Marksman - Archer Rework v1.3

[Razakai]

@Jarinex
Flare should be your standard ranged attack speed, not instant. I'll check.

That's a typo I'll fix - it used to inflict a Confuse debuff during my testing. Although it should be blocking sight and causing things to stop trying to attack you. I'll check that it's working. If AI is causing a problem I'll also cause it to drop targeting like Gunslinger's Cloak Gesture does.

Again, should be normal attack speed so I'll check that.

I'd like to add a range/sight increase - a few of my early drafts had it present either on Aim, while in Concealment, or as part of Snipe.

Cunning would certainly fit Munitions better... but my concern is that Bow users want to build Strength, while Sling users want to build Cunning. So it might skew things too easily in the direction of Sling, as you can safely build Dex+Cun whereas Bow users would need to go Dex+Cun+Str.

[Razakai]

v1.1
- Fixed a number of tooltips
- Flare and Snipe are no longer instant
- Snipe correctly reduces damage taken

[Jarinex]

Oh right, I totally forgot that you probably need strength

[Razakai]

Well looks like this will get merged into the main game once I've done some tweaks so... playtest while you can.

[nsrr]

Well looks like this will get merged into the main game once I've done some tweaks so... playtest while you can.

[Razakai]

Also for Jarinex... the changes to Survival and Mobility will also be going into the main game for 1.5.
(Survival, Field Control, Acrobatics and Mobility are being merged into 2 trees. Rogue, Archer, Brawler, Skirmisher and Marauder get Mobility instead of the 3 trees they got before)

[Jarinex]

Also for Jarinex... the changes to Survival and Mobility will also be going into the main game for 1.5.
(Survival, Field Control, Acrobatics and Mobility are being merged into 2 trees. Rogue, Archer, Brawler, Skirmisher and Marauder get Mobility instead of the 3 trees they got before)

Very nice!

[Bad Badger]

The poison from the venomous munitions doesn't seem to respect poison immunity, because I'm repeatedly poisoning skeletons and others who should otherwise be immune to poison.

How does Concealment's "effective blindness" actually work? Enemies spot and target me with their attacks no matter how far away they are.

ETA: Certain weapon egos (e.g. "thaloren") reduce the cooldowns of talents that are no longer available for players to have.

[Razakai]

Odd. Thought I fixed that poison bug, will check.
Concealment effectively works as the blind status effect. So mobs can still see you, to a degree - but they'll be much worse at targeting. I did a fair bit of testing with it vs casters and the like, and a lot of the time they'd fire their spells at random tiles nearby you. But yes, it's not true invisibility due to AI limitations.
And good point, I need to fix those egos for the main game merge.

[Bad Badger]

This is fairly minor but the Quiver of Domination is next to useless for Marksman due to all the AoEs and DoTs spoiling the domination effect.

(did you know? It's domination as in Domination Hex, not as in the Cursed ability! I never knew this until a few hours ago!)

[Frumple]

Echoing the venomous ammo thing. It's a very insistent poison, ha. Also getting a lua error* from it once alloyed munitions are up and active, seemingly when something about it (the ball itself, maybe?) actually kills something. Fortunately doesn't lock the game or apparently break anything, and the other ammos seem unaffected, but it's there. Could be a mod conflict of some sort, but I'm currently not nearly frisky enough to go through the process of finagling up something to check, heh.

Also I'm guessing the answer is yes (and I definitely prefer it as is, ehehe), but is headshot supposed to be 0 cooldown, 0 cost? Vis a vis called shots and balance, possible consider bringing the duration down a bit -- character I'm running currently has it a 2/5 with 1.41 mastery (.11 amulet boost) and it's at 4 turns, which is... powerful, for a paired disarm/silence. Particularly an 8 stamina one that also hits like a small truck and (because of first blood, and all the other stuff that boosts chances to mark) is very easy to get out turn 2 of a fight. Maybe drop the duration (say 1/1/2/2/3/etc.) but let you pick multiple targets, ala earthen missiles? Lastly, maybe consider letting the active talents in the sniper tree inherent concealment's mark chance boost? Or just give shadow shot an increased/guaranteed chance. It'd make talent a fair bit more attractive, since it'd mean if you actually hit something with it, you can still see the thing you were trying to shoot instead of lobbing arrows into the cloud blind until you manage to mark something again.

Other than that, definitely enjoying the class. Lot of stuff I haven't tried yet (been focusing on getting munitions up, and various passives) and probably some stuff I'm forgetting, but what I have has pretty easily been more engaging than the vanilla archer, heh. If that was goal one I'd call it a success :V

*

Code: Select all

Lua Error: /data-marksman/talents/techniques/munitions_raz.lua:252: attempt to index local 'target' (a nil value)
	At [C]:-1 __index
	At /data-marksman/talents/techniques/munitions_raz.lua:252 damtype
	At /engine/interface/ActorProject.lua:218 project
	At /data-marksman/talents/techniques/munitions_raz.lua:249 callTalent
	At /mod/class/Actor.lua:4989 fireTalentCheck
	At /mod/class/interface/Archery.lua:608 damtype
	At /engine/interface/ActorProject.lua:419 projectDoAct
	At /engine/interface/ActorProject.lua:508 projectDoStop
	At /engine/Projectile.lua:230 act
	At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:129 tickLevel
	At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:64 tick
	At /engine/GameTurnBased.lua:51 tick
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:1271 
 ----------------  Stack Dump ----------------
--------------- Stack Dump Finished ---------------

[Razakai]

Yeah, that error is from the alloyed munition venomous rounds being unable to find a target to apply the debuff to, due to me missing a check. Will try to fix tomorrow.
Headshot is supposed to be 0 CD/stamina yeah. The intent is that it's limited by your ability to mark, rather than cooldown. Not sure if that works out balance wise. Called Shots probably needs a heftier cost at the minimum as it's quite powerful. Although most of the time silence tends to be the big debuff, and it's inferior to the old strangling shot in that sense. Maybe a higher cooldown too. I'm not sure if I like First Blood making it so easy to mark, but still deciding if that'll change. And Sniper in general might get retooled a bit as I'm not too keen on how it plays vs Agility/Munitions. The intent with Shadow Shot is to combo it with Flare, but that might be a bit awkward still. Concealment stacking with it is an easy thing to try though.

[Frumple]

Huh. Yeah, I can see the flare thing now that I look at it again. Character I'm running just... hasn't put anything into flare,* yet, heh. Tree investment's 5/4/0/0 at level 25.

Headshot, not sure about the marking. I definitely prefer it as is, but it's also not really that big a limitation, and you've only got two other talents that consume the mark and both are something you want to half-way be careful when you use, so balance wise you use headshot... a lot. A lot a lot, especially after you get first blood's stamina regen and bullseye going. It's pretty rare you really have to worry much about being able to kick it off, or save the mark for a volley or called that's about to finish CD, so far.

*Have noticed, checking the talents again, that I'm going to have to pay some more attention to AoE... so far, I've basically been using volley and munitions stuff and that's it. Nothing into flare, frag or scatter shot. Will have to see if it's still mostly unneeded later, too. Race I'm using is a bit overtuned, but still.

E: Though before I forget, I'unno how feasible it is to code, but if concealment just... suppressed or something, instead of canceled, when you broke it to attack, that would be really nice, if pretty minor. Stamina bar wouldn't spend so much time yoyoing back and forth between down 15 and up 15, heh. Less time resting, etc., etc., etc.

E2: ... odd thought. Let concealment's take aim effect work through arcane eyes? That would be a really neat interaction with merkul's second eye, heh (and seer escorts, of course, but they're boring so *raspberry*). Not sure if any other talents would seem kinda' thematically appropriate for similar treatment.

E3: Also consider not canceling concealment when you Tmog on level transition (or at all, so long as you're not in something's LoS, perhaps). Maybe not when you recall, either...

E4: ... maybe. Maybe expand master marksman to steamguns if the character gets/has tinker access? Or change the description of the mod (on steam workshop, thread's OP), if not the talent itself, since it currently only really supports 2/3rds of instead of all ranged weapons. I was hyped once I got steamtech active, scrounged up a steamgun, and noticed all the talents (all the talents, including concealment and its take aim component, which may mean either the talent is bugged or the tooltip is inaccurate) still worked. And then I tickled something with a bullet and kenned on to the fact my phys power had dropped from 67 to 49 and my damage chunked even worse ;_;

E5: Also, I half wonder if it'd be a reasonable thing to do, but having tinker access and some amount of munitions investment enabling shells for bows/slings might be interesting/would be really nice. Considering shadow shot already straps a bomb to an arrow and there's a whole tree made up mostly of ammunition exploding one way or another, it doesn't strike me as being thematically out of place...

[Razakai]

It may be that the rate of marking is a bit overtuned. Originally it was a fair bit lower and First Blood didn't exist in it's current form, and it felt a bit lame having all these marked shots and rarely using them. I might try just knocking down the base % chance to mark on shots to 15% and see how it goes then. Headshot is strong, but numbers-wise it's only a little better than old Steady Shot (the new Archer Techniques generally have lower weapon % than the old ones to balance out the better effects you have now).

I might tweak Concealment a bit more somehow yeah. One thing I'm going to be trying out is giving it a bonus to your vision+attack range, as well as letting you see through smoke while active. Works better with Shadow Shot, and acts better as the intended 'sniper opening' talent.

While I doubt DG will let it into the main game, sticking Steamgun Mastery into Master Marksman is prob fine for people to have fun with as an addon. I'll just have to check and see if the Steamgun code is anything special in terms of techniques. Pretty sure I made Concealment only work with Bows, I better double check that.

[nsrr]

For what it's worth, I feel that First Blood is mostly at fault for making marked shots too easy. Other shots seem to have a reasonable rate of marking, at least as far as I have played. Perhaps First Blood should just increase the chance of being marked, rather than always marking? Either a large boost for one turn, or a smaller boost for the duration of the bleed?

Also, minor editorial thing: Master Marksman says that the Marked status makes targets vulnerable to 'Aimed Shot', which I'm guessing was the name of Headshot at one point?