Tap soul underpowered and inefficient

Death magic is not over powered... Counters have been slipping in more and more. I encourage everyone to check out the juxtapose combos also.

 

In every game where there's the very concept of hit points, the race boils down to removing opponent's HPs faster than he removes yours.

It's not a matter of who wins with more style, but who has 1HP+ when the enemy has 0.

Tap Soul takes YOUR HPs to give you focus. It doesn't damage your target, it damages the very caster. You can actually cast it without a target, since its target it's yourself.

 

You forget about Juxtapose And, I do like the Tap Soul idea... I didn't consider it much for Gustball, and it is possible overdo Tap Soul killing yourself. I'll do a bit of brainstorming & open up commentary in the R19 Gustball thread.

 

You're missing the point. It's not about style it's about skill.

That's good. I still think healing has to be tweaked to make more sense within that system though.

 

(Death Magic is inherently OP if you can't block it or counter it)

Name a counter.

Juxtapose is not a counter, btw.

If I have to use Juxtapose to counter something that doesn't require Juxtapose to cast, that's not a balanced counter.

How do I counter a fireball spell? Let's start there.

 

As I said, counters are slipping in. I am by no means saying that everything is currently balanced & counterable.

Have you looked at all the juxtapose combos?

For death magic, by using celestial blessing for resistance, you reduce your opponents death magic effectiveness.

For fireball, you ensure you have fire resist innates, douse buffs your fire resist +.20-.25 besides just removing a dot, ice shield also gives more fire resist (I don't remember the math off the top of my head), then consider that you can roll/flip or move out of the way of a fireball.

 

Bambino, let me take a step back and say a few things before I counter your reply.

1. I know we're making some progress in combat.
2. I'm happy with a lot of the new things being added.
3. I appreciate all of the hard work the devs have done and the spirit of those trying to help out from the SCRUM team.

That said, what you're describing are not really counters or blocks. They're more of the same stuff we had before. Really it's like more dynamic resistances.

Death Magic is a great example and one that seems like it's had a lot of attention paid to it recently so let's stay there....

I cast Death Touch on you. How do you block that? How do you counter that?

If you use Celestial Blessing that increases your resistance against death magic. Great, but you have to cast that and it doesn't last forever. Death Mastery does last forever, it's innate. So advantage offense, advantage DPS mechanics. Celestial Blessing is cool, and I like it a lot, but it's not a counter or a block...it's a non-proactive resistance that really only helps you if the person you're fighting is using death magic (or mind spells). So if you cast it right before battle it may do nothing if your opponent is using fire magic (for example).

But hey, you can use Douse right? Again, you have to perform this retroactively to being attacked with fire (or you have to have a crystal ball that tells you you're about to get hit with fire). It does't block anything, and it doesn't counter anything. It just resists future attacks.

The Juxtapose combos are AWESOME, but they don't block or counter anything. They're just additional DPS options, and they are combos so in the time it takes you to use them, someone else is likely doing more DPS to you. I know this is an iterative process and it will be many months before we see some of these balance gaps close....but if there are no counters or blocks they will NEVER close.

 

The skill to out-DPS your enemy.

Maybe a skill you don't possess, but a critically important skill nonetheless. Required for any game based on HPs.

 

I think I can count just as well as everyone else here.

If that's the bar we're using to challenge ourselves, I suppose I should learn to limbo.

 

For now, root, confusion, knock back, celestial blessing, death shield, heals. I crowd control similar to how I would keep any close range attacks such as death field & death touch away from me. Death ray & death field, I can interrupt the cast.

It last for a minute using a single glyph, stacked even longer up to two minutes. A death magic resist innate is something I've always wanted also.

Death magic does not produce near as much DPS as fire, ice or I believe even air. Have you seen the ratio of hp you get based on the damage death magic produces vs how much hp you absorb? It's changed...

Same goes for douse, if your enemy does not use fire, it's useless, but it is does help counter. This is where it's a good idea to make use of dual decks.

For one, all fire spells require a cast time except flame fist, so I can see when I have a chance to interrupt my enemy casting a spell. Douse is proactive in the manner that is also gets rid of dots, which is where fire primarily gets all its DPS from. With the exception of fire arrow & flame fist, I can dodge & move out of the way of all the other fire spells. Fire arrow, I can only interrupt, which mind you interruption seems to be more relevant this release. For fire fist, I use crowd control to keep my enemy out of range.

Eh... Juxtapose provides no direct DPS options. the only thing close is Evaporate which reduces a targets fire resistance.

Although, I understand that we lack counter & blocks, I don't see where your coming from in saying that there are none at all. Perhaps a link to a thread where you talk about this? Or some example of what you consider blocks & counters?

You are an active community member. May I extend an invitation for you to join me in game? I'd like to hear some of your feedback after doing a bit of pvp with me.

 

A block actually blocks an attack. You cast Whatever at me, I block it for zero damage. That's a block.

A counter is something that I do because you attacked me in a particular way. You cast Fire on me, I cast some kind of spell or use some kind of skill that makes you wish you never cast fire on me. That's a counter.

I appreciate the offer, but I'm not up for it this weekend. I don't find combat enjoyable in its current form and every minute of time I put into it is a chore to me. When the game has blocks and counters, I'll be happy to jump into the game and compare notes.

 

Maybe an example of how one could block besides a melee parry with a sword or deflection with a shield.

Perhaps an example of how some kind of spell or use some kind of skill that makes you wish you never cast fire on me.

 

Bambino it would be great if you could do a video to demonstrate some of the new combat stuff, and I agree really how are we to help in this process if we don't play the terrible combat as it gets changes, why talk about it if we have not experienced it. Well I do know why we talk about some of it and that is to share great ideas, but to truly voice opinions about combat at this time, I by no means have done as much as I will do in the near future. Until then I will listen and learn a bit, and then experience it for myself so I can give more credible feedback. Hopefully when we get into the next few releases we will each have a very pleasing combat experience for ourselves. Well or perhaps I will just enjoy all my moments in life.

 

I have had this requested from others, and I've intended to do this for sometime, but I've been waiting for a time that I could sit down, test everything, then explain things correctly along with changes from the prior release. This could very well become a monthly video.

 

This could be done very easily with stances. Instead of having stances do what they currently do, reduce a percentage of damage (keeping with the DPS model), stances could block (100%) of some attacks. The trade off would be that they make you more vulnerable to other attacks.

So here's a very simple hypothetical example: (for simplicity's sake we'll assume that there are two people fighting only with one-handed bladed weapons)

I use the SNAKE stance. This fully protects me from Double Slash. If someone attacks me with Double Slash, I will take ZERO damage! However, using this defense comes at a price. If someone uses Riposte against me, I will take DOUBLE Damage!

In this example, Riposte becomes a true COUNTER that only works if the person you're fighting is using the Snake Stance. But wow does it work! It requires skill in timing and in awareness to perform and here's the best part, the sophistication of the combat system goes up exponentially because a good fighter is not going to stay in the same stance and just let someone spam Riposte against them over and over again for Double Damage. No, they're going to change stances to something that protects them from Riposte, or that punishes the person for use Riposte in the first place.

The same logic can apply to spells for blocking and countering. Only instead of stances we might use WARDS. I might cast a Water Ward that protects me against the Fireball spell (100%). But in doing so I open myself up to other attacks, maybe Earth which would cut through water.

Every spell and every skill should have a counter. If you use Fireball, there should be a specific spell or skill that counters that move. So maybe after you cast fireball there is a 5 second timer that counts down to zero. If someone uses the counter spell during that time, the spell does double damage to you! This makes spamming the same spell over and over again a horrible option against smart opponents. When you combine this with the ability to block, combat becomes a thinking man's game and not just an exercise in building the "best" deck and getting a bunch of levels.