"RELIC - Golden Fleece" - BUGFIX

[yerkyerk]

Hm, I wanted to ask a question here, though I do not have any experience with ingame -%energy cost. Isn't the Golden Fleece relic terribly overpowered this way? You can get -100% energy cost almost without any effort this way...

[I_Raps]

Golden Fleece will only go into torso armor, so you can only have one of them.

I don't know of any other -energy cost items off the top of my head, but I suspect they're mainly caster items and wouldn't be used primarily for that purpose anyway, since casters very rarely have energy problems.

[nemhauser]

there is a couple of rings with -10%, there is one artifact (also with -10%?) and polaris has -15%.

probably some other items, but it's not that common
if someone goes for max recharge - it's hard to get any decent -mana cost, so the golden fleece will help a lot

[Draxanoth]

Yerk is right. It's probably supposed to be energy * (100% - X) * (100% - Z). So instead of 100 energy - 100% from a slug of - 30, - 40, -30 items. It would be 100(.7)(.6)(.7) = 29.3. Spells weren't designed to be free....

[yerkyerk]

Well, I certainly do feel its overpowered the new way.
Look at nature's skill Tranquility of Water for example. At max+4levels it gives a 41% chance of -50% energy cost. That's even worse than -20.5% energy cost reduction, whereas the relic gives -30% energy cost...
You actually need 10 points in a skill to get something much less effective than that single rune? That can't be right. Ofcourse, Tranquility of water is a rather useless skill, but still...

[yerkyerk]

I'm going to bump this again; I think the relic was working as intended. For one: it'd be easy to program it like the fix suggests, but harder to program it like it actually works.
Another point, it is way overpowered. -30% energy cost? Come on, that's just not right at all. The game is rather careful with giving -% energy cost bonuses - and now this fix offers a ridiculous amount of it.
This means the description of the skill is wrong and should be adjusted, not the mechanics behind it.

I would appreciate some feedback on this, if nobody responds I'm gonna request a removal of this fix, since I believe it to be a mistake.

[nemhauser]

i'll quote part of the first post here:

That means, to get the relic working, you first need to carry another item, which has the attribute -X% Manacost. From this attribute, the appropriate percent-values from the relic will be summed up.
Example:
Helm with -40% Manacost
Armor+Golden Fleece with -30%
Golden Fleece-Effect = Helm 40 / 100 * Relic 30 = 12% Manacost
Total-Manacost-Reduction = Helm 40% + 12% = 52%

That´s how the relic works, but was it meant to work like that, ???
The skill-description says something else.

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so, you have to have some mana cost reduction before you can gain benefits from the relic.

and you can put it only on the torso.

frankly, the way it works in original makes it totally useless. you have to have fair amount of mcr in order for the relic to make a difference, but at that time you don't really need the relic because your mcr value is high enough already.

anyway - this does not increase your character's power - it only increases playability factor as you don't have to drink potion after potion all the time.

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however 30% may indeed be a little too much, but 25% seems like a good compromise

[yerkyerk]

Well, it's not so useful as it works in the original way - I agree. Though with a fair amount of -%energy cost it can become useful. Also, remember that this is the only charm that can spawn with -%recharge completion bonus, which works perfectly with -%energy cost.

Going back to the fix: 25% still is way overpowered, imo. If anything, it should be reduced to 15% at legendary charms. But still, for a bugfix patch that solely focuses on fixing stuff, I'd vote for changing the description of the item, rather than the mechanics behind it. This seems to have been the intention of the creators. Perhaps in a balance patch, the usefulness of the item can be adressed and changed.

As for the increasing playability factor: I must disagree with you. The energy cost was introduced for a good reason and to increase the fun factor. If you think that it reduces playability, I'd advice you to either install a mod that removes all mana costs or equip a hacked item with -100%energy cost.

[nemhauser]

I'd advice you to either install a mod that removes all mana costs or equip a hacked item with -100%energy cost.

would be simplier just to defile 100.000 mana but i don't want to do that - i want to play within boundaries.

but please, let's analyze when this mana cost is needed and then maybe we can decide if 30% is too much or not:

a) withouth -recharge gear
b) with -recharge gear

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a)

- high cost skills usually have very long cooldown so mana is not a problem - by the time you need to cast it again your mana will regenerate or you'll drink a potion(s)

- skills from caster masteries - even if the cooldown is short -> you'll have enough mana (and mana regen) to not notice that your energy pool is depleting

the real problem is with melee.
for instance: you cannot use war wind whenever you want without constantly drinking blue potions. (maxed war wind is 86+20 mana.. and you have around 300 or little more if you added something).
batter is 23+15 and you may have problems if you use it on LMB.


b)

do we care in this situation? skills are overpowered as it is with -100%recharge and blaming -mana cost would be the same as blaming items with +%mana.

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bottomline -> when is the 30% mana cost overpowered and how?

[yerkyerk]

I brought up the -%recharge part because it's innate to the Golden Fleece relic and is one of the best bonuses available on the charm. This should be taken into consideration if you assess the overall usefulness of the relic.
It is rather hard to decide wether something is overpowered or not, and even if it is overpowered it shouldn't be adressed for that specific reason in a bugfix patch.

The reason why I'd bring this overpowered item to the attention is because:
1. It's introduced with in the bugfix patch, it wasn't there before. The new bonus cannot be considered right just because it is in the bugfix patch (atm).
2. The mechanics behind -%energy cost existed, it would take some effort to implement another way of reducing energy cost. This hints that the way the bonus worked was how it was intended to work.
3. Most items are rather careful with giving -%energy cost (often giving comparable bonuses to -%recharge). Looking at this, a more conservative way of reducing mana costs should be given. This bonus seems misplaced.
4. It seems to alter the game mechanics in ways that weren't meant by the developers. The general idea of the bugfix patch is to avoid such occurences.