Weapon Mastery: Making mundane weapons viable through a potential new skill

[NearNihil]

With all the feedback marinating in my mind, I think it's back to the drawing board for the implementation of the idea. I think the good parts are that it can be really thematic and flexible, the bad parts are the anti-synergy between enchantments and class based supplemental damage.

I think tweaking this concept in the following ways may address these points:

• Narrow the scope to Myrmidon and exits for now.
• Tweak the skills in such a way that:
  • Weapon degradation is reduced for the bonded weapon. If it's the weapon you rely on, it should be semi reliable. It should still decay to offset the flexibility.
  • The weapon should become unenchantable by external means and lose the enchantments it already carried. Instead, it gets upgraded with different abilities depending on the class. These are base damage improvements, accuracy buffs, and most importantly flavored changes, see below for some spitball numbers.
• I still like the T2 skill being a stepping stone for the T3 one(s), so let's see if I can make that work. I'm not 100% sure whether to tweak CP costs as it is assumed you will want to maintain your weapon yourself so you're not relying on others to make your character function.

New proposal
T2
Myrm gets the basic skill, with not much flavor. However, it can already make mundane weapons very viable, especially for a T2 weapon. Comes at the cost of heavy CP investment.

• Myrmidon gets a new 40 CP skill: Weapon Expertise
• This skill lets a character choose one mundane weapon that they have crafted, and "bond" with it.
• Bonding bestows the following effects:
  • Bonding with a weapon costs 5 AP and 10 MP. Unbonding can be done at any time for the same cost, which reverts it back to the pre-bonding stats.
  • The weapon degrades at a third of the usual speed. If it is ever damaged beyond repair - that is, it degrades while at the "destroyed" quality - the weapon is destroyed as normal and the character can bond with another weapon.
  • The weapon can no longer be enchanted, and any enchantments on it are destroyed.
  • Should the weapon ever not be in the creator's inventory, it will function as a regular mundane weapon with no special abilities. The creator can teleport the weapon back to their inventory by clicking the button and spending 1 AP and 5 MP.
  • The weapon's base damage is increased by 2, and the base accuracy by 10%.

T3
ES's new skill is Rambo-flavored, essentially.

• New 60 CP skill for Eternal Soldier: Weapon Mastery
• If, for some reason, the ES does not have Weapon Expertise from the Myrmidon, they get the ability to bond with a weapon as described above. However, the benefits besides the act of bonding itself do not apply in this case.
• The bonded weapon gains the following bonuses:
  • +2 damage and +10% accuracy.
  • Any oils applied to the weapon add another +2 damage.
  • The damage type can be freely switched between the original damage type, Cold, Death, and Arcane (however, this is overridden by oils).
  • Attacks ignore 25% of the target's soak OR half of the target's defenses, toggleable.
• If Way of the Fast Hands is purchased, it applies to the bonded weapon regardless of the bonded weapon's type, both the quality attribute as well as the free reloading.
• If the bonded weapon is a melee weapon that does not use ammo, it will be used as a self-defence weapon for Way of the Whirlwind. Note: Damage capped at 9, but damage type is retained.

Rev's variant follows the theme of horror monsters.

• New 60 CP skill for Revenant: Weapon Mastery
• Same thing here, if Myrm skill is not bought, you get the ability to bond but not the other benefits.
• The bonded weapon gains the following bonuses:
  • +1 damage and +5% accuracy.
  • Another +1 damage for every 15% HP the target is missing (capped at +4 when below 40% HP).
  • The damage type can be freely switched between the original damage type, Cold, Death, and Arcane (however, this is overridden by oils).
  • If the bonded weapon is a melee weapon, attacks with it add 33% lifesteal on hit.
  • If the bonded weapon is not a melee weapon, the ammo capacity is increased by 20% (rounded up).
• If A Plague Upon Thee is purchased, any kills that leave a corpse have a 50% chance to automatically apply the rodent infestation to the corpse.
• If Natural Predator is purchased, its effects also apply to the bonded weapon.

NC's variant are all about the magic.

• New 60 CP skill for Nexus Champion: Weapon Mastery
• Same thing here, if Myrm skill is not bought, you get the ability to bond but not the other benefits.
• The bonded weapon gains the following bonuses:
  • +1 damage and +5% accuracy.
  • Another +1 damage for every 3 spells of any type the NC knows (capped at +3).
  • The damage type can be freely switched between the original damage type, Arcane, and any damage type the NC knows a spell of (however, this is overridden by oils).
  • If the bonded weapon is not a melee weapon and has sufficient munitions left, the NC may spend another AP and 3 MP to fire two units of munitions at the target. This doubles the damage, which may be useful in overcoming soak and such. Missing the shot is more painful however.
  • if the bonded weapon is a melee weapon and Tattoo of the Nexal Spark is purchased, the bonded weapon adds another +2 damage to the charged attack if the target is non-neutral.
• If Tattoo of the Wandering Way is purchased, kills have a 50% chance of granting a "Nexal Attunement" (name TBD) status effect that makes your next teleport cost half as much as usual. The maximum range is not extended, however.
• If the NC knows a full damage spell tree, they can opt to apply its capstone effects as a charged attack (costing 2 MP).

[Klapaucius]

Broadly: I think this works better with the reconsideration. It carves out an interesting space between mundane and innate weapons, giving myrns great flexibility without creating too many balance issues down the line.

It seems like the baseline power budget is ~5 damage, 20% accuracy, with some of the bonus being conditional, and some low to medium bonus effects, which I think sounds okay - maybe a touch on the strong side but within the bounds of reasonability. Making it exclusive with enchantment makes good sense and lets you keep it a bit simple.

I think with this kind of skill there's a temptation to introduce a lot of multi-skill dependency where it synergises with existing skills. I think these kinds of synergies can be a bit of a trap. They lead to large differences in effectiveness between regular relatively new characters that haven't been grinding away, and ancient, rank J characters. I think the design principle here should be that going from rank A to J gives you increased flexibility - the abiilty to do more than one thing optimally, rather than continuously scaling power. I'll make some comments about this as it pertains to specific inclusions below.

Now, some more specific comments about various abilities:

- I think it should be free/cheap to break up with your favoured weapon - having the cost wrapped up in favouring a new one is better.

- The ES multi-skill dependencies seem ok to me because they're only depending on 30 cp skills. The bonuses also seem reasonable.

- NC getting the strongest charge attack in the game for 3mp and an extra bullet is extremely powerful. I think it needs to be tuned down. Contrast with smites where you're getting up to 15 damage for 10 mp and 1 ap, this could be giving 25+damage for 3 mp, 1ap and a bullet (valued at about 2 mp if I'm guessing). The melee version is hilariously bad by comparison.

- "Another +1 damage for every 3 spells of any type the NC knows (capped at +3)." so minimum 90 cp to get your extra 3 damage? Sure - you're likely to have 3 spells at least just for regular use, but it's still a lot. It might not be overpowered or underpowered per se, but it's a bit rank-biased as discussed above.

- Applying a full damage tree capstone as a charge attack falls along the same lines, it makes grind builds disproportionately strong to normal 30s. 80 cp for an extra ~2 damage on average.

- 50% chance of reducing the next teleport on kill feels kinda bad to me. Finding someone to kill is already a crapshoot. This could be a fun mechanic to lean in on a bit more heavily. Ways of generating marks which give a boost to the next skill you use could be fun. For instance, generate a mark on crit/kill, and you can use it up to give +5 damage to your next charge attack, or save it to reduce the cost of a teleport, or possibly cash it in for MP. On reflection, this might be outside the scope of a weapon boosting skill - it might be better as a standalone concept?

- Revs might be getting a bit much damage overall if you include natural predator?

- plague upon thee is a meme skill, so adding it here as a free inclusion is a bit pointless.

- 33% lifesteal is pretty strong. I guess it's probably similar to the flat lifesteal from fangs with the fangs tree, but scales higher.

[Zanahoria78]

First off, I love the idea of fleshing out mundane weapons, since right now it feels like most classes pigeonhole you into whatever innate is the optimal choice. I haven't played much Rev or NC so I can't comment on them, but the ES skill seems like a great change, and it'll hopefully make gun ES more viable. WotW using the bonded weapon is also nice for playing a swordmaster, though One Punch is so ridiculously good that it's probably a more niche alternative. I'd also suggest letting Hidden Energy apply to melee attacks with the bonded weapon: it's a child skill of Whirlwind, it adds to the "master swordsman" idea, and it helps the ES be more tanky.

If you end up extending these skills to the other alignments (and I hope you do!), I'd like to see some love for VWs. Using anything but the innate bow is suboptimal: high damage, low MP cost and it doesn't break hiding, so you can go inside a stronghold full of pets and calmly murder people one by one. Thus, I'd suggest that attacks with a bonded light weapon (daggers and pistols, an assassin's tools) keep you in hiding, and maybe also gain a small damage boost beyond the first attack (once the victim is aware of you and the hiding bonuses no longer apply).

[NearNihil]

Tweaked proposal. Before I list the skills again, I will note that including skills like A Plague Upon Thee are indeed suboptimal to include, but they are fun and I think in particular the Rev's bonded weapon is strong enough as it is to not need any more min-max skill interactions. Leaning that hard into spells for NC I don't think was a big issue but I see your point about it being rank-heavy, so I did tweak that a bit.

T2
Myrm gets the basic skill, with not much flavor. However, it can already make mundane weapons very viable, especially for a T2 weapon. Comes at the cost of heavy CP investment.

• Myrmidon gets a new 40 CP skill: Weapon Expertise (identical to the above)
• This skill lets a character choose one mundane weapon that they have crafted, and "bond" with it.
• Bonding bestows the following effects:
  • Bonding with a weapon costs 5 AP and 10 MP. Unbonding can be done at any time for free, which reverts it back to the pre-bonding stats.
  • The weapon degrades at a third of the usual speed. If it is ever damaged beyond repair - that is, it degrades while at the "destroyed" quality - the weapon is destroyed as normal and the character can bond with another weapon.
  • The weapon can no longer be enchanted, and any enchantments on it are destroyed.
  • Should the weapon ever not be in the creator's inventory, it will function as a regular mundane weapon with no special abilities. The creator can teleport the weapon back to their inventory by clicking the button and spending 1 AP and 5 MP.
  • The weapon's base damage is increased by 2, and the base accuracy by 10%.

T3
ES's new skill is Rambo-flavored, essentially. (identical to the above)

• New 60 CP skill for Eternal Soldier: Weapon Mastery
• If, for some reason, the ES does not have Weapon Expertise from the Myrmidon, they get the ability to bond with a weapon as described above. However, the benefits besides the act of bonding itself do not apply in this case.
• The bonded weapon gains the following bonuses:
  • +2 damage and +10% accuracy.
  • Any oils applied to the weapon add another +2 damage.
  • The damage type can be freely switched between the original damage type, Cold, Death, and Arcane (however, this is overridden by oils).
  • Attacks ignore 25% of the target's soak OR half of the target's defenses, toggleable.
• If Way of the Fast Hands is purchased, it applies to the bonded weapon regardless of the bonded weapon's type, both the quality attribute as well as the free reloading.
• If the bonded weapon is a melee weapon that does not use ammo, it will be used as a self-defence weapon for Way of the Whirlwind. Note: Damage capped at 9, but damage type is retained.

Rev's variant follows the theme of horror monsters. (tweaked since last time)

• New 60 CP skill for Revenant: Weapon Mastery
• Same thing here, if Myrm skill is not bought, you get the ability to bond but not the other benefits.
• The bonded weapon gains the following bonuses:
  • Base +1 damage and +5% accuracy. (unchanged)
  • During night, +1 damage and +10% accuracy. (new)
  • During the day, -1 damage and -5% accuracy. (new)
  • +1 damage if you are above 50% health. (new)
  • +1 damage if your target is above 50% health. (new)
  • The damage type can be freely switched between the original damage type, Cold, Death, and Arcane (however, this is overridden by oils). (unchanged)
  • If the bonded weapon is a melee weapon, attacks with it add up to 5 points lifesteal on hit (it's the lower of "how much damage did your attack deal after soak and resistance" and "5"). (changed)
  • If the bonded weapon is not a melee weapon, the ammo capacity is increased by 20% (rounded up). (unchanged)
• If A Plague Upon Thee is purchased, any kills that leave a corpse have a 50% chance to automatically apply the rodent infestation to the corpse. (unchanged)
• If Day Walker is purchased, the daytime penalty is removed. (new)

NC's variant are all about the magic. (tweaked since last time)

• New 60 CP skill for Nexus Champion: Weapon Mastery
• Same thing here, if Myrm skill is not bought, you get the ability to bond but not the other benefits.
• The bonded weapon gains the following bonuses:
  • +1 damage and +5% accuracy. (unchanged)
  • Another +1 damage for every 15 points of MO difference the target has from the NC. (new)
  • The damage type can be freely switched between the original damage type, Arcane, and any damage type the NC knows a spell of (however, this is overridden by oils). (unchanged)
  • If the bonded weapon is not a melee weapon, Tattoo of the Dragon's Sight applies double the effect. (new)
  • if the bonded weapon is a melee weapon and Tattoo of the Nexal Spark is purchased, the bonded weapon adds another +2 damage to the charged attack if the target is non-neutral. (unchanged)
• If Tattoo of the Wandering Way is purchased, kills have a 50% chance of granting a "Nexal Attunement" (name TBD) status effect that makes your next teleport cost half as much as usual. The maximum range is not extended, however. (unchanged)
• If the NC knows a full damage spell tree, they can opt to apply its capstone effects as a charged attack (costing 2 MP). (unchanged)

[Mousus6]

A quick thought on the NC one to avoid wierd jank. Given that part of the goal is to give a bit more weapon freedom vs innates only it's worth adding that the bonded weapon will benefit from the Tattoo of Dragon's Rage supplemental damage regardless of weapon type. Without that it remains the case that gun NC is an obviously wrong choice and mastery bow NC wants to buy the first two skills of origami bow to get their supplemental damage anyway (in a way that feels really janky).

Secondary thought, make the teleport cost reduction guaranteed and stacking at whatever level you think is appropriate. Teleport cost reduction after kill is only relevant for "how much mp do I need to get home/back to my hiding spot" where arriving home you don't have much/anything to do with mp past what was vital. The big downside of WW is you don't find targets of opportunity whilst using it so there will never be a time where that buff is useful whereas a guaranteed version would let you spend mp down to a lower level (so long as you didn't fail to get the kill). Probably now I've thought about it the elegant way is a timer buff in 10 minute increments granted after kill that 10minutes pays for 1mp of teleport, how many mp of teleport you want to grant for a kill is up in the air but I'd default to 3mp/30minutes for about the same as your old version but usable.

I'll probably add some more thoughts later when I'm at a real keyboard.

[Klapaucius]

Tweaked proposal. Before I list the skills again, I will note that including skills like A Plague Upon Thee are indeed suboptimal to include, but they are fun and I think in particular the Rev's bonded weapon is strong enough as it is to not need any more min-max skill interactions. Leaning that hard into spells for NC I don't think was a big issue but I see your point about it being rank-heavy, so I did tweak that a bit.

I think the revised NC spell capstone is ok. It still makes the build a bit grind heavy for my liking, but it's a not a huge boost and it's exclusive with charge attacks so I don't think it's out of line.

I think the plague upon thee addition as written falls into an awkward space of not being that good and not being that fun. If you want it to be fun, you could have a 20% chance to summon a plague rat on hit if you've got plague upon thee. That will be exciting for everyone in the exact way that revenants who buy plague upon thee want things to be exciting for everyone.


Just one last point about the overall power budget of the skill. I'll just look at ES and do some sums.

+5 damage (oils up sometimes)
+20% accuracy straight up
Ignore 50% of defence (guessing worth another 20% accuracy when it really counts, but often 0, so I'm going to peg it at 10%)
Degrade at 1/3 rate, treat equipment as if they are 1 level higher (lets say another 5% accuracy when averaged out from 0% when pristine and 10% when worn)

That's equivalent to 12 levels of enchantment, or situationally 16 in optimum conditions (oil + dealing with high dodge).

That's honestly a lot. If this is the amount of power that enchantment/mundane weapons needs to be competitive, then I really do think that it points to an underlying issue with the system that ought to be addressed.