Nexus Clash

Since I took a recent interest in this topic I wanted to poke at it a bit more but in a more free form way.

I will also preface this by saying - devs if this is something you have well in hand please do say something. I’d prefer to spend time noodling on something where suggestions are welcome than beating a dead horse (and if there are areas you’re looking for suggestions in I would also love to know what those are)

So here is my assertion: Spellgems as an omnicomp are objectively a lot worse than soul ice.

Let’s take some rough numbers. It is feasible to regularly get 40 soul ice per ap cycle (and quite possible to get more). For example this can be done by fighting evil pets in Stygia which even gives it a bit of excitement (which is great!)

I’ll put aside the whole soul ice is also mp recovery thing for now since I’d have to drag in energize and thus dark heart into the equation. And then we’d be super off-track.

For finding spellgems… the rate of incidental gem finding (e.g. at libraries) is probably like ~2 per ap cycle. You can also try to find spellgems specifically which brings your find rate up to ~7 per ap cycle.

I’m going to call the rest about equal. They aren’t actually but compared to the sheer volume differential the rest is just not that consequential.

So onto throwing random ideas out there and see what resonates!

Angel tear ideas:
- Whenever a good-aligned character dies on you square you get angel tears
- Angels can cry on command by thinking really sad thoughts or whatever and produce tears for ap
- Angels can cry by committing a little bit of self-mutilation. Cost ap, some MO and some HP
- Angels can go to a body of water and expend angelic energy to angelicify some H2O. Costs some ap and some mana. Must be at a water tile.
- Angel tears is just a crystallization of mana and can be formed anywhere for ap and mp
- Secretly there is an angel tear at the core of every aethersprite (maybe judgemasters too) whenever the pet despawns it drops an angel tear
- Angel tears is a manifestation of too much mana. Every Xmp an angel goes over max gets turned into an angel tear.

Neutral ideas
- Rocks to spellgems. New SH upgrade (jewler) which lets you do this “crafting” feat. Attach the skill to gunsmith or bowyer. Also rename the skill. Also maybe consolidate gunsmith and bowyer into a single tree.
- Can create a 0 charge spellgem of a spell you know at an aligned font (no material cost)
- Spellgems rain from the sky in purgo. Every tick of a rainstorm in purgo drops a spellgem in that square.
- All comps are wildcards (perhaps conduit upgrade only)
- All *crafting comps* can be used as wildcards (perhaps conduit upgrade only)

Interesting suggestions.

I think the last two for the Conduit would end up overpowered, as Conduits can be in both Evil and Good factions, but the Conduit Union approves.

probably part of the issues of the omni components is that tears will never be worth a recipe (even if the tear itself made the entire recipe, that's how disproportionate i view it) and gems v soul ice is a major case of passive v active

i.e. gems pile up significantly if people aren't being drop mcgees while soul ice requires significant investment + some sort of organic target to nick it from and probably if you put one single condition in like 'is not a demon' it'd tank

at any rate the bit i wanted to do with shepherd was make a 'crystal mana' item that was a bit like a less potent soul ice that you received off of pray --> magic + with a 'crystallize mana' greater (i.e. passive yet specific, random yet targeted)

I actually think gems are a great omni comp, purely for the fact that they deflate the otherwise kinda ridiculous gem economy.

I also think that if you take shep off the gem transmuter list, then suddenly sorcs won't be as hard up.

Maybe you should get 2 components out of transmuting one if you're in a neutral faction? Food for thought.

Personally I'd like to see more gems freed up so that spelltrap feels less like a drain on resources.

But thematically... yea gems are pretty good for sorc omnicomp.
Which is why I mostly settled for suggestions around being able to get more spellgems.

Point taken. Working spelltrap would be an excellent gem deflationary measure.

If using spellgems as a component drained charges instead of consuming the spellgem entirely (unless it was on its last charge), I think they'd make for a decent component. Would probably need some balancing so you don't just recharge cheap spells, maybe by consuming the equivalent of 10MP worth of charge (charge meaning charging cost, i.e. double the base casting cost)- so spellgems for 1MP spells would always be used up (unless you had Pattern Weaver), but more expensive ones could be re-used.

SignedName wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 7:22 am If using spellgems as a component drained charges instead of consuming the spellgem entirely (unless it was on its last charge), I think they'd make for a decent component. Would probably need some balancing so you don't just recharge cheap spells, maybe by consuming the equivalent of 10MP worth of charge (charge meaning charging cost, i.e. double the base casting cost)- so spellgems for 1MP spells would always be used up (unless you had Pattern Weaver), but more expensive ones could be re-used.

I don't think reusable components should be allowed, as they allow you to do Alchemy without leaving SH ever.
Attaching a rarity to spellgems based on their stored MP would however be an interesting, albeit also a straight nerf.

Goliath wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 8:51 am

SignedName wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 7:22 am If using spellgems as a component drained charges instead of consuming the spellgem entirely (unless it was on its last charge), I think they'd make for a decent component. Would probably need some balancing so you don't just recharge cheap spells, maybe by consuming the equivalent of 10MP worth of charge (charge meaning charging cost, i.e. double the base casting cost)- so spellgems for 1MP spells would always be used up (unless you had Pattern Weaver), but more expensive ones could be re-used.

I don't think reusable components should be allowed, as they allow you to do Alchemy without leaving SH ever.
Attaching a rarity to spellgems based on their stored MP would however be an interesting, albeit also a straight nerf.

Soul Ice can be farmed without leaving the SH either, not to mention Spellgems already being able to be found in Strongholdable locations. I don't think it makes sense to use "don't need to leave Stronghold" as a reason against, as in the end, AP efficiency is the main issue.

Perhaps an idea for the good omni-component: An item which summons a (wild) Aethersprite onto the tile. Something like an "Aetherstone" or named something similar. It makes a component which still has some use, but it's as highly valuable (or difficult to get) as a Vial of Angel Tears. As for acquisition, a wild aethersprite which despawns on a tile with an angel - or which is close to despawning - would drop it into the angel's inventory automatically. Or perhaps they'd drop them on the ground as well, or in addition. Add in a few locations where they could be found, or harvested, to make it a bit easier to find them.

I think this would be a bit better than a "Piece of Celestial Amber" or something similar since that would just be another component people would harvest and otherwise ignore outside alchemy - you might as well make a Bunch of Lilies the omnicomp at that point. While it would make a bit more sense for the angel omnicomp to generate MP, since it is making alchemy components, I don't really think that making it just a good-alignment Soul Ice is really necessary. The classes don't need identical items. Besides, angels tend to be fine at generating their own MP without items. (And giving them an AP-generating item would be a bad idea.)


I'm not experienced enough with the breath and alchemy to really give much an opinion on the Soul Ice vs. Spellgem comparison. It seems that Soul Ice requires a fairly minimal investment, 40CP and a combat tree, while Spellgems seem to require Portal Cleaving or Phylactery to harvest easily, or just a ton of library searching.