Comprehensive Mindslayer rework

[Doctornull]

Also, why don't Psi Damage Shields interact with Arcane +% shield gear? (Why create a new timed effect, why not just make damage shield a Physical effect which is shared?)

Because damage shields are not physical effects, it's not logical and psi shields certainly shouldnt be categorized as magic nor helped by magic shields bonuses

If they're so different, then why don't they stack?


EDIT: 1.2b14 + git, now I am seeing the numbers on the side

[darkgod]

Because psionics disrupt magic!

[HousePet]

Psionics don't disrupt magic. They can be used to disrupt magic, but so can magic, or a fist to the face!

[Doctornull]

Because psionics disrupt magic!

You are a lying liar who lies. Psi and Magic can live together with Nature in perfect elemental Harmony. Also using Magic can get you unlimited gemstones which some Psi people really like.

It would be neat if there were some "Psi / Disruption" talents which did disrupt Magic & Mind powers, but there are no such things yet. Get coding!

[Suslik]

Guys, can we have more feedback on http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 95#p179629 please?

Also HP, what about adding max absorb value talent level scaling to the shields?

[donkatsu]

We've discussed things in the irc and made a following conclusions:
1) Spiking passives looks like a class feature. Maybe we should concentrate on these mechanics more.
2) Class currenly has 6 somewhat mirroring each other abilities: kinetic aura-mindlash, thermal aura - pyrokinesis and charged aura - brain storm. Also spiking auras is mostly useful in the beginning when you don't have enough abilities.
3) Since transcendence trees buff only focus abilites and there are plenty offensive abilites overall, from some point you just don't spike auras anymore.

So here comes the proposal:
What if we merge the 2 trees into 1 and make spiking auras' effects equal to current focus abilities? Like spiking kinetic aura should act like a mindlash with all bonuses applied from transcendence, debuffs, and stuff? That'll free a lot of space on the skillbar and eliminating regular active abilities will keep the class unique. Also passive effect of Iron Will can be merged with frenzied focus and cooldowns of auras set to way lower values to allow semi-rotation. Graphics and targetting from focus abilities should be transferred to aura spiking as well.

What do you guys think?

I don't really like the idea of aura spikes being something you just hit as part of your regular rotation. If spiked auras are obsoleted by regular active abilities, then I'd rather they just be buffed so that they're at least worth the turn you spend to spike them. Possibly with a higher cooldown, so that if you spike them too early, the loss in damage over time isn't worth it, but if you spike them close to the conclusion of a fight then they're more effective than your regular actives. They'd be "finishing moves", basically. You could give them the same treatment as shields, where the sustain stores damage over 6 turns and spiking them releases a burst. The main problem with big bursts of damage is on NPCs oneshotting PCs, but the buildup mechanic that shields got would allow PCs to work around it, by forcing them to temporarily back off out of aura range.

Combining trees also means less choices in where to invest your talent points while also making the class stronger, and I don't know if mindslayers really need that kind of buff.

[Suslik]

Actually I have 2 rows on my skillbar and they are about 60% occupied by mindslayer abilities:


Here are some other classes for comparison.
Necrormacer(higher level):

Solipsist(higher level):

Corruptor(higher level):


You can see that their skillbars are occupied to a comparable degree at higher level than that mindslayer. If you ask me, that's nowhere near being a problem for me. But at the same time I understand that this fact may become somewhat offensive for newcomers. On the other hand, mindslayer is far from being a class that a newcomer can accidentally unlock during his first impression so that may be ok. Yet some players consider current amount of skills fiddly.

Actually I agree with you, donkatsu, that it may be better to buff aura spiking in some way instead of flat-out merging the trees yet we cannot deny the fact that mindslayer currently has more abilities that people usually can fit into their skillbar and they're very likely end up not using a large portion of them.

[HousePet]

Having too many choices of talents to use, is the worst reason for reducing them I've ever heard.
Too many is far better than too few, which is how it was before.

Also, its too late to make further changes of such scale and really not worth doing until the existing changes have been fully digested.
We've done a great job already, we just need to fine tune the numbers now.

DarkGod is taking care of the number tweaking in the code now too.

[Suslik]

when it comes to adjusting numbers i think it's best to start from making shields max damage absorb value scale with talent level(currently it scales with mindpower only).

also to make aura spiking viable we need some effect on spiking better than that on other abilities. maybe simply increase damage or add some utility debuff like silence from lightning, disarm from physical and remove foe beneficial effect from fire. actually any means of removing beneficial effects from foes are very much welcome, maybe add it to pyrokinesis instead of OP flameshock? these effects are probably best added at lvl3 of auras to encourage investing into them.

also to make impale used it can shatter one damage shield from 3/5 or something like that.

also please please make telekinetic throw targettable outside from melee range so that we can throw someone either to us or far away from us(maybe remove damage altogether and add silence from lvl3 as it was on mindhook).

[HousePet]

Could use Mindhook as the forth talent in an advanced psi-fighting category. I was looking for one more talent.
Unfortunately, that can't go in this update.

[Suslik]

-quick as thought increases attack speed, but mindslayers do not have a single physical talent. is that intended?

- shields currently absorb about 80% of damage with 100dmg cap. that's gonna be a pain to deal with such foe as a rogue for example or any other fast-attacking or DoT based class - it'll simply block 60-80% of your damage at any point of the game. suggest changing to something like 70% max with 120dmg max which seems more reasonable.

[donkatsu]

So, with Wil replacing Str for all weapons, the only benefit a Mindslayer gets from Str now is physical power, right? Which means the benefit from the Str/Dex conferred by Augmentation is really minor? In that case, can Augmentation get a huge buff? See, the problem I'm having with building a melee Mindslayer is that you never want to drop a stat point in Strength because Strength doesn't really do anything for you, but it is required for Weapon Mastery. Which means that either I'm encouraged to juggle points so that I'm a caster mindslayer in the early game until I get enough +Str gear to fill out my Weapon Mastery (not to mention melee sucks in the early game anyway), or just sink points into Strength knowing that those stat points are wasted in the long run. I mean, I could see others viewing this as an interesting dilemma, but to me it just feels awkward.

[HousePet]

Mindslayer does have physical attack talents, but since they are marked as mindpowers, attack speed isn't going to have an effect.
I have suggested mind speed be added to quick as thought.

Giving Augmentation a huge buff would be problematic as Wil only replaces Str if you have a conventional weapon in the focus slot.

[donkatsu]

If you're not using a conventional weapon in the focus slot, then you're using a mindstar or a gem, neither of which use Str.

You could go mindstar focus + weapon, but if you're using a mindstar at all then you have to get Psiblades, in which case mindstar + mindstar + mindstar is going to be strictly better. Even if it weren't strictly better, you're paying 5 class points and 5 generics (Augmentation + Weapon Mastery) just for the chance to go mindstar + weapon instead of triple mindstar.

The other possibility is gem focus + weapon. Even with a massively buffed Augmentation, that one weapon would have to outdamage weapon focus + weapon; in essence the gem stats + Augmentation has to double your weapon damage, which I'm pretty sure is impossible barring >100% conversion rates on Augmentation. And again, you'd be investing 5/5 into Augmentation instead of just getting 1 and forgetting it, because otherwise Augmentation is useless.

None of these alternatives seem overpowering. If anything, it just makes mixing and matching actually viable instead of downright terrible.

[HousePet]

Your calculations are a bit off, as the TK weapon will do 20% less damage than your normally equipped ones.

I agree the situation is not ideal.