Mindslinger v1.0.6

[nsrr]

Adds the Mindslinger as a new, Yeek-only, Psionic subclass. Get it here or on the Steam workshop.

Mindslingers wield slings in their main-hand and telekenetic weapon slots and gain many bonuses while their off-hand slot is empty, ranging from defense to added procs on ranged attacks.
One part Mindslayer, one part Solipsist, a dash of Skirmisher, just a pinch of Arcane Blade and Cursed, and 100% Grade-A Yeek.

The class combines a few trees each from Mindslayer and Solipsist with three all-new class trees. This class leans more towards 'fun' than 'balanced', but is still certainly weaker than the highest tier classes in vanilla. High damage, decent defense, and moderate mobility and utility. The class largely came about because of my desire to make use of the telekinetic ranged weapon gimmick and to create a Yeek-only Psionic class, because it just seems like there should be one.

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Generic Trees:
Technique/Combat Training
Psionic/Augmented Mobility
Psionic/Feedback
Psionic/Finer Energy Manipulations
Psionic/Mentalism(locked)
Cunning/Survival(locked, 1.0)

Class Trees:
Psionic/Absorption
Psionic/Focus
Psionic/Distortion
Psionic/Psychic Assualt (locked)
Psionic/Discharge (locked)

New Class Trees:
Psionic/Mindslinger
1)Mindslinger
Fire a shot which deals enhanced damage and may confuse the target. Low cooldown.
Passively grants sling mastery.
2)Displacement Shot
Fire a shot which deals enhanced damage and releases a burst of Mind damage that can knockback foes.
3)Agile Mind
For a shot time your sling shots will deal Mind damage and consume no ammo and you will reload one extra time per base turn.
Passively, grans increased critical power and ranged critical hits will trigger a stacking Mindpower buff.
4)Telepathic Shot
Fire a shot which bypasses other targets and grants you vision of all creatures within in range X for a few turns if it hits. While linked to the target, any time you use a non-instant mind power, a burst of mind damage is released in a ball centered on the target, up to once per turn.

Psionic/Force
1)Psionic Shell
While your off-hand is empty, all of your sling attacks will deal additional Mind damage and debuff the target's Mind save.
Passively, each archery attack generates a small amount of Psi and Feedback.
2)Force Ward
Weave a Force Ward with an off-hand gesture, increasing your Defense and All saves for a few turns.
Passively, each archery and melee attack that misses you due to your defense generates a small amount of Psi and Feedback.
3)Force Burst
Improve your Force Ward to knockback and daze nearby foes when activated.
4)Psionic Combat
While your off-hand is empty, all of your sling attacks have a chance to trigger Mind Sear, Distortion Bolt or Mindlash. The talent is chosen randomly from those of these that are known, within range, and not on cooldown. Triggering costs Psi but takes no time and does not trigger cooldown.

Psionic/Charge (locked, high level, uses Feedback)
1)Charged Shot
Fire a shot which pierces all targets in a beam, deals Mind damage, and consumes no ammo.
2)Overclocked Mind
Whenever you use a Feedback talent which is not instant, you gain X% of a turn.
3)Domination Shot
Fire a shot which attempts to Dominate the target, pinning, reducing its armor and defense, and causing all damage you deal to it to gain X% resistance penetration.
4)Resonance Link
For X turns, you will be healed for Y% of all Mind damage you deal.

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Questions, comments, and bug reports are welcome and encouraged, as always.

Enjoy!

[scul]

As usual I love the sound of this. In a few hours, once I get done with the all consuming and VERY IMPORTANT WORK I will try it. I will be sure to give feedback! (See what I did there?)

[Recaiden]

Class description says Dexterity is a key attribute - why? To equip better slings?

At low levels I constantly find myself out of ammo and out of psi. Which is fine, probably.
Mindhook is a lot worse on a ranged character.
Love Force Bust
Overclocked Mind feels really strong. Not as breakable as Ancestral Life, of course. But you can eventually make a shield, heal, buff, and two shooting talents instant.
Mind Shots gives you so much ammo. It feels excessive; I think one free reload a turn would be fine.

Typo in Charge/Overclocked Mind: 'Fatiue'

[nsrr]

Dexterity is listed because of slings, yes. Listing it last was my way of trying to convey that it's the least important.

Yeah, Mindhook is pretty bad for them, but the rest of the tree is solid.

Overclocked Mind has the same scaling as AL, which I thought might be ok with out regen canceling shenanagins, but yeah it could be cut back.

Noted on Mind Shots. I started with one and it felt low, but two felt like too much once you have more reloads. I went back and forth a couple of times. Maybe I'll go with one and have it increase your reload rate by one or two while in effect or something.

Typo noted. Thanks for the feedback

[scul]

Really liking it so far! Only low level and playing easy mode (nightmare/roguelike). There are a few random spelling errors I will post in a bit. As well as my thoughts on the skills themselves after I am a bit further. (Or die!)

I am also curious about dexterity, I know it gives accuracy and defense which is definitely a part of the class, but it seems like I can envision a scenario where you are just doing the equip swapping stuff to get the dexterity to wear high level things. I do not recall the numbers but I think it goes up to like the 40s in dex to wield highest tier slings/ammo? And given how fast Yeeks level you might be wanting to wear some of that stuff fairly "early" in the game. I am level 14 right now and I already have a tier 3 sling that needs 24 dex that I cannot reach with the few pieces of dex gear I have found and the couple of points I have added to it. Yeeks already start with dex malus. I am sure it will be a non issue at highest levels, but I just do not see myself putting points in dex if I can possibly avoid it, given that it is not doing anything for me besides tiny bits of def.

I was thinking maybe modifying a tree to make some of the skills scale with dex somehow, or more reasonably make it so that dex is not a requirement at all but that that requirement is fulfilled with cunning or willpower. It just feels bad if your main weapons are locked behind your 3rd (really 4th for me, I would put point in con as a Yeek before dex) most important stat. I think dex makes complete sense from a roleplay perspective but right now it feels a bit off to me without making me hunt all shops for dex gear so I can equip my weapons, or neglecting my two main stats for a stat that will not do much for me. Maybe I am just spoiled by classes that let me pump one stat and then the secondary one I can basically ignore until late game. But this feels like I am spread way too thin without doing the equipment juggle thing which is not even working for me yet.

[nsrr]

You can max three stats and about half fill a fourth. I think half filling Dex plus gear should be plenty for equips requirements, which lets you max Wil, Cun and another stat of your choice. I played on nightmare and was able to buy and equip teir3 shots/slings after finishing that first few dungeons with just the dex gear I had found and 5-6 points actually invested in Dex. I did delay learning a couple of talents that required Cun/Wil by a couple of levels, but didn't feel spread too thin on stats or lacking in talents. Also, keep in mind that with double slings your damage is already really high, even without over-tiered weapons. I had considered adding a Wil or Cun requirement swap into one of their talents, but struggle to find a place to fit it in that was not too awkward or already bloated (their mastery talent already bundles in an attack/cc talent).

Your feedback is noted, of course, and I'll pay particular attention to this matter as I get more feedback and do more test runs myself. It is a tiny bit awkward early on, but damage is not a place where the class is lacking, and, compared to Arcane Blade or Brawler, I feel like their stat spread situation really isn't that bad.

As far as stats go, the one thing that I don't really like is that the only Mindpower boosting prodigy requires Strength, which also nudges you toward heavy armor, which is just not in theme with the class at all. There are a couple of Fatigue amplifying scaling formulas (Force Ward and Overclocked Mind) to discourage heavy and encourage light, but I don't know as that's enough to detract from the appeal of Superpower.

[scul]

Psionic shell - "wraping" your shot
Force burst - "knocback" all foes
Overclocked mind - reduced by "Fatiue"

These were all I saw upon initial mouseover.

I can definitely agree on not needing damage, I have not had to fight anything that is super resistant, though I have a decent amount of penetration so that should not be much of an issue, still on T2 dungeons so not much else to report yet, will let you know after I win or die.

[nsrr]

v1.0.1
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[General]
Fixed a few typos.

Scaled back all attack talent damage considerably.

[Overclocked Mind]
No longer uses scaling from Ancestral Life; overall lower scaling.

[Mind Shots]
Effect now grants only one reload per turn.

[Domination Shot]
Adjusted scaling.
Reduced resistance penetration values and slightly buffed defense and armor reduction values.

[Telepathic Shot]
Adjusted duration scaling, vision radius now scales [~8-14].

Edit(forgot a change):
[Psionic Combat]
Random talent selection now checks the range of the ability vs the distance of the target, in addition to cooldown and knowledge.

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Not yet updated on Steam. Been having trouble with my computer and wound up resetting it to manufacturer defaults, haven't quite gotten to re-installing Steam.
(Anyone who wants to donate a new laptop to the add-on development cause can PM me for my address ;P )

[scul]

Really enjoying this. I said I would post after I won and died, but I have a minute now. Even with balance changes, still fairly strong since you have 2 shots. though I definitely do not think more downward changes are needed. It seems to do what you set out for it to do. the only issue I am facing is I am in the prides and I am really lacking some aoe. Not even necessarily a big burst of aoe, but something low/medium that you can use/trigger consistently, even damage over time. I have noticed that I have never used telepathic shot. I know it is great, but it is so easy to get items to do that. Not to mention that it just is not really needed playing in nightmare or below. Just rarely running into anything that you really need to see from a distance, perhaps high peak that might change. though even there you are still dependent on landing it on something to get the effect. I could see keeping that the same and perhaps having some kind of building mind damage over time effect if the thing you hit stays alive. So you would still need some tactics but could clear up much of the trash in places like the prides without having to hit them all individually. In normal displacement shot probably serves much of that function, but in nightmare there are definitely things that cannot hurt you much but have more HP than a critting displacement shot will deal with.

[nsrr]

Appreciate the feedback

I'll have to think about what I might want to do with regards to AoE. In theory the Discharge tree has what amounts to passive AoE, but I'll admit that I don't know how well that works out in practice. The channel breaking when you move is kind of a pain to the extent that I'm tempted to edit the talent and remove that aspect. Just one idea, though, I'll consider other things, too.

When I brought the nerf hammer down on attack damage I intentionally left Telepathic Shot relatively untouched for the exact reason that the utility is not that fantastic. Personally, I don't really like scouting out everything, I just find it gets tedious. On the other hand, I would like to have an idea of what else might be around when I am engaged in combat already. Hence, Telepathic Shot. So, I know other people are fine with just using Track or a charm or whatnot, and I thought the comparatively high damage might be enough incentive to use it despite the lack of utility. I'll consider some adjustments. May be a good place to sprinkle in a bit more AoE of some fashion.

[scul]

Yes. I spent my last category point in AM just for the extra damage reduction. Resolve is so nice for those big damage bursts that you happen to have charged shield up instead of thermal. And +5 resolve plus am shield are just really nice. Especially with Yeek health. So I never took discharge. Solipsists have 2 sources of built in damage reduction, and they can get discharge and am pretty safely even without being cornac.

I think the discharge tree synergizes well with mindslinger. But not the standing still part as a yeek(unless you are also am, see above). Even on a solipsist it seemed like a tree that should be unlocked, never really seemed worth the category point unless you were cornac.

[nsrr]

v1.0.2
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[Whoops]

V1.0.3
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[Telepathic Shot]
Deals considerably less damage, but bypasses other actors and forms a link to the target for the same duration as the vision buff. While linked, any non-instant mind power you use will trigger a burst of mind damage centered on the linked target, up to once per turn.

[Mind Storm]
No longer breaks on movement. (This affects Slolipsist too, and NPCs. If it makes NPCs with the talent a huge nuisance, I can disable the talent for them, or make the change only affect the player.)

[nsrr]

v1.0.4
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ToME 1.6 compatibility (updated sling mastery numbers in Confusion Shot)

[nsrr]

v1.0.5
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ToME 1.6.3 Archery compatibility.

[nsrr]

A few changes in light of the update to Discharge. Mind Storm breaks on movement once again, now that it is more useful, and Psychic Slinging (now called Agile Mind) passive bonus has been changed now that Mind res-pen is available in Focused Wrath (plus Domination Shot probably gives all the res pen you should need, anyway). New bonus gives you a little more incentive to invest in Dexterity and provides some synergy for building critical chance.

v1.0.6
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[Mind Storm]
Once again breaks on movement, in light of the recent changes to the Mind Storm.

[Psychic Slinging] -> [Agile Mind]
Renamed. Passive reworked. Now grants critical power, and ranged crits will grant a temporary, stacking Mindpower buff which scales in power with Dexterity. No longer grants increased mind damage or mind resistance penetration.