Repeat Action
The goal of this adjustment is to discourage playstyles that merely spam a single damaging skill by quickly draining their FP.
- Repeat Action now increases the FP cost of the skill by 50% per additional use.
Autohit Adjustments
The general goal of these adjustments is this:
1) Smooth down autohitting skill damage to a more even level.
2) Reduce scaling per rank so spirit bonuses are less powerful.
- Eclair Lacroix & Lance de Lion
- Cannot be used during the same turn as any movement skill.
- SWPN Ratio changed to 130%+10% per Rank (170% at max). - Cyclone Spear
- SWPN Ratio changed to 70%+10% per Rank (110% at max).
- FP cost adjusted to 14 - 1 per Rank. - Ghastly Strike, Cut Down, Elemental Rave
- SWPN Ratio changed to 100%+10% per Rank (140% at max). - Rising Tide
- SWPN Ratio changed to 110%+10% per Rank (150% at max). - Falcon Strike
- SWPN Ratio changed to 90%+10% per Rank (130% at max).
Elemental Impact Adjustments
This change is mainly to make all Cinder tiles created by skills have a more uniform, expected damage output.
- The following Blazing versions of skills have had their Cinder LV changed to 25% of Fire ATK.
- Aerial Razor, Sidecut, Sillcut, Cyclone Spear, Crystal Rose, Heaven Kick, Peddling Wheel, Shinken, Roundtrip, Retreating Swipe, Crescent Rook, Bright Bishop, Aliagmato, Infernal Summon, Chaser, Kagekiri, Toiken
Armor/DR Adjustments
Armor can get quite high via stacking, so the easiest solution is to reduce the values given by items. Since the hands and legs slot are rather valuable, Metal Gauntlet+ and Metal Greaves+ seem reasonable for their investment.
The accessory slot for Snake-Faced Helm is less of a sacrifice for the potent armor it gives. Furthermore, some of the armors have very high armor compared to other options, even without mat/upgrade modifiers.
- Snake-Faced Helm
- Adjusted to be UL/2 Armor. - Turtle Shell
- Damage reduction no longer applies to any direction except behind, but now also grants Critical Evade equal to UL against enemies behind you. - Cruel Commander
- Base Armor reduced to 7. - Haunted Armor
- Base Magic Armor reduced to 5. - Dragon King's Armor
- Base Armor reduced to 7.
Material Adjustments
Tied into the above. These sources were essentially 'free' bonuses to Armor/Magic Armor that inflated the values. Thus they have been adjusted downward.
- Updated some descriptions, namely those that still said 'defense'.
- Dragon Remains
- Changed to +2 Armor and Magic Armor - Fireblood Remains
- Changed to +4 Armor - Gorgon Remains
- Changed to +4 Magic Armor - Snakeman Remains
- Changed to +3 Armor, +1 Magic Armor - Spatial Remains
- Changed to +2 Armor, +2 Magic Armor - Fish Remains
- Changed to +2 Magic Armor, +4 Evade - Shark Remains
- Changed to +1 Armor, +3 Magic Armor, +3 Evade - Accursed Remains
- Changed to +2 Armor, +1 Magic Armor, +6 Evade - Iceblood Remains
- Changed to +4 Magic Armor
Monster Armor
Since SWA scaling for some skills is going down, this is a small change to help compensate for PvE.
- Reduced Armor, Magic Armor, and Evade per level by 0.05 (from 0.2 to 0.15).
Skill Adjustments
These adjustments are aimed mainly at preventing stacking of powerful DR effects and toning down some of the more abusive cases.
- Shared Pain
- Now a main class only skill. - Wraithguard
- Now a main class only skill. - One-on-One
- Damage bonus and reduction changed to 5%. - Know No Pain
- Now reduces your Armor by 4 - Rank while in Matador Stance.
Silence
Silence is an extremely debiltating status for spellcaster characters, and while it should be a threat to them, the amount and potency of sources was too high, making it very hard to succeed as one. These changes are aimed at reducing the amount of sources without reducing the power of Silence.
- Nightflower
- Status effect applied changed to Spelldaze (2 rounds). Spelldaze puts a random spell that is not on cooldown on a 2 turn cooldown. Cannot be reapplied while active. - Tsukikage, Shizumare
- The target gains a 4 round immunity to the item effect after successfully applied. - Rebia
- Status effect it can apply changed to Soaked. - Sonic Shell
- No longer inflicts Silence; instead inflicts Confusion. - Black Bolt
- Silence is now status-infliction based. - Drowned Woman
- Silence chance only applies if used by Drowned Woman.
Immobilize
There was one instance where it felt like Immobilize was too risk free and easy to reapply.
- Thorn Shooter
- Critical status changed to Thorn Wrap LV 15; causes Movement skills to deal LV protection-ignoring Pierce damage after use.
Frozen
Frozen is a powerful status that is very similar to Immobilize in that it makes it very difficult to chase down ranged characters who could apply these statuses in turn, namely Ranger. These changes are aimed at making Frozen last for less time and giving those Frozen a very limited ability to move while under its effect.
- Frigid Arrow
- Frozen now lasts until the caster's next turn, unless the target was Soaked. LV decreased to Rank - 25.
- Icicle Spear
- Frozen duration changed to 2 rounds. LV changed to 125. - Struggle
- Can now target a tile in 1 Range; you struggle yourself into that tile.
Mobility Adjustments
At the same time, some mobility options were a bit overtuned, making it extremely difficult to catch up with people who just attacked and ran away.
- Charge
- If you are not within Rank tiles of an enemy after moving while under the effect of Charge, Charge is put on a 3 round cooldown and the effect ends. Ends other similar movement effects (IE, Shukuchi). - Shukuchi
- Max rank changed to 3. Base FP cost increased to 15, changed to -2 per Rank. Ends other similar movement effects (IE, Charge).
Healing
Healing skills were a bit imbalanced because the uptime for them was extremely high, making it difficult to find windows of vulnerability. Various changes were considered but increasing the cooldown of these skills seemed like the easiest solution. Some values have also been adjusted.
- Second Chance
- Now has a 5 round CD. - Graft
- Now has a 4 round CD. - Malmelo
- Now has a 7 round CD. - Field Medic
- Now has a 2 round CD. - Phoenix
- Now has a 5 round CD. - Cherry Blossom
- Heal reduced to 40 - Rank (from 70
- Rank).
- Pacifist Boon
- Now reduces the base CD of Curate (including promos) skills that heal HP by 1 round if they are used while it is active.
Cleansing
Certain status effects are now immune to the effects of Cleanse Potion.
- Buster Cannon
- Can no longer be Cleansed.
Enchantment Adjustments
Due to the unexpected popularity of the new boss enchant, it has been brought down to make it less useful against certain build types.
- Mirrored
- Retaliation effect no longer applies to damage dealt by ranged weapon types.
Bombs
Bombs were abused in certain instances by extremely slow defensive characters to avoid building any sort of attack stats, but still deal significant damage. Rather than touch the power of Bombs, adding counterplay versus slow characters seemed like a better option. Now, bombs are still powerful but the other party has a window to react.
- All Bomb Types
- Now, when placed, have a random fuse value between 2 and 4.
- The fuse lowers by 1 every time the current turn actor changes.
- When it reaches 0, it explodes.
EXPERIMENTAL: Taking Turns
There are a lot of setups in the game that are about abusing certain CEL values so that your team takes turns one right after the other, giving the other party no chance to react to what you are doing, making it possible to do things such as powerful AoE OTKs or pick off one or two characters extremely quickly.
This experimental change is similar to something that happened in SL1 for similar reasons.
- Parties now alternate taking turns.
- Turn order is still decided by Initiative value (AKA base CEL).
- The fastest person in the battle takes their turn first. Then, the fastest person in the other party.
- Etc, until all units have taken their turn. If one party's units have all taken their turn, the remaining unit(s) in the other party will take their turns successively.