Nullpack 2019-02-21: Gravitic Infantry

[tilkau]

Just started a Prismatic Golem Transcendent Fist,
I am confused about Striking Stance. It has a cooldown but doesn't appear to have any resource costs or operational downsides. Is there any reason anyone would ever turn it off?

EDIT: NVM, 'other stances' are the answer I guess

On a different subject, Far Strike doesn't seem to be able to hit past an iceblock, though it can hit past intermediate monsters. This seems strange.

[Doctornull]

Just started a Prismatic Golem Transcendent Fist,
I am confused about Striking Stance. It has a cooldown but doesn't appear to have any resource costs or operational downsides. Is there any reason anyone would ever turn it off?

There is no reason for any Brawler or Transcendent Fist to ever turn off Striking Stance. It should be set to "auto-use when available".

On a different subject, Far Strike doesn't seem to be able to hit past an iceblock, though it can hit past intermediate monsters. This seems strange.

I guess ice blocks count as terrain?

- - -

Minor bug fix for Transcendent Fist, there was a Lua error when using quick-swap while some timed effects were active. Fixed.

[saleet]

For laughs, decided to play a TF skeleton. The stat buffs are -obscene-. Looking like this might end up as my first roguelike win. Cleared the Room of Death around lvl 39, now lvl 43. Have a cun of 143, and Dex, str, and con are all over 100...

[Doctornull]

For laughs, decided to play a TF skeleton. The stat buffs are -obscene-. Looking like this might end up as my first roguelike win. Cleared the Room of Death around lvl 39, now lvl 43. Have a cun of 143, and Dex, str, and con are all over 100...

The stat buffs were introduced after the TF was written. You can get most of that obscenity with a base Brawler or Mindslayer. I agree that it's rather ... overmuch.

- - -

New Stuff: Updated Flenser

- Hopefully better talent layout for Flensing Style.
- Less annoying UI for First Blood (now it's a passive which prefers to target non-Dazed, non-Bleeding adjacent foes).

[saleet]

Oh I know. I just find it amusing.

[Doctornull]

In the newest version:

- Stormwarden as a boss NPC class was giving some problems, due to the way NPCs are allowed to gain illegal talents (i.e. gain talent 3 in a tree without knowing talent 2 in the same tree). This ought to be fixed.

- The Stormwarden generic tree, Mage Warden, got some buffs so that it's worth investment now. Specifically, Arcane Fortitude now includes a passive effect which decreases the duration of Mental debuffs on you, since Hexes and Anti-Magic can both heavily target Mental.

- The Stormwarden class tree, Arcane Surge, got a few buffs to remain competitive. Specifically, each Surge now grants resistance to at least 3 damage types, and the cleansing effect of Flame Surge is now available at level 1.

[Doctornull]

New class: Blood Mage

Always-on Bloodcasting means you cast from your Life bar.

Class trees: start with the Vim and Blood trees, plus two new trees, one caster-focused and the other melee-themed. The melee tree allows you to stab a distant foe so hard you explode through its diseased blood in a blast of Blight, because that's how a Blood Mage teleports.

New Generic tree supports mixed melee: your Staff strikes replenish your Life and Vim, spread ills upon your foes, and eventually animate your enemy's own blood to smite its friends.

Plague is locked -- it's awesome on this class, you'll probably want it as soon as you've got Woe Pyre running.

Let me know how the class balance looks.

[marshmallowpeep]

First off, Blood Mage is awesome. It's what I always wanted defilers to be.

Near as I can tell the 20% con mod to staves from bloodspear is non-functional. Sustaining the talent or turning it off has no effect on my damage in the character screen, or in practice from what I could tell, and neither did constitution apparently change my damage.

For Vile Strike, scorched is misspelled "scortched" in the talent description, and the debuff seem to actually have any effect on enemies. Their blight and disease resistances remain the same.

The description of "blood spite curse" when you inspect an enemy and mouse over it is buggy. I'm getting blue text about burning with terrible black flame.

I was almost disappointed when I couldn't hit myself with voidburn; I felt so clever when I thought of using it with twist vigor.

Is there something I don't get about Woe Pyre? In most situations, it seems like Cyst Burst offers the same thing but better (the damage of my rank 1 virulent disease is about twice the damage of a disease from rank 1 Woe Pyre). I'm sure if you get the perfect storm of a large group of high health enemies properly clumped Woe Pyre adds up, but how common is that situation? Most large groups of enemies, the skills I'd be using to spread the disease and burning to make Woe Pyre function would kill them before Woe Pyre got the chance.

As of level 15, the class feels fairly strong to me, but weaker than, for example, the Anorithil I was playing immediately before it.

[stinkstink]

Near as I can tell the 20% con mod to staves from bloodspear is non-functional. Sustaining the talent or turning it off has no effect on my damage in the character screen, or in practice from what I could tell, and neither did constitution apparently change my damage.

The Combat:getDammod:subs hook only exists in SVN, it doesn't work in 1.2.5.

[Doctornull]

First off, Blood Mage is awesome. It's what I always wanted defilers to be.

Yay!

For Vile Strike, scorched is misspelled "scortched" in the talent description, and the debuff seem to actually have any effect on enemies. Their blight and disease resistances remain the same.

Both bugs fixed, thanks!

The description of "blood spite curse" when you inspect an enemy and mouse over it is buggy. I'm getting blue text about burning with terrible black flame.

Fixed, thanks!

Is there something I don't get about Woe Pyre? In most situations, it seems like Cyst Burst offers the same thing but better (the damage of my rank 1 virulent disease is about twice the damage of a disease from rank 1 Woe Pyre). I'm sure if you get the perfect storm of a large group of high health enemies properly clumped Woe Pyre adds up, but how common is that situation? Most large groups of enemies, the skills I'd be using to spread the disease and burning to make Woe Pyre function would kill them before Woe Pyre got the chance.

It's great for e.g. the Snow Giant lodges in Daikara, and some monster vaults ("pits?") in Dreadfell. Otherwise, yeah, it's roughly equivalent to Cyst Burst except with screen-wide targeting.

Also note that it has good synergy with Cyst Burst if your enemies are not fire-proof, since the Fireburn damage stacks up.

EDIT: Also, I finally figured out how to detect Ashes of Uhr'rok being installed, so now you get (locked) Heart of Fire on Blood Mage which makes setting people on fire all the more fun.

Near as I can tell the 20% con mod to staves from bloodspear is non-functional. Sustaining the talent or turning it off has no effect on my damage in the character screen, or in practice from what I could tell, and neither did constitution apparently change my damage.

The Combat:getDammod:subs hook only exists in SVN, it doesn't work in 1.2.5.

Edit: patched, the text will only show up once the next version of the engine drops and the hook has a chance to work.

[Fhtagn]

Hey, first off, I took your suggestion to heart and started playing some of the addon classes.
So far, some of them look really interesting, most have interesting, creative concepts that seem like a blast to play, however,
most look seriously overpowered as well (at least compared to comparable classes and on normal difficulty).
right now, I'm having the easiest game I've ever had so far with my new Transcendent Fist (and I am working on a guide, because, hey, why not).
However, I am sort of stuck now, as I can no longer open the level up screen due to some bug:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =343272562
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =343272468

Any fix would be appreciated, and I will gladly answer any questions related to that bug or the addon classes.

Edit: Apparently restarting the game fixed this.
Edit 2: Any wishes as to which class I should play next?

[Doctornull]

Hey, first off, I took your suggestion to heart and started playing some of the addon classes.
So far, some of them look really interesting, most have interesting, creative concepts that seem like a blast to play, however,
most look seriously overpowered as well (at least compared to comparable classes and on normal difficulty).

That's really interesting, usually people say my classes are underpowered.

However, I am sort of stuck now, as I can no longer open the level up screen due to some bug:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =343272562
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =343272468

That's so weird. The talent icon is displaying correctly on your hotbar.

What other addons do you have installed?

[Fhtagn]

The only other addon I had installed is the Arcanum.
It also worked fine until it suddenly stopped working. Whatever.
I'll see about the over-/underpoweredness of the classes. Maybe I'm wrong about that - I only have first impressions so far, excepting the Transcendent Fist, which just went back West and should finish the game without any problems.

[tilkau]

That's really interesting, usually people say my classes are underpowered.

In the case of Transcendent Fist, I've felt that it's both: When my stamina is good, I bash through things pretty good. But for dangerous fights, I often find that I run out of stamina and get stuck with basic attacks and whatever auxiliary attacks i have on equipment, which often doesn't allow me to kill enemies as quickly as I feel secure with. More of an issue early-game when you often don't have a teleport option, but also after that versus fast-healing enemies.

[Doctornull]

That's really interesting, usually people say my classes are underpowered.

In the case of Transcendent Fist, I've felt that it's both: When my stamina is good, I bash through things pretty good. But for dangerous fights, I often find that I run out of stamina and get stuck with basic attacks and whatever auxiliary attacks i have on equipment, which often doesn't allow me to kill enemies as quickly as I feel secure with. More of an issue early-game when you often don't have a teleport option, but also after that versus fast-healing enemies.

I made some changes to address that specifically -- there are talents which now cost Psi rather than Stamina, and you now have a Psi-cost talent which will regenerate Stamina (specifically Body Over Mind).

But yeah, I'm planning 3-4 new high-level trees, and at least 2 of those trees will offer some form of Stamina regen.

I just gotta convince DG to scale back the stat inflation on Brawlers and Mindslayers...