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Author Topic: Trait usefulness  (Read 11258 times)

Igor Savin

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Trait usefulness
« on: December 12, 2006, 07:53 »

Wiki's rather scarce of first-hand argumented info at the moment... I hope to hear your opinions on some of them.

Ironman\Tough as nails: Which one is better and when? Which one actually lends you longer lifetime? Should they be combined in a certain sequence to max out the advantage?

Finesse: AoM, I see. There's no loading time info for weapon in wiki... I remember someone saying that most of the time shotguns take for firing is their reload time... does that mean that actual shooting speed is negligible and Finesse is useless for them? What about chainguns?

Son of a bitch: Does it still apply to every shot of chaingun\plasmagun?

Eagle eye: How useful is it for shotguns (they seem to have very high hit chance, it's only wide spread that causes problems; does this trait help to cope with it somehow?)?

Juggler: "Best used: If you like to swap weapons over and over again". And when is it good to swap weapons ove and over again? Does anyone have effective strategy utilizing that (I can imagine wielding 2 rocket launchers or 2-barreled shotties; anything else?)? How long is the swap process anyway?

Stonewall: "If you're planning on a full win. Both the cyberdemon and final boss have ways to push you back". Is it that useful agains them? Have anyone taken it for something more than an experiment? Is it worth taking more than one level (maybe trait should have only one level and eliminate knockback?..)?
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Valkeera

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2006, 09:50 »

If you're playing AoB, I'd definitely pick up Ironman -> Badass over TaN. Hellrunner is my favorite trait for AoB, as it allows you to get close to your enemies quickly while dodging their fire at the same time.
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Igor Savin

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2006, 10:01 »

If you're playing AoB, I'd definitely pick up Ironman -> Badass over TaN. Hellrunner is my favorite trait for AoB, as it allows you to get close to your enemies quickly while dodging their fire at the same time.

What is your favourite sequence?

HellR->IronMan->Brute->Brute->Berserk

or something different?
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Valkeera

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2006, 10:11 »

I think I've taken Brute -> Brute -> HellR -> Berserk last time, but since then I've been trying to complete AoLT on melee, and there I usually do HellR (2) -> Brute -> Brute -> Berserk. Gotta try a different combination though, as I didn't get past level 9 yet :-(
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DaEezT

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2006, 10:39 »

Ironman\Tough as nails: Which one is better and when? Which one actually lends you longer lifetime? Should they be combined in a certain sequence to max out the advantage?
Im is without doubt the best defensive skill in the game, especially in melee heavy games like AoB. You start with 50 hp so Im increases your health by 20% and the combination with Tan is pretty much the best thing that can happen to you in the game. It also works well with armors and the LS. I prefer IM, IM, Tan, Im, Tan, Tan or take the last Tan as first skill if you feel that you can't beat the arena for the blue armors. Hellrunner is somewhat useful early on but quickly turns into a wasted skill.

Finesse: AoM, I see. There's no loading time info for weapon in wiki... I remember someone saying that most of the time shotguns take for firing is their reload time... does that mean that actual shooting speed is negligible and Finesse is useless for them? What about chainguns?
Reload time for a pistol is 12.
There is a bit of code from Kornel in the Wiki thread about how Finess is applied.

Son of a bitch: Does it still apply to every shot of chaingun\plasmagun?
Afaik yes, armor is also applied to each shot which is why Cybie is/was so hard on AoM.

Eagle eye: How useful is it for shotguns (they seem to have very high hit chance, it's only wide spread that causes problems; does this trait help to cope with it somehow?)?
I haven't seen any bonus from Ee for shotguns.

Juggler: "Best used: If you like to swap weapons over and over again". And when is it good to swap weapons ove and over again? Does anyone have effective strategy utilizing that (I can imagine wielding 2 rocket launchers or 2-barreled shotties; anything else?)? How long is the swap process anyway?
It might be of use when you have two chainguns or plasma guns because their reloading times are rather high so switching from an empty one to a full one might be faster than reloading. THen again, taking reloader also helps with rocket launcher.
I see not much use for this skill as it is.
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Igor Savin

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2006, 10:54 »

"I prefer IM, IM, Tan, Im, Tan, Tan or take the last Tan as first skill if you feel that you can't beat the arena for the blue armors"

What weapon do you use?

"Hellrunner is somewhat useful early on but quickly turns into a wasted skill"

Even with 2-barrelled shotgun \ Shottyman?


"There is a bit of code from Kornel in the Wiki thread about how Finess is applied"

Aha... thanks.


"It might be of use when you have two chainguns or plasma guns because their reloading times are rather high"

Hmmm... Reloading chaingun in hostile situation means you are either surrounded or encountered pretty serious opposition (like Barons of Hell). Usually, when this happens and I don't have BFG or RL, I soon drop dead. Could the Juggler actually help in situation like that?

"I see not much use for this skill as it is"

This answers the previous question...
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DaEezT

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #6 on: December 12, 2006, 11:12 »

"I prefer IM, IM, Tan, Im, Tan, Tan or take the last Tan as first skill if you feel that you can't beat the arena for the blue armors"

What weapon do you use?
Whatever I feel like :p
If you look at the victorious AoB mortems in the Post Mortem forum for example:
http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php?topic=504.0
http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php?topic=452.0
http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php?topic=422.0
http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php?topic=471.0
Im+Tan are the skills of choice and in my case I also used it to beat AoLT challange on Hurt Me Plenty

Im is the skill of choice for AoB because
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
so it takes the monsteries quite a while to reduce you to 0 from 80 (with Im(3)). And since you don't need any weapons/ammo in AoB you'll be loaded with armors anyway.

For non AoB it's also very useful for the same reasons. When you wear an armor you already take less damage from attacks so the best thing you can do is increasing your health pool.


"Hellrunner is somewhat useful early on but quickly turns into a wasted skill"

Even with 2-barrelled shotgun \ Shottyman?
hm, the combination with shottyman makes it somewhat ok I guess, depends on how much movement costs opposed to reloading on the spot.

The fundamental problem with hellrunner is that it just increases evasion. If you wear a blue armor it reduces the average damage from a plasma shot from 4.5 to 2.5 (55%) so Hellrunner effectively gives you a 10% chance to dodge 2.5 damage while a level of Tan guarantees you a reduction from 2.5 to 1.5 (66%) and Im gives you 10 more health which translate into 4 more hits that you can take.
This is of course a simplified situation. Hard hitting attacks are different but since you'll wear armor anyway Im is the skill of coiche (as I stated above).
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Fingerzam

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #7 on: December 12, 2006, 13:16 »

You do know that there is a minimum damage of 1? Cause in melee games after you'll get the spoily weapon of mass destruction, additional armor after wearable armor is most of the time useless, but Hellrunner lets you evade those points of damage completely AND will get you to enemies faster, where you will just massacre 'em.

Hellrunner is also highly useful for evading those high damage ranged attacks completely (I had only 1 level of it, though evading while moving is already pretty high, but Cybie managed to hit me only twice in my AoM win). And for Shottyman, you will be evading much more attacks while moving, so it's much better to move than just sit still and reload if there are nasty monsters ready to fry your ass.
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DaEezT

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #8 on: December 12, 2006, 14:49 »

You do know that there is a minimum damage of 1? Cause in melee games after you'll get the spoily weapon of mass destruction, additional armor after wearable armor is most of the time useless, but Hellrunner lets you evade those points of damage completely AND will get you to enemies faster, where you will just massacre 'em.
Hellrunner(1) = 10% to evade 1 damage while Im(1) = 10 health = 10 more hits.
Hellrunner(2) also only evades 1 damage in that case but Im(2) means 20 more health which equals 20 more hits. That means you have to evade 20 attacks to equal Im which statistically means being attacked 100 times (100*0.20=20) which means the remaining 80 hits would be eough to kill you. Even if you are REALLY lucky and evade twice as much you'd still be dead after taking 60 damage.
So no, Hellrunner's evasion does not make any sense at all when fighting enemies with a low per attack damage.
also
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Even lowly sergeants do an average of 12 damage
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
even Tan(3)+red armor  only redcuses that to 5, so additional armor is NEVER useless whereas a red armor is enough to make chaingun/plasma attacks do minumum damage at which point Hellrunner becomes obsolete.

Hellrunner is also highly useful for evading those high damage ranged attacks completely (I had only 1 level of it, though evading while moving is already pretty high, but Cybie managed to hit me only twice in my AoM win). And for Shottyman, you will be evading much more attacks while moving, so it's much better to move than just sit still and reload if there are nasty monsters ready to fry your ass.
Depends sorely on luck. You yourself said that cybie managed to single-shot you from >50%. Statistically speaking Helrunner(2) means every 5th attack that would normally hit you (i.e. not evaded through coward/movement) is evaded by Hellrunner(2), so 4 attacks hit and fifth misses. 4 hits from a rocket launcher do an average 64 damage before armor and 3 do 48. So with a bit of bad luck 3 hits can kill you and Hellrunner(2) won't help at all unless you are really lucky, but I don't like to rely sorely on luck and Im(2) gives you 70 health, which is enough to survive 4 hits or even 6 with red armor.
Im is the only effective defensive skill when it comes to enemies with high per hit damage. And every sinlgle point of armor you gain though items/skills makes Im better while every point of armor makes Hellrunner worse because it means each evaded attack is "worth" less health.
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Fingerzam

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2006, 16:10 »

Well, I wasn't actually arguing against Ironman, but that a melee char should take Hellrunner instead of TaN, because of an already good source of protection. Also, sergeants only do that much damage from point blank range. Though Hellrunner doesn't help against autohitting sergeants other than you reaching them faster thanks to faster running. But there aren't that many of 'em, or shouldn't, but Murphy knows that there are...
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Thomas

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2006, 21:08 »

From expirience I'd say that the best strategies are ones sorta like this:

Eagle eye + Stay in coward the whole time
Hellrunner + Stay in agressive the whole time

These two strategies are similar in the fact that they both take only 3 levels, and end up with a fast, never missing, always dodging, ass-kicking marine.

That's pretty much my non-challenge mode strategy in a nutshell. EE->EE->Int->Int->Int->EE
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Ugm

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2006, 01:25 »

But isn't coward tactics reducing damage? Being aggressive increases it, that's for sure.
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DaEezT

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2006, 03:42 »

But isn't coward tactics reducing damage? Being aggressive increases it, that's for sure.
Aggressive = damage increased by 40%
Coward = damage reduced by 40%
Malek posted this in some thread but not in the wiki or wiki thread so I can't find the post right now.

Edit:
Found it
It's -50% on coward though.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2006, 03:45 by DaEezT »
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Ugm

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2006, 06:06 »

And how does tactics affect defense?

Anyway, I don't think that Hellrunner increases your dodge chance while you are standing still and shooting monsters. Or does it?
If so, it would compensate defence loss. Otherwise these two (H+agg, EE+cow) aren't very comparable, imo.
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Blade

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2006, 10:55 »

I want just to make my add to this topic. I am playing melee on UV now and i see that there better pick IM than TaN, due to lots of monsters with high damage. The only use of TaN there is dealing with chaingunners and commandos. Maybe on N! TaN will be not worth picking at all.
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Fingerzam

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #15 on: December 16, 2006, 07:39 »

But isn't coward tactics reducing damage? Being aggressive increases it, that's for sure.
Aggressive = damage increased by 40%
Coward = damage reduced by 40%
Malek posted this in some thread but not in the wiki or wiki thread so I can't find the post right now.

Edit:
Found it
It's -50% on coward though.

Should be noted, though, that it only applies to melee. There might also be some effects on ranged damage, but nothing that drastic.
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Fingerzam

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #16 on: December 16, 2006, 09:59 »

I think we need some discussion about the usefulness of several traits and balance of them.

Here's a list of traits rarely seen used:

  • Juggler
  • Stonewall
  • Badass

The following are seen every now and then, but not that often:

  • Cat Eye
  • Finesse
  • Son of a Bitch
  • Hellrunner

And here's a list of commonly taken traits:

  • Ironman
  • Tough as Nails
  • Reloader
  • Shottyman
  • Eagle Eye
  • Intuition
  • Brute
  • Berserker

I left Son of a Gun and Dualgunner unlisted, because while they aren't that useful in a normal game, they are highly useful for AoM. I didn't do that for Brute/Berserker, because, as you can see in the Post Mortem section, they offer a very effective way to beat the game.

I think that the 3 traits in the first list need to be enchanced or redesigned, as they currently aren't worth taking. Badass is a good idea, but 3 levels for the full effect just isn't worth it outside of Angel of Masochism.

Stonewalls effect is most of the time only useful for Angels of Berserk for taking out those sergeants, and that alone won't make taking Stonewall a good choice.

The same goes for Juggler, the effect just isn't useful enough as it is. Would making it a one point wonder making weapon switch take no time at all be overpowered?

Finesse seems to only be useful in Angle of Marksmanship, some boosting and/or a nice advanced trait could perhaps make taking it more tempting.

I don't see Son of a Bitch as a useless trait, but it also could take either a small boost or an advanced trait.

As for Hellrunner, I just think it's underrated.

Dualgunner could also use some boost, as it's currently less useful than Finesse after the first level, but I already know that it's getting some enchanement.

The above is just my opinion, and I urge you to disagree so that we can have some discussion about traits that could use some editing.
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Kornel Kisielewicz

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #17 on: December 16, 2006, 10:31 »

Extremely usefull list! I added a link to it to my ToDo list :). Here are a coulpe of commens:

1. Badass and Stonewall could be merged into one two-level trait - how does that sound?
2. Juggler as a single level *no time* swap, being an advanced trait of Finesse
3. Son of a Bitch will have a nice adv. trait (I hope)
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Fingerzam

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Re: Trait usefulness
« Reply #18 on: December 16, 2006, 11:46 »

Extremely usefull list! I added a link to it to my ToDo list :). Here are a coulpe of commens:

1. Badass and Stonewall could be merged into one two-level trait - how does that sound?

This is a good solution. I actually thought about it myself some time ago, but didn't remember it any more. Will it require you to have x levels in both Im and TaN or only 1 of 'em at level 2 or a total of x invested in both?

2. Juggler as a single level *no time* swap, being an advanced trait of Finesse
3. Son of a Bitch will have a nice adv. trait (I hope)

2. This might be a good solution, can't say before getting to test it ingame.

3. Can't wait to see it.

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