This is so busted.

Yay, a balancing thread.

Prior to the revival of the game next month, Windstrike will be going through everything in the game and rebalance them to get rid of any OPness or downright busted stuff on items. To help with this, I will be throwing in some combinations that are downright busted. Anyone can contribute too by going into the Compendium and

Stack, Gamma and Boost, Epsilon

Stack, Gamma

• REQUIREMENTS: Level 40 and Water (Level: 7)
  
• COSTS: 7 Magic
  
• DESCRIPTION: Increase the powers supporting a target using a magical mist.
  • EFFECT: Target a Buff on a target, and add three stacks to that Buff.
    

Boost, Epsilon

• REQUIREMENTS: Level 40 and Light (Level: 5)
  
• COSTS: 6 Magic
  
• DESCRIPTION: An empowering light surrounds a target, boosting his best strength.
  • EFFECT: Give a target one stack of the Boost, Epsilon Buff:
    • Target's highest base stat is increased by 15 + #, where # = your Total Affinity Levels.
      
    • If this is for Hearts or Magic, it increases both the Current and Maximum.
      

Cast Boost, Epsilon first and then apply Stack, Gamma to it for some hilariously broken results. With this combo, the target with Boost gets a minimum of +90 dice to their highest stat and a maximum of +112 dice to their highest dice. Pair this with a powerful "hit all enemy" attack like Tidal Wave for that stat and congratulations, you just wiped the enemy party (or you met a party wipe) with little to no effort. Even better, this can all be done solo in one turn via Double Cast; first two actions for the Support Spells followed by a powerful all enemy attack spell as your third spell.

This also applies to Stack, Beta, but with less broken results. This also applies to any Buff that grants a massive gain per stack.

Enrage and High Hearts

Enrage

• COSTS: 3 Magic
  
• DESCRIPTION: With a series of grizzly adrenaline rushes, you get a damage increase in melee combat based on your Current Hearts.
  • EFFECT: You get one stack of the Enraged Buff:
    • For every 5 Hearts you have, you gain 1 Damage on your melee attacks.
      

Nowhere near as ridiculously broken as the first one, this skill can grant an extremely high damage boost if you have high Hearts. Tested using Hank Cheshire (who has a maximum of 75 Hearts), this allows him to gain up to a +15 Damage boost via this Buff. As this is a Buff that grants high values per stack, Stack, Gamma will bust this sucker into oblivion with Hank getting up to +60 Damage on his attacks.

Stack, Alpha is perfectly fine, but yeah, Beta and Gamma.... think I'm gonna hit the nuke button them. Those two combos above are pretty bad, but it gets worse. Imagine Extra Cast + Guard, Omega + Stack, Gamma = at least 200 Defense Dice in each stat... which is beyond stupid. Literally the only way around that combo is a move that ignores bonus Defense Dice, which there's not very many of. So yeah, I'm just gonna drop the tiers on Stack.


And the balancing shenanigans will start very shortly. Weapons will probably be the hit the hardest by nerfbats. I don't want to turn into certain game devs with the nerfbats, but some numbers are definitely too high all over the place.

Magic Death and Voodoo Staff

Magic Death

• RESTRICTIONS: This is a Offensive Skill. You may only have one Offensive Skill enabled at a time. All others must be set to (Disabled).
  
• COSTS: Magic equal to your Total Affinity Levels at the start of each round to maintain.
  
• DESCRIPTION: Allows you to kill those that have depleted their Magic supplies, though it also makes you vulnerable to the same fate.
  • EFFECT 1: If you drain or siphon a target’s Magic, and the target’s Current Magic drops to 0, the target will die instantly.
    • If the target's Maximum Magic is 0, Magic Death has no effect on the target.
      
    • Magic Death also has no effect on Boss-type enemies.
  • EFFECT 2: If your Current Magic ever drops to 0, you die.
    

Voodoo Staff

• REQUIREMENTS: Level 10 and Two-Handed
  
• DESCRIPTION: A large staff lined with ornaments and rings, often carried by Voodoo Kids, with no ability to damage. In return, it has the ability to mass-siphon from the Magic pools of its targets. Can perform Mass Siphon on all enemies.
  • Defense Dice: Equal to the Total Hearts & Magic Cost of the most recent Spell you’ve casted.
    
  • Mass Siphon:
    • Roll your Wisdom dice vs. targets' Wisdom dice
      • Damage: None
        
      • EFFECT: Siphon Magic from all enemies equal to the difference in successes against each respective target.
        • This can be distributed to you and your allies in any way you want.
          

The gist of this loadout here is to run really high Wisdom, to near glass cannon levels (in which Wisdom Booster is very helpful for getting), and then use the Voodoo staff to pretty much wipe out the enemy (or more likely, player) party from mass-siphoning them of their Magic. Using a Level 20 stats; I managed to get its roll up to $50d10 with a glass-cannonish build, which is enough to completely screw over anyone who has spent some Magic unless they have high Wisdom.
Anyhow, I think an acceptable nerf would be to nerf the Mass Siphon to half the difference in successes but buff its Attack Dice, as the staff on its own right can easily screw over a player party by draining their Magic pools with such a roll.

Going half but then buffing its Dice Modifier wouldn't be enough of a nerf. What I'll do is buff the Dice Modifier, set the damage to halved, and then set the siphoning to be equal to the damage dealt to each respective target. Even with glass cannon mode, there'll be more ways to counter against that.

I vote to move this to balance discussion.

Soul Bomb, between two people

Soulrobe Wand

• REQUIREMENTS: Level 20
  
• DESCRIPTION: A wand used by Wizzrobes that has absorbed a soul in order to grow in power. Oddly enough, these are not illegal, even though it makes occasional whisperings. You can fire a Dispersed blast that hits all enemies, a Focused shot that hits one target, or the Soul Bomb ability.
  • Dispersed:
    • Roll your Wisdom +7 dice vs. targets' Wisdom dice
      • Damage: Halved
        
  • Focused:
    • Roll your Wisdom +15 dice vs. targets' Wisdom dice
      • Damage: +0
        
  • Soul Bomb:
    • COSTS: 5 Magic
      
    • DESCRIPTION: A powered down Focused Shot with the intention to obliterate the target’s soul.
      
    • Roll your Wisdom +5 dice vs. targets' Wisdom dice
      • Damage: +0
        
      • EFFECT: If it kills the target, the target’s soul explodes as it darts across the field, automatically striking everyone.
        • All remaining enemies automatically lose Magic equal to the target’s Current Hearts prior to being killed by this attack.
          
        • You and your allies automatically recover Magic equal to the target’s Current Hearts prior to being killed by this attack.
          
        • The target cannot be revived for the remainder of the battle.
          
      • IF FAIL: If it does not kill the target, the target absorbs the attack, takes no damage, and recovers to Maximum Magic.
        

Requires two people; what you do is cast Soul Bomb at each other and, assuming you don't kill each other, you both instantly recover to Maximum Magic. This can also be easily be performed on anyone who would survive it to also recover them to their maximum Magic.

This can be remedied by reducing the Magic recovery to the attack's base Magic cost (5 on Soulrobe Wand and 7 on Deathrobe Wand) prevent infinite Magic shenanigans.

Well, with Magic cost reductions, you could still do the same thing. Instead, I'll make it so Soul Bomb can only target enemies.