Phoenix1 wrote:
Their area damage does get fairly serious, especially once you have enough mana to start pumping Solar Fire Flurry more routinely. And I think I have multiple burns from Fires of Burning stacking, which they probably shouldn't be. Would that help matters, or is their raw damage just too high?
I guess stacking the fire DOT is not a bug per se (deathly poison uses the same mechanic). Still, the burst AOE Damage is to high. Maybe rising the cost of the Solar Flare Fury would help balance things out.
I thought about another way of balancing the autocast solar Flare. Maybe different spell shapes (cone, blast, wave) could have different chance to be triggered in the melee attack. Also the radius of the autocast spells should be smaller, maybe controlled by a class talent, which would scale the radius from 20% - 70% of the base range.
I tweaked Solar Fire Flurry. Now it's a passive that simply reduces the cooldown and cost of Invoke Solar Fire, so it still lets you sustain a ranged assault without letting you shoot twice in a row (Pulse Shaping potentially aside). Going to hold off on reducing the areas for now, since the Phoenix Knight is intended to be heavy in the area attacks. I also got it so the burning doesn't stack.
The randomized shaping is a good idea (an old version had that, and I really liked just random blasts of fire spewing out when fighting). I have Arcane Combat set up now to randomly generate the area and imbue, with two extra weights for whichever option you're currently on. So, if you're in the midst of a lot of enemies, you can go on, say, Burst Shaping and Healing Fires to have a better chance of a healing burst, but it's still mostly random. Importantly, the shaping and imbues do not affect the mana cost when triggered by Eldritch Combat, since paying extra mana for a shape or effect that may not even be useful to you would just be annoying (also reinforces the whole physical/magical synthesis thing).
I removed the vulnerabilities from Phoenix Soul as well. To balance it, I also removed the poison and disease resistance, and the damage penetration. Between Radiant Fires and Corona of Power, they should be able to handle resistant foes adequately. I'm not 100% sure how competitive this leaves Phoenix Soul with other talents, but that full fire and light immunity can be nice. I do enjoy being able to just waltz through Luminous Horrors. Ideally, as I mentioned, the vulnerabilities will eventually semi-come-back as regen-negation, but that's for a future update.
Also, the Mind Knight class has been added. Opening post and thread title edited to reflect that.
One thing I notice is that these classes start with a lot of talent points. The Phoenix Knight starts with 8 and the Mind Knight with 9, not counting Telekinetic Grasp. Of the standard classes, the highest any gets is to 6. (Mindslayer starts with 8, but one is Shoot and one is Telekinetic Grasp which I'm not going to count.) And this is ignoring that they basically get a point in Corrupted Strength as well. I'd suggest eliminating their Armor Training points - most classes don't start with Armor Training, even the heavy fighters like Cursed, Wyrmics, and Reavers. The only classes which start with 3 are the Bulwark and Sun Paladin, which kind of need it for their sword-and-board shtick.
<Ferret> The Spellblaze was like a nuclear disaster apparently: ammo became the "real" currency.
Guess I hadn't been paying much attention to that. Good catch!
Having taken a Phoenix Knight further now than I have any previous character, and gone and done a run through to Daikara with a barbarian to get more of a "control", I've made some modifications, mainly to the generic skills of the metaclass itself. First, per phantomglider's suggestion, starting talents have been reduced to 5: Eldritch Combat, Combat Accuracy, one point in Armor Training, the main offensive spell talent for the class, and the first talent of their next most favored tree (so, Solar Healing for Phoenix Knights, Astral Projection for Mind Knights).
Eldritch Combat now triggers more often (20% + 6%/talent level, rather than 10% + 4% per), but halves the damage of the triggered spell, as well as damage-scale effects such as healing and shielding. Phoenix Knight healing spells and Wings of Protection have been buffed some, so they're more potent when cast directly but still not too strong when triggered. Eldritch Combat also halves corona radius, reduces shaping radius by 1, and roughly halves the effect or duration of Imbues.
Spellsurge has been fairly significantly buffed, given a longer cooldown, and is no longer given a second separate chance to trigger. I noticed at high levels that mana was becoming less and less of a problem, especially when in melee; Eldritch Combat should definitely be more mana-efficient than direct casting, but it should still wear them down.
Knight-Magery is no longer all first tier. Eldritch Combat is first, then Eldritch Body, then Aura of Protection, and finally Spellsurge.
The effect of weapon styles on Eldritch Combat have been modified. Two hander triggers at full power and has a +10% chance to trigger. Single weapon triggers two spells instead of one (may be different spells), and has a +25% chance to trigger. Weapon and shield gets a shield bash when triggering a spell, which can trigger recursively.
The Weapons Master talents now all do 100%/125%/150%/175%/200% weapon damage, have had some tweaks to the weapon-based effects, and now also have some spell synthesis effects. Focused Strike still restores mana, and also gives a small but stackable stat buff based on weapon, Tactical Strike automatically triggers Eldritch Combat, Rapid Strike will cooldown a random spell if both attacks hit, and Whirlwind Strike will reduce the cooldown of all talents that don't cost stamina by 1 per target hit. Additionally, each point invested in a Weapons Master talent gives +1 Accuracy and +1 Physical Power, just to make sure their basic fighting stats are at least reasonably level-appropriate. Most stamina costs and cooldowns for these talents have been increased to help balance out the additional effectiveness.
Oh, and Combat Techniques is now a locked tree, since I realized in playing that barbarian that Rush is awesome and there should be slightly more investment for these guys to be able to get it.
I'm currently playing the mind kinght class (still version 2).
I must admit, the class is very powerful. Heres why:
Blink - range 14 phase door, without chance to fizzle, ignoring LOS with a cooldown of 2 (if maxed). Its the most OP skill i ever used in TOME4. It gives you all the mobility you need, can be used every second turn and is the ultimate get out of trouble skill.
Passive buffs - great resists, + 100% run speed, + damage, + acc, + armor, + def. You a powerhorse with this buffs.
Utility - Buffs can be turned off if needed
Telekinetic grasp - being able to wear 2h weapon + 2 1h weapons is very, very OP, the bonuses stack and you run with for example - 40% physical damage penetration.
Mindsight - Range 10 Telepaty, its just to good, combined with all the other vision talents is to much, for shure.
The imbues of the mind skills are great at disabling foes. I dont know if this is intended but i dont see any graphic effect on cast. Question here what is used to determine the hit chance of the telepatic and telecinetic thrust? is it ACC or P.power, or S.Power or maybe M.Power? you dont know, which stat to stack to get the most of the disabling possibilities.
One last thing - you are Generic Points starved for the whole game. maybe some of the talent trees could be changed to class skills.
Still, a very funny class, i like to feel almighty and powerful. Curently on lev 4 of the Vor pride, owning everything:)
Yeah I figured Mind Knights would have some serious revising needed. I think my next patch will probably be toning them down fairly substantially. I do still want them to be highly tactical, with strong mobility and divinations backed by a solid combat presence, but it definitely sounds like a lot of the raw numbers need to be reduced. Blink's cooldown and range, Mindsight's radius, probably the whole of the Biokinesis line...yeah.
The lack of visuals for their spells is intended, since it's telekinesis and telepathy.
The generic starving is...I don't know that I'd say strictly intended, but a natural side effect of two other design goals. I gave the metaclass itself two solid generic trees, which is enough to use up a character's level-earned generics, and I try to set it up so the talents are useful when you first get them but still worth maxing as often as possible. In any event, the latest patch spreads Knight-Magery out like a normal tree and gives some minor stat boosts for Weapons Master to make dipping into Combat Training less necessary, so that should probably help.
And all the spell stuff should be running off of Spellpower.
EDIT: I've been thinking about it, and I believe what I'm going to do is go back through both classes and change around their talent trees to all work more like the attack trees do - they get...generally one actual activated spell per tree, with the rest being passives, sustains, or providing several mutually exclusive sustainable options that grant new or improved ways of using them. I think it fits the theme of highly specialized casters better, and should help balance things by more tightly restricting how much they can do with direct casting, since using a spell directly will be more like placing an entire tree on cooldown than a single talent. Probably going to need to make their spells not be subject to Metaflow, though, since the spells themselves would all count as Tier 1, making Metaflow items way too good.
Also probably going to reduce the chance of Eldritch Combat when TK-wielding, since it is quite powerful as things stand, but simply too awesome for a psychic warrior type to drop entirely.
Hope You release the other 2 Classes before the big changes. The stone warrior specially.
So or so, Im looking forward seeing the changes You will make.
Yeah I'd have liked to, but since they'd be operating off of the same new paradigm, I figured it'd be better to convert the current ones first, do a bit more testing, get the numbers right, and then start on the new classes.
The major, "this is why it counts as a new version" changes:
The classes now have five class talent trees rather than four. However, two of these start off locked (Phoenix Knight got the Corona tree locked and a new buffing tree, Phoenix Glory, added; Mind Knight got Psychic Transit locked and Psychic Shielding added). So there's some more room for actual build diversity.
Aura of Protection now has an emanation effect that basically calls a function every turn in order to provide a continual effect, kinda like how Gloom works, the area of which grows with talent levels. By itself, all it does is illuminate the area. However, certain spell talents can provide additional effects. The Phoenix Knight's Corona tree is now a set of passives dedicated to these effects. The Mind Knight's fourth talent in each unlocked tree is a 40 mana sustain that provides such effects. I believe this pattern (a dedicated, passive locked tree or a single sustain in each open tree) will continue with other classes.
More generally, all of the spell trees have been revised to work more like how the attack trees work. The first talent provides an actual, usable spell. The remaining three either add options (similar to the Imbue or Shaping talents), or simply add an effect to that spell (or possibly to some other effect, such as Damage Shields or your Aura of Protection). For example, the Phoenix Knight's healing spell cures damage, another talent in the tree lets it remove negative effects, another talent lets it restore a little Stamina, and the last lets it boost Regeneration for a few turns. However, the talents that passively add scaling effects reduce your maximum mana by 6 per level learned, so while you get stronger spells, your mana pool is still taking some hits. Likewise, you're very action-efficient, but you have to be careful with cooldowns. If you use, say, your healing spell to top off your hit points, you might not have it available to remove a stun next turn, or something.
Additionally, since passives that grant static bonuses don't really fit in these sorts of trees, all the spell trees provide a small passive boost per talent level invested, similar to the Wyrmic resistances (although the bonuses are quite a bit higher). This basically replaces the talents like Phoenix Soul, Biokinetic Focus, and Phoenian Regeneration, and spreads the rate of accumulation out more.
More minor changes:
A lot of the talent and tree names have been changed and more standardized.
Aura of Protection now gives a custom particle distinct to the class rather than the default Disruption Shield.
Mind Knights reduce the chance of triggering Eldritch Combat to 3/5 normal when telekinetic wielding.
Various number tweaks.
Maybe a couple other things I forgot about.
I think this all captures the feel I imagine for Mage Knights fairly well. Highly specialized, darn effective in magic-supported melee but kind of slow and awkward in a direct spell duel, fairly versatile within their theme, lots more sustained and passive benefits from their magic than direct spells, etc. I'm not 100% sure that the numbers themselves won't need to be toned down, but that's easy enough to do if necessary.
I was trying out the Pheonix Knight, and I happened to look at my Life Regeneration. +9.5-ish per turn, at level 12. "Huh," I think to myself, "that's a lot of life regen. Where is it coming from? None of my equipment is providing any life regen. Well, maybe Corona is bugged." So I turn off Aura of Protection. No dice. Still at about +6 per turn.
"What the heck. This is weird."
And then I notice the description of the healing tree. +1.5 life regen per talent point. 1.5! If you maxed that tree out, you'd be passively regenerating 30 HP per turn. That's pretty decent for an activated regen infusion, much less a passive, always-on ability. On top of that you'd be getting an instant-speed healing wild that restores stamina and gives a further regen buff.
The Wyrmic additional effects are weak for a reason: because whenever you spend a point in those talents you not only get the additional effect but also the talent you spent it on.
<Ferret> The Spellblaze was like a nuclear disaster apparently: ammo became the "real" currency.
I was a little unsure of the passive effects. I mean, the effects themselves are very thematic - whether passive from a tree or from their own talents, I would imagine a high-level Phoenix Knight having the ability to acquire a constant regen of around 30, fire and light resistance and eventual immunity, good detection abilities and light radius, etc. So far, I'm finding that having them the way they are, rather in their own talents, spreads them out fairly nicely. You still get some strong passive effects, but you're going to either be high-level or invest very heavily in a given tree before they reach their peak. Of course, as you say, there's no disadvantage for such an investment.
So, I dunno. For now, I'm giving the passive style a chance. If it doesn't work, well, that's what updates are for!
Well, there exists an actual talent that is just straight +1 HP regen per point. For Phoenix Knights to get an entire tree of that talent on steroids AND ALSO it's got another effect that is worth a talent point on its own...that's a bit extreme. The passive abilities are an interesting idea, you just have at least some of them set way too high at the moment.
<Ferret> The Spellblaze was like a nuclear disaster apparently: ammo became the "real" currency.
I'd probably have to say that it's overpowered as well, but I'm really enjoying the class as it is now. For the most part the Phoenix Knight is what I wanted the Sun Paladin to be.
One possible bug that I've noticed though. When Corona of Power is in effect, I checked the enemy stats and only noticed that it lost fire resistance, instead of both fire and light. Am I seeing it wrong (a display problem perhaps?), or doesn't it actually lower enemy light resistance?
Okay, phantomglider makes a good point, and we do seem to have some consensus here, so I'll see what needs to be modified. Is it mainly the regen, do you guys think, or should I take a look at the lot of them? I'm probably going to remove the Stun Resist from the Glory tree while I'm at it anyway, since it's not really that thematic now that I think about it (and Aura of Protection provides some of that anyway). Maybe halve the regen, that would keep it weaker than the existing talent, but the max would still be a solid 15, just a bit above a starting regeneration infusion.
I also realized that Phoenix Wings is at least potentially too strong as it stands now (my current character was lucky enough to find two 300+ point shielding runes, and putting them on automatic cycle provides defense levels that are fine for Archmages and might, maybe be okay for Earth Knights, but not for Phoenix Knights with their loads of healing options).
Corona should be reducing light resist, probably a bug, I'll take a look.
Glad you like the class though! Thanks for all the insight, guys.
EDIT: Okay, Phoenix Light regen halved, Phoenix Wing fire damage on hit halved, Phoenix Glory stun resist removed and fear resist reduced to 3% per, Psychic Enhancement regen halved, Psychic Transit movement speed reduced to 3% per, Psychic Shielding armor and defense reduced to 0.5 per. I also removed Corona of Awe (since Glory Surging covers what I want it to convey and Phoenix Knights aren't supposed to be that good at debuffing anyway), moved Corona of Challenge to tier 4, and made the tier 3 effect Corona of Life, which heals all allies in corona talent level + 1 per turn. Getting up to ~30 passive regen is doable, but you have to pretty much max out the whole Phoenix Light tree and half of the Corona tree.
Wingboost is now the tier 2 talent of Phoenix Wings, and Wingflash is tier 3. Wingcharge is tier 4 and was changed so that if an attack breaks your damage shield, its damage is reduced by 25% + 15% per raw talent level (max 100%), and if your actual Wingshield talent is on cooldown, that cooldown is lowered by talent level. So basically, Wingcharge turns your damage shields into a bone-shield-light and helps keep you shielded during a prolonged battle, rather than buffing shield durations.
And the light resist now applies correctly on Corona of Power.