Are The Charms Balanced in Terms of Notches?

[Anderson]

Do you guys think that some of the charms could use a rebalance? The 4-cost charms don't seem to be worth it, while some 1-cost charms are really good (Grubsong).

If you had the ability to change the costs of charms, what would you do?
I would do the following"

Hiveblood, Soul Eater, Deep Focus, Joni's Blessing - All these I would reduce to 3. And even then, they would not be better than things like Mark of Pride, Quick Slash, Fragile Strength, or Quick Focus.
Fury of the Fallen - given how narrow it is, it should just cost 1 (instead of 2). Running around with 1 health is not very wise.
Long Nail - People might string me up for this, but I think this could work at 1. The difference in length is not that big (compared to Mark of Pride). In reality, it feels like a 1.5 notch charm.

Are there any charms that should cost 0? Besides Void Heart? Are there any that should cost?

[Slimchance]

My thoughts on these

Hiveblood and Deep Focus - If you were to struggle with regular enemies / platforming, equipping one of these would pretty much ensure you always have full health. So in theory, they would be good for beginners. Unfortunately both are aquired late in the game, in semi-secret areas/rooms. So I agree, these need some tuning, so they would be viable even with late game bosses.

Jonis Blessing.- Definitely feel lackluster. Even if the cost were reduced to 3, I can't see myself using it.. An Idea I had; Increase the lifeblood hearts you gain from cocoons when this is equipped. This would let you take an alternative approach to the pantheons; As it is now, I mostly dont care about taking damage vs the easier bosses. I will just heal up afterwards anyway. If I got more life from the cocoon, It would be more rewarding to bring your A-game from the earliest bosses, and to try to keep that extra life all the way to the challenging parts.

Fury of the Fallen - I agree, this is too situational.

Long Nail - Mostly disagree XD. Going from normal range to Long Nail, is just enough range increase for me to be wayy more comfortable pogoing, dodging in and out, getting a few hits at a time etc. I feel way safer with it equipped, and that lets me be way more agressive. To me, Mark of pride is more of a luxury - where I MIGHT be able to sneak in a few extra hits, but for the most part I would play the same way as with long nail.

Now for the one that is very easy to show is underpowered: Soul Eater. Lets look at Damage per second(DPS) and Soul per second (SPS):

With no charm
DPS : 27,3
SPS : 14,3%

With Quick Slash (3 notches)
DPS : 42
SPS : 22%

With Soul Eater (4 notches)
DPS : 27,3
SPS : 24,7%

Of course this is against a stationary target. But plenty of bosses stand still for long enough to get in 3-4 slashes, so it shouldnt be too far fetched. So you see a 3 charm notch that gives you wayy higher dps, almost the same soul gain, and the added safety of slashes being shorter, so you can dash away sooner.

[Fingusa of the East]

I generally find the charm and notch system kinda unbalanced. Feels like the devs were just throwing prices at charms randomly. Sometimes it makes sense, like Longnail being 2 and the upgraded version being 3, but other times some charms that I personally cannot imagine not having are for one like Grubsong.

All of the magic oriented ones should generally be cheaper cause magic is already so under-powered in late game that you will need all the help you can get if you decide to go with ranged options.

[Fluffiest Princess]

Hiveblood's main purpose is to help on platforming challenges like the White Palace. It's good for that, although four notches does seem expensive compared to Deep Focus.

Deep Focus at 4 is fine. I use it all the time when I'm not in boss fights and I never feel like I'm wasting charm notches on it. Double healing is incredibly strong.

I use Soul Eater a lot too, but I do think four notches is a bit expensive for it. It's definitely a powerful charm, and it does have advantages over Quick Slash - specifically, it works even when you're mostly using Nail Arts to attack.

Joni's Blessing should either be 3 or should give a much larger health boost than the current 40%.

Fury of the Fallen should cost one notch.

Wayward Compass should cost zero notches.

[thorin.hannahs]

Hiveblood is a charm that I secretly love and want to use all the time. Unfortunately it does what it does at the rate it does it and takes up 4 notches. I say leave it at 4 notches and reduce the amount of time required to regen.

Deep Focus I will never use for anything but two masks for the soul price of one is very strong. Again maybe adjust the timing or just leave it as is.

Fury of the Fallen was created for oh ♥♥♥♥ moments or for those who know they can go hitless and want even more dps. I would never use it and I am not sure it needs to be adjusted since it being at a single charm notch and influencing minions is quite powerful.

Don't mess with Long nail.

Joni's Blessing I consider to be a dead charm at this point, it was useful before it got patched and now it just isn't useful. Even at 3 notches I still wouldn't use it but at this point I don't use my charms to survive I use them to destroy so my bias is apparent.

Wayward Compass should stay as is. Antiquated game design? Maybe to some but I don't think so. Asking your player base to properly use a map? Fair.

I'd say give me Sprint Master at 0 but damn is that thing so useful, Looking at you GPZ.

I feel Sharp Shadow is in a weird place but I know that is just from how I play the game personally.

Originally posted by Fingusa:

All of the magic oriented ones should generally be cheaper cause magic is already so under-powered in late game that you will need all the help you can get if you decide to go with ranged options.

Totally disagree. I'd wager that the meta for the majority of the player base is to go with spell builds. The game was so easy with Descending Dark before they nerfed the i-frames; coupled with Sharp Shadow (two notch cost), spell twister (two notch cost) and shaman stone (three notch cost) "oh I think you are at half health time to die boss" and maybe "oops I was wrong time to dash to safety and potentialy kill you"

[Jdr_]

For me all these charms are well balanced. In other hand, I feel happy for some charms I learned to love have so low cost, like Grimm child, sprinstsmaster, grubsong and weaversong. <3

[Mr. Beartato]

Originally posted by Fingusa:

All of the magic oriented ones should generally be cheaper cause magic is already so under-powered in late game that you will need all the help you can get if you decide to go with ranged options.

Spells are not underpowered at all.

[Aeternalis the Abyssal Alchemist]

Joni's is just garbage with the nerf it got in Lifeblood Update, even Flukenest, with its once godlike power was nerfed into the realm of garbage.

If Joni's still gave the 50% bonus like it used to(as opposed to the 40% it does right now), it would arguably be worth 4 notches. If Joni's Blessing allowed the use of Grubberfly's Elegy at any health level, and its interaction with Hiveblood wasn't so abyssmally slow, it would absolutely be worth 4 notches. As it is now, there is no reason to choose this over Lifeblood Core.

Flukenest got nerfed into the ground, as I previously mentioned. Yes, it was OP AF originally(7/9 dmg per fluke and costs 2 notches), capable of destroying bosses in seconds, but when you cut that damage nearly in half AND increase the cost of equipping, then its worthless. I would have preferred the charm to do 5/7 dmg per fluke and cost 3(it currently does 4/5 dmg per fluke and cost 3 notches).

Fury of the Fallen is too situational for a 2 notch charm. Its more in line with a 1 notch charm. It does do a lot of damage, but its normally not worth the risk. I would use the charm for 2 notches if it applied the Shell Binding to all but 1 HP, which would allow it to be active without needing to take dmg and give it synergy with Lifeblood Heart/Core.

Deep Focus costing 4 notches might arguably be worth getting 2 HP for the price of 1, but its much to difficult to use in combat without another charm to help deal with its slowness(usually Shape of Unn or Quick Focus). Really feel it should just be 3 notches.

Awoken Grimmchild feels a bit underpowered(mainly its just that its about as accurate as a stormtrooper... that is also a potato) for something that you have to fight so hard to get. I would increase its range by 25%, and its projectile speed by 50%(should help with the accuracy). Maybe also increase its attack frequency and/or make its projectiles unaffected by terrain. Good thing there is a mod that allows you to configure the Awoken Grimmchild.

I'm a bit on the fence about Soul Eater. On one hand, it nearly doubles the amount of Soul you get from Nail hits. On the other hand, it can be difficult to fit it into builds, and as pointed out earlier, its probably more efficient to use Quickslash to get Soul than it would be use Soul Eater. If you equip Soul Eater and Quickslash together, you can get a lot of Soul really quickly, but it would be more efficient to combine Quickslash with Soul Catcher, despite being less than half as potent as Soul Eater.

I don't understand why you think Grubsong would worth more than 1. First of all, it requires you take damage, which is an unfavorable situation. Secondly, even after getting hit twice it won't give you enough Soul to heal, you have to combine it with Grubberfly's Elegy to get that much Soul. Thirdly, a charm that requires you to take damage should only be considered supplimentary to a build, not the core of it, as such should only be worth a single notch.

Don't mess with Longnail. Sure, by the endgame, you would almost always take the 25% from Mark of Pride for 3 notches over the 15% from Longnail for 2 notches, but in the early-mid game you really can't do much better for 2 notches. And sometimes there isn't room for Mark of Pride in your build. Besides, the 40% from combining them is really good.

Of course, if there were just one more notch(bringing the total to 12), maybe the meta would change. I'm sure the devs could find a place to put another notch, there are quite a few dead ends that look like they should have something but don't, especially in Deepnest.

[Angry Owl]

I too feel that charm costs need to be revised, though this might as well be my bias toward preferable loadouts.

Here are my thoughts:
- Soul Eater >> think 3 should do just fine. Perhaps reduce the soul gain from 8% to 6% (still 2x as much as Soul Catcher) to compensate
- Fury of The Fallen >> to situational, reduce to 1. Alternatively, keep the 2 notches cost, but make it activate when you have 2 masks left
- Heavy Blow >> idk, I hardly ever use this, so it's 1 for me. Alternatively, leave the 2 notches cost, but add an anti-boss ability: increase boss stagger time by 15% OR 33% less hits needed to stagger bosses OR bosses leave staggered state 50% faster but take 2x damage while staggered
- Baldur Shell >> perhaps keep the 2 notches, but add shell auto-recharge (40 sec)
- Flukenest >> 2 notches (or revert the Lifeblood nerf)
- Joni's Blessing >> reduce to 3 (or revert the Lifeblood nerf)
- Hiveblood >> reduce to 3. Alternatively, leave current price, but reduce regen time OR add regen of all damage done by last attack and not only for 1 mask (2 damage regen for 2 damage attacks and so on)
- Carefree Melody >> in its current state, 1 mask... A defense-based charm with a random chance on top of it is hardly something you can make a build around, especially in late/post-Grimm game. Alternatively, keep the cost, but fix the chance to 33% for each and any hit (independent and random rolls still, don't expect free +3 masks with full health upgrades)

Come to think of it, most of these suggestions stem from the fact that the more experienced you are in the game the lesser your need in defensive charms is (e.g. cutting the notch cost on defense and slapping it on the offense instead).

[GSandSDS]

To be honest, I wouldn't change charm costs anymore. There were already changed over and over again making it hard to come up with a strategy for a certain boss that lasts longer than up to the next update.

[Shade]

Based on my own experiences:


- Dashmaster on its own seems kind of pointless outside of speedruns. I don't think there's ever been a situation where I wished I was able to dash downwards, much less one in which simply using Descending Dark instead wouldn't have been preferable.
So unless I'm missing something and it also causes your shadow dash to regenerate faster or something, 1 notch seems like it would be enough.

- Given how overpriced most of the other defensive charms are, I'm genuinely surprised Fragile Heart isn't 3 notches. Until you can more or less beat the game in your sleep, having 2 fully functional extra HP is very worthwhile pretty much throughout the entire game.

- Fury of the Fallen is a weird one. For the main game it seems like 1 notch would be more reasonable given that running around at death's door typically is a bad idea, but I actually found it pretty helpful for the Hall of Gods in Grindmaster, especially since it makes Grubberfly's Elegy even better. Some of the Ascended bosses just flat-out deal 8 damage to you when overcharmed, meaning that although you can only take one hit, with Fury of the Fallen equipped, Grubberfly's Elegy never deactivates. Not like the cost really even matters all that much if you're willing to overcharm in the first place, I guess, but I think 2 is okay.

- Flukenest in its current state is just sad.

- Deep Focus seems kind of worthless to me? By itself, all it really does is lower the soul cost for healing while making it leagues more difficult (if not outright impossible in some cases) to actually heal at all while in combat, and it's not like soul is hard to come by as long as "spells" isn't your one and only answer to everything.
I mean, sure, the combo with Quick Focus is pretty good in theory, but that's really mostly Quick Focus doing the work. Personally, I'd price it at 2 notches at best - 4 is basically a joke as far as I'm concerned.
If all you're concerned with is not running out of soul to heal with, Grubsong has you covered for a quarter of the cost while actually being more effective if you also have Grubberfly's Elegy equipped.

- Joni's Blessing was kind of bad even prior to the nerf - now it's basically just a joke. It would probably be worth its cost if it synergized with Grubberfly's Elegy instead of killing it - in fact, that'd make the charm a lot more interesting than any change to its notch cost or health gain. However, assuming we're evaluating charms purely on their own merit, Joni's Blessing hardly even seems worth 2 notches. Even during boss battles, the ability to heal at the very least when the boss is staggered is probably worth more than any bonus health Joni's Blessing gives over Lifeblood Heart or Fragile Heart - and if you're combining it with other health charms, you're already paying extra for those other charms.

- Hiveblood is, again, a weird one. It's useful if you're struggling with a boss battle that doesn't give you any good opportunities to heal (or the Trial of Fools), but if you're good enough at dodging for the regeneration to even trigger, you often wouldn't even need it in the first place if you were to spend those charm notches on something like Fragile Strength, Quick Slash or Shaman Stone instead. Given all the limitations and requirements for it to even work - justified as they may be - it's just kind of... bad.
...most of the time. It's actually surprisingly helpful against bosses that deal 2 damage with all of their attacks, as essentially halving the damage taken gives you much more leeway despite on paper being a lot worse than what the charm would do during a normal boss battle.
So, long story short, I'd price it at 3, personally, but I can see why it's 4.

- Given that it never works on the first hit taken, nor on two hits in a row, I really can't see how Carefree Melody is worth 3 notches in any remotely realistic build.


However, I guess some charms (like Wayward Compass) are simply meant to be bad, so I'm not expecting anything.

[Cooperal]

I doubt it's balanced. You generally don't have 'balance' in single player action games. You have 'intended difficulty'. The developers probably had some design principle that made every boss beatable with the bare minimum to assure that any bonuses that you have on top are only going to help.

Everything is viable as long as you can beat everything without upgrades but at the same time some charms are clearly made for combat, some are made for platforming and some are just quality of life. The usefulness of some charms scale with the number of times you are hit and some will be better if you are not getting hit. Long Nail makes nail-pogos a lot easier from a minor range increase and the charm that adds even more range will be overkill for most.

The best will probably be the ones that compliment how you would characterise your gameplay behaviour.

If I think one charm is overpowered I would say it's the dream shield. It can outright destroy or deflect certain ranged attacks and hurt enemies who get too close. It has a quick cooldown and spins faster when you heal for more assurance. It is that powerful that I wouldn't use it outside of enclosed battles because it would become a crutch.

Edit: Also Deep Focus combined with Grubsong gives you quite a lot of mileage on platforming segments.

[GSandSDS]

Originally posted by Cooperal:

If I think one charm is overpowered I would say it's the dream shield.

Well, not for me. When I use it, it almost ALWAYS points in the wrong direction when I need it (Murphy's Law). So for me it's basically useless.
But I think this shows that it really depends on the individual player's playstyle if a certain charm is more useful or less useful.

[Aeternalis the Abyssal Alchemist]

Originally posted by Cooperal:

If I think one charm is overpowered I would say it's the dream shield. It can outright destroy or deflect certain ranged attacks and hurt enemies who get too close. It has a quick cooldown and spins faster when you heal for more assurance. It is that powerful that I wouldn't use it outside of enclosed battles because it would become a crutch.

Edit: Also Deep Focus combined with Grubsong gives you quite a lot of mileage on platforming segments.

I initially thought Dream Shield was pretty powerful too, but its really not overpowered. Its not always easy to line up the shield with projectiles, and there are some projectiles that it can't block. The inconsistancy is what's confusing; when I originally used it to fight Grimm, it didn't work against Grimm's fireballs, so I thought it probably wouldn't work on his firebats, which are larger projectile, but I later found out that it does work on the bats, just not the balls. Honestly, it would be nice if it could block any projectile, but certain projectiles(such as the Radiance lightball) broke the shield like when it hits an enemy.

Grubsong+ Deep Focus won't give infinite Soul. For that, you also need Grubberfly's Elegy. Even then, that's only viable in platforming segments such as the White Palace. Deep Focus is hard to use in most combat scenarios.

[Appaguchee]

Somewhat off-topic, but I always thought it would be cool if joni's blessing converted soul to lifeblood. Instead of gaining soul, dealing damage would give a third of a lifeblood mask, and alternatively casting spells would cost half a lifeblood mask. It would justify the cost of four and truly make it uniqe instead of this semi-pointless charm. Just an idea of mine. I didn't intend to offend.

[Jdr_]

Originally posted by Appaguchee:

Somewhat off-topic, but I always thought it would be cool if joni's blessing converted soul to lifeblood. Instead of gaining soul, dealing damage would give a third of a lifeblood mask, and alternatively casting spells would cost half a lifeblood mask. It would justify the cost of four and truly make it uniqe instead of this semi-pointless charm. Just an idea of mine. I didn't intend to offend.

This is really a good point, loved the ideia. Returning to the main topic, I think these charms could be changed:

Fury of the Fallen = 1; like, who really uses it?
Carefree Melody = 2. Grimm Child becomes really useful full evolved, and costs 2.
Deep Focus = 3. Never used it, but I don't think it is really overpowered to cost 4.
Soul catcher = 1. It is a charm you may use before getting Dream Wielder if you like a bit more soul, but I don't think it really makes the difference.

And charms that are maybe overpowered that have low cost:

Fragile/unbreakable strength. It's nice at 3, but it really make things a lot easier. Maybe 3 at fragile, 4 at unbreakable.
Spell Twister = 3. This is VERY powerful. I prefer melee and pets build, but spells are so much OP.

And honestly not all charms have fair costs alone, but think in the combos we can make. Some have 3/4 notches because they could be unfair combined with another charms, like quick slash was when it was only 2 notches.