Essential DoD Skills I and II Finally Game-Ready!

Oh, I misunderstood what you meant by 'normal hit'. I thought that meant the damage was of a 'normal' type, and so it wouldn't get reduced by Jaws of Death. If you really were just walking through the middle of a zoo that deep, then yes, it probably does need to be scaled back a bit.

 

Mind like Meatloaf, however, is very VERY well balanced now! Excellent job with it!

 

I'm pondering a few options.

1) In addition to all of the resistance bonuses, Jaws of Death also applies a one point penalty to Armor Absorb, which stacks just like the bonii do.

2) Each time it procs, it randomly bumps one of three sets of damage types: elemental (conflag/voltaic/hyperborean/acidic), bodily (asphyxiative/toxic/putrefying/necromantic), or magical (aethereal/existential/transmutative/righteous). If this were the case, I'd put it back up to 2 points of resistance per bump and a 6-turn duration.

3) It just procs less often (my least favorite option)


Thoughts?

 

Why's the 3rd one your least favorite option? Just curious. Number 1 really doesn't appeal to me that much, because it means that you only take less damage if your opponent uses two elemental damage types, and you take MORE if they don't use any.

If you really don't like #3, I'd go with number 2, but I don't see what the problem with it is, I rather like #3. The chance is currently 66%, while berserker rage, its nearest parallel, procs 25% per hit.

 

Because it's kind of boring.

So what do you think is more appropriate? 40%?

 

Honestly, I'd try out 25%, which is what berserker rage uses, see how that works at least.

 

Ugh. I'm not willing to more than halve the proc rate. I'll try 33% and see how it goes. That should, assuming 4 hits per turn, net you an average of 1.33 points of resistance per round. For most monsters in the deep (according to the wiki), you'll cancel out their special damage somewhere between 4 and 8 points of resistance, meaning on turn 3-6 of getting beaten up.

The problem here is that even at 25%, you're still looking at an average of 1 point of resistance per round of getting beaten on, which puts you at blocking all relevant incoming special damage after just 10 rounds in a monster zoo. So if your problem is that you become damage-immune in zoos, reducing the proc rate only gives you a few extra turns of non-invulnerability, which you'll easily survive due to Mt. Self. and some badass armor.

The real cure here is unfortunately to cap the resistance at a lower level, like 6, so that the more dangerous special-damage-type monsters don't ever get entirely cancelled out.

 

Just throwing in my two cents--I have to agree with the cap on Jaws of death, too, although I've never really let myself get surrounded. If it's really as bad as Raust says, that that is pretty much the best solution.

With regards to Qigong, I never used Qi Blast as more than softening up enemies on the lower levels and opening up secret passageways as a warrior. After DL8 or so, I stopped using it altogether.

 

Yep. Tried it myself, and it's just silly. I think I'mma cap the stacksize at six and keep it at 12 turns, 1 point per proc.


Also, re:QiGong: Really? Even after the improved scaling and huge Magic Power boosts, it just wasn't worth the time to click on a distant enemy?

 

Oh, I should have made it clearer--I meant before the update, with regards to Qi Blasting. I haven't really had the time to play the actual game much of late, unfortunately.

 

I didn't have that experience, honestly. I leveled QiGong first thing, where the increased magic stat would be the most profound,and it worked excellently as a killing attack. It really only started to slow down at dungeon level 7, but of course, it was never meant to be a killing move all the way through.

And that sounds much better for Jaws of Death. Thanks for that!

 

Capping stack size is probably the cleanest way to trim off the abuse cases while still keeping the skill useful for 1v1 duels, assuming the skill was previously tested with and balanced for smaller skirmishes.

 

That's how I arrived at 66%, yep. Warriors generally don't have much to fear from single mobs, so JoD was tested against non-zoo hordes of various depths to make sure it would be useful. It was. I just didn't realize how nasty it was if you had the armor to jump straight into the middle of a zoo.

 

Essence, I think you should get rid of the wakizashi loadout. It's 2.5 times stronger than any of the weapon skills' starting weapons, and I really don't think it's necessary

 

I kind of agree with that. It would be bearable if it simply got nerfed, though (2+1 damage instead of 4+1, perhaps).

 

It's 2.5x stronger than the other starting weapons, but it's about on par with any of dozens of other weapons you can find on Floor 1. If you're really THAT worried, I'll drop it to 3+1, but it's just not really that bothersome to me.

 

it's that starting frenzy for halfway-decent equipment that causes so much FUN when starting out a character

And really, what's wrong with making it equal to the other starting weapons, really? Why are you so averse to it?

 

Because the skill of Kiaido is so incredibly weak at level 1. It does virtually nothing except have a big flashy graphic on the screen. A decently powered loadout is exactly the right answer, because it gives usefulness to the first level of Bushido without making it overpowered in the middle-to-late game.

How about if I made it 2 slashing, 1 piercing, and +3 crit, or something similar?

 

Essence, remember that thing you told me about jump, how it does the three melee attacks AND the normal attack together at point blank range? Kiaido does that too. It's essentially as powerful as a critical hit every single time its used.

 

No. No it doesn't.


Exact same damage both in the floaters and in the combat log.