Oozemaster Adjustments

[Doctornull]

Awesome, thanks!

Another possible nerf for Poison Spores would be to make it target the area around the caster. It's a friendly-fire effect so it's not like you need to position it to avoid harming your oozebros. That would also help constrict the Oozemancer to a more melee-based role.

[darkgod]

But but oozemancers are not meant to be melee oriented. They are a wilder "caster"

[The Revanchist]

Then why can they be so tanky? I doubt an Archer or Archmage could withstand half the damage an Oozemancer would laugh off.

Mostly because they have Bloated Oozes, but still...

[Hachem_Muche]

Oozemancers aren't so much tanky as they are tough. They actually don't have much defense against melee damage, it's just that they can have a very high effective life through mitosis.

As far as the range of their talents goes, they need to be able to reach all those nasty arcane users that like to throw stuff at them from far away, hence the range 10 talents.

[Noel]

Ahh..tricky. Acid Splash doesn't create a Mucus area unless I'm already on Mucus. However, Acid Splash still displays the Mucus area effect either way.

It'd be good to not show the area effect if Mucus is not applied from Acid Splash -- and also update the talent description.

OTOH, I think this change adds to the playability. With this change and the Slime Spit nerfing, I can't just go through life spamming Slime Spit and Acid Splash indiscriminately, but have to think a bit about tactics and strategy.

Even with the changes, it's still quite strong in early/mid game - I just survived a toe-to-toe with all the Harkor'Zuns at CL18. No running or stair-scumming needed...

Edit: Or maybe I'm stupid, and forgetting that skeletons are immune to poison...

[HousePet]

Been playing with Ooze, Moss and Oozing Blades. Up to level 20+ now. (Would be further but the power went off )
Only had one death so far. Urkis with his Hurricane. I could have avoided it with another healing infusion.
I'm currently only getting Equ regen from Mitosis and its a bit tight, which is good. So I'll be Fungussing for more Equ regen.
One things I've noticed is that even though I'm supposed to be a caster, I can easily do 100+ damage per turn just by meleeing, and I have crapy t2 mindstars.
Damage on Mosses seems a little too high.
Would it hurt to give Bloated Oozes some accuracy?

[Hachem_Muche]

The eq. regen from mitosis is there mostly as a benefit for low level Oozemancers and as a convenience when running anti-magic shield (so you don't have to fiddle with regen talents if you get hit with poison ivy or an occasional trap while exploring). Ideally, it should provide just enough of a benefit to make non-mucus builds viable.

I haven't done anything with the moss talents. Does the damage need adjusting? It doesn't look very impressive to me (the talents are primarily used for their secondary effects), but I haven't tried them.

As for mindstar damage, how important is it for Oozemancers, generally? Besides nature's equilibrium, there is only bump damage available to the class. Comparing it to staff-combat for example, 2 mindstars do around 1.5x the damage of a normal 2H staff at equal levels if Psiblades and Staff Mastery (and appropriate stats), and so seem pretty comparable.

Bloated oozes probably should be competent in melee, rather than just being hp sponges, so I'll adjust their stats a bit.

Edit: New version attached. I've buffed bloated oozes to get a Str bonus based on the summoner's mindpower and accuracy based on the summoner's cunning.

[qui]

Well, oozemancers are certainly casters, but they can survive melee quite well. They don't seem to take much damage, and can deal quite a lot with mindstars. Not that they have to with the variety of ranged destruction available. Slime spit, oozebeam, acidbeam, poisonous spores and acid splash are quite enough to kill most things. Over all, it almost feels like cheating ;).

[HousePet]

My 5 points in Grasping Moss does 65% movement speed reduction and 50% chance of pinning each turn.
It also does 35 damage per turn for 10 turns, so 350 total.
Its not heaps, but my Acidbeam does 335 and Acidbeam doesn't tie down everything in sight.

Incidentally, Call of the Ooze also uses weapon damage.

[Doctornull]

But but oozemancers are not meant to be melee oriented. They are a wilder "caster"

That's totally cool. If this is the case, then we can take away the things which make them so utterly brutal in melee.

For example, give Bloated Oozes -50% damage resist instead of +50. Now you have a DAMN GOOD REASON to stay out of range: your HP batteries are more efficient when they're not in danger.

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@ Hachem_Muche - The mucus Eq regen you've written looks good, except for one little thing... it's still kind of annoyingly hinky to use Mucus to get back Eq when you're unthreatened (not in combat). Maybe remove the Call of the Wild tree, and allow Mucus to grant a small passive Eq regen-on-rest bonus?

[HousePet]

Level 30 now, doing 200-300 damage per bump.

[Hachem_Muche]

Doctornull, what do you mean my "hinky" eq. regen? My idea of putting the passive regen on Mitosis was to avoid forcing players to take the mucus tree to manage their resources, but it could be attached to another talent. The Call of the Wild tree is highly thematic for such a nature-focused class, and should be retained, I think. Also removing meditation (which cannot fail due to high equilibrium) from such an equilibrium focused class would be dangerous.

Bloated oozes are designed to be mini-tanks that forcibly divert damage to themselves. So long as there is no advantage to the Oozemaster to be too close to the enemy, I think bloated oozes need to be pretty tough to serve their role.

As for Oozemaster melee damage, it's probably not a serious problem so long as the melee damage doesn't out compete the ranged options for the class. HousePet, are your melee attacks a better choice than your other options for that character? I'm open to suggestions on what, if anything, needs to be changed here. Since Oozemancers are a mindpower based class, they're just automatically going to be good with mindstars, and probably should be, thematically.

Also, does anyone else think that this class could use another (locked) class tree? It feels a lot like an alchemist in that you end up taking almost everything by the end game. Perhaps it's worth finishing the Malleable Body tree and adding it to the class?

[darkgod]

If they can be played as melee it's good too, as long as it doesnt overshadow the ranged part. I'm all for weird builds

[Doctornull]

Doctornull, what do you mean my "hinky" eq. regen?

If you're not taking Meditation, you don't get back Eq by resting.

You do get Eq back by hitting "Mucus" and then hitting left, right, left, right, left, right... dancing around like a little girl who needs to use the bathroom.

I find that specific situation less than elegant

My idea of putting the passive regen on Mitosis was to avoid forcing players to take the mucus tree to manage their resources, but it could be attached to another talent.

Mitosis would be fine, yeah. That would work.

The Call of the Wild tree is highly thematic for such a nature-focused class, and should be retained, I think. Also removing meditation (which cannot fail due to high equilibrium) from such an equilibrium focused class would be dangerous.

I'd look to Regeneration + Fungus taking that specific role in the mid to late game, but I can see your point of view. My view is that the Oozemancer is strong to the point that it doesn't need two ways to overcome that particular limit on its power.

As for Oozemaster melee damage, it's probably not a serious problem so long as the melee damage doesn't out compete the ranged options for the class. HousePet, are your melee attacks a better choice than your other options for that character? I'm open to suggestions on what, if anything, needs to be changed here. Since Oozemancers are a mindpower based class, they're just automatically going to be good with mindstars, and probably should be, thematically.

It kinda depends. I mean, Solipsists are also guaranteed Mindstar users, but they don't get any automatic melee perks. Solipsists play like casters.

My issue with Oozemancer melee isn't out-competition, it's lack of overall class weakness.

Regarding "melee should be an option" -- sure, that can be good, but only if it's at the expense of something else. Being great at everything isn't a cool weirdo build

So... if you really want Oozemancers to be Casters, think about taking away Mindstar Mastery, and doing something like making Psiblades a Psionic tree.

Also, does anyone else think that this class could use another (locked) class tree? It feels a lot like an alchemist in that you end up taking almost everything by the end game. Perhaps it's worth finishing the Malleable Body tree and adding it to the class?

You're right, playing a Cornac Oozemancer feels like a waste.

... hmm, maybe lock Call of the WIld?

Buff up Moss to deal more & different damage types, so it's a more attractive option, and lock that.

[HousePet]

The Equ regen on Mitosis works well, it could even be slightly higher. I've maxed out Ancestral Life and the two together don't allow me to run Antimagic Shield, which is a good thing.

As for melee damage, its not out competing the ranged talents yet, those are ranged and can hit multiple targets.
I think the problem is Psiblades. In addition to the normal mastery talent bonuses, it also doubles mindpower/willpower/cunning bonuses and increases the effect of willpower and cunning on their damage.
This is problematic in that it makes the talent a no brainer for anyone using mindstars.
Secondly it makes the damage pretty good, and you already don't have to worry about accuracy.
A solution to this I'm unsure about.
One option is to just remove the increased effect of willpower and cunning on their damage or reduce another part of the damage bonus.
Another option is to split the talent into two and make a psionic version of the category as well. The psionic version could have the increased mindpower and weapon mastery effects, and the nature one could retain the increased willpower/cunning and increased damage from willpower and cunning.
I haven't suggested splitting it into caster bonuses and melee bonuses in different talents as this would still leave it as no brainer option for mindstar casters, and would also be detrimental to the dual mindstar wyrmic and cursed builds, who enjoy purchasing mindstar mastery.

Now then another locked category: Manaburn themed! Maybe with some anti undead stuff?

Also, I still think the damage penetration talents in slot 4 of Corrosive Blades and Oozeing Blades doesn't fit and is unneeded. Corrosive Nature, Natural Acid and the copious Oozing artifacts are enough.