A look at the Arcane Blade in B37

[Hirumakai]

The weapon switch on/after hit makes waterform a very one turn only form. Which is a bit counter to the healing buff mod, or the whole idea of entering a stance.

Perhaps you should instead move the free weapon switch from water strike to the water stance? This will also allow people to more freely move to a new stance without having to use water strike a second time, making water stance more of a 'keep your options open' stance.

The Water stance already has two sets of abilities, and having weapon swap is to minor to merit replacement of one, and doesn't scale. On the other hand its a bit too strong (and steals some of the Temporal Warden's coolness) to just put in as an addition to the stance. I think the 1 turn buff to allow swaps is sufficient.

With 25% on both, it will give just as much with 10str/40dex as with 25str/25dex. I'm not sure how this would discourage people from min/maxing if they want. However, 25% of both is always less than 50% of the highest, unless both stats are exactly equal. If 50% was considered balanced, you may want to adjust the values to 30%.

Looking at 10str/40 dex at 50% provides 20 spellpower. The 25% method makes it only 12.5, which is significant cut. It doesn't start catching up until you hit the 60 natural cap or start getting serious stat boosts from equipment. 30%/30% would push that initial case to 15, which is down only 25%, rather than 37.5%. Late game it would be about right, when compared to a 50%. 90 Str /120 Dex is 60 for 50%, and 63 for 30%/30%. I'll try coding it up initially as a 30%/30% split and see how it works out early and late.

Yeah, confuse is just too strong. Why switch to another debuff after that when they are fully disabled? Freeze is more tactically interesting, and I think in terms of gamepaly fits well with the water tree - let's you take a breather to heal and reset cooldowns, and you can wait till the freeze wears off to switch to another debuff. The idea of water slowing down battle makes sense to me.

Also you'll need to use the cold damage type in the tree at some point, I presume. There is no pure water damage, and acid seems inappropriate.

Ok, you've convinced me. Should it be the standard 2 turn ice block, or is it reasonable to have the freeze length scale up slightly with points? Something like 2 turns at 1, 3 turns at 3, 4 turns at 5 (hard capped at 4).

I can do that, but I'm worried about a high % evasion and it being always on. Not sure what an approriate cap would be. 50%, 33%, 25%? Certainly something like 75% all the time would be too strong, and drive players crazy when fighting NPCs.

Yeah, no way that strong. It's just that as an activate no one would ever use it. Maybe it needs a more interesting effect instead.

Certainly it needs to be a defensive trait. We already have a heal, a shield, and some form of status resistance. There's a minor resistance boost in the Earth stance so we could optionally make it a resist all type of effect (i.e. X% of damage doesn't affect you because you're insubstantial). I don't want an invisibility or stealth effect since thats Rogue/Shadowblade territory. A defense boost would in some sense be just like Evasion. Although no one ever took the old Feather Wind.

More exotic defense effects could include something like Wind Storm, a mana sustain where enemies within radius 1/2/3/4/5 lose 5/10/15/20/25% global speed (effectively a big AoE slow centered on the caster). It could be a 1 (or 2?) turn slow reapplied at the start of each of the player's turn, with a Physical save vs Spellpower to avoid that application. Alternatively it could be a flat malus to Accuracy and Damage of enemies based on Spell power. Perhaps bonuses or penalties to the effect based on the target's size?

I'd avoid such heavy cost sustains as no one ever uses them, no matter how powerful the effect.

I used probability travel. On multiple winners. I also think players run Essence of Speed. At some cost to benefit ratio, by definition, it becomes worth it. But I do take your point in this case. Making it a low mana sustain and 15 mana per hit wouldn't be anywhere near sustainable, especially with Arcane Combat up. Berserkers can get away with it because of Unending Frenzy. Its just having things project out off of only two talents A) is already done by Arcane Combat, and B) seems too limited in scope and to the tree. All the other talents can be freely mixed and matched.

Some other brainstorm ideas for the tier 4 fire skill:

Mark of Fire: 30 Mana cost to activate, instant cast, melee range: For the next 1/2/3/4/5 turns target takes an additional 50% of all damage dealt to it as fire damage. 20 turn cooldown.

Fire Walking: Mana sustain: Movement speed boost. Whenever you leave a square, you set it on fire for 1/2/3/4/5 turns, burning any enemies that enter the square.

Combust: Mana Sustain: Increases physical crit rate by 1.5/3/4.5/6/7.5. Every time you crit, you do an additional 10/20/30/40/50% of the base weapon damage as fire damage over 3 turns.

Why do you feel Tornado strike is too powerful? Obviously it would partly depend on the damage % per strike, which would start around 50% probably and work its way up to 100%. Is it the ignoring defense (guaranteed hit?) or ignoring armor?

Guaranteeing hit and armor negation makes it a one point wonder talent that further trivialises many enemies. Perhaps make it a gradual +acc, +ap, +crit.

That trivialization is true of Lightning bolt, Flame, Strike, and Freeze as well, but those take a bit more investment to get to at a significant level. I certainly can do a gradual +acc, +apr, +crit ramp with points and physical power rather than outright ignoring defense with the mini-flurry.

I suggested the random movement thing though because I think it would be eriously fun. You might not like it, but I'm sure others would. If the air tree is built around lots of movement and high defense then it could work well as a chaotic fighter type that flits between enemies with ease.

If you toss me some code that at least works for that randomly moving chain lightning style strike, I'll throw it in instead of Tornado strike. Just be aware of the number of hits. Each time a main hand connects, there's a chance of Arcane Combat to trigger.

I'd stick away from playing with speed - DarkGod doesn't like it for a start. I'd also stick away from talents that step on other classes' toes. Why should the AB be better at missile defense than an archer or fighter? Or better at magic defence than an archmage?

Fair enough on the speed point. Interestingly both the Warrior classes and the Archmage class have speed boost options (activated and permanent respectively) while the current Arcane Blade I'm proposing has neither. The Rogue hybrid on the other hand has both. However, I think I can balance the class with no speed boosts, so we'll try it without.

I see what you're trying to say with the Master Blade talent, but I don't think the numbers support those statements, nor the statements about the classes taken as a whole.

For example, I don't believe Archer's have that great of a missile defense, other than Slow Motion, which most of the Warrior classes have an option to grab, including the Berserker. Now seeing as its a ranged striker, I'd argue it doesn't need as much ranged defense as a melee based character, given it can shoot back at other ranged attackers.

As for the Bulwark, it does actually have defense bonuses, which apply to both melee and ranged, in addition to the option of taking Slow Motion. The currently proposed Arcane Blade does not have the Slow Motion option, nor does it include any defense bonuses except for this tier 4 talent (in that it replaces Ranged Defense with Accuracy - an Arcane blade's innate defense is sufficiently low that any equally leveled enemy is going to hit it without fail).

I was trying to provide a thematic replacement for Feather Wind, which was never used by almost any build. In order for a talent to be worth taking, that means it has a noticeable effect. The easiest way I saw of getting an interesting roll mechanic was put Accuracy in opposition to Accuracy and hit had the thematic idea of taking that big glowing of lightning or fire and cutting things down in mid-air.

Would people be content if it was simply changed to a +20/30/40/50/60 Ranged defense bonus? The old Feather Wind talent could provide around +30 ranged defense late game and I'd argue was not considered worth it by the majority of the player base on an Arcane Blade. By its nature, the defense bonus has to be large enough to push ranged defense to around the enemy's accuracy +/- 10 to make it worth while.

Late game an Arcane blade is going to have something like 0.35*100 Dex = 35 defense base, plus armor of perhaps 10-20, for 55 old school defense, or a little less than 40 new scaling. A Shield Wall Bulwark is going to have something like 0.783*100 Dex=78 + 16.5 (talents) + 9 (armor) + 24 (Shield)=127 ranged defense old school, 62 new scaling. So assuming fighter defense is doing anything, the Arcane blade needs to add 60 raw points to reach even 60 ranged defense.

So I would propose that make it Accuracy vs Accuracy is very similar to just adding ranged Defense, and that its bringing ranged defense up to par with the Bulwark, after a 5/5 generic point investment. However the Bulwark still has the option of taking Slow Motion, which depending on circumstances can do nothing, or be guaranteed 100% misses. So I disagree with the assessment that it is strictly better than Bulwark defenses.

As for better defense than an Archmage, that true for a certain subset of situations. However, the Archmage is an ranged striker. From a balance perspective, a melee based class needs better defenses than a ranged class, due to the fact it is taking ranged fire as it closes, as well as dealing with all the enemy melee in melee.

Taken as a whole class, I'd argue that an Archmage will still be better at dealing with a bunch of casters than an Arcane Blade will, even if he can avoid 50% (assuming equally scaled Accuracy and Spellpower) of the 30 talents I listed above. The Archmage has multiple ranged control effects, the Aegis tree which can up damage absorption capability by well more than 50%, multiple stacking shields, and heavy sustain options for resistance or speed.

If you're willing to see the Arcane Blade class with the Aegis tree, I don't see why you wouldn't be willing to see an Accuracy vs Spell power roll (probably around 50% evasion rate on average, less for bosses, more for run of the mill stuff) to effectively cause a small list of talents to miss. The net survival boost of this proposed tree is far less than that of the Aegis tree.

Try running the numbers on a late game build. It basically comes down to what % of the damage would you imagine is coming from those 30 talents? How much damage do you mitigate with a 50% miss rate? How much does the Aegis Heal restore every 16 turns, and what raw amount of extra shield hit points do you get which are useful in every single encounter? Which number is bigger?

By the way, I appreciate the discussion and its helping me clarify the ideas for the class a lot. I hope to have some time to do serious coding on it this weekend.

[Grey]

Looking at 10str/40 dex at 50% provides 20 spellpower. The 25% method makes it only 12.5, which is significant cut. It doesn't start catching up until you hit the 60 natural cap or start getting serious stat boosts from equipment.

So an ability that scales well into the later game? Sounds good to me :) Could make it a higher tier talent to compensate for its lack of early game usefulness, though I think it's fine where it is.

Ok, you've convinced me. Should it be the standard 2 turn ice block, or is it reasonable to have the freeze length scale up slightly with points? Something like 2 turns at 1, 3 turns at 3, 4 turns at 5 (hard capped at 4).

I'd say standard, since it can get a bit overpowered otherwise. Think of it on enemies as well as on the player :)

More exotic defense effects could include something like Wind Storm, a mana sustain where enemies within radius 1/2/3/4/5 lose 5/10/15/20/25% global speed (effectively a big AoE slow centered on the caster). It could be a 1 (or 2?) turn slow reapplied at the start of each of the player's turn, with a Physical save vs Spellpower to avoid that application. Alternatively it could be a flat malus to Accuracy and Damage of enemies based on Spell power. Perhaps bonuses or penalties to the effect based on the target's size?

That sounds interesting, though 1/1/2/2/3 radius would be more balanced. An alternative would be something that increases defense and also causes the target to be slowed if you successfully dodge (or some other effect on-dodge). Maybe just slow their attack speed to be more balanced. This would encourage defensive builds to specifically take advantage of the effect.

I'd avoid such heavy cost sustains as no one ever uses them, no matter how powerful the effect.

I used probability travel. On multiple winners. :wink: I also think players run Essence of Speed. At some cost to benefit ratio, by definition, it becomes worth it.

The thing about both of those is that they are about function over damage - always-on effects that can provide constant advantage. High-cost damaging sustains are generally ignored in the game, since there are always cheaper ways of causing damage.

Mark of Fire: 30 Mana cost to activate, instant cast, melee range: For the next 1/2/3/4/5 turns target takes an additional 50% of all damage dealt to it as fire damage. 20 turn cooldown.

Interesting, but very single target focussed. Essentially will only be used on bosses and similar special targets. Maybe the "Mark" should go on the ground, creating an Anorithil Circle style of effect, that causes additional fire damage to all enemies within whilst restoring your mana and stamina. That would be fun shit :)

Fire Walking: Mana sustain: Movement speed boost. Whenever you leave a square, you set it on fire for 1/2/3/4/5 turns, burning any enemies that enter the square.

Cool only if the flames don't hurt yourself. Otherwise would be quite the nuisance :) Maybe a feature of the sustain would be to take no damage from any background burning effect (though direct fire attacks would still hurt you).

Combust: Mana Sustain: Increases physical crit rate by 1.5/3/4.5/6/7.5. Every time you crit, you do an additional 10/20/30/40/50% of the base weapon damage as fire damage over 3 turns.

Hrm, a bit dull I'd say. How about the on-crit effect is to cause a burst of flames that only hurts enemies? And spellcrits would do the same. Would encourage high crit builds.

If you toss me some code that at least works for that randomly moving chain lightning style strike, I'll throw it in instead of Tornado strike. Just be aware of the number of hits. Each time a main hand connects, there's a chance of Arcane Combat to trigger.

I'll try and botch something together by pairing the Rush and Chain Lightning code :D

I'd stick away from playing with speed - DarkGod doesn't like it for a start. I'd also stick away from talents that step on other classes' toes. Why should the AB be better at missile defense than an archer or fighter? Or better at magic defence than an archmage?

Fair enough on the speed point. Interestingly both the Warrior classes and the Archmage class have speed boost options (activated and permanent respectively) while the current Arcane Blade I'm proposing has neither.

You surely can't deny the AB the talent tree with Rush in it? It's pretty essential for a meleer.

If you're willing to see the Arcane Blade class with the Aegis tree, I don't see why you wouldn't be willing to see an Accuracy vs Spell power roll (probably around 50% evasion rate on average, less for bosses, more for run of the mill stuff) to effectively cause a small list of talents to miss. The net survival boost of this proposed tree is far less than that of the Aegis tree.

Aegis is a whole tree, and also dependant on things like shield runes, rather than a single talent which would at the same time boost ranged defence. Also the list of spells it affects is obscure, making it less useful to the player in terms of real tactics.

I quite like the Aegis trees on ABs I must say, so I guess personally I'd be sad to see that lost. Especially on my skeletons :) If we have a generic tree that works well with the class why try to invent another? It's a strong tree (without being overpowered) that gives defense against all damaging attacks, rather than having to find ways to focus on each type individually. It also is better tied in with things external to the class, like the healing mod stat and shield runes, making it much better featured as a generic tree.

[Aquillion]

The weapon bond can be applied to a new weapon once per character level. In other words you could change it fifty times over the course of the game. A lot of players will have the weapon they plan to finish the game with by 50 and if they don't they can keep a weapon they bonded at 49 around awhile until they find one. I'm not sure it really needs the once per character level thing to balance it but thematically I like it. If you can change it at will I'd just make it a sustain (which works honestly, even thematically).

Oh.. and bonus points if you can only bond weapons powered by arcane forces

Would it be possible to let you change it once every 100% XP you hit after level 50? I just sort of dislike making players totally lock into that decision permanently, even only at level 50... though it might just be me.

[Hirumakai]

I've been coding up some basics of the proposed changes.

So far:

Reworked magical-combat tree completely. Fully functional with:
1) Arcane Combat: Random triggers of elemental damage based on stance. Chain of Lightning, Beam of Cold, Cone of Fire, Ball of Physical.
2) Arcane Stance: Improves stance effects
3) Arcane Prowess: Improves spellpower based on 30% of Strength + Dexterity
4) Arcane Destruction: Changes base weapon damage type to match stance, provides 2% damage and 10% penetration per point to stance's element

Have all 4 Elemental Strikes and Stances working, one for each of the 4 arcane-element trees.

Still need to implement the other 12 talents for the elemental trees, as well as a generic tree.

I've attached a zip of the addon, which you can rename to tome-newab.teaa and place in the addons folder to try it out.

[Hirumakai]

That sounds interesting, though 1/1/2/2/3 radius would be more balanced. An alternative would be something that increases defense and also causes the target to be slowed if you successfully dodge (or some other effect on-dodge). Maybe just slow their attack speed to be more balanced. This would encourage defensive builds to specifically take advantage of the effect.

I'm hesitant at the moment to give the class a general defense bonus talent (above and beyond featherwind being available). They already have strong armor improving options, and giving them straight up defense as well could push them a bit too far onto Bulwark toes. Ranged defense is significantly less useful for melee than general defense, so I'm less worried with ranged defense issues.

I kind of liked the slow effect as similar to the momentum effects that dual wielders can generally get, but at least allows enemies to save against the effect. The air tree is really an offensive focused dual wielding tree. A defense bonus would have better synergy with the Earth Tree, since thats the "sword and board" tree. I could try it as an attack speed and spellcasting speed debuff instead of a global speed debuff. On the other hand, its competing with a Heal, a Regenerating Shield, and burning away status effects to attract people to the tree, so its going to have to be a noticable effect. As for radius, 1/1/2/2/3 sounds fine.

Mark of Fire: 30 Mana cost to activate, instant cast, melee range: For the next 1/2/3/4/5 turns target takes an additional 50% of all damage dealt to it as fire damage. 20 turn cooldown.

Interesting, but very single target focused. Essentially will only be used on bosses and similar special targets. Maybe the "Mark" should go on the ground, creating an Anorithil Circle style of effect, that causes additional fire damage to all enemies within whilst restoring your mana and stamina. That would be fun shit

I don't want to put resource recovery in any specific elemental tree, as that is going to make that tree too "must have". It should either be in the magical-combat tree, or something like the proposed generic tree. The ground effect is interesting idea though. All enemies in the area take an additional 50% (in the form of fire damage) for 1/2/3/4/5 turns. Perhaps a secondary effect would reduce healing effects, rather than resource gain. Although the damage is probably enough in and of itself. Its like blinding speed, but via raw damage instead of speed.

If you toss me some code that at least works for that randomly moving chain lightning style strike, I'll throw it in instead of Tornado strike. Just be aware of the number of hits. Each time a main hand connects, there's a chance of Arcane Combat to trigger.

I'll try and botch something together by pairing the Rush and Chain Lightning code

Deal.

You surely can't deny the AB the talent tree with Rush in it? It's pretty essential for a meleer.

They already have 2 rush replacements plus a pull and stun. I'm not sure they need 4 things equivalent to Rush.

Aegis is a whole tree, and also dependent on things like shield runes, rather than a single talent which would at the same time boost ranged defence. Also the list of spells it affects is obscure, making it less useful to the player in terms of real tactics.

I quite like the Aegis trees on ABs I must say, so I guess personally I'd be sad to see that lost. Especially on my skeletons If we have a generic tree that works well with the class why try to invent another? It's a strong tree (without being overpowered) that gives defense against all damaging attacks, rather than having to find ways to focus on each type individually. It also is better tied in with things external to the class, like the healing mod stat and shield runes, making it much better featured as a generic tree.

The problem is Aegis used to exist almost in isolation on the old Arcane blade. In that case it might not have been overpowered. Old style Arcane blades had 1 shield (Displacement Shield), Earthen Barrier (physical resist 10 out of 25 turns), and whatever runes and infusions they could afford. However now in addition to those runes and infusions, they can improve their 2 shields (displacement and reworked Earthen Barrier) and 2 heals (Healing Water and Drain Water of Life) while combining it with status removal (fire aura), something like an AoE slow (Air storm), and two defensive stances improving heals (water) or armor/resistance (earth).

For the current testing phase, I'll leave Aegis as an initially closed tree, but I think people will find it too strong when combined with the new options available. For example Skeleton Aegis Arcane blades could be cycling 5 boosted shields and 4 heals with it quite easily. Previously, they were limited to 4 boosted shields and 2 heals (ignoring escort rewards).

In any case, I need something to provide the resources that Arcane Feed, Quick Recovery, and Unending Frenzy used to provide. The class already has 5 open class trees, 4 more closed, and only 2 generic trees. Adding another class tree, like the combat veteran tree, seems excessive when the class clearly needs a few more generic point options. However, perhaps that is the way to go.

I'm willing to take suggestions for other talents in a generic resource plus something else tree. Certainly resource manipulation is found both in class and generic trees (Meditation, the old repairing spacetime talent, and the anti-magic talents). Although I'm personally against any effect which is limited in uses by the number of levels you have. I guess I can buy that the Master Blade talent might be a bit too obscure in how it works. Although learning what does and doesn't work the hard way has always been a hallmark of rogue-likes

[jotwebe]

Arcane Balance (activated, 20 CD):

The Arcane Blade readjusts the balance between her physical and arcane energies. Costs 50 mana or stamina, whichever is higher. Increases the other resource by phys power (when increasing stamina) or spellpower (when increasing mana) + TL*10.

[marvalis]

Just wondering, would the fire skills only be usable in the fire stance, or also in other stances? In other words, if you are in the water stance, would the fire stance skills be greyed out?

[Hirumakai]

Just wondering, would the fire skills only be usable in the fire stance, or also in other stances? In other words, if you are in the water stance, would the fire stance skills be greyed out?

All skills are planned to be available in all stances.

[Aquillion]

I'm willing to take suggestions for other talents in a generic resource plus something else tree. Certainly resource manipulation is found both in class and generic trees (Meditation, the old repairing spacetime talent, and the anti-magic talents). Although I'm personally against any effect which is limited in uses by the number of levels you have. I guess I can buy that the Master Blade talent might be a bit too obscure in how it works. Although learning what does and doesn't work the hard way has always been a hallmark of rogue-likes

Some vague ideas for resource recovery options that might fit the Arcane Blade...

Runic Surge: Permanent or sustained talent. Every time you activate a rune, you recover some MP and/or stamina based on talent level. Part of the idea is to reduce the need for manasurge runes by allowing you to use shield or even attack runes to recover resources.

Spell-vigor: Recover stamina every time you deal non-physical damage, based on the damage dealt.

Flowing Strike: Recover mana every time you deal physical damage, based on the damage dealt.

[lobe]

I wonder if this should be moved to the add-ons forum.

[Grillkick]

This is very exciting- Arcane Blade was the first class I tried when the first betas came out. I do want to say that *some* class should get the ability to reflect spells- it sounds way too cool. Knocking back spell bolts at the enemy with my magic-infused weapons like a Jedi? Yes, please.

[Hirumakai]

I found some time to work on the addon this weekend, and a teaa is attached to this post as a zip. Just rename the .zip extension to .teaa and place in your addon folder (under game/).

Currently have working Magical-combat, Arcane-Air, Arcane-Earth, and Arcane-Water trees.

Arcane-Fire still needs to be worked on, although fire stance and fire strike are in. Also still need to create a generic tree.

If people do try it, please let me know of any bugs you run into.

Also, balance still needs to be ironed out heavily, and feedback is appreciated. I need to do some number crunching on what Arcane Combat should be doing damage wise, as well as mana and stamina costs.

Certain combos, such as Whirlwind Teleport + Arcane Combat can produce alot of AoE in a short time - although it does depend on you teleporting into the middle of bunch of enemies.

[phantomglider]

Tried this out a bit. Seems pretty cool, but there were also a couple of bugs:

1. Stances would shut off whenever you leveled up or altered your equipment, and the game would give a message that you had to use the Strike to switch stances. This was kind of a pain.

EDIT: I think this is a typo; in the various elemental stance talents it uses "force_talent_ignore_ressources" when it should be "force_talent_ignore_resources". As a couple of other small fixes, Tornado Strike does not properly display the damage it would deal - set a variable before the description like you do with all the other effects - and Wind Storm's description always says it slows enemies by 0%, while the code calls for it to say it slows by .05% per level, when it should probably be 5% per level in both cases.

2. When I tried to go to the Arena, I got the error in the attached image, and the game wouldn't move on. (Possible relevant info: I had Air Stance and the earth shield sustain up.)

[Hirumakai]

First, thanks very much for the feedback.

1) Turns out force_talent_ignore_ressources is how its spelled. I tried spelling it the other way the first time, and then ran into errors, and found out that is how its spelled everywhere else. I could always try to make it dependent on the equivalent "don't use energy flag" and see if that helps. I guess the sustains don't use the no resource flag since they don't activate in the traditional sense.

1a) Wind storm and Tornado strike - whoops, forgot to multiply by 100 to get % for the info, and then used %d%%.

2) Hmm. I wonder if the error is due to the Arcane Blade NPC that spawns there. I'll try to do some poking around the arena specifically and figure out what is causing it. Potentially the fact that I messed around with the magical combat tree.

[Hirumakai]

I've fixed the equipment swapping and leveling up problem that caused stances to turn off. Although the solution was a bit ugly. I created a new attribute flag for force_talent_ignore_energy, and had it applied in the check_sustains function in Player.lua, as well as applying it if called in forceUseTalent.

I also went in and switched the Arcane Blade NPC in the arena to use Fire Strike instead of Arcane Feed for the moment since Arcane Feed has been removed in this addon for the moment. At some point I'll need to change it to an appropriate mana restoration method.

Also fixed the info bugs on the Air talents.

Finally I threw in some quick place holder art to distinguish talents so people don't go crazy looking at ?'s for talent icons.

Attached zip file is the updated code.