Lets talk Condenser Vanes


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Tomb Titivator

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Joined: Sunday, 23rd June 2013, 15:20

Post Monday, 14th December 2020, 18:29

Lets talk Condenser Vanes

Condenser Vanes. Why are they so good? Is that intentional? Is that good? Will that be toned down or other evocables up?

- Costs very little, 200-280gold. Its always the best item to get in gadget shop. Probably beta feature to encourage use?

- no drawbacks on use like extreme noise or slow rampup like Lightning Rod, Phial, Tin

- full LOS effect absolutely trivializes orc:2 for example or bee nests or beast rooms or V:5 entrance vaults

- takes no time to have effect

- two uses

I think its an interesting item but its too good right now. It'd still be good at one charge and making noise. It'd still be good if each cloud hat 50% spawn chance, or if it only spawned clouds on actual monsters instead of 9 fields centered around a monster.

Wand of clouds was a better item than current Vane, at least that was limited in use cases, range, and AoE.

Phial of Water rework is well done, evocable targeted silence with noise+water drawback is at least interest tactically interesting.

bt

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Thursday, 7th April 2011, 18:13

Post Monday, 14th December 2020, 19:39

Re: Lets talk Condenser Vanes

Condenser vane was already nerfed in trunk, it has one charge, costs about 600 gold and takes longer to recharge. Even with these changes it's still very-very strong as are evocations in general. I do find vane and tremorstones less interesting to use than the items they replaced (lamp of fire, wand of clouds/scattershot), though they are also much stronger.

edit: also if you get storm clouds you'll get all the noise you can eat and then some.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Joined: Monday, 24th April 2017, 11:46

Post Monday, 14th December 2020, 21:52

Re: Lets talk Condenser Vanes

bt wrote:I do find vane and tremorstones less interesting to use than the items they replaced (lamp of fire, wand of clouds/scattershot)...

Well, lamp of fire and wand of scattershot were so interesting that in the end I never used them after the frustrating first trials. If you have no idea before using an item as to what it might accomplish (if anything), then it will too often be just a wasted turn, which can be a deadly thing in situations where you are likely to use the vane or the stone. Now they are excellent items for crowd control, and I like it that they are reliable. Having a 50% percent chance of nothing happening at all would be a reason for me to drop it from my inventory.
But then I agree that even as it is in trunk the vane is still very, very strong. One could reduce the damage, or the duration of the clouds, or the area, and it would still be good and worth carrying.
Maɟaŋ

Zot Zealot

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Joined: Thursday, 16th August 2018, 21:19

Post Monday, 14th December 2020, 23:03

Re: Lets talk Condenser Vanes

The current behaviour at 10 invocations (filling a large area with acid clouds) would feel great if it was a reward for training a skill up to 27.
I have no idea how strong this thing gets at higher evocations.

It might be an idea to increase the area effected similarly to Quazlal's Disaster Area

It could also be interesting if it recharges slower at lower invocations skill?

bt

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Thursday, 7th April 2011, 18:13

Post Tuesday, 15th December 2020, 08:49

Re: Lets talk Condenser Vanes

Majang wrote:
bt wrote:I do find vane and tremorstones less interesting to use than the items they replaced (lamp of fire, wand of clouds/scattershot)...

Well, lamp of fire and wand of scattershot were so interesting that in the end I never used them after the frustrating first trials. If you have no idea before using an item as to what it might accomplish (if anything), then it will too often be just a wasted turn, which can be a deadly thing in situations where you are likely to use the vane or the stone. Now they are excellent items for crowd control, and I like it that they are reliable. Having a 50% percent chance of nothing happening at all would be a reason for me to drop it from my inventory.
But then I agree that even as it is in trunk the vane is still very, very strong. One could reduce the damage, or the duration of the clouds, or the area, and it would still be good and worth carrying.


LoF and scattershot were unreliable only if you didn't train evocations and didn't position yourself properly with regards to the target, and even then "50% chance of doing nothing" is like a paralysis wand against a troll at low evocations, and LoF was never quite that "bad" even at Evo 0. The fact that vane and tremorstones don't really require much positioning at all and just hit the whole screen is what makes them less interesting to me.

Btw, same type of clouds all do the same damage, regardless of the source, so nerfing the cloud damage would affect all sources, not just vane.

For this message the author bt has received thanks: 2
nago, petercordia

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 305

Joined: Friday, 13th December 2019, 01:33

Post Tuesday, 15th December 2020, 15:19

Re: Lets talk Condenser Vanes

My experience of lamp of fire was also that it was too unreliable to be worth using. Maybe it was just ill-documented?

bt

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Thursday, 7th April 2011, 18:13

Post Tuesday, 15th December 2020, 21:31

Re: Lets talk Condenser Vanes

andrew wrote:My experience of lamp of fire was also that it was too unreliable to be worth using. Maybe it was just ill-documented?


I think it's fair to say that LoF mechanics were a bit opaque. It let out a stream of fire clouds that did sorta of a random walk roughly in the direction you targeted, so you wanted to use it in corridors and choke points to "direct" the stream and make it fill all free spaces. Sometimes it would walk directly into a wall and stop though. At higher Evocations number of streams increased, so you could more reliably use it in open areas and pretty much guarantee good coverage in corridors. Creating fire clouds is really powerful, so the item was very strong (condenser is even stronger most of the time).

It's not the most clean set of mechanics and I can understand why people might dislike it. It's gone now, but it's ok. Crawl changes all the time, part of the charm really.

For this message the author bt has received thanks: 3
andrew, Majang, petercordia

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