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Level 76 air Xelor here, just posting to say that you and everyone else who thinks this way are completely wrong. I hit far harder then any water Xelor could at my level, and I have above average close combat and area-of-effect options unlike fire Xelors. Also, the water branch is much better at supporting the air branch than the other way around; if I pick a single target and use Aging and 9 APs worth of water spells to steal AP on a single target, the damage dealt can be tremendous even though my water spells are only around level 20-30 while my air spells are level 60+. Wasting your turn as a water Xelor reducing hyperaction is generally inferior to simply changing targets, so I'd say that air doesn't support the water branch very well; and the damage dealt by Aging and fire spells is decent, but only if you wear air gear. If you wear fire gear, the 1AP cost of Aging would be better spent on a fire spell.

In regards to the ideas in this thread, I agree that Temporal Images needs a change as it is currently of very limited use; however I don't think the change should be to give it long range, as this conflicts with the Dial and it also would make Xelors too good at running away from close combat enemies. I also think that rather than creating new hour cells, perhaps an ability to charge or move the Dial or stabilize the Xelor for a short amount of time would be a better way to stop the Dial being destroyed so easily. Obviously these are just my opinions here so feel free to disagree  

I have highlighted these quotes in particular to respond to them;
1. Drain is far and away not the worst spell in the game. I can think of multiple spells off the top of my head which are far worse, for example Machine Gun, Fleabag, Line of Fire, even Mudoll from the same Sadida branch are all much worse than Drain is currently, even if it is only useful as a high damage spell.

2. Who says that Srams are meant to be the class that are mainly meant to use trap damage? Trap damage as a statistic is named badly anyway in my opinion; it should be called Mechanics damage to make it clearer as it buffs Fecas, Rogues, Cras and Xelors but not Srams. Sram traps are meant to 'manipulate the battlefield' (Click here) not to kill opponents. if Ankama intended for Srams to be able to win fights using traps alone then they would have done with the fire branch when it was first released.

3. This change was made between the beta and the full release - players had not been paying to play the game and have access to their characters, and all characters were deleted before the full release. That is a completely different situation from this, where a class would be changed to the point of being a completely different play-style and would have to be re-learned and re-geared regardless of how players feel, despite the customer already having paid for it in subscription fees. Also you are suggesting removing one element and introducing another on an already existing class; Ankama may introduce a 4th element for Srams in the future and may even be thinking about a trap branch or playstyle, but they without a doubt will not be removing an existing branch to do so just because "there are too many fire classes".

4. You seem to think that your ideas are less broken than ones that Ankama can come up with, and having a quick read through your notes this does not seem to be the case. Being able to be invisible while dealing above average damage (which a Sram on his own without a double still does due to the final damage bonus from backstabbing, more so as you have taken the damage reduction off of Guile and actually buffed the damage of the air spells) and also being un-lockable and having +3MP which would easily allow you to work around any loss of perception with your new mechanic by simply not attacking every other turn. This doesn't sound balanced at all.

As I previously said, everything I read on your initial post except the invisibility and perception changes (which mostly seem good although far too exploitable) sounds to me like "I don't like what Srams already have so lets suggest something different that I think is cool". It doesn't seem that you've noticed that Srams are already pretty well balanced and don't need a massive revamp in order to fulfill their roles as backstabbing assassins - why do you think that an assassin has to be invisible all the time? Their role on a team is to single out an important target and eliminate it as quickly as possible - how do their current spells not fulfill this role?

While I appreciate that you have put a lot of effort into this thread Kiku... I'm simply going to say exactly the same thing that I tried to put across in the official Feca Revamp thread. Changing a class completely after people have spent such a long time with it's current form is not professional if you consider that they have paid for all of the time they have spent with their characters and they may not like any big changes that are implemented. A lot of the things you have listed (except the invisibility and perception mechanics which do sound better than the existing ones) simply sound like changing things for the sake of change, because you personally like the sound of your ideas better than the already workable existing spells.

The only thing fundamentally wrong right now with Srams is that the current invisibility/perception mechanic makes the invisible playstyle mostly unviable in team combat, and the constant luck factor of being revealed makes it undesirable even when soloing. A few other spells could be improved upon or changed for variety reasons (for example Kleptosram and Swindlesram are currently very similar and could have some changed effects for variety; Torment and Execution are also very similar; and Shadow Trap is not useful in most fights) but on the whole Srams are already a complete, fun to play class and do not need changing as much as you suggest.

Hi Eartheon, having used or teamed up with most of the classes and builds that you listed at endgame levels, I can assure you that most of them are completely viable. I'll go through your list:

1. No sram is weak if played correctly; by correctly I mean by completely avoiding invisibility outside of PvP. All srams can do big amounts of base damage by the end of the game; water is definitely more powerful than the other 2 builds due to AP and HP theft, but 10ap air srams are godly powerful and fire srams are pretty good in longer fights. Just make use of Double properly and Srams are a very strong class.

2. Both air and fire enis are viable; while they don't outshine any dedicated damage dealers, they can offer unique support and can be very tanky if built correctly, along with dealing decent damage with Psykosis Flask and Hammle Mark. Water enis are more useful as a rule, but that doesn't mean other eni builds are not viable. I have a level 95 fire eni myself and it is great

3. Fire enus easily match water enus in damage; Ember, Hot Magma and Fusion are all incredibly powerful and the Dhreller's claw attack uses your enutrof's fire damage and can add a fair bit of damage to the end of your turns as a fire enu (along with taking away MP if you max combat training). They also are not crippled in close combat like water enus, who usually don't raise Cutting or Refinement very high.

4. Earth iops are not a weak class; for 10ap they can have access to great area of effect by using Devastate x2 or Impact x5 and this doesn't cost them any WP, unlike fire iops. They also can do great damage by jumping behind targets to use Shaker, and can stun quite regularly using Increase + Charge/Rocknoceros. They may not be as simple to use as fire or air iops but they are definitely very strong.

5. Sacriers are amazing teammates in any situation, especially for the hardest fights in the game and in pvp. Earth sacriers did get a nerf, but honestly when fighting big groups of monsters with multiple allies Sacrificed you will not notice any difference, as all of your coagulation will still get used up most turns just like it used to. Fire and air sacriers both deal good damage (not the highest of all classes, but with so much HP that wouldn't be fair!) and there is nothing stopping them offering great team support with transposition and sacrifice as well.

6. In general yes you are correct, Ecas do deal less damage than Cras unless their winning streak and tarot cards work very favourably for them. This isn't because Ecas are weak though, it is simply because Fire and Air cras at the moment are unbeatable in terms of ranged damage. However, fire and earth Ecas can do some amazing damage when they get critical hits with any of their spells, and water ecas can survive pretty well while dealing decent damage and can also buff ally's critical hits very well.

7. Foggers do not have amazing damage potential, but they can hop around the battlefield like Xelors, can be very tanky, can remove WP from targets (amazing in pvp and against bosses that summon), and best of all by using Motherfogger they have access to 3 strong free level 100 area of effect spells, one in each element. They are a class that is hard to master but have great potential if you put the effort in to get them to high level and equip them well.

8. Earth pandas are completely viable, i don't know what made you think this? Blisskrieg, Bash Barrel and Lactic Acid are all very powerful spells, and at high enough levels of Merry the damage they put out is insane. They are pretty hard to kill as well, with 20% chance to outright dodge attacks while their Barrel is out and the attacker is Dizzy, they can heal themselves decently with Master of Merriment, and they can buff their resistance greatly with Pandawhack. Just don't raise your level of Merry too quickly in longer fights and they are a great class.

9. Fire fecas are bugged (glyph damage) but that doesn't stop them being really strong. Volcano is the strongest 4ap spell in the game, and the harmor destroys anything that casts healing spells; Fecastopheles is very high damage and the harmor is incredible when combined with any ally that likes to be in close combat. The damage Meteor glyph does to big targets like Shin Larva and the Nun can be incredible, even with the damage calculation glitch; and last but not least the blindness chance on Flaming Carpet glyph is high enough for it to be really useful against targets that need range to attack.

10. Earth rogues are pretty weak throughout the game, I can't argue with that; Crossfire and Blam are ok but the Surprise Shot support is a bit underwhelming. The only good thing they have to offer is the area of effect that they get from shooting the Boombot, which adds up weirdly with big targets like Shin Larva and Nun and ends up hitting them multiple times for pretty high damage.

11. Sadidas do exist basically for totem, although greedy dolls are OK too. But don't overlook them because totem is probably the best active support ability in the whole game, and it makes any boss fights or pvps 10x easier than they would be otherwise. Also, fertilizer, sudden chill and woodland stench are pretty powerful spells from what I remember.

Sorry for the wall of text, but the moral of the story is that reading the forums generally will not give you a good idea of the classes and their capabilities. For sure nothing at the moment matches up to the power of Cras and nothing beats a water Eni for support, but don't feel forced into making these if you don't want to; any class/element you feel like trying can be made viable by the end of the game.

WTB Starry Ring and Boots Please PM Roofie or Kiyoshi ingame or send me an Ankabox message if you have either/both of these items and I will make an offer.

Thanks

It does seem that in general a lot of enemies don't trigger Massacuring Mark properly (like Treechnids and Arachnees for example) but in general every mark except Refund seems to be working the same now as it was before the patch in my experience. My Fire Eni is still happily training at Forfut and Monks with Sadist and Hammle Marks working properly, but I've simply had to drop Refund as it is now useless except as an occasional boost to allies killing the marked enemy with spells like Iop's Wrath, or as a healing spell with Regeneration.

You definitely can still find them in the deep sections of the mines (you have to go at least as far in as Rugged Quartz to start seeing them in my experience.) They are very rare, but you can make it more likely for them to spawn by clearing out some of the Riktus bandit mobs to make room for them.

This isn't how it works, unless they changed it recently and didn't put it in the patch notes (I haven't played my earth Rogue for some months now). I don't know why Ankama chose to display it as water damage, but it simply deals 30% extra damage when it triggers - completely unaffected by resistance. If you hit 100 on something with Blam, when Surprise Shot triggers it will hit 30 even if their water resistance is 0% and their earth resistance is 1000%. Besides, if you need to bypass resistance you can do that reasonably well using Piercing Shot anyway (ignores up to 100% of the enemies earth resistance - basically if the enemy has more than 100% earth resistance its like adding +100% elemental damage).

Crossfire is a spell with good damage and awkward range; it's main use is that it has the longest base range of all of the existing earth spells, along with the highest damage per AP (except Blam which is close range only and also has an MP cost). As for your other question, Surprise Shot is an absolutely crucial support for all Earth or Earth hybrid Rogues; when it triggers it literally adds 30% more damage to Earth shots. No other Rogue builds have a use for it at all so if you plan to be an Air or Fire Rogue then completely ignore it.

I have something to add to this - it doesn't appear to be a bug. With the most recent update the order of the effects of Refund Mark have changed. The previous order was:

remove existing Mark > apply Refund Mark > deal damage

The current order is:

remove existing Mark > deal damage > apply Refund Mark

So Refund Mark is working absolutely fine as long as the Eni doesn't kill the marked target with the spell; for example if you cast Refund Mark and then finish the enemy off with Psykosis Flask (or if your ally kills the marked target), Massacuring Mark will trigger correctly and AP/MP will be refunded.

Basically this is a nerf to Fire Enis; you can no longer kill an enemy with Refund Mark and return all of the AP used to cast the spell. You also can't really kill enemies with Refund Mark at all anymore as you lose the previous mark that was on the target before it dies, meaning you don;t get any benefits at all other than a dead monster. Fire Enis weren't exactly overpowered or overused Ankama, did they really need this much of a nerf?  

The Feca can already shield itself and allies with the water spells and Peace Armour; and it can support them with the earth and water glyphs.. If you think these effects are too weak or too powerful then buff or nerf them - the spell mechanics are already in place, they are easy to understand, and replacing them with something completely different all of a sudden will not go down very well (at least not with any of the players that I have discussed this with, including those who don't even own Fecas and just team up with them regularly).

Here are some of our example suggestions to 'evolve' the Feca gameplay without completely changing everything;

Glyph or Armour - no longer costs WP when cast on allies of the Feca. This will help water Fecas protect teammates more effectively, especially when combined with the Plate Protecton suggestion below;
Plate Protection - keeps the current effects but also works with earth/water armours worn by allies. Possibly also return some of the AP spent on creating armours as this would allow Fecas to shield the whole team more efficiently.
Pacification - Change it so that it has some range and is castable on enemies with a reversed effect (-damage%, +resistance%). This would help the Feca manage the incoming damage when there are multiple enemies.
Intimidation Aura - Change it so it no longer reduces the resistance of allies. Other than this, leave it alone - when used correctly this is one of the most unique and strategic passive support skills that any class in the game currently has. It effectively buffs the whole team's damage by 40% against locked targets, providing unique team support while being balanced by how difficult it is to use (Fecas have to invest in lock or wear lock equipment currently in order to get the most out of this). Giving them a purely lock-based passive and another selfish lock-based resist buff in exchange for removing the benefits of Intimidation Aura would mean that Fecas have lots of lock, but absolutely no reason to lock things - it is easier to protect allies with glyphs and shields while not standing next to enemies, and in most cases it is also easier to deal damage while not locking the target.
Deglyphment - Change to a lower AP cost with longer range and no line-of-sight requirement, remove the damage dealt, and add a -damage% or +resist% effect (similar to Cra spell Unbeacon but does not damage your team, although if used at the wrong time there can still be repercussions). The reduction in AP cost and more flexible range will make it much more reliable for repositioning especially considering that it returns any WP used to make the glyphs.

Also the bug with fire glyph damage should be fixed where it doesn't calculate the Feca's fire damage% correctly - this alone will improve fire Fecas enough to make them lethal and unique AoE characters using fire glyphs. The damage output will be fairly high, but this is balanced by the constant micromanagement involved in destroying and repositioning glyphs, the threat that the glyphs pose to Fecas and their own team, and also by the very high costs and awkward ranges of their fire spells. If they turn out to be too strong, then nerf the spell damage - don't just completely get rid of the whole playstyle.

To summarize, you should improve and balance what the class already has instead of starting from scratch because you feel that it would end up better. To fans of the current Feca it would be like burning their house down and building something completely different that you think is an improvement - you might think it's better, but who is to say they will agree?

The first thing the document states is that it wants to attract more people to the Feca class - how is making everything needlessly complicated and nerfing damage/adding WP costs to every single elemental spell going to do this? Many players such as myself have spent a lot of time with Fecas, loving the unique playstyle and spells that they currently have. We have paid for the time that we have spent with these characters, and if these changes go through you are basically making us learn how to play a completely alien class which for all we know might not even be any good, and most certainly will not be usable in the same way as before.
I'm not saying that all of the proposed changes are bad, because some of the new support spells and passives look very good; I am simply saying that such dramatic changes should not be made all at once because it will definitely put many people off of their existing Fecas. Buffing and nerfing is fine when made sensibly and in moderation, but seriously do not just change the entire role and playstyle of hundreds of characters on a whim, because you risk alienating a lot of paying customers.

Tl;dr - this is no longer a beta, don't make (or even suggest making) such huge changes to classes and builds that people have spent subscription money on!

Hi Silus, I'm afraid that's not the case meteor glyph for example is supposed to do 100% of the damage of the spell per hit (base 48 per meteor at level 100), and the number of charges increase the number of meteors that fall up to a total of 20 with a fully charged glyph. All of the other glyphs are supposed to do 90% of the base damage of the spells when the glyph is has 20 charges, decreasing by 2% for every charge used. All of these damage numbers seem to calculate correctly as the descriptions claim; the problem is that fecas hit exactly the same with fire glyphs while wearing full fire damage% gear as they hit while wearing no gear at all (I have tested this with all glyphs and a lot of different equipment - the only things that affect glyph damage at all are things like Silimelle's Wedding Ring with negative %damage)
Obviously fire gear is still beneficial as it makes you hit harder with your direct damage spells and Harmors, but it has no effect on glyphs at all, meaning that as soon as your enemies have fire resistance equal to your base fire damage% (the fire damage% that you have while wearing no gear) you will only be hitting base damage on them, and if they have a further 100% fire resistance then you will be hitting 1. At least this means you can be immune to your own glyphs with the right gear and armours I guess

Zelauri

Hi there, it's really quite simple with a bit of practice;
- Natural glyph and Volcano glyph are both exactly the same AoE, just different damages and cast ranges. Both will hit all allied and enemy targets within 2 tiles (in any direction) of the glyph tile that was activated and just do plain fire damage.
- Pheles glyph does the same as Natural and Volcano glyphs except that it also takes away 1 MP from all affected targets, from my experiments this loss is not dodgeable and does not add any hypermovement (like the enutrof spell Deadly Nightspade does for example)
- Carpet glyph does the same as Natural and Volcano glyphs except that it has a small chance to add the Blindness effect to any affected chances. The damage is incredibly low as well so it's only really worthwhile if you're desperate to blind someone in PvP.
- Meteor glyph is the most fun and potentially the most powerful of the fire glyphs; it drops 1 meteor per charge onto a random tile in a 2-tile radius around the activated glyph cell. If you are obnoxiously lucky and all 20 possible meteors hit an enemy target, you have just done around 960 base damage for 4ap and 1 wakfu point - the glyph even sticks around for more turns so in theory you can do even higher damage without spending any more AP or MP, as long as enemies stay near the glyph

However something to bear in mind is that right now fire feca glyphs seem to be bugged; they don't take any fire% damage that you have gained from equipment into account at all when calculating damage, but they do take enemy fire resistance into account, making them pretty useless in late game PvE due to the high resistances that monsters have. I have tested this thoroughly in many situations; it seems that bonus trap damage and neutral damage% bonuses don't work either, only your base fire% from fire spell levels

Example: you have 100% fire damage bonus from equipment and 100% fire damage from your spell levels, and the target has 100% fire resistance. You cast meteor on the target for 48 base damage; you have 100% more fire damage% than they have fire resistance, so the damage is increased by 100%, leading to 96 final damage. However, when the meteor glyph strikes the same target for 48 base damage, the damage bonus that you have gained from equipment is ignored, meaning that your damage% total and the enemy resistance% total are equal, leading to only 48 base damage. I assume that this is a bug due to the fact that fire rogue bombs, xelor hydrands and cra beacons are not affected by this same problem. The direct damage from fire spells and also the fire armours don't seem to be affected by this problem so I'd suggest using them instead

Zelauri

Pure water feca is certainly a viable build, basing around the spells Crashing Wave and Bubble for good ranged damage while raising the other skills to buff your team's damage and resistance. Due to it being less powerful than the other elements of feca in close combat it is probably the worst suited to being a tank build though, although the water armours are great for protecting your allies from damage which other fecas cannot do. My suggestions would be to raise Glyph or Armour to the max level as soon as possible, followed by Feca Master, and then mix and match between any of the other skills that you like the look of. Statswise, an AP is a solid choice for any build, and it will help you on your way to a powerful 9ap build (crashing wave + bubble x2) or a 10ap build (crashing wave x2). For the water Feca a range is also a great investment as all 5 spells have boostable range. After that it is entirely up to you - an MP, critical hits, chance or HP would all be good choices.
I would also suggest that you should raise the skills Defensive Orb, Fecammer and Fecabo up to level 50 for utility from the glyphs once you reach level 105, although this is just what I prefer to do with all elements of Feca

Zelauri

Unless you are multi-element, you should go for the 15% water damage item, as 10% backstab damage just means 10% more damage to all elements that only applies when backstabbing. The 20% final damage bonus from backstabbing is fixed and cannot be boosted by gear or skills like master stabber. Also as far as I know monsters don't have backstab resistance%, or at least it isn't visible on their stats.

I can guarantee that Fleeches will not heal all allied targets in the glyph when one enemy is damaged - this would be massively overpowered with the huge Temporal Dust size area of effect that they are suggesting. It is my bet that it will damage all enemies in the glyph and heal one ally per enemy damaged - I also bet that each ally can only be healed once per Fleeches glyph. Anything more than this with the damage, AP cost and area of effect would be hugely overpowered.

This sounds great, but I would like to be 100% sure that when they mention healing an ally that it includes the Ecaflip that cast Fleeches. However, with the new damage/heals and cost this sounds overpowered for solo PvE as well (just stand in close combat with a load of enemies and spam double Fleeches, no way to lose unless you're taking on something far too high level for you) so I am guessing that this will not be the case and that the only way the water Eca will be able to heal itself is with Flea Love, which has had a self-heal and AP cost increase to "balance" this out.

Flealine Army sounds a lot worse as well now; the +40% heals is OK so water ecaflips may as well raise it, however changing the damage dealt by the activation from 66 base steals (current Flea love) to 27 base damage that might not even heal the ecaflip (the new Fleabag) is in my eyes a massive nerf that is completely unnecessary.

Compound all of these changes and you have yourself a much lower damaging, much more fragile water ecaflip with some mediocre ally heals that are much worse than those of the Eniripsa (and the Pandawa if their changes go through) and a bunch of pretty bad support skills.

Tl;dr - I am a pessimist but I believe that Ankama will be ruining Water Ecas at some point in the near future.


This post has been edited by Zelauri - September 04, 2012, 21:31:02.

The way it is phrased makes it seem like it will be like the Preparation state, it will last for only the next attack, making it much worse for water ecas with all of their low AP-cost attacks. I personally intensely dislike the changes to water spells; I will have to delete or abandon my tanking ecaflip now as they will be next to useless for this. Has anyone noticed that the descriptions of Fleeches, Fleahopper and Fleabag all state 'heals an ally' not 'heals the ecaflip' no, probably meaning that they will not be able to fight solo effectively - I think that completely changing the role of a class or build this long after release is an absolutely stupid idea, and I am very disappointed.

This isn't a bug; this is just how elemental damage% bonuses work in this game. See skills such as Compulsion for Iops - if this was a permanent +40% final damage bonus don't you think that this would be overpowered compared to characters that do not get any % damage bonuses?
The %damage bonus from all active and passive supports works in the same way as %damage gained from equipment (the only exception that I can think of is Surprise Shot, which essentially adds 30% more final damage to your turn when it activates).

Essentially Hotwire has 2 uses: 1 it allows you to use the spells of the Earth rogue while wearing fire equipment (granting more flexibility) and 2 it serves as a decent damage bonus when you will be doing high base damage during your turn - for example, with 9ap 3mp you can do 3x Blaze, which increases your overall turn damage by quite a lot.

The problem is, some spells seem to benefit from backstab bonuses whereas others do not. For example, after experimenting I have found that Xelor Punishment, Underhand and Tempus Fugit do not get backstab bonuses, but Aging and Temporal Distortion do get the reported 30% bonus when targeting an opponent from behind. There doesn't seem to be any logic behind why some spells get backstab bonus and others don't, but you can figure out which ones do using simple tests like you suggested (I used friendly challenges).