Mindslayer Shield changes

[nehal]

It came up in IRC this morning and I think that, barring an almost complete teardown and overhaul of the class, that some depth could be added to Mindslayers as-is by providing them with two changes: One to Conduit, and One to Shields directly.

1. The first part of this is allowing Mindslayers to grasp shields. By default, this just acts as if they were equipping the shield normally - providing some Block and defensive stats, plus whatever the shield provides.

2. The second part is modification of Conduit. When Conduit is activated while a Mindslayer is grasping a shield, any active Mindslayer Shields that are being sustained are instead transferred as a buff to the grasped Shield - possibly in the form of relevant resists: If I have Fire Shield active, I grasp a shield, and then activate Conduit - then I get some amount of innate Fire resist so long as I sustain Conduit.

This would provide an alternate build-path for Mindslayers, providing them some much needed innate survivability and a symmetry with how Conduit currently works with weapons. Enabling you to trade off some of your skills to become passive buffs instead.


Additionally, a major quality-of-life change for Mindslayers would be a free, instant, pre-emptive spiking of shields upon taking relevant lethal damage. The idea at its simplest is:
-I have Fire Shield active
-I turn a corner and eat a Fire damage nuke from a monster that would have killed me
-Instead, my Fire Shield spikes automatically and that lethal Fire damage hits against the spiked shield before hitting my HP
-Fire Shield goes on cooldown as if I had activated it manually

Mindslayers are at their weakest and most fragile against unexpected burst damage, where you turn a corner into caster mobs who nuke you before you even have a chance to spike your shield. By providing this sort of automatic safety net it removes some of the randomness of the game.

[tarantoga]

tk wielding a shield kinda defeats the purpose of low hp melee class (since i think they made them low hp cos of possibility to handle 3 weapons), when you take away thier '3rd hand weapon' whats the point of keeping them low hp as thier dmg potential goes way down

other problem i find when trying to play mindslayers, they are so dependent on talnet points and there is almost no room for build variation, maxing shield takes 20 talent points (not counting shield discipline which is kinda needed too but generic points can be hard to get as you want/need minstar mastery/antimagic/fungus and maybe leechs too), since devs obviously dont want us to use mindlash as main dmg source im trying to plan a melee mindslayer and there isnt much choice here, you need to put only 1 points in 2 auras and 1 point in mindlash or you miss some essential (useful?) talents

[Doctornull]

Agree with above post.

IMHO the biggest problem with Mindslayers is that they've got all these complex interactions among their talents, but when you sit down and figure out the best uses for them, you end up with:

• Conduit + Bump Attack
• Conduit + Mindlash

... and that's not a very exciting list of tactical options.

Honestly I'd prefer to dump Projection and Psi-Fighting entirely, and turn Focus into four different ways to project energy rather than one way + one speedbump + two passive buff talents.

Replace Projection and Psi-Fighting with two trees full of different melee attacks. Keep some effects, like having an attack which also makes your TK weapon attack more often, or which gives your TK weapon some bonus damage as a timed effect (sort of like what Conduit did, but as a tactical option rather than a constant passive bonus).

[HousePet]

I'd be happy to try overhaulling it.

[Theyleon]

An interesting, but rather work intensive, way of changing would be to give skills different bonuses depending on what you have in your TK slot - instead of half your skills just getting flat out better with a mindstar/gem.

So for example, mindlash could get -cooldown from a mindstar, +damage from a weapon, knockback from a shield.

[lyx]

Honestly I'd prefer to dump Projection and Psi-Fighting entirely, and turn Focus into four different ways to project energy rather than one way + one speedbump + two passive buff talents.

Replace Projection and Psi-Fighting with two trees full of different melee attacks. Keep some effects, like having an attack which also makes your TK weapon attack more often, or which gives your TK weapon some bonus damage as a timed effect (sort of like what Conduit did, but as a tactical option rather than a constant passive bonus).

Yeah, the whole dependency net of mindslayer categories and talents kinda locks one into a single way to play them. Even if there were points left to spend, one would probably just spend them inside the existing net of interactions, because one depends so much on them.

It would be more interesting, if just as with some other classes, there were a single category that has most of the common/shared talents, and then different class categories to branch out into different styles of mindslayer.

However, one would need to be careful to not decentralize mindslayer talents too much (so, making the opposite mistake). Take for example the dream categories of solipsists... it's just silly. There are so many duplicates and void talents there, that it looks as if someone had a set of useful ideas, that would fit into two categories, but wanted three categories, and thus invented filler talents to stretch it out filling three categories. It's so bad, that one really can't fix it without rearranging and merging talents from all three categories.

IMO, the wildgift/mindstar category should be nuked and rebuilt as a psionic/mindslayer category, containing all the basic and common/shared stuff used by mindslayers. Then have different class categories, each covering different aspects/styles of mindslayers, but having little interactions between each other (dependencies on the general psionic/mindstar cat are fine).

The shields category can probably stay as it is, but should not use linear talent aquirement but instead just like combat-training, allow training any shield skill anytime. The dependency on focus, just to improve shield strength, should go (this does not exclude the proposal to let real shields benefit mindshields. It just is stupid that one has to spend points in some OTHER category, to basically turbolevel shields. It's like saying "yeah, you learn the shields here, but leveling them does crap to shield strength - to actually really level them, you need to spend points in some 4th tier talent of a different category - wat?). That makes spiked shields too powerful? No problem, just nerf spike - spike was OP anyways, and just there to compensate for crappy unspiked shield strength. Or, if you need a tier 4 talent to turbolevel shields late game, then let absorption mastery do that.

As for focus - i agree with what some said, that this category should be entirely rethought, into something that let's one use the TK slot in many different ways (not just gems/minstars).

But wait, then there won't be any attack talents left, since mindlash and pyrokinesis was in focus, right? That's fine. Put mindlash, pyrokinesis and some new more versatile ranged attacks, into a new ranged mind attack category... or, drop mindlash and pyrokinesis entirely from mindslayer categories, and instead just give mindslayers psychic/assault. In my current adventurer-mindslayer build, i ignored focus entirely, and instead went with psychic assault - it's much more fun and versatile.

Last, give mindslayers free access to augmented mobility goddamnit, and give that category a minor range buff (+1 tile), because it's embarassing. Given the lower HP of a mindslayer, and him being melee biased, he really needs to be more like a psionic ninja, instead of a slow moving tank that spams mindlash.

EDIT: What about auras? Uh, who the hell cares about auras, except of as fuel to feed focus? What to feed the new rethought focus category with then? Ego's. Just use the abilities of items in the TK slot, as fuel.

[HousePet]

Personally, I don't think Mindslayer should focus on using mindstars at all.
Solopsist is basically locked into using mindstars. Psionics doesn't need another locked into mindstars class.
Of course, if someone would like to build a mindstar mindslayer, they shouldn't be penalised.
Mindslayer is about pounding things into the dirt with dual greatmauls! Not dancing around with silly crystals.

[lyx]

Personally, I don't think Mindslayer should focus on using mindstars at all.
Solopsist is basically locked into using mindstars. Psionics doesn't need another locked into mindstars class.
Of course, if someone would like to build a mindstar mindslayer, they shouldn't be penalised.
Mindslayer is about pounding things into the dirt with dual greatmauls! Not dancing around with silly crystals.

That sounds kinda contradicting, and i disagree - i'm someway in the middle... i don't like mindslayers being entirely locked into mindstars, but i like them being biased towards mindstars. For that to work, i don't really see why they need a mindstar in both hands AND the TK slot.

But anyways, i don't really care about fighting over *names*. As i see it, we have players with different interests about playing a mind-based char. The classic trio is fighter, rogue, mage. Psionics currently doesn't really have an equivalent of this. It has two classes that are kinda.... umm, i'm not actually sure what they're representing.

The description of mindslayers sounds like a fighter.... but mindslayers get low hp. The description of a solipsist sounds more like a mage, but its the solipsist that gets the HP-buff by linking psi to life. And then, currently both are a bit thief/ninja like given the mindstar obsession.

Perhaps, what currently are mindslayers, should be renamed to something else, and then made more like - as i described it - a "psionic ninja" with a mindstar bias. Then, create a new class that is more like what you describe, and call them mindslayers. Lots of conduit magic with heavy hitting stuff and the like, and the hp/hppsi to be a tank. Finally, make solipsists more of a ranged caster and crowd controller, based on dreams and lucid dreams. Perhaps for any of those classes, don't disable any psi class categories, but just keep the unrelevant ones locked - that way, any of the three classes could add one category of the other two classes, thus allowing a bit of intermediate styles.

But, obviously this goes way beyond the current problem of fixing the class that currently is called mindslayer. So, kinda offtopic.

[HousePet]

Well I might be planning a tripsiblade weilding psininja.