astralInferno's Highblade (Arcane Swordsman class)

[Radon26]

you are correct.

played, the mastery takes 18 of dex and magic, not unlocked from the start, and you do not have the weapon armour traning category, so you cant get accuracy yet

[Frumple]

Mm... definitely would suggest a slight change on that front, then. Didn't get around to checking the zappy one (so it may already be doing it, in which case tooltip update would be nice, instead/also), but maybe make the secondary effects of that first tier lightning and/or water talents not have an accuracy component? Perhaps let you strike the ground with the chain lightning one, if you couldn't already, too. So the lightning and water cone effects don't check vs. dodge, and you've got something reliable to tide yourself over until you can rectify the clumsiness issue, heh. That'd probably be enough to make the start way more palatable, without really changing much talent wise or whathaveyou.

[ster]

Why is this called the highblade but lacks any capability to 420 blaze it?????

[astralInferno]

Well by default the class starts with a free point in combat accuracy and silver swordsman, but if you have it set to not assign them then yeah, it's gonna be a problem. I think that I can make silver swordsman still get set by putting it to no_unlearn_last, but there isn't a solution I'm happy with for combat accuracy. Combat Training does not fit their fluff.

Now, Blade Arc picks targets before checking accuracy, so it's not dependent on hitting the first foe. That said, I'm not happy with it missing so much. I may make that one give you an arbitrary amount of accuracy, or something similar that doesn't make it break with accuracy bonuses.

[Frumple]

Easiest thing to do would probably be to just build 1 tlvl worth of combat accuracy into silver swordsman, and not give that free point of combat accuracy. Maybe make it invisible, maybe not. If you really wanted to keep that *checks* 10 points of accuracy from stacking with the actual combat accuracy, you could make it take best of, or just bundle CA into the talent, too. First thing a highblade's going to do is beeline to LH and buy combat training anyway, so...

Real fun with that, you might could do that and then have the class start out with whatever switch it is that gets flipped that says you already have combat training, and prevent the character from buying said training entirely. Which might be kinda' interesting.*

... different thought would be to change part of the silver swordsman itself, and instead of a direct weapon mastery replacement, have it be accuracy and a tlvl scaling damage addition to the applicable weapons' accuracy bonus. That'd be a lot more "grace and precision" than a weapon mastery replacement, really. Still override weapon mastery, though, of course.

E: Also, idle thought, but any thought of making waifu strike/excalibur need a square of travel before it damages? Or ramp up in damage as it travels, rather than starting out full strength. Other thought would be to just make it a sustain that alters/replaces your attack talent.

Right now it's better than a bump attack in pretty much every single way besides a (small, generally ignorable, entirely ignorable later on) cost, and it'd be really nice to either have to do something (beyond other talent use, anyway) to stuff adjacent to you beyond spam <hotkey> at them... or just not have to spam the hotkey at them, and be able to maintain peak damage while still bumping things.

Ah, and will say, once you get enough accuracy in you your attacks are worth a single flip, class starts playing way smoother, ehehe. Still got a ways to go before I start filling out the talent list, but it's going much better after that last hope trip and a couple generics invested.

*E2: On the other hand, you'd have something on your hands that's probably even more kit restricted than old style cursed, which is a heckuva' thing. Would be... very against general class design nowadays. But interesting, and at the very least greatswords have better artifacts and whatnot these days than cursed used to be stuck with.

E3: Huh. Looks like there's either a bug in regards to Beyond the Flesh, or a mod incompatibility between this and the BtF tweak one. Wearing a weapon (specifically a weapon, mind) in the TK slot and activating BtF spits out

Code: Select all

Lua Error: ...ddons/highblade/superload/mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:36: attempt to perform arithmetic on a nil value
	At [C]:-1 __mul
	At ...ddons/highblade/superload/mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:36 sub1
	At ...ddons/highblade/superload/mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:42 getDammod
	At /mod/class/interface/Combat.lua:1605 combatDamage
	At /data/talents/psionic/other.lua:322 info
	At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:82 info
	At /mod/class/Actor.lua:5542 getTalentFullDescription
	At /mod/class/uiset/ClassicPlayerDisplay.lua:393 display
	At /mod/class/uiset/ClassicPlayerDisplay.lua:466 toScreen
	At /mod/class/uiset/Classic.lua:324 display
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:1578 

And then proceeds to clown gank the game, destroying the UI, rendering much of the screen black, and making you unable to do... basically anything. Move, use talents, open the message log, up to and including opening the menu to leave the game or trying to X out. Have to straight up kill the processes, ahaha.

Really wouldn't be surprised if it is just a mod conflict, though. Something similar happened with the white monk addon. In that case, you'd probably just want to slap a warning somewhere saying the two don't play together well. Mind you, normally you'd want to get a hold of the other mod's uploader or whathaveyou and see if they can fix things, but you're talking to them now and I'll level with yeh forthrightly; I ain't even gonna' try. nsrr might but it won't be me :V

[astralInferno]

Ooh, that's a good point. I could just give them free accuracy, I think, yeah. I might see about doing that.

I don't think I can set it to show as having training without having it. xD
The switch the dialogue looks for is just 'is it there on their talent list'. Not sure I'd want to either; it's anti-fluff enough that I dont want them starting with it, but Thick Skin is pretty important.

Similarly, I'm not quite sure how I'd do that for Silver Swordsman. Making it replace masteries without being one would be TRICKY.

You're probably right that Excalibur shouldn't be better than bumps. I might just make it do 80% damage to adjacent foes. that's brute force but effective.
...a sustain that makes it your auto is also pretty tempting. xD

I'm glad it's working better with accuracy!

I'll look into the BtF thing. I don't /think/ I got round to downloading that, so I can check. If there is an issue, I expect the same issue will come up with any other addon that alters damage modifiers...

[Frumple]

I don't think I can set it to show as having training without having it. xD
The switch the dialogue looks for is just 'is it there on their talent list'.

Similarly, I'm not quite sure how I'd do that for Silver Swordsman. Making it replace masteries without being one would be TRICKY.

Quick poke looks like all it'd take to flip is the switch is adding "if player:knowTalentType("technique/swordmaster") then return end" to around line 42 of the weapon shop dialogue, ehehe. Guess the superload thingy way would be to add it into the answers function? Nuisance there would be you'd probably want to do the same thing to the other shops.... is what I thought, but I just checked the embers shops that offer the same stuff and they just call last hope's dialogue, so. Alternately there is a hide command-whatsit for talents (all the resource pools use it, ferex), which you might be able to use to fill in. Give 'em an invisible zero mastery, zero effect combat training tree.

... though I will admit I'm not entirely sure how well that hide thing actually works. It's supposed to be hiding the attack talent, too, and it doesn't do a very good job of that

Not sure about the weapon mastery thing, though. Obvious thought t'me is to figure out where in the code it's making the comparison check, and either just force it to ignore weapon mastery when you've got silver swordsman, or artificially inflate the amount it's using to check for swordsman's side, so even if it's not giving physpower or whatev', the check's running as if it has 10k or somethin'.

Not sure I'd want to either; it's anti-fluff enough that I dont want them starting with it, but Thick Skin is pretty important.

If that's the concern, though, you could always just up the resall intensity on way of the tower. That's actually why I thought it might be a reasonable thing to do, since you've already got a passive resist all talent and it's even in the same tree as the mastery one. Looked like you intended for the swordsmaster tree's first two talents to be an outright combat training replacement, more or less, so it figured actually going whole hog and making it one could be a thing.

... not that I'd complain about being able to stack thick skin with a scaling resall talent, mind

E: Managed to get the clone talent to spit out an error. Popped up lua error and only one clone showed up, but otherwise seemed to work. It's worth noting that this particular character is playing under extremely improbable effects (it's a multi-class forge knight/techpaladin, that's actually using deep scan -- a talent that steals other talents -- and thus has about 30 active sustains, a little over a hundred passives, and is messing around with unusual items t'boot) and there's a passel of various other addons active, so gods only know if it's even remotely possible to replicate under normal circumstances or if it's even being caused by this mod at all, but it might be a potential bug vector worth noting regardless.

Code: Select all

stack traceback:
	[C]: in function 'error'
	/engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:256: in function </engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:240>
Lua Error: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:279: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:256: /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:150: /engine/Entity.lua:75: attempt to index local 'base' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
	/engine/Entity.lua:75: in function 'importBase'
	/engine/Entity.lua:1170: in function 'newEntity'
	/data-gnome/special-artifacts.lua:81: in function 'f'
	/engine/Entity.lua:1193: in function 'loadList'
	/hooks/gnome/load.lua:25: in function </hooks/gnome/load.lua:21>
	[string "return function(l, self, data) local ok=false..."]:1: in function 'triggerHook'
	/engine/Entity.lua:1197: in function 'loadList'
	/data/talents/uber/cun.lua:135: in function 'on_learn'
	/engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:430: in function 'learnTalent'
	/mod/class/Actor.lua:4152: in function 'learnTalent'
	/mod/addons/orcs/superload/mod/class/Actor.lua:158: in function 'learnTalent'
	/mod/addons/Vulcus/superload/mod/class/GameState.lua:213: in function 'apply_class'
	/mod/addons/Vulcus/superload/mod/class/GameState.lua:240: in function 'applyRandomClass'
	...sk_rae_multi_class_challenge/superload/mod/class/NPC.lua:25: in function 'check'
	/engine/Zone.lua:722: in function 'addEntity'
	/data-highblade/talents/bladedancer.lua:170: in function </data-highblade/talents/bladedancer.lua:125>
	[C]: in function 'xpcall'
	/engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:147: in function </engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:140>
	At [C]:-1 
	At [C]:-1 error
	At /engine/interface/ActorTalents.lua:279 useTalent
	At /engine/interface/PlayerHotkeys.lua:170 
	At /engine/interface/PlayerHotkeys.lua:162 activateHotkey
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:2106 f
	At /mod/class/Game.lua:1669 fct
	At /engine/interface/PlayerHotkeys.lua:317 
	At /engine/KeyBind.lua:230

E2: Actually, just noticed there was an additional effect... the clone that did show up apparently popped up with a 1k-ish turn lifespan >_>

[jenx]

Huh. Just to make sure I'm not missing something, is there really no starting accuracy boosting talent, nor anything (damaging, anyway) in the initial accessible talents that doesn't involve accuracy tests? Not sure if I'm failing a reading check or you're actually intended to be missing a lot until you can dredge up the gold for combat training/invest enough in dex (and/or accuracy kit) it stops being quite so... starting adventurer-y. Except without the probably auto-hit stuff to ease the transition, heh.

same problem here. started on nightmare, can't hit anything

[jenx]

Excalibur has a cooldown of zero - why is this?

[jenx]

For Song of Eulogy, does it measure the increase as applied to the base damage plus all procs etc, and then if it applies, does it scale alr procs etc?

Of does it just apply to the base, and only boosts the base?

[Frumple]

Excalibur has a cooldown of zero - why is this?

Near as I can tell it's intended to be what amounts to a channel staff equivalent, the default attack you use when your other stuff is on CD or you don't really need it. Is what basically makes the class a ranged one, despite using melee kit and a lot of its stuff having its initial hit be melee range.

Would be why they're listed as a mage instead of a warrior, much of the design impetus behind having so much knockback and movement in their kit, and what's led to stuff like having tireless combatant instead of combat veteran or whathaveyou. You're not really intended to be in/stay in melee range, and excalibur is what lets you do that and still be attacking regularly.

[jenx]

Re accuracy, I'm just collecting 50 gold and then making a beeline for LH. Not sure this is what you wanted astral

[jenx]

Yikes: I started as a yeek, and I began with -1 stats (that's minus 1) - hahaha

[Frumple]

Yeah, they do that with a few classes, heh. Think it used to happen with more (pretty sure at one point shortly after they were introduced, bulwarks would put them at like -2 or -3 or somethin'), but it still does with at least demonologists, as an example.

[astralInferno]

If that's the concern, though, you could always just up the resall intensity on way of the tower. That's actually why I thought it might be a reasonable thing to do, since you've already got a passive resist all talent and it's even in the same tree as the mastery one. Looked like you intended for the swordsmaster tree's first two talents to be an outright combat training replacement, more or less, so it figured actually going whole hog and making it one could be a thing.

... not that I'd complain about being able to stack thick skin with a scaling resall talent, mind

That IS a thing I could do, but I feel like that tree is pretty strong already? Way of the Tower having all the effects of thick skin PLUS the other stuff would be a little crazy. (Plus the lack of symmetry would bug me)

E: Managed to get the clone talent to spit out an error. Popped up lua error and only one clone showed up, but otherwise seemed to work. It's worth noting that this particular character is playing under extremely improbable effects (it's a multi-class forge knight/techpaladin, that's actually using deep scan -- a talent that steals other talents -- and thus has about 30 active sustains, a little over a hundred passives, and is messing around with unusual items t'boot) and there's a passel of various other addons active, so gods only know if it's even remotely possible to replicate under normal circumstances or if it's even being caused by this mod at all, but it might be a potential bug vector worth noting regardless. [/quote]
I'll be honest, I don't know where to even start looking for a solution. Sorry. I don't use forge knight or techpaladin or vulcus or gnome, so I really have no basis.

E2: Actually, just noticed there was an additional effect... the clone that did show up apparently popped up with a 1k-ish turn lifespan >_>

That part's not a bug!

same problem here. started on nightmare, can't hit anything

I'll give them some free accuracy next update, but for now you get combat accuracy 1 for free if you turn auto-assign talents back on.

Excalibur has a cooldown of zero - why is this?

Near as I can tell it's intended to be what amounts to a channel staff equivalent, the default attack you use when your other stuff is on CD or you don't really need it. Is what basically makes the class a ranged one, despite using melee kit and a lot of its stuff having its initial hit be melee range.

Would be why they're listed as a mage instead of a warrior, much of the design impetus behind having so much knockback and movement in their kit, and what's led to stuff like having tireless combatant instead of combat veteran or whathaveyou. You're not really intended to be in/stay in melee range, and excalibur is what lets you do that and still be attacking regularly.

Pretty much, yeah. You don't want to be in melee any longer than it takes you to use your melee buttons.
That said, I do intend to make Excalibur weaker when used at melee range.

For Song of Eulogy, does it measure the increase as applied to the base damage plus all procs etc, and then if it applies, does it scale alr procs etc?

Of does it just apply to the base, and only boosts the base?

Song of Eulogy and Never Cut Twice are both done using a hook. This means they will apply separately to any given instance of damage - elemental fury is not your friend.
(If a proc would be lethal, it will apply to the proc, though.)