After having completed possessor on insane and gathering up my thoughts, opinions and results for the class, I've written down a list of notes for Quality of Life changes, Class Talent chances and Rebalances for the Early/End Game (specifically to make the early game easier and end game harder), to hopefully catch the eyes of someone of power and have them take note.
(There's also quite a few bugs I've posted in the bugs forum, here: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=4 ... 8&p=227060)
Further, I apologize for the massive wall of text. I tried breaking it up as well as I could, but this site has no show/hide functions to make it easier to navigate.
Quality of Life Changes:
- A method to see the talents you chose for the bodies you have possessed would be nice.
- Assuming the Form of a body can result in over-encumbrance. This may be fine, but a warning that it will is necessary.
- A message saying whether or not you can use a certain talent when selecting from the list during assume form would be greatly appreciated as not all talents specify this, like Flurry.
- When assuming the form of the doomed shade of yourself, you shouldn't be able to choose the same talents you already have as they are basically just two buttons of one talent on your talent bar that have their cooldowns tied together.
- When leveling up Improved Form, the talents one has previously selected on a body for an older level of Improved Form should level up with the talent, as this will help the early game for possessor a little while not changing the end game.
- When examining the stats of a talent during assume form, they should follow the maximum level that you utilize them as, not the level that the body has them at. As determining how a lvl 22 talent translates into a lvl 6 talent is really difficult and time consuming.
- Powers never seem to properly translate when possessing a body. For example, if I have 14 magic and 3 spellpower, possessing a body with 77 magic and 45 spellpower that I gain 90% of its values from, I only end up with 81 magic and 11 spellpower. This makes any body oriented with something that I'm not proficient in quite useless.
- Healing talents should work when Assuming the Form of a body. Not to heal life, but to heal psi. It works on the healing charms and regeneration effects, just not on straight healing talents like Conversion or Nature's Touch, which also have other applications that might be important.
- When leveling up Full Control, one does not get to select talents for the newly gained possession slots for a body they already chose the talents for in lower levels of Full Control. Changing this helps out the early game of possessor a little bit while doing nothing to the late game. Keep in mind that I do not think that possessors should ever be allowed to change which talents they selected for a body (like others have thought should happen) as this makes end-game possessor far too strong.
Class Talents Rebalancing:
The following problems are assumed for Insane, and will most likely be an even greater problem in madness. I generally assume no equipment beyond starting, 100 all stats, combat talents 5/5, comparing with or without weapon mastery.
My current problems with the Possessor skill set are as follows:
- There is very little diversity based on its main mechanic, possessing. It has one tree based on using its storage in alternative methods and one tree on optimizing the possession.
- The unbalanced nature of the weapon focused skills. Even with the physical power boost being removed from weapons mastery in the upcoming update, the dual-mindstar tree is vastly inferior to the other two trees.
- The trees that are locked are actually vital to have at the beginning, and thus it really weakens the possessor's early game, a point in which the possessor struggles to get past the T1 and T2 dungeons.
Problems with the Combat Trees
I can understand the focus of the combat trees: Dual-mindstar is spells-based ranged combat, 2h is high damage AoE and 1h+mindstar is a 1v1 status ailment. Each one of them does have their own defense: Dual-mindstar in the form of knockback, 2h in the form of a clone and 1h+mindstar in the form of status ailment. Further, each one has a gimmick, Dual-mindstar is a second possession, 2h manipulates the clones and 1h+mindstar is advantage in prolonged combat with DoT.
I also understand that one is meant to juggle two trees at once ... however for most there simply isn't enough points to justify doing this early game nor late game. Deep Horror is generally too valuable with its status ailment clears (a rare thing for possessor) and its ability to take talents. It's really the only tree that COULD potentially go for a second combat tree tho. However, for most, people will rather have Tinkers, which will allow an individual to utilize two combat trees properly, but basing a balancing role on the use of a dlc or addon isn't very good design decision as not everyone is going to have access to those.
Most individuals will either go for 1h+mindstar or 2h tree. The reasons are primarily because the dual mindstar tree fails when comparing the two. First is that it deals no bumping damage. Which is an issue because regular swapping still takes time. Second is that its range vs the 2h range isn't better enough to warrant using it, and it has very little AoE applications, making the 2h tree the ideal ranged and AoE combat use. Third is that it has no defensive capabilities. Knockback is not good enough, especially when the AoE for it has a 13 turn cooldown, range of 6 at max, and only knocks for 3 squares. Fourth is that its gimmick simply isn't strong enough when compared to DoT applications on bumping and psionic imagery. Players generally only possesses the uniques and randbosses, and only specific classes actually matter. Further, the 13 turn status effect on possess is enough to use near the finish of any combat. It is really hard to actually get Finger of Death to kill bosses, which is where it is most important. Fifth, it deals less damage per talent vs 1h+mindstar and only about 100-200 more points of damage vs the 2h tree, even without weapon mastery. Sure the initial talent has a CD of 4 and range of 7, but the bumps of other trees more than make up for it, and enemies easily rush or teleport to you. Finally, sixth, it scales really badly. Whereas I can get 2k non crit damage added on to the other two trees, the dual mindstar tree only gets about 500 more damage per talent. I understand however that this can change drastically with the weapons mastery change coming in 1.6.
Of course the other two trees aren't without their own problems. They however aren't as massive.
The 2h tree: First, Seismic Mind from the 2h tree removing psychic images for damage isn't really intuitive. Generally the images die before the damage can get out or you'd rather make them last longer. Further, the damage they put out is absolutely dismal. Thusly it is usually the first talent used, defeating the entire purpose of the gimmick tied to it. It would make more sense if the destroyed images decreased the mind resistance of the enemy by like 40% (going into negatives as well) for perhaps 6 turns per image destroyed. This debuff should apply before the damage. This compliments the tree's mind damage focus and would pair well with the dual-mindstar tree. Mind res-pen is hard to come by when compared to phys res-pen. Second, it's AoE's are really powerful. It doesn't make sense to have Unleashed Mind be the same AoE as Seismic Mind when it hits all around you, at a lower CD. Decreasing it to like, radius 4 max would be more balanced.
The 1h tree: Dazzling Lights can fail. Changing this to hit regardless of whether or not the blind applies makes more sense. One can then change Shockstar to just stun for a radius of 1-2. Daze is not a good debuff on this tree because of the DoT Psionic Disruption gives.
Lastly is actually having defensive talents in combat centric trees. Possessor already has A LOT of damage negation and more doesn't do the class much good. Having these two talents be something else, like a teleport for example, would be much better and would fit the trees more.
Suggestions for Fixing the Combat Trees
Now here comes the ideas to replace some of these. First, let's start out with suggesting what can replace the defensive talents. These are both combat trees so a rush/teleport on target only would be beneficial. After that, all the other things mentioned above will be listed out.
For the 2h tree, something along the lines of:
- "You teleport next to the location of a visible psionic image, giving it additional 100%-200%gtl global speed for a turn and dealing 80–130%cTWD weapon damage as mind damage within a radius of 1-3gtl:raw around you." Psi cost 20, CD 15.
- Unleashed Mind to have a radius of 2-4 instead of 3-6.
- Seismic Mind: "Any Psionic clones hit will instantly shatter, reducing the mind resistance of all enemies within a 1-2gtl radius by 15-40%cTS for 6 turns, stacking for each psionic image destroyed, up to a max of 3 stacks.
- "You channel the power of your mindstar to boost your movement capabilities beyond comprehension. You use this to charge at an enemy within range of 3-8gtl:raw dealing 95–145%cTWD main hand weapon damage and disarming them for 3-7 turns."
- Shockstar to stun in a radius of 1-2gtl instead of dazing.
- Dazzling Lights: "You take advantage of the distraction provided by your dazzling mindstar to strike at a nearby foe with your mainhand weapon ..." (remove the requirement for blinding an enemy in order to strike it).
- The first talent has a simple premise. CD 3, range 5-10gtl:raw, knockback 2-5gtl. "At talent level 5, whenever you hit enemies affected by Psychic Wipe and Projected Wail (third talent), you automatically cast Mind Whip on them regardless of its cooldown and will not consume a turn. This still consumes resources and the cooldown is set back to 3." This is entirely because you lack the psiblades tree, meaning your damage output on bumping is really low, and some talents are designed to be low damage by themselves in exchange for their effects.
- Psychic Wipe should apply a reverse beckon. The enemy will stay put instead of acting (25 + 20 * √ (Talent Level - 1))% of the time if they tried to move and (15 + 10 * √ (Talent Level - 1))% of the time if they tried to activate a talent. To compensate, the duration of the cooldown should be lowered to 4-9cTS turns.
- The third talent should be more of a bomb with range 5-10gtl:raw, renamed into Projected Wail, and deal 5x more damage than it currently does. "You project a shrill ear-piercing wail that echoes within your enemies minds, confusing them for 3-6gtl turns."
- Finger of Death should also apply to enemies afflicted with Psychic Wipe.
Early Game Rebalancing
In the early game, Possessor consumes a massive amount of bodies simply due to not having full points in all the possession trees, lack of movement capabilities and lack of individual body power of uniques and randbosses over the rares. It is a contributing reason why possessing the uniques and randbosses that one drowns on Last Hope is vital for survival on the early games of insane, as the power is actually there to last till one finds suitable uniques and randbosses. A requirement for the class is that the first two cat points are in Possession and Body Snatcher, as those are absolutely vital for the classes survival. One needs to be able to store up on plentiful amounts of bodies, be able to heal (bodies) in bad scenarios since shields aren't available until one gets Psionic/Feedback and be able to summon psionic minions of bodies that aren't as effective to possess to help out with bossess and important getaway distractions.
Now because these two trees need the first two cat points, that leaves little room for Deep Horror, as that is also inferior to Psionic/Feedback and/or Tinkers, which also need to be unlocked first, should one get them. Deep Horror has its strength in the early-mid game, where removing status ailment talents and movement talents from enemies is vital for surivival, since you aren't going to be having full optimization on all defensive talents, possession talents and immunities. Late game however, your saves, immunities, resists, and access to 6 talents in effective level 6 or 7 are all strong enough that Deep Horror loses its effectiveness. And this is a problem for the window of opportunity for Deep Horror: you need it early game to help survival, but there is so much else that needs to be unlocked first that it gets shunted later game where its effectiveness has diminished.
Having both Deep Horror and Body Snatcher Trees unlocked helps alleviate the early game survivability problem while not impacting the late game at all. To counteract this, having the three combat trees locked (since they are not actually the core mechanics of the class) is fine due to that one is only ever able to utilize two of the three combat trees at any given time, and further, they are frequently the last things to have points spent in them as the possession talents are far more vital for survival.
However, I do recommend lowering the talent level requirement for one to choose which talent to steal with Deep Horror. Having to dump 5 points into it for it to be useful is really hindering. Talent level 3 is a nice even ground to be able to steal. However, this would still need something to counter that change. Maybe have its duration be a sort of bell curve in scaling, where it has low scaling in the first and beyond-player levels, but have high scaling in the middle so that it still entices players to max it out to get more effectiveness out of it. An example of bell-curve scaling for effective talent levels 1-10, 6-9-13-19-26-37-45-51-56-60.
Creating Space for New Creations
Next let's focus on doing simple talent changes to make the early game much less difficult. Fusing some of the talents in the possession trees together. From the Body Snatcher tree, Psionic Duplication and Bodies Reserve can be combined. From the Possession tree, Improved Form's stolen talent's effective talent level can be placed into Full Control, and Self Persistence can be placed into Improved Form.
Now we have 2 free slots to use for other purposes. But we can add one more. Ominous Form from the Deep Horror tree is a problem in that it doesn't allow for use when already in a form. This makes it effectively useless as a possessor should never ever ever be outside of a body when moving around or in combat beyond the T2 dungeons. Sure this could be changed, (it also does not describe its effect very well) but the slot can be better as something else. If we really want to we can place this onto the fourth talent of the dual-mindstar tree and that will be fine as long as it applies when in a body and doesn't revert us back to having no body when it the form dies. It would also only be effective when the third talent is affecting the creature, but have a slightly longer duration.
Diversifying the Class
Our three empty slots will serve two purposes: The first will be to allow to utilize spellpower. The second will be to utilize the "Destroy" command. Being completely unable to use mages effectively is a very unflavourful aspect of possessors, and needing to change equipment for every new body just to use them is an exhausting task. Having something that modifies spellpower in a way that befits a possessor will allow them more versatility and be more in flavor. As for the Destroy command, it is the one thing about possessor that isn't really explored very much, and is there solely to use the class easier. However, at the cost of its usage speed, talents can be made to generate effects on destroying bodies. This can be greatly diversified in allowing different effects depending on number of uses available and ranking of the body. This also satisfies the lack of ways to use all the extra bodies one ends up accumulating in the mid-end game.
The spellpower effect should be in place of Ominous Form as the effect of Mind Steal can be used to modify the talent even more. There is a lot of different ways one can do this, but this is what I've come up with.
"You get a bonus spellpower, spell save and spell crit chance equal to (20)65%ctmd of your mindpower, mental save and mental crit chance respectively. In addition, whenever you Mind Steal a talent from an enemy, you get a raw spellpower boost equal to (the enemies rank)*(6-12gtl) for the duration of the Mind Steal."
Utilizing the Destroy Command
Now for perhaps the most complicated part of this entire suggestion article: the utilization of destroy commands. The talent for the Possession tree will be named "Destructive Reserves" and will be focused on damage, and the talent for the Body Snatcher tree will be named "Debilitating Reserves" and will be focused on additional effects. For how these are balanced, damage is generally scaled with rank, simply because you are more likely to confront higher ranking enemies on higher difficulties, resulting in needing higher points of damage.
Destructive Reserves: Passive, CD 39
"You use the totality of your psionic powers whenever you desire to destroy a body from your reserve and crunch it creating various powerful effects based on type, rank and copies destroyed. Copies destroyed applies in 3 states, 1 copy, maximum number of copies you can potentially store at your effect talent level for Bodies Reserve, and any number of copies greater than 1 or less than the maximum number potential. These are simply named state 1, 2 and 3 based on how many copies consumed to reach that state. At talent level 1, you create effects upon destroying insect/spiderkin/vermin. At talent level 2, you create effects upon destroying animal/aquatic. At talent level 3 you create effects upon destroying humanoid/giant. At talent level 4 you create effects upon destroying construct/immoveable. At talent level 5 you create effects upon destroying horror/undead. At talent level 7 you create effects upon destroying demon/dragon. All damage scales with your mindpower. When activating Destructive Reserves upon destroying only 1 copy of a body, you reduce the cooldown of Finger of Death and Destructive Reserves by 5 turns and 20 turns respectively. When you have Debilitating Reserves or Destructive Reserves, discarding a body takes a turn.
- Animal/Aquatic: Strikes all foes in a radius 1 around you 1/2/3 times based on state dealing 50-200 damage based on rank.
- Construct/Immoveable: Creates a minature gravity well within range 7 at the target location, for 3/5/7 turns based on state drawing in all enemies within a radius of 6 tiles towards it dealing 100-500 gravity damage based on rank each turn.
- Demon/Dragon: Unleashes a breath of random elemental damage within range 6/9/12 based on state dealing 600-3000 damage based on rank.
- Horror/Undead: Launches 1/2/3 beams of darkness, based on state, of range 10, hitting all enemies within its range for 200-1000 darkness damage based on rank.
- Humanoid/Giant: A large boulder gets created and thrown at a target location, dealing 300/600/1200 physical damage based on state with a radius of 1-5 based on rank knocking back all hit by 6 tiles.
- Insect/Spiderkin/Vermin: Spit poison and acid at the target location, dealing 25-100 nature and 25-100 acid damage based on rank for 3/6/9 turns based on state.
"You use the totality of your psionic powers whenever you desire to destroy a body from your reserve and crunch it creating various powerful effects based on type, rank and copies destroyed. Copies destroyed applies in 3 states, 1 copy, maximum number of copies you can potential store at your effect talent level for Bodies Reserve, and any number of copies greater than 1 or less than the maximum number potential. These are simply named state 1, 2 and 3 based on how many copies consumed to reach that state. At talent level 1, you create effects upon destroying insect/spiderkin/vermin. At talent level 2, you create effects upon destroying animal/aquatic. At talent level 3 you create effects upon destroying humanoid/giant. At talent level 4 you create effects upon destroying construct/immoveable. At talent level 5 you create effects upon destroying horror/undead. At talent level 7 you create effects upon destroying demon/dragon. When activating Debilitating Reserves upon destroying only 1 copy of a body, you reduce the cooldown of Possession and Debilitating Reserves by 10 turns and 20 turns respectively. When you have Debilitating Reserves or Destructive Reserves, discarding a body takes a turn.
- Animal/Aquatic: Summons 1/2/3 copies of the body based on state in any available space in a radius 1 around you at 20-100% power level based on rank.
- Construct/Immoveable: Increases your armor hardiness by 15/20/25% and your armor by 25/50/100 based on state and grants you a regeneration effect healing 100-1000 life over 5-10 turns based on rank.
- Demon/Dragon: Sets the ground within a radius of 5-20 tiles based on rank aflame with demonfire, temporarily turning yourself into a demon for 5-20 turns based on rank and granting you 10/20/30% resist all and increasing your resistances caps by 5/10/15% based on state.
- Horror/Undead: Launches a debilitating beam of blight that pierces enemies in a line of range 10 that lowers the stats of all enemies hit by 5/10/20 based on state for 3-15 turns based on rank.
- Humanoid/Giant: All enemies within a radius of 5 tiles has their immunities and resists lowered by 10-50% based on rank and becomes pinned/stunned and pinned/dazed, stunned and pinned based on state.
- Insect/Spiderkin/Vermin: For 5/10/15 turns based on state, all acid damage you deal becomes disarming acid with a 25% chance of disarming for 1-5 turns based on rank and all nature damage you deal becomes slowing nature with a 15% slow rate for 1-5 turns based on rank.
End-Game Changes
Now we've increased the early game and rebalanced the trees. What we need to do now is figure out a way to rebalance the end-game, as that is far FAR too easy. A single body can last for 12 zones or even more! Removing the two defensive talents from the combat trees helped a little, but something must be done about the massive strength of bodies in your reserve.
The biggest issue I believe is mainly the massive amounts of maximum health. Resists, immunities, powers and saves are all plausible with the right equipment, but 3k-20k health is not. In this I suggest an additional cost added to all the activated combat talents. This cost is but a simple .1% health loss of max health, and .1% max health reduction of the current body and all copies of the current body in your reserve. This life loss cannot be negated in any way or form.
This helps reduce the effectiveness of simply using the same body defending by shielding runes for massive lengths of time, and lowers down the effective value of cannibalizing numerous times on that same body (as cannibalizing is effectively a 30 turn cd heal that heals for 1k-10k health). It also encourages alternative use of bodies with the discard oriented talents that have been drained in this manner, as they won't be as effective with psionic minion.
Thanks for Reading!
That's all I have to offer so far, if you need a more in-depth analysis of anything here, please let me know. There may be stuff that isn't written out fully as I had lost my progress on this a couple of times, and getting back original ideas and writings is never easy.
EDIT:
I feel that perhaps the gravity of how powerful bodies can be for later difficulties in the end game isn't fully captured in these suggestions. Lowering down the amount of stats one obtains via Improved Form to have a ceiling value of 50% would definitely help balance out the class. As it stands, a body can just render some of the most important stats to have in equipment pointless, resists, immunities, armor hardiness ... all those things with ceilings; to allow the possessor to stack up on powers, saves and other things that have no maximums.