Marksman - Archer Rework v1.3

[jenx]

Question: Sentinel says it puts 1+ other talents on cooldown - are they your talents or the enemies? pretty major difference !!

the description is ambiguous

[rexorcorum]

3. The munitions tree was good, but it needs visual representation. There's no catharsis to using flaming shots if you can't see a fireball with every hit.

3) I did have the fireflash graphic in during the first version - and it was pretty obnoxious. Maybe there's a less intrusive fire explosion that could be used for this.

Soon I'll give the class (and new rogue as well) a thorough gfx pass, so we'll be having something cool to show when doing stuff for the 1.5 release

[jenx]

Feedback: the changes to trueshot (ie stamina regen nerf) has changed the class from brilliant to terrible.

I can't use my abilities as I can't regen stamina fast enough any more.

Please revert to previous....

[jenx]

Feedback: There is no icon for Sentinel so one doesn't know for how many turns it is active.

Needs an icon...

[Razakai]

Yeah changing it to 2,10 scaling was a bit overkill. Will buff it tonight.

Sentinel should have a particle image over the mob, same one as Temporal Warden focus - a reddish circle around their feet.

[jenx]

I wouldn't mind making Agility/Sniper weapon-independent if we had 1h bows and 2h slings, but for now I'd prefer to keep them separate and have Munitions act as the weapon-agnostic advanced tree for people. Making new weapon types is a bit out of scope for me at the moment (although I do want crossbows one day).

And yeah, stuff like apr/save reduction etc from Aim or speed from Rapid Fire is intended to be taken care of by other talents. In particular Munitions (and especially Piercing Ammo) is supposed to be the 'toolbox' tree for dealing with various unpleasant things at higher difficulties like stripping sustains, dealing with high resist/armor/save mobs and so on.

Class points being thin is a tricky one. It's kinda intended - if you manage to get every single talent they have, they'd end up rather strong, so the general intent is to 1-3 point most core skills like the ones in Reflexes and then go heavier into a few others. Bit like how in TW you tend to just put 1-2 points into lots of stuff. I'm open to suggestions though.

Does this mean Sniper only works for bows? Agility only works for slings, but I'm not sure if Sniper is bows only or not...

[Razakai]

It should do - at least once I fix it. Might have forgotten to put a bow dependency on it.

[Razakai]

Put out a quick 1.4 update. Reduced the cost of a few talents (Flare in particular), upped the stamina regen of First Blood. Not quite to the same level as before, but most shots are also a bit cheaper now. Will probably adjust further later.

[jenx]

Thanks for the update. It is better, but I prefer the old version

Can you adjust Agile Defense so that it reports the damage averted? It's hard to know if it is doing much good.

And I think Rapid Fire should be the third talent, so that it corresponds to Aim. Otherwise, you have to wait until level 25 to max it! (Better still, move both to the second slot, so you can work on this levels 14-18)

[Razakai]

Basically I want to balance their stamina regen/spend so it's a bit less 'spiky'. With the old one and higher talent costs, getting a bad run of mark procs could make you run dry, whereas having trueshot up and chaining marks would fill stamina faster than you could possibly spend. Lowering the First Blood stamina gain and reducing their costs smooths it out a bit. Maybe the solution is putting a stamina regen talent that's not tied to the random chance of mark though.

Yeah, I can change Agile Defense to report the block. I'll think about shifting the talent ordering around - the original reason is that Rapid Fire is a bit stronger than Aim, and nothing in Agility seems fitting for a big capstone talent apart from it. Maybe changing Bull Shot a little and moving it to T4, Vault T3, Rapid Fire T2 could do it though. Not sure yet.

[Frumple]

Re: stam, maybe make it so a (probably talent level derived) number of failed marks gives some regen anyway? Sniper's Lament or somethin', heh. Or failed marks when you're below a certain amount of stamina gives some degree of return, something like that. Not enough you can really rely on it, but enough mismanaging your less rng-dependent marking abilities when you're experiencing a proc drought isn't as punishing.

[Mordy]

Yeah, I can change Agile Defense to report the block. I'll think about shifting the talent ordering around - the original reason is that Rapid Fire is a bit stronger than Aim, and nothing in Agility seems fitting for a big capstone talent apart from it. Maybe changing Bull Shot a little and moving it to T4, Vault T3, Rapid Fire T2 could do it though. Not sure yet.

Isn't there an option still to allow bows to use Rapid Fire really? Unless you manage to balance it vs Aim, the fact that bows cannot access that talent at all makes the Marksman class very heavily sling oriented.

[Razakai]

The intent is for the 2 trees to be equally strong in different ways. Agility has better passive defense, mobility and can attack faster, but Sniper should have utility from conceal/smoke and better burst. Overall damage should be a bit in favour of Sniper. The current talents might not quite meet that however. Aim and Rapid Fire will be staying mutually exclusive between Bow and Sling respectively.

[Reat]

Maybe the solution is putting a stamina regen talent that's not tied to the random chance of mark though.

There's a reason Combat Veteran is available to 12 classes. It may not be interesting or sexy, but it does it's job as effectively and efficiently as possible.

[jenx]

BUG report: Bullseye says it activates "each time you trigger a mark". However, I've worked out that it only triggers when you use headshot, volley or called shots hits a npc that already has a mark.

If you trigger a mark with steady shot or shoot, bullseye doesn't activate.

so either the description is wrong, or the code is wrong I believe.