ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

(tl;dr at bottom)

My first suggestion is concerning the Yeek-Mindslayer combo. This is a terrible combo currently(they have a life rating of 3), and this seems wrong considering the Yeek's are the only psionic race and that Mindslayer's are intrinsic to them. Looking in the vault I only see two winners from this combo, and both of these are from beta 21:

http://te4.org/characters/1002/tome/093 ... 1cc000edf0
http://te4.org/characters/1002/tome/e21 ... 1cc000edf0

As for the more recent betas, there was one character who managed to make it to lvl 50(that wasn't a cheater):
http://te4.org/characters/7814/tome/d57 ... 009dc4e248

My suggestions for this is to do one of the following: Make the life rating penalty from the Mindslayer class not affect Yeeks(giving them a life rating of 7) or make it so Yeeks get a life rating bonus of 3 for this particular combo(giving them a life rating of 6).


My second suggestion is to make both Mindstar Mastery and Staff Combat available outside of escort awards. The weapon you're planning to use is probably the largest determining factor for the talent build you're gonna use, which makes these being as escort rewards very annoying since you can't determine when or if you actually get the talent trees. It's very annoying when you create a character that you plan to use one of these trees for and you have to wait all the way to lvl 30 before you actually get the escort. I believe the simplest and best solution is just to move these tree to a trainer in Zigur and Angowlen. I believe adding this would help create build diversity. This doesn't cause a problem for the magic reward from an Alchemist escort(since they give Stone Alchemy also) but it does cause a problem for the nature reward which would have to have another tree in place.

My last suggestion is to make the first prodigy point given at lvl 30. I once read DG say that prodigy's are supposed to be build enabling, such as a magic Summoner or a magic Rogue. The problem with having the first one at lvl 40 is that it's so late in the game that you're already at the point where your build is fine and you don't actually need the prodigy. Moving this to lvl 30 would, for most races, places it right before you reach the far east which is also where the game takes a difficulty spike. This should greatly help those who want to make a unique build and are relying on the prodigy. This would also make the decision as to which prodigy you're going to get more meaningful, because, at that point you're likely to only have 1 or 2 stats that are actually above 50, as opposed to at lvl 40 where most classes will have 3 or 4.

tl;dr
1. Increase Yeek-Mindslayer combo's life rating.
2. Give Staff Combat and Mindstar Mastery trainers in Angowlen and Zigur.
3. Make the first prodigy point at lvl 30 instead of lvl 40.

gfder wrote:1. Increase Yeek-Mindslayer combo's life rating.

I don't think the problem is specific to Yeek Mindslayers. Mindslayers are somewhat squishy in general; they have much less life than the other melee-caster hybrids, and need to rely on their special defenses rather than tanking. These defenses have gaps, though (large enough ones to be a design flaw IMHO), so Mindslayers must take a few hits from time to time, which Yeeks simply cannot, and should not be able to. I agree they need to be stronger, but giving them more health doesn't feel conceptually right.

gfder wrote:2. Give Staff Combat and Mindstar Mastery trainers in Angowlen and Zigur.

Yes please. But what about unarmed combat?

gfder wrote:3. Make the first prodigy point at lvl 30 instead of lvl 40.

I don't think characters should get both a cat and prod point at 30 and nothing at 40, but getting the cat point at 40 is too late. Anyway, prodigies should probably just be a bonus for unusual builds, not something they absolutely need to succeed.

5k17 wrote:I don't think the problem is specific to Yeek Mindslayers. Mindslayers are somewhat squishy in general; they have much less life than the other melee-caster hybrids, and need to rely on their special defenses rather than tanking. These defenses have gaps, though (large enough ones to be a design flaw IMHO), so Mindslayers must take a few hits from time to time, which Yeeks simply cannot, and should not be able to. I agree they need to be stronger, but giving them more health doesn't feel conceptually right.

We could go back to the old-style shields

I'd find that hilarious.

Though some sort of compromise somewhere in between those extremes would probably be better, heh.

E: Ah, for the unenlightened, so to speak, mindslayer shields used to work like antimagic shield works now, i.e. it took damage off the bottom, not the top. That is chopped off damage after resists, armor, etc., was factored in. It made mindslayers literally one of the best tanks in the entire game, and basically unkillable.

On the other hand, ranged oriented Mindslayers are reasonably good, and a Yeek specific buff just feels odd.

After some thought, the best idea I have that would actually help with this would be to temporarily add Life Rating while you're equipped with a melee weapon (Specifically, anything that is not is_focus.) in the mind slot, using the same sort of trick Solipsist(the skill) does to lower Life Rating when you pick up skills.

The best place to do this, besides making a new skill(or set of skills) for this reason, would be to attach the skill to the Augmentation skill. Maybe +0.5 Life rating per modified talent level(or +.6 if raw talent's easier to use). This would make Mindslayers utilizing their melee skills much more durable, at the cost of losing them gem focus-which Mindslayers use to do their highest damage ranged attacks.

I think it could work to help out low life Mindslayers and melee Mindslayers both. Thematically, it could be explained as basically borrowing from the toughness of the weapon and using it to strengthen yourself-something you're not going to be able to do with a tiny gem or a squishy Mindstar. Solipsists have done far weirder with mental abilities.

Thoughts?

SageAcrin wrote:On the other hand, ranged oriented Mindslayers are reasonably good, and a Yeek specific buff just feels odd.

After some thought, the best idea I have that would actually help with this would be to temporarily add Life Rating while you're equipped with a melee weapon (Specifically, anything that is not is_focus.) in the mind slot, using the same sort of trick Solipsist(the skill) does to lower Life Rating when you pick up skills.

The best place to do this, besides making a new skill(or set of skills) for this reason, would be to attach the skill to the Augmentation skill. Maybe +0.5 Life rating per modified talent level(or +.6 if raw talent's easier to use). This would make Mindslayers utilizing their melee skills much more durable, at the cost of losing them gem focus-which Mindslayers use to do their highest damage ranged attacks.

I think it could work to help out low life Mindslayers and melee Mindslayers both. Thematically, it could be explained as basically borrowing from the toughness of the weapon and using it to strengthen yourself-something you're not going to be able to do with a tiny gem or a squishy Mindstar. Solipsists have done far weirder with mental abilities.

Thoughts?

Yeah, I suppose I can agree that creating a hack just for Yeek-Mindslayers is pretty lame. I do like your idea, it helps prevent a Mindstar/Gem from being pretty much the best option at all times. It doesn't really help out ranged Mindslayers in the early game however. While ranged Mindslayers can be pretty good, doesn't it take quite while till they reach that point? Don't you need like a tier 4-5 gem till you can use conduit rapidly enough and with enough range? I'm not really knowledgeable, because all my Mindslayers are heavily melee focused. I will say, you idea's at least definitely better than mine though.

I wasn't really trying to address a particular problem with Mindslayers but I guess there might be one. Personally I think the problem also lies with the way life rating is calculated between class/race. This is caused by the extreme life penalty both Yeeks and Mindslayers get as well as a few other classes(Archmage, Paradox Mage). Stacking -hp modifiers is different than +hp modifiers, because as the closer the hp modifier gets to 0, the more extreme the difference it makes(seriously, a life rating of 3 is horrible). Perhaps with two -hp modifiers you could just take the larger of the two without adding them together? While this may be just another hack, I don't feel the entirety of the problem can be blamed on Mindslayers.

5k17 wrote:Yes please. But what about unarmed combat?

Personally, I'd definitely support unarmed combat becoming a generic tree and made available to everyone. If you're gonna do that you might as well do it for bows/slings as well.

gfder wrote:Personally, I'd definitely support unarmed combat becoming a generic tree and made available to everyone. If you're gonna do that you might as well do it for bows/slings as well.

While that would add consistency, it would also create problems. Archers would lose their currently perfect class-generic balance; and the unarmed training tree has a talent that's only useful when you're building combo points, although I figure that could be replaced or exchanged with something else.