echo42 wrote:
Aura of Unlight issue: it appears to have bugged out and is constantly activating Unseen at just two shadow charges, which puts me at -2 charges and instantly deactivates Unseen on the next move I take.
Oops, that was my bad. The costs and penalties of being/becoming Unseen were tweaked a
lot, and I forgot to change the pre-activation check when I increased the cost for the last time before upload. All fixed, now.
echo42 wrote:
I kind of wish Unseen was an activable skill rather than an automatic one - it's only in rare cases that the utility of invisibility overcomes the speed penalty + mana drain + damage penalty for the most part. The stamina regen hasn't really come in useful - stamina is rarely an issue. In fact if it wasn't for wanting to try out all the other skills that require shadow charges I'd probably just have it off. I guess it could combo well off disruption shield, though.
It sounds like I have it tuned just about where I want it if the costs are greater than the benefits at early levels. Generating Shadow Charges
should be the biggest reason to sustain the Aura, but the Invisibility can definitely be useful, too. I'd be reluctant to tweak anything too much just yet, until I have time to give it a proper play test myself, and hear some more feed back. I found that Invisibility, even at very low powers, is absurdly useful. The majority of enemies will just ignore you entirely, even if you are blasting them with magic and beating them over the head with your staff. It may take a little longer to kill them this way, but that's sort of moot when they just sit there and let you.
The damage penalty decreases with further investment, and the spells in the Dark tree can ignore 50% of the damage penalty with 5/5 Malign Darkness. Dark Apprentice grants a sizeable boost to Physical and Spell Power, if you store up Shadow Charges, which should help with the damage penalty, too. Also, it's a
damage penalty, so it doesn't affect Unhealing
The speed penalties can be completely overcome with talents available to the Dark Priest (Umbral Swiftness and Shadow Feed).
Shadow Feed also boosts mana regen, as does Dark Thoughts.
Combine this with the spells that Shadow Charges facilitate, the bonuses you can get from storing Shadow Charges, and I think it's in a pretty good spot. Also, it might be worth noting that Shadow Charges persist indefinitely until consumed, even when Aura of Unlight is turned off. I kind of anticipated that low level Dark Priests, or those who choose not to invest heavily in the tree (the Dark Adept tree can gain all of the same benefits even with just one point in Aura), would have to toggle it on and off as they deemed necessary. Turning it off will remove Unseen, and therefore the associated costs and penalties, but you will keep your Charges.
I did reduce the cool down (20->15) and change it to instant usage speed with this update, though, to better facilitate toggling.
Toles of Maine Exits wrote:
Completely random idea- what if dark priests' staff talents worked with tridents too? I think it fits thematically if contextualized as a pitchfork (tridents are basically staffs with a fork on the end anyway), and it might help distinguish this class from other melee-casters.
That's a thought. Though, when I think of pitchforks, I think of the angry mobs that would be trying (and utterly failing) to stop the Dark Priest, rather than the Priests themselves.