Remote Hack and Toxicologist

[mcy]

I've recently resumed playing JH after quite a while (I've been a fan of DoomRL since early days, and backed JH in KS; played in the past intermittently), and I very much enjoy the current state of the game. I've been doing a lot of Fated UV runs, and I enjoy variety in my games.

Thing is, Technician's Remote Hack and Toxicologist traits feel wrong to me. They are so effective (near-resourceless ways to deal with large sets of problems; and with the two combined, almost every problem for most of the game - which lets you to comfortably ramp up for all the rest) that I pretty much go for them with any build. On top of that, they fundamentally change the way game plays. Both criteria say Master trait to me.

(And I'd expect most folks to agree that Remote Hack + Wizard + Toxicologist is the most consistent build, or at least up there with some rare equivalents that I'd argue would be more item-dependent.)

I'd be happier to see Toxicologist become a Master trait, and take over Wizard's conversion of smokescreen to a cooldown skill; and Wizard take over the Remote Hack abilities. That way, the sets would be exclusive, and every optimal Technician build wouldn't have the same underlying structure.

Thoughts?

Note: If something has to go down, I'd say Blademaster or Sharpshooter; both of which I feel are inferior to the Tox+RH combo (i.e. given the choice between taking no Master trait and no combo, I'd go with taking the combo); and not particularly enjoyable/effective. I know firsthand that the game can be won with any Master trait, I'm just saying that some feel irrelevant.

[sylph]

I agree with you for unlimited-time difficulties, BUT:

Tox is not so dominant as to trivialise top difficulties.
Sure, I definitely agree that it makes lower difficulties pretty easy at a certain level of skill, but then any build can win there as you mentioned.

Honestly though, tox is a great skill, but nothing special later-on imo! (Good things lie ahead!?)

To elaborate : tech's definitely need a way to deal with getting trapped - toxicologist is one solution, hacker:1 is another, and grenadier is a third. Hell even juggler can do the job! Any of them help, but the incredibly dominant feeling of toxicologist falls off a ton on the higher difficulties; there just isn't enough time to use poison gas well.

On difficulties above UV, you might find that grenadier:2 does a better job than toxicologist for clearing crowds (and its not often possible to get both). Get hoarder for the inventory space for all those grenades, of course.
Alternatively, I sometimes build hacker and sysop and deal with the big mobs with information rather than AOE attacks.
But even when tox *is* the best choice, technician still feels behind marine and scout when enemies respawn, so while I can understand your concern, I suspect it will move elsewhere when you go above UV.


(as for remote hack - I never found it that great... It certainly helps fill in the holes of toxicologist in UV, but outside of that niche, I rarely find it worth taking.)

Tldr: I agree for UV. There are understandable peaks and troughs at various levels, and Tox's advantage in UV and lower is definitely one such peak.

[mcy]

Originally posted by sylph:

It's not that good on top difficulties.
Sure, I definitely agree that it makes lower difficulties pretty easy at a certain level of skill, but then any build can win there as you mentioned, and different levels of player skills lend themselves to different master traits while somewhat new.

Honestly though, wizard is nothing special later-on. I promise! (Good things lie ahead!?)

To elaborate : sharpshooter and fireangel feel *much* stronger for tech skills 'up there'; in fact even entrenchment feels stronger... Even then, technician is almost certainly the weakest class, putting wizard really low on the rankings as we climb the skill ladder.

I suspect that you'll find that wizard + tox only feels OP at the lower end of the difficulty options. Sorry if I'm mistaken, and you're actually playing top difficulties... I just assumed based on your impressions 'so far', since it's the way I and many other players felt once. If you *are* playing at the top kevel, I'd love to hear more, because I don't see a lot of wizard wins on the high difficulties. (There is a HUGE gap between UV-, and nightmare+, imo)

Fair enough, guess I should move on to Nightmare then. Apparently, I'm wrong about my appraisal of Sharpshooter (I concur that Fireangel is powerful, and fun as well) - and I'll give that a fair shot rather than be in my comfort zone. And for the record, I did not yet play Apocalypse or Inferno.

As for Wizard, it is rather weak on its own, and that's why I suggest moving Remote Hack into it - the problematic bit for me is converting smokescreen to cd, which enables the resourceless playstyle.

[sylph]

Wizard is crazy-strong on UV and below when combined with tox, imo.

As for sharpshooter - it didn't used to be that strong, it's definitely the (somewhat) recent change to have it refresh headshots that upped it to compete with fireangel.

And yeah, the jump from UV to nightmare is a biggie! I think we all drop back down to UV from time to time for a 'relaxation' experience!

As for apocalypse and inferno - I haven't managed to beat them with all master traits ; they definitely feel like they 'limit' play to only the best builds, but nightmare is in a great place currently (albeit easier with some builds than others, and remote hack + tox tech's are certainly on the lower end for me, so if they work for you there, post your wins!)

[mcy]

Originally posted by sylph:

Wizard is crazy-strong on UV and below when combined with tox, imo.

We agree on that. Actually that is where this thought was coming from. And for the record, when I mean resourceless, I mean that the only resource you need is time, and with the time pressure of NM+, it does become less of an exploit. I'll need to see how exactly it works for myself still.

Originally posted by sylph:

As for sharpshooter - it didn't used to be that strong, it's definitely the (somewhat) recent change to have it refresh headshots that upped it to compete with fireangel.

I guess I was prejudiced with my earlier times playing with it; I was never that fond of pistol builds except the old bulletstorm - gunslinger marine that I had converged to back then (actually I'm glad that it was patched to be saner; and those changes were what I was thinking about when opening this thread), which made every other way to play with pistols.. icky.

Originally posted by sylph:

And yeah, the jump from UV to nightmare is a biggie! I think we all drop back down to UV from time to time for a 'relaxation' experience!

Again, I agree; I play DoomRL, and now JH as that relaxation experience. I play ADOM when I want to be thinking when I'm playing my roguelikes. That's why I didn't give Nightmare a serious enough try yet; and I have returned to JH just last week, so, yeah, fair enough.

Originally posted by sylph:

As for apocalypse and inferno - I haven't managed to beat them with all master traits ; they definitely feel like they 'limit' play to only the best builds, but nightmare is in a great place currently (albeit easier with some builds than others, and remote hack + tox tech's are certainly on the lower end for me, so if they work for you there, post your wins!)

Will do. Thanks for the answers! (I see you expanded your initial answer as well, I'll give some things a try, and maybe respond)

[sylph]

Oh wow... I play adom, but for me adom is the 'casual', relaxing roguelike and jupiter hell (and doomrl) are the 'major challenge' ones!
Even on lower difficulties, I find jupiter hell more 'tense' actually! Adom is a real relaxing stroll for me. I always thought it was just a relaxing game, but maybe it's because I've been playing it for over 20 years! 😂
Or maybe you're just a JH natural.

[mcy]

Originally posted by sylph:

Oh wow... I play adom, but for me adom is the 'casual', relaxing roguelike and jupiter hell (and doomrl) are the 'major challenge' ones!
Even on lower difficulties, I find jupiter hell more 'tense' actually! Adom is a real relaxing stroll for me. I always thought it was just a relaxing game, but maybe it's because I've been playing it for over 20 years! 😂
Or maybe you're just a JH natural.

Same here, I don't remember the exact time I picked it up, but I was playing it in 2005. The distinction in my mind is that these are action games as opposed to the deeper systems of the other. Kinda like Doom vs Daggerfall.

Cheers!