ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Right now almost all Mindslayer winners have gone 5/1/5/5 in the Focus tree using a mindstar in the mind slot rather than a weapon. This is a perfectly fine way of building a Mindslayer, but melee Mindslayers could use a buff. At the moment, melee Mindslayers have a very hard time in the early game since they have -4 hp per level and no good mobility until invest a lot of points in the Augmented Mobility tree. Additionally they only have one offensive melee talent (Telekinetic Smash). Therefore, I propose Mindslayers get the Combat Techniques, Dual Techniques, and Two-Handed Weapons categories (either unlocked or locked, not really sure) at 1.0 mastery.

Or maybe give them some Dreamforge stuff andor a new melee category

Another problem is that you probably want Focus x/x/x/5 even for melee because of how it benefits Absorption and Projection, and by that point you've already invested a minimum of 8 points in Focus.

Doctornull wrote:Another problem is that you probably want Focus x/x/x/5 even for melee because of how it benefits Absorption and Projection, and by that point you've already invested a minimum of 8 points in Focus.

I thought that talent only worked if you had a psionic focus rather than a weapon. Melee Mindslayers would probably want a 2h weapon in that slot instead.

bpat wrote:

Doctornull wrote:Another problem is that you probably want Focus x/x/x/5 even for melee because of how it benefits Absorption and Projection, and by that point you've already invested a minimum of 8 points in Focus.

I thought that talent only worked if you had a psionic focus rather than a weapon. Melee Mindslayers would probably want a 2h weapon in that slot instead.

I think a t5 mindstar is competitive with a t5 2h weapon in terms of TK slot damage, especially considering the 60% stat penalty which a 2h weapon suffers, so late-game even a melee guy may want a mindstar in that slot.

But I might be wrong about that... someone who knows the code better can correct me.

The big problem with putting a non-mindstar weapon in that slot is that mindslayers need mindlash for ranged combat and need a focus to get the cooldown acceptable. Giving them the shoot talent and returning psionic archery in some form would help a lot I think, as would some locked weapon trees. Or at least giving them the shoot talent and a locked sling tree.

Doctornull wrote: I think a t5 mindstar is competitive with a t5 2h weapon in terms of TK slot damage, especially considering the 60% stat penalty which a 2h weapon suffers, so late-game even a melee guy may want a mindstar in that slot.

The 60% damage modifier applies to all weapons, including mindstars (see here)

If the psionic/mobility tree was altered to include melee attacks like... mind hook includes a melee attack or acts like telekinetic core at level 5 and, telekinetic leap does some small AOE damage where you land it would make it viable. I have made a Ghoul melee Mindslayer by the time I was level 30 I was insane I maxed out all of psi fighting and had a ring of misery "added attack for 150% melee damage" without the ring it would have been impossible, the build was too dependent on an item witch tried again would probably fail unless I had ring of misery again, it's like being a brawler with grappling tree its not good unless you have monster belt "+1 size category" or any other kind of size increasing items.


On a side note: As a Ghoul melee Mindslayer my strength was outrageous and kept growing and growing easily past 100, Dark god should make artifacts that surpass normal levels of stats.

I have a more radical proposal: Get rid of Mindlash. It's just way too good and it's incredibly boring. Losing Mindlash means that people might actually start using spiked auras.

Shields could use a revamp too - currently, the winning Mindslayer strategy is just "spike all your shields and lash everything to death" regardless of the situation. I would suggest that activating one shield puts the others on a one-turn cooldown, so that you actually have to read the situation rather than spiking every shield every time. Also, their damage reduction effect should be a passive rather than a sustain, so that you don't have to click twice to spike. The same goes for auras - it's just a convenience thing.

The only interesting thing about the class right now is the way everything scales massively with the tier of the focus slot item. Other than that, it's an incredibly boring class with zero tactical depth.

Spiking all three shields then reenabling two of them did feel cheesy...
Maybe restrict it to only one spiked shield at a time?

As for getting rid of Mindlash, I'm not sure melee Mindslayers want to be spiking Auras.
The balance on a variety of Mindslayer talents does feel out of whack though.

If we're talking normal, I never needed to spike shields at all...The only time I did it was while I swapped from one to another. You can blame AM shield stacking so nicely with mindslayer shields on the one hand, and 0 cd mindlash on the other. Near the end I stopped using mindlash and just meleed with psi blades, because I was so bored I couldn't be bothered to even press '1'.

If the class is going to have tactical depth again, 0 cd mindlash needs to go and interaction between mindslayer shields and AM shield needs to be examined[*], at the very least.

[*] I had all sorts of ideas for this, but none that would really work. Making AM shield eat psi would make it useless for solipsists, for instance.

I think the issue of Mindlash is not it is too good, it is Mindslayer have no other choices.
Weapon Mindslayer does not really have a tree support it.

jinsediaoying wrote:I think the issue of Mindlash is not it is too good, it is Mindslayer have no other choices.
Weapon Mindslayer does not really have a tree support it.

That and the fact that you have to go pretty much all in since the cooldown is far too long and range too short to be useful without a decent focus. It could really stand to start a lot better and scale a lot less. Maybe give it a fixed or talent level scaled cooldown and scale damage off the focus rather than the other way around. Also get rid of the reach skill and give mindslayer powers ranges that don't completely suck.

Melee Mindslayers have several core problems at the start of the game, and in most cases throughout the game:
1. They have no talent based mechanisms to mitigate physical status effects. There is a generic but it is limited and deep in the tree. This can be managed with racials and equipment/infusions but it limits the ability to mitigate other issues.
2. Their damage mitigation, although powerful, really does requiring knowing what is going to be thrown at them (in advance). Not a bad thing but it is very bursty which means they need several escape tools.
3. They have no weapon trees. Specifically they need what every other melee has which is the ability to stun and the ability to apply burst damage.
4. They have no mobility trees unless they burn a category point to get into one. They need the ability to get into and out of combat quickly and they needs some escapes.

Pretty much, they lack all the tools consistent with a melee character and have nothing "special" to make up for it outside of telekinetic weapon. Which is cool but not enough of a game changer to allow a proper melee build on a Mindslayer. This pretty much requires them to put a mindstar/gem in the telekinetic slot and play a ranged character. Or limp by with a pretty gimped melee character relying heavily on equipment/infusions to "Make" them melee feasible.

You can easily mitigate one or two of the issues but mitigating all 4 is counterproductive and really binds the class. The Soli has a better melee build chassy than the Mindslayer.

That all said, enjoying my Ghoul melee build Mindslayer currently . Seems almost workable

The mobility thing is a biggie. As a mindslayer, one really wants to dash/pull back and forth between enemies. Given how underwhelming the augmented mobility tree is (i buffed it slightly in a personal addon), i don't even see why officially its only accessable at level 10, let alone it being locked. A mindslayer without mobility is a sitting duck, unless he just spams mindlash over and over (which is OP btw, and should perhaps get +1 cooldown. BUT since mindlash is the only thing mindslayers have to compensate for bad mobility, and mindstar drops are crap, and telekinetically wielding a weapon is meh.... notice the pattern? Mindlash is the only thing not borked for mindslayers, hence it has to be overpowerful, to compensate everything else that is wrong with mindslayers).

It's similiar for the focus thing boosting shields by a ridiculous amount. Yeah, on it's own, it is WTF OP and would need a nerf. But wait, its pretty much the only way for mindslayers to get strong defense, so again because of lack of alternatives, OP focussed shields have to compensate everything else absent.

TL/DR: As it is, mindslayers are a broken class, only rescued from disfunctionality by two overpowered talents (mindlash spamming and shield boosting via focus).