Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Suggestions for game development and improvements. One suggestion to a thread, please.
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Stretch
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:01 am

Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Post by Stretch »

60 CP child of Mutagenic Touch (alternately, 60-90 CP child of Nether Grafting)

Adds additional mutations for Wyrm Master has additional mutations that they can apply, but these can only be applied to their own pets (and not to a factionmate’s pets).
- These are separate and additive to the mutation set gained by Mutagenic Touch.
- These are added to the list of potential WM mutations if one of the WM's own pet is selected. If Nether Grafting is also owned, then it allows the WM to specify which mutation they want to apply, as normal.

More powerful mutations cost Catalysts. The Wyrm Master gains Catalysts anytime that one of its pets kills a T3 character.

Mutations are as follows:

Potential Mutations costing only MP
- Malice – Increases damage by +2
- Mutagenic Vitality – Increases health by +15
- Refined Instincts – Increases dodge by +10%
- Thicker Skin – Increases soak by +1

Potential Mutations costing MP and Catalysts:
- Magical Hunger – Pet will target spellcaster classes first.
- Careful Attacks – Suffer half damage from auras
- Leeching – Pet gains 1 MP upon a successful attack on another player or pet.
- Savagery - +10% potential for pet to critical hit
- Intimidating Bulk – When enemy pets attack this pet successfully, they have 30% chance to fail their attack (0 damage, similar to phasing)

7/19/2022 Note: Thank you to the players who helped me with the draft of this skill! I updated the first post to reflect the final version after community feedback. I appreciate it, and it improved the idea a lot. :)
Last edited by Stretch on Wed Jul 20, 2022 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
Wassail
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Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2022 5:13 pm

Re: DRAFT Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Post by Wassail »

I like this idea. There should be more space for some interesting effects when restricted to own pets.

I don't have a WM but from a raiding perspective they don't really challenge the "basic" tank and raid strats. No Male Foos, passive aethers, 5 titans, or any of those Ele statuses, persistency, immunities, etc. The one thing that could mess up some raiding strategies is mass sadism but I haven't really encountered that.

To make it more spicy I think it would be thematic to allow access to mutations according to what skills the WM buys. (Similarish to Archon). Grafting, like putting parts of two pets together so just as an example if you have -

Upgraded imps - The mana steal
Upgraded hounds - Crit hit
Tentacles - Stationary?
Wrackwyrm - Not sure here, don't decay is possible.

and even general WM skills with things like -

Acid Spittle - ranged attack, dmg to Acid
Translucency - dodge AoE? That could be fun.
Glyph Mastery - Pets can attack glyphs? Is that useful at all.
Twisted Leap - pets don't use AP when moving with you

etc.
Southall
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Joined: Fri Nov 26, 2021 2:01 pm

Re: DRAFT Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Post by Southall »

I like this idea - constraining these mutations to the wm's own pets solves a fundamental problem with mutation, which is that mutation can be very powerful on other factionmate's pets, and has to be balanced around that (meaning the wm's pets get less out of mutation by necessity).

Some of these mutations are really interesting, albeit extremely powerful - in particular, the following mutations strike me as 90+ cp investments on their own, and while I like them, they'd need to be locked behind a 90 CP child at the very least.

- Careful Attacks (ignoring aura) dramatically increases the power of hellhounds, and is largely found on expensive pets (90 cp chain gremlins, 180 CP dragon).
- Chain Breaker - there's no current equivalent for this, but this skill would be absolutely brutal against small factions with only 1 or 2 petmasters.
- Pack Hunter - this is extremely strong for hellhound wms, and even stronger in conjunction with Chain Breaker or Sadist. It would allow you to flip all your pets with Pack Hunter onto a target of your choosing. (You'd either keep rerolling your "leader" hellhound while keeping the Chain Breaker/Sadists passived to "choose" a random target, or use the Chain Breaker/Sadist hellhounds to target a petmaster or low HP target, depending on which was tactically sound.) I think this might be too strong for any petmaster, unfortunately - it's getting close to being able to designate any target you like.

Grafting as wassail suggests could be interesting. Maybe have the wm sacrifice its pets for those upgrades: so to grant a wrackwyrm manasteal, you'd sacrifice an imp to it. This would achieve Wassail's goal of differentiating wm builds, and also allow for mutations to be gated behind different mana costs in an elegant fashion (sacrificing a wrackwyrm costs more than sacrificing an imp or a tentacle, so it can be a nicer upgrade).

Adding onto this: what if wyrmmaster pet kills granted mutation resources specific to that pet? So to speak, "fuel" for the Chaotic Engine.

For example:
If a wm's hellhound scores a kill, the wyrmmaster gets 1 Hellhound Catalyst (0 wt) added to their inventory. If its tentacles score a kill, they get 1 Tentacle Catalyst (0 wt).

In the mutation dropdown, they can then choose to apply their pet specific mutations to their pets for 1 AP, 5 MP, and a certain amount of a pet specific catalyst. For example, Careful Hunter (ignore aura) could cost 20 Imp Catalysts because it's really good, and getting 20 imp kills should be rewarded.

(If you wanted to balance this further, I would weight this resource gain behind the same calculations for DP, to encourage feasting on your enemies and to discourage degenerate lich feeding strategies.)

Locking strong mutations behind kills allows for really nice prestige mutations to exist, while still providing levers to balance them other than mana invested. If a certain mutation is proving to be too strong and accessible in practice, you can tweak the amount of pet-specific resource it requires, without having to balance the mutation itself mechanically - e.g. if Pack Hunter packs are proving to be a balance problem, you could increase the cost from 5 Hellhound Catalysts to 10 Hellhound Catalysts, or however much it takes to stop them from dominating the meta in a problematic fashion.
Stretch
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Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:01 am

Re: DRAFT Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Post by Stretch »

Removed for clarity.
Last edited by Stretch on Wed Jul 20, 2022 2:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
Stretch
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:01 am

Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Post by Stretch »

Edited
Last edited by Stretch on Wed Jul 20, 2022 2:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Goliath
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Re: Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Post by Goliath »

Merging this with the other quasi identical thread
A Parrot with a Blade - Melee/Touchcaster Holy Champion || GrayScimitar - Heavy Sword Tlac IB || RustyWire - Gunwiz
Stretch
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:01 am

Re: Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Post by Stretch »

Ahhh my bad I thought I was supposed to post a new clean thread after shopping the draft idea. Updated first post to reflect latest and greatest :)
Stretch
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:01 am

Re: Skills: Chaotic Engine (Wyrm Master)

Post by Stretch »

A new WM mutation skill (or hell just add it to existing Nether grafting) could certainly have some intriguing implications with luring WMs to fight the swarms of lightspeaker pets…
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