ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So, several of us in IRC were talking, and we thought this might be a good idea. Basically, as it is, Gestures are a little weak, and they're melee-only, which seems odd for the flavor of the talent and for the Doomed's skillset. A simple change that would be rather fitting would be, instead of overwriting the melee attack while a sustain is active, create a 0 cooldown active skill akin to Shoot, that does a ranged melee attack with bonuses. The range wouldn't need to be very long, only in line with other basic Doomed attacks, around 2-3. This would fit well for how the class is generally set up, and the flavor of the Gestures.

I think this would be especially helpful in earlygame, where a Doomed has relatively little damage output from his active talents, especially if he's pumping Shadows, as is likely to be the case given the relative power of the Shadows tree compared to what else is available.

I really like this idea. It would make it kind of like Darth Vader choking people.

Good idea. Could start it as a basic 2-3 range Mind damage+stun chance attack, then have the rest of the talents in the tree buff and flavour it more. Maybe similar to the hammer you get from Dream Smith, and how each talent improves the base effect.

That image alone is worth it!

I give a +1. Plus extra for humor.

I think if you changed the first skill to allow a ranged attack the rest are the skills in the tree wouldn't need many changes. Maybe a bit of a buff, but they would still be useful. You already have a chance to stun, ability to counter melee attacks and increased mindpower. Those are pretty useful.

Maybe have the ranged attack gain rain with talent levels? Something like 2/2/3/3/4?

Ranged melee attack? So ... staff combat with mindstars? Also that would seem to suggest synergy with psiblades rather than making them irrelevant. These may or may not be good things.

I'm not sure why you think overwriting the bump attack with a mind power that stuns is unfitting given that they mostly have very short ranged powers though.

Edit: Also, have you tried melee attacking with mindstars at the start of the game? I get less than half the damage of level 1 gesture, and with less accuracy. Which looks like a nerf to me.

I think I'd prefer the current system. Mindstars being melee as opposed to the ranged benefit of staffs strikes me as one of the primary differences between mindpower casters and spellpower casters, intentionally so. I always head-canoned that the mindpower characters were always more fit and rough kind of guys compared to mages, and being a bit tougher and more willing to mix it up in melee fits them fine.

Leave the ranged combat to bows, slings, and staffs, IMO.

If I recall, Doomed were mages, before being betrayed and depowered. So there's that... tidbit.

I wouldn't see anything fundamentally unbalanced with a rework. A range of 3 or less is still pretty close to an enemy. If we want it even stricter, require Line of Sight, so you can't use your shadows to peek around walls, too.

Peony wrote:Edit: Also, have you tried melee attacking with mindstars at the start of the game? I get less than half the damage of level 1 gesture, and with less accuracy. Which looks like a nerf to me.

Note that I said "melee attack with bonuses". The point was to -add- what it already does on top of normal melee attack procs and damage and such.

I'd like to see a fusion here, personally.

Keep it the current odd pure-mind near-talent it is, and have it still replace your basic physical.

But also have it provide a ranged attack talent that goes up to (2, 4, 6 cap talentscale) along with it.

Gestures is really unique, and I've never had any problems with it doing quite solid damage throughout, but more low range options fits the low-but-not-melee range style that Doomed has quite well.

Okay, maybe I wasn't clear about what your suggestion was. Because currently gesture of pain replaces your melee attack with a mind power. Am I to understand that you're suggesting the mind power be in addition to a melee attack? And that it should give you another talent to project both the power and the attack at some distance?

The former sounds like it might be a nice buff. It adds synergy with psiblades, though I'm not sure if that's considered desirable or not. It might end up being rather powerful though - two mindstars and a mind power can probabl trigger a lot of on-hit effects. Like madness. But I woulnd't know about high level doomed as they tend to die off even faster than my other characters.

As for making it ranged, it would seem odd for it to carry both the melee and mind power attacks. And if it doesn't then it'll be a short ranged mind attack. If it's better than your other options, it's properly over-powered. At least if you get it for free - might seem more reasonable if one of the other talents was replaced with the ranged attack version. Or maybe like devour life you have to be feeding on something to use the ranged version on them. Or would that end up being too fiddly?

I suppose you could switch it to costing some hate when used if it seems too strong.

The suggestion to keep it as it is but add a ranged version is rather more conservative. I still think there might be an issue of when it's going to be useful outside of an early game turn filler, but maybe that doesn't really matter.

The way I was thinking of it was that when Gestures was active it would replace your melee attack with a short ranged mind attack. I also think this would have to be mutually exclusive with psiblades.

Doomed already get short range mind powered attacks.
Anyone pumping Shadows needs to take into account they not very damaging at the start.
If the problem is that Doomed are too fragile to get into melee range early on, why not address that?

I personally love gestures as a Doomed, and most of my Doomed use it fairly heavily. I haven't seen a problem with it. On the flip side, I wouldn't mind having another tree (possibly a class tree) that offered a 0 cooldown range 3 attack that perhaps had some notable synergies with gestures.