An elegant way to balance Cast When Damage Taken

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

I just want to say that there is nothing whatsoever elegant or play-friendly about losing mana due due to automatic, random events. You're about to cast a skill, you're depending on it to survive, and... oops, you got hit, mana's gone. Reep.

Then I suppose you think Mind Over Matter is useless as well? In both that case and the solution I propose for balancing Cast When Damage Taken, you're subscribing to an insurance policy that carries a substantial deductible, with payment due immediately at the time you file a claim. And as in real life, unforeseen emergencies do happen, and you have to be just as prepared to take a hit in your finances as in your health.

In PoE, Mana = Wealth. If your income is steady and reliable, you can afford to set up automatic payment plans that eliminate the troublesome and time-consuming chore of manually paying your bills. But if your resources are tight, it's advisable to hoard your assets and carefully monitor how many expenses you rack up.

An automatic payment plan, that's the model I'm proposing for Cast When Damage Taken. Currently, it delivers the goods free of charge, and that's endlessly gratifying and completely unrealistic. A more practical version should allow you to control how much and how often you pay for the benefits you receive. That's why I'm proposing a sliding scale, matching the costs to the trigger points. In this version, raising the gem level would both lower the costs and trigger the benefits less frequently. That's the kind of service I'm willing to pay for.

In practice, what this gem would require is a different approach to mana management than the "bigger ball is better" model. Instead of hoarding the largest stockpile you can muster, what you'd need is a steady flow of incoming mana, either leeched or regenerated, ample enough to recoup any anticipated combination of resource drains. Of course, you can't fully prepare for the worst mishaps, so you'll probably want to bring along a good mana flask for emergencies.

Oh, and let's not forget auras... It's all so complicated!

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

I just want to say that there is nothing whatsoever elegant or play-friendly about losing mana due due to automatic, random events. You're about to cast a skill, you're depending on it to survive, and... oops, you got hit, mana's gone. Reep.

I agree with Scrotie. This is not a good way to "balance" this gem.

I also find it curious that people can be so sure how overpowered a gem is within days of a huge meta shift. Is it overpowered compared to every other option? Have you tested various defensive skills like Frost Wall or offensive skills like Discharge combined with a max level Cast on Damage Taken? Do you even HAVE a max level Cast on Damage Taken?

I think people are jumping the gun. It's only "no-brainer" if you aren't creative enough to fill the slot with a better combination. The main benefit of this new trigger is using it with Enduring Cry, and no solution presented in this thread is going to change that combination. You add a mana cost to it? Guess what, you're only hurting melee characters, the ones that desperately need this gem. So they'll stick in Blood Magic gem and call it a day. Any ranged character who is sacrificing a four link for this setup is really not thinking outside of the box, and is not being efficient. My witch and ranger don't get hit enough for this to be a good use of a 4 link - hell, even before the release of the game I had a couple of gems I wanted to use but couldn't squeeze in.

I don't find it overpowered at all, I only use it on one character out of about 8, and that is my two-hand Flicker/Frenzy Marauder.

Again, quit leaping to incomplete conclusions on extremely new gems and instead, try using other gems. I promise you'll be surprised.

EDIT: Also, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't a level 1 CWDT gem completely destroy Molten Shell's damage? If it does, your original post is slightly in error, and if not, I'd agree that Molten Shell damage should be affected by the trigger gem.

"

RogueMage написал:

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

I just want to say that there is nothing whatsoever elegant or play-friendly about losing mana due due to automatic, random events. You're about to cast a skill, you're depending on it to survive, and... oops, you got hit, mana's gone. Reep.

Then I suppose you think Mind Over Matter is useless as well?

It's the hidden drawback for a keystone which otherwise doesn't seem to have much drawback.

Fortunately, I've devised a much more practical, predictable method of accomplishing what you desire. Instead of deducting mana on trigger (pseudorandomly), Cast when Damage Taken (and Cast when Stunned, and even Cast on Death) should read like this instead of their current versions:
Supported spells are converted to mana reservations and cannot be Cast directly
While reserved, 100% chance to Cast Supported Spells when you take a total of x Damage
The mana reservation would be flat (not a percentage) and based off the supported spell and the mana cost multipliers of the other supports used.

"

ggnorekthx написал:

...

I don't find it overpowered at all, I only use it on one character out of about 8, and that is my two-hand Flicker/Frenzy Marauder.

...

EDIT: Also, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't a level 1 CWDT gem completely destroy Molten Shell's damage? If it does, your original post is slightly in error, and if not, I'd agree that Molten Shell damage should be affected by the trigger gem.

I just want to address those two points. First, even if only one of your characters uses this support gem that doesn't mean that your other chars wouldn't benefit from having one. In fact, the very moment you have 2 or more free sockets on an item you could use it very effectively. And there aren't that many builds that use all of their sockets anyways.

Second, the damage doesn't matter here. It's a permanent free armor buff that has no cost.

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

Fortunately, I've devised a much more practical, predictable method of accomplishing what you desire. Instead of deducting mana on trigger (pseudorandomly), Cast when Damage Taken (and Cast when Stunned, and even Cast on Death) should read like this instead of their current versions:
Supported spells are converted to mana reservations and cannot be Cast directly
While reserved, 100% chance to Cast Supported Spells when you take a total of x Damage
The mana reservation would be flat (not a percentage) and based off the supported spell and the mana cost multipliers of the other supports used.

Please, just say NO to even more mana reservation! Aren't auras enough? With 1.0.0 I can barely manage to run two auras, and I don't want to have to wedge in Cast when Damage Taken as well. Static mana reservation is a stifling and inflexible mechanic that would eliminate the dynamics of balancing damage prevention with cost. I want PoE to be more dangerous and exciting, safe and predictable is not my idea of fun!

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

I just want to say that there is nothing whatsoever elegant or play-friendly about losing mana due due to automatic, random events. You're about to cast a skill, you're depending on it to survive, and... oops, you got hit, mana's gone. Reep.

Not sure how much of an issue it is for most builds. Vaal pact LL blood magic would likely not really notice it as long as they have the health pool to soak it, my extremely poor low mp regen witch (no eb,total of only 230/second regen) would likely not really notice it either unless I'm taking enough dmg that I was going to die anyway and had mind over matter (heard some builds can get a few hundred, and I didn't need mind over matter).


But then again I have a hard time feeling bad for someone that sets up a automated skill that used a shared resource they can't afford afford usage of because it can disable some key life critical skill at a time they likely were going to die anyway (likely was going to be a stun kill for example).





What I'm more concerned about are those extremely high crit rate builds that use daggers + ice spear + gml/lmp + power charge on crit + crit rate boosts + cast on crit. With enough attacks being sent out at a time, with high enough crit rate that at least 1 will be a crit everytime.... could this in theory make an infinite loop?


can you imagine the impact a 100% crit rate infinite loop of cast on crit spells? hopefully it can't be used like that or gets fixed.

@RogueMage:

1) I said flat, not percentage.

2) You're the OP. You wanted CWDT to cost mana. Why is it that you're okay with this when it's pseudorandom intervals, but suddenly not okay when it's a fixed, predictable cost?

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

I just want to say that there is nothing whatsoever elegant or play-friendly about losing mana due due to automatic, random events. You're about to cast a skill, you're depending on it to survive, and... oops, you got hit, mana's gone. Reep.

QFT

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

You wanted CWDT to cost mana. Why is it that you're okay with this when it's pseudorandom intervals, but suddenly not okay when it's a fixed, predictable cost?

Because mana reservation robs capacity from your shared mana reserves for its own exclusive use. That is not an as-needed cost, it is a full-time entitlement that takes priority over everything else. With auras, I can grudgingly accept that rationale because they're continuously active. But for spells, whether automated or manually cast, I want to pay for them as needed and retain the ability to juggle mana requirements dynamically.

When mana reservation gets too close to 100%, the available cache of unreserved mana becomes too shallow to support peak mana demands in the thick of combat. Long term, you need to replenish your average mana drain with adequate sources of leeched or regened mana, but short-term mana requirements are handled by your unreserved mana pool. I don't want Cast when Damage Taken to monopolize a chunk of my mana ball even when it's not doing anything!

With the scaled casting costs I'm proposing, Cast when Damage Taken would have the same priority as skills and spells you cast manually. That means that if you lacked enough unreserved mana at the time you take damage, Cast when Damage Taken could fail to cast one or more of its linked spells, the same as with any manually cast skill. That's the resource management challenge I want to take, in exchange for automating the time-consuming chore of casting Enfeeble or Molten Shell manually.

"

RogueMage написал:

"

ScrotieMcB написал:

You wanted CWDT to cost mana. Why is it that you're okay with this when it's pseudorandom intervals, but suddenly not okay when it's a fixed, predictable cost?

Because mana reservation robs capacity from your shared mana reserves for its own exclusive use. That is not an as-needed cost, it is a full-time entitlement that takes priority over everything else.

Your proposal is not an as-needed cost. It is an at-random cost, which makes it a full-time entitlement which takes priority over everything else. Your version of Cast when Damage Taken will still monopolize a chunk of your mana ball, as it will consume mana contrary to your will in the thick of combat, making your mana pool too shallow to support peak mana demands. There is no comparative advantage, only the disadvantage of being random.