Essential DoD Core Skill Rebalance v.0.1.2

I feel the same way about the extra +2 melee power just from picking a weapon skill. Alone it's not too OP but you're going to get Dual wielding which means an automatic 4 Melee power at level 1...

I recommend moving it down the tree as well.

 

TBH, I think both of you bring up a very good point, and I'll upload a revision shortly.

 

OK, the new Core Rebalance changes the weapon skills to add no bonuses to Melee and/or Magic Power at 1st level. Instead, all 3 major weapons add +1 Melee Power at levels 3, 4, and 5. Staff Skill adds Magic Power at 3 and 5 and Melee Power at 4, And Martial Arts adds Melee Power at 3 and 5 and Magic Power at 4.

So the power of the entire tree is mildly increased, but the front-loading is obliterated.

 

Nobody loves Magic Training; spread some bonuses to Savvy throughout the tree to reduce mana costs and make you more of a trained, efficient mage? Leyline could potentially benefit from a bit of Savvy, too, to make it competitive with Blood Magic in its own way.

Maybe make Suit Up (and other bratty little 3-hit-brittles) less annoying by giving it more stacks, or a proc? The cooldown could be increased if you wanted to keep uptime the same.

 

Magic Training did seem to take a hit when they redid all the skills for 1.07 or whatever it was. Savvy seems like an interesting way to liven it up.

I'll take a closer look at Master of Arms and Shield Bearer as well -- I had intended to go back and poke at them, and never really got around to it.

 

OK, here's my proposed next revision, but I think it might be controversial, so I'm putting it up for conversation before I post it 'for realz'. What do you think of this:

ver 0.2:
Magic Training: added +1 Savvy to levels 1-4 and +5 Magic Resist to Level 5.

Perception: added advanced loot-finding on-kill procs to levels 3, 4, and 5. This makes Perception the "loot-finding" skill, and upper levels give stuff like Mana and Healing potions, rare Reagents, and Fine Steel weapons.

Shield Bearer: Duck and Cover's health regen bonus increased to 4, and block bonus increased to 5.
increased Tortise Manuver to 4 brittleness.
Defensive Bash's damageF improved from .1 to .5.
Final level gives 10% proc of Defensive Bash on hit.

Armor: Suit Up's health regen increased to +4. Brittleness increased to 5.
It Only Makes You Stronger's Burliness bonus increased to 3, and HP bonus increased to 7. (This effectively gives you +1 Melee Power, +10 HP, and 1/2 a point of Block while it's active.)

Throwing: Monster Toss is now attack="1", so it deals damage equal to a normal attack.
Levels 1 and 3 now add +1 Blasting damage and level 5 adds +3 Blasting damage; level 2 adds +1 Crushing damage. All damage buffs give small damageFs that add up to .5 for each damage type over the course of the entire skill, or a total damageF of 1 across both damage types. (In other words, Throwing benefits directly and rather powerfully from magic power once you max out the skill.)

 

Might I suggest a little for Magic Training? Seems to fit the theme a bit.

Edit: Forgot that increased ^^ Would still be nice still see an extra point of it or two though.

 

I debated between Magic Resist and Haywire, but Savvy already increases Haywire, so I went the other way.

 

How often do these proc? Especially curious about the health and mana potions, as they're the only thing that could be too good if their rate of appearance were particularly high.

 

Perception 1 and 2 both have an independent 10% chance to proc Lucky Find on a kill.
Perception 3 and 4 both have an independent 10% chance to proc Luckier Find on a kill.
Perception 5 has a 10% chance to proc Luckiest Find on a kill.

Each of those is a spawnitemfromlist with 20 optoins. Mana and Health potions are both on the Luckier Find list, so each has a 19% * 5%, or .95% chance to spawn on any given kill. So every 102 kills should average 1 Mana Potion and 1 Health Potion.


For the record, here's the newly corrected actual spawn lists:

Code:

<spell name="Lucky Find" type="self"> 
<effect type="spawnitemfromlist">
<option name="Aqua Vitae"/>
<option name="Aqua Regia"/>
<option name="Aqua Fortis"/>
<option name="Burnt Out Wand"/>
<option name="Leather Boots"/>
<option name="Silver Ring"/>
<option name="Gold Ring"/>
<option name="Platinum Ring"/> 
<option name="Night Cap"/>
<option name="Fairywodger"/>
<option name="Inky Hoglantern"/>
<option name="Sewer Brew"/>
<option name="Cheese"/>
<option name="Plastic Ingot"/>
<option name="Steel Ingot"/>
<option name="Rough Iron Sword"/>
<option name="Rough Iron Mace"/>
<option name="Rough Iron Axe"/>
<option name="Sliced Bread"/>
<option name="Leather Cap"/>
</effect>
</spell>

<spell name="Luckier Find" type="self"> 
<effect type="spawnitemfromlist">
<option name="Acidium Salis"/>
<option name="Oil of Vitriol"/>
<option name="Potion of Mana"/>
<option name="Potion of Healing"/>
<option name="Sapphire"/>
<option name="Diamond"/>
<option name="Bituminous Coal"/>
<option name="Black Pearl"/> 
<option name="Pyrite Sun"/>
<option name="Diggle Egg"/>
<option name="Greedy Blungecap"/>
<option name="Potion of Purity"/>
<option name="Rough Steel Sword"/>
<option name="Rough Steel Mace"/>
<option name="Rough Steel Axe"/>
<option name="Bronze Ingot"/>
<option name="Brass Ingot"/>
<option name="Electrum Ingot"/>
<option name="Spring-loaded Power Core"/>
<option name="Voltaic Cell"/>
</effect>
</spell>


<spell name="Luckiest Find" type="self"> 
<effect type="spawnitemfromlist">
<option name="Potion of Lively Regeneration"/>
<option name="Hand Grenade"/>
<option name="Nzappa Zap"/>
<option name="Potion of Healing"/>
<option name="Steel Sword"/>
<option name="Steel Mace"/>
<option name="Steel Axe"/>
<option name="Emerald"/> 
<option name="Ruby"/>
<option name="Hordratic Lutefisk Cube"/>
<option name="Acid Flask"/>
<option name="Steel Ingot"/>
<option name="Potion of Invisibility"/>
<option name="Dire Sandwich"/>
<option name="Acid Ampoule Bolt"/>
<option name="Firey Wand"/>
<option name="Kilt"/>
<option name="Thieving Gloves"/>
<option name="Dandy Black Velvet Boots"/>
<option name="Trapper's Toolbelt"/>
</effect>
</spell> 

If anyone has any ideas for things that are clearly missing or clearly shouldn't be on there (BoMD?), please speak up.

 

I'm... QUITE nervous about this. This brings in a massive variety of renewable resources. This skill alone would allow for a ton of absolutely insane things to be done, and resource management could be rendered unnecessary by a little bit of grinding. If there were a way to make this proc on something that is NOT renewable like monsters, that would be much better. Definitely an interesting idea, but a tad dangerous for balance.

 

It was the best way I could think of to make taking the whole Perception tree actually a valuable experience. Are there any specific items you think are particularly dangerous? Or just worried about the concept as a whole?

 

See, I don't think that's a problem. Perception itself is pretty lacklustre (even with Eye Lasers), so giving this proc makes it worthwhile to take. Doing so would give you some nice passive benefits, a medium-cooldown ranged attack, and a much easier time finding the things to power your other skills.

 

I think it's a good idea, but a dangerous one, especially in conjunction with pretty much any crafting skill tree. I'd have no problem with it if there were a way to limit it somehow. Is there a way you could make it only proc on named creatures, at a much higher success rate?

 

Shield Bearer seems to be generally thought of as great, a little better than Master of Arms, etc. Duck and Cover reapplies itself, proc-style, during combat, so it doesn't seem problematic to me like the turn-wasting Suit Up. That said, you only increased it by 1, so it's not going to end the world. I'm just not sure that it needs it.

How about Tortoise Maneuver instead? Increased cooldown, increased brittle stacks? Paying 1 turn of actions for 2 turns of buff is a bad trade.

I don't know what to say about the buffs to Throwing, except that they're probably needed. I'd have to try the skill out with your change to better say whether it's not enough, just right, or too much.

 

I think you're overestimating the impact here, RBD. As mentioned, you're only going to see each item on average every 102 kills (1 every 200 kills for Luckiest Find) once you've peaked out the skill. That's not consistent enough to farm any of these items. Even assuming you kill 408 monsters per floor, that's only 4 of each item per floor -- is that really going to bend things in your favor enough to warrant taking Perception over, say, Burglary or Blood Magic?

The goal here is to remove the "support skill" status from Perception, after all.

 

Fair enough. I suppose the biggest thing to watch out for would be the average buyback rate of the item list. I know that a few of the items on there, namely BoMD, have pretty high worth at the shop.

 

Can you give the Archery tree some tinkering so I can play an archer without having to spend two slots on it?

 

How much are you suggesting? You can already craft bolts without any tinkering skill, and there's also the tinkering goggles.

 

Ya know... If Archery and Thrown gave +1 tinkering, Tinkering itself could have 1 less Tinkering since it's so OP anyways. Between Archery, Thrown, the Goggles, Clockwork Knight, and Silver Tongue, anyone who might install the Core Rebalance has plenty of options to achieve max level tinkering anyways.

Not important for balance purposes, but maybe an interesting shift to make Tinkering less "all-in-wonder".