Arcane Fusion Support Gem

Basic Concept:
- support gem
- simultaneously cast all supported spells
- damage/cast speed effectivness
- mana costs are added up


Intention / Background:
Personally i like having multiple skills ready for different situations on almost all of my chars instead of going for a single alround skill. However, there are many occasions where it would be beneficial to be able to cast several spells simultaneously. Cast on crit builds already are able to do just that but, in my opinion, most lack the finesse and control of self cast builds. A CoC build will usually either spam all spells at once or do nothing depending on its critchance and attack speed.
Therefore, i would really like to see a way for selfcast builds to chain together spells with good synergies in a controlled way. The way i picture it is pretty much a Dual Strike for spells with several drawbacks to balance it.


Examples of Use:
1. single cast to apply several curses on a multi-curse build
2. chain together spells that have either a similar or an entirely different mechanic / coverage like for example:
* EK + Lightning Tendrils, Fireball + Acrtic Breath, Fire Trap + Stormcall
* Freezing Pulse + Ice Spear, Flammability + Flameblast, Arc + Spark
3. (de-)activate several auras/heralds at once at the cost of an additional socket


Balancing:
Obviously, this allows for some very powerful and interesting combinations so balancing may look very difficult at first and there are a few things to keep in mind:
1. damage effectivness per gem slot used
2. mana cost
3. utility/synergy of combining different mechanics

To illustrate what i mean, i will use some numbers here when adressing these main issues. The final number would obviously be subject to balance and testing:

1. A setup with two supported spells takes up a total of three gem sockets, already giving it a drawback by occupying several slots that could be used for other supports. But this alone is probably not enough to balance it with other options. Therefore, it should have a damage effectivness of maybe around 80% with an added 10% less cast speed to drop the total dps effectivness to around 72% when we consider chaining offense skills together. This would help bring it more in line with other support gems that will add an effective multiplier of 25-60% more dps per support slot.
2. If the mana cost of all supported spells is simply added up, it will already be very high since casting two spells simultaneously like this would effectively mean a 2.0 mana multiplier, 3.0 for three and so on. However, it is possible that the support gem still might need a mana multiplier to balance it with other support options.
3. Hard to tell since that is the whole point of it but it might come down to a lot of testing whether a really broken combination can be made. One issue definitly is how the cast is handeled in terms of cast speed. It might have to calculate it separately for all spells instead of averaging it, or some combinations of Incinerate + X could be too powerful.

I'm tempted to ask why would anyone Cast On Crit if they can just cast multiple spells in the first place.

I'm not saying this can't be put into balance through damage or cast speed reduction (and/or also mana cost); but I'd be really tempted to see if GGG is happy that they made COC and that CoC is a thing.

I suspect this support gem would be called "Spells Utilize Cast In Tandem", or SucIt .

Cast on Crit allows you to completely bypass a spells cast speed so you can spam it at a ridiculous rate. If you use a crit dagger spectral throw with 5 aps, you can get up to around 15 cps spell spam at ideal range. The suggested support gem does not include that bypass of cast speed and therefore neither the spell spam.

On another note: nice abbreviation of suggested name change :p

"

Gregoriel wrote:

I'm tempted to ask why would anyone Cast On Crit if they can just cast multiple spells in the first place.

I'm not saying this can't be put into balance through damage or cast speed reduction (and/or also mana cost); but I'd be really tempted to see if GGG is happy that they made COC and that CoC is a thing.

I suspect this support gem would be called "Spells Utilize Cast In Tandem", or SucIt .

Surgeon flasks. Instantly refill flasks and have 100% up-time.

"

vargorn wrote:

Cast on Crit allows you to completely bypass a spells cast speed so you can spam it at a ridiculous rate. If you use a crit dagger spectral throw with 5 aps, you can get up to around 15 cps spell spam at ideal range. The suggested support gem does not include that bypass of cast speed and therefore neither the spell spam.

On another note: nice abbreviation of suggested name change :p

Agreed, Attack speed is not intended as Cast Speed. Perhaps this is why, for most people, CoC leaves a bad taste in the the mouth.

Anyone else for "Spells Utilize Cast In Tandem"?

I think some deviate work could be made with this, plus I like the acronym.

"Spells Utilize Cast In Tandem" (SUCIT) would win best skill gem recommendation Name of the year, if I was a judge.

SUCIT!

But yeah, 2 necro's is my limit for the year (Quarter? Month?)

I was thinking recently about that I can cast on an attack crit, but not on a spell crit.

The problem there is partially that, which would be the support and which would be the main spell? But I think this can be handled In the way Cast On Damage taken is. That the upper left corner is first cast, followed then by moving through the remainder of the links. So the first spell would be the control, and the remainder the support, programming wise.

Or, the "support" itself could be treated more like the main skill. This could actually be good for balancing, by setting a mana cost, and a cast rate.

Since Cast on Crit Already exists, this might as well be something different. Such as always casting but at significantly reduced cast speed.


Yes, of course, I like the name Spells Utilize Cast In Tandem.


But I'm revisiting this with the thought, what if the cost was a reduced cast speed? Such as 50% less, or 75% less cast speed? That might help with the crazy projectile counts, and would be needed if there was a 100% or similar cast rate for supported spells.

Another cool possibility would be if the "supported" spells have a slight lag from the leading spell, such that elemental equilibrium could be utilized intelligently as one alternative.


I'd like to see this be a drop that is about as rare as a mjolner or a shavs. More of a day dream for build planning than a common standard build. And with that rarity, it would be ok if this was actually a little bit good.

Nothing I'd like more than to see some crazy variety, in the rare builds.

(My goal isn't to necro this thread, but I had some new thoughts and creating a new thread didn't really seem appropriate either.)

Stand aside CoC. It's time to SUCiT.