ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Let me preface this by saying I know that new classes/flavor/etc. are welcome in theory but aren't necessary and that the exact number of classes under certain subsections isn't important.. There's always a lot going on in this part of the forum and there's things that current classes need in terms of balance that deserve more attention. I also don't really have any ideas myself, more so posting this in the hope that it will spark discussion from people who do. But seeing the possibility of a third Chronomancer class got me thinking. As far as class sets with only two classes currently -

On Celestials, the pos/neg situation for Anorithil's could probably do with some work and personally I usually get bored with them around the mid-game, but the concept is a unique take on the Cleric/Light Mage, which is cool. I don't have much experience with them so I can't really say much. Sun Paladin's, who were, for me, easily the most boring class in t he game, have recently become pretty fun and powerful, and I can't wait to try a 2h/Shield Ogre once you can make a validated one. As far as lore goes, well, there's the whole Far East.

Chronomancers are clearly important, but work behind the scenes so until we learn more about Point Zero, so lore at this point isn't really necessary for them. They also have two great classes that are getting even more ridiculously fun with 1.3. A third is more than welcome!

This brings me to what I'd like to tackle-

For Psionics, Mindslayers and Solipsists are both pretty powerful, Mindslayers also getting a big buff in recent updates. Solipsists have always been dangerous bastards with various options, though my experience with them is chalked up to rares. I'm not sure what you could do for them wrt another class, so I'd like to see a bit more lore for them. I believe this has been discussed before, with it being easy to fill in the blanks with Magic's fading out of the public eye and an increased interest in other (pre-existing) methods of supernatural power. I seem to recall most Ziguranth lore specifically relating to a sort of union with Eyal (nature) as opposed to a union with the mind and the self that Eyal provided. I'd imagine that after the Spellhunts is when Psionics really came into prominence. However, if they aren't that common, considering how powerful the mind is especially whens dealing with magic, I'd be curious as to the explanation of why, you know, outside of the Ziguranth being super secretive. They can't all be sadistic and prejudicial. I could see that the population's overall hatred towards magic would mean an inclination for most to be a Wilder instead, don't know if something like that's been mentioned in game, but wouldn't be surprised if there is already. And if they are common, then the impact of this new power channel would be pretty notable and widespread, don't you think? Excluding the East and outside of Warriors, every other class set has to stay in the shadows. Literally every one. As with magic and technology, once the method become publicly available, it's only a matter of time before it becomes widespread. Even if a select few can really tap into Psionic powers, you think there'd be a venerated/despised figured in history worthy of note.

For Afflicted, I'll focus first on lore. Cursed have the great Keepsake quest, a type of quest I'd like to see most classes having one day, but Doomed don't have much to explain their existence. I always thought making a Rak'Shor Cultist the required boss for unlock to be a neat idea, seeing as Doomed become doomed for sinister abuses in magic, but at the same time, I'm sure the Age of Dusk/Pyre, whichever, showed that Necros can be full of hate and awfully evil and still remain necros. So what exactly leads to the curse? I feel like they'd have some origin in the Spellblaze and the chaos that followed, but they seem to have the least explanation out of all the classes while being a class that totally deserves it. They aren't some warmachine who picked up a big goddamned sword and loves to spill blood, they are former mages who now have to adapt to this completely foreign power that's probably crushing their mind as much as cultivating it. Hell, even something like Shadow Crypt lore to explain the Cultist's loss of magic would be enough to give some insight. Perhaps the orc was actually abandoned by the Rak'Show Pride with the loss of his magic and he has become completely morphed mentally by his new state or something, I dunno, just something!

Doomed probably has the most unique playstyle in the game, which also makes them hard as shit, especially on higher difficulties. I know most of mine have sucked ass. One of most frequent complaints I see about them is the lack of viable kill buttons, you kind of have to keep things in your Creeping Darkness and/or let Shadows do most of the work. There is only a short page of Nightmare winners and 0 insane winners. I don't have the answers, but I hope someone reading this does!

I'd also like to see another class for Afflicted. What I had in mind was partially inspired by HousePet's Werebeast, but more along the lines of a Witch/summoner type, an Afflicted doomed to curse others, focused on Magic and Willpower. Can use voodoo or inflict a werecurse to manipulate foes, Mind and Arcane/Dark damage focus, could also even have corrupted Enchanter type abilities.

Before I close, I'd also like to say I'm not sure about having more Defilers (with Ashes) than Mage Mages (even if the Archmage is like 5 classes in one) but that's even more debatable than this topic and probably warrants a separate discussion.

So to reiterate, Psionics and Doomed could use lore if somebody comes up with it, Doomed could be a bit better, overall, just more love for the other 2class sets now that Defilers, Celestials, and Chronomancers have gotten some, I don't have any specific ideas myself other than that Witch-esque class but I'm not one who can effectively design a class so my only wish from this is just discussion, I'm not wearing any pants right now, the lack of anything I suggested will not affect my enjoyment of the game and hasn't thus far, none of this stuff is essential and are more or less things I thought other players would enjoy too if implemented even if a lot of it is just minor lore stuff, still not wearing any pants.

So, thoughts? Screw it we're good as is? Anything to add if you like something here? This and that and everything else?

When Mental Tyranny came out (with the first implementation of the prodigies), it was a good pick for Doomed and it made them viable and on par with the other classes.

When Mental Tyranny got the super nerf, so did Doomed. MT is still the best prodigy for Doomed, but that is just because there isn't any other good prodigy for Doomed.

They are still winnable on normal. Haven't tried harder difficulties.

For afflicted, I've thought of a class focused on your weapon.
The idea partly comes from cursed aura.

You're character poured their hate into a weapon but something went wrong. You channeled too much hate into it.
You're now bonded to you're weapon and, through it, your hate grows.

Haven't had much chance too think of mechanics yet but, thematically, I think it could work pretty well.

emblempride wrote: Doomed probably has the most unique playstyle in the game, which also makes them hard as shit, especially on higher difficulties. I know most of mine have sucked ass. One of most frequent complaints I see about them is the lack of viable kill buttons, you kind of have to keep things in your Creeping Darkness and/or let Shadows do most of the work. There is only a short page of Nightmare winners and 0 insane winners. I don't have the answers, but I hope someone reading this does!

The lack of a kill shot is definitely a problem. You're a grinder, which can work really well but is also a problem against enemies with good resistance and dangerous attacks. Sometimes you need something dead RIGHT NOW and Doomed aren't built for that. Another problem is the inherent tension between Deflection and Hate. Deflection encourages you to wait between combats, which causes your Hate to drain away.

One possibility I was thinking of is this: right now your healing is debuffed. What if some percentage of your healing, instead of just disappearing, was converted into Hate, in roughly the same way as Solopsists turn healing into Psi? That would make managing Hate easier, and would allow more option to let Deflection recharge before getting into the next fight. No other metaclass penalizes you for resting (except, arguably, the Chronomancers with the Spellpower gain from Paradox).

As for a kill talent, I'd like to see something which causes extra damage against enemies with Mental conditions. You're spreading madness with...well...Madness, let's make it count.

Also the +hate items should be much more common, and give actual bonuses rather than +2 maximum hate, maybe something like +20. Not that it would help that much since it goes down to zero or near zero depending on how much deflection damage you took in the fight. Maybe make those items increase the hate resting point (which is unbelievably low for a class's single resource).

Psionics aren't at all common. Probably something latent in most creatures but only tapped into by the few. Yeeks being a huge exception.

As far as Solipsists go my initial thoughts was this was Shertal trying to tap into the power of imagination and even collective imagination. In fact I wanted to do this as a race class at first. The idea developed from there and the race was split off into dreaming horrors and solipsist grabbed some of the old nightmare horror tricks in the process of becoming its own class.

Dreaming Horrors and Nightmare Horrors predate, lorewise, everything. So Solipsism was first practiced long before halflings started messing with yeeks.

^ Ah, thanks for clearing that up. That's kind of terrifying, there totally could have been an abstract Sher'tul hivemind.

Thanks for the replies! The best I can say as far as my skill level is that I've won a few times over about 2 years and a half and the first came about halfway through that and was as an Alchemist, so I wasn't sure how much weight my own experience had on the gameplay side of things. I wish I could add more than that, but I think making a lengthy instigating post is the most worthwhile thing I can contribute honestly lol

Doomed could certainly use some numbers and tooltip tweaks.
For example, Unseen Force ALWAYS says 0% chance of two hits (though it seems to hit twice sometimes at higher talent levels), and it's not very clear whether the counterattack chance on Gesture of Guarding is connected to the blocking mechanism (in that it is only rolled a few times per turn) or whether it works on every attack.
Also, Agony, Hateful Whisper, and similar skills need some kind of "resisted" message when they don't work. I spent way too long trying to tag the gwelgoroths (with 100% All resistance) in the Time Rift with Agony and wondering why nothing happened.

On the balance side, Gesture of Guarding is really underwhelming, especially when it first becomes available (why yes, I would love to only block one damage 0.9 times per turn. Lovely.), and the only reason to put more than one point into Devour Life is for the 5-point "bonus" of being able to drain a tiny amount of life in the same turn you begin Feeding, since the skill scales so poorly.

In my opinion, given the nature of the attack, it would be neat if Gestures gave a few spaces of range (2-5 scaling with talent levels or something, or a flat 2 or 3) to your basic attack, with the added bonus of possibly being able to Malign the enemy sometime before you blow all of your cooldowns.

One thing that would really make Fears fun would be a button to deal damage to nearby foes based on their fears and then add one additional fear to each enemy that was dmaged this way, or perhaps a Punishments skill that deals damaged based on the debuffs an enemy has (so the empty Hateful Whisper debuff can have one last use.

I definitely think that Doomed skills could use some number tweaks. They're weird in that, like most non-weapon offensive abilities, damage is expressed as numerical values, but unlike those skills, Doomed skills scale like crap. They start off dealing low damage, and leveling the skills adds very little damage. While the difference from talent level 1-5 is noticeable, the difference between lv 1-2 feels negligible.

For a new Afflicted class, I would love to see a brawler of some type, focused on keeping his hate high.

For Psionic, I don't really see a more cunning based Psionic guy, kinda like a Psionic rogue who would use his mind powers to influence what his enemies see and think, thus making him invisible.

Wait, isn't possessed supposed to be a Psionic? I know everyone won't have access to it, but still.