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Torchlight II >  Workshop > drewrobi's Workshop > Drew's Synergies Class Pack (v.629) > Discussions
Drew's Synergies Class Pack (v.629)
Description Discussions15 Comments280 Change Notes
drewrobi  [developer] 27 Feb, 2016 @ 1:17pm
Opinions Strongly Desired -- Assassin Flat Damage Thoughts
So after playing the Assassin all the way through the normal Acts and then in the Synergies post game, I was quite disappointed in the balancing of the flat damage skills. Mostly this is all the trap skills.

The reason I decided to do flat damage was because of the fact that the traps are not extensions of the character's weapons. With that said, there is no doubt in my mind that Synergies works best in the end game levels with item based skills (weapon damage and weapon DPS based skills). It would not be hard for me to change the flat damage skills from what they are to weapon damage or DPS. Before I try that approach though, I'd really like feedback.

So (1) I'd be taking away some of the role playing "makes sense" aspect of the traps, but (2) it would be much better balanced for use with Synergies end game. I could justify #1 by saying that the assassin can use magic to imbue the trap with weapon damage, cheesy, but possible.

Please share your thoughts on (1) keeping it the way it is now, (2) going strictly weapon damage based for all trap skills and bomb skills or (3) some sort of hybrid and please flesh out what you think that would look like.

I want to make sure the class is balanced well for leveling as well as for end game and I feel that is not the case at the moment. The traps are too powerful for much of higher levels and not very adequate for taking down end game bosses like Abe.

Thanks for any opinions shared!
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Showing 1-5 of 5 comments
Nemmy 5 Mar, 2016 @ 12:35am 
Well, it's not too out there role-playingwise for traps to do a form of weapon damage. It's not so much that they're an extension of the character's weapon, but it's own weapon? x3

That said, I'd vote for balance over flavor, so I'd say (2). Given Assassins are typically agile fighters, %DPS might be best? I'm poop at damage numbers, alas, but figured I'd chip in. =3
#1
kurgan2 17 Mar, 2016 @ 9:06pm 
I'd say that basing it off weapon damage is the way to go. Going off weapom damage keeps the skills viable even when higher tier content is added to the mod. For the RP aspect, why does one dagger do a hundred times more damage than another? :) You can say that as the Assassin learns techniques to do more damage with weapons, he also learns little tricks to make his traps do more as well. Some realism has to be shunted to the side in an ARPG so that you can keep up wit the content.
#2
drewrobi  [developer] 23 Mar, 2016 @ 8:01am 
Thanks for the feedback. I'm thinking of trying out WDPS once I finish the druid to a stable point. The one thing that is going to be tricky is that the trap mastery won't make sense with a DPS skill. I can "fake it" by making a flat damage that is enhanced by WDPS to a certain percentage and include trap mastery in that but that will take much more balancing work. I'll be thinking if that is the way to go or not and potentially testing it for balance.
#3
steffire3 29 Mar, 2019 @ 3:19pm 
@ drewrobi (author) : I'm late to the party I see... XD.

I just wanted to say that the author of Lao 3.0 had this same issue when scaling weapon balance beyond level 100.

It appears that Focus does actually have a limit (extremely beyond normal gameplay nevertheless) while Strength can keep going.

Regardless if players actually use Lao 3's Dexterity and Stat patch; there's still something to be said that:

TL2 was built primarily on Weapon DPS.

So if you feel that DPS is required to better balance certain Skills then I have no issue with it.

Also if you really need to give Focus based Skills some extra punch then instead of using +% just add more damage of a certain element with Tier Bonuses which is more than the "increases with Player level".
#4
drewrobi  [developer] 29 Mar, 2019 @ 8:39pm 
The problem here is trying to balance synergies and non-synergies. With Synergies no longer maintained an even the site having gone down a long time ago, it is hard to concentrate changes based on Synergies. The more I use it, the more I see it breaks some balancing that was made for TL2 core. For example, the attribute boosts in core were much higher than Synergies. Those attributes would benefit a focus-based character more than a DPS based character IMO.

For Synergies I copied Salan's model of giving a bonus to damage with increased focus, which allows the damage to keep scaling with focus. Offering different elements doesn't seem right as it would break role-playing and skill purity.

Now that I've gone back to check balancing with core TL2 more, I realize that DPS only classes can become more boring, taking away more re-playability options. For example, I'm glad I offered both DPS and flat damage skill options with the archer.

It is hard to find a "right way" especially with a game that is so old.
#5
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