Originally Posted by Stabbey
EDIT: I will acknowledge that I am probably far too conservative in my use of Source skills. That's likely because on my first playthrough, I wasn't sure what to expect. That also ties into "Gamer's Hoarding Syndrome", where games refuse to use items which could help, in case they need them later.


Originally Posted by Sergey Butsenov

Those cooldowns designed to force scroll-using.


I don't understand. I don't understand what scrolls a long cooldown on Tornado is supposed to force, I don't understand why ONLY Tornado has a long cooldown to force scroll usage, and I don't understand why it's desirable to force scroll usage (especially for only this one spell).

Originally Posted by Zoranus

Bless is super hard to balance. A lot of issues is that players forget that it can also be casted on a character, so works well for support characters to use. Casting it on a duel wielder for example adds another 10% to dodge, as if you had ten ranks in it. Add on leadership (20%), Parry Master (10%), and 10 ranks in dual wielding, and half of the attacks on you will miss, not even adding weapon bonuses, and this boosts resistances even more. Bless is also used if utilized -before- enemies curse surfaces (I.E.), your character is in a fire surface, bless it rather than waiting around for the enemies to curse it. I believe blessed surfaces are as difficult to stop as cursed ones, so why not utilize it? Most favor quick defeat of high damage over slower strats, but bless definitely helps a single character survive a difficult fight, and I think the 1 AP, 1 Source Point is probably where it has to be.


The dodge might be nice, but you can get up to 50% dodge even without Bless, and dodge doesn't work against magic attacks. In terms of resistances, scrolls of Armor are just as effective without the SP cost.

Pre-emptive use of Bless is ineffective. Bless lasts for 2 turns at most and ENEMIES CURSE FOR FREE. Hitting something twice turns your blessed surface into a curse one. It's a waste of an SP.

Blessed surfaces are NOT anywhere close to as as difficult to stop as a cursed surface, because ENEMIES CURSE FOR FREE. That's the biggest problem with the Source point cost of Bless.

The source point for Bless kills it, and kills the counterplay to cursed surfaces, which enemies create FOR FREE, and NO other buffs will make it useful in my opinion. Fine as it is? I do not agree at all.


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I disagree on buffing the Sebille one. It has no AP cost and works exceptionally well against slow, which you suffer a lot. You can use the pyramids to practically teleport to recharge source if you need to from Siv's in Act 2 (And I believe every act following has a place), so ideally, there's no reason to be saving source.


None of this is a reply to what I wrote or why I wrote it.

I was talking about how this skill does not remove Silence. Silence is a complete shutdown skill for a mage, and having Sebille's big unique skill be utterly useless for a mage is a tremendous oversight. I don't care about the AP cost. It's not relevant at all to what I was talking about.

In practical terms, you can't use the teleporter pyramids in battle, and even if you could, it would kill the flow.

There also isn't any Source fountain in Act 3 (the one at the very end of the act is not meaningfully useful during Act 3) and the one in Act 4 is hidden and requires several puzzles and a lot of exploration to access, and even on subsequent playthroughs, it is right next to a tough boss fight.


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Encourage I think is fine as is. It does scale slightly as the game goes on and I use it all the time, every fight, personally.


It really doesn't scale very well or very quickly. Might as well grab Pyrokinetic 1 and Peace of Mind, which has the additional bonus of preventing or removing some status effects. It's not as if I'm asking for a huge boost, just +1 every 5 levels.



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I used petrification a lot in the beginning, and use when other CC options are out.


Eh, maybe I'd use it more if I had a magic-focused dwarf instead of physical, so this might be my bias for that character. Still they could probably lose the damage component regardless.


On Bless, yes, you do get it from other sources. It doesn't dodge magic but the person I want to cast it on is in melee distance, so that's the concern, and it gives resistance bonuses to magic.

Enemies also don't cast curse for free, as it takes AP away. Let them, I say, I've used bless as counterplay to it myself and its sometimes viable to do so. As for the Pyramids, I was more talking post-battle, though you can actually use them during, and I have before on a more difficult fight.

On Sebille, the issue is only there if you use her as a mage (Really fits better in a rogue or variation anyway), and that would be too OP, completely nullifying something rather severe for practically no action cost (Shocked/Crippled/Slow are less severe in turn). You also don't run into silence that much.

Act 3 is short enough that source vampirism on ghosts works just as well. Goody-Two shoes can run to the source fountain pretty quickly. Same for Act 4.

Encourage works well with elven party members using flesh sacrifice as it counters the penalty. I use it in tandem with things like clear mind. 5% bonus, and a lot more on health, can really make the difference, and its useful to use when you have 1 AP left anyway.

We're going to disagree still I reckon, I personally don't value source points as high as others do, I think people should take the advantage that they can use and recharge them pretty easily when needed. I think it comes down to how you play the game.

SAme with Apportation, even. Telekinis uses would love it. Non Telekinis users might scratch their head on why its such a late skill.

I saw a post on Phoenix Dive, I've -never- burned myself with it unless causing an explosion with oil.