Grudge and Courting Death are very cool, but critical health is pretty easy to manufacture and x6 is a *lot*. I'm just outside of the Capital and my Warrior's area attacks are pushing 5000 damage per hit, which is about 250% of the local enemies' max health on Hard.

I would still heavily consider using both abilities if they were roughly 25% of their current strength. That would still be an 87% damage increase; plenty of incentive to build around.

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Witch stealing mana instead of health is also very cool, but 25% way more than refunds the cost of any spell. I honestly think this one could go all the way down to 1% and still be very strong; even where I am in the game my 18MP spells do 500~1000 damage depending on targets and elemental weaknesses.

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Separately -- and this may be a matter of philosophy -- I actually find myself missing the PP costs on the weapon mastery passives? In the vanilla game, picking a class has four main metrics: stats, innate passive, active skills, and weapon proficiency, and weighing those things against each other is thought-provoking and fun. In my first playthrough I often found myself reevaluating classes or gear based on their compatibility, and coming up with creative workarounds felt good. Taking off one of those metrics makes theorycrafting easier, but easier isn't always what I want.

The flip side of this is that slotting any of the "Equip [Weapon]" passives immediately feels cruddy; they're like a tax, and everyone hates taxes. The Enforcer mod does away with them completely for that reason, but I don't really like that solution; I think a Wizard should be able to learn how to use a battleaxe, because that's rad and leads to some cool wacky builds.

I think it might be neat to instead add a little rider effect to those passives to sweeten the pot; sort of like you're slotting a (perhaps slightly inefficient) passive skill that happens to also provide proficiency with Swords or whatever. "HP +25% and you can equip Scythes" would be very tempting to me even at 3PP, possibly even on a Reaper in combination with HP Boost.

Anyway, this got longer than I meant so I'm going to shut up and go back to enjoying the mod.

I'll take the tuning suggestions for Grudge and Courting Death into consideration. But if you found a way to do more than a hard mode enemy's max HP in one hit under select circumstances, it sounds like I've achieved what I wanted. Every skill is left open in some way or another to exploitation. As nasty as the connotations are for that word, I think players find a lot more fun when they push against the walls of a system, trying to break it, than they do following the system's rules and intentions. It's the main reason I attribute to why some players found vanilla to be "Overtuned".

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I want MP Steal to be substantial because there will be times where you're playing an MP starved class and subbing with Witch. I probably won't be reducing the MP gains below 10% but I will consider bringing down to 15 or so if I get more feedback.

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Yeah I feel you there. I actually had a thought similar to that when I was developing the mod at first. "Can I make these weapon passives more interesting? What if Axe Proficiency added better luck and higher crit chance to synergize with the weapon." but what I ended up finding out was that adding too many effects to what's supposed to be a simple toggle actually limited player freedom.

I found myself playing a Fencer wanting to use an Axe and feeling like I made the wrong choice because these added effects didn't play into my build. And that's kind of an issue for skills that are universal. As opposed to subclass skills. If the game was bigger, and I had a bigger skill tree size to work with, I would probably allow for variants of the passives. Or if this was a different mod, I would have a series of weapons that are tuned for each niche. Like a series of Axes that scale off your Mind.

Anyways I appreciate the feedback and I'm glad to hear that you're liking the mod! Don't be shy to speak about it more. It's only through feedback that I can get an idea on what needs changing.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your response! So... uh... settle in, 'cause this is a long one!

[Re: Courting Death, etc]

I strongly agree with the sentiment you're driving at, but I think "select circumstances" is a little too generous; except for the forced heals at each new crystal, my warrior's health hasn't changed once since I unlocked Courting Death. Any time I get healed up I just conk him on the head and feed him a Fenix Juice.

When I only had Grudge I had to finesse a little bit (ie; brought an Aegis), but at the moment the only reason any of my other characters get to take turns at all is because they're faster than the Warrior. I actually have a couple people swapped over to Scholar right now just to grab Learn because the Warrior doesn't need help even against bosses.

Separately, but also on Warrior, I think Whirlwind might be slightly overtuned. 12 AP is just a little too accessible (Adrenaline quietly remains one of the game's strongest passives) and I feel like as a double-hit move it should be a little weaker per hit than Cyclone instead of a little stronger. It actually does a little more damage than Reckless Crash, except as an AoE move with no downside. I haven't used another attack, except by accident, since I got it.

For a little bit more crunchiness, the strongest enemy in my current zone is the Salmon Eater, with 3710 health -- a little less than double what the enemies in the group fights have. Unbuffed and with no stance active, my Warrior's expected damage with Whirlwind at critical health is 5540. If I bother to turn on Berserk Stance it goes well past 8000.

Some quick napkin math indicates that this would still be a one-shot, or reasonably close to it, even if the critical-health passives were 25% and 50% more damage respectively instead of 100% and 200%. I like being strong, but I'd also like to explore and exploit the other classes and right now I really don't feel like I need to.

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[Re: MP Steal]

I think there's a fine line between "MP Sustain" and "Infinite MP", and because damage values tend to be roughly 10~20x MP costs a tiny bit goes a huge ways. I haven't seen what you've done with Summoner, so I'm not sure about the ultra mana-greedy abilities, but as a practical example at level 30 my Witch using off-class Doublecast -> Blaze -> Blaze spends 34 MP and recovers 220. With just 5% leech she could do that every turn, forever. If the Warlock Mail is unchanged (big if, I know) even 1% leech might very well be able to create an infinite loop.

I do think the 0-MP low-power MP leeching abilities you gave the Wizard are a stroke of brilliance; it lets them contribute a little while recovering their MP between battles where they need to use it more. The mana steal on those ones feels perfect.

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[Re: Weapon Passives]

Yeah, I think it might ultimately boil down to a philosophical difference, which is fine. In the interest of discussion I'll try to elucidate my philosophy.

I don't think "freedom" is actually the goal -- if it were, you'd start with 100PP and the golden quintar. The goal as I see it is exploration, and constraints encourage exploration, whether they're constraints on jump height or build parameters. The levels in Crystal Project are designed with utmost care so that you can explore freely while simultaneously being constrained to one of several progression routes.

For a really concrete example, I'd like to point to your redesign of the Hunter, which I just unlocked today. You took their bow-only skills and opened them up -- not to any weapon, but to spears specifically. I think this is positively genius; it makes sense both mechanically, liberating a class that is typically extremely pigeonholed, and diegetically; hunters also customarily hunt with spears, so it makes sense that their skills would work with spears. Those skills do still have a constraint on them, though, and that's a good thing! It gives the player a reason to want to use a spear and/or bow, which encourages them to explore other spear-and-or-bow-using classes and abilities.

Except... as soon as you find the Hunter, *every* class is a bow-using class, and as soon as you find the Valkyrie every class is a spear-user as well. Without any opportunity cost, a Fencer who can use axes isn't special anymore, because all Fencers can use axes. This is SUPER visible with [Equip Shield], which was already somewhat competitively costed at 3PP, but I think it holds true for the rest of the abilities as well.

You used the phrase "simple toggle" in reference to the proficiency passives, and I'd like to push back on that. To me, those passives are extremely important because they allow you to break a rule (ie, the rule that Fencers don't use axes). I don't like Enforcer's model because I think it's very important, especially in a game like this one, that the player be allowed to break rules. I also, however, think that rule-breaking should come with a cost; I would expect to pay a decent price for the ability to use Hunter skills with a scythe, and in my mind that's not materially different from the ability to give a Fencer an axe.

This is drifting from philosophy into suggestion, but I really think you could keep the rider effects relevant across classes and builds by having them mostly be simple, slightly overcosted stat boosts in line with the weapon's main deal. I'm not sure what you put on axes before, but I'd strongly consider paying 2PP for [Equip Axes, and Also +15% Luck]. Every stat is useful to every class, even if it's not a primary stat for that class, and getting a bonus to a stat the original wielder is strong in kind of feels like you're making a hybrid class.

Just off the cuff, this is what popped into my head:

[Sword Master] 1PP -- Equip Swords, +5% Strength
[Wand Master] 1PP -- Equip Wands, +5% Mind
[Dagger Master] 1PP -- Equip Daggers, +5% Speed
[Rapier Master] 1PP -- Equip Rapiers, +5% Agility
[Staff Master] 1PP -- Equip Staves, +5% Spirit

[Axe Master] 2PP -- Equip Axes, +15% Luck
[Spear Master] 2PP -- Equip Spears, +10% Vitality
[Book Master] 2PP -- Equip Books, +15% MP
[Bow Master] 2PP -- Equip Bows, +10% Dexterity
[Shield Master] 2PP -- Equip Shields. (I think that's sufficient)

[Scythe Master] 3PP -- Equip Scythes, +25% HP
[Katana Master] 3PP -- Equip Katanas, +1 AP per turn (I ran out of stats XD)

Keeping the costs varied to help de-homogenize the weapon groups. I think something in this ballpark would make the proficiency passives pretty tempting as actual slots in a build.

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Anyway. Like I said, it may just be a matter of differing philosophies, but hopefully this... well, I guess it's an essay, isn't it? Hopefully this essay was at least a bit thought-provoking. I really think this mod has the potential to be *the* definitive Crystal Project class mod, so once again I'm going to return to my exploration.

You've made some really good points so I'm convinced. Instead of nerfing Courting Death I think I'll give it a rework. And retest how it synergizes with everything else!

Also great catch on Whirlwind. I was secretly very worried about AOE on Warrior in the first place because he was very powerful vs single targets already. I thought I dropped the attack power enough that it wouldn't overshadow the single targets attacks (ex. Fire vs Fira) but I guess it wasn't enough. I'll look it over again for sure.

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I'm leaning on your side for this one too. While I'm not sure how bad the infinite mp issue is right now, I'll put aside some time to seriously put my head down and play around with these MP heavy classes x Witch. I didn't want you to get your whole mp bar back in 1 attack. I'll play around with it and find a good pace that can get out of control if you cast recklessly.

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I respect your philosophy for sure. I think I understand what you're getting at. Beating against the limits of the game is great and all, but it feels like the limits aren't there to beat against right now.

If I'm going by my own rules, which is to reinforce and refresh class fantasies, then it's hypocritical for me to just wipe the fantasy clean.

But on the other hand, any cost against 0 PP is a direct assault on unskilled players' motivation to branch out into the more extreme types of build crafting. Maybe there's a happy medium I can strike somewhere. Respect players who want to beat against a system while still staying inviting for new players who are scared to step off their sword and board build.

Maybe I keep your costs at around 2 PP but sweeten the reward with those stat buffs. It would also make it so that Wizard for example would have a reason to keep Wand Proficiency on. Instead of it being a (I need to unlock a wand passive on Wizard for my Death Knight) feeling... Hm I'll think on it more.

Your feedback has been fantastic man! I appreciate it for sure!

EDITS - because I just woke up when writing this lmaoo

Unsure if this is a balance issue or actually unintended, but having the Alchemist's Tonic and Tincture skills be a free action with no cooldown seems a tad strong and kinda makes the stronger skills that do cost an action and have a cooldown kinda irrelevant. It's fun to abuse but maybe they shouldn't be spammable in the same turn?

Originally posted by Xenon:

Unsure if this is a balance issue or actually unintended, but having the Alchemist's Tonic and Tincture skills be a free action with no cooldown seems a tad strong and kinda makes the stronger skills that do cost an action and have a cooldown kinda irrelevant. It's fun to abuse but maybe they shouldn't be spammable in the same turn?

Good point. I want to keep Free Turn on them but we can tune it down in one of 3 ways imo. We can add a cooldown, we can add an AP Cost (I don't want players to need to use MP AND a consumable item), or we can increase the amount of Tonics/Tincures used from 1 to 2/3.

I'm leaning towards cooldown, but since you reported the balance issue I'm curious to hear what you'd prefer.

Originally posted by It's Phoenix!:

Originally posted by Xenon:

Unsure if this is a balance issue or actually unintended, but having the Alchemist's Tonic and Tincture skills be a free action with no cooldown seems a tad strong and kinda makes the stronger skills that do cost an action and have a cooldown kinda irrelevant. It's fun to abuse but maybe they shouldn't be spammable in the same turn?

Good point. I want to keep Free Turn on them but we can tune it down in one of 3 ways imo. We can add a cooldown, we can add an AP Cost (I don't want players to need to use MP AND a consumable item), or we can increase the amount of Tonics/Tincures used from 1 to 2/3.

I'm leaning towards cooldown, but since you reported the balance issue I'm curious to hear what you'd prefer.

The cooldown seems like the most sensible solution since it allows the skills to keep an identity, like quick dipping a potion before doing something else. AP wouldn't be bad depending on the cost either but it feels a bit messier and potentially still open to the same issue. Increasing the consumables used I feel would just make it more inconvenient instead of more balanced, you can carry like a billion of these and you'd just restock if you really wanna do it.

Originally posted by Xenon:

Originally posted by It's Phoenix!:

Good point. I want to keep Free Turn on them but we can tune it down in one of 3 ways imo. We can add a cooldown, we can add an AP Cost (I don't want players to need to use MP AND a consumable item), or we can increase the amount of Tonics/Tincures used from 1 to 2/3.

I'm leaning towards cooldown, but since you reported the balance issue I'm curious to hear what you'd prefer.

The cooldown seems like the most sensible solution since it allows the skills to keep an identity, like quick dipping a potion before doing something else. AP wouldn't be bad depending on the cost either but it feels a bit messier and potentially still open to the same issue. Increasing the consumables used I feel would just make it more inconvenient instead of more balanced, you can carry like a billion of these and you'd just restock if you really wanna do it.

Mhm, agreed. I'll add this into the next patch. Thanks for the feedback again!

Something I noticed about the Death Knight's Sandman skill, it ignoring 90% defense for so little cost relative to its other skills kinda makes it way too useful, completely ignoring the sleep niche. I've found myself using it on its own more often than most other attacks and I feel like that isn't the intention. Maybe lean more into the damage on sleeping enemies modifier? Or maybe a cooldown so it isn't so spammable over other skills and best saved for its niche and an ocassional defense pierce attack.

Originally posted by Xenon:

Something I noticed about the Death Knight's Sandman skill, it ignoring 90% defense for so little cost relative to its other skills kinda makes it way too useful, completely ignoring the sleep niche. I've found myself using it on its own more often than most other attacks and I feel like that isn't the intention. Maybe lean more into the damage on sleeping enemies modifier? Or maybe a cooldown so it isn't so spammable over other skills and best saved for its niche and an ocassional defense pierce attack.

I'll take a look. The former sounds like the better choice, I'll boost the sleep damage and lower the other bonuses a smidge.

I got a bit of a concern with the Wizard's Thunderbolt, the 2 turn paralyze makes it way too easy to just permanently stunlock a single enemy which is kind of a problem when it's just 1 big strong boss. Doesn't take much to be able to constantly keep casting it later in the game. Probably even earlier if you use it as a Witch.

Originally posted by Xenon:

I got a bit of a concern with the Wizard's Thunderbolt, the 2 turn paralyze makes it way too easy to just permanently stunlock a single enemy which is kind of a problem when it's just 1 big strong boss. Doesn't take much to be able to constantly keep casting it later in the game. Probably even earlier if you use it as a Witch.

I think I'm onboard with lowering the duration from 2 to 1 turn, but in exchange I'll need to add sugar elsewhere to incentivize players to use Thunderbolt instead of just spamming Bolten since it's not only cheaper, but it still guarantees paralyze management. Maybe I'll lean into boosting the power of the Debuff Exploit damage.

Originally posted by It's Phoenix!:

Originally posted by Xenon:

I got a bit of a concern with the Wizard's Thunderbolt, the 2 turn paralyze makes it way too easy to just permanently stunlock a single enemy which is kind of a problem when it's just 1 big strong boss. Doesn't take much to be able to constantly keep casting it later in the game. Probably even earlier if you use it as a Witch.

I think I'm onboard with lowering the duration from 2 to 1 turn, but in exchange I'll need to add sugar elsewhere to incentivize players to use Thunderbolt instead of just spamming Bolten since it's not only cheaper, but it still guarantees paralyze management. Maybe I'll lean into boosting the power of the Debuff Exploit damage.

Now I'm wondering how ridiculous it would be to like stack 3 or 4 wizards/witches with bolten/thunderbolt spam

Originally posted by Xenon:

Originally posted by It's Phoenix!:

I think I'm onboard with lowering the duration from 2 to 1 turn, but in exchange I'll need to add sugar elsewhere to incentivize players to use Thunderbolt instead of just spamming Bolten since it's not only cheaper, but it still guarantees paralyze management. Maybe I'll lean into boosting the power of the Debuff Exploit damage.

Now I'm wondering how ridiculous it would be to like stack 3 or 4 wizards/witches with bolten/thunderbolt spam

Well it'd certainly be funny. Probably tough to get started before you get Bolten since everyone is squishy. Grinding enough to get some of Witch's defensive abilities like Puppet would be a trial all by itself. But once you get the team going, I imagine there's not much to stop you.

On this same note, I think even Bolten might end up being too strong, late game I was finding myself being able to stunlock bosses without even needing the 2nd turn from Thunderbolt.