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Comparison of Armouring spell
By Thothus#6662 - MEMBER - November 07, 2021, 21:01:05May we take a look at the five armouring spell of certain classes. For comparison's sake, four of the mentioned classes will be the revamped ones. Comparison will be made at level 200, at which we may reasonably expect a character to have about 12k HP.
Foggernaut's Pummel
Feca's Wave
Masquaraider's Armature
Sadida’s fertiliser
Finally, may I present to you:
Xelor's Premonition:
While the economy of WP and AP are not directly cross comparable for other classes, for Xelor they are roughly comparable in a 1:1 ratio. This is because the +1WP from Time Mage with Devotion roughly is a conversion of 1WP to 1AP, Time Theft is a complete 1:1 conversion, and the WP back to AP converion of Time Mage is also a lossless 1:1 conversion.
Given a long enough battle, Time Mage and Time Theft will manifest the "hidden cost" of WP consuming spells as AP. However, this AP value is locked behind various spells, is not generated to full value every turn unlike AP, and is shared for consumption for the very important role of mobility and increased damage.
Any dungeon beyond s20, for level 80 and above dungeons require some sort of healing and / or armouring in the race against the boss gaining %DI and overpowering the team's survival capabilities VS the speed of the team's damage output per turn. This role of the armourer should be consistent and reliable.
The bolded part of each of the above class's armouring spell highlights how the feature of that armouring spell is used to the benefit of the class. In particular, Feca's Wave boasts a reasonable cast range, the ability to designate the target in dire need of Armouring so they can be protected from being wiped out before the healer can get to them, and especially for a support spell bypassing allies or enemies in the way of your line of sight, despite having the lowest armour value, of which he has plenty other passives to boost the armouring amount.
Xelor's premonition is on the opposite spectrum, with the low range, and the low versatility of armouring, despite potentially having the highest buff amount.
In a fight where armour is greatly needed because the boss's damage vastly overshoot the defenders‘ max health and resistance, a target will need to be armoured almost constantly every turn, close to the armour cap of the character. If armouring is subservient to quickly finishing the enemies, a little bit of healing will suffice and armouring is forgone altogether, such as in battles 4 turns or shorter. Xelor's Premonition cannot and does not aptly help in the fights where it is necessary.
One may argue that by having a Xelor on the team, the boss should be poised to suffer AP loss, at least every other turn if not every turn, reducing the team’s stress for armouring. However, in s21+ dungeons, you will find almost all enemies have high values of FoW to counteract AP removal. It is hard to measure exactly how much damage is prevented by having the boss do 1 less attack, or determine how much AP has to be lost before the boss will actually lose 1 attack. Many start and end of turn attacks trigger automatically without need for AP.
In truth, the spell premonition does not need a 3 turn cooldown. A once per turn restriction will already suffice as
1) The AP/MP removal prevention is in need of being constantly online to even matter- otherwise you’re just exchanging 2AP for 2 POTENTIAL LOSS OF AP by allies- might as well keep those AP and use them for your own spells to prevent yourself from being locked out of armouring anyone who needs it
2) even if the armouring value is higher than other spells, your WP will drain very, very quickly. I cannot stress enough that WP does not regain as quickly as AP, and a Xelor locked out of his WP is a neutered Xelor who can’t escape lock.
3) If the spell can't stack on the same character, it already suffices as a balancing factor.
If you're spreading premonition across, for example, 3 characters across 3, turns, where a Feca might buff 4197 expected armour using 12AP with Wave assuming 50% crit % While a Xelor uses 6AP and 9WP (remember that WP does not regenerate as quickly as AP) across 3 turns to give 3 characters with 12k HP each an overall amount of 3496 armour with 1748 armour still pending to be delivered in the upcoming 2 turns.
To put this into perspective, a Feca will have usually 12*6 = 72AP in 6 turns of which, for argument's sake, 12AP is used on Wave and the remaining is all used on attacking or shielding. Assuming a 1:1 ratio of attacking and shielding, 30AP used for shielding generates 120 inner peace stacks providing the Feca with 24 more WP for putting glyphs, wakfu comprehension, peace armour, aegis etc.AP+WP at the end of turn 6 is 72+6+24=102. The Feca continues to be productive while generating WP as the fight continues. Even if it was consumed for wakfu comprehension, that‘s 30WP accumulated throughout the fight
On the other hand, assuming a Xelor with 12WP, in 6 turns you use Time Theft 4 Times so you have 72+1+2+3+4 = 79AP, and 12+6 (from time mage) = 18WP-1-2-3-4=8WP. 6AP and 9WP is used for giving armour via premonition. AP+WP by the end of turn 6 is 79+18=97. The Xelor is left with no WP and either has to forgo any action to replenish WP for stuff like distortion, hour cell teleports, or devotion. Take note that the Xelor has not teleported a single time using fugit or hour cells in this scenario of using 3 turns of premonition in 6 turns.
I'd rather have the Feca consistently delivering the Armour even if there's a net gain of 1k more armour by Xelor in terms of AP consumption, because the Feca can keep up the output while the Xelor will have exhausted their WP by then, and once that armour is not needed as the pressure is shifted off that ally, the Feca can direct their AP to other resources like Telluric Whack or Meteorite, while the Xelor still continues to have their WP drained.
That’s why Premonition having a 3 turn cooldown is completely unnecessary.
Foggernaut's Pummel
- 1538 armour / 1923.2 crit armour generated across the team per 4AP if casted on ally,
- can cast twice per turn usually due to high AP cost,
- modifiable range 3, LoS needed
- Consumes one high pressure level per cast on ally. Useable as a damage spell while still generating half the armour value mentioned above
Feca's Wave
- 1236 armour / 1562 crit armour per 4AP, more if glyph is casted by consumption of 1WP more and benefits anywhere from 1-2 allies usually
- Twice per turn, no restriction on target
- Modifiable 4 range no LoS needed
Masquaraider's Armature
- 1363 armour / 1703 crit armour per 4AP across the team
- Twice per turn
- Modifiable 5 range, LoS needed
- Added very conditional benefit of 199/248 lock, isn’t worth much unless you took artful locker to add some melee damage. If you’re a locking Masq your melee bonus will already be maxed out from artful locker
Sadida’s fertiliser
- 1603 armour / 2004 crit armour per 4AP
- No cast limit,
- Fixed linear 3 range, LoS needed
- Useable as a damage spell, steals MP, using on UP greatly extends your versatility (damage range of Sadida via Greedy, Healing range of Sadida via the inflable, positioning range of Sadida via Wild Whisper controlled The Block)
Finally, may I present to you:
Xelor's Premonition:
While the economy of WP and AP are not directly cross comparable for other classes, for Xelor they are roughly comparable in a 1:1 ratio. This is because the +1WP from Time Mage with Devotion roughly is a conversion of 1WP to 1AP, Time Theft is a complete 1:1 conversion, and the WP back to AP converion of Time Mage is also a lossless 1:1 conversion.
Given a long enough battle, Time Mage and Time Theft will manifest the "hidden cost" of WP consuming spells as AP. However, this AP value is locked behind various spells, is not generated to full value every turn unlike AP, and is shared for consumption for the very important role of mobility and increased damage.
- 1748 armour per 4AP on a 12k ally, no crits available, 3456 armour per 4AP on a 24k dedicated tank, no crits available
- Once every 3 turns, no target restriction
- 1-3 modifiable range LoS needed
- Additional toolbox for AP/MP prevention nearly comparable to Drip, which is casted on ally and refunds AP while Premonition is casted on enemy and refunds WP. The refund is triggered more easily, but the refunded resource is less valuable.
Any dungeon beyond s20, for level 80 and above dungeons require some sort of healing and / or armouring in the race against the boss gaining %DI and overpowering the team's survival capabilities VS the speed of the team's damage output per turn. This role of the armourer should be consistent and reliable.
The bolded part of each of the above class's armouring spell highlights how the feature of that armouring spell is used to the benefit of the class. In particular, Feca's Wave boasts a reasonable cast range, the ability to designate the target in dire need of Armouring so they can be protected from being wiped out before the healer can get to them, and especially for a support spell bypassing allies or enemies in the way of your line of sight, despite having the lowest armour value, of which he has plenty other passives to boost the armouring amount.
Xelor's premonition is on the opposite spectrum, with the low range, and the low versatility of armouring, despite potentially having the highest buff amount.
In a fight where armour is greatly needed because the boss's damage vastly overshoot the defenders‘ max health and resistance, a target will need to be armoured almost constantly every turn, close to the armour cap of the character. If armouring is subservient to quickly finishing the enemies, a little bit of healing will suffice and armouring is forgone altogether, such as in battles 4 turns or shorter. Xelor's Premonition cannot and does not aptly help in the fights where it is necessary.
One may argue that by having a Xelor on the team, the boss should be poised to suffer AP loss, at least every other turn if not every turn, reducing the team’s stress for armouring. However, in s21+ dungeons, you will find almost all enemies have high values of FoW to counteract AP removal. It is hard to measure exactly how much damage is prevented by having the boss do 1 less attack, or determine how much AP has to be lost before the boss will actually lose 1 attack. Many start and end of turn attacks trigger automatically without need for AP.
In truth, the spell premonition does not need a 3 turn cooldown. A once per turn restriction will already suffice as
1) The AP/MP removal prevention is in need of being constantly online to even matter- otherwise you’re just exchanging 2AP for 2 POTENTIAL LOSS OF AP by allies- might as well keep those AP and use them for your own spells to prevent yourself from being locked out of armouring anyone who needs it
2) even if the armouring value is higher than other spells, your WP will drain very, very quickly. I cannot stress enough that WP does not regain as quickly as AP, and a Xelor locked out of his WP is a neutered Xelor who can’t escape lock.
3) If the spell can't stack on the same character, it already suffices as a balancing factor.
If you're spreading premonition across, for example, 3 characters across 3, turns, where a Feca might buff 4197 expected armour using 12AP with Wave assuming 50% crit % While a Xelor uses 6AP and 9WP (remember that WP does not regenerate as quickly as AP) across 3 turns to give 3 characters with 12k HP each an overall amount of 3496 armour with 1748 armour still pending to be delivered in the upcoming 2 turns.
To put this into perspective, a Feca will have usually 12*6 = 72AP in 6 turns of which, for argument's sake, 12AP is used on Wave and the remaining is all used on attacking or shielding. Assuming a 1:1 ratio of attacking and shielding, 30AP used for shielding generates 120 inner peace stacks providing the Feca with 24 more WP for putting glyphs, wakfu comprehension, peace armour, aegis etc.AP+WP at the end of turn 6 is 72+6+24=102. The Feca continues to be productive while generating WP as the fight continues. Even if it was consumed for wakfu comprehension, that‘s 30WP accumulated throughout the fight
On the other hand, assuming a Xelor with 12WP, in 6 turns you use Time Theft 4 Times so you have 72+1+2+3+4 = 79AP, and 12+6 (from time mage) = 18WP-1-2-3-4=8WP. 6AP and 9WP is used for giving armour via premonition. AP+WP by the end of turn 6 is 79+18=97. The Xelor is left with no WP and either has to forgo any action to replenish WP for stuff like distortion, hour cell teleports, or devotion. Take note that the Xelor has not teleported a single time using fugit or hour cells in this scenario of using 3 turns of premonition in 6 turns.
I'd rather have the Feca consistently delivering the Armour even if there's a net gain of 1k more armour by Xelor in terms of AP consumption, because the Feca can keep up the output while the Xelor will have exhausted their WP by then, and once that armour is not needed as the pressure is shifted off that ally, the Feca can direct their AP to other resources like Telluric Whack or Meteorite, while the Xelor still continues to have their WP drained.
That’s why Premonition having a 3 turn cooldown is completely unnecessary.
Respond to this thread
5% heal yourself much better than armor from Premonition.
You did a wonderful analysis!
I have not seen among colleagues so that Xelors actively use Premonition to enemy.
At the French forum Omicron-Z#5014 suggested using the current hour. if Xelor makes a Premonition in the current hour, then the current hour is consumed and Xelor can receive some healing...
I miss mummification(revive) and totally agree with what you wrote, Premonition having a 3 turn cooldown is completely unnecessary.
Foggernaut is a tank/ damage dealer with the capability to lifesteal
Masqueraider is a jack of all trades that can armour self or others / heal self or others / lifesteal - with acrobatics and somersault range is not an issue at all
Rogue is a damage dealer that has lifesteal and self armouring capabilities
Enutrof is a damage dealer /debuffer that has lifesteal and self armouring capabilities
Ecaflip is a jack of all trades that has can armour self / heal self or others / lifesteal
Eliotrope is a jack of all trades that can heal / armour others or self / lifesteal
Do you see where I'm going with this? Each and every of these classes has been touched up or revamped completely - they bear the seal of approval of the latest development team.
In particular, Foggernauts, Rogues and Eliotropes can act as distance damage dealers with lifesteal and armouring while performing their damage dealing roles.
Xelor is uniquely singled out as a distance damage dealer with horrible sustain. His "superior" range only exists in Portent and Clockmaking which competes with other passives on a AP removal build, and you don't want to have more than 5 range anyway because Desync's reach is capped at 7(+1= 8 range if you target the cell next to the boss) so Slowdown only need to have 3+5 = 8 range. A normal build has 4 range already (Helmet + Amulet + Weapon + Major point) without need to take range passives.
All three of these non-Xelor damage dealers have innately good range without need to occupy 2 passive slots to provide more range
AP removal is not such a useful tool that it negates the need for sustain. In particular, you either not take combat mage and have Slowdown do 1AP cost for Xelor to 1AP Enemy removal, or take combat mage and have Slowdown do 2AP Xelor cost to 1AP Enemy removal but reduce AP removal chance by 0% - 40% depending on how much higher the Xelor's FoW is compared to the enemy's which frankly more often than not is not that significant in higher stasis, resulting in very low AP removal returns for Hammhour or Desync afterwards.
Premonition remains a horrible sustain tool as it is currently, while the "sustain" provided by AP removal by Xelor cannot compare to the reliability of lifesteals, armour and heals of the other classes
For a time wizard, preventing AP loss on allies is super thematic, so idk why we are limied to doing it once every 3 turns, I mean monsters that remove AP are rare enough for this to even be relevant.
after revamp, Feca can play as a damage dealer and have high resists with activation of the Peace armor (150 free res) + give yourself armor.
Masq after revamp can remove res and likewise being a damage dealer who heals himself and generates a lot of armor the next turn.
all of these classes(Feca, Masq, Fogger) are damage dealers but have better survivability than Xelor which makes no sense.
white knights, in front of you already have tons of text with excellent analysis, but you will continue to write strange things
I said it multiple times on the Discord Server during the rework and I really think it isn't a well-thought spell. The AP steal block is nice, but as an armor generator it is just bad, not so much for the numbers but because on a real scenario it just doesn't work and I have seen pretty much no one using it.
It is a way different situation when you give a DD class a sustain tool in the form of a self-heal than a shield. I'd rather Xelors have a self-heal tbh, it also balances the class because it would slowly increase the Heal Resistance on them
I think Premonition should reinforce the Time Mage theme of the Xelor. How about if it affected WHEN delayed spells activate?
Some ideas:
These are just some examples of mechanics that would adjust to the theme of "time manipulation" that would also synergize with other classes.
But just so I get this out of my system:
Devotion, Sinistros and Desync are the only ways you can grant an ally AP, creating an Acceleration Stack that caps at 4. I don't think it is too much to add a small bonus to the acceleration state (meant as a limiter), to turn it into a buff as well, e.g. giving 5res or 5FoW per stack
I don't agree that giving AP or removing AP should be its own reward. The hurdles in place to do so are already strenuous affairs under the new design- with AP giving either being WP intensive, a very limited resource, or AP removing being subject to the whims of chance.
Course of time is still contradictive to be used on allies on its own without combat mage, and the developers are still treating 1AP on the same worth as 10FoW, which they aren't at all.
Why are FoW buffs and debuffs still out of the question, instead relying on the inherent FoW gain from AP removal? What about FoW loss buffs/debuffs so you can actually make use of Desync, or reduce FoW stacks on enemies?
What about buffs and debuffs that halves or doubles the gain in FoW?
What about debuffs that raises the AP removal cap beyond 4 from locking enemies?
What about buffs/debuffs that apply a bonus/malus scaled to the target's initiative value?
The old fire tree was outdated because initiative no longer changed the turn order, but that doesn't mean that the "value" of the initiative on a monster or ally can't be made relavant through the use of a debuff/buff or passive that scales with this value
What about buffs/debuffs that refund AP loss from penalised dodges?
Why is Prevention still a spell on the rebalanced Eliotrope, despite them only having one ally healing passive and no heal spells, while Xelor does not get to keep Mummification or have it modified to be like prevention?
The slew of damage inflicted passives on the new Eliotrope makes them seem like a DD as well, shouldn't they not get to keep Prevention either?
There's so much other possibilities rather than granting Armour that Premonition can be.
Even putting aside its horrible capabilities to armour his allies, you will find Xelor to be the most boring support/debuffer role out there
Again for comparison against revamped / reworked classes:
Foggernaut
Masqueraider
Feca
Rogue
Ecaflip
Eliotrope
The fact that these classes cannot occupy multiple roles with the same build is moot - we are talking about the capabilities of the class as a design, the potential it possess and the landscape of tactical thinking that can be applied from using it in different level brackets, different builds, and different boss mechanisms within the same class
We have discussed armour, and discussed health sustain- now look at what Xelor is capable of doing as a support
Xelor
You will notice several huge issues with this:
Support: Xelor's support does not inherently give value- it increases the value of others by means of providing AP. This means that the toolkit of available support in the party is at the mercy of the remaining 5 people and their range/MP/AP restrictions and builds. In a sense, giving AP is the "highest"form of support because you're providing more resources for other class to apply their damage/support/positioning -however, providing AP is a very bland form of gameplay that was discouraged by Siu in the first place, without providing alternatives to support
Debuff: AP removal is pointless in the first 3 dungeon rooms where you will rather rush to kill the monsters. Any removal of AP from 1 target will not prevent the other targets from attacking you. The debuffing or supporting of other classes do not face such an impending issue because they have multiple other options at their disposal
Positioning: Pushes are linear tools with simple thinking and outcome ; Pulls are linear tools requiring a target at one end, swaps are free range tools requires targets at both ends, and "telefrags" requires a target in the middle, which is the most conditional and restrictive form of positioning. Most often than not the Xelor has to use themself as the target of axis because you can only summon anywhere from 1-4 mechanism that do not move from their position on the field, needs to be destroyed to be repositioned, and have other restrictions (LoS + range +WP for sinistro, linear cast + range + AP for cog)
If you're gonna turn Xelor into a DD like Cra, so be it, if the conditions to fulfill such that Xelor can actually do stellar damage exists and can be readily met with skills, so be it to ascribe to its 3 star difficulty. However, the current Xelor's damage output is not worth the trouble trying to fulfill all the conditions imposed on it, while Cras mostly just shoot and accrue riddled.
The revamped Xelor has been very ostensibly designed to work with sublimations, I can think of many, many relic/epic/ scroll sublimations that can complement or specialise a Xelor. However that is absolutely not the direction one should go on class design because it makes the Xelor class inherently reliant on sublimations to shine, while other classes already shine and are complemented further with sublimations.
In addition, while other DD classes have many spells that do damage then give an additional effect, the Xelor has.... damage that occurs if you fulfill their conditions of timing and position. The only non-positioning spells that gives unique, viable and non-self conflicting effects are Hand and Hammhour.
Conflicting effects include：
Example:
Normal Game
Enemies Hits an Allie -> Allie loses healt
With this mechanic
Xelor Uses the spell on allie -> Enemies hits the Allie -> Damage is stored -> Allies doesn't take damage -> game proceeds -> Xelor Turn again -> Xelor turn Ends -> Effect is consumed -> Allie cannot be target per X turns -> Allie turn -> Allie turn ends -> Allie takes all damage stored.
I believe this would be a lot more theme based, transfering the damage for another turn would be usefull for giving a chance to the allie heal himself, I don't see how armor combines with time magic too. Since Xelor can not heal this would be useless for solo, making a more team oriented spell.