Please revert the electric circuit and maybe rework some of the circuits so they're actually fun and engaging

[mr.wilson.BR]

No, not even just revert it, BUFF IT, why is the one circuit that has a downside to activate (getting hit, trading health and armor for it to even pop) got completely and utterly gutted by reducing it's damage by half??

 

There's genuinely zero justification for this, this circuit was never even great to begin with, it was passable, it was ok, and now? it's never even worth to have more than 1 equipped and it's solely to stagger enemies, if balancing wx is such a priority to not make them overpowered then why not start by actually giving them a meaningful downside so that they can actually have justifiably strong circuits that do more than just convenience that eventually every single character is able to get.

 

Like the ONLY downside wx has is that they are weak to water and starving means they lose charge, that's IT, one could argue that they lose charges from swapping circuits or dying but that barely if ever matters because there's no reason to swap your circuits since there aren't actually other good options to choose from,

 

if they had permanent lower stats (so removing alpha circuits) could in the very least justify giving them an interesting customizable experience that doesn't revolve just giving wx early commodities that eventually become obsolete, that's the reason triple speed is always paired with wx because it's the one thing that you can't easily increase or replicate (after all, maxwell got a easy portable 12 slot personal inventory, arguably the best minions and spells in the game, and a fun progression system of upgrading your minions by gathering strong shadow magic, all for what? having 75 hp? he has no other downside and it barely matters for everything else he got)

 

Past the chassis and drones, the circuits still haven't really done anything overly unique (other than the spin circuit) and it's disheartening, it sounds like i hate the character but i really don't, wx has always been a fun character for me even after his refresh where he got nerfed, but the problem is that there's genuinely not much that actually defines his gameplay, he gets to ignore certain aspects of the game and that's it, nothing else to supplement not interacting with a part of the game you don't like

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

from this point forward this is going to be some of my proposed changes, not everything will have something because i am honestly not very creative but i hope in the very least it adds a new layer of interaction to the circuits that actually makes the gameplay more engaging

I think a complete rework of some of the circuits is needed but some just need tweaks, as i said prior i believe that wx having permanently lower stats in exchange for having much stronger beta and gamma circuit effects is a good trade and gives more freedom to what new effects they could have, i'll start in no particular order

Optoelectronic circuit: no changes but the added effect could maybe highlight mobs so that you can more easily spot them and maybe give bosses an indicator like how players can see each other when they are off screen, truth be told i don't actually know how to make this one interesting so if you got better ideas do share

Illumination circuits: just slightly buff them and i honestly think they are fine, for the added effect i suggest giving them a flash ability so that you can slightly stun mobs (not bosses) maybe you want to kill a bird of example, if you position your illumination cone so that it's on the bird you could flash anything that is within it stunning them for just long enough so you can run over and get a hit in (using the flash ability will consume however many energy slots that light circuit provides, so 3 for the base one and only 1 for the super variant)

Acceleration circuits: Unchanged, they're good enough as is

 

Thermal Circuit: i propose a slight change to their base functionality, instead of just capping your temperatures at 70, instead they slowly increase your temperature to a stable 30 degrees when only one is plugged in on top of making their current added effects of increased and immunity to fire a part of their base functionality and in addition having 2 thermal circuits active will put you in near to overheat range (60 temperature)

As for my proposed added effects i say we let them go wild and give it a flamethrower effect at the cost of it either increasing wx's temperatures so that you are forced to stop using your abilities to cool off

(i propose this could be a mode they can enter into by either pressing a button to toggle it or right clicking to bring up their respective range limits and left clicking to confirm shooting to not overlap with the gamma circuits, think of it on the same vein as holding wigfrid's shield or spears and it brings up a new ui

with the flamethrower being similar to the Lunar blast willow has but it only deals half the damage since it's not an alignment skill and can still set enemies on fire (now by itself just setting enemies on fire is already pretty bad which is why i propose that with 2 Thermal circuits it would give increased range and damage but most importantly an airblast charge that has a small cooldown:

it's only purpose is to extinguish smoldering loot from the enemies you're setting on fire (food items will still be cooked and the airblast doubles as a way to make sure the enemies on fire don't spread the entire world on fire, it's not to negate the downside but more so to slightly control the situation and so the loot isn't unsalvageable)

(i would also like to point out that the flamethrower part would be useless against fire enemies, of which i believe there is only dfly, larvae and the red saladmanders but you would still have the benefit of either fire resistance or immunity depending if you have 1 or 2 thermals equipped)

 

As for the refridgerant circuit: the same base functionality of my proposed thermal circuit but reversed, for the added effect it could have a freeze blast that doesn't deal damage but quickly applies the freezing effect with focus fire (it's also aoe so you can freeze multiple things at once), continued focus fire will start depleting your already low temperature until you start freezing and are forced to stop (i propose you also get the sluggish effect by continuously firing while freezing so you can't abuse this by just eating healing food and effectively having no downside), and the effect gets stronger with 2 refridgerant circuits on top of the added ability to freeze water, my idea for this is that it could work on the same vein as docks, only temporary, they last a very short period of time and then break, if you standing on it as it breaks you will fall into the ocean an drown, so no free lunar island or anything but it gives you more options to traverse around as you are completely giving up speed circuits in exchange for this ability)

And unlike the flamethrower this can still freeze anything that can be frozen but bosses will be trickier as they have natural freeze resistance that increases the more you abuse it (though maybe the blast could damage enraged dfly, even if you can't freeze her)

 

Electric circuit: ah my beloved electric circuit, the very reason i even came here to begin with, let's make it simple for this one because the base used to be decent enough but it could definitely be better:

i propose it's base damage 34 (with the electric modifier that bumps it up to 51) meaning 3 of them will deal 153 damage to dry enemies but also would make it so enemies that aren't affected by electric modifiers (which to be fair aren't a lot, larvae, sentrypedes and the twins are the only ones that come to mind) can still be dealt a little bit of damage so that the circuits aren't completely useless against them

of course with a wet target each circuit would deal 85 damage for a total of 255 with all 3, if this sounds overpowered i would like to point out that to even use this circuit you need to TAKE DAMAGE, you cannot consistently use this, especially since in this iteration of the character all their max stats are locked to 100 so you cannot as easily damage sponge even with good armor (even thulecite crowns will break pretty fast if you use this constantly and i think it's a good trade off) and fix the weird glitch of the overload damage not dealing wetness damage, making each circuit deal 166.666666667 for a total of 500 damage (i'm using the base numbers from the original overcharge which i already believed were fine, and in most cases enemies will not be wet anyways making the damage a plain 100 or 66.6666666667 for non conductive targets, i think it's good enough)

 

Spatializer circuit: i never really used this but it is already pretty useful as is from what i've seen but weirdly it doesn't seem to have an added effect? i propose the added effect makes it so wx can gain an ability similar to wortox's knabsack but he instead uses whatever backpack he has equipped, making resource collecting and harvesting less tedious

 

Rangebooster circuit: i also never really used this but it seems fine as is if anyone got something for this be my guest

 

Chorusbox circuit: as i already talked in a previous post i believe it's fine as is but it could use one extra base effect to it's kit, that being with two of them enabled you gain a insanity aura reduction (seeing as you'll never have this equipped for just the base function and with the abolishment of the alpha circuits, this gives it more of an appeal on top of the sanity regen it provides) and for the added effects, it stays the same as currently (one man band for pigs and bunnymen up to 10 followers and 20 with 2 circuits) but if you stack 2 of them, the extra effect is so your followers cannot get the panic effect from when bosses screech, it doesn't sound like a lot but the added extra dps will be significant, believe me, on top of this like allowing a more laidback playstyle letting minions do the heavy lifting for you (they'll still get wrecked against bosses with aoe but at least they'll deal more damage on average before they die), maybe another added effect would be to make pigs similar to pig guards in the sense that they get an increased attack speed and don't kite as often, that way bunnymen aren't objectively superior in this scenario and they're about equal

 

i believe that covers every single beta circuit, these are my thoughts on what could make wx a truly more interesting choice to play over just having early game commodities that become obsolete as the game progresses and you get better gear

as far as gamma circuits go, i haven't tested them extensively but i do know the spin circle is gonna get aoe and maybe even some mobility during that aoe so i don't think there's any need for changes there, it sounds good

The sonic-invoker circuit is pretty alright as well i have no complains, maybe having two of them reduces their cooldown since currently it doesn't seem that stacking them does anything

 

Blocking circuit: it's currently absolutely terrible and i don't think the added effects even work, nor do i even know what they are, it's terrible, the only thing that would save this circuit without reworking it is to make it's base damage reduction either 85% or 90% (same as the shelmet, the armor used to make it to begin with) and massively reducing it's cooldown, otherwise it will never be worth to even consider having this equipped, if we were to rework it i suggest we just turn it into a parry mechanic instead, where you can reflect damage back to mobs assuming you parry at the right time, it wouldn't have a very small cooldown but it would incentivise precision to save on armor durability every so often (maybe it doesn't even parry all the damage and some still gets through so that it could pair nicely with the electric circuit, a man can dream)

and i honestly have no idea what to even do to save the redigestion circuit, i personally vote to completely scrap this and come with something else