Utility abilities
Twelve buttons on a long cooldown. Five of them do damage, and those five were measured against each other rather than tuned by eye.
Bound to F. You carry exactly one, and they are sold only in the
Essence Shop: every visit has one on the shelf, on a card of
its own (cut corners, lit in the ability's colour, the cooldown in its footer) so it is never
taken for an upgrade, and a reroll deals a different one. Buying one replaces what you had.
Pressing F drains the ability's bar over the effect's duration, and the cooldown starts once
the effect has ended.
Rewindrewind
Snap back to where you stood 3 seconds ago, restore the health you had then plus 15%, and leave a time-quake where you were: 60 damage, growing with the wave, and a 1.5 second stun.
Decoydecoy
Send out a double that sprints away. Enemies chase it instead of you for 6 seconds.
Sentrysentry
Plant a crystal sentry that fires on the nearest enemy for 12 seconds, twice a second, hitting for 28 a shot and growing with the wave.
Forcefieldforcefield
Raise a dome nothing can enter. Enemies inside are shoved out, and none can follow, for 6 seconds.
Meteormeteor
Call down a meteor on the largest group of enemies. 195 damage in a wide crater, growing with the wave, one second after the sky opens.
Thunderstormstorm
Call a storm. For 5 seconds, lightning hammers the crowd three times a second -- 34 to what it hits and 15 to everything beside it, growing with the wave.
Bulwarkbulwark
Brace. Gain 60 shield and take half damage for 8 seconds.
Nukenuke
Detonate your orb: 220 damage in a huge radius plus massive knockback, growing with the wave. The orb reforms after 5 seconds.
Overloadoverload
Your orb swells into a comet for 10 seconds: triple size, 3.6x damage, and it ploughs straight through enemies AND scenery.
Cryostasiscryo
Freeze every enemy on screen solid for 4 seconds. They cannot move, attack or detonate.
Singularitysingularity
Tear a hole in the world. Everything nearby is dragged in for 3 seconds, then it collapses for 140 damage, growing with the wave.
Time Dilationdilation
Crawl the world to a quarter speed for 5 seconds. You are unaffected.
Nothing matches the current filters.
How these were balanced
The five damaging abilities are measured against each other. An
ability is a button, not a passive, so the fixture leaves the wizard completely idle — no
swinging, no moving, orb pinned in hand — fires the ability the moment it is off cooldown, and
counts kills rather than damage. Kills, because damage clamps at the target's remaining
health and so cannot see overkill: a Nuke does several times a trash enemy's health.
Thunderstorm's bolts splash to a neighbour, so a bolt that lands on something already dying is not wasted. The Nuke stays above the band on purpose — it is the only ability that takes your weapon away for five seconds to do what it does.
Six of the twelve do no damage at all and come back as a row of zeros: the fixture cannot see them, which is not a verdict. Overload is in the same position for a different reason: it amplifies an orb this fixture never throws. All seven are covered instead by behavioural tests that check that pressing the button does its stated thing.
Rewind with nothing to rewind to does not spend its cooldown. Cryostasis stops a Bomber even once its fuse is lit. Nuke, Meteor, Forcefield and Singularity move enemies through the same collision as everything else, so none of them throws a body into a tree.
Thunderstorm's bolts splash to a neighbour, so a bolt that lands on something already dying is not wasted. The Nuke stays above the band on purpose — it is the only ability that takes your weapon away for five seconds to do what it does.
Six of the twelve do no damage at all and come back as a row of zeros: the fixture cannot see them, which is not a verdict. Overload is in the same position for a different reason: it amplifies an orb this fixture never throws. All seven are covered instead by behavioural tests that check that pressing the button does its stated thing.
Rewind with nothing to rewind to does not spend its cooldown. Cryostasis stops a Bomber even once its fuse is lit. Nuke, Meteor, Forcefield and Singularity move enemies through the same collision as everything else, so none of them throws a body into a tree.
Kills per cast, and per second of cooldown
| Ability | Kills / cast | Per second of cooldown | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nuke | 20.0 | 0.40+ | ceiling — it clears the screen |
| Singularity | 18.9 | 0.34 | |
| Thunderstorm | 15.0 | 0.33 | |
| Meteor | 14.8 | 0.33 | |
| Sentry | 12.1 | 0.30 | capped by shot count, not by targets |