My suggestion on balance would be on scaling.

I think some scaling should be adjusted.

If I understand correctly the current scalings are:

1.physical melee attacks scale with strength and warfare.

2.elemental melee attacks scale with skills of that element. e.g. fire scales with pyro. No bonus damage from intelligence from what I can tell. Please correct me me if I'm wrong.

3.elemental spells scale with intelligence and skill of that element. Although, some spell tool
tips don't say they scale with intelligence or any attribute.

The first issue is that intelligence and finess based builds (e.g. rouge and wizzard) have low melee attack damage due to intelligence and finess not increasing melee damage.

The second issue is forms that have multiple scalings (e.g. have both physical melee, elemental melee, and spells form multiple elements) would deal less damage because people usually don't spread points that much. However, a multi-damage type form could work if attacks can be coded to deal multiple damage types evenly. e.g. melee attacks deals all damage types equally. Also, another avantage of spreading points into multiple element is getting many usesful buffs, such as Living armor + Armour of frost + peace of mind.

To conclude, I'd purpose that there should be more scaling for intelligence and finess builds, and each forms should have a single clear focus on its scaling.
For instance, scale all of its attacks, both melee and spells, with only one attribute and one skill or a skill set that synergises well, such as pyro+geo or hydro+aero.


One example would be the Demon form:

Currently, the Demon form's spells sacle with intelligence. However, I think most people would build him as a strength-based melee character because of his high physical melee damage output. Therefore, changing his spells to scale with strength would be better, imo. Although, I'm not sure if Warfare already increases physical spells damage. In that case the scaling could be reduced.

Thanks Ithiel, I'm going through every single skill and modifying them right now to try to fix the scaling problem I'm seeing with abilities.

I haven't actually tested Demon form at all besides confirming that the shapeshift works and the abilities don't have any huge glaring errors (outside of the fact that they don't have names/descriptions/icons on some...)

The abilities I gave it are all Necro abilities, which should scale with strength! I think the problem with abilities will be addressed with the modifications I'm doing, but it's not going to be a quick fix, especially since I do not want to release it without doing some actual testing!

I did a really quick test on Dragon Form (numbers are absurdly high, because I did this in the editor)- melee does about 10k-11k damage, and the dragon breath abilities did about 2k -- after making the changes, the melee did 10-11k damage and the dragon breath did 14k damage.

I haven't actually testing using forms with skills outside of the ones given by the form... have you tested that? Are they usable? I'd much prefer to make it so inside of forms you cannot use your other skills, as the scaling will be totally off

For me, I can use my human-form skills while transformed, and I agree that you shouldn't be able to do that.

Thank you Ithiel!

Amusingly, casting spells while in a from that grants bonus damage is very powerful. This makes intelligence build caster really powerful in dragon form (that 100% damage buff applies to every thing).

That said, It might be interesting to make a dedicated caster form that specifically allows you to cast human-form spells with bonus damage, but also gives you some drawbacks. For example, a caster form that increase damage and spell range, but prevents you from moving, takes increase physical/magical damage, or some other negative effects.

Also, the necro spells in demon form scale with intelligence in my game.

I recently implemented the Frog/Djinn form, they are dedicated caster forms (didn't think about spell range, will work on that!) and take increased damage/but have high resistance to similar damage. Is that what you mean?

I'm working on a few more, but adding those showed the scaling issue I was having with abilities, so fixing the skills is now #1 priority.

Thanks for doing a bunch of testing for me Ithiel!

Also, that's what I meant about balacing, there are significant buffs added to the forms to differentiate them and it works with the way they are scaled (melee)- but it's just OP with abilities outside of the forms being used!

Oops!, I havn't check the Frog and Djin forms. Too excited with the demon. Sorry for redundant suggestions XD.

Originally posted by Ithiel:

Oops!, I havn't check the Frog and Djin forms. Too excited with the demon. Sorry for redundant suggestions XD.

Damage seem balanced on Demon form? I did close to zero testing with it as I had very little time last night but wanted to get it out.

The demon form deals moderately less damage than a two-handed warrior, but has better survivability. This, I think, is a good design because it fits well with the theme of necromancy: self-sustaining tank-dps. However, I suspect the damage gap will continue to grow because of the critical multiplier form two-handed skill.

The problem with survivability from necromancy is that it requires you to attack in order to stay alive. This means CC is the primary weakness of this build, and this form doesn’t have any armor regenerating skills. Therefore, prolonged fights would be problematic as enemies keep spamming CC at you (they will do that on Tactician difficulty).

Overall, I feel that two-handed warriors is more powerful than demon form. They have better damage, mobility (from Phoenix dive and Polymorph wings), CC (both Battle Stomp and battering ram) ,and area-damage (whirlwind). Warriors also doesn't have to worry much about about getting CC because the aforementioned advantages would kill or disable the enemies in a single turn.
The demon form doesn't have that kind of burst and isn't tanky enough to compensate.

Also, the 20% dodging passive is powerful, but inconsistent because it’s random, so I’d suggest changing it to something more reliable, such a better resistances or armor.

I'll update more as I have more experience playing this class. I just started a new game with this build as the main focus.

Thank you for taking the time to explain, Ithiel, your experience is invaluable!

The breaths on the dragon only consume 1 AP as of now, althought its do low damage but it is quite OP imo when enemy's magic armor have been striped down, like a free CC, instant Frozen or Stunt. Normally you would need to go wet -> frozen, or wet -> stun, or shocked -> stunt. The breaths cone are too big too, which make enemies just spend their AP running around it, or hide in the corner and not attacking you. Great mods anw.
My suggestion is to reduce the cone size, either make the breath apply Wet and Shocked only if you intend to keep the damage at low and AP at 1. Or increase the damage a bit and go for AP at 3.

Dragon is supposed to be a bit OP honestly. The intent of keeping the breath damage low is so that it doesn't just wipe everything out, but instead applies mass status effects. I'll see about balancing out the abilites a bit more though.

Originally posted by Ithiel:

The demon form deals moderately less damage than a two-handed warrior, but has better survivability. This, think, is a good design because it fits well with the theme of necromancy: self-sustaining tank-dps. However, I suspect the damage gap will continue to grow because of the critical multiplier form two-handed skill.

The problem with survivability from necromancy is that it requires you to attack in order to stay alive. This means CC is the primary weakness of this build, and this form doesn’t have any armor regenerating skills. Therefore, prolonged fights would be problematic as enemies keep spamming CC at you (they will do that on Tactician difficulty).

Overall, I feel that two-handed warriors is more powerful than demon form. They have better damage, mobility (from Phoenix dive and Polymorph wings), CC (both Battle Stomp and battering ram) ,and area-damage (whirlwind). Warriors also doesn't have to worry much about about getting CC because the aforementioned advantages would kill or disable the enemies in a single turn.
The demon form doesn't have that kind of burst and isn't tanky enough to compensate.

Also, the 20% dodging passive is powerful, but inconsistent because it’s random, so I’d suggest changing it to something more reliable, such a better resistances or armor.

I'll update more as I have more experience playing this class. I just started a new game with this build as the main focus.

The Demon Form currently has 25% extra magic and physical armor, 20% resistance to everything, and 25% physical resistance 20% dodge +15% crit, and +1 AP

I know the damage needs a bit of balancing, I over-nerfed everything, but I honestly thought Demon form would be a bit overpowered...

What would you recommend for those values on your experience?

I think the bonus stats are powerful enough, and I'd even trade some damage or defensive bonuses for a way to mitigate CCs. Here are some ideas:

1. Would it be possible to add a bonus effect that prevents being disabled for consecutive turns? e.g. if you are stunned this turn, you will be immune to it on the next turn.

2. Add a skill similar to 'shields up': spend APs to restore some armor.

3. A passive bonus that decrease incoming damge while you are being CCed. e.g. 50% damage reduction while stunned.

Also, you 're right that Demon form would seem overpowered. It deals high damage ,and is quite unkillable against enemies with little to no CC. That's why I'd suggest trading its stats for CC resistance. This would lead to a more consistent perfomance as well.

That said, I will have more feedback as I proceed with my new playthrough, which only has this mod installed, and build my character based on shapeshift class. It 'll be interesting to see how well this and other forms scale throughout the game. I should be able to give more feedback in a few days.