[Lolzytripd]

Make it do something to make it worth dumping 12m to set up over 2 turns

Ideas, clearly not all of them would be implemented

• Some form of dr bypass to cut through tanks
  
• Maybe refund 3m 
  
• Increase cm level beyond 3 
  
• Reduce momentum cost of evoker /mage offensive spells for 2 turns
  
• Double the effects of active mage enchants
  
• Change on hit elemental augment to akashic.
  

[Poruku]

These all sound great, it definitely needs a buff because it's abysmal atm

[Snake]

12M for... Akashic damage.

Damn. It can definitely be better than that.

[Trexmaster]

I'd be wary of buffing Ephemeral Insight anymore than bypassing all forms of elemental mitigation other than things like Sayakana. The whole reason Charge Mind got adjusted is because it was so powerful of a pre-engage buff.

It'd make it so that when you engaged on someone who had CM'd prior you'd usually just die immediately since they'd preloaded an entire extra round of damage.

On the surface, yeah, only making your damage Akashic doesn't sound great. Its purpose is bypassing elemental resistance/nullification you'd otherwise be running into. Of course you aren't going to use this if your target does not heavily resist or nullify your damage type. Otherwise it's extremely potent if your build is heavily reliant on boosting one damage type or you really don't have anything better to do for prepping.

Making it any better universally risks it becoming what old CM was. Watching Evoker instantly kill people because the map was so big it allowed them to prep long enough to kill you immediately on engage.

[Poruku]

I doubt it tbh, your damage becoming akashic isn't gonna change that much. Most you can get on a cracked out build with charge mind is close to 400, maybe 500 with ryemei. Making that ignore all protection isn't going to make it suddenly one shot anyone. And remember it costs 12 momentum and it's for a single hit.

[Lolzytripd]

I'd be wary of buffing Ephemeral Insight anymore than bypassing all forms of elemental mitigation other than things like Sayakana. The whole reason Charge Mind got adjusted is because it was so powerful of a pre-engage buff.

It'd make it so that when you engaged on someone who had CM'd prior you'd usually just die immediately since they'd preloaded an entire extra round of damage.

On the surface, yeah, only making your damage Akashic doesn't sound great. Its purpose is bypassing elemental resistance/nullification you'd otherwise be running into. Of course you aren't going to use this if your target does not heavily resist or nullify your damage type. Otherwise it's extremely potent if your build is heavily reliant on boosting one damage type or you really don't have anything better to do for prepping.

Making it any better universally risks it becoming what old CM was. Watching Evoker instantly kill people because the map was so big it allowed them to prep long enough to kill you immediately on engage.

Trex vs the average tank my akashic ryemei crit that could be doing 600ish akashic damage with 200hundofucking lightning attack is being reduced to 100-200 ish akashic damage (all that for 12m) because funny haha Magic DR and Marmor, dear god if they guard I'm doing less than 100, ephemereal insight doesn't even guard break.

[Snake]

It'll not be like old CM, by the matter of fact it forces you to lose two whole rounds to prepare it.

[Autumn]

I'd be wary of buffing Ephemeral Insight anymore than bypassing all forms of elemental mitigation other than things like Sayakana. The whole reason Charge Mind got adjusted is because it was so powerful of a pre-engage buff.

It'd make it so that when you engaged on someone who had CM'd prior you'd usually just die immediately since they'd preloaded an entire extra round of damage.

On the surface, yeah, only making your damage Akashic doesn't sound great. Its purpose is bypassing elemental resistance/nullification you'd otherwise be running into. Of course you aren't going to use this if your target does not heavily resist or nullify your damage type. Otherwise it's extremely potent if your build is heavily reliant on boosting one damage type or you really don't have anything better to do for prepping.

Making it any better universally risks it becoming what old CM was. Watching Evoker instantly kill people because the map was so big it allowed them to prep long enough to kill you immediately on engage.

Trex vs the average tank my akashic ryemei crit that could be doing 600ish akashic damage with 200hundofucking lightning attack is being reduced to 100-200 ish akashic damage (all that for 12m) because funny haha Magic DR and Marmor, dear god if they guard I'm doing less than 100, ephemereal insight doesn't even guard break.

This is just the damage stacker experience, throwing coinflips to who passes the stat check to your build or not, equally to your opponent it can be frustrating to just be 2 or 3-shot. It is not like Evoker has never faced issues with heavy amounts of DR before and to me it seems like that has always been the intended experience of playing against it. The downside is that magic DR is less common and magic armor is scarce, with elemental resistance serving as the key defensive measure in some of it's matchups.

Trex is right about being wary about buffing Ephemeral Insight too much, I'm not sure if there is any way you can make double CM ultimately healthy since it'd have to be balanced around having a 12m cost, which isn't really possible to make worth it in any light given that CM is already still one of the best neutral buttons in the game.

I'd kind of rather Ephemeral Insight turn 3rd level excel spells into Akashic Damage to be quite honest, being completely passive in it's approach, this would take down one of the barriers that evokers can face with elemental resistances, while not being too committal due to just being completely passive now, this would also make it so that your fully charged spell is just consistently powerful, a tool that Evoker needs far more than just more damage.

[Poruku]

I don't think that would make sense, it would be an auto-pick and as such every single evoker would do akashic damage with their charge mind, making them less unique.

Instead maybe it could be a thing you do that isn't recasting charge mind. For instance, it could cost 0 momentum but like 50fp to activate for 1 spell. Or it could be a passive toggle that swaps all spell damage to akashic but makes them cost 200% more fp. Or it could be a specific akashic offensive spell that is only usable with charge mind and consumes all charges.

All in all the act of swapping damage to akashic is not a strong enough effect for 6m, even back in the old days. Homestly this type of effect should be compared to winter's bite, indignant idol, devil tome, etc. It should either be a passive or an occasional but easily activated effect. It being tied to charge mind is of course thematic, but the concept of recasting charge mind should be removed because indeed it's unbalancable.

[Lolzytripd]

My opinion on it being a dr bypass is simple

Arbalest is physical evoker

Arbalest has buster cannon

Ephemeral insight should accomplish a similar level of bypass