Cessation
Cessation is an Other-type spell. When cast, Cessation forcibly polymorphs you into an empty entity, effectively removing the caster from existence for a time. Lifetime modifiers can affect the duration of the polymorph.
Non-positive durations permanently polymorph you! This is an irreversible effect. Combining positive and negative lifetime modifications is more complex than with projectiles and can easily go wrong.
Cessation sets the wand to recharge after it finishes evaluating the current wand cast, with major penalties to cast delay and recharge time.
Cessation directly avoids all damage (as the entity has no DamageModelComponent to be damaged) and can avoid the side effects of The End of Everything. It also removes the association between you and projectiles you have already launched, which is extremely useful for killing bosses like Kivi and Mestarien mestari, is considered pacifist, and makes most not-yet-launched payloads of Trigger, Timer, and Expiration Trigger projectiles (already launched) into trick kills.
Cessation can refresh all status effect such as the damage boost from Hungry Ghost and heartache (to more easily perform the heartache exploit); it also replays some other effects such as the audiovisual (but not healing) effects of picking up Trick Blood Money. It also makes performing Perk Duplication easier.
Avoiding cast delay and recharge time penalties
Cessation's cast delay penalties can be avoided in the same way as any other spell with a high cast delay penalty, such as placing it inside of a trigger (even Cessation will still polymorph you immediately when you shoot the wand), multicasting with a Chainsaw afterward, or using Divide By spells in an appropriate way.
Cessation's recharge time penalty can be avoided in a similar way as avoiding recharge time penalties generically, except you must also trigger a natural wand recharge.
A popular way of avoiding both cast delay and recharge time penalties of Cessation is using Divide By spells, which, while they have their own penalties, save the cast delay and recharge time before calling their targets, and restore these values when they are done:
Shuffle
Spells/Cast
Cast delay
Rechrg. Time
Mana max
Capacity
Speed
This wand, on the other hand, has a high recharge time, and, in normal operation, won't produce a Spark Bolt at all due to the early recharge scheduled by Cessation:
Shuffle Spells/Cast Cast delay Rechrg. Time Mana max Capacity Speed
We can alter this design to trigger a natural reload to overwrite the recharge time scheduled by Cessation:
Shuffle Spells/Cast Cast delay Rechrg. Time Mana max Capacity Speed
We can modify this further to avoid applying the Divide By 2 damage penalty to the Spark Bolt by using two separate shot states:
Shuffle Spells/Cast Cast delay Rechrg. Time Mana max Capacity Speed
This configuration with Spark Bolt in the payload will also yield trick kills, though it is still paying the cast delay penalty of the Divide By 2.
While Divide By spells are likely the most effective way to avoid Cessation's cast delay and recharge time penalties, it is possible to reduce these penalties with other spells:
Shuffle Spells/Cast Cast delay Rechrg. Time Mana max Capacity Speed
A less ergonomic but in some situations more accessible method to avoid large cast delays or recharge times is to use a Wand of Destruction coupled with a trigger spell or chainsaw to avoid cast delay.
Lifetime modification details
The Cessation lifetime is set to 20 frames plus the shot state's cumulative lifetime addition as of the point when the Cessation spell is called, which is complicated by the fact that:
- while Increase Lifetime, Reduce Lifetime, Ping-Pong Path, Null Shot, and Chain Spell apply their lifetime modifications before drawing,
- Orbiting Arc, Spiral Arc, Phasing Arc, and True Orbit apply their lifetime modifications after drawing.
This means, for example, that the combination of Reduce Lifetime and Orbiting Arc can very easily lead to infinite Cessation without a special setup to avoid it, instead of the expected 3-frame Cessation lifetime.
When 'ceased' for a long enough amount of time, a message appears that states: The Gods cannot find you...
A longer duration of cessation reveals another message: The Gods are looking for youAs luminosity increases, the secret will reveal itself. 3 20 -33
The numbers in the message apparently correspond to brightness, contrast, and gamma settings, providing a hint for the Mr. Olli's Wild Ride cipher.
Gallery
History
- Apr 8 2024: Added to the game.
