Skill Suggestion: Beams

I've been thinking about Beam-spells (or -casts) now for a while, and finally decided to describe my thoughts here. Any kind of feedback is welcome.

The basic idea for a beam is as follows:
Spell, Beam, Channeled, DoT (, Element/etc.)
X Mana per second
Y Damage per second
*Additional Effects*

When casting a beam-based spell, it shoots out very fast into the target direction. It constantly drains your mana and damages the first enemy it comes into contact with.

Since it is a channeled spell, you cannot move while casting it - however you can move around your courser (or it automatically follows the targeted enemy) to change the direction of the beam. This is, however, limited to a certain amount of degrees per second.

To prevent simply restarting the channel on a beam instead of turning while channeling, it should take a (very short) amount of time to stop channeling it.

Because a beam does not hit but rather constantly damages enemies, it also cannot crit or trigger things that happen upon hitting an enemy.

Interactions with Stats and Support gems:

Any mana multipliers, cost increases and reductions apply to the X mana per second.

Cast speed
Increasing the cast speed of a beam will cause the following things:
It reduces the time the beam takes to deal Y damage, therefore increasing its DPS.
It reduces the time the beam takes to drain X mana, therefore increasing its cost.
It increases the turning speed while channeling.
It reduces the cooldown after stopping a channel.

Spell Echo
Doesn't work :)

Added Fire/Lightning/Cold/Chaos Damage, also Heralds and possibly Auras
The damage is added to the Y damage per second with the appropriate damage effectiveness. Due to how cast speed works, this grants the intended behavior of cast speed increasing the benefit from adding damage.

LMP/GMP
While beams are not projectile attacks and work quite differently to them, LMP and GMP may still be added to them. The idea is simple: Instead of a single beam, you have multiple beams in the appropriate angles. Moving the courser to and from your character will cause the outer beams to shift accordingly - while staying within the allowed turning speed mentioned above.

Chain
Chain is rather obvious: Once your beam touches an enemy, it will change course and keep on going to the next enemy. Needs a bit of trial with enemies moving into and out of beams, but should work out.

Fork
Nothing special here, once your beam connects, two beams will shoot out in the typical fork-fashion behind the enemy.

Pierce
Now, this is a tricky one. Since beams don't hit, you can hardly roll for a chance to pierce. My suggestion is as follows:
When a beam touches an enemy, it will deal its full damage. The beam will continue behind the enemy in a straight line, but only deal Pierce-chance of the full damage. Then Pierce-chance of Pierce-chance, and so on.
The other option is, of course, to simply not have it work on beams.

Spell totem
Obviously works, the only thing to figure out is whether the totem should recast upon its target's death, or shift the beam around.

Traps, Mines
As with other channeled spells, doesn't work.

Trigger gems
As with other channeled spells, doesn't work.

Culling Strike
Optional. I don't know whether a DoT being able to cull might be too strong, but it still requires you to actually move your beam onto the enemies.

Leech
While I do think leech should work, balance is of course an issue. The leech could either be constant, or happen on something like a per-second basis, meaning all the damage accumulated within a second (reduced by cast speed) is then granted as one leech event.

Chance stuff (e.g. chance to flee)
While one could make the argument to try and make these gems and uniques work, most of these will apply on something like a per-second basis. That would, at least in my opinion, feel too much like a very fast casting spell, and not like an actual continuous beam.

Status Ailments
This is a tricky one. Usually, a status ailment will require you to crit, which the beams cannot. Also, there's lots of chance to shock, ignite, freeze to be had. Whether or not you want those to apply to beams is of course up to you. It is a choice between higher interactivity with gear and passives VS greater mechanical uniqueness. For an example about how to handle status ailments, see below.

Example Beam Spells:
Elemental beams, which deal damage of their element as well as apply their status ailment based on how long an enemy is being continuously damaged by that beam. In case of shock and freeze this would increase the duration the longer you channel it on the same enemy, and in case of burn it would increase the damage. Once an enemy stops being damaged by a beam, the status ailment starts for the built up time. (Already having it apply while you damage the enemy would most likely be too strong - you could permafreeze enemies, and a lightning variant would deal damage with 100% shock uptime)
This may also instead be the basis of how beams handle status ailments.

A fire and/or lightning beam that also blinds enemies.

A beam that builds up a "bomb" on the enemy being damaged, increasing the explosion damage and/or radius the longer the beam connects.

A beam that causes an AoE-DoT around the enemy it damages.

A beam that deals more damage the closer/further enemies are to/from you.

A beam that deals more damage at the beginning of its channel, with a cooldown or recharge after you stop before it reaches full power again.

The obvious beam that deals more damage the longer you channel it.

I strongly believe you can come up with a whole lot more :)

Example Beam-specific Support gems:
These will mostly affect the shape of the beam.

Having the Beam in a Zig-Zag or wave-form.
Having the beam spiral around you.
Having the beam curve instead of turn when moving the courser.
Having the beam also "pierce" the player, therefore having it extend to the end of the screen in both directions.

Other Things:
The already existing Searing Bond may or may not be classified as a beam for the sake of support gems as well as stats on gear and passives.

Stat Alignment:
I kind of see beams in the templar area right now. They are clearly spells and therefore require intellect, but they don't work with crit and require high mana regeneration. Ultimately they can be made to fit anywhere with int.

If you've read all of this, then thank you for your time!
Please leave a comment with your thoughts, suggestions and ideas below.

How are beams different from very fast projectiles ?
How do they differ from what incinerate does already?
What would feel good about using beams other than their aesthetics?
You seem to explicitly define a lot rules for support gems without a convincing concept behind beams.(you're saying they're not projectiles but you want them to work with all of the projctile specific support gems)
You also talk about "other channeled spells" - there are none. (Or you have an unusual definition of "channeled").

Apparently you like how beams usually look or sound in other games but the concept is just a derivation of incinerate (without triggering some on hit effects)

"

Jackdaniels2377 wrote:

How are beams different from very fast projectiles ?
How do they differ from what incinerate does already?
What would feel good about using beams other than their aesthetics?
You seem to explicitly define a lot rules for support gems without a convincing concept behind beams.(you're saying they're not projectiles but you want them to work with all of the projctile specific support gems)
You also talk about "other channeled spells" - there are none. (Or you have an unusual definition of "channeled").

Apparently you like how beams usually look or sound in other games but the concept is just a derivation of incinerate (without triggering some on hit effects)

First off, thanks for the answer. I'll try to answer your questions as best as I can:

Projectiles, be they fast or slow, are still singular bursts of damage. My idea for beams is more among the lines of being able to "swing" the beam through enemies.

I basically see Incinerate as a spell that was thought up as something similar to a beam, and was made into a fast casting spell. I agree that the two are somewhat similar, and if there were more Incinerate-type spells, there would probably be no room for beams. But as it stands it is only one right now, and I find it interesting to have a non-critting series of spells.

Using beams should feel different to what the game feel like right now in that beams feel like they require a bit more strategy than a simple projectile cast. The typical Shoot-Move-Shoot-Move... play of a projectile doesn't really work that well with beams - you have to position yourself in a good spot and channel as long as you can before starting the cooldown/recharge and repositioning yourself. I'd also really love to run into a big group of monsters, start a laz0r on one side, swing it over to the other side of the group, and watch as all the monsters are cut in half and burn to death. Basically, I'd want beams to really focus on that channel-part, where you cannot move yourself but cover an area by moving around the beam.

The support gems are obviously only suggestions. Why should they work with projectile support gems? Because those gems exist, and adding new ones just for beams seems like an unnecessary task. I definitely do not want them to be projectiles, but adding the support-gem functionality doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. (although them being in dex doesn't really fit.)

Other channeled spells: Well, for one there is Flameblast.

Of course I like beams in other games (ever played Magicka?).
But I also feel like they could mechanically diversify PoE with a new playstyle.

"

Jackdaniels2377 wrote:

How are beams different from very fast projectiles ?
How do they differ from what incinerate does already?
What would feel good about using beams other than their aesthetics?
You seem to explicitly define a lot rules for support gems without a convincing concept behind beams.(you're saying they're not projectiles but you want them to work with all of the projctile specific support gems)
You also talk about "other channeled spells" - there are none. (Or you have an unusual definition of "channeled").

Apparently you like how beams usually look or sound in other games but the concept is just a derivation of incinerate (without triggering some on hit effects)

Think rape-ropes from Diablo 3. I agree with very little of the original post, but a beam skill would be neat. As long as they cut the "you have to stand still", slow turning beam sections, and make it link up like any normal spell from this idea I'd be on board. Otherwise it wont be viable or wanted.

+1 for beams

@Sofunk: How do you avoid the standing still part almost every ranged/melee skill/spell that are self cast require the character to stand still while they perform it. How would a beam spell be different. Or rather how could it be different?

For that you would have to map new movement keys in order to be able to do it. That would be just complicating things. You already have to be a skilled typer if you use self cast spells to avoid "fuckups".

"

DagonxXx wrote:

[...]
Other channeled spells: Well, for one there is Flameblast.

Of course I like beams in other games (ever played Magicka?).

Flamblast is not channeled. It has a 0.3 second cast time and each cast grants one stack of that flameblast buff that you see in your buff bar and represents the charge level of your flameblast instance. Holding the key down simply loops this process just like any other spell.
In my book channeling is a continuous cast that is only defined by an arbitrary starting and ending point, but knows - at least conceptually - no inhomogeneity in between.

You came close to what i was hinting at: Incinerate is what you want. It discourages kiting with its stacking damage, fires smoothly and has the play pattern you like.

"

I'd also really love to run into a big group of monsters, start a laz0r on one side, swing it over to the other side of the group, and watch as all the monsters are cut in half and burn to death. Basically, I'd want beams to really focus on that channel-part, where you cannot move yourself but cover an area by moving around the beam.

This is almost exactly how you play Incinerate. make a derivative that does not need lmp/gmp and you're good

In my opinion, we could just have a high cast speed, high velocity projectile spell that does not pierce by default:

Spell, Cast, Projectile (, Element/etc.)
X Mana per cast
Y Damage per cast
*Additional Effects*

and to make the idea juicy:

Lava Stream
Fire, Spell, Projectile
Level: 20
Mana Cost: 5
Cast Time: 0.15s
Damage Effectiveness: 10%
--
Launches lava from your hand damaging the first enemy hit.
--
50-70 Damage
Burn Effects from this spell stack


Given appropriate art this would very much feel like a beam without actually being one.

change the added effect to "gains additional damge after every x continuous casts; drains all of your remaining mana once you stop casting " and you have your spell: you dont want to stop casting because you lose your damage bonus and it incurs a "cooldown", which will leave you vulnerable if you didnt manage to kill everything in your first attempt. just to illustrate how you dont need to introduce 2 additional tags (properties) and bend all rules to get a handful of spells.

protip: with computers continuity is an illusion anyway.