The Blighted - New Afflicted Class

[astralInferno]

Available here!

The Blighted class is an Afflicted class, with the following categories. Bolded categories are new, italic categories are locked, blue categories are high level:
Cursed/Punishments
Cursed/Fears
Psionic/Slumber
Cursed/Vengeance
Cursed/Suffering
Psionic/Nightmare
Cursed/Finality
Cursed/Torture
Corruption/Plague

Cursed/Gestures
Cursed/Cursed Form
(Cursed/Cursed Aura)
Psionic/Dreaming
Corruption/Torment

Cursed/Vengeance
Blight-Blight DoT that reduces the enemy's blight/mind resist.
Debilitate-Blight damage, applies slow.
Promise-Duration buff that grants you armor and blight damage when hit.
Justice-Blight damage nuke that gains damage as you lose health. Will one day have an Overkill effect on kill, but I haven't worked out how.

Cursed/Suffering
Headbang-Your single most powerful attack, certainly for now. Single target mind nuke. Explodes heads.
Breakdown-Deal blight and mind damage, and reduce mental save.
Memory-You are inescapable and unstoppable. Sustain grants movement speed and die at -hp.
Personal Nightmare-Forgery of Haze. Creates a clone. I'd like to have the clone only hurt/hurtable by a single target, but not sure how.

Cursed/Torture
Victim-Sustain increases max health and deals mind dot to attackers.
Infection-Is Virulent Disease. Infects target with debilitating illness for blight damage and penalty.
Taint-Deal mind and blight damage, foe might fail talent use.
Breaking Point-Agony, with a slight damage buff. A DoT that improves its damage each round.

Cursed/Finality
Leave-Knock away nearby targets, dealing mind damage and infecting them with blight disease.
Stay-Deal mind damage and pin the target.
Come-Drags target to you and dazes them.
Die-Nuke the target for mind damage. The more damage they've already taken, the higher the damage. Extra effective on weaker foes.

Version 1.0.2
In lieu of actually working out how to fix it, Blight is now marked no_npc_use.
Debilitate now slows by tens of percent, and not thousands.
Justice now has the AoE on death I wanted to put on it! =D
Breaking Point not only deals mind/blight damage, it also has a rising chance to Panic the victim!
Die has had its hate cost vastly reduced (hate is a horrid resource) and no longer goes on cooldown on a successful kill!

1.0.3
Veinblight can be used on players again, and is fixed! Isn't that great news? (dying players in background) I also renamed it Veinblight again. Doesn't ruin existing charries.

1.0.4
Taint had the same problem as Veinblight, it just didn't turn up as much due to being the third talent in a high level locked tree. It's fixed now.
Also, Breaking Point was using base Cunning prerequisites, rather than High Willpower. Fixed.

1.0.5
Minor changes to info descriptions to explain what damage type is dealt. Vengeance is Blight focused, Suffering Mind, Finality is High Mind, Torture is High Mind/Blight. I should do a High Blight tree for them. And a new generic tree to use magic. I'll add them to the to-do.

[Einander]

I really like the class so far--it feels a lot like the Doomed should have been, and the ability to choose whether you want Plague or Anti-Magic is interesting. I'm only up to Dreadfall, but a few things:

1) The Cursed Aura trigger seems to be kind of bugged--you effectively can't refuse it, because the prompt will keep on reappearing. (Admittedly, I haven't played Doomed or Cursed in a while, so I'm not sure if this is unique to the class.) This is kind of problematic, since making use of Cursed Aura effectively requires you to spend a Category point bringing it up to 1.2, so forcing that on the player is annoying.

2) The class is really lacking in AOE. I think this is mostly a cool design decision--it sort of forces your hand on picking up Plague or Anti-Magic, since Silence/Mana Clash or Catalepsy/Overkill are some of the few AOE options you have access to, and it also increases the power of the Nightmare or Dreaming unlockable trees--but I'm not entirely sure it was intentional.

3) While interesting, the "magic or anti-magic" choice is currently pretty unbalanced, because the Plague tree relies on spellpower and Anti-Magic/Fungus rely on mindpower. You have no other usage for Magic. Sure, you may be using Leave to actually apply diseases, Virulent Disease is instant, and Catalepsy doesn't require spellpower, but it's still a very one-sided choice even in light of all the magical artifacts. Plague and Torment probably need proficiency boosts, at the very least.

4) Die seems pretty underpowered, considering the massive Hate cost. Admittedly, I'm not too sure on the bonus against weak/low-HP enemies, but if you have Cursed Aura, then you have Misfortune 4+ running by this point, and that already greatly increases damage against low HP enemies on all attacks.

5) Memory is a very cool choice for the class's primary defensive skill. Kudos.

6) Headbang is the best name in the world for a head-exploding attack.

[astralInferno]

Thanks! I'm really glad you're enjoying it, this was my first /major/ project.

1) That... that's really odd. It shouldn't happen. I don't know what would be causing it, I literally just copied in the 'can get cursed aura' line from the cursed/doomed birth file.

2) This was /entirely/ intentional, I'm glad it's noticeable. (As a side note, Torment is also a solution: Overkill will give you the splashes.)

3) Aaack. I meant to put in something that gave spellpower somehow, but... I seem to have forgotten to do it. I could make another generic tree for it, but it's probably got as many generic trees as it needs. Is there anywhere you can see where a talent could have 'Cunning gives 0.1-0.3 spellpower' tacked on?

4) You're right. It's kinda sharing the same territory as Justice and Headbang, and they both do it /far/ better. It deals 1.2x damage against anything that can be instakilled. Originally it was double damage, but then I got the acheievement for 1200 damage without even trying, so I uh. Toned that down.
My current idea is to lower the cost and remove that damage multiplier, but give it the following line: If it kills a target, cooldown is reset.
This gives it its own role - crowd control - and gives you an out for hordes without ruining the single target thematic.
Does that sound like an improvement?

5) Thanks! How does the movement speed feel? It's unprecedented-ly high, but they have no other tools for mobility.

6) Hehehe. I do try. Did you notice the chat line

[Einander]

1) Checked, and it's definitely a generic problem: I started a Cursed, and I'm also getting the prompt on about half the weapons I pick up, even if I've already said "no." That's annoying... It's nice to be able to defer it a bit (I waited until about level 10 on the Blighted character), but it's a bit much as-is.

2) Okay, cool.

3) I'd suggest changing Promise to a passive/sustain that does that, maybe with some other secondary benefit for the Zigurites. While you CAN build Heavy Armor, the class doesn't have much use for Strength otherwise, so the +armor doesn't do too much for you if you're in robes or leather. (It'd be a lot better if it could also give Armor Hardiness, but I'm not sure whether that can be boosted temporarily.) Plus, Cursed/Vengeance is basically the Blight line of the class's starting skills, so it's an appropriate place.

4) That does feel like an improvement; Headbang is fairly fast, but the class lacks a second move that's just as fast, so hordes can also run you out of available skills. It'll be nice to have a better option for that.

5) I think the movement speed buff is in a good place. The class is sort of a mid-ranged fighter, so you do a lot of running in, and it's mid-range in durability, so you don't want to be in any one fight for too long. Lots of running involved.

6) I did! I make it a point to try and finish off headless enemies with it, because I'm a smartass.

[twas Brillig]

Personal Nightmare-Forgery of Haze. Creates a clone. I'd like to have the clone only hurt/hurtable by a single target, but not sure how.

I'd take a look at Temporal Guardian/Warden's Focus...or maybe see if you can find one of the older versions on Git. One of the earlier versions had a flat "take less damage from everything but your target", while this one looks for enemies of lower rank than your target--I'm not sure whether it bothers to check if its your target, since obviously an enemy will always be equal rank to itself... anyway, if you can find the logic setting damage mods would be easy. The hard part is going to be targeting, since a bodyguard that grabs aggro and can't take damage is really powerful.

[astralInferno]

1) Checked, and it's definitely a generic problem: I started a Cursed, and I'm also getting the prompt on about half the weapons I pick up, even if I've already said "no." That's annoying... It's nice to be able to defer it a bit (I waited until about level 10 on the Blighted character), but it's a bit much as-is.

2) Okay, cool.

3) I'd suggest changing Promise to a passive/sustain that does that, maybe with some other secondary benefit for the Zigurites. While you CAN build Heavy Armor, the class doesn't have much use for Strength otherwise, so the +armor doesn't do too much for you if you're in robes or leather. (It'd be a lot better if it could also give Armor Hardiness, but I'm not sure whether that can be boosted temporarily.) Plus, Cursed/Vengeance is basically the Blight line of the class's starting skills, so it's an appropriate place.

4) That does feel like an improvement; Headbang is fairly fast, but the class lacks a second move that's just as fast, so hordes can also run you out of available skills. It'll be nice to have a better option for that.

5) I think the movement speed buff is in a good place. The class is sort of a mid-ranged fighter, so you do a lot of running in, and it's mid-range in durability, so you don't want to be in any one fight for too long. Lots of running involved.

6) I did! I make it a point to try and finish off headless enemies with it, because I'm a smartass.

1) Hmm. When you say it's a generic problem, are you getting it if the Blighted addon isn't turned on? Cause... I have no idea how anything I've done would change that. Do you have any other addons messing with afflicted things?

3) ...ah, I see your point. I think I'll do that then; have it give spell save instead of armor.

6) I try to finish off everything with it. It's too much fun. xD

Personal Nightmare-Forgery of Haze. Creates a clone. I'd like to have the clone only hurt/hurtable by a single target, but not sure how.

I'd take a look at Temporal Guardian/Warden's Focus...or maybe see if you can find one of the older versions on Git. One of the earlier versions had a flat "take less damage from everything but your target", while this one looks for enemies of lower rank than your target--I'm not sure whether it bothers to check if its your target, since obviously an enemy will always be equal rank to itself... anyway, if you can find the logic setting damage mods would be easy. The hard part is going to be targeting, since a bodyguard that grabs aggro and can't take damage is really powerful.

...you're rght, that /does/ sound hard. ><

[Einander]

No, I meant that the "Cursed Aura acquisition can't be denied, only delayed" is game-wide, even without Blighted active. Sorry for the confusion. I'll probably check my other add-ons.

[astralInferno]

That's what I was checking. ^^''

[netphenix]

I know I'm nitpicking, but Breaking Point duplicating Agony seems weird to me - especially when you have access to it 14 levels and an unlock after the other. Frankly, the slightly uped damage doesn't seem like enough of a difference to me to justify having both available as powers, let alone taking them both in a build.

Don't get me wrong, I *love* Agony (especially with Madness) and your class concept is pretty nifty from what I tried out last night, even though I only played to level 14. But this duplication... I feel Breaking point is missing *something* to justify the 22 levels of waiting for it. An added debuff, a spreading effect, or some other neat gimmick that would make me go "now THAT was worth the wait and unlock".

Examples off the top of my head would be a dual blight/mind buildup, or a mechanic that would add more and more diseases each round that the target didn't have - Like one on turn one and two, two on turn three and four, three on turn five and six and the epidemic one if the target already had three before that. That would make it an awesome power to use with the plague tree (Note that I have no idea if this would even be codeable - I'm just brainstorming.)

Otherwise I really like the concept of the class. It bridges nicely between Afflicted and Defilers. Good work !

[astralInferno]

I'm glad you're having fun, and you're probably right. The disease thing sounds... really difficult (I'm very new to this), but changing it to mind/blight damage would be the least I could do...
I'll think on it.

[Lprsti99]

Issue with veinblight when a rare enemy casts it on you: the turn afterward, the ui completely disappears, can't do anything, and have to kill the process in task manager. It also spits out a huge list of lua errors in the log.

[astralInferno]

That. That's very odd.
Looking at the code, something's going on between it and the minimalist UI? Do you know if it happens without that?

[Talow]

Uhh... Somehow, I think debilitate is slowing for way more then it should, inflicting 530% global speed reduction instead of 5%.

[astralInferno]

yyyyikes. I must have forgotten to divide it by a hundred. Will try and fix.

[astralInferno]

Version 1.0.2
In lieu of actually working out how to fix it, Blight is now marked no_npc_use.
Debilitate now slows by tens of percent, and not thousands.
Justice now has the AoE on death I wanted to put on it! =D
Breaking Point not only deals mind/blight damage, it also has a rising chance to Panic the victim!
Die has had its hate cost vastly reduced (hate is a horrid resource) and no longer goes on cooldown on a successful kill!