Mindstars

[Sradac]

I would like to see more options with mindstars. Berserkers, Bulwarks, Rogues, Archers, Shadowblades and Marauders all have multiple talent trees that are focused around their weapon of choice. Whether its a massive hammer, daggers, sword and board, sword and dagger, or whatever it might be, they have a focus and synergy around an object (in this case its a hunk of metal).

I dont know why we dont already have a class focused around Mindstars as an object. Obviously psiblades is one tree, we should have more. All of the nature / psionic / afflicted talents that CAN use mindstars as them, only use it as a focus for the powers. The mindstar enhances the talent, not the other way around.

Creating a psi-shield or psi-spear as mentioned before could be cool. If anyone ever played Kingdoms of Amalur, im seeing something similar to the finisher moves when you unravel the fate threads, creating different temporary weapons depending on the situation.

Other cool talents could be something akin to telekinetic weapon where you have a floating mindstar orbiting you, but instead of it doing a melee swing every turn it could do different things based on the sustain you have up:

Code: Select all

1. Once per round, the mindstar can intercept a single attack (including spells).  Higher levels would allow more interceptions.

2. Once per round, your mindstar could send out a bolt of energy (based on the mindstars damage type) to a single target.  At level 3 this becomes a beam.  At level 5 it becomes a cone.

3. You focus your mindstar on yourself, granting different protective benefits based upon the mindstars energy (damage) type:
  a. If your mindstar is Nature, it will heal you once per round.
  b. If your mindstar is Mind, it will remove one random mental affliction.
  c. If your mindstar is Light, it will remove one random magical affliction.
  d. If your mindstar is Darkness, it will grant a small 3 turn Shield (think shield rune) to you.  If you already have a shield up, it will refresh that shield to its maximum protective value but NOT maximum duration.

4. Your mindstar creates a small resonance field around you.  Anyone who strikes you in melee has a chance to be afflicted by a condition based upon your Mindstars energy type:
  a. If your mindstar is Nature, the field lashes back with spores which can poison the enemy.
  b. If your mindstar is Mind, the field pulses with a burst of kinetic energy which can knockback the enemy.
  c. If your mindstar is Light, the field flashes brightly and it can daze the enemy.
  d. if your mindstar is Darkness, it sends out strong mental vibrations which can confuse the enemy (power 25%).

I think Light and Dark are proper mindstar damage types? I cant really remember. Perhaps at higher levels / talent levels you are able to control more than one mindstar at a time, allowing you to have up multiple different sustains or even multiple versions of the same sustain.

[Doctornull]

Technically the Oozemancer is based around having Psiblades active all the time, since their two high-level trees require Psiblades, but they don't do weapon stuff. They shoot beams, which means your weapon stats are kind of pointless, since you're a wizard.

Therefore technically there is a class which "uses" psiblades, but it does so in a shitty weapon-irrelevant kind of way.

So yeah, it'd be neat to have an actual psiblade melee class.

[Atarlost]

There's already a techniques tree for mindstars, it's just not available to any psi or equilibrium classes. Give wyrmics the dual techniques to go with shield offense and whichever two handed weapon tree and you have a melee mindstar class. Well, apart from having to buy the mastery tree.

Or build a psi/eq/stamina hybrid around those two trees. Maybe the psi movement generic from the mindslayer, some of the weapon agnostic stamina class trees, and a mixed tree with some sort of psi to eq converter and some shinies. Psi/eq are more thematically related than magic/eq and stone wardens are a thing.

[HousePet]

I'm puzzled by the mention of there being classes that have multiple categories based around weapons of choice.
Most 'weapon' categories aren't restricted to specific weapons. Many will function with mindstars.

Also, mindstars only come in nature and mind damage by default.

[Atarlost]

I'm puzzled by the mention of there being classes that have multiple categories based around weapons of choice.
Most 'weapon' categories aren't restricted to specific weapons. Many will function with mindstars.

Not really. There are two trees for each melee combat style, four for gloves/gauntlets, and I think three for archery plus one each for bows and slings. I can only think of three non-mindslayer weapon agnostic trees that contain attack buttons: the one with rush, the one with GWF and bleeding edge, and Dirty Fighting. I'm not real familiar with the marauder and the new barbarian because the very idea of unstoppable leaves a foul taste in my mouth so that tree might be a fourth weapon agnostic tree if it has any attack buttons.

That's a lot of trees that lock you into a weapon type. I believe every tree with three or four weapon attack buttons is weapon type restricted. Mindstars can technically be used with a shield, but it's a horrible idea. That leaves dual wielding and one of the dual wielding trees mostly mitigates problems daggers have that mindstars don't.

And off-hand there are at least four variable style classes: arcane blade has the active trees for all three styles last I looked, wyrmic and sun paladin have shield and two handed, and one of the cursed or doomed classes I can't remember the name of because I found it too glass cannony to have fun with had its own set of style specific trees.

[Doctornull]

I'm puzzled by the mention of there being classes that have multiple categories based around weapons of choice.
Most 'weapon' categories aren't restricted to specific weapons. Many will function with mindstars.

Not really. There are two trees for each melee combat style, four for gloves/gauntlets, and I think three for archery plus one each for bows and slings. I can only think of three non-mindslayer weapon agnostic trees that contain attack buttons: the one with rush, the one with GWF and bleeding edge, and Dirty Fighting.

Yeah. Because I'm interested in making active attack talents which are ~actually~ weapon-agnostic, the relative dearth of weapon-agnostic talents is a personal annoyance of mine.

So I'd really like it if there were more "style" trees which didn't necessarily require one specific weapon type.

[HousePet]

Mindstars are functionally identical to daggers with regards to weapon categories. Except that mindstars have a dedicated category and daggers don't.
So why single out mindstars are oppressed?
Won't somebody think of the daggers?!

[Red]

Because daggers are pointy bits of metal and mindstars are semi-living moss-rock-plant-somethings that's pretty unique to ToME.

[HousePet]

Psiblade + Shield sounds cool to me as well.

[Red]

Psishields might actually make sense as a tree. Mindstars are just Natural focuses for psionic power, so why couldn't that be channeled defensively? Hell, why not give Stone Wardens a double psishield tree?

[anonymous000]

As Red said, mindstars are semi-living moss-rock-plant-somethings. They don't necessarily need to function as traditional weapons like Shields/Blades. I would really like to see mindstars to be used to perform some unorthodox stuff, like sprouting Psi-chains to bind/drag/control enemies at will, or planting it to the ground and let the Psi-chain pull you to a desired destination in radius x, or even infusing the mindstars into your brain to give you some buffs / crazy-ass auras depending the mindstar used. Turning minstar into another ordinary weapon kinda lose the point, I hope even a bump attack could be performed differently when wielding mindstars.

[Sradac]

As Red said, mindstars are semi-living moss-rock-plant-somethings. They don't necessarily need to function as traditional weapons like Shields/Blades. I would really like to see mindstars to be used to perform some unorthodox stuff, like sprouting Psi-chains to bind/drag/control enemies at will, or planting it to the ground and let the Psi-chain pull you to a desired destination in radius x, or even infusing the mindstars into your brain to give you some buffs / crazy-ass auras depending the mindstar used. Turning minstar into another ordinary weapon kinda lose the point, I hope even a bump attack could be performed differently when wielding mindstars.

That was pretty much my thought process for my ideas I put up. Awaken the sentience in the mindstars so they can do more than just be used as a blunt force weapon to someones head. They aren't weapons for trolls, they're for the psionics and tree huggers to meld with and open up their powers that lay dormant

[Atarlost]

Mindstars are functionally identical to daggers with regards to weapon categories. Except that mindstars have a dedicated category and daggers don't.
So why single out mindstars are oppressed?
Won't somebody think of the daggers?!

Lethality and Dual Weapons aren't strictly dagger categories, but the first and third talents in Dual Weapons are only useful to people with a dagger in their off hand and the first and second Lethality talents are pretty strongly dagger biased, with Lethality:Lethality strongly pushing towards dual dagger builds.

[Candesce]

the first and second Lethality talents are pretty strongly dagger biased, with Lethality:Lethality strongly pushing towards dual dagger builds.

... What?

Since when is 9% crit rate and 30% crit damage dagger biased?

[Red]

Yeah, Lethality offers a bonus for Rogue metaclasses, not so much dagger wielders. If you want a dagger Bulwark, for instance, you'll still be pumping Strength, making Lethality unneccessary.

For Dual, did you mean Weapons or Techniques? Because neither one says anything about daggers. It could just as easily be a mindstar, or any one-handed weapon if you're an Adventurer with Reaving Combat. Admittedly, you need APR a bit more on daggers than you do on mindstars, but even on the crazy high APR of mindstars more won't hurt. Really, the Dual categories aren't for people with offhand daggers, they're for people with two weapons, as the name may imply.