ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So, after having promising chars get instakilled by solipsist rares a few times, I think it's necessary to discuss how much nerfings they need. I understand that we shouldn't nerf them so hard they aren't fun anymore, but the consensus in the chat seems to be that they're still too OP. Plus, most people don't know how to counter them since they've never played them.

My main issue is that there is one talent that usually does about 80-90% of my hp in one game turn. I don't know which one that is, though, since I don't even have them unlocked. Now that's usually not the issue, as I can kill them just fine if no one else is around. But add a few simple mobs and it's a critical situation that already cost me a life a few times.

Please don't let ToME be another one of the "Well, the pro's can handle it easily so don't whine" games.

The skill you're encountering is likely distortion. The entire tree deals extreme damage if you're already hit with a distortion effect.

Also, sleep solipsists synergize WAY too well. They can lock down enemies while doing rather heavy damage and summoning massive amounts of pets. I think that restless night and the damage bonus from night terror/lucid dreamer are the main issues.

I think they also should be rarer. They're an exotic class - one shouldn't be seeing them so often in adventure and Zigur parties.

"Please nerf this class" isn't useful. Classes are the sum of their parts.

If a talent is taking 80-90% of your life I need to know which talent.

For sleep effects I think I'm going to put a rank adjustment on them. So higher ranked targets will be slept for a shorter period of time (which directly reduces how much damage you can take before waking). I'll look at Waking Nightmares damage, it may be too high considering what it does. Inner Demons is also going to get nerfed somehow, still not sure yet exactly how. Maybe a cap on the number of demons out at a time based on talent level (1, 1, 2, 2, 3 or something).

Anyway, I'm not against further tuning the class. But you have to be much more specific with posts like this XLambda for them to be helpful. If a talent hits you for 80-90% of your health and you feel it's overpowered, unfun, and unfair, you gotta let us know which talent it is

Maybe instead of lowering the duration based on rank, lower the amount of damage you can take, or perhaps limit it to a number of attacks instead? Maybe make it so damage over a certain threshold (say 10% hp?) insta-wakes the target, possibly in addition to that? If you were looking to do something really nasty to them, make 'em all melee range, or much lower range (2-3 at max, ferex). The current AoE sleep would be self-centered.

Sleep as-is really is one of the deadliest debuffs in the game, especially on higher level enemies who have a high damage buffer before waking somethin' up. It's pretty common for a sleep->other chain to just whack off half my health or better before I can do anything about it. It's basically an uber-daze that usually has a couple hundred points of mind damage tacked on to the cancel. Nasty, nasty stuff, yeah.

The issue is Restless Night, not the sleep. It means that someone can sleep you, then hit you and wake you up and deal Restless Night damage at the same time.

This is a big burst of damage. It's on a class that, at high Psi, is already really fast, and probably has a support character. This is the combination I've seen kill people, from discussions with them.

A good alternative: Have Restless Night inflict a DoT that adds up to the same amount of damage it currently does/combines with other Restless Night effects(Like bleeds combine). Maybe a five turn duration DoT?

This means that a PC Solipsist that is relying on sleep damage isn't going to feel too much of a hit, while enemies will no longer be able to burst damage you to death in one hit.

They'll still be dangerous-some classes are inherently more dangerous in enemy hands than others, due to how AI works and the fact that, often, the turn an enemy can get the most done is the first turn they see you, so classes good at burst damage and ranged status will always be the more dangerous ones. But that'll certainly help.

edge2054 wrote: Anyway, I'm not against further tuning the class. But you have to be much more specific with posts like this XLambda for them to be helpful. If a talent hits you for 80-90% of your health and you feel it's overpowered, unfun, and unfair, you gotta let us know which talent it is

I apologize if I'm not much help with this. I have no idea what the talents are called, as I said, I don't have access to the class.

I thought of this as an open discussion - yes, I have my problems, but I know squat about the class, its design and style. Heck, I don't even know the talent names. I know how it hurts when someone bashes your hard work and goes "this sucks", so I try to be as helpful as possible. Sorry if it's not much I can offer.

One of the reasons solipsists are nasty is that no talents and very few items guard against their effects.

Dwindlehop wrote:One of the reasons solipsists are nasty is that no talents and very few items guard against their effects.

Everything with mental save bonuses guard against most solipsist effects.

Could applying damage shield penetration to psi damage as well help? that could give a counter to that one part of them, at least.

There's some changes in the SVN to Restless Night, sleep resistances, and inner demons.

Any further suggestions are still welcome.

Has the "Forge Armor" skill been brought to your attention yet? I'm not sure if it was nerfed since the last time I played the class, but that skill would get ridiculously high stat gains. If memory serves me right my solipsist was getting about 60 armor 30 defense and 5 psi regen per hit. These numbers make that talent easily the best of it's type. Compare that to just about anything else and you'll see that skill easily trumps them.

I went for a melee oriented solipsist and steamrolled the entire game. It's pretty wrong when a class with the utility of a spell caster can tank like a bulwark.

gfder wrote:Has the "Forge Armor" skill been brought to your attention yet? I'm not sure if it was nerfed since the last time I played the class, but that skill would get ridiculously high stat gains. If memory serves me right my solipsist was getting about 60 armor 30 defense and 5 psi regen per hit. These numbers make that talent easily the best of it's type. Compare that to just about anything else and you'll see that skill easily trumps them.

I went for a melee oriented solipsist and steamrolled the entire game. It's pretty wrong when a class with the utility of a spell caster can tank like a bulwark.

You have to get armor hardiness by external means (robe of spydre, wrap of stone, getting the mobility tree, some of the newer egos might work as well), but I agree, it seems to give a bit too much.

Consider that other talents of it's type (Shield Wall for instance) also grant abilities like stun resist and knockback immunity, don't cost a category point, and are available earlier. Also, defense and armor are more valuable on melee characters then on ranged ones (because it's put to use more often).

For a Solipsist you're basically getting some protection against ranged attackers and the occasional rushing monster because you don't have to be in melee range to be effective. I'll look at the numbers, but things aren't necessarily meant to be balanced across classes but rather internally.

As a note, Defense bonus that's hard to leverage aside(Well, I'm sure you could get Mobility off an Escort and make it solid, but you can do that with a Brawler's Defense too.), Icy Skin is pretty similar to Forge Shield.

Icy Skin is pretty great, but Icy Skin on a ranged attacker doesn't stand out that much. Archmages have had a good enough Defense skill to use by its self for quite a while now, but people tend to not use it a lot.

I'm not per se objecting to Forge Shield getting nerfed, though. Just don't like seeing it get majorly nerfed. Defensive anti-physical sustains that a ranged combatant actually can justify are nice. For an example of this, see Entropic Field, which on any other class would be bonkers, but is pretty balanced on Paradox Mage.