Class Idea - Zealot

[Lorcanis]

Of course, if you're the one writing this up, then you should write it up like you want it. I'm just putting out what I see.

Lets just say Im interested in your idea, but dont want to create "chant mastery" as a whole talent category supporting another. Try to help me shape Lucidity into something that works by itself but provides chants with bonuses. Switching chants similar to auras/shields psionics does does not work for me either.

[Lorcanis]

I've finally made some changes, so please give me new feedback.

Notable changes:
renamed the build to Zealot
introduced a new exotic weapons mastery generic talent category
slight changes to Lucidity
removed Wings talent category completely
introduced new Graceful combat category (this one makes me still wondering, maybe I will remove it completely too as it does fit more classes to be Zealot-only)
few changes to Zealotry (formerly Righteous Fury)
few changes to sun archery

[overgoat]

I like the change to Zealot and the Zealotry tree, but I'm not sure how well the archery works with that now. When I think of enraged zealot/berserker types I don't think of them take the time to take a time to aim a missile weapon. They want to close to melee combat.

[snoop]

I like the change to Zealot and the Zealotry tree, but I'm not sure how well the archery works with that now. When I think of enraged zealot/berserker types I don't think of them take the time to take a time to aim a missile weapon. They want to close to melee combat.

Oh I don't know about that, you could kind of go with the "crazy-guy-with-a-gun" vibe.

"This is my bow. There are many bows like it, but this one is mine", etc. More of an intense, seething insanity rather than the manic foaming-at-the-mouth style of your standard berzerker.

[Lorcanis]

Oh I don't know about that, you could kind of go with the "crazy-guy-with-a-gun" vibe.
"This is my bow. There are many bows like it, but this one is mine", etc. More of an intense, seething insanity rather than the manic foaming-at-the-mouth style of your standard berzerker.

Exactly

I think that slings will work better for zealots. And we need somee more dedicated sling users other than archers.

[Sirrocco]

I like the changes overall, but I do still have some questions/thoughts.

- I'd like to see some way for this guy to get more reliable access to whips, if only because he's primarily dex/magic and tridents are str-based. Seems like a whip-specific tree and a trident-specific tree might be nice (though I'm not all that sure how you'd run that, or what you'd put in them).

- Do Fanaticism stacks expire over time? If they do, getting five stacks might still be a bit of a juggle. If they don't, it's kind of a hassle to pull off, but can be managed with the help of Fervor and appropriately tuned enemies to farm light energy with. In particular with this, I'm not entirely clear on the techniques that someone would be expected to use if they wanted to built up 5 stacks. It feels like it's a lot closer to something interesting and cool, and I'm not saying that you should throw it out and rebuild it, but I'm curious as to how it's supposed to be used.

- This version of Purged By Light (may need a new name - "Overwhelming Aura, perhaps?") feels a lot better. Depending on how Fanaticism stacks work, it seems like it's encouraging you to charge in and go crazy - blow a bunch of power to build up stacks of fanaticism (incidentally increasing your own vulnerability) and then burn them all just before you die on a shield of awesomeness that will both make you perfectly safe while you heal yourself with your previously neglected light-gaining panic buttons and inflict a fair bit of damage on the enemy. A lot of the balance on this one is going to depend on exactly how easy it is to get and/or keep 5 stacks of fanaticism, and what sorts of things you have to do to get there. Depending on how that ends up, it might be worthwhile to make it a negative cost rather than a positive (if it's just too hard to get to 5 stacks while also having 30 points left over) and/or provide effects for lesser numbers of fanaticism stacks (possibly blocking #stacks*20%).

- Graceful Combat feels a lot better lorewise, and gives this great anime flying wires aspect to the whole thing, but I'm still a tch confused as to the utility of Nimble Assault. "Charge and attack" powers are great for engaging enemies who are some distance away if you want to fight when you're melee, especially if they're not. Knockback is great for disengaging from enemies if you don't want to fight when they're melee, especially if you're not. I can totally see the imagery of charging someone and striking them so hard they go flying, but the two effects are very much at cross-purposes here. What is this attack trying to let you do? Under what circumstances would I wish to use it?

- "corrupted" seems like an overly negative word. *They* certainly wouldn't think of it as corruption. Perhaps "infused", "altered" or even "warped".

- I invite others to comment on this, because I'm not totally sure on it myself, but it seems like Knee breaker and High Five, while potentially useful, are kind of bland for an exotic weapons tree.

Still, I like how it's shaping up. so far.

[Lorcanis]

- I'd like to see some way for this guy to get more reliable access to whips, if only because he's primarily dex/magic and tridents are str-based. Seems like a whip-specific tree and a trident-specific tree might be nice (though I'm not all that sure how you'd run that, or what you'd put in them).

I have thought about these too. I can implement some trident-specific bonuses into the tree. Strength works better for tridents, yes, but this class work better with dual-wielding whips instead. You can still go magic/str if you want to.
As for mastery requirements, I can change it to constitution or just characer level (not sure if its possible to set requirements to dex OR str, whichever is higher ?)
Access to exotic weapons is more delicate topic. This should be way better to accomplish by increasing the chance of looting one, or introducing a shop selling them.

- Do Fanaticism stacks expire over time? If they do, getting five stacks might still be a bit of a juggle. If they don't, it's kind of a hassle to pull off, but can be managed with the help of Fervor and appropriately tuned enemies to farm light energy with. In particular with this, I'm not entirely clear on the techniques that someone would be expected to use if they wanted to built up 5 stacks. It feels like it's a lot closer to something interesting and cool, and I'm not saying that you should throw it out and rebuild it, but I'm curious as to how it's supposed to be used.

They dont expire. Fanaticism is double-edged sword. At higher difficulties, it can be a very dangerous to fight with full stacks. The damage bonus is nice, but you need to play more tactically. I might need some help to balance the resource gains/spendings, so you can have a better way to keep/lose stacks as needed.

- This version of Purged By Light (may need a new name - "Overwhelming Aura, perhaps?") feels a lot better. Depending on how Fanaticism stacks work, it seems like it's encouraging you to charge in and go crazy - blow a bunch of power to build up stacks of fanaticism (incidentally increasing your own vulnerability) and then burn them all just before you die on a shield of awesomeness that will both make you perfectly safe while you heal yourself with your previously neglected light-gaining panic buttons and inflict a fair bit of damage on the enemy. A lot of the balance on this one is going to depend on exactly how easy it is to get and/or keep 5 stacks of fanaticism, and what sorts of things you have to do to get there. Depending on how that ends up, it might be worthwhile to make it a negative cost rather than a positive (if it's just too hard to get to 5 stacks while also having 30 points left over) and/or provide effects for lesser numbers of fanaticism stacks (possibly blocking #stacks*20%).

As I explained above, keeping the stacks should not be hard, but even if you somehow need this skill to survive a hard encounter, you should plan accordingly. And that was the point.
On the other hand, if keeping all the stacks is too easy, we might want to balance it somehow. All depends on how well (or badly) gaining positive energy through damage taken and Lucidity works.

- Graceful Combat feels a lot better lorewise, and gives this great anime flying wires aspect to the whole thing, but I'm still a tch confused as to the utility of Nimble Assault. "Charge and attack" powers are great for engaging enemies who are some distance away if you want to fight when you're melee, especially if they're not. Knockback is great for disengaging from enemies if you don't want to fight when they're melee, especially if you're not. I can totally see the imagery of charging someone and striking them so hard they go flying, but the two effects are very much at cross-purposes here. What is this attack trying to let you do? Under what circumstances would I wish to use it?

Sling users will find this very useful. As for melee users, you can skip the skill completely (there are many talents that feels completely off with some builds), or use it tactically.

- "corrupted" seems like an overly negative word. *They* certainly wouldn't think of it as corruption. Perhaps "infused", "altered" or even "warped".

Good thought, going to change it right now.

- I invite others to comment on this, because I'm not totally sure on it myself, but it seems like Knee breaker and High Five, while potentially useful, are kind of bland for an exotic weapons tree.

Yep, I totally need more feedbacks. Also from darkgod, it will be his decision whether to implement this class or not after all

Still, I like how it's shaping up. so far.

Glad to hear

[Lorcanis]

Im afraid this idea will be pretty dead without feedback

[Sirrocco]

Okay, more feedback...
- Cunning(slings), dex(slings/whips), str(tridents), and magic(magic) is too broad a footprint, statwise, for a class that doesn't have any funky statboost hack skills. I don't think we really want any funky statboost hack skills. Thus, I have the following suggestions.

- Go back to bows, rather than slings. That drops cunning off the statlist, leaving you with dex (bows and whips), str (bows and tridents) and magic (because magic).

- Make swapping back and forth between whips and tridents a bit more fluid. Specifically, rework the Exotic Weapons Combat tree a bit. Give the middle two skills some cross-stat benefit. Whips would get a str-based benefit, and tridents would get a completely different dex-based benefit. For example...
- No escape: Whip users lash out, dragging their opponents near and choking them. Range 1 to start. Enemy is grabbed and pulled adjacent (if applicable). Deals damage each turn based on strength and cuts off air (choking and silencing). Saves vs these effects and base duration on effects also made vs str. Drop effect if you change weapons or make any melee attacks. Moving keeps sustain, and will drag foe along, but move speed is notably worse. Trident users pin their foes to the ground by stabbing an enormous trident through them. Deals damage each turn based on dex, and opponent is immobilized and vulnerable (defense and armor are reduced). Duration is short (and dex-dependent) but refreshes every time you make a successful melee attack vs the foe. Drop effect if you change weapons, attack any other foe with a weapon attack, or move.
- Disabling Attacks: Whip attacks have a str-based percentage chance to disarm for a few turns. Tridents have a dex-based percentage chance to briefly daze on successful hit.
- Showy Tricks: You may dual-wield whips. If you do so, increase the str-based damage on No Escape, and marginally improve some other aspects. Additionally, offhand whip damage is N% where N is based on str and talent level. When wielding a trident, your defense increases by (skill-dependent) and you have a (small, dex and skill-dependent)% additional chance of evading attacks outright.

It doesn't have to be that specifically, but something like that - allowign the same character to swap back and forth between tridents and whips, sink stat points into both dex and str, and not feel like any of it was wasted, regardless of which they're using right then. It even makes sense to have trident and dual whip on a weapon switch, and swap which one you're using based on the situation.

[Lorcanis]

I've decided to discontinue this topic. ToME and its players evidently needs a more original, intriguing classes.

Anybody reading this feel free to use any data you find in this topic.

[darkgod]

You shouldn't; if the class appeals to you it's reason enough

[Lorcanis]

You shouldn't; if the class appeals to you it's reason enough

Im no coder and ToME is one of the few games I dont enjoy playing with addons. I might bring up some more interesting class, using some ideas from this one. It just needs some sweet feature.

If I may suggest something, its implementing some ex. weapon combat category asap. Or just add one to Combat training category, similar to already existing weapon/dagger masteries.

[snoop]

What this discussion has got me thinking about is how weird the exotic weapon thing is. What the heck do tridents and whips have to do with each other anyways? I'd rather see exotic weapons mastery totally removed and replaced with polearm mastery, including tridents and other stuff (spears, halberds etc.). Polearm techniques might include being able to damage enemies at range 2, keeping enemies from closing, etc. I have no real good idea about whips, it just seems odd to have them in the game at all. But I guess I could be talked into some sort of "flail" category, including whips and nunchuks and other flexible weapons (nets? bolas?). Dex based, and make a techniques tree with some entangling/pinning skills etc.