While this isn't a balance thing, I wish the "Savage Leap" ability actually had the frontflip animation that Artorias does! It would make the mod a little bit cooler! (:

Good news: that will get implemented in the future.

Hell yea!

Like you probably already knew, I love your work. I'd suggest you'd get in touch with ElementFive, MarvinSeo, ClairDeLuna, Muscarine and all the cool DD modding community. They can help you, by giving you hints, to balance and make your classes unique. It holds so much potential. I am speaking of both Dragonslayer and Abysswalker. I really like both. Dragonslayer might be a bit op (and yet don't ever get rid of mark on main attack, it's it's soul) and Abysswalker feels a bit empty apart from the stress/burst dmg mechanic, but you're on the right way. Wishing you the best and can't wait for your mods to evolve !

Well, I've tried contacting all of those people at one time or another for modding info/advice. No reply from Marvin/Musc (no surprise, they get a lot of attention, so they've likely grown resilient to such random friend requests/messages).

Clair just finished finals.

ElementFive's latest run (don't have time to watch all VODs.) took a level 3 Dragonslayer through a level 1 dungeon. Not really the best metric. However, I've already incorporated some feedback on camping abilities. This weekend, I can change them entirely. Also, the stress mechanic has changed, as well as adjusting WotA.

Insofar as feedback, the more specific and reasoned it is, the more the mods can evolve through it. I forget who on my friend list suggested it, but they recommended adding Affliction as a requisite for Savage Leap's full damage. I liked that idea, tweaked it, and it's part of the ability now.

I encourage you to take a brief amount of time, type some ideas, and submit them. I love Dark Souls, and I'm happy to serve the community that loves it too.

I'll take some time to think about it. As far as Dragonslayer, I'm good with with his skills, there isn't any I wouldn't ever use at some point. He just needs numbers tweak here and there I'd say. What could also benefit him is more buff/debuffs. By that I mean interactions inbetween its skills, making them cost something to the player, forcing him to have his approach planned for optimal damage and utility.

It's just a random thought (and by random I mean it's the first thing that came to my mind, no idea if it's retarded or interesting), he could get a damage debuff when marking with his 1st skill. The debuff would force him to focus the mark. He will do more damage to the marked one and less to others, like a challenge mechanic : he's now 1v1ing that specific monster, focusing himself specificly on it.

It's more to give you a picture of what I meant by interactions and buffs/debuffs than to really suggest you doing that.

Regarding the Abysswalker, I have very high hopes for him. The new affliction thingy looks very promising. Maybe he could benefit from the torch being low too but It might make him too clunky to set up, but it's another thought. One thing that bugged me out playing Abysswalker is how blank some skills are outside of the self stress into burst mechanic (which I love). By that I mean, you got into stress mode, leap backward, leapforward and then what ? You then become a spamming 1st skill machine, which in that case provides nothing but better damage vs eldritch. I might play him wrong haha but that is how I felt.

He could benefit from more interactions too, like an ever going deeper mechanic, the more rounds he plays, the darker it gets, the stronger he gets, but the closer the madness for the whole party is. He benefits from being afflicted, becoming the berserker you want him to be, solely focused on the purpose of shredding every enemy in front of him. Some kind of double edged glass canon, going back and forth, rampaging any enemy row while leaving discord among his allies. Maybe a camping skill that is like called "give in to insanity" which gives a glimpse to the party of what the Abysswalker is going to do to that soon to come boss so the other party members are more resilient to the stress that is going to come out of Abysswalker plays.

That is one thing I'd like to see in Darkest Dungeon, a relentless class, that hits harder and harder everytime, most of the full dmg class rely on sustained and constant damage, we don't have a high risk high damage reward class despite Muscarine's Tifa (which has to time it's transformation perfectly to perform well, which I like, preventing her from being op). A class to which every turn would be different, with new factors to count in, forcing the player to say "alright shall I let my abysswalker cool down this turn or can my party can keep him going ?", taking another step toward carnage and stress or cowardly stoping the hemorragy and lose the Abysswalker strength.

Again those are just random thoughts. Your trinkets could use some tweaks too. I like the idea of the CC trinkets being the ultimate set, achieving the class peak to it's potential.

As for the DD moding community, I am sure those people would help you. A great place to hang out with them and discuss things out is ElementFive's stream. Idk if you're from NA or EU but as for EU he streams pretty late but it's worth it. His little community is like home to DD modders.

I'll look more into your classes as I have time to but I hope what I just wrote will help. Thanks for being so comprehensiv and willing to improve.

I cannot wait to see the Ciaran prototype. It'd be amazing if Acrosteel could help you on the project. He already made a skin using Jester's skeleton but it could still fit Ciaran, even thought the Gravedigger's one would be far much better.

Anyway, take care man and thanks again !

Great feedback.

In terms of torchlight, I thought about it, but the skill descriptions are way too bloated as it is. The game barely has space for them. The Abysswalker is (to my knowledge) the only class that can play around stress levels. I'd like to keep that as his primary mechanic.

This isn't quite relentlessness, but I could add +stress to several of his attacks, and half that amount to his noble abilities for stress healing. That way, he's constantly struggling to maintain stress against himself, and the enemy. It's simple, but makes things more interesting.

I'll play with the idea this weekend.

To let you know: I'm an American working in Moscow, Russia, and I live a decently full life with Muay Thai boxing, a job, and my girlfriend. I'm lucky to have as much time as I do to mod. Checking lengthy vods and streams are a rare option for me. Feedback's best done through this forum, or through personal messages on Steam. I respond to either with fair reliability.

OH MY GOD I'M A BADASS

I FIGURED OUT HOW TO MAKE UNIQUE AUDIO FOR AFFLICT/VIRTUE

... sort of. :D

Took me a while to figure out, but finally, I can use the rest of the audio bank.

+1 to accomplishment. 2.0 incoming over the weekend with a partial overhaul.

The partial overhaul has become a pretty big overhaul. I'm wondering if I should re-release it.

Unleash your creativity and surprise us, I'm sure it'll be worth it

(Disclaimer: Hasn't played Dark Souls)

Just got the mod yesterday, but I've been playing quite a bit, loving the class already, just a couple of quick thoughts.


While Wrath of the Abyss correctly grants +66 stress, the tooltip for it displays +50 stress. I don't know whether this is because of a hidden passive on the class (which would make sense) or just an incorrect tooltip, but in either case a correction or clarification on the tooltip would be helpful.


For in-town stress recovery (active, not idle), it might be nice to (if possible) have something like the Flagellant's thing, wherein he always recovers exactly 100 stress - and is potentially locked into only ever having access to one type of active recovery. (Perhaps Prayer or Meditation? As previously noted, I'm no expert on the character's proper flavor.)

It would most notably make him more consistently available during the early game, when the Tavern and Abbey haven't been upgraded much and you don't want to *start* a mission with 100+ stress. It would also make it easier to quickly (i.e., with one week in town instead of 15+ rounds of combat stress reduction) switch him from high-risk high-damage to the sometimes-necessary evasion tank.


As an aside - not really something that needs changing per se, just a personal opinion - the art for his ability icons a) looks really nice and b) is (to me) rather jarring in its difference from the game's typical ability-icon art-style. Doesn't detract from the play experience by any means, just feels kinda out-of-place.


Anyway, again, love the mod, keep up the good work.

Edit: I've also noticed at least 1 bluetext line - I don't actually remember the text offhand (and forgot to get a screenshot), but the trigger was an ally dodging an attack while the AW was in Heroic Struggle, and caused the ally to gain stress. If I see it again I'll post the specific line.

Great feedback. Thanks for the heads up. I'll fix the blue string ASAP.

I recently reduced +66 stress to +50 stress because some people reported difficulty in managing it. However, when above 100 stress, you begin to gain increased stress taken. That would be the hidden passive. It'll still give +66 stress, but only when used at the passive threshold(s). With no modifiers, 50. If you had +66 0 to 99 stress, I'll investigate further.

Concerning the stress reduction in-town: I've thought about naturally reducing his stress in-town, but I'm divided over whether it fits the character. In Dark Souls, the Dark wins, and Artorias dies. It leaves the "What happens after his heroic struggle?" with a clear answer: death. However, that's a bit too harsh in a game like this.

Because he has such benefits (and potential loss) with his affliction, I thought it made sense to leave it alone, and let the player engage the risk as they see fit. It's a higher economic cost to keep resetting him, but one doesn't need to since he doesn't have any horrible side-affects of being afflicted (other than becoming more stress-prone).

If one wants to skip the Hamlet fees, one can choose to focus entirely on his stress heal skills from attacks, camps, and team-mates, and keep the torch lit. It leaves him in the afflicted state, but there are some smaller bonuses to gain while he's low on stress.

Playing him requires leaving the functional fixedness of one's Darkest Dungeon routine, so my next update will give some bonuses for doing that so people can learn better.

Here's an idea on WotA - why not make it snuff the torch out as opposed to adding stress to him?

It's something I have considered in the past. I could make it do both.

The idea is for stress to represent his corruption. Though, since he now has some benefits for removing torchlight with his new trinket, I could add that for flavor.

I've had a lot of activity IRL, so I haven't had much creative energy to do much for a 3.0, or 2.6+. I had a brief love affair with Divinity OS 2, but I'm clean of it, and will resume modding soon.

If I can get the art down, I might... have... a CATACLYSMIC surprise for a mod. :D

I feel you, I'm a lead writer on Fallout: Miami and real life really can get in the way of creative pursuits. Looking forward to your next release!