Cut manastorm from riftwalker

[lean marsh]

Great talk

[eager crag]

EDIT: Macros and the cps cap are arguably more worth thinking about.

---

Combined with the understandable lack of macro restrictions (infeasible to regulate), riftwalker with manastorm allows a playstyle that is practically completely dependent on macros for cycling snake-meteor as fast as possible. With this, manastorm riftwalker attains dps that is unmatched by any other mage playstyle. In other words, it is the chargespam of mage playstyles (except chargespam is not even as macro-dependent).

Admittedly, this playstyle will not just work with any build. You need to have the total meteor and snake cost be around 20, you need decently high intelligence to facilitate manastorm, you need Entropy and usually also Flashfreeze, and you need to build for walkspeed and spell damage as usual. However, actually playing this out requires macros for incredibly high clicks-per-second on a difficult spell cycle. This way, you don't have to build for any mana regen, since the high cps + low spellcosts + high int works well with manastorm.

With this playstyle, Warp can solo Greg in 1:30 and Gaia can presumably solo Greg even faster. (see videos below for proof)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3YrXVJv73k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S70NxL_JuvA
(keep in mind they are using a different key for each spell, so this is technically allowed by the rules)

Instead of nerfing manastorm to fix this issue, which would harm arcanist, I think riftwalker should not get access to manastorm at all. Instead, riftwalker should get an alternative buff (whether that be to mana sustain or to damage) to help the archetype's dps viability in comparison to arcanist.

What do you think? Would you suggest an alternative nerf?

tbf I'm not actually sure how much dps crafted arcanist + macro gets

really it's the macros that are broken, but again, I'm not sure if regulating those is feasible

it's just that this playstyle is very macro-dependent

or what if they change the cps cap 🤔

[winter venture]

good post

but that 2nd video isnt actually better than (current) warp since with arcanist im getting 300k non crafted with my fingers

[eager crag]

check the numbers near the end of the video when they use Rage (they do start cycling too fast, but still, they can easily break 300k with rage, up to 450-500k)

(on a tangential note, Rage warp is getting nerfed due to spell conversion changes that increase the ratio of neutral:element)
so that rage gaia rift is impossible to match...

[winter venture]

oh wow yeah thats a lot

[heavy forge]

8k ehp though 😐

[winter venture]

currently ehp doesnt matter so 🤷

[eager crag]

not unusual for etw
point is, it's really, really high for mage

[winter venture]

its not sustained though they ran out of mana instantly so idk

[heavy forge]

i would argue that ehp does matter, maybe not for boss but unless you wanna get onetapped by literally everything in clear

[eager crag]

yeah they were just showing off burst, but they would still break 300k with rage while sustaining

[winter venture]

fair enough

[heavy forge]

honestly that’s fine

high risk high reward gameplay, warp arcanist easily matches 300k with 45k ehp

[eager crag]

you do have a point

but can arcanist kill greg in 1 watched phase?

the warprift build has similar ehp to a warp arcanist build

gaia gets higher dps than warprift but is glassier ofc

[heavy forge]

haven’t tried soloing, but my guess is 2 not 1

[winter venture]

tbf that greg phase was like the 2nd longest ive ever seen

and they had ragna

[heavy forge]

[eager crag]

yeah, this is hard to compare, but same playstyle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q1dGRaq4Iw

it feels like macros are the real problem here

[winter venture]

so true

[eager crag]

but I would assume that the difference between manastorm riftwalker with vs. without macros is significantly bigger than the difference between arcanist with vs. without macros, due to the different difficulties of the cycles

which I why I'm addressing this playstyle

but changing the cps cap (currently 20, or 10 with rmb only) is also a fair question

[vocal portal]

macros are the issue yeah not manastorm

manastorm just enables low mana sustain builds (partially)

which. does just enable macroing lol

changing the cps cap is something but as someone who was able to cast spells near cps cap speeds it will fuck so much up

[eager crag]

yeah, that is a concern

idk how many people can cycle at, say, 12 cps though

[vocal portal]

not a lot

12 isnt that bad tho honestly

i think people can do it its just that macroing is WAY easier

so why do it in the first place / pay that much attention to sweating in tna

[eager crag]

yeah I think that's what I learned from this conversation

[vocal portal]

yerp

[eager crag]

there will always be people hyperoptimizing though, so naturally they discovered a macro mod for that

[vocal portal]

i think its definitely a problem though. so many more ppl are macroing than were before + lets be real how many people are actually using legal macros lmfao

[eager crag]

I wouldn't know
The only macroers I know are the japanese proffa guild people (who use jsmacros) and a few people who've watched their videos or also figured out manastorm riftwalker

[vocal portal]

nuking mana sustain or players ability to cast spells is imo not a good solution but it would fix the problem. same thing with setting a super low cap

[vocal portal]

it is probably a majority of the post endgame playerbase

[eager crag]

I see

[vocal portal]

dunno how big tho

[eager crag]

since I initially thought macros were untouchable, I suggested cutting off manastorm from riftwalker and giving riftwalker something else to make up for it (that wouldn't be abused by macros)

but the problem with that is that it ignores that arcanist can also use macros

[vocal portal]

and warrior and shaman and archer and assassin

[eager crag]

true but the benefits are clearer in these sorts of playstyles (trickobat too ig)

someone else brought up that the cps cap can change and now that's got me thinking

[vocal portal]

the cps cap could probably be lowered but its something id want multiple people to test extensively

[eager crag]

birdmade said that the current cps cap is 20 (10 for right click only)

it's capped by how wynn detects your spellcasts

so the question is should it be changed ig

[peak juniper]

how about we just make such fast macros bannable 🤯

[winter venture]

u missed the part where its hard to regulate

[astral surge]

I originally had a name for a perk and an ability description here, but I think it'd be funnier if I just said "add More Winded III" and "Stronger Breathless"

[peak juniper]

how is it hard to regulate? once someone is caught with inhuman speed and perfect spell cycle they get banned

[onyx summit]

I mean people can cycle really fast, to the point a lot will think its macroing or that you are sweating (I was specifically called a sweat when I did 2mil dps on an Archer build because of my cps) so it is hard to regulate

[peak juniper]

i'd love to see a video of you doing that perfectly for a minute

[onyx summit]

I don’t think there is any scenario outside of extremely tanky towers that you would need to dps something for a whole minute uninterrupted

I don’t think its applicable there, I can’t think of any scenario where you would be able to catch someone because they perfectly cycled for a whole minute, as most cycling happens in bursts, especially in boss fights

[peak juniper]

literally most tna parties

there is a lot of pfinder people that clearly have macros

[eager crag]

To clarify, the cps cap can be regulated. It already is set at 20. The question is what it should be changed to, if we were to change it. Latency also decreases the max effective cps. (thanks birdmade for the info)

[peak juniper]

id say like 8cps or i guess 12 if u count both buttons

but it can't actually be regulated properly because it might lead to goofy fail registers

[tough token]

It may be better to limit the cps of the macro
Manastorm is very strong, but without it, rift walker is not worth using

In addition to mage, Assassin and Archer are also capable of this playstyle.

And even if manastorm is gone, it will be difficult to weaken mage because mana can be absorbed by Lunar sp.

[eager crag]

Agreed, I have added that to the top of my first comment.

[tough token]

👍

[eager crag]

If you account for latency, the current effective max cps is probably about 16, even though the cps cap is set at 20.

So if you're aiming to limit effective cps at 12, it may be a good idea to set it slightly higher.

[vocal portal]

i mean

idk cps cap could probably be set a bit lower

but i could see it messing stuff up

[onyx summit]

Yea

I’m sure there is one person who legit consistently plays at 16 cps who will get pissed when they suddenly aren’t on their a-game

[winter venture]

that person can find something else to do if they are mad

[peak juniper]

Couldn't care less

[vocal portal]

low skill individuals clearly not caring for the one player with godlike spellcasting...

yea ill. bring cps cap up sometime

[peak juniper]

bringing it up

[peak juniper]

i rather have for example in bedwars godbridging flagged to piss off all the cheaters with scafold rather than care about the 3 people that do it

[vocal portal]

poor choice of words- mentioning

[vocal portal]

yea

the cap would still have to be pretty high though tbh 3 spells/sec + melees is super doable playing legit

[peak juniper]

i'm not saying to make it so that all legits get fked over, just those absurdly high speed perfect no human error in spell combinations type macros

[ripe phoenix]

osu players in shambles rn /s

[eager crag]

3 spells/sec + melee isn't 16 cps