Shaloren supremacy... should something be about done it?

[Davion Fuxa]

Most people pick Shaloran because they have Timeless. They don't pick Shaloran for the Eternal talents - and personally I had to look up the Shaloran Race in the wiki just to remember what their other three talents did.

Something more akin to the Thaloran would be better. When I am picking the Thaloran, all of their four talents are helpful in some shape or form and outside of Unshackled, they are all worthy of 5/5 investment. When picking a Thaloran, there isn't any specific ability I'm investing in for them because I'll likely make use of all their talents.

[Mankeli]

Most people pick Shaloran because they have Timeless. They don't pick Shaloran for the Eternal talents - and personally I had to look up the Shaloran Race in the wiki just to remember what their other three talents did.

Something more akin to the Thaloran would be better. When I am picking the Thaloran, all of their four talents are helpful in some shape or form and outside of Unshackled, they are all worthy of 5/5 investment. When picking a Thaloran, there isn't any specific ability I'm investing in for them because I'll likely make use of all their talents.

If you don't find a global speed bonus with good duration that can go over 40 % late game with dex/mag characters or 10/25 crit chance/multiplier useful then I don't really know what to say. The standard investment is 1-5-1-5 for shalore racials -this doesn't mean that all characters do this but most should.

The fact that you had to look something up doesn't prove or mean anything.

[Davion Fuxa]

It isn't a question of whether the eternal talents are useful or not - it is just the disconnect in power between the eternal talents or even racial talents of other races versus Timeless.

It's much like looking at Ghouls - you don't look at Ghouls as being Stun Resistant or a big health pool, you look at their slower global speed.

The one racial element and its interaction with the rest of the class can play a big part in the underlying strength of the character. Likely if the synergy with that aspect is bad, you consider other races.

[Sradac]

I look at retch when I look at ghouls.

This is in line with the only other valid complaints I've seen here, right now races are "one trick ponies". Having more subtle and more general differences in races, with the few exceptions, is the way to go. You SHOULD be picking your race based upon what type of character you want to play, who you want to be, what you want to experience, what you want to roleplay. You should NOT be picking your race based upon a single talent.

Look at the most successful game out there, Dungeons and Dragons. Beyond a few exceptions, the differences between races "stat wise" is minimal. Oh boy, half-elves get +1 dex! Dwarves get +1 con! What the race actually makes a difference in is how you play your character, who your identity is.

The racial talents in this game are so poorly designed that I almost exclusively play Cornac because I don't want to be bothered with feeling like I gimped my character just because I didnt invest "properly" in my racial talents. Give me a cat point and lets be done with it.

[cctobias]

More often than not "balancing" a game tends to make the game worse, usually resulting in more boring choices.

This is not a shared environment game, like an MMO, I think balancing stuff is a low priority. Its not like the various classes are at all comparable anyway.

I think this is a case of be careful what you wish for.

Shaloren are certainly more powerful, its not just Timeless, though, the speed increase can be as high as 60+% that is possibly the best gspeed increase in the game. Its better than Blinding Speed.

Anyway I think there are better things to tinker with really.

[overgoat]

I'd like to see each of the other races 4th racial ability be buffed. Changed to something fairly useful that matches the race.

[donkatsu]

More often than not "balancing" a game tends to make the game worse, usually resulting in more boring choices.

This is not a shared environment game, like an MMO, I think balancing stuff is a low priority. Its not like the various classes are at all comparable anyway.

I see people say this a lot. I think what they're missing is that for a lot of people, part of the fun comes from looking at a vast array of choices, and trying to figure out which would be the strongest. If that's a no-brainer, then, well, it's not very fun. It's debatable how many people this is, but given ToME's relative complexity, I would say that the number of people who want choices to be brain dead simple are probably not as high.

The specific case of Shaloren, by the way, is far from a no-brainer option. Not because they're not stronger than the other races by leaps and bounds, but because it's not obvious to new players. My evidence is the number of threads where the popular vote decided that Shaloren were too weak, and called for buffs, when they have actually been one of the strongest races for years.

[Delmuir]

Don't get me wrong, Delmuir, I love Ghouls too. That being said, half their abilities are out of line in one way or another-Gnaw, while perfectly thematic, is out of line with them being tanks and not all that good besides. I'd rather the Ghouls be able to survive anything than an extra, only decent attack. Ghoulish Leap, while fantastic as an ability, just makes little sense to me at all. They're explicitly slow, shambling, clumsy, etc.-how exactly do they have pinpoint leaping skills?

I'd agree that it shouldn't be class specialized, but specialization in a certain area would be wonderful. Like I've said earlier, a lot of races are just kinda boring, and related to that is a lot of races feel the exact same. If they specialize, that goes away, and each option actually matters.

That dissonance for class is kind of what I like about them. They don't seem custom-made for certain builds.

Having said that, I agree that the Ghoul leap ability is weird and out of place but I suspect it was a balancing issue to make up for a lack of movement infusions.

To that end, I've long thought that Ghouls should instead have a decent natural resistance to blight, lightning, physical, and crit damage. That way, they'd be able to survive that closing of distance problem that affects so many… make the mobility issue a class-solution rather than an incoherent racial solution.

After all, they're undead… that would leave them susceptible to fire and nature, etc.

In the same vein, I think Skeletons should be slightly more susceptible to physical damage (being just bones and all) while being more resistance to cold and darkness.

[Red]

I actually had a post in another thread about modifying Ghouls, and found what I think is a good way to give mobility without wrecking the whole "shambling tank" thing.

Ghoulish Charge-Active
Run headlong through your enemies, dropping off your rotting flesh as you do.
Move 3-7 squares, putting down tiles that heal undead and harm living (as Retch) in a radius 0-2 around the line you passed through. Any enemies you pass directly through have a basic attack performed on them. The final spot you reach has a radius 2-1 precision.

[Boozermonkey]

Shaloren are certainly more powerful, its not just Timeless, though, the speed increase can be as high as 60+% that is possibly the best gspeed increase in the game. Its better than Blinding Speed.

I believe Yeek also have a passive gspeed increase that is significant? Combined with the Archmage or Chrony gspeed increase it is actually a game changer in late game, but yeah, Shaloren are rediculous. I am glad we agree there.

We dissagree on the priority of the nerf though. While you feel that a nerf for them is low-pri, I think you lack perspective. To argue that just because this is a single player game that keeping Shaloren at vastly OP levels is OK?.. That is a really weak argument. If you really feel this way then why nerf anything? There were wails of anguish about the Doombringer when it came out and it was nerfed. There were/is people commenting about DW and it is getting nerfed. Next on the plate I have no doubt is a staff nerf because a lot of folks are rigorously abusing them right now on just about every class because the dps you can get up to with them is worse than rediculous, especially on an AB. So on and so on. How can you (not talking about you specifically) possibly say to nerf one thing and not nerf something else that needs it too? Rather shallow, don't you think?

No. The more reasonable course of action is to actually balance the whole of the game. Shaloren included, of course.

[Red]

+15%. Works great if you have enough abilities to toss out something each turn or a powerful bump attack. If your main limitation is CDs, like on a Summoner, it's a lot less effective.

And it's not of the highest priority. Balance should be a goal, however, because it's a single-player game, inbalance does not actively hurt anyone. Because Timeless is one single ability, it doesn't need balancing as much as the old Grappling did, for instance. That was an enitre category and Brawler build that was unbalanced. Timeless, though, avoiding the imbalance means a single ability (and a T4 one at that) in a single race is to be avoided. It just plain doesn't cause a ton of harm if you go out of your way to not abuse it.

[Boozermonkey]

Timeless, though, avoiding the imbalance means a single ability (and a T4 one at that) in a single race is to be avoided. It just plain doesn't cause a ton of harm if you go out of your way to not abuse it.

Well, yes. If your goal is to not abuse an OP talent sure. You can say that about anything though. If your goal IS to abuse it (or anything that provides unintended unbalanced advantages), then it sets up easy wins. Kind of defeats the purpose of the game and robs DarkGod of player suffering that should otherwise occur.

[Red]

I do think it should be balanced, I just think it's not the highest priority. Things like Anorithil are a lot more in need of a fix because of how god-awful their resources are, whereas Shalore just have one broken ability.

Besides, the tears he has been denied now will come in full force in 1.3, when the people who abuse it pop Draconic Will, then Timeless, and find that DW no longer gets extended.

[twas Brillig]

Besides, the tears he has been denied now will come in full force in 1.3, when the people who abuse it pop Draconic Will, then Timeless, and find that DW no longer gets extended.

It should be no surprise to anyone that DG plays the longest game of all.

[donkatsu]

I do think it should be balanced, I just think it's not the highest priority. Things like Anorithil are a lot more in need of a fix because of how god-awful their resources are, whereas Shalore just have one broken ability.

One talent is also an order of magnitude easier to fix than an entire class.