Mindslayer balancing

[HousePet]

Oh, was I supposed to be doing coding?

[Suslik]

Well, yes, you asked that already: DG is apparently busy with some other stuff.

[HousePet]

I forgot.

[Melkhior]

After longer testing I have some remarks.

Beyond the Flesh - weapon - ok,
gem - bonus stats are super, but I would consider tune it little bit down, Diamond with effect of
resonant focus add 35 to all stats and I feel it is too much. Also if you are lucky and
find early higher tier gem it will be big boost to caster and meelee mindslayer (for weapon
mastery). Did anybody else test it?
mindstar - I would consider change here, because with addition of mindhook to tel. throw meelee slayer
won't need this effect, because when the effect of mindstar start to be more reliable, player
would have at least 2 better abilities to move into meelee (leap and tel. throw) and caster slayer
don't need enemies in meelee range. So we need ask how many peaple will use mindstar instead
of gem or conventional weapon. Did somebody use it? Any thoughts of better effect for
mindstars (viable for meelee and caster slayers).

For HousePet: Did you consider that mine idea of mindslayer specific weapon mastery tree or have you any idea how to
make augmentation and investing points in str less dull and more interesting? I am asking mainly because with
changes of a Augmented Striking tree it would be great make wiable build using this tree and other
mindslayers abililities without need to invest extensively early in Psi-Fighting tree (mainly Augmentation) or
completly ignore it.
Example of build - 16-20 class points in Absorption, 16-20 in Augmented Striking, 5-10 in Auras, around 12
points in charged mastery and same number in Kinetic mastery and spare points used for
focus (Iron Will) or Voracity.

[HousePet]

I have some ideas, I'm just not sure how much of Beyond the Flesh I can change.
DarkGod snuck those changes in and I'm not sure if he'd be happy about me changing them again.

[Suslik]

I'm pretty sure he'll be happy if you do the job for him.

he was also surprised to know that you were expecting someone else to balance mindslayer talents

[HousePet]

I do feel there is a lack of direct communication going on between me and DarkGod about this.
I haven't even been whipped.

[HousePet]

Distilled change list:

Absorption:
Reduce level 5 efficiency from 70% to 55%.
Clean up unused getSpikeStrength function.
Reduce the number of turns checked for spiking amount from 6 to 3.
Double spike amount.
Up spiked shield duration to 10 turns.

Focus:
Reduce early damage on Pyrokinesis by 30.
Reduce late damage on Pyrokinesis by 30.
Reduce early damage on Brainstorm by 10.
Reduce late damage on Brainstorm by 20.
Check recovery function on Iron Will.

Augmented Mobility:
Change Quick as Thought to global speed boost.
Reduce speed bonus from 15-50% to 10-30%?

Projection:
Change Frenzied Focus with a weapon to attack a single target multiple times instead of multiple targets once.

Voracity:
Reduce stamina drain on Kinetic Leach to something more sensible. Like 25% of current value.

Augmented Striking:
Change Kinetic Strike to Pin instead of Knockback/Pin.
Adding more effects to these could be too confusing. Maybe a different synergy?
Double extra effect damage.
Scale debuff durations with talent level.
Need something extra for Psi Tap. Some sort of melee damage booster? Passive armour penetration?

Charged Mastery:
Does Static Net need a damage nerf?

Kinetic Mastery:
Either merge Mindhook into Tk Throw, but I can't think what to call it.
Or merge Tk Leap into Tk Throw, and restore Mindhook to Augmented Mobility.
Or merge Shattering Charge into TK Throw, and restore Mindhook to Augmented Mobility.
Basically, we have 4 talents to fit into three holes. So which way to arrange it?

Psi Fighting:
Add the use wil/cun effect for weapon stats when Augmentation is active.
At Warding Weapon 5, give a cunning based chance to auto activate.

Other:
Remove the always use psi combat flag from Beyond the Flesh.
Reduce gem bonus stats by 25%.
Reduce tk weapon stat modifiers back to 60% from 80%.
Remove mindstar pull? and/or allow mindstar to make attacks and/or a new effect for mindstars?

Thoughts?

[Bad Badger]

Frenzied Focus is currently pretty nice in a crowd, but it would be nice to let it hit one target multiple times as well.

[Suslik]

Oh god I love the changes. Feel pretty flattered that most of them were proposed by me and responsible for them as well.

Absorption:
Still think 120 max absorb is better than 100 on max level, but it's up to you.

Quick as thought: I think we can use similar talents of temporal warden/lightning speed as a reference and make it 15-35%? Still less powerful than those, but it has minor side-buffs.

Frenzied focus: my idea was to get it to attack EITHER multiple targets OR one target twice. Is it hard to implement?

I've heard static net deals 170 dmg/turn lategame but that does not sound as something that should really be nerfed. Or does it?

Merge mindhook with TK throw and call it.. idk. Telekinesis? Telekinetic manipulation?

Add the use wil/cun effect for weapon stats when Augmentation is active.

Have really mixed thoughts about this one. So get bonus str/dex and don't use them because the same talent replaces stats used with wil/cun?

Pull for mindstars does have little sense in terms of use. But I have no bright ideas on how to replace it.

And I still think Striking tree needs some interesting synergies instead of rotating abilities in random order.

[HousePet]

I thought the max absorb had some extra scaling already? *goes to check and discovers the server is down*
Okay, moving along.

I can make Frenzied Focus spread x attacks between whatever targets are around.

I'm leaning more towards merging shattering charge into tk throw and putting Mindhook back into augmented mobility.

The adjustment to Augmentation would make neglecting Str viable. The bonus stats covers the stat requirements on items.
Alternatively, we have Mindslayers being stronger than a Berserker.

I'd be happy to do one synergy per Strike talent. Doing two is just too much.

[Suslik]

We can make 2 synergies, but only 1 works if there are 2 effects on the creature.

Also about augmentation. What if we make it the same way as skirmishers weild shields? Like substitute will/cun instead of str/dex when augmentation is active? Is it possible to use will for weapon/armor mastery as well? And what's wrong with adding stats as new brawler adds str/con based on dex/cun? Or temporal warden adds spellpower?

[HousePet]

We can make two synergies, but the talent description is going to be huge.

[Suslik]

Come on, "talent description looks long" does not sound like an excuse for not having interesting talents. Most solipsism talents have extremely long descriptions and that's why they are interesting - they're unique and non-generic.

*edited prev post

[HousePet]

Also about augmentation. What if we make it the same way as skirmishers weild shields? Like substitute will/cun instead of str/dex when augmentation is active? Is it possible to use will for weapon/armor mastery as well? And what's wrong with adding stats as new brawler adds str/con based on dex/cun? Or temporal warden adds spellpower?

We can do that. One thing I'd like to avoid is the option of maxing your strength and then using some sort of boost strength based on willpower talent to get even more strength.