Needed Improvements for Demeter Cast - Crystal Beam

[Ashtarte]

After giving Demeter a few weeks to really gather my thoughts she's a great addition to the Olympian roster with one major downside: her cast.

The idea of the beam turret is a solid one, though I expected we'd get it if Hephaestus was ever added, but it's current implemention suffers greatly from numerous issues.

1) Demeter cast does not scale with any of her own boons. Since it does not apply Chill there is only one boon that can assist her cast, Snow Burst. Looking at Ares' Slicing Shot he does not apply his curse with the cast either but has numerous ways to improve the abilities of Blade Rifts through scaling size, adding vortex capabilities and linear damage growth with the legendary boon.

2) The single target nature of the cast feels too punishing for it's low damage output. The other strictly single target cast, Artemis, does reasonable damage and strong tracking with shield penetration. Every other cast has some sort of area or multi-target effectiveness that can be scaled up.

3) Demeter cast is pigeonholed into chasing Artemis boons to supplement it. While Artemis is great for most casts players rarely feel forced to chase her for other cast builds and we have other options to hunt for with impactful changes from Duo boons. Crystal Beam almost requires Artemis Duo to be useable and needs Dual Cast and Fully Loaded to reach reasonable damage levels.

4) Lastly, somewhat related to the last one, is the clarity of the skill. With additional boons like Dual Cast and Fully Loaded if you cast all your charges in one place you will only see the one crystal with usually a single beam focused on the nearest target. It makes it difficult to tell at a glance if you got all your casts out. For this I'd just suggest shrinking the size of the turret and making the additional ones not take up the exact same location.

As said before, Demeter is a great addition in most regards but her cast is simply the weakest in the game in current state. Many of these issues could be fixed if her cast applied Chill at some frequency (obviously at current dmg tick rate 100% application would be too high) but would allow players to utilize her other boons including her Legendary with the beam. Additionally giving the beam a mild pierce effect could fix some of the other issues with damage coverage.

[lifetake]

While I agree that demeters cast is the worst in the game I think that not every god in the game needs to be good at everything. And I think demeters cast can be a good example of this. I don't think she needs a good cast and can be a weakness of hers like other gods weakness

[Morton Koopa Jr.]

I get that it's a bit weak, but as a steady stream of safe damage, it seems fine. It could be buffed slightly (dmg, tracking, size), but I think adding chill or piercing might be unnecessary.

It's not great but I think it gets the job done. At least, it does for me atm (10 heat).

[cpoc019]

But Demeter's other builds are quite strong, her legendary is extremely useful and the Duo skill from Poseidon and Demeter is simply op, so I think Demeter is good enough

[letran.thai]

I don't have much experience with Demeter's cast, but you could gate improvements behind another, new Boon of hers. Something like "Crystal Refraction: The Cast beam pierces through foes with a small tracking angle" (with the angle size depending on rarity - no Pom upgrades). I think of nothing too fancy like going around corners, but more of a narrow cone. That way, you have some crowd control utility against groups of lined up enemies.

I don't think giving the beam a Chill effect will work balance-wise, because it would make stacking 10 instances of Chill trivial, and therefore constantly triggering Arctic Blast too easy.

By the way, I don't think her cast is completely unrelated to the rest of her boons - Chilling enemies makes it easier for the beam to keep up with their movements, and Ravenous Will also buffs the continous Cast damage. But it's a bit roundabout, and definitely not as straightforwardly devastating as Hunting Blades.

[Ashtarte]

Originally posted by 1615597257:

But Demeter's other builds are quite strong, her legendary is extremely useful and the Duo skill from Poseidon and Demeter is simply op, so I think Demeter is good enough

Compare this to most other gods though, they have synergy within their whole kit and most of them are exceedingly powerful when you combine them correctly. That's not even an option for Crystal Beam. It's literally one and done. That's just poor design.

Her Duo's with both Poseidon and Dionysus are very powerful but that's kind of the point of Duos. I'm talking strictly comparing casts to casts and she has the hands down worst in the game. Just because she's good elsewhere doesn't mean they can't fix issues with the objective worst cast.

[lifetake]

Originally posted by Ashtarte:

Originally posted by 1615597257:

But Demeter's other builds are quite strong, her legendary is extremely useful and the Duo skill from Poseidon and Demeter is simply op, so I think Demeter is good enough

Compare this to most other gods though, they have synergy within their whole kit and most of them are exceedingly powerful when you combine them correctly. That's not even an option for Crystal Beam. It's literally one and done. That's just poor design.

Her Duo's with both Poseidon and Dionysus are very powerful but that's kind of the point of Duos. I'm talking strictly comparing casts to casts and she has the hands down worst in the game. Just because she's good elsewhere doesn't mean they can't fix issues with the objective worst cast.

every god has a weakness. Artemis has the worst curse for priveleged. Dio has literally no weapon dmg scaling. Zues has straight damage thats good on high attack but horrible on low attack things. Athena has very little offensive capabilities(usually having to rely on duos to get that done). and so on. They all have weakness you have to work around and play around. Every god shouldn't be strong in every aspect and I think Demeter having a bad cast is fine to offset her strengths.

[Morton Koopa Jr.]

^this guy gets it.

[Ashtarte]

Originally posted by lifetake:

every god has a weakness. Artemis has the worst curse for priveleged. Dio has literally no weapon dmg scaling. Zues has straight damage thats good on high attack but horrible on low attack things. Athena has very little offensive capabilities(usually having to rely on duos to get that done). and so on. They all have weakness you have to work around and play around. Every god shouldn't be strong in every aspect and I think Demeter having a bad cast is fine to offset her strengths.

What you are pointing out is limitations to be worked around. Wanna use Zeus primary? Use the Rail or a Flurry Shot Bow. Athena augments builds that go full HAM on weapon offense like Guan Yu. (Also Artemis Curse isn't the worst for Privileged, Athena is)

There is almost no working around Demeter cast. No matter what you do it's still going to suck and your boons would have been better invested elsewhere. You won't say that for a full chain Zeus build as it can pump out crazy damage when optimized. There isn't a way to pump out "crazy damage" with Crystal Beam. It just can't happen right now.

I'm not asking it to be pre-nerf Hunting Blades level stupid, just /not garbage./

[lifetake]

Originally posted by Ashtarte:

Originally posted by lifetake:

every god has a weakness. Artemis has the worst curse for priveleged. Dio has literally no weapon dmg scaling. Zues has straight damage thats good on high attack but horrible on low attack things. Athena has very little offensive capabilities(usually having to rely on duos to get that done). and so on. They all have weakness you have to work around and play around. Every god shouldn't be strong in every aspect and I think Demeter having a bad cast is fine to offset her strengths.

What you are pointing out is limitations to be worked around. Wanna use Zeus primary? Use the Rail or a Flurry Shot Bow. Athena augments builds that go full HAM on weapon offense like Guan Yu. (Also Artemis Curse isn't the worst for Privileged, Athena is)

There is almost no working around Demeter cast. No matter what you do it's still going to suck and your boons would have been better invested elsewhere. You won't say that for a full chain Zeus build as it can pump out crazy damage when optimized. There isn't a way to pump out "crazy damage" with Crystal Beam. It just can't happen right now.

I'm not asking it to be pre-nerf Hunting Blades level stupid, just /not garbage./

artemis curse literally requires get 2 boons just like athena. Then you need to first crit a target than for you to get the priveleged effect you have to apply your second curse to the target that now has the mark wherever they are. And now you're doing priveleged attacks. Athena requires you to get 2 boons as said then use a deflect attack like say divine dash and whatever other secondary on the same target. So you know to actually get priveleged on someone like hades you have to rely on his adds which that is not a fun thing to rely on when I could just be focusing on hades. There is no way you can say athenas curse is worse than artemis is respects to priveleged status. Thats like saying posiedons curse effect is worse for privelged than artemis.

And you can work around demeter cast literally just had a run with it at heat 10 so averagish. It is the worst casts but yea you can run it and yes you can win with it. It just requires support just like doom not being a main dmg dealer till you get the athena duo boon.

[Unhandmedemon]

Slight additional suggestion: the crystal beam on Hera-form bow has the most useless tracking of all. Your choice is to either shoot in front of the enemy and lose out on the damage of your shot, or shoot through them... in which case the front-facing cast will not get anywhere near your opponent. Having the beam auto-track the closest enemy to its impact point would give it more utility, allowing you to put down a turret at range to fire around cover or flank a shielded enemy.

[capitan mid]

beam scales nice, but you need perfect run with perfect boons just for beam (which is impossible). And if you get just a half - even no-synergiesed 1-boon attack will outdamage it. Ridiculous.

It would be nice to buff a beam by adding chill-effect to it by default and/or improving aiming. So it can at least synergies with other boons since you get it.

Atm it's 200 damage over 5 seconds to single target which is not moving at all. Super stupid. Even if target is super slow - it can just walk out of 'line of fire'.

[TisEric]

Originally posted by capitan mid:

beam scales nice, but you need perfect run with perfect boons just for beam (which is impossible). And if you get just a half - even no-synergiesed 1-boon attack will outdamage it. Ridiculous.

It would be nice to buff a beam by adding chill-effect to it by default and/or improving aiming. So it can at least synergies with other boons since you get it.

Atm it's 200 damage over 5 seconds to single target which is not moving at all. Super stupid. Even if target is super slow - it can just walk out of 'line of fire'.

big ol necro there mang ,
i disagree on it being bad .
If you place the beams in the right position it doesn't need to track anything just shoot.
And if you use the 3 casts the damage stacks really well.

Ive done plenty of runs where i just dropped barely leveled crystals and watched bosses melt.
On normal enemies , yeah without the chill or tracking upgrade it kinda sucks if you don't have a way to funnel enemies for it. But then if it was good at all things without upgrades it would be op.

[All talk and no fight]

Was about to comment but realised this was from March 3rd
ahh someone already necro'd so I'll comment anyways.
Disagree on it being weak. The cast is as bad as a few of the other casts not buffed.

Ares cast is useless without any supporting boons, You'd rather have no cast so you can cast into the boss and get your Boiling blood/Abyssal blood effect.
Dionysus' cast is great for mobbing, not so great for the same reason mentioned above without supporting boons like hightolerance or the duos for it.
Man the direct attack boons, Aphrodite's is horrible without blown kiss, whats the point in using floodshot if you don't have a slam damage bonus for mobs or rupture effect for bosses? Artemis is just simple damage to a boss that isn't effective unless you actually have a cast build going.

Just like the other casts, you need supporting boons to make the Crystal beam good. If you don't have anything good its better to not even use it. Namely, you need the Demeter boon that GIVES the crystal beam the ability to inflict chill and last longer (Glacial Glare, only appears if you have crystal beam ofc!) Arctic blast is great against elite encounters, with the crystal beams chilling and inflicting arctic blast on a group of elite enemies with you safely away from them avoiding damage. Crystal Beam is definately very reliant on Crystal Clarity duo to be very powerful, but Trippy shot needs one of its duos to be really good against bosses. Even if you had a powered up trippy shot doing 220 damage and you had 3 trippy shots, you're still dealing less damage than wailing on the boss with your main attack and your cast stuck inside them getting the boiling blood effect.
Also the 4th point is subjective i guess, I can always tell when I've put down all of my crystal casts at once without Flurry cast.

[lifetake]

Originally posted by The 20$ Mann:

Was about to comment but realised this was from March 3rd
ahh someone already necro'd so I'll comment anyways.
Disagree on it being weak. The cast is as bad as a few of the other casts not buffed.

Ares cast is useless without any supporting boons, You'd rather have no cast so you can cast into the boss and get your Boiling blood/Abyssal blood effect.
Dionysus' cast is great for mobbing, not so great for the same reason mentioned above without supporting boons like hightolerance or the duos for it.
Man the direct attack boons, Aphrodite's is horrible without blown kiss, whats the point in using floodshot if you don't have a slam damage bonus for mobs or rupture effect for bosses? Artemis is just simple damage to a boss that isn't effective unless you actually have a cast build going.

Just like the other casts, you need supporting boons to make the Crystal beam good. If you don't have anything good its better to not even use it. Namely, you need the Demeter boon that GIVES the crystal beam the ability to inflict chill and last longer (Glacial Glare, only appears if you have crystal beam ofc!) Arctic blast is great against elite encounters, with the crystal beams chilling and inflicting arctic blast on a group of elite enemies with you safely away from them avoiding damage. Crystal Beam is definately very reliant on Crystal Clarity duo to be very powerful, but Trippy shot needs one of its duos to be really good against bosses. Even if you had a powered up trippy shot doing 220 damage and you had 3 trippy shots, you're still dealing less damage than wailing on the boss with your main attack and your cast stuck inside them getting the boiling blood effect.
Also the 4th point is subjective i guess, I can always tell when I've put down all of my crystal casts at once without Flurry cast.

The point being made is that in comparison to the other non boiling blood cast (Dio and Ares) it falls short. Dio starts better and ends better especially with other weapons. And Ares starts off about the same but ends way better than either could dream. So if you are going to go a cast build it is seen as the worst one to go. There is no reason to compare them to the boiling blood ones since they upgrade your cast while still allowing you the mirror upgrade advantage.

[All talk and no fight]

[/quote]
The point being made is that in comparison to the other non boiling blood cast (Dio and Ares) it falls short. Dio starts better and ends better especially with other weapons. And Ares starts off about the same but ends way better than either could dream. So if you are going to go a cast build it is seen as the worst one to go. There is no reason to compare them to the boiling blood ones since they upgrade your cast while still allowing you the mirror upgrade advantage. [/quote]

Completely disagree Ares ends way better. It has comparable supportive boons (wider, draws enemy's in and lasts a little longer, than the legendary boon which of course is awesome) (Glacial Glare and Arctic blast is what I'll use for my arguement as supporting boon for crystal beam) Which racks up the damage when the boss stands still. You know what doesn't rack up damage when the boss stands still? Ares cast. It draws enemies in, but not bosses, so to really rack up that damage you need a Duo, Hunting blades to make it powerful vs bosses, Just like crystal beam needs the duo, crystal clarity to make it powerful vs the bosses.
If you have the duos and the legendary boon, yes, Ares cast is better but without one of them I'd say its damage is on par with Crystal beam without even Crystal Clarity.