Reworking Chronomancy ver 2

[edge2054]

Sorry for your loss 0player :/

But I have to say, that's one of the coolest bugs ever. Apparently Quiver of the Sun checks Singularity through every tile it passes through. It would do the same for flare I imagine (with way less disastrous results).

I'll look into a way to fix it.

[0player]

Not sure that's the exact way it works, but yeah,looks like it. Maybe call only for real hits and/or original target tile? Though this is up to you/

[edge2054]

Not sure that's the exact way it works, but yeah,looks like it. Maybe call only for real hits and/or original target tile? Though this is up to you/

I tested it on Flare and Threaded Arrow. It's calling archery_onhit and archery_onreach as it passes through every actor or every tile, respectively.

In my opinion archery code either needs to be changed directly or Quiver of the Sun does and I'm not sure how to do the former.

Either way, limiting talent design based around one niche artifact feels like an issue with the artifact, not the talents.

Again just my opinion. I'm going to talk to some other people about it and see what they think and I've posted a bug report.

[donkatsu]

Not sure how I feel on a sustain that splits the character constantly, but I'll think about it.

Had a couple bugs from the latest mediafire version (the one where it's still called Double Edge):
-I hit something with Attack while I had an escort, and it popped a Lua error and cloned the escort (not an actual temporal clone)
-Temporal Assault hits my own character

If the escort clone thing happens again can you post the error?

I'm not sure on temporal assault. It checks reactionTowards and I've never hit myself with it :/

The escort thing happened only once, and I could never recreate it. I reported the Lua error in-game, mentioning that it was your TW branch, but if I run into it again I'll screenshot it.

Some more details on the Temporal Assault:
-When it happened, it happened every time I tested it out on a lone target, about 5 trials in a row.
-It hits me with weapon damage and weapon damage only. Impact, Weapon Folding, and on-hit bonuses from weapons did not apply.
-In the combat log, the self-hit happens after dealing fatal damage to the enemy, but before the enemy is "killed".
-After playing around with it some more, I took off my helmet, which has % chance to gain a turn when hit in melee, and the self-hits stopped happening. Then I put the helmet back on and the self-hits didn't come back.

[0player]

Not sure that's the exact way it works, but yeah,looks like it. Maybe call only for real hits and/or original target tile? Though this is up to you/

I tested it on Flare and Threaded Arrow. It's calling archery_onhit and archery_onreach as it passes through every actor or every tile, respectively.

In my opinion archery code either needs to be changed directly or Quiver of the Sun does and I'm not sure how to do the former.

Either way, limiting talent design based around one niche artifact feels like an issue with the artifact, not the talents.

Again just my opinion. I'm going to talk to some other people about it and see what they think and I've posted a bug report.

Yeah, thank you!
It's atually pretty unclear how would you approach even considering Quiver of the Sun in any talent... imagine bow threading level 4 talent (don't remember what was its name) with it. Tons of clones shooting beam arrows. Wonderful.

[donkatsu]

So I tried Thalore because I thought treants would be good with temporal clones, and yeah... getting two free treants per turn, every turn, has turned out to be too much. If there's a blacklist of talents that temporal clones can't inherit, I'd throw in the Thalore and Yeek racial summons.

Got a screenshot on the Lua error, after some fiddling. This one didn't result in cloning anything though. My only talents in this screenshot are the Temporal Guardian tree, the Threaded Combat tree, and the Thalore racial tree.

[jotwebe]

Command Hounds: Breathe is supposed to not do stat damage if it hits you, but that doesn't seem to work - I got hit by a Turn Back the Clock effect from my own hounds.

As for Blighted Summoning effects: With the hounds, Curse of Defenselessness would be the same as the Summoner war hounds get, but it would be fitting for somebody harried by a pack of dogs. Or, Curse of Impotence (same as Turtle) to emphasize the defensive aspect. Or they could get something from the new Vile Life Tree: Blood Splash would give healing on crits and kills, while Elemental Discord would do retaliation damage/debuffs to anyone hitting them with elemental damage, on a 10 round cd. Could be problematic if you find some ammo with elemental bursts on hit. Dark Portal (same as the Yeek racial summons get) would be another option, it'd fit with the teleporting, but I don't know how bad the AI is with friendly fire.

The clone from Guardian Unity could get Virulent Disease - it's instant, so he should be able to get it off even competing with his other talents.

The clones from Twin Threads could learn Bone Grab (phys, but might pull things away from where you want them to be) or Dark Surprise (straightforward, but acid/blight) for the blade warden and Healing Inversion or Pacification Hex for the bow warden.

[edge2054]

donkatsu, I haven't been able to reproduce that error. It looks like self.x was lost from one of your party members. Maybe the AI tried to run after the one clone died.

Judging by the screenshot it was a blade warden that had just disappeared?

jotwebe, the temporal breathe description specifically states that you're not immune to the breathe from your hounds. The hounds are immune to stat damage from each other but that's as far as any of the friendly fire is turned off.

For Blighted Summoning I'm not sure I want to give it to the clones. No other clones get Blighted Summoning bonuses and I think they have a fair amount of talents already. For the Hounds though I think Blood Spray would be pretty awesome as it would be like another breath weapon. I'll have to see how the AI behaves with it though.

[donkatsu]

When it happened to me in a normal game environment (no cheat mode), I didn't have Twin Threads, so I don't think it's an issue specifically with them.

[jotwebe]

jotwebe, the temporal breathe description specifically states that you're not immune to the breathe from your hounds. The hounds are immune to stat damage from each other but that's as far as any of the friendly fire is turned off.

Uh, right, I misread that.

For Blighted Summoning I'm not sure I want to give it to the clones. No other clones get Blighted Summoning bonuses and I think they have a fair amount of talents already. For the Hounds though I think Blood Spray would be pretty awesome as it would be like another breath weapon. I'll have to see how the AI behaves with it though.

It'd be pretty cool, and at least the hounds can be expected to hang around a fair amount of time, so they'd find opportunities to use it sooner or later.

The Twin Threads clones hang around for 6 turns with a maximum of 5 active talents (Although Warp Blade and Threaded Arrow should come off cooldown inside the duration, so I guess it's true they'll be busy. Life Tap would be another instant use thing that'd give them a small damage bonus. Boring and not especially powerful, but straightforward and and ought to be easy to put in.

[edge2054]

Alright, I'm working on Paradox Mages and still have to rewrite Paradox, Gravity, and Matter. I have a good idea what I want to do with the first two but not the later.

I would like matter to be purely physical though, I do know that. But beyond that I'm not sure.

Some vague ideas I have.

Make it into a melee tree.

Carbon Spikes - Increases armor and adds bleed damage to your melee attacks. (sustain)
Enlarge - Increases size category, hit points, and strength (active).
Harden - Increases melee damage, armor hardiness, gives some stun immunity. (sustain)
???

Make it into an Earth style tree.

Calcify - Turns targets to stone.
Shatter - Shatters target terrain, construct, or stoned target, inflicting physical + bleed damage in a radius.
Engulf - Cause the ground to rise up, constricting the target creature. Engulfed targets may be shattered.
????

I'm not a big fan of either of these options and not a huge fan of the tree in general.

That said I do want Paradox Mage's to have a few choices when it comes to inflicting physical damage. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Parcae2]

If you go with the melee option, it would probably be a good idea to add a talent that gives PMs some resistance to their own attacks. A drawing-in effect would also seem to be thematic.

Personally, I thought the existing tree was fine, for whatever that's worth (except maybe Carbon Spikes, which felt pretty out of place).

Edit: Perhaps Carbon Spikes could work like a version of Bone Shield that only applies to melee attacks over a certain amount of damage.

[malboro_urchin]

Since you've started talking Paradox Mages, one thing I'd like to see is that in addition to the TW tree with Trim Threads, Disentangle, Bias Weave, Preserve Patter, PM's get some kind of tree, preferably locked, that makes them even better at manipulating anomalies. After all, they've dedicated their lives to honing their chronomancy, without the distraction of martial combat. Perhaps this could be the Paradox tree?

Disclaimer: I don't remember which PM tree is actually the Paradox tree; the names all blur together in my mind.

Also, why don't PM's get Time Shield? Their specialty is time magic, and yet Archmages get one of the best shields in the game, which is far more well-suited to PM's.

Re: a physical tree: perhaps you could have a tree that starts off with a sustain, converting your existing temporal damage spells to physical damage ones, with alterations to how the spells function contained throughout the tree.

These ideas may suck, but the whole point is to throw them at the wall until one of them sticks

[Parcae2]

Melee tree ideas:

1. Attract matter to your staff, turning it into a powerful maul that gets +X strength modifier and maybe some other bonuses, e.g. splash damage.
2. Attract matter to yourself. Your armor(?) and size category increases. Nearby enemies are given a debuff to represent the fact that they're whirling through the air, capping their armor penetration at X and reducing their crit multiplier, and drawing them towards you.
3. The attracted matter gets charges (up to 3ish), each of which is destroyed during any round during which you take melee damage, but which completely shields you from melee damage during that round.
4. Draw in a single distant opponent and get a free melee attack on them.

[SageAcrin]

Matter has always felt like it has a weak theme.

Why not make it Matter Field Manipulation, a tree entirely about breaking down/apart matter via realigning their structures?

For a large amount of examples of what I'm thinking of; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment. That sort of thing. Wall phasing, attempted disintegration, embedding things in matter, forming matter on top of them. Also mass insanity or debilitation through directly mucking with the matter of the mind.

Edit: Also, on the Time Shield thought; Giving them a direct copy of Time Shield would be boring, but making a shield that redirects damage to enemies within a short range and grants temporary projectile deflection-basically an offense version of Time Shield-would be cool.