The seasonal greetings

[The Avatar]

Yeah, it's a bit too powerful, and I favor simply giving half the CP on pick up.

Poison is too weak unless it's by level, but even then it is so weak it's not worth it. Now assassin is shoved even more into the caster only box.

[Darvin]

If we're not going to scrap the new poison system altogether, my suggested tweaks (for the moment) would be something like Assassins getting something like a +2 or x2 level bonus when casting APHEELSIK (which would be consistent with Warlords and Paladins being better with their own glyphs) and having the dagger and TT boon add more poison when you deal more damage (e.g. hit for 5, add 5 poison, hit for 25, add 25 poison; or whatever numbers are suitable).

Regarding APHEELSIK, Assassins aren't the only ones with problems. The glyph itself will need substantial buffing if it remains like this. Furthermore, it's functionally useless for low-level characters. Because it's so mana-intensive now, pretty much all of the glyph combos that used to work (if you were willing to sink the tiles into doing so...) are now dead. I'd say something like 100+20/level stacks is the right way to go.

I considered suggesting exactly what you were talking about in terms of connecting poison stacks to damage, but I realized this would be double-dipping since high attack-damage is already preferable for these kinds of characters. I'd say make it 2-3 stacks per level, and then migrate the poison boon to a 25+25 piety cost with 10 gold.

I think this change really opens up the comparison of the venom dagger / poison boon with the vampiric blade / blood hunger boon. Moving over to a per-level effect, similar as was done with lifesteal, sounds like the right way to go here.

[gjaustin]

100+20/level is a massive buff over how APHEELSIK worked before. MASSIVE.

Remember, that it was worth 100 previously. And it only reduced Fast Regen to normal regen, I think. Your proposed change makes it shut off Fast Regen AND not be cleared when hitting another monster. I'm honestly stumped as to why you're proposing such a massive buff to it.

A proper balance change (assuming it needs one), would be to make it cost 5 mana. That way you can use it effectively on a monster twice your level.


Edit: It occurred to me that my "previous value" of 100 needed explaining.

-100 is how much you need to regenerate your base 10 mana against a level 10 monster.
-Alternatively 70 is how much you need to keep meleeing a monster and 130 is how much you need to regenerate the standard 13 mana, averaging out to 100.

In a few cases (Elf Assassin), 100 might be slightly worse. But in the vast majority of situations, it will be drastically better.

For example, one casting of it at level 1 on a level 4 enemy will allow you to explore 40 tiles, assuming you have a stack of burning on it. That's 7 fireballs and another cast of APHEELSIK!

[Lujo]

I also agree with the possibility that in it's current incarnation, mana cost might be the biggest issue.

[gjaustin]

Of more pressing concern, it seems no one has thought to test the Gorgon.

I just did, and she now provides only 10 poison per strike, not scaling with level. I hope that was an oversight, because there's no way she needed a massive nerf.

Pretty sure she's the new worst class

[The Avatar]

Oh. She just went from bad to worst. That SUCKS.

[Darvin]

10 stacks per strike? Yeah, she's functionally useless then. This is a problem because the Gorgon had steep weaknesses to counter-balance having poison on strike.

[gjaustin]

10 stacks per strike? Yeah, she's functionally useless then. This is a problem because the Gorgon had steep weaknesses to counter-balance having poison on strike.

On the bright side, this might mean they'll finally get rid of her attack penalty!

[The Avatar]

And then she'll be playable. On the topic of monster classes, are there or are there going to be male and female portraits?

[Dreamdancer]

With the wizard conversion buff PISSORF orc wizrads became pretty awesome. In some cases i would have been more happy to start with PISSORF instead of BRUNADYS.

If one has walls PISSORF is on par with BURNADYS:
BURNADYS: 6mana - 4 damage per level
PISSORF: 4 mana -> can cast it one and half time per BURN: 5 dmg per level * 1.5 * 0.6 = 4.5 damage per level (3.75 dmg, if there are no walls but enemys)
and PISSORF is much more easily buffed