Report 133

Report #133
Skillset: Phantasms Skill: Phantomsphere
 Org: Geomancers Status: Completed Feb 2009
Furies' Decision:
We will implement a variation with different numbers.
Problem: The current all-or-nothing nature of phantomsphere makes it pretty
impractical. You'll either totally obliterate someone who doesn't see it coming,
or totally waste your time for a very small chance of a mental affliction on
someone who knows how it works. This strong possibility of spending considerable
time building up to as many as 4 spheres yet doing virtually no real harm is
what discourages the use of phantomsphere.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: This will be long, but bear with me. It's not
 complicated, just long-winded, I swear. Add a new
 syntax to the phantomsphere skill, PHANTOMSPHERE
 DETONATE. This attack, the only phantomsphere attack
 you can use while you stand in the same room as your
 phantomsphere, will cause your phantomsphere to
 explode into shards or splinters of phantasmal
 energy, which fly across the room into your personal
 enemies' skulls and causes them to experience extreme
 terror, the trauma of which leaves them physically
 damaged (20% of their health in unblockable damage).
 This will also cause a chain reaction with any
 embedded phantomspheres inside the minds of any who
 get hit, causing each embedded phantomsphere to also
 explode and do 20% in unblockable (curing the
 embedded phantomspheres in the process). In short,
 20% + 20% * embedded spheres. Detonating on someone
 with 4 spheres will do 100% his health and kill him
 in the same spirit that phantomsphere attack would.
 This solution would allow you to cause real,
 proportional harm with phantomspheres without getting
 5, including some collateral damage.
Player Comments:
---[Shuyin on 2/24 @ 07:33 writes]:
Can't you just load up every room in the demesne with 4 spheres and just
instagib any enemy group that walks into it? There definitely needs a limit to
the number of spheres, or I can't even understand supporting something that does
20% unblockable damage a hit
---[Gregori on 2/24 @ 07:42 writes]:
Nothing should be doing 20% unblockable damage a hit. Especially when it is 20%
+ 20% per sphere in the room.
---[Ceren on 2/24 @ 15:10 writes]:
It's a lot more limited than you think. You can only have one sphere summoned at
a time, and it takes eq to move, attack, and even look with them. If it worked
like you two apparently thought it does, don't you think you'd have been
instantly lamed by the insta by now? :P
---[Ceren on 2/24 @ 18:08 writes]:
I think part of my wording may have been unclear. PHANTOMSPHERE ATTACK embeds a
phantomsphere in a target, not the location. The chain reaction I was talking
about was with the phantomspheres embedded in this target, and it'll do 20% +
20% * spheres to only him, the collateral damage to personal enemies remaining
at 20% (unless they too are afflicted with embedded phantomspheres). It's on a
per target basis, not one guy has 3 spheres and therefore the whole room loses
80% of their health. That's clearer, I hope...
---[Gregori on 2/25 @ 16:04 writes]:
I understand that it is per target not per room. However, I still stand by
nothing should be doing that much unblockable damage. Make it psychic damage and
I am more inclined to agree with the proposal.
---[Ceren on 2/25 @ 17:16 writes]:
A single avatar wrath does that much damage over a 10 second period (2 ticks),
and that's totally passive. Also, for reference, my boulderblast does around 21%
of fully deffed targets' health when there's 3 people or less in the room, and
that's a single eq as opposed to the multiple eq's of phantomspheres.
---[Ceren on 2/25 @ 17:19 writes]:
Also remember that unlike boulderblast/hailstorm or wrath (at least until the
nerf goes through), only -one- person can use phantomspheres because it requires
a meld.
---[Nejii on 2/26 @ 02:13 writes]:
20% unblockable damage is one thing, 60-80% unblockable damage where the only
way of avoiding it is leaving the demesne - and this in a situation where you're
already likely to be struggling across the meld to even hit the mage - is pretty
fierce. I understand that phantomsphere has its issues now, but ranged combat -
particularly in something as hindering as a mage meld - is just too "eh" in IRE
to really want to buff it this much. In groups it'd probably take too much setup
time to do much good though.
---[Sadhyra on 2/28 @ 20:19 writes]:
Esano and I have played around with phantomspheres a bit - for a ranged attack,
it takes quite a bit of time to set up fully to pull off the instakill. However
this report as written is suggesting that the detonation can only occur when the
target is in the same room as you? If I remember how phantomspheres work, you
can only stick them on someone if you are not in the same room, yes? For this
new ability of detonate, then, you'd have to hunt them down to use it, or wait
for them to get to you - would this be too easy to pull off, with stuff like
rubble hindering movement?
---[Ceren on 2/28 @ 21:47 writes]:
Nejii, the way you put it, it sounds like a 100% ranged instakill that you can
only stop by leaving the demesne would be overpowered, but if I'm not mistaken
we already have that
---[Ceren on 2/28 @ 21:50 writes]:
Sadhyra, I actually meant that you can use it in any room of your demesne (the
other phantomsphere actions have the condition that you can't be in the same
room as your phantomsphere). Rubble covers the entire demesne, so it'll be a
hindrance, but no more than it already is for phantomsphere attack