Life vs. Death (if Life's Absorbs were to "counter" Drains)
In Ratbeard's PvP State of the Meta DevDiary, one of the PvP issues mentioned was Drains and I agree that Drains need a direct counter. I am specifically in favour of giving this aspect to the School despite Roshambo Wheel disadvantage as and are the two sides of any healing war.
My idea is to change all Absorbs so that they reduce the healback % of a Drain. This means that a Drain will still bypass the Absorb, but the healback gets "filtered" along the way. For example if the effect was -40%, then a Wraith vs Spirit Armor will still deal 500 Damage to the target, but would only healback 150 health. This way Drains do not lose any power against an Absorb as all 100% of the damage passes through.
Now if a wizard faces a that only packed Drains, a Spirit Armor and TC Spirit Armor will reduce the healback to 18% for the rest of the match giving the player some momentum against a Drain spammer.
Spirit Armor, Rebirth, and Hungry Caterpillar now have a better use. They are all also available for off-schools and many already have Spirit Armor trained from getting Satyr.
In 4v4, using Rebirth would greatly reduce a 's healback momentum.
- counters with Heal Reductions -> heal or use 's Cleanse Charm to remove Infections. - counters with Drain Reductions -> hit (regular) or use 's Cleanse Ward to remove Absorbs.
================================================================= Now that's out of the way, what I really wanted to discuss with the community was the impact this would have on PvE. Should this be a general change or should this be a PvP-only change?
I prefer this to be a general change as I always felt a bit overpowered against any mobs as they have no way to counter my healbacks while I'm double debuffing them with Doom & Infections. Again, this would be strictly a nerf to but seems very balanced considering all aspects. On the same note, this would make soloing bosses a bit more tricky and in the future this could even be a cheat against Drains (with a higher % reduction).
The PvP-only version would be a new spell that only reduces the healback %, allowing for a lower pip cost.
================================================================== So the main question is do you think this is a good idea? If so, should this be PvP-only or include PvE? If not, what kind of spell/utility should receive to counter or nerf Drains?
Tell me what you think!
P.S - a good boss to test this with is Bunferatu in Castle Darkmoor Upper Halls (gold key room). Bunferatu almost always uses Call of Khrulhu whenever possible and also cheat-casts it, so you should get some good mob data there.
Re: Life vs. Death (if Life's Absorbs were to "counter" Drains)
I sort of like this idea. Ice also sort of has this ability given it's spells that are basically the same thing. Honestly to me Absorbs are also sort of an Ice thing and that makes sense with the Roshambo.
Another idea (that the Death Wizards won't like) is make it so that Absorbs reduce damage from the incoming BASE of the spell. I honestly would say that in general, but if we wanted to make it a drain disadvantage only, you could keep it at that. The reason why I say this is that Absorbs get outclassed so quickly with traps, and blades and gear due to the fact that they are percents that stack vs Absorbs are flat damage that do not nearly scale as much.
So imagine someone has a 40% blade, 100% Gear Damage and a spell that does 500 damage. That makes the spell do 1400 for example and they'd get 700 health back. If you cast an Absorb like Spirit Ward or the Ice versions That would be deducted off of the base of the spell. So 400 would be taken off with a spirit armor and you only have 100*1.4*2= 280 or half health of 140 back.
I would say applying the blocking of BASE damage across the boards would make sense for Absorbs, so that they remain relevant as well as are scalable at later levels, but I imagine that would require even more balancing, so having them just affect drains heal back might make more sense.
Re: Life vs. Death (if Life's Absorbs were to "counter" Drains)
exp613 on Mar 21, 2022 wrote:
I sort of like this idea. Ice also sort of has this ability given it's spells that are basically the same thing. Honestly to me Absorbs are also sort of an Ice thing and that makes sense with the Roshambo.
Another idea (that the Death Wizards won't like) is make it so that Absorbs reduce damage from the incoming BASE of the spell. I honestly would say that in general, but if we wanted to make it a drain disadvantage only, you could keep it at that. The reason why I say this is that Absorbs get outclassed so quickly with traps, and blades and gear due to the fact that they are percents that stack vs Absorbs are flat damage that do not nearly scale as much.
So imagine someone has a 40% blade, 100% Gear Damage and a spell that does 500 damage. That makes the spell do 1400 for example and they'd get 700 health back. If you cast an Absorb like Spirit Ward or the Ice versions That would be deducted off of the base of the spell. So 400 would be taken off with a spirit armor and you only have 100*1.4*2= 280 or half health of 140 back.
I would say applying the blocking of BASE damage across the boards would make sense for Absorbs, so that they remain relevant as well as are scalable at later levels, but I imagine that would require even more balancing, so having them just affect drains heal back might make more sense.
Just a thought.
Interesting idea. Main problem with this is the process out of order.
The Hit Points (HP) is separated into 2 phases: outgoing and incoming. Outgoing HP is from a single caster, involving anything that affects the **raw damage of the spell. Incoming HP is target specific, involving anything that affects **secondary damage of the spell.
Absorbs are part of the secondary damage, so trying to make it affect the base damage is breaking the process. A more efficient idea would be to make Absorbs be affected by school damage, so they can keep up with at least the base outgoing multiplier. (But that will become another Steal Ward fight )
**raw = wizard's base offensive stats & any hanging affects & Global(inc) **secondary = target's base defensive stats & any hanging affects & Global(out)
School despite Roshambo Wheel disadvantage as 
are the two sides of any healing war.
's Cleanse Charm to remove Infections.
's Cleanse Ward to remove Absorbs.
