Random Afflicted Thoughts

[Radon26]

Can wizard shadows talent be moved to make its own category? the slot they leave could be taken by some other class type, or by some ability.

As it would be an optional class talent category, the doomed who don't pick it can still be part zigur.
or, you could just make their talents non magical, but if doomed really capture their enemies as the shadows, it would make sense that some of them are mages.

if we give them too many options, we might as well make an entirely different class. well, total rework is not unheard of.

[Sirioh]

Sweet! Doomed and Cursed getting some attention from major modders!
I'd like to see the Darkness tree get some rework. I'd like to see something like Heightened Senses get built into the tree at level 1 as a side effect to that main talent, so that you don't screw up your own targeting. I think it'd be cool to have darkness follow you like a trailing cloud, in addition to being able to throw it around as an AoE (the way it works now), so you're really spreading it around even as a passive thing. Maybe the darkness effect could have a minor passive effect (the way it amplifies damage enemies take now) but also give you several other options. Maybe there's a low-cooldown targeted teleport that only works if you're already standing in darkness and teleporting to another space in darkness. Maybe there are activated abilities that, for example, pin and/or blind enemies, but only if they're already in your darkness (or apply DoT effects, or refresh the duration of debuffs, or harvest Hate and/or HP, or etc., or etc.). This way, Darkness gets to be more of a centerpiece to a certain kind of build and a certain kind of playstyle, because it opens up all those different tactical options.

I'd like to chime in on this as a method for improving their mobility. They already have a little bit of it with the "increased movement speed in darkness" but this is not presently enough, in my opinion. Between pins/daze, stun reducing movement speed and simply breaking LoS, they could use a means of emergency movement that's more than just walking away slightly faster. They do have the "switch positions with a shadow" but this is a fairly late talent.

At lot of these mechanics (passive production of darkness, teleport into darkness, targeted spreading of darkness) are virtually identical to the functionality of oozemancer mucus. But, I think that's perfectly fine. There are tons of direct-damage spells, for example, that are more or less copies of each other but vary just because of flavour of the class. So it stands to reason that oozemancers and doomed could share mobility options that differ only in presentation/flavour. (And besides, unless I misunderstand just what an oozemancer is, it makes more sense to me that doomed could discorporeate and rematerialize in their darkness than it does for an oozemancer to teleport through his mucus.) Likewise, could also look into a Wraithform-like emergency ability that would let them escape through walls (again, possibility related to shadows or the doomed himself becoming less substantial and more of a spectre through tree progression). I'd also like to see the functionality of how the current darkness spreads changed slightly: as the number of darkness spots increases, the radius in which they can appear decreases, and the darkness itself generally spreads out from that initial radius, spreading out further and lasting longer with talent points. Tendrils could also be reworked slightly to have it reach out further from that initial blast to pin [some number, more than 1] additional targets.

As far as tankability, I feel that Deflection could be improved significantly. It is extremely expensive to maintain, hate-wise (in terms of maintaining it while exploring), very slow to recharge, and not a very significant damage reduction anyway (not compared to options from other classes). It could do with taking some pointers from Warding Weapon or the mindslayer shields (both in the actual damage absorption mechanics, and in turning damage taken into hate), Bone Shield, or perhaps Reality Smearing. Or roll Gesture of Guarding into it and figure out something else to go as the fourth talent of Gestures. (It is possible that I'm simplying Using It Wrong, that despite being a sustain, it should actually be micromanaged and toggled on just before combat, off when it is depleted, on again after cooldown, etc).

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I also agree on the point that I don't think fatigue should affect hate skills, or at least doomed. The ability to use heavy armor without penalty would help a little with their close-range themeing - and besides, I like the idea of the doomed as a kind of Sauron character: a powerful sorcerer (not necessarily "magic" based) in massive armor whose sheer force of will affects the local area. The mechanism for reducing fatigue could be rolled into either the One with Shadows tree (which might be retooled slightly to make the doomed more of a spectre himself as the tree progresses), or the Force of Will tree might be retooled into a general "Incorporeal" tree with purview over both external physical-force damage, as it is now, and internal non-physicality.

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On another random point, I wouldn't mind seeing Feed either get faster with points, or give you ESP for the target, so that (baring vault walls) you can maintain LoS on them if it breaks for a moment while positioning. Though, this latter idea would have Unfortunate Impacts on NPC doomed using Feed on players, given the debuffs tied to it.

[HousePet]

A possible new mechanic for Cursed/Gestures

Psionic/Gestures:
Focus Stance: sustain. Replaces your standard attack with a Gesture attack that does mind damage based on your mindpower instead of weapon damage. On hit damage and other effects still apply. Grants Set Gestures and allows simple Gestures.
Set Gestures: active. Opens a chat window which allows you to select which Gestures you are active with Focus Stance. You may have one Gesture active per empty hand slot. Your list of Gestures is based on which flavour of mind powers you use. (eg. Nature, Psionic, Afflicted, Antimagic)
Gesture of Power: passive. Increases your mindpower while you have Focus Stance active and grants more Gestures which are offensive buffs.
Gesture of Guarding: passive. Increases your defence while you have Focus Stance active and grants more Gestures which are defensive buffs.
Gesture Mastery: passive. Increases the strength of your Gesture effects. At raw level 5 it allows you to have one extra Gesture active.

Simple Gestures:
Wilder
Snake: Adds nature damage that inflicts poison.
Growth: Adds physical damage that inflicts entangling.
Rust: Adds acid damage that corrodes.

Psionic
Illusion: Increases base damage but allows a mindsave for half.
Distortion: Adds physical damage and random distortion effects.
Forge: Adds fire damage and random dreamforge effects.

Afflicted
Pain: Increases base damage and can inflict Brainlock.
Wrath: Adds lightning damage that arcs.
Fear: Adds darkness damage that dazes.

Zigur Follower
Antimagic: Adds manaburn damage and inflicts disrupt spellcasting.

Power Gestures:
Wilder
Drake: Increased elemental damage and physical power.
Forest: Increased nature/acid damage. Bonus Equil regen on something.
Wind: Increased global speed.

Psionic
Force: Increased physical damage and Mindpower.
Channelling: Increased fire/cold damage and Psi regen.
Creativity: Increased mind/lightning damage and Crit power.

Afflicted
Fury: Increased Mind Crit. Increased fury flavour damages.
Hatred: Hate regen. Increased mind damage.
Despair: Gesture attack decreases target's resistances. Increased despair flavour damages.

Zigur
Fervour: Increased nature/arcane damage. Gesture attacks dispel magic on hit.

Guarding Gestures:
Wilder
Storm: Increased lightning/cold resistance and Physical save.
Swamp: Increased Nature/acid resistance and Physical status resistances.
Desert: Increased physical/fire resistance and increased light/sight.

Psionic
Fortitude: Increased Armour/Hardiness. Mind status resistances.
Prescience: Increased defence and stealth/invis detection
Countering: Parry + Counter attack.

Afflicted
Resilience: Increased mind save and mind damage resistance.
Ennui: Damage reduction. Gesture attacks slow on hit.
Rage: Damage reflection. Survive with negative life.

Zigur
Warding: Increased spell save. Resist arcane/blight.

[astralInferno]

That looks pretty nice. I particularly like it not negating any synergy with on-hits. >>
I do think that ending up with up to twelve different gesture choices would be bothersome. Having such large amounts of mutually exclusive powers seems... frustrating? Not sure.

I also think, given how generically this seems to be going, it might even make sense as a cursed escort. Would be nice to see a new escort.

[Radon26]

choosing a gesture would be like choosing a weapon ego.
i see no problem with that.

[HousePet]

Well if you don't want the choice, you could always not use this category.

[astralInferno]

(pouts)
...oh! You get two to start with. That makes it much better. I take it back.

[Winddbourne]

I think that perhaps if you say no to the lumberjack quest the village should still pop up, but with all of the lumberjacks dead and one sad lonely fellow wandering around; the one who asked for your help. Talking to him would give you a dialogue about how this is all your fault, how heartless you are, etc . . . and start a fairly easy battle. At the end of the battle when you kill him he could curse your character resulting in you gaining access (and one point in) the cursed aura tree.

Similarly you should NEVER get this event while actually playing as a cursed character . . .

Instead the village should be visible from the start, and filled with peaceful lumberjacks, perhaps even a few shops. At some point though your cursed should get an event in the village to let rage overcome them and if you choose to succumb to rage the character goes into a "rampage" and all of the lumberjacks turn hostile.

Once the last lumberjack dies the Rampage tree should unlock for your character with one point invested into the rampage skill. As with the cursed aura tree this unlock should cost you two points of willpower and this should be the only way to unlock the rampage tree. Sure it might result in a lot of cursed characters making a level one pilgrimage to the lumberjack village but . . . that's thematic and it gets rid of the whole concept of just building your cursed characters as Cornacs for the rampage unlock.

[HousePet]

Currently Cursed have 7 class categories. Going with the Rage and Despair theme it would be good to flavour specific categories.
Helpfully, there are three different weapon styles supported by Cursed already, so Slaughter (two handed) can be flavoured as Rage, Strife (board user) can be flavoured as Despair, and Endless Hunt (dual weapons) can be flavoured as neutral.
Support categories of Rampage and Gloom are clearly Rage and Despair flavoured, respectively, already.
Predator and Fears are currently neutral, but as they are weak categories they might not remain in a final redesign.
It would be good if Cursed had an offensive, a support and an advanced category for each flavour (Rage, Despair, Neutral).
There should be no restrictions between these flavours, instead each flavour would have subtle synergies within them, with Neutral acting as both a 'trying to keep yourself under control' flavour and a pool of extra options.
Possibly there could be an Anti-Neutral category to assist with combining Rage and Despair?

[Atarlost]

I think cursed should probably get some fatigue trees. That would give them a backstop when hate decays and feel more like the cursed was something before he was cursed.

[Radon26]

how about, normally most of the cursed skills cost stamina, but also, depending on your hate%, the the hate will be consumed to pay back for the used stamina. also, with the hate being a base factor of a buff/debuff status effect, i am sure it would work nice.

[Atarlost]

how about, normally most of the cursed skills cost stamina, but also, depending on your hate%, the the hate will be consumed to pay back for the used stamina. also, with the hate being a base factor of a buff/debuff status effect, i am sure it would work nice.

It would be simpler and feel more coherent to actually use some of the existing trees the way ABs and Paladins and Wyrmics do.

[HousePet]

A couple of extra class ideas.

Occultist:
Mages driven completely mad either by magics gone wrong, seeing something they shouldn't have, or their own power.
They use a confused mix of spells and mind powers to blast things with arcane, mind, darkness and temporal damage.
Abilities are generally long range damage and debuffs with a little bit of eldritch horror summoning.
While they tend to be physically weak, their exposure to strange magics means that normal rules don't tend to apply to them. This causes status effects to function differently on them.
They defeat their enemies (real or otherwise) by baffling and blasting them.
Resources: Hate and Mana.
Weapons: Staff.

Shadow Stalker:
While Cursed and Doomed do terrible things, they really just aren't fully in control. Shadow Stalkers are, and they really are evil bastards.
They lurk in shadows (sometimes their own), stalking their victims until they are ready to strike.
They inflict physical and psychological torture on their victims, and when their terror and pain is ripe, they pluck their souls.
Those tortured souls are then enslaved in shadows and put to work.
Resources: Hate and Souls.
Weapons: Dual Knives/Mindstars or Brawling/Gestures.

[twas Brillig]

Yesterday I started tooling around with an afflicted idea: The Mauler is a hate/stamina hybrid cursed with a symbiotic bond to their armor and unstoppable rage. They lack the fine skill of brawlers (no to Unarmed Discipline, yes to grappling), but can fuel their hatred with stamina (either through skills that exchange it, indirectly by just killing things and getting hate that way, or some mechanic for e.g. substituting combo points for x hate ala bloodcasting). I think there's room for them to benefit from the new gestures, like your Shadow Stalker idea, as well as taking advantage of both archetypes skills at disabling and throwing around enemies.

[Sheila]

I'm really liking those new gestures and class ideas HousePet!
This would make gestures a lot more interesting/rewarding and customizable and that's always a good thing.
Unarmed just isn't used enough and having another class that does that would be very nice imo, but I'm not sure how much more fitting that is over the other options (just my personal preference as I love unarmed xD)