ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

How many characters have to get one-shot by a gunslinger or sawbutcher rare/unique/boss until these spawns are finally fixed? gunslingers and sawbutchers are by FAR the most threatening rare spawn one can face right now, as the damage output of both classes is ridiculous and only gets worse on higher difficulties, when their abilities become over-leveled.

I really didn't want to do this, but I think I'll be playing with Embers of Rage disabled for the time being. A real shame, really.

I agree; it's gotten so bad I sometimes turn off EoR when not planning on using PES or Tinkers. However don't think Psyshot is problematic enough to warrant removing from the rare pool. If rares were simply to have certain talents disabled like Saw Wheels was, Sawbutcher would probably have to lose both To The Arms and Spinal Break to be in line with other rares. Also Gunslingers raw damage output without talents is so high it can't really be fixed in this way

Yeah, gunslingers are essentially skirmishers all over again. Hits you from long range with a couple of debilitating status effects and then proceeds to pound your face in with a stream of bullets.

Sadly, as much as I love the steamtech classes, I have to agree. They are way too dangerous. Hopefully the next update reduces their power. It's always a real pain to be slaughtered so quickly by them.

Something I'd suggest to balance gunslingers (in general, not just rares), is to cut their range in half.
The equation is kind of simple, really - if they are allowed to deal 2x slingshot damage, then their range should be 1/2 that of a slingshot... right?.
This wouldn't break the class for players (I think, as they are extremely strong) and would allow you to play around gunslinger rares a lot more. I think it would also fit into the lore and all, as guns used to not be particularly accurate (right?).

You could also add a "recoil" mechanic, which reduces your range and accuracy the more you shoot. Though that wouldn't fix the issue completely, as the turns after you got one-shot don't really matter. Because of that, I'd then reduce the offhand pistol damage of gunslinger, as 100% is a little too ridiculous (literally no other class can deal as much damage with a simple hit, melee or ranged).

Lots of steamguns (especially artifacts) already have poor range. Gunslinger isn't even that powerful of a player class so this nerf isn't a good idea. Player stuff shouldn't be nerfed just because enemies use them better.

Any particular reason why Player vs Enemy classes can't be balanced not with bans but by making it so if an enemy picks a class, its talent levels (and maybe other things like number of talents made available) are multiplied by a class-specific factor? For example Gunslinger's could be 50%, and they'll have talents that much lower in level, bringing them more in line with other rares in the area.

You could probably come up with a way to specifically balance certain classes by applying npc-specific scaling, or liberal use of no_npc_use. But in this case I think a ban is simpler. Personally I'd like to see a rework to the rare/randboss system so that players and npcs get different classes and ability sets to eachother, but that's pretty unlikely.

Patashu wrote:Any particular reason why Player vs Enemy classes can't be balanced not with bans but by making it so if an enemy picks a class, its talent levels (and maybe other things like number of talents made available) are multiplied by a class-specific factor? For example Gunslinger's could be 50%, and they'll have talents that much lower in level, bringing them more in line with other rares in the area.

Gunslingers are not about talent levels, but about the ability to dual wield two slings with now downsides, other than a little less attack speed. Gunslingers that have 300 weapon damage each can easily kill you without even using any skills

Having just lost another wonderful character in two turns, I concur.

I've lost a lot of characters to gunslingers personally but I think they should be tweaked, not removed from the pool. They are kinda like archmage/necromancer stair guardians in terms of nuking potential, only easier because if you manage to land a stun/daze/confusion on them you're good to go!

I don't know the reasons behind removing Skirmishers from rare pool, but it sure feels weird not having them appear in the age of gun-wielding honeybees.

Some sort of weird bug was causing the player to skip their turns when being attacked by a Skirmisher rare.

bpat wrote:I sometimes turn off EoR

How do I turn it off the one shot cheese bosses? My mindslayer just got hit with enough damage to kill him two times over, through kinetic shield. On normal difficulty, by a mob I outlevelled.

You can turn off EoR by going into your addons menu, finding the EoR DLC at (for me at least) the top of the addons list and clicking it twice till it's set on "Manual:disabled." All new characters created while it is disabled will not being able to access the EoR campaign and tinkers... but also won't have any gunslinger rares to deal with.

Micbran wrote:You can turn off EoR by going into your addons menu, finding the EoR DLC at (for me at least) the top of the addons list and clicking it twice till it's set on "Manual:disabled." All new characters created while it is disabled will not being able to access the EoR campaign and tinkers... but also won't have any gunslinger rares to deal with.

This works. Sadly, Mindslayers start with 3 class points in stead of 5 when I turn off EoR. Sadness.