Ember Fire Resistence, the Conventional Easy Solution for Spell Spam

[goatt]

Cooldown was introduced to address the problem of spell spamming.

But the cooldown is such an unsatisfying experience.

But spamming is not a new problem. DST can use the same solution for other spamming to solve Willow's spell spamming.

For example, for ice staff and panflute, we have freeze resistance and sleep resistance. Only bosses have that resistance. And it builds up slowly.

In the same logic, we can have Ember fire (shadow and lunar) resistance, which builds up slowly as a boss receives the damage. The resistance wears off over time.

 

As a bonus, it also solves the spamming problem by multiple willows, because the same boss will get more resistance when many willows try to spam at the same time.

 

For actual number tuning, if you are interested, I'll put my opinionated math in spoiler

Spoiler

I just like numbers, so I want to figure it out.

current cooldown is 14 to 20 seconds. So I will aim at a 15 seconds cooldown.

Each lunar ember fire instance will give a boss 1% resistance, which grants a 1% damage reduction from lunar fire. Each shadow fire grants 2% resistance

Each lunar spell has 20 instances of fires at max, so it'll give the boss a 20% damage reduction from ember fire. By the time the casting animation finishes, 5 seconds have passed, so the final reduction is 15% reduction rather than 20%. Shadow fire spells have 5 instances, so that's a 10% reduction.

Resistance wears of at the rate of 1% per second.

So for lunar fire, it takes 15 seconds to wear off all the resistance. (5 seconds during casting, 15 seconds after casting, so the real cooldown is 15 seconds, rather than 20 seconds).

Shadow fires require 8 seconds to wear off, (10 seconds in total, but 2 seconds for animation and menu UI navigation, so the real cooldown is 8 ish seconds

If a willow spams lunar spell non stop, after each spell casting, the damage will be reduced to 85%, 70%, 55%, 40%, etc. which is not too punishing, in my opinion. The real damage in the game is most likely higher, because it's really hard to spam non-stop.

The damage reduction is not too strong for a single willow. But it builds up really quickly when there are many willows spamming spells.

Very importantly, there should be an animation feedback to indicate the existence of the ember fire resistance, so that players aren't confused by the reduced damage when they don't have mods to tell them bosses' HP.

 

[grm9]

there isn't even a need to nerf the spells, lunar fire has less dps than dark sword and is only useful against FW and BQ and shadow fire is pretty much gunpowder but slightly cheaper 

[goatt]

3 minutes ago, grm9 said:

lunar fire has less dps than dark sword and is only useful against FW and BQ and shadow fire is pretty much gunpowder but slightly cheaper 

This comparison is not fair. It doesn't take into consideration of

1. AOE damage vs most weapons

2. range vs melee weapons

3. easy of control vs gunpowder

4. kiting time and armor cost

5. different levels of skill

[grm9]

40 minutes ago, goatt said:

1. AOE damage vs most weapons

AoE is only useful when there are multiple enemies, so pretty much only against multiple small enemies or BQ or FW, so it's situational 

40 minutes ago, goatt said:

2. range vs melee weapons

lunar fire's range isn't that big and the boss will most likely come to you before the cast ends, interrupting the cast or forcing you to turn away to try dodging the attack and miss out on dps

40 minutes ago, goatt said:

3. easy of control vs gunpowder

it still doesn't change much since both aren't worth the time spent on getting enough stuff to use them for the entire fight, you can use flute or ice staves against most bosses to put gunpowder under them and explode them or just keep standing in front of them to bait attacks in case of e.g. FW and only go away when it's about to explode 

40 minutes ago, goatt said:

4. kiting time and armor cost

you still need to kite or tank when using those spells 

40 minutes ago, goatt said:

5. different levels of skill

you still need to kite or tank when using those spells and tanking is much worse because getting hit cancels the spell                

[goatt]

5 minutes ago, grm9 said:

AoE is only useful when there are multiple enemies, so pretty much only against multiple small enemies or BQ or FW, so it's situational 

lunar fire's range isn't that big and the boss will most likely come to you before the cast ends, interrupting the cast or forcing you to turn away to try dodging the attack and miss out on dps

it still doesn't change much since both aren't worth the time spent on getting enough stuff to use them for the entire fight, you can use flute or ice staves against most bosses to put gunpowder under them and explode them or just keep standing in front of them to bait attacks in case of e.g. FW and only go away when it's about to explode 

you still need to kite or tank when using those spells 

you still need to kite or tank when using those spells and kiting is much worse because getting hit cancels the spell 

When you say "useful", you mean "more superior than". Because as far as I know, fire spells are also useful against Deerclops. It's misleading to equate "useful" to "more superior than" in your language because it undersells how powerful her spells are.

1. AoE is not "only" useful against multiple enemies. AoE should be "also" useful against multiple enemies. Then we should compare its AoE power against other AoE powers in the game, not against weapons. Winona's catapult, Gunpowder, Weather pain, Abigail, Weremoose, and Boat cannons. It's safe to say Lunar fire's AoE is among the strongest, if not the strongest.

2. range. The range is a special topic in DST. All the ranged weapons have been treated with care. All of them have major downsides. Smallest range are cat whip, low damage, alarming clock, requiring low hp. Then we have boomerang, low range. slingshot, lots of downsides. darts, hard to mass. Howlitzer, lots of work to craft. But willow's fire as ranged weapon with such massive dps is a first. So again, you comparison misses the point because it misses the major context about range. There are many range exploits that substantially simplify fights.

3. Ease of control. All your solutions about how to use gunpowder shows how hard gunpowder to use and how much extra things are needed. Missing a timing and the cost is 40 gunpowders wasted, and that's a big price. The difference is massive.

4. Kiting time. How much time do you need kite 6 hounds? Then how do you kite 6 hounds using bernie? How do you kite any boss with bernie? Kiting time in the context of Willow using fire is different from general kiting. We are talking about a very specific problem here. Over-generalizing is not productive but misleading. When willow blows fire against boss, she's ready to tank the next few hits because she needs to finish the spell a lot of the times. When willow blows fire against regular mobs, all will attack bernie. And willow can't be stunlocked during fire. (Note i didn't say kiting, I said kiting time. It's not about how easy it is to kite, it's about whether it's necessary to spend time on kiting.)

5. Different skill levels are all about success rate. For those who have experience and skill, it's easy to use all sorts of items, such as gunpowder, melee weapons, etc. But for people with lower skills, those aren't as easy to use and mass produce. Ember fires are so much more friendly. In other words, willow players can access better weapon powers at a much early stage, with much less difficulty and at a lower cost, and with a higher success rate.

@Reecitz I also addressed your comments in (4) above.

[Soul7k]

Arcwell actually posted videos and lists the actual time it takes to do lunar flame damage in another thread. But Wolfgang can do the same amount of damage 60% faster than willow can with a hambat  and Wendy can do it with a hambat and Abgail 20% faster which is also partially aoe and Abigail is free. Throw dark sword in the mix even faster. Further nerfs and the cooldown are unnecessary. If anything its counter intuitive to burning embers and I'd rather have a cap if I have to have a downside.

p.s. Maxwell exists

[goatt]

35 minutes ago, Soul7k said:

it takes to do lunar flame damage

I would argue looking solely at the damage numbers (including displayed number and damage per second) is precisely the improper way to judge an item. It's like comparing boomerang to spear. Number wise, sure. It's an improper comparison by using only numbers then say boomerang is so underpowered and doesn't require a nerf.

[Soul7k]

Wut? you are overthinking this

[arubaro]

adding resistance makes 0 sense because this spell is only too strong against crowds of enemies so they will resist as much 2 spells. Using it against single targets with high hp like bosses is a waste