Re-balance Ethereal Anguish pls

[CdrPlatypus]

I've been going back to Kyera and I think Etheral anguish needs some re-balancing. Currently the only lvl 4 improvement is AOE, no - accuracy, doge, ap increase. With its high SP cost and the fairly low benefit of its current - accuracy  I would like to see a minus 2 accuracy at lvl 4 too -2 maybe move AOE back to lvl 3 or decrease SP cost. Just my thoughts anyways.

[Cory Trese]

Interesting. I actually think it's a bit overpowered as is.

[En1gma]

Shhhhhhhh- don't make him look too hard at it... EA is awesome as it is- a sure hit ap curse that only costs 2ap? Vincent's costs 3, and Selen has to rely on her bow to make it hit... That's -3ap for a cost of only 6 ap.

[Cory Trese]

Don't worry, there is no chance we'll nerf it this close to releasing Ladders =)

[fallen]

Ethereal Anguish is one of the best Talents in the game, hands down. Upgrading it to AoE from single target is a HUGE bonus!

Now, somewhere around here there is an amazing thread where John Robinson does a full comparison of all of the -AP curses.

[John Robinson]

Jul 25, 2014 23:03:50 GMT -5 fallen said:

Ethereal Anguish is one of the best Talents in the game, hands down. Upgrading it to AoE from single target is a HUGE bonus!

Now, somewhere around here there is an amazing thread where John Robinson does a full comparison of all of the -AP curses.

I think this is the one.

There is also a link on the Main table sticky called "Angst and Joy"  for this thread originally posted by vdx.

Crippling Strikes(6)  A new talent of Kincaid's also provides -1 AP Cross Shaped AOE.
 In addition it reduces incoming damage by 32, and reduces enemy dodge by 4, best of all it lasts for 3 turns.  
Combined with Ethereal Anguish, or Flash Freeze will produce some very interesting results.

 

[contributor]

Jul 26, 2014 2:15:25 GMT -5 John Robinson said:

Jul 25, 2014 23:03:50 GMT -5 fallen said:

Ethereal Anguish is one of the best Talents in the game, hands down. Upgrading it to AoE from single target is a HUGE bonus!

Now, somewhere around here there is an amazing thread where John Robinson does a full comparison of all of the -AP curses.

I think this is the one.

There is also a link on the Main table sticky called "Angst and Joy"  for this thread originally posted by vdx.

Crippling Strikes(6)  A new talent of Kincaid's also provides -1 AP Cross Shaped AOE.
 In addition it reduces incoming damage by 32, and reduces enemy dodge by 4, best of all it lasts for 3 turns.  
Combined with Ethereal Anguish, or Flash Freeze will produce some very interesting results.

 

How about combined with Ethereal and Meteoric? I'd really love to see if I can get an enemy down to "Does up to 0 damage." We'll see.

[Brutus Aurelius]

You could just drop it below 1/2 of your Armor Value. That would effectively cancel out all damage from that opponent.

[algesan]

Heh, EA went from a Level 3 AoE wonder to a Level 4 AoE PLUS;

BTW, all the mobs move like checkers on a checkerboard, so good luck with hitting more than one archer at a time PLUS;

BTW, most the mobs now move after they hit and scatter into a pattern resembling checkers on a checkerboard most of the time and it is planned to make them all that way PLUS;

BTW, we have nerfed -AP skills so that no matter how many casters put a -AP on something, it still always gets to hit. Yes, we realize that you were blowing lots of AP and mana trying to lock down a few mobs and it kinda worked efficiently with cross-shaped AoEs before the checker disease hit the NPCs but suck it up, EQUALS;

Buying EA up to level 3 to get the AoE effect worked like a charm. Couldn't praise it more. Buying single target level 3 EA up to level 4 for AoE again would be the first Talent point I'd want back, closely followed by the other two points to take it back to level 1. Turn after turn of combat blowing 102 mana to put -1 AP on three NPCs and only having 1AP left for anything else when the point to paying Talent points & the extra mana was to get a little more efficient in AP usage (& mana if you got lucky on how the mobs moved in before the checker disease), it's a bit underwhelming. Granted, this might be one of those "Wait until you get 40 something level and there are SOOO MANY NPCs on the map that they have to be shoulder to shoulder and then that AoE just hammers them all great," things but at 20th level, looking at the mana costs and figuring it would be cheaper to heal that potential extra 100 point archer hit than to bother with single targeting the mob with a more expensive EA isn't impressive at all.

[fallen]

algesan - monsters always keep 1 AP, regardless of how many curses you stack. Similarly with damage, they will always keep their base damage, regardless of how much -Damage you stack up. So, yes, you can over-curse if you are not watching your tactics.

[contributor]

They will always keep their base damage? Where's the fun in that? algesan one option is to take EA all the way up to 10 in a hurry. That way you get cloud action and its effects are epic. I got to cast it on a group of 9 once. You can't get more bang for your buck.

[fallen]

contributor - same principle as EA.

[Brutus Aurelius]

EA 10 would be great for the Underforge

[algesan]

Yeah, I puzzled with it a bit because fallen & Cory seem to like the balance and looking at the chart EA10 might be the serious shizzle at high levels when you can afford to dump out that kind of mana on a regular basis. Low 20s, cross type AoE, checkerboard formation NPCs (this especially applies to ranged mobs who aren't going to even think about piling up, but if you get a good chokepoint, the melee mobs won't pile up either) and only -1AP...not worth it.

Look at it this way, the extra -1 Acc/-2 Dodge aren't what you want out of the spell, it is the -1AP. Given the current way NPCs move and get into formation, it just becomes a way to blow mana at 3.4x the usual rate to get one NPC for the vast majority of casts. Another way to look at it...10% of the mana pool on that version of Kyera (compared to 24 to heal 170+Lore bonus in hitpoints...).

So, maybe later, but for the next 15 or 20 levels, cheaper to heal and maybe, I'll start saving up some Talent points.

fallen - you used to be able to hammer down the AP to nothing if you had two -AP casters. I remember because I was doing the checking and reporting back when -AP wasn't working and then (apparently) working too well.

This is a synergy issue...the AP issues (either not working correctly or display bugs, doesn't matter) were dealt with and I really didn't have an issue with moving EA back up to 4th from 3d to get the AoE (except the annoyance of casting 34 mana -1AP single target debuffs that were formerly AoE debuffs). The problem comes from the NPC AI having checkerboard disease. If I had to refight some of those early battles in the Ratkin tunnels where half the level swarms at you from all directions now with EA3 (AoE version), I'd probably go ballistic right then because instead of being swarmed, I'm getting trickles of mobs moving up and keeping formation. Same size or larger swarms than earlier runs that just take longer to fight.

I must be missing the Giant Rat screaming (since my characters don't speak Rat), "SPREAD OUT, ONE GRENADE COULD GET YOU ALL!", as they move in squealing.

[tenbsmith]

I think EA is great at level 1. That -1 AP comes in handy. For my current party build--Level 15 on Hard--I'm a bit regretting spending the Talent Point to upgrade to EA 2. The extra SP required to caste it may outweigh the benefit of the slight bump to the dodge curse. I tend to use EA on enemies with ranged attacks or who do a lot of damage with each blow (e.g., Arhaive Elite). Further, I like to be able to caste it frequently, mixing it in with Smiting Blow and Mysha's Tears.

The checkerboard disease does make it more difficult to curse groups of enemies with cross shaped AoE spells. Old shifty eyes manages it a couple of times a fight with Choking Ash, but he's more focused on cursing and has less other things to do than Kyera.