Marksman - Archer Rework v1.3

[scul]

Enjoying my first marksskeleton so far. One thing I am pretty sure is a bug, perhaps just a number in the wrong place, but I think Escape is broken. I think it is giving stamina regen instead of damage reduction. Pretty sure I use it and my stamina regen goes up to monstrous levels (50 per turn at level 2) but my damage reduction is low to non existent (which is the main point of the skill, to not die and get away) still works as a free movement infusion on a race that cannot use one, but pretty sure the numbers are off/switched somewhere. Still says on character sheet that I have 50% more damage reduction but I am almost 100% sure that I am not getting any of that, or a VERY small amount. Looking forward to hopefully being able to make these poor bones move fast as well as "Escape" some damage

[Razakai]

Both of you are correct - Aimed Shot was the old name for Headshot, and Escape has a bug. I'll try and put out a fix tonight.

As for First Blood - might just make it a 2x chance rather than guaranteed chance or something similar. It has meant that early game feels a bit routine with Steady Shot>Headshot>dead, repeat. Combined with Pin Down it should still let you get lots of marked shots in the early game, but I'll definitely be tuning this a lot to make sure it feels right.

[scul]

Meant to edit this into my post from before, but I will add it here. When using Venomous Ammunition everything is great (really like skills designed with synergy with other skills in the same line) until I just obtained Alloyed munitions. Now (I think) somewhere close to if not at 100% of the time it will cause a lua error. Something with how the damage is being applied at the moment of death. I cannot say for sure because while I can scuba dive fairly skillfully, code diving is not something I have done much of. It means that practically I would not use it since it is lua error after every death (which is saddening since Venomous is my favorite, really like the damage reduction and as a skeleton the leeching poison is very very helpful given no infusions), when I have incendiary and/or piercing loaded no errors on death or otherwise so far.

Edit: though I am noticing that the effect on incendiary from the third talent Enhanced seems to not be applying consistently. It will apply the first turn, but then it may be several turns before it applies again (and I do mean game turns, not shots with bow that are at increased speed). Unless it is a graphical bug, I would have to do more testing to be certain I guess, but definitely not seeing the lovely fire field coming down once a turn.

Edit2: Sorry, I have a nasty habit of finding that one lua error that no one else gets during their play-throughs

[Razakai]

Yeah, Venomous Alloyed is a known issue I'll try to get sorted tonight. The poison debuff is trying to apply after a target is killed, causing the error.

Note that in the description for Enhanced Munitions it states that it has a cooldown. The effects can only trigger once every 6 turns, so the fire field (and other effects) have a 50% uptime.

[scul]

Ah nice, if the venom application was known or stated previously in the thread, sorry, I glanced through it when I started my marksskeleton but did not read every post. And yes, I completely missed the fixed cooldown that was on the skill, I mean I was not going to say anything, because I like when things in TOME catch on fire, but if it was happening every turn that would seem to be way overpowered. Now I feel silly for missing that. Definitely seems pretty balanced as far as damage output (since you have other effects that are happening anyways, so no complaints there).

[Razakai]

Yeah overall I think Munitions is my favourite of the new trees, although I'll have to be careful with balancing as it's an incredible amount of utility in one tree. You've got healing, damage mitigation, AoE, resist penetration, armor/save reduction, damage amplification, vision reduction... albeit not all at once. But hey, nice to give Archer something impressive and powerful for once.

[Razakai]

v1.2

- Clarified a number of tooltips
- Reduced the damage and increased the cost and cooldown of Called Shots
- First Blood doubles marking chance instead of guaranteeing it
- Fixed a bug where Escape gave incorrect stamina regeneration
- Reduced the damage of Venomous Munitions
- Fixed a but where Alloyed Venomous Munitions caused a LUA error and did not inflict splash damage
- Removed the stamina cost of Concealment


Will be more changes in the future, this is just a quick pass.

[Frumple]

Ah... after blowing up the escortee for the forth or fifth time,* I have to ask. Thoughts on expanding the do-not-hit-self to no friendly fire outright with higher investment? 3rd or 5th point, probably. Part of me wants to say even make it add a sustain you can turn off that takes an ammo point and costs a bit of stamina (possibly even hitting an enemy if there's one close enough) to mitigate the damage. Kind of an "Oh crap, shoot the arrow, shoot the arrow!" moment.

*I play ascii with a lot of stuff turned down, and particularly with pirate or vorpal bunny going sometimes the player character and escortee's character is... not terribly distinct. So it's pretty easy to not notice you're in fact shooting your quest reward in the face. And especially once munitions gets going, it only takes one shot >_>

E: Oh wow, after updating and getting to play with venomous ammo again, I finally got around to trying flare. Also known as: If there's more than two targets and you have bullseye/first blood, you never run out of stamina and your basically everything has an effective CD of 0 :V

Seriously, trigger mark for +AS, stamina regen, and -3 CD on 3 talents... add something with a low CD that AoE marks (flare), and you start rapidly approaching functionally not having a resource bar, ahaha. Or talent cooldowns. I think what I'm saying is bullseye might need a CD. Might also consider making first blood's stamina regen on-kill only or somethin'. Would suggest getting a second opinion on that 'cause my balance senses aren't as tingly as they used to be, but at least at first encounter this isn't so much "whee" as cackling maniacally and vomiting an unending wave of arrows across the screen.*

Now I just have to find the eggsac and I can test to see if you can mark allies

*E2: "But ammo, Frumple! You run out of shots!" No, I start backflipping my way to victory by adding disengaging into a wall to the rotation and never run out of ammo, either, ahahahahahahaha

[Razakai]

No-FF on archery is actually a little tricky to do. I might put it as a part of some sustain somewhere, but I don't think I'll add it as a default - sorry!

And yeah Bullseye/First Blood need a bit of nerfing. I'll stick a 6 turn CD on Bullseye but buff the duration of the attack speed, as it's primarily the ability to chain reset cooldowns that's the issue. First Blood's stamina regen was tuned around earlier builds where marking was much trickier so that'll get greatly reduced. It'll still proc from marks as that's their primary stamina regen mechanic, but just a lot less. Chain Headshotting with Flare is fine as you need to waste a turn setting it up, but not when combined with the above.

[jenx]

Are there, or will there be, egos that match these talents, to provide faster cooldowns for some of them?

[Razakai]

In 1.5 the existing egos that have -cooldown on Archer talents (Thaloren/Halfling) will get changed. Prob -cooldown on Steady, Pin Down and Fragmentation (or maybe Volley) instead.

[jenx]

Will this replace Archer in 1.5? If not, you will have two talents called steady shot, and adventurers can take two talent trees to boost phys damage etc when using bows.

But if it does, then we will lose Aim and Rapid Shot, which would be a real shame.

[Razakai]

Yes - this will replace Archer. But as for those sustains, those are still present in improved forms via sniper and agility.

[Bad Badger]

And yeah Bullseye/First Blood need a bit of nerfing. I'll stick a 6 turn CD on Bullseye but buff the duration of the attack speed, as it's primarily the ability to chain reset cooldowns that's the issue.

Awww.

[Frumple]

... minor, but m'not sure it's intended behavior. Just noticed intuitive shots are perfectly happy to ping off melee attacks that occur at range. Not sure about projection (haven't had something try it on me, yet), but an air render (from the white monk mod, is a melee attack at range and basically nothing else) caused me to nix it and fire an arrow back at the rare that tried it. I can only guess there might be similar behavior from other talents (that one sunpa thing, warden clones, etc.), so if it's not somethin' you're okay with it might need a range check.