A Maxwell Skill Tree fanmade hurray

[Mr Giggio]

I - What do I want from this?

For the Maxwell skill tree I would like to see a true shadowmancer/wizzardry experience, following the steps throught the magic tab we already got going - its the right direction, a couple sparks here and there can improve it a bit but overall it got in a very good place after the rework alone.

II - What are the actual problems to improve?

Maxwell is probably the closest character to be “perfect” in my eyes since the rework, allowing it to be called just slight nitpicking when it comes to this regard - The control of the puppets can still be improved and magic in DST even tho is present since the beginning it can benefit from interactions, the whole shadow concept can shine throught this here.

                                                            III - Where could be a better place avoiding the BrOkEn Op Letdown?

Mains focus is in offer better fluidity for gameplay and not buffing numbers - as a matter of a fact I didnt went to raise anything but in the affinity, so.

 

Im not sorry for using Paint for this :V

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.: The Magician Tab:.

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1 - The rabbit on the hat:

If you put rabbits on the Magician’s top hat it will have a chance for them to turn out being Simon when takin it out the hat;

Personal take: Having a chance for it to happen instead of guaranteed is funnier because it gives control to Simon and not to Maxwell. Looks like their relationship falls into that category and its fun to dive in.

2 - Magic Wands

Wearing the Magician’s top hat makes that staves no longer consume sanity to cast spells.

3 - Dancing Rose

Contact with Shadow Dimension can convert petals into dark petals.

Personal take: Its into the Carter’s family so might as well.

4 - Heads or Tails

50% chance to consume half the durability of a staff if casted using the Magician’s Top hat.

Personal Note: I dont know how to feel about the Deconstruction staff in this one here. Having two ish uses more on a green staff doesnt look that bad to me but I can see people arguing it. Moving on.

5 - Is that your card?

Tag a card on the mobs and roll a chance to get the same you are holding. 

The deck can be acquired on the shop from the Lucky Rabbit. Last for 24 seconds and needs a card deck on inventory. It doesnt work on bosses. The cooldown on the skill is 6 seconds.

Effects:

1 - [75%] The Joker - Nothing

2 -  [5%] The King - It kills the target.

3 - [5%]The Queen - Spreads the effects on the card already got into everyone in the area.

4 - [5%]The Jack - It doubles the spawn of it

5 - [5%] The Ace - If it hits, doubles the loot of the drop 

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.: The Umbra Tab :.

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6 - Purge

Enables the Umbra a new skill in the center of the spell wheel, quickly despawning all the servants or duelists currently spawned by once. Each entity dismissed have a 5% chance of getting the nightmare fuel back.

 

Personal note: This makes nightmare fuel viability less of a struggle for newcomers that still didnt made their way to learn how to fight shadow creatures once its a learning curve alone. If they are new to the thing they can try the character without ruining the challenge of keeping the need to farm it. 

Insanity repels newcomers to try the character a lot. This can slightly reduce it. If you are lucky. 

7 - Perma Puppets

 Unlocks the possibility that keeps the puppets permanently following the caster, but the cost is four times more expensive than regular ones. Perma puppets have the option to be toggled on/off if they should mine or fight.

 8 - Efficiency Improved

Makes servants slightly more effective to work - giving Pick/axe in the craft for the upgrade. Only work for PermaPuppets

9 - The Void Bond

Void set matter for planar duelists bonus damage, transforming the numbers from bonus damage using shadow related equipment into planar if its void equipment.

10 - Blossom I, II and III

Feeding Pure Horror to Codex Umbra can affect the way the spells work - For shadow sneak the effect adds slow [like it already does to rooks but for all enemies], the area of the spell when triggered is twice as big and the drop for nightmare fuel on creatures change to Pure Horror instead [ work only for the interactions on rabbits, bunnymen and splumonkeys].

 

10 - Skill lv 1 - 10%

11 - Skill lv 2 - 50%

12 - Skill lv 3 - 100%

 

13 and 14 - Shadow Sneak Expansion I and II

Shadow Sneak can trigger new effects:

> bats will drop wings 100%;

> snurtles 75% of chance to drop the armor from both versions;

> Geothermites to 100% drop the Heat Gland;

> 10% butter from butterflies

> 10% Krampus sack from Krampii

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.: True Mage Tab :.

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15 - Magic Catalist:

Dropping Magician’s Top hat on the ground makes it fload and work like a Magic Tab tier I;

 

16 - Magic Enchanter:

Magician’s top hat allows to enchant gems fusing it in pure horror for crafts:

> Enchanted Crystalized Gem: 1 blue gem, 2 pure horror

> Enchanted Ignited Gem: 1 red gem, 2 pure horror

> Never-Endless Nightmare: 1 purrple gem, 2 pure horror

 

17 - Black Ice:

Chilled Amulet gives AoE Freeze damage aura when equipped, as efficient as Salty Staffs [x2 freeze factor]

 

18 - Umbra Zero:

You Can refuel the Enchanted Chilled Amulet with pure horror and it gives cold aura on the ground.

 

19 - Black Fire:

Enchanted Night Lights last thrice as much if fueled with pure horror.

 

20 - Umbra Flame:

Enchanted Fire Staves can be refueled with pure horror. Enchanted Ignited Gems do damage like Black Fire instead of regular fire and can be stacked up to three times. The fire damage is the same as regular Fire Staff.

 

21 - Hex:

Allows the caster to use Enchanted Telelocator Staves to put a hex on the enemy to leech his life during the effect, same effect as bat bats. 

 

22 - Never Endless Curse:

The staff  can be refueled with pure horror. Gives Insanity aura when dropped in the ground [can be reversed with beequeen crown]

 

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.: Affinitties :.

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23 - Dark Embrace I

Allows Max to enchant regular clothes and armor with nightmare fuel for level I on bonus damage for duelists for a minute;

 

24 - Dark Embrace II;

Allows Max to enchant for level ll with pure horror, 8 minutes.

Unlocks the craft of the Wendigo Mask, an upgrade of the Bone Helmet.

2 living logs and pure horror.

Wendigo Mask can be refuelable with living logs to restore durability and works same defense as void cowl.

 

25 - The Encore;

Charlie allows true passiveness towards Shadow creatures if using bone helmet regardless being from the nightmare cycle or not.

26 - Faint Flowers, Remained Scent;

Dark Roses on the shadow prison hex the enemies to nerf 25% of their damage.

[Neok1000]

Here's my opinions about this skill tree: 

1. Rabbit on the hat: the number of chances to spawn the lucky rabbit, which I think would results a rabbit king spawning, is quite vauge so I dont know how exactly useful that is. But even then, the rabbit king is quite a situational mob because of its trade cost ( the only item worth getting it the horn imo) and with it turning into rabid thing which can be easily triggered with meat inside, so the skill is meh.

2. Magic wands: The sanity cost arent really a problem imo. I guess it might be useful against ancient fuelweaver (blegh), but you have to be precise with switching your hat on and off.

3. Dancing roses: i guess, in a way, it's an early way to get nightmare fuel for maxwell without going insane, so I guess its fine? But for an “early” game skill, it would fall off pretty quickly.

4. Heads of tails: Tad bit broken op lel. 50% is too high, maybe lower it to 25%.

5. Is that your card?: I guess this skill made up for the first skill, if what I guess is that it unlocks a new trade for maxwell with the rabbit. Anyway I'll just rate the cards:

*joker: ok?
*king: target fatal kill on every mobs that aren't boss is really powerful. 
*queen: spread the effect of.. what? It said for everyone but the cards seem kinda only works on mob, unless I'm missing something here.
*jack: double the spawn of what? The card? Doesnt' that also make the joker spawns more often, which is quite bad?
*ace: why hitting a mob causes double the loot? Maybe it should be when killed, no?

6. Purge: 5% nightmare fuel drop when dispell them is quite niche. Also i think if klei add this it should be base kit and not a skill (Im looking at you winona)

7. Perma puppet: so what I’m understanding here its that the shadow puppets will be invincible at the cost of 400% max sanity. Sounds like its kinda intended for duelist, which means you can only have like, I guess 2 duelists while locking yourself at the lowest sanity threshold? This probably doesnt make a difference honestly cause duelist needs good shadow item to increase their damage, and those are locked behind late stage (tier 3-4), including the bone helm. Even if you can turn them on-off, the cost for the first permanent puppet is too high.

8. efficiency improved: slightly? Increase work efficiency at a cost of a pick/axe? seems meh. Also only works for perma puppets? I’m not sure how good those are...

9. The void bond: Uhh... I dont quite understand what it means..? But if is related to planar damage then i think it should be a separate skill tab.

10,11,12. Blossom 1,2,3: A 100% drop horror on lvl 3? Well I guess that would pure horror be more common early game *after defeating the nightmare werepig, which could help maxwell ( and others ) with accessable materials for  their shadow related crafts tree. However, I think it might causes maxwell and the team to climb up power too fast. Maybe lower the drop chance in lvl 3 to be 75%. 

13 and 14: Shadow Sneak enhancement I and II: the post doesnt specify what is lvl 1 and lvl 2 so I will assume here:
*100% for bat wings? Its okay.
*75% for snurtle amors? the 90% protection snurtle armor? Ehh too broken.
I guess this is lvl2 effect:
*100% for geothermite gland is well.. powerful, but okay.
*10% for butterfly: funny.
*10% on krampus: a bit broken, mighy be unnecessary i think.

15. Magic catalist: its a ok skill. I approved.

16. Magic enchanter: its a bit weird that you unlock a skill to craft those gems but you need another skills to use them? Maybe merge em?

17. Black ice: tad bit situational.

~18: is the cold aura chill enemies or help other player from overheating? If it chills enemis does that make em move or attack slower? If it also helps other survivors from overheating then its fine in summer, but prob not too much in a couple of seasons.

19. Black Fire: I dont know if I need to infused a gem craft for a immovable shadow fireplace that needs a pure horror to last longer.

~20. I dont really understand what this means? Is the black fire damage the same like regular damage but.. stacked? i don't get it sorry.

21. Hex: i guess its a good skill. Budget batbat.

~22. Insanity aura for.. what? I mean it works with cee queen crown but it requires killing her, which could be quite tedidous, but maybe could be good for multiplayer. Also works for maxwell to farm nightmare fuel or a way to turn off enlightenment, but doesn't his spell lower his sanity already? Also shadow sneak is a thing.

Affinities:
23. dark embrace 1: enchant on other clothes for tier 1 shadow… for a minute? A bit weak for an affinity skill honestly.

24. Dark embrace 2: upgrade the previous skill to be able to enchant item to higher tier and make it lasts a day (okay). I guess in a way it helps clothing items have more combat ultility, but wouldn't that make maxwell more suspectable to damage? "But what about beefalo?" ehh again its moreso about the "beefalo meta" and not the skill itself. But even without beef, I guess this part of the skill is niche.

Unlocking a mask to upgrade the fuelweaver helm (repairable and give 80% prot + planar defense I assume?) its great. Tho its only for increasing defense and not planar damage, which you kinda need in rift stage imo.

25. Encore: so.. while wearing bone helm, shadow mobs will not hit you even if you hit them back? why tho?

26. Faint flowers: cage enemies get nerf 25% damage… I think it good, but not really powerful. Some late game bosses like warbot prob is immune to it so eh. 

Conclusion: For what skills I wanted to pick for maxwell ( assuming I have ancient fuelweaver defeated for shadow affinity ), I would pick the following skills ( 15, 16 - for early magic craft, skill 21 ( budget batbat ); skill 1,2,3,4;  skill 10,11,12 and skill 13,14 ; skill 23,24, and prob a random skill like 9. I think the skill layout might need adjustment cause it looks too "wolfgang-y" so it doesn't really give like a versatile options for the player to pick. I would rate this skill tree a 6.5/10.

[BB Marioni]

Seems a bit too overwhelming.

Maxwell just needs a simple skill tree imho.

Im a fan of adding more utility than combat. The only combat he needs added is planar.

I like the idea of giving him a staff, but a shadow version of brightshade staff would be good enough.

I do think his hat should be something he will prefer wearing compared to other end game headgear, so maybe upgrading it to something with decent stats to wear would be nice, plus making it tier 3 shadow (maybe combining it with void cowl)

As for planar damage, I'll stand by my idea of him being able to summon a tanky version of the inkblight rasp, which despawns all his other shadow summons and drains his sanity continuously without any way to recover it, until it reaches zero and despawns the inkblight. It will act like a planar bernie of some sort for maxwell.

[Dr.Webber]

I think it would be cool if Maxwell had unique interactions with the creatures of the constant as it’s former king

For example, what if when he raises small birds when they grew up and into tall birds, they stay loyal or he has an item similar to the Lucky whistle or has some other way of taming hounds or maybe not even taming hounds maybe they just don’t Agro on him also I think it’d be cool if he was able to pull royal rabbit enforcers out of his hat that are loyal to him maybe you need the rabbit, King Cujo to do it or what if he could befriend shadows if he has the bone home on or what if he could make new creatures as well as a makeover to his spells alongside their upgrade with pure horror

Also, I think it makes sense for him to have two shadow alignments separate of the pure horror thing

[Jakepeng99]

Genuinly Maxwell is the only character i could see justified for a Wolfgang level skilltree (just not too much like it. But it shouldnt come with tons of brand new mechanics) because most stuff would feel like bloat since his kit is already complete. Like i dunno, add the ability for shadows to do sailing related things, let shadows use Maxwell's Closet, or a magician hat, and deposit matching resources in there when Maxwell isnt close enough so they can function offscreen better. The pure horror upgrades make sense for the planar nonsense he will need anyway. I like making rabbits and stuff drop pure horror. But maybe it could be changed to only work during the nightmare cycle in the caves for more active gameplay and strategies to avoid turtling. Stuff like the staff gimmicks and cards would feel like it would mess with what makes Maxwell a good character since they are unessisary and dont contribute to him well. He is very focused in a good way.