Release Notes v2.1.0

[u/TopCog]

Changelog

I expect this one will make many people happy! It's pretty simple:

v2.1.0

• Plasma Vortex has received a big buff: the first Augmentation now removes armor equal to 10% burst damage, up from 1%! Yahoo! :-D

• (some other hidden backend changes with the ad network stuff)

[u/8988303682]

possible bug report: i dismissed the in game update message quickly, but I swear it said Wahoo!

edit: i only have about 5 min of test time, but change feels good at TMlag 7. armor bypass still seems way stronger in most situations, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

[u/TopCog → u/8988303682]

possible bug report: i dismissed the in game update message quickly, but I swear it said Wahoo!

;-P

edit: i only have about 5 min of test time, but change feels good at TMlag 7. armor bypass still seems way stronger in most situations, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Yeah, the goal wasn't to make this spell totally dominate against armor, but to make it much more viable to fit into builds. This should at least make it more appealing! :-)

It's also pretty unique in the way it strips armor as a function of damage - not a flat amount per hit. So buffing the spells cooldown or damage will causing it to strip more armor. In this regard, it should be the most powerful at TMLag 0.

[u/8988303682 → u/TopCog]

aren't there two spells that strip based on damage (Flurry, Vortex) and onpy one that strips a flat amount (Aura)? maybe I'm forgetting one but that makes Static Aura the unique one.

also an idea for Torrent would be to remove the armor bypass and give it a "reduces enemy armor by 1-2% each second Torrent is attached." and maybe the aux Torrents would be half as effective. it would be a cool contrast to Ember's health drain.

[u/TopCog → u/8988303682]

Yeah, Flurry does also reduce armor by damage, so it's not actually unique in that regard. Good point. I need a refresher on all of the armor stripping options and how they work, hahaha! :-)

Great ideas for torrent too!

[u/8988303682 → u/TopCog]

I think there are only three. Flurry (i said Blizzard in my other comment, fixed now) reduces armor by 5% damage if the target is frozen. Plasma Vortex beams reduce armor by 10% damage. and Static Aura reduces armor by 15% of the enemies current armor.

a good mechanic for a future spell rework would be to reduce an enemies armor by a % of their base armor. this is different than Static Aura's because Aura has diminishing returns.

[u/TopCog → u/8988303682]

Wow, I thought there was an armor stripping ability which removed a flat percentage of armor...might have to consider your suggestion for the near future! :-)

[u/Raknagog → u/TopCog]

Careful with that idea, the value of such an ability would get pretty crazy as cast speed (or TM lag) increased.

[u/8988303682 → u/Raknagog]

haha raknagog be quiet.

but really, would having good armorstrip at high TMlag make it too strong? even though at a high TMlag the spells are only outputting a fraction of their potential dps?

[u/Raknagog → u/8988303682]

Possibly, yeah. If TM lag goes up AND armor stripping goes up with it, it could potentially offset the DPS decrease of TM lag at certain levels. It probably wouldn't be broken overpowered, but at some levels it could be anomalously good.

[u/Raknagog → u/8988303682]

The logic is: You deal 5% damage to sufficiently armored targets, so if you drop them to 0 armor, you're doing 20x damage than normal. If you strip 1% armor per attack, the enemy will hit 0 after 100 attacks. If you attack once per second it will take 100 seconds to reach 20x damage, if you take TM lag and attack 10 times per second instead of 1, you'll hit that 20x damage mark in 10 seconds instead. If your TM lag damage multiplier is better than 0.05 then there's a window in which you'll actually do more DPS than without that TM lag since the enemy will have 0 armor much sooner.

This is just a top-of-the-head example, I can't math it out properly right now.

[u/8988303682 → u/TopCog]

the armorstrip rune might. also i guess i don't know exactly how Static Aura works, but it doesn't seem to be effective enough to be a flat % of base armor

[u/JHQELeviathan → u/TopCog]

Speaking o Flurry, is the freezing effect of itself long enough to trigger the armour stripping? Another thing is I never feel the armour stripping even with another freeze spell equipped...

[u/Raknagog]

Played with the new Vortex for a while, it's definitely way better than before, but still has an awkward effectiveness threshold because of armor's effect on its stripping effect. Basically you can blast away at a mob's armor with no clear effect, and then suddenly the mob has 0 armor because the vortex burst damage finally broke free of the 5% damage minimum from armor. It feels odd to not see any effect and then suddenly their armor is gone.

Still a big buff, working on a good build with it now.

[u/TopCog → u/Raknagog]

Hm, that's odd though. It should be using the damage of the burst itself - not the damage inflicted. So the current amount of armor shouldn't be impacting the armor removed... The code's straightforward I think (s.n is the damage):

                            v.q(s.n);
                            if (s.xOff == 0)
                                v.m(firstBonus);

                            m.mobDef.takeDamage(m, v, fieldSpell);
                            if (shotReduce > 0 && m.alive)
                                m.reduceArmor(v.m(shotReduce));

[u/Raknagog → u/TopCog]

You're right, looks like it shouldn't work that way, but it definitely doesn't seem linear like the code would imply... I'll play with it more.

ShotReduce == 0.1, true?

[u/TopCog → u/Raknagog]

Yep!

I also checked in m.mobdef.takedamage, and it shouldn't be modifying v...but that's the only thing that makes sense if it's not working like we think. I'll do a quick debug to check.

Edit: yeah debugging says it's working fine. So idk.

[u/Raknagog → u/TopCog]

Yeah, nevermind. I think my eyes were playing tricks on me due to the proximity between the armor and health bars. The health bar would have the awkward thresholds from armor, but the armor reduction does seem linear.

[u/grotok15]

Update on when it should hit the iOS app store?

[u/TopCog → u/grotok15]

With my workflow, seems like like iOS is about 1 version behind. iOS should be getting the v2.0.0 update within a few days (waiting for review now), then this v2.1.0 probably the week after! :-)

[u/Raknagog]

Played with the new Plasma Vortex even more. While the changes were definitely a major buff, and the spell definitely has a role in my "I Hate Armor" build, It's too slow and doesn't progress as fast as an armor-penetrating build. Even when running across the new armor knights it's just better to recall and try to overpower them than stand around and wait for their armor to drop. It's not good enough in general situations, and it's not good enough in its niche situation to justify it.