ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I don't see a reason to keep it locked. Survival can be a very useful tree but it's really hard to justify using a cat point to open it. Brawlers need more options to spend generics anyway.

Sure, why not.

Fits them.

I disagree - someone with a background as an arena fighter doesn't see much of outside world. It's Brawler, not Beastfighter.

b0rsuk wrote:I disagree - someone with a background as an arena fighter doesn't see much of outside world. It's Brawler, not Beastfighter.

So you disagree on a game mechanics tweak on the basis of your interpretation of the lore, and the assumption that all brawlers are arena fighters. I won't even enter into such a stupid discussion.

Maybe I should expand on why I think brawler needs survival, in any case.

Brawler is one of the weaker and less interesting classes in ToME. Before you go all 'but OMG I killed atamathon with it', yes, end game brawlers do crazy amounts of damage, and that masks a lot of their weaknesses.

Half of their class trees are completely useless - finishing moves apart from uppercut, entire unarmed discipline tree, entire grappling tree. The entire combo point mechanic is completely pointless as it is now. Most of the game they are just bumpers.

In generic trees, they have conditioning, field control, and mobility. Conditioning is obviously good for status, but field control? Most of the abilities in there are one pointers. Mobility Tree - you might put points into mobile defense if you plan to run light armor (which is a weaker option) but the rest of that tree is useless. Hack and back is a more expensive disengage that can miss. Light of foot is useless. CD reduction on Strider? You already have a low CD rush in spinning backhand, evasion is locked, hack and back sucks and disengage (a very situational ability in any case) doesn't benefit that much from lower cooldown. 10% speed helps a bit, but for 5 points? No way.

So, we have a class with half of its class abilities useless, half of its generic abilities useless.

With 3 class trees locked - dirty fighter, discipline and grappling, if you open one, that leaves one for generic trees, and survival will always have a low priority.

If you unlock survival, you essentially give them access to charm mastery and evasion. Charm mastery adds a lot to utility and evasion fits with the theme of the class (which is evading attacks and launching counter attacks). It is also a tree based on cunning, a primary stat for brawlers. Strider becomes a tiny bit better, as well.

I'm not sure if I make a convincing case, but it adds more options to a boring class.

I'd like having survival unlocked (and actually on most classes that get it) - it's generally not quite worth a cat point, but does offer some interesting refinement worth a couple of generics.

The brawler problems you listed aren't really a good argument for that though, useless talents don't get fixed by allowing access to other trees.

Field Control: suffers a bit in that its most useful for ranged classes. Idea: Allow Heave to target walls and subsequently move yourself (maybe at talent level X), and you have a nice situational range-closer. Track is awesome already. Would be less of a one-point wonder if points lowered cooldown. Slow Motion is awesome, if a bit expensive. Synergizes with Heightened Reflexes.

Mobility: Hack'n Back is absurdly expensive, I agree. It'd have a niche if it was much cheaper and maybe got the ability to inflict a status at higher talent levels - short daze or stun at 3, cripple at 8 (5/5 and cat point)? Mobile Defense: if end game light armours are so bad, maybe that's the problem? Light of Foot sucks, agreed, maybe a straight 50% boost to the fatigue reduction and a 100% boost to the stamina per step? Strider: don't think it's as bad as you make it out. Not great, sure, but then it's a generic tree that can't be equally useful to all classes. The movement speed bonus could get a boost to 4% per scaled talent point (nice round 20% at 5/5 and cat). Reduce Spinning Backhand cd every 4 effective points? Messes up the description for other classes, so maybe better not.

Conditioning: The disease/poison/wounds reduction on Vitality is pretty decent actually. May not be a great talent to put points in, but not a bad one either. Daunting Presence could use a buff - a bit more range with talent points maybe, and possibly inflicting actual fears - 50% chance of Distressed (reduces saves) at level 4 and the other 50% inflicting Terrified at 8 (talent fail chance). Unflinching Resolve is awesome, and Adrenaline Surge will always be a one-point wonder as long as talent points can be reassigned during fights.

Not going to comment on the Brawler class talents here, since that's going even more off-topic. Might be worth it's own thread.