[v1.7.4] Calligrapher Class [1.0.1]

[Arcvasti]

This addon adds the Calligrapher as a playable class.

The addon can be found here : https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/calligrapher

Calligraphers are a short-ranged mage class that use ceaseless aggression and high mobility to debilitate their enemies in a whirl of bloodied ink.
The goal is to make a class where instantly dashing into the middle of a pile of rares and laying about with AoEs is the correct way to play, rather then elaborate suicide.
They primarily deal darkness damage, with secondary fire and blight elements.
They use the brand-new Ink resource, notable for having a hard cap of 100 Ink. Ink is restored by killing high ranked enemies, or by damaging yourself with Blood Distillation.
Aside from the usual unlocked Combat Training and Survival, Calligrapher uses completely unique trees. It has 4 unlocked class trees, one locked class tree and one generic tree.

Planned changes:
-I have an idea for another locked class category
-I might add another generic category as well
-A few of the sustains might have particle effects added to them, like Divine Cipher
-It is distantly possible that I might add sound effects to the class. I'm generally not a fan of ToME's sound design though, so this is unlikely.

I like to think that I've been fairly thorough in playtesting, but there are probably still bugs and exploits lurking.
If you run across any bugs then please report them. Include the relevant lua error and whether you have any other addons active.
There shouldn't be any other addon conflicts, since I've made liberal use of shortnames and haven't superloaded anything destructively, but it's still possible that there are some.
I do still recommend having as few non-essential addons active as possible, but this addon shouldn't affect even non-Calligrapher playthroughs due to the class being disabled on random enemies.

Preemptive FAQ:

Q: You misspelled 'imbue' in Flourish's description.
A: 'Imbrue' is a real word that makes perfect sense in the description.

Q: What on earth is an 'Escutcheon'?
A: It's a heraldic shield. Writers love using weird and obscure words and Calligraphers are no exception.

Q: You forgot to give Brushstroke the requirements of a tier 2 talent.
A: In testing I found that the first few levels felt pretty bad with only Flourish and Em Dash for damage, so I let the player learn Brushstroke at level 1 as well.

Q: Why is the Inner Code category forbidden until level 12, instead of level 10 like normal?
A: Because the talent it relies on, Dichromatic Ink, cannot be learned until level 12, so there's no point to unlocking it at level 10. It's probably better to take an inscription slot at level 10 anyways.

Q: You can unlearn Indelible Stain or Dichromatic Ink even after learning the talents that depend on them(Ellipsis and Codebreaker).
A: This doesn't actually break anything, although it does make those dependent talents useless. The learning requirement is just to remind you that you should learn them in that order.

Q; You seem to have left in placeholder talent icons, before being properly coloured.
A: [s]Because of laziness[/s] Because I thought it would suit the Calligrapher's black and white aesthetic, I left most of the talent icons black and white, with only a few spots of colour.

Changelog:

V 1.0.0
-Initial release
V 1.0.1
-Made some of the talent descriptions more consistent
-Reduced the movement speed bonus granted by Tattoo of Swiftness
-Elegant Script now tells you exactly how much spellpower it gives you
-Blood Distillation now takes 30% of maximum life to activate, rather then 30% of current life
-Blood Distillation now requires that the user be above 30% of their maximum life, rather then above 0 life
-Increased the cooldown of Blood Distillation from 3 to 4
-Slightly reduced the amount of Ink restored via Blood Distillation's on kill effect
-Calligraphy and Punctuation active talents now attribute their damage properly, allowing them to activate on_spell_hit effects
-Inky Escutcheon no longer stacks with it's own shield effect, but will not go on cooldown if it tries to overwrite it's own shield either
-Tattoo of Warding's damage reduction cap now partially scales with Magic instead of solely with talent level
-Tattoo of Sight's defense bonus and Tattoo of Self's mental save bonus now also partially scle with Magic instead of only talent level.

Credits
minmay, Recaiden, Mr Frog, Root of All Things, Erenion and the rest of the addonsians for helping with misc coding questions

jotwebe for having a very helpful icon making guide

http://game-icons.net/ for all the icons.

[Shoejune]

I love the concept of this class and you are correct, you are quite thorough in your playtesting that I can see so far! I think you've got a great foundation with a lot of thoughtful talents and synergies.

My only critique is that the Tattoo tree is all available at the start and is really, REALLY, REALLY strong. On top of the powerful damage reduction, immunities, and defenses, I already have a semi-permanent movement speed of 236% at level 20! The Ink sustain cost is even technically a buff itself, since Ink is easy to generate and you're incentivized to either have it at full or very low. Having a smaller bar makes both of those requirements easier to hit.

If I had to make changes to Tattoo myself, I would make it like Chants (only one could be active) OR make it so tattoos significantly increase fatigue -- and nerf the movement speed tattoo drastically.

[Arcvasti]

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad you're liking the class!

I take your point about the huge movespeed boost. I do generally think that vanilla's small passive movespeed boosts aren't especially useful due to enemies having so many ranged and gap closing options, but I'll try out a lower speed version of it to see if it's still worth the points.

The other Tattoos are not unusually strong I don't think. Tattoo of Warding isn't particularly impressive when compared with Deflection, Kinetic Shield or Antimagic Shield. It purely scaling with talent level does mean that it gets full effect at level 6 though, which is not ideal. Tattoo of Sight's large flat defense bonus similarly makes it really hard for early enemies, particularly elites and fixedbosses, to hit you. I'll see about making those effects scale with Magic so they're less front-loaded.

I'm also currently working on tightening up the Ink economy so that the sustain cost becomes a bigger deal. The intended design is that you might only want to learn two or three of the Tattoos to avoid the penalty to your precious maximum Ink, which isn't the case currently with how easily you can spam Blood Distillation. It is also worth noting that Ink is doubly affected by fatigue just like Mana is, so a Calligrapher using massive armour will have more resource problems.

[Ghostdog]

thank you for this class I really like it. I love the thematic ink warrior. It reminds me of Sai of Naruto, but he is more of a summoner.. Or a wuxia protagonist with a giant brush jumping into the fray.

I have to get used to the fact that you have at most 3 actives, because I am used to with other classes having more. Fortunately the cooldown is very low, so you can quickly use them again. You are dependent on the active abilities to deal damage, because using standard attack does little damage. Anyway I can understand the idea to minimize actives, I am just curious the design decision to have it at 3.

If the design of the class is to jump into a bunch of enemies and survive, then I think it has succeeded in this. The class is meant to be in the midst of action, quickly dispatching the enemies, good resilience, but poor staying power due to diminishing resource. You are meant to quickly finishing the fight. If the fight prolongs, then you can use health to convert it into resource.

I love how you can get resource from health.. and also from dispatching enemies so it promotes you to be active. Also I love how you can use your ink to become fire. I just wish the actions or abilities that you do that the ink is more pronounced. For example Em dash leave behind a line of black ink, which reminds me that it was done by a brush stroke. For flourish, I love how the icon reminds me of "enso" of a circle drawn by one or two brushstroke. It would be cool if the effect could also be like this.

All in all, an interesting class... I look forward to see how it progresses with new class trees or abilities.

[Shoejune]

This is less feedback and more a suggestion... I think a very fun addition to this class would be something like the Reaver melee-on-spell passive and some built in staff mastery. Maybe a weapon sustain, not like Blood Spear from Doctornull's class pack. Would give you the opportunity to have another locked category too!

[Arcvasti]

I have to get used to the fact that you have at most 3 actives, because I am used to with other classes having more. Fortunately the cooldown is very low, so you can quickly use them again. You are dependent on the active abilities to deal damage, because using standard attack does little damage. Anyway I can understand the idea to minimize actives, I am just curious the design decision to have it at 3.

Having few actives was definitely an intentional break from the usual ToME class design. One reason was just to minimize clutter: Your talent bar only has so many slots, and you can only remember to effectively use so many of them. The big thing though, is that I tend to find that talents that only upgrade their damage with levels aren't as important to level as ones which also scale duration or your other damage. After all, a given damage talent represents a relatively small fraction of your total damage if you have 10+ damage talents. By having only ~5 actives, upgrading pure damage starts to become more tempting.

Also I love how you can use your ink to become fire. I just wish the actions or abilities that you do that the ink is more pronounced. For example Em dash leave behind a line of black ink, which reminds me that it was done by a brush stroke. For flourish, I love how the icon reminds me of "enso" of a circle drawn by one or two brushstroke. It would be cool if the effect could also be like this.

That's a pretty good idea, I'm just not sure if my abilities with particle effects are up to it! Will definitely give that a try though, Flourish is for sure one of the weaker talents visually.

This is less feedback and more a suggestion... I think a very fun addition to this class would be something like the Reaver melee-on-spell passive and some built in staff mastery. Maybe a weapon sustain, not like Blood Spear from Doctornull's class pack. Would give you the opportunity to have another locked category too!

I had a very similar idea earlier in development, but I eventually decided against it. Calligrapher already has a lot of talents dedicated to multiplying their damage, so adding more in that line can get pretty silly. I also generally like the dynamic with the small number of low cd active talents, and making basic staff attacks more useful de-emphasizes that aspect.

That said I do have an idea for another Ink-based class that does do a mix of spells and staff melee. Look forwards to that in a few years(or never, if I get distracted)! Before then will be a few more Calligrapher updates though: A smaller bugfix and balancing one first, and then a larger content update that expands the number of trees.