Comprehensive Mindslayer rework

[orange<]

I would very much like to have the possibility of equipping a shield in the telekinetic slot.

Perhaps this is more hassle than it's worth, but as your rework develops some interesting builds might come out of it.

[HousePet]

Haven't got as much done as I'd hoped to by now, but here is a copy of what I've coded so far.

Haven't done any new categories yet, or Conduit changes.
Nothing scales with or requires a gem/mindstar to be TK wielded.
Haven't adjusted Reshape Weapon/Armour as I'm puzzled as to why scaling with Mindpower is bad, or why you would want to wait for 100 Mindpower before using it.

NB: As this is just for experimental purposes, I'm coding the extremes for testing. Anything removed can be put back.
And read the descriptions carefully, as I haven't listed all changes, but the descriptions should be up to date.

[bpat]

The problem with Reshape talents is that it's in your best interests in the long run to wait until you can max out your Mindpower before using them in order to get the greatest benefit from them. This is frustrating since many players won't end up using the Reshape talents at all until very late. By removing this scaling, people can get the full benefit from Reshape when they 5/5 the talent rather than having to wait to get more Mindpower to get the desired benefit.

Edit: I just read over the changes you coded in and they look great! It looks like you're adding Dream Forge which fits well with the class and gives them some decent non-Absorption defense, which is a good change in my opinion. I'm not sure if it should start unlocked, but it's not a particularly powerful category so it should be fine either way.

[HousePet]

I don't understand how it is beneficial to wait. You can just reshape again when you have higher mindpower.

[bpat]

I don't understand how it is beneficial to wait. You can just reshape again when you have higher mindpower.

I thought each item could only be reshaped once. If I'm wrong, it's fine to leave the scaling in, but I'd change Reshape Armor to use Mindpower instead of Willpower for consistency.

[HousePet]

You can reshape 'til your heart's content.
But yeah, standardising the formulae would be nice.

[Doctornull]

Just make Reshape Weapon a sustain.

It works on whatever you're currently holding, and doesn't screw up your gear for the Item Vault.

[HousePet]

I was going to say that would be horrible to code, but then I remembered I've already done it.
It is horrible, but doable.

Also, I should mention that Beyond the Flesh attacks are still done with 60% of Wil/Cun as I would have to do something overly complicated or just completely overwrite combat.lua. So just pretend it does more damage.

[Doctornull]

I was going to say that would be horrible to code, but then I remembered I've already done it.
It is horrible, but doable.

It's basically Psiblades.

Also, I should mention that Beyond the Flesh attacks are still done with 60% of Wil/Cun as I would have to do something overly complicated or just completely overwrite combat.lua. So just pretend it does more damage.

Ugh, just make that Combat.lua code be ignored and use a callbackOnAct or something.

(With checks to turn_procs so you don't do it too often, blah blah blah.)

[HousePet]

Latest thoughts:

Mindlash: Mind damage seems out of place in this class. Change to physical damage to continue the kinetic/thermal/charged theme?

Brainstorm: How about we place a blind+lightning attack in this slot? (Focus 3) Lightning+Daze gets used a lot.

Finally: I'm pondering some sort of synergy between the different flavoured talents. For example, Thermal Shield/Thermal Aura/Thermal Leech/Pyrokinesis. Each of these could have a passive +1% fire/cold damage or Shield and Leech could do resistance instead of increased damage. Or we could go full out with advanced categories for Kinetic, Thermal and Charged talents. We certainly have enough Kinetic flavour talents and some more Thermal/Charged ones would be nice.

[bpat]

Latest thoughts:

Mindlash: Mind damage seems out of place in this class. Change to physical damage to continue the kinetic/thermal/charged theme?

Brainstorm: How about we place a blind+lightning attack in this slot? (Focus 3) Lightning+Daze gets used a lot.

Finally: I'm pondering some sort of synergy between the different flavoured talents. For example, Thermal Shield/Thermal Aura/Thermal Leech/Pyrokinesis. Each of these could have a passive +1% fire/cold damage or Shield and Leech could do resistance instead of increased damage. Or we could go full out with advanced categories for Kinetic, Thermal and Charged talents. We certainly have enough Kinetic flavour talents and some more Thermal/Charged ones would be nice.

I'm sure Mindlash already does physical damage. If not, it should for sure.

You're right about lightning daze being overused. Blind could work but I'm thinking more along the lines of brainlock.

I agree that the kinetic/thermal/charge talents should probably have at least some synergy. I suggested leeches boosting spiked shields but that might be overpowered unless the numbers are low. Also leeches could possibly activate auras saving you a turn if you want to spike them, but then the sustain cost of the auras would have to be removed (which I'm okay with). I really like the idea of advanced kinetic, thermal, and charge categories. Do you have any ideas for the general structure of such categories (their structures would probably all be the same to fit with way the existing talents are set up)? If they're going to be locked, I don't think we should move any existing talents to them since all of these existing talents are pretty important to have unlocked.

Also, is there a good resource for learning to code for ToME? I'd like to try coding some of these ideas and I already know a good amount of programming, but I don't really know what most of the functions in talent code do.

[HousePet]

It seems that Mindlash is physical damage. I am delusional.

Brainlock would also be a good debuff to use.

Not keen on Leeches boost a Spiked Shield. That just seems overly micromanagey and then we would have three levels of shields to balance. Having them activate the relevant Aura sounds interesting though and it fits the flavour by making it so you rip the energy from around you and make it into an Aura.

As for advanced categories. I was thinking the first talent would be a passive mastery style talent. Would grant increased damage to relevant types and maybe add some extra effects to the low level talents. Wouldn't grant resistance penetration, cos that should require magic. Haven't given the rest of the talents much thought yet. Many of the suggested Force category talents could be in the kinetic one.

[bpat]

Not keen on Leeches boost a Spiked Shield. That just seems overly micromanagey and then we would have three levels of shields to balance. Having them activate the relevant Aura sounds interesting though and it fits the flavour by making it so you rip the energy from around you and make it into an Aura.

As for advanced categories. I was thinking the first talent would be a passive mastery style talent. Would grant increased damage to relevant types and maybe add some extra effects to the low level talents. Wouldn't grant resistance penetration, cos that should require magic. Haven't given the rest of the talents much thought yet. Many of the suggested Force category talents could be in the kinetic one.

Yeah, you're probably right about Leeches boosting Spiked Shields is a balance and micromanagement nightmare. Wishful thinking on my part.

For advanced categories, we should probably make sure they don't require more than about 8-12 points each, which is approximately what people would get in Grip (currently the only locked class category). I don't think resistance penetration is dependent on magic since classes like Wyrmic, Oozemancer, and Marauder get it. Moving Force talents to new categories could work, since the main reason I came up with Force was because Mindslayers needed a second generic category (Combat Techniques and Survival don't count) but now that they have Dream Forge, it shouldn't be needed. We could move three Force talents (all but Iron Will) into the new kinetic category (I actually like the name Force for this new category), but then Iron Will would need to be relocated since it'd be a shame for a cool anti-stun skill to disappear, perhaps it could go one of the melee categories.

[grayswandir]

Here's a quick idea for a thermal talent:

Thermal Balance
If above 50% psi, spend X psi and deal strong fire damage in radius 1.
If below 50% psi, gain X psi and deal weak ice damage in a line length 3.

[HousePet]

That's a nice idea grayswandir.

I'm not keen on resistance penetration outside of magic based classes for flavour reasons, and it adds an interesting distinction. (Oozemancer feels like playing an Archmage to me, which is the opposite class thematically )
It just seems weird that you could burn something that is completely immune to fire, without serious reality messing with, for example.
I'm sure I could be talked into some resistance penetration, as long as it wasn't a whole 50% and didn't function exactly the same as the Archmage mastery talents.

Anyway, I'm still coding along. Some of these talents aren't simple to code.
I still need to adjust Conduit. Though I'm thinking about merging the talent effects including the single aura bonuses into just the Projection category. Having a wasted talent that requires investment in a different category is annoying.
I've done Impale and Telekinetic Assault.
Focussed Combat won't work out well, so I've put Shattering Charge in that slot and placed Skate as the start of Augmented Mobility, shunting the rest down.
Quick as Thought has picked up the bonuses from Perfect Control.
Grip and Finer Energy Manipulation are all done.
Haven't started on Force yet.

Perhaps Iron Will and Reach could be merged?