Crystalist Class [1.0.2]

[nsrr]

Rolled a new character in dev mode. Turned off as many add-ons as I could (visible size categories and/or status effect display gave me an error when I tried to start a new game with them off, but that's not here or there). Here's the log:https://hastebin.com/oriporexup.erl

The first Devastate was started two tiles away from the test dummy. The movement doesn't show up, but you can see the first bump attack at line 56. Effect ends at line 127.

Second Devastate starts at line 243. You can see that I fail to use Saturate a couple times while I spam the hotkey, but then on the third of fourth press you can see it activate, at line 258. Devastate ends at line 357.

[minmay]

Thanks! That was actually enough information to reproduce it. Basically, never_act itself does nothing to prevent Actor:useTalent(), Actor:move(), etc. from working - those just check Actor:enoughEnergy(). Which is why Devastate and Shadow Veil are coded to use up all your energy. But, thanks to input being concurrent, there are short time windows where enoughEnergy() will return true, so hotkey presses/clicks/etc may or may not work, seemingly at random.
It's easier to do with Devastate than with Shadow Veil because Shadow Veil acts until your energy is negative, whereas Devastate acts until your energy is below game.energy_to_act.

Amusingly, equipping and using items doesn't check if you have enough energy, so you can easily and reliably equip and activate charms and other items during Shadow Veil and Devastate...and probably during other actors' turns too. So, looks like something to fix in 1.6.

[Arcvasti]

Decided to try out this class, as a Yeek. Overall, I like the class, but it does have some issues and it is definitely super strong on Normal[Although I suspect that it will scale poorly into Insane].

General thoughts:

-Its kind of interesting how, even though they only have three class exclusive trees[One of which starts locked], Crystalist still feels pretty unique. It'd be nice if they had more then one real generic tree though.
-This class is super tanky, for a variety of reasons. I got through the whole game without dying and I did Dark Crypt/Room of Death and killed Atamathon before I was even done the Prides, all of which are unusual for me. And this was playing as a Yeek, who are not exactly models of durability.

Feedback by talent category:

Solipsism:
-Solipsism[The category] is probably stronger on this class then on Solipsist, since they get to ignore most of its drawbacks. Crystalists have generally better defenses, which means that the Solipsism debuff comes into play less often. And Devastate removes the debuff when it DOES happen, gives the Clarity bonus on top of that and is usually a net psi generator, especially if you had a regen infusion going.
-The passive mindpower boost from investing in this category is pretty significant too, especially considering you basically always want to 5/5 Solipsism and Clarity.

Crystalline Attacks:
-The passive perk for this tree is pretty good, but basically boils down to more damage. Its probably the best reason to put points in Slash.
-Lash is basically a slightly better Channel Staff. Its damage is pretty bad, but it has no cooldown and range 10, so its at least good for consistently proccing Saturate. I got one level in Mind Sear from a loremaster escort and that did more damage then 4/5 Lash even when my +mind damage was lagging behind by a good 40% margin. I'm also not really sure how Lash's targeting works. There's no projectile, but it also can't target over enemies.
-Slash is the most useless talent in this tree. It doesn't deal much more damage then a comparatively levelled Lash even at mid range[It actually deals LESS damage at long range]. You could get rid of the whole "loses damage with range" gimmick that it has for whatever reason and I'd still never use it
-Clash is pretty good, generally. It has a kind of high cooldown, but good aoe, range and damage. It doesn't hurt you, but DOES hurt your allies. I found this out only after I'd hit the Lost Merchant with it and made him hostile.
-Flash is REALLY good. Once again, its cooldown is kind of high, but it deals solid damage to everything in an absolutely huge area. Flash+Saturate is even better. Once again, it hits allies. I managed to kill Melinda while fighting the farportal horror, which I didn't even know was possible after rescuing her. I figured she was invulnerable like the cat...

Crystalism:
-The passive perk for this tree is really good, considering that some artifact gems have very desirable bonuses even unboosted.
-Acuminate[I didn't even know that was a word] deals pretty weak damage, even compared to Lash or Slash. Its still pretty useful at one or two points invested for utility reasons. First of all, it gives you another chance to crit per turn, which is pretty nice. It also acts as a ghetto Umbraphage since it lets you pinpoint enemies outside of your light radius. The latter was quite useful considering I couldn't find a decent lantern for a long time. It also attacks enemy patrols on the world map, which is probably a bug.
-Saturate is a pretty nice talent. The extra damage is significant and the status effects applied can be quite strong, especially since the cooldown gets low enough to keep them applied indefinitely. The psi cost is high enough that its not something you just set to autocast and forget about, but isn't usually prohibitive since you generally don't spend much psi.
-Resonate gives you more damage. The only complaint I have here is that the +damage bonus and the +respen bonus both end up at 19% and 38% respectively, instead of a nice even 20% and 40%.

And now for the biggest thing about the class.

-Devastate.

-When I first started out, Devastate seemed useless. I'd played Shadowblades before and Shadow Veil got me killed a few times before I stopped using it.
-I used it for the first time in the Maze and haven't stopped using it since.
-Devastate's damage actually isn't all that amazing, although it's still usually better then manually using your talents since sometimes it decides to use Clash/Flash several times in a row. Melee with mindstars outdamages it once you get Psiblades + good mindstars[Probably before then if you use Beyond the Flesh with a good weapon] and smart use[Read: Lots of kiting] of your other abilities lets you get by fine without it.
-Devastate is amazing because of its defensive potential. Immunity to detrimental effects coupled with a full status cure that works on Solipsism means that it is a fantastic panic button when you're low on psi and heavily debuffed.
-Even better, it powers up your Sorption shields to the point where actually taking any health damage becomes rare against any but the strongest enemies. The only times I ended up below half health once I started using Devastate were during Dark Crypt and the Room of Death, both of which are optional and difficult areas.
-It gets even more ridiculous if you combine it with other defensive mechanisms. Leave's Tide, Antimagic Shield and Fungus all add to the durability tremendously and only require maybe a turn of set up.
-Also, Devastate doesn't have a fixed cooldown and its cooldown is fairly low to begin with. Eye of the Tiger is actually pretty good on Crystalist because you can just chain Devastates forever if you have decent mind crit. That's 100% detrimental status immunity with 100% uptime, which dropkicks Draconic Will solidly into the trash can in comparison. With really high crit chance or against big crowds, you can chain Saturate + Devastate forever, which means you can keep enemies locked down with nasty statuses permanently.
-However, I actually think that Devastate is in a pretty good place balance wise. Abilities like Devastate are usually pretty binary. You press the button and either everything else dies or you do. The Sorption power-up is godlike on Normal, but will probably taper off sharply on higher difficulties, making it the proper degree of risky.
-The only real change that I suggest is moving up Devastate's cooldown a tad and making it fixed, so that there's actually a not-tiny window in which you're not debuff immune.

Sorption:
-The defense bonus is pretty noticeable, especially since the Shields are one of your best places to dump class points.
-The Shields are basically the same as they are on Mindslayer, except without shield spiking and tedious shield swapping. I approve.
-Adsorption Shield is insultingly bad. At talent level 8, with 105 mindpower, it heals for a measly 12 points of damage each time a Sorption Shield is hit. Considering that I regenerate for ~200 life per turn with Fungus and rarely take any significant damage, that's bad even against enemies with lots of procs.
Also, it triggers even when your psi shield doesn't block any damage at all due to Antimagic Shield, which seems like a bug to me.

Voracity:
-I didn't actually take this category, opting for Crystalline Fortress instead. It probably would have been just as good.
-The healmod bonus is really good with Fungus and Lifebinding Emerald and is probably still really good even without those.
-The leech talents are good, but are eclipsed by Devastate+Insatiable. Why regain a good amount of psi and mildly inconvience your enemies when you can regain a huge amount of psi and kill your enemies? They'd help out a lot early though, so I guess Voracity would be a decent pick on a Cornac Crystalist[Even though that combo is a terrible idea...].
-Insatiable's psi on mind crit could potentially give Devastate some even bigger psi regen numbers considering how many crits you can get off of it.

Crystalline Fortress:
-The mental save bonus, combined with a naturally high mental save score, might make Dismissal/Balance not total trash. I kind of doubt it though.
-Fortify is good. Physical spike damage is your big weakness and getting physical durability helps shore up that weakness. If you've got a gem which does physical damage[Iridium Sphere, for example], then you can get physical affinity, which is probably the best kind of affinity.
-Calcify is ok. ~8 turns of total invulnerability is nothing to sneeze at, especially on higher difficulties where things exist that can kill you while you're Devastating around. The cooldown is long and fixed, which is reasonable for a talent that makes you literally invulnerable.
-Purify isn't that good. The psi cost eventually becomes manageable, but considering that you have a low cooldown ability that cures all debuffs and makes you status immune, it isn't worth the points it takes to get that far.i
-Vivify is basically a carbon-copy of Absorption Shield and has many of the same issues. Its probably better because you crit more times then you get hit, especially with Devastate. Still pretty bad though.

Miscellaneous feedback:

-Nature is probably the strongest damage type to stack. There are lots of items with +nature damage and respen[My winner had over 120% nature damage and 100% nature respen]. The nature Saturate effect is pretty strong and, most importantly, nature damage can help your mindstar damage too. I ended up getting some ridiculous numbers on Nature's Equilibrium crits.
-Mind is most likely in second place, although its pretty rare. If I'd gotten a mind damage gem and Nexus of the Way, I could have dealt comparable damage.
-Atamathon's Ruby Eye[The one you get for killing him] is hilarious to telekinetically wield with the Crystalism bonus. It gives me ~180 fire damage when hit, near-immunity to pinning, over a hundred points of life, and +36% fire damage. If I'd been stacking fire damage instead of nature damage, this would have been even more ridiculous. However, it doesn't have a special damage type associated with it, so you can't actually quiver it and use it for Crystalist talents. I didn't check if the eye you use to reactivate him has the same problem, but it seems likely. IIRC, the Resonating Diamond also doesn't have a damage type, although that one makes more sense.
-Somehow, despite accidentally killing the Lost Merchant and Melinda, I still managed to save all nine escorts and Aeryn[Although that last was mostly because I didn't use Devastate for the final fight]
-After combat, I'd often get a series of heals for one or two points of damage for no real reason. I suspect Absorption Shield might have something to do with it, but I can't be sure.

EDIT: Apparently I can't spell "Devastate".

[minmay]

-After combat, I'd often get a series of heals for one or two points of damage for no real reason. I suspect Absorption Shield might have something to do with it, but I can't be sure.

That's Biofeedback's effect.

[Arcvasti]

I decided to play this class again and ran into a bug. For some reason, some of the gem wielding effects aren't getting removed properly. I have Dust to Dust on mindpower hit and 3% to all damage despite not having the Temporal Crystal or an ametrine equipped[Although I DID have them equipped earlier].

[Doctornull]

I pretty much agree with Arcvasti's critique.


This is an interesting and distinct class. The play is fun (albeit a bit broken with Devastate) and I got my first Yeek Crystalist off the island with a bit of tactical movement.

I think the tactical movement is the most interesting innovation that this class offers. You want your enemies in a cluster, with the boss in front of a lot of minions, to maximize the per-round Devastate beams.

I think you could keep the innovative tactical play without needing Devastate to be so abusable.



Here are some ideas, starting with Generics:

Psionics / Feedback - this tree is good for Solipsists because they get Feedback from their Thoughtform pet. It's not great for a Crystalist. It's not bad, but it's not great. Certainly shouldn't be the only Generic tree. Since it's better late-game when you have high passive regen, maybe lock it.

Psionics / Finer Energy Manipulation (the 1.5 Mindslayer generic tree) - this has a lot of utility, and it seems like a good flavor match for Crystalist. Give this unlocked at 1.3. In specific, the ability to consume a gemstone in trade for Psi regeneration seems more thematic for this class than it is for the Mindslayer. (Re-write the talent's flavor text!)

Cunning / Survival - Unlock it. Crystalists build Cunning and this tree has a bunch of utility.

(New) Spell / Crystal Alchemy - locked tree which allows you to do gear -> gem transformations and embed gems in gear without any mana, but it's all spells so you're not allowed into Zigur anymore. Basically emulate the first Alchemist talent but with no Mana bar added. Then make up two new talents to replace the 3rd and 4th since this tree should not interact with Mana. Level-gate the spells since nobody is going to stack Magic.

Psi / Dreaming - would solve some problems, but seems unthematic. Do not recommend.
Psi / Augmented Mobility - would solve a lot of problems, but seems unthematic. Do not recommend.
Psi / Mentalism - nobody uses it because it's bad. Also not thematic. Do not recommend.




On the Class Talents side:

Solipsism + totally-not-Absorption: Two great trees that taste great together. Since you've already written a variant, you could improve the arbitrary ordering if you wanted, or just fold all 3 shields into a single talent and then have the other talents improve the shield(s), like what the 1.5 Celestial / Chants tree did. There's nothing broken about the current order, but it's mildly annoying that e.g. Yeeks get Phys / Acid / Nature / etc. resistance and then immediately go into a zone with hardly any Phys or Nature attackers, just tons of Fire & Blight.

Crystalism

- Acuminate is a fun talent. I'm just walking around feeling like a fully operational Death Star. But both the range and the cost are excessive at low levels, and the damage & cost are too low at high levels.

Proposed change: range and cost are both scaled by quiver gem tier. Cost = tier psi (t1 = 1 psi, etc.); range = tier + 4 maybe with a bonus +1 at talent level 5, so you'd get range 10 at talent 5 + t5 gem. Hmm, or maybe even raw talent level + gem tier, or 3+tier with bumps at talent 3 and talent 5... the important thing is that you will get to range 10, but you don't start there.

- Saturate, Resonate, and Devastate are all a bit wonky, mostly in a bad way. Saturate has so much synergy with Slash and Flash that it's a bit of a no-brainer, and in a bad way.

Proposed change: replace these talents.

- Saturate: Activated. For %d (duration) your Acuminate talent makes +%d (1-3) additional beam attacks every round, each against a different foe. Fractional beam attacks indicate a chance to make the fractional portion.

- Resonate: Activated, target enemy. For %d (duration) your Acuminate talent will preferentially target this foe, and when the foe takes damage you get healed or get psi or whatever.

- Repudiate: Activated. For %d (duration) your Acuminate beams push enemies away; distance pushed is 1+gem tier.


Crystalline Attacks - This tree is much better. It just needs a bit of tweaking. Since Saturate isn't an ultra-buff anymore, this tree might be where you get access to the exciting alternate damage type.

- Lash: functional and decent. Maybe reduce the range to scale with gem tier like Acuminate, and give it a 20-50% chance (by talent level) to apply the exciting damage type instead of the base type.

- Slash: radius 10 cone is too big for level 4. If the range is important, maybe make it a beam? So you get one low-CD range 10 beam at level 4. Like Lash, it has a % chance to use the exciting damage type -- maybe half the Lash chance (10-25%) but checked for every target independently.

- Clash: already perfect, just add a chance to deal the exciting damage type.

- Flash: probably impossible to balance as-is. Maybe this is the cone, and it's got a high CD + range limited by talent + gem tier, but it always deals the exciting damage type.



(New) Resonant Blows - Mindstar punching means melee hitting is viable, but damage is pathetically weak. So maybe a tree about applying the damage type of your quiver gem to melee attacks. The first talent could also give you Psi when you hit in melee.

This could also give you resistance to the gem's damage type, and maybe also a talent for resistance to the opposite type (fire/cold, light/dark, blight/nature, temporal/gravity, etc.) -- the opposite type is useful since you generally won't use a Fire gem against Fire Wyrms, nor a light gem against Luminous Horror tea-parties.

Maybe also a sustain which gives 1-3 projection attacks (30% damage, random target within range 7) like the weapon type.

Capstone might be give hits a chance for an explosion of the exciting damage type, similar to Arcane Destruction (from Technique / Magical Combat).


Voracity - Not inherently a terrible tree, but by the time I can unlock it, I don't need it. Harmless but easily dropped, since I don't expect it'll see much use.


Crystalline Fortress - Looks decent (not broken), though the capstone looks a bit weak, and Purify is very expensive for the time when I'd need it. I'd rather pay something else -- maybe gemstones? Consume a gemstone and each round reduce the duration of up to (gem tier) effects by one for (talent level) duration. That also makes it a potential buff you could apply before you get debuffed.


(new, high-level) Advanced Crystalism
- t1: (active) Acuminate beam against everyone on screen.
- t2: (passive) Acuminate improves light radius by gem tier and gives 20-50% blindness immunity.
- t3: (passive) Acuminate %chance to apply Brainlock crosstier debuff.
- t4: (passive) Acuminate beams jump to 1-3 additional targets, but at reduced damage each jump. More talent points = more jumps + less reduction. The screen may get messy.


-- -- --

Are the talents in this addon not allowed for NPCs / Adventurers? (And if so, is that because of Devastate?)

I think you can mark specific talents as prohibited for NPCs, if you wanted to allow the class for Adventurers and (at least some talents for) Bosses.


Anyway, overall this is a very cool class.

I don't like how central Devastate is, and I don't think it's necessary to nerf down all other damage in order to accommodate Devastate.

But the concept is good, and the execution feels clean.

Kudos! (Now fix it.)

[Arcvasti]

I'm not even going to start on everything else you said, but.

Psi / Mentalism - nobody uses it because it's bad. Also not thematic. Do not recommend.

The second talent gives you complete immunity to mental effects for only two points. The third talent is one of the most broken talents in the game, allowing you to do stuff like duplicate items or fight from complete safety behind a wall. Nobody uses it to it's full potential because it's tedious, not because it's bad.

I replayed the class fairly recently myself and my only complaint is how much the crystalline attacks talents suck for damage and especially psi damage efficiency. I think it's fine to have them not deal much damage, but must they also be expensive? Reducing their costs would make the early game less painful while also not increasing the power of devastate.

I also like the idea of another generic tree. Finer Energy Manipulations might work if matter is energy gets the forcefield treatment.

[Doctornull]

I'm not even going to start on everything else you said, but.

Psi / Mentalism - nobody uses it because it's bad. Also not thematic. Do not recommend.

The second talent gives you complete immunity to mental effects for only two points. The third talent is one of the most broken talents in the game, allowing you to do stuff like duplicate items or fight from complete safety behind a wall. Nobody uses it to it's full potential because it's tedious, not because it's bad.

Tedious is a type of bad.

You might notice that from he derogatory connotation of "tedious".

Not the first time someone has tried to lecture me while essentially agreeing with what I said, probably won't be the last either.

[Doctornull]

Here's my Crystalist at the end of his journey: https://te4.org/characters/52902/tome/8 ... 9e068c4a13

Turns out he couldn't face-tank the Room of Death.

That snapshot is at level 47. Here he is at level 29:

cornac crystalist at level 29.jpg (210.85 KiB) Viewed 2483 times

The main difference is that at level 47 his Crystalism and Crystalline Attacks were both 5/5/5/5.

For prodigy, he took Windtouched Speed, mostly because he had plenty of Generic points to sink into Mindstars and Harmony.

The Prides were fairly easy, except one time a pair of Orc Corrupters ruined his day (the one previous death).

Hope this is useful to you @minmay.

[Doctornull]

Bug report. There seems to be a bad interaction between our addons.

crystalist bug.jpg (112.53 KiB) Viewed 2427 times

Here's the artifact which triggered that stacktrace. It's a shield which unwears and then wears itself, so it can improve its stats as the PC levels:

Code: Select all

newEntity{
   base = "BASE_SHIELD",
   power_source = {arcane=true},
   unique = true,
   no_drop = true,
   rarity = nil,
   name = "Timekeeper", image = "object/artifact/timekeeper.png",
   unided_name = "iron shield",
   desc = [[This is your shield. There are many like it, but this one is yours. You must master your shield as you master your life.]],
   color = colors.BLUE,
   level_range = {50, 50},
   require = { stat = { str=11 }, },
   cost = 10,
   material_level = 1,
   metallic = true,
   sentient=true,
   special_desc = function(self) return "Improves its stats based on your level. At levels 11, 21, 31 and 41 it blocks a new damage type." end,
   special_combat = {
      dam = resolvers.rngavg(7,11),
      block = resolvers.rngavg(15, 25),
      physcrit = 2.5,
      dammod = {str=1},
   },
   wielder = {
      combat_armor = 2,
      combat_def = 4,
      combat_def_ranged = 4,
      fatigue = 6,
      learn_talent = { [Talents.T_BLOCK] = 1, },
      resists = { [DamageType.TEMPORAL] = 5 },
   },
   act = function(self)
      self:useEnergy()
      if not self.worn_by then return end
      if game.level and not game.level:hasEntity(self.worn_by) then self.worn_by = nil return end
      if self.worn_by:attr("dead") then return end
      local who=self.worn_by
      local new_resists = {}
      local DamageType = require("engine.DamageType")
      local Talents = require "engine.interface.ActorTalents"

      if self.last_level ~= who.level then
	 local lev = who.level
	 local lstat = 8 + (lev * 2)
	 self.last_level = lev

	 who:onTakeoff(self, true)
	 self.wielder=nil
	 self.special_combat=nil

	 local res = math.ceil(who:combatStatLimit(lstat, 40, 5, 20))
	 new_resists[DamageType.TEMPORAL] = res

	 local l_dam = 5 + (lev / 2)
	 local l_block = 15 + lev

	 if lev > 10 then
	    new_resists[DamageType.DARKNESS] = res
	    l_dam = 1 + lev
	    l_block = 25 + lev
	 end
	 if lev > 20 then
	    new_resists[DamageType.COLD] = res
	    l_dam = 5 + lev
	    l_block = 30 + (lev * 2)
	 end
	 if lev > 30 then
	    new_resists[DamageType.BLIGHT] = res
	    l_dam = 10 + lev
	    l_block = 70 + (lev * 2)
	 end
	 if lev > 40 then
	    new_resists[DamageType.ARCANE] = res
	    l_dam = 20 + lev
	    l_block = 80 + (lev * 3)
	 end
	 if lev > 50 then
	    l_dam = 90
	    l_block = 200 + lev
	 end

	 self.wielder={
	    combat_armor = 1 + math.ceil( who:combatStatLimit(lstat, 10, 1, 4) ),
	    combat_def   = 2 + math.ceil( who:combatStatLimit(lstat, 30, 2, 14) ),
	    combat_def_ranged = 2 + math.ceil( who:combatStatLimit(lstat, 20, 2, 10) ),
	    fatigue = 6,
	    learn_talent = {
	       [Talents.T_BLOCK] = math.ceil( (lev + 1) / 10 ),
	    },
	    resists = {}
	 }
	 self.special_combat={
	    dam = l_dam,      --dam = resolvers.rngavg(7,11),
	    block = l_block,  --block = resolvers.rngavg(15, 25),
	    physcrit = 5,     --physcrit = 2.5,
	    dammod = {str=1},
	 }

	 for k,v in pairs(new_resists) do
	    self.wielder.resists[k] = v
	 end

	 who:onWear(self, true)
      end
   end,
   on_wear = function(self, who)
      self.worn_by = who
   end,
   on_takeoff = function(self)
      self.worn_by = nil
   end,
}

The artifact worked fine in ToME, and it's being used by a class that I'm testing out.

[minmay]

Your calls to Actor:onWear() and onTakeoff() are wrong, the second argument should be the inventory id, not a boolean. Refer to Ureslak's Femur, Corpathus, Anmalice, Spellhunt Remnants, Umbraphage, Eternity's Counter, Cuirass of the Dark Lord, Command Staff, Psiblades, sets, the Black artifacts, Ring of Lost Love, Innovation, Ramroller, Fanged Collar, Shoes of Moving Slowly, Bizzare Contraption (sic), and Writhing Ring of the Hunter.

Your calls only work in vanilla because there are no sets involved.

[Doctornull]

Your calls to Actor:onWear() and onTakeoff() are wrong, the second argument should be the inventory id, not a boolean.

Thanks!