Not gonna lie i am kind of sad he deal less damage overall now that his base damage and Venomous Fangs have being nerfed, his older district gave him a flat blight skill chance buff which was nice as he didnt need to use blight trinkets in less blight resistence areas.

But as you said Venomous Fangs is still a good option and with the new Mamba Dance buff he can properly combo it into Venomous Fangs better than before, his new district fixed one of his major problems for the fronline set which was speed as he have the brutal combination of fragile and slow now unless you are gonna farm Prismatic Speed like i did his speed is going to be an issue but not with his new district.

Regarding Ratteling Trap let me start by saying i am very flattered that you listened to my suggestion and now that it had been buffed i am sure it going to be a major part of the snake charmer's gameplay, dont get me wrong it was always a decent option but now that it offer him a survivability mechanic at the front ranks its going to be better than ever and players will actively use it just like how a riposte should be, and i like how you balanced that out by canceling it if he moves its as if you knew its going to be one of his best and most used options, also is it melee or ranged?

Feast was decent at best medicore at worst but with the new speed debuff and dmg buff its definitely better, its especially useful considering the Snake Charmer's low speed early game without the district.

Despite the small nerf Constriction is still a great option.

I am lowkey glad you nerfed Calming Toxin it was a powerfull stress heal especially if you combine it with Melody and it had little to no drawbacks if you use it with the vision pendent.

Prelude is clever and i like it already.

With that the Snake Charmer is definitely a favorite of mine now, great job.

Generally i like the changes. But not all. So this is my throughts about them in hero postion in the game right now:
First - i still dont like his base stats. Mainly lore-wize. He Snake Charmer and work with snakes all his life? So he must have sharp reaction, he must be very quick. Like anyone who work with snakes IRL. Right? So why he have average dodge and speed? He as quick and nimble as old geezer MAA. Buff them at least to highwayman lvl! I personally prefer him to have 35 dodge and 10 speed at max lvl. But this is personal preference, while im sure he must have at least above average speed. You cannot be slow if you work with snakes! Also he need some compensation for his low base damage. So it will not be overpowered, if he have top dodge and speed with ok health, something around Highway lvl (43) hp. You sure will have strong body if you live in wilderness and spend time with training. Imho in lore he pretty tough and durable guy. Unlike some princess on the run or literal clown.

About skills:
Venomous Fangs is weak, poison must be 3 rounds, im sure about it. It will not make this ability overpowered at all, look for example at the Flaggelant base attack. He hit same targets, deal more damage with both attack and DoT, have slightly less crit but alot more ACC, and his debuff last 3 rounds.
And he not mess with his own skill with this attack. So i see 2 ways: Make it 3 rounds and let it hit rank 3. He really need it, right now he bad DD who can do real damage only to first 2 ranks, with mediocre support capability. Or, if you dont want him to be a good dd - at least give him more damage to first 2 targets - buff fangs damage, +10 ACC, Dot duration to 3 and +1 its damage. Without bigger DPS to back ranks he still will be a pretty bad DD, but at least he will be really userful vs some boses.

Mamba Dance - good skill. You can what this is a way to deal damage to back row. But not with his terrible base damage. This skill deal same damage as Occultist atrillery deal to one target! If target not an eldrich, vs them artiller will be better. And it hit 2 targets. Even Vestal Judgement deal more damage! Its good only for move, de-stealth and lasthit, but good DD (or hybrid dd\support) must have ability to deal serious damage to at least rank 3.

Feast - i like feast buff, not its realy worth using for damage. Not powerful, but pretty userful skill.

Construction - in general its ok stun. Weak chance, but any stun is ok if can target at least position 3. But its debuff is just a joke. 5-15%? Really? No one will really feel it. Since you remove a chunk of this skill power (big spd debuff) - at least buff stun chance to medium numbers (+10%) in return. And if you want userful, but not overpowered effect on this skill, to distinguish it from over stuns - add dodge debuff. I mean - its hard to dodge if piton suffocate you (or later, then you try to catch your breath), right? And it can last only 2 turns - after all its not a curse of some sort. Something around -10\12\15\17\20 will be ok for 2 turns debuff. And it will be much more userful than this pitful -5-15% to damage - he stun important targets, teammates follow up with more accurate attacks. And maybe buff base crit chance? 5%-9% like houndmaster stun, after all high crit chance is his thing, right? Even Vestal have same numbers, lol.
And trust me - this all will not make this skill overpowered. For example - Vestal stun target same positions, from same positions, deal same damage and same stun (if you buff it). No debuff, she add torch, this is cool, but weaker than dodge debuff. But she is most powerful healer in the game. Period. And she can stun. And even deal more damage to back ranks, while healing himself (Judgement deal more damage than dance, yeah). No wonder charmer deserve something. Oh, almost forget! Change construction to melee plz. I mean cmon - its big snake who crash his target, this is seems pretty melee for me.

Rattling trap - honestly i dislike changes very much. Yes, on paper its better now cuz +PROT. But in real battle 2 his main damage skill move him. This skill only good if he back row stress healer, but on support role he dont need riposte. If his teammates have no stress to heal and dont need extra turn - he use stun. Thats all. Rarely he need to lasthit someone in the front ranks. So he will use fangs in this scenartio. This skill sometimes userful on support charmer in some boss fights, but you never bring dedicated stress healer in boss fight if you play serious.
And if you use him as DD - this skill is useless. And i dont even like +PROT. Not cuz its useless, this is very userful bonus. But again - lore-wize he not a soldier with full plate armor and\or shield. He agile snake charmer. Remove this restriction (i really appreciate you effort to code this, but this make skill useless), change prot to dodge (if you like the idea) and lower duration to 3 rounds. Cuz right now this is almost useless skill. Oh, and while i write this i got an IDEA! Currently he have 0 ways to move from rank 4, and he cannot be DD here. Maybe you can add "move forward" to trap? Yes, it will limit its use on support role, but again - supports dont really need riposte. But DD role, where he is heavily struggle right now he will be buffed.

Vicious Charm and Calming Toxin is okay. Cant say anything bad about it. And this is only reasons why you pick Snek Lover in party right now - extra turn and stress heal. Plus a little bit weak, but still userful stun. Sometimes 1 use of de-stealth.

Camping skills:

Mithridatism - ok skill. I personally prefer it have something like "20% for 2(or 3) cost" or 2 charges of this one but this is purely my taste. Cheap and userful without any changes.

Exotic spices - weak. Ok buffs, but this not guaranteed. With possible huge debuff and only for 2 battles. Look on something like Instruction or Tiger`s Eye - 1 more cost, but guaranteed bonuses for 4 batles and without any drawbacks. You literally can remove chanses on both effects, buff to full 4 battles, and keep this 50% to have stress debuff. If you feel what it will make skill too strong - nerf the cost to 3 points. But at least this skill will be userful. Right now its just not worth at all.

Melody in over hand is good skill. Nothing to say here, really good one.

Prelude - imho its worth only if you play as DD charmer, but as i say before - he bad on this role. On support one - this is to risky, at least for me. Even with slight chance to blight he can proc it 5 times in the row sometimes. But i cant say its useless, if you buff DD part of this character - it will be much stronger skill. I cant say its useless even on support, i just don like this trade.

Right now, after patch he is ok stress healer with (a little bit) weak stun and great, but limited extra action (and 1 use of de-stealth if needed). And parody on damage dealer, with low damage to first 2 ranks, plus extremely weak damage to back 2 ranks.

Sadly i cant say much about his trinkets. Cuz right now i have only 2, even if im in late game with upgradet wagon and 3 lvl 5-6 Snake Charmers. Never see a CoM trinkets in game yet. I will tell what i think about them than i collect them. Crystal Pendant seems userful, even if i buy him only recently and dont properly test it.

Sorry for bad english and thanks to you work!

Thank you very much for your feedbacks guys, really. There are some very useful points here. I'd like to answer to some of your ideas Chikanuk :

- His speed is quite low, because of lore concerns : he carries an heavy box with a lot of snakes and have to manipulate it every turn. Still, whith his new district he gains +2SPD because he's used to it. Also when he crits he gains +2SPD to represent the swiftness of his attacks.

- About Venomous Fangs, I've done my math again and it's still a very good base attack compared to other heroes. Keep in mind that taking Flag as example is not a good idea : it's almost his only attack. Also a new hero must not be as good as specialized ones on every skill ! Snake Charmer is a versatile hero. He hits less than a DD, stress heal less than jester etc. Still, please compare to other basic attack skills, you'll see that venomous fangs is still very good.
Just one thing, I realized his blight should be 6/rd and not nerfed to 5 - I'll fix that.

- Mamba Dance is 10.5 dmg in average, Artillery is less than 8, on each target, almost 10 if eldritch, but no effect at all. Judgement is 11.5. I have to consider destealth, and stress heal with heavy crits too, but I'll keep it in mind.

- Now constriction, you have some really good points on this one. I have to admit that I didn't pay much attention to its balance. So, I totally agree on the debuff, because dmg debuff on a stunned enemy is useless, I'll do a dodge one. Plus, it lacks some crit chance compared to other heroes similar skills. I want this skill to do a bit of damage, a little chance to stun and a little but useful debuff. It synergizes quite good with different trinkets. I'll fix that too.

- I know rattling trap could feel quite messy. For the lore part, consider that the snake is protecting his master. It's not protection from an armor, but still the enemy will have more trouble to hit him. Also, riposte on support is nice on some bosses as you said, and prot is not negligeable. Remember that as a DD, you can use venomous fangs in rank one without desactivating it.

- Interesting thoughts about Exotic Spices, I'll keep it in mind.

- To me, Prelude is not dedicated to DD only. You'll heal more on camp then have to manage stress with less calming toxin a bit. You also have plenty of options to compensate the blight buff. Interesting thought tho.

Thanks again, don't hesitate to contact me :)

I glad to help you with this mod as much as i can, i really love the work you did here!

Speed - ok i agree. Probably you right. But i still think he need a slight hp buff, to average lvl.

About Flag vs Snek and especially Fangs v Punish: Its 6 average dmg (actially 5.6 but as far as i remember - for players its round up) + 6 (after u fix it) for 2 rounds. Vs 8 average damage + 6 for 3. Punish have +10 ACC, and debuff, far better than +4% crit on Fangs. In general fangs weaker.
Also Flag can apply heavy DoT (5per3) with same great debuff on 3+4. And he can support on same position. Yes, this make him almost useless if he pushed back, but i think its overall plus.
But lets compare with Houndmaster Rush - 10 damage + 2for3 and 2 less crit. his time numbers a weaker.
BUT! It can hit all 4 positions. This is extremely powerful, this is alone make Rush better than Fangs. And not only that - he can boost damage with dog treats, mark and it have +15% vs beasts. So in crucial moment he can deal far more damage than Snek possibly can, to any target.
Or Occultist Stab - 10 damage, -5 ACC +4 crit%, +33% vs Eldrich, ranking - 1.2.3 to 1.2.3. Weaker damage, but again - he can strike more positions, and this is a huge plus (this is why Leper so bad - superb damage, but only to 1 and 2). And he can support and deal damage on the same position. Abou Vestal we already talk.
As you can see - any hybrid or even specialized support can do more damage or slightly less, but with better targeting. Sometimes both. And in all examples they can do it from position where they can support.

Also IMHO Snek support OR damage. He cant support on front, he cant damage on back. Well, unless you pick someone who will babysit and carry him around. But this duscussion about what he can offer to party, not what party can do for him.
Or he can move by himself. But this is make him even weaker. If for example hound attack someone and need to stress heal - he dont need to be pushed back 1 or 2 times next round(s).
So Snek must do both tasks better (or at least not weaker) than over hybrid guys who can support AND damage on the same position, like flag or hound.

About Rattling Trap i respectfully but strongly disagree. If Snek in position 1 and wanna stay here - he become even worse DD. He can only fang 1 and 2 (and you rarely wanna kill front asap, 3 and 4 - this is where most important targets, Leper again) and use Feast. New feast is cool, but not that cool.
He cant stun. He cant even use mamba to strike back ranks and de-stealth them. I try this 3 or 4 times on lvl 4 and 6 Sneks. Super weak. This movement restriction actually a huuuuge nerf, +prot wont compensate this. And dont get me wrong - this PROT debuff is really good. I dont like it much cuz i prefer idea about agile Snake Charmer. But this is just personal preference.
Meanwhile this movement restiction - its not preference, it make this skill alot weaker. Please, consider to remove this! He wont become OP without it. This is one of buffs what he really need (second - more damage to back ranks).
About Prelude - its really userful if you run full DD mod on him (even if he suck on this role (imho) right now =D). Just press it 2 times, press big stress heal and voila! Enjoy even more stress heal! And then you dont care about calming toxic debuff, cuz you dont use it.

P.S. If you totally disagree with me about removing move restriction on riposte - can you please tell me how i can do it myself? Cuz sometimes if i disagree with modder vision - i just make few changes myself (nothing bad with it, right?) end enjoy slightly altering version. For example right now i play with fangs what can hit first 3 positions. For testing (Its better to test before you propose something, imho) and my own enjoyment. Also this is not make him more powerful than dedicated DD, no. Snek just feels really userful in front line with this.
But my non-existed modding skills dont allow me to do this with Rattling Trap. I just open his effects and buffs files, stare on trap few minutes and like -"Nope".

Oh, almost forget! - You know what Scales Tattoo wont affect crits, right? If this is intentional - its actually pretty cool idea i must say. Hope over trinkets as cool as this one (Sadly game just refuse to give me mod classes trinkets this run).

Okay, thanks again for your feedbacks guys. At least I have some time to answer.

I won't answer point by point, because the issue you're talking about is global. Here are my thoughs, I need to talk about his role : Snake Charmer is meant to be played : as a support backliner, as a drontliner DD, or an hybrid.

As an hybrid (rank 2 or 3), he'll have to switch position (or to be switched). In this setup you may want to sometimes stressheal or give a turn but you'll have to act clever, and focus on switching depending of your needs next turn. I find it pretty funny actually, usually taking venomous / mamba / constriction + one support skill. Even if you won't be able to use rattling on this kind of build, he's okay : he has moderate dmg, some quite useful support skills. CC trinkets are quite nice to do this.

As a backliner (static 3 or 4), you'll go with calming toxin + vicious charm + constriction, and mamba probably, or rattling trap in some situations. Rattling trap here is not negligable. You're doing decent dmg, for 4 rounds, and over the top that prot buff offers the survivability he lacks. In this kind of build, you definitely want to consider 'vision pendant' trinket, and CoM trinket. This will allow you to increase your dmg considerably.

Now as a frontliner, he needs to do some dmg obviously, and have more survivibility. Before, he could use the combo venomous + rattling almost everywhere, and this was way too strong, insane on some situations (considered that venomous was OP). Really I can't allow that anymore :D That being said, if you actually play him in rank 1, he has'nt lost much. I even think he's overall better, but more balanced.

The rank limitation on ratting trap is made to be sure that you'll play him in a given role, and don't have insane dmg output if you want to go hybrid. I still thinks it's a good way to do it. I did sacrifice the snake charmer as rank 2 DD tho. I'm still testing him. I understand that now this feel too restrictive : fangs OR riposte OR both in rank 1. I'll try to figure out something.

What we can ask from this point is :

- Does he do his job as a support ? I think generally people would agree that yes. (just adding that vicious charm debuff is an absolute necessity, this skill rocks :p)

- Does he do enough dmg as a static frontliner ? I tend to think that yes. I saw Chikanuk's point about venomous fang that would need to hit rank 3, and I understand but it might breaks a lot, I have to think about it.
Appart from moving around he is better in rank 1 than before. But he's now worst as a rank 2 DD without riposte or without venomous fangs and mamba, that's for sure. (Also, give a try to CoM trinket with Feast.)

- Does he do enough dmg as a moving hybrid ? So yes you lost rattling trap on this one, to be clear ; but Mamba dance was buffed a lot... Maybe there is something to do on this role. I'll test and think about it.

Some random things :

- Leper is actually very good despite hiiting only rank 1 & 2 :)
- Scales Tattoo not affecting crit is intentional

- I checked how to remove riposte restrictions, its not too difficult :
in .effects file, rattling trap part, remove any buff with R2 R3 or R4 in their name
then in .buffs file, check every buff with R1 in their name, and replace the line "rule_type" : "in_rank", by "rule_type" : "always",
Tell me if this doesn't work.

Thx alot, both for you reasonings (even if i disagree with something). and coding explanations (this field is pretty new for me).
After alot of testing i wanna point 1 more thing i found recently - mamba dance debuff. Its really weak, especially early one - 10-30%. While many carry -20-33% debuff, which one is sort of standart. This is even more important for mamba cuz they not apply with same skill, you need use mamba and then follow with bligh attack.
Sadly most of times this debuff was totally wasted - mamba only good skill to attack back line, which one you cant reach with blight at all. Buff it early one plz.

Btw hope you will change you mind about stats (spd or hp).

Oh yes, almost forgot about his CoM trinket! This is too OP for my taste, tbh. This blight too strong on hero, who can hit all 4 ranks. IMHO it disbalance - he feels weak (imho, as DD) without it, he feels super OP with it. It can be a good item if you attach this blight for single target skill - fangs or mamba, or both. But on Feast... As far as i remember - nothing can be close to hurt so much all 4 ranks in vanilla game. Even 3 ranks. With this you can literally forget all single target damage skills. Just spam Feast.
Maybe i miss something cuz i buy this item pretty recently.

About Leper design - he is good in bad things. You need to kill asap first 2 ranks only in Endless and vs some boss. On regular dungeons he spend most off his time missing on pelagic\skeleton guardians or mishrooms (-10 base ACC is pure pain on champion, even with trinkets, reflection is only 4 battles, and spending whole turn on rage every battle is make him even worse). And save god if he face something nimble as dogs.
This is why right now i buff him myself: Purge now have -ACC and crit debuff, And intimidate pull enemies and debuff dodge instead of damage.
Also his chop and double-chop got +5 ACC, cuz ♥♥♥♥ it, i almost uninstall game than he miss doge 5 times in the row with 2 ACC trinkets.
As far as it going - he not much stronger in boss fights and endless, but much better on regular dungeon runs.

Okay guys, overall I think that even it was not a bad balance option, the riposte rank limitation is making him harder to play and frustrating. I have some ideas to change that, still keeping the philosophy of the character and balance in mind, so expect a new patch soon.

Sorry for that - hope you'll still enjoy the mod.

Yay! And not need to be sorry. You cant improve if you dont experiment with new things.

New patch, riposte is back to more vanilla-like stats ! See complete patchnote to see what has changed.

Hello BayBot,
it took me a while to answer, had a lot of work... Thank you for your previous explanations, your logic is sound, still I have some remarks on a few points.
Let me just say first, that I don't usually write my opinions on other peoples work, I just go and change whatever I feel like in my own game. That's what's so great about moddable games. But your mod is so excellent it made me care about its wellbeing outside my own game.

1) Riposte. I actually like the idea. The issue is it goes against the rest of the kit. You either put him in rank 1 or limit yourself on use of moving skills entirely, alltogether with limiting your party choices. Currently I am experimenting with some options:
a) Removing moves from those 2 skills worked very well. I only had to be aware of push/pull enemies (and avoid move-heavy party ofc). Move resist comes in handy too.I'd be goodbye agile SC, but it was pretty good play with that change.
b) Using .immobilize 1 unfortunately doesn't work well. Even though the hero remains in the rank no matter what, it still removes riposte if someone moves over him. It also comes with blue overlay tint. Too bad.
c) Treating move skills as pull/push and give riposte move immunity... is an option. But it is quite inelegant.

2) Feast. Imo this skill is overpowered, especially considering CoM trinket. Spammable, solid damage with debuff. I'd suggest to reduce the overall damage to 30-40%, remove the speed debuff, and instead add a big instant +% DMG vs Blighted, so the skill requires some setup.

3) Vicious Charm. I wish you would consider rework of this skill. Yes it can be good, but only if you find a use of it where those debuffs don't matter much. Then it gets weird, you get value out of it with no disadvantage. Where on the other hand using it where those debuffs do matter is close to nonsence. I have experimented with replacing all those debuffs with a 2-3 rounds of -SPD debuff, which worked better since SPD matters almost always and actually makes a little sense. But still I am not fond of this skill. I was considering giving it a cooldown and reverse it, to actually turn the target supersayian for a singe action, but I dunno, cooldowns are quite exotic, maybe too much. For now I just don't use the skill whatsoever.

4) Calming Toxin. Very nice skill, but the multiple blight DoTs are a bit weird. Why not simply put one in there, like with Occultist bleed? What I like on this is how +Blight skill trinkets work against you here, it's a nice counter-balance.

5) Blight durations discrepancy. This might be just me but I find the Blight duration of just 2 rounds odd. It doesn't fit with every other blight in the game and I don't see much reason for it. Ever considered making them standard 3 rounds, while giving that trinket just +33% duration increase?

That's all, I think. Know that I am happy with your mod either way. I've already make my changes in my game, and I just merrily play with my sneks, blight and whatnot. I am going to experiment some more still.

Best regards

Hah, you just uploaded an update right when I was writing my message. Gonna check it up right away.

Originally posted by AngelRane:

Feast

Its overpowered only with CoM trinket. Remember, what Snek have lowest damage in the game (mb same lvl as antiquarian) so this big% actually deal less damage than lower % AoE in over classes like helloin, highwayman or shieldbreaker.
And i disagree about charm too - did you play with any modded class with same +turn for target skill, which have less penalties? It simply broken, just place it on any super strong DD hero and he will melt anything.
With such strong penalties as charm have right now players need to think about this skill, instead of spam it on DD. And you still can pull some really strong wombo-combo, like MAA who can buff 2 tumes in 1 round, or guard and buff\riposte.
But i agree about blight duration. Snek have surprisingly low +%blight chance trinkets, and his blight weaker than for example flag bleed. And even more - Snek blight last only 2 rounds. Dunno why. This is not something terrible, but seems odd, at least for me.

Hey guys, sorry for the delay, and thanks again for your interest.

1) Since last patch, as you may have seen, the prot will disappear if you move, but not the riposte itself. It's less consistent on lore side, considering that it's the snake that adds these buffs, and much closer than vanilla ripostes, but still works as balance mecanic imo. Frontliner will take advantage of this, switcher will receive more damage. I'll be glad to hear what you think.

2) I'm still watching how feast will perform. I reduced the com trinket blight chance in the last patch so we'll see. I know that multi target skills are often too weak in general and not used by players. Still, feast may have a nerf in the future.

3) I have a lot of mixed feedbacks on this skill, but my opinion tend to join most modders and some people who I know are good players : this skill is still super strong, mainly strategically, but still it's an okay buff for dmg in some situation.
I did not try speed debuff, first because O'Nightmare's Acolyte of Sun has something similar, and also because I think it's OP. Also, I'm comfortable with some player not willing to play this skill at all. Maybe it's up to you and your style, and that's a part of DD to me - I love when players are arguing about their favorite comp for example :p

4) Well, I understand, but I'm actually very happy with that. You need to manage a higher chance of low blight, or a lower chance of very punitive blight. Still I agree it's not very clear, but I didn't find a better way to explain it with a tooltip.

5) Again I understand, and it's achoice : I wanted to represent the snake's poison as very lethal and quick, on lore aspect as well as on gameplay side. I did my math to balance this compared to 3rd duration blights, and that allow to tick highier so to do more dmg on one round. Also, it puts the emphasis a bit more on crit because crits will result in 50% blight damage bonus.

to Chikanuk :
Again I won't compare SC to flag, and I thought that base game trinkets already offered enough +blight chance, but know that now there's a new trinket that will improve blight chance (shhh, it was a surprise).

I have to ask, why make the stun skill chance on Constriction 130%? It isn't particularly strong, because most enemies who you want to stun are the kind that take a long time to kill, not the ones with high dodge and low health. It also has less damage and crit chance than the Vestal's Dazzling Light, which is similar.

I'd suggest making the stun chance 140% base like most other abilities, increasing the damage modifier to between -70% and -60%, and reducing the dodge debuff to -10 at max rank while giving it a speed debuff of 1 to 3 based on rank.

Hey, thanks.
Dazzling light and constriction actually has the same dmg range (2 to 4 dmg). But constriction does has better crit chances; so slightly better dmg.
Still, depending on modifiers dazzling could be better. In that case I agree that constriction has lower dmg, and I'll look into that.
About its stun chance, I think I want to keep it to 130%. A stun skill with decent dmg plus dodge debuff could quickly be op. Other stuns usually have only stun effect.

I'll think about it anyway, thanks.