Earth Spike

[tkld178]

This spell does a lot of damage, too much damage in my opinion. For how versatile it is with the ability to hit anywhere around you in a circle when things in general are locked into horizontal and vertical attacks it does over the top damage. Meteor strike does do a little more damage but to hit reliably with it is hard especially when compared to earth spike. If you are unfamiliar with either skill they both use a system that puts a target(like the rockets from gun-4um) in front of you and you can guide it around you in a circle before it can't go any farther. When you release the key to activate the skill both have delays before the attack will happen but meteor has about a second before it will hit where earth spike has less than half a second(this is from personal experience rather than having the game open to test it but the concept is the same) before things will take damage. Earth spike also takes 5 less energy so if you spam both on a down enemy earth spike will do 5 hits where meteor strike will only do 4(given you have 100 energy).

I'm not saying meteor is a bad skill but just not as strong a choice as earth spike as it is now. So i have a suggestion.

Why don't we have earth spike do less damage the farther it is from the center of the attack. It will make it so to get max damage on something you have to put more effort into this skillshot skill instead of putting it in the attack circle and getting max damage for doing less. I feel like this also fits into the name earth spike. This will reduce the power of earth spike while at the same time making meteor strike a viable skill.

 

[The G-Meister]

That would work, but in my build where I used both of these skills, I'd often get close to enemies, get a perfect guard and then spam both of them right infront of me alternately using the prismatic talent. This cuts the EP drastically, as well as getting a huge barrage of damage off if you don't want to play long range with the skills. The fix you're proposing would come at no detriment to this play style

Having said that, it's more risky getting up close and personal with the enemies in the first place, so I guess it's a worthy pay off. Although there are other skills which do a lot more damage up close such as heroic slam, so by implementing this you nerf Earth Spike by using it as it's meant to be used (long range). Not sure if that's fair. A flat out damage cut might balance it out a little better?

 

[tkld178]

Well the thing is if you can position yourself so the center of the attack will be on your target it will still do full damage. I think this is something that will set it apart from meteor. As it stands the skills use the same attack system but one is harder to hit with. How much damage will it have to lose to be balanced? I think this is a better alternative to a flat damage down and will make the skill more interesting.

 

[The G-Meister]

Ah sorry, I misread your post. I thought you were talking about the distance away from the player rather than the distance away from the spike. I believe the reason it does damage in a circle is to make it a fun skill to use while playing. It means you can hit the enemy in a rough area instead of right on the centre and still get a decent amount of damage off. This makes it so you don't spend a short while trying to make your shot hit exactly so you get the biggest hit, speeding up your attacks and making the skill more fun to use.

The thing is, when balancing, there's a line between making it more interesting and making it too complicated. I personally don't mind a flat damage nerf if it's got to be done. I'd also always prefer a more sophisticated nerf, but sometimes it detracts from a certain play style or makes a skill more complicated than it needs to be, or than it was intended to be. Earth spike is really the easy-to-use version of Meteor, and adding this I think will step it into the bounds of being a tad more complicated than it was intended, and therefore think a flat damage nerf would be more appropriate

As for a value, it should probably do less damage than Meteor for the reasons stated above, but not too much less as to make it a useless skill. Seen as I think it does more damage than Meteor up until Silver charge (when there's burning effects in play) I'd say anywhere from 10%-20%. I'm don't know the skills inside out in terms of numbers though

 

[Own]

The idea of nerfing Earth Spike when it's nowhere near one of the highest DPS skills is weird. Why?

 

[The G-Meister]

Because, personally, I think the highest DPS skills in the game are pretty broken, and need nerfs themselves. Depends how difficult of a game you want really. I reckon Meteor is probably a good standard to go by compared to Frosty Friend or Flamethrower. Basically a lot of skills need re-balancing, but some more than others. Just because there are very OP skills in the game doesn't mean we can't let the slightly-broken-but-not-OP slip through our fingers

 

[Own]

Earthspike isn't overpowered, broken or even a particularly good spell. Meteor is underpowered. They're both slow, targeting spells which render you defenseless, with Meteor having the added negative of a delay. It should be doing far more damage than it does to counteract all those downsides.

The only way Earthspike becomes halfway decent is if you have Frosty Friend to draw enemies into one spot to cast at them safely.

 

[The G-Meister]

What do you consider a good spell? I think we may of conflicting opinions here :/

[Edit]: Well, what and why would probably be a better question.

 

[Own]

One that:

Doesn't have a slow charge up.
Doesn't require lengthy targeting.
Doesn't have a massive EP cost.
Doesn't leave you motionless throughout the charging / targeting phase.
Can be somewhat safely used or reliably when enemies are chasing you.
Failing any of that, has at least huge damage to compensate.
Failing any of that, has an amazing secondary effect to compensate.

For all the trouble it gives you, Meteor's secondary effect should be to leave a huge, burning crater on the field for a long time that you can lure enemies through or engage them, fighting there while they burn to death. Not just Burning DoT them while they're on the flames, but doing steady damage from the fire on top of the Burning DoT ticks. Currently it lasts for 5 seconds and only puts a Burn DoT on enemies that walk into the flames at Gold Charge. Silver doesn't even have any flames.

If I somehow (likely) miss with my Silver/Gold meteor, I should be able to at least bait enemies into roasting to death instead of just putting a small DoT tick on them. Even the Summer Hydra's fire burns you while you're in it and then puts a Burning DoT tick on you if you burn for more than half a second.

Silver meteor should have a few Hydra-style flames left behind. Gold could create a huge circle of fire.

 

[The G-Meister]

I would say these skills aren't designed that way. Both of them intentionally lock you in place either as it was the last available solution to make the targeting reasonable, or because you'll be out of range anyway. The thing is, while this may be how they are designed, they're not compatible with Arcade mode, which is what your suggestions would optimise them for.

Really, a lot of skills need a change or two to work with both modes. Most seem to be optimised for Story at this point, and the others optimised for Arcade. The thing is, when you get a skill which works in Story mode but not in Arcade, you get a few people complaining it doesn't work in Arcade when the time is right (now, for instance. I mean, you don't see people complaining Plant Summon doesn't work in Arcade, but this is mainly because Arcade players are a little few and far between), and when you get a skill optimised for Arcade but not for Story (eg, Protect), you get complaints from Story players.

Bearing this in mind, perhaps a mini overhaul is needed. We could take a step back for a moment and look at the traits a skill can have, defined by the game mechanics. We then look at both modes, and their requirements for success and enjoyment. We then look take each skill in turn and assess which traits make it good/bad in each mode, then perhaps tweak, change and maybe throw a few out the window.

 

[tkld178]

I will agree that it is not the best damage but for what it needs to do I'd say it does too much.

This skill really does not need to charge, it can do 100 standard by second floor in arcade.

If you are fast enough you can target something in less than a second and be on the move again.

20 is not that bad of an energy cost for a skill that can one or two shot most enemies depending on your magic.

Targeting does not take that long and most of the time charging isn't worth it.

The main thing about this skill is that things in this game are very locked into vertical and horizontal attacking so if you position yourself right and know what enemies do than you can find ways to give yourself enough time to attack.

This skill is by no means a big dps skill but it is a great burst that can easily handle minions which arcade is mainly about.

So I've played a lot of arcade and this will cover mostly stuff I've seen in arcade. Along with frosty friend taking aggro off you this is the best spell to deal with minions without putting you in harms way. It has great reach while not limited to hitting anything that is directly in front of you. This means that a lot of the time you can attack things that have to move into position to actually hit you. Only enemies that this doesn't apply to are wisps, frostling scoundrels(I think, it's that or the other one, you know which one i mean), boars, jumpkins, halloweeds, and the season mages. There are a few odd ones but in general the rest have to get in the right spot to attack you. This means that there are plenty of chances to attack every enemy and the ones you can't you focus on first. For floors 1-6 it will get rid of things you want it to deal with in one shot, boars are easy enough to dodge and you want to use flamethrower on them anyways. Scarecrows aren't that big of a threat and are super easy to dodge. Bloomos are something you flamethrower. Beehives are something you flamethrower. Halloweeds are tricky but if you focus on them first they aren't that big of a deal. Everything else you can one shot with earth spike on floor 1-6. After that i becomes a little bit harder and depending on your magic damage you might need 2-3 to kill but it will generally be 1-2 to kill besides things that have lots of health. Most things are things that are easily handled by earth spike or by your actual dps skill.Season knights can die in one hit of a silver charge if you have enough damage and mages normals can kill them at that point. Silver charge can crit over 1k near the end of the run in arcade. Another thing is that you don't need to do anything special for enemies to bunch, they do that already going after you.

For what it does I think it just does too much right now.

Fireball does not even come close in damage if you are hitting things right while also being less flexible.

A skill does not need to have high damage to be op, look at frosty friend, it's op because it does what it does just a little too well.

 

[The G-Meister]

Try removing the Frosty and Flamethrower and replacing it with Meteor and Ice Nova, then see how you fair

In that build it's not the Earth Spike that's OP, it's the Frosty and Flamethrower. Earth spike only works when you add Frosty into the mix - in fact, a lot of magic builds fail without him.

 

[Deleted member 8580]

This spell does a lot of damage, too much damage in my opinion. For how versatile it is with the ability to hit anywhere around you in a circle when things in general are locked into horizontal and vertical attacks it does over the top damage. Meteor strike does do a little more damage but to hit reliably with it is hard especially when compared to earth spike. If you are unfamiliar with either skill they both use a system that puts a target(like the rockets from gun-4um) in front of you and you can guide it around you in a circle before it can't go any farther. When you release the key to activate the skill both have delays before the attack will happen but meteor has about a second before it will hit where earth spike has less than half a second(this is from personal experience rather than having the game open to test it but the concept is the same) before things will take damage. Earth spike also takes 5 less energy so if you spam both on a down enemy earth spike will do 5 hits where meteor strike will only do 4(given you have 100 energy).

I'm not saying meteor is a bad skill but just not as strong a choice as earth spike as it is now. So i have a suggestion.

Why don't we have earth spike do less damage the farther it is from the center of the attack. It will make it so to get max damage on something you have to put more effort into this skillshot skill instead of putting it in the attack circle and getting max damage for doing less. I feel like this also fits into the name earth spike. This will reduce the power of earth spike while at the same time making meteor strike a viable skill.

It's true that Earth spike do need some balancing, after all this game isn't balanced yet, but, Meteor doesn't actually fall behind Earth spike, he just have a different benefict (the ability to burn an opponent) burning is very reliable, could be better if a burning didn't got over another one, but beign able to set an opponent in flames is really great (more or less 30 per tick at lvl 17/ bigger the higher your M.Atk is) so... ya both of them actually get a little Op(mostly txh to range) but Earth Spike has a gigantic charge time if you try it out you will notice that you might almost never use all 3 charges since you would take waaaay too long to cast it all, while meteor has a way faster charge in exchange, so comparing those two they're pretty much equivalent and both of them actually need some revamp (personally i'd like meteor to get a higher burning or Earth Spike to lose the stun would already be a good nerf already, also the ability to inflict burn to anyone that has been hit by the meteor) so if you use meteor on your setup just remember to level the passive that increases the status inflict chance and you will see the power of the meteor