Last patch most of the headgear enchantments received a buff increasing in 300%, 400% or 1 000% their current stats making them more valueable, however the Awakening system, that shares the same principle, wasn’t affected by this change (not even at kToS).
For those that don’t know Awakening is a feature that Alchemist have access at Circle 1 that can add stats to a combat equipment, to awaken an item the Alchemist party must clear a special instance (based on the gear level) defeating several waves of enemies, this feature requires Calcite (3000 silver) and will decrease the gear potential in 1.
Before going into the so called problem i want to point both the old (CBT) and current (OBT) pros and cons since the skill was reworked before the game launch.
Current
Grants random stats with a random value withing a range based on the gear quality and star count. Only one awakening can be set for an item and the next awakening will always overwrite the previous one.Pros
• More combination available due the random factor
• Fairly good for high level/tier gears
Cons
• Requires multiple tries to get a good stat/value, thus requires time and money
• Low level/tier gears gets almost no benefit due low minimum values
• Overall stats are lower, more limited and harder to get than the available with Enchant Scrolls
• It’s possible to get platypus items. (Ex: Staff with Crit Rate/Atk)
• There’s no guarantee that the overwritten awakening will be better than the currento one.
Old
Grants a fixed stat and value based on the awakened gear.Pros
• Reliable due fixed stats and values
• Low level/tier gears are worth to be awakened
• Unknown status makes the feature more interesting to try on different items
Cons
• Re-awakening is worthless
• Bad stat distribution
• Fixed stats makes some items less appealing
Making the problem in a nutshell - the skill is too unreliable to worth time and money due the randomness and benefits granted. Awakening could make low tier/level gears interesting to pick over a plain equipment, however at the current state the skill is potential sink for end game gears.
Simples ways to address it
• **Add/increase a flat value to all stats** - this is an easy way to encourage awakening without reworking the whole system again, it can also be less frustrating for unwanted (yet useful) stats. • **Apply only the maximum value when awakening** - another trait for unwanted stats, having in mind that there are more than 20 possible stats to get it wouldn't be that much. • **Reduce/direct the stat pool based on the gear type and quality** - a protection against platypus and bad surprises, overall it can be quite useful when aiming a specific stat.Rework suggestion
The main idea here is to combine the pros of both awakenings in a more interesting way without harming the gear level/tier releation. However this suggestion comes with the price of a fixed potential reduction and higher silver cost in order to get the optimal power.Stage Awakening
The new awakening would work with a progression system with 2 to 5 stages based on the gear quality, each time the awakening gets past a new stage it will get a slightly better reward till it reaches the last stage with an ultimate reward.
Suggested power to stage relation
White - 1, 5 = 6
Blue - 1, 2, 5 = 8
Purple - 1. 2, 3, 5 = 11
Red - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 15
The third stage of a blue item has the value of 5p (stands for power) while a stage three purple has the value of 3p, however it can be further enhanced with extra 5p. To spice things up each additional stage would also get 5 extra waves to clear up to 20 levels beyond the equipment level, it could also have a special dungeon for the last round just to make fair the last enchant.
Stat distribution
There are three ways to adress this, the first one is empowering a single stat and the second one is getting a stat collection and the third one is with stat overwrite.
Empowering - INT Purple
• Stage 1 = +2 INT
• Stage 2 = +4 (+2) = +6 INT
• Stage 3 = +6 (+6) = +12 INT
• Stage 4 = +10 (+12) = +22 INT
Collection - Random Orange
• Stage 1 = +6 Block
• Stage 2 = +1 CON +6 Block
• Stage 3 = +14 Holy Property Defense +1 CON +6 Block
• Stage 4 = +408 HP +14 Holy Property Defense +1 CON +6 Block
• Stage 5 = +2 AoE Def Ratio +408 HP +14 Holy Property Defense +1 CON +6 Block
Overwrite - Random Blue
• Stage 1 = +10 Minimum Attack
• Stage 2 = +27 Critical Rate
• Stage 3 = +81 Damage Against Cloth Type
They can either be fixed or selected random (1 out of 3 for example), for collection it should be better to have the last stage as a fixed stat just to secure the awakening process. Either way the value of the stats should be fixed to remove the frustration of getting the lowest value possible.
With a stage awakening it’s even possible to reduce both the cost and wave clearance at early stages (not that it would be needed) comparing to the current method, it would easily allow to achieve more in a less frustrating way without making it a single use only.
It’s quite sad to know that a skill with such potential worths less than a 8TP item… Since IMC is trying really hard i hope they’ll take a look at it, even if that take some months.