Mono Spell Balance

[Sticky]

Anyone else have issues with how this game seems to point you towards upgrading a single spell? I have little incentive to use my other 3 spells and they only serve to dirty the levelup pool of choices. Since there isn't a limit to upgrading a spell, your main spell is always just the obvious choice, almost regardless of the what the level up options are. I'll ignore legendary upgrades on my level 1 spells and go for a common on my level 20 spell etc, and regularly out damage everyone else in the lobby.

Because of this, my spell of choice each run just ends up being whichever mage I started as, and ignore everything else that isn't my main spell, and when I can't take an upgrade for my main spell I take character upgrades instead of upgrading my other spells, so at least I have better survivability or maybe get luck or cdr/damage to all spells so it upgrades my main spell.

I don't know, just seems like a miss in design. The game is enjoyable with friends, but because my other spells only get in my way, level ups can actually be annoying when all choices are upgrades to spells I don't want to upgrade and I'm out of rerolls. That should never be the case when you level up in a game.

I would much rather there be a level cap on your spells so that you have to weigh the benefits of getting early elements on your spells by choosing common upgrades vs saving your upgrade slots on your spell for ones of higher quality. This would also mean once you max out a spell you must start leveling your other spells so they actually mean something.

If you are playing in endless, then maybe once the at least 3 spells are maxed out then all spells could be upgradable again. There are options out there to keep builds more falling into a boring levelup decision loop of: Upgrade to main spell regardless of other choices? Take it. > No upgrade to main spell, is there a character upgrade? Take it. > No main spell upgrade or character upgrade? Cry > No rerolls and there are only upgrades to your other spells? Can't skip levelup, take it.

[HereIsPlenty]

That whole idea is based on the assumed notion that one spell can do everything. Take æther beam - it can heal and have 4 chains at the same time, which is great and sure, you could pour everything into it but it really helps to have other spells clearing the chaff away while they hit. You can easily enough double infuse 1-2 other spells (I have managed all 4 twice on normal - not endless - play).

If you had one enemy to deal with then it would make sense to put all your eggs in the one basket but we have thousands to deal with.

[Mist of Majora]

It definitely favors powering up a single spell, as you said, but I question whether there's little incentive to power up anything else.

I'm regularly doing hardcore runs (not endless), and I've been at least boosting a secondary spell to it's first elemental infusion, if not two of them. Depending on your skill level and power ups, a secondary spell's power-up is probably not needed, but saying there's no incentive is just plain wrong.

I'll give at least one example for you, since half the fun is finding new combos: A sword build with ice-infused solar flare. The secondary obviously slows down enemies in melee range so you can hit them a few more times with the sword.

[KellyR]

I don't agree at all. Unless you got crappy spells, it's always better to have 4 spells at level 14 (So dual elemental infusion) than continuing to dump more upgrades into a spell once it's already hit 14. The elemental infusions are just that good.

Especially once you're playing on hardcore.

It's really only after you have multiple spells infused with combination elements that you'd want to start focusing on a single spell, and that's only ever going to be relevant for endless.

[Verethragna]

Originally posted by KellyR:

I don't agree at all. Unless you got crappy spells, it's always better to have 4 spells at level 14 (So dual elemental infusion) than continuing to dump more upgrades into a spell once it's already hit 14. The elemental infusions are just that good.

Especially once you're playing on hardcore.

It's really only after you have multiple spells infused with combination elements that you'd want to start focusing on a single spell, and that's only ever going to be relevant for endless.

There should be no "crappy spells." By saying this you are acknowledging the balance is messed up.

[Pondering]

I also upgrade as many spells as possible rather than focusing on 1. I have completed all of the maps on hardcore doing this. I also have done it using multiple different wizards. Usually this is in multiplayer. Key is to make sure one person has a wizard that is great at killing things right away. Many of them take a bit to get going and you can't use without other players getting your "engine" up and going. Those ones generally end up doing the most overall damage (falling star is the most obvious example).