Just another quick skill to get into the groove once more. v0.1: (5/5/13) uploaded! *** "Your heart burns steadily within you, a power waiting to emerge from the ashes." A rogue skill with a polymorph. Will think up a more witty description when I'm not so exhausted. Main balancing worry is Fire Dance. Too weak? Too strong? This mod requires CoTW for various effects. The mod loader says RotDG and YHTNTEP are not needed, but just to be safe, tell me if anything breaks. Level 0: Heart of Fire "Your heart pounds with warmth, making you feel good and tingly all over." *+1 righteous and conflagratory damage. *+1 conflagratory resist. *+1 health regeneration. Level 1: Fiery Talons "Your hands have grown tough and scaly, and your nails hooked. With them, you can slash a swathe of enemies in front of you. This scales to your EDR." *2+0.2*EDR slashing and 1+0.2*EDR conflagratory damage in a 1x3 anchored template arc. This is an attack=1 ability. *8 turn cooldown. *Sets monsters on fire. *+4 EDR. *+1 righteous resist. Greater version modifications: *2+0.2*EDR slashing, 1+0.2*EDR righteous and 1+0.2*EDR conflagratory damage in a 8-square anchored template arc. *6 turn cooldown. Level 2: Heat Vortex "By warming your surroundings and manipulating air currents, you can retrieve items and manipulate objects at a distance." *Ability to manipulate doors and levers, as well as collect items at a distance. *+10 sneak. +1 conflag resist. *24 turn cooldown. Greater version modifications: *Can draw in targeted monsters and deal 2+0.2*EDR slashing, 1+0.2*EDR righteous and 1+0.2*EDR conflagratory damage. *12 turn cooldown. Level 3: Rainbow Quills "Feathers have begun to sprout from your skin, making you look as if someone dumped an artist's palette over your head. You can now launch a fan of white-hot feathers that while doing no direct damage, cause any of a selection of interesting effects." *+2 MgR. *+1 righteous resist. *Launches 5 missiles in a fan that produce one of many randomised effects on monsters. *24 turn cooldown. Greater version modifications: *Fan size increased to 7 missiles. *Each missile deals 2+0.2*EDR slashing, 1+0.2*EDR righteous and 1+0.2*EDR conflagratory damage. Level 4: Avian Reflexes "Your new avian instincts allow you to dodge and strike that much more precisely." *+3 crit. *+3 dodge. *+5 EDR. Level 5: Flutter "You move in a whirlwind of flame and feathers, raining a flurry of blows on your enemies." *+1 righteous resist. *36 turn cooldown. *3 attacks' worth of haste on normal attacks. Greater version modifications: *Buff grants 4 conflag and 4 righteous damage. *24 turn cooldown. *Lasts 6 attacks. *Greater Flutter cannot coexist with Flutter. Level 6: Fire Rebirth "You feel hot...no, that is an understatement. Your very body seems made of molten lava, no, hotter than that. You are not even sure if you have flesh, bones, muscles, all around your consciousness is heat, but somehow the heat accepts you, loves you...is you. Take the final step, and embrace your destiny." *Phoenix polymorph. *256 turn cooldown. *48 turn duration. *Allows use of Fire Dance and all greater versions of skills. *Stat bonuses quadrupled to make up for loss from other trees. *Immunity to conflagratory and righteous damage. *Heals to full, decurses one curse. Level 6 (polymorph): Fire Dance "Spread your wings and take flight with unearthly grace and beauty, consuming yourself to spread flame throughout the land. This ability deals damage based off your maximum health, but also drains one-tenth of your maximum health each time you use it." *Create waves of flame dealing equal parts righteous and conflagratory damage in a three-square radius about the player. Damage ranges from 60% to 40% of maximum health depending on distance from player. *Suffer non-resistable 10% of maximum health in existential damage per use.
Alright, nabbed it, gonna be doing some testing at some point during the day. However, i can say this outright. The icons need more Eyebrow. Heads up - some testing done. 1. I applaud the attempt to make a tree that scales on EDR 2. I equally applaud the attempt to make a functional tree that scales on polymorph 3. Because the tree scales on EDR though, it means it's not quite an island unto itself (ergo, you can't rush the capstone and get everything you need to survive for the first few floors). 4. Issue 3 encourages you to grab stuff that gives you EDR + Basic utility/Durability, then get the capstone. 5. Thing is, doing that means that you'll be forfeiting most of these stats once you polymorph though. Moral of this story - Do either something that scales on EDR (worth it, in and of itself), or a functional polymorph tree (also worth it, in and of itself).
Thank you for testing. Much appreciated. 1. Thank you. Although I'm not the first to do it - Essence's poisoneer is the first one to scale off EDR. It just seemed like the optimal rogue skill. 2. Thanks again. 3.That's a plus in my book. I didn't want it to be another golemancy where one rushes for Mortal Machine and it ends there. 4. To be honest, the weapon skills aside, there isn't that much in the way of EDR from base game skills, except maybe perception. The polymorph is intended to be scaled to work off EDR calculated from levels and gear. 5. The polymorphed version of the skills have 4x the values of the ordinary version: for example, 5 EDR from Avian Reflexes gives 20 while polymorphed. Was this not enough to cover up the loss? Unlike Radiant Wizard, the capstone polymorph is supposed to be powerful, but not godlike. Some buffs to the damage formulas are on the way now that I've had some time to test deeper-level scaling. EDR doesn't scale as much as I'd expected off poisoneer; I keep on forgetting poisoneer does multiple hits. Also did some comparison with BGH and it seems like the devs were quite liberal with EDR there, I'll see what I can do. I'll keep on testing and tweaking to see how things work out.
It's not so much the loss of EDR that concerns me, but all the passive stats that you have to get from other trees to make grabbing an early capstone on this tree feasible. Forgoing those is often quite painful (losing the passive stats from master of arms is very painful, for example). Personally,i got decent mileage from the tree was when i paired it with "The Horrid Thing" mod, which was designed to work with other polymorph forms anyway. I had Master of Arms up to pre-capstone to boot, and was a few points down in horrid skill tree. I also did some epic pawnage in another playthrough by grabbing a fast capstone on dual wielded axes (Gives 30+EDR, in and of itself) + level 2 on this tree (let's not talk about though, we all know dual wield needs some nerfing, and this isn't the right place for this). Overall though, i like the tree, and i think it's fairly balanced (a tad too much stats on level 0, maybe. Everything else gonna need more testing). The polymorph mechanic has always been a wanky proposition though, and it still feels off, even with what you've made with it. P/S: I always play GRPD (normal grind mode, 15 floors) even when testing, so that's something to consider. If you want it balanced relative to some other difficulty level, that's your call
