Having a third resource pool is an interesting idea that works wonders with this character class. By level 100 your character is incredibly flexible, able to output a ton of damage either by casting spells or with your weapons while at the same time having the ability to heal/shield/buff yourself and your friends. Great flexibility in the skill trees but some skills do appear more useful and well thought out than others (the two shield abilities are a waste of space, why not combine them? So that it's more like Braum (in league of legends) where the shield is in front of him at all time when he moves and deflecting stuff for 30 sec before reverting to giving your character bonus stats. That frees up one space for a new ability while making the shield ability a lot better imo. Other than small tweaks to the skill trees, the particle effects are rather lacking for some and I'm sure will improve with time. Many of them have a nice lasting impact but the immediate THUMP is rather lackluster and leaves a lot room for improvement, one example is the last ability in the second (middle) skill tree. All the enemies explode in a chaotic symphony of blood and gore but it's due to these tiny crystal things. So far, excellent mod, hoping for improvements in the future. <3

As for balance, it's in an awkward spot. I'm playing on Veteran and I'm finding that the kit really lacks AoE. The base ice blast ability is rather single target and even at max rank (I'm at level 100) it's impact is still relatively single target. The only ability available early on that is an AoE (to my knowledge) is the top-left ability in your 1st skill tree and later on it's rend, Render does a lot of damage and I can see it's place as both CC and AoE, however, the range on the ability is really short which means it's more of a utility ability after a while rather than an offensive ability since you need to be in the thick of things to get the most use from it. Even then, there will usually be a second wave of enemies coming in after the first circle of enemies have been cleared. Maybe expand the radius of it and extend the stun duration? The kit is lacking mobility right now mainly and that's a huge issue for a character who has a lot of abilities focused on his weapons. The lunge is nice but a bit clunky, it feels like there's a pause between the end of the animation and when I can move my player. The distance it jumps is also minuscle, comparing this to the Berserker's it's a pitiful leap and makes it hard to get into the middle of the fight where you're most effective. Following on from getting into the fight, your shield seems to be the next ability you would want to cast. However, there is a cast time on it and that really ♥♥♥♥♥ you over since you're in the middle of the enemies and you have to spend time to actually protect yourself before thinking of attacking. It creates a janky flow in the combat and makes you feel less nimble and able. Possibly cut the cast time and lower the shield strength?

I can't really find myself justifying putting so many points in focus to help scale the abilities that use your charges. Although you have a fantastic passive (the one that turns some of the focus into attack damage) which does aid you while you're leveling focus. It's jarring that this had to be, you need attack damage and health on this character to output DPS and be able to survive the fights long enough for you to cast your shield and then your health regen, and get out again to cast your mana/HP/charge regen ability. And it makes early impact of this tree lackluster and discouragous people investing in it. Of course, I'm just going on what I've experienced in an hour and a half of testing this out with an instant lvl 100 character. I'm lacking proper gear at this point in time and hopefully after a while I'll be able to get proper stuff to go and test out the kit properly in the dungeons and against bosses. I'll post pictures of my skill spec if you want.

Hey there! This is fantastic feedback. I want to get more before I make too many changes, but there are some things that you've pointed out that I may move on. Namely, Kinetic Cloak.

I might move the instant-cast tier bonus on Kinetic Cloak to T1 so its easier to achieve but still requires some investment.

I'll also look into Bastion's particles.

As for the lack of mobility, I planned it like that. I didn't want it to play like a berserker. What I think it may need, though, is a pull ability and I have a few ideas to rectify that. I might change Temporal Vortex to serve that role since in its current incarnation I don't feel like it's as useful as I would like.

A Focus-based build gives the Emberblade a lot more mana to use their melee skills and increases some of the damage from several of them like Cinderslash and Thunderstrike. I feel like it balances out pretty well with a Strength build. If you itemize for weapons that have elemental damage enchantments, uniques/legendaries with elemental damage, or socket a bunch of elemental damage gems it evens out the damage as well.

If you're running a Strength build, it may feel like some of the Arcane Skills are off-limits because the damage won't scale with STR. The damage WON'T be as good as with a focus build, but almost all of the Arcane skills has some utility built in to make them viable options. The only skill that doesn't offer some sort of debuff or buff is Chain Lightning.

Hey there gytfunke, I've been playing your class with the recent changes to Mental Prowess, and I am loving it. I have actually built my Emberblade with a balance between strength and focus, and am loving the outcome. My idea was that I would need mana for abilities (Thunderstrike) and an elemental boost in damage, Focus was a good idea, so skipping Mental Prowess was not an option. However, since melee weapons require strength to use, and strength boosts your overall weapon damage, it too, was just as viable. I think this, in retrospec, is the best build for a hybrid melee/magic wielding class, and I am very happy with the results!

If I could suggest something, I would DEFINITELY encourage an ability, probably out of the arcane tree, to become the next ability to pull enemies to the player. Temporal Vortex is a good ability, but if there was a way to sync it up with the mobility of melee actions (making it an instant cast), I believe it would really add that extra *oomph* to the class. I'd personally like to see a pull ability that uses a pull in a line and penetrates and pulls all enemies along the path of travel, instead of this AoE pull (just becuase it would be different to the Berserker's pull), if it were possible. Maybe call it something like Spectral Pull, each tier increases the distance the pull travels (9m initially, 11m T1, 13m T2, 15m T3), and reduces the move speed by 15% (per tier) of effected enemies for 4 seconds. Each point invested would reduce All Armor on effected targets by (playerlevel) at first point investment, and then reduce it further by ((playerlevel)*0.15) per point invested. Combining that kind of pull with Titan's Blow and then Arcane Strike, would be some serious carnage I reckon. :D

Whatever you do, I know it'll be good, you've got the feel for solid class design.

:)
I didn't really realize it since the early phase of the game is easy, no matter your build or the spell you chose, but this class lacks efficient way to slaughter monsters.

Most of the spells have either a short range ( Cinderslash or Fend) or a short cone of effect ( Chain Lightning or Arcane strike). And the Ember Blade doesn't have a way to position himself or the targets correctly.
I totally agree with Kodan idea, expect that it might be a bit overpowered with pulls, AND slow, AND armor shread ;)


Please, add the chance of proc on Mental Prowness. I really feel tricked when I have no way to know if the point i am investing is worth it.

Heyo,

Mental Prowess' chance to proc is 25% per hit with a 1s cooldown (so you can proc it at most once per second, no matter your attack speed, though faster weapons will get more benefit from the passive).

I'll get around to adding a pull ability sometime after school is out.

Here are my stat and skill specs:
http://imgur.com/TMubeAZ,AgxKrTR,ucm5D7M,tMBjFEU#0
Still don't have any proper armor/weapons so the end game dungeons are pretty much 1 hitting me. Hopefully I'll get some decent loot with the mods I have sooner or later. I did mess up with the naming of the abilities during my overview so I do apologies forthat.

Hey there gytfunke, real quick, would you be able to look at the 'Defiance' talent? I have a concern with it, as it is nutsmashingly overpowered IMO. I decided to try a 'tank'-style approach with your Emberblade. With one point invested, I cannot be taken down at level 2 in a Synergies 'more monsters' Elite setting as long as I have a basic (4 armor, no stat) shield equipped. Surronded by enemies, this ability was keeping me up way too well. By level 10, I am literally not seeing my health move in a negative direction as long as I have a shield equipped.

I'd really like to see the ability modified a bit in one of the following ways:
1) 3 second cooldown per proc

2) reduction to the chance (down to something like 3% base and a 1% increase per point invested - along the lines of the engineer's self-heal passive)

3) reduction in the amount healed (possibly something like a 4% self-heal with a 0.5% increase per point invested)

4) My personal favorite - a passive heal-over-time (5 seconds?) effect (level-dependant heal increase) in place of the instant heal, keeping with the same proc chance

Please let me know what you think of this idea, as I'd much appreciate the change. Other than that, your mod is spot-on with the uniqueness of the other Runic classes.

Thanks :D
kodan

Hi Kodan,

Well, I can see that being a problem. I didn't balance the Emberblade around the More Monsters mod (I've never played it and don't really know all the details) and Defiance would especially be affected by this due to the way it's reliant on being attacked. However, you're only level 10. If you levelup more and find that Defiance is still too potent at higher levels, then I'd want to change the skill. If it balances out on your way to level 50 or so, then I'd probably just move it to the Rank 3 passive slot which would slow its progression a lot.

Also, I'm not working on the Emberblade right now and have a number of other projects lined up that take priority. It may well be that I come back and do some more balance work in the future but I can't guarantee when that will be. If you or someone else want to implement a fix for Defiance I'd be willing to update the mod with it, as long as it's also balanced for regular Synergies Elite and Vanilla gameplay.

And yes, your solution #4 would be the best option.

Ah, thanks for the reply - I gathered you were busy on another project after looking at your more recent posts. I know nothing about the GUTS program, I have tried working with it twice in the past, but I am terribly afraid my hours in front of my computer have always been more aligned toward playing games rather than taking up the yoke and trying to make them :P

I believe I didn't communicate my point very well - I did indeed start trying to play as the 'tank' spec at level 2 with my Emberblade, however, after re-reading (just now) I meant I had put ten levels into the talent. The 'Hay Guys' mod can take a player to level 100, and I use it to test new classes to see if I like the way they feel at end-game; the fluidity, ability synergy, and general survivability. I do this to try to find the classes closest to the balance achieved with the original four classes. As such, the Emberblade WITH shield is just a monster tank with just ten points invested into 'Defiance'. However (and not to brownnose) at level 100, the Emberblade feels far more organic to me than the original Berserker - but that is just my opinion.

Thanks for taking a bit of time to respond, and I am looking forward to your upcomming mod.