Suggestions for changes to Embers of Rage

[Zeyphor]

so as some of you may realize EoR isn't quite a balanced expansion pack; some tinkers are really overpowered, the tinker escort is the best escort that almost any, if not any, class can get by a VERY large margin, sawbutchers are busted, psyshot's mindstar damage practically does not matter(is that an integral part of the class from a design standpoint?), and startling+vital shot(or even saw/solid/corrosive shell) seems broken as does net projector, and on top of that theres some EoR artifacts that are broken as well

I'd like this thread to be here to offer suggestions to make changes to the Embers of Rage expansion pack, in order to get some ideas out there that, if implemented, could fix the non-bug parts of the campaign or just generally improve it


since I've already largely brushed over gunslinger and psyshot, so I'll say some stuff about how sawbutcher is broken(not saying psyshot is though):
I know its a bad comparison, but bulwark is fine aside from defense from ranged attacks(unless AM in which case they can handle that), but sawbutchers shouldn't be THAT much better than them
consider the bulwark: they get high armor, step up, blinding speed, 57% stun immunity, and they can use assault or GWF+shield accuracy bonus+repulsion/shield pummel or even shield slam to hit very hard with shield skills, getting crits upwards of 7k realistically in pre-high peak gear on insane, and they can also go antimagic and get what is effectively 95+ resist armor against everything except mind and physical damage(and 5/1/1/1 fungus), and if you bother to level it their shattering shout can get rid of projectiles too, but only before they hit you, and it takes a turn to use

now the sawbutcher, they also get high armor, continuous butchery, they get almost as much stun resistance from grounding strap, instead of step up they get the superior saw wheels(which hits really hard at the end), and instead of relying on assault and proc accuracy bonus to deal damage, they just hit stupidly hard(which I'll elaborate on), but they ALSO, unlike bulwark, get grinding shield, reducing melee damage taken even further AND giving projectile deflection chance, and they also get furnace, which reduces non-physical non-mind damage EVEN FURTHER, and then as cornac they can also viably go antimagic and get that antimagic shield(with 5/1/1/1 fungus), and on top of all of that, they can ALSO get tempest of metal, which is realistically >18% damage avoidance until something knocks the sustain off(if at all)

as for their offenses, well consider a regular voratun steamsaw and a regular voratun longsword with a regular voratun shield
both 1 handers have about as much base power as the other, but the steamsaw has 25 innate armor penetration(and 6 armor) while the longsword only has 6 base armor pen, and unlike the longsword, the steamsaw does an extra 50% damage over time as bleed, which can stack, and you can use two of them
the shield generally has maybe 10 extra base power over both weapons, but doesn't get 50% extra bleed damage and doesn't automatically hit with every bump attack
now consider tempest of metal: steamsaw bumps essentially do 195% mainhand and 195% offhand damage with every bump, whereas the longsword just does 100% weapon damage by itself with a bump
you wanna bring up weapon damage ability comparisons?
bulwarks get GWF, shield pummel, shield slam, counterstrike abuse, assault, repulsion, and bleeding edge, and blinding speed(not quite the same but can be used like one), and they can use eye of the tiger with it too
in comparison, sawbutchers do 150% weapon damage with every hit AND have an offhand weapon that can bump too; they get saw wheels' end hit, continuous butchery, iron grip(which is instant) or fatal attractor, spinal break, punishment(easily 337% damage if you have gloom effects with a 5 turn or less cd), bloodstream(you ever seen 12k bleeding? I've seen >20k), tempest of metal, overheat saws(4 times per bump), overcharge saws, and tech overload

when a class deals a ton of bump(or default shoot) damage, you'd oughta make their non-bump abilities that deals a % of weapon damage low(but above 100%) to balance them out


so in summary, not only is sawbutcher's offense VASTLY superior to that of bulwarks(and also the third strongest offense in the game), but their defense is by far superior to that of bulwarks too... and sawbutchers can win madness as well
oh, and sawbutchers get MOW DOWN; hit a randboss 10 times(if it even lives that long) and suddenly all it and everything in a radius 4 of it can do is bump you

so I'll suggest these changes to the EoR campaign that'd fix whats broken and more:
Razakai is already working on an Engineer class so I'll leave that part out

salves:
salves no longer scale with steampower independently of the injector's attributes(which they currently do), or at all
the efficiency of injectors scales better(not so sure about that one)
those salve changes are intended to make salves still be good for classes that may not want to max out dex over cunning without getting the steam power talent, such as cursed, 2h or 1h+shield wyrmics, sun paladins, non-staff reavers, doombringers, demonologists, or especially stone wardens; 40 steampower(from 60 cunning) isn't that much anyway

non-salve tinkers:
tinker swapping is no longer instantaneous
galvanic retributor has a 3% chance per tier to daze the attacker at the end of the turn and deals 5 electric damage per tier on hit(this weapon only)
deflection field's slow projectiles is increased by 1 or 2% per tier
power distributor's effect is quadrupled; .5 mana stamina and psi per turn is not considerable for any class unless its the only belt tinker you know
spike attachment gives 4% more fatigue
rustproof coating's chance to ignore a detrimental acid subtype effect is doubled, for a 100% chance at t5
second skin gives 20% less cut, poison, and disease immunity(via subtraction) at all tiers; t5 second skin would still be a solid pick over spikes or ablative armour
ablative armour's crit shrug is reduced by 4% per tier, and its armour is reduced by 1 per tier
armour reinforcement gives 1 or 2 extra armour per tier
grounding strap's stun resistance is halved
rocket boots no longer turns itself off on rest or run or click to move(yes autouse is a thing but turning it off or clicking no repeatedly isn't so fun)
iron grip's disarm immunity is reduced by 50%(via subtraction) for all tiers
razor edge's bonus critical strike chance chance is reduced by 1% per tier
crystal edge's critical multiplier is reduced by 1% per tier
mana coil's lightning proc chance is reduced to 10%

tinker generics:
crafting talents consider only raw talent level, not effective talent level... so you couldn't equip brass goggles or an amulet of mastery and suddenly have an extra 2 or more generic points to spare for your build
the talent, steam power, has some sort of diminishing returns on how much raw steam power it gives per point
emergency steam purge deals fireburn damage instead of fire damage

sawbutchers:
the damage bonus from continuous butchery is halved or its just outright replaced with a brand new talent
mow down's brainlock is fixed at 1 turn for all levels of the talent and limited to once per turn
mow down is instant
mow down drains 20(or maybe 15) steam instead of costing 20 sustained steam(get some decent(or even good) warrior generators with ICCTW and you still wont worry about steam)
saw wheels' movement speed bonus is reduced to 40% of the normal bonus
the free attack at the end of saw wheels is removed
saw wheels deals physical damage based on physical power and steampower when you knock back an enemy with saw wheels(which won't trigger tempest of metal; it isn't weapon damage)
punishment's bonus damage is reduced by maybe 30%(by multiplying it by .7); 337% weapon damage(which is actually pretty easy to get it to) is a LOT, especially for steamsaws, which already deal 50% extra damage as bleed damage
the bonus to saw wheels from battlefield veteran is changed to increase the damage caused when you knock back an opponent with saw wheels
the chance granted by battlefield veteran to reduce the cooldown of punishment by 1 for each effect is halved
bloodstream's bleeding damage boost is reduced by 30%(by multiplying by .7); 15k+ bleeding shouldn't be a thing even without razorlock
steamsaws, including artifacts, either have their base power reduced to that of daggers or get 10% less strength scaling, preferably the latter, and if they still do alot more damage than a 2h sun paladin after either of those and the other above changes, then do both
change goresplosion in the following manner: remove its current function, and have it non-instantly place an explosive device inside of a targeted enemy that has 80% or less health when activated, which has a 50% chance to explode the next time that you critically strike that enemy, dealing x/x/x/x/x physical damage based on your steampower in a radius of 3 excluding you(somehow) as well as damage equal to x/x/x/x/x% of the bleed damage being taken by that enemy, which the targeted enemy takes double damage from. This damage can instantly kill the exploding enemy if the exploding enemy has 20% or less of their hp remaining, which will increase the explosion damage by 100% if the target is killed before the damage boost

gunslinger:
net projector's %resist all reduction is halved
steamguns have an innate 80% damage multiplier, and the damage multiplier on all steamgun artifacts are muplicatively reduced by 20%
the damage bonuses from double shots, static shot, evasive shots, trick shot, awesome toss, and maybe also strafe are increased to compensate for the lowered steamgun damage multiplier; this is intended to make vital shot, solid shell, saw shell, and corrosive shell not be overpowered for gunslingers
startling shot has its damage multiplier reduced

psyshot:
slightly reduce the damage multipliers on all psyshot abilities that deal a % of bullet damage, but also modify the talent, psyshot, to add physical power to ranged(not melee) mindstar attacks equal to that given to the steamgun attacks and also have ranged mindstar damage increased by the %weapon damage boost for talents that do a % of weapon damage, so that for example vital shot also deals 450% ranged mindstar damage(after the 275% boost from psyshot mastery); if psyshot's ranged mindstar attacks deal too much damage(probably due to the physical power boost), then reduce the innate bonus mindstar damage accordingly, but not the physical power boost
AN AOA CHANGE: change psiblades so that they only give the physical power while the sustain is active

campaign:
warrior unlock is from completing the steam palace, you'd oughta be quite the warrior to beat that place
rogue unlock is from killing the dominion port's boss
mage unlock is from saving all of the vor pride orcs
wilder unlock is from killing the primal forest bosses
celestial unlock is from killing aeryn
defiler unlock is from the achievement for killing 1000 steam giant civillians(recall that reaver is from a similar achievement)
afflicted unlock is from killing crimson templar john
chronomancer unlock comes from killing malthoth the mad
psionic unlock comes from giving all four yeti tissues to the psi-machine
adventurer unlock comes, of course, from winning the game; though I'm not so sure if thats already the case or not
(less important)if you don't break the farportal at the sunwall, you get to deal with the consequences after you win the game

items that aren't tinkers:
sawrd is changed to its EoR 1.0.3 state, THEN it has its multiple attacks reduced by 1 and its strength scaling reduced to 100%; if thats not enough change its damage type to physical too
razorlock has its strength scaling reduced to 80% and gets a base power reduction of maybe 5; currently razorlock deals as much if not more single-target damage than 2 voratun chilling DOUBLE-massacre randart steamsaws
skysmasher's base power is increased by at least 5, but not more than 10; the weapon doesn't really hit that hard compared to other stuff
grinder has a 6 turn cooldown on its blindside, maybe longer
dethzaw's proc is limited to 1 almost-whirlwind per turn if it isn't already
the anhillator's maximum speed is reduced to 250% or has its damage multiplier set to maybe 60%
the long-arm's damage multiplier is reduced to 160%(or 200% if regular steamguns aren't nerfed)
brass goggles get some sort of buff because crafting talents, if the change is implemented, would not care for effective talent levels

[Steven Aus]

Some good suggestions here.