Expanding Mindstars for other classes

[Sedrahl]

I somewhat agree in that sense. Doomed and Solipsists are fully capable of functioning without instant psiblades. These specific builds can deal with waiting to buy Mindstar Mastery since the primary boon of Psiblades that early (when Mindstars have poor stat bonuses in the first place) is the raw damage bonus, and will later (or possibly never) pick up Psiblades for the Mindpower boost.

My biggest problem is that there seems to be *no* class designed for melee combat using Psiblades, Wilder or not, and the classes that could be used in a mindstar-warrior playstyle are obstructed from doing so. In fact, the only class in the game that starts with Mindstar Mastery unlocked plays more as a ranged nuker than anything, even the Corrosive Blades/Oozing Blades trees have very little to do with Psiblades whatsoever. Not even Wyrmics, the Wilder go-to class for melee, has Mindstar Mastery innately, and they have quite poor synergy with it due to their preference for 2h weapons/shields, and STR scaling on the majority of their talents. Psionics and Afflicted may not have necessarily been designed to need Psiblades for effectiveness, but the classes that supposedly are don't use them very effectively at all, and that's frustrating.

If someone says "I want to play a class that fights with lightsabers" (because who can blame them am I right?) then what are you supposed to say? Wyrmics are a poor choice, Summoners are an even poorer choice, and Oozemancers don't actually fight with them. If they play a class that's actually well-suited for lightsaber combat (Cursed, Doomed, Mindslayer) then the game punishes them with an arbitrarily difficult earlygame where they can't even play the style they want in the first place, because "they weren't designed to be played that way". Would you just say "tough luck"? It's just not fun that way, and I don't see why it shouldn't be fun. What I'm suggesting doesn't involve classes taking somebody else's niche, because it's a niche that Wilders don't make use of in the first place. All I'm suggesting is making niche that these classes already have more accessible, that way if someone wants to pummel enemies to death with Mindstars they damn well can, and Wilders' ability to have enhanced stats with which to melt everything on the screen or swarm them with killer fauna will be unaffected.

[King Gainer]

I think what we need is a class that is actually designed around using psiblades in melee. Perhaps some sort of psionic rouge/fighter?

[AlexanderR]

If someone says "I want to play a class that fights with lightsabers" (because who can blame them am I right?) then what are you supposed to say?

Non-undead shadowblade. Sadly those need plenty of escort-farming to get the mastery tree

I think what we need is a class that is actually designed around using psiblades in melee. Perhaps some sort of psionic rouge/fighter?

Shadowblades would fit this description, actually. You know, learning everything for survival and such. But they aren't wilders, so something have to be done about undead combinations.

[King Gainer]

Shadowblades would be terrible with psiblades, they would get it a .9 mastery and need to invest a cat point to use it. Also they need dex and magic to learn talents, meaning you would have a character who needs dex, magic, will, con, and cunning to succeed(or more likely fail).

[HousePet]

I do have a psiblade rogue planned...

[Sedrahl]

I think what we need is a class that is actually designed around using psiblades in melee. Perhaps some sort of psionic rouge/fighter?

I wish I could say Mindslayers fit the bill, but they really don't. They lean more into the ranged caster territory than the warrior territory, especially when you equip them with Mindstars rather than melee weapons. Even a single talent tree dedicated to actual melee fighting would do them a lot of good in that respect, which is very well what the last 3 talents of their spin on the Mindstar Mastery tree could be used for. Cursed would make spectacular Psiblade users if not for the entire issue with Mindstar Masteries in the first place, as well as some minor class quirks such as Brutality only enhancing physical damage. (which Mindstars never use)


Thematically speaking, directly weaponizing Mindstars would be more appropriate to Psionics and Afflicted anyway. They use the raw power of their mind to directly attack those around them, directly enhance their combat prowess, etc. Turning the stars into blades seems much more appropriate for them. Wilders on the other hand use Mindpower to strengthen their bond with nature, and that bond is what grants them special gifts with which to fight. While Wyrmics are pretty set in stone as weapon users as far as melee combat is concerned, I imagine a Wilder-appropriate Mindstar techniques would involve partial or complete shapeshifting, as they use their bond with nature to change their form. Alternatively vine whips, because whips are awesome.

[ohioastro]

It'd be nice if we had a good sense of what the tree is for. At present the first tier is genuinely useful, with stat bumps that mirror those from other weapon trees. The second, third, fourth tier...meh. They sort-of kind-of give you bits and pieces of other abilities (a little heal here, a little evasion there, a bit of slow). So, I'll have to ask...who is the audience?

If this is intended to be a primary melee tree you'd want an ability to inflict a status (e.g. a stun, blind, confuse); a high-damage ability; and an AE ability.

Make the tree worth investing in.

[Sedrahl]

It'd be nice if we had a good sense of what the tree is for. At present the first tier is genuinely useful, with stat bumps that mirror those from other weapon trees. The second, third, fourth tier...meh. They sort-of kind-of give you bits and pieces of other abilities (a little heal here, a little evasion there, a bit of slow). So, I'll have to ask...who is the audience?

If this is intended to be a primary melee tree you'd want an ability to inflict a status (e.g. a stun, blind, confuse); a high-damage ability; and an AE ability.

Make the tree worth investing in.

To be fair, it is a Wild Gift tree after all. It makes sense for it to have a mixture of combat- and support rather than raw butchering power. However, as much sense as it makes, it's all the more reason why the tree fits so poorly on more combat-based Mindstar users.

[AlexanderR]

Shadowblades would be terrible with psiblades, they would get it a .9 mastery and need to invest a cat point to use it. Also they need dex and magic to learn talents, meaning you would have a character who needs dex, magic, will, con, and cunning to succeed(or more likely fail).

Just your imagination. They don't need Dex for anything important except Flurry (and they don't use it much after getting Ambuscade). They also don't seriously boost Mag until very late, when they already have enough Mag-stacking gear. At the same time they need lots of Wil to actually use all of their sustains (why have you missed that one?) and Cun is they primary stat. In other words, it is not "a character who needs dex, magic, will, con, and cunning", but "character who needs will, cunning, and bit of magic/con", which actually simplifies their stat distribution.

[Sedrahl]

The biggest issue with Shadow Blades is that, well, they're magic users.

[Frumple]

Or rather, that they're not really a mindpower class at all. Even tangentially, iirc. Don't even remember if they get willful combat... but even if they did, that scales with willpower, not mindpower, I believe.

They do benefit a bit from some of the afflicted-themed mindstars due to darkness damage stuff, iirc, but other than that...

[Planetus]

I definitely agree that the lore and reasoning behind mindstars is a little ambiguous. I mean, they're called MINDstars, but the mastery tree is nature powered, and I don't know that the lore ever even suggests that psionic abilities were a part of nature's reaction to magic. I'm not sure if there's even any DEFINITE lore for Oozemancers in that respect (though I think it's heavily implied) and they're nature themed. I actually had no idea that was the idea behind psionists and afflicted until DarkGod said so in this topic (which, of course, makes it official, but it would still be nice to have some lore around it).

I would also like to see more variety in the non-melee-weapons categories overall. I mean, we have 2 types of swords, axes, and maces, and then we also have daggers, whips, and tridents. We've got three different proficiency skills for them (one for daggers, one for whips and tridents, and one for the rest). The differences between these can be pretty large, especially between the core weapons (swords, axes, maces) and exotic weapons.

Then we have bows and slings for ranged attackers, with no generic anything for either, though each has it's own 'mastery' style class tree. I wouldn't mind seeing those become generic and maybe learnable by others (I don't think this would OP anything, just open some odd builds), and I wouldn't mind seeing a differentiation between shortbows and longbows, maybe with shortbows having faster attack speed but shorter range.

Then we have staves, with one 'mastery' tree for them that's not very useful for them. We've got 5 classes that are built to use staves, using a number of different resources, and all we have is one type of staves. Sure, there's 'vilestaff' and 'starstaff' and all, but that's just the damage category, which they can switch between. I wouldn't mind seeing vilestaves and magestaves actually being different items, with a flavor difference so that any of the classes could reasonably use any of the types, but one would lean more toward damage boosts, or resource supply, or whatever.

Similarly, it'd be nice to have a difference between mindstars and naturestars, maybe something that was more flavor (maybe mindstars give more will/cun/mindpower/damage increase bonuses while nature stars have more raw damage and better damage bonuses). Attendant with this difference would be different masteries, or maybe one mastery tree that, like combat training, let you invest in any of the talents without others.

Basically, there are four major categories of weapons: melee, ranged, magic, and mental. Melee is quite well fleshed out. Ranged is almost forgotten. Magic is kind of hodge-podge, and mental is going the same direction. I'd like to see some more consistency between them, though I realize that'd be a lot of work.

[SageAcrin]

I think what we need is a class that is actually designed around using psiblades in melee. Perhaps some sort of psionic rouge/fighter?

I still haven't given up on Storycrafter.

Just haven't felt up to coding lately. Also, I have two half completed ideas sitting on the HD before I even consider the Bardic stuff.

[HousePet]

Now I'm thinking it would be good to have two mastery categories for each weapon/group, one melee focused and one ranged/utility focussed.

Kinda like what I did to staff mastery.