I like the concept of the god. I tend to be a huge fan of tactical movement-oriented abilities in games (whether moving enemies or yourself), so I like a lot of the ideas here. All of the activated abilities proposed seem really fun to me (well, ultimate controlled blink seems kin of narrow, I like Wormhole better as an ultimate translocation spell).
I'm not sure how the whole "manaless/antimagic" concept combines with the translocations concept, though. Being able to cast translocations at 0 mana is a good way to buff them, but I'm not sure where the flavor of replacing mana regeneration with health regeneration comes from.
Also, this is a new way to handle a spell-oriented god that I think is interesting. So far, every spell-oriented god focuses on giving resources and passive buffs. Kiku, Veh, and Sif all give spells and passive bonuses to help spellcasting (miscast protection on Kiku and Sif, various buffs to conjurations on Veh). Sif gives mana and amnesia, Veh gives mana, and Kiku gives corpses. The only activated ability that any of them gives that doesn't just give resources for spellcasting in Kiku's torment. Basically, all three of them revolve around giving, buffing, and enabling spells that already exist elsewhere in the game.
This god focuses less on buffing and enabling translocation spells, with the mana-less casting being the only thing that affects translocation spells themselves (although it's pretty huge), and doesn't give any pre-existing translocation spells. Instead, it basically gives extra translocation spells as abilities. So in a way, aside from the mana-less translocations casting, this god is almost more like Yred (gives Necromancy-like abilities) than Kiku or Veh (give spells from their schools).
I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, just something to think about. To me, the biggest question is how to handle the abilities. Should they function like normal god abilities that just have very translocations-like behavior (like Yred), or should we find a way to make them function more like translocations spells? And if it's the latter, how? Should they be gifted spells instead of abilities (but then adding piety cost is hard, and wormhole and possibly transfocus seem like they'd be overpowered without a piety cost)? I assume at the very least, they should scale with tloc skill.
On that note, why does tftele get buffed by significant amounts at fixed intervals instead of just having its range/duration scale with piety and/or translocations skill more gradually?
Lasty wrote:Transfocus Teleportation and Ultimate Controlled Blink seem designed not just to be good, but to be good primarily and specifically in allow the player to skip past the areas of the game that are meant to be the most dangerous milestone areas. Maybe I'm underestimating the ability of corruption and rain to do the same thing, but to my mind this seems like the wrong direction to push players.
I would be disappointed if a god got added that was effectively mandatory for speed runs, and it seems like that's the niche this is attempting to fill in the OP. I do think this is an interesting proposal, and I also think there's a lot of open design space in translocations that I'd like to see get explored, but I think the god would be more interesting if more of the abilities were tactically relevant throughout the game, like the blink close ray.
I think you're underestimating the versatility of Transfocus Teleportation. You seem to be treating it as sort of a riskier but longer-range apportation that lets you ninja runes, the orb, and vaults, but I think it's got a lot of cool uses aside from that. You can use it to scout out dangerous areas, open doors from range without disintegrating them (allowing you to reclose them immediately if necessary), scout out dangerous areas, escape some enemies (activate it, run for a while and get them to follow, then warp back to where you started and run the other way), or engage enemies with a built in escape route (activate, run up to an enemy, attack them for a bit, then teleport 10 squares away), or kit an enemy (similar to the last two, you can either activate, run into range of an enemy, shoot them until they get to you, then activate again for more distance, or just shoot an enemy until they get to you, activate, run for a bit, then activate again to get some distance). It's like a delayed cBlink where you determine the location on cast and it automatically triggers after a certain amount of time.
Honestly, it seems incredibly powerful to me in general, not just for stealing the orb, runes, and other vault goodies, but that can be balanced by piety cost. Personally, I think it's a really cool ability.