"Cannot Miss" changes

[Ferret]

Probably coming fairly soon:

A fair number of "Cannot miss" abilities will probably be losing that status, as the first part of an effort to bring Agility up in value. Generally speaking, the only sorts of abilities likely to keep "Cannot miss" status will be those that have some other condition on their hitting already, such as many Light and Dark abilities have. The only broad exception other than that will be Mind, both because it doesn't quite make sense and because it is part of the point of Mind anyway.

This isn't to say there won't be other exceptions, but generally speaking, those are my guidelines for this. I'll update you here if any more emerge once I get started on the revamp.

The hope here is that by reducing, vastly, the number of "Cannot miss" attacks, Agility will become more important both for offense and defense.

I would hesitate to classify this as a straight up nerf however: "Cannot miss" has always come with a cost that each ability bearing it had to account for in other areas. Sometimes it was increased SP cost, sometimes it was reduced Power, sometimes it was a cooldown or something more esoteric, but always something. Thus, any abilities that have and now lose "Cannot miss" will gain in some other area to compensate. Most of these will be SP/Power changes, but I wouldn't count on them all being thus.

Finally: As I said above, this is the first part to fixing Agility. If it feels like enough, I'll stop there. If it isn't, I'll do something else. But this is a big enough change where I want to see where it puts us before I make further changes.

[Gaswafers]

I've always found "cannot miss" kind of wasteful on some abilities. If you use any abilities that rely on accuracy, then it is most efficient to use only abilities that rely on accuracy, because you've already invested in a source of accuracy.

[wizzzargh]

I doubt this will displace Vigor Siphon from my go to mage nuke, but it'll be a deserved nerf

[onget]

It seems to make Agi is omnipotent.

[Ferret]

It shouldn't make Agility overpowered, for a few reasons:

1) The need for Agility can already be countered via other means. Against average Agility targets, average Agility + ACC Up or EVD Down on your target is nearly a perfect hit rate. *Minimum* Agility + ACC Up *and* EVD Down is also nearly a perfect hit rate (though slightly less so than Average + one) And of course, any hard control loss like Stun, Paralyze, or Sleep completely removes the need for it.

2) Hard cap on accuracy. By definition, there is no benefit to > 100 chance to hit in most cases. This is reached at somewhere around 2 Agility/level. After that, the only benefit you get from more Agility in the vast majority of cases is more evasion. More evasion isn't bad, but is probably weaker than the effect of putting those points into Vitality (which gives equivalent defense increase via raising MaxHP while also providing status effect resistance.)

3) There will still be plenty of attacks and builds that won't use Agility. This will probably required the full list of which ones are going to change to show though, and that isn't ready yet.

What I'm hoping for out of this is that:

1) It becomes harder for non Light/Dark/Mind damage builds to avoid using Agility.

2) Whether to have no Agility, average Agility, or great Agility becomes a meaningful choice (but with all three options having their uses)

3) High evasion from Agility becomes more reliable as a defense, somewhere between what Strength and Vitality accomplish defensively now.

[onget]

Still, perhaps all DD builds will select at least agi+1-2.

[Ferret]

Alright, I've started my review of "Cannot Miss" abilities.

At present, there are right around 60 Cannot Miss abilities in Demon. Here is the planned disposition of each, effective next build. Numbers may not be final, but they are probably not toooo far off.

No Changes (41 abilities)
Agony, Arctic Veil, Autoantipathy, Bane, Blight, Censure, Cull, Dark Veil, Ego Theft, Exorcism, Fan Flames, Fiery Veil, Filth Call, Goad, Halo, Heavy Guard, Humble, Life Drain, Life Siphon, Light Veil, Malice, Major Pain, Mind Blast, Mind Scream, Mind Spike, Mind Twist, Minor Pain, Punish, Rage, Retch, Sanction, Smite, Spiny Veil, Spite, Static Field, Storm Veil, Sure Shot, Sure Slice, Vigor Drain, Vigor Siphon, Wrath

Not a lot of surprises here: as I said before, Light, Dark, and Mind are largely getting to keep "cannot miss" as fair payment for the fact most of their abilities are conditional (Light & Dark), have cooldowns (Light, Dark, Mind), and/or are unusually low Power (mostly Mind, but Light and Dark in a few cases.) The exceptions generally follow this rule as well (Veils can be considered conditional on being hit at melee, for example.) Sure Shot and Slice remain because it was kinda the point. Finally, Drains and Siphons were allowed to stick around in "cannot miss" land mostly I just couldn't make it make sense in my head for them to use Agility: but as non-conditional, non-cooldown based "cannot miss" attacks, they have been paying and will continue to pay a high price in terms of SP cost (this cost is easy to see when you compare Sure Slice, a 15 SP 70 Power "cannot miss" melee attack, with Feral Claw, a 5 SP 70 Power attack that is aimed normally.)


Can Now Miss (7 abilities)
Avalanche: SP cost reduced from 30 to 25, Power increased from 70 to 85.
Cyropulse: SP cost reduced from 20 to 15, Power increased from 55 to 70.
Earth Break: SP cost reduced from 30 to 25, Power increased from 55 to 70.
Electropulse: SP cost reduced from 20 to 15, Power increased from 55 to 70.
Frost Ring: SP cost reduced from 25 to 20, Power increased from 55 to 70.
Hail Storm: No change. (SP cost was inadvertently lower than intended to begin with!)
Pyrokinesis: SP cost reduced from 20 to 10.

These seven abilities have been stripped of their "cannot miss" status. While they will use and can be defended against by Agility now, they are also no longer paying for the "cannot miss" flag, so almost all of them have seen significant buffs in Power and to a lesser degree in SP economy. The one exception is Hail Storm, which was already cheaper than it should have been. Whoops.


Attenuation (5 abilities)
Burning Star: Power increased from 70 to 85.
Chilling Blast: Power increased from 55 to 70.
Fireball: Power increased from 55 to 70.
Flame Orb: Power increased from 55 to 70.
Snowstorm: Power increased from 70 to 85.

Attenuation is a new mechanic being added in the next build: it reduces the damage dealt by area effects based on the defender's distance from the 'origin point' and the defender's Agility. Notably, attenuated attacks still "cannot miss" and still do not use the attacker's Agility.

Distance from 'origin point' defense: 0% at the 'origin point', up to a 50% reduction at the furthest affected points.

Defender Agility defense: Acts as a multiplier for distance from 'origin point' defense, but only if positive. So a character with an Agility bonus of 50% at the furthest edge of an attenuated blast would receive a 75% reduction (50% + 50% of 50% = 75%) Note this part of the defense can be 'turned off' by certain status effects (probably Sleep, Shock, Stun, Paralyze.)

Attenuated attacks still pay for "cannot miss" status... but are compensated for having the attenuation effect, and this is reflected in the Power increases above.


Breath Weapons (8 abilities)
Fire Breath: SP cost reduced from 30 to 0.
Holy Word: SP cost reduced from 30 to 0.
Ice Breath: SP cost reduced from 30 to 0.
Mighty Roar: SP cost reduced from 40 to 0, Breath Cooldown increased from 4 to 6.
Poison Breath: SP cost reduced from 35 to 0, Breath Cooldown increased from 4 to 5.
Putrid Breath: SP cost reduced from 35 to 0, Breath Cooldown increased from 4 to 5.
Storm Breath: SP cost reduced from 30 to 0.
Unholy Word: SP cost reduced from 30 to 0.

Breath Weapons are also gaining attenuation as described above, but I called them out in another separate listing, because, as is already clear from the changes detailed within, something else is going on.

Namely, I decided to re-evaluate how much I charge for SP-based Power effects and sharply decrease it. As you can see above, breath weapons now cost 0 SP across the board, and have cooldowns of 4 to 6 (depending on what status condition, if any, they also inflict.) The 0 SP thing may not stay at 0, but it isn't likely to go up very much if it does.


And, that's about it. Approximately 2/3 of "cannot miss" abilities are sticking around as is, the major changes are mostly to the Impact, Fire, Ice, and Electricity ones and breath weapons. But, I think this will be enough to give Agility a good nudge up. If it's not enough, we can always look at other changes later.

Feel free to post comments, questions, feedback, etc. and thanks.

[Saler]

I know that this is a bit early for such a question, but with breathes costing 0 SP, will Second Wind (the ability that removes Breath cooldown) no longer recover SP?

[Ferret]

It will still recover SP. Even if that part is less useful for breath weapons now, it's nice for other builds potentially. It can still help breath weapons too, if you've spent SP using other abilities, since breath weapons still base their Power off your SP.

[Gaswafers]

Two questions:
-Will Dragon Soul get buffed?
-Does agility also reduce the apply chance of statuses from AoE attacks?