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[Icy]

As suggested by Omega Tyrant in Discord, change the difficulty suggestion of Archangel of Humanity from "TwoDev" to "Tormuse".

Since medals and badges are pretty well wrapped up now, let's do weapons, armors, and assemblies next.

There was some discussion on what uniques a Technican could mod but no depth into it yet. Currently, Cybernetic Armor is fully moddable, while Railgun and BFG 10K can take basic assemblies and an extra mod after. My suggestions are let Frag Shotgun and Jackhammer take a basic assembly too (which is either Plasmatic Shrapnel or a single mod), and let Revenant's Launcher be fully moddable, which probably would be strongest in Nanomanufacture without being broken. Maybe also have Anti-Freak Jackal take a basic assembly too.

Thinking more about Environmental Boots, despite already making them BBT, I still think they wouldn't get used too much. How about buffing the resistances to 95% for both acid and lava, so players may opt for them over Cerberus Boots?

I think Speedloader Pistol is pretty wasteful to only decrease reloading speed from 1.2s to 0.6s with no other changes. What if it were 0.4s instead?

I think Power Armor is expensive for not doing a whole lot overall. What if it tripled the original resistances instead of just double?

Maybe give Assault Rifle a tiny buff with having original+3 Accuracy instead of just +2?

New exotic suggestion: Acid-Proof Armor, which is 3 Protection, 95% Acid Resistance, -10% move speed, and everything else normal. This would be a fairly unique armor that provides a difficult resistance to obtain, and allow for more options beyond Cerberus Armor in everything.

New exotic suggestion: Glass Shield, which is 0 Protection, 75% durability, 80% all resistances, but cannot be repaired or modded. Basically like the other shields, but with less lasting power and more well-roundedness.

New exotic suggestion: Glass Armor, which is 0 Protection, 50% durability, 50% all resistances. It would either become Cybernano Armor, which would require committing to it and being expensive, or otherwise going with AOP/AOT/OPT.

New assembly suggestion: Grappling Armor (BA), which is original +30% melee resistance and knockback -50%. This can be a nice early armor for melee characters, and would make use of a Bulk + Agility assembly, which is the only basic mod pack pair that doesn't exist as an assembly.

New assembly suggestion: Sniper Rifle (BAS) (Chaingun only), which is exactly the same as a Chaingun, but it has the auto-hit property. It'd give Chainguns a better buff for middle and late game, and wouldn't be too insanely overpowered I think.

[Omega Tyrant]

There was some discussion on what uniques a Technican could mod but no depth into it yet. Currently, Cybernetic Armor is fully moddable, while Railgun and BFG 10K can take basic assemblies and an extra mod after. My suggestions are let Frag Shotgun and Jackhammer take a basic assembly too (which is either Plasmatic Shrapnel or a single mod), and let Revenant's Launcher be fully moddable, which probably would be strongest in Nanomanufacture without being broken. Maybe also have Anti-Freak Jackal take a basic assembly too.

I would agree with these suggestions, perhaps allow the GCB and Medical Powerarmor to take a single mod or basic assembly for Technicians too? Neither sound like they would get crazy, even if the latter gets the proposed buffs. I would maybe throw in the Necroarmor and Shielded Armor for being able to get a single mod/basic assembly as well, though those ones being moddable doesn't sound quite as fitting but would be within reasonable balance.

Thinking more about Environmental Boots, despite already making them BBT, I still think they wouldn't get used too much. How about buffing the resistances to 95% for both acid and lava, so players may opt for them over Cerberus Boots?

I'm not opposed to this but it wouldn't really change much; every pair of boots except for Steel Boots and Acid-Proof Boots already reduce lava damage to 1 with this assembly (the 75% resistance brings lava damage down to 3, so you just need 2 protection to bring it down to 1, which all the other standard and exotic boots already have). I suppose it would help them protect a bit better if they get damaged (notably yellow-damaged Gothic Boots with 47% fire resistance would still reduce lava damage to 1), but I don't think that is going to make anyone assemble them over Cerberus Boots. Making the assembly no longer require Power mods is the best we can do, so that people in the standard game looking for budget Cerberus Boots have an option without having to expend their precious Power mods.

I think Speedloader Pistol is pretty wasteful to only decrease reloading speed from 1.2s to 0.6s with no other changes. What if it were 0.4s instead?

I'm not opposed to this as I always found the assembly underwhelming, but I've seen people before swear by making them (particularly at the start of AoMr with a Technician courtesy of their free Technical mod). Would like to see Pistol specialists chime in on this.

I think Power Armor is expensive for not doing a whole lot overall. What if it tripled the original resistances instead of just double?

I disagree with this, Powered Red Armor is very good; it's really hard to beat an armor with 5 protection, 50% fire resistance, 25% melee resistance, no movement penalty, and regenerating durability (it essentially combines the Fireproof and Ballistic Armor assemblies together on Red Armor without the drawbacks, alongside a bigger speed buff than an Agility mod provides, half a Power mod, and 5% regeneration rate instead of the 2% just a Nano mod would provide). As a basic assembly, It also doesn't require Whizkid nor additional mods, and so is fast to make (if you get a Nano mod from Armory/Deimos Lab, you should be able to make it immediately if you didn't use a non-Power mod on your Red Armor yet or found another one). It's just that having very good armor is rarely going to be more desirable than the infinite ammo weapon or the insane speed boost of Antigrav Boots you can get with a Nano mod, short of the armor giving you literal IDDQD. I'll also note if you tripled the fire resistance to 75%, it would reduce nearly all fire damage to 1, with only very high damage rolls from Rocket Launchers being able to do more than 1 damage to it, which would crib on the Fireshield's niche. The only thing I would change about it is removing the knockback reduction, since Powered Red Armor is great armor for rocket jumping, but the knockback reduction nerfs it.

If you want to make Powered Blue Armor and Powered Green Armor actually possible viable options for this assembly however, perhaps you could make it so Powered Blue Armor gets tripled plasma resistance (60% plasma resistance could merit some consideration for an armor that would otherwise be outclassed by Powered Red Armor), and quintupled resistances for Powered Green Armor (well 75% Bullet and Shrapnel resistance still wouldn't save it, but reducing practically all damage from Formers down to 1 is something). I don't know if you could program it that way though without turning each of them into their own distinct assemblies (which would add unneeded annoyance to the Technician badges).

New exotic suggestion: Acid-Proof Armor, which is 3 Protection, 95% Acid Resistance, -10% move speed, and everything else normal. This would be a fairly unique armor that provides a difficult resistance to obtain, and allow for more options beyond Cerberus Armor in everything.

I like this idea, I'll note 80% acid resistance with 3 protection is enough to reduce even max damage Baron/Bruiser balls down to 1, so you could go with that to keep the rounding numbers when damaged clean. 95% works however if you want to maximize protection while the armor is damaged.

New exotic suggestion: Glass Shield, which is 0 Protection, 75% durability, 80% all resistances, but cannot be repaired or modded. Basically like the other shields, but with less lasting power and more well-roundedness.

75% durability is a weird number, and it wouldn't have that much less lasting power than other shields, especially when you won't have to worry about non-resisted hits getting through to take a big chunk out of it. I would go with 50% durability.

New exotic suggestion: Glass Armor, which is 0 Protection, 50% durability, 50% all resistances. It would either become Cybernano Armor, which would require committing to it and being expensive, or otherwise going with AOP/AOT/OPT.

I'm ok with this.

New assembly suggestion: Grappling Armor (BA), which is original +30% melee resistance and knockback -50%. This can be a nice early armor for melee characters, and would make use of a Bulk + Agility assembly, which is the only basic mod pack pair that doesn't exist as an assembly.

My concern is how this would largely overlap with Ballistic Armor in functionality, except you trade the less important bullet and shrapnel resistances for a big knockback reduction and no fire weakness. At least if my proposed Ballistic Armor buff goes through, Grappling Armor wouldn't be the clear better choice, so I would be sorta ok with this, though something a bit more unique would be preferred.

New assembly suggestion: Sniper Rifle (BAS) (Chaingun only), which is exactly the same as a Chaingun, but it has the auto-hit property. It'd give Chainguns a better buff for middle and late game, and wouldn't be too insanely overpowered I think.

Considering how outclassed the Chaingun is by the Plasma Rifle, I think it's ok to give it something, so after the early game it's not just there for rapid fire builds to conserve cells. And I agree a Chaingun with autohit wouldn't be broken, it could be changed to only firing two shots per burst if people think it would be too powerful. It also would be canonical with Doom, where double-tapping the Chaingun is the best sniping weapon :p

[Icy]

Regarding Technician modability, I think Grammaton Cleric Beretta and Medical Powerarmor taking basic assemblies would be fine. Necroarmor might be a bit odd as it could become indestructible with Onyx Pack, but I think it wouldn't be insane. Shielded Armor feels like it would be powerful, but looking at basic assemblies, it really wouldn't improve that much. I'm for all of them.

I think the proposed Environmental Boots with reducing damage to 1 could still work as a cheap, knock-off Cerberus Boots, allowing players to use Power Mod Packs for other gear, or getting something very resistant before Whizkid x2. Since you believe it would still be weak and unused, would you accept the suggested buffs?

Speedloader Pistols can be nice to avoid dangerous reloads in the early game, but it's definitely a bit underwhelming and very specialized. I think 0.4s reload speed would open it up more. It is still a Pistol that can no longer take Mod Packs like an unmodded Pistol.

Regarding Power Armor, fair points on it being a strong early armor when in Red Armor. One way that you could make it a nice all-in-one assembly is it takes a common armor and double Fire Resistance, triples Plasma Resistance, and quintuples Bullet/Shrapnel Resistance.

Regarding the Glass Shield idea, I initially thought 50% durability, but it would only take one hit before the resistances get shattered. What if it was 95% all resistances and 50% durability?

For the Grappling Armor idea, it would be to help melee characters charge into enemies more, which can often just knock you back. Do you think +50% Melee Resistance would be too much?

[Omega Tyrant]

Regarding Technician modability, I think Grammaton Cleric Beretta and Medical Powerarmor taking basic assemblies would be fine. Necroarmor might be a bit odd as it could become indestructible with Onyx Pack, but I think it wouldn't be insane. Shielded Armor feels like it would be powerful, but looking at basic assemblies, it really wouldn't improve that much. I'm for all of them.

Considering Necroarmor has no resistances, its 6 protection isn't defending too well, so an Onyx mod on it definitely wouldn't make it crazy. And yeah a single mod slot can't do that much with Shielded Armor; it already reduces all physical hits to 1 damage and has infinite durability, so you can just make it less slow, or make it protect a bit better against energy attacks, where it would still be easily inferior at it to most other armors. Now if we could make it Cerberus, it would be an entirely different story, but that's obviously too overpowered to allow.

I think the proposed Environmental Boots with reducing damage to 1 could still work as a cheap, knock-off Cerberus Boots, allowing players to use Power Mod Packs for other gear, or getting something very resistant before Whizkid x2. Since you believe it would still be weak and unused, would you accept the suggested buffs?

I would be ok with it, just pointing out that with most boots, the current +75% resistances already reduces all fluid damage to 1. So it doesn't really change anything other than being able to use Steel Boots to hit the 1 damage from lava mark, and keeping a bit more protection when damaged.

Speedloader Pistols can be nice to avoid dangerous reloads in the early game, but it's definitely a bit underwhelming and very specialized. I think 0.4s reload speed would open it up more. It is still a Pistol that can no longer take Mod Packs like an unmodded Pistol.

I agree

Regarding Power Armor, fair points on it being a strong early armor when in Red Armor. One way that you could make it a nice all-in-one assembly is it takes a common armor and double Fire Resistance, triples Plasma Resistance, and quintuples Bullet/Shrapnel Resistance.

Oh yeah that would be a workable solution, lets go with that then.

Regarding the Glass Shield idea, I initially thought 50% durability, but it would only take one hit before the resistances get shattered. What if it was 95% all resistances and 50% durability?

Shields don't enter a damaged state, they maintain their full protection and resistances until destruction, so the proposed Glass Shield with 50% durability would still get 50 durability points to utilize its full resistances. As such, 50% durability with 80% omni-resistances should work.

For the Grappling Armor idea, it would be to help melee characters charge into enemies more, which can often just knock you back. Do you think +50% Melee Resistance would be too much?

Yeah +50% melee resistance would be too much for a simple basic assembly and would clearly outclass the Ballistic Armor assembly at that point. I think the +30% melee resistance you initially suggested is best balance wise.

[Icy]

Regarding shields, I actually forgot about that mechanic about IF_NODEGRADE, so 50% durability with 80% all resistance should be fine.

I agree with everything else.

[Omega Tyrant]

A few more suggestions that were touched on earlier that I want to make into formal suggestions to add to the main post, as well as an entirely new suggestion:

*Increase the amount of EXP that Nightmare Demons give

Getting 95 EXP from such a dangerous enemy is a pathetically low amount, this is less than you get from Nightmare Imps, Cacodemons, Hell Knights, and even Elite Former Humans. This is also a big culprit behind Phobos Lab being so unrewarding, especially when the Elite Formers give you such a crazy amount of EXP in comparison. I would say bumping the amount of EXP that Nightmare Demons give to 263 is fair (which is equivalent to an Arachnotron), and see my first post on how even with that massive EXP increase, Phobos Lab still doesn't give you more EXP on UV/N! than Military Base does now.

*Decrease the EXP that Elite Formers give you

Conversely, Elite Formers give you a really high amount of EXP each, despite their threat not really meriting such a high amount of EXP, contributing to the huge disparity in EXP yield between Military Base and Phobos Lab. I would let Elite Former Commandos still give you 608 EXP, but I would nerf the EXP yield of the other Elite Formers by the following:

Elite Former Humans: 167 -> 128
Elite Former Sergeants: 320 -> 263
Elite Former Captains: 452 -> 320

*Buff Elite Formers in melee

A main reason why Military Base is a lot easier than Phobos Base is how you can easily lure the Elite Formers into melee range, where they are all weak except for the Elite Commando, who is instead just mediocre. You could just give them a damage bump of like +3 to +5, though I think it would be neat if you instead let them attack with a Combat Knife, which would fit the theme of them being elite fully-armed soldiers. I do not know if this is programmable however; if it isn't, then just give them a flat damage buff to their current melee attack.

*Add trapped powerups and items

One suggestion I seen when browsing old feature requests that I liked was adding trapped powerups and items, which would summon enemies around the player or flood the room with acid/lava when picked up, or any other adverse effect. This is one trademark mechanic from Doom that currently is sorely missing from DRL, which should fit seamlessly into a roguelike. In order to do it, perhaps you can create designated "trap rooms" in the same vein as ammo rooms, where in the middle there will be a powerup, rarely an exotic, or very rarely a unique, and then there's a random chance it'll spring some trap upon picking it up (though not always, sometimes the "obvious trap" is just a fakeout). Exact percentages for these outcomes can be discussed farther.

[Icy]

One small suggestion I have is changing the colour of Sniper Mod Pack so that it's distinguished from Firestorm Mod Packs. Currently they have identical colours. Maybe make it brown or green?

I can agree with your suggested changes. For Combat Knifes given to the Elite Formers, their damage rolls could simply be changed to 2d5, which I would also agree with. This would balance out Military Base by making it hard, and making them more threatening later in the game. It would also give a tiny nerf to melee builds, which I think is reasonable.

Regarding trap power-ups, I'm leaning more towards disagreement as it would pretty fundamentally change the game where you need to be cautious about every item, as opposed to currently where the only caution is what's around the item. Potentially causing the player to avoid picking up anything, or needing to consider more luck factors in something that is already perceived as earned doesn't sit well with me.

[Omega Tyrant]

One small suggestion I have is changing the colour of Sniper Mod Pack so that it's distinguished from Firestorm Mod Packs. Currently they have identical colours. Maybe make it brown or green?

I would go with green, but it might get confused with uniques, so I'm not sure. Maybe you can make it a dark green to avoid the confusion.

Regarding trap power-ups, I'm leaning more towards disagreement as it would pretty fundamentally change the game where you need to be cautious about every item, as opposed to currently where the only caution is what's around the item. Potentially causing the player to avoid picking up anything, or needing to consider more luck factors in something that is already perceived as earned doesn't sit well with me.

I understand the concern, but as long as you keep it restricted to the proposed designated "trap rooms", you won't have to worry about the typical powerup/exotic/unique sprawled around being trapped. You'll just know something is up when you find an empty room with a big powerup or rare equipment in the middle, which any Doom player will be on alert when they see that setup, where it's then your decision to gamble with it.

[Icy]

I think if trap rooms were to be implemented, the items would have to still be obtainable, as opposed to disappearing as you get close, and also not impact the weight of other items generated, similar to how ammo rooms and vaults work. From there, as you suggested, maybe make it a 50% chance or so that you would get the same effect from a monster lever pull? I think it would be fine under these circumstances. It'd be pretty advantageous for a Blademaster build.

[Omega Tyrant]

Oh my intention was for the item to always be obtainable, and the trap wouldn't spring until you picked it up. I think the chance should vary by depth and difficulty, where the deeper you are and the harder the difficulty, the greater chance it will be that a trap is sprung. The trap could have the same effect of the monster summon lever, and could sometimes also have the same effect as a lever flooding the room with acid/lava.

[Icy]

Sounds good.

Updated the main posts with everything.

[Omega Tyrant]

On the talk of nerfing Inquisitor Set, I do stand by what I said earlier about it, but I do think Nyarlaptotep's Boots and Malek's Armor themselves could receive a slight nerf. I would reduce their movement speed from +25% to +20%, as well as decrease their generation weight from 3 to 2.

With Nyarlaptotep's Boots, on their own they clearly outclass all other boots. With +25% speed, they're as fast as A-modded Tactical Boots and A-modded Phaseshift Boots, except while those boots have no protection and average protection respectively, the Laptop Boots have as much protection as you can get without having full fluid immunity (with them reducing acid damage to 1 and lava damage to 2, which then gets reduced to 1 when running or if you have any TaN investment). If you find them and can't or aren't making Antigrav Boots, you have no reason to not wear them unless you can complete the Phaseshift set (which has its own limitations, as you'll have to wear defensively mediocre armor unless you take a big sacrifice in mobility by making Cerberus Phaseshift Armor). If you reduce it to +20%, there would at least be an argument for wearing the other boots without having to make Antigrav Boots, and you would no longer get the absolute best of non-Antigrav movement speed and non-immunity fluid protection in a single pair of boots.

As for Malek's Armor, it doesn't egregiously outclass other armors on its own, with quite a few being better defensively. But still, the only armors that can match or exceed its movement bonus are Phaseshift Armor, Duelist Armor, and A-modded Tactical Armor, none of which come close defensively without using the former two in the very expensive and hard committal Nanofiber Skin and Cybernano Armor assemblies. AP Energy-shielded Vest does boost movement too while outclassing Malek's Armor defensively, but Malek's Armor still beats the Vest's movement bonus by a solid 10% and has inherent regeneration without the need for any rare mods, before even considering the potential of the Inquisitor Set (and that regeneration has no catch, unlike Lava Armor and Necro Armor). As a single piece, it combines mobility and protection in a way that no other armor does without other rare finds and heavy investment. Reducing its movement speed to +20% would keep it inline with the Laptop Boots after its proposed nerf, and make it not as much ahead of other armors without any investment. You could probably justify nerfing the speed of both to +15%, but I do like to be cautious with nerfing, and they are uniques still, so I would be fine with +20%.

As for the generation weight, at 3 each, they're currently among the more common uniques, despite both being clearly among the best uniques and being highly desirable equipment for virtually any build. They do have one of the latest spawn depths (not spawning until floor 15), but that is still overly common for such strong equipment, and so a generation weight of 2 would be more fitting. On another note, I would bump the Medical Powerarmor's generation weight to 3; even with its proposed buffs it still wouldn't be amazing, so it should be one of the more common uniques.

[Icy]

I can agree with all of that.

[Omega Tyrant]

So thinking of buffs for Survivalist, which is widely considered a very underwhelming mastery, and I found myself agreeing with the consensus after finally trying it for myself in a UV run. I find thinking of buffs to try making it competitive while keeping the idea of it intact to be tricky; as is, you could obviously just let it get Hellrunner or Son of a Bitch to make it a lot better, but the idea of the trait is you trade being an absolute tank for terrible offense. One old suggestion I found on this board was to make it guaranteed to reduce damage to 0 when you have strong enough defenses to do so, but I agreed with the replies to that thread that would have the potential to be broken under the right circumstances.

Now the proposed inherent 10% omni resistances for the Marine would definitely help Survivalist more than any of the other Marine masteries, though that on its own won't be enough. So after thinking it through, I propose the following buffs:

Reduce the required levels of Ironman from 3 to 2
Have Survivalist double the health recovery of Small Medkits and Small Health Globes

With the first buff, you will be able to get Survivalist a bit sooner, and can put off that third level of Ironman for getting other, better stuff. Especially helpful when Finesse and Whizkid are essentially a must to succeed with this mastery, which alongside Survivalist will currently take you until level 11 at minimum to get them all, really damn late just to get a build in a functional state. I'll also note the other general masteries (Gunrunner and Scavenger) only require five cumulative traits, so having Survivalist do the same would keep it consistent with them (and it's certainly not better enough than them to be a minimum level 7 mastery).

With the second buff, it'll help Survivalist better do its job of keeping you alive and give it a noticeable benefit in the mid game before you can get good enough armor to take advantage of the 0 damage perk, as well as still let it do something in the late game if you're unable to get good enough armor. This also helps give it an actual healing boon over Vampyre, which otherwise does the extreme damage tanking a whole lot better (and still usually would even with this buff). With all these buffs, Survivalist probably still wouldn't be more than mid at best (offense > pure defense will always be true in DRL after all), but I think it would make it reasonably viable, and give players that like tanking builds a legitimate alternative to Vampyre.

[Icy]

I agree with both buffs. It would help make it far more viable, wouldn't be game-breaking at all, would likely still be a mid-tier build as you said, and also isn't a dramatic change.