[Class Idea] Geomancer

[PseudoLoneWolf]

Let's make some, then!

You missed a couple!

Runed Skull: The Umbral
The very light around you seems to be sucked into the core of this crystal, black and eternal, like the void of death.
Has 100% dark resistance.
Darkness radius 5 (anti-light), knows Invoke Darkness, Rigor Mortis, Impending Doom

Pearl of Life and Death: Eidolist
You do not understand the creature born from this gem. It speaks within your mind, in sonorous tones, of stories and timelines, of heroes forgotten. You do, however, understand the staggering power radiating from its body in waves.
Has 70% all resist (Why not? you get this Pearl from the final boss, after all)
Light radius 8, knows Pulverizing Auger, Manathrust, Invoke Darkness, Sunburst, Mind Sear, Soul Rot, Chain Lightning and Fireflash, all at TL7
Knocks all creatures (including the summoner) back 3 tiles in a 2 radius, every 5 turns while active. Can be saved against with knockback immunity or phys saves.

Atamathon's Ruby Eye: Oculus
This great eye stares at you, stares deep into your soul, and knows what it desires. Knows what YOU desire. Your feet take a step forward, despite yourself.
45% All Damage Res Penetration
Knows Eye Beam, Reflective Skin, Arcane Pull, and Irresistible Sun

[Erenion]

Okay, your Runed Skull is better.
I added it later, and I'm a bit tired now, so my ideas are getting worse.

[Razakai]

Yeah wacky stuff like that is great. I was chatting with some of the other devs earlier about how it'd be cool if classes had more 'interaction' with the world around them, rather than every class treating npcs/items etc the same based on build. Stuff like having artifact gems give you weird and wonderful pets is exactly what I'm after. Maybe when I get around to stuff like the conjured weapon trees I'll think about how you could give them unique effects, or special things for your stone bullets based on shots and stuff.

[Micbran]

Looks like 1.6 will have a new class now.

[anonymous000]

For example a Geomancer would study in the same city, however unlike their Archmage piers a tightened focus on study also gives some time to learn general battle techniques.

Why not a group of worldly archaeologists seeking to uncover the lost art of the Weissi dust mages? I think this sounds a lot cooler than the archmage theme.

This also belongs to the Eyal lore, see the Age of Haze lore brilliantly summarized by Erenion.

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=47320

To be honest I'm not really a fan of having every single class being entirely distinct from every other class. Having some cross-class skills is okay.

I understand that from a design efficiency point of view, but in terms of gameplay I don't see a reason for cross-class skills.

[PseudoLoneWolf]

Why not a group of worldly archaeologists seeking to uncover the lost art of the Weissi dust mages? I think this sounds a lot cooler than the archmage theme.

YES DO THIS

[Chronosplit]

Kinda like the maul, yeah. Pick a gem, it'd apply buffs to both your staff and any 'conjured' weapons like stone swords or your stone bullets. Like red gems giving fireburst projections etc, maybe a generic boost like +mag scaling based off gem tier.
And yeah you could prob create a multihued gem guardian that'd get elemental bolt rather than a plain bolt. Or go all out and make custom guardians for artifact gems, like goedelath rock summoning a corruptor/shadowflame pet.

Also I decided to start coding, and wrote most of their first tree. Tackled one of the trickier ones first as it intrigued me, most of it is working now. Pretty fun!

I like that idea. It differs more than enough from Alchemy and it makes the boosts worth it!

This sling looks great! Lots of potential synergy here with various things put in discussions. I'm assuming the idea is to have a sling in a second loadout, would it still require a turn to switch out?

Why not a group of worldly archaeologists seeking to uncover the lost art of the Weissi dust mages? I think this sounds a lot cooler than the archmage theme.

YES DO THIS

Do it! I was actually thinking of revising it to a sort of traveling scholar myself, a target like the dust mages is just icing on the cake.

[Razakai]

Giving them a unique plot hook and quest to go alongside the normal campaign would be neat. I know the guy who wrote the Weissi stuff so I'll prod him for feedback.

This sling looks great! Lots of potential synergy here with various things put in discussions. I'm assuming the idea is to have a sling in a second loadout, would it still require a turn to switch out?

Nope - your weapon setup is staff/sling ammo, the ammunition gets fired entirely by the spell rather than needing a sling. Currently it works as a ranged 'melee hit' that'll ignore melee retaliation and maybe trigger staff on-hits.

[Frumple]

Otherwise known as a knockoff hand cannon that takes mana or somethin' instead of steam? Which is a'ight, hand cannon is surprisingly sexy even when it doesn't ignore walls.

Will say, though, if it's not already intended, at least some reference to the T2 geomancer would probably be nice if it was intended for (or something close to it) the main game. Its terrain muckabout bits strikes me as an obvious choice, too, and in line with what's been mentioned.

[PseudoLoneWolf]

Otherwise known as a knockoff hand cannon that takes mana or somethin'

That's an arcane-induction precision rail cannon to you, my friend. Knockoff? I think not. We took your primitive steamy technology and we made it better. Think you can slap a Mana Coil onto a hand cannon?

[Davion Fuxa]

To be honest I'm not really a fan of having every single class being entirely distinct from every other class. Having some cross-class skills is okay.

I understand that from a design efficiency point of view, but in terms of gameplay I don't see a reason for cross-class skills.

It isn't even a complaint from the side of design. Thematically it doesn't make sense. Classes should have some shared skills/spells if they happen to be learning in the same place; or what they are learning is so similar it doesn't really matter.

And then from a gameplay perspective, it doesn't really add much to make a different talent if for all intensive purposes the old talent works well enough for what it needs to do.

[Frumple]

Eh. Not much is still something. Stuff that's largely identical from a functional perspective but has a variation or three makes things spicy. There's meaningful difference between a rush that dazes, a rush that stuns, a rush with no debuff but minor AoE, a rush that passes through intervening targets... end of the day they're all gap close with a variably substantive extra minor effect, but it's certainly more interesting to have a handful of might-as-well-be-rushes than just having rush.

Any case, everyone'll always have survival

[PseudoLoneWolf]

...end of the day they're all gap close with a variably substantive extra minor effect, but it's certainly more interesting to have a handful of might-as-well-be-rushes than just having rush.

I can second this, having just discovered the other day that Kinetic Surge (from Psionic / Kinetic Mastery) is the greatest pseudo-Rush of all time. I was just complaining to my roommate about MS's lack of mobility (I know there's Aug Mobility but honestly, other generics take precedent), then I got Kinetic Mastery and found out that I can fold myself up into a lil cannonball and railgun myself through a group of enemies and even through walls. Who needs Rush when you got that?

In this particular, specific case, I like having a large number of pseudo-Rush skills that differ per class. I think that extending this pattern to a lot of other skills would be a bit much, but I appreciate this case of skill similarity with notable differences.

[Razakai]

Yeah in this case it's more that the new trees do different stuff to Earth/Stone and kinda obsolete them for the purposes of this class. Basic nuking is covered by Lava (so Earthen Missiles/Auger), terrain creation/destruction is present in several trees (Stone Wall/Auger), it's a fire/physical class so we have a generic resist pen talent in another location (Crystalline Focus).

Also Lava is now 100% complete, pretty fun to play with. Pretty similar to the spec I posted earlier, but gave Molten Boulder a flame trail that applies your Heat Metal debuff, and the final talent makes Searing Shot do massive bleeding damage in a long cone, but sticks it on a cooldown. Instant to sustain/unsustain though, so you can swap between machinegunning rocks for consistent ranged damage, or turn it into a bursty shotgun for aoe clearing.

Next up, I might do something simpler and work on their basic fire/earth nuking trees (which tbh aren't too simple!). Or if I'm feeling fancy it might be the Stonesmith tree and it's conjured weapons.

[PseudoLoneWolf]

Aw man, I love this already.

Can we get a Thunderdome as an earth nuke? Targets an enemy, drags them to you, and stone spikes erupt in a radius around the two of you, pushing everyone else out and blocking movement through them (but not LOS) for X turns. The walls can be dug or walked through with Wraithform/Burrow. Optionally deals an assload of damage and/or stuns and/or something else?