Oozemaster Adjustments

[Tharsonius]

@hachem: im not sure ure right there, just checked my archmage in ID on which i raised dexterity just to get that reduction.

wearing robes, i have 0% crit reduction

but 19% crit shrug off (which is reduce multiplier by description) from 72 dex

armor training gives crit reduction i agree, but a question here is it only for melee/archery attacks or also spells/mindpowers?

€dit: didnt want to say 50% is too much, any reduction will be fine. just to clarify its still a very powerful effect lategame which would usually require even a lvl 80 char to maximize dexterity to get this (seems even more than 150 dex) and the resistances are on top of it.

[Hachem_Muche]

Ah. I think you're correct, there.

I think 50% at end game is still the right number, though, since oozemancers aren't likely to have much dex.

Does anyone have any different experience with this?

[Hachem_Muche]

Edit: After some very good feedback, here is the list of the working changes I have:
Slime Spit:
Slightly reduced damage across all talent levels. The number of bounces you can get scales more like chain lightning (diminishing returns, but 5-6 at max talent level). Bouncing slime loses damage with each bounce (~-50% at level 1 to -35% at level 5)
Reduced the Slime spit projectile speed from 8x to 6x speed.

Mitosis:
Bloated Oozes get some inherent regeneration based on 5% of their maximum life.
Fixed a bug so that the maximum health limit is actually used.

Mucus:
Mucus stacked in the same square does not form new mucus pools. Instead, the existing mucus pool is enhanced by +1 eq regen and +70% poison damage (at max talent level), while increasing it's duration by +1 turn.

Indiscernable Anatomy:
The crit power reduction is decreased to about 50% at max talent level. No longer gives confusion resistance.

Oozebeam:
Does 90% slime (nature, slow) and 10% manaburn damage.

Natural Acid:
Gives a bonus to Nature resistance (~20% at max TL) and provides a self buff to Nature resistance penetration (~28% at max TL). Cooldown for the effect reduced to ~ 10 turns at max TL.

Unstoppable Nature:
The damage penetration caps at 50% (25% at TL 5)

Corrosive Nature:
Gives a bonus to Acid resistance (~20% at max TL) and provides a self buff to Acid resistance penetration (~28% at max TL). Cooldown for the effect reduced to ~ 10 turns at max TL.

Acidic Soil:
Bonus regeneration for Bloated Oozes changed from a % of max life to a bonus based on Mindpower (~100-150 hp/turn at max talent level).
The damage penetration caps at 50% (25% at TL 5)

[Doctornull]

Sliime spit (..) To help control its scaling at higher level, I'm putting in a mechanic that makes each bounce weaker, while letting the bounce efficiency get better at higher talent levels.

IMHO the weakening only has to happen once, because the first bounce is the most important for allowing clever tactics -- or the ONLY important bounce, in many cases.

The cases I'm thinking about are:
- Trick a foe into eating the primary bolt
- Leap in the way of an oncoming bolt (e.g. to save an Escort)
- Summon a blocker in front of the bolt

Since there are so few player-allied characters on the screen, the 1st bounce (2nd bolt) may be the ONLY relevant one, when the player's team is targeted by an enemy Slime Spit.

So I'd suggest that the damage falloff must be sudden and steep, but that there's no particular need to further nerf damage on the 2nd or further bounces.


EDIT: looks like Hachem posted while I was composing this. 50% is probably steep enough. Cheers!

[Hachem_Muche]

After looking more closely at the equilibrium recovery, it's clear that the scaling is bad on it. Basically between improvements in Mucus, Ooze spawning, etc. equilibrium recovery just out scales its needs. (The equilibrium mechanic is designed to scale with your willpower.) To fix this, I've fixed the eq. recovery for friendly creatures at 1 per turn (both to self and the target), and added a small (~0.1 to 1.0/turn) passive equilibrium recovery bonus to Mitosis based on talent levels in the Reabsorb talent.

I've coded everything up and am testing it. So far the results seem good. Investing in mucus talents makes equilibrium (even with antimagic shield) pretty easy, but the resource still matters, particularly in a fire fight. The passive regeneration takes a bit of tedium out of watching the resource bar, and should help low level oozemancers get by before the build gets going.

[Doctornull]

Hachem - the other issue is that Mucus Equilibrium recovery scales with the number of summons you have walking around, so it currently scales with Cunning * Mucus (a quadratic which grants accelerating returns and is thus to be frowned upon)... and that's JUST with Mucus, ignoring the Bloated Oozes you may have walking around.

Maybe cap the Mucus recovery at a fixed max value per turn, rather than per summon? That would kill the acceleration.

[HousePet]

I like the idea of each summoned blob increasing your minimum equilibrium.

[Hachem_Muche]

Using the standard character progression assumptions (that you max out what's important for the build, i.e. talents and stats.):

Note:
cl == character level
Ignore other sources of eq. regeneration a player may use (like the proposed stacking effect of mucus from standing in it and strategically using meditaion if needed).

Eq. regeneration is computed as self:combatTalentMindDamage(t, 2, 10) which scales as Mindpower (scales as ~log due to combat:rescaleCombatStats) x tl^0.5 and so is < O(cl^1). (O(log(cl)*cl^0.5) if you want to be picky.)

Note that the number of summons you can have scales with cl^0.5 through cunning.

Overall, eq. scaling from mucus therefore scales as:

for yourself standing in it: <O(cl^1)
for friendly oozes and other allies: <O(cl^0.5) for fixed regen per ally or <O(cl^1.5) if allies generate the same regen as you do.

Adding those together gives total equilibrium regen <O(cl^1) which brings it in line with other resources.

[Hachem_Muche]

I like the idea of each summoned blob increasing your minimum equilibrium.

That sounds kinda wonky. How would that work and how would the player manage it?

[HousePet]

I have no idea.

[Doctornull]

for yourself standing in it: <O(cl^1)
for friendly oozes and other allies: <O(cl^0.5) for fixed regen per ally or <O(cl^1.5) if allies generate the same regen as you do.

Adding those together gives total equilibrium regen <O(cl^1) which brings it in line with other resources.

I don't understand the <O(cl^1.5) bit, but the rest sounds good.

Can't wait to try it.

Cheers!

[Hachem_Muche]

Attached is the current version of changes in the form of an addon. (Rename the extension to .teaa as normal.)

Please test and comment!

This still has most of the commented out old code in it for comparison as well as quite a few debugging statements, but is otherwise fully functional.

Not validated, since this is mostly for development.

One of the main things I'd like tested is the viability and balance for starting Oozemancers, as well as the more overpowered massive mucus builds.

[qui]

Recently won with this guy, http://te4.org/characters/9679/tome/b96 ... 9e4fc27681 and the thing I find really overpowered is Poisonous Spores. With range 10 and using Track I was able to poison many bosses way before they saw me. Damage on this thing is just insane. Perhaps range should be limited, or targetting changed into cone.

[Doctornull]

@ Hachem_Muche - I'm stuck on 1.0.5 until the Mac compile drops (or until I get annoyed enough to do it myself), so your 1.1.1 addon doesn't seem to be working for me. Would it be viable for me to hack the version down, or did you take advantage of features which don't exist in 1.0.5?

Thanks.

[Hachem_Muche]

qui, The poison spore damage does seem quite high, especially considering it's secondary effects and the fact that it can crit when cast for even more damage. I've nerfed it by about 45% from combatTalentMindDamage(t, 40, 900) to combatTalentMindDamage(t, 30, 500), or slightly less than the Heat talent, which is a very effective DOT talent that is single target with no secondary effects. Even nerfed, this is still probably better in most situations.

Here is an updated version of the addon that includes a fix to the tooltip for Indiscernable anatomy and is versioned for 1.0.5.