Sif Muna Reform (Buff)

[bcadren]

Bit of synthesis of my own ideas and a few other people's around the forum. This is intended to be a significant buff to the God; making it more of a Okawaru of Magic and less of a god you JUST take for the gifts.

Piety:

• Increase the rate of piety gain increased significantly. Say about 1.1x current to start

Actives:

• * - Meditation - Small Piety - Your MP Regen is increased significantly. Duration and amount of regeneration varies with Invocations skill. Up to 3MP/Turn at high Invocations. [Replaces Channeling.]
• ** - Amnesia - No change.
• *** - Pocket Spell - Small Piety, Normal MP - You cast a single spell and charge it on delay. (Same as current delayed fireball, but any spell). You pay the piety cost on every time you try to cast the spell to place it in delay; even if it miscasts.
• ***** - Resurgence - Large Piety - Casting any spell takes 0.5 base auts AND you receive spell enhancement. Duration and the amount of enhancers depend on Invocations.

Passives:

• [Start] - Miscast Protection - Effect isn't changed; but it now kicks in immediately. Miscast effects are cancelled on Piety/160 miscasts.
• [Start] - God Gifts - Instead of waiting until ******, you have an immediate, but slow gift timer; receiving a spell book every 35-65 piety. Monks choosing Sif Muna always receive a single spell-book at start.

[archaeo]

As a note, I moved a lot of posts over to CYC, as they were pretty heavily focused on a Sif vs. Oka discussion that's tangential to the actual god proposal here.

I'd need to see firmer numbers before I would be happy seeing Meditation replacing channeling, and Pocket Spell and Resurgence seem like pretty big buffs for a god that doesn't really need big buffs. I'm a Sif fan, and most of my concerns are just about how often I press aa and the degree to which spellbooks are an interface screw; solving those issues alone would make Sif a lot better, but I'm not sure that a buff is really necessary or even desirable.

[hermbot]

I like the idea of earlier book drops. Pocket Spell is a neat idea but should probably have a piety cost that scales with spell level. Having a freebie Death's Door or Tornado locked and loaded should come with more of a cost than having lower level spell ready.

[dpeg]

Sif could hand out one book for each time you gain a new piety star. At *, you get a book with few level 1 spells, and so on until ******. "Few" could mean 3? Appropriate naming would be easy.

[Siegurt]

At * you are probably level 6-9 I can't imagine a few level 1 (or even 2) spells would be anything other than flavor, earlier spell books sounds like an ok deal, but personally I would rather see gifting stay where it is, and have much faster piety gain and piety costs for channeling.

[bcadren]

Harder numbers for Meditation (specifically C# mockup of how the MPRegen would work):

  Code:

When Invoked:
private int MPRegen = 0;

Each Turn:
MPRegen += rand2(3 + Invocations);
MP += Mathf.floor(MPRegen/10);
MPRegen = MPRegen%10;

Trying simple English; local number is created and d(3+invo) is added to it every turn. For every 10 in that number 1 is added to your MP. IE d30 = 17. +1 MP and 7 carries over until next turn. Low Invo means more like 1 MP every few turns; very high is generally 1-2 a turn. Duration would be something like 13 + 2d(Invo) turns ?

I'm unsure it would need balancing, obviously but that's my first draft of the effect.

Reasoning: Why I think Sif needs a buff is that access to all spells is powerful, yes. But it's powerful in late game. In general power curve, unless you are the kind of character that can abuse channeling heavily (like a summoner); Sif is of no value until midgame; then similarly to Oka gifts, it depends on the RNG as to how powerful Sif is since the gifts are random. One character could get the exact spells they want; while another could get a bunch of useless crap like doesn't suit their build. Also the majority of Sif's power comes from these gifts; even if you do use channeling, you'd be better served switching to a staff of energy once you find it (though Sif's channeling is a little more powerful, the staff uses evocations, which is used for MANY other useful items, where Sif's channel is the only use of Invocations skill while with her currently). These Invocations as written are supposed to be powerful enough to warrant the XP cost of medium (~15) to high (~25) invocations. Though they are significantly more powerful at high Invo; this is balanced by needing to train invo for that power and the piety costs. Additionally: Nowadays; going Gozag and requesting book shops has a fair chance of beating Sif's gift help.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

You lost me at "local number is created".
I don't think that's what archaeo was expecting.

[bcadren]

You lost me at "local number is created".
I don't think that's what archaeo was expecting.

I'll try again. Every turn we roll d(3+Invo) for every 10 in that we add an MP; for everybit less than a 10, we roll it over and add it to the next roll.

[KoboldLord]

Pocket Spell is open to quite a few major abuse cases. Delayed Fireball is a fine effect because direct damage is an abundant resource, and an ability that gives you a little bit more of it for one turn in a given fight is nice but not particularly unusual. A 0-time Controlled Blink, on the other hand, breaks the game in half over its knee as it is almost unconditionally better than the vast majority of other escape abilities in the game, and you can reset it hundreds of times as you gain piety. Probably the majority of support spells are not suitable for a 0-time, 0-mp instant ability, and Delayed Arbitrary Conjuration probably wouldn't be too interesting when Delayed Fireball already exists.

Resurgence basically appears to be magic berserk? Only there's nothing to make it interesting to apply other than the piety cost, which is a cheap cost by the nature of piety. And boy howdy, that's one doozy of a combat bonus that can safely be thrown at every single threatening combat.

[kuniqs]

Give Sif worshippers a chance to restore some MP when hit hard (like the Demonspawn mutation).

[dynast]

Give Sif worshippers a chance to restore some MP when hit hard (like the Demonspawn mutation).

Thats sublimation of blood.

[Sprucery]

Give Sif worshippers a chance to restore some MP when hit hard (like the Demonspawn mutation).

Thats sublimation of blood.

It seems exactly like the Powered by Pain demonspawn mutation which has a chance of recovering MP when you're injured. It's different than casting sublimation.

[Speleothing]

Sif needs two things: faster gift giving, and better MP regen. Like archaeo said, pressing aa too much makes your finger tired.

I'll try again. Every turn we roll d(3+Invo) for every 10 in that we add an MP; for every bit less than a 10, we roll it over and add it to the next roll.

Sounds good. But I'd rather make it at least 1mp/turn even with no invo skill.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Like archaeo said, pressing aa too much makes your finger tired.

How is aa any more tedious than, say, tab? I suppose the game protects you from holding down tab (if you're into that sort of thing) until you die by stopping when you go below 50% HP or whatever, but that's it. Do we want to replace tedious tab with passive monster HP degen? I don't think I've seen concerns about how many times one presses tab so what's up

[ydeve]

What's up is you only press tab when fighting, but with Sif it's optimal to press aa over and over after every fight to reduce piety decay. It's really annoying knowing that you could press '5' and have mp refreshed but at the cost of more piety.

[lethediver]

What's up is you only press tab when fighting, but with Sif it's optimal to press aa over and over after every fight to reduce piety decay. It's really annoying knowing that you could press '5' and have mp refreshed but at the cost of more piety.

Well said. You have brought attention to what is clearly a problem, hence, we will now be implementing the following solution:

* channeling costs piety

[dynast]

Like archaeo said, pressing aa too much makes your finger tired.

How is aa any more tedious than, say, tab? I suppose the game protects you from holding down tab (if you're into that sort of thing) until you die by stopping when you go below 50% HP or whatever, but that's it. Do we want to replace tedious tab with passive monster HP degen? I don't think I've seen concerns about how many times one presses tab so what's up

Do you even tab?
Tab = one key press, used to kill enemies.
aa = two key presses, used to enable the player to use other keys that kill enemies.

From my point of view its a flaw to have gods for "in combat magic regeneration" for the sake of incentivating the player to not retreat from fights. They do make the game more fun, or just highlight how annoying it is to constantly interrupt battles to rest upstairs.

Give Sif worshippers a chance to restore some MP when hit hard (like the Demonspawn mutation).

Thats sublimation of blood.

It seems exactly like the Powered by Pain demonspawn mutation which has a chance of recovering MP when you're injured. It's different than casting sublimation.

My point is that sublimation of blood is better if you want to take damage to recover magic.

[Sprucery]

My point is that sublimation of blood is better if you want to take damage to recover magic.

But if you're in the middle of a fight, it's better to get MP automatically, without having to spend a turn to cast sublimation. And you can just use channeling if you want to recover MP actively.

Anyway, if this was implemented, maybe Powered by Pain should then be removed.

[dynast]

lol, sure, let me hug some monsters to recover MP instead of blinking away, besides, powered by deathpain does other things than just recover MP.

[Sprucery]

lol, sure, let me hug some monsters to recover MP instead of blinking away

That's not what I meant. If you get MP while you're fighting (and taking damage), you don't have to cast sublimation to get MP. Instead you can just keep on casting the spells that kill monsters. Sublimation does not blink you away. If you blink away you can use channeling as well.

Yes, PbP can do other things too and it also has a damage threshold for triggering.

[dynast]

You are making a lot of assumptions now. Yeah if you are playing a hybrid you are not casting sublimation of blood, AT ALL. You are also not worshipping sif if thats the case. You know this thing called advantegous positioning, like, staying away from monsters, breaking LoS to cast sublimation of blood, or just going upstairs.

Spoiler: show

You are the reason people think mottled breath is good.

[Sprucery]

I was not making any assumptions at all. Getting MP while getting hit is different than casting sublimation. This was my point.

On the contrary, I think you were making a whole lot of assumptions.

About mottled breath: I don't think I've ever played a mottled draconian myself, but all my Fire Elementalists have used sticky flame.

[dynast]

My point is that sublimation of blood is better if you want to take damage to recover magic.

But if you're in the middle of a fight, it's better to get MP automatically, without having to spend a turn to cast sublimation. And you can just use channeling if you want to recover MP actively.

Anyway, if this was implemented, maybe Powered by Pain should then be removed.

Your point was that powered by pain is better on specific scenarios that are usually avoided when playing casters, not to mention, the specific assumption that the magic effect would trigger in those scenarios, unless you no longer think that way, in which case you should be honest. But thats behind us, i just want to ask if you actually think powered by pain is better than sublimation of blood.

[Sar]

but mottled breath is pretty good

what?

[Sprucery]

i just want to ask if you actually think powered by pain is better than sublimation of blood.

One is a mutation, the other a spell. So I can't compare them that way categorically. I use sublimation quite often, it is a very good spell. But also spellcasters tend to lose HP in battles (because enemy spells, ranged attacks and fast monsters exist). And when you get MP back automatically, it is better than having to spend a turn for it.

[dynast]

Man, its almost as if were not discussing about sif muna. Compare "having the ability to decide whether or not you gain magic from losing HP" and "not having the ability to do so, resorting to RNG". When you get MP back automatically, you save a turn, when you dont, ??????? Of course sublimation of blood can also fail, roll small numbers, etc, it just doesnt require you to get hit by other monsters, or even have monsters nearby.

[Sprucery]

So which is better for a Sif worshipper, sublimation of blood or channel energy?

[dynast]

Channel energy.

[Sprucery]

I agree. I also think that Sif worshippers could be give a PbP-like MP recovery mechanism, even though sublimation exists. So I don't see any problem there. I thought you opposed the proposition because "sublimation is better". So I wanted to point out a situation where sublimation is not better. That's all.

[dynast]

Its all about reliability, for me it goes: Channel > Sublimation > Resting upstairs > PbP > Energy Staff > CBoE > Cant remember what else is there. So i have trouble accepting its a good idea to have a god ability that will be trivialized by a learnable spell, or just by playing carefully, unless you make PbP more reliable(trigger more often, or with a lower hp lost threshold) in which case it becomes a overpowered ability. I guess you could say it becomes like Ru's passives, you never count on it, you are just glad when it triggers.

[archaeo]

Like archaeo said, pressing aa too much makes your finger tired.

How is aa any more tedious than, say, tab? I suppose the game protects you from holding down tab (if you're into that sort of thing) until you die by stopping when you go below 50% HP or whatever, but that's it. Do we want to replace tedious tab with passive monster HP degen? I don't think I've seen concerns about how many times one presses tab so what's up

The issue here is that, when a fight is over, you're done pressing tab. dpeg and others have pointed out the flaws with resting, but hitting 5 once or twice after a battle is far less onerous than the behavior Sif and other forms of channeling make optimal, whereby most battles end with the player standing around and hitting 'aa' with pauses for 'e' or, worse, 'e' followed by a permafood decision. The fight's over; why am I still mashing buttons?

Of course, this is a matter of taste. I just don't have much tolerance for post-fight shenanigans. Channeling after a fight is over is just about as annoying as breadswinging, imo, but instead of being a cute speedrunning trick, it's pretty much the standard Sif Muna playbook.

So i have trouble accepting its a good idea to have a god ability that will be trivialized by a learnable spell, or just by playing carefully, unless you make PbP more reliable(trigger more often, or with a lower hp lost threshold) in which case it becomes a overpowered ability. I guess you could say it becomes like Ru's passives, you never count on it, you are just glad when it triggers.

I'm not sure if I totally follow this conversation about PbP, but I'll agree that Sif's channeling outclasses every other form of mp regen outside of Ziggurat:10 and above, the only place where Veh's mp-on-kills just feels superior. Perhaps that's a problem in and of itself.

My opinion is that there's only one Sif buff I'd really like to see, and that's some form of "library" as has been discussed. Of course, I'd also prefer that spellbooks worked that way in general, but hey. Otherwise, the only real issue with Sif is how channeling works, which is a broader issue than just one god. I've taken a crack at proposing changes to channeling, but I'm not sure they go far enough, and I haven't seen anything I love; even some kind of MP Regen++ invocation like Trog's Hand just sounds clumsy and frustrating in comparison to the easy access to MP via channeling.

[DocEon]

edit: I made a suggestion that already exists in the Sif Muna's Library thread. Sorry!

[infinitevox]

Someone mentioned Berserk for spells....so I was thinking:

"Angry Wizard Smash:"
Gain Brilliance and spellcost = 0 for a short duration.
Costs: Piety, food, Exhausted when finished