Frost Nova and Stasis

[Own]

Frost Nova:
- Hits all enemies in a larger and larger AoE, multiples times at higher ranks.
- Chills enemies, slowing them.
- Freezes, locking them in place. This lasts for two hits of damage and for around six seconds. Bosses don't resist this. (Or at least, Gigaslime doesn't.)
- Costs 40 EP Silver, 50 EP Gold.
-Deals damage.

Stasis:
- Targets a single enemy.
- Timelocks, locking it into place. This lasts for one hits of damage and for around six seconds. Bosses resist this.
- Costs 40 EP, more the more frequently you cast it.
- Deals no damage.

Stasis appears to be a worse Frost Nova in every regard except skillpoint investment, Stasis needing 3 to max out and Frost Nova needing 5 to be decent, and 5 more gold points to be at peak performance.

So Stasis seems like a redundant and poor copy of another skill. What purpose does it serve? I can't think of a point in the game where spending 40 EP to freeze a single non-boss enemy for 6 seconds would be at all worthwhile, a duration cancelled by a single point of damage.

Stasis needs a new effect, I think. Maybe...

- Timelocks enemy for # seconds. Enemy can't be harmed during this timespan or knocked out of Stasis. EP cost is dependent on how many times Stasis has been cast on the same enemy. i.e: 15 -> 30 -> 60 -> 120, or 20, 40, 60, 80, 100. This lets stasis serve purpose as a way to take one enemy out of battle for a little bit and focus on the others, or to just catch a breather.

 

[Teddy]

I've found I write faster if I don't do long paragraphs so I'll just toss some short thoughts here as a reply!

Does Stasis really costs more the more you cast it?

I think Stasis is probably a bit too expensive, regardless...

Checking the code I see that the Freeze duration is mixed up between elites and bosses! The supposed modifier for bosses is 0.5x and for elites it's 0.75x, but in the live build it's the other way around! With that bug fixed a gold charge freeze should freeze most bosses for 2.5 seconds instead of 3.75 seconds.

I wonder if Giga Slime somehow does not count as a boss or if the 1.25 second reduction simply didn't feel significant enough for you to notice!

Three silver points vs. a main skill does warrant a power difference, I think, so if Stasis was even remotely as useful as a gold charge Ice Nova that would be weird in my mind. Stasis also makes less sense paired with Ice Nova than with other skills, as Ice Nova has a CC component and is easy to land hits with.

And I do think Stasis is quite powerful in certain scenarios, because it's guaranteed and has great range. I do agree though that the cost is tough, especially when playing alone, since it does eat into EP you might want to use for damage!

When we playtested Stasis, we used it to disable annoying stuff like wisps, or when an enemy composition was getting out of hand when multiple echoes spawned, etc. I found it both enjoyable and useful during those playtests! One of the runs I did was stasis, meteor, meditate and blink.

For some engine insight, there are a number of things that can be tweaked with Ice Nova as well, and also might make you view exactly how OP it is a bit differently! Here they are:

For every enemy successfully frozen by the same nova, that nova instance's freeze chance is reduced by 20 %.

An enemy that has been frozen gets 14 seconds of decaying freeze resistance (100 % decaying to 0 %). If another freeze gets through despite the resistance, the remaining effect is tripled, then refreshed (so if it was 5 seconds left the enemy will be freeze immune for 15 seconds and then have 14 seconds of resistance).

There is no accumulated stasis resistance.

Edit: Oh, about your suggestion, that was kind of how Stasis worked in its first iteration, actually! It's inspired by Zhonya's after all (nooo waaaay who could've guessed (then again I suppose people think it's inspired by BotW now...)). Anyways, it turned out to be very frustrating to remove the enemy from battle completely! Making it possible to unlock them through damage allowed for a wider range of possibilities - avoiding hitting them to keep them locked out, dropping meteors on them, just catching up to them and dunk them in the face, etc.

 

[Own]

Oh, my bad! It was my imagination that Stasis was costing more per cast, like some other support skills. Whoops!

Checking the code I see that the Freeze duration is mixed up between elites and bosses! The supposed modifier for bosses is 0.5x and for elites it's 0.75x, but in the live build it's the other way around! With that bug fixed a gold charge freeze should freeze most bosses for 2.5 seconds instead of 3.75 seconds.

I opened windows clock when refighting Giga, Phase and Gundam. All about 6~ seconds of freeze. Unless the bug here is that... oh. I just loaded up another character and fought the fae. 4~ seconds. I'm assuming Hall of Memory bosses don't have the boss tag applied.

Three silver points vs. a main skill does warrant a power difference, I think, so if Stasis was even remotely as useful as a gold charge Ice Nova that would be weird in my mind.

I just thought it seemed a little redundant in it's current form, two status effects more or less being the same thing. But I suppose giving melee characters a way to lock out annoying enemies isn't a bad thing.

I think Stasis is probably a bit too expensive, regardless...

In rooms with about 6-8 enemies, Stasis at 40 EP seems way too expensive for singleplayer, but about right at 2-4 player. Maybe it's cost could fluctuate depending on if the game has only 1 player in it vs co-op? If you're single player and you sink 40 EP into locking down 1 enemy out of 8 in a room, it does seem like you're putting yourself at a huge disadvantage. Especially when 40-50 EP skills can kill most enemies fairly quickly.

 

[res7less]

Just to add a small idea to make the EP cost scale with the type of enemy you lock down. Bigger enemies cost more to lock down, up to the magical 40 EP for bosses, while locking down small non-elites is no biggie.

 

[Own]

But the entire reason anyone would ever use Stasis is to lock down the big enemies so they can deal with the small ones. No one would ever cast it on a Jumpkin, Shroomie or Thorn Worm. Status effects aren't typically worthwhile against weak enemies in favor of just murdering them outright.

 

[res7less]

Indeed and that's why it should cost about as much as it does now to lock down the big ones. So the change wouldn't affect the use you describe, but simply make the skill more versatile (and thus make players less hesitant) when it comes to using it on weaker ones. It all depends on the enemy composition, since "weak" enemies in a group may still be stronger than the weakest ones there.

We are only discussing control scenarios here, of course, since killing enemies instead of ccing them may always be the better option depending on level difference, equipment et cetera. Realistically speaking I'm not even sure Stasis is even a valid option unless you're a fan of control-esque playstyles, so the premise here is that you want to use Stasis instead of something that does damage.