3 Step Program for Better Nex Mex

[Kylestien]

Now, I've seen a lot of people say Nex Mex is not worth it, with some of it's insane debuffs later on the line, the difficulty of it's skills to level up ETC. Now, if nerfs to the worse debuffs were to be considered, I'd be a happy guy, or a way to get rid of them even, but I agree with something Jick said ( though I agree VERY reluctently): there's got to be a cost to Nex Mex. And, rather then merely suggest "Oh get rid of debuffs" I think I might have a idea that allows the powerful debuffs to stay, while making them "Worth it" to others

I think Nex Mex's weakest point is the summon skills. Not the skeletons themselves, those guys are buff, but the fact there is no way to increase how many of the items you can hold at a time. You can hold 3 bones for example with the right perk. This is a weakness, at least the way I see it. I'd suggest moving the perk to a upgradable area and giving it a decent amount of upgrades, like 1 point allows you to add 2 more up to five points or even seven points.

The second thing is this: Generaly, Dark Magics are an easy way to power often abused. So capitalise on that. Make upgrading Nex Mex skills a lot cheaper then normal skills. And then (MAYBE) buff some of them or add more upgrade points to them. If they are cheaper then normal skills, and more powerful then normal skills, and the summons can be upgraded to hold more bones, people will be more tempted to give in to fark powers at the cost of debuffs. Hell if you add all of this you might even be able to get away with making the debuffs more deliberating!

TLDR: 3 Step program to better Nex Mex:
1: Allow Upgrades to amount of bones held
2: Less cost to skill upgrade
3: Make them stronger then normal skills or have more upgrade points at least.
4:(If Jick and gang are feeling evil that day: power up debuffs to compensate)

[Dark Thunder]

Yeah, as a Beanslinger/Necromancer, there's actually little reason to use the Necromancer attack skills most of the time. For example, Favalava vs. Grinning Skull, both maxed, do the same damage for the same AP cost, but Favalava sets them on fire on top of it, and more enemies are resistant (or even immune) to Spooky than are to Hot. Rain of Teeth is only marginally better than Great Northern Blizzard (30 vs 25), and, again, fewer enemies are resistant to Cold damage.

And there's frequently no reason to use the summons, either, particularly the Skeletal Buddy, who is useless past the early game except maybe as a meat shield (so to speak). Maybe the three summon Perks should become upgradable Skills instead.

Maybe the debuffs could be part of the spells themselves, and "upgrade" along with the spell effects. (I'm not entirely sure how that would work, though, and they probably shouldn't be that much worse than they are now when maxed out. Necromancers are pretty fragile as it is)

[Asymmetric]

(The summon skills silently upgrade themselves, fwiw... Might be worth re-checking them once you've learned a bunch of Nex Mex...)

[Dark Thunder]

Well, as I said elsewhere, they do upgrade, but the Buddy is always much worse than the other two. (Despite being a front-like melee fighter, his Myst was much higher than his Muscle, and his HP was lower than the Thrall or the Gunslinger)

Is that intentional?

[Asymmetric]

Huh. Buddies should always have more Muscle than other stats. Their HP is lower than the other two because they are the weakest of the three (the gunslingers being the strongest)... By their third tier of power, they seem quite potent to me? Maybe you haven't seen them at that level?

[Kylestien]

Originally posted by Asymmetric:

(The summon skills silently upgrade themselves, fwiw... Might be worth re-checking them once you've learned a bunch of Nex Mex...)

May I ask how that works please? It might help people like Nex Mex more if they know how it works a bit more, and I'm pretty sure it does not count as spoilers or anything.

[Asymmetric]

Wellllll, it's definitely spoilers, but sure. As you acquire more Nex Mex skills, all of your skeletal summon skills become more powerful.

1-3 skills = Tier 1
4-6 skills = Tier 2
7 skills = Tier 3

[Kylestien]

Originally posted by Asymmetric:

Wellllll, it's definitely spoilers, but sure. As you acquire more Nex Mex skills, all of your skeletal summon skills become more powerful.

1-3 skills = Tier 1
4-6 skills = Tier 2
7 skills = Tier 3

I know this might a long shot, but are there more then 7 skills, or is it safe to sell any Nex Mex Books after that? Also, while I'm glad they do scale Unless the 7th skills allows you to summon more I still think I have a point on one or two of these such as how many bones you can hold at a time. I think it would be a lot more fun if you could upgrade the amount of skletal bones and stuff you can hold even if the saling stays the same.

[Kylestien]

Originally posted by Asymmetric:

Wellllll, it's definitely spoilers, but sure. As you acquire more Nex Mex skills, all of your skeletal summon skills become more powerful.

1-3 skills = Tier 1
4-6 skills = Tier 2
7 skills = Tier 3

No idea if quoting puts this on your notifications or not, but I'm gonna mention my main issue with Nex Mex is not so much the power, but rather the limit on how many summon items you can hold at a time. If you are anything like me, you don't want to use one of those 3 summons because when you use all three you need to go into the menu, ensorcel 3 more, and then you do it again, and after a while using the menu a bunch of times to just enchant 3 bones is a right pain. It makes sense from a dark forbidden secret idea that you can't make as many as you like, but from a gameplay perspective only being able to carry 3 at a time is a pain since you need to ehchant more each time you use even one.

[Dark Thunder]

Originally posted by Asymmetric:

Huh. Buddies should always have more Muscle than other stats. Their HP is lower than the other two because they are the weakest of the three (the gunslingers being the strongest)... By their third tier of power, they seem quite potent to me? Maybe you haven't seen them at that level?

I'm definitely at Tier 3, with all seven skills. I just summoned three Buddies in a fight, and their stats were 43/67/41, 43/66/41, and 43/67/36. The Gunslinger I summoned in the same fight had stats of 44/71/63, so Myst is the highest stat for all three Skeleton types, instead of their appropriate stat. I don't think that's right. Do their stats scale with the character's? (She's a Beanslinger, with 6/11/6 base stats and 92/108/76 adjusted stats)

[Asymmetric]

That is sooooper weird. I'll have to look into it, cause that doesn't match my tests at all!

[Moxie]

Originally posted by Asymmetric:

That is sooooper weird. I'll have to look into it, cause that doesn't match my tests at all!

I can second what Dark Thunder was saying. On a related note, the screenshots for West of Loathing's store page don't match up with the gameplay, considering it shows the character holding more than 3 of a necro summon item, which is something that doesn't seem possible in the actual game.