Null Tweaks 2014-12-04: Rocks and Stones

[Doctornull]

Changes this version:

Wards

The Ward talent granted by torques, totems and staves is now instant-cast, and the duration (always 10 turns) is displayed in the talent info text.

Torques and Totems

Totems:
- Combined Healing, Poison and Illness into new Healing, which now also cures 2 poison or disease effects. Same long cooldown and generally inferior healing as before. Changed level range to make these available from level 1.
- New totem type Cleansing which removes 1-5 magical debuffs from the target.
- Wards will now ward against Cold, Fire or Blight.
- Natural now grants Equilibrium when you are hit.
- Forceful now grants Stamina when you are hit.

Torques:
- Hateful now increases your maximum Hate.
- Psionic now grants a bonus to Psi regeneration.

[Doctornull]

Berserker Tweak

Replaces Blood Frenzy (the 4th talent in Two Handed Maiming) with a sustain that has a 10-50% chance to trigger one of the other three talents in that tree -- Stunning Blow, Sunder Arms, or Sunder Armour -- 1/turn with a successful melee attack. You pay the stamina cost for whatever gets triggered. Those talents are pretty expensive, but Bloodbath and some +Stamina regen gear can handle it.

[devilindupriest]

Berserker Tweak

Replaces Blood Frenzy (the 4th talent in Two Handed Maiming) with a sustain that has a 10-50% chance to trigger one of the other three talents in that tree -- Stunning Blow, Sunder Arms, or Sunder Armour -- 1/turn with a successful melee attack. You pay the stamina cost for whatever gets triggered. Those talents are pretty expensive, but Bloodbath and some +Stamina regen gear can handle it.

That is beautiful.

To compliment this, maybe switch out Blood Rage from Bloodthirst for a radius 1 physical version of Overkill? Name it Great Cleave or some such. Blood Rage isn't a bad skill for a passive, but the times you're mowing down adds and the times you need more strength don't often coincide.

ETA: Just reached level 12 having trouble telling so far and haven't gone to look yet. Will the proc hit something else in melee range if the initial target dies from the first hit? Because that too would be excellent.


blood frenzy procs could use floaty text. And if so, if GWF also procs it should be 'QUAD DAMAGE'

ETAA(gain): I...think...maybe? I'm not real sure, but possibly procs are triggering the 'used an X' reduction on Rampage duration.

[Doctornull]

Moved options into Gameplay tab. My options look like "Nulltweaks: ..." and are grouped together, should be pretty obvious.

Added the Chronomancy stuff discussed here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=40675 There are three choices for Chronomancy:
- Classic - no changes
- Willpower TW - move Speed Control requirements to Willpower, but no other changes. Makes the TW a little easier to play at low levels.
- Awesome - move all TW Chronomancy talents to Magic, move some PM talents to Willpower (including the high-level Paradox tree), and change the TW and the Nullpack Heavy to start with +4 Magic instead of +4 Willpower. This option also removes Quantum Feed and replaces it with something fun. Also under this system, the duration of the anomaly protection offered by Static History is buffed by Willpower, so PMs get better value from it than TWs.

Added the Weapon Mastery talent changes discussed here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=40582 This is also provided as an option.
- Classic: no changes
- Awesome: changes for the better

As always, please let me know if anything breaks horribly. Cheers!

[malboro_urchin]

hey Doc, just got a lua error that I think came from Nulltweaks, seemingly when I used Strike Fate to kill an enemy:

http://imgur.com/lIxla4K

Edit: I've used Strike Fate to deal fatal blows to enemies since the lua error with no problems, so I guess that's not it. I dunno what it could be.

[Doctornull]

Edit: I've used Strike Fate to deal fatal blows to enemies since the lua error with no problems, so I guess that's not it. I dunno what it could be.

Fix pushed.

That bug would only crop up if the target had a beneficial timed_effect active (regeneration, etc.), so that's why you didn't see it more often.

Thanks for the report!

[Doctornull]

Yeek Starting Area Improvement
- Ritch NPC infravision reduced; Stealth should be more useful now.
- Ritch NPCs gain description strings which hint at their damage types and capabilities.
- Ritch melee damage changed to mostly Physical.
--> Ritch Impalers convert 30% melee to Blight.
--> Chitenous Ritches convert 30% melee damage to Acid.
--> Hive Mother converts 30% melee damage to Fire, and another 30% to Blight.
- Ritch Hive Mother gains a large Lite radius.

[malboro_urchin]

I don't understand how some of this makes the Yeek racial area easier, could you please explain?

Also, I'm kinda torn on these changes; the Yeek starting area is supposed to be hard, but getting, say, a Doomed, (or any class, really, without some form of range 10 beam) is nigh impossible because you get massively outranged and nuked before you can do anything, and the narrow tunnels often prevent creative use of LoS to avoid damage from flamespitters & the Hive Mother.

[Doctornull]

I don't understand how some of this makes the Yeek racial area easier, could you please explain?

Mindslayer Kinetic shield works on most Ritch melee damage. Since Yeeks and Mindslayers are heavily related unlocks, it's kinda implied that a Mindslayer Yeek should be viable. Now it is.

Also now Block works on 70% of Ritch melee damage.

[malboro_urchin]

Can you do me a favor and make Storm Archmages viable against Stun-immune enemies? I always think it'd be really cool to make one, but then realize that all their neat tricks I spent so many talent points getting to are wasted vs Stun-immune foes.

[Spleenling]

Does the New weapons mastery affect Shields?

[Doctornull]

Can you do me a favor and make Storm Archmages viable against Stun-immune enemies? I always think it'd be really cool to make one, but then realize that all their neat tricks I spent so many talent points getting to are wasted vs Stun-immune foes.

Can you give more detail on what you mean by 'viable'?

Does the New weapons mastery affect Shields?

Yes. It ought to say so in the list of weapon types. It also affects unarmed so enjoy some Flexible Combat on a Bulwark.

[Orangeflame]

Storm archmages get kinda left out because the 'cool' part of lightning doesn't work against stun-immune foes.

Long explanation:
Fire has Burning Wake, which can dispel and increases damage
Aether has, well, nukes and disruption shield.
Since the final skill gives damage res pen, both of those don't care about the enemies resistances.
Storm gives res pen, but no daze resistance penetration (or similar). It's not a big deal usually, but when all tough foes facing you are stun immune, Hurricane is absolutely useless. It's a pretty big part of a Tempest's damage output.

[malboro_urchin]

Orangeflame, you put that very nicely, thanks for that! In addition to that, at least one artifact robe that buffs Storm (The Calm, iirc) gives your Lightning & Chain Lightning spells a chance to daze, which is also useless against enemies that are immune to stuns/dazes, which I gather tends to be most of the more powerful lategame foes.

There's definitely more than one way to make Hurricane & Tempest work vs stun/daze immune foes. You could give the abilities some form of resist pen, or you could make the abilities proc based on dealing lightning damage. The latter would be far more consistent, I think.

[Doctornull]

Hmm. I do see Air/Storm winners so I assume it's technically "viable" though those seem to be not as exclusively one element as Arcane/Aether nor as trivially awesome as Fire/Wildfire.

The issue seems to be that Hurricane is awesome but not applicable to everyone, while other elements get tricks which are more applicable.

So the basic tweak would be:
- Add something new to Air/Storm which is universally nasty and which specifically ignores Stun immunity.
- Scale back Hurricane to balance the above addition.