I assume this is balanced around the base game? If so, many skills aren't really worth it or have poor synergy with one another.

First of all, Arcane Imbuement. I think in your mind you probably want this spell to go with Manifest Weapon. Problem is that Manifest Weapon spawns in physical damage melee weapons. In the base game, all you'll end up doing is delaying armour breaking by splitting your damage between both armour types. Very inefficient. Mixed damage is a poor choice in the base game.

Secondly, Knight's Step. Why teleport back to the original position? This class is supposed to be a melee character. It's not like any of the skills this class has benefits from elemental affinity, then perhaps I could see the value of staying in the original position. You use this skill and then you have to walk to your enemy to do more damage? Pointless. Also, Displacement Strike and Banishing Strike are both melee skills, so there's zero synergy between them and Knight's Step.

Thirdly, Mind Blank, Mystic Bulwark, Mystic Excellence. Just too weak to be worth the AP and memory slot, especially early in the game at level 4 when you get them. If you do the math, a 10% chance on Bulwark means you need to take about 10 attacks before you see even 1 activation and this is assuming the enemies all targeted the duskblade instead of other allies. You'll be long dead by the time enemies even get to do 10 attacks. Excellence is even less worth it. If we assume 2 actions with 4 AP in a single turn. It may take you 5 turns just to see even 1 activation. Fights in this game rarely last up to turn 5. As for Mind Blank, why would anyone use it over Peace of Mind?

I think you should let us fulfill the fantasy of using the same skill multiple times in 1 turn. Imagine if you set the CD of Knight's Step to 2 turns and removed the original position teleport. This opens up cool tricks in 1 turn like Knight's Step to a closer enemy-> Negation -> Knight's Step to a farther enemy who was initially out of range of the first Knight's Step. If you added arcane focus on Displacement Strike and you're playing a lone wolf or glass cannon character, you can spend 6 AP doing Knight's Step -> Displacement Strike an enemy into your party -> Knight's Step back to the teleported enemy and join the rest of your party.

hey man love the mods but while looking at this mod i'm noticing the summoned weapon and shield combo is a lot weaker than your other summoned weapons in both stats and the fact it lacks an ability. another thing i was noticing is the totem like floating sword isn't working with summon mods. if this was considered a totem to work with other summoning mods it would really help out. lastly mystical bulwark refuses to happen for me, i don't know if that's a bug or if i'm just really unlucky but a 10% might be a bit too low

As was said, Arcane Imbuement works well with mods like Divinity unleashed where striking in both physical and elemental damage isn't penalized, but with the base game armor system, it's effectively making you do 50% damage to both armors with a chance at dealing a bit more to the magic armor making you far weaker unless the enemy has a 100% weakness or more to an element. I think you should change it to a 100% conversion to make it actually worthwhile instead of in a very few scenarios.

Furthermore, I think you should add poison and maybe even physical to the list, though that's more convenience and making it useful against more enemies(enemies with poison weakness or enemies with resistances to all elements but not physical)

Also, knight's step REALLY doesn't fit with a melee type build because it only makes you land a single long distance hit and you still need to walk to the enemy afterwards if the enemy wasn't killed. As for displacement strike, the use is questionnable since that's once again putting an enemy out of attack range, only use I see to this is to finish a turn on a melee target so they have to waste AP getting back which is, meh, for a skill and even then, the damage is really low per AP pretty much making it a waste of AP.

As for spectral weapon... this ♥♥♥♥ is OP, not damage wise, but for tanking. I tried this on a solo character and enemies were focusing on it(it might be due to their low max HP making enemies target them), even though it's invulnerable, thus removing any risks since the enemies basically end up doing no damage. I don't know if it's possible, but maybe they should be changed so as to be a low priority for enemies so they always prefer attacking targets which AREN'T invulnerable, making them small but basically free damage over a few turns. Maybe going with really high resistances instead of outright invulnerability would let NPCs notice their attacks won't be effective since the invulnerability you're using for the summon doesn't seem to register with the AI.

Originally posted by Enamel:

As for Mind Blank, why would anyone use it over Peace of Mind?

This is true, Clear minded basically does the same thing, except it covers more status effects thanks to also covering sleeping and blind, but it also gives stats and accuracy for the same AP cost and half the CD. Only reason I could see of using it over Peace of mind is not having to invest a point into pyrokinetic to access it.

Another issue I have with the mod is the focus on summoning ability. Considering there are two skills possibly benefiting from those points, though spectral blade doesn't appear to be, so that leaves manifest clone as the only skill benefiting from the points you put into summoning.

Also, Steel-Wind strike suffers from the same issue as Knight's Step with it not helping us get closer, though that's a bit understandable since it could be hard to land where we want with it, but it would still be close to an enemy. Also, the google docs sheet lists it as a 2SP skill, but in-game it only costs 1 SP, so I don't know which is wrong.

Hey guys -

I wanted to take some time to address a few of these criticisms. I suppose I'll start off with what I believe is the largest misunderstanding. This class is not a melee class.

The idea behind this class is to maintain distance from enemies. This is why a majority of Duskblade skills are ranged and those that are melee make the target go away.
Of course, the option for melee is there, however that will rely on a mixed build (typically picking up more Warfare skills, and is entirely viable).

Secondly, I want to address Arcane Imbuement. It's included to allow the player to live out the fantasy of playing a gish, or the spellsword archetype. Additionally, this ability adds versatility - being able to play around a target's weaknesses as needed and working well with a mixed damage party. It may not be perfectly optimized (I'd argue it actually has quite a few strengths), but it's definitely fun.

Lastly, I think the points made about Mind Blank are fair. The intent was to create a skill within the scope of the warrior/summoning skillset that would facilitate it's function, but I'll investigate further ways to help it embolden the class identity.

Originally posted by Feenex:

Hey guys -

This class is not a melee class.

I can see how it could be used as a ranged class, I just don't think it's pleasant gameplay. I don't mean to be insulting, it's just that a part of the class appears to be built around melee combat with the other being around keeping your distance. Most of the class's skills are buffs which doesn't care whether you're in melee or at range and it even has a skill to summon... melee weapons... There's even a buff to trigger Arcane focus on basic attacks and weapon skills, which are melee ranged unless you opt out of using summoned weapons and decide to use wands only(unless arcane focus can trigger twice on skills like knight's step and blade beam, once from the buff and once from the skills themselves).

Also, until you get blade beam, your ranged damage options are... limited. You have knight's step which is good, but spectral weapon just isn't when it comes to damage, especially since it doesn't scale with anything but level. It doesn't gain anything from summoning or your attributes or any other abilities, making it lackluster at the start and basically pointless once you reach act 2.

And even then, even being lone wolf, you can at most use blade beam once every two turns making most of your damage rely on knight's step and spectral weapon which leads to combats being pretty slow overall, especially with the amount of spectral weapons you summon meaning more creatures having a turn to play.

Overall, I feel like the class would be more interesting as an hybrid between melee combat and ranged combat. Right now the offensive skills are too focused on ranged combat and offer too little damage to be fun to play using only it's own skills. I think simply allowing you to move in with knight's leap do a bit of damage in melee and then either stay there using arcane ward or negation to prevent damage or move away with transposition would do a lot of good, especially if you increase mystic excellence trigger rate significantly since basic attacks are still 2 AP casts.

Overall, the mod is a REALLY interesting concept, I just feel it kind of falls flat when it comes to gameplay due to how slow fights end up being.

P.S. Ascendant's strike animation is AMAZING.

Using sparks, imbue weapon and daggers will hit the scond target with sparks, imbued element, magic damage and pysical damage in the same time. May be a little OP. Im in Fort Joy and maybe this combo isnt so important in the next chapters.

I've been using this mod with Unleashed and so far, I think the Arcane Focus mechanic is while interesting on paper, a bit underwhelming in practice because the skills that trigger it are underwhelming. It seems to me that the Arcane Focus thing is worth investing into primarily for the Negation spells since the rest can be done (better) by skills outside of the mod. However, I think Negation is pretty good even by itself with its 0 AP cost and the rest of the Negation stuff are also extremely lightweight in cost (1 AP Ward, Passive Bulwark...) and Negation the spell already has a relatively low CD for such an effect, so I found little reason to go for anything with Arcane Focus.

I've been using the Negation stuff alongside your Battle Pack (Torment Aura, Death Coil and Fury stuff primarily) to make a tank in Unleashed and honestly, it's great. But I agree with the other comments that overall, the class seems to be doing too many things (in unusual ways) to do anything considerably well. I love spellblades, so I don't mind sticking with the Manifest equipment but they are eventually outshone by the unique weapons, much more quickly and substantially if you use mods.

Enamel (the first comment) I think had an interesting idea with Knight Step and is correct about the mathematics of the passives. Even in Unleashed, where the fights are a tad bit longer, I barely ever see Bulwark trigger; some buffing would be great, I think.

Overall, I think some focus on a playstyle would benefit the class. As it stands right now, despite what you've written, I don't see how this class could be a good ranged class with many of the spells, especially the early ones, being melee and the Manifest stuff only giving melee weapons. It's not cost efficient to have a ranged weapon, use Manifest when someone's close and re-equip your ranged weapon when the threat is gone since ranged weapons suffer no penalty in close ranges and you can just go spear - bow to do this better. You can also just get Arcane Imbuement with the spear - bow combo and have the split damage. Knight's Step puts you into surface effects, rendering it a pretty problematic ranged attack. You can't really go tanking with Negation because while absolutely awesome as some bonus defense, too few spells and too high CDs to be relied upon exclusively.

I love the theme of the class but I think it just cannot stand on its own feet. The more prominent skills would be a great addition to your Battle Pack, though, because the class' whole pull for me comes from a few of the skills (Imbuement, Negation stuff and Manifest) and the rest of 'em are just okay. Maybe even a merge with the Encore and Insanity skills, giving them Arcane Focus or Negation etc. would be interesting.

P.S. Despite the negativity, I still do enjoy using the mentioned skills immensely and will keep the mod in my load order even if nothing changes about it. Keep up the good work, man.

so i recently played with this class and read allot of the messages on the topic.

Feenex my bro i understand that you want to make it a ranged class however there is so much missleading to the stylization, hearing the name dusk blade alone makes me think of a teleporting mix it up character with the power and skills to be able to hit at any range with allot of control and mobility.

however now knowing what your intent was for it being a ranged class i decided to try it with your dark class from your expanded mod.

the results are disappointing and ironically it works better as a melee then a ranged but even then it has horrendous synergy even with itself, the reduce cooldowns is a fantastic idea but there should be a massive buff to it. for example once you get the mass buff for the defend one character why would you ever use the single target again. i feel like some of the skills should reduce the cooldown by two or make some of the skills be a little bit more useful to be able to synergize with other players.

my personal major complaint about the class is that its advertised as a combo class but of all the custom classes including many of the ones you have made it has some of the worst combo capability i have seen

P.S. i would love to see a summon weapon skill for this class that gives a random weapon with 3 skills making the player have to recast it to get what they want, it would be a cool interesting addition to the class adding a better sense to the whole summoned weapon thing, instead of being just another summoned sword like your enchanter class.

oh one last thing the other issue is that he only has mid range skills that don't have a pay off for being mid range so i still can't see how its ranged when i could just go dark magic pop shadow form and one shot an enemy half way across the field.

UPDATE: so i'd like to make an update. omfg i found the one skill that makes this class worth it

steel-wind strike omg this skill makes the class a comboing master. so long as your at a medium distance with a secondary summoning going on (i think this is why the class has two summons) you become the assassin replacement the class becomes a devastating hurricane.

so alot of people are saying "he is weak" "he sucks" ect. the trick is the sweetspot and don't be afraid to spam unlike many other classes trying to get stat effects off ect this class is all about free casting you want to get as many skills off as possible, the buffs are ok but the damage this class wants to rush you down and finish off your summoner/mage/fighter's messes.

all and all the only main change i would make is remove the source cost on steel-wind strike, maybe increase his damage a lil bit but aside from that i think he is amazing.

Hello,

So related to my bug report I have a few balance suggestions, Im in early stages of testing the class, so I wont speak for most stronger spells, but the base kit is way off the chart to us already :
- Lower a bit the damage bonus from the 25% proc of the Arcane Imbuement, outside of the bug with the extra attack, it does more than most on hit buff damages from other schools even if we consider a 100% proc but at 25% of the damage.

- Negation is too strong and is free to cast, plus it resets some of the spells for free basically.
This must cost at the very least 1 AP and last a maximum of 2 instances, I had cases with more than this and this allows a free tanking ability on single bosses. That can't be ok.
Its cooldown is too low as well for what it does. Would be ok for 2 AP but its no cost at the moment. Why 2 AP at the very least ? Because with different ways, you would have access to defensive spells like Shield Up if wearing a shield, it regens a bit of physical and magical armors for 2 AP with a 3 turns cooldown. So a bit of armor this is already less than a full ignore instance of damage yet we are using 2 AP, and then the 3 turns cooldown with no reset of any other spells. Hell, this is too much ! Considering the effect, id say 2 AP and 4-5 turns cooldown.

Note : if you are playing with attribute insanity mod, having leadership gives a chance to replicates buffs on team members, so negation becomes just a godlike power, just putting this as a note as attribute insanity may be popular enough for people to have the mod as well.

- The cooldown mechanic activate focus : This is too much on a lot of spells, casters schools have 3-5 cooldwn on say fireball for example with no way to lower them. On the 2 first tiers, the trio Knight's Step, Negation and Spectral Weapon is very strong compared to any other schools and I assume this becomes more and more powerful where you could quickly lower all you set to mere 1-2 turns cooldowns. I have no clue how to lower that strength, maybe less spells able to activate focus ? Or being unable to lower more than 50% of the base cooldown. That would be an acceptable balance, and you would have to use other schools or widen you spell book. This goes in line with most builds, where its natural enough to pick 2 schools.

- Spectral Weapon : Is one of the spells that should definitely benefit from a maximum of 50% of its base CD through activate focus. Its a 2AP spell which returns at least 4AP in 2 turns of attacks, plus the opportunity strike which becomes a 6AP return in like most cases. Overlapping multiple summons becomes an extra character in blank attack, and then Im seeing summon a copy of a target ennemy on top of it ? So basically a one man team.

More to come as we progress but right now we cant allow its usage as its too strong

@Lenou i disagree with you entirely (you clearly have not played with odinblades reworks). the first thing i'd like to touch base on is

1:this is a damage only class it has no stat effects, no really decent gap closers or anything like that. it solely relies on your other characters in order to act like a ranged assassin but without many of the nice touches a dagger class offers.

2:it was stated before this is not meant for attribute insanity if you'd like this class for that it would need one only for that
P.S. attribute insanity is a broken mess its an absolutely horrendous mod you can literally break characters animation spaming the dex stat. i had to start my camp over because of that mess of a mod

3:negoation and mass nogation are perfect as is they have to specific roles to give a ranged assassin some kind of defense(also going into a hazard(ie fire ect) strips it so he kinda needs it when using knight step) along with reducing cooldown the whole point to the character.
i would like to also point out only duskblade skills reduce not vanilla or other mods, so if your experiencing this its clearly a conflict with another mod probably attribute insanity due to that whole double triggering thing from before.

all in all i dissagree with your statements and feel it should be buff (though minorly) and not nerffed

Also @Lenou you know none of this classes buffs are not supposed to affect other class skills right? the arcane Arcane Imbuement does not give you a buff all that much it splits your damage 50/50 with the selected element if anything its a drawback and only works on sword skills, i think your looking at the spectral weapon (which should be, its his best skill, its his main skill).

@Raven Storm we are playing with Odinblades reworks all of them, the arcane imbuement is supposed to do a split, which works in some ways but we have a bug and it definitely does more damage than it should do especially with dual wielding. I have posted a bug report on it, i also have deactivated mods to check for a conflict, the extra attack is still there, and the calculation is still broken with dual wielding. So it doesnt look like its attribute insanity, although there may be some interactions with it that may break some other stuff, thats quite likely anyway.

Haven't spammed a stat yet, but so far no major issue with attribute insanity ?? At all. We played with divine war before but wanted to go back to physical and magical armor but anyway thats not the discussion here.

I never said hey activate focus reset other spells outside of duskblade. I also said i understand the fun of it, i like it, problem its too strong. Hence balance suggestion you know, the point of the talk.

Back to summoning blade, not completely too strong, still a strong return in AP cost per damage considering we can summon multiple ones, stronger than a blank summon incarnate as its also invulnerable. Same skill without the attack of opportunity would be a thing I suppose.

Thank god the buffs are not working on other schools, that would be insane.

Note :
Gap closing issues, like any other school can be sorted out by grabbing 1-2 spells in any other school ? Plus you have access to teleporting an ennemy, thats definitely not an issue so far. 1 mere memory and a skill book is most ok, just like you'd do if playing a battlemage for example.