ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Liven up an alchemist's life by delving into EXPLODOMANCY!

Below is version 1, click here for version two.

1 - Bejeweled - passive
You prepare for action by covering yourself and your golem with explosive jewelry. 15% / 28% / 39% / 48% / 56% chance (1 - .85^talentlevel), when the alchemist or the golem are hit in melee, for a bomb to go off. Deals 25% of the same damage dealt by Throw Bomb, uses up one alchemist gem. Explosion is centered on the attacker's square and deals double damage to the attacker.
(Encourages you to ensure self and golem resist own damage type, but harms your attacker most.)

2 - Cluster Bombs - sustained, instant
With this talent toggled on, the alchemist's bombs cause 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 secondary explosions. These secondary impacts deal 25% of the same damage dealt by Throw Bomb, and increase the cost of that ability by one alchemist gem. Explosions land anywhere within 1 / 1 / 1 / 2 / 2 squares of the original bomb.
(Probably would use similar code to housepet's Spellblaze spell.)

3 - Explosive Runes
(I don't have any concrete idea for this one, I just like the idea of including a nod to D&D here. It would probably either add explosions to your runes when you use them, or it would let you put explosive runes on the ground.)

4 - Telefrag! - Active, 1 turn, range 7
With this teleport, you attempt to occupy the same space as another creature. This vaporizes a chunk of the target into pure energy dealing a bit / a great deal / a lot / a ton / a buttload of fire and light damage. If this slays the target, your teleport succeeds. If the target survives, you take half damage as well and teleport randomly up to 6 squares away. Casting this on your golem will automatically succeed, causing it to explode for the same damage in radius 1 and knockback enemies 1 / 1 / 2 / 2 / 3 squares.
(A nod to the best kill method in an FPS and a weird nuke/teleport/bomb skill with several different applications for the discerning tactical alchemist!)

I think these sound like interesting ideas, possibly for an initially locked tree. I'd say that the explosive runes effect of firing off a self-centered AOE whenever you use a rune would be cool. I think that turning the thing into a mass of in=jokes is a bad idea and they would need better names. I think that the Bejeweled passive is kind of weird, especially as a passive - I'd be more inclined to suggest it as a targeted sustain - Explosive Preparation. Targets allies. Costs some number of alchemist gems to activate, and has a chance to trigger every time the target is hit in combat, dealing a nice little bomb effect and dropping the sustain. If you drop the sustain normally, you still get the bomb effect, but it costs you a turn. Melee range to target to set it up int eh first place, and a not unreasonable cooldown (7 maybe? 12?)

I'm willing to code this up after it has been refined a bit more.

Alchemists sure could do with a couple of locked class trees. Although I think the bomb tree overshadows your other options, and I'd rather see stuff you can do in addition or even instead of bombs than something that further boosts bombs.

grooog wrote:1 - Bejeweled

Bear in mind that for an endgame Alchemist, bomb damage may be 250-300 on the tin, but between the 200% boost from Explosion Expert, around 100% elemental damage bonus and 25-50% resistance penetration from gear, 50% crit rate and boosted crit strength, you're looking at 1-2k damage.

Virtually every alchemist will have full immunity against their own bombs from Alchemist Protection. If you want to exempt bejeweled bombs from that protection, it'll be super hard to adequately defend against that, and I don't see anybody compromising bomb damage to get unpredictable quarter strength bombs that you can survive.

I like the idea of targeting allies (or anyway being able to), but I'd do it as a normal timed effect, maybe 20-ish cd for 5+tl rounds duration. Can't think of any other sustain that's not self-targeted, there might be problems. Of course, I can see how the sustain might be more comfortable to use.

Another interesting twist would be to let you instant cast it to get an "affix bomb" effect that'd use your next bomb cast - normal, shockwave or smoke - and turn it into the bejeweled bomb effect instead.

grooog wrote:2 - Cluster Bombs

Anything that straight makes bombs better is OP. Maxed this would more than double your bomb damage and greatly help with acid and cold status effects. Doesn't really matter that they're not exactly on-target, bombs will hit the whole screen anyway. You already can two-shot everything that's not a boss (and one-shot must things, at that). Alchemist gems are so plentyful that upping the cost by one gem won't get noticed. Maybe something like 5 gems + 1 per bomb thrown, but that'd still be mostly psychological. It's also hard to make mana costs be a problem for alchemists what with the mana regen gems.

Maybe make it have bombs be radius 1/1/1/2/2 (raw tl/2, rounded down?) and have the deviation always be randomly between 0 and 2? That'd actually make them more powerful against a single target (usually) which is a bit weird, but alchemist bombs are already the best AoE damage-dealer in the game, hard to make them even more useful for crowd control. In this case they probably should do a bit more than 25% damage, since you can expect 1-2 bombs to miss your target.

Maybe instead have it throw 4 bombs as per your original proposal, but with each using a random infusion? That'd make a balanced infusions build interesting, as you'd get the most status effects.

grooog wrote:3 - Explosive Runes

I like the idea with adding explosions to runes better - it'd make this nice for undead and introduce interesting trade-offs for others. How about normal bombs for attack runes (centered on target), shockwave on shield and vision runes, and smoke on phase door (both types), teleport and invisibility? Probably should use the talent level of explosive runes for the bombs, in case you don't have/want to level shockwave and phase door.

grooog wrote:4 - Telefrag

Don't like the name - while I don't have anything against in-jokes per se, they ought to fit in with the general theme, and that's straight fantasy. It should work on both levels (alternative suggestions: "Living Bomb" or "Suicide Bomb" or "Duicide Bomb"). Not sure if it fits thematically with the tree and the class in general: Alchemists aren't really about teleporting around, and there's not even a bomb involved!

Mechanically, it is kinda interesting, although I'm having a hard time envisaging a situation in which I'd actually want to use it. The problems are that you don't want a teleport that moves you close to your enemies or unexplored territory - which it usually will - especially not if it leaves you wounded. In general you don't want a teleport that makes you take damage, especially not a short ranged one. If you can afford to take damage, you don't need a teleport and vice versa.

Theoretically, all of that is what makes it interesting and can be balanced by making the damage really good. Then remember that ghoul king rares will be using it on players.

Telefrag is like a combination to Throw Bomb and Gem Portal. So Bomb Portal?

It's not my place to change your idea, but if I may suggest one, I'd like to.

What if, instead of teleporting yourself into an enemy, which sounds incredibly dangerous, you teleport an active bomb "into" the enemy? That way, the alchemist is keeping themselves out of harms way, as well.

Huh - I suppose the attack would deal significant single-target damage at base, and then deal area effect if it killed? That could be cool.

I like that last idea. Teleport a bomb into an enemy to deal massive damage to a single target. If it's killed, do reduced AoE damage to all targets in a range, and maybe add bleeding to it from the boney shrapnel? Even more interesting would be effects based on the target, but that would probably be a lot of coding. Still, splattering an acid demon all over a hoard and watching it's blood melt them sounds REALLY cool.

Not sure I like any teleporting. Remember the alchemist uses implements, not magic directly. He dosent even know basic Conveyance abilities but can now do something extreme like teleport an object INSIDE another o ject? Hell Paradox Mages cant even pull that off, let alone an Archmage

Sradac wrote:Not sure I like any teleporting. Remember the alchemist uses implements, not magic directly. He dosent even know basic Conveyance abilities but can now do something extreme like teleport an object INSIDE another o ject? Hell Paradox Mages cant even pull that off, let alone an Archmage

That's actually a very... resolute couterpoint. Alchemists don't practice magic to the degree that they can even cast many spells (from their own Arcane powers, anyway)... So hyper-advanced Conveyance would be pretty unlikely.

Perhaps Explodemancy could be a prodigy?

bomb mastery, explosionology, explodomancy, king of detonations.

Folks on IRC and the forums made a good point that alchemists don't really need further buffs to Throw Bombs's amazing AoE damage. What is more needed for alchemists is defenses and tactical decisions. So 1, 2, and 3 provide a certain sort of defense, if aggressive and explosion-based, and 4 is a single-target finishing move.

1 - Encrusted - sustained, 1 turn, 6 gems to activate
You prepare for action by covering yourself with explosive jewelry. 19% / 32% / 43% / 52% / 60% chance (.96 - .85^talentlevel), when you are hit in melee, for a bomb to go off. Deals 25% of what Throw Bomb would. Explosion is centered on the attacker's square and deals double damage (aka 50% of Throw Bomb) to the attacker.
You can deactivate the sustain to shed your encrusted bombs, causing 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 detonations nearby.
Most things that affect normal bombs (such as Alchemist Protection) apply to Encrusted bombs, but NOT Explosion Expert.
(An alchemists best defense is offense!)
(Alternate version: active, 0 turns, instantly prime 2/3/4/5/6 bombs to explode on the next 2-6 attackers as above.)

2 - Bomb Manipulation - passive/active 1 turn, 6 gems to activate
14% / 23% / 31% / 38% / 45%
Passive: Your Encrusted bombs knockback enemies1 / 1 / 2 / 2 / 3. Active: your golem is Encrusted for X / X / X / X / X turns.
(Alternatively: passive/sustain. While sustained, you and your golem are BOTH Encrusted normally. While NOT sustained, you alone get Encrusted with knockback.)

3 - Explosive Runes passive
Description:
when you use runes, the discharge of magical energies activates your highly-charged gem bombs, causing explosions, firestorms, and special effects.
Full explanation:
At level 1, when you use a rune you'll hit 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 random squares within 5 squares with Encrusted-style bombs. (talent level +1)
At level 2, using a rune gives you 1 / 2 / 2 / 3 turns of Fire Storm. (turns=.7*talent level)
At level 3, add bonus effects to common runes. (shielding, phase, teleport, mana)
At level 4, add bonus effects to uncommon runes. (invis, vision, controlled phase, beam/spear/wave/lightning, rift, reflection)
At level 5, runes used by your golem gain those bonus effects as well.
Phase Doors and Teleports drop a Shockwave Bomb on you after the teleport.
Invis and Vision drop a Smoke Bomb.
Shielding and Mana temporarily buff the user with Golem Resilience.
Heat Beam, Acid Wave, Lightning, and Frozen spear benefit from the damage boost and status effects of the relevant Infusion, even if that Infusion is not currently sustained.
Rift hits the target with Heat.
Reflect activates Body of Fire.
(These bonus effects are based on your skills, benefiting you when you level up and use more skills than just Throw Bomb)
(Lots of fun synergies with Alchemist+)

4 - Bomb Portal - Active, 1 turn, range 7, 18 cooldown
You crush a gem on the floor, creating a tiny teleportation circle, and drop a bomb in. This teleports a bomb into your opponent's body dealing a bit / a great deal / a lot / a ton / a buttload of fire and light damage. The target explodes if slain, dealing Throw Bomb damage in a 9 square radius. If the target survives, some of the blast comes back through the portal, and you take 15% of Throw Bomb damage regardless of Alchemist Protection.
(The self-damage is to discourage using this as part of a damage rotation, and encourage using it at the right moment.)

So that should hopefully make the first and 2nd skill lead to interesting choices instead of pure buff. I was also pondering having one of the abilities be something like "if detoggled, you get this buff, if toggled, your golem gets it instead" but that seemed janky.

Housepet, let me know if this veers too far off the path, or if we're on track for you coding it.

Yeah teleporting into other creatures isn't something casters normally do, but is that because they can't, or is that just because it's too dangerous, aka both creatures would explode? I don't see a problem with riffing a little bit on the idea of Gem Portal and pushing the boundaries for a small object for which structural integrity isn't terribly important!