[1.1.5] Metaclass - Mage Knight (Version 8)

[Phoenix1]

Hadn't even thought about Burning Wake damage not being halved by Eldritch Combat, although I hadn't realized it got that high.

The unlockable trees might have to go in favor of something that can be more seamlessly integrated, I'm thinking.

[MisiuPysiu]

The damage is so high only when you invest a lot into spellpower. In the endgame i gave up all the melee weapon damage in favor of spellpower and +fire damage%.
Only then, the true power of burning wake and wildfire could be used.

[Avianpilot]

The unlockable trees might have to go in favor of something that can be more seamlessly integrated, I'm thinking.

They are quite powerful, but the only one that I have issue with is the Light tree. Healing Light and Barrier double up on the healing/shielding that you get from your Phoenix Knight talents, and that's before considering any runes and infusions you may want to use. Most classes only have their inscriptions for shielding and healing, so it's in this light that I think that tree is overpowered to be included with the class.

However, I like the idea of Wildfire being available. Not really a balance thing, but more of a personal preference. Initially unlocking the tree can take a while over several characters, and when you finally do it only gives the Archmage more power. It's rare that I play Archmages, and I don't enjoy them for long when I do play them, so having met the condition to make the Wildfire tree available is rather useless to me. Making the tree available on a class that I do play makes me quite a bit happier. If the tree has to go for the sake of balance I won't complain though.

One thing that may need to change (if it hasn't been changed already) is the 'five talents per tree' methodology. If it's going to be included alongside other classes then I think that it needs to follow the standard four-per-tree format.

[Phoenix1]

I do like how Wildfire fits the class thematically, so I guess I'll leave it in for the time at least. Light will be removed. I'm thinking of replacing it with Two Handed Offense, Shield Offense, and Two Weapon Attack, all as locked trees, so you have a choice of specializing in a certain weapon if you want (also adds a bit more emphasis to the melee capabilities of the class).

I find the point about the five talents per tree interesting, though. I know it's different than most classes, but I don't follow with how that would necessarily make it a problem.

[Avianpilot]

I actually don't think five talents per tree is a problem, it's just... different. There's a certain consistency among classes, and this breaks from it.

[edge2054]

It might be a problem if the goal is a merge into the main game because consistency is important. That said..

Add-ons exist so people can tweak the game. Some of those tweaks are going to be awesome and Darkgod is going to want to use them. Some are going to be awesome but not line up with his vision of the game. I don't think a merge needs to be the goal or the measure of rather or not an add-on is successful. If people are having fun with it and the person who wrote it enjoyed the creative process of making it, that's really all that counts.

Keep in mind when and if an add-on gets merged into the main game you have to answer to a higher power. There's nothing wrong with keeping classes add-on only, you get more freedom that way both thematically and with design and balance.

On that note, I recently asked said higher power if I could do a talent tree that was 1/1/1/1 on a five level bias (so you could put the last point in at level 15) and his answer amounted too, I'd prefer if you didn't.

[Avianpilot]

An excellent point Edge. My personal goal is to offer suggestions to Phoenix1 so that the class can be a bit more balanced, and hopefully make it into the class pack. But if that's not his goal, then I really probably shouldn't try to push things in that direction. So from now on, I'm just going to focus my suggestions on helping to make this class fun to play without being overpowered.

But that does bring up a good question though: Phoenix1, what is your goal for the class?

[Sradac]

Class is broke.

Downloaded the latest version and get the following any time solar bolt is cast:

[LOG] Galeron casts Solar Bolt.
stack traceback:
[C]: in function 'error'
/engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:134: in function </engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:125>
Lua Error: /engine/interface/GameTargeting.lua:112: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:134: /engine/interface/ActorTemporaryEffects.lua attempt to index a nil value
stack traceback:
/engine/interface/ActorTemporaryEffects.lua in function 'setEffect'
/data-mageknight/talents/phoenix.lua:72: in function </data-mageknight/talents/phoenix.lua:57>
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
/engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:130: in function </engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:125>
At [C]:-1
At [C]:-1 error
At /engine/interface/GameTargeting.lua:112 fct
At /engine/interface/GameTargeting.lua:118 targetMode
At /engine/interface/GameTargeting.lua:181
At /engine/KeyBind.lua:224
Server latency 109
[ONLINE PROFILE] sending error
[LOG] #YELLOW#Error report sent, thank you.

[Phoenix1]

...The class not being broke would be a nice start.

Odd bug that. It looks like the problem is with the Burnout, but that was working fine for me. Maybe I changed something after uploading and didn't think about it...? Will check it out.

Bugs aside, though, balance and fun are my main concerns. Compatibility is certainly worth aspiring to, though (in fact, among other changes, the next update will finally separate Eldritch Combat from Arcane Combat, removing all code overloading). Reorganizing things so there are four talents per tree shouldn't be a big issue, and might help solve my little build options dilemma to boot.

[Phoenix1]

Update has been posted. My test didn't get a Burnout bug, so I'm working on the assumption that it's something minor that I fixed after updating but forgot. If it's still there, let me know.

Celestial/Light is no longer available as a locked tree. Wildfire is, tentatively. I may go in at some point and make a clone tree that's a bit more integrated with Phoenix Knight mechanics (uses stamina, Burning Wake halved if triggered with Eldritch Combat, etc), but not now. Also as a tentative addition, Two Handed Offense, Shield Offense, and Dual Weapon Attack are all available as locked trees, so more martially-oriented Mage Knights can specialize in a chosen fighting style, expand their melee options, or just get some melee abilities with class points rather than generic.

Talent trees have been consolidated down to four talents each. Solar Chain is out, and Charging Strike is no longer available to mitigate low mobility. Glory Surging was folded into Glory Rising at a somewhat reduced rate. Phoenix Blood/Heart/Soul have been consolidated into two talents, but the abilities formerly bestowed by Phoenix Soul require a Phoenix Ascendance Mastery of 1.5 to access. In other words, to get Resistance Penetration and Damage Affinity, you have to spend a category point upgrading the tree (or get lucky with an Amulet of Mastery, I suppose). That should be plenty of options to divide category points among.

Eldritch Combat, I am pleased to say, is no longer connected to Arcane Combat. The overload folder officially now exists solely for adding graphics and particles.

Eldritch Combat and Spellsurge each now have a passive option (that is, when the talent is known but turned off, you get these effects, rather than the effects you would get for sustaining the talents). Eldritch Combat gets basically what used to be Eldritch Weapon; a direct +Fire and Light damage on hit. Spellsurge stamina recovery is now the passive effect, and while active, it instead speeds cooldowns at the cost of stamina.

Eldritch Combat procs now cost full stamina, and only quarter the spell's cooldown rather than ignoring it. Many cooldowns have also been increased. Eldritch Combat does still halve spell power (two handed weapons aside of course). My expectation is that choice of when to switch between active and passive versions of Eldritch Combat and Spellsurge will be an important strategic choice. I have a niggling doubt that this might be devaluing Eldritch Combat too much, especially in the early levels before you get Spellsurge, but since my natural tendency leans towards overpowering rather than underpowering and the class has already been noted to have a strong start, I figure I'll give it a try.

[Frumple]

Okay, so, possible fairly major bug with the wings talent; got hit by a bloated horror randunique (Iirc, it was an alchie/corruptor mix), game decided to flip out, give the flare message several dozen times, spit out a massive LUA error a few times, and then jack T4's memory usage straight through the roof (hit 1.5 gigs of ram consumption before I noticed and killed it).

I'm attaching the log file in a .7z; it's about 3 megs of text uncompressed, bleh, with three or four different (I think) errors in it and a junkload of repeated messages. I'll put aside a save as well, so just yell if that'll help and I'll throw it up somewhere or another.

Incidentally, I'm enjoying it but it's definitely hilariously unbalanced, especially in the early to early-mid game; defense capabilities let me more or less just sleepwalk through everything, and jack all can kill me... most of time, they can't even damage me faster than I passive regen (nevermind once I start throwing up shields, active healing methods, and hit&run tactics.), and two-weapon plus passive eldritch combat does plenty enough damage I can kill everything fast enough that low damage isn't a worry. With the wierdling beast, probably the longest fight I had up to th'point of the error, I literally just outhealed it -- it couldn't damage me faster than I could heal and regen stamina to keep the healing going, so I just kept wailing on it until it finally used its talents in the wrong order. It was kinda' hilarious

I'll have to play some more, and hopefully get past this error, before I can start giving anything approaching constructive criticism, though. Regardless to the minor sleepwalk aspect, I'm enjoying the class easily as much as I did early mindslayers, which is a definite complement.

Minor question: Does the fourth tier healmod/damage reduction based on regen thing (phoenix soul?) reduce damage before or after resists?

EDIT: Threw in the error logs from around the point I hit the big one, too.

[Phoenix1]

Yikes. Okay, I'll take a look and see if I can figure out what happened there.

If I may ask, what's your build look like so far? More data on where people are actually investing talents will probably be helpful in terms of getting the balance figured out. I am aware that passive Eldritch Combat is too high at the start at least (honestly, between it and the full stamina costs, I think active Eldritch Combat got devalued too much, which I was concerned about, so there will probably be some number tweaks going on there shortly). If something is making stamina recovery too easy, though, that has to be nerfed. Solid in-battle stamina recovery should be doable, but not without sacrificing some damage power by going with strictly passive Eldritch Combat and Spellsurge. Of course, passive Eldritch Combat being too strong may be part of the issue there.

[Frumple]

Ah, build, right. Going by memory as I don't have access to the computer t4's on at th'mo, but at the point I was at (level 17), all I had really done was max the... phoenix ascendancy? (one that gets fire/light pen with increased mastery) tree straight across and had the eldritch combat tree at 2/5/5/0(or 1). Other than that, a little combat accuracy, a point into thick skin and weapon mastery, and a point in ghoulish leap and retch -- yes, was playing ghoul, though I've yet to use retch more than once, goT it just recently. On a lark initially, but then I noticed the effectively free stun immunity and went wheeeee.

Damage wise, I'd throw out a solar bolt occasionally, but mainly got by on an initial focus strike and just proceeding to whack them, throwing out another focus occasionally to refresh the crit chance. Two-weapon did sufficient damage and them face planting themselves into the retaliatory wing damage has been doing a pretty good job of wrecking everything.

I've also picked up healing light (only used once, so far) and the saves chant thing off a sunpa. Defense wise, just in healing and stuff, I've got nearly 1k worth of shields (~500 in runes, then 350 or so from the wings, currently.), then the native PK healing bolt, the regen boost (hitting about 110/round for the duration currently, iirc), healing light, and retch, on top of a passive regen of, iirc, about 22/round. Add on the damage shaving from phoenix soul and that pseudo-blurred mortality thing and dude(tte) is a stone cold tank.

I'll throw up a chardump next time I have comp access, give a better picture.

E: Chardump: http://pastebin.com/LaDn5eg1

E2: Second go didn't give me a problem, so I suspect the issue may be limited to interaction with a particular class (either alchie or corruptor, I guess), as the second randunique was summoner/defiler and didn't make th'wings flip out. Did come close to killing me, though. Bugger spewed out probably 2-3k damage before I killed it (and only barely) >_<

[Phoenix1]

Very interesting. Quite different from what I've been using. I do also notice heavy equipment investment in healing modifier and life regen, which dovetails nicely with the Ascendance focus. Now, defense and recovery are definitely intended strengths of the class, and you're building for it with infusions, equipment, and talent selection, so I definitely don't want to nerf the raw numbers too much. I will probably look into spreading them out over levels a bit more so it's not that easy to get that high a defense that early. Passive Eldritch Combat is going to be toned down some in the next version, especially for two weapon fighters, which should help make actual investment in damage talents more necessary to be getting a solid damage total. That seems like the big balance issue; you're able to invest so heavily in defense because you can get good damage with a fairly minimal investment. I'm not sure that it would remain sufficient at the later levels, but hey, you've maxed out Ascendance as-is, so could could always start scaling the damage up now.

I have no idea what caused the bug, but I have a hunch that it hit some sort of infinite loop where your wings kept reflecting 0 damage and getting it reflected on them in return. Actually, just realizing as I type this, but I noticed that it seemed to be your attacks that triggered it. I wonder if maybe it had some talent that...caused you to damage yourself, or something? Because at that point, if it made you count as the source of the damage, your wings would have reflected them back on you, with you as the source, causing the wings to reflect back on you, and so on. I've set some code to make the minimum backlash damage 1, so if that is the case, even if something like that does happen, it should break the cycle by eventually destroying your shield if nothing else. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a serviceable stop-gap for now. But that self as source makes a lot of sense, and would be cleared by checking that source isn't self (I had a check that source wasn't hostile to you, but maybe you don't technically have a reaction towards yourself).

Also, forgot in my last post, but as far as Phoenix Soul...I'm not actually sure where it reduces the damage. It's in a hook, and I...believe the hook is called fairly late in the main function, so my gut says after, but I could be wrong.

[Frumple]

... I just want to state, for the record. Running into a luminous horror pack with one of these guys is just flat out hilarious.

I left them alive until I cleared the rest of the level. My retaliation didn't hurt them, and their damage healed me from ~50 to ~200 HP a turn. Delightful. Used ghoulish leap to hop over them when they blocked the way. My own personal healbot swarm. Completely trivialized the farportal boss

E: Updated chardump for level 25: http://pastebin.com/7mWyKid2

Still not quite much to say -- (major) weapon upgrade has done some pretty good things for my offense. Class points'll be going into some of the damage talents once I max out the stam regen and healing ones in veteran (Stam's at .8, HP's at ~31). Current generic goals are finishing off retch (which does silly things to my hp/round -- it's about on par with the native PK regen talent's active, for retch's duration. They stack, of course~), then maybe start sticking a little into the physical actives (focus, etc.) once I top off eldritch combat. Still no real stamina concerns, thus far, that I've noticed.

Pretty close to being jumped by the crypt... I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to save melinda with this build, though the demon itself is obviously going to be trivial. I'd probably be able to manage pretty easily if I'd found a set of rush boots, but none of the stores had 'em and none's dropped. Eh.

And ah, right. That one death was from a vault skeleton warrior on like blighted ruins three or something. Fairly ignorable as balance concerns go

E2: Yeah, crypt wasn't even close -- timer hit six before the first cultist died and timed out before the second one did. Probably would have been more doable if I'd unlocked the rush tree instead of boosted the eldritch combat tree, but eh. Limited mobility is kinda' annoying, heh. A lot like the mindslayers with that, really. Primary distance closer in a locked tree, etc. Corona does alright, but... it's got this weird thing where critters are apparently able to take a step before the stun/pin/whatever kicks in? Or something. Definitely would have been fine with corona and double rush, or likely just a non-ghoul race with speed boots. Still, without that or a ranged damage spec'd PK, Melinda's probably not savable.