This is not fun.

[Arcwell]

I don't know of any other way to describe Willow's spell cooldowns.

Cooldown's on Willow's spells, to me at least, kill any enjoyment I would have from using them. These are fun spells. I want to use them. If I fail a single lunar flame because I get hit, I cannot cast another one for an entire twenty seconds. If I want to deal burst damage with shadow fire, I can only do so once every fourteen seconds. 

Here's what those cooldowns look like in-game, for reference. I think it's absurd.

Spoiler

 

I'm sure the initial response to this change will be to just lower the cooldowns, but personally I don't think that would solve much. If you are truly convinced Lunar Flame and Shadow Fire are overpowered without cooldowns (which I'm not), I think it would be better to tweak its interaction with either embers, stagger, or damage.

Rant over.
All that said, Klei, if you're reading this, I do appreciate all the work you've put into the beta. The concept for Willow's spells is fantastic, I just don't want to see it end up in a bad state.

What do you all think?

[landromat]

tbf i'd make lunar flame cd around 30-60 minutes of real time. This stuff is so strong.

Im not a fan of big cooldowns but i guess another way is just nerf skill to the ground.

[Sacco]

i think the cooldown makes these spells more tactical, and that's good.

instead of being your main source of damage in some fights by spamming them they are now a very good damage "buff" and also crowd control.

 

[Mysterious box]

Just now, Sacco said:

i think the cooldown makes these spells more tactical, and that's good.

instead of being your main source of damage in some fights by spamming them they are now a very good damage "buff" and also crowd control.

 

If you truely believe that then Maxwell needs a cooldown on all his spells considering they're far stronger than even the unnerfed version of these spells.

[zhangsheng]

No need to add a CD at all, just weaken the skill damage. For example, Moon Fire can reduce normal damage to 15 and plane damage to 20. Shadow Fire reduces normal damage to 40 and plane damage to 45. This is already a significant weakening.

[landromat]

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

If you truely believe that then Maxwell needs a cooldown on all his spells considering they're far stronger than even the unnerfed version of these spells.

let's see... 

Maxwell has 75 base HP, smallest hp pool in the game.

Nightmare fuel is harder to obtain than embers

What else? Ah, he has no big bear companion to tank all enemies for him

And he needs some serious equipment to make his duelists deal some real damage.

 

If we nerf Willow to maxwell's state then yes, we can make cooldown 19s instead of 20s

[Arcwell]

2 minutes ago, Sacco said:

i think the cooldown makes these spells more tactical, and that's good.

instead of being your main source of damage in some fights by spamming them they are now a very good damage "buff" and also crowd control.

They were only able to be your main source of damage in fights if you farmed considerably beforehand, not unlike farming gunpowder or blowdarts. To put it into perspective, I had a test fight with Bee Queen before this patch that cost 170 embers. That's 170 enemies killed plus 4 for every spontaneous combustion used to kill them. I think it's extremely unreasonable to expect anyone to be using that strategy regularly, and if they do, more power to them.

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

If you truely believe that then Maxwell needs a cooldown on all his spells considering they're far stronger than even the unnerfed version of these spells.

While I understand your argument, I think this would only add to the issue. Cooldowns aren't fun is the point I was trying to make. Adding more cooldowns just makes more characters not fun.

[Jakepeng99]

6 minutes ago, Sacco said:

i think the cooldown makes these spells more tactical, and that's good.

instead of being your main source of damage in some fights by spamming them they are now a very good damage "buff" and also crowd control.

 

They are not really the main source of damage. Even if you get a few stacks of embers for essentially infinite spells, you would find you would be using them not as much as the other spells and only when needed. From using them, it was often combustion + frenzy fire which took the main attention. The alignments were ok to use. The lunar one is less dps than a darksword so you wont use it against single target, which is most combat scenarios. The shadow one however, is the most spammable and could use with a small cooldown that is much less than 18 seconds.

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, landromat said:

Maxwell has 75 base HP, smallest hp pool in the game.

Negated by having the easiest time using the most accessible high damage reduction armor in the game meaning most of the time he's tanker than most of the cast (95% damage reduction)

 

2 minutes ago, landromat said:

Nightmare fuel is harder to obtain than embers

Rabbits drop nightmae fuel and he has a skill to farm it without fighting shadows

2 minutes ago, landromat said:

What else? Ah, he has no big bear companion to tank all enemies for him

He does have a cage that traps bosses and followers who cost 1/5 of a nightmare fuel to summon spawning out the gate being able to use 60 casts of his spells for free.

3 minutes ago, landromat said:

And he needs some serious equipment to make his duelists deal some real damage.

Serious as in equipment he can get in the first 5 days

6 minutes ago, landromat said:

If we nerf Willow to maxwell's state then yes, we can make cooldown 19s instead of 20s

Does nerfing her include giving her expanded portable storage as well as another character's entire skill set?

[Jakepeng99]

6 minutes ago, landromat said:

Nightmare fuel is harder to obtain than embers

Yes it is, but Maxwell can still easily obtain fuel. You can turn any rabbit into 15% book fuel, if you are able to get multiple rabbits per spell combo, the number sky rockets. He consumes 5% per spell, so you get 5 spells per fuel.

8 minutes ago, landromat said:

And he needs some serious equipment to make his duelists deal some real damage

They are items everyone will normally get, like darkswords and his hat.

[Sacco]

14 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

If you truely believe that then Maxwell needs a cooldown on all his spells considering they're far stronger than even the unnerfed version of these spells.

i think maxwell deserves a nerf, but not just a cooldown.

in his case maybe shadow warriors make maxwell lose 15 when summoning them???

like in the original ds.

[mykenception]

15 minutes ago, Sacco said:

i think the cooldown makes these spells more tactical, and that's good.

instead of being your main source of damage in some fights by spamming them they are now a very good damage "buff" and also crowd control.

 

ah, it's time to add cooldowns to maxwell's spells, and as well as wicker's books

maybe we should also add cooldowns to woodie's weremoose ram and werebeaver tail smash

[mima_]

6 minutes ago, landromat said:

Maxwell has 75 base HP, smallest hp pool in the game.

Nightmare fuel is harder to obtain than embers

maxwell can cast his spell on beefalo.
can use night armor with no cost
can use dark sword with no cost 
no need to tank enemy cus he can cage them away.
have minions which have damage up to 60/ minion
nm fuel is easy to collect. u only need 5 to fully fill the empty book. nm creature can come to u any time. just spam ur worker spell and u will left with insanity. if u tell me killing nm creature is hard ? imma laugh it away. 
 

[Mysterious box]

Just now, Sacco said:

i think maxwell deserves a nerf, but not just a cooldown.

in his case maybe shadow warriors make maxwell lose 15 when summoning them???

like in the original ds.

How is that a nerf he just needs to eat a healing item?

If Willow is so deserving of cooldowns then Maxwell is far overdue multiple being the most powerful in several areas Willow was still a much weaker character overall than him.

[Sacco]

3 minutes ago, mykenception said:

ah, it's time to add cooldowns to maxwell's spells, and as well as wicker's books

maybe we should also add cooldowns to woodie's weremoose ram and werebeaver tail smash

i didn't say this thing.

cooldown shouldn't be put everywhere to nerf something.

the only way i see another nerf to these spells it to make them deal less damage, or maybe reduce the availability of embers, i guess?

 

[Fufuji]

Frost fire: Willow has to tank the incoming damage in order to achieve a DPS literally no more than BS sword. Does not generate embers.

Shadow fire: ~400 damage per burst. Limited help in boss battles. Does not generate embers.

They are never OP before this patch, and the Shadow Fire even needs a buff IMO.

[Sacco]

5 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

How is that a nerf he just needs to eat a healing item?

that's the point of it.

now as maxwell you need healing food in fights.

how is a cooldown a nerf?!

you just need to wait, no?! ahahah, that's not how it works.

[rrhappyrr]

32 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

我不知道还有什么其他方式可以形容Willow的法术冷却时间。

冷却时间是柳树的法术，至少对我来说，扼杀了我使用它们的任何乐趣。这些都是有趣的咒语。我想使用它们。如果我因为被击中而失败了一次月球火焰，那么在整整二十秒内，我不能再施放一次。如果我想用暗影之火造成爆发伤害，我只能每十四秒造成一次。

以下是这些冷却时间在游戏中的样子，供参考。我认为这很荒谬。

  显示隐藏的内容

 

 

我敢肯定，对这一变化的最初反应只是降低冷却时间，但我个人认为这并不能解决太多问题。如果你真的相信 Lunar Flame 和 Shadow Fire 在没有冷却时间的情况下被压倒了（我不是），我认为最好调整它与余烬、交错或伤害的相互作用。

咆哮。
综上所述，Klei，如果你正在阅读这篇文章，我非常感谢您在测试版中所做的所有工作。Willow的法术的概念太棒了，我只是不想看到它最终处于糟糕的状态。

大家怎么看？

我也不认为添加冷却时间很有趣

[Sacco]

16 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

They were only able to be your main source of damage in fights if you farmed considerably beforehand, not unlike farming gunpowder or blowdarts. To put it into perspective, I had a test fight with Bee Queen before this patch that cost 170 embers. That's 170 enemies killed plus 4 for every spontaneous combustion used to kill them. I think it's extremely unreasonable to expect anyone to be using that strategy regularly, and if they do, more power to them.

While I understand your argument, I think this would only add to the issue. Cooldowns aren't fun is the point I was trying to make. Adding more cooldowns just makes more characters not fun.

170 embers against bee queen?! this is meant to be a multiplayer game remember.

even with a wilson in the team embers usage would be halved.

[zhangsheng]

1 minute ago, Sacco said:

170 embers against bee queen?! this is meant to be a multiplayer game remember.

even with a wilson in the team embers usage would be halved.

What if it's a single player? Even Wes won't be very weak in the case of multiple players.

[Arcwell]

1 minute ago, Sacco said:

170 embers against bee queen?! this is meant to be a multiplayer game remember.

even with a wilson in the team embers usage would be halved.

If you're balancing it around multiplayer... remember lunar flame still freezes your teammates so it probably wouldn't be used at all (or at least very sparingly).

Plenty of us play this game solo and there's nothing wrong with that. I think balancing with no regard for the solo player is bad design.

[landromat]

13 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Yes it is, but Maxwell can still easily obtain fuel. You can turn any rabbit into 15% book fuel, if you are able to get multiple rabbits per spell combo, the number sky rockets. He consumes 5% per spell, so you get 5 spells per fuel.

They are items everyone will normally get, like darkswords and his hat.

darkswords and hat do not provide serious buffs. he needs better stuff

20 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Does nerfing her include giving her expanded portable storage as well as another character's entire skill set?

nope, just nerf

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, Sacco said:

that's the point of it.

now as maxwell you need healing food in fights.

how is a cooldown a nerf?!

you just need to wait, no?! ahahah, that's not how it works.

So your saying placing a Cooldown on how often Maxwell can use his cage and duelists in a fight wouldn't make meaningful impact on the character but asking him to using the massive overabundance of food in the game to heal would? You already use sanity food to spam the cage before the bone helm what really changes here?

 

4 minutes ago, Sacco said:

the only way i see another nerf to these spells it to make them deal less damage, or maybe reduce the availability of embers, i guess?

Lowering the damage any lower than it already is makes the skills unusable as it's already outpaced by normal weapons despite being a reward for killing end game bosses. As for making embers harder to farm that's just a baffling decision as her spells aren't nearly as powerful as Maxwell's once again.

2 minutes ago, landromat said:

darkswords and hat do not provide serious buffs. he needs better stuff

nope, just nerf

Then Maxwell needs some serious nerfs

[Yuuko]

42 minutes ago, Arcwell said:

 think it would be better to tweak its interaction with either embers, stagger, or damage.

 

Removing stagger would be a good change to balance it.

[landromat]

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Then Maxwell needs some serious nerfs

nope, he's fine