A feedback for the Chaos Specialization

Well, for me it is not strange that Chaos Specialization is the least used of all the specs ingame. Although I'm known in my own guild for being a Chaos Lord since my corrupted volumes of Chaos and full destruction, I will make a feedback for people who is interested to know about the efficiency of that specialization ingame.

In first place, for PVE, there are only two skills viable for everyone interested in the specialization. Those skills are Yuxtapose, which acts as the Tap Soul with the changes of no Life Attunement penalty and no fizzle in another way (Including, of course, using skills like Berserker Stance or Passive Stance), and the most crazy skill of all entire game, Chaotic Feedback.

In PVP, I'm not necessarily telling here that the benefits of having the specialization are bad, but they're completely avoidable since the effects will not really give to the Chaos Master a true help with it. For example:

• Giving a penalty of -10 Dexterity and/or Intelligenge, if I consider that the user doesn't have the guarantee of inflicting those debuffs, for me those things doesn't exist. Furthermore, since Confusion gives the famous CC Resist when casted succesfully, I don't consider giving those penalties a good help for it.
• Chaos Bolt... the only thing which I've seen with the mastery is that the negative effects inflicted to the caster (And not to the others) are less frecuent than before. However, and although there is a 33% chance of slowing and a 33% chance of stunning approximately, I think there are better ways for a very random effect bolt like it. Of course Chaos Bolt is still usable for people with higher Chaos Attunement, but they will prefer using an attack like that in those schools when they can reach more than 150 attunement.
• Chaotic Clone... for me that thing is completely useless. It makes sense you can receive some stealth bonus for trying to deceive enemies in PVE, but... 33% of Stealth is not very useful since if the player is surrounded by many enemies, the distraction is completely useless.
• More duration in Torpid Torment won't change much. Yes, it can be annoying for people with a very low Adventure Level, but not a big problem for very high level.
• Tabula Rasa... unafortunately, we're not prior of R42 when people used a lot of dynamic glyphs since the heat system. I'm not telling that that thing will cause a problem for people ganked for PVPers while farming with their PVE build, but many PVP builds have got very few dynamic slots, which is completely useless since having more locked glyphs than dynamic are more important that having more dynamic than locked.
• Chaotic Step. Honestly a funny skill, but no use in both, PVP and PVE.

The main problem which I'm seeing with Chaos Magic, with or without it is that the magic school is mainly focused in PVP since the half of the spells are only effective versus players. If I consider that there is an Offline Mode, the last thing that will do a solo player is learning Chaos, especially if the user doesn't want to see a player. That thing is a huge problem, making in the player a sense of a magic just for the multiplayer mode.

Another problem is the unpredictable effects. It makes sense that Chaos doesn't offer the same effect when dealing debuffs with that school, but nothing of even risking unnecesarily the user with the specialization learnt. And of course, one thing to consider...

For me, the Chaos Specialization is a mastery made for people who is extremely powerful (Like lvl 110-115+) and having the possibility to get a specialization at 120 because the only good point for using the Chaotic Feedback without having strong consequences is that, and just that. Without it, there is basically no other reason than just having slightly more resistance to enemy Confusions and Enemy Torpid Torments.

However, I'd like to suggest the following changes in the specialization. Those changes are:

• Confusion: Instead being affected by a random debuff of Dexterity, Intelligence, both or nothing, I'd like to suggest to input a spell damage debuff and a damage resist penalty for giving a good reason to use that skill even in PVE since not all users want to PVP... like me.
• Chaos Bolt: It could be interesting if Chaos Bolt were able to be an attack with the chance to deal two attack types (Fire and Lightning, Fire and Water or Water and Lightning) or even the three for making a viable attack with that attack.
• Chaotic Clone: For me the best suggestion for the Clone is having a permanent stealth bonus for PVE until the clone is destroyed or the user uses Silence Movente and/or hiding the true stats of it for deceiving players. Another option, but that thing is more outside of the mastery is giving the ability to "attack", although the clone doesn't inflict damage.
• Torpid Torment: Torpid Torment should be able to input a curse to other enemies than the players in terms of reflecting a 10% of the damage converted in Chaos Damage for giving them a good chance to dealing with NPCs.
• Tabula Rasa: Tabula Rasa should increase the cooldown of the skills and/or spells of both, NPCs and players, and even giving an increased lock time to players since many users uses about 7-8 locked glyphs in each deck.
• Chaotic Step: For me that skill is hard to suggest because the nature of the skill is giving a funny moment to the user, but maybe giving a small ammount of Chaos attunement could be interesting.

I hope @Chris can improve the Chaos Magic with a suggestion like this. Honestly I'd like to use that magic in PVE, unleashing the power of Darkstar...

EDIT: I've forgotten to write here that Chaos Specialization should reduce more the negative side effects of Chaotic Feedback, At least in a 50% instead a 33%.

 

We all know chaos needs some love. @Chris here are some of my ideas to throw around for the next iteration. Make Obsidian Chips purchasable at magic vendors and remove the reagent cost of lower tier spells to mimic all other magic trees. Change the theme of how chaos works, rather than being random both positively and negatively for the caster, push it more towards random negative effects to the enemies and random positive effects to the caster. SP is an abbreviation for specialization.

Chaos Bolt - Very random effect bolt (remove the chance to teleport you to the target) Also st0ne arrow needs to do damage (might be a bug, but sometimes it hits for 0), I do like @Sakarisei idea of allowing multiple overlapping effects 10% of the time. Add (SP - chance to knockback in a random direction)

Chaotic Clone - Creates an illusionary copy of the caster to distract attackers. SP - gives a chance for a weak 15 second stealth effect that allows movement. (Alternative 100% stealth at 80 lvl, but removed when clone is killed @Sakarisei nailed this idea)

Control Daemon - Controls a summoned demon to keep it from killing you. (Alternative Enrage Daemon – Drastically increases daemons power, but it now attacks anyone nearby.)

Juxtapose - Combo only spell that can result numerous contrasting results. SP - For Chaos Mages, they will be able to cast Juxtapose as a standalone spell that will do... things. First 4 effects, 40% chance it will move large amount of health to Focus, 40% chance it will move a large amount of focus to health, 10% chance it will give you a chaos attunement bonus buff (60 seconds, 20 points at 80 skill), 10% chance it will give you a (debuff to all magic resists 10 points each at 80 skill). More stuff to come but you get the idea. (This is mostly just for fun, btw) Alternative (casting juxtapose gives Chaos Armor – Gain Chaos Attunement and a random buff, whenever you are struck enemy is randomly given fire dot, chill, confusion etc.)

Tabula Rasa - Instantly discard all glyphs and replace with new glyphs from deck. This spell is only effective against other players. Alternative (Changes skills to different slots for x seconds, too many players use locked decks now)

Torpid Torment - Debuff that does damage to target for each point of focus they expend. Add this (SP – siphons % of focus spent by enemy to caster)

New Innate Ideas

Pliant Mind – Increases casting speed of all chaos skills.

Chaotic Harmony - Decrease fizzle penalty (Makes it so while wearing the recent @DarkStarr armor set from r51 postmortem stretch goals you can have 0 fizzle chance at lvl 100, or you can tie it to SP like you did death)

New Skill Ideas

Chaotic Mark – Instant cast ground targeted skill that places a mark on the ground that is activated if an enemy steps inside it does chaotic damage and applies random debuff.

Maelstrom – AoE that gives a random buff to allies (HoT, Speed buff, positive draw speed modifier) while damaging and applying a random debuff (Fire Dot, chill effect, negative draw speed modifier) to enemies.

Sacrifice Daemon - Sacrifice Daemon to gain a large amount of health or focus.

 

Just want to mention, a long time ago I did a post on magic traps for different schools along these lines. For example, "Fire Trap."

 

I've never figured out how to get the reagent for casting Chaos spells. If it's PVP related, dealbreaker.

 

One chaos spell I have suggested in the past:

a minefield is formed as a grid N*N objects.
To others they look the same, but actually some is safe and some is bad. The caster can recognize some of the mines but not all (skill dependant)

 

I checked out your post and like all of your examples, I think in time we'll likely see skills that use mechanics similar to your fire trap and fire circle. Although I find the synergy with environmental factors a really fun idea, I'm less confident in see those make it in game anytime soon, but they'd be a really nice immersion/strategy touch.

 

In SPOffline, chaos allows you to roleplay as chaotic. Thats what the R in RPG is for! :-D