Play through Feedback: Both low level start and imported high level character start. Here's my full feedback since won't be able to test any further and pretty much did everything I was looking to do on this first preview. Wall of Text in-bound.
Likes:
- The look of the Chaos spells are pretty nice. Awesome job on the graphics part of the spells.
- I personally like the idea of the high power spell capstone (that is when it functions correctly). It helps solve the issue of having no high power light/alignment spells late. The highest natural one is Sunburst which is nothing compared to the elemental level 9s.
-Tides of Chaos 2 Buffs are pretty good. Have some suggestions on them to keep them viable long term but they are actually pretty useful especially the defensive ones.
Bugs:
- Chaos Sphere is not gaining the Caster level increases from the Boldness Core point, neither the SLA nor the Spell book version.
- Chaos Sphere fizzles/fails to deal damage frequently when directly hitting an enemy with it. This is especially true when the orb hits the head of a target or is cast point blank. Works best when hitting the ground near enemies.
- Chaos Sphere's travel and targeting is weird. It doesn't fly as far as alch pots, and is a bit less reliable than lightning sphere in going the right direction and reaching the target. The arc it follows is inconsistent and very likely to hit ceilings and hanging objects.
- Certain points in the tree do not function properly (or at all) as have been stated by others.
- The Capstone spell Channel Entropy is pretty inconsistent in hitting enemies. Seems like distance, water, uneven ground, and possibly other things can cause it to go off but not deal damage at times. But when it does... oh boy does it hit like a Truck.
- Rapid Surge seems to not be functioning correctly. It activates on ability bar but there is no noticeable difference in the number of surges that go off during the 15 second duration.
Suggestions and Feedback:
- Reduce CD of Chaos Sphere to 3-4 seconds. Simple but with limited spells and SLA's every bit counts.
- Allow Empower, Maximize, and Intensify to be used with Wild Strike.
- Tides of Chaos 2 buffs are nice but the scaling is inconsistent. Some are off of Character level, some are off of Wild Mage level, some are fractions of either of those two, and some are full benefit of one of those two. I'd recommend making the scaling off of WM levels with 50% being the absolute minimum, but for most full Wm level would be more appropriate considering they are only 20 second buffs.
- Tides of Chaos 2 shouldn't be able to roll Melee and Ranged Power as an option. Since EK is not available to this archtype, there is no real reason to allow melee and range power to roll as one of the buffs since this archtype is 100% caster.
- Tides of Chaos 4... I strongly dislike any type of point that cost AP for a potential penalty. I understand that thematically it fits with the chaotic nature of wild magic. Even though it's only 1 AP, you are still spending AP for a 1/3 chance that that point will end up being either detrimental or completely useless (should you roll a 1-2 on the d6). I know this is one of those thematically locked points, but Spell DC isn't really one of those things that casters can afford to be risking. If this was something like spell power variability, that's something else. I'd even argue that making the number 1d4-1 would be better as the result would be 0-3 DC, resulting in, at worst, no gain in spell DC while also keeping the relative power the same (average of 1.5 or a 1-2 Spell DC average). This reduces the odd of spending AP for no benefit to 1/4, and removes the chance of actually spending AP and losing spell DC. I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't be put in a position where spending AP has a chance of penalizing your character.
- Add an additional 1% chance to proc Wild Magic Surges to the Capstone (for a total of 2%). It's not a huge thing but it rounds out the chance to proc Wild Magic Surges to a clean 20%. As of right now it goes to 19%.
- Unpredictable consequences is a nice touch, but most of the effects seem fairly weak. I'm guessing it's because the additional damages scale off of their related spell powers and has little to no level scaling? Perhaps consider making them deal a random type of damage, but scale with Chaos Spell power regardless of what type of damage is picked (like spill the bad stuff from the Apothecary tree in alch). Haven't noticed much in the way of the CC or Debuffs in the day of testing I've done. I'd actually prefer that those two be more prevalent than just added damage if I'm being totally honest.
-Epic Feats for the Chaos spells. I don't know if I missed it or overlooked it but I didn't see it. The "Master of X" feats are critical to the power of casters SLAs in epics.
- Either add additional proc chances and chaos damage support to the Shiradi for Wild Magic Surges to better support it's randomness procs, or add a line of Chaos themed SLAs, Mantle toggle, etc. to the Exalted angel. Right now there's limited support for the playstyle in Epics, but a little bit of adjustment to either of those trees could easily remedy that situation. Both these trees are viable options but both have some issues when supporting this Archtype.
Other Concerns:
- This Archtype focuses on drawing it's power from the randomness of Wild Magic Surges. Even with the Controlled Chaos points, many, if not most, of the wild magic surge effects are ignore-able or non-impactful. This is fine for the ones that are supposed to be (fireworks, confetti, pumpkin head, etc). I'm cool with those being in there. Not everything needs to be so serious and super impactful. However, even the effects that ARE supposed to be impactful don't feel like they are. A lot of the numbers are either too low, or the effects wear off too fast to actually make use of them. I personally feel like since these are the main forcus of the Archtype, Wild Surges need to have stronger, more meaningful effects when they are intended to have some sort of combat focused effect.
- Additionally, the effects and timers of some of the Wild Surges are very very very short... like so short by the time you mouse over the buff to see what it does, it's disappearing before you can read it. I think all buffs/debuffs need a standardized duration on them. No less than 15 seconds or else they're so short they're unnoticeable. I would also recommend that any combat focused one time uses buffes should persist until used, even if you leave combat before it's used. If that's not possible, make them last at least a minute OR until used. Together with the increase in power for the combat focused ones (and possibly adding more directly useful combat ones), it would make the archtype feel more like it's about using for the random effects rather than another reskin nuker using just a different damage type. I'd personally like to see more of the Wild magic Surges being about CC, debuffing, and unique effects rather than just straight up added damage. Sleep, confusion, paralysis, dazing, petrification, nausea, etc are all effects that are used either as burst from the character or as on hit effects on the spells that they're attached to and they're cool, just not frequent... I'm not sure if they're from unpredictable consequences or WMS's
Overall, I like the tree/archtype and the way it plays. I do have concerns for it's Epic level longevity, but without the capstone working properly/consistently it's hard to say exactly. As stated above, there's somethings that'd make it better imo such as amping up the power of WMS's and fine tuning some things, but as of right now it actually feels decent to play. For a first iteration, it's pretty solid.
