What is overpowered?

[danr]

It is still useful for conjurers. You just blast away with your regular spell until the baddie gets close, then you cover them with flames and blink away to let them burn.

[lucy_ferre]

Conjurers and elementalists don't have Blink in their books.

[danr]

Yes, but it is an extremely common spell, and very useful as a panic button, so I think most casters end up with it anyway.

[rebthor]

It is still useful for conjurers. You just blast away with your regular spell until the baddie gets close, then you cover them with flames and blink away to let them burn.

More likely is that you cover them with flames and then get killed from the hydra biting you or ogre smashing you. Unlike something like Oz's Armor which has use for both a pure caster and for a hybrid since it directly increases survivability by making the player harder to kill, sticky flame is purely offensive. It won't help you survive a close quarters fight with the exact creatures that you need to cast sticky flame on.

[KoboldLord]

How is that a problem? Not every spell needs to be useful for every character. Unarmed combat characters have little use for Freezing Aura, yet nobody complains about that.

The problem is that range-1 Sticky Flame has no synergy with any character type at all. Primary-melee has no reason to train Fire, and a melee-range DoT is probably not going to change their minds. Their preferred melee-range DoT is Stabbing Things in the Face. Fire casters that don't melee are better off either picking up a disabling spell like Mephitic Cloud or diving straight for Bolt of Fire and trying to manage the hunger as best they can.

It's worth trying the new Sticky Flame, but I'm not sold on it yet.

[danr]

If it has been nerfed too far, I could see a range of 2 being a good compromise.

[MrMisterMonkey]

koboldlord, It has plenty of synergy with conj/melee hybrids like MDFE, at least.

danr, range 2 wouldn't help the kiting issue any more than leaving it at full range; range 1 still leaves it a bit kitey, sure, but it exposes players to a turn in melee range and then non-fast/swift players to potential double moves.

[szanth]

koboldlord, It has plenty of synergy with conj/melee hybrids like MDFE, at least.

danr, range 2 wouldn't help the kiting issue any more than leaving it at full range; range 1 still leaves it a bit kitey, sure, but it exposes players to a turn in melee range and then non-fast/swift players to potential double moves.

Why is kiting a four-letter word now? It's a battle tactic. It's like complaining that people can break LOS and force the enemy to come closer by going around a corner. Poison does the exact same thing, just not as effectively. But if you're going to suggest weakening sticky flame to the point of being almost as useless as poison (in end-game terms anyway) then you might as well just not have the spell at all. Which is a shame, because not only is it a unique spell, but it's such that the maker of Powder implemented it in his game specifically because it was in Crawl.

[szanth]

You can kite with it if you're a spriggan, I guess. It's just not as safe, and therefore not as useful.

[MrMisterMonkey]

Kiting is tedious and pretty much risk-free; at least with corners you have to engage in melee. Spamming, and particularly kiting, is why I dislike conjurers.
While it makes no sense without plenty of explanation, I'd personally like it if sticky flame got its range back but slowed or prevented movement of the caster, limiting kiting potential.

[szanth]

Melee can be tedious as well. Anything can be tedious if you do it long and often enough. But you don't -have- to do it if you think it's tedious. That's the point, isn't it? It's not like you can complain that the Spriggans keep ganking you in PvP, so why should it bother you what spriggan characters do?

[MrMisterMonkey]

notice the "risk-free"; this means that it's pretty optimal (making tedious play optimal is bad)

[szanth]

It's not risk-free, though. No more than any ranged attack is.

[MrMisterMonkey]

kiting applies to any ranged attack that doesn't have anti-kiting limitations, but sticky flame, specifically, encourages it

[szanth]

And again, I ask you, so what. If the enemy has a ranged attack, it's a moot point. If they are faster than you, it's a moot point. If you don't have anywhere to run, it's a moot point.

It's not a catch-all "I win every situation" button, so I honestly don't see what's wrong with this tactic. Would you prefer a squishy mage have to put themselves in direct melee danger?

[MrMisterMonkey]

You can't kite anyway if the enemy has a ranged attack or is faster than you. While it isn't a catch-all, it trivializes everything it catches. And yes, I'd prefer forcing magi into danger over letting them bore themselves to victory, but I never said the nerf was perfect.

[szanth]

Except, it's boring according to you. It's not boring for me. So again, why should your opinion of the tactic have any relevance on how I use it?

[KoboldLord]

koboldlord, It has plenty of synergy with conj/melee hybrids like MDFE, at least.

I'm not commenting on the appropriateness of the nerf at this time, but I just have to ask.

Why would you make a conj/melee hybrid out of a mountain dwarf fire elementalist? How do those two things synergize? Fire and Conjurations provide nothing for a melee character but a ranged attack, which can be supplied with Crossbows for half the skill investment. If you were saying you wanted to make an ice/melee hybrid, that would make more sense because ice has the seriously powerful Ozocubu's Armor and the fairly decent Ice Form, plus Hibernation for crowd control.

If range-1 Sticky Flame is still awesome enough to justify a melee starter investing in conjurations AND fire all by its lonesome, it's still overpowered and should be removed entirely. Because that's simply ridiculous.

[danr]

Well, let's see how it works out in trunk. Another option if it is nerfed too far but we don't want kiting is to keep it as is but reduce the level of the spell.

In terms of things that trivialize certain enemies:

1) Enchanting stabbers
2) Berserk rage
3) Beefy wands
4) Haste
5) Mephitic Cloud
6) Blink + ranged attacks
7) Invisibility
8) rPois (makes Hive trivial)
9) Dispel undead / abjuration

The beauty of the game is that every build has certain things it can handle easily, and other things that it has trouble with. What's hard is that you can become too reliant on one tactic, and when it stops being effective, you are SOL.

[acvar]

Except, it's boring according to you. It's not boring for me. So again, why should your opinion of the tactic have any relevance on how I use it?

A tactic is not a problem if it is boring. A tactic is a problem if it is both boring and optimal. Kiting is far too often both boring and optimal. Limiting it is a good thing.

[MrMisterMonkey]

KoboldLord, Conj/Melee is quite fine; FE, at least, has bolt of fire for powerful ranged penetration, conjure flame for extra damage to things sitting in them, sticky flame for extra damage to things on which it sits, and melee for conserving MP/food or working MP back up if worshiping Veh/Makh. Really, reaver-style hybrids are usually better than pure conjurers, and provides far more variety than Xbows.

danr:
I consider enchanting stabbers, haste, meph cloud, invis, Hive, and dispel/abjuration problematic. As for Berserk/Blink, they are risky/costly enough, and beefy wands are a limited resource.
Handling things too easily is a bad thing, especially if it's to the point of mindlessness or tedium.

[KoboldLord]

KoboldLord, Conj/Melee is quite fine; FE, at least, has bolt of fire for powerful ranged penetration, conjure flame for extra damage to things sitting in them, sticky flame for extra damage to things on which it sits, and melee for conserving MP/food or working MP back up if worshiping Veh/Makh. Really, reaver-style hybrids are usually better than pure conjurers, and provides far more variety than Xbows.

If the only reason you're going melee is to train fighting for hp, then you're not a hybrid. Hybrids use weapon skills or unarmed combat as their primary means of damage for high-tension fights, with spells being used in a supporting role. Crusader-style or transmuter-style, to name a couple of examples. If rolling over popcorn monsters was enough to qualify, the term would be meaningless because everybody does that for the extra hp.

[MrMisterMonkey]

I think you misunderstood me. Reaver-style hybrids exist, and are quite fine (I've won MDFE; I used sticky flame and conjure flame to deal extra damage while I hit things with my demon whip and bolt of fire to quickly dispatch rows of enemies (from afar)). Reavers use spells to do extra damage or compensate for limitations of melee (contrast with Encahnter-style, which debuffs enemies (and stabs them), and Crusader-style, which buffs itself (this includes transmuters))

As for overpowered things, I'd also like to clarify that I indeed think Hibernation, Meph, Invis, Dispel, Abjuration, etc. are overpowered and uninteresting (or at least problematic, as I already said) in their current states, when they apply.

[szanth]

Well jesus, sir, you think such a huge chunk of the game is boring and uninteresting; why are you playing?

[szanth]

But I -don't-. I'm worried that's the end result of all the tinkering some of you guys want to do, but at the moment, it's not the case. Aside from the light armor nerf and the sticky flame nerf, I think .8's better in every single way.

[Zchris13]

How is that a problem? Not every spell needs to be useful for every character. Unarmed combat characters have little use for Freezing Aura, yet nobody complains about that.

I complain about that all the time. I mean I want even more sillily large amounts of damage on my blade hands than I'm getting, you know?

[vladimirdx]

I was disappointed by the Sticky Flame nerf -- only because I relied on it. I think the nerf was a good call. There are/were a few good things about the spell:
-it introduced some diversity into fire conjuration. It's a refreshing break from flame tongue, throw flame, bolt of fire, bolt of magma, fireball, delayed fireball, fire storm. It would usually be the first damage spell I found that wasn't just a nuke.
-uh... that's about it.
and some bad:
-it duplicates the functionality of Poison Magic, and can be used against rPois enemies, making Poison Magic less exclusive/desirable.
-the new form actually encourages kiting even more -- set enemy aflame, blink away. Whereas, before, I set enemies on fire, and killed them before they got to me.

I do like the idea of the spell for a Reaver-type background, though, in which case proposals about the spell only working if you're right next to the monster to prevent kiting make more sense -- you're a melee character.
Reavers, if reworked into elementalist-fighter hybrids, could be more interesting than they are now -- elemental schools are more than just nuke spells. Sticky Flame could be worked into a straight Fire spell.
Lastly, I've also heard about transmuters being reworked into a sort of UAC/magic hybrid. Sticky Flame could also be changed into a Fire/Tmut spell, where a 'you can't move away or it stops doing damage over time' spell might be interesting.

One final idea: you could make poisoning + ignite poison function like sticky flame. This would make ignite poison more useful, as it isn't considered so, currently, but also remove its ability to remove poison from the user's system. (does anyone ever use it for that? when there are cure poison and resist poison?) And, doing damage-over-time would still be restricted to those who have the ability to poison.

[rebthor]

I was disappointed by the Sticky Flame nerf -- only because I relied on it. I think the nerf was a good call. There are/were a few good things about the spell:
-it introduced some diversity into fire conjuration. It's a refreshing break from flame tongue, throw flame, bolt of fire, bolt of magma, fireball, delayed fireball, fire storm. It would usually be the first damage spell I found that wasn't just a nuke.
-uh... that's about it.
and some bad:
-it duplicates the functionality of Poison Magic, and can be used against rPois enemies, making Poison Magic less exclusive/desirable.
-the new form actually encourages kiting even more -- set enemy aflame, blink away. Whereas, before, I set enemies on fire, and killed them before they got to me.

I do like the idea of the spell for a Reaver-type background, though, in which case proposals about the spell only working if you're right next to the monster to prevent kiting make more sense -- you're a melee character.
Reavers, if reworked into elementalist-fighter hybrids, could be more interesting than they are now -- elemental schools are more than just nuke spells. Sticky Flame could be worked into a straight Fire spell.
Lastly, I've also heard about transmuters being reworked into a sort of UAC/magic hybrid. Sticky Flame could also be changed into a Fire/Tmut spell, where a 'you can't move away or it stops doing damage over time' spell might be interesting.

One final idea: you could make poisoning + ignite poison function like sticky flame. This would make ignite poison more useful, as it isn't considered so, currently, but also remove its ability to remove poison from the user's system. (does anyone ever use it for that? when there are cure poison and resist poison?) And, doing damage-over-time would still be restricted to those who have the ability to poison.

Wasn't ignite poison removed in .6? I know I haven't seen it in forever. It might have even been .5, now that I think about it.

[galehar]

It has been buffed recently. No longer affects caster and gear.

[Stormfox]

Oh good. It always annoyed me that I'd have to ditch my blowgun and needles if I wanted to go the Ignite Poison route.

[danr]

Huzzah!

[smock]

All this hubbub over sticky flame!

The stickiness of the spell does fit much better with shorter ranges. It would be even more flavorful if it worked like confusing touch, but that would really limit who can use it.

I thought the "caster can't move" suggestion was nice. If sticky flame retained a longer range (3-6 squares), were called "flame tunnel" or "flamethrower" and dealt damage on the turn it was cast and on (up to X) consecutive turns on which the player rests (thereby focusing on the tunnel), it would lessen the incentives to kite.