So, I played 4-5 games with the modded characters mixed in with the default ones. My observations:

• They work, simply put. Each character has a consistent theme and they can pull off their role successfully. So, while I will explain how imo there's still some room for improvement, keep in mind that they are already pretty good.
  
• Let's get the elephant in the room dealt with. You probably already know this, but the scout's sneak is amazingly useless. Using 4 AP to gain some comparatively marginal buffs simply feels like a waste. And it's not like you can use it to ghost around, since enemies will spot you effortlessly. I forgot to check, but it even feels like she doesn't have that good of a sneak ability: she moves extremely slowly when sneaking and the visibility arcs are quite large... As a suggestion, I'd give her a move that allows her to sneak by spending 2 AP, with 1 turn cooldown, and I'd buff her sneak ability *way* up.
  
• I don't see why I would ever summon a cat familiar with the summoner... He can already fly, and his summoning slots are much better occupied by his incarnates. Maybe, in some very niche situations, I could see it being used, but I'd take literally any other summoning skill over it. Also... Why no source skills? It kind of feels like an oversight, but maybe I'm missing something here. Last thing: he has no magical armor in my game o.o I mean, it's surprisingly fine balance-wise, since he's such a powerhouse. I see him as a good candidate for glass cannon tbh
  
• The Necromancer and the Templar have their custom skills in the queue, so I won't say much for now. Just a couple of things: she is too easy to counter with a Warrior and he for some reason has a potion which restores... 800+ hp? What? Why? He only has 256, I'm bamboozled o-O

Oh heya! Thanks for the details and all that and such. So, I can follow up on a few of these.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

Let's get the elephant in the room dealt with. You probably already know this, but the scout's sneak is amazingly useless. Using 4 AP to gain some comparatively marginal buffs simply feels like a waste. And it's not like you can use it to ghost around, since enemies will spot you effortlessly. I forgot to check, but it even feels like she doesn't have that good of a sneak ability: she moves extremely slowly when sneaking and the visibility arcs are quite large... As a suggestion, I'd give her a move that allows her to sneak by spending 2 AP, with 1 turn cooldown, and I'd buff her sneak ability *way* up.

I immensely realized this. The only time she was truly useful to me was on high ground where no one bothered to do much to that area, causing her to stay stealthy.

I don't think I can actually make it so her sneaking costs 2 AP, I'll look into that. I tend to double turn with her by using Clear-Minded from a Ranger, which takes care of the Sneaking part. I also had plans to give her Geurillla for the 40% Damage buff.

At the moment, I only know how to increase Sneak AP and Sneak Speed GLOBALLY meaning, for every class rather than just the one. Stealth also doesn't equal sneaking so I decided against giving her Chamelon Cloak.

So, I'll probably give her a non-stealth breaking hasten move that increases movement speed further until I learn how to directly boost Sneak Speed for individual characters. I'll likely make it free as well and have a 6 turn cooldown as with Chamelon Cloak.

Possibly will add Cloak and Dagger too. Since her whole gimmick does kind of revolve around being stealthy.

I'll also remove Arrow Recovery and give her The Pawn in its place to better allow for adaptation of moving without wasting AP, making it a little less stressful on them.

Sneaking can also go up a lot. Good finds indeed.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

I don't see why I would ever summon a cat familiar with the summoner... He can already fly, and his summoning slots are much better occupied by his incarnates. Maybe, in some very niche situations, I could see it being used, but I'd take literally any other summoning skill over it. Also... Why no source skills? It kind of feels like an oversight, but maybe I'm missing something here. Last thing: he has no magical armor in my game o.o I mean, it's surprisingly fine balance-wise, since he's such a powerhouse. I see him as a good candidate for glass cannon tbh

Yeah, the Magic Armor is bugged. It should be 106 with the next update.

However, I was intent on removing the Wings skill , actually. Also, I had plans to give him a 1SP Source skill that bolsters his summoning skill up all the way to 12 for 1 turn and can only be used once per battle. It'll likely also cost 0 AP to use. At most, 2.

That way, players might at least consider wiser summons against more crafty/cunning opponents or alarmingly painful AI.

The main reason I strayed away from Source Skills for him is so that he has to rely more on his allies and summons himself. So the only real source skill I could imagine is a stat booster of, the summoning skill itself. But back then, I didn't know you could effectively limit it to one usage per battle without it being an AoE move like Taunt and such.

As for Glass Cannon? Hrm. Never thought about that. That could work, especially if someone decides to buff him with Fortify/Magic Shell. I really like that idea.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

The Necromancer and the Templar have their custom skills in the queue, so I won't say much for now. Just a couple of things: she is too easy to counter with a Warrior and he for some reason has a potion which restores... 800+ hp? What? Why? He only has 256, I'm bamboozled o-O

Mainly as a placeholder. The only real purpose it serves is to boost the arena score at the moment. Otherwise, it can be treated the equal to a full heal. However, Taunted AI and such may also use the potion , whether they have decaying or not if they get damaged.

But yeah, there really is not much use for that 800+ HP Potion. Whew.

As for the Necromancer, I've already decided how to add onto her. Since I don't want her to be an undead summoner hybrid due to that partially invalidating the Summoner amongst other silly things. I'll likely make her more blight/disease/status inflicting. Like some kind of Hexer or something. Since, outside of status debuffs and stacking them, the only other thing I could think of was just to make her into a Blood Mage.

However, one thing is for certain. I'm going to give her Death Wish and potentially a Source Skill that gives herself or an ally a Non-Armor Resisting version of Shackles Of Pain temporarily for 3 turns. So that allies or herself will be able to use that and make some vantage out of it.

I'm really having trouble adding onto the Necromancer for some reason. There's just so much potential.

But yes, if you have any ideas on how to add onto her, I'm more than open to suggestions!~

But thanks for telling me all this! I'm pretty glad they're working out well for most. I'll be updating it pretty soon. So some of this stuff might just make it in there.

Originally posted by Moon Fairy Kyra:

I don't think I can actually make it so her sneaking costs 2 AP, I'll look into that. I tend to double turn with her by using Clear-Minded from a Ranger, which takes care of the Sneaking part. I also had plans to give her Geurillla for the 40% Damage buff.

At the moment, I only know how to increase Sneak AP and Sneak Speed GLOBALLY meaning, for every class rather than just the one. Stealth also doesn't equal sneaking so I decided against giving her Chamelon Cloak.

So, I'll probably give her a non-stealth breaking hasten move that increases movement speed further until I learn how to directly boost Sneak Speed for individual characters. I'll likely make it free as well and have a 6 turn cooldown as with Chamelon Cloak.

Possibly will add Cloak and Dagger too. Since her whole gimmick does kind of revolve around being stealthy.

I'll also remove Arrow Recovery and give her The Pawn in its place to better allow for adaptation of moving without wasting AP, making it a little less stressful on them.

Sneaking can also go up a lot. Good finds indeed. :vanilla:

It'd be such a bummer if there was no way to change how much sneak costs... Although I'd be ok with it if it costed 2 AP for everyone (I've been running a SP mod which does that and it personally feels 100% right).

I'm all for more scoundrel skills, Guerilla and Pawn. Although I would maybe make her squishier at that point, since it can already deliver some nice damage as-is.

Originally posted by Moon Fairy Kyra:

Yeah, the Magic Armor is bugged. It should be 106 with the next update.

However, I was intent on removing the Wings skill , actually. Also, I had plans to give him a 1SP Source skill that bolsters his summoning skill up all the way to 12 for 1 turn and can only be used once per battle. It'll likely also cost 0 AP to use. At most, 2.

That way, players might at least consider wiser summons against more crafty/cunning opponents or alarmingly painful AI.

The main reason I strayed away from Source Skills for him is so that he has to rely more on his allies and summons himself. So the only real source skill I could imagine is a stat booster of, the summoning skill itself. But back then, I didn't know you could effectively limit it to one usage per battle without it being an AoE move like Taunt and such.

As for Glass Cannon? Hrm. Never thought about that. That could work, especially if someone decides to buff him with Fortify/Magic Shell. I really like that idea.

I'm ok with him losing the Poly skills honestly, they are useful but don't really fit the theme.

As per the source skills, I really like the idea of a 1 turn summon megabuff. I can think of a few other that would be useful while keeping his role intact:

• A 3 SP skill that kills all his summons and resets all cooldowns.
  
• A 1 SP skill that gives fortified, magic shell and rested for 0 turns (removing most negative status effects essentially) to an ally (not on self)
  
• A 1 SP skill that allows him to transfer the soul bond of one of his summons to another character. I don't know how feasible it'd be, and I'd definitively increase the SP to 2 if the summon maintains its original stats.

Originally posted by Moon Fairy Kyra:

Mainly as a placeholder. The only real purpose it serves is to boost the arena score at the moment. Otherwise, it can be treated the equal to a full heal. However, Taunted AI and such may also use the potion , whether they have decaying or not if they get damaged.

But yeah, there really is not much use for that 800+ HP Potion. Whew.

You lost me there o.o Why would you want to artificially boost the arena score? And why would taunted AI use the potion even if decaying? Did you mean charmed?

Originally posted by Moon Fairy Kyra:

As for the Necromancer, I've already decided how to add onto her. Since I don't want her to be an undead summoner hybrid due to that partially invalidating the Summoner amongst other silly things. I'll likely make her more blight/disease/status inflicting. Like some kind of Hexer or something. Since, outside of status debuffs and stacking them, the only other thing I could think of was just to make her into a Blood Mage.

However, one thing is for certain. I'm going to give her Death Wish and potentially a Source Skill that gives herself or an ally a Non-Armor Resisting version of Shackles Of Pain temporarily for 3 turns. So that allies or herself will be able to use that and make some vantage out of it.

I'm really having trouble adding onto the Necromancer for some reason. There's just so much potential. :vanilla:

But yes, if you have any ideas on how to add onto her, I'm more than open to suggestions!~

While that does sound very cool, it still looks like she'll still be almost exclusively physical-oriented, which I feel isn't going to solve the fact that she will be reliably wrecked if a physical-focused character gets in her face. She gets permastunned or killed with little effort, while she can do very little to hurt the Warrior/Rogue/Templar in return.

As for ideas... Well let's see:

• A skill that lets her kill an ally to gain 1 SP + any SP they may have. Maybe it can also function as regular Source Vampirism, too, replacing the skill altogether.
  
• Crawling kiss, from the Radeka the Witch fight, would fit pretty nicely.
  
• I feel like she would benefit a lot from Leech, given how much blood she ends up having around.
  
• Contamination? Poison Wave? Some poison skills would be nice, even if reflavoured to fit more into the blight theme. They would serve to threaten those pesky physicals with some actual magic damage output.

I'm a sucker for brainstorming, but sadly I'm working a lot these days and I don't have much energy left... But I'll gladly add any reasonable suggestions I can come up with in the future

Anyway, thanks for the awesome work, I'm looking forward to the update!

Hoh?

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

It'd be such a bummer if there was no way to change how much sneak costs... Although I'd be ok with it if it costed 2 AP for everyone (I've been running a SP mod which does that and it personally feels 100% right).

I'm all for more scoundrel skills, Guerilla and Pawn. Although I would maybe make her squishier at that point, since it can already deliver some nice damage as-is.

My intent was to reduce Guerilla from 40% extra damage to possibly 25%. Since, she does get some decent to good damage in specific situations. I also changed her loadout to accomodate different arrows than the Rangers as well as a Crossbow. Although, the crossbow reduces her movement, which seems counterproductive. The changenotes here have info on that if you're interested to look into that.

However, the Nexus didn't get that update yet. So that's coming as well.

Also, she'll be getting Opportune Moment once I get it working, so that'll help to make up for her intended role falling short greatly. I hope, anyway.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

I'm ok with him losing the Poly skills honestly, they are useful but don't really fit the theme.

As per the source skills, I really like the idea of a 1 turn summon megabuff. I can think of a few other that would be useful while keeping his role intact:

A 3 SP skill that kills all his summons and resets all cooldowns.
A 1 SP skill that gives fortified, magic shell and rested for 0 turns (removing most negative status effects essentially) to an ally (not on self)
A 1 SP skill that allows him to transfer the soul bond of one of his summons to another character. I don't know how feasible it'd be, and I'd definitively increase the SP to 2 if the summon maintains its original stats.

Yeah, the only real Poly Skill he needs is Heart Of Steel. And those all seem like nifty Source Skill ideas, and while that last one may be a bit finicky to add in, it's very possible and to my knowledge, the Summon will maintain its original stats, so making it a 2SP Skill sounds very reasonable.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

You lost me there o.o Why would you want to artificially boost the arena score? And why would taunted AI use the potion even if decaying? Did you mean charmed?

Using it to test a new experimental arena game mode I'm making and I just forgot to take it off. But it benefited towards that.

As for why AI would use the potion even if decaying? Your guess is as good as mine. It only happened once when the Templar was taunted and had to run through Necrofire to hit the Incarnate that taunted him, so he drank the potion, probably with intent to heal since he would've died if he went any further anyhow.

So it's probably just a flaw.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

While that does sound very cool, it still looks like she'll still be almost exclusively physical-oriented, which I feel isn't going to solve the fact that she will be reliably wrecked if a physical-focused character gets in her face. She gets permastunned or killed with little effort, while she can do very little to hurt the Warrior/Rogue/Templar in return.

As for ideas... Well let's see:

A skill that lets her kill an ally to gain 1 SP + any SP they may have. Maybe it can also function as regular Source Vampirism, too, replacing the skill altogether.
Crawling kiss, from the Radeka the Witch fight, would fit pretty nicely.
I feel like she would benefit a lot from Leech, given how much blood she ends up having around.
Contamination? Poison Wave? Some poison skills would be nice, even if reflavoured to fit more into the blight theme. They would serve to threaten those pesky physicals with some actual magic damage output.

Doesn't she have Contamination already? And she also has the Artillery Plant and Poison Spores. Crawling Kiss might be really good to add, actually.

Also, I was considering giving her Last Rites, actually. However, that "Sacrifice" skill does seem pretty neat. I can make it just target allies only and ignore armor and it'll just be source vampirism (with 1 SP confirmed gain) and maybe a 10 turn Cooldown.

I was considering giving her Venomous Aura too, the weapon skill you get from putting a Source Orb in your rune slot for a weapon. It adds poison damage to your attacks, so that might be really nice.

Another idea was to give her Mass Shackles Of Pain as a 2SP Skill that ignores armor as well so that she can deal some serious damage if she gets surrounded.

And sadly, another idea was to just give her unstable and a suicide skill that hurt everyone in range. I would love to make her magic oriented more, but not pure magic oriented like the Wizard.

My final idea is probably the weirdest, but it was to give her Sleepy Arms but as a spell. Which more or less inflicts Athropy and would have a huge cooldown. So it could be effective for canceling out those physical attackers and maybe give her time to escape or think out her next moves.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

I'm a sucker for brainstorming, but sadly I'm working a lot these days and I don't have much energy left... But I'll gladly add any reasonable suggestions I can come up with in the future

Anyway, thanks for the awesome work, I'm looking forward to the update!

Oh, how I do love other people's brainstorming indeed! You've got quite a few interesting ideas there. And it's okay. I'm the polar opposite. I have near to nothing to do and lots of energy and free time!

And you're welcome! It's quite fun to work on all of this in detail and all that.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

Anyway, thanks for the awesome work, I'm looking forward to the update!

I posted the update here on Steam and on the Nexus, with changelogs and a new ReadMe file on the Nexus! Tell me how it shapes up to be.

Sooo I'm writing this while on lunch break at work, I'll check out the patch as soon as I'm able :/

Originally posted by Moon Fairy Kyra:

Doesn't she have Contamination already? And she also has the Artillery Plant and Poison Spores. Crawling Kiss might be really good to add, actually.

Also, I was considering giving her Last Rites, actually. However, that "Sacrifice" skill does seem pretty neat. I can make it just target allies only and ignore armor and it'll just be source vampirism (with 1 SP confirmed gain) and maybe a 10 turn Cooldown.

I was considering giving her Venomous Aura too, the weapon skill you get from putting a Source Orb in your rune slot for a weapon. It adds poison damage to your attacks, so that might be really nice.

Another idea was to give her Mass Shackles Of Pain as a 2SP Skill that ignores armor as well so that she can deal some serious damage if she gets surrounded.

And sadly, another idea was to just give her unstable and a suicide skill that hurt everyone in range. I would love to make her magic oriented more, but not pure magic oriented like the Wizard.

My final idea is probably the weirdest, but it was to give her Sleepy Arms but as a spell. Which more or less inflicts Athropy and would have a huge cooldown. So it could be effective for canceling out those physical attackers and maybe give her time to escape or think out her next moves.

She does have contamination, I just completely forgot about it >_>

Anything that allows her to at least survive for one turn against warfare/scoundrel is fine in my books, and those all seem like sweet ideas.

Originally posted by Moon Fairy Kyra:

Oh, how I do love other people's brainstorming indeed! You've got quite a few interesting ideas there. And it's okay. I'm the polar opposite. I have near to nothing to do and lots of energy and free time!

And you're welcome! It's quite fun to work on all of this in detail and all that.

Yay for you using your energy and free time to improve our gaming experience :D

Originally posted by Moon Fairy Kyra:

I posted the update here on Steam and on the Nexus, with changelogs and a new ReadMe file on the Nexus! Tell me how it shapes up to be.

Cool!

The new 3 SP summoner skill is... interesting, for sure. Especially combined with the 1 SP one o_o

Also I see you managed to make the scout sneak with 2 AP, awesome! The Guerrilla global damage nerf is.. uh.. unexpected though. Can't you give the scout custom attributes, avoiding the talent entirely? Maybe through some custom equipment?

Other than that, I'd like to try the update for myself and see how it goes. I'll let you know :)

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

Also I see you managed to make the scout sneak with 2 AP, awesome! The Guerrilla global damage nerf is.. uh.. unexpected though. Can't you give the scout custom attributes, avoiding the talent entirely? Maybe through some custom equipment?

Other than that, I'd like to try the update for myself and see how it goes. I'll let you know :)

Yeah, I did make the Scout Sneak work, but there was a few minor bugs when I made it. It'll be fixed in a hotfix within the next hour as of this response. The bugs can be seen on the Nexus, sadly. But, whew. They're pretty out there.

As for the Global Damage Nerf, the moment I figure out how to precisely work around that without somehow exploding the time-space continuum, I'll gladly fix the issue. ;-;

But I should be able to give her custom attributes indeed.

Originally posted by Xaphedo:

The new 3 SP summoner skill is... interesting, for sure. Especially combined with the 1 SP one o_o

If you manage to get 4SP total in a match as a summoner, such a potential menace should be present. Since they're both only a "One-Time Use" skill, mistiming the stat boost SP Skill (as for it only lasts for the remainer of the turn it was used) might make all your hard work for naught.

Originally posted by Moon Fairy Kyra:

Oh, how I do love other people's brainstorming indeed! You've got quite a few interesting ideas there. And it's okay. I'm the polar opposite. I have near to nothing to do and lots of energy and free time!

And you're welcome! It's quite fun to work on all of this in detail and all that.

Yay for you using your energy and free time to improve our gaming experience :D

Other than that, I'd like to try the update for myself and see how it goes. I'll let you know :) [/quote]

And thanks for providing feedback and giving me something to do at the very least!~ I hope you do enjoy it, if you happen to test it after the bug fixes.