Arcane Warrior Amended(?)

[ShadowDragyn]

I'm working on a mod right now that will completely overhaul the Arcane Warrior specialization.

The current form of the Arcane Warrior is both unbalanced and boring; most people seem to just throw on as many maintains as possible and auto-attack their way into bad-a**ery. Not only is it too easy to abuse maintains as it is, but the lack of attack talents is both very boring and encourages such a playstyle.

 

So, the goal of this mod is not only to tone the spec down, but to make it a lot more interesting.

With that in mind, I would like advice on the development of this mod. How it could be more balanced, how it could be more fun, or how it could be better molded into a solid theme.

 

I have the outline of the mod nearly finished now (all except the final attack and the attack names), so here it is for criticism and advice. The numbers in brackets are the formulas for determining the final value, and the numbers after the brackets are the expected final values at a mid-high level (50 Magic)

 

Branch One

Combat Magic:

Instead of +Attack, now adds ((Magic-10)*0.25)10 Physical Resistance and ((Magic-10)*2.5)100 Health. Upkeep increased to 100, Fatigue reduced to 25%.

Alacrity: (added to Combat Magic)

+25% Attack Speed, +1 Mana Regeneration, -20% Damage dealt (Weapon Damage+Attribute Modifier)30-50>24-40.

Mana Sheathe: (Added to Combat Magic)

Adds Spirit Damage to attacks (Spellpower*0.4)16. Additionally, if your attack fails to hit your Spellpower is added to Attack to see if the Spirit Damage still connects.

Ethereal Shroud: (Added to Combat Magic)

Unflankable, 20% Dodge.

 

 

The second branch is the new attack skills, which use a new weapon style: a single blade with no shield.

Branch Two

(Require Combat Magic to be active, and have a very high chance to hit)

(Left Punch or Shield Bash animation): (11 Dexterity, Combat Spec 1, 20 Mana, 15 sec reset)

Deals (5+(Magic*0.25))15 Physical damage, and (100+Spellpower*0.25)35 Spirit damage. Additionally, the target will be knocked back unless they pass a physical resistance check. Lieutenant+ Enemies will instead be knocked down.

(Kick animation): (18 Dexterity, Combat Spec 2, 15 Mana, 8 sec reset)

Deals (5+(Magic*0.5))25 Physical damage, and (100+Spellpower*0.2)28 Spirit damage. If flanking the target, they will be knocked down unless they pass a physical resistance check.

AoE Attack: (25 Dexterity, Combat Spec 3, 30 Mana, 12 sec reset)

Deals normal weapon damage to surrounding enemies (including Mana Sheathe).

(Shield Pummel animation?): (32 Dexterity, Combat Spec 4, 25 Mana, 10 sec reset)

 

So overall, the Arcane Warrior is supposed to be a mix of offense and defense with good utility, as well as the ability to effectively stand in the center of a large crowd to get the most out of spells.

Combat Magic replaces Strength, and now also partially replaces Constitution so you can spend those points elsewhere while maintaining good defense. This was necessary, because I've removed the attack bonuses entirely, making Dexterity much more important.

Because I've made Dexterity necessary for all Attack/Defense bonuses to make it more valuable, and I still want them to be exceptional at hitting and evading, I've given them similar benefits independent of those stats; Mana Sheathe benefits chance to hit by making it nearly impossible to completely miss, granting partial misses instead, and Ethereal Shroud grants a percent-based chance to dodge when Defense fails (just like Evasion).

As you can see with Alacrity, the attack speed boost seems mostly pointless if it also reduces damage by a nearly equal amount, but this fixes an aesthetic issue in which single-blade attacks are normal painfully slow. Mana Sheathe is also unaffected by the damage loss, making it a greater percentage of total damage dealt.

Finally, changing Combat Magic's penalty to focus more on occupied mana than fatigue allows it to still hinder spell-casting, but now will also hinder stacking maintains which it previously did very little of. On top of that, since mana recovery makes up a greater percent compared to what you have and lose now on top of having less total mana, it benefits the use of many cheaper spells rather than fewer costlier ones, like the AW attack abilities.

 

With the attacks, I tried to focus more on low-cost, lower effect since Combat Magic puts a big damper on mana usage. I also tried to give them a theme of disrupting the target to make it easier to cast spells in close range.

Also, the fact that the first two attacks deal damage irrelevant of the equipped weapon not only seems fairly spell-like, but it also helps the fact that Alacrity's damage reduction would otherwise gimp the attacks until you could get Mana Sheathe.

[ShadowDragyn]

Somehow it didn't occur to me to ask before, but does anyone know if it really is possible to have weapon skills require a single-handed weapon with no shield?

I found this quote in reference to passive abilities on the Abilities section of the official wiki which seems to suggest otherwise, assuming attack skills are assigned to weapon types in the same way:

"Additionally, the bonuses of an ability can be made conditional on the character's current 'wield mode' (2-handed, dual, weapon & shield, or universal) through the conditional integer field on the passive_abilities worksheet. "

[ShadowDragyn]

Guess I should update this with some of the progress I've been making on the official forums.

I'm now going to have them use two-handed swords, and the attack skills will (if I can get it to work) cause a magic effect to surround your weapon during it, like with enchantments or weapon spells.

Here's what I have so far now for the base 4 spells, but it's still unfinished;

 

Combat Magic:

+Attack now (Spellpower*0.5), and Damage now based on (Spellpower*2) instead of Magic.

Fatigue reduced to 20%, but Upkeep is still 50. Now reduces Spellpower granted per point of Magic to 0.5.

 

+Health (Spellpower*5), +Physical Resistance (Spellpower*1), and +1 Mana Regeneration.

Alacrity: (added to Combat Magic)

+20% Attack Speed, and increased Flanking angle (equal to Combat Movement).

Ethereal Shroud: (Added to Combat Magic)

Unflankable, 20% Dodge.

 

I've found out that the devs' intention was to have characters switch in and out of Combat Magic to use spells, which is really dumb. Their original idea was to block you from being able to cast altogether while it was up, but that didn't work out apparently so they went with the hardcore Fatigue instead.

I've chosen to have spells be weakened while in Combat Magic instead of allowing you to cast much fewer (which practically forced the overpowered tactic of stacking maintains, on top of being incredibly dull). The Arcane Warrior spells scale twice as fast to compensate, making them functionally normal.

So, Combat Magic now turns you into a real demon physically with significantly weakened spells for utility. You don't hit as often as a real melee character (which fits, since you don't have the same skill), but the great flanking bonus grants a serious bonus to attack if someone else has your target's attention, and the attack skills utilizing the two-handed sword provide a bit of knockdown to reduce their ability to dodge if they're in your face, and you also have the option of taking hexes and such to help as well.

[Nefarel]

Alacrity: (added to Combat Magic)

+20% Attack Speed, and increased Flanking angle (equal to Combat Movement)

That's like 2 rogue talents in one, really balanced.

[ShadowDragyn]

Alacrity: (added to Combat Magic)

+20% Attack Speed, and increased Flanking angle (equal to Combat Movement)

That's like 2 rogue talents in one, really balanced.

Thanks for the sarcasm :rolleyes:

Anyway, the extra flanking angle means very little to a non-rogue, since you can't backstab. AW's have lower attack than rogues also since their primary attribute only grants 0.25 attack per point instead of 0.5, meaning the stronger flanking just sets them closer to normal. The other ability you're thinking of is universal to all dual-wielders, Momentum. That ability is also tier 3, and grants 10% more speed than that one. On top of that, the Dual Wielding style is innately stronger than two-handed weapons, and the first tier ability Dual Striking for Warriors or the innate backstabbing for rogues leaves no comparison.

 

If you want some numbers, average high-end dual-wield weapons deal 18.75 base DPS (0.375*40*0.85+6/1), increased to 37.5 (18.75*2) backstabbing or Dual Striking. A high-end two-handed weapon deals 17.4 base DPS (0.625*40*1.1+16/2.5) increased to 21.75 by Alacrity (0.625*40*1.1+16/2).

Comparing Momentum and Alacrity, it would be; Dual-Wield - 26.8, Two-Handed - 21.75.

Add backstabbing for a rogue or Dual Striking, and it's 53.6 DPS for Dual-Wielding.

 

And that's assuming two-handed weapons strike once every 2.5 seconds. I haven't been able to find hard math on that, and had to count it myself in-game. It honestly seemed closer to 3.0 and that's a real possibility, but 2.5 gave far more balanced numbers and I'm giving the creators the benefit of the doubt in assuming they're sane.

 

That's just raw damage, also. On top of all that the daggers have roughly +2 armor penetration and twice as much base critical chance (although the crit is negated by both backstab and dual striking).

[gcreature]

"I've found out that the devs' intention was to have characters switch in and out of Combat Magic to use spells, which is really dumb. Their original idea was to block you from being able to cast altogether while it was up, but that didn't work out apparently so they went with the hardcore Fatigue instead."

 

I agree that idea doesn't make a lot of sense, especially when you consider SS builds. Why have two specs that revolve around having a magic mode and a combat mode, when you can have one that does that and has to deal with cooldowns between modes, while the other can use everything at once but not as effectively.

[ShadowDragyn]

Ha, this thread is oooold.

I decided a while back to create a new specialization entirely instead of tweaking the Arcane Warrior.

It's a hand-to-hand fighter now, and it's going to blend melee and magic perfectly, especially since you don't have to worry at all about weapon redraws.

[Carl S]

I miss a rouge-mage class like we had in Baldurs Gate.

A "Kenzai-Mage" (with dual weapons or two-handed weapons) in combination with

the rouge fighting abilities would be really nice. :yes: