Unusable Spells, Volume 1: Damage Shields

[Twilight Semner]

So, this is a short list of spells which I feel are in need of serious improvement because, quite frankly, they're unusable in any endgame situation. They are as follows:

Death Armor (level 2 Wiz/Sorc)
- Damage doubles to 1d4 + 10 and duration increases to 1 turn/CL at CL41.

Mestil's Acid Sheath (level 5 Wiz/Sorc)
- Damage increases by +1 per CL above 40, reaching 1d6+40 at CL60.
- Grants (CL / 3)% acid immunity.

Corona of Cold (level 3 Cleric)
- Does 1d6 + CL points of cold damage to anyone striking the caster; capped at 1d6+20 at CL20, but increasing by +1 per CL above 40, reaching 1d6+40 at CL60.
- Grants (CL / 3)% cold immunity.
- Is only available with HG Enhanced.

Why are they unusable?

Simply put: Kickback. Sure, they dish out their own KB, but the damage is miniscule, but more importantly they cause additional kickback from enemies. Abilities such as Divine Shield and Elemental Shield manage to see some use due to the considerable defensive bonuses they provide (Divine immunity/Shield AC, and 50% Cold/Fire immunity, respectively) but even those can sometimes be a liability when a party-KB mob decides it would be a good idea to hit your character that has these up. It can be very frustrating, not to mention hazardous, to the entire party.

Particularly in the case of Death Armor, the benefit to detriment ratio is simply not favorable enough. Death Armor does virtually no damage, provides no defensive bonuses, and essentially only exists to wreak havoc on your party. No one in their right mind should ever use this spell (aside from rare Pre-LL tags where you might get some benefit from letting an any hit you who only takes exotics). For Corona of Cold and Mestil's Acid Sheath, it's not as severe, but there still simply isn't enough benefit.

How can we fix them?

First I would suggest that (for all damage shields, not simply these listed), that they no longer cause kickback. The logic to me seems simple enough, enemy kickback on player characters doesn't proc player kickback on enemies, so player kickback shouldn't proc enemy kickback. With that simple change, Mestil's Acid Sheath and Corona of Cold, would probably be fine to use.

For Death Armor, I would suggest (in addition to the above) adding some kind of niche immunity. Even if it weren't to cause KB, it would still have little to no benefit. It could really benefit from some kind of defensive boost. I'm not quite sure what that would look like, which is why I would love to hear what you guys think.

Do you have any suggestions for Death Armor? How do you feel about preventing KB from causing KB? Thoughts welcome.

[Twilight Semner]

Suppose I'll add my own Death Armor suggestion to get us started:

- Grants (CL / 6)% magic immunity.

[Deleted]

Death Armor, sure it needs a change.
The other two... meh, the vast majority of spells in the game aren't used in endgame situations already; these at least give *some* defensive bonus balanced by the risk of possible KB if you are hit, so in that sense I wouldn't call them truly unusable.
Elemental Shield has the exact same risk, but in that case we can argue that it's defensive benefits justify the KB-risk. So the obvious solution here is to simply improve their defensive benefits.

I don't like the idea of kickback removal, because the bottom line is most people don't really care about the damage dealing aspect of the shield. Removing the only downside to the spells would just give Wizards/Clerics a 'free' 20% Acid/Cold boost respectively.

I'm not convinced that it's a priority change, but I suppose in the ideal case my suggestion with crude numbers would be something like:
Death Armor -> remove the duration buff so it's still rounds/level, add feat-level Fear Immunity OR 10% magic immunity (or does it deal Negative? not sure!)
Mestil's Acid Sheath -> increase Acid immunity to ~80-100% (compare to the 50/50 from Elemental Shield, a lower level spell that is easier to fit)
Corona of Cold -> increase Cold immunity to ~30-50% (compare to the 50/50 from Elemental Shield, a higher level Arcane spell)

Edit: Numbers would obviously scale with CL somehow

[drunkenboastor]

Casters with damage shields are a good indicator of noob in any run where burs drop.

I do not think the damage shield spells should be changed from damage shields into pure buffs. They tend to be a pretty dumb spell for end game play, but damage shields are useful for the leveling process and some legendary play.

[Twilight Semner]

May 3, 2016 23:37:23 GMT @ssj2poliwhirl said:

Death Armor, sure it needs a change.
The other two... meh, the vast majority of spells in the game aren't used in endgame situations already; these at least give *some* defensive bonus balanced by the risk of possible KB if you are hit, so in that sense I wouldn't call them truly unusable.
Elemental Shield has the exact same risk, but in that case we can argue that it's defensive benefits justify the KB-risk. So the obvious solution here is to simply improve their defensive benefits.

I don't like the idea of kickback removal, because the bottom line is most people don't really care about the damage dealing aspect of the shield. Removing the only downside to the spells would just give Wizards/Clerics a 'free' 20% Acid/Cold boost respectively.

I'm not convinced that it's a priority change, but I suppose in the ideal case my suggestion with crude numbers would be something like:
Death Armor -> remove the duration buff so it's still rounds/level, add feat-level Fear Immunity OR 10% magic immunity (or does it deal Negative? not sure!)
Mestil's Acid Sheath -> increase Acid immunity to ~80-100% (compare to the 50/50 from Elemental Shield, a lower level spell that is easier to fit)
Corona of Cold -> increase Cold immunity to ~30-50% (compare to the 50/50 from Elemental Shield, a higher level Arcane spell)

Edit: Numbers would obviously scale with CL somehow

I guess my concern is, will anyone use them if they still cause KB? They might use one at a time, but using Death Magic, Elemental Shield, AND Mestil's Acid Sheath simultaneously could mean a lot of nastiness all at once with no-hit mobs in the mix. Other than that, I like your assessment, as it correctly takes into account respective spell levels of the different spells. For Death Armor, I think 10% magic is the better option, since arcanes already get PvE, which as far as I know, protects against most of the things feat-level Fear imm would.

[desocupado]

I would go with more damage (lore boost included) not causing further kb but having less immunity bonus.
The damage is require to help to overcome the much higher hp enemies have.

Maybe the should stop being passive spells let's say the do 10 times more damage (might be too much) but lasts like CL/2 rounds.

--A relevant question: Do they trigger if the attack misses?--

---------
Death armor could do a better kind of damage - Blight (or another special type)

[Deleted]

I believe that PFA gives immunity to 'Turning' from Death Knights, not actual Fear immunity (it doesn't block Death Knight's Fear-Pulse either).

In terms of stacking the immunities, I think it's just a risk/reward balance. Use none or one for low-risk/low-reward, or all three for high-risk/high-reward. I use Elemental Shield a lot at it is, the other ones aren't strong enough to justify using at the moment IMO.

[cathedralmaster]

I'd suggest considering changing death armor's effect completely. For pale masters, no damage but rather something like deathless master touch - anything that touches the caster (ie. hits) makes a save or dies. Even if the save is made, leave a chance for some type of weakness to be inflicted. For regular casters, stick to a chance to inflict some type of weakness.

The same with the other damage shields. Rather than having them do damage, have them inflict something on the attacker. For elemental shield, a chance to inflict fire and cold vulnerability. For acid sheath, acid vulnerability. And remove the 50% immunity from elemental shield as it breaks any chance to make it balanced.

[simpetar]

How about instead of generating KB, these spells inflict vulnerability or resistance decrease to the respective damage type (with a cap) when the caster is struck. It is similar in a way to causing KB, but without all the undesirable side effects. There are IMO only 3 such shields in the game that can be justified: Elemental Shield (and its BFM / DSM version) for the massive immunity boost, Aura Against Alignment for all the mind immunities (and crit imm for BCs), and Divine Shield for 2h characters, because they just need the AC. The rest is questionable at best.

[Enius the White]

May 3, 2016 23:37:23 GMT @ssj2poliwhirl said:

the vast majority of spells in the game aren't used in endgame situations already;

Having spells that are more useful during specific levels is, indeed, common and not necessarily a bad thing. The leveling process is a long journey for new players, and changing spells, tactics, etc, along the way keeps things interesting. Any end-game targeted changes to spells that are currently useful at lower levels should probably try to avoid incidentally nerfing them at lower levels.

[cathedralmaster]

May 4, 2016 17:42:54 GMT Enius the White said:

May 3, 2016 23:37:23 GMT @ssj2poliwhirl said:

the vast majority of spells in the game aren't used in endgame situations already;

Having spells that are more useful during specific levels is, indeed, common and not necessarily a bad thing. The leveling process is a long journey for new players, and changing spells, tactics, etc, along the way keeps things interesting. Any end-game targeted changes to spells that are currently useful at lower levels should probably try to avoid incidentally nerfing them at lower levels.

Just make any spell change happen at lvl 41.

[Twilight Semner]

May 4, 2016 17:42:54 GMT Enius the White said:

May 3, 2016 23:37:23 GMT @ssj2poliwhirl said:

the vast majority of spells in the game aren't used in endgame situations already;

Having spells that are more useful during specific levels is, indeed, common and not necessarily a bad thing. The leveling process is a long journey for new players, and changing spells, tactics, etc, along the way keeps things interesting. Any end-game targeted changes to spells that are currently useful at lower levels should probably try to avoid incidentally nerfing them at lower levels.

Well-noted. It's a bit of a double-edged sword. Yes, you want players to have to adapt their play-style when moving from pre-LL, to LL, to end-game/paragon runs, but that also shouldn't come at the cost of build diversity, where only a small list of spells are viable for end-game content. More usable end-game spells means more build options, greater diversity in spell schools, etc. Ideally there would be no "useless" spells, only spells that aren't useful in every situation.