Thaumcraft 6 requires combat balancing.

[yagomont]

After the update that removed scatter stacking, thaumcraft went from being extremely strong (1 hit kill major bosses strong) to being rather replaceable in combat. Sure, it was very broken, but now the mod's usage is limited.

At this point, vanilla weapons are able to do more damage per second than any Thaumcraft focus. Except, maybe, for bats. Those are still broken. Put scatter x10 in a bat flux focus and you can kill the chaos guardian from DE with it (yes I tried)

Thaumcraft needs to realize it's mostly played in conjunction with other mods, and it's probably the first magic mod to get obsolete. Unlike Astral Sorcery or Botania, Thaumcraft is not competitive at all in the endgame.

What I suggest is changing the gauntlet's delay mechanic to be less degrading and making higher power focuses worth it at all. Right now a power 3 focus has the highest damage per second in a simple projectile, making a 5 pointless.

Aquiring a higher level focus (Advanced and Greater) is not very rewarding. Perhaps if the effects levels were scaled up. I'd definitely make a Greater focus if I could put a level 15 curse on it (and it were reasonably fast).

Greater complexity = slower focus is overall a bad mechanic. It makes higher level foci very clunky to use since they can only activate once every few seconds. This is a point I will always stand for, and is not proper for Minecraft combat at all.

[lOmicronl]

EDIT: Yikes, I must have been afflicted with flux flu IV, because I just barfed a giant wall of text. Apologies in advance.

I agree on a couple of points you make, and disagree on some others.

For example, only considering damage per second is somewhat misplaced. Yes, a basic focus with power 3 may have the highest DPS... but it cannot actually put that DPS on target, since it fires faster than the post-hit immunity period. That's true even with power 4, which I have on my fluxbolt (complexity 14). If I hold the button down and let it fire as fast as it can, it will actually do a lot less damage than when I deliberately slow down and only tap the button in the right intervall, due to half the shots landing while the mob is immune to damage. For this reason, there is a practical limit on how fast you want your focus to fire, and that limit lies such that a complexity 15/15 basic focus is nearer to the sweet spot than lower complexity designs which have more DPS on paper.

Additionally: vanilla weapons doing more DPS? Yes, diamond swords will, if enchanted properly. But that's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison. For starters, said enchanted diamond sword costs a lot more than the focus - both more resources, and more effort. It's fair that it should be stronger. Second, going into melee is troublesome. Certain enemies (Skeletons, the Wither, the Ender Dragon, Wisps, Ghasts, Blazes...) actively want to keep distance from you, making you run to reach them while eating damage in the process. Some might be plain impossible to melee. Third, even with mobs that seek close combat, melee weapons have downsides in the form of making mistakes (swinging a microsecond too early, missing, and then either having to wait for the swing timer or having to accept lousy damage) and leaving you open to retaliation. Endermen especially, with the larger-than-usual reach, high walking speed and swing frequency, and large HP pool can be a menace even with an enchanted diamond sword. Now, Endermen are immune to ranged damage, but a mob like this that wasn't immune would definitely one I would prefer to attack with ranged weapons. I would prefer ranged weapons that did a quarter of the damage, if it meant I didn't have to go into melee with these enemies. That is why melee weapons need to be powerful to maintain their usefulness.

Case in point: In my game, I have Ender Zoo installed, and my world is locked to Hard difficulty. Ender Zoo has this feature where every mob - vanilla or modded - has all its statistics buffed by 25% on Hard difficulty (on top of the difficulty-based stat increase vanilla Minecraft already applies). So I was, let's say, struggling a bit at the start. Unenchanted iron gear is definitely not suitable for more than the most unavoidable encounters in such a setup. But as soon as I got even the most basic of Thaumcraft damage foci? I went from hiding at night to striding with laughter across the open fields, and any enemy that dared to show its face fell were it stood. Only Endermen were still a problem, due to their ranged damage immunity - and yes, if a creeper caught me with my pants down, I was still toast. But everything else stopped being dangerous in an instant.

If anything, I feel like Thaumcraft's foci are too strong when you get them initially.

But! I also agree with you that the casting speed dropoff on advanced and greater foci is too drastic. I made exactly one advanced focus - a touch range fortune IV break focus. And it is so slooooow. It doesn't drop XP, it doesn't drop rare earths, and it is slow. I was immediately turned off of break foci. And, in fact, turned off of advanced foci entirely. I never made one for combat. Why would I? After all, I was already a nigh-invincible god with just a basic focus. Especially after donning thaumium fortress armor, verdant heart lifegiver, and runic shielding. I don't recall if the Wither even dealt any actual HP damage to me at all.

As such, I feel like Thaumcraft is far from "limited" in the combat department. I think it's great. But, I would like to see basic foci becoming just a bit weaker, so that advanced and greater foci can become (or be made) useful in their own right.

Your mileage seems to vary, and that's okay... different strokes for different people. But I think I can see where you're coming from. Namely, you're probably and primarily coming from large modpacks, and you rate and compare Thaumcraft against the endgame content of other mods. Unfortunately, that is not a good approach, because taking it relies on the (perhaps unrealized) assumption that all mods follow the same design standard.

The reality is: almost no mod follows the same standard as the others. Every mod author has their own idea of what is balanced. On top of that, most authors are not actually professional game designers, but rather amateurs. This is not something to fault them for - after all, you can't expect someone to take a university course before starting to develop a free mod for a videogame in their free time. But it does result in features, mechanics and balance points being included in some mods that would never make it into a professionally developed game, and for good reason.

If you now grab all of these mods, mash them together, season them with a modpack author's custom changes, and expect to be able to make a useful statement about how balanced any one specific mod in that pile is... yeah, it doesn't work out that well.

At the end of the day, there is only one useful standard that you can refer to in terms of game balance, and that is vanilla Minecraft. That is a professionally developed product with an ungodly amount of global playing hours confirming the general soundness of its mechanics (even if not all of them are popular with everyone). And it is something that absolutely every mod needs to base off of. It makes sense to look at a mod in terms of how it acts if it is literally the only mod installed. In an ideal world, every mod would be developed this way. In the real world, some authors prefer to throw a bunch of random stats at their stuff because hey, it makes beating vanilla challenges so much easier, isn't this mod great? Or worse: mods that start trying to one-up each other in terms of power level. The current modding environment is actually a direct result of that happening unchecked for years and years, and in some cases it has resulted in even the most basic game design principles being booted out the window. Which is a shame, because nowadays we also have some of the most creative and exciting mods ever made. Lumping them all together and declaring them equal is more than unfair.

I must commend Azanor here, because even though he's always been one to push the envelope of what can be done in Minecraft, Thaumcraft 6 is actually more grounded in vanilla Minecraft's general design principles than the majority of mods today. And that is a good thing, that is a sign of the mod's quality in my view. If Thaumcraft keeps melee weapons relevant in some situations, that's not a weakness of Thaumcraft, that's a strength. You want to preserve that depth, that variety, that player choice of having multiple ways to fight a battle. Crafting a ranged weapon that renders everything else pointless may be fun for a minute or two, but it renders the gameplay stale, repetitive, and unexciting in the long run.

[Azanor]

Some good points on both sides. Foci will be getting a balance pass at some point so I hope to address some of the issues mentioned.

[Amelia-]

A way to get looting on damaging foci would be nice. Perhaps similar to how you can get fortune or silk touch on the break and exchange foci?

[Morinor]

you can use the old vanilla bug and have a looting sword in your main hand and the gauntlet in the offhand, which applies looting to your focus. But yea, an legit way of getting looting would be neat.

Yea, foci were prtty unbalanced, flux clouds could kill anything in a matter of seconds. (now its a player takes 3 hits and usually gets knocked out of the cloud before the lethal hit) effect clouds are still very effective against anything that is immobile or just runs into it to reach you.

Personally, I feel like on some foci the cooldown is a bit annoying, especially break foci. In most cases its better to just use an exchange focus instead of a break focus to speed things up. Its just not really a valid option to replace your pickaxe with a focus- (Even though that isnt necessarily a bad thing, I mostly use a fully leveled fortune 4 focus for diamonds, and a lesser focus can be a good earlygame silktouch tool)- bc generally a good digging tool isnt only strong enough to break strong blocks, its also fast.

Spell bats are a bit broken, as you can just keep summoning them, until you have a swarm that is capable of killing anything that doesnt defend itself with magic resistance, fast movement or strong Aoe attacks (like the enderdragon).

And lastly, I really like the fact that thaumcraft is balanced with vanilla minecraft, and not trying to compete with the other mods to have the most overpowered items, and Id prefer it if other mods would take the same approach. Sure, it may take away its relevance in a big modpack, but imo its a much better mod to play. (and runic shielding, sustainer charms, and voidrobes are still very strong)

[Sheenus]

EDIT: Another wall of text. Was just going to comment on the foci issue when I realised the thread was about combat as a whole. In hindsight the non-combat foci-related stuff is digressing, but still important to the discussion regarding focus-switching.

I'm conflicted on the whole 'Greater and advanced foci need shorter CDs' thing. On the one hand, attempting to craft pure damage foci becomes frustrating as you can't get anything better than a maxed out flux-bolt or flux ball on a lesser focus. On the other, I myself am not often walking around with just my Gauntlet fighting mobs; I'll wield my Gauntlet on the off-hand slot and a sword as the main tool, casting from range when necessary and swatting mobs away with my sword when they get too close. I even have an advanced focus I use (root -> bolt -> split(target) -> [frost 1(4 secs), Air 5]) to CC mobs that get too close, at which point I switch to my bow to finish them off or have created some room with which to deal with their friends. Gets a bit chaotic in larger fights (e.g. Cultists), but for the most part gets the job done. As I'm only using the focus intermittently (to control or make distance), the cooldown on the focus is almost trivial. I'm also switching between foci in combat, but I think this is more the realm of tech, even with the ease Az lets us switch foci.

Similar thing with mining foci, but with a twist; I have a lesser focus (root -> touch -> break 3) for regular mining (saved pickaxe dura before I got a void metal pickaxe), and an advanced focus I switch to (root -> touch -> Break 2 (Fortune 4)) for fortune-applicable deposits, e.g, coal, diamonds, lapis, etc.

Haven't had a chance to properly play with a Greater Focus yet but theorycrafting with one on the manipulator I can max out the stats for it (Frost 5 (10 secs), Air 5), or keep the current stats and add flux or earth for nearly double the current focus' damage. Dunno how much longer the cooldown is though so might only be good for small packs, would likely need the CC advanced focus above for larger ones. I have noticed that there's not much extra power generated on the Advanced and Greater Foci to be worth the cooldown, or the need for greater complexity barring control foci. That said, a Thaumaturge's greatest tool is his mind, and there's more than one way to skin a creeper. (rift holes and knockback? complicated but certainly creative).

As for the effects; I've only really found bolt, touch and plan to be of use. If power 5 projectile was almost as fast as a bolt at slightly cheaper cost it might be worth using that for the exchange in player skill in still having to line up your shot, but as it stands I don't see a use combatively for it after you get access to bolt; Maybe tweaking the range of bolt so projectiles go further? Plan's just good for construction efforts in survival; I can build a rudimentary cobble shack to start with and restructure and beautify the building with other materials later with the help of a (root -> plan -> replace) foci.

using a might'n'magic playstyle I described above, with the Gauntlet in the off-hand and a sword or axe in the main hand is highly adaptive; I can blast zombies back with my CC focus, zap multiple targets with the lesser foci, and cut down those that get too close. Knockback either as an Air effect on the foci or enchanted on my main weapon helps recreate that distance against mobs when they're too close and the foci is on CD. Sword of the Zephyr is currently broken (this build being Beta26) for this playstyle but all OH usage (incl. Shields) is broken with it and I was going to make a seperate ticket about that anyway.

Only other styles I could think to use were shield and gauntlet, and just the gauntlet. Just gauntlet is pointless as you have two slots to use (why use one weapon when you could use 2?) and shield and focus seems clunky; you can't block continuously without unequipping the current focus. More tech involved to be sure and I think some combat testing is in order but once you get runic shielding and a cc focus you don't really need to block anyway.

Armor and defenses are kinda OP, but only for endgame; this is with Thaumium Fortress/Void Thaumaturge Armor (with Protection IV), Lifegiver Verdant Charm and some Runic Shielding. I assume the Eldritch Dimension will include some super hard hitting mobs and maybe a few respawning horde situations, (e.g the eldritch crab nests) to make endgame challenging, but right now I've noticed just about everything barring the Thaumcraft boss mobs Eldritch Construct and Eldritch Warden only really tickle, barring I'm not trying to fight them in lava. Not complaining though; the bosses definitely hit hard enough at present to justify everything, and assuming you can CC and kite or dodge ranged attacks you're actually slightly Overpowered against them. I can only assume a boss battle with them would involve many adds to also deal with.

An aside might be that currently Lifegiver on the Verdant Charm bauble is too overpowered; with the ease with which you make food, particularly in vanilla, sustainer's a nice addition but lifegiver makes you basically invulnerable from all but mortal wounds; the severity needed increasing with your runic armor.

One improvement to the runic armor system appears to be that either armor or protection enchantments or both now affect Runic Shielding. I remember in TC4 Runic Shielding used to be just a flat unmitigated health increase, which reduced it's usefulness (and perhaps mitigated its ability to be overpowered), but I find this runic shielding is far more useful. Dunno if there perhaps needs to be some tweaks made to how it helps mitigate damage, and whether armor or enchantments help calculate damage taken to runic shielding, but it's definitely a lot more useful than TC4's version, at least in standalone PvE. Could make for some epic apocalyptic boss fights in the Eldritch Dimension when it's implemented.

Can't speak for PvP at all as all of my testing is done on SSP. This comment is already too long so not gonna speculate.

TL;DR version: I like where a lot of the combat mechanics are atm (barring one possible bug), even the foci mechanics (though I haven't explored them 100%, more like 95 or 98%) and while I think runic armor is a bit OP atm the absorption ( ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) see what I did there?) it offers might allow for some intense end-game fights.

[Gammaboy45]

I'm not going to read this wall of text, but I can say that projectile ending in scatter shot cloud mediums branching 10 times at a 180 degree angle is OP. It makes a greater focus worth the time. It can kill most common enemies in a second or two, and only takes one shot to be effective.

[Ketrai]

Summary :

1. Give lesser foci a lower effect modifier.
2. Give greater foci a positive effect modifier. Reduce impact of complexity going past 25, or add a % speed boost to greater foci.

If anything, advanced foci should still suffer from the higher CD. For anyone complaining about break? Break is specifically made not to be used with touch in my opinion. It would be neat if it could? But if you don't use plan, it's pretty much pointless to make a break foci as it's so slow.

Currently I feel like foci are divided in three classes based on their size, and resulting usefulness.

1. lesser : combat foci. Very strong early game. Should really have a charge time like the bow.
2. Advanced : utility foci. Plan+break (miner) bolt/projectile + rift (travel) Plan + swap (building)
3. Greater : useless, literally pointless. You can only make some memey foci like riftmaggedon by combining scatter and split to make your friends question wether or not it's safe for you to be a thaumaturge.

I'd nerf lesser combat foci. Connect a damage modifier to the type of foci you use? To be balanced lesser foci really shouldn't do much more than 75% of what they do now in combat compared to harder to obtain vanilla options. It almost outclasses a power V bow, which is silly.

I'd leave advanced foci be. They're in a good spot! And if lesser foci were to do less damage, you'd have an incentive to use them for combat too despite lower speed.

Definitely buff greater foci. You have to kill a wither to get them. They're have so much complexity, but if you were to go above 30 complexity? It becomes molasses. A shot once every so many seconds. On top of that, a lot of the utility foci cap at their usefulness in a foci around 25 strong. Make greater foci amplify the effect of anything you put on them. At least 25%. As well as a 10% speed boost to offset the slowness from higher complexities. Higher complexities also feel like they maybe shouldn't scale as hard past 25? If anything, this is the endgame foci. You need some of the hardest to get items in the game to make it. It's supposed to be strong. You should benefit from making a 15 complexity focus using a greater focus, even if you're not using all that space. The effect modifier also means you can still put plan + break or other good combos on it, and experience even faster breakage.

[AntaresMC]

TEXTWALL WARNING Go to the end for summary :D I think the problem with end game combat is that in the end game your melee offensive capability is not much greater than vanilla (in fact its pretty much the same in PvP as crystals are still superior), ranged one is pretty unbalanced (all the points have alredy been made Im not gonna re-say them) and defense=YES, you are pretty much invulnerable with void robes or thatmum fortress, verdant heart and runic shielding and sword of the zephyr, you literally can tank a wither all day, its just silly, and this makes PvP boring and PvE easy.

PvE can be saved by tough mobs from the warp and th eldritch and new bosses, but PvP is just too hard to end a fight, specially if someone can just pearl away and heal...

Fights tend to last until either one gets trapped and crystalled the hell out of (which is VERY unlikely, just dont count with it) or the aura depletes so it moves to another place or degrades to a vanilla fight with more defense.

I suggest nerfing runic shielding so its less affected by armor, adding more a damaging sword and axe or buff existing ones, not a lot, but even an extra 10% helps a lot against payers and not so much against mobs given how aromor works. Also fights, at least PvP ones are extremely damaging for the aura, which sucks for roleplaying wars or other stuff in SMPs where you care about the consequences, and due to having a single pool its even worse in teams. I actually liked the TC4 and 5 systems with internal vis storage, as they made you able to depend less on the medium, but thats just personal opinion and havent tried PvPing with them (obviously, even less so in 1.9+), so IDK.

I usually play with friends and not super big, meant-to-be-balanced packs, and TC is rarely used offensively, at least at melee I (that am the TC pro there XD) win the fights mostly because void armor repairs and other mods' usually doesn't XD, and the verdant heart.

Other mods' swords/axes are almost always used in conjunction with the jetpack of the zephyr XD and the infinity guantelet XD with lesser foci. Armors are varied as TC ones are insanely strong but expensive as well, and often its better to use others, as there is really a gap between diamond and fortress armor, enchantments close it a bit, but its not enough, as by the time you get the armor you alredy have an XP farm and they themselves are pretty broken in even vanilla (fights are made so much quicker when you ban prot4...).

SUMMARY: ThC defense is way ahead of the offense, specially melee and ranged one is weirdly balanced and its use in PvP is bad for the enviroment. Runic shielding is OP, as it multiplies the effect of the alredy awesome armor and the heart on top makes you invincible. I suggest re balancing late game melee tools as well as keeping an eye on the alredy mentioned in this thread points. Fights are eternal and likely to not end at all because the mod adds so much mobility (which is awesome). Other mods' tools with ThC enchantments are usually just better and easier

Lastly, as a bonus, I wonder if damage potential can be increased by bringing golems or its just gonna be a pain not worth it... I will test this out...