[b19] My first win - Roguelike Cornac Mindslayer

[Dekar]

http://te4.org/characters/2038/tome/8fe ... 1cc000edf0

After defeating the orc ambush with lvl 30 I already thought that this char will make it veeery far.
The game between the defeated ambush and the final fight was no challenge, I just activated every sustain I had and clicked on enemies until everyone was dead.
My 3 shield, effective skill level 7.5, reduce most damage by 53 points. Combined with 2 healing infusions its enough to never have to release them.

With survival being no problem, I focused on finding nice weapons for tripple wielding. For the peak I used mainhand weapon with slime damage for slow and of daylight, offhand dagger of daylight and telekinetically wielded 2h weapon with ice for freeze and of daylight. The 3 of daylight gave me a little over 140 light damage on hit for each weapon, easily surpassing all other kinds of weapons. All weapons were reshaped with +20 attack and damage.

I had a point in reshape armor, but physical damage was never a threat and reshaping needs "grinding" for psi, turning my buffs off and taking off my armor to get enough max psi, then letting it fill by getting hit by weak enemies, so I never used it.

After an seemingly endless ascend I finally reached the final fight. I only remembered a bug report about that the sun paladin turns hostile, so I just let him/her attack one of the mages and observed the fight. Before she died I joined the fight and soon after the paladins death the first mage fell.
A few monsters appeared from the 4 portals, but sealing them with the orc orbs had no result, so I just ignored them.
Elandar refused to die, teleporting away whenever I was near, using regeneration to heal, free action infusion to avoid getting frozen, damage reducing and possibly slow removing wild infusion and I think a shield rune too. Also invisiblity that didnt quite worked well together with the particle effects ( of the chant and maybe others ) that still gave his position away.

Slowly the room began to be filled by mostly dragon hatchlings and being filled with darkness without him taking any real damage. I knew I had to change something to have any chance of success.

First I equipped the copper amulet of greater telepathy to be able to track him ( except when she teleported out of range, duh ), replaced first my teleport rune with controlled phase door, and later my shield rune with another controlled teleport rune to be able to keep up with him, used my stat and talent points, althought I ultimately made no use of them.
With the help of my 2 controlled phase doors I could chase him down fast enough, without having to go through the hundrets of dragons which were trying to find out which color is the strongest ( why do the different colors attack each other anyway? ).
Frenzied Psifighting was used when he wasnt alone to increase the chance of him getting whacked by my psionic weapon, and very soon I saw the force of my (~800 damage total against normal enemies ) attacks draining his life.

Elandar finally died and to my surprise I got the Tactical Master achievement for winning the fight without closing any portal. *faceslap* So they can be closed after all, and a quick forum search revealed the secret: I used the wrong orb. Well, the monsters didnt hurt that much anyway, could always stay near Elandar with my 2 healing infusions, not caring about any monster.

All in all it was a epic final fight that I could have never won without these extremly powerful sustained shields, they probably should get nerfed, and with the right items I brought with me by chance.

[Susramanian]

Well done, and thanks for the feedback. I'm curious about how you survived the orc ambush; it didn't go well on my b18 test characters. Is the newly nerfed damage keeping the orc archers from punching through the kinetic shield?

I probably will weaken the shields somewhat. How did your damage output compare to other classes you've played? Beta 19 mindslayers do much more damage than they should due to an oversight; they're only supposed to use 60% of their willpower and cunning to determine Beyond the Flesh damage, not 100%. Oh, and I'm sorry you had to get through a whole 50 levels with a bug that makes all sustains turn off if energy reaches zero. Only auras are supposed to turn off at zero energy.

It sounds like you had a similar problem to one of mine: I rarely found myself in a situation where I needed to spike any of my shields. I occasionally did, particularly in the early game, but runes and infusions provided plenty of defensive options later on. I want shield-spiking to be a much bigger part of the class, and I'm looking for input on how to accomplish that. Some ideas:

1) Reduce base values for shields, increase spike values
2) Make spiking shields not require a turn
3) Make spiked shields apply to 100% of incoming damage (unlike the base shields)
4) Increase rate of energy absorption from spiked shields, reduce rate of energy absorption from base shields
5) Make Shield Discipline easier to get and more user-friendly

I'm not sure any of these is adequate. I have a feeling that the real problem lies in the runes and infusions. They're just too good-- especially their cooldowns. Perhaps what we need are better offensive runes and infusions combined with a nerf to mindslayer damage. These might tempt people away from defensive runes and infusions, leaving them to rely more on spiked shields in emergencies.

[eronarn]

I'm not sure any of these is adequate. I have a feeling that the real problem lies in the runes and infusions. They're just too good-- especially their cooldowns. Perhaps what we need are better offensive runes and infusions combined with a nerf to mindslayer damage. These might tempt people away from defensive runes and infusions, leaving them to rely more on spiked shields in emergencies.

The valuable effects in TOME are shields, healing, knockbacks, stuns, teleportation, etc. As long as you're doing some damage to them while healing more damage than they're dealing, it doesn't matter how little damage you deal. It makes fights tedious, sure, but not having enough healing makes you dead.

Unfortunately, while healing runes have way too short cooldown times, if they're increased people will just teleport out of fights and the like since there's no real penalty for prolonged rests in TOME. The only solution that seems viable to me is nerfing good runes until they're not better than class abilities (stuff like Controlled Phase Door runes or the Rune of the Rift are too ridiculous to be believed but this applies to most of the healing effects too), and nerfing some class abilities so that all classes have an incentive to pick up 'missing' important capabilities with rune slots (e.g., as it stands many classes get some kind of phase door or walk through walls ability, which is very vital to winning the game).

[Postman]

The only solution that seems viable to me is nerfing good runes until they're not better than class abilities... and nerfing some class abilities so that all classes have an incentive...

What you are describing is a classical MMORPG nerf loop, which often make game unplayable for some classes and start unwind in opposite direction.
While healing infusions and regens definitely need nerf you can't be too careful in limiting nerf scope. Better alternative to nerf would be new abilities, like shield piercing, or making _sunder armor_ damage shield etc. And IMO Rune of the Rift is not overpowered - later game bosses (and this rune is quite later in the game) I have encountered are resistant to it. So you usually have to fire it several times, it actually make impact only in very long fight, which is exactly as it should. It can not one-hit kill even lowly orc soldier.Whatever it can one-hit kill is nuisance anyway.

[eronarn]

What you are describing is a classical MMORPG nerf loop, which often make game unplayable for some classes and start unwind in opposite direction.

MMOs nearly universally become more balanced over time, even though with any given patch they may become more or less balanced. There is no such thing as a "classical MMORPG nerf loop", except from the perspective of players of overpowered characters. How do you think the business model would continue to exist if they made the game worse with every iteration?

[edge2054]

Kinda getting the thread off track here but...

I can see the nerf/buff cycle being a good business model. If hardcore players are content with the character they're playing they may get bored of the game. On the other hand if you just nerfed the 'best' class and buffed another class so it's nowt the 'best' that gives incentive for some people to grind another class up to the top. Then the cycle repeats. The desire to always be the best is a strong one in a lot of hardcore MMO players, rather it's the best raider or pvper. I've seen a lot of friends switch classes over the years because the class they played got nerfed or because another class was now doing their job better. Who wants to go from Main Tank to Off Tank because a new class does the job better?

I'm not condoning it as ethical but from a bank account stand point I can see it being done.

[Dekar]

I'm curious about how you survived the orc ambush; it didn't go well on my b18 test characters. Is the newly nerfed damage keeping the orc archers from punching through the kinetic shield?

I was stuck in the corner you start in, as my teleporation rune refused to get me out. I slowed the boss with my slime weapon and kept my infusions/runes ( heal, regeneration, shield I think ) pretty much on cooldown. At one time I took pretty heavy damage so I used my Kinetic Aura to knock the boss away, what worked even though there probably was another row of orcs behind him. I dont remember there happening more.

Kinetic Aura was my boss killer in lower levels, as it deals hundrets of damage when you smash them into obstacles as well as giving you room to breath.

How did your damage output compare to other classes you've played? Beta 19 mindslayers do much more damage than they should due to an oversight; they're only supposed to use 60% of their willpower and cunning to determine Beyond the Flesh damage, not 100%.

I can only guess: It probably was rather high with the 3x daylight weapons and weapon reforming, and the Beyond the Flesh weapon alone hit for over 100 physical. The daylight suffix probably needs a nerf the most.

Oh, and I'm sorry you had to get through a whole 50 levels with a bug that makes all sustains turn off if energy reaches zero. Only auras are supposed to turn off at zero energy.

I basically didnt use psi at all, only for reshaping and jumping to ranged enemies apart from sustains.

It sounds like you had a similar problem to one of mine: I rarely found myself in a situation where I needed to spike any of my shields. I occasionally did, particularly in the early game, but runes and infusions provided plenty of defensive options later on. I want shield-spiking to be a much bigger part of the class, and I'm looking for input on how to accomplish that. Some ideas:

1) Reduce base values for shields, increase spike values
2) Make spiking shields not require a turn
3) Make spiked shields apply to 100% of incoming damage (unlike the base shields)
4) Increase rate of energy absorption from spiked shields, reduce rate of energy absorption from base shields
5) Make Shield Discipline easier to get and more user-friendly

I'm not sure any of these is adequate. I have a feeling that the real problem lies in the runes and infusions. They're just too good-- especially their cooldowns. Perhaps what we need are better offensive runes and infusions combined with a nerf to mindslayer damage. These might tempt people away from defensive runes and infusions, leaving them to rely more on spiked shields in emergencies.

1) I think the spiked shields absorbed close to 1000 damage for me, but I guess in 5 turns you can take more damage than that.
2) Im a fan of stuff that does not take a turn
3) My shields say they absorb 100% of the damage ( 84 cun )
4) The little psi I used was filled up fast from ~12 points for one 50 damage attack absorbed
5) Shield Discipline and Absorption Mastery dont really go well together. With full Mastery my shields have 10 cooldown and Discipline level 1 reduces cooldowns by 12, adding another 2 seconds per level. You could remove Absorption Mastery and reduce the cooldown of Shield Discipline significantly and maybe switch their place.



The reshape cost should be halved, so you can use it with your sustains on.
You should think about limiting Reshape Armor to body armor to make it scale better and easier to use.

Oh, and Kinetic Charge spams that it requires a spiked shield if you have it in your active hotkey list.

[ohioastro]

This game is fun, but not too easy. Look at how few higher level characters there are. If anything, v19 got quite a bit harder already - the bosses can be extremely tedious to kill, and you can end up facing absolute swarms of critters. That's basically a plea against crippling player healing.

Now balance is a distinct issue - it's clear to me from testing so far that the classes vary strongly in both style and strength. Since it isn't an MMO you don't need absolute balance - but you do want to make all of them fun. Thus I'd focus on bolstering weaker classes and options.

[yufra]

Oh, and Kinetic Charge spams that it requires a spiked shield if you have it in your active hotkey list.

I reported the fix here: http://forums.te4.org//viewtopic.php?f=42&t=24505.

[PowerWyrm]

This is a quite stupid question, but how are you supposed to dual-wield (or in this case triple-wield)? Isn't there a dual-wielding talent that you need to have in order to do so? I don't see any in your character report...

[yufra]

This is a quite stupid question, but how are you supposed to dual-wield (or in this case triple-wield)? Isn't there a dual-wielding talent that you need to have in order to do so? I don't see any in your character report...

Every class can dual wield with a dagger in the off-hand. There is a bug in beta19 that requires you to remove the psionically wielded weapon/gem before trying to dual wield, though. I am tracking it down now...

[Sirrocco]

worth noting on that topic that the offhand dagger does noticeably less damage (40%? 45%? something like that). The only people who can dual wield things that are not daggers are the reavers.

[PowerWyrm]

Less damage... unless you decide to pump dexterity and knife mastery.

[yufra]

worth noting on that topic that the offhand dagger does noticeably less damage (40%? 45%? something like that). The only people who can dual wield things that are not daggers are the reavers.

Ah, but Dekar either intentionally or unintentionally found a major bug in beta19... the daylight ego is applied to ALL weapon attacks not just the ones with the specific weapon. Having three daylight ego weapons means that he was getting 140 light damage for each hit per round. So in this particular case dual wielding is MUCH better than a two-handed weapon.

[PowerWyrm]

Hmm strange... my current mindslayer has found a waraxe of daylight, and using this weapon with a plain dagger off-hand and a psi-wielded greatmaul only produces the light damage once. It must be something else than plain applying the damage to all weapons...