Rogues are supposed to get the majority of their defense from not getting hit, in most games. Rogues would ideally just dodge and counter enough hits that they would heal more damage than they took, and since Rogues' primary stat is Nimbleness this would also scale; they'd recover less of their health, but they'd also be dodging more often and therefore would be taking fewer hits anyway. This would be especially irrelevant with the fixed-percentage HP idea I mentioned a few posts above, since Rogues would also be killing things really fast in melee. By the way, the "recover HP% on kill" would really only be justified for vampires if the kill was done to something next to you. Vampire mages would need all the magic power scaling they could get. Alternatively: Who takes primarily rogue skills into a dungeon?
I wasn't aware primary rogues were supposed to be gimped. By the way, one thing we could do is give vampirism a skill down the line that gives you lifesteal based on how much damage you do. This would make it great for rogues, since it'd proc on counters, and scale into late game if your offense is up to snuff. Or we could do something like "Allows you to take a bite when you dodge/block/counterattack," or even all three if it's not powerful enough.
They aren't really, it's just that the majority of rogue skill trees IIRC are more utility than anything else. The only offensive rogue skill trees are Assassination, and maybe Werediggle if that isn't a warrior tree. Everything else is all about the esoteric helpful but nondamaging stuff, like Fungal Arts, Archaeology, and Burglary.
I think you can make vamp on par with other forms of healing. It's the passive on hit, that requires no resources, no turn to activate, and no cool down that becomes a bit worrisome.
No, not really. Seriously, though, Rogue skills for offense: Fungal Arts, Assassination, Piracy, Demonology, Rogue Scientist. And Fungal Arts is a stretch. Really, though, I'm posting to tell everyone that in a private conversation, David and Nicholas are chatting with the playtesters about how they're going to rewrite vampirism for the CoW core revamp. So keep coming up with cool ideas -- they're paying attention.
Wait, wait. Did you say core revamp? As in... core skills besides Vampirism? Ooooo... On topic, I don't really have any more ideas beyond adding in some sort of scaling on health regen. I suppose I could ask for some sort of skill that synergizes better with warriors (the last two skills are really mage-oriented) but I dunno how to accomplish that. It'd have to be offensive, like a little , because giving defenses would benefit mages, too.
I don't know how much of a core revamp they're goign to do, but David has promised to address Master of Arms and Shield Bearer, they're chatting about Vampirism, and they're going to have to make Daggers and Polearmorie core if I understand correctly (or else you'll have people who see Naginata as a staff-class weapon and others who see it as a polearm-class weapon.) There may be other changes, too, those are just the ones I've seen coming.
I will be back in six or eight hours. It is nap time for me. I guess I will try to dream up the next good idea for the rebalance. Have fun everyone.
I don't wish to be obstinate - but I honestly think that "make Vamp on par with other forms of healing" is a terrible way to go about adjusting the skill. Vamp should have poor healing, in exchange for something else. If we make Vamp healing as good as regular healing - then we have accomplished nothing. The better approach is to make the "something else" cool enough to make Vampirism attractive, despite the poor healing! We've seen a couple good ideas on that front. Other ideas I like (some of these are repeats from other people): * Automatically heal from corpses when you step on them, instead of having to spend a turn. * Get a "well-fed" buff which adds some and whenever you feed. * Batty form is awesome! I'm just pointing this out... * Charming an enemy sounds pretty cool. * I really like giving vamps a "sparkles" skill - but health drain seems a bit odd. * Some form of low % instant-kill move would be great. Maybe related to stealth? * A negative buff called "blood thirst" which weakens you if you go too long without feeding. * A "blood frenzy" ability which gives you a chance for an additional feeding attack. Maybe only vs. animals? And only when not "well-fed". * A skill called "fangs out" which adds 10 and double health-drain to your next attack. Cooldown of 40 turns or so. This could be a sweet starting skill. * I actually think scaling some of those "other" (non-healing!) skills off is a pretty cool idea.
What's wrong with Master of Arms and Shield Bearer? Mind you I haven't been around the forums for long, so I'm not exactly privy to everything about balance. Nonetheless, I love taking both those and maxing them out to be nigh unkillable. Unless the problem is they're too good... Anyway, the thing about scaling non-healing skills off of health regen is it doesn't really make much sense from a gameplay perspective. You get health regen when you need defensive and regenerative capability. Also, I don't see why it's so bad to make Vampirism as good (or better) than other forms of healing. That's the point of the skill, isn't it? To me, Vampirism is about staying power in fights. It allows you to keep up momentum in combat, but you lack good regeneration against sparse threats, especially if you need to hit and run. You're also dependent on your melee attack for it. Which is also part of why I'd like it to have synergy with warrior builds, because as it stands now it's purely for gish builds.
They are too similar (too generic compared to each other, one could even say), and Shield Bearer doesn't require having a shield to work at all. There was a crazy suggestion back in the days to make Shield Bearer into something that would be more proc-based, and later one to make it into something that gave resistances rather than stats.
Nikolai - The problem is they're too similar. Also, neither one actually requires you to be wearing the appropriate kind of gear to work. This is more of a deal for Shield Bearer than Master of Arms, as everything you wear on your torso in the game is "armor". Topic at Hand - I think that being a vampire really needs to pile on some resistances. Undead in Dredmor are highly resistant to , , and . Maybe each level beyond the first could give a point in two of these resistances, and the capstone give a point of each? That would both reflect your growing in power as a vampire and give people incentive to up the skill. It would also reduce need for healing, as toxic and piercing are both very common exotic damage types. EDIT - Ninjaed!
Their brittle buffs don't last long enough to be useful in combat. That's the exact conversation that was being had when the devs interest in tweaking the two skills was mentioned. I like the idea of automatically feeding on corpses you walk over. That helps to keep things from getting tedious. If at all possible, making that heal off of monster level would be nice, though healing amounts should be low and it shouldn't grant well fed. They've already been bleeding out after all. This should possibly help keep a vampire going or to recover from a fight, but not be enough to ignore the need to feed on something living. The biggest use here would be devouring corpses so they can't be restored by annoying rez monsters, which... I believe only Fleshsmithing has any knack for currently. Hm... This could be a bad idea, but what about scaling the melee health drain on ? It could keep it pretty low, reward specialized builds, and give it a use that doesn't make Vampire necessarily more or less appealing than being able to heal normally. And it would be archetype neutral.
The problem is, vampires lose all access to all forms of healing that aren't skill-based, including natural regen. A vampire who doesn't take one of the three or so skills that contain a self-heal needs to still be able to recover lost health somehow, since he can't just stand there and mash the space bar to recover. Every single method for a vampire to heal requires that he fight something, which puts him at risk of losing even more health. And remember, vampires' primary healing skill only works on half of the dungeon's monsters, and barely works at all on floors 2-5. Corpse eating and Sparkle work on everything, but they have cooldowns. I agree, it'd be a good idea if vampirism wasn't quite as good as other heals, if in exchange you received other defensive bonuses to make up for it. IMO Vampirism should be more of a strategy choice - become all-around stronger, receive some useful and powerful abilities, but in exchange you have near-total incontinence in managing your own health. By the way, guys, I tried a few vampirism runs yesterday on Elvish Easy and the longest I survived was up to the beginning of floor 2.
This is going to be a long post, please don't kill me, Daynab. This is why Vamprism needs healing. Hell, I used to be able to go to about floor 5 with a vampire, but after that change that nuked their ability to life steal, they have become the weakest abilities ever. Don't remind me. If vampires get that life leech fixed, it will be a good thing. Idealy the only monsters in the game that a vampire can't life leech from are zombis/deths, and robo class enemies, and all statue monsters. Nothing else should be immune to that leeching. Not even demons, because they still have something like blood. Last time I checked. Allow me to be more obstinate than you. Vamprism needs a way to show off the fact that vampires are known for having tremendous regeneration powers. They can regrow lost limbs, and if you slice them in half at the stomach, they don't die. If Gaslamp Games never changes Vampires to be able to heal over time, then the best way to show this off is to have their life heal even faster when hitting things in melee, as if they are powered by it. I am all for their healing being able to be better. You should also realize vampires should be blanket immune to the following things, but would make them far more overpowered than just healing better. and heavy resist to the following So, what would you want, immunity to all those, or better healing? I'll opt for the less overpowered one. Yes, vampires should not ever be affected by damage for obvious reasons. They don't need to breathe. Ever. Even Blade or Bloodrayne, half-vampires don't need to breathe as often as normal humans. immunity because Vampires cannot be poisoned or rotted, or decayed. because when have you ever seen a vampire weak against necromantic energies. If anything, they need to be healed by that attack. Now obviously, this would make them so easy to play, that I could beat Going Rogue Permadeath with one. So, let's stick with making them heal better. However, if someone wants to make a mod where they are that easy to play, I would totally like that.
Just a quick thing to mention, Vampires can steal health from demons (along with animals and others) but not undead or constructs. I don't think they can steal health from vegetables. Making them able to regenerate health would mean they have no real downside and basically devaules the entire skill because now it's just a steal life on hit skill and that's just lame, not to mention the strength of it. In fact, fixing the free heal, and making it scale to a degree would make the vampire stronger without making it drain perfectly from undead and constructs.
Ok, if you want vampires to play like that, then I propose the following: Vampires retain the ability to eat food. (Maybe call it "half-vampire" or "living vampire"), Level 1: Minor health drain on animal attack (similar to what they have now). Level 2: Self-buff that lasts 50 turns called "Hunger" - you lose 1 each turn, but gain a second stronger health drain attack, which works ok on all enemies and better on animals. Cool-down of 100 turns. Level 3: Glitter attack. Spell stuns all enemies in a radius, and improves your for 10 turns. Level 4: Corpse drain. Stepping on a corpse heals you slightly, and provides a "Well-fed" buff which lasts 10 turns. Stepping on a new corpse refreshes the buff. Level 5: Bat form. I like the idea that this also summons a swarm of battys! Level 6: Ancient Curse. Passive 5, and gain a curse ability that debuffs an area against . Level 7: Resurrection. Gives a one-time-only buff that will heal the character fully instead of taking lethal damage. This makes Vampirism a healing tree, instead of a no-healing tree. Would be fun for Gish characters - almost as much healing as Flesh-smithing, but with more general utility. Also improves synergies with Assassin and Necro, which seems thematic.
Eh, the idea of putting a resistance debuff ability on the skill that it cannot use itself outside specialized equipment doesn't sit well with me. I think it should be an alternative means to heal, but I don't think its specific difficulties should just be erased. Its healing should be more of a gamble and should require a bit more micromanagement. However... given that its healing requires being in combat, managing to kill something, or some other kind of risk, its healing deserves to be competitive. If the danger is greater, even out the benefit so it's a high stakes healing alternative. ...no pun intended.
