Current Issue
- Lower amount of barrages are always prioritized, especially 4 blast which can absolutely shred opponents HP. (Screen capture - bb1b7bc896ea4855c1f1ccccb24603d4 - Gyazo)
- High amounts like 10 and above can feel very niche to use, especially when trying to hit a moving opponent.
- They break the pace of a match as it feels pretty slow to use. This basically forces you to have casting speed in order to keep the pace of a fight going.
Proposal
Main Idea
Barrages should act as a fast rate of firing blasts, but only do slightly more than a single blast compared to doing over 3x as much with higher amount of blasts. This would act similar to how explosion amounts are currently. Both hits would come out fast but won’t do too much more than a single blast.
Double Shot Barrages
Barrages 10 and above would allow you to shoot out 2 blasts at a time. This would be harsh on it’s damage, but give it a more practical purpose in standard combat, not to cheese bosses. They would act more similar to how Divine Shower was, covering slightly more area in return for some damage. (I’ve removed odd number amounts in statistics, but they could be added as a finishing single blast at the end. Main reason being confusion and simplifying things a bit)
Pacing
This would keep the pace of a fight as you won’t be standing still forever, and get back to doing more skills forever. This would also balance out fights as you won’t be able to do a crap ton of damage to an opponent just because they messed up once.
Statistics
Warning
I ain’t the most experienced with balancing and numbers. This is a proposed solution for how they could work. Sizes would either remain the same or be regular sized. Remember, balancing would revolve around blasts coming out really fast and not how they are currently. You can balance things by either adjusting fire rate or damage. Please send feedback if there’s anything too out of place.
Single Shot Barrages (Damage)
Amount 1: 1.00x
Amount 2: 0.66x (1.33x total) → 0.55x (1.10x total)
Amount 3: 0.66x (2.00x total) → 0.40x (1.20x total)
Amount 4: 0.77x (3.08x total) → 0.35x (1.40x total)
Amount 5: 0.71x (3.55x total) → 0.32x (1.60x total)
Amount 6: 0.66x (3.96x total) → 0.31x (1.86x total)
Amount 7: 0.62x (4.34x total) → 0.31x (2.17x total)
Amount 8: 0.58x (4.64x total) → 0.30x (2.40x total)
Amount 9: 0.55x (4.95x total) → 0.30x (2.70x total)
Double Shot Barrages (Damage)
Amount 10: 0.52x (5.20x total) → 0.15x (1.50x total)
Amount 12: 0.47x (5.64x total) → 0.14x (1.70x total)
Amount 14: 0.43x (6.02x total) → 0.14x (2.00x total)
Amount 16: 0.40x (6.40x total) → 0.135x (2.16x total)
Amount 18: 0.37x (6.66x total) → 0.135x (2.43x total)
Amount 20: 0.34x (6.80x total) → 0.135x (2.70x total)
Counterpoints
Q: Wouldn’t this make casting speed pointless?
A: You already get your start-up to become faster. You shouldn’t need a specific build just to shoot blasts fast. If you really want to have a new use for casting speed, have a slight increase start-up for barrages. This would need new tweaking of the damage multipliers though.
Q: Wouldn’t this make fights last way longer?
A: If anything, fights shouldn’t last 30 seconds. This would be an improvement as you wouldn’t die as fast and have a fighting chance.
Q: What if these new stats turn out to be even more unbalanced?
A: You can try tweaking the stats first to see if there can be more balance. Neither of these systems will ever be perfectly balanced since there will always be a meta. As long as there’s multiple metas and it’s not too overpowered, it will be fine.
Q: Wouldn’t this make barrages too similar to blasts?
A: Yes, but this is for the better. They should’ve never been this OP and this wouldn’t hurt barrages too much. They turn into more of a slight risk for a slightly better reward, then a big risk for an AMAZING reward.