This really felt like the run that was going to get a Warrior with all 9 challenges and maximum score to the surface. Had a Ring of Haste from Sewers and a Blazing Spear +2 from Ghost quest, bought Ethereal Chains from the Sewer merchant, transmuted the Wandmaker Wand to Blastwave. Still had the Sewer and Caves Ankhs in case anything goes wrong. Fully mapped all floors, did all quests, sacrificial fires, and animated statues up until this point. And then during the second Dwarf King phase a ghoul steps into an unexpected tile, and I get attacked by the Warlock, ruining the score… Run is still winnable of course, but what is the point.

I have to say, Warrior feels terrible to play at high challenge compared to the others. Faith Is My Armor invalidates the main class mechanic, one entire subclass, and a couple of the shared talents. Wish it would either get reworked or replaced with something that affects the classes more evenly.

  • sirxdaemonEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    To be fair, when you’re playing multi-challenges, particularly 9, the other classes get crippled as well; not just warrior. Barren Land and hunter for example. But I agree, warrior is pretty decent without FIMA.

    I don’t think much will change since the dev has mentioned the game isn’t really balanced for multi-challenges. But he was open to tweaking the warrior after the rework and now is probably a good time to tighten the class. So maybe if you present a more thorough case, something could change.

    • FreshOldMage@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      I don’t think it is quite the same, huntress is more defined by the bow, with the plant/dew interaction being kind of a secondary mechanic. I actually think she is the easiest class to do 9 challenges with, as you get a scaling ranged option for free. Regrowing grass is still extremely useful, and even warden gets some relevant utility by seeing through tall grass for trickshots. To hinder the other classes similarly to warrior, It’d have to be more like

      • Mage: Remove scaling from wands
      • Rogue/Cleric: Remove scaling from rings and artefacts
      • Huntress: Remove ranged weapons and tall grass
      • Duelist: Remove scaling from weapons

      I don’t think it is the warrior that needs to be changed, I’d rather see the challenges reworked. Badder Bosses and Hostile Champions are designed really well by adding challenge to the environment, instead of removing options from the player. Barren Lands, and Faith Is My Armor completely remove options (planting seeds, putting upgrades into armor), so those I’d replace. The other challenges seem fine to me. Some ideas for what could replace them:

      • Curses: Curses are more common on weapons and armor (or even all are cursed?). Scroll of Remove Curse only weakens the curse on weapons/armor, another one is needed to fully remove it. Talisman trinket is disabled.
      • Hostile Lands: A small percentage of tall grass and all naturally spawning plants are randomly replaced by vine lashers. These don’t drop seeds when defeated. Could use the same logic as for the wandmaker quest to ensure there is still a safe path from floor entry to exit.
      • Fragile: Equipment is destroyed upon unequipping (might be too harsh on mage?). Thrown weapons have lowered durability. Wands are destroyed on zero charges.
      • sirxdaemonEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        Personally, I’m flexible with changes to the challenges but I imagine some might be up in arms if changes were made here. Maybe as additions; we’ve been getting new classes and mobs, why not challenges? I think I like Curses the most but this just empowers the cleric even more and I’m of the opinion that the class should be taken down a peg or two. Hostile Lands seems like a good newbie challenge but could also be annoyingly run-ending early on. I would think the mage would be, next to hunter, best suited for Fragile. Duelist tears.

        • FreshOldMage@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          True, I’m very much on board with balance changes that remove or rework content, but that is not everybody’s cup of tea. Maybe I’ll make a fork of Shattered on day to try out these things :)

          I would think the mage would be, next to hunter, best suited for Fragile. Duelist tears.

          I was thinking that it locks mage out of all non-staff weapons. Battlemage does not mind, but warlock loses a lot of options. They’re probably both overall fine though. And right, duelist would lose an entire talent and some of their class identity, that is non-ideal.