New Class: The Viper, Wilder Archer

[astralInferno]

I've been working on this class since... since before anything that put me on the map, assuming I am actually on the map. I just realised the other day that I was now competent enough to finish it maybe.

Get the addon here! I think I have everything working, but given how fractured the work on it was, it's quite possible I missed something.

Vipers are Wilder Archers with a preference for bows, although nothing stops them using slings. They favour Dexterity, Willpower, and Cunning.

They have the following categories:

"technique/archery-training" (the one with Steady Shot, Pin Down, Fragmentation Shot, Scatter Shot)
"technique/marksmanship" (the one with Master Marksman, First Blood, Flare, Trueshot)
"technique/combat-techniques-passive" (that's Combat Veteran, with Quick Recovery, Fast Metabolism, Spell Shield, Unending Frenzy)
"cunning/stealth"

"wild-gift/serpent" (new, see below)
"wild-gift/fangs" (new, see below)
"cunning/poisons" (Requires unlock to appear, but comes unlocked for the class)

(Locked)
"cunning/stealth" (You know what stealth does)

(Locked, High Level)
"wild-gift/basilisk" (new, see below)
"cunning/toxins" (new, see below)

(Generic)
"technique/combat-training"
"technique/mobility"
"cunning/survival"
"wild-gift/call-of-the-wild "

Wild-Gift/Serpent
Strike with the speed and subtlety of a serpent.

Nature's Fangs
Your attacks are fuelled more by will than muscle. Your arrows use Willpower instead of strength for their damage.
You can use your connection with nature to fuel your fury and improve your calm.
Your basic shots reduce your equilibrium and recover your stamina by %d, and all your ranged attacks deal %0.1f nature damage based on mindpower.
The tranquility of basic shots also allows you to reload, with a chance and rate based on talent level. (One reload guaranteed at level two, a maximum of three reloads at level four.)

Sudden Strike
A sudden shot that causes the enemy to bleed without noticing, doing %d%% damage as a bleed over five turns.
This shot takes no time to use and has a 15%% chance to mark the target, and is affected by First Blood.
Knowing this talent increases your attack and mind speed by %0.2f. (oh man I so forgot to test that. works tho, yay.)

Fanged Rebuke
Your foes think you an easy target, but striking a viper only lets you sink your fangs deeper.
When a foe strikes you with a melee attack, you retaliate for %d%% damage This can only occur up to %d time(s) per turn.

Quickcoil
Calling on your namesake, you boost your global speed by %d%%.

Wild-Gift/Fangs
Strike your foe like the venomous fangs of your namesake.

Twin Fangs
You fire two arrows at your target with deadly precision, doing %d%% damage with each shot.
These attacks have 100 bonus accuracy, will bypass other enemies between you and the target, and is only usable against marked targets, consuming the mark.
This talent applies First Blood.

Miasmic Shot
You launch a vicious, poisoned shot, doing %d%% weapon damage as nature and inflicting the target with poison for %0.2f nature damage (based on Cunning) over 6 turns.
If you know the Vile Poisons talent, the poison applied will be randomly chosen from your unused effects.
If the target is marked, this attack will consume the mark to apply a poison in a radius of %d.]

Hypnotic Glare
You hypnotise the target with your gaze, attempting to daze them for %d turns (with a %d%% chance), before attacking for %d%% damage.
Against marked foes, the daze chance is 100%% and you deal %d%% weapon damage instantly, and %d%% more as bleeding over five turns, consuming the mark.
(I realised recently that 'daze then shoot them' doesnt really. work. I should change it to a stun.)

Venomous Brand
Your marks leave a catalysing brand on their victims. Consuming the marks triggers the brand, dealing %0.2f nature damage.
This damage can crit, using mental crit chance.
(This could be excessive.)

Wild-Gift/Basilisk
Manipulate basilisk venom to turn targets into statues, and shatter them.

Granite Arrow
A shot imbued with stone for heavy power, doing %d%% damage. This attack deals %d%% bonus critical damage.
At talent level 5, your ranged critical hits turn enemies to stone briefly.
(Having this+vile poisons will teach you Stoning Poison)

Gaze of Stone
A baleful gaze that turns foes in a cone of length %d to stone for %d turns.
Stoned creatures are unable to act or regen life, and are very brittle.
If a stoned creature is hit by an attack that deals more than 30%% of its life, it will shatter and be destroyed.
Stoned creatures are highly resistant to fire and lightning, and somewhat resistant to physical attacks.
This spell may fail against creatures resistant to being stunned, that are specifically immune to stoning, or certain bosses.
(Worth noting here! I have altered Stone and Stoning Poison. INSTAKILL IMMUNE TARGETS CAN NOW BE STONED, but the instakill shatter wont apply, and the duration is cut in three.)

Glaring Eyes
You glare accusingly at your foes, seeing their weaknesses and capitalising upon them. Your physical and mental crit rate is increased by %d%%, and you gain %d%% physical and nature resistance penetration.
(this is kinda boring isnt it. idk if it needs replacing, they have a Lot of actives, but... meh? idk. Roll it into stone fangs and add a fun sustain maybe)

Stone Fangs
You take grim joy in tearing apart stone with your fangs. Against Stoned targets, you deal %d%% bonus damage.

Cunning/Toxins
Blend together bleed and poison techniques.
(Copied across from Assassin! I changed sudden strike and hypnotic glare to synergise with this, but First Blood means it worked a bit anyway)

Hemotoxin
Coat your weapons with a unique toxin that causes your attacks to reduce bleed and poison resistance by %d%% for 2 turns, and further reacts to bleed and poison effects.
Bleeding targets take %d%% increased nature damage, and poisoned targets take %d%% increased physical damage.

Barbed Dart
If armed with a bow, you strike your foe brutally with a serrated edge, knocking them back %d tiles.
Otherwise, you fire a barbed dart at a target within 5. Either way, you bleed them for %0.2f physical damage over 6 turns and poison them for %0.2f nature damage over 6 turns.
If you know the Vile Poisons talent, the poison applied will be randomly chosen from your unused effects.
This talent takes no time to use.

Mutilate
Make a vicious assault against the target, striking twice with melee attacks or once with a ranged attack.
If dual wielding, the first (mainhand) attack strikes for %d%% weapon damage as nature and the second (offhand) deals %d%% physical weapon damage.
The first strike enhances poisons, inflicting instant nature damage equal to %d%% of the total poisons damage.
The second strike opens up wounds, inflicting instant physical damage equal to %d%% of the total bleed damage.
Ranged attackers launch a single ranged attack for %d%% weapon damage, half physical and half nature, and apply both effects.
Users of throwing knives also learn the Deadly Throw talent, allowing them to use this ability with Throwing Knives. (forgot to test Deadly Throw)

Serpent Blood
Imbibe a potion that transmutes your blood to venom for %d turns, increasing nature resistance by %d%% and causing 50%% of all non-nature damage you take to instead be dealt to you as nature damage over 5 turns.
Attacks against you from adjacent targets will splash the attacker with poisoned blood, poisoning them for %0.2f nature damage over 5 turns.

Changelog
1.0.1
I messed up the speeds in the initial upload. Few other changes.

1.0.2
-Added Cunning/Toxins from the assassins mod. Currently only for the viper; I'll be uploading a separate mod that adds it for rogues soon.
-Envenomed's effect rolled into Nature's Fangs, which is serpent 1
-Sudden Strike deals damage as a bleed, high mark chance, is serpent 2
-Fanged Rebuke unchanged, Serpent 3
-Quickcoil unchanged, Serpent 4
-Twin Shots now a headshot equivalent (marked foes only), Fangs 1
-New talent: Miasmic Shot. Applies a random unused poison on hit. If target is marked, instead applies poison in an AoE. Fangs 2.
-Hypnotic Glare buffed. Always does damage. Autosucceeds on daze and does bonus bleed against marked foes. Fangs 3.
-New talent: Venomous Brand. Proccing/using up a mark applies a mindpower-based nature nuke on the target. Fangs 4.
-Removed talents: Envenomed (rolled into Nature's Fangs), Piercing Fang (boring).
-Stone/Stoning poison effects altered - they no longer only apply to instakillable target, but the actual instakill part does.

1.0.3
-updated to 1.7
-added new generic tree: cunning/onslaught. As well as Vipers, its available to Mindslayers, Yeeks, and most
warriors and wilders - Summoner, oozemancer, Wyrmic, Berserker, Bulwark, Brawler. It's themed around
zealous determination and provides mobility, and survival tools.
-lots of minor changes, sorry. I started changing it before I went away and I cant tell what's different from
the original.
-I do know that the on-hit nature damage is a callback now.

1.0.4
-Miasmic Shot still does an AoE if the primary target can't be poisoned. I'm not actually sure this works, but...
-Hypnotic Gaze does the daze ontickend. Can't be sure this works either because the daze failed every time lmao.

Future Plans
-Add a Game Option to put Toxins on rogue

[Chronosplit]

This is probably the best class you've done, I am loving the setup and how it jives with normal Archer trees. I only have one real complaint, and that's that this class could stand another generic tree (or two with one locked.) I can see myself absolutely swimming in points pretty easily, even locked Harmony to make it free with sandworm queen's heart would be an improvement IMO.

[kemott11]

Yeah, an additional utility/defense based, class-themed generic tree would be a good addition, so we have an alternative to anti-magic.

[HousePet]

Add Wild-gift/Hunter to its category list so anyone with Verdant gets that category with it.

Nice class.

[TwilightCannon]

Being a fanatic for Wilders, I IMMEDIATELY tried out this class when I saw this.

And I have to say, I really like it. Though, I still have criticism to give you.

-After hitting talent level four in Nature's Fangs, I had realized I have infinite ammo. Since we also have access to Bow Mastery (or Sling Mastery), it is very easy to have infinite ammo. Perhaps give this talent a different ability? Perhaps...every fifth shot (considering Mastery x1.00) we get a toxin shot with a random debuff? Each level drops the "every ____ shot" needed. At Mastery level 5, we could have every shot be a random poison. Though, this suggestion does also feel a bit overpowered. Maybe this "every ____ shot" wouldn't be lowered by level, but makes the poisons stronger each talent level?

-The Piercing Fangs talent seems a bit odd when we also have access to Piecing Shot. While Piercing Fangs does more damage, it doesn't have the nigh infinite armor penetration that Piercing Shot has, and Piercing Shot hits more than one target. I believe this one could use some kind of change, too?

-The Twin Fangs talent is also completely irrelevant by the third talent in the bow tree- Dual Arrows is much more powerful, costless, and hits two targets at once.

Also, like the other posters, it would be a pretty cool idea to have a special Generic skill tree. How about one that all four skills are sustains, and call upon different snakes in the world? Only one could be sustained at a time, but would give you a boost in a natural skill used by them.

[Nekomiminya]

-After hitting talent level four in Nature's Fangs, I had realized I have infinite ammo. Since we also have access to Bow Mastery (or Sling Mastery), it is very easy to have infinite ammo. Perhaps give this talent a different ability? Perhaps...every fifth shot (considering Mastery x1.00) we get a toxin shot with a random debuff? Each level drops the "every ____ shot" needed. At Mastery level 5, we could have every shot be a random poison. Though, this suggestion does also feel a bit overpowered. Maybe this "every ____ shot" wouldn't be lowered by level, but makes the poisons stronger each talent level?

Unlimited ammo is intentional, at least if creator of addon didn't changed his mind in last few days.

[astralInferno]

This is probably the best class you've done, I am loving the setup and how it jives with normal Archer trees. I only have one real complaint, and that's that this class could stand another generic tree (or two with one locked.) I can see myself absolutely swimming in points pretty easily, even locked Harmony to make it free with sandworm queen's heart would be an improvement IMO.

Ha. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not, given I did most of the design work /ages/ ago. xD

My current Viper character is an antimagic Returned, so lack of generics was not an issue.

Yeah, an additional utility/defense based, class-themed generic tree would be a good addition, so we have an alternative to anti-magic.

What kind of thing might you expect from a generic tree? I am not great at utility and defensive talent ideas.

Add Wild-gift/Hunter to its category list so anyone with Verdant gets that category with it.

Nice class.

That I can definitely do. Thanks!

[Melac]

I've noticed arrows still show as being based on STR and DEX, even with Nature's Fangs. Not sure if that's just being listed as that on the inventory, or if it's not being applied.

[nsrr]

I've noticed arrows still show as being based on STR and DEX, even with Nature's Fangs. Not sure if that's just being listed as that on the inventory, or if it's not being applied.

After digging into the code; It is being applied, it is just not being changed in the item description.

I know from experience that it is much easier to change the damage modifier for a weapon than it is to change the description for said weapon to match that change.
There are conditions for the vanilla ToME talents that change modifiers (Lethality and Strength of Purpose, iirc) but they are buried in a... complicated... item description function that has conditions for literally every possible comparison (think of anything on an item that you can see change when you do an item compare; it's all in there).
I could not figure out how to superload it to incorporate my talent without getting an error, aside from just aggressively overwriting the whole function (which, shamefully, is still how Prowler handles it because I haven't spent time on the add on in ages...)

[astralInferno]

That's real weird. I was sure they were showing as willpower for my character...

(checks)

Yeah, they are. That's odd. Might be something that works in folder form but not zipped addon form.

[stinkstink]

You can alter dammods from a Combat:getDammod:subs hook and it should automatically update the display text

Code: Select all

class:bindHook("Combat:getDammod:subs", function(self, data)
	if self:knowTalent("T_COMMANDO_FIRST_BLOOD") and data.combat.talented and data.combat.talented == "bow" and data.dammod['dex'] then
		data.sub("dex", "cun")
	end
end)

[nsrr]

That's real weird. I was sure they were showing as willpower for my character...

(checks)

Yeah, they are. That's odd. Might be something that works in folder form but not zipped addon form.

Oh, actually, it shows as Wil and Dex for me, too. I have it in the compressed .teaa form as downloaded from te4.org, so I don't think it has anything to do with that.

That's strange though, I swear this did not auto update when I was working on Prowler or I never would have tried messing around with the description superload...

[nsrr]

That's strange though, I swear this did not auto update when I was working on Prowler or I never would have tried messing around with the description superload...

That's because you were not using a hook to change the dammod, you were using a superload, which, upon inspection, was probably not working quite right because it copied a bunch of unnecessary code. Oh, past nsrr, what were you thinking?

You can alter dammods from a Combat:getDammod:subs hook and it should automatically update the display text

If only I had known this before! I just replaced two horrible (ok, one slightly bad, and one very horrible) superloads with 5 lines of code and fixed my first add on after months of neglect! Thanks, stinkstink

[astralInferno]

I need to update trench strider to work the same way, I'm fairly sure theirs is still messed up...

(Did you know that bows and arrows are referred to the same way in the code? I had to hack a solution to stop it giving the actual bow a 0% wil rating and 0-0 damage.)

[nsrr]

(Did you know that bows and arrows are referred to the same way in the code? I had to hack a solution to stop it giving the actual bow a 0% wil rating and 0-0 damage.)

I noticed the damrange check in your superload, I figured it was for something like that. I assume they get referred to that way because it's actually the arrows that get the benefit of Bow Mastery, etc. It is kind of silly, though.

Not really related, but totally awesome anyway, Prox dropped Surefire for my latest Viper