[Poruku]

Currently, gem staves with the Deploy skill and Aquaphobia with Frozen Fear are considered the go-to for spellcasting when possible.

Let us consider these weapons without the deploy skill
1: They have very solid scaling, plus each of their scaling is adapted to the element
2: Two-hand gives them an easy +10 damage
3: +5 elemental atk is a nice bonus (aquaphobia at +12 kinda compensates for lack of two-hand)

Staves are melee weapons, meaning they can be parried in melee, which is pretty minor considering most mages want to put distance between them and the enemy.

Considering these factors, they can be considered overall solid weapons, a good general option. 
Then, consider the Deploy skill

Deploy effectively increases the range of certain spells by 5. Five. Deathtouch goes from 2 range to 7. Now, I don't really want to get into a deep exploration of range in this game, but... I will.


In every tactical RPG game, range is an essential factor. Ranged units are made weaker, melee units are stronger. Units with very long range are generally quite vulnerable when directly engaged. There is a reason for this: range is an inherent advantage. When you have higher range than an enemy, the enemy is FORCED to approach closer, which in this game, generally costs 3 momentum. Thus, by using a talis or frozen fear, you start every match with a significant advantage. You generally have the ability to pressure the opponent from round 1, without needing to move. This has a few implications.

In PvE:
Not needing to move means you can simply safely win most battles while grinding, since monsters move quite slowly. You might never need to even take damage, aside from grindylows. Bosses are also often susceptible to kiting, meaning that a staff build usually trivialises PvE content.
In Events:
Being able to stand behind your tankier friends and be effective from a distance makes it very easy to maintain a "formation" in a PvE event fight. Backline casters become very safe, and effective every single round without needing to move. A priest with diamond staff in the backline is a surefire way to trivialize any event battle (speaking from experience).
In 1v1 PvP:
Having higher range forces the enemy to keep engaging on you. This essentially grants you a 3 momentum advantage at the beginning of combat since the enemy needs to close the gap, not even mentioning they might need to use something else like charge or hanging to finish closing in. In addition, abilities such as dancing water which can immobilize the enemy can automatically win a match if the enemy is stuck outside of effective range and has no immobilize-ignoring skill like blink to escape. In fact, dancing water is one of the main reasons Aquaphobia Aquamancer is good in 1v1 pvp. I won't say op, but it's good, because it can simply automatically win many matchups. In addition, you can use blink with it, meaning you are able to rapidly get out of range from a melee combatant with 4 momentum, and immediately create an advantageous situation against certain matchups (anyone weak to kiting, i.e. slow). Of course higher range also makes you nearly immune to kiting from forest walking rangers and other such niche builds that rely on range.
In team PvP:
Basically combines the advantages you get in events, plus the 1v1 pvp advantages. Team pvp is the place where range matters most: overextend, and you can be easily focused, meaning you must be extremely careful about closing the gap. If you outrange the enemy team, suddenly they all need to engage because they are at a disadvantage, while your team can stay where they are and prepare. Hell, a team of staff users can easily pick a target to focus while remaining spread out, which not only means they can rapidly switch targets, but they can also avoids AoEs. AoEs are one of the most important parts of team pvp. Bonus range is thus a crushing advantage if used well, for many reasons.


In conclusion

Every spell is balanced with a specific range in mind. Throw that out the window, and suddenly the ramifications are endless, despite the skill seeming innocuous. In short, it's op.

Proposed solution

1: Make it cost 3 momentum
2: Reduce the range from 5 to 2


I think both of those changes on their own would make these weapons still the best option possible in almost all cases, which speaks volumes on their effectiveness currently. The momentum one would force you to be tactical about your placement, instead of just being a "well, I wanna attack over there so I'll place it there". Making it 2 range would make it a way to be more versatile with targeting and extend your range a bit, allowing you to play in the back lines more easily but still need to consider your positioning. In both cases, it would drastically increase the value of leaving the talis somewhere and moving afterwards. I also think it just makes more sense with how it works in my mind. You're placing down the equivalent of all your spellcasting power in a spot, it can't be a trivial task.

Final word

With how widespread the use of these weapons is, I think they certainly need to be addressed. I hope we can spark more discussion on this and reach a good solution.

[sadbot]

Finally, somebody said it. I think the talis skills, as they are, are absurdly overpowered and have just been slept on forever due to not doing much by themselves and not being recognised as the root of the problem. Aquaphobia and the gem staves are all contenders for best in slot before the talis skills are even taken into consideration and then they just get to slap 5 extra range on all of their spells as well, essentially for free. The directional limitation is a slight hurdle, but aoe or a player that’s aware of the fact sees it almost always be a non issue.

They’re an incredibly powerful kiting tool. They allow mages to essentially traverse almost any size gap to attack an opponent, while still forcing all but the highest range opponents to spend momentum to close that gap, all for free. Against all but those that are very well equipped to counter kiting play styles, this results in the mage regularly forcing their opponent to spend 3m just closing the gap, for essentially no cost on their end. The proof is in the pudding really. The only thing that can out range/out kite a talis mage is a bow user, and they can still only manage it with longdraw shots. Even 9 range rifle users are usually the ones forced to give chase against talis mages.

I don’t think it should cost 3m, as this would result in mages getting nothing out of it unless they deploy it and their opponent stays within its range and doesn’t close the gap for an extra turn. It could potentially cost 2m, allowing use as it is now if the mage can crit or trigger weak. Honestly though, I think the best option would be to give it a hefty cooldown, allowing that easy kiting advantage to be planned for and used but not spammed, or decrease it’s deploy range to 2 or 3.

[HaTeD]

i wonder how much momentum cost it takes for talis casters to create a new gap between themselves and teleport attack melee players, Three perhaps? Maybe, but it sounds about the same it takes for melee players to close the gap again. Bows/Guns dont need to abide by this tax usually. Like all talis types, theyre locked to only allow their domains to be cast through it. When you say all of their spells, you should reiterate to all of the spells link to the talis's domain. Might I add there are other classes with 1 momentum cost gap closers. Even races with such things, like mech and agile accel. There are tools to be used that effectively combat mages playstyle of kiting and range increase that simply aren't being mentioned and argued in return here so I will.

[Poruku]

I think 3 momentum is fair. You're seeing it solely in a 1v1 pvp situation against a melee, but really, it's still a very powerful ability, it's essentially like moving closer without putting yourself in danger so why not 3m? It would not just be a straight up range booster but a tactical positioning tool. Forcing movement from the enemy and keeping you safe in group fights, both PvP and PvE. Compare it not to its current iteration but what would be actually balanced in SL2, especially considering their base stats.

That being said, a mix of both with 2m and 3 range would be fine imo.

I think putting a cooldown on it would not fix the issue, only making it somewhat more awkward.

Might I add there are other classes with 1 momentum cost gap closers.

True, but there are no 1m range increases. A range increase is better than a gap closer because it keeps you safe. And although an agile mech might be able to pay 1m to make up for the talis' advantage, that doesn't take away from how powerful the ability is because again, this comparison only somewhat functions in the vaccum of 1v1 pvp, not to mention high mobility countering high range is a given, yet in this case it's not a hard counter, merely a 1 for 1 trade that is usually at the disadvantage of the gap closer. Even in 1v1 pvp, gap closing is worse than range, since it means you're exposing yourself to a wider variety of attacks from the talis user, like deathtouch, and it's made worse if the talis user has allies such as players or youkai, and you're jumping in their arms, while they have the leisure of taking a long-range fight. The opportunity cost of 1m move vs talis is simply higher (I.E. you went agile mech just to get that 1m move, while the talis user's requirement is simply to equip the best staff in the game). Finally, 1m movement is very strong, but their existence does not make talis any less overpowered, even if we look at it as a simple 1 for 1 trade, because hard counters don't make something ok. If 25% of people have a hard counter, and 75% of matchups get royally screwed, it's a problem. Not to mention all 1m movement options have a limitation, be it cd, self-damage, etc, while talis is just 5fp.

Edit: I realise I focused too much on one aspect of your response

As for spending 3m to make distance again, that's a given. The boon of range is lost when you're engaged in melee. But that's a given for all characters and doesn't devalue the benefits of having range. Besides, even if gap closing occured, it's possible to kite again with the right tools.

As for guns and bows, yeah it's a given, but let's be honest, a bow is never going to compete with spells in damage, and guns have 9-10 range at the very most, but that comes at a cost. These weapons are balanced around having high range, spells are not.

[WaifuApple]

Note that there not being 1m range increases isn't quite right. There is one, and it's granted to bows in the form of longdraw. A 4 range increase that you may not even have to spend that momentum for, if you're using ranger, if memory serves correctly.

Of course, this IS just one, and for a type of weapon that is meant to be high range anyway. Personally, though, if I had to deal with some of the jank of talis (aiming through those things can be a pain, sometimes) AND pay 3M for it's benefits, I just wouldn't use a Talis at all, though. The ability to reposition on a whim makes it seem more fun and adaptive for me, and is a different kind of pace from sacrificing a move every time you need to course correct. Now, doing so without some sort of drawback at all does suck, but a 2 momentum increase as that means just makes them seem boring to use. More of a cost for constant repositioning beyond just 5FP would be ideal, so it would eat into their pool to keep throwing it out at a whim, or forcing you to retract it to recast, allowing for a 1M first deploy, but forcing 1M to pull it back in before deploying it elsewhere for that cost. That way you can spend 3M accounting for repeat action to adjust location same turn, but 2M only across 2 turns (1M a turn) for a turn of downtime where you don't have placement advantage (and anything can happen in that turn)

Give it that inital advantage but make moving it from first touchdown difficult. Pretty sure back when aquaphobia was the only one, it WAS 3M and I don't remember that being great at all.

[Poruku]

I'm pretty sure talis would still be incredibly strong even if it costed upwards of 25fp, and higher than that would just be strange.

Requiring it to be brought back before re-deploying is an interesting idea. But that's something you do pretty often in the current iteration and would only be a minor nerf and not really address the issue.

I'm not sure what you mean about the jank. Like how line spells will remain in the same direction? Or certain spells not working? I feel like once you know the rules it operates by it's not much of an issue to target with talis.

[Autumn]

I believe that talis and frozen fear extending the range of spells isn't quite the problem here as, you are spending 1m to extend the range of a spell, effectively making it the same as drawing a bead or drawing back your bow, this allows artillery mages to exist and I think artillery mageing should be a thing. (Perhaps the tradeoff however is that talis provide excellent neutral control, and force melee opponents to approach)

The different between longdraw and tali skills is that farshot applies to bows in a pretty grievous way sometimes, and can be the deciding factor to their range, and as far as I know, specials still do not have farshot penalties despite this.

however I do think that the farshot penalty can be a little annoying at times, and it should be toned down just a tad if it applies to specials.

Maybe by reducing the hit decreased by farshot penalty for one, or by decreasing the damage that you deal at extreme ranges instead of reducing hit, since hit is much much more important now.

[Poruku]

This allows artillery mages to exist and I think artillery mageing should be a thing.

I agree. The issue with talis is that it turns every mage into an artillery mage with no tradeoff. Perhaps if it limited movement or made you vulnerable in some way it would be a fair archetype.

Applying farshot would only really matter against evasion builds, much like with bows right now. As for reducing the damage, I feel like that would feel kinda bad to use and difficult to balance.

Instead, to get a fair "artillery mage", I feel like there should be some class skills that increase spell range with a drawback, or simply some spells made to be used at a long range

[WaifuApple]

If you want to give it a drawback of a different kind, I could also suggest that the range of a Talis is specifically made long. Consider this, being unable to place it within 1-3 tiles of yourself. You can relocate it past 3 range to it's normal end point, but once it's out cannot retract it back in (or make THIS cost 3M, and moving it around otherwise still 1M)

This gives them that long range superiority but forces blind spots on the mage that will cost them to patch up, allowing melee attackers to bring the fight to them without the mage being able to easily switch gears from artillery to close range. If they want to stay close to the talis to keep their blind spots safe, this results in them reducing the effective range they get from the Talis in the first place.

[Poruku]

If you want to give it a drawback of a different kind, I could also suggest that the range of a Talis is specifically made long. Consider this, being unable to place it within 1-3 tiles of yourself. You can relocate it past 3 range to it's normal end point, but once it's out cannot retract it back in (or make THIS cost 3M, and moving it around otherwise still 1M)

This is a pretty cool idea. Force it at 4 or 5 range, plus 3m to bring it back. I'd say relocating it should also be 3m, basically making it 1m only when you don't have it deployed.

I'm not sure how balanced it would be since you can still have talis spells and non-talis spells and simply switch to those, but it certainly makes gap closing less bad. Oh, also many spells can reach melee range from talis distance away, so for instance you can still cast vyd on someone who's on top of you. Still, it would be a welcome drawback, though perhaps a bit complex