ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

so I'd noticed that thought-forms are pretty bad in high peak on normal, except defender which is mediocre there; they tend to die quite quickly
id rather not compare that to their performance on nightmare+
since this game is presumably being balanced around insane, I'd like to propose a few changes that won't quite bring em up to snuff for insane, but I think they could use em anyway

currently, thought-form: bowman doesn't benefit from rapid fire; razakai is gonna fix that in 1.5.3(hopefully). I think that thought-form: bowman could also use another stamina-using ability, in this case headshot, to pair up with their steady shot ability; note that steady shot does less damage by itself in 1.5 than it did in 1.4(I wont ask for them to get light armour training though)

as for thought-form warrior, I think that they could stand to have heavy armour training get levelled up past 2 to the same level as their other talents, and that they could also stand to have another stamina-using ability; in this case probably shattering blow or execution, as stunning blow may be a bit much for them

as for thought-form defender, I think that they could stand to have a second and third non-sustained stamina-using ability, in this case shield slam and either battle shout, juggernaut, or assault, especially now that assault is nerfed

furthermore, I also think that thought-forms should have their magic, willpower, and cunning stat boots be assigned to their effective stats, rather than their base stats, so that they can breach 100 magic, willpower, and cunning if the solipsist has that much of those stats; currently they can't go above 100 willpower, for example, if the solipsist has over 100 willpower because base stats hard cap at 100
edit: I also think that transcendent thought-forms should, at level 5, also give them amplification, dream walk, and mental shielding, the latter two to make it two talents per category instead of one per category and an extra, at the level of the other talents; thanks for making me think of that The Tapir

The second talent from the tree also should be changed since currently there's no reason to go beyond 1 point in it except for marginal benefits that do little to nothing with more levels.

Imagine if they could also pick up and swap out equipment when controlled with Overmind - could be a fun way to make controlling them more worthwhile.

Giving Bowman Aim instead of Rapid Fire and Headshot, Warrior Shattering Blow (pretty useful for the -saves if it lands) and Defender Shield Slam and maybe Battle Call, that'd be quite useful and powerful. Not sure if it currently has it, but letting the Bowman's arrows ignore friendlies like TW clones would also be good so it doesn't get blocked by you.

Agree with buffing Transcendent Thought Forms too. That change would still leave it as being fairly weak but would at least buff TF a bit.

Summons talent level have to scale with difficulty to be useful at any difficulty level.

Right now some summons scale with difficulty levels (shadows, dwarven halves, temporal clones etc) and they are almost as useful on madness as on normal. They are still core talents for given class.

Majority of summons do not scale with difficulty level at all and they become less and less relevant. You won't fix though forms by giving them ability x. It simply doesn't matter if it has headshot or not. What does matter is raw power level of you summon. Dwarven half doesn't have any advanced attack skills but when you apply madness skill multiplayer to basic things like stoneshield out of sudden basic attack does ok damage. Every single summon that does not scale with difficulty is extremely weak at higher difficulty levels and that is why it is so hard to say if for example oozemancer or summoner is a good class or not. It's great on normal but terrible on madness.

oh also would you implement these changes to thought-form unity?
while active, it gives the bowman attack speed equal to your mind speed, the warrior physical power equal to the given mindpower, and the defender resist all equal to that given to you
on another note i guess biofeedback amplification discharge and dreamforge(the talent) could use buffs too, but thatd be for a different thread

not sure why i didnt think of it before, but i think giving thought-form defender battle call would be very annoying; of course if the player could control its use it would be very good, but unless overmind was active, that would not be the case
id rather not give them more than 1 extra ability, since they get extra points into heavy armour training
i look forwards to the changes
edit: also blighted summoning should cause them to spawn with magic gear instead of anti-magic gear

It is especially regrettable that Blighted Summoning doesn't really attribute to much on Thought-Forms, as usually the ability listed is great on a Doombringer.

giving this a bump so razakai remembers about this in time for 1.6

I WANT THOUGHTFORMS TO BE WORTH IT

Zeyphor wrote:giving this a bump so razakai remembers about this in time for 1.6

I WANT THOUGHTFORMS TO BE WORTH IT

I AGREE

And please make your projectiles bypass them, it is silly to have what you conjured from your mind to block your projectiles

Zeyphor wrote:on another note i guess biofeedback amplification discharge and dreamforge(the talent) could use buffs too, but thatd be for a different thread[/size]

I agree with this as well (overdue for 2 years). I had once posted a thread about revamping some Solipsists' talents. While I would admit I am not particularly good at making actual suggestions, I think everybody would agree these trees could be vastly improved. As things stand now they are simply unfun, being weak is besides the point. I would revive that thread at some point by adding some more of my worthless suggestions, just to invite some discussions.

And I would go one step further to say Dream Forge as a whole tree should be buffed, and why is it a Generic Tree in the first place?

anonymous000 wrote:And I would go one step further to say Dream Forge as a whole tree should be buffed, and why is it a Generic Tree in the first place?

iirc, dream forge used to be a class tree
it presumably didn't work out so well, and if i put some thought into it, I'd probably be able to see why
but I've been away from this game for a long tim