, it's just a strong slow effect.

The friendly fire is going to make this wholly useless. The skill as it is currently doesn't have much issues surrounding it other than there's just not much instances in which the skill can be used. Putting it on smite is too costly, putting it on 1 MP combo is too much of a waste outside farming scenarios.

In farming scenarios, this skill is pretty good though.

1mp Opener > Storm (save) > Blast (Smite) > 1mp Finisher

It's just as it is in toram, the targetting is a headache to work with as enemies are hard to switch between, no lock-on exists. It's just a headache when you can just setup a cheap combo and MP charge it away rather than use the combo and attempt to rapidly change between enemies. In parties it also fails because enemies can die mid combo.

Storm's suction is simply useless for any boss and there needs to be an instance in which the suction effect can be applied then.

Impact can really be left as is. The cost to get it is 22 skill points, the game is class free and as more skills get introduced, those 22 skill points are going to become heavy.

I honestly don't know what to say about this skill other than I assume it was designed for non-mages. The requirement of 8 magic skills for no cast time is useless for magic focus builds with CSPD. It's useful for magic swordsmen mainly.

Changes could be that with magic type weapon, the cast time is reduced by 75% (becomes 2 seconds cast time) and instances of magic use boost power more so than reduce cast time. Or, do away with the cast time entirely for magic weapon and just boost power/pierce of the skill. Just a guess suggesstion, nothing serious.

The skill needs a re-work. It has mechanics which are useless for magic users despite being introduced as a skill for magic users.

Making finale interrupt boss music just makes the skill a whole lot more annoying.
Finale does not need more dramatic animation, it needs none.

Finale is already "Broken" in that it provides stupidly large damage for no real reason. It is the skill with the highest skill constant in the game. It is also useless on any mobile target which is what finale really needs to be modified for.

Instead of focusing on the power boosting of the skill, focus on the rate and AoE diameters. for each count, finale has +1m to each finale diameter and +1% pierce, Finale resets magic proration and instead benefits from it. The cast time is reduced by 0.3 sec per count. Stuff like that. It does not need more power but in going this route, all other magic skills need to be bolstered.

Current problem with magic skills is that they do not stack. As they do not stack, you have to wait for the stupid long skill durations to finish to get maximum usage out of any magic skill. To remedy this, they must allow magic skills to be reused without risk. This means they must be allowed to stack.

There is no real reason to lock any weapon out of magic skills in the first place. The innate problem with magic is that it is simply too slow.

Current problem with MP Charge/Maximizer is that there's no reason to have the MP charging mechanic operate as a separate entity. Right now, mages are punished for using maximizer as is and must idiotically press MP Charge and then Maximizer.

What Maximizer should have been was a passive to restore MP over time and an active effect which fully restores MP disabling the passive for a short while.

Someone told me that holy light retains its magic pierce. The only problem with it now is that it's healing effect is too selfish.

Chain Cast needs to apply to every successive magic skill and buff skill and not just magic arrows.

________________________________________________________
Simplest solution to most magic skills would be to allow them to stack during their long as heck skill durations. Nothing screams AoE master than a mage hell bent on creating storms all over the map. Or a mage that just wants that one target to die and keeps spawning arrows + lances.

 

• Yes, and Javelin is not locked at level 1, it can be leveled up straight away pretty easily. A little bit of synergy will make it feel a bit more engaging.
• Continuous Arrow spam, like you say, will just cause negative magic proration very fast, and doesn't feel much punchy.
• I guess the Cast times can get a general Reduction on all skills, but to do away with it entirely doesn't fit well.

• Solving all of which doesn't do much for mages. Yeah, in farming it might get better, but there are already good farming options available.
• I haven't thought of how to translate magic wall to MD, so the ridiculous OP wall doesn't exist.
• Also, think about it. Why would any party dedicate ONE slot to a person to just wall spam? That's a massive Reduction in dps, and is not even useful for 8m or less attackers.
• You might say Bow gets more help, but bows survive well as is, and they would like more DPS from the mage than useless Wall.
• Also, since you can't use this version redundantly, you can't use it inside Venena's lazer, or other long timed attacks.
• See, I understand. If Toram had better dungeons and better stage layout like Stoodie or Hastune Miku, but where you have to navigate an actual dangerous dungeon with mobs, then Knockback would be useful. But currently in the single boss meta, it really doesn't fit well.
• I was a bit anxious, yes, about this particular change, because I know players learn to abuse everything, and that's why I like the test server that Albion has where players can test upcoming balance changes to see if they can be exploited.

• And I did mention that we change the stop skill to actually stop bosses.
• I definitely felt that it was the weakest change, and it's probably because currently, Lances feel like a stronger version of Arrows, with less variation.
• Perhaps changing the stop ailment to be 30 seconds cooldown instead of 50 might also help.

Blast might be actually fine, i just added the Friendly fire bit to introduce a bit of variation to use it. Perhaps too risky.
It would also be the standard spell for lower than 150 players.
But I guess a simpler Reduction in CSPD from 4 to 3 might be enough, since we already have Registlet.

• Yes, I was in quite the dilemma when I wrote that.
• I always thought of Magic and Martial to be two core trees, which can be used by all people regardless of weapon, and Crusher to be the specific Knuckle tree.
• I think trying to control impact I decided to lock all magic skills, but that doesn't fit well with me now...

The Mana ones are actually passives, not actives. I think that much of a MP gain is sufficient. Perhaps Maximiser can act like a Loan - Give 2000 MP, but stop MP passive for the amount of time it requires to gain 2000 MP.

• Aptly named Finale, isn't it?
• I don't want to increase the radius, since Minibosses might get pulled for no reason.
• Also, if we rework the Interrupt mechanics on bosses a bit then one should trust the party to stop the boss in place for the finale.
• I don't get why the both of you (@kousunpo) want to take away from the Essence of what Finale is.
  • It's powerful, and it should feel like it.
  • Why make it a fast skill?
  • To me, using finale multiple times in a match just takes away from its 'Finale' charisma.
  • I was even going to specify that you can only use it once in a match, but then again couldn't think how it would fit in a Miniboss run.
• Yes, the Staff finale does feel underwhelming. The Magic Device Finale with increased radius simply feels like it dominates the screen when it's used.
• You say it has the highest constant in the game. But it still falls short of Crossfire; and compared to its cost and the risk involved, it doesn't do as much damage.
• Besides, charging up all 10 Finale counters is like a Pseudo cooldown, which means the most powerful skill must not be spammed.
• If you really want less casting time and faster animation, just call it something else and change the skill itself.
  • Continuing to call it Finale is just not ... elegant.
• Also, in this version Burst, Magic Arrows + Javelin are better themselves. (Other Magic skills from Wizard and Holy Light can also help)
• You're not going to be waiting around doing nothing.

 

I think it's mainly due to these reasons:

• "Highest constant in the game" aka the 3000 is only applied to the 1st hit, the 2nd one has "average" constant (300) and the 3rd one has pitiful constant (30).
• CF itself also has fairly high multiplier at higher stacks, surpassing Finale's 1st hit at 3 stacks, and Finale's 1st and 2nd hit at 5 stacks. And it's more spammable.
• CF is a physical skill, can crit easily and get the cdmg bonus. With how things currently are, a crit hit can increase the damage by 2.6 to 3 times the normal damage. On the other hand, Finale can't crit that easily because of spellburst's low mcr conversion ratio.

Btw, I also have a few opinions about the magic skills.

For Finale, I'd like it to behave more like an actual Finale. It's called "Finale", right? Then make it like a Finale. Either a slow, boring Finale if used too early, or a grand, majestic Finale when casted at the "perfect" time.
Similar to the idea here, give it a stack/counter mechanism that function the same way as the current MBurst. Each magic skill used will increase the stack/counter by 1, and for each of that the channeling time of finale will be reduced (and maybe give one or two more benefit(s) that scales with it, like mpierce for the entire skill, or a little bit of extra hit range for the 1st and 2nd hits). Use it without anything, you get a Finale exactly as it is currently; use it with full stacks, you get P.Avatar's instant Finale.
Maybe we can also give it a 2-cast like CF or Goliath Punch. Perform a buff cast to start the stack/counter, then use other magics to increase it, and perform the attack cast as a "grand finale".

MBurst's stacking, well, it just... doesn't really suit imo. It just doesn't feel right to me. The mechanism feels more suitable for "Finale" rather than this. I think either make the stacks do something else such as increasing damage or something, or just give it a new mechanism entirely. Maybe also reduce the cast time significantly to make it more spammable. It could work with the above idea, using burst as spammable dps, and finale as a finishing move.
Edit: I mean, like how ktn spams tenryu and zannou, and have garyou as a "powerful" finisher.

 

arrows:
staff is fine, MD should fire from 2 slots for aesthetics, and 4 shots x2 is a little faster than 6x one. since MD is agi based and supposed to be fast, this should reflect on skills.

lances:
increase the shooting intervall for MD so the total attack time is the same as for staff. they also did this with arrow rain for bow, so why not here?
also, inflict slow when stop is on cooldown.

earth element javelin/blast should inflict paralysis instead of slow.

chain cast:
gain a stack everytime you cast a skill with cast time (not restricted to magic attacks). cspd increases based on number of stacks, max 100% at 10 stacks.
consume all stacks when casting tier4/5 skills and apply additional effects.

power wave:
add a fraction of matk to power based on cspd.

maximiser:
passive upgrade skill for mp charge. +500mp recovered, +650 for MD. for a total of 800, 1000 for MD. the bonus applies to main weapon MD only, sub gets 850.

burst:
burst stacks increase maximum range/power and knockback distance.
shorten cast time based on chain cast stacks.
longer attack range and activation range for staff, wider AoE for MD.

finale:
since the graphic implies that it combines the cardinal 4 elements, it should inflict the respective ailments. ailment chance increases based on chain cast stacks.

 

The finale modification was just a suggestion but really, when you really look at how finale is designed, it's just free damage skill. It's designed as a dps skill pretending to be a finisher skill. Whereas Garyou from Katana actually operates like a finisher or even bow's cross fire.

No idea what they'll do for finale with lv5 skills but whether they do speed or power, hopefully it acts like a finisher.

I honestly really don't think design wise changing arrows and javelin is a great idea despite how good a combo it may appear to be. If proration would become a problem from spamming magic spawning, they need a general solution for the general problem. They need to allow skills which may be useless to apply normal proration. The problem is that this game is class-free so they can't just change individual skills to normal proration. Who knows if someone is using it as a main skill? This means Toram needs a normal proration combo skill tag.

Wall... I think the formed wall should follow the player, the knockback frequency should be at lv10 from lv1 and the range should increase with level. For MD, they can spawn damaging magic circles under all party members which repel weak monsters or just do chip damage to aggroed monsters.

You need to remember that wall is a lv1 magic skill, having that much power from a lv1 magic skill is insane.

Blast needs more than just cspd reduction. Maybe a fixed damage modifier so that you can use save tag with it like players who spam imperial ray for the blast damage only.

 

If you had read everything i posted in soul hunter thread i have explained all the reasons why mages are far below in comparison to almost all other classes especially physical classes and are Impractical in all manners of combat and also requires handholding 90% of the time unless use burst build for a little bit of independence which is thusly why mages cannot be considered a "main class", casttime requirements and wasted movements via unnecessarily long animation time are what makes mages completely and absolutely Impractical and infinitely below almost all other classes in all categories, finale should just do away with unreduceable casttime entirely but function like cf, build stacks via lower tier magics or burst and insta release at desired stacks that version of finale would be infinitely better than the current one, and i have already explained why a cooldown system along with a "no-wasted-movement animation time" would be infinitely superior to a casttime system and i shall not repeat myself in the explanations, you can read them in my previous posts from that thread, but following the concepts i have provided along with added on concepts in this reply would allow mages to actually and for the 1st time ever be on par with all other action packed practical combat effective proven classes in terms of practicality and combat effectiveness and not require handholding 90% of the time requiring magic bursting just for a bit of independence and truly be worthy of being called a "main class", mages just need a cooldown system replacing casttime and shortening of all animation time to the point of no wasted movements along with making finale function like cf in terms of charge stacking and insta-releasing but needing lower tier magics and magic burst to contribute to charge stacking and voila an actual practical and combat oriented mage worthy of being considered a "Main Class" at all and not some luk farming slave and pure "Magic Burster" mages have always been!!!