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Open Combat: Aeonics Design
Hi everybody,
We are going to be discussing the general design of Aeonics. Aeonics is the secondary skillset specialising from Rituals for the Institute class of Hallifax, and a tertiary skillset specialising from Rituals for the Sentinel class of Hallifax.
BEFORE CONTINUING, PLEASE READ THE RULES FOR THE OPEN COMBAT THREADS AT: http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/3256/open-combat-a-synopsis/
This thread will be focusing on the basic design of the skillset, determining the current problems and finding ways to solve these problems, determining basic mechanical changes, etc.. We will not be going into specific skill changes at this time.
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Current Problems (as the administration sees them):
* Aeonics is a skillset which focuses heavily around the affliction 'aeon', generally something that has been regarded by many as a questionable decision over the years, and this has led to the efficacy of the skillset being diminished with recent changes.
* Timewarp is signifigantly weaker than its Temporary Insanity counterpart at this time, both in build methods and not including an actual effect (Temporary Insanity increases slush balance, for example. Timewarp's only effect in the code other than adjusting skills which use it is increasing 'concentrate' equilibrium loss.)
* Aeonics as a skill is not quite useful for the second class which uses it. While this is the case for many of the rituals specialisations, it is not true of all of them and it likely needs to be decided whether this should be status quo or not, and this is a reasonable place to do so.
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Comments
1. Change Aeonics such that a viable Timequake kill only requires Aeonics skills (ie. no rubies into shatterplex into timequake). Remove most-to-all timewarp delivery from Harmonics. Rework Harmonics so that its contribution toward a Timequake kill is equal to the contribution of Knighthood toward a Timequake kill - mostly hindering and chasing. That doesn't mean that Harmonics can't have nice things in this version, only that those nice things don't involve bursting lots of timewarp on someone.
2. Change Aeonics such that Timequake isn't something warriors do solo. Change the effects of minor timewarp to be warrior-friendly (steam cure delay could go here, but so could other things), leaving Timeflux, TimeEchoes and Oracle as effects the main contribution of Aeonics to a warrior's offense. Institute offense would instead focused around Harmonics, either with improved timewarp delivery into Timequake or a new kill method that is exclusive to Harmonics.
3. Aeon. It's in the name of the skill. It's been very problematic in the past. It's been recently changed to be nowhere near as powerful. Aeon is always going to be a key consideration for the Aeonics skill. Falaeron's mentioned in the Harmonics thread that Aeonics should be very good at landing and sticking Aeon. Should that be done? (I personally think strong aeon usage be an excellent step toward a version of Aeonics that doesn't need Harmonics to Timequake!) If so, how? (Timewarp-Aeon interactions are one possible way to go - if minor timewarp extended steam balance, blocked quicksilver entirely, or if TIMECHANT AEON did a half smoke of timewarp as well as the Aeon, it would suddenly make Aeonics Aeon a lot better than everyone else's.)
4. Aeonics Stretch Goal: Change Aeonics to be less RNG-based by converting skills like Foresight (damage dodging), FutureGlimpse (affliction dodging), Insight (slush affliction dodging) and SwitchFate (dodging with redirection to an enemy) are reliable, activated abilities. Think Medacity, AdaptiveFlux, Night Flight for similar existing skills.
5. Harmonics Stretch Goal: One of the top three requests I got as a Halli envoy was for heartstone to work differently. Presently, you make a heartstone of someone and then if they die while you're online you can HEARTSTONE RESURRECT to revive them. While the skills is very thematic, it has two wonky elements: A] A personal can only have two heartstone made of them, so the resurrection method only works if one of those two researchers are online/not AFK/have deathsight up; and B] HEARTSTONE RESURRECT teleports you to the ghost of the person you're reviving, AKA into the room with whatever killed them.
Now, obviously these aren't all compatible. But they are what's been on my mind while thinking about this report and I hope it will give people ideas.
The offensive skills are also a bit lackluster. TimeEchoes and Oracle have tic rates that are too slow to rely on. Displacement sounds great in theory but it is extremely short at low levels of timewarp and if they are at massive then why not just TimeQuake?
Paradox is one of my favourite skills thematically but the RNG mechanic of 1) who it attacks, and 2) what it attacks with, combined with the fact that these attacks aren't even that great to begin with makes this a very expensive skill that isn't worth using. It is basically like an Illuminati's Homunculus except you don't have any control over it and it only lasts a short period of time.
Aeonfield is the only skill that actually puts the "Aeon" into "Aeonics", but it came with a massive drawback that is especially dangerous in a meta with so many mana and ego killers. Aeon has also been nerfed and when some classes can already give double aeon it makes this feel weak in comparison.
When I compare Aeonics to the other Rituals specs I see a skillset that has many skills that are situationally and marginally useful. There are no skills that I look at and think to myself "I hope I don't get hit with that" or "wow, this skill will make me much tankier" that are present in the other classes.
The most direct comparison is Paradigmatics. Defensively they have some of the RNG based things but they have some skills like Fusion that have a real, noticeable impact. Because they have less of the RNG defensive skills they are allowed to have more combat and non-combat utility as well as more offensive skills. If you have ever been maggoted you would know how incredibly powerful Butterfly actually is even in the hands of a total non-com. Reality is very powerful in holding rooms and Reimagination can decrease someone's vitals by more than even Highmagic Binah.
In short, I think we need to get rid of the RNG defensive bloat and buff, rework, or add offensive skills that have some oomph to them so that even if it isn't the best skillset available, at least it should feel powerful.
Given the talk I've seen over the years about Warriors and their org secondaries, I think it'd be neat to see what could be done to make it useful in the Warrior kit. (Which could then maybe form a base for other Warriors?)
Maybe Aeonics could have some abilities designed specifically for Sentinels. Like what if they have their own insta which synergizes with knighthood? What if paradox lets them do something fancy with their strikes?
Warriors generally want passives and utility in their terts they dont want to have to be doing anything but swinging their blades most of the time and occasionally throwing off the odd utility skill. Its why skills like Stag, Sacraments and Paradigmatics are nice for warriors. Lots of passive effects and one hit only stuff to add utility/survival/extra passive offense.
This is sort of already reflected in the other warrior skills. I guess thats a design decision to make though. Do you want to give warriors a viable and workable tert kill. I'm not opposed to the concept but that'd be an overall design decision for warriors as a whole not just aeonics warriors. Eg If we go down this route you'll want to build in a kill route in stuff like Moon/Night/Neco/etc that warriors can potentially do.
I guess it's mostly a matter of efficiency. If there is an Open Combat thread for one of the other totems/rituals skills and at that point the discussion comes up and it's then decided to change the status quo then Aeonic Sentinels would need to be overhauled again.
There seems like a bunch of ways that they could incorporate skills without having to necessarily slow down on their swinging. Like weapon imbues, strike modifiers, or even weaving (having abilities that take equi and can be used off-balance).
Of course, anything that's really for Warriors only would also likely be locked to them. Just to prevent issues if those abilities were in the hands of the other class with the shared skill.
Also, it's weird that Stag is listed as nice, it's always seemed like the last choice that few ever took.
Yeah well. Speed bonuses are kind of a controllingly powerful effect, as evidenced by the old racial system where often the very most important consideration (or second most important) was speed bonus/maluses. All baseline speed bonuses should be removed from the game, leaving only situational, high impact boosts like quickening. It's really the dramatic bulk of what Stag has to offer for a warrior worth mentioning in comparison to other choices.
I suggested it to Sondayga (and probably others previously), but maybe summaries in the help files that outline what the skills bring to the kits they're in could help?
Imperian has it for every class from what I've seen and it's handy when looking at skills to see the summary, potentially even more valuable to us given skillchoices.
With Stagform you're at 4/4.
Plus, instead of pits you can activate totems and sacrifice for an area if that's worth?
From older discussions I think Moon tended to be more popular because you get the two extra attacks, resurgem, covens, full.
Either way, it's perception and envoy reports have been at least suggest based on that perception, which has probably happened from a decent amount of skills.
Edit: That said, maybe it's just skimming over the other good points of the skills but it seems like the difference is really coming down to two abilities (drawdown and swiftstripes) then that wouldn't feel really useful to me, like if the reason to invest well over a thousand lessons is for one or two abilities, it's kinda meh.
Also, if they were effectively equivalent, what's the reason to choose one over the other?
I guess trying to bring it back to Aeonics, could aeonics not feel quite useful because it has a limited number of useful abilities in it?
Not or sure if that changed after the race overhaul. People had migrated from warrior pretty heavily at that point.
Either way, how useful the rituals/totems specs should be to a warrior and what sort of use they should offer (just passives vs some actives + possible kill methods) seems like it would be good to settle and then design Aeonics with that in mind for Sentinels, as opposed to just building them within the status quo because that's how things are now.
Aeonics doesn't feel impactful even if it had multiple "useful" skills because none of them feel individually impactful.
Moon/Night give no direct benefit to warriors speed when attacking at all really. Stag gives warriors the best balance buffs achievable in the game. A stag warrior can reach 5 balance with no artis and 6 balance with the arti. Most other warriors can only reach 2 balance buff with artis. Thats a big difference to a class where attrition and build over time is their main set up.
I don't recall Gaudi warriors of note after Aliod, and his aff stacking with aslaran speed chaosaura was de facto removed following the speed changes. Even then, it was a slow build to illuminate.
Sacraments does have inquisition/raze destruction combo Kelly used to to varying degrees. Uncertain if there's much offensively beyond that, given that it is sacraments. Maybe Axelord damage as a replacement for destruction? I don't know how viable this ever was outside of catching people off guard given the lack of hindering in the prep.
Deathweapon has, to my understanding, always been unimpressive. I don't believe Necromancy/sacrifice balance loss tactics were ever addressed following the overhaul.
Aeonics being garbage for warriors appears to be the status quo? I would argue that they should all bring value that could be deemed reasonably equivalent of pits. That being said, that would make more sense in a warrior-wide special report on weaponauras rather than here for Aeonics only and then just hoping other warriors can figure it out.
Pretty much. Warrior terts overall don't do that much other than give passive buffs to survive which well is good for warriors as the longer than can stand there and keep swinging without having to run or shield or etc is more wounds for them to do. Passive defensive stuff is nice for warriors for that reason.
Its also why if we ignore tracking(lol pits) Stag is great for warriors as it provides great defensives and a great offensive boost. Most other warrior specs its all just defensives and minor offensive buffs.
I did a bit of testing with sacrafice, illuminate and timequake and its technically possible for a bonecrusher warrior to pull off all three, with a great deal of luckly procs and aff ticks, but it requires high enough wounds that well if you have that high wound levels you just warrior insta them anyway.
Inquisition is great for groups but it doesnt really do much for warriors solo, warrior damage is so low and slow not many specs could get close to killing someone in it. Axelord maybe if the enemy didnt have vitality, high resistances or buffs.
I wouldn't call warrior terts garbage for sure they give great utility and defensives a lot of the time its just warriors dont and cant really use them offensivly like guardians can. Which again I guess is a design decision to make. Should warrior terts be built around passive buffs and utility or do we want warrior terts to have a large role in a warriors offense.
Aeonics was always a 'strong defence' choice for Sentinels since its offensive abilities were either unusable or did not contribute to achieving any warrior goal, and were at best a nuisance. But while it may not have had the same offensive punch as Moon/Night, it was hardly a complete damp squib.
The Good:
Foresight - Dodging and the ensuing balance loss could leave you raging at the screen and it provided Sentinels with super survivability, even if a temporary defence. Balance loss aspect was a doubly great hinder when paired with Bonecrusher wind + knockdown combos. Some upkeep to maintain, but was worth it if you weren't already landing heavy/crit affs.
Mindclock - Old aeon shrugging also provided great survivability. A set and forget perma defence = great for warriors. Not entirely sure what this does now...
Insight & Timelessbody - Equivalent of undead mental aff shrugging and shrugging of a limited pool of physical affs. Nothing to write home about but more permanent set and forget abilities.
Pastglimpse - Allheale cure on ~4s equilibrium and usable when prone = get out of jail card if you lacked power to gedulah/green or just wanted to cure auric affs while perfect fifth'd.
Temporalbonds - Enemy only carcer was nice. Though wasn't worth stopping warrior offence to upkeep.
Paradox - Never used at 10p, became a semi-useful if unreliable ability to open a fight with when the power was reduced to 5p. Could be targeted by some juggling of your enemy list.
Aeon (active cast) - Really only useful in a group, and warrior affs could often be more useful.
One of the last approved Aeonics reports I submitted for Sentinels was the timewarp weaponaura, but warrior overhaul happened and I had stopped playing before it was implemented so never really got to see what could be done with that. Would probably lump it into the Good category though as a perma-buff.
The Bad:
Timewarp - Pointless for Sentinels. Couldn't build it and quicksilver wasn't an issue for warriors with raze. Always outpaced without shatterplex. Never used.
Contingency - Power heavy and limited to being triggered by a single predefined target. Required being hit by that predefined attacker when below 50% health and henceforth pretty much useless in the face of instas and group battles. If foresight was already up, you were spending 5p for an allheale sip and maybe two shrugged affs before futureglimpse dropped again. Almost never used.
Oracle - Oracle gave some timewarp and phobias on a relatively slow tick. Barring the exceptional case of vestiphobia causing someone to remove their robes and the person not having a trigger to rewear, phobias and the fear-induced random running were the last things Sentinels wanted on a target. Overhaul removed phobias, and can't remember what affs this gives now, but is essentially a clone of TimeEchoes.
Displacement - Required timewarp which Sentinels couldn't stick. Unusable.
Timequake - Never in a position where it could be used.
Switchfate - Short duration made it too much hassle to upkeep. Warriors also had large health pools and more convenient ways to mitigate damage.
The Okay:
Futureglimpse - Chance to shrug all affs but always dropped within first 30 seconds of a fight and had a long balance to raise, so wasn't worth upkeeping unless waiting around in a standoff.
Alacrity - +20 speed weapon stat and occasionally useful healing tick but bordering on impractical to maintain in a fight. Time and opportunity lost in raising the def often could be better used.
AeonField - Strong ability to help stick a lock but turned old warrior races into stupidly easy mana/ego kills (or even a bleeding kill) for its duration so bit of a double-edged sword and was rarely used.
TimeEchoes - Minor hinder from stupidity ticks but provided nothing a Sentinel could really capitalise on.
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So with that review out of the way, my own opinion on tertiary use for warriors is that they should supply defences and some options for battlefield control, which puts me in the tertiary for passive buff/utility camp. Offensive buffs from tertiaries are great, but active casts/upkeep detract from warrior offence. I would say that warriors not being able to kill with their tertiary is not a major concern.
I know admin were largely resistant to Aeonics having a weapon aura following the furore of the ChaosAura report and perceived cloning of abilities, but once they opened that can of worms, all specs were going to want one since they really are a simple and effective way to provide offensive warrior buffs. They eventually relented.
Moon/Night weaponauras were particularly fantastic weapon auras because they provided +24 DMP to everything and the equivalent of two free Level II artifact runes that stacked with regular artis, turning commune warriors into ubertanks with extremely high precision weapons. Scrapping of DMP system and weapon stats/arti-runes obviously impacted Moon/Night weapon auras the most, but I would say that they were probably too strong as it was.
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Other things to think about from Sentinel point of view in a revamp of Aeonics.
- Uncertain if Foresight dodging was affected by the armour changes, but decide if Foresight is staying/going. As the best ability of the bunch and main Aeonics ability used by Sentinels, if it's being scrapped or has already been neutered, should be replaced with something decent.
- Remove Redundancy Part A: No real need for Aeonics to have four aff shrugging abilities, three of which are permanent (Mindclock, Insight, Timelessbody). I would say just condense them all into FutureGlimpse and make FutureGlimpse a permanent defence. Tweak the % shrug rate if necessary.
- Remove Redundancy Part B: TimeEchoes and Oracle both have slowish ticks with very similar effects. Scrapping one and speeding up the tick of the other a la GreyWhispers would be preferable.
- I think Alacrity still provides a slight balance bonus, but uncertain on whether it is included in the overhauled BODYSCAN AGILITY setup. If not, having a StagStripes-type balance bonus and/or movement/weather resistance buff would be nice.
- Removal of Contingency, Paradox, Timewarp (active cast), Displacement, SwitchFate, Timequake, and Oracle are all low-impact for Sentinels. Replacements which provide some resistances or other buffs welcome.
- If timewarp is staying, one potential option of where it could be used by warriors without disrupting Researchers or a need for warriors to Timequake is by a tie-in with the flavour-only Ageing ability, e.g., Timewarp + being struck by warrior weapon = chance for damaged limb/other bodypart effect due to brittle bones/other ageing-appropriate effects.
Foresight and the various affliction/damage shrugs are one of the big strengths of the skillset for sure. Dodge counters active hinders hitting the warrior. Same thing as before being able to shrug off hinder and keep swinging is pretty nice for warriors. We already get folks complaining that dodge is too strong on classes with a base armour of 12 and minimal resistances. Having a sustainable dodge on classes like warriors and guardians is a huge benefit when you add in all the extra class defensives that they can access as well beyond that.
One thing that does get a little overlooked is how -long- it takes for a Researcher in particular to get fully deffed. Crystalplex at least can be alleviated by AcceleratorGem now, but Aeonics defs... though many are set and forget, it still seems like it takes longer than other classes. Though, arguably, this is within wiccan/guardian design. And so looping back to the original point, putting up all these defs and still dying fairly easily is super frustrating, but you're also doing yourself a disservice if you don't put use them when you get the chance. Naturally there's value in getting back to a fight as soon as possible if you die, though, and forgoing some defs.
You should also consider how annoying/difficult it is to try and get buffs for anything through once you have one of those "game changers." Trust me when I tell you it's not beneficial in the long run to aim for super skills. Every subsequent report will be judged contextually with your gamechanger, so be warned.
Take pyrochem, for example. There's no singular skill in Pyrochem that's uniquely awesome/must have/amazing. Trans skill was literally just passive damage, which is present everywhere. However, collectively, pyrochem offered amazing damage output and filled a desired niche in Gaudi: pure DPS.
I think there's already framework for potentially really valuable skills like displace. Maze, in its heyday, was used and abused (hence why it was nerfed). Bubble and fleshstone both require demesnes. You have it in a potentially mobile version. I think you'll find the most success in identifying an end result/kill method, and adjusting what exists to accomplish that. Then going back to update other skills to fill the void of what is missing. (example: SDs had no escape skill, I changed flight to be said skill).