Time Mage Discussion Thread

[kablizzy]

        Time Mage       
Time Magick

Name	Description	MP	Range	Effect	Speed	JP
Haste	Time magick that hastens the passage of time for its targets, effectively boosting their Speed. Can be Reflected. Arithmeticks. Effect: Haste. Quote: "Layer upon layer make your mark now... Haste!"	8	3	2	50	100
Slow	Time magick that inhibits the passage of time for its targets, effectively reducing their Speed. Can be Reflected. Arithmeticks. Effect: Slow. Quote: "Time, rest and give your kindness to the worthy! Slow!"	8	3	2	50	80
Stop	Time magick that halts the passage of time for its targets, preventing them from receiving turns. Can be Reflected. Arithmeticks. Effect: Stop. Quote: "Spirits of time, Hide us from the judging hand of God! Stop!"	14	3	2	15	330/350
Immobilize / Don't Move	Time magick that creates an anomaly in space to prevent its targets from moving. Can be Reflected. Arithmeticks. Effect: Immobilize. Quote: "Land of all lives, suppress all rebels! Don't Move!"	10	3	2	34	100
Vanish	Add: Invisible
Time Compression	Resets CT to 0
Old / Age / Wither	Level Down / stats begin to decay
Disable / Don't Act	Add; Don't Act
Float	Time magick that warps space, allowing its targets to float a height of 1h above the ground. Can be Reflected. Arithmeticks. Effect: Float. Quote: "Land of mercy, loosen tight fists! Float!"	8	4	2	50	200
Reflect	Time magick that creates a magick-reflecting field. Can be Reflected. Arithmeticks. Effect: Reflect. Quote: "Spell break, turn into a avenging light! Reflect!"	12	4	1	50	300
Quick	Time magick that hastens the localized passage of time, causing the target's turn to come more quickly. Can be Reflected. Quote: "Restore lost time in the spiral line... Quick!"	24	4	1	25	800/900
Undo	If healed on previous turn deals damage to selected unit. If damaged on previous turn unit selected will be healed. This happens to the target's MP as well as HP.
Gravity	Time magick that conjures up a supermassive field, inflicting damage with powerful gravitational forces. Can be Reflected. Arithmeticks. Quote: "Revenge with dark-evil spell! Demi!"	24	4	2	17	250
Gravija	Time magick that conjures up a supermassive field, inflicting damage with powerful gravitational forces. Can be Reflected. Arithmeticks. Quote: "Black sheep of evil times, cover our light! Demi2!"	50	4	2	12	550
Meteor	Time magick that warps space-time, causing an enormous meteor to fall on the battlefield. Quote: "Time has come... crash down on the wicked! Meteor!"	70	4	4	8	1500

Reaction

Name	Description	Trigger	JP
Critical Quick	Receive an immediate turn when critically wounded.	Critical	700
Mana Shield	Damage is dealt to MP rather than HP.	HP Loss	400

Support

Name	Description	JP
Swiften	Shorten charge time.	800

Movement

Name	Description	JP
Teleport	Warp instantly to destination tiles. May fail when attempting to travel to distant locations.	600
Levitate	Move while floating a height of 1h above the ground.	540

[Schwerpunkt]

Spells.

1. Haste
2. Slow
3. Stop
4. Float
5. Reflect
6. Quick (target immediately acts)
7. Wither (chance to reduce target's MA, PA, or Speed by 1).
8. Gravity (inflicts, say, 15% of unit's total health?)
9. Meteor

I generally don't like being able to modify MA/PA/Speed, but Wither really works with this class concept and I like it.

Reactions would be the same. Movement would probably be Levitate, but not Teleport.

Support is the question. I don't like Swiften (too problematic for secondaries, especially summoners, and utterly useless to the instant cast classes). Maybe Perma-Haste?

[kablizzy]

That's literally the only reason I included it, because it's freaking amazing. If any class got an Auto-Haste, this'd be it. Swiften is iffy depending upon what exactly we do in terms of CT and how big the impact is. Still have a hard time with Meteor being here, 'cause I just can't reconcile its flavor in my mind, but we do need a higher-grade spell here. I was thinking 25% of a unit's total health for Gravity, but eh. Whatever works.

[Schwerpunkt]

Doing percentage-based damage is extremely hard to balance. The notion that a Time Mage fresh off the proverbial assembly line (or near enough) can do hundreds of damage to a high level character is patently ridiculous. I'd rather just have it do flat damage, but people like percentages. As evidenced by your notion that it should quarter the target's health.

[kablizzy]

Eh, that's what Gravity damage usually does, so I went with it, but I agree. I also mis-typed total health up there, that should've been *current health instead.

[Schwerpunkt]

Well, we can simply theme other damage sources around space. Using Meteor as the basis for the wtfhuge nuke, we can use other space-themed stuff to do damage. We'd have to change Meteor (since a meteor is actually just a phase of the process of re-entry). We could probably get away with Comet (large single target nuke) and Meteoroids or Meteor Shower (larger aoe). That gives us a second direct damage ability without needing gravity.

As a completely random aside, researching meteors turned up pallasite, which is both extremely cool looking and a fantastic flavor for a metal tier in crafting.

[kablizzy]

Hell. Yes. And yeah. I had also pondered giving Time Mage Damage-over-Time abilities as a class focus, 'cause Time and stuff.

[Mordred]

Wither doing a stat reduction roulette is so bad. 1/3 of the time it will be totally useless even if it works; "oh no my wizard lost 1 PA." :\

Did anyone ever actually use the Float spell? Float as a move ability also makes Geomancers' "Any Ground" redundant/obsolete and it also completely negates all Earth-elemental damage. I'm for cutting Float status from the game entirely.

Haste
Slow
Stop
Reflect
Don't Move
Undo (this is a super cool idea)
Black Hole (Range 4 Effect 3, pulls everyone in the effect 1 tile towards its center; useful for dragging people off cliffs. Anyone at the center of the effect loses 20% of current HP)
Comet Shower (3x3 effect area, 9-12 comets come down in random tiles in the area?)
Meteor (The classic name is classic. )

[kablizzy]

As for Float, depends entirely on what we do with ground types / earth damage, and the like. If we don't have much or anything in that regard, I won't mind losing it.

What could wither do instead? Chance to start ticking off HP Max? Lowering Brave / Faith? It's a really groovy idea.

I'm not a huge fan of the space-y stuff, but Black Hole is freakin' wicked.

[Schwerpunkt]

I don't see why Float would necessarily result in immunity to Earth. I mean, it's not like the earth can't just ball up a fist and punch you square in the junk anyway. Besides, I don't think we're going to use classic Geomancer abilities (because, let's face it, they're really shitty). 'I can walk anywhere!' isn't a very impressive movement ability. I'd rather that the Geomancer be able to do that because it's his class.

I don't like Black Hole. We have a lot more knockback than FFT already (lolForceLancelol) and this strikes me as a bit much. Plus it's replacing Gravity without adding much to the core skill set.

Comet Shower having a chance to hit stuff in its aoe similar to Rafa/Malak's skill sets is an interesting concept.

Wither doing damage over time is interesting.

[Mordred]

Demi just suuuuucks, from any kind of balance standpoint. How about Gravity instead reduces its target's Move rating or stops them from Jumping at all? That perfectly fits the TM's timespace manipulation schtick.

[kablizzy]

Hmm. That's actually really intriguing, but we do have Don't Move, which functionally does both. Perhaps rename Don't Move as Gravity or Gravity Well or something like that? 'Cause that's really super-flavorful. And if we do, it could also cancel Float! (If we keep it, it'd make sense to cancel)

[Schwerpunkt]

Gravity applying Don't Move is kind of... weird. It also costs the Time Mage one of his only direct damage abilities, meaning we now have to generate something different for it.

[kablizzy]

I dunno if Ilium could code this, but in terms of Wither, having it do 1 damage first turn, 2 the second, 3 the third, and so on. Just more rapid decay as the battle wears on and as the strands of time wear more on the target. Dunno, just an idea.

And I'm a huge fan of comet shower, Meteorain, whatever you want to call it. That shit's cool. That should totally be in.

[Schwerpunkt]

Well, that one would be easy. You'd just have to set a timer and, every time it ticks up 100 (equivalent to 100 CT for the character), it also increments the variable that governs damage. So your formula would basically be that timer condensed down into 1n (or something), where n is (total CT passed/100).

Unless I've forgotten everything I learned about C, that is.