Mystic Balance: is 7 mana CYDSTEPP too good?

[Sidestepper]

the deal with Flames is that it is too narrow. Unless you are specifically prepping for it, 95% of your adventurers will never end up in a position where they can afford a -50% hit to attack in exchange for a +25% efficiency in Fireballs. I have used it in weird emergency scenarios, but probably less than 5 times in total.

Weakness costs too much to be used unless you also got Flames, in which case you have to have it. The result is that two of her boons are limited to fringe cases.

[Darvin]

Weakness costs too much to be used unless you also got Flames, in which case you have to have it. The result is that two of her boons are limited to fringe cases.

Totally in agreement; these boons have always been much too niche.

[Blovski]

If mystera gave out less piety I'd be inclined to agree, but I seem to remember more or less always being able to get hold of 3 mana boosts, flames, refreshment, mystic balance and a couple of weakenings back when I was caster-assassinining it up... she spits out a *ton* of piety, so having some boons that are a little below-curve doesn't really hurt her. Mystic Balance needs a little buff (like reducing 5 point spells to 4 or something?) but otherwise she's still pretty strong.

[Lujo]

I really can't tell where you guys come up with this stuff. And I come up with controversial stuff. Stuff like "CYDSTEP isn't good enough" and "I never use Weakening and Flames" is what makes me feel like I need to spam arguments to explain the need for nerfs 100X more than is needed.

There's 2 things a Burndayraz spellcaster really fears - magic protection and retaliate Fireball. Otherwise you can burn down the hard SMM in slime pits, with a whoopaz. Weakening is one of the strongest, most gamebreaking boons in the game - with an investment dedication you can completely eliminate one of the only two things the devs can stick on a boss to keep you from burning it to death. 50% magic resistance - well worth 150 piety from a god who hands out enough piety to a dedicated caster that you can probably take at least refreshment on top of it. I PREP Mysterea for it, and pick mysterea up for it more often then any other boon.

Against a boss balanced to account for having big resists, a bunch of weakenings means +100% damage which won't be retaliated.

And I've picked flames up on Monks and Gorgons, wasn't sorry about it. And refreshment on anything. I'm even picking up Mystic Balance just for -1 on Fireballs, even though it might be overpriced.

[Darvin]

I'm even picking up Mystic Balance just for -1 on Fireballs, even though it might be overpriced.

I think we're on the same page. Pretty much the entire point of Mystic Balance is to get that fireball discount. The issue is more that it has minimal prospects with regards to other glyphs, and this is where the requests for buffing is targeted. I don't think anyone here believes a -2 discount to fireball is warranted.

As far as weakening and flames goes, I still remain unconvinced. Yes, a dedicated caster who does nothing else can devote all his piety into this, but it'd take less effort just to build up a competent melee attack in scenarios where spellcasting isn't the most suitable approach in the first place. The point is, for anyone other than that totally dedicated caster, these boons are close to useless.

[Lujo]

Well, that is one way of looking at it, but on the other hand, with weakining there's little point to NOT being a dedicated caster

[echephron]

I know cydstepp has been changed a few times. I wasn't around for this. After beating demonic library by Cydstepping 12 times in a row, I would change it one of two ways:

1)For the next attack, your resists are set to 75% and ignore your cursed status.
2)Must have over 50% hp to cast. Warlords are not exempt, but get some other bonus(cheaper mana, can cast if above 25%hp, something else?)

It just seems cheap to chain Cydstep a dozen times.

[Darvin]

I know cydstepp has been changed a few times. I wasn't around for this.

Essentially before the CYDSTEPP change, everyone could use it repeatedly like the Warlord can. They ran through a couple iterations before settling on what we have now.

1)For the next attack, your resists are set to 75% and ignore your cursed status.

This would prevent it from being used as a prebuff ahead of time, and would likely render it completely useless for many classes.

2)Must have over 50% hp to cast. Warlords are not exempt, but get some other bonus(cheaper mana, can cast if above 25%hp, something else?)

The problem with 50% health is that this makes it better for rogues than anyone else, which is exactly the opposite of what you want. This is because rogues still heal at the same rate as everyone else, but their max HP is much lower. On the other hand, people with very high HP basically couldn't use this glyph.

I believe the *right* way to do this would be to have a minimum HP amount to activate CYDSTEPP; 5 per level would be about right. This would mean rogues would need full (or near full) HP, while everyone else could activate it around half-health. I do think Warlords should be exempt from any such limitations, though. Death protection chaining is what they do and it's fun; if the class is too strong I'd prefer to see it balanced in other ways.

It just seems cheap to chain Cydstep a dozen times.

I remember back when Dracul had a +2 mana boon, and had a repeatable "blood tithe" effect that traded off 10 max HP for 20 piety. Enter the Rogue, who traded all his HP away for max mana and then did nothing but spam CYDSTEPP.