[1.7.0] Metaclass - Mage Knight

[Phoenix1]

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This addon adds a new metaclass to the game, called the Mage Knight, plus a variety of miscellaneous options that I thought were interesting and/or useful enough to code (all accessible through the Mage Knight Plus tab in the Game Options menu). The metaclass contains six classes: Phoenix Knight, Mind Knight, Storm Knight, Earth Knight, Sea Knight, and Mana Knight. All mage knights are skilled warriors capable of using pretty much any melee weapon with credit (although the different classes do have some slight synergistic preferences towards a certain style), and combining their physical attacks with supernatural powers.

Mage knights use a new resource called Essence. Thematically, Essence is sort of a fusion of Stamina, Psi, and Mana - specifically, it's about taking a tiny spark of Mana and fueling it with both intense willpower and physical effort to spark supernatural effects. Mechanically Essence works a lot like Steam. It's always set to 100, and most talents cost between 15 and 50 Essence to use. However, Essence also regenerates very rapidly - it defaults to 5, and mage knights have a talent that can scale it up to around 15 or so. So mage knights don't really tend to "run out" of Essence in the sense of "I have no power left, I need to get out of here and rest"; it works almost more like a sort of global cooldown on their talents; if they use even a few talents in rapid succession, they'll need a few turns to recover. Essence is unaffected by Fatigue (which I admit kinda makes minimal sense fluff-wise since Stamina is affected by it and Mana and Psi are double-affected, but since half the point of Flexible Armor Training is making all the different types of armor more-or-less equally viable and Essence costs are in pretty specific proportion it doesn't really fit mechanically).

Due to character limits, you can find a primer on the new mechanics and game options added by this addon here.

Universal Mage Knight Trees

All mage knights have access to the following Generic talent trees, unlocked.

Each mage knight class also has three unlocked class trees. The first is a tree of their main offensive talents - always a beam, cone, burst, and ranged blast of their primary energy type, which deal damage and have a special effect based on the damage. The second always contains four passive talents that scale with their secondary stats, the first of which always provides some resistances (as well as a minor weakness). The third tree contains most of the class's activated specialized talents, with the second one generally including weapon attacks. These are described in the individual class spoilers below this one.

Worth noting, I'm not a huge fan of one-point wonders. If I've done my job right, pretty much all of these talents should scale and develop in such a way that they encourage filling the talent out.

Combat Casting: In many ways the tree that makes a mage knight, this tree covers all the basics of combining magical and physical combat. Talents in this tree can all be purchased immediately, they don't have to be taken in order, although they have higher level requirements for successive talent levels than normal.

Eldritch Combat: Universal talent. To a large degree, this talent functions like Arcane Combat; each time the mage knight attacks, it has a chance to trigger a spell. However, Eldritch Combat has a somewhat smaller chance to trigger, and only checks for a trigger once per round in most cases, regardless of how many attacks the character makes. It also reduces the power of talents triggered to 2/3 normal. It has some boosts based on the weapon wielded. Triggering a spell with Eldritch Combat lowers its cooldown to one-third normal (unless fixed cooldown) rather than negating it, and also lowers the Essence cost to one-fifth normal. The most important difference, though, is that Eldritch Combat can trigger a much wider selection of talents. Most of the activated talents of the various mage knight class trees can be triggered by Eldritch Combat, and it uses a prioritizing system to weight which talents trigger, while still determining them randomly.

Eldritch Wardings: Partial Defense Partial Recovery talent. Allows you to shrug off a certain percentage of damage (after taking shields and most other defenses into account). Also provides a small boost to your life regeneration and the cooldown speed of your inscriptions.

Eldritch Strike: Universal talent. Activated talent that lets you make a ranged attack for pretty high damage, which is guaranteed to trigger Eldritch Combat, with higher weight on current priorities in the randomization. Also passively gives you a bit of proc damage on your attacks, and causes your aura to iluminate tiles and lower enemy Stealth and Invisibility.

Eldritch Vigor: Recovery talent. Passively improves your Essence regeneration, scaling with Willpower. In addition, when you pass a turn entirely, you get a scaling percentage of "an additional turn's worth of recovery" - that is, you recover some additional life and Essence based on your regen rates, have a percent chance to cool down talents by an additional turn, and gain more of the "surge" value from Flexible Resistance Training that lowers detrimental effect durations.

Flexible Combat Training: Mage Knights don't get the Combat Training tree. Instead, they get this one. The effects of these talents generally won't stack with similar effects from Combat Training talents, so like you can't just buy Combat Training and double up on passive bonuses. Talents in this tree can all be purchased immediately, they don't have to be taken in order.

Many of the benefits of this tree are also lost if you have a Steam pool. There's...honestly not much fluff reason for that, but I think these guys are strong enough without picking up tinkers. That being said, it's entirely possible (especially in an Embers game) to take tinkers and buy the Combat Training tree (you might still want to invest in Flexible Weapon Training for the weapon mastery talent, although its bonus is a bit lower than average so maybe not). I expect the combination of tinkers plus combat training would be a bit stronger than Flexible Combat Training, especially in an Embers game where you don't have to burn a category point for it, but I haven't actually tested it.

Flexible Weapon Training: Offense talent. Provides a scaling boost to Accuracy, crit chance, and % weapon damage with any melee weapon. Benefits increased by 25% with two-handed weapons. And as with all mastery talents it grants +30 Physical Power. Also allows you to substitute Magic for weapon damage and weapon requirements.

It also provides a benefit depending on weapon type, but what it basically amounts to is that no matter what weapon you're wielding, you're making two attacks which between them are probably using 150% Magic to calculate damage. Unarmed and staves have a bit more to it, but for the most part, yeah.

Flexible Armor Training: Defense talent. Provides scaling bonuses based on armor worn, and a bit of bonus armor hardiness regardless of armor type. Benefits increased by 25% with shield.
Cloth: Resist Cap, Resist All, reduced chance to take a physical crit.
Light: Physical Resistance, Defense*, chance to negate a physical crit.
Massive: More Armor Hardiness, Armor, reduced crit mult from physical crits.
Heavy: Receives a portion of all effects.

Also allows you to wear any type of armor, and substitute Magic for other ability requirements for armor.

*The Defense bonus changes to a new statistic called Damage Mitigate (see below) if your Defense and Dexterity are low, because Defense is only actually useful if you are actually building for Defense.

To note, I am aware that the various "crit negation" abilities all only do one thing; I added code so this one actually does separate things.

Flexible Power Training: Offense talent. Provides bonuses to Accuracy, Physical Power, Spell Power, Mind Power, and Critical Power. Benefits increase by 25% with dual weapons.

Flexible Resistance Training: Partial Recovery Partial Defense talent. Provides bonuses to Physical Save, Spell Save, and Mind Save, and speeds recovery from detrimental effects. Benefits increase by 25% with single weapon/unarmed.

Weapons Master: These talents provide special attacks that work with any weapon.

Leaping Strike: Mobility talent. Lets you leap to a chosen location and attack an enemy there, increasing the bonus your fighting style applies to Eldritch Combat by a scaling percentage. If this attack (including any procs off of it, though not any DoT effects it leaves behind) kills the enemy, you can "chain" more Leaping Strikes; it doesn't go on cooldown, loses the ability to target an open tile, and the Essence cost of the next use is set to 0. Each successive Leaping Strike takes a damage penalty. Always triggers a "bolt" talent when possible.

Sweeping Strike: Utility talent. Attacks all foes in front of you, and causes a status effect depending on the weapon wielded. Always triggers a "wave" talent when possible.

Whirlwind Strike: Utility talent. Attacks all foes around you, and penalizes certain stats for foes hit depending on the weapon wielded. Always triggers a "burst" talent when possible.

Rapid Strike: Mobility talent. Pulls the target to you and attacks it twice, and then gives you some free movement (the amount and duration varies based on weapon wielded). Always triggers a "blast" talent when possible.

Advanced Trees

Mage knights have access to six locked trees (three class, three generic) available at level 10+. The class trees provide mainly passive talents, while the generic trees provide active talents.

Wizard Knight (Class): This tree lets a mage knight specialize in direct spellcasting. For each talent learned in this tree, your Beam talent can chain to one additional target.

Knight Magery: Any time you manually use a non-technique talent that costs a turn (that is, not through Eldritch Combat; it looks like talent procs from items can do this as well) you have a chance to trigger Eldritch Combat. If you fail, you instead unleash a "wildstorm", creating several low-damage blasts of energy that target random enemies. More levels in this talent scale the number of blasts you can create.

Knight Sorcery: Lowers you spell cooldowns (note: spell cooldown modifiers apply to Mind Knight talents) and increases the number of Wildstorm blasts you can create per enemy (though your maximum total blasts remains based on Knight Magery).

Knight Wizardry: Increases your spell and mind speeds, and increases the radius of your Wildstorm blasts.

Archmage Knight: Adds to penetration and a little to damage for your two main energy types, based on class. Also gives each Wildstorm blast an independent chance to trigger a random "secondary effect" from your class's attack spells.

Dancing Weapon (Class): Lets you project a duplicate of your weapons at a distance, to attack foes autonomously and defend you from attack.

Weapondance: The basic talent of the tree, lets you wield your weapons at a distance (you do not get a new telekinetic weapon slot). They will attack automatically once per turn, but not in turns where you attack or use a talent that costs a turn (so this mainly lets you deal damage when moving or waiting, rather than boosting your damage). This weapon targets the lowest-life enemy in a range based on this talent level, and won't attack enemies you move away from. Attacks from this weapon deal reduced damage, and while they can trigger Eldritch Combat, they do so at reduced power (the damage and power improve with talent levels).

Hasted Weapondance: Your dancing weapon has a chance to attack in turns that you use a talent that costs a turn (but when doing so it can't trigger Eldritch Combat).

Defensive Weapondance: Your dancing weapon has a chance to parry any damage and/or detrimental effects that would affect you as a Reaction. This counts as a miss for the attacker.

Reactive Weapondance: Your dancing weapon gains a chance to counterattack any time an enemy misses you; the chance is much higher for misses due to Defensive Weapondance.

Battle Dancer (Class): Provides "active" weapon attack talents, which can and can only be triggered by Eldritch Combat. These talents have neither Essence costs nor cooldowns, and deal pretty good damage as well as imposing debuffs and granting a bit of Essence or cooldown-based recovery. Debuff chance is based on the higher of Accuracy and Physical Power.

Dancing Strike: Single-target attack with high crit chance and crit power. Debuffs enemy resistances and restores Essence.

Dancing Barrage: Attacks a fixed number of targets at range. Debuffs global speed and lowers some talent cooldowns based on number of enemies hit or killed.

Dancing Flurry: Single-target triple attack. Debuffs enemy damage and boosts Essence regeneration for a few turns.

Dancing Whirlwind: Attacks all enemies in a radius. Debuffs enemy "skill" (Accuracy, Defense, Powers, and Saves) and cools one talent by a number of turns based on targets hit or killed.

Weapon Supremacy (Class): Since mage knights are proficient with any melee weapon, some choose to specialize in a style that emphasizes diversity. The weapon supremacy tree allows a mage knight to rapidly swap weapons in the heat of combat to keep its foes off-guard.

Instant Draw: Zero-cooldown, low-cost talent that swaps your weapon sets and makes an attack with the new set. The change in tactics gives the attack a high (Perfect Strike-level) Accuracy bonus, and has a chance to negate evasion and miss chances.

Aggressive Swap: Attack, swap weapons, and attack again. As talent levels increase, the attacks get a higher chance to trigger Eldritch Combat and will eventually both be able to.

Seamless Exchange: Swap weapons, removing disarm status, and take your Weapons Master talents off cooldown depending on talent level. This talent also allows Eldritch Combat to trigger talents that are currently cooling down. In addition, passively, any time you swap weapons, you get a short-duration buff that lets your talents benefit from the prior weapon type (to encourage using two different fighting styles).

Masterstroke: Close with a target and attack it for high damage. If you kill the target, you immediately move on to the target with the lowest life within range and attack again. Once you fail to kill a target, you make a final attack against it with a damage bonus based on the number of targets killed.

Tactical Strikes (Generic): Lets you learn a number of special attack talents. These talents have low Essence costs and no cooldown, but if you miss while using one, they all become unavailable for four turns. While normally mage knights are very bump-friendly classes, this tree rewards more actively picking and choosing what talent you attack with to suit the specialization (especially as you learn the higher-tier talents, so you have to keep in mind what to use to take advantage of Tactical Specialization, or which to use to finish off a foe with Tactical Mastery).

Tactical Proficiency: Teaches you the tactical strikes, one per level, in order based on how well they match your class's strengths (Phoenix Knights learn the offensive talent first and utility talent last, for example).
Savaging Strike (Offensive): Attack with 50 bonus proc damage.
Snaring Strike (Utility): Attack that slows the target's next turn.
Springing Strike (Mobility): Move two tiles before attacking.
Shielding Strike (Defensive): Grants a 50-point Damage Shield before attacking.
Surging Strike (Recovery): Grants a two-turn 25-point Rejuvenation effect before attacking.

Tactical Focus: Scales up the effects of your Tactical Strikes.

Tactical Specialization: Five turn cooldown, grants a special benefit when using a Tactical Strike while off cooldown:
Savaging Strike deals extra damage.
Snaring Strike imposes various hindrances on the target.
Springing Strike lets you move further.
Shielding Strike gives you resistance to all damage for one turn.
Surging Strike instantly heals you.

Tactical Mastery: Your Tactical Strikes cause a bonus effect if you kill the target.
Savaging Strike: Attack all adjacent foes.
Snaring Strike: Makes other foes hesitate, Dazing all in a radius.
Springing Strike: Gives you free moves.
Shielding Strike: Entirely blocks some attacks received during the next turn.
Surging Strike: Removes some negative effects.

Arcana (Generic): Gives you access to some activated support spells that can't be triggered by Eldritch Combat. These spells have somewhat higher cooldowns than most class support spells, but somewhat lower Essence costs.

Repair Damage: Heals you and your allies, expending healing to remove detrimental effects at a cost of 50 points each.

Raise Barrier: Shields you and your allies, expending 50 shield value when you would receive a detrimental effect to negate it.

Phasing Teleport: Targeted teleport that turns you ethereal (you become ethereal even if you target someone else). If you try to teleport to your own position, it teleports you randomly at a large distance.

Disrupt Powers: Strips a target of several beneficial effects (but not sustains).

Phoenix Knight Class Trees

The phoenix knight has the best offense of all the mage knights, and great recovery. However, it has limited mobility and poor utility.

Phoenix Burn:

Phoenix knights deal solar fire damage - their attacks will cause either fire or light damage, whichever will hit hardest (after taking into account the character's damage bonuses and penetration and the target's resistance and affinity). Solar fire attacks also illuminate all squares affected. This "best of two" form of attack helps keep them at the top of the heap when it comes to offense.

Solar Bolt: Range 10 beam attack that sets targets on fire.

Solar Wave: Cone attack. Also temporarily buffs the life of any allies in the area (including you).

Solar Burst: Point-blank area attack. Also grants a Providence effect to allies in the area.

Solar Blast: Ranged area attack. Also heals allies in the area.

Phoenix Ascendance:

Phoenix Heart: Provides Fire, Light, Cut, Blind, and Fear resistance, and a minor cold vulnerability.

Phoenix Blood: Provides life regen, healing modifier, and critical power.

Phoenix Wings: When you take damage, you have a chance to interfere with it with wings of colored fire. Depending on the color, this may either reciprocate the damage upon the attacker as solar fire damage, heal the damage instantly, absorb half the damage and convert it to rejuvenation, or reflect half the damage back on the attacker. Chance is increased when you pass a turn.

Phoenix Soul: Gives you a threshold below 0 life before you die. In addition, while sustained (instant use, 20 cooldown) if you drop below 0 life, you'll unleash a blast of solar fire that damages enemies in an area around you and heals you (and allies in the area).

Glory Rising:

Light of Healing: Heal yourself and allies in radius 5, overflow converts to rejuvenation. Carries a Secondary Effect.

Wings of Battle: Fly into melee range of an enemy and attack it. Enemies will start targeting you. If triggered by Eldritch Combat, you don't move but instead attack again with your wings as solar fire damage.

Fires of Cleansing: Remove detrimental effects from yourself and allies in radius 5, overflow converts to Providence effect. Instant use.

Blaze of Glory: Attack all adjacent foes, and detonate an area blast of Solar Fire.[/SPOILER]

Mind Knight Class Trees

The mind knight has the best utility of all the mage knights, and great mobility. However, it has limited recovery and poor defense.

Psychic Attack:

Mind knights deal either physical (telekinetic) or mind (telepathic) damage. By default they alternate each time they use a Psychic Attack talent, but they get two sustains they can use to lock it to one if they want.

Psychic Bolt: Range 10 beam attack. Also either slows the target's next turn (TK) or has a chance to cause the target to lose its next turn (TP).

Psychic Wave: Cone attack. Also disarms (TK) or silences (TP).

Psychic Burst: Point-blank area attack. Also stuns (TK) or confuses (TP).

Psychic Blast: Ranged area attack. Also pins (TK) or sleeps (TP).

Mindstalking:

Cerebral Shroud: Grants Mind, Confusion, and Sleep resistance, and a minor Darkness vulnerability.

Cerebral Stalker: Grants Stealth based on Mindpower, as well as a bonus to Mindpower, with a chance to reset your stealth every time you teleport. Enemies may stop targeting you when you enter stealth.

Cerebral Assassin: Attacks against opponents who aren't targeting you or who fail to notice you deal extra Physical damage and potentially stun. Witnesses to your sneak attacks take Mind damage and may be Dazed. Stealth has a chance to reset when you kill an opponent.

Cerebral Scout: Boosts See Stealth and See Invisible, crit chance and crit power. Also maps terrain and detects creatures in a radius around you, and lets you use Leaping Strike through walls if you target an enemy.

Astral Projections:

Astral Jaunt: Short-range multi-target LOS teleport. Teleported enemies may be Dazed, and if you teleport yourself to your current position it does a long-range random teleport. Does a teleporting attack that may off-balance or brainlock when triggered with Eldritch Combat.

Astral Charge: Teleport into melee with an enemy and attack it, imposing a penalty on several stats. If you didn't need to teleport (including if triggered by Eldritch Combat) the penalty is increased.

Astral Blitz: Teleport among nearby foes attacking each one, possible multi-attacks with talent levels, and end in new location. When triggered by Eldritch Combat, you end in your original location but Daze foes hit.

Astral Body: Heal yourself (only), first removing detrimental effects at the cost of 50 healing each. Carries a Secondary Effect.

Storm Knight Class Trees

The storm knight has the best mobility of all the mage knights, and great offense. However, it has limited defense and poor recovery.

Storm Invocation:

Storm knights deal storm damage, which deals part physical, part lightning damage. However, the proportion of each type will vary based on which will cause more harm (based on your damage modifiers and enemy resistances and affinities), giving them more offensive power, though not quite as much as the Phoenix knight's "use the best" solar fire damage.

Storm Bolt: Range 10 beam attack. Also drenches targets, lowering electricity, cold, and stun resistances by 30% for a few turns.

Storm Wave: Cone attack. Also knocks targets back, or confuses if triggered by Eldritch Combat.

Storm Burst: Point-blank area attack. Also pulls targets in, or slows if triggered by Eldritch Combat.

Storm Blast: Ranged area attack. Also stuns.

Storm Warrior:

Embrace the Storm: Grants Lightning, Stun, and Pin resist. Slows projectiles. Also imposes a very minor Physical weakness.

Storm Skirmisher: Grants crit chance and movement speed, and counter-attacks on a miss.

Lightning Dodge: Grants a Defense boost and a...sort of weird damage negation chance meant to represent being able to dodge anything, which is checked the first time a given enemy damages you or puts a detrimental effect on you each turn, and if it succeeds negates all damage and detrimental effects inflicted by that enemy that turn and triggers on-miss effects.

Whirlwind Dervish: When you move you attack all adjacent enemies with reduced weapon damage, up to once per turn per target. Also boosts your attack speed.

Storm Walker:

Wind Stride: Instantly move a target or yourself, dealing modest Physical damage in an area around the starting and ending locations. When targeting yourself, you also gain some free moves. Enemies can resist the movement, but risk being knocked off-balance.

Thunder Charge: Rush that comes with a stunning area thunderclap. Higher damage and duration, but no movement, when triggered by Eldritch Combat.

Zelphyr Dance: Melee attack on all foes in large area, which also allows you to reposition. When triggered by Eldritch Combat, no movement but confuse targets.

Lightning Ride: Short range teleport that deals dazing Storm damage in a line between start and end points. If targeting own position, becomes a long-range random teleport that deals the damage in a large radius. When triggered by Eldritch Combat, you don't teleport, damage and daze duration is doubled, and it affects a modest radius.

Earth Knight Class Trees

The earth knight has the best defense of all the mage knights, and great utility. However, it has limited offense, and poor mobility.

Terrakinesis:

Earth knights deal half physical, half nature damage. Since they have to divide focus between two damage types (they don't get an option like Mind Knights to lock it to one if they want to), their offense is mediocre compared to other mage knights.

Earth Bolt: Range 10 beam attack. Penalizes many defenses on targets struck, and heals allies in area.

Earth Wave: Cone attack. Enemies in area have reduced global and movement speed, allies gain 30 flat damage reduction.

Earth Burst: Point-blank area attack. Enemies in the area are encased in crystal (frozen), allies gain 30% resist all.

Earth Blast: Ranged area attack. Enemies in the area subject to random detrimental effects, allies shaken out of some detrimental effects.

Terramorphism:

Earthen Body: Grants Knockback, Teleport, Stun, and Physical resist, as well as a minor Acid weakness.

Steelskin: Grants armor, bonus life, and a variable damage reduction that negates instances of low damage, flat reduces (but no more than halving) moderate damage, and takes off a percentage of high damage. The variable reduction is restricted by armor hardiness though.

Geoshield: Boosts shield factor and further converts 75% of bonus healing factor to shield factor. Increases power of shields each turn and lets overflow life regen go to restoring (but not boosting) shields. You also gain some damage resistance when you pass a turn.

Earthlink: Maps terrain around you, clears terrain by moving into it at level 3, detects creatures at level 5. Grinds down many defenses for enemies you hit in melee (non-stacking, but refreshed with each hit).

Terramancy:

Gemstone Shield: Creates a damage shield for yourself and allies in radius 5 with one of several special effects (and pretty colors!) based on talent level. Exact shield determined randomly (they each have their own talent for Eldritch Combat purposes, but they can't be manually used). Carries a Secondary Effect. At level 5, all your damage shields gain a random gemstone effect.

Hammer and Anvil: Weapon attack that attempts to petrify the target, followed up by higher-damage second attack. Second attack deals Nature damage and is an auto-crit if target was petrified.

Impassive Mountain: Blocks X negative effects over Y turns for yourself and allies in radius 5. Instant use.

Barrier of Stone: Summon a wall of stone to section off the battlefield, while gaining some personal damage blocks. When triggered by Eldritch Combat, heals rather than conjuring a wall.

Sea ​Knight Class Trees

The sea knight has the best recovery of all the mage knights, and great defense. However, it has limited utility, and poor offense.

Riptide:

Sea knights deal half nature, half cold damage. Unless their base damage would be enough to kill a target (in which case it deals full damage as both cold and nature, almost certainly killing them), their damage gets spread out over time, with a stacking damage over time effect. Their attacks also have lower costs and cooldowns than most, and drain a small percentage of resources. So while they have absolutely the weakest offense in terms of alpha strike capability, they can wind up pretty deadly in a battle of attrition. It's just, against most foes, by the time they're starting to get some serious damage numbers, most other mage knights would have, you know, won already. But against foes with very tough defenses, a sea knight can eventually wear them down. These attacks all inflict Wet status on their targets.

Erosion Bolt: Range 10 beam attack. Heals allies in the area.

Erosion Wave: Cone attack. Removes negative effects from allies in the area.

Erosion Burst: Point-blank area attack. Grants free movement to allies in the area.

Erosion Blast: Ranged area attack. Grants a damage shield to allies in the area.

One With the Sea:

Sea Knight sustains have half the costs of other mage knights, giving them proportionately more stamina and mana to work with.

Element of Life: Grants Cold, Nature, Poison, Disease, and Cut resist, as well as a minor Blight vulnerability. Water breathing at level 3.

As With The Tides: Grants a new pseudo-resource called Flow. While Flow is at "high tide", half the damage you receives goes to Flow instead (and your shield factor reduces the Flow cost). When it reaches 0, it goes to "low tide" and any healing you receive also restores Flow. You also recover some Flow regardless of tide when your surge value reaches 100.

Drink Deep: While at high tide, you have a chance to ignore detrimental effects. While at low tide, you have a chance to remove detrimental effects each turn. Also grants damage withstand regardless of tide.

Go With The Flow: Boosts healing factor and shield factor, and coverts half of other healing factor bonuses to shield factor. Also restores Flow in turns that you move.

Enchanted Waters:

Pure Waters: Immediate healing followed by lasting rejuvenation for yourself and allies in radius 5. Carries a Secondary Effect.

Flowing Waters: Immediate movement that attacks anyone you pass, followed by being able to make some free moves over a few turns.

Cleansing Waters: Removes some status effects, blocks others over time, for yourself and allies in radius 5. Instant use.

Rising Waters: You and allies in radius 5 get a damage shield, which grows stronger over time (if it breaks before duration expires, it gets renewed with the new power). Carries a Secondary Effect.

Mana Knight Class Trees

he mana knight is something of a jack-of-all-trades; it has no particular specialties, but also no glaring weaknesses.

Mana Flare:

Mana knights deal arcane damage, allowing them to focus on a single damage type for solid offense.

Mana Bolt: Range 10 beam attack. Destroys projectiles it contacts, dealing additional damage in an area around them.

Mana Wave: Cone attack. Also drains arcane resources.

Mana Burst: Point-blank area attack. Also removes enemy beneficial effects (dealing additional damage for beneficial magical effects removed).

Mana Blast: Ranged area attack. Also puts talents on cooldown, dealing additional damage for spells put on cooldown.

Arcane Experimentation:

Experimental Safeguards: Provides Arcane, Blight, Temporal, and Silence resistance, as well as a minor Nature vulnerability.

Fiddling With Chance: Boosts Luck, Accuracy, and crit chance.

Practicing With Wards: Generate a persistent damage shield which refreshes every X turns. Also converts half of healing factor bonuses to shield factor.

Messing With Time: Every turn have a chance to gain a random temporal benefit (bonus temporal damage on attacks, free moves, detrimental effect reduction, beneficial effect persistence, talent cooldown, or a portion of a bonus turn). Effect is weighted by need.

Magical Fundamentals:

Foundations of Aegis: Heal and shield self and allies in radius 5. Carries a Secondary Effect. Overflow heal goes to shield.

Foundations of Divination: Detect creatures, objects, and traps and map terrain around you. Then attack with high bonus damage and accuracy, ignoring invisibility and evasion, with improved crit chance and power.

Foundations of Conveyance: Targeted teleport effect, or long-range random teleport if you teleport yourself to your current location. Departure dazes and arrival stuns nearby foes. When triggered by Eldritch Combat, no teleport but larger areas.

Foundations of Evocation: Blast a number of random targets with random energy. Damage is fairly weak individually, but combined effect can be devastating against a clustered group.

Choose Your Weapon

Arcvasti had commented that choosing a weapon requires going through a bunch of talents to see the various effects. So for ease of reference here's the various differences between fighting styles:

Two Handed:
-Improves the Accuracy, crit chance, and weapon damage bonus of Flexible Weapon Training by 25%.
-You make two attacks, but the second one is at 25% damage (since two handers usually deal 120% Strength, this should amount to the targeted 150% Magic).
-Eldritch Combat talents are at full power rather than 2/3 (so effectively +50% power bonus).
-Sweeping Strike blinds.
-Whirlwind Strike reduces resistances.
-Rapid Strike leashes the targets, pulling them one tile towards you each turn.
-Phoenix Knights tend to favor two-handed weapons, since it gives high power to their damage and recovery triggers and boosts Flexible Weapon Training (the crit chance from there is useful with their crit power boost from Phoenix Blood).

Dual Weapons:
-Improves the Accuracy, Powers, and crit power of Flexible Power Training by 25%.
-Normal dual-wielding extra attack at 50% damage, but you can wield two one-handed weapons (since one-handers usually deal 100% Strength, this should amount to the targeted 150% Magic).
-Eldritch Combat has a 50% chance to trigger the talent twice.
-Sweeping Strike confuses.
-Whirlwind Strike lowers global speed.
-Rapid Strike has a 50% chance each turn to pull the target a tile toward you, but when it does they spend energy as if from moving.
-Mind Knights tend to favor dual weapons, since the way they swap between telekinetic and telepathic attacks the double-trigger lets them cause more conditions faster, and the Mindpower bonus from Flexible Power Training boosts their chance to impose status effects and their stealth.

Weapon and Shield:
-Improves the various bonuses of Flexible Armor Training (including the generic hardiness bonus) by 25%.
-You make a second attack with your shield at 50% damage (since one-handers and shields each usually deal 100% Strength, this should amount to the targeted 150% Magic).
-Eldritch Combat has a 50% chance to trigger your Block talent, and increases priority for defensive talents.
-Sweeping Strike stuns.
-Whirlwind Strike lowers damage.
-Rapid Strike pins.
-Earth Knights tend to favor weapon and shield, since it improves the chance of their powerful defensive talents, fortifies their already strong defenses with Blocks, and boosts the hardiness bonuses from Flexible Armor Training that their Steelskin talent relies on (this is also why they tend to favor massive armor).

Single Weapon:
-Improves the saves and resist all of Flexible Resistance Training by 25%.
-You make an unarmed strike at 50% damage with each attack (this actually tends to amount to 160% Magic since unarmed attacks usually deal 40% Str, Dex, and Cun, but I figure this is if anything still outweighed by not having either boosts from a second weapon or shield, or the two-hander's generally stronger magic item powers and letting its procs apply to both attacks - glove unarmed combat extras do help though).
-Eldritch Combat chance to trigger is 50% higher.
-Sweeping Strike both disarms and silences.
-Whirlwind Strike lowers "skill" (Accuracy, Defense, Saves, and Powers).
-Rapid Strike slows movement speed.
-Sea Knights tend to favor the single weapon style, since it lets them trigger talents more often (the better to keep more enemies under erosion effects at once) and the boosted resist all from Flexible Resistance Training dovetails with the resist all from their Drink Deep talent (this is also why they tend to favor robes).

Staves:
-Use whatever fighting style is applicable (normally two-hander, but like short staff+shield, dual short staves, or single short staff can do the other ones).
-Staves do not get their usual accuracy bonus. For a class with all these procs I finally gave up on trying to balance that.
-Instead, staves do bonus proc damage of your favored energy type based on your magic and your accuracy comparison (this applies to all attacks you make that round, even if some of them don't use the staff itself). This can crit. The additional damage for magic is meant to help make up for the lower base damage of most staves.
-Mana Knights tend to favor staves, since they have good crit chances and accuracy, letting them maximize the bonus proc damage.

Daggers:
-Use whatever fighting style is applicable, typically dual-wielding, pretty much never two-handed.
-Each dagger wielded increases off-hand damage by 25% and combat speed by 10%. This also applies to the bonus shield/unarmed attacks from weapon and shield or single weapon fighting styles. This helps make up for the lower base damage and enchantment power of daggers.
-Storm Knights tend to favor dual daggers, since the crit power from Flexible Power Training dovetails well with their critical bonus from Storm Skirmisher, and the speed bonus synergizes nicely with Whirlwind Dervish.

Unarmed:
-Counts as single-weapon fighting style. Basically expands both the benefits and disadvantages of single weapon's use of unarmed bonus attacks.
-Grants +20% combat speed (because that's what Brawlers get and we don't want gauntlets to actually be slow).

[Razakai]

- When Embers of Rage is not present, you get a LUA error from the last line in the birth file
- The mag>str substitution for equip requirements doesn't actually work. While the item tooltip is updated, the requirements are not. Prob missing something in object/combat/player as there's a few places you need to flag it.

Also, Mind Knights are a bit odd with how MAD they are compared to others. Perhaps add a talent that converts Wil>Mag in a class category or special case their damage conversion for Eldritch Body such as replacing Mag with Wil, or even adding a Psiblade-alike effect only for them. As it stands you can pick up Psiblades from Zigur which is probably their optimum build - Superpower/Arcane Might with Str/Mag/Wil would be incredibly powerful.
And I'd be a bit careful with MK. If I'm reading this right, with Psychic Burst, Sweeping Strike and Seamless Exchange you can (presuming you bypass saves) inflict 100% talent failure on a target for 10 turns. If they're sleep vulnerable, you can then sleep them, wait for CDs and then get a few more turns.
MK should also probably learn TK/TP Focus when they learn any talent in their main categories. If you start a character with auto-learn talents off, you can never learn these talents which is quite awkward.

[Chronosplit]

Beginning thoughts:
-Some new talent trees' descriptions aren't punctuated properly, some are. May want to double check these out.
-I don't really see the need to pump Willpower as a suggested stat outside of Mind Knight? Mana is important with this class, but other stats seem to want to take priority. Unlike say, Phoenix Knight's Strength, there are also no talents that I can see that scale with Willpower investment outside of Mind.
-At first I noticed just how similar some new talents are to the already existing spell tree, but it makes sense later with Eldritch Strength. There are still reasons to go through the vanilla trees if you wish when it comes to stuff like Thunderstorm.

[Razakai]

There's definitely a bug in knight.lua, line 300ish. Can't quite replicate it yet, it happens when fighting other mageknight rares.

[Phoenix1]

- When Embers of Rage is not present, you get a LUA error from the last line in the birth file
- The mag>str substitution for equip requirements doesn't actually work. While the item tooltip is updated, the requirements are not. Prob missing something in object/combat/player as there's a few places you need to flag it.

...Hah. Thanks, will fix.

Also, Mind Knights are a bit odd with how MAD they are compared to others. Perhaps add a talent that converts Wil>Mag in a class category or special case their damage conversion for Eldritch Body such as replacing Mag with Wil, or even adding a Psiblade-alike effect only for them. As it stands you can pick up Psiblades from Zigur which is probably their optimum build - Superpower/Arcane Might with Str/Mag/Wil would be incredibly powerful.

Mind knights should be one of the least MAD. They use Willpower for their talents and resources, Magic for their special scaling talent and the general mage knight talents, and everything else is gravy. I suppose Cunning has a slight step up since it fuels mind power and mind save to a degree, but the bonuses from Eldritch Aura should be plenty sufficient to live without it if you'd rather focus on something else. Unless I'm underestimating the importance of other abilities for them, which is entirely possible.

And I'd be a bit careful with MK. If I'm reading this right, with Psychic Burst, Sweeping Strike and Seamless Exchange you can (presuming you bypass saves) inflict 100% talent failure on a target for 10 turns. If they're sleep vulnerable, you can then sleep them, wait for CDs and then get a few more turns.

Ah, I see. Yeah, will adjust that. Probably change Concussion for something else in Sweeping Strike.

MK should also probably learn TK/TP Focus when they learn any talent in their main categories. If you start a character with auto-learn talents off, you can never learn these talents which is quite awkward.

Will do.

Beginning thoughts:
-Some new talent trees' descriptions aren't punctuated properly, some are. May want to double check these out.

Yeah at some point I'm probably going to go through and do an overhaul on stuff like formatting, making sure those little tactical bits in the talents are sensible, etc.

-I don't really see the need to pump Willpower as a suggested stat outside of Mind Knight? Mana is important with this class, but other stats seem to want to take priority. Unlike say, Phoenix Knight's Strength, there are also no talents that I can see that scale with Willpower investment outside of Mind.

Resources are pretty important to them, and Willpower fuels both their resources. But considering the above, this probably means I'm underestimate the value of other stats. I expect at least part of this is from the partial damage boosts from Str and Dex being too high? The intent there is to make sure phoenix knights (especially) and storm knights don't get the value of their secondary stats curtailed (and to reinforce them as having the best offense). But if the benefit is such that even other mage knights are wanting one of those stats high, I need to tone the bonus down. Maybe I'll also reinforce Willpower by making it a factor for things like the Manasurge and Eldritch Aura resource recovery.

-At first I noticed just how similar some new talents are to the already existing spell tree, but it makes sense later with Eldritch Strength. There are still reasons to go through the vanilla trees if you wish when it comes to stuff like Thunderstorm.

Yeah for the most part the existing trees are there primarily as extra customization options, although I tried to add synergy where I could. A mage knight who wants to emphasize the "mage" side might focus more on those trees, giving them spells they can cast without burning Stamina and such.

There's definitely a bug in knight.lua, line 300ish. Can't quite replicate it yet, it happens when fighting other mageknight rares.

I'll check it out.

Thanks for the input guys!

[Frumple]

Heeeyy. Good to see this updated. Always did like the things (sorta' remind me of playing pre-nerf mindslayers, ehehe).

Tooltip desc wise, sea knight's drink deep could probably stand to have its reference to minimum life standardized with... whatever the base game's normal term for die_at is. Current phrasing's definitely more compact, but the first time my HP hit zero my current runthrough I was very confused when I didn't die, heh. Took me a couple looks over what talents I had until I noticed the amount was the same as on drink deep and it clicked that minimum meant die_at.

Curiosity wise... how does the handedness thing work with ogres, if at all? Still need to get to 5/5 grisly on this'un to start playing around, but it'd be nice to know in advance what happens (if anything, or at least if there's some kind of priority order) when you're dual wielding two handers or double staves or summat.

That said, might be interesting if getting grisly to 5/5 for an ogre knight opened up some kind of toggle so you could one-hand a two-hander; take the penalty in order to double dip the one one-hand and two-hander(/staff) effect on various junk, if you want to.

e: ... that, and I'm morbidly curious if you have some kind of check if the class runs into a race that happens to be able to one-hand 2h weapons and has more than two arms. Could you actually have some kind of mess that was triggering everything except the solo 1hand, at the same time? Maybe that, too, if it works off extra unarmed attacks ala flexible combat, too...

[Phoenix1]

Heeeyy. Good to see this updated. Always did like the things (sorta' remind me of playing pre-nerf mindslayers, ehehe).

Tooltip desc wise, sea knight's drink deep could probably stand to have its reference to minimum life standardized with... whatever the base game's normal term for die_at is. Current phrasing's definitely more compact, but the first time my HP hit zero my current runthrough I was very confused when I didn't die, heh. Took me a couple looks over what talents I had until I noticed the amount was the same as on drink deep and it clicked that minimum meant die_at.

Will do.

Curiosity wise... how does the handedness thing work with ogres, if at all? Still need to get to 5/5 grisly on this'un to start playing around, but it'd be nice to know in advance what happens (if anything, or at least if there's some kind of priority order) when you're dual wielding two handers or double staves or summat.

That said, might be interesting if getting grisly to 5/5 for an ogre knight opened up some kind of toggle so you could one-hand a two-hander; take the penalty in order to double dip the one one-hand and two-hander(/staff) effect on various junk, if you want to.

e: ... that, and I'm morbidly curious if you have some kind of check if the class runs into a race that happens to be able to one-hand 2h weapons and has more than two arms. Could you actually have some kind of mess that was triggering everything except the solo 1hand, at the same time? Maybe that, too, if it works off extra unarmed attacks ala flexible combat, too...

I had at one point before I started reworking these guys in earnest had a phoenix knight with one of the two-handed steamsaws that was getting the two-handed, dual-wield, and shield effects, because I had them all in separate if statements rather than an elseif. That was kinda hilarious.

...That's fixed in this version.

For the most part, the priority is dual wielding -> two hander -> shield -> one handed (which is really just "none of the above"). I notice I had a different priority in the Eldritch Combat passive damage, so changing that to the above for consistency.

[Phoenix1]

Okay, loaded a new version. Changes:

-Fixed infinite loop stuff for certain kinds of gemstone shields. I wish I knew how that little no_martyr tag works so I could do it properly but I think my method should still get the job done.
-Fixed a typo causing beam attacks to not extend to full range when triggered by Eldritch Combat.
-Fixed the error when EoR isn't present.
-Magic requirement substitution now actually lets you equip the stuff rather than just telling you you can.
-Expanded the magic requirement substitution to talents as well, after realizing that earth knights (well, everyone but phoenix knights, really, but most egregiously earth knights) would have trouble qualifying for things like Armor Training and Shield Offense.
-Reduced the Str and Dex damage bonus from Eldritch Body from 20-60% to 10-35%.
-Changed the resource regen from Eldritch Aura and Eldritch Surge to scale with Willpower rather than Magic.
-Changed the Sweeping Strike condition for a two-handed weapon from Concussion to Disarm.
-Added TK/TP Focus on_learn to the first talents of each Mind Knight class tree.
-Clarified Drink Deep's die_at bonus.

I looked over the Eldritch Combat code for that line 300ish bug but nothing jumped out at me as potentially troublesome, so that'll have to wait until I see it for myself and can figure out the fix.

EDIT: ...And uploaded a second patch because I forgot something I wanted to do.

-Removed the physical power bonus from Eldritch Body, since Eldritch Aura already gives enough of one.

[Frumple]

Cheers, heh.

Idle thought, though. Possibly let manually activated block have a chance to trigger (non-weapon requiring?) eldritch combat if something hostile's in line of sight? Possibly with a greater chance to trigger, but lower/no effectiveness bonus and no bash.

Quick poke at earth knight very quickly had me thinking manually blocking ever was a poor idea, since attacking can do it anyway. Far from necessary, but it'd be nice to have a better reason to do something with block other than unbind it so you don't accidentally waste a turn by pressing the key :V

E: ... also, is it just me, or is sapphire shield hands down the best gem one? It's real hard to beat always up damage shield in attractiveness.

[Phoenix1]

Yeah I don't know that blocking manually is really worth it. I want to keep overloading to a minimum, but I'll keep it in mind and see if I can implement something for it. If not, eh, they can just use their EC triggers.

I haven't done any thorough competitive testing for the gemstone shields, although I will note that the on break effects only happen when the shield is broken by damage, not just if duration expires, and the refresh isn't like sun paladin stuff - it doesn't keep the duration going. In theory, either sapphire should be broken through early, lowering the cooldown but you didn't get the full duration, or should outlast the attackers but not do any cooldown reduction. Eldritch Combat trigger will of course have a much shorter cooldown, but then you have the random factor in play so you may or may not get it when you need it.

'Course, that's all in theory. I'll keep an eye on it and lower the cooldown reduction if need be.

[Phoenix1]

And a few more tweaks and bugfixes.

-I think I found that Eldritch Combat bug. Or at least I found a bug that was triggered by NPC mage knights around line 300 of knight.lua, so hopefully there was only one. It was checking talents for Eldritch Combat before checking if the talents could be used with Eldritch Combat. So that should be fixed.
-Fixed an error causing Mana Bolt manaburn damage to be based on the talent's damage rather than the target's resources.
-Earth Blast stone walls will now correctly block movement. Although this means I still don't know why Genius Loci burrowing doesn't work on them.
-Added to Earthen Body something to make Stoneskin's cooldown reduction apply to Terrakinesis talents.
-Gave mind knight telepathic damage a small chance to trigger the Night Terrors talent on a kill, even against non-sleeping targets (2-10%, scaling with Night Terror talent level, doubled if randomizing psychic damage so people don't feel obligated to leave telekinesis completely off).
-Went back and clarified in the first talent descriptions the synergies the Mage Knight offensive trees have with their foundational "casting" trees where they hadn't been (Phoenix Fire lays down Wildfire, Psychic Attack can summon Night Terrors, Storm Invocation can Daze from Tempest, Terrakinesis gets cooled down by Stoneskin, Riptide applies Wet, and Mana Flare can be used in Aether Avatar).

EDIT: And a few more because playtesting is important apparently!

-Removed outdated mention of silence in Mana Bolt.
-Fixed Eldritch Combat multiplying power by a boost (thereby gravely weakening the next trigger) rather than adding the boost.
-Moved the spot where automatic Eldritch Combat is reset so an EC trigger of Fiddling with Chance doesn't immediately lose it.
-Tightened up Foundations of Conveyance.
-Fixed Eldritch Body setting weapons that already use magic to 0%.
-Toned down Foundations of Aegis some.

[Razakai]

Being unable to burrow through summoned walls is a known issue. I believe the Stoneshaper addon had a discussion about this which had a solution.
Also, take a look at the Bastion addon for examples of altering talents and block effects if you wanted to update it. There's also some examples of updating individual talent descriptions without overloading, in case you wanted to do something like updating Wildfire's description directly to refer to PK talents, might look cleaner.

On a balance/design note - I think the T1 resist talents are a bit overtuned. Being able to easily get 100% resall in 1 or more resistances is very powerful. For example, consider how deadly Dark Crypt is. Now if you went there as a Mage Knight, you'd be basically immune to the majority of the threats. Or a Phoenix Knight being immune to fire wyrms, orc pyromancers, luminous horrors, everything in charred scar, a bunch of common and threatening class abilities like ritch summon etc.
If you compare it to other resist talents like Nature's Defiance, that gives you 50% resist all in a fairly uncommon element, plus some other smaller bonuses. Or Juggernaut giving you 40% physical resistance and crit reduction, but being a temporary (albeit instant and high duration) buff.
I think aiming for stuff more along the lines of Shield Wall, Relentless etc would be better. Drop the resistances a lot, and if necessary shift some of the power into secondary effects. Things like the Storm Knight's secondary effects are a good thing to aim for as they're strong immunities.

Also, Phoenix Wings should prob get some sort of scaling bonus, as currently it's just +range?

[nsrr]

Six classes? Where am I going to find the time to give them all a proper go? Quite an ambitious project!

At first glance, from reading the class descriptions, I really like how each class has intentionally varried strengths in regard to offense, defense, restoration, utility and so on. Should make each one different enough that the use of the same mechanic doesn't get dull.

I started with Sea Knight and, while I haven't gotten too far yet, I'm having quite a lot of fun with it.

Anime Style is great, both for amusement factor and for calling your attention to talent procs.

I don't have much specific feed back at this point, but if anything jumps out at me, I'll let you know.

I was going to mention the wall-walking fix used by Stoneshaper, but Raz beat me to it :p The exact same callback should work for you, though, as I said to Erenion, it might not be the 'best' solution. Likely the same could be achieved by fiddling with something in the code where the check for passable terrain occurs when moved but, errr... I couldn't figure out where that was Using the callback does have the advantage of avoiding possible conflict with anything else that potentially messes with that bit of the engine, though.

[Frumple]

On a balance/design note - I think the T1 resist talents are a bit overtuned. Being able to easily get 100% resall in 1 or more resistances is very powerful. For example, consider how deadly Dark Crypt is. Now if you went there as a Mage Knight, you'd be basically immune to the majority of the threats. Or a Phoenix Knight being immune to fire wyrms, orc pyromancers, luminous horrors, everything in charred scar, a bunch of common and threatening class abilities like ritch summon etc.
If you compare it to other resist talents like Nature's Defiance, that gives you 50% resist all in a fairly uncommon element, plus some other smaller bonuses. Or Juggernaut giving you 40% physical resistance and crit reduction, but being a temporary (albeit instant and high duration) buff.
I think aiming for stuff more along the lines of Shield Wall, Relentless etc would be better. Drop the resistances a lot, and if necessary shift some of the power into secondary effects. Things like the Storm Knight's secondary effects are a good thing to aim for as they're strong immunities.

I'unno... the full resistance things are very strong, but at least t'me they're also about as (meta) class defining as the class talent scheme and eldritch combat and whatnot are. It's something really unusual so far as overall talent design goes in the game, moreso than most other aspects of the class; most everything else has at least some resemblance to preexisting talents, but basically nothing gives you a sustained/effectively passive full resistance to anything damage wise.

What I'd probably recommend if you want to tone 'em down is to have some kind of detriment to getting hit with a (fully) resisted damage type. Maybe getting hit more than a few turns in a row causes things to go haywire and eldritch combat to randomly proc (reduced tlvl) offensive/class attack tree spells from other knight classes. Maybe weird things starts happening with the body talent itself; storm knights could ramp up a % chance per turn to randomly speed up/slow down nearby projectiles, your own included, ferex, earth knights start splitting off random walls (or maybe barricades/chasms ala the EoR bridge zone or last level of the ritch map) when hit.

Stuff like that, that builds upon the immunity rather than just diluting it. Reducing the values would obviously be easier and less involved both for developer and player, but...

E: Unrelated, it's hella' minor, but it might be nice if the +/- shield flyover text was (if possible) squelched when no enemies are in LoS when you have biokinesis. Kinda' weird/very mildly annoying to have it constantly spamming while you're moving around a level due to the passive shield thing.

[Phoenix1]

Being unable to burrow through summoned walls is a known issue. I believe the Stoneshaper addon had a discussion about this which had a solution.
Also, take a look at the Bastion addon for examples of altering talents and block effects if you wanted to update it. There's also some examples of updating individual talent descriptions without overloading, in case you wanted to do something like updating Wildfire's description directly to refer to PK talents, might look cleaner.

Ah cool, will check those out. Thanks!

On a balance/design note - I think the T1 resist talents are a bit overtuned. Being able to easily get 100% resall in 1 or more resistances is very powerful. For example, consider how deadly Dark Crypt is. Now if you went there as a Mage Knight, you'd be basically immune to the majority of the threats. Or a Phoenix Knight being immune to fire wyrms, orc pyromancers, luminous horrors, everything in charred scar, a bunch of common and threatening class abilities like ritch summon etc.
If you compare it to other resist talents like Nature's Defiance, that gives you 50% resist all in a fairly uncommon element, plus some other smaller bonuses. Or Juggernaut giving you 40% physical resistance and crit reduction, but being a temporary (albeit instant and high duration) buff.
I think aiming for stuff more along the lines of Shield Wall, Relentless etc would be better. Drop the resistances a lot, and if necessary shift some of the power into secondary effects. Things like the Storm Knight's secondary effects are a good thing to aim for as they're strong immunities.

I'unno... the full resistance things are very strong, but at least t'me they're also about as (meta) class defining as the class talent scheme and eldritch combat and whatnot are. It's something really unusual so far as overall talent design goes in the game, moreso than most other aspects of the class; most everything else has at least some resemblance to preexisting talents, but basically nothing gives you a sustained/effectively passive full resistance to anything damage wise.

What I'd probably recommend if you want to tone 'em down is to have some kind of detriment to getting hit with a (fully) resisted damage type. Maybe getting hit more than a few turns in a row causes things to go haywire and eldritch combat to randomly proc (reduced tlvl) offensive/class attack tree spells from other knight classes. Maybe weird things starts happening with the body talent itself; storm knights could ramp up a % chance per turn to randomly speed up/slow down nearby projectiles, your own included, ferex, earth knights start splitting off random walls (or maybe barricades/chasms ala the EoR bridge zone or last level of the ritch map) when hit.

Stuff like that, that builds upon the immunity rather than just diluting it. Reducing the values would obviously be easier and less involved both for developer and player, but...

Hmm...I do like the immunities thematically, though I also see the point about how it can trivialize certain enemies. I recall in an older version I had phoenix knights taking a weakness to cold and darkness damage, could possibly institute something like that again. Make it a lesser but still noticeable weakness (like -6% per talent level, and -4% per level to the cap). Phoenix knights to cold (maybe also darkness since fire is pretty common and they get full immunity to blind, which is a serious status effect), mind knights to arcane, storm knights to physical (but a lower penalty since physical is super-common), sea knights to blight, earth knights to acid (also probably a lower penalty since they don't get a full damage immunity out of the box and, like, c'mon, they're earth knights), mana knights to nature. So while you can become nigh-invulnerable to certain classes of enemies, by doing so you're also opening yourself up to more damage from certain types.

Problem with that is that it kinda further exacerbates the issue of the class power varying based on where you are and who you're fighting. I could lower the immunities but keep the caps so the talents themselves don't grant full immunity out of the box, but do make it possible to achieve such with additional investment. I'll mull on it some.

Also, Phoenix Wings should prob get some sort of scaling bonus, as currently it's just +range?

Come to think of it, I believe I had set that up before I had done EC boosting stuff for the mana knight. Could change the guaranteed EC trigger there to a scaling boost to the chance. Actually weakens the talent some, but makes levels more important, which is probably good.

Six classes? Where am I going to find the time to give them all a proper go? Quite an ambitious project!

At first glance, from reading the class descriptions, I really like how each class has intentionally varried strengths in regard to offense, defense, restoration, utility and so on. Should make each one different enough that the use of the same mechanic doesn't get dull.

I started with Sea Knight and, while I haven't gotten too far yet, I'm having quite a lot of fun with it.

Anime Style is great, both for amusement factor and for calling your attention to talent procs.

I don't have much specific feed back at this point, but if anything jumps out at me, I'll let you know.

I was going to mention the wall-walking fix used by Stoneshaper, but Raz beat me to it :p The exact same callback should work for you, though, as I said to Erenion, it might not be the 'best' solution. Likely the same could be achieved by fiddling with something in the code where the check for passable terrain occurs when moved but, errr... I couldn't figure out where that was Using the callback does have the advantage of avoiding possible conflict with anything else that potentially messes with that bit of the engine, though.

E: Unrelated, it's hella' minor, but it might be nice if the +/- shield flyover text was (if possible) squelched when no enemies are in LoS when you have biokinesis. Kinda' weird/very mildly annoying to have it constantly spamming while you're moving around a level due to the passive shield thing.

I'll see what I can figure out.