Bloodriver Adherent Class

[Shad3]

Couple quick questions:

• Does the golem block projectile? Honestly I don't remember if I ever use bolt spells alongside the golem. Bolt pass-through is something I have to add to it I guess.
• Bloodletting's throw damage is derived from the dagger's raw damage, ignoring mastery, accuracy and such. While it is not counted as weapon attack, it does trigger the dagger's on-hit procs.

[Shad3]

Been 2 years since last update, and I was thinking:
How about more bleed?

So here's 2.0.0 with new subclass: Bloodriver Staffmaster.

They are more martially inclined, and are even more aggressive with self-bleed. Just prepare a bit more healing, I guess.

Code: Select all

2.0.0
- New subclass: Bloodriver Staffmaster

[HaleMary]

There are currently 9 variation of totems. 5 which you will learn by default, and the remaining 4 you will learn by:
killing a certain named bear
destroy a certain magical crystal
killing a certain spider in the east, and
going to a certain place where magic are blazing.

Are these only unlockable in AoA? Or is there a way to get them in other campaigns too?

[Shad3]

They are AoA exclusive, for now. I do have some ideas on other campaign's totems, but they have to wait until I have more time to mod. (Also my PC broke down so please pray for its speedy recovery...)

[Seventeer]

staffmaster talent [Rite Of Chasing : selection] error
Lua Error: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:351: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:324: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:190: /mod/dialogs/talents/WshadeRiteOfChasing.lua:126: bad argument
look like you forget to add talent tree [bloodriver/wshade-arcana-blood]

[Shad3]

Ah.
No, the error is not that. I forgot the safeguard for when no talent was synchronized.
It should work properly after you synchronize anything.

[Mr Frog]

e: I'm playing Adherent to be clear

Got through T1s. Have a few regrets with my build since I didn't fully understand how the class works but it should be okay. Went with Ogre for my race because it seemed like a safe choice for a blind pick but if he crashes and dies I think I'll try skelly because nuking everyone's Bleed resistance just by being near them seems funny

assorted notes:

A few things don't crit when I think they should; totems, Touch of Electrocution, Superheated Blood, Red Mist, Blood Sprite, Sprite Traversal, Sprite Poison, Blood Collection - Tsunami

Conversely, a couple talents have their self bleed amped if they crit, but do not note this: Blood Slash, Blood Burst Trap, Artery Overload (not all self bleed talents will even respond to a crit in this way which is especially confusing. Personally I think they all should but you might want otherwise)

Sanctum seems pretty profoundly detrimental as its effect is completely involuntary once learned and it will buff enemy saves and knock down walls around you, the latter of which can be potentially catastrophic if it exposes a new horde of enemies

I feel very comfortable not running Manasurge since the class can get mana off of heals. I like this.

Arcana Blood and its interaction with Advanced Sanguine Elements is so fxing cool and it pisses me off how cool it is

I didn't understand how the Sihr-Mpath curse stacking works and thought it had insane exponential stacking so I dumped some points in there but looking at the code it looks like it just approaches 5x the base value, which is much less deranged than I thought
BTW is the intent for the first Sihr-Mpath talent you use to not be instant? Because at the moment it looks like they will effectively always be instant because the proc is set before the talent resolves and energy is or is not deducted.

Reverse Bloodflow is pretty cray cray, I crit someone for 900 in t1s lol. If I understand the code right it can triple dip on crits in the right circumstances, eg if I crit cast Spike Vine (the only ASE spell that crits apparently), then crit cast Artery Overload, then crit cast RBF itself

I don't think it's noted anywhere what totem effects scale off of (raw Magic apparently)

I was completely mystified about how the Blood Collection talents work; I thought it gathered bleed effects around you on cast and couldn't figure out why they weren't doing anything when I tried them, but looking at the code they collect bleed effects each game round. This in mind Stream seems potentially crazy since it can effectively double or even triple dip on crits in the same way RBF can

I appreciate how few instant talents there are on this class; even totems cost 3/10 of a turn to use. It's more of a pet peeve of mine and I don't think I even care that much, but I think making a talent a free action and completely divorcing it from the game's turn economy is a really boring way to justify its use, so I appreciate that this class avoids doing that.

Gonna keep playing, this is pretty cool. I like that it's essentially the Mage answer to Solipsist but still feels very distinct

[Zizzo]

Sanctum seems pretty profoundly detrimental as its effect is completely involuntary once learned and it will buff enemy saves and knock down walls around you, the latter of which can be potentially catastrophic if it exposes a new horde of enemies

Seconded. All my more recent Bloodriver characters have had to avoid the tail end of that tree, for exactly that reason.

[Shad3]

Sanctum

True enough. Next update I'll consider changing it in someway.

Crits

Yeah about them... some l deliberately not make it ab|e to crit, some | just forgot. Self bleed should crit when the spell crits so those that don't are buggy.

Sihr-Mpath

As usual, I forgot that cd/energy altering needs to be executed in different tick. And yea, the decay made it so it ends up about 5 times the initial value in the end.

Reverse Bloodflow

Fun, isn't it?
To be fair, it means you have inflicted that much bleed on them so...
If you happen to synchronize Artery Overload it becomes ridiculous when you set it as retaliation. It does have its risk of self-hemorrhaging but the bleed amount you inflict is crazy.

Totem needs clarification on that; noted.
Also Blood Collection, I'll give them description that (hopeful|y) clarifies the mechanics better.

[Mr Frog]

finished t2s and went a bit into t3

more notes:

Oh I didn't even see that Stream's multiplier also scales with Spellpower, I predict this will get really nuts by endgame since your Bleed sources also all scale off of various things. I'm at The Maze and Stream is already hitting things for 800+ without even needing crits
It also occurs to me that because Stream and Reverse Bloodflow can activate Bloodletting Expertise, both of them can actually quadruple dip on crit mult (eg. crit cast Spike Vine, crit cast Artery Overload, crit cast Stream and proc BE, then finally crit cast RB)

Class might be a bit overpowered because of how high the potential damage is, I feel perfectly comfortable opening digestive sacks at the beginning of T2s which usually isn't the case
It's balanced a bit by the middling defenses, constant self damage, and the fact that your nukes need a couple turns of setup so you can't just open with them to vaporise a boss/rare before they can hit you. Things might get a lot trickier once I get to the latter half of the game and bosses start to have a ton of HP and can hit really hard. Bleed resistant mobs might also become a problem in Dreadfell (skelly is looking more and more like The Choice for this class)
I can certainly see myself fishing for Worm Nest in vaults when the time comes since it'll make the self bleeds basically trivial

I'm mostly forgoing daggers because staff egoes seem just better for the class period, the few things the class actually needs a dagger for seem somewhat weak and unreliable compared to what doesn't need a dagger, and if I'm understanding correctly you can only shortify staves with no existing egoes on them. I did happen to find a really strong 1h staff but I won't prioritise keeping my offhand open

I feel that synchronising Earth is basically mandatory, Stone Wall and Pulverising Auger being what they are and, probably more importantly, Spike Vine being a reliable source of critical Bleeds for your nukes. My initial thought was that most of my damage would come from Bleed so it'd be better to spec into Physical anyway but, uh, this seems to not be the case! I took Fire afterward because I wanted Flameshock since the class doesn't otherwise have much reliable disables, but I feel that Air and Water are also valid (possibly better, I keep forgetting how mid Flameshock is until I use it lmfao). Air gives you 2 more upfront damage beams to proc Bloodletting Expertise and a decent AoE bleed and Water gives access to a couple of really strong utility spells from ASE.
Sadly I feel that the obscene damage of Reverse Bloodflow and Blood Collection: Stream makes damage sources that can't proc BE or aren't themselves bleeds much less attractive except as a contingency against Bleed immune enemies

Catastrophic Failure looks like a joke talent, and it is, but I can actually see it being useful if you have an extra life (again, skelly meta actually) since a huge flaw with resurrection effects in this game is that they leave you staring down whatever just killed you but with all your sustains on cooldown. Exploding violently might actually fix that. (inb4 it won't trigger if you have an extra life or something)

lol i oneshot harkor'zun with a crit Stream that did 2.8k (almost twice his life)

I was a bit confused about how Sanguine Traversal worked and thought it transmitted your current total bleed power like Artery Overload, but it actually transmits 150% of the self-bleed inflicted by the spell itself (idk if my continued lack of reading comprehension is strictly your problem tho)

Bloodriver Pickaxe giving an on-hit spell proc just for existing in your inventory is certainly a Choice, did you intend for that to be an on-equip effect?

shit you weren't kidding about Retribution Artery Overload being silly, I just got a 889 damage per turn Bleed on AssLord and proceeded to crit RBF him for 4340 DAMAGE
I ended up swapping to a different spell after a couple dungeons. I don't think there's anything really wrong with a fanmade, completely opt-in class having drastically different balancing principles than vanilla, half the freaking point is to give a new experience you can't get from vanilla, but this edged into "playing the game for you" territory. I'd personally like it to be restricted a bit and would suggest AO only be able to amplify a given Bleed effect once or twice (another potentially problematic interaction in the same vein is Drem doublecasting AO although that one at least requires you to press a couple of buttons and spend a couple of turns instead of happening automatically between your own turns...)

The way Aether Condensation works is really annoying, I'd much prefer if it didn't interrupt me to ask where to target

You're quite vulnerable at the start of an encounter before you get your totems down; your EHP is average at best, and you don't really have any passive defensive layers. I've had a few scary moments and I'd really love a psi shield torque but (indecipherable swearing) RNG (screeching incoherently). Flameshock at least serves the purpose of making those first couple of turns safer so I suppose taking it wasn't that dumb.
I still think the class is really, really powerful even without AO Retribution abuse and factoring how squishy it can be; I'm playing super recklessly and doing things I normally wouldn't like opening every single digestive sack I find. This will PROBABLY get me killed when I inevitably overestimate what kind of trouble dealing 4k crits can get me out of but it's quite funny for now

(sorry btw for a lot of my notes being critical, I seem to express interest in things by complaining about them profusely)

[Shad3]

You can always make staves onehanded unless when it already has usable talent (like illuminate) so you don't need to forgo dagger.
Actually... maybe l'll improve it to allow those (but not adding dagger throw).

At first, Retribution to Artery Overload being silly made me consider nerfing either, but at the end l keep them unchanged, because it's easy to get overboard and self-bleed to death. Especially when you face a hard-hitting enemy and found out that your mana is suddenly gone and you're out of heals (happens quite a lot in testing phase lol). At least with non-sanguine talent Retribution you don't go down by self-inflicted bleed...

Catasthropic Failure does trigger if you have extra life btw, also when you have stuff like Cauterize. So it's less of a joke talent than you might think it of (still a funny one though).

Aether Condensation... hmm.
Maybe l'll make the player choose on sustaining whether it ask for targeting or no. I personally like it targetable.

I'll admit, the balance is a bit wack (as a lot of custom classes are). And I do justify it by the self-harms. And don't worry about being critical, as long as it doesn't degrade to insubstantial insults. Honestly, I appreciate it!

[Mr Frog]

oh no... you might wanna make Blood Collection only charge up when enemies are in sight (assuming this isn't already the case), I'm going to bed but I just had an awful, awful idea

thanks for clarifying how the staff carving works btw, I think I assumed "power source" referred to the "powered by [foo]" you see on things with egoes and never actually tried to see what it actually does LMAO