"Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Moderator: Moderator
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
My OOTS characters are broken. Nobody else's are, but even if I turn it off, I still have the problem. No clue why, or even if it is relevant, but still posting this, if anybody has any ideas how to help.
Pronouns: They/Them
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Used the mist skill and mist lurker as a hydra, died, came back, and then started getting mass numbers of this error message (probably 10 a turn?)
error = "Lua Error: ...erianthropy_summoner/talents/heart/hydra/mist-shroud.lua:77: attempt to index global 'Map' (a nil value)\
At [C]:-1 __index\
At ...erianthropy_summoner/talents/heart/hydra/mist-shroud.lua:77 act\
At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:129 tickLevel\
At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:64 tick\
At /engine/GameTurnBased.lua:51 tick\
At /mod/class/Game.lua:1386 "
seen = true
reported = false
error = "Lua Error: ...erianthropy_summoner/talents/heart/hydra/mist-shroud.lua:77: attempt to index global 'Map' (a nil value)\
At [C]:-1 __index\
At ...erianthropy_summoner/talents/heart/hydra/mist-shroud.lua:77 act\
At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:129 tickLevel\
At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:64 tick\
At /engine/GameTurnBased.lua:51 tick\
At /mod/class/Game.lua:1386 "
seen = true
reported = false
Pronouns: They/Them
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
@noppa354
... That's odd... Perhaps it doesn't show up on certain graphics settings...?
@Kamani
RE: Characters are broken
... How I wish I could help you with that. There is nothing more frustrating for me than hearing about bugs that I, myself, cannot replicate.
RE: Mist errors
... Oops. That... Was my bad... Again.
That's happening because you reloaded your game after creating it, so it lost the reference to "Map".
Long story short: Fixed.
... That's odd... Perhaps it doesn't show up on certain graphics settings...?
@Kamani
RE: Characters are broken
... How I wish I could help you with that. There is nothing more frustrating for me than hearing about bugs that I, myself, cannot replicate.
RE: Mist errors
... Oops. That... Was my bad... Again.
That's happening because you reloaded your game after creating it, so it lost the reference to "Map".
Long story short: Fixed.
Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Well, I'll just reinstall ToME when I want to play ghouls again. If nobody else gets the problem, it doesn't matter too much.
Pronouns: They/Them
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
So I've gotten my Hydra to level 50 and am just a hair short of winning the game[All the Prides but Rak'Shor done and Rak'Shor is halfway finished]. I'm basically invulnerable because HYDRA. And I deal absurd damage because I Blighted myself with Blighted Summoning.
General Hydra thoughts: I quite like the general concept, but they're far far too strong. There are so many options to pick and in a lot of ways, I picked the most boring ones. I could probably replay a Hydra game while using an entirely different set of talents, which is pretty cool. Hydras, as mentioned before, kind of struggle against a few foes that have immunity or resistance to their favorite damage types or statuses, but they're still quite capable of bulling through most obstructions. Their unique minigame, the Clasping one, is the most fun out of all of the Avatar minigames, much more so then raising Drakelings[Cool in concept, but kind of a pain in the late game] or making Impermanance weapons[Sanity destroying slog]. I'm kind of disappointed that you can basically get any head to clasp whatever once you get enough Willpower, but that might be better for usability. I also completely ignored Mist Beast, Feral Hydra and Ravenous Beast, which all seem quite cool and thematic. I did use Triad, but found it rather lackluster in practice. I also basically ignored Hoarding Beast, skipping Treasure Hoarder's Will/Relief and only using Consume on consumable artifacts or useless inscriptions out of combat. The only things Hydras eat are enemies and pure cheese!
Ways in which Hydra is too strong:
-Incite Death basically reduces the effective health of all non-boss non-fear immune enemies by 28%[Or more if they rely heavily on negative life]. This actually isn't too bad, since not that many dangerous enemies fall into this category, but its still very strong. The nerf I recommend is to make the Braindead effect only take effect if there are a certain number of fear effects already on the target. Currently, it can still make enemies Braindead even if the talent itself does no damage.
-The Regenerate tree scales much too well with Con/Healmod. In particular, Recuperate heals me for half of any non-fire damage I take, more for physical damage. Still as Death gives me -1627 negative life at 5/5. This is doubled by Sturdy Heart and further increased by equipment, leaving me with ~3300 negative life. Without Splitting Wounds, I have around 3200 life. That's 6500 effective hit points that my enemies have to slowly cut through. Factoring in Splitting Wounds, Wildness-enhanced life regen and resistance/armour and I'm nigh-unkillable. Since my death to entering Last Hope Graveyard too early, I have been in trouble precisely ONCE and that was against Vor spamming Fireflash. Even then, Draconic Body bailed me out. Draconic Body is the god-prodigy on Hydras: They stack life and healmod, Splitting Wounds means that the %maxlife heal is stronger and Still as Death gives it the time to recharge on the off-change it gets triggered again while on cooldown. When I fought my clone in the Crypt, it took me half an hour to kill and even then I only won because it died at 0 health instead of going through Still as Death.
There are a few potential nerfs I can think of offhand:
-Reduce all of the scaling sharply, with diminishing returns after a certain point
-Make Recuperation unaffected by healmod
-Drain Stamina/Equilibrium to power the healing.
-Blighted Hydra does incredible damage, due to Bloody Breath and Transfusion scaling so well with max life. Using the numbers from above as well as my ~200% crit multi, Bloody Breath does ~2300 and best-case Transfusion does ~7000 damage on a crit. This is ignoring both +Blight% damage[My character doesn't have any], the Splitting Wounds maxhp boost and the Blight's Boon +30% damage effect. That's a LOT of damage. And both talents have fairly low cooldowns and no real resource cost, since Transfusion fills things up completely. Blighted Fountain is mostly just good for getting blood low for Transfusion to hit really hard, although the damage/statuses can occasionally be useful. I have it on autocast when enemy seen. The other thing about Blighted Hydra is that the Regeneration tree totally trivializes the delayed self-damage Blood Tap does, thanks to Recuperation triggering off of exertion damage. Corrupted Sigh is actually pretty balanced, since its self-disease doesn't trigger Blight's Boon and it interacts in a fun and cool way with the other talents. The nerf I suggest is to just reduce the scaling with Blood cost/gain[Halving it seems like it'd end up with comparable damage to Hydra's other talents, not counting the disease/poison spreading effects].
-In the complete opposite of what most Avatars experience, Hydras have 15 equipment slots, which is actually more then a humanoid character has. Even being limited to mostly rings/gems/mindstars, this is still really good.
Potential nerf suggestions
-Make the heads more uncooperative, perhaps scaling with how high a tier other items being held by that head type are[Example: You have two Drool heads, one of which is clasping a tier 3 mindstar. This would make it harder for the other Drool head to clasp a mindstar, scaling with tiers.]
-Just reduce the number of heads. This has a bunch of other implications, so I don't like this idea very much.
-Hydras have absolutely ridiculous saves, thanks to the bonuses from Hydragon, maxing Con and Wil and having a bunch of equipment slots. All of my saves are in the 80s and 90s, rendering me nigh-status immune and powering up Relentless Fursuit into a nearly perfect cleanse. Considering how much trouble Avatars usually have with statuses[And I still have access to Consume/Rabbits Foot if need be], this is a big deal. I can't really think of a good way to address this, besides maybe having the absolute save bonus from Hydragon only be in effect if you have all four heads of a given type. Defense is in the same boat, except that's not really a big deal. It did make testing whether you could Transfuse yourself[You can't] a bit hard until I remembered you could just turn off your heads by right-clicking them.
-Not Hydra exclusive, but I heard from the chat that with 5/5 Treasure Hoarders Will and a cat point, you can get a benefit from things every 4 encumbrance points, which is pretty silly. Diminishing returns or a hard cap might be a good idea there. Some of the Natural Combat/Inner Animal/Noble Animal talents also scale super well with investment of talent/category points, although this isn't as big of a deal.
Ways in which Hydra could become more convenient:
-Globs travel very slowly and hurt you when they explode. These aren't big issues and the latter can actually be good with Blighted Hydra, but its still kind of annoying.
-Breath of Poison is the weakest breath, since poison immunity is so common. Maybe it could deal 30% of its damage outright if resisted? This wouldn't make Hydras much stronger, just less inclined to passing turns waiting for the other breaths to come off cooldown.
-Cancelling out of the Clasp menu on the last given opportunity, after having selected a specific head, returns you to the very first menu instead of to the submenu for that head type. This is kind of annoying.
-Trinity attack costs a whopping fifty equilibrium in exchange for a good stun and OK damage. The cost could easily be halved and it wouldn't be overpowered.
-Transfusion doesn't say in the talent description that it checks bleed immunity, although it does seem too.
-Ferocity transfer loss is pretty brutal when dealing with zones with few enemies or when fighting the backup guardians. This isn't a real big problem because Hydras don't need actives much and you tend to level up a lot[Refilling Ferocity] when fighting the back-up guardians. Maybe there should be a minimum threshold of, say, twelve so that you aren't left totally helpless if the previous zone didn't fully refill your Ferocity?
Bugs I noticed while playing Hydra:
-Loss of Blood wooziness doesn't kick in at 0 Blood, like the bar tells you it does, but instead seems to happen somewhat randomly when Blood is low. Considering how dangerous a status effect this is, this can be fatal[Assuming you forgot to take Draconic Body and the entire Regeneration tree, that is].
-Corrupted Sigh doesn't display anything on the screen, despite the fact that it really should.
-Defeating my Shadow Clone duplicated all the items I'd swallowed, dumping them on the floor. If I'd been using Treasure Hoarders Will, this could have been pretty ridiculous.
-Bloody Breath/Blighted Fountain can apply poison/disease even through immunity.
General Hydra thoughts: I quite like the general concept, but they're far far too strong. There are so many options to pick and in a lot of ways, I picked the most boring ones. I could probably replay a Hydra game while using an entirely different set of talents, which is pretty cool. Hydras, as mentioned before, kind of struggle against a few foes that have immunity or resistance to their favorite damage types or statuses, but they're still quite capable of bulling through most obstructions. Their unique minigame, the Clasping one, is the most fun out of all of the Avatar minigames, much more so then raising Drakelings[Cool in concept, but kind of a pain in the late game] or making Impermanance weapons[Sanity destroying slog]. I'm kind of disappointed that you can basically get any head to clasp whatever once you get enough Willpower, but that might be better for usability. I also completely ignored Mist Beast, Feral Hydra and Ravenous Beast, which all seem quite cool and thematic. I did use Triad, but found it rather lackluster in practice. I also basically ignored Hoarding Beast, skipping Treasure Hoarder's Will/Relief and only using Consume on consumable artifacts or useless inscriptions out of combat. The only things Hydras eat are enemies and pure cheese!
Ways in which Hydra is too strong:
-Incite Death basically reduces the effective health of all non-boss non-fear immune enemies by 28%[Or more if they rely heavily on negative life]. This actually isn't too bad, since not that many dangerous enemies fall into this category, but its still very strong. The nerf I recommend is to make the Braindead effect only take effect if there are a certain number of fear effects already on the target. Currently, it can still make enemies Braindead even if the talent itself does no damage.
-The Regenerate tree scales much too well with Con/Healmod. In particular, Recuperate heals me for half of any non-fire damage I take, more for physical damage. Still as Death gives me -1627 negative life at 5/5. This is doubled by Sturdy Heart and further increased by equipment, leaving me with ~3300 negative life. Without Splitting Wounds, I have around 3200 life. That's 6500 effective hit points that my enemies have to slowly cut through. Factoring in Splitting Wounds, Wildness-enhanced life regen and resistance/armour and I'm nigh-unkillable. Since my death to entering Last Hope Graveyard too early, I have been in trouble precisely ONCE and that was against Vor spamming Fireflash. Even then, Draconic Body bailed me out. Draconic Body is the god-prodigy on Hydras: They stack life and healmod, Splitting Wounds means that the %maxlife heal is stronger and Still as Death gives it the time to recharge on the off-change it gets triggered again while on cooldown. When I fought my clone in the Crypt, it took me half an hour to kill and even then I only won because it died at 0 health instead of going through Still as Death.
There are a few potential nerfs I can think of offhand:
-Reduce all of the scaling sharply, with diminishing returns after a certain point
-Make Recuperation unaffected by healmod
-Drain Stamina/Equilibrium to power the healing.
-Blighted Hydra does incredible damage, due to Bloody Breath and Transfusion scaling so well with max life. Using the numbers from above as well as my ~200% crit multi, Bloody Breath does ~2300 and best-case Transfusion does ~7000 damage on a crit. This is ignoring both +Blight% damage[My character doesn't have any], the Splitting Wounds maxhp boost and the Blight's Boon +30% damage effect. That's a LOT of damage. And both talents have fairly low cooldowns and no real resource cost, since Transfusion fills things up completely. Blighted Fountain is mostly just good for getting blood low for Transfusion to hit really hard, although the damage/statuses can occasionally be useful. I have it on autocast when enemy seen. The other thing about Blighted Hydra is that the Regeneration tree totally trivializes the delayed self-damage Blood Tap does, thanks to Recuperation triggering off of exertion damage. Corrupted Sigh is actually pretty balanced, since its self-disease doesn't trigger Blight's Boon and it interacts in a fun and cool way with the other talents. The nerf I suggest is to just reduce the scaling with Blood cost/gain[Halving it seems like it'd end up with comparable damage to Hydra's other talents, not counting the disease/poison spreading effects].
-In the complete opposite of what most Avatars experience, Hydras have 15 equipment slots, which is actually more then a humanoid character has. Even being limited to mostly rings/gems/mindstars, this is still really good.
Potential nerf suggestions
-Make the heads more uncooperative, perhaps scaling with how high a tier other items being held by that head type are[Example: You have two Drool heads, one of which is clasping a tier 3 mindstar. This would make it harder for the other Drool head to clasp a mindstar, scaling with tiers.]
-Just reduce the number of heads. This has a bunch of other implications, so I don't like this idea very much.
-Hydras have absolutely ridiculous saves, thanks to the bonuses from Hydragon, maxing Con and Wil and having a bunch of equipment slots. All of my saves are in the 80s and 90s, rendering me nigh-status immune and powering up Relentless Fursuit into a nearly perfect cleanse. Considering how much trouble Avatars usually have with statuses[And I still have access to Consume/Rabbits Foot if need be], this is a big deal. I can't really think of a good way to address this, besides maybe having the absolute save bonus from Hydragon only be in effect if you have all four heads of a given type. Defense is in the same boat, except that's not really a big deal. It did make testing whether you could Transfuse yourself[You can't] a bit hard until I remembered you could just turn off your heads by right-clicking them.
-Not Hydra exclusive, but I heard from the chat that with 5/5 Treasure Hoarders Will and a cat point, you can get a benefit from things every 4 encumbrance points, which is pretty silly. Diminishing returns or a hard cap might be a good idea there. Some of the Natural Combat/Inner Animal/Noble Animal talents also scale super well with investment of talent/category points, although this isn't as big of a deal.
Ways in which Hydra could become more convenient:
-Globs travel very slowly and hurt you when they explode. These aren't big issues and the latter can actually be good with Blighted Hydra, but its still kind of annoying.
-Breath of Poison is the weakest breath, since poison immunity is so common. Maybe it could deal 30% of its damage outright if resisted? This wouldn't make Hydras much stronger, just less inclined to passing turns waiting for the other breaths to come off cooldown.
-Cancelling out of the Clasp menu on the last given opportunity, after having selected a specific head, returns you to the very first menu instead of to the submenu for that head type. This is kind of annoying.
-Trinity attack costs a whopping fifty equilibrium in exchange for a good stun and OK damage. The cost could easily be halved and it wouldn't be overpowered.
-Transfusion doesn't say in the talent description that it checks bleed immunity, although it does seem too.
-Ferocity transfer loss is pretty brutal when dealing with zones with few enemies or when fighting the backup guardians. This isn't a real big problem because Hydras don't need actives much and you tend to level up a lot[Refilling Ferocity] when fighting the back-up guardians. Maybe there should be a minimum threshold of, say, twelve so that you aren't left totally helpless if the previous zone didn't fully refill your Ferocity?
Bugs I noticed while playing Hydra:
-Loss of Blood wooziness doesn't kick in at 0 Blood, like the bar tells you it does, but instead seems to happen somewhat randomly when Blood is low. Considering how dangerous a status effect this is, this can be fatal[Assuming you forgot to take Draconic Body and the entire Regeneration tree, that is].
-Corrupted Sigh doesn't display anything on the screen, despite the fact that it really should.
-Defeating my Shadow Clone duplicated all the items I'd swallowed, dumping them on the floor. If I'd been using Treasure Hoarders Will, this could have been pretty ridiculous.
-Bloody Breath/Blighted Fountain can apply poison/disease even through immunity.
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Okay, I can't seem to play non OOTS classes even when I load a different copy of ToME. This started when I won. Is this the same problem that was in old OOTS?
Edit: Solved! Disable OOTS, and delete the world.teaw file. Thank you minmay for the solution. You may have to do this every time you switch. Also apparently an Ashes of Ur'rok glitch?
Edit: Solved! Disable OOTS, and delete the world.teaw file. Thank you minmay for the solution. You may have to do this every time you switch. Also apparently an Ashes of Ur'rok glitch?
Pronouns: They/Them
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
@Arcvasti
Excellent assessment! This will certainly give me a lot to talk about in regards to Hydra-- A sort of "elephant-in-the-room" when it comes to Avatar OPness.
... But yeah, "Hydra" has always been a powerhouse, but only because I always left it that way. "Too tough to die" is a VERY delicate thing to nerf, in that it can EASILY be ruined by the simplest of tweaks, turning from "I am invincible!!" to "God, this character can't do ANYTHING!". Here are my thoughts:
RE: Immune Enemies
Of all the Avatars, Hydra utilizes "Poisons" and "Fears"-- Two of the MOST commonly-resisted status effects in the game. As such, they needed some extra privileges. This is why "Glare Hydra" seems so absurdly strong: It had to be buffed so that it retained usefulness BEYOND Fear immunity (trust me, this used to be a HORRIBLY useless tree before). This is also why the Crowd-Controlling effects of "Breath Hydra" are so potent: They WILL fail you at a certain point, and will CERTAINLY be a cause of death if relied upon too much.
RE: Clasping is funnest
Me, personally... I think Drakelings are probably the most interesting one of all, because the mechanics get so deep, and you'll always see something new no matter how many times to play with them. Hydra heads are... Well, their "charm" wears off after a few clasps... Something I wouldn't mind working on a bit.
RE: Clasping heads is too easy
This is true. I've always wanted to make the "personalities" a lot more influential to clasping, but the game isn't exactly compromising in what objects you can find (you start finding tier 1, then tier 2, then tier 3, etc...), so it couldn't be TOO intense or else you'd never have the freedom to make clasping builds that you want. Long story short here: The problem isn't how easy clasping is, but that Hydras can get Willpower, Cunning, and Constitution SOOO easily!!
RE: Incite Death
It didn't used to have that Mind damage, so that's why it operates even when dealing 0 damage. However, it seems you're utilizing that instant-death threshold very well, so you *deserve* to be rewarded by this!
RE: Regeneration
"Regenerate" previously DID NOT scale on Healing Factor. However, I was always told the amount of healing it granted was NOT enough to make it worthwhile to get. You can say this was a... "Caution-to-the-wind" sort of test to see if people thought it was useful again-- And as I thought, now it has been flung onto the side of "OP"!
RE: Still As Death
This needs to give a "healthy" threshold of death or else you would not be able to bide your time as it healed you. Also, keep in mind, some bosses don't care if you look dead or not, so the healing and death threshold needed to be VERY strong. Finally, this talent SEEMS powerful, but it always has the extraordinarily crippling weakness of giving you -30% Global Speed after revival-- So it's not exactly a "Second Life" or "Heartstart"...
RE: Sturdy Heart
Yet another talent that was pretty awful because the Death Threshold it granted before was "flat". Since "Death Threshold" isn't exactly healing and it can expire after 12 turns, this was an EXTREME risk the player was taking, so I'm okay with how powerful it seems to be right now.
RE: Draconic Body
Ah. Draconic Body. For a long time now, I have thought about DISABLING this on Avatars (because its so much of a go-to) and replacing it with "Wild Resolve". Wild Resolve is FAR more balanced, since Draconic Body is designed more-so for a character who ISN'T getting 2000 free hit points just from being themself. It is QUITE likely you won't be able to get that talent in the future-- Not unless under EXTREME circumstances.
RE: Ideas for nerfing
Hydra, in fact, has high base damages overall and little-to-no scaling. This is because I intended for it to focus ONLY on tankiness and survival. If there is anything I might nerf about Hydra, it will perhaps be its high life rating, the built-in saves from "Hydragon", and maybe its starting Wildness so that players have to work a little harder to achieve that "god" status.
RE: Bloody Breath
DEFINITELY powerful. Bloody Breath is powerful because its damage based on your HP-- But it has the very expensive cost of EXPENDING said HP. As such, its a talent that balances itself out. I'd say the only OP thing about it is the fact that it can spell-crit! I think this will be what I nerf about it.
RE: Transfusion
The difficulty of Transfusion is getting close enough to your enemies to use it-- As well as having the Accuracy to land it. Finally, it also has the paradox of being a close-ranged talent for a long-ranged character, meaning you will probably "leak" some of your blood in the time it takes you to get into close proximity (and thus, the ACTUAL cost of the talent is some HP and your "safety"). If it seems powerful, it is likely because you're utilizing it quite well-- But once again: This is something that will "naturally" nerf itself once I tweak the Hydra's life ratings a little bit.
RE: "Ceaseless Blood trivializes Blood Geyser costs"
... Now try using "Blood Geyser" WITHOUT "Ceaseless Blood"!
RE: Corrupted Sigh
This talent used to suck. It didn't always instantly silence-- And MANY talents were NOT considered as "breath" talents (recently, I tagged a few talents as "breaths", such as "Fire Breath", "Bellowing Roar", etc...). It also INSTANTLY diseased yourself because of a bug with how I coded it. I'm glad it seems balanced now.
RE: So many equipment slots!
Hydra, in fact, starts with ONLY 6 equipment slots-- But then grows to have 15. Not to mention these equipment slots they have offer NO defensive/protective benefits whatsoever (except MAYBE your cloak). Plus, the ability to use these equipment slots require the expenditure of Talent and Generic points, so they're not exactly as "free" as other classes. Once again, I must say: This is benefit you *earned* through your build, as this is normally a WEAKNESS for Hydras, not a strength!
RE: Less heads?
Never! Blasphemy! I WILL NOT rest until I see 25-headed hydras!!
RE: Saves are too good
Indeed. Going to nerf the growing gains and the "absolute" gains of "Hydragon". Experimentation has shown me Hydra becomes FAR too immune to status effects, considering their ONLY weakness is... Well, status effects. This said, this is a good chance for me to talk about this:
OF the Avatars, Hydra is the LEAST nerfed because, UNLIKE any other character, Hydra is DEAD the moment it runs low on heads. No matter how high its life and regeneration might be, if a Hydra becomes headless, it is basically dead-man-walking because-- Even if a head DOES sprout-- It is MORE than likely to get severed almost immediately. Furthermore, a Hydra's combat effectiveness is DIRECTLY linked to how many healthy heads they have-- So much so to the point that they CANNOT use certain talents if all of those heads are missing. As such, I need to approach this weakness VERY carefully, or else I will turn Hydras from being unstoppable titans to... Well, being wimpy and as delicate as a flower.
If I will nerf anything about Hydra, it will probably be the "Defense" gained from Decoy heads, as well as reducing the amount of "saves" gained from the other heads. This should force players to make more investments towards saves, rather than investments towards maximum life and healing factor.
RE: Treasure Hoarder's Will
I've already nerfed this by slapping a hard cap of 250 on it. I won't pass judgment until someone can show me how this amount can still be abused.
RE: Glob self-inflicted damage
The entire "Regenerate" tree was given benefits for self-inflicted damage for this very reason. I don't think it's too much of a problem-- Although, be careful not to behead yourself by doing so...
RE: Breath of Poison sucks
They can't ALL be good! In fact, "Breath of Poison's" purpose is primarily to be combo'd with "Hydra Mixture". Alone, it's not a very good talent (since its SO resistible).
... And, by the way, it does "16%" of its damage when resisted-- Which is actually pretty decent.
RE: Cancelling Clasp
Intentional. The alternative would be backing out of extra menus. A "pick your poison" sort of design situation.
RE: Trinity Attack
... Did you know this was a HIGHLY-NERFED uber...?
Besides, I would say it exists much less for the utility or power, but for... Well, "showing off" really!
RE: Transfusion checks bleed?
I think it should be fairly obvious that you can't suck blood out of something that does not bleed...
RE: Fierce Ferocity loss
Can't be helped, really. Any alternatives would give it exploits.
RE: Incorrect Wooziness threshold
... You're right. Wooziness actually starts when your amount of missing blood is greater than your current life total. I need to reword the explanation.
RE: Corrupted Sigh is invisible
WHOOPS! I moved that particle effect to my "beta-testing" add-on. That's fixed now! (I'm surprised you weren't getting "missing file" lua errors...!)
RE: Shadow Crypt duplication glitch
... Ugh... I thought I FIXED this...!!
RE: Contagion ignores immunities
I'll see if I can fix this-- Although, there's honestly no way to check what immunities are if you're "transferring" them.
... WHEW!!
You've helped me affirm a few things about Hydra's OPness. There will be some "slight" tweaks-- At which point, we'll see if players have to start "earning" that status as an unstoppable titan.
Excellent assessment! This will certainly give me a lot to talk about in regards to Hydra-- A sort of "elephant-in-the-room" when it comes to Avatar OPness.
... But yeah, "Hydra" has always been a powerhouse, but only because I always left it that way. "Too tough to die" is a VERY delicate thing to nerf, in that it can EASILY be ruined by the simplest of tweaks, turning from "I am invincible!!" to "God, this character can't do ANYTHING!". Here are my thoughts:
RE: Immune Enemies
Of all the Avatars, Hydra utilizes "Poisons" and "Fears"-- Two of the MOST commonly-resisted status effects in the game. As such, they needed some extra privileges. This is why "Glare Hydra" seems so absurdly strong: It had to be buffed so that it retained usefulness BEYOND Fear immunity (trust me, this used to be a HORRIBLY useless tree before). This is also why the Crowd-Controlling effects of "Breath Hydra" are so potent: They WILL fail you at a certain point, and will CERTAINLY be a cause of death if relied upon too much.
RE: Clasping is funnest
Me, personally... I think Drakelings are probably the most interesting one of all, because the mechanics get so deep, and you'll always see something new no matter how many times to play with them. Hydra heads are... Well, their "charm" wears off after a few clasps... Something I wouldn't mind working on a bit.
RE: Clasping heads is too easy
This is true. I've always wanted to make the "personalities" a lot more influential to clasping, but the game isn't exactly compromising in what objects you can find (you start finding tier 1, then tier 2, then tier 3, etc...), so it couldn't be TOO intense or else you'd never have the freedom to make clasping builds that you want. Long story short here: The problem isn't how easy clasping is, but that Hydras can get Willpower, Cunning, and Constitution SOOO easily!!
RE: Incite Death
It didn't used to have that Mind damage, so that's why it operates even when dealing 0 damage. However, it seems you're utilizing that instant-death threshold very well, so you *deserve* to be rewarded by this!
RE: Regeneration
"Regenerate" previously DID NOT scale on Healing Factor. However, I was always told the amount of healing it granted was NOT enough to make it worthwhile to get. You can say this was a... "Caution-to-the-wind" sort of test to see if people thought it was useful again-- And as I thought, now it has been flung onto the side of "OP"!
RE: Still As Death
This needs to give a "healthy" threshold of death or else you would not be able to bide your time as it healed you. Also, keep in mind, some bosses don't care if you look dead or not, so the healing and death threshold needed to be VERY strong. Finally, this talent SEEMS powerful, but it always has the extraordinarily crippling weakness of giving you -30% Global Speed after revival-- So it's not exactly a "Second Life" or "Heartstart"...
RE: Sturdy Heart
Yet another talent that was pretty awful because the Death Threshold it granted before was "flat". Since "Death Threshold" isn't exactly healing and it can expire after 12 turns, this was an EXTREME risk the player was taking, so I'm okay with how powerful it seems to be right now.
RE: Draconic Body
Ah. Draconic Body. For a long time now, I have thought about DISABLING this on Avatars (because its so much of a go-to) and replacing it with "Wild Resolve". Wild Resolve is FAR more balanced, since Draconic Body is designed more-so for a character who ISN'T getting 2000 free hit points just from being themself. It is QUITE likely you won't be able to get that talent in the future-- Not unless under EXTREME circumstances.
RE: Ideas for nerfing
Hydra, in fact, has high base damages overall and little-to-no scaling. This is because I intended for it to focus ONLY on tankiness and survival. If there is anything I might nerf about Hydra, it will perhaps be its high life rating, the built-in saves from "Hydragon", and maybe its starting Wildness so that players have to work a little harder to achieve that "god" status.
RE: Bloody Breath
DEFINITELY powerful. Bloody Breath is powerful because its damage based on your HP-- But it has the very expensive cost of EXPENDING said HP. As such, its a talent that balances itself out. I'd say the only OP thing about it is the fact that it can spell-crit! I think this will be what I nerf about it.
RE: Transfusion
The difficulty of Transfusion is getting close enough to your enemies to use it-- As well as having the Accuracy to land it. Finally, it also has the paradox of being a close-ranged talent for a long-ranged character, meaning you will probably "leak" some of your blood in the time it takes you to get into close proximity (and thus, the ACTUAL cost of the talent is some HP and your "safety"). If it seems powerful, it is likely because you're utilizing it quite well-- But once again: This is something that will "naturally" nerf itself once I tweak the Hydra's life ratings a little bit.
RE: "Ceaseless Blood trivializes Blood Geyser costs"
... Now try using "Blood Geyser" WITHOUT "Ceaseless Blood"!
RE: Corrupted Sigh
This talent used to suck. It didn't always instantly silence-- And MANY talents were NOT considered as "breath" talents (recently, I tagged a few talents as "breaths", such as "Fire Breath", "Bellowing Roar", etc...). It also INSTANTLY diseased yourself because of a bug with how I coded it. I'm glad it seems balanced now.
RE: So many equipment slots!
Hydra, in fact, starts with ONLY 6 equipment slots-- But then grows to have 15. Not to mention these equipment slots they have offer NO defensive/protective benefits whatsoever (except MAYBE your cloak). Plus, the ability to use these equipment slots require the expenditure of Talent and Generic points, so they're not exactly as "free" as other classes. Once again, I must say: This is benefit you *earned* through your build, as this is normally a WEAKNESS for Hydras, not a strength!
RE: Less heads?
Never! Blasphemy! I WILL NOT rest until I see 25-headed hydras!!
RE: Saves are too good
Indeed. Going to nerf the growing gains and the "absolute" gains of "Hydragon". Experimentation has shown me Hydra becomes FAR too immune to status effects, considering their ONLY weakness is... Well, status effects. This said, this is a good chance for me to talk about this:
OF the Avatars, Hydra is the LEAST nerfed because, UNLIKE any other character, Hydra is DEAD the moment it runs low on heads. No matter how high its life and regeneration might be, if a Hydra becomes headless, it is basically dead-man-walking because-- Even if a head DOES sprout-- It is MORE than likely to get severed almost immediately. Furthermore, a Hydra's combat effectiveness is DIRECTLY linked to how many healthy heads they have-- So much so to the point that they CANNOT use certain talents if all of those heads are missing. As such, I need to approach this weakness VERY carefully, or else I will turn Hydras from being unstoppable titans to... Well, being wimpy and as delicate as a flower.
If I will nerf anything about Hydra, it will probably be the "Defense" gained from Decoy heads, as well as reducing the amount of "saves" gained from the other heads. This should force players to make more investments towards saves, rather than investments towards maximum life and healing factor.
RE: Treasure Hoarder's Will
I've already nerfed this by slapping a hard cap of 250 on it. I won't pass judgment until someone can show me how this amount can still be abused.
RE: Glob self-inflicted damage
The entire "Regenerate" tree was given benefits for self-inflicted damage for this very reason. I don't think it's too much of a problem-- Although, be careful not to behead yourself by doing so...
RE: Breath of Poison sucks
They can't ALL be good! In fact, "Breath of Poison's" purpose is primarily to be combo'd with "Hydra Mixture". Alone, it's not a very good talent (since its SO resistible).
... And, by the way, it does "16%" of its damage when resisted-- Which is actually pretty decent.
RE: Cancelling Clasp
Intentional. The alternative would be backing out of extra menus. A "pick your poison" sort of design situation.
RE: Trinity Attack
... Did you know this was a HIGHLY-NERFED uber...?
Besides, I would say it exists much less for the utility or power, but for... Well, "showing off" really!
RE: Transfusion checks bleed?
I think it should be fairly obvious that you can't suck blood out of something that does not bleed...
RE: Fierce Ferocity loss
Can't be helped, really. Any alternatives would give it exploits.
RE: Incorrect Wooziness threshold
... You're right. Wooziness actually starts when your amount of missing blood is greater than your current life total. I need to reword the explanation.
RE: Corrupted Sigh is invisible
WHOOPS! I moved that particle effect to my "beta-testing" add-on. That's fixed now! (I'm surprised you weren't getting "missing file" lua errors...!)
RE: Shadow Crypt duplication glitch
... Ugh... I thought I FIXED this...!!
RE: Contagion ignores immunities
I'll see if I can fix this-- Although, there's honestly no way to check what immunities are if you're "transferring" them.
... WHEW!!
You've helped me affirm a few things about Hydra's OPness. There will be some "slight" tweaks-- At which point, we'll see if players have to start "earning" that status as an unstoppable titan.
Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Thanks for the detailed response! I more or less agree with you, especially on Hydra's durability being hard to balance. I still think Treasure Hoarder's Will scales too hard with investment and encumbrance, but I guess I'll just have to demonstrate this the somewhat tedious way by making an example character.
RE: Contagion bypassing immunity:
Actually, I can't seem to replicate this. Apparently less things are disease immune then I thought.
I did forget to mention one other bug, which is that Blighted Fountain can target a wall for its affected square. At least, this SEEMS like a bug, although it might actually be useful for killing Dreads and the like.
RE: Contagion bypassing immunity:
Actually, I can't seem to replicate this. Apparently less things are disease immune then I thought.
I did forget to mention one other bug, which is that Blighted Fountain can target a wall for its affected square. At least, this SEEMS like a bug, although it might actually be useful for killing Dreads and the like.
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
I wouldn't mind hearing the long version. Been tooling around with getting a non-weapon/non-flamespit ritch off the ground, trying to cook up something fairly melee centric and it's... not been going very well. Haven't made it to nur yet over about a half-dozen characters not going well.nekarcos wrote:I DO have a "long" version of this, but I will spare you it until asked.
Trying to crack getting the melee damage going, primarily... feel like if I can actually figure that out, between lifesteal and the rest of it I'd have a pretty easy time getting off the ground. Can't seem to figure it out, though. If there's something easy to miss that has major influence on base natural attack damage, it'd be really nice to hear about.
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Inner Animal and early boss headhunts (from Cold Blood) help your damage early on (but you have to leave them alive until level 8 for that). Also, Cut Loose is surprisingly effective early.
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
@Frumple
Precisely what noppa354 said. Cut Loose is extraordinary for saving yourself from bad situations. Also, the earlier headhunts are FAR more rewarding than late game headhunts because of the difficulty of acquiring them.
... Errm, that, and I haven't finished most of the late-game ones yet...
-- AHEM! To summarize: I, personally, like to go VERY heavy on Defense, because it works QUITE well early game. Go heavy on Dexterity and Cunning, max out Rabbit's Foot to get that double dose of Defense (Luck ALSO gives "Defense")-- Plus, I go to Last Hope and grab Martial Combat (the first talent gives SIGNIFICANTLY more defense and Luck at no expense other than money-- Which is USELESS). If I'm feeling REALLY greedy, I even start using "Flutter" and pair it up with Wild Swings, just so that I can utterly laugh at everything's attempts to hit me (thanks to all that Luck I've been stacking up, the evasion effect is NUTS)!
If you do it this way, your evasion eventually becomes so high, most enemies can't hit you-- And this pretty much works ALL the way until the East (and then some)-- At which point, your Ritch is so established, you can come up with another strategy and do anything you want.
... But, of course, that's just me. (Gosh, I HATE giving away my secret strategies... )
Precisely what noppa354 said. Cut Loose is extraordinary for saving yourself from bad situations. Also, the earlier headhunts are FAR more rewarding than late game headhunts because of the difficulty of acquiring them.
... Errm, that, and I haven't finished most of the late-game ones yet...
-- AHEM! To summarize: I, personally, like to go VERY heavy on Defense, because it works QUITE well early game. Go heavy on Dexterity and Cunning, max out Rabbit's Foot to get that double dose of Defense (Luck ALSO gives "Defense")-- Plus, I go to Last Hope and grab Martial Combat (the first talent gives SIGNIFICANTLY more defense and Luck at no expense other than money-- Which is USELESS). If I'm feeling REALLY greedy, I even start using "Flutter" and pair it up with Wild Swings, just so that I can utterly laugh at everything's attempts to hit me (thanks to all that Luck I've been stacking up, the evasion effect is NUTS)!
If you do it this way, your evasion eventually becomes so high, most enemies can't hit you-- And this pretty much works ALL the way until the East (and then some)-- At which point, your Ritch is so established, you can come up with another strategy and do anything you want.
... But, of course, that's just me. (Gosh, I HATE giving away my secret strategies...
)Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here... I has
Well, I am glad. My last ritch had like 15 deaths (explore mode) before lake of Nur. Although since I played poorly to get to lake of Nur faster, I may have made bad choices.
Pronouns: They/Them
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
Latest Ritch run I decided to try it without flamespit and made it to Dreadfell. The damage is OK enough, but negative status effects continue to be the Achilles heel of Ritch (and the other classes too). Pins and confusion are especially deadly since your survivability entirely depends on being able to melee dudes and get that lifesteal. Related: totems of healing are an absolute godsend.
Thoughts:
Thoughts:
- Can you make quickswitching take no time ever? I'd love to use unarmed vs trash mobs and swap to impermanent weps against rare+ guys, but that turn spent swapping is killer.
- Can Cut Loose make you stun/whatever immune and clear current effects when activated? At the moment it seems to only clear effects once you make a successful attack.
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
@tabs
RE: Quick Swapping
Have you looked at the Avatar-specific effect for "Swift Hands"? You can consider it for Ritch as a survival/utility option.
RE: Cut Loose immunity/curing
If it worked upon activation and provided immunity, it would be used in a more defensive way-- But Cut Loose INSISTS that you COMMIT to an offensive. By its very design, I can't make it any more lenient than it is.
RE: Quick Swapping
Have you looked at the Avatar-specific effect for "Swift Hands"? You can consider it for Ritch as a survival/utility option.
RE: Cut Loose immunity/curing
If it worked upon activation and provided immunity, it would be used in a more defensive way-- But Cut Loose INSISTS that you COMMIT to an offensive. By its very design, I can't make it any more lenient than it is.
Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack
Re: "Odyssey of The Summoner" is OUT!! Find it here...
It's been a while since I've updated... That is, this is an update on my updates!
Simply put, my next update is rather... "Ambitious", so I've needed to do SIGNIFICANTLY more testing than usual. In fact, I even have my "assistant" tester on the job as well, so it's getting done extra fast.
If all goes well, here's some of the things you can expect to see VERY soon:
As I always say: "Bear with me-- It's going to be good!"
Cheers!
Simply put, my next update is rather... "Ambitious", so I've needed to do SIGNIFICANTLY more testing than usual. In fact, I even have my "assistant" tester on the job as well, so it's getting done extra fast.
If all goes well, here's some of the things you can expect to see VERY soon:
As I always say: "Bear with me-- It's going to be good!"
Cheers!
Creator of the (rather large) "Odyssey of The Summoner" add-on pack