Mana Addicts

[Zebulon Ecthelion]

This might be the most flagrantly overpowered culture trait, and it's probably due for a nerf, but I hope they don't give it a flat nerf, but adjust it so that it's more in line with the other unlockable pantheon culture traits.

Which is to say that it has significant drawbacks that make it more appropriate for a themed run rather than being universally good. It's just as good on a Barbarian champion as it is on a heavy astral Mystic wizard king. The "drawback" can hardly be called that. You get -5 morale every turn you don't cast a spell. But there's basically no reason not to cast a spell every turn, even the champions are going to be doing that. So the "drawback" is that you have to do something that you would be doing anyway. And if you don't do it, it's hardly the end of the battle. And in exchange, you get lifesteal attacks on all of your units. That puts it at the top of all culture traits (and head and shoulders above the other pantheon traits) and probably means it has the nerf bat coming for it in the future.

I was hoping that, instead of making it weaker, they would lean more heavily into the "power at a price" angle. Maybe give your units a small amount of cosmic damage as well, alongside the lifesteal. But, in exchange, all your units have an additional mana upkeep and suffer a devastating morale debuff if you ever go into the red on mana. Another thing you might consider adding in is making pops generate research, casting points and/or production, but each pop consumes mana each turn like food.

Thoughts?

[Naggaroth]

I agree, when you compare it to the other pantheon trait, specialy those way at the bottom it is way way more powerful.

[RodHull]

Agree it does feel very strong. Played two more physical based races before this, now playing a pure magic build with mana addicts and its ridiculously strong by comparison.

I think considering concept behind the perk it could be cool if every time you cast a spell there was a chance of a random unit of yours being affected with a range of results from insanity, to stunned, to a debuff that turn.

That way its a proper trade off magical power for an unpredictable debuff

[Naggaroth]

Big thing is it's even stronger playing a full physical, you will still use low cost spell and get the insane lifesteal.

[M0rgi]

Agree its especially overpowered on AOE attacks where you can heal north of 50 hp in single cast and still do damge to the enemy. I think lifesteal should be limited to only mele units. Lifestealing with ranged troops feel off

[Dago]

Stop nerfing last tiny bits of good from this game.

[LupisVolk]

Originally posted by realxavier:

Stop nerfing last tiny bits of good from this game.

Flagrantly overpowered stuff does need to be balanced as this game does have multiplayer.

[Demiurge]

Originally posted by LupisVolk:

Originally posted by realxavier:

Stop nerfing last tiny bits of good from this game.

Flagrantly overpowered stuff does need to be balanced as this game does have multiplayer.

and there it is. It's always you pvp guys who always call for nerfs on stuff. No, just shut up and go away

[LupisVolk]

Originally posted by Demiurge:

and there it is. It's always you pvp guys who always call for nerfs on stuff. No, just shut up and go away

No because balance is needed for pvp and pve dumbass, hell i don't even play PvP and i know this.

[Midas]

I love Mana Addicts. I just did a High culture play through with Mana Addicts, +15% spell damage, Unicorns, and Evokers, and heavy Astral focus, and by the mid/late game my stacks were just... all spellcasters. Earlier game it was pyromancers and evokers, later game it was all full fire elementals and awakeners, and they just nuked everything.

Fun fact: The final tier of Astral empire perk for increased magical origin ranks combines with the +1 rank from Evokers to allow Lesser Fire Elementals (since they're battlemages) to be summoned already evolved into full-sized elementals. For the early part of the game, I had a hero with the Elementalist trait for training up my elementals, but once I got that trait, I could just spam self-healing phasing fire elementals for the cost of a lesser elemental.

[M0rgi]

Mana addicts just needs to be toned down slightly to make it bit more balanced dont think anyone is advocating for its removal

[M0rgi]

Originally posted by Demiurge:

Originally posted by LupisVolk:

No because balance is needed for pvp and pve dumbass, hell i don't even play PvP and i know this.

no you're a dumbass for thinking your idea of balance is everybody else's. But you know better than the devs mmhmm. You played the game for a week while the devs have been working on it for years and it never occurred to them what you bring up. Don't worry devs, here comes Lupis to tell you he knows better. Oh just get over yourself.

Devs have their hands full with development of the game to test the balance of the game properly. Once game is released people find overpowered stuff in the game and abuse it to full extent untill they get patched up. Based on my recent playthroughs i consider mana addicts to be overpowered when compared to most other stuff available. Its an opinion not a fact.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Denam Pavel:

Mana addicts just needs to be toned down slightly to make it bit more balanced dont think anyone is advocating for its removal

I'm not really sure how it could be toned down. The life steal is already a minimal effect on its own. They could tone up the penalty for not using it, but its so easy to counteract.

One possibility would be to have the penalty kick in turn 1 and not be removed by casting a spell, just not made worse. So you're basically taking on a permanent morale penalty unless you can cast spells turn one. Then at least you'd have to be Astral to not just casually negate the penalties entirely.

[M0rgi]

Originally posted by Midas:

Originally posted by Denam Pavel:

Mana addicts just needs to be toned down slightly to make it bit more balanced dont think anyone is advocating for its removal

I'm not really sure how it could be toned down. The life steal is already a minimal effect on its own. They could tone up the penalty for not using it, but its so easy to counteract.

One possibility would be to have the penalty kick in turn 1 and not be removed by casting a spell, just not made worse. So you're basically taking on a permanent morale penalty unless you can cast spells turn one. Then at least you'd have to be Astral to not just casually negate the penalties entirely.

But its not minimal when it works on aoe spells/aoe attacks. Also there is no healing reduction between mele and ranged troops healing if anything on average mele troops heal less. Mana addicts makes it very easy to clear mobs on map very early because you rarely get any damage on your troops with good positioning

[Midas]

Originally posted by Denam Pavel:

Originally posted by Midas:

I'm not really sure how it could be toned down. The life steal is already a minimal effect on its own. They could tone up the penalty for not using it, but its so easy to counteract.

One possibility would be to have the penalty kick in turn 1 and not be removed by casting a spell, just not made worse. So you're basically taking on a permanent morale penalty unless you can cast spells turn one. Then at least you'd have to be Astral to not just casually negate the penalties entirely.

But its not minimal when it works on aoe spells/aoe attacks. Also there is no healing reduction between mele and ranged troops healing if anything on average mele troops heal less. Mana addicts makes it very easy to clear mobs on map very early because you rarely get any damage on your troops with good positioning

I mean minimal in the sense that I don't think the effect 'Life Steal' can get any lower than that. It's already the lowest tier of life steal. So I'm assuming that part is not likely to change, and attempts to balance it would have to come in the form of the drawbacks.

[M0rgi]

Originally posted by Midas:

Originally posted by Denam Pavel:

But its not minimal when it works on aoe spells/aoe attacks. Also there is no healing reduction between mele and ranged troops healing if anything on average mele troops heal less. Mana addicts makes it very easy to clear mobs on map very early because you rarely get any damage on your troops with good positioning

I mean minimal in the sense that I don't think the effect 'Life Steal' can get any lower than that. It's already the lowest tier of life steal. So I'm assuming that part is not likely to change, and attempts to balance it would have to come in the form of the drawbacks.

At the very least they could make ot count aoe attacks as single 10 hp bonus instead of 10hp*targets hit