Torch Bearer Balance

Deep Freeze, Biting Chill, Fire and Ice

from Demigod Forums

Deep Freeze

Adjust this spell to inflict damage as per tooltip, but not remove ice effects from the target

Biting Chill

Reduce duration to 7 seconds. Link effect to Deep Freeze

Fire and Ice

Link this skill to Rain of Ice. Increases speed reduction by 12%

 

Explanation (To Summary Above)

Burning torch is one of the sadder demigods. Not so much because he can't be effective, but because his builds are very limited due to the placement of certain skills. Fire and Ice is one of these skills. To explain a little further.. let's say that I wanted to create a torcherbearer build that maximized my damage output using fire.. One of the skills I'm going to want is +300 damage to fireball, but in order to get it, I need to max out a skill that requires that I specialize in at least 2 other ice spells in order to inflict any damage: Deep Freeze. Assuming that I chose not to specialize (and just pick one level) this seems an extremely mana inefficient method of inflicting damage. If I chose not to bother with those spells at all, Deep freeze is effectively useless, as the timing required to interupt a skill, would require that I stay in ice mode (and not casting fireball) to obtain any benefit.

What I find particularly odd about this skill, is that the graphical representation shows a rain of ice, meeting balls of fire. It seems like this was initially designed to include rain of ice and fireball, and indeed my suggestion is to change the skills to just that. However, rather than 100 damage to rain of ice, change the effect to either -12% speed or +3 seconds of slow.

Taking a deeper look at Deep Freeze.. I see what was meant to be a damage spell gone horribly wrong. Initially the damage this skill can inflict is 100 per effect. As there are only 2 possible ice effects this results in a piddly 200 damage. Even at max level, this would inflict 650 damage (850 with fire and ice). Most importantly though, the effects removed make casting this spell counterproductive. (Granting the opponent their movement speed and attack speed back is not equivalent to the damage gained, especially if biting chill is available). I recommend increasing the damage caused by 2.5x it's current ammount (600-1650) or do not cause this spell to remove ice effects.

Biting Chill in it's current state is straight broken. Most demigods rely upon their health and mana regen, from either abilities or items, to survive each battle. Removing 75 percent of that is extremely powerful. Removing 75% of that from an area of opponents and slowing their attack speed at the same time (it's currently linked to rain of ice) is truly absurd. My recommendation is to instead link this ability to Deep Freeze, so it becomes single target and lasts for the same duration (7 seconds). Depending on the above changes, lowering this to 50% might be a good idea.. but I'm up in the air on that for the time being.

2,782 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Demigod Forums Top

Frost-specced TBs aren't about inflicting damage at all, I find.  Frost Nova is a one second cast group stun, Rain of Ice slows and does a respectable amount of burst damage, the ice aura snares and slows the attack speed of all targets nearby, and Deep Freeze's use comes from the way it can slam on a huge cooldown on other DGs' bread and butter abilities.

Also, I think you're underestimating Deep Freeze's damage potential.  With Fire and Ice, it gains an additional 100 points per state it shatters.  Biting Chill actually counts as another 'state' for this count, so maximizing Frost Nova, Rain of Ice, and Fire and Ice can result in the potential combo where the TB does his Frost Nova, stuns an unlucky DG for three seconds, hurls balls of ice on them for another, what, 600 damage or so, then hits them with deep chill for a 3xShatter.  At 425 per state, that means it hits them for 1275 damage.  Not satisfied with that?  Set yourself on fire, jump up in the air, and throw out a 1350 damage fireball to chase it down.

All in all, however, Frost is his support form.  he'll slow, root, and stun, cast out interrupts and generally screw around with enemy DGs' abilities to move and fight, which means that even in the late game he'll be able to make a difference with a group.

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

Suggestion: Give one-sided combination abilities.

For example, if you max out frost nova and permafrost, you can learn a passive ability that gives both an effect that can be shattered by deep freeze. Another example would be if you max out fire nova and fire aura, you can learn a passive ability that gives both a damage-over-time effect.

Obviously they'd need to be balanced, but you get the idea.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

If you don't like Burning Torch, there are other Demigods you can play, such as Regulator, Maple, Animal That Never Washes, and Spiny Growths' Monarch.

Reply #4 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting scyldSCHEFING, reply 3
If you don't like Burning Torch, there are other Demigods you can play, such as Regulator, Maple, Animal That Never Washes, and Spiny Growths' Monarch.
End of scyldSCHEFING's quote

what about bishop?

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

Rain of ice slow is already insanely good.. :|

Though frankly I think shatter needs reworking to not be apart of deep freeze, like I've suggested before.

Also, you can 3x shatter.  That's 1150 or whatever.  But in beta, you could do a 2700 dmg combo in like 1 second. It was imba as hell.  Now it's just sort of meh.

Because, it's like I said back then, there is no way to balance shatter in it's current form. It needs to be readjusted to be on another skill(like the aura), or be its own seperate skill.  Being apart of deep freeze and its instant hitting for so much damage is part of its problem making it where it can't really be balanced, but only either overpowered or underpowered, there is no fine line it can really sit on simply because of its mechanics.

And Ice isn't really supposed to be about damage.  It's more support.  It has EXTREMELY powerful slows that dont need to be made better.

Quoting scyldSCHEFING, reply 3
If you don't like Burning Torch, there are other Demigods you can play, such as Regulator, Maple, Animal That Never Washes, and Spiny Growths' Monarch.
End of scyldSCHEFING's quote

Lol win.

Reply #6 from Demigod Forums Top

Considering the replies I'm getting here apparently I failed to communicate either the proposed changes or the reasoning behind them (this wasn't a nerf/buff thread). Many games don't make it to level 15, so I've never noticed biting chill as tacking on additional damage, but that does make it's damage significantly better. Considering that the ice form is described as a debuffer I'd prefer a lower damage that maintained debuffs to go along with that, but then Sedna is also listed as being squishy and weak... so meh. The description below is my second attempt.

Open up the skill tree for Burning torch, and you should get something like this:

Other Ice Stuff -----------

Deep Freeze --------------

                                   --- Fire and Ice

Fireball --------------------

Other Fire Stuff -----------

Try to spec out the 'other fire stuff' along with Fire and Ice and in practice you will most probably find it impossible to utilize the Deep Freeze Skill; the ammount of time it takes to switch modes will prevent this from being capable of interrupting other demigods. In other words, you've just used 5 additional skill points to raise fireball by 300 damage.

Now try to spec out the 'other ice stuff' and pick up fire ball (for fire and ice) and you will get the circumstance that were posted by Fennel above. In other words, it works.

Trying to mishmash between the two won't be particularily effective as you won't gain the full benefit of deep freeze's damage, in addition to deep freeze still requiring the player be in ice mode most of the time to properly utilize it.

The primary issue, is that it is sad that the 'fire and ice' skill is really an -ice- skill and fire users get hosed by being forced to choose a non-usable skill if they want to max their damage. The other changes were somewhat for balancing, but mostly because the skills would be in different spots on the tree, like this:

Other Ice Stuff ------------

Rain of Ice ----------------

                                    - Fire and Ice

Fireball --------------------

Other Fire Stuff -----------

Rain of Ice lasts for 10 seconds and inflicts damage without needing to cast 2 other spells, thus making it viable to switch in and out of fire/ice mode to cast this, fireball, or other fire/ice spells interchangebly. Obviously since these skills are in different locations, the function of fire and ice needs to be altered to reflect it being linked to rain of ice. Changing around the skill Biting chill to link with Deep Freeze, and making fire and ice perform a slightly stronger slow effect for rain of ice was merely a means of achieving this. If you don't believe me though, try to spec for fire and ice in those three patterns above before you disagree, and post if any/all of those combinations worked or not.

And um.. maple?

Reply #7 from Demigod Forums Top

Deep freeze does more than just damage.

Reply #8 from Demigod Forums Top

whats the average dmg TB does with one of his normal attacks (max character level) in ice form and fire form? just curious...

Reply #9 from Demigod Forums Top

about 300dps without items.

Reply #11 from Demigod Forums Top

Other Ice Stuff ------------

Rain of Ice ----------------

- Fire and Ice

Fireball --------------------

Other Fire Stuff -----------

Rain of Ice lasts for 10 seconds and inflicts damage without needing to cast 2 other spells, thus making it viable to switch in and out of fire/ice mode to cast this, fireball, or other fire/ice spells interchangebly. Obviously since these skills are in different locations, the function of fire and ice needs to be altered to reflect it being linked to rain of ice. Changing around the skill Biting chill to link with Deep Freeze, and making fire and ice perform a slightly stronger slow effect for rain of ice was merely a means of achieving this. If you don't believe me though, try to spec for fire and ice in those three patterns above before you disagree, and post if any/all of those combinations worked or not.
End of quote

It seems like no one is reading his posts.

With minimal help from teammates i always get most kills with TB. Why? Because i TB owns. And his not that bad.
End of quote
He's not saying Deep Freeze is week. He is saying deep Fire builds don't get as big a benifit from Fire and Ice as deep Ice builds do. Deep Freeze requires the effects of other Ice spells for extra damage. While Fireball is just straight damage that a deep Ice build TB can use to get that killing blow on a retreating enemy. Fire and Ice requiring a big investment of two fire and ice abilities, you'd think it would beinift Deep Ice/Fire/Hybrid equally.

Swapping Deep Freeze with Rain of Ice makes total sence and would fix this dilema.

 

And um.. maple?

End of quote

I think it's ironic that a guy with such a great idea about the Torch Bearer still gets his name wrong :D He was making fun of you calling him the Burning Torch by refering to other Demigods with close facsimilies. Like refering to Oak (the name of a tree) as Maple (another tree), etc. ;P

Reply #12 from Demigod Forums Top

Yeah I've said before that shatter shouldn't be a part of deep freeze, and the deep freeze/mass charm bug needs fixing.

I think all the experiecned players that can agree interupts are good, conditional blackouts are cool, conditional damage is cool.  But all the cool things are on one skill, while you have boring cookie cutter skills like the whole fire line.

Shatter could be it's own skill, or a part of bitter chill, that automatically does some small amount of damage whenever any ice debuff ends on somone in its range.