Duration and Cooldown

Hey, it's me again. With a topic that I have touched before, but since it's been a while I figured I might try again.

The topic is the rules regarding cooldowns. More specifically, cooldowns and how they interact with spells that actually last a while. Some people don't care about this, some don't really ever think about it, but for me personally and a couple of others the current rules are somewhat annoying.

The cooldowns for instant spells are good so far as I can see. They slowly scale up with each Rank as the spells become stronger to warrant the increased cooldown.

But there are two extra rules for cooldowns. One of them is written down in rules for magic (A.3, 'Duration and Cooldown'). It's the rule that states that a cooldown always has to be one post longer than the duration.

The other one isn't exactly written down so far as I can see. If it is it isn't under the 'Duration and Cooldown' section, where I'd think it belongs. It seems that by and large most staff people when grading stuff believe that a cooldown starts once the effect ends.

Combine these two and...well, you can probably imagine how that affects all duration spells. And quite honestly I get the feeling that right now, these two rules are the ones that curb creativity the most. I've heard from plenty of staff that the idea is that people should be as creative as possible, and that as long as they can keep their creativity balanced it should be accepted.

The issue I'm having here is that these two aforementioned rules don't help with balance. They're crippling for spells which don't dump all their effects onto the enemy instantly or as quickly as possible.

These are spells where the effect takes place over a number of posts. These generally have longer cooldowns and bigger drawbacks as they can dish out a lot of damage.

The initial blow from a DoT spell can normally do at maximum 50% of its rank in damage. It can then do up to 25% of its rank in damage per post for a number of posts. This can potentially do a lot of damage if it is allowed to continue and is one of the few ways to exceed your rank in damage without buffs. If the user decided to do less damage in the initial blow then they can add this removed amount to the damage per post. However, this will also shorten the duration.

Channelled Damage over Time spells are spells where the user has to continue to focus on that target thus leaving them open and a single attack can be enough to stop the spell. These can go up to 40% per post in damage, but otherwise follow DoT Spell rules.

These are the rules for Damage over Time effects. They state that they have longer cooldowns because they can dish out a lot of damage.

This is wrong.

To anybody who claims that I am wrong, I can prove it.

The initial blow from a DoT spell can normally do at maximum 50% of its rank in damage. It can then do up to 25% of its rank in damage per post for a number of posts.

For a DoT to deal 1x Rank damage it needs to last for at least three posts. What if you want it to deal 2x Rank damage, fulfilling the promise that DoTs can deal a crapload of damage? The DoT needs to last seven posts. 0.5+0.25*6=2. That's simple math. Anybody can check it for themselves.

At D-Rank you can get away with an Instant spell which deals 1x Rank damage on a cooldown of 2 or 3 posts (Once again under 'Duration and Cooldown'). In seven posts you can use that Instant spell two or three times. That means that in the same amount of time that it takes that DoT to deal its large amount of damage you can do the same amount or even more by using an Instant.

Now, some people would argue that the DoT still has the advantage that you only need to hit somebody once and the rest of the damage is then guaranteed. So the DoT is a more guaranteed damage source.

There are three issues with that.

1. Cooldown starts AFTER duration. So after that DoT which lasted 7 posts has ended you will still have that 8 post cooldown. That means that a D-Rank DoT can only be used every 15 posts. In that amount of time an Instant D-Rank could have been used five or four times.

That D-Rank Instant did 4x or 5x Rank damage in the time that it took that DoT to deal 2x and go off cooldown again. Even if that DoT was a more reliable source of damage, the guy using the Instant spells would need to miss half their attacks or more for their damage to not just outdo that of the DoT guy.

Beyond that is the fact that if the DoT misses your reliability just flies out of the window because if the initial hit misses your DoT won't apply either. I checked with another mod and according to them if you miss your DoT spell it immediately goes on cooldown instead of waiting for the duration to end, but that still means that you get nothing for 8 posts before you can try again. Even if the Instant spell only has a 50% accuracy that still means they'll be getting ahead of you in that time.

This problem becomes a bit less prominent as you Rank up, because with higher Ranks the minimum cooldown slowly comes closer to the 8 post cooldown you need for a DoT which deals double Ranked damage, but it never really disappears, especially because if you reach H-Rank, where minimum cooldowns are HIGHER, DoT spells would also need to have that higher cooldown.

2. DoTs are innately weaker than Instants. The reason for that is that if you hit with an Instant all the damage is inflicted immediately. With a DoT it takes a while, and during that while the person you hit and their allies can try to counter the effects. They can either buff themselves or be buffed to gain extra health regeneration. You can also use that against Instant spells, but regenerating health after being hit by an Instant means you're going back from being damaged to having no damage. If regenerating health while affected by a DoT you can make it so that your health only goes down slowly, meaning you're not inside the danger zone until it's already been a while.

60 damage instant every four posts against 120 damage over seven posts, following current DoT rules.

Enemy has 100 health, and a buff which allows them to regen for 10 health every post for four posts.

Enemy's health over time with Instant: 40-50-60-70-20-20-20

Enemy's health over time with DoT: 70-65-60-55-50-35-20

As you can see, the damage the opponent has taken in the first five posts is roughly the same with both, except with the Instant damage they start out with low health and regain their health over time, whereas with the DoT they start with high health and it slowly goes down. However in the last three posts, when the Instant got to hit another attack and that Healing effect had ended, the Instant damage guy put their opponent at critical health levels for those remaining three posts. On the other hand the DoT guy only reached critical health levels on the very last post.

If you count the health across all the posts you can also see that the guy attacked with Instant spells had 280 health. The guy hit with the DoT had 355. That means that the guy attacked with an Instant spell had a lot less health left in total, meaning it would have been easier to finish them off the rest of the way.

Besides of that, in most games somebody who can burst targets down quickly is preferred over somebody who uses DoTs. DoT users are generally used in games if the Burst users are for some reason not effective enough, like the target is just so tanky that bursts don't work, you have to slowly wear them down. And even then the only reason that works is because DoTs are given more total damage than bursts, to compensate for the fact that they are generally less effective than Instant bursts. DoTs are useful when the extra damage they gain to compete with Instant bursts actually becomes relevant. And with the current rules, DoTs don't really have that much more damage potential because even if an individual spell can do more, the Instant spells just are so much easier to use.

Of course in this equation I had both the Instant effects hit, but this equation was to prove that the consistent damage of a DoT is generally not more useful than the short bursts of high damage you get from Instant attacks. And in case somebody argues that it's because of the healing, this is what it would have looked like without the healing effect.

Instant: 40-40-40-40-X-X-X

DoT: 70-55-40-25-10-X-X

The target would have died from the two Instant bursts a post before the DoT manages to finish them off.

For those who would argue that I didn't take into account the Channelled DoTs and the ones where the damage of the initial strike is spread out across the DoT: Channelled DoTs can be stopped if you're hit by a single attack. And you can't do anything while the DoT lasts. Yes, Channelled DoTs are better than Instants in some situations, but those are very niche. In a 1v1 it's unlikely you're going to get your money's worth out of a Channelled DoT. And decreasing the initial damage also improves matters slightly, but it doesn't solve the actual problem.

3. Just because you can apply all your damage if you just manage to hit the enemy once doesn't mean you're guaranteed to deliver all your damage. Most DoTs and debuffs usually have a way to remove them, if only because the enemy is that kind of tricky bastard who has an instant Purge/Dispel ready. Also, delivering all your damage through a single hit can also make you LESS likely to deal damage, depending on who your opponent is. If the opponent has a method to dodge/evade/block/parry/deflect/whatever one single effect, that just means your DoT is suddenly a problem because they're most likely going to have that thing off cooldown every time you throw your DoT at them. The chances are at least higher than that they'll have it up every time you want to use that Instant burst spell.

Oh, I can also prove it for CC rather than actual damage.

Duration CC: Slow.

Instant CC: Knockback.

Let's make this A-Rank since you can have a distance of up to 60 meters in your spells at A-Rank.

I don't know how strong a slow is allowed to be usually, but I'm assuming that if it's a single target you could slow your target for 20% if you actually hit them.

As for knockback, you just punch them 60 meters backwards.

So this is a 20% slow for four posts delivered from a 60 meter distance against a melee range instant Knockback which launches you 60 meters.

Sprinting speed at A-Rank is...about 39 mph according to the Physical Body Rules, not taking into account any kind of boosts. 39 mph converts to 17.4 meters per second (according to this). Covering 60 meters with that speed takes 3.45 seconds.

Hit the target with the slow. Now their speed is 13.9 meters per second. Covering 60 meters now takes 4.32 seconds.

Meanwhile the Knockback forces you to just repeat the 3.45 seconds, leaving you with a total of 6.90 seconds. Not to mention the fact that since the Knockback is an Instant you can use it more often.

Of course, I could be wrong here. I admit that I don't know the exact rules regarding CC effects, so it could be that you aren't allowed to knock somebody that far back, or maybe the slow is stronger. However even if the slow were to stay the same and the Knockback were to be halved the Knockback would still be more useful, since with the Knockback you can force enemies to end up in bad positions whereas with a slow they can still decide their own location. Also, the melee Knockback is easier to hit.

That same mod who I asked about what happened if you missed a DoT mentioned that they were surprised at the concept of a single target melee hit DoT, not having seen that before. The reason for that being, and I quote, 'Since DoT deals so little damage per post, people want it to be as impossible to dodge as they can make it.'

This is not a good thing. Right now people who want to use spells which last a while apparently feel forced to try and milk those spells for everything they're worth and more, because if they were to make a simple 'I hit you and you bleed for the next couple of posts' it would just be plain weaker than if they made it a 'I hit you and it deals extra damage' spell. This means that a certain type of spells is not accessible to anybody who doesn't want to feel underpowered when they compare their spells with those of others who used Instant spells instead.

The only way that could be considered a good thing is if people believe that simple duration spells aren't creative and shouldn't be supported, which you can't argue because that's a matter of taste, and if you look at pretty much any game which supports spells and effects which lasts a while you'll see at least one guy who can keep a duration effect going basically forever. And that guy is rarely the most unbalanced one. The most unbalanced one is usually the one who just kills you way too fast with burst damage. Or the one who literally won't die.

I've probably started to sound like I'm rambling by this point, so I'll just skip to my proposed solutions.

1. Remove the rule that all Duration spells need to have a Cooldown longer than the Duration. This rule was put in place to keep spells which last a while from getting out of hand, but I can mathematically prove that this rule isn't doing that. It isn't keeping duration effects from getting out of hand, it's forcing duration effects to always be big and impressive because any small and simple duration effect simply isn't worth the spell slot when compared to other spells.

2. Divide Duration spells into three categories: Lingering, Sustained, and Channelled.

[Lingering] is what I like to call 'Fire and Forget'. This is where most single target DoTs, slows, and all those other small spells would end up in. Lingering is when a spell is very simple and straightforward, and its effects are not that impressive or problematic. You land the spell, it applies an effect which lasts for a while, that's it.

Lingering spells would have their cooldowns start the moment you cast them, and since the cast itself is instant that means they immediately go on cooldown. Because the effects are simple and straightforward it's easy to keep them from being imbalanced just because they can actually be used quite often.

[Sustained] is when a spell is a bit more complicated. This is what you'd categorize as Seals, Transformations, etc. These spells are generally stronger than Lingering spells, more complicated, and generally more awesome.

However, Sustained spells have their cooldowns start when the effect ENDS. That is because Sustained spells would actually be dangerous enough that they need enforced downtime.

[Channelled] spells are the most powerful. Their cooldown starts when the effect ends, and added to that they have to actually focus on keeping the spell active, meaning it can be interrupted by attacking the caster. In return these spells can have very big, complex and powerful effects.

I'm not good with making up numbers, but these are at least the basic ideas.

Oh, and a subcategory would be [Stacking] effects. These wouldn't count as their own category of spells. Instead [Lingering], [Sustained] and [Channelled] could either be [Stacking] or not. If they aren't Stacking their effect is applied fully from the very beginning and afterwards hitting the same target only refreshes the duration.

Spells which have a Stacking effect would have the initial effect be weaker, but hitting the same target with the same spell over and over would allow the effect to stack with itself, making it weaker in the beginning but slower as the mage manages to keep applying new stacks. This is also something which is made very difficult currently, seeing how right now applying the same effect twice on one target is a task which requires a lot of trickery.

My suggestions might not be the best ones, but I still would ask of staff to please actually turn to these old rules and consider whether they are actually necessary. They have existed for quite a while, so most people have become used to them, but just because they have existed for so long and people no longer pay attention to them doesn't mean that they're perfectly fine. As it is certain creative ideas can't be used because they are based on such things as the [Lingering] spell type I suggested. And I didn't pull that spell type out of thin air. In most games there's one to several characters who make use of that kind of ability.

Of course this thread is also open for discussion, although I'd ask a couple of things of those who post:

• If you want to make a statement which directly disagrees with something which I used math for, please have an example or math yourself to support your claim. I've already shown how Health Regeneration is stronger against DoTs than Instant burst using the current rules, so if somebody just waltz in and says 'DoTs are useful against people who regenerate health because it counters the healing' without anything to back that up I can't really reply with anything other than 'I already showed otherwise. With math. And math doesn't lie unless it's wrong. Prove it wrong.'
  
• No Ad Hominem. It's considered a logical fallacy for a reason. Just because you don't like me or don't like what I'm suggesting doesn't mean you can prevent it from happening by attacking me personally. It just makes you look aggressive and hostile.
  
• In general, don't use arguments which bring the discussion to a grinding halt. If you bring an argument which can't be proven or disproved that doesn't mean it's a good argument. An argument which can't be verified or falsified is a useless argument. If you say 'DoTs are stronger than Instants' and then refuse to explain, claiming that it should be obvious, you aren't winning the discussion. You're just being obstinate.
  
• 'This is how we've always done it' is an argument based on either laziness or just a refusal to change. Those who want to use it I will point towards this particular comic: Tradition. Yes, I know this comic doesn't knock down the entire argument by itself. However it does show that just because we've always done it, that doesn't in any way prove that it's how we're supposed to keep doing it. Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change. THAT is true no matter how you look at it. I know that suddenly changing the rules might make things a bit hectic for a while as people get used to the changes, but I think this will be worth the short period of confusion.
  
• Anybody whose main reaction is 'will you stop talking about this?': no, not really. I'm seeing an issue and I'm trying to fix it. More importantly, all those people who disagree with me have yet to give me an actual valid argument. Last week I got into an argument with another mod about it, and they might believe that they gave all the valid arguments needed, but I looked back at that argument afterwards and I quickly noticed that we had steered away from the discussion regarding cooldowns on duration spells and had ended up being annoyed at each other regarding cooldowns on Signature Spells entirely, unrelated to the actual duration of the Signature Spell (as I recall our main argument became whether a Signature Spell which allows your next hit to deal Ranked damage should have a cooldown or not).
  I apologize to anybody who thinks I'm doing something unnecessary and wants me to shut up, but you don't have to participate in this discussion, and I disagree about it being unnecessary or noisy.
  

Also, to the Staff: please, please, PLEASE, for the love of the gods, if you find yourself unable to refute my argument don't try to balance things out by nerfing everything BUT the duration spells. The current rules on cooldowns ARE the source of the problem (if I'm right). You can't fix that problem by making everything else problematic as well. I know that changing such an old rule might not be easy for everybody, but that is the same as with old traditions that no longer apply to the present. Honestly I found those rules strange to begin with, so I don't get how they even got that old in the first place (saying that I'm just missing the point isn't a valid argument either. You have to actually PROVE it).

As for the staff members I mentioned way up there in the beginning of this post, I asked for their permission to name them in my latest attempt at getting these rules changed. I can't say that they agree with every single thing I said, however all three of them have admitted that they've tried to change the rules regarding cooldowns:

• Zack (used to be Head Admin, and was pretty good at grading and stuff. He abandoned the position voluntarily because it became stressful, so no arguing that his opinion doesn't count because he's no longer staff. That would only work if he was removed by the rest of staff, which isn't the case).
  
• Akryn (still a mod).
  
• Kakuma (used to be a mod, is now part of the development team).
  

I'm definitely for this being reviewed. I can understand in some cases durations being longer than cooldowns, but we do pretty much break true DoT on site.

I would be ok with some spells having the cooldown start when the duration begins.

E.g. 3 post duration, 2 post cooldown but the cooldown starts as soon as the spell is cast so you can cast it again before the initial duration is up, but this would merely 'refresh' the duration on the target.

There are many ways to handle duration spells that are much better than how it is currently stated, you mentioned the several different duration effects, Lingering(DOT's, CC over Time etc.), Sustained(Requip, Transformation, Buffing, Take Over(Yes Takeover is different from Transformation), Channeling(Sitting there with a mana lazor shooting out of your hands). All of them can have their own balance as you stated. Lingering I would like to say are the most problematic as they happen to be the weakest in the current state. If I were to apply a rule for Lingering I would say you make a spell with a shorter duration than cooldown which starts immediately after cast, lets say one post shorter so it wont actually get out of hand otherwise you might have people blowing up armies by poisoning them with a single target DoT, lets save that for the AoE people. The way to balance that is have a reset mechanic, where you hit your spell again rather than stacking the damage you get the initial damage again and it refreshes the duration, so you still lose out on that one post of damage but the poison or burn will last longer.

Sustained don't need any changes, this is cause if you let them they will run rampant. Everyone knows how terrifying buffing mages are right now, they go and overload themselves with stat buffs both passive and active, now imagine that where you can indefinably buff yourself with a 75% resistance buff, you would never die, this is precisely why unique abilities that are stat buffs are nerfed so heavily cause they are always on. Then you take into account what Requip mages can do for damage while they have a requip weapon up, even though they only have one ability per weapon, that is a weapon that does damage, I do recall that currently they do too much damage and are currently on the table for some nerfs, or they may have already been nerfed idk.

Channeled spells were in an OK spot, cause you could sit there blasting someone with a lazor forever and so long as they didn't react you could overload the damage, cause there was a thing called limit transcendence which extended the duration of channeled spells in exchange for magic power. So now you have a spell that can last as long as you have magic power, that can deal insane damage but you take the risk of leaving yourself open for attack. If anything these spells may need a slight buff in the damage department considering that limit transcendence is no longer available if I remember correctly.

I completely agree that cooldowns ought to start AFTER the duration has expired. I completely agree with that. However, I would like to offer another alternative to DoT.

To be honest, DoTs are pointless at D Rank. The usual D Rank duration is 3 posts, which with the current model of 50%/25%/25%, it is basically just full D Rank damage. Which isn't exactly useful for a D Rank. However, for other ranks:

C: 150% C Rank damage DoT
B: 175% B Rank damage DoT
A: 200% A Rank damage DoT
S: 275% S Rank damage DoT
H: 525% H Rank damage DoT

I don't know about you, but that gets a bit ridiculous at the later ranks.

What I would like to suggest is to make all DoT, regardless of rank, last the same duration. My proposition would be:
5 Posts: Initial Hit = 50% of that rank's damage. Subsequent Hits = 25% of that rank's damage afterward. So that'd be: [50%, 25%, 25%, 25%, 25%] which equals 200% of that rank's damage.

Afterward, due to DoT being able to deal more damage, they also ought to have x2 normal cooldown time. So for D Rank, minimum is 2 for normal spells -- But for DoT, the minimum would be 4, etc etc..

This way DoT are a bit more balanced as well... The cooldowns for the above would also start AFTER the duration was over (which I was already under the assumption that that was the case for all spells anyway)

I think you are misinterpreting what Akeya is trying to say, the cooldowns do start after the duration ends, this makes DoT's hopelessly underpowered cause in the time that the damage goes down someone with nothing but instants can unload twice as much damage. What you're suggesting would make them even weaker than they already are.

I also think having set damages and duration for DoT makes them far too cookier cutterish.

In fact i'm all for spell damage to be essentially free to the user within reason providing its balanced.

SO you want a D rank that does A rank damage? Fine but it also wipes out almost all your health and has a one time use per thread and a ton of other limits.

Though perhaps, just allowing it so maybe the damage for a Dot Maxes at two ransk above might work.


However, rather than just DoT we also have to take into account debuffs, buffs, status effects etc. Its tricky, but in truth the magic system probably needs another overhaul. Its pretty good for the most part, but some probably needs thinking on.