Did someone call the exterminator?
Today, we present a rework of Plasmacasting including new afflictions and a new condition for its keystone, Incinerate. We had two choices: either make Plasmacasting a utility skillset, or give it its own flavor. It simply did not make good thematic sense to redesign it as a utility skillset, however, since it has Incinerate. We'll continue to monitor for your feedback on balance considerations, thematic feel, and so on.
- New affliction: Blazing (stacking). Increases damage taken from Thermal damage types. Wears off after 8s. 0.5 musc damage.
- Plasma Burn applies a stack of Blazing, or 3 stacks if the target is Doused, consuming the Douse.
- Can now PLASMA DOUSE <target/INFERNO>. Targeting Inferno resets Inferno duration on use. Duration up from 15s and 20% damage to 25s and 25% damage. Plasma cost has gone up.
- Inferno base balance down to 3s, Inferno ticks apply a stack of Blazing.
- Plasma Smoke still prevents glance and squint into the room, but additionally increases the lifespan of Infernos in the room. Can be used with Plasma Fan.
- Acridsmoke is now a room effect similar to Plasma Smoke, can be used with Plasma Fan, and applies Blurry Vision to everyone except the caster to those who do not have it on Inferno ticks, even if the Inferno is not the caster's own Inferno.
- CONFLAGRATE on a target with at least 7 stacks of Blazing consumes ALL Blazing stacks and afflicts non-curable affliction Burns, 1st Degree, else Burns, 2nd Degree, else Burns, 3rd degree. These are non-curable afflictions that last 35 seconds and downgrade to the previous degree on heal. These increase the muscular damage taken from Scorched depending on the Degree of the Burn.
- SUIT EXAMINE shows Blazing stacks and Burn Degree.
- INCINERATE instakills someone who is doused and has 3rd degree burns.
- PLASMABLADE makes wristblade abilities afflict 1 stack of Blazing. It now has a lower base damage modifier, but its damage now scales to Blazing stacks instead of Scorched stacks.
- Plasma Envelop will now light flammable props on fire, and its ticks deal a stack of Blazing.
- Passing through a firewall afflicts Blazing (with the usual internal cooldown on firewall).
- Plasma Extinguish, Fan, and Firewall now include direction in Combat Message Brief.
- Damage on most damaging plasmacasting abilities now scales to Muscular damage on the target. Higher Nozzle size improves how fast the damage curves upwards relative to subsystem damage.
- Plasma Shield duration up from 60s to 90s.
- Plasma Resistance allows you to get to 1000 plasma, but prevents Overdrive.
- Modified the plasma costs of many abilities, so that all abilities can now be used with Wide Nozzle.
We'll be tuning the Blazing stacks required by Conflagrate as well as the condition for Incinerate. It is hard to know in advance how something will play out in practice, so please keep posting your combat logs on the Discord! We may very well need to put a muscular requirement back onto it if it turns out it is too fast. We'll also be watching Sunder, since our intent with this is to provide BEAST some flexibility in their approach to a match depending on the situation, not to introduce a superior instakill that is always better than the other! We want both instakills to look and feel different and fun with their own identity, and also be competitive!
That concludes our initial pass through BEAST, next up: Engineer! Slated for Engineer is a bunch of QoL stuff, bug fixes, a fresh look at Heartbreaker, and much more.
Regards,
Neritus
