I normally don't post, so this is my first lol... but I was reading your comments on the main page, and I agree with the whole making mirage a corpse thing. I found myself using the mirage on bosses like the collector to manage his summons, preventing him from summoning new allies (Which admitedly made the fight a lot more interesting, but definatly a lot easier lol). Besides that this is my favorite mod! I absolutely love it! Great job!

here are my suggestions after i have played her on 5 missions:
1.) her offensive power with arrow shot is a bit too high for a support unit
2.) create a mirage should only be usable once per fight, otherwise bosses light brigand pounder or collector cant spawn anything which is kind of lame :D
3.) i dont know but regenerate kind of feels veryyyyy strong although it isnt much better than the AoE heal from a vestal. but i would definitely change the disease you get from regenerate, something like "-50% healing received" so it isnt worth spamming the heal

I reworked mirage in 1.1

I suggest increasing the stress damage for False Promise to 200 to ALWAYS ensure a virtue check (last time I used it I got 90 stress and got dunked on) and I suggest trading a little bit of damage for Arrow Shot to be able to hit position 2

200 stress might also cause heart attack. I'll increase duration of virtue check buff

overcharge needs more penalty
ex) -35~40% damage debuff or stun after second turn

Hello o Nightmare,

Im happy you got a suggestion threat. After playing this class for many many runs i came to this page to share with you my thoughts about the gameplay expirience i made with your class.

But first of all thanks you for creating this mod.
Its one of the visually and mechanically most appealing class mods.
As a huge Dark Souls fan i really love to see a Gwyndolin-
style adaption in DARKEST DUNGEON.


I will go through all the skills in three steps

1. Feeling and Appeal
   
2. Stats and Balance
   
3. Suggestions

1) Style

This "Autohit Atack" as a standart DPS move feels nice, as a Dark Souls Reference. The animations are sweet and the range of the weapon is reasonable.
The addition of an arrow empowered by the light level, let this skill stand out from other ranged attacks.
The name "Arrow Shot" feels kind of odd for a holy Arrow
(Maybe some Dark Souls Reference will do it.)

2) Balance

Here lies a problem of this Skill and the class in general.

A Class is considered "good" in a role if there is no other class fulfilling the same purpose as good as this class.
For example the Arbalest as a trained crossbow sniper is reliable and accurate DMG to the targets difficult to reach.
If the Highwayman had a comparable base DMG with his small pistol, or the Grave Robber with her knives, the Arbales would be kind of obsolete as a Ranged Sniper.
For this reason these two classes make up with less base DMG, smaller DMG modifiers but way more CRT to be more usefull in other cenarios, by the sacrifice of reliability.
High CRIT values also make a class to secondary stress healers, shining in Dark runs due to the higher CRIT Values at low Light

The Acolyte's Arrow shot has both:
Reliable Base Damage and one of the highestcrits in the game.
Each comparable ability in terms of CRIT has a negative DMG Modifier, to reduce incredible damage peaks.
On the other hand the CRT bonus the Acolyte gets in low light is almost nothing compared to the standart CRIT modifier of the skill.
Combined with Dark Items and the Camping Skills the Crit Value on this class goes beyond repair in low light scenarios.
Also consider that in dark light the CRT chance of all player character recieve a buff, this class reaches higher CRT values as the designated rouge classes.

Lets look at the Damage.
The shot has a comparable Damage to the Arbalest when cast at high light (75+), wich is ok when you consider this class as a pure damage dealer.
This class hould never come close to the gainst marked DMG because its a unique ability to designated DMG dealers.
Giving the Aco a high DMG high CRT Skill while being a Support/Healer renders the Vestal and the Arbales useless.
The Vestal sacrifices DMG for heal and the Arbalest sacrifices heal for Damage. The Acolyte has Both in addition to the High CRT of a "Rouge" Style character like the Highwayman or the Robber.

Here are the best ranged Skills for comparison

Throw Dagger | Graverobber

Damage +0%
Acc 90% / 95% / 100% /105% / 110%
Crt 10% / 11% / 11% / 12% / 12%


Sniper Shot | Arbalest

Damage +0%
Acc 95% / 100% / 105% / 110% / 115%
Crt 5% / 6% / 6% / 6% / 7%
Dmg vs Marked 50% / +60% / +70% / +80% / +100%
Crt vs Marked 12% / 13% / 14% / 17% (combined values base+ Bonus)

the Acolyte should only reach this values under optimal conditions

3) Suggestions

- Shift the high CRT Modifier to the low light Bonus of the Skill.
It will feel like the Arrow gets more empowered by the Moon or the Dark light.
The low light Bonus (25%) should feel more rewarding than the dim light Bonus (<50%).
The Aco shoud not be able to Crit like a rouge class unless on low light.
- In Addition reduce the overall Crit on the Skill


- Lower the Base Damge Modifier, maybe Shift it to the Light Bonus
The Aco should never hit as hard as the Arbalest, despite at full light to retain his role as a healer. You can maintain this by lowering the modifier and buffing the DMG Bonus at high Light.

This suggested pattern crits same like the Arbalest in high light, and crits like the grave robber in low light.
At mid light it behaves like the pistol shot of the Highwayman.
For Damage we start at a low base damage to not compromise Rouge classes but buff the Damage even higher for high light scenarios

Read teh pattern like this:
crit value (combined crit value of crit mod + all aplied bonuses at the light level)
dmg value (combined value of dmg modifier + all bonuses at the light level)

Dark Sun Arrow

Dmg Mod -10%
Crt Mod +4% / +5% /+5% /+5% / +6%
<25 + 3%Crt (9%) / +4% (11%) / +5% (12%) / +5%(13%) / +5%(14%)
<50 + 2%Crt (6%) / +2% (7%) / +2% (7%) / +3%(8%) / +3%(9%)
>50 + 4%DMG (-8%) / +7% (-3%) / +10% (0%) / +12%(+2%) / +14%(+4%)
>75 + 6%DMG (-0%) / +8% (+5%) / +10% (+10%) / +13%(15%) / +16%(20%)


Alternative Suggestion

A bit of a quirky alternative, with the same goal in mind.
You could lower the base base dmg even further and ad +DMG Vs Human/Beast Bonus at low light (dark arrows killing living things) and add a +DMG vs Unholy/Eldritch on high light levels (sun empowered arrows killing the cursed beings).
The total outcome is +10 aginst a type at optimal conditions.

this could look like this


Dark Sun Arrow


Dmg Mod -20%
Crt Mod +4% / +5% /+5% /+5% / +6%
<25 + 3%Crt (9%) / +4% (11%) / +5% (12%) / +5%(13%) / +5%(14%)
<50 + 2%Crt (6%) / +2% (7%) / +2% (7%) / +3%(8%) / +3%(9%)
>50 + 4%DMG (-18%) / +7% (-13%) / +10% (10%) / +12%(-8%) / +14%(-6%)
>75 + 6%DMG (-10%) / +8% (-5%) / +10% (0%) / +13%(55%) / +16%(10%)

<25 +20% Dmg Aginst Human
<50 + 20% Dmg Against Beast
>50 +20% Dmg Against Unholy
>75 +20 % Dmg Aainst Eldritch

that variant may be hard to understand.
A scedule lie this ould be easier to play with

<25 +15% Dmg Aginst Human
<50 + 5% Dmg Against Human
>50 +5% Dmg Against Unholy
>75 +15 % Dmg Aainst Unholy


1) Style

I totally got crazy when i first saw the animation.
This Skill feels awesome to use. The Compnent of using Snakes as a life drain and as a distraction to move backwards is good design and gives his kit a way to deal with shuffle.
The Heal Amount is reasonable for a self heal and the Regeneration aspect synergizes well with his kit. The + desease feels weird but is a good compensation for the strong heal.

2)

This skill feels pretty balanced overall.
BUT
It suffers from the same problem of the firts skill in terms of DMG and CRT.
It provides a comparable CRT as the Jester Stab, the Graverobber Pick to Face or the Highwaymans Wicked Slice wich are designated Crit characters.
Te fact that the Skill heals at the same time and the heal will also CRT makes it more valuable.
The Vestals Judgement has a same modifier but comes with a 90% hit chance and no regeneration.
Regarding REG is more valuable than normal HEAL and REG provides Synergy, the power level is a bit overloaded in terms of stats.

A multifunctional skill wich provides such high protection in terms of movement is always at low DMG.
Compare it to the Fleeting Escape skill from the Falconer Mod, the Escape Door Skill of the Trapmaker mod or the Shadow Fade SKill of the Graverobber.

Alternative Suggestion

To give this Skill more flavour and balance it at the same time you can lower the base DMG and CRT drastically and apply a long but weak ticking blight, comparable to the Abominations Blight. It could also come with a -Blight Resist and/or -Bleed Resist Debuff.
This variations strenghtesn the support Role of the character (by appling debuffs synergizing with other heroes) and provides an option aginst high PROT enemys.
The Blight and the REG + MOVE synergize well because they both are mroe valuable in extended fights.
It is also very flavourfull imagine a poisonous snake.
The venom make the blood thinner and the victim is more vulnerable to other poisons and blood loss.

3)

- Lower the Base DMG (-60%) and/or the Crt Percentage
- Lower the CRT base 1% / 2 % / 2% /3% / 5%
- Disease Value Should scale more with level to compensate higher desease resist
Disease chance 5% 6% 7% 8% 9%


I always feel bad using this skill, and i use it a hell of alot (relly alot).
On the other hand this skill provides another aoe heal class other than the vestal and this is AWESOME.
This skill alone is a redeeming quality of this class and sets up the nice combo for the next skill. As far as heal can go in Darkest Dungeon this is the most powerfull heal i have seen so far. The capability to mass heal is the Vestals most redeeming quality. By addition of the Acolyte the Vestal got confronted with a main healer she will never live up to.
Why is this ?
Lets look at the stats

2)

First of all lets talk about Mass healing and why its beneficial.

• It removes several heroes from death door simoultaniously
  
• The overall heal is greater than a big single target heal
  
• It has 4 chances to CRT
  
• It provides a good average Stres heal because it will crit more often

There is a good guide about mass healing proviided by the youtouber FilthyRobot
Here is the link to his Vestal guide explaining the benefits of mass heal even further.
I strongly recommend to watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGYwRm9BQDs

And now lets see the pros and cons of Reg

PROS

• it can crit once per tick, providing more overall stress heal
  
• provides more heal over time than a single heal
  
• it last after the battle
  
• Has no tendency to "overheal" so effective health wont go lost
  
• Defies the DEATH DOOR check of a Bleed/Blight tick

CONS

• smaller crits
  
• less effective at keeping a hero away from Death's door
  
• Does not scale well with trinkets

In summary reg is more beneficial than normal heal.
The most redeeming quality is to denie a death by a bleeding tick .
We all lost many many characters by a bleeding tick of a character going before of a healer.
The second best quality is the stress heal. Stress heal i ultra valuable in this game (you can see this in the classes that actually can heal stress, its alws a low amount and the skill does nothing else)
reg is so powerfull that the Flagelant needs to potentially damage himself to reduce the overall heal.

The AOE Reg can potentially crit 4( once per char ) times on the cast
and aditional 4(each char) x 3(each tick) Times oer tick per char
This makes up to 16 potential crits per cast in comparison to the 4 potential crits on the vestals heal.
For sure it will never crit 16 times, but it provides 4 times more potential stress heal per cast and even more potential max heal .
I won a lot of long dungeons (even level 6) by stalling with only casting this skill at the end of a battle. The Heal i can stall and the ongoing stress heal to crits almost resets a party after each fight.

At last here is a power comparion of the Acolytes SKill against the Vestal
we dont consider crits for the total heal amount

At lvl 1 the Vestal has a Heal max heal potential of 4x2 = 8
At lvl 1 the Vestal has a Heal min heal potential of 4x1 = 4

At lvl 1 the Acolyte has a max potential of 4x1 + 4x2 (regen ticks) = 12
At lvl 1 the Acolyte has a min heal potential of 4x1 = 4
If we apply the 75% percentage of the tick to the equasion we go
4x1 + (4x2) x 0.75 = 10
this is the average heal. It is still greater than the max heal potential of the Vestal


At skill lvl 3 the values are the following

Vestal max = 12
Vestal avg = 10
Vestal min = 8
crit chances: 4
crit base: 3.5%

Aco max = 28
Aco Avg = 20
Aco min = 4
crit chances min: 4
crit chances max: 16
crit base: 4%

This gap in healing is getting greater with higher levels.
regarding the potential crit the value out of the skill gets even higher.


How to adress this high power skill by maintaing the class identity ?

3)

This skill definitly needs a change, without destroying the reg synergy.

- reduce the number of potential crits by reducing the number of ticks on the REG
- reduce the amount of potential overall heal to avoid comrpomising the Vestal
the initial Heal should never be as high as the AOE heal of the Vestal
- increase the disease caling to make up for scaling desease resist iin the endgame
- Add a kind of debuff or stress increase to avoid spamming this skill

i have got three approaches for you to rebalance this skill

Approach I

This is a straight forward change to the skill.
Remove the initial heal, but make the regeneration aspect a 100%.
Lower the duration and increase the heal per tick sightly.
On this way you have the vestal as a reliable "on the moment" healer
And the Acolyte as a pure Reg healer, making him high risk high reward.

Approach II

To compensate for the stress heal by crits and avoid spamming
you could add a chance to get stressed by this skill.
Alternativly this skill could reduce torchlight, this would also increse the stress and provides you a way to manipulate light levels.
The overall damage boost of the team provided through camping skills would be reduced ocasionally.

Approach III


This is a more design oriented approach.
When you consider that Blight/Bleed is a kind of counter to REG because heal over time and Damage over time complement each other you can add a -Bleed and -Blight Debuff on the Skill.
In the turn afterwards you can either project this debuff via the "Focused Ray" skills to an enemy or you can channel the Regs via Focused Regeneration. So you have two combos your skill lead into.
Designwise it woul be the snake posion, making the blood thinner.
In combination with the suggestion of adding blight to snake bite, the tranfer of blight resist would make up a combo.
It also increases combo potential with other blight classes and classes that buff blight resist to counter this effect, incresing his support characteristics.
Also remember to adjust the sickness scaling with level




Cool combo with the overall Reg synergy .
This adition to the kit feels like a good way to apply a single trget heal or shift accumulated regs between different heroes. Alltogether a nice skill.

I feel this skill is well balanced. at first glance i thought it compromises the Plague doctor but the fact that it has no 100% chance of healing bleed blight makes out for this.

2&3)

Well balanced Skill , nothing to say at all


Since this threat gets to long to post it i continue on the next commentary

Oh my god. That's a huge suggestion there, thanks a lot!

1.4 update:
lowered crit on Arrow Shot
lowered crit on Snakes Bite but added blight to it
increased chances of restoration on Regenerate (aoe dot heal)
lowered DOT heal duration on all restoration abilities
added blight resist debuff to all restoration abilities

I reditet my post. It is now more readable and i added a stat table to the first skill wich does not compromise class balance and still provides large bonuses when at the right light level.

Currently working on Part II

1) Feeling

My favourite skill in the game right now, even considering other class mods.
This opens up soo much combo potential and variety . A redeeming and unique quality of this class.
This skill allows you to feel combos of single classes without getting interuptet like using a Buff on a leper and instantly striking. Or using a mark and getting the benefit right away.
Ever wanted a double blight tick instantly, so get it .

But maybe the most broken skill in the game at the Moment .

2) The issue with the Skill

By giving a hero an extra action by sacrificing his own action the Acolyte essentially copies a hero.
This means the acolyte is a healer and in addition to this any other role in the game for the sacrifice of one skill slot, an action and a debuff.


Speed is kind of a heavy hitting debuff but on this skill there are 2 scenarios in terms of speed.
Since the speed roll happen at the beginning of the turn, the debuff doesn't change the targets position in the action order . There can be 2 scenarios

1st. using the skill on a target with lower speed.

Example I:

My healer aka the Acolythe can't heal anything and the enemy backline is dead so i cant shot with the powerful arrows.

My frontline damage dealer wich usually acts last like the Leper or the Crusader didnt do their action yet.

I overcharge my Leper granting him an aditional action aka making the acolyte a copy of the Leper. My Acolyte is now technically a high damge frontlin damage dealer despite the fact i brought him as backline healer.
or
I overcharge my Crusadder and my Acolythe is now a stunner/stress healer despite the fact he doesn't inherit the ability to stun or stress heal naturally.

A speed debuff is aplied to the slow class.

the slow(er) class begins their action (usually last) and consumes the first stack of the debuff
it was not affacted by the debuff at all.
the slow class acts again consuming the last stack of teh debuff.
nobody was affected by any debuff at all.

2st

Example II:

My High speed highwayman opens the turn. I use an ability like point blank shot etc.
The also high speed acolyte acts after the highwayman.

I overcharge my highwayman. My acolyte becomes the copy of a high crit damage dealer with bleed and mark synergies, despite the fact he doesnt inherit this ability.
The debuff is apllied.

Since turn order doesnt change, the Highwayman acts again.
He consumes the first stack of the debuff, not affected at all.
I use Duelist advantage bringing the Highwayman into the first position, so he can point blanck shot again in the next turn.
Highwayman enters riposte before (most of the enemys ) can act.

In the folowing turn my highwayman is affected by the debuff and acts later. This is actually not bad because he is riposting the whole turn.

Summary

The debuff only applies to faster targets, by the exchange of granting them an instant action this turn. The debuff is even less considerable on higher levels because it diminishes with levels

Now to the stress healing part of the skill.
In the worst case the hero gets a small amount of stress.
In the best case the Hero even gets stress healed wich is a uniue and valuable ability by itself.

sometimes both effects trigger and the stress amount is negated or slightly shifted into one direction due to stress increse/decrese effects or the light level.

3) Suggestions

The skill in its current state is gamebreaking.
The idea of a skill granting an aditional action to a hero is genious though. This could be possible tweaks.

- diminish the acesability of the skill by limiting its battle uses (2-3 suggested)
- diminish the acesability of this skill by inflicting stress to the target or atleast remove the stress heal component
- Make the Debuff last atleast 3 rounds so the target will suffer the debuf penalty even if its faster
- Also apply a debuff to the Acolyte, a speed penalty on a healer is much more punishing, and the debuff can be projected via focused Rays( opens a combo)
- Aplly a 3 rounds DMG and/or ACC debuff to the target, so high damage options are not as exploitable.
The - ACC variant makes thhis a high risk high revard skill, the -DMG variant prevents high dmg exploits

I personally would suggest the following change:

- Double the amount of inflicted Stress
it makes stress healing scenarios possible but less likely and creates synergy between Acolyte and stress healers because they get more beneficial with a stress inflicting class.
It prevents the overuse of the skill on one and the same character.

- Limit the Uses per battle to 3
so you can technically overcharge each hero once or overcharge the same hero more often by the price of risking high stress.

- Apply the debuff to the acolyte and the Target, prolong the duration on the target to 3 rounds, to avoid scenario 1, also opens up comboo with Concetrated Ray

Also apply one of this debufs bes on design choice:
- 50% Dmg to not exploit high dmg combos

or

- Accuraty (amount needs to be tested between 30 and 15)
- to make this a high risk high reward skill

3) Alternate Suggestion

You can view this skill as a Hypercharge mode exhasting the user but granting the reciever more strenght while hypercharged.

- Stuns the Acolyte for 250% Stun at lower levels and 200% at later levels
(so i could be resisted sometimes with items or buffs)
- Inflicting stress on the Acolyte

- Buffing the Target for a certain amount of ACC and DMG
- (Maybe) reducing some stress to the reciever

Essentially the Acolyte channels his Energy to empower his ally for a single aditional move, getting exhausted and stressed doing so, being unable to move next round.
Gameplaywise you invest 2 rounds of the Acolity for 1 empowered round.
This is much less overpowered in terms of the strenght the aditional action mechanic provides.



1) Feeling

Very unique skill, well complemented by the animation of the ritual sign.
Feels a bit weird to transfer the regeneration buff to the enemy aswell.
Sometimes i cant use the skill because i dont want debufs to dissapear from other enemys, wich feels a bit weird.
It is possible to prolong the lifetime of the last skill with this, but enables infinite stalling on normal enemys if you heal them enough.
It would be cool with some self debuff synergies to open up combos.


2) Stats

Pretty solid statwise. Feels well rounded

3) Suggestions

- remove the ability to transfer healingifs possible
- the chance of transfering all efect is a bit high on lower levels

3) Alternate Suggestion

Remove the ability to transfer debuffs from anyone instead give the skill another benefit.
I often find myself unabling it because its to situational and steals my own regens.
Maybe it could increse torchlight or mark the target/ lower his Dodgeor Acc because it gets hit by a lot of light aka get blinded or better to see.
The mark mechanic would strenghten the support characteristic of the Acolyte (like the occultist can mark without using it)


You did an amzing work with that. This skill is super creativ and well programmed (despite the game crashes sometimes after i cast it). It is nice from a lore perspective, creating an ilusion.
Itcool mechanicwise, to use damage ablities to get heals on specific characters.
It opens gameplay depth by blocking character slots for the enemys, and it look freaking amazing.
The limited uses relly stress out the characteristing of beiing an ultimate Ability.

2)
I find the skill super cool and it may be a bit overpowered. The fact that the debuff lasts for 3 rounds is a bit hard. Sometimes the debuff stacks so often , that none of the enemys never hit me ever again, maybe a bit to much for what it provides.
In combination with the heal projection of projected light the end of a battle can be stalled for ever and so the skill could be exploited to in every dungeon by stalling out every fight at ease

3)

- increase the light it provides, so that it could potentially change the light levels (maybe 20 light)
- decrease the buff duration or decrease the buff value, to prevent way to heavy stacks


Thats about my class review, don't view this as a rant. I spent sseveral hours playytesting aan comparing your class and writing this down.
I hope you red up to this point.
If u need further suggestions or help in playtesting yourr class feel free to contact me.
I apreciate your worf and find it one of the best class mods out there. Im looking forward to updates and more mods from you.

CarnifexX

I usually don't like coming to discussions to complain but this is constructive criticism after all.
For starters I'm not going to refer to your character as a she because in Dark Souls it's a he so I'm going to be using that quite a bit if anybody is "triggered" while reading this please remember where you are.

-Don't get me wrong I enjoyed your character when he first came out but I have to be frankly honest I only used three of his skills. Overcharged, Mirage, and restoration.

-First Mirage got changed so I couldn't actually just some in it the first turn and then just go to healing and overcharge for the rest of the fight because you took away the blight.

-then you change the restoration so the healing wasn't as good and I can't use them as a primary healer or a secondary healer anymore. Not to mention that Mirage can't blight so I can't even use him for ruin or Cove runs anymore.

-overcharge is basically all I really use and it feels a bit wrong because it doesn't feel right having a character there if I'm only going to use one move. Even the nun gets to use at least three out of four of her skills and that's just backline stun and healing with a little bit of damage if you need to.

now before people try to tear into me I might as well go ahead and state the obvious. Your character is based off of Dark Sun gwyndolin. That guy was to tell you the truth a push over if you knew what you were doing. However when you did slip up he could easily destroy you. Now I understand you want your character to be as balanced as humanly possible but let's be fair if you were to stick to the source material from Dark Souls he would be extraordinarily powerful.

If you look at his move said he was nothing to gawk at if he caught you.
Arrow spread could gun you down
Orb spread shot orbs at home in on enemies
Spear shot which basically a magical rail Cannon

Now before I finish I have to say I have to say it again or people will miss take this but I enjoy your character and I understand if you want him to be balanced but you have to give him some lead way against certain enemies.

The one thing I wish you would do is in some ways hold a ballad and really think about what you can do to make him extremely strong and one area but critically weaken in another because Gwendolyn was powerful at long range and can easily overtake you at a distance but sucked up close when you fought him in Dark Souls.

There we go I said my piece but I will return.
Also I'm at work so I can't really go into stat detail like I would but you get the idea and have a great day.

So I want to like this class, but here's my only gripes and suggestions. The heals are good... but if you're going to apply a blight debuff, why not remove the sun blessing disease. I find that other healers are better and easier to use because there's far less risk to other heros. Just my two cents I suppose. I like the class, I just dislike the disease you might get from healing, is all.

Yeah, very reasonable. After all those rebalances made to heals the disease is not necessary anymore

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