Chaos Design Goals
1) Make global enchants available earlier
2) Make spells more exciting than "Oh look, another damage spell."
3) Dump, reduce cost or buff underused spells
4) Maintain Chaos's aggressive feel: good on attack, poor on defense
5) Basic balance concerns - damage vs health, resist vs debuff power
Common Mod | Uncommon Mod | Rare Mod | Very Rare Mod
Corruption | Chaos Chann | Chaos Spawn | Armageddon $-
Disrupt | Chimera >,+ | Chaos Rift + | Call Chaos $-
Eldritch Wpn | Doom Bat | Doom Bolt | Call th Void
Fire Bolt | Fireball | Efreet | Chaos Surge <<,-,$-
Fire Element | Fire Giant | Fire Storm >,+ | Disintegrate del
Hell Hounds | Flame Blade | Flame Strk | Doom Master <
Shatter del | Gargoyles | Magic Vort | Great Drake
Wall of Fire $- | Immolation < | Metal Fires >,+ | Great Wastng
Wrp Creature +,$+ | Light Bolt | Warp Light | Hydra
Warp Wood - | Raise Volc | Wrp Reality | Meteor Strms
| Ferocity New | | Dragon Blood New
Key
Del delete spell
New new spell
> promote to higher rarity
< demote to lower rarity
+ Buff performance
- Nerf performance
$- Decrease cost/maintenance
$+ Increase cost/maintenance
Main thrust here was to move some global enchants into more common territory and then do some tweaking elsewhere. Mostly this is a proof of concept, Chaos could certainly use more tweaking than listed.
Spell Changes
(all damage spells): Damage will need to be buffed, since unit health is buffed. Health has been roughly doubled, but I would not recommend doubling damage, maybe a 25-50% increase. Not sure if you could grant 1.25 attack/mana spent though so mana-buffed spells might need a higher baseline and keep 1 mana/attack.
Shatter: Tried a few different ideas, but too close to Warp Creature so removing to get Ferocity
Wall of Fire: Just drop maintenance to 1/turn, as it's hard to justify the ongoing cost.
Warp Wood: Does not effect slingers (if possible)
Warp Creature: Unresistable. Reason - Warp creature has a double-wammy for ineffectiveness. It can be resisted, and it could hit a stat that doesn't help you much.
Chimera: Breaking up flying melee units, since gargoyles are the same rank. Leaving stat buffs undefined as summoned creatures are being defined elsewhere.
Immolation: Only good against weak enemies so make commmon.
Ferocity: Cost 35, as 1.31 Haste except lose the double counter-attack (trying to maintain Chaos's attack theme)
Chaos Rift: Given the high cost, felt effects should be buffed. Recommend 5 strength 10 and 10% destroy building.
Fire Storm: Armor Piercing. Reason - Currently an expensive overland version of Flame Strike, which is also Rare.
Metal Fires: +2 to all units, stacks with Flame Blade (if possible). Since it's a Very Rare it should pack some serious punch.
Armageddon: Drop casting cost but leave maintenance (suggest 750). Maintenance will be partially paid by the volcanoes created. Reason - mainly a fun spell instead of an effective one.
Call Chaos: Uncontrolled attack spell not as good as Flame Strike. Drop cost below Flame Strike to make it more appealing.
Chaos Surge: Big change here to get an uncommon global. Drop bonus from +2 attack to +1 to compensate for making it more easily available. Also drop cost since it's less powerful. Maybe 500, 10 upkeep.
Doom Master: Another change for more global enchants. Also obviously synergizes with Chaos Surge.
Disintegrate: Got rid of it, Chaos has enough damage spells.
Dragon Blood: Unit enchant, grant Fire Breath 10 and Fire Immunity (drop Fire Immunity if two effects is a headache for a single enchant.) 300 mana, 10 upkeep. Reason - wanted another interesting unit enchant, and a Very Rare one seemed a great place to put unique. Fire Breath 10 is possibly insane, just spit-balling.
Change Log
11-24-10
Removed Shatter, added Ferocity, demoted Immolation
Clarified Warp Creature and Fire Storm
11-19-10
Added some basic design goals. Subject to change.
Corrected spell list, had been using 1.0 list
Modified Immolation, Shatter and Warp Wood, deleted Disintegrate
Re-added and buffed Metal Fires
11-18-10
Switched Disrupt back to Common and Lightning Bolt to Uncommon
Removed Metal Fires and re-added Doom Bat
Buffed Warp Creature
kyrub Wrote:I propose the "Fierce" or "Ferocity" replacement as either
- an uncommon carbon copy of Haste
- an uncommon instant version of Haste
In both examples, Haste becomes a common +3 mvt spell in Sorcery.
Reason: The Chaos realm desperately needs a new blood, a combat spell that is not another direct damage one.
Reason being I thought of a different idea for Shatter to make it more interesting and thought I would pass it by folks before dumping it. This might address Chaos's non-damage combat spell need kyrub pointed out. If not, I'd be all for switching to Ferocity.
Shatter: Reduces shields to 0 with large resistance penalty, or -5 shields and ignore resistance. Reason - maintains Chaos's aggressive theme better than current shatter
Other changes...
Warp Wood: Does not effect slingers (if possible)
Metal Fires: +2 to all units, stacks with Flame Blade (if possible). Since it's a Very Rare it should pack some serious punch.
Disintegrate: Got rid of it, Chaos has enough damage spells.
Edit: I had the wrong spell list here, too. Apparently they already promoted Lightning Bolt and demoted Warp Creature in 1.31. Didn't have any space in Common spells for immolation at the moment, so just buffed the damage. If we do delete Shatter or Warp Creature, we can instead demote Immolation and add Ferocity.
Vagabond Wrote:Shatter: Reduces shields to 0 with large resistance penalty, or -5 shields and ignore resistance. Reason - maintains Chaos's aggressive theme better than current shatter
Suggestion: Let's not have two resistance based spells on one level. Resistance is a one-trick pony and we need each spell being different (more than in the vanilla). Immolation should be common, no matter how strong it will be.
The 0 shield suggestion is good, but it si too similar to Warp creature effect (half shields). No similarities for spells, more originality! So I'd move Shatter up and give it some new, extra meaning, something like
If succesfully shattered, the target loses concentration and it is unable
- either to use its special attack (gaze, thrown, breath)
- or to cast spells (spiders, priests, magicians, demon lords, heroes)
- or both effects.
In the table you did not indicate + sign for metal fires, but in the description you propose to buff performance. Is this a typo?
Also I recommend the following changes:
Magic vortex: -, $+ . Make it 60 mana to cast and decrease its damage to the city population and buildings (cut that part in half). Damage to units may stay. Rationale: I used this spell repeatedly and was devastating against cities. It not only cleared enemy army but decreased city population and buildings tremendously. When AI is out of mana I attack with 1 spearmen at a time and this is too strong. Of course, I know better AI should help with this too, not running out of mana and running away from vortex. Spell should make damage to friendly units same way as to enemy â I think this is current effect.
Great wasting: -, $+ . Decrease its effect in respect to causing less unrest than it currently does. I observed about increase of unrest by 6 in each of my cities when enemy cast this spell. Recommend changing it to 4. I also recommend maintenance increase to 25.
WhiteMage Wrote:Great wasting: -, $+ . Decrease its effect in respect to causing less unrest than it currently does.
GW is bugged, it cuts off any pacifying effect of the religious buildings. It will be repaired in next patch. Then, I think, no decrease will be necessary.
the possible candidates: spell: Attractive target : any damage to the target unit counts twice. (or half the total unit's life)
Combat spell: for all chaos units: add 2 to firebreath, or double the effect of chaos channel.
Disrupt: the cloud of mud cover the battlefield , hence, all invisible units become visible for the one round of the combat.the -1 to hit penalty still remain.
Overland : each unit of the target stack move to the randomly direction of the range 2.immediately.
Doombolt with ability to hit magic immunity and righteousness.
Fire elemental spell:any unit is killled by the creature is enchanted by this spell immediately transforms to the fire elemental is enchanted by this spell.
(may be used instead of annihilation)
I have an idea for Shatter: it could remove the effects of Mithril, Adamantium and Magic equipment (armour and weapons). Since mithril and adamantium are such a huge part of the game, this spell could have a big impact. It might need to be bumped to Uncommon (or is the resistance roll enough ?). This would fit with spells like Raise Volcano and Corruption which destroy or disable resources.
Does Call Chaos cast Shatter ? If so, this would boost Call Chaos too.
If you remain with just 1 sword then there no real matter to loose +1 to hit also. So, the shatter in the existent configuration is more powerful.
Call chaos in the existent configuration can kill even sky drake.So, the shatter among the call chaos effects weak this spell.
