ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Werebeast fits somewhere between Cursed and Wyrmic, with a touch of Rogue thrown in.

Flavour is you have been cursed by nature's hate at those who harm it.

Can be played with conventional weapons or dual mindstars, stealthy or heavy.
Uses both Hate and Equilibrium.

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/werebeast-class

Talents:
Class:
cursed/predator
cursed/rampage
Wild-Curse/Wolf Aspect:

Psiclaws: Channel your mental power through your wielded mindstars, generating psionic claws sprouting from your fists.
Adds %0.2f physical damage per strike. This damage scales with mindpower.
Moon Shield: Increases light, darkness and arcane resistance by %d.
Rushing Psiclaws: Rushes toward your target with incredible speed. If the target is reached you use your claws to pin it to the ground for 5 turns.
You must rush from at least 2 tiles away.
Pack Howl: Howl to call your hunting pack. Summons three wolves to fight by your side for %d turns.
Their strength scales with talent level and mindpower, and inherit your Moon Shield and Rushing Psiclaws talents.

Wild-Curse/Snake Aspect:

Venomous Bite: Bites the target for %d%% weapon damage, infecting it with poison.
If the target is pinned, this does +50%% more damage.
Agile Slitherer: Increases defence by %d and physical attack speed by %d%%.
Spit Venom: Spit poison at your target doing %0.2f poison damage.
Does +50%% more damage if the target is bleeding.
At raw talent level 3, this becomes a beam.
At raw talent level 5, this becomes a cone.
The damage scales with mindpower.
Squeeze: Hits the target doing %d%% weapon damage. If the attack hits, the target is constricted for %d turns.

Wild-Curse/Treant Aspect:

Regrowth: Relax and focus on harmony with nature, healing you for %d and restoring %d equilibrium.
Both effects will increase with your mindpower.
Tangling Vines: Living vines extend from your feet, each turn the vines will randomly target a creature in a radius of %d.
Affected creatures are pinned to the ground and take %0.2f physical damage for %d turns.
Targets will be free from the vines if they are at least %d grids away from you.
While tangling vines are active your movement speed is reduced by 50%%.
Each turn a creature entangled by the vines will have a chance to break free.
The damage will increase with Willpower stats.
Barkskin: Increases armour hardiness, physical saves and nature resistance by %d.
Woodcutter's Bane: Renders the target's weapon useless for %d turns.
If you have Tangling Vines active, this will target all enemies in range of your vines instead.
This talent will not break stealth.

Wild-Curse/Shark Aspect:

Maul: Attack the target for %d%% physical weapon damage. + 50%% if the target is pinned.
If the attack brings your target below %d%% life (or kills it) you can try to swallow it, killing it automatically and regaining life and equilibrium depending on its level.
Gills: Increases your maximum air capacity.
Also allows you to detect bleeding foes in a radius of %d.
Talent level 1: +10 air
Talent level 2: +30
Talent level 3: +60
Talent level 4: +100
Talent level 5: +150
Bloodscent: The scent of blood drives you wild, curing a status effect and increasing your hate by %d for each bleeding creature in range.
Ram: Ram into your target, trying to knock them back and doing %d%% weapon damage.
You may rush up to %d squares to reach the target before ramming them.
Does +50%% damage against stunned targets.

Wild-Curse/Eagle Aspect:

Eye Swipe: Take a swipe at the target's eyes, attempting to blind them for %d turns and doing %d%% weapon damage.
Does +50%% damage if the target is stunned.
Eagle Eye: Your eyes are like an Eagle's, increasing your accuracy by %d and your sight range by %d.
Eagle Wings: Phantom wings allow you to glide through the air.
This allows you to ignore some traps and grants a %d%% movement speed bonus.
Swoop: Swoop past many targets, getting a free attack against each of them.
If you used this talent from stealth, your attack will also cause bleeding.
Eagle Wings must be active to use this talent.

Wild-Curse/Silent Hunter:

Stealth: Enters stealth mode (with efficiency of %d), making you harder to detect.
The efficiency increases with Cunning.
Stealth cannot work with heavy or massive armours.
While in stealth mode, light radius is reduced to 0.
There must be no foes in sight in a radius of %d around you to enter stealth.
Shadowstrike: When striking from stealth, hits are automatically criticals if the target does not notice you.
Shadowstrikes do +%.02f%% damage versus a normal critical hit.
Thin Air: Vanish into thin air, with a %d%% chance of success. This also resets the cooldown of your stealth talent.
All creatures currently following you will loose all track.
Thick Air: Strike the target from stealth, doing %d%% weapon damage and not breaking stealth.
If successful, the target will be stunned for %d turns.

Generic:
technique/combat-training
cursed/cursed-form
wild-gift/fungus
cunning/scoundrel
cunning/survival

Feedback, Bug Reports, Suggestions extremely welcome.

Nice idea!
I love the flavor of the wolf and treant aspect trees.
You mention in the OP that this class "Can be played with conventional weapons or dual mindstars, stealthy or heavy.
Uses both Hate and Equilibrium, and maybe Stamina," which is good, but might be too many options, with too little synergy, or key skills.

Some stuff to keep in mind
1) There is no way to regen equilibrium except regrowth? (others options might be helpful, but this is just IMHO)
2) There is very little synergy between trees
3) some of the trees seem misplaced or ill-fitting, like poison and stealth (relates to 2)
4) woodcutters bane has a typo. :3

Just taking a look through the code, haven't tried one out yet though:

- I'm fairly sure that having three weapons try to equip on birth will fail. Look at Archers to see how to put items in the offslot on birth.
- I don't know what power_source does, or if it is necessary.

- Venomous Bite hits for between 330% and 850% weapon damage (self:attackTarget(target, DamageType.POISON, 2 + self:getTalentLevel(t), true). This is extremely high.
- Squeeze applies the effect for 33 to 85 turns (target:setEffect(target.EFF_CONSTRICTED, (2 + self:getTalentLevel(t)) * 10, {src=self, power=1.5 * self:getTalentLevel(t), apply_power=self:combatPhysicalpower()})), much longer than other talents.

- I don't know what allow_on_heal does, but I don't think that's the proper way to set a property.
- Regrowth recovers 10x the equilibrium the description says it does.
- Woodcutter's bane has &d instead of %d
- Tangling Vines is not called anywhere. It should be a hook somewhere in Actor.lua IIRC. (my magebow class uses a talent like this, if you want an example)

- Moon Shield description should probably specify arcane damage specifically, "magical" is imprecise.

This looks like a very good idea, I like the Hate/EQ combination, and the flavour and gameplay looks good so far.

Its just the basic concept so far. Still needs much work.

Stamina: I wasn't intending on stamina being in there, but a few of the categories use it. They will likely be replaced.

Equilibrium Regen: Fungus has a equilibrium regen as well, but I would like another option. Meditation doesn't seem to fit the class. Could do something like Swallow and make it cost Hate...

Synergies: Definately needs work.

Weird Options: That relates to playing the class as stealthy or heavy. I was intending this to be a stealthy class, but I like to leave things open for people to play them how they want.

3 weapons on start: It just drops the other one in inventory. do you have any idea how long it took me to realise that some classes start with an alternate weapon layout???

power_source: ditto

Venomous Bite/Squeeze/allow_on_heal: I copied all those from existing talents... Haven't done any balancing yet.

Regrowth/Woodcutter's Bane: Oops.

Tangling Vines: Stolen from Stonewarden. I am a bad person and I know the code isn't complete yet.

Moon Shield: Noted (and changed).

New version in first post.

Removed Poisons, Stealth and Bloodthirst.
Added Shark Aspect, Eagle Aspect and Silent Hunter.

A few talents still don't work and the whole thing needs to have resources costs and damage/effect strengths balanced.
Oh and icons.

But yeah, have fun and I might finish it.

yeah please finish it, it has been a ball to play and would love for it to continue to be updated.

Agreed, I really like the idea.

Cosigned!

Okay, I'll finish it then.

But I could use some feedback:
What is good?
What is bad?
What works?
What doesn't work?

I've put together a small flavour start zone. Still need to fix up a few talents and add icons. Anything else I should do?

Gah, I'd need to fire it back up. Some things were pretty interesting, but others...

Gills, for example. Gills is terrible, because air capacity is of such a niche use actually spending talent points on it is an utter waste. It'd need something more, but I'm not thinking of anything that wouldn't be terribly hard to code (such as resistance to cloud-type effects, ferex.) off the top of my head. Maybe tack on some poison resistance or something akin to waters of life, just weaker and passive? Straight out waterbreathing and +stamnia/heal regen while under water?

Gimme' a mo and I'll give a quick "initial impression" pre-actual-use rundown of the talent list. Then maybe fire up my last attempt at the class sometime in the next day or so.

Here we go, prepare for wall o'text:
Okay, starting from the bottom:

Silent hunter would appear to be an almost straight up renamed stealth tree, except for thick air. Thick air itself is just... odd? The code appears to be kinda' broken, and it'll do no more than, like, one damage. Ever. It's also a little unsexy and almost exploitable; if I were going the code-tricky route, I'd have it constrict a chosen target (without breaking stealth) indefinitely so long as you're within 1/1/1/2/2/3 squares of the target, but heavily penalize your stealth while it's active. "Thick Air."
Thin air could get a bonus to success rate based on how low the target's air capacity is, so you'd have an easier time of pulling it off against pre-strangled enemies.
Since the first two talents are just named stealth2 and shadowstrike2, I have no idea what you might have intended with those and can offer nothing but possibly a suggestion to do something interesting with them

Shark Aspect: Maul is flat out swallow renamed
Easy suggestion would be to have it cause bleeding instead of having the swallow effect, with a passive effect of causing you to regain equilibrium while you detect (initially in LoS, but potentially outside of it later on) bleeding enemies.
Gills, as noted, is completely unsuitable for investment beyond the first point, if even that. Maybe actually useful passive effects, or perhaps an active component (something to do with poison healing, filtering stuff out, or resource regeneration?) of some sort?
Bloodscent should only work while in LoS of bleeding enemies, and possibly scale in relation to the number you can see. You could also give it a passive detection effect for bleeding actors.
Ram's kinda' unsexy, but the stun thing is a good idea. Problem being, you have no means of inflicting stun outside of the fourth tier rampage talent. Bonus against pinned or constricted targets would probably be a better idea, since you've got a number of pinning talents and constricting talents. It also kinda' sounds like it should have some range to it... maybe a fairly short 2-3 one, making it a mini-rush without the daze?

Eagle Aspect:
Eye swipe could use some number tweaking pretty badly, though I'm not actually familiar enough with the code to know what's going on with it; maybe ask around the IRC channel or the addon forum or somethin'. That said, a simple blind effect is solid. Not particularly interesting, but solid. Continuing the general theme, maybe have it do something extra against already blind targets?
Eagle Eye, I'm going to go ahead and say the theme with the second tier talent being a passive is kinda'... staid. Unappealing, y'know? Variety is the spice of life. That said, the bonus is solid early on, especially the visual range. Give it a minor scaling effect (maybe either with cunning or your eagle aspect tree investment) and it'd be a bit sexier, or possibly something interesting like have the accuracy bonus scale up the further away from the character the target is.
Wings of Wrath is Feather Wind without the extra encumbrance... or the defense... while still being a sustain
It could stand some sexifying. How, I'm not entirely sure. The "of wrath" thing kinda makes me think maybe some sort of scaling bonus for something besides movement speed based on how low your HP is? Some sort of offensive boost or passive effect that scales with movement speed?
Swoop's interesting. If I were going to change it, I'd make it so you can swoop through any number of enemies (up to the range, of course), getting the free attack plus potentially bleeding on anything in the line, kinda' like one of the cursed talents.

Treant Aspect:
Regrowth's solid and a bit expensive, but I'd call it about "right." As another "If I were going to do something interesting" thing, I could see making the entire tree change behavior while tangling vines is up; regrowth could cause an additional AoE proc of the vines effect, ferex, when activated.
Barkskin's, uh. 25 physsave, and nature res isn't bad at all. 25 armor hardiness is a little strange, but I'm not discounting it. If I were continuing the "while tangling vines is active" theme, I'd go with a vine-proc retaliation effect, sorta' like the black mesh.
Woodcutter's bane is... disarm. Without the damage. "If I were..." I'd make it a multi-turn active that tries to disarm everything that attacks you, a retaliatory disarm effect. "While vines" would give tangling vine effects a chance to disarm while bane is going.
Tangling vines is stone vines renamed
Frowny face out of the way, stone vines is pretty bloody awesome. What I'd probably suggest is nixing the physical component of the damage (so it'd be pure nature) and changing the pin to a 2-3 turn constrict, to continue the strangulation theme the werebeast seems to have going. And then adding all the synergy with the other treant talents.

Snake Aspect:
Venomous bite, the poison's weak, initially at least. Very weak. Strong suggestion would be to have talent investiture upgrade the poison type, and maybe bump the poison damage itself a bit; I'd say it should at least be a little stronger than the sustained stuff (numbing, crippling, etc.) in the rogue's poison tree. Beyond that, damage information for the poison effect and how it scales could probably stand to be added to the description. The pin part's cool, and a nice concept even if it's kinda' ripped off from the gravity tree
Agile slitherer... again, it's another second tier passive, with the "kinda' boring" appelation thing. That said, it's also flipping ridiculous. 25% reduction to combat speed at all times would be borderline game breaking in most cases. Combat speed boost should probably be two, maybe three percent per level. Maybe bump the defensive boost to compensate, or add pinning resistance or somethin'. Maybe have 5/5 give permanent free movement, ala the movement infusions.
Spit venom looks... kinda' familiar. Hrm. It's also kinda' unsexy. Type improvements with level would be nice. I could also see it changing area of effect with level... beaming at 3/5, cone at 5/5. That'd be pretty interesting.
Squeeze is functional, if unimpressive. Give it a hefty damage boost vs. already constricted targets, maybe?

Wolf Aspect:
Psiclaws is psiblades renamed
Some kind of differentiation would be nice. First thought would be to keep the damage modifier but ditch the armor penetration increase, and replace it with a chance to inflict debuffs; bleed at tlvl 1, cripple at tlvl 3, torment at tlvl 5, which each one remaining as you get access to the next -- so at tlvl 5 with psiclaws active, your attacks would have, say 50% chance to cause bleeding, above and beyond and possibly stacking with scoundrel's lacerating strikes, a 20% chance to cripple, and a 5-10% chance to torment. Maybe scale back the numbers, dunno.
Moon Shield's functional but boring and another of those second tier passives. Maybe give it an activatable component where you get a shield that scales with your combined light/dark/arcane res, while cutting down the current passive boost a bit? If you can't tell yet, I kinda' like dual purpose talents that have a passive and active component
The, uh, third tier talent is called "Rushing Claws2" and is, ah. Rushing claws. With a two at the end of the name. I'm not really sure what you'd want to do with it, really. I could see something interacting with the fourth tier talent, though, and possibly increasing in power the more allies you have out, or causing them to do something.
Forth tier talent... from the description, I don't actually have any idea what it does. It could stand some clarity, basically.
Looking at the code, it looks like it's cribbed the summoner's War Hound talent, which is probably a good start. First thing: Fix it so it's not called a war hound
Second... do stuff. Copying the summoner outright is kinda' boring, and going by the description it looks like it should be summoning multiple creatures. Start with two wolves, have the numbers scaling up linearly with talent level and ever other level improve the type, starting with zero so we can be sexy? So 0,1 (wolf) 2,3 (great wolf), 4, 5 (warg) six, seven, (Warg Titan ). The wolves themselves should probably be inheriting stuff (talents, passive effects, whatever) from your other aspect trees, or at least the wolf aspect one, and the talent should probably include some kind of passive bonus for you based on how many of your pack is out and about. The wolf's strength is its pack, and three wolves running together should be stronger than one running alone.

Predator and rampage are neat things to start off with. Can't really say anything there, beyond rampage having hilarious synergy with agile slitherer in the current version, though the general weakness of the class means it's not easy to break right off the bat (maybe later, I haven't got one very far yet ).

I notice there aren't any unique generic trees at all. I do like the spread it's got of 'em, as is, but maybe add one or two unique trees to 'em?

Finally, all that said, I will say I'm definitely kinda' interested and wouldn't have gone through all the effort typing that if I wasn't, so don't take the criticism to harshly . Totally looking forward to see what else you do with the class, if you continue work on it.

Yay feedback!

Yeah most of the damage numbers are borked at the moment. (well I tweaked most of them yesterday, but nobody else has that yet)

Silent Hunter is a direct copy of the Stealth tree. I had to duplicate a few things to remove the stamina costs. Eq + Hate + stamina is too much. The 2s pop up with this though, as the engine doesn't like multiple talents with the same name. An interesting side effect of the duplication is that nothing breaks stealth2 at the moment...

Maul is a flat out copy of an Eq restoring talent. I'm thinking about changing it to physical damage and adding a bonus if the target is pinned.
Gills is crap, I totally agree, I am planning on moving it to be a passive bonus attached to all Shark Aspect talents, but I put it in as filler, as I didn't have a forth talent idea.
Bloodscent: Excellent suggestion.
Ram: Mini rush sounds interesting. This class sure has lots of ways of getting up close with your enemies. I think I'll add a stun effect to Thick Air.

Eye Swipe: I'm aiming for having sure debuff effects lead on to using a different skill to exploit a damage bonus. So extra vs blinded doesn't work here. Could merge it with Eagle Eye, but that would give me another empty slot. :/
Eagle Eye: I like some passives, having to activate everything gets tedious.
Wings of Wrath: Someone was thinking Heretic when they wrote the name. >_> Similar to Feather Wind, but doesn't require you to max it to get the flying and speed boost.
Swoop is supposed to require the Wings talent active. I forgot to code that bit. Attacking a whole line sounds quite interesting.

Tangling Vines needs lots of work, for a start I haven't got the code for that written, and secondly it doesn't syn with anything much. And Stone Vines doesn't exist anymore so
I might rearrange Treant Aspect.

I'm planning a +damage if target is bleeding for Spit Venom. Extra targets could be good too.

Psiclaws needs some work, I'm trying to get a feel for how powerful it actually is before I tweak it. Not sure about more bleeding though. Will ponder.
I think Rushing Claws2 is fine, except for the 2. Its a Rush + Pin and pinning has a few synegies.
Howl of the Pack is completely unfinished. I'm aiming for a mass debuff effect and summoning a few wolves.

Unique Generic trees. You realise that is an oxymoron, don't you? I think it has more than enough generic trees, but should I have a flood of inspiration, it might happen.

I don't think more bleeding is the answer for psiclaws, My idea would be to replace the amour penetration with extra crit chance.
Perhaps at higher levels (3+) add a chance to inflict cripple or torment.

Also maybe raise the speed bonus on wings of wrath a bit (10% per level).

I've still got a few more talents to fix up. It looks like I'll have to do a couple of overloads to get it all working. (unless b43 appears suddenly with new hooks)

King Gainer wrote:I don't think more bleeding is the answer for psiclaws, My idea would be to replace the amour penetration with extra crit chance.
Perhaps at higher levels (3+) add a chance to inflict cripple or torment.

How about a crit damage modifier?

HousePet wrote:I've still got a few more talents to fix up. It looks like I'll have to do a couple of overloads to get it all working. (unless b43 appears suddenly with new hooks)

You don't need overloads just to change talents. They're pretty easy to change with existing hooks.