[Soapy]

Invocations are currently unbreakable (outside of silence) due to Words of Power, making them pretty overbearing (and making Priest's Devocation useless).

I thought for a while on how to fix them without making it as RNG heavy as before, and here's what I got:

• Invoking LV is now equal to the caster's Level + 200% Scaled WIL.
  
• When taking damage from any source, Invoking LV is reduced by the damage taken. If reduced to 0, the Invocation is broken.
  
• Words of Power now increases Invoking LV by 10*SR.
  
• Devocation now increases Invoking LV by Scaled FAI.
  
• Multi-round (C+) Invocations add Invoking LV on each cast, making them progressively harder to break.

I think these are fair numbers that would keep them from being too easy (or too hard) to break, and also make Will slightly more appealing to mages.

While 200% WIL might possibly be a little too much, considering they're unbreakable at the moment, it can only be a step in the right direction.

[Slydria]

Definitely approve of the idea. Not sure about the numbers themselves but the idea itself I like and it seems fairer than simply unbreakable at Words of Power Rank 10.

[Autumn]

I like it, and takes the RNG element out of things.

[Exxy]

Would like to throw "(Character Level/2) + 200% Scaled WIL" into the realm of possibilities, although going higher than 30 in a Stat (along with the max from the OP, 100% if your Racial Base is 0, gets squashed to a 70% - unless you'd like to make the Talent apply to this as well, for a mixed combination sort of thing) that doesn't have much more function than just +FP (along with some Status Infliction IIRC) and what's proposed in this thread it's hard to justify my suggestion.

As for the mentioning of Wil, I know this is off-topic a bit but bare with me-- I can definitely attest to it needing some love but can't really throw many ideas at it currently; since the elements are now split up in very favorable stats positions and the one idea I had (reduce spell costs by some percentage of Scaled Wil) was utterly destroyed by the community. I probably squirreled more than I should have with this but it was a solid point-out in the OP that it could use something to give it slightly more attention to Mages.

[Ranylyn]

I definitely Soapy's post is going in the right direction. But I also remember the complaints when Will contributed towards making Invocations harder to break.

While it's true that every single Tome/Spelledge weapon has at least some degree of Willpower scaling (even when it's less than half of the other stat, such as the 30/70 Wil/San on the Mugendai) which makes Wil a must-have stat for any Offensive/Healing caster, it's also true that there's plenty of setups for hybrid/support casters that use Invocations without relying on tome/spelledge weapons (Such as, for example, a Curse-based Hexer who still uses Earthbound Fog/Vengeance, Spirit Pain, etc, while only using WO and the like for status ailments, due to not having high will for the tome/spelledge.) And I do definitely think giving nuke mages the definitive edge with invocations is... less than ideal.

I want to throw my support behind this, but the 200% Wil is holding me back. It's my only complaint with the whole thing, but it does worry me. I understand that Wil is a "neutral" stat that won't give specific domains an advantage, so it does seem like a logical choice, and I'm ONLY concerned about the gap between Nuke mages and Support mages. One could argue that every point of Wil that goes into Def or Res instead also helps contribute towards these invocations not being broken, and that is true, definitely, but is it enough? I mean, 50-ish will (Let's assume a soft cap of 47 or so) means doing far more damage with your spells AND an extra 100 damage added to the threshold, while dividing that up among Def/Res means 25% less damage taken from most sources. Unless it's already taking like 400 damage to break the thing, the Will makes it far more likely to get the spell off at all.

I'm on the fence, but I'm willing to at least TRY it, if everyone else is in favor.

[Soapy]

Mages that don't build WIL (and yes, there are a lot of them, like half of my characters) generally get to build tank stats instead.

Would you find 40 points in WIL for +80 Invoke LV or 40 points in DEF for 40% Physical DR to be more effective?

Nuke mages are pretty much always Evokers that get access to HSDW anyway, which is why I didn't suggest them getting a bonus.

[Ranylyn]

That's pretty much it; if we compare, point for point, the benefit of putting a point in Will versus putting a point in Def, the Def may help more against physical attacks than the additional invoking level of 200% Will, but Will helps against not just physical attacks, but magic as well. And if you divided the points that could have been spent in Will evenly among Def/Res, they both get a much smaller benefit.

It's exactly like comparing Vit to Def/Res; we can't have enough Def/Res to render the Vit (or in this case, Will) negligible. We do reach a point where it's better to add more HP instead of more def/res, purely since HP enhances survival against all types of damage, not just one.

I'm not saying one can't make a good build around this - since we most certainly can build for Def/Res regardless, and taking SOME will for the FP is a good idea regardless. I'm just not sure about the 200% scaled will thing purely since I've managed a build with 60 scaled will (alongside 40 Def/Res) before, and I'm not sure it'd be fair to give that build a harder time to get broken compared to a build with 30-40 Will that has, say, more Vit or Cel or something.

If you all think it's a good idea, then by all means, I trust your judgment. I'm just expressing my concern with one aspect of it.

[Soapy]

While you're not wrong, you seem to be overlooking the fact that Def/Res/Vit all make you not die, which is a big plus compared to Will's... basically nothing.

[Ranylyn]

Very true. And not dying before the spell goes off is generally a better idea than the alternative.

[Esther]

I would almost say having Invoking LV be a threshold rather than a pool would probably be better. Some people are capable of dealing high amounts of damage from multiple smaller hits (cinder tiles, ), which seems easier to deal with than one massive, concentration-shattering blow.

As it stands now with this suggestion, cinder tiles will be guaranteed to break all invocations without any chance of failure, because any damage suffered is subtracted from your Invoking LV.

If it were a threshold instead of a pool, having an Invoking LV of 150 would require that someone deal that 150 damage in a single damage instance (such as a critical hit or a powerful skill like Lance de Lion or Ether Invitation, or an invocation of their own).

That would also ensure that silence remains the most effective way to counter an invocation, which I think is a good thing. It should be the most effective way, but not the only way, because classes like Priest exist that can become immune to silence.