[1.1.5] Metaclass - Mage Knight (Version 8)

[Avianpilot]

Awesome. I'll see about giving version 19 a run tonight.

[Avianpilot]

I hope I'm not being premature in saying this, but it looks like version 19 did fix the issue I was having with enemy Phoenix Knights.

[Phoenix1]

Cool.

New version posted. I had been getting a bit irked with the Burnout mechanic, so I removed it, increased the Stamina cost of all Phoenix Fire spells by 5, and simply went in and imposed a -50% casting speed on Phoenix Knights. This should keep their raw ranged combat power down, while still letting the spells be solid, and it fits the general intention of the mechanic of making them more awkward than normal mages with standard spells. It also lets you spam Solar Bolt as a player, without actually receiving the mechanical benefits of a full force beam attack every round.

This mainly affects their Phoenix Fire spells, though; Phoenix Ascendance talents are no longer considered spells at all (so they are exempt from the speed reduction, and also can't be killed by Silence). The premise is that those talents are actual physiological and metaphysical changes, brought about by magic and which can be empowered by the Phoenix Knight's inner magic, but they aren't actually cast as spells are. And Healing Light (from talent level 3 on) and Corona of Glory are instant-cast anyway. Glory Rising is affected by the casting reduction, and any other activated, non-instant spells the Phoenix Knight acquires would be, such as Blastwave or, I believe, Celestial/Light talents if acquired from an escort.

Of course, casting speed is irrelevant when channeling spells with Eldritch Combat.

I also found that Spellsurge was still doing too good a job keeping my stamina up. I put it back to an activated talent, similar to Second Wind. It can trigger from Eldritch Combat (which as always halves the power, but quarters the cooldown), and its priority increases at lower stamina. It should be sufficient to get you back in the game during a prolonged fight, without making stamina maintenance during melee combat trivial.

I removed the Damage Affinity portion of Phoenix Soul (with category point enhancement) and replaced it with a regen duration boost, similar to the Fungus talent, but not scaling as fast (max of +3 turns). That is probably a buff in general use, but at least it doesn't let you turn Luminous Horrors into healing batteries and make corruptors the best player on your team. Not to mention turning Wildfire into basically free healing and effect removal.

EDIT: Of course, my issues with not seeming to run out of stamina during combat may have been because Eldritch Combat wasn't actually charging for it except when stamina was high...duh. Tentatively put Eldritch Surge back to how it was before, and slightly buffed passive Eldritch Combat. I'd really like for the Eldritch Combat/Eldritch Surge passive/active options to be a significant tactical consideration, but we'll see if I can get them balanced right.

[Avianpilot]

Haven't had much of a chance to try out version 21, but I did notice that the text explaining Burnout is still in the description of Solar Bolt.

[Phoenix1]

Whoops! Will fix, thanks!

[Phoenix1]

New version posted with the above fix and some numbers tweaks. Made Eldritch Body a bit better (especially at early levels), revised active Spellsurge to incorporate weapon modifications, boosted passive Spellsurge when Eldritch Combat is off, so you can recoup stamina rapidly during prolonged battles at the expense of spell triggers. Most important change is probably to Phoenix Soul; the Auto Cure effect now blocks a fixed amount of damage, capped by your current life regeneration rate (but improved by your Healing Modifier), rather than a percentage of life regeneration.

Auto Cure was probably a big part of the reason the class was so tanky; I saw what it could do in one of those multihued dragon cave events, rendering me basically invulnerable as long as I had a regen infusion on. I do think a part of it is also because it triggered against each instance of damage, rather than each full attack. So if someone attacks you with two weapons that each have two energy-on-hit effects, it would apply six times. I tweaked it some, it's kind of ugly (comes in when attacked, and increments life, rather than reducing damage) and now it has kind of the opposite problem, capping at the first instance of damage, but it does trigger separately for each attack, so it should still be solid, and more balanced overall.

I also went in and added three automatic powers, mutually exclusive no-cost sustains that make your attacks do full fire, full light, or full arcane damage, at the cost of dropping the raw damage slightly. Each one also improves one of the Phoenix Fire secondary effects; fire makes burn last longer, light makes blind last longer, arcane removes more effects with the burst, and normal mode increases the blast healing a bit. That should allow Phoenix Knights to get full benefit from staves and elemental damage boosters, and let them deal with Luminous Horrors even if they haven't maxed Phoenix Blood. It should also make it so solipsist Dismissal and similar abilities (including, as it happens, the previous version of their own Auto Cure) don't necessarily get free added value due to the damage dividing.

I need to try and get another good late-game test, but for my builds and tactics at least, I think I'm starting to get the balance dialed in fairly decently. Unless there are any balance issues I haven't spotted or bugs I missed, I think (maybe, I hope) this class is getting pretty close to being called complete.

[Avianpilot]

Seems like the class is coming along well then; I'm eager to try it out. I never got the chance to try out version 21, as I was trying to get my own addon working with beta 42 with no real success, so I hope to see how this version works out.

One question I have though: with the new automatic powers, why is there one that gives your attacks full arcane damage? Fire and light I understand as thematic, but arcane seems out of place to me.

[Phoenix1]

It's raw magical energy. I expect if I do other mage knight classes, all of them will have an arcane option in addition to their more thematic energy types. Of course, since it's more of a basic power, generic to the lot of them rather than part of their specific focus, it does the least damage.

EDIT: A few more changes posted. Phoenix Soul no longer boosts regeneration duration with category point; instead, the Auto Cure function requires a category point. Phoenix Regeneration is no longer instant use with category point; instead, with a category point, 1/5 the passive regen also applies as stamina regen. However, Combat Veteran is now a locked tree. Also buffed the active use of Phoenix Regeneration and Phoenix Wings some to make them more competitive with inscriptions.

[Avianpilot]

Sounds a bit harsh, but I won't judge until I try it out for myself. Perhaps I'm just spoiled by when the class was overpowered.

One thing I wanted to bring up though; the sign is wrong for Phoenix Regeneration's die_at parameter*. I've found that I'm dying at 22 hp right now, instead of -22 like the talent says that I should.

*Assuming that I'm reading the code correctly, why is the code for that in the Phoenix Heart skill? Granted I'll always have that skill on as long as it's not dispelled, but I can't see why it shouldn't go into the Phoenix Regeneration skill itself.

[Phoenix1]

You're right, I switched the sign. Fixed.

It's in Phoenix Heart because the calculation uses spellpower, which can change over time, so requiring a sustain means it will update when you level, or just deactivate and reactivate. But, since Phoenix Regeneration itself is already an active talent, I couldn't put it there, so I tied it to having Phoenix Heart sustained.

EDIT: Just realized that I had been forgetting to divide the speed reduction for Corona of Awe by 100...fixed.

[Avianpilot]

I see what you mean. I forgot that Phoenix Regeneration is both passive and activated, and would need to be incorporated into the sustain to be refreshed on levelup.

[Phoenix1]

Did a bit more tweaking. I put the regen duration increase back into Phoenix Soul, but heavily lowered Auto Cure...which is on its last legs, but I really don't want to cut it entirely, so I'm giving it one more shot. I also made Corona of Awe take time to cast (meaning it actually takes two turns, like all spells), but it now stuns affected targets for 1-3 turns depending on talent level, rather than slowing. It's a riskier proposition, and doesn't work quite as well against foes who tend to back off, but I realized that as it was before it was a bit too good, especially against mages and the like. Also made it no longer pull in immobile foes, since it's technically causing the enemy to advance, not actually yanking or teleporting them.

I did some other things, but also undid some, so there may be a couple more number tweaks.

[Frumple]

Hey, bug with the latest. Using focused strike while unarmed apparently gives you 3000% attack speed for the duration >_<

And you can promptly swap back to your main weapon set, or murder everything around you while disarmed. Either/or.

Quick E: Single weapon, not unarmed. Apparently unarmed counts. There may be a few too many zeros in the buff code

[Phoenix1]

Whoops! Will fix. Thanks!

EDIT: That's fixed, and the new version also adjusts Eldritch Surge to not cost stamina for the active version (I figure the loss of stamina recovery is a reasonable enough opportunity cost).

[Avianpilot]

Another bug that I noticed. If you don't have talent points auto-assigned at birth, you never get the three Invocations. I'm not 100% sure, but I think giving those talents no_unlearn_last = true would fix this.