I haven't gotten much practice with her yet, but my first impressions after getting a few Levels with her is my surprise to see that her Abilities actually scale extremely poorly with added Levels. Such as the lack of +5 ACC on her Offensive Abilities per Level, heck, even the +ACC Vs Marked scales very little.

Kinda makes her overly dependent on +ACC Trinkets, especially in the Mid and Late-Game.

I will give a more overally detailed report when i get more experience, but it seems like the thing that sticks the most to me right away. Poor Ability Scaling.

But i've always liked the idea of a Fencer-type of Class, so i appreciate the work that's been done here! Keep it up nontheless!

Thanks for you feedback,

Note that the ACC is not scaling because i wanted the riposte to have improved ACC according her levels. But the riposte is on the move skill, that cannot be upgraded. To manage to do that, i was forced to put ACC bonuses on the weapons ; that means she gains 5 ACC per weapon level, so the skills won't scale.
Also the ACC against marked is flat and won't scale.

This aside, please tell me which skill is not scalling enough to you.

Ah i see, that was a detail that had passed by me. But in that case, why not just make the Riposte "unmissable" or at least a ludicrously high ACC like 100+ so you wouldn't have to make such a roundabout way to balance her?

It's a bit of an issue, since that means she mainly scales from the Blacksmith instead of the Guild which has been the case for every single Hero, Class Mod or not until i've played to this point, and while that could be seen as a good thing, it does make her harder to balance around it as the player would need to upgrade the Blacksmith in order to actually improve the Thorn moreso than the Guild itself.

Considering she is designed around her Riposte, i feel it wouldn't be too weird that she hits her targets with pin-point Accuracy better "in-response" rather than "pro-actively" striking enemies.

As for the Abilities themselves, i haven't played her much as of yet due to her extremely recent release, but by checking the database and her documents i should be able to tell from my own long experience of playing Darkest Dungeon. +1000 Hours in total somewhat accurately.

"Thrust": Probably the best Ability in her kit. Solid damage vs Marked in Offensive Mode. Despite being in Defensive Mode, this Ability does inflict a surprising amount of damage, maybe even a little "too high". I'd call it superior to the Abomination's "Shackles" if it weren't for the low ACC.

"Single Out": It's a flexible Marking Ability with various uses. It's Debuff is sub-par at most however, with practically no scaling outside of the chance of Debuffing. It could use a slight more oomph to it, even if extremely little as it does not need anything else.

"Wilt": It struggles a little compared to her other Abilities, but it is passable that works really well with Bleed-composition Teams, but that's where it's only use is in really. Other than that, it's damage on the primary target is a bit too low for my own taste.

"Gash": The more Bleed oriented version of Thrust that which then makes the Riposte Bleed. I like it. Definitely my second choice outside of Thrust against enemies susceptible to Bleed effects. It's a little limited due to the Thorn needing to be in Offensive Mode first to use it, means that it's quite slow.

"Dare": This Ability is a little contradictory to her playstyle. The use is to empower her Offensive Ripostes and Unmarking your own allies. While that is all well and good, it's Buff disappears very quickly and quite frankly, i feel she shouldn't lose DODGE when she is using it as she is more like "Taunting" enemies into making a mistake, meaning she should be more "prepared" for their attacks. The Move Forward 1 is nice if she gets in Position 3 but hampers her using "Wilt", "Blossom" and "Hearken" meaning it's not a move i want to use in Position 2. Also, it requiring first being in Offensive Mode to use it makes it inflexible.

"Blossom": Definitely one of her strongest Abilities. In Guard-composition Teams or as an independent Self Heal + Buff it stands out as a really strong Ability.

"Hearken": In my opinion, her worst Ability. Not that it is bad functionally, but it definitely has the worst scaling in the game on par with the Shieldbreaker's "Serpent's Sway". While it is intended as a Guard + No-Damage (But Marking) Riposte with a slight Stress Heal attached on it, it scales really bad with Levels as it doesn't even make the Ability better on certain Levels.

That is all i can say in a moment's notice as of right now, i'll cover my thoughts on her Camping Abilities or any other potential things i can come across some other time. I've yet to find most of her Trinkets anyway! Peace!

Eyh thanks a lot ;

Concerning the riposte, I agree overall, but I'm not sure it's a big issue. It would be worst to have a 105 ACC base riposte I think, too OP for early lvls.


Thrust : agreed, will keep an eye on the defensive dmg output. It has been designed to be better than shackles on untagged targets, better on marked ones. The offensive thrust is good, but i don't find it op at all.

Single Out : I need more testing to consider to increase the debuff amount. Will keep that in mind tho.

Wilt : agreed again, I like it but it might need some upgrade, considering you need to be in offensive stance to use it. Will think about it.

Dare : to me, it's a risky move, to strike heavily her oponent. That's why you got -10 Dodge, and also you have more chance to get back to defensive (it's more difficult to do, requiers more focus). Still, I agree it's very limitating in term of position, i might open wilt to rank 1, maybe hearken too.

Hearken : scaling wise, I agree. It's still a very good skill on champ level, don't you think ? Even if it's not really needed to upgrade it. Well, I might have a way to make it scale better.

Thanks again

Upon further deliberation, i've played her a little more to understand your reasoning and her strengths so i figured i'd leave my surmissions and recommendations for her adjustments, whether they are Buffs or Nerfs. This is just my completed list of suggestions, take and piece what you like from it! But my reasoning behind these changes are to help smooth out the Thorn's gameplay mechanics while simultaneously remain as balanced and true to her fantasy as possible.

-Base Stats-
Recommended Buff: All Attack-related Abilities now gains +5 ACC for each Level they are upgraded with, up to +20 ACC at Level 5.
Recommended Nerf: Weapon Upgrades no longer provide +0/5/10/15/20 ACC.
Reasoning: With this change, all of her Abilities will gain the standard +5 ACC when they are Leveled up to help making her experience smooth and easy and not tie her usability as tightly to the Blacksmith as compared to the Guild itself. Other than that, her other Statistics are perfectly reasonable.

-Combat Ability-

"Fencer Stance"
Recommended Buff: Riposte Base ACC is now 100. Defensive Mode SPD Penalty reduced from -10 to -8.
Recommended Nerf: N/A.
Reasoning: Since her main gimmick is her Riposte, i conducted a thoughtprocess of whether or not the Riposte itself should be Unmissable or not. While i personally think there are many more broken mechanics to unmissable Ripostes, giving it a set ACC is a safe bet. 100 seems appropriate as it is about the expected ACC of a fully Leveled Skill, meaning it misses seldom. The slight reduction of the SPD Penalty is to encourage switching back to Defensive manually when you want to use another particular Ability without making her too slow in line.

"Thrust" (Name changed to "Gash". Alternative: "Slash".)
Recommended Buff: N/A.
Recommended Nerf: N/A.
Reasoning: I decided to revoke my previous statement of reducing the Defensive Mode DMG on "Thrust", mainly because of it's considerably poorer ACC and Range Limitations compared to the Abomination's "Shackles" Ability. It should be fine the way it currently is. The name change is to make more sense with the visual animation of the Ability as it is neither a Thrust or Stab between both Offensive and Defensive Mode and moreso like a slash, hence the change.

"Single Out"
Recommended Buff: Both Debuffs now scale 5/6/7/8/10 instead of 5/5/7/7/10.
Recommended Nerf: N/A.
Reasoning: This change helps smooth out her Leveling of the Ability without making it stronger at the end, all in all, a smoother transition in improvement between Levels.

"Wilt"
Recommended Buff: DMG Mod increased from -80% to -60%. Launch changed from OOOX to XOOO
Recommended Nerf: N/A.
Reasoning: This Ability as mentioned struggles compared to her other Abilities and compares itself relatively similar to the Houndmaster's "Hound's Harry" Ability which is a Party-Wide Low Damage + Low Bleed Attack. This increase in individual damage should help offset the overall loss of momentum of damage the Thorn could have dealt by using another Ability and makes the Ability more enticing to use to finish off a Low HP enemy while dealing damage to everything else. The Launch was changed to also make sure it doesn't conflict together with her "Dare" Ability.

"Gash" (Name changed to "Perforate")
Recommended Buff: N/A.
Recommended Nerf: N/A.
Reasoning: For the same reason as the name change of "Thrust". A gash is typically for slashing methods and this Ability animation-wise is more like multiple stabs. Which should make the word "Perforate" more appropriate in visually speaking terms. Ability-wise, this Ability is about just right in balance to differentiate it from "Thrust" or newly named "Gash".

"Dare"
Recommended Buff: Now also increases Riposte ACC by +0/5/10/15/20.
Recommended Nerf: N/A.
Reasoning: My first impression was to just suggest increasing the Duration of this Ability by another Round, but with the slight adjustment to Riposte itself, i figured it should just add some ACC to it since due to the Loss of ACC from the Weapon Upgrades themselves, hence making it more worthwhile to use as it'll help landing those Ripostes more accurately.

"Blossom"
Recommended Buff: N/A.
Recommended Nerf: N/A.
Reasoning: A perfectly reasonable Ability that has various uses outside of being just an independent Self Heal. There is little to no adjustments needing to this Ability, if any at all.

"Hearken"
Recommended Buff: Stress Heal now scales 3/4/5/6/7 instead of 4/4/5/5/6. Riposte ACC Penalty now scales down with increased Levels from -30 to -30/25/20/15/10.
Recommended Nerf: N/A.
Reasoning: With Riposte changes and being the Thorn's worst scaling Ability, i inclined to make these adjustments to amend those issues, with a more smooth scaling Stress Heal along with making the ACC Penalty to Riposte reduced with increased Levels to fix the fact the Weapon Upgrade no longer indirectly increases it.

That is all my suggested changes in total and through my own playtestings! Next time i will cover her Camping Skills in detail, stay tuned for that! And thanks again Mhnlo and BayBot for an excellent Class Mod and showing us you're among the top dogs! Peace!

The class is nice, but some things make no sens imo.

Her 2 melee skills having 70 ACC, range skills having 95 ACC and all her skills can ignore stealth ?
If she can locate hidden mobs, her aim should be good enough to hit them in melee...
She should either can't see anything and have the same low ACC for all her skills, or she has a daredevil-like vision and 95 ACC for all her skills.

Hearken and the -30 ACC just make the skill useless, you won't hit ♥♥♥♥ mid/late game considering her poor base ACC on melee skills...

The camping skill hone senses giving her ACC while the torch is low, why ? She's blind, torch level shouldn't affect her ACC...(in french especially, as the skill name is translated to sharpened hearing(maybe an error?), it makes absolutly no sens to have a relation with torch level)

Dare skill, marking her and reducing dodge is just asking to die next turn, thus you can't use it. You can maybe change it to some sort of counter, take out the -10 dodge and give her an absorption, activate riposte with some damage buffs but with limited uses. You would need to make the absorption and riposte last until triggered,with maybe only 1 or 2 uses per fight, . She's provoking her enemy, so she knows the attack is coming and she's prepared to defend/counter attack

Wilt need a bit more clarity, it says other enemy but not wich enemy ? Maybe make it like an aoe skill in the description (o o o x / o-o-o-o and not o o o x / o o o o).

Her heal is really good, nothing more to say on it.

Losing one turn to change from defensive stance to offensive stance and going back to defensive stance immediatly cause you got hit feels awfull, and she can't move !
Why can't she move ? She can throw things with 95 ACC and see hidden mobs, but she can't take a step back/forward ?
She's supposed to be blind not crippled.
You could maybe do like Marvin Seo did for the falconeer and make the changing stance an optional skill that doesn't end your turn, and give her back some movement.

In the same idea, limiting some skills to one stance feels bad cause you waste a turn and it makes juggling between her skills a total pain, so either make fencer stance an optional skill that doesn't end your turn, or give her the abomination treatment and make 2 entirely separate skill set, one for offensive stance and one for defensive stance.

If she gets pushed back to rank 4 and doesn't have wilt or dare, she's just dead weight as she can't move forward and makes you waste 2 character turn to get back her to a usefull position.

While her damages are pretty good, she NEEDS mark AND riposte to be a decent character, without it she is really inferior to other.

As for being unable to disarm traps, i have no problem. Maybe you could give her some buffs to trap detection in compensation, as she would be more careful about her environment.

The art is very nice, the theme is awesome but i think she needs some tweaks.

@ Rhidlareh,

Good feedback, glad you didn't find too many things to change :)

- I will do these single out and hearken scaling rework pretty soon.
- SPD penalty to go to def stance should indeed go to -8 or -7
- Wilt will be improved, not sure how yet, and i'll keep in mind the position.

I'll also consider putting back the ACC scaling on her skills, and not on her weapon. Not sure about that yet :)

Thanks!

@Primary,

Thanks for your feedback. It's quite mixed up between gameplay and lore wise, so I'm going to try my best to answer you :)

- She's blind and so ignores stealth. But it's quite different to hear and locate an enemy and to be able to strike it, you'd agree. That's why she has high accuracy on her ranged skills, and low on melee ones, with bonus on marked (localized) targets for her direct strikes. Same goes for the riposte ; she thinks to know where her opponent is going to strike her, and will parry and counter attack according her perception. Sometimes she fails... That make sense for me, and the character was built according this.

- Hearken is a very good skill imo. You may have noticed that the flat -30 ACC is compensated with her weapon ugrade. Average dodge stat for monster is about 25 to 30 at champ level. She has 85 base accuracy on her riposte, -30, +20 from her weapon. That mean 75 against 25, so 50% chance to hit.
Because this skill guard an ally, you can consider that half enemy attacks will provoke a riposte. that mean a probability of 1 tag per round. Plus guarding avantages, plus stress heal, and on top of that, if you're using ACC trinkets, I can garantee you'll have a lot of marks.

- Hone senses is indeed badly translated to french, I'll fix that, thanks for reporting. We changed a few things lately... The skill itself is party wide, and I agree that PRE make no sense appart just focusing, which is the role of this skill.

- I get you for dare. Now I clearly think a block would be OP on that (you have the COM trinket for this ;) ), and the mark is NOT a malus effect. Lots of enemies tend to focus marked heroes, so you're clearly improving your chances to use your riposte, with very high damage. Also, concerning the dodge malus, I think it makes sense : it's a risky move. Yes she knows the enemy is coming, but also she want to perform a difficult parry to give a fatal blow. Balance side, it's a risky but powerful move (45+ dmg crit riposte xD), and because she already has a good base DEF, if you want to play a lot with this skill, maybe you should use specific trinkets.

- Wilt says 'Other EnemieS', so you're striking one, and bleed the otherS. I agree it's quite rare (not a vanilla move), but i think it's clear - i'll see if other people complain about that. Yet, it's definitely not an full aoe, the goal is to change your target next round, or use gash.

- I'll regroup the rest here : I understand that the Thorn could be RNG and frustrating. I'm hoping that the trinket choice will help to decide how much you want to take risks. This char is clearly a slow, powerful hero when played in an offensive way. It's not possible to make instant transformation considering her actual balance, if I want to keep it fair.
She can't move because she has a very versatile role, and I wanted her to be dependent on other heroes in some way. It was cleaner in order to use her stance change on the move skill too. So I guess it makes sense, but I need to tweak some skills positions as said before (maybe dare / wilt).
She needs indeed mark and riposte, but have plenty of that ! Also I don't want to make every skill available. It's too common, and for me it's really limitating in term of strategy. I was tired of using transformation characters with only two valuable skills. Here you have to make some choice, what DD is composed of for me.


I know these explanations could make you feel I didn't enjoy your comment, but it's definitely not the case. Don't hesitate to answer if you want. Thanks for your time writing this anyway :)

I haven't read all the above comments so if someone mentioned this woops

I'm not much of a fan of her stance change using her move, I think it would be better to do 1 stance change skill + the 2 dual stance skills and then 2 skill choices each for Offensive and Defensive for a total of 7 skills, or maybe make the Stance Change move 1 forward/pull 1 when you go into Offensive Stance and then back 1/push 1 when going into Defensive Stance (only activates when you use the skill, not when you're put back into Defensive after a riposte in offensive) or something to give her an ability to move back for Wilt/Hearken/Blossom.

I also really hate the -ACC on Hearken. It would be a really unique and awesome ability if the Riposte ever actually hit the enemy, No damage and mark only is enough of a balance for it imo. The ACC penalty is too much imo.

@Stray,

Thanks for your comment,

For a long time in developpement, Thorn had one dedicated stance change skill just as you said, and it was ok. But the main issue overall is I wanted to have the 4 skills limit in order to make her more interesting to buid. And when you're selecting your skills, you couldn't have a "only defensive" or "only offensive" build with four dedicated skills. I personally prefer this solution, considering builds you can have.

I'll keep an eye on the push/ pull effect on stance, could be interesting (as said before I need to reconsider some very little tweaks about her positionning).

For hearken, let me just copy paste what I said before (I can't blame you for not reading this xD) :

Hearken is a very good skill imo. You may have noticed that the flat -30 ACC is compensated with her weapon ugrade. Average dodge stat for monster is about 25 to 30 at champ level. She has 85 base accuracy on her riposte, -30, +20 from her weapon. That mean 75 against 25, so 50% chance to hit.
Because this skill guard an ally, you can consider that half enemy attacks will provoke a riposte. that mean a probability of 1 tag per round. Plus guarding avantages, plus stress heal, and on top of that, if you're using ACC trinkets, I can garantee you'll have a lot of marks.

I may improve the hearken riposte ACC a bit tho.

Feel free to tell what you think

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond! :D

As for the stance skill, I think you might've misunderstood what I meant. I was thinking more like the Falconer class mod by Martin Seo, not the Abominiation/etc. You still choose 4 skills, 1 of which can be (or not I guess if you want a FULL defensive build) the stance change. Then there are the 2 dual-stance skills, and 2 skills each for defensive only and offensive only. That said, I do understand your stance (pun not intended but embraced) and I think a push/pull/movement on stance change [only when initiated by you] would give her an option to move backwards at least.

That sounds reasonable, but in my experience it just doesn't feel/work out (I know RNG and confirmation bias tho) that way. I think a little boost would help it feel better, but seeing your math/etc it does make more sense to me how it is set up :) EDIT: Managed to get my Thorn to max level and upgrade and it makes a HUGE difference. However, I feel like maybe the -ACC is too punishing at lower resolve levels that don't get the big +20 at max weapon

Cheers, I love this character, thank you for the effort you and Mhenlo put into making her!

I haven't tested her too much but she seems to have a problem. Since her accuracy does not scale at all per resolve level, she NEEDS +acc trinkets in higher levels to make up for the lack of accuracy. She scales poorly as a result. I think you should keep the +acc vs. marked the same and add accuracy scaling to her abilities so that they end up less than average but can be remedied with her opponents being marked.

Other than this, I do like the rest of her skills and how she works in battle. I will see what she can do in different comps and in endless.

Her weapon is giving her +5 acc per level, resulting in the same thing when fully upgraded, but allowing to boost her riposte acc too.

I've got crystal merc Thorn with really godlike quirks (Fated, Deadly and Evaisve) and unfortunately she has way too much negatives about her to make up for her strenghs. Can't move without Dare skill, very bad accuracy, 33% chance to lose the stance feels like 93% (my luck sucks) for above average damage output (still worse than Highwayman) and interesting support skills is not a good trade. And that was with both of her orange trinkets.

Why not just let her use all the abilities at once, like the Abomination or Dutchess from another great mod can?

I have to agree with @Hate Criminal here. The Thorn is at the moment kind of a roundabout way of a damage dealer compared to many other characters, she needs too much set-up for her payoff which isn't bad, but she is just incredibly slow in terms of "action-economy", meaning she needs too many actions made to be made good, and this is especially true when she is going from Defensive Mode to Offensive.

The Thorn does feel very Offensively flawed due to her needing to use a turn first before she can gain access to her Offensive Skills and with the chance of being immediately tossed back into Defensive Mode by sheer bad Luck doesn't help that factor.

My suggestion is to make her switch to Offensive Mode "not" cost any Action much like how she can go from Offensive Mode back to Defensive Mode and immediately gain an additional Action for that Round meaning she can get to use one of those Skills. Now, while this most likely requires nerfing the Offensive Skills a little bit, it should make her much more immediately useful and accessible in what her Offensive Abilities offer.

If you are concerned about it breaking her Riposte DMG Balance as she would get another action, maybe make it so that she gains a temporary -DMG on Riposte Debuff for 1 Round (aka her next Action) so she doesn't immediately become too oppressive. Which kinda makes sense with her round-wise. (Switch from Defense to Offense = Loss in DMG and Switch from Offense to Defense = Loss in SPD.)

My other issue with her is the fact she is "extremely" vulnerable to Movement-based Abilities as if she gets shuffled into the very back of the team and even Position 3 to some degree, she is essentially completely "stuck" there as she has literally no way of moving forward without "Dare" and even that Ability is restricted to Positions 3, 2 and 1. Even if it was made to be usable in Position 4, it wouldn't solve the Thorn's Movement issues and simply just forces the player into picking "Dare" as a must-pick just to fix her positioning.

Also, this is simply kind of a nitpick, but i'd also like the Thorn to have some more Abilities that can have various effects whether she is currently in Defensive or Offensive Mode. With all due respect, she is a fun and inventive type of Class, but in practice, she is not very practical compared to many other characters.