[Snake]

So, as a 'sort-of' chain to Spoops's post.

Invocations as they are right now can easily be stopped by silence, to the point it becomes pretty impossible to pull one without being a Mage with High-Speed Divine Word. But that's not the problem. Problem lies when you use 6M and the enemy stops you with a mere cost of 3M, you're put at an immense action disadvantage there.

Carrying on! Can we somehow get a sub-talent for Invocation which grants a random chance to receive silence immunity, but only when casting an invocation that used 6M**, for 1 round? (So you can pull the Invocation out without being interrupted in the middle of it, making it 'sometimes' worth your momentum invest.)

The chance being SR * 5%, a maximum of 25%

I see this as necessary, if we're ever going to have higher-ranking invocation which uses multiple lines of chanting, such as Shine Knights from Priest, in the future.

**This to prevent HSDW abuse. (Condition might be easier with a 'If HSDW is being used, they won't receive immunity') A disclaimer is that it's not my intention to buff Evokers, but to at least make Priests, Summoners, Hexers and such on-pair with them, Invocation wise. HSDW often guarantees their invocations won't be stopped at any cost, and silence is easily applied to people and can be a giant nuisance when spammed.

[Sarinpa1]

The only silence you cannot really avoid is from Absolute Fear.

There's a balance-fu topic for that where there was suggested that Absolute Fear gets a cooldown to it. Everything else is a matter of status resistance.

I suggest rather, that you get refunded for half the price if you do not complete an invocation. Silence will still delay the strong spell that was headed your way, but it won't be so terribly punishing. The momentum disadvantage you mentioned is outweighed by the actual power of Invocations. That's the whole point of them.

There was also a topic of throat-openers giving status immunity.

I'd definetly not push something like that for a talent.

[Chaos]

A large amount of Silence Inflictions are, as Sarin noted, infliction-based. Priests in particular have a field day against silence shenanigans, between their prime stat giving Status Resistance and a base skill that cures and gives immunity to silence. If you choose to run Invocations that HSDW can't cover/isn't around for and dump status resistance, it's on you for being unprepared for inflictions.

As long as Words of Power completely blocks out the effect of damage vs. Invocations, I see no reason to give mages any chance of shrugging off silence inflictions that they didn't build against.

[Raigen.Convict]

To be real, if you didn't have a backup for that sort of counter with the huge pool of options per class that's YOUR fault.

Priest: silent prayer. Faith gives status res, luck for holy spark gives status res.

Hexer: most use screaming tome, if not, just use a throatopener or wait it out. You typically have the defense and res and vit to easily outlive it. Not to mention most hexer invocations don't need you at all close to the enemy.

Summoner: Does it even need to be said that you can summon while silenced? And since when was summon storm worth it? Plus if you need that reihou, your enemy is TOYING with you. They couldve killed you way earlier.

Evoker: High speed divine words allows you to bypass this issue, on top of charge mind lasting beyond most silence durations.

[Snake]

To be real, if you didn't have a backup for that sort of counter with the huge pool of options per class that's YOUR fault.

Priest: silent prayer. Faith gives status res, luck for holy spark gives status res.

Hexer: most use screaming tome, if not, just use a throatopener or wait it out. You typically have the defense and res and vit to easily outlive it. Not to mention most hexer invocations don't need you at all close to the enemy.

Summoner: Does it even need to be said that you can summon while silenced? And since when was summon storm worth it? Plus if you need that reihou, your enemy is TOYING with you. They couldve killed you way earlier.

Evoker: High speed divine words allows you to bypass this issue, on top of charge mind lasting beyond most silence durations.

Luck doesn't offer any status resistance, that was moved to SAN.

Every other way to remove silence requires you breaking your invocation to heal it, and out of all, only Silent Prayer is viable to complete C-rank invocations due to how far the immunity extends. High Speed Divine Word is literally the only way to cast an invocation without being stopped by silence mid-way, because you give the enemy no opening to shut you up.

And, I'm mostly talking about invocations here, not normal magic. Invocations, you know, the spells that straight up uses 6M when you cast them, resulting in an insta-end your turn and give a major exposure to the enemy's silences. (I'm not an idiot. If casting normal magic granted you silence immunity then what would be the point of silence?)

As for Sarinpa/Chaos, I'm aware. This is yet another alternative than just having to invest in SAN/FAI, to be honest. To help Spellthieves a little bit, because they get no perk for stealing those. (And can't even throw them with Final Flare) If anything, this idea could be salvaged to become a passive skill (up to rank 5) for them.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

With a nifty 4 skill investment, invocations can get a teamwide knockback and knockdown for no additional cost. I don't think they need more. If you're trying to face-cast a Hexer, that's your own fault.

[Raigen.Convict]

Kunai. As I AND walrus both said man, non evoker invocations should NOT be cast in someones face so they can silence you. Position yourself accordingly and know what you're up against. That's strategy.

[Snake]

But it's impossible to do so when people can run across the map with basic movement. And especially the classes who can just effortlessly silence, like Kensei if mixed with Martial Artist. Hell, even on round 1 due to Initiative and people spawning closer.

You can be anywhere, you won't be able to cast anything when they set their weeb eyes on you. How many times either that or a bunch of Dancing Lanterns ever silence-locked you from casting? It's just plain annoying to lose 6M, A WHOLE TURN, for nothing. Not even stun is so crippling anymore, because you receive damage reduction on top of it.

But anyway, no need to discuss about it. This is just a suggestion, not Balance-Fu. And a topic Dev will have to re-consider in the future when he starts adding more C-B-A-S Rank Invocations that require multiple rounds to be executed.

[Raigen.Convict]

Well, the base movement is pretty true, so thinking it over, silence immunity during casting through a trait might not destroy the meta.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

A single skill in the midst of being beaten with the nerf bat doesn't warrant a drastic invocation buff. Evoker invocations literally kill whole teams at once, Priest invocations are generally difficult to stop outside of mentioned Absolute Bullshit due to a ton of status resistance and Hexer invocations cripple the other team, often to the point of destroying strategies.

The only reason silence is crippling is if you shot yourself in the leg by, once again, face-cast in front of someone with an on-click silence and have literally nothing else to do.

This should be a balance-fu, because there's clearly a lot to be discussed.