anti-Carnifex cheese

[harperfan7]

It's basically a "remove enemy from battle for 1 round" button that only costs like 10 AP.  I think there should be a melee attack check or something.

Let's compare that with psi buttons. "For 0 AP cost, all enemies are removed from combat for 3 turns oh and by the way your next attack against them is doubled lol" and you think taser needs nerfing?

Taser frankly does still need it, even if psi might need it more.  I've never used psi, personally, though I know how bullshit psi-using enemies can be.  They should exist out in the world, at least.

[MirddinEmris]

Taser frankly does still need it, even if psi might need it more.

I don't think so. Disabling an enemy for 1 turn once every 3 turns for 10 AP is useful, but not so powerful that you need to nerf it. Flashbang for example can disable a group of enemies for 3 turns once every 8 turns (and you can take two feats to make it 4 turns) for 15 AP and with shaded metal helmet you can just drop it under your feet with 100% accuracy. Both are very useful utilities that can help you to deal with tough situations, but neither is overpowered.

[ciox]

I think the stuns are pretty balanced in principle.

Taser: low AP cost, cannot miss, Fortitude Check
Dirty Kick: medium AP cost, can miss, no Fortitude Check
Electrokinesis: high AP cost, cannot miss, no Fortitude Check (or it's very hard to resist it)

However despite this intial appearance of balance, Dirty Kick kinda sucks though compared to a Taser for having lots of less obvious weaknesses:
- uses up a whole feat slot instead of a few skill points
- much bigger cooldown, no less than double, and very high quality infused boots can merely reverse this instead of going further
- mechanical damage is much more likely than electrical to be fully absorbed by human enemies' armor, preventing the stun
- does not work on mechs at all

After all that the fact that it can still miss and has a higher AP cost than a Taser kinda gets on your nerves.
I only used Dirty Kick for my String Lord crossbowman because I absolutely needed all the utility slots free for different types of elemental bolts, I definitely didn't enjoy the numerous drawbacks it had over Tasers.

[Dieusama]

It's basically a "remove enemy from battle for 1 round" button that only costs like 10 AP.  I think there should be a melee attack check or something.

Let's compare that with psi buttons. "For 0 AP cost, all enemies are removed from combat for 3 turns oh and by the way your next attack against them is doubled lol" and you think taser needs nerfing?

Taser is merely an utility that anyone who invested in a few electronic skill can craft and use, the psi combo you compared too needs to spend 2 feats and make minimal investement in many area (will, intelligence, thought control)

[Fenix]

I think it's its "never miss" ability that feels OP.
I think it could calculate chance to hit like usual melee with like +50% chnace to hit.
Also, I poorly understand what changes it could bring.

[ciox]

There's already a Fortitude check so you can still "miss", having both miss chance and fortitude check would be too much, if anything the Fortitude check could be made more difficult to win with high-level Tasers making that easier, but then again too much unreliability on something that can save your life (1 turn stun) also sucks, so I would just leave it alone / slightly increase AP cost.

What I don't like is how poor Dirty Kick is at being integrated into a build as the quick stun option compared to the Taser, if you don't want to give a quick slot to the Taser because you need it for other things, like grenades for a thrower or bolts for a bower.

[Fenix]

Killed Balor for one turn with ith help of Tazer.

[Sykar]

It's basically a "remove enemy from battle for 1 round" button that only costs like 10 AP.  I think there should be a melee attack check or something.

Let's compare that with psi buttons. "For 0 AP cost, all enemies are removed from combat for 3 turns oh and by the way your next attack against them is doubled lol" and you think taser needs nerfing?

2 Feats on long CDs are needed:

Premediation (level 6 feat, 5 turn CD)
Locus of Control (level 14 feat, 15 turns CD)
Mental Breakdown which costs quite a bit even with the 50% reduction from Premeditation, 30 to be precise.

Flashbangs are on much shorter CDs than Locus of Control and are also cheaper to manufacture/buy on top of being fairly abundant usually. Tazers cost almost nothing it suffices to use leftover materials. Even at very high levels you might deal like 25-30 damage with them.

Also the bonus damage applies to mental attacks only of which there are two: Bilocation and Neural Overload. I guess if you want to you can fear him for twice the amount of time but they run very fast and very far away from you...

I think the stuns are pretty balanced in principle.

Taser: low AP cost, cannot miss, Fortitude Check
Dirty Kick: medium AP cost, can miss, no Fortitude Check
Electrokinesis: high AP cost, cannot miss, no Fortitude Check (or it's very hard to resist it)

However despite this intial appearance of balance, Dirty Kick kinda sucks though compared to a Taser for having lots of less obvious weaknesses:
- uses up a whole feat slot instead of a few skill points
- much bigger cooldown, no less than double, and very high quality infused boots can merely reverse this instead of going further
- mechanical damage is much more likely than electrical to be fully absorbed by human enemies' armor, preventing the stun
- does not work on mechs at all

After all that the fact that it can still miss and has a higher AP cost than a Taser kinda gets on your nerves.
I only used Dirty Kick for my String Lord crossbowman because I absolutely needed all the utility slots free for different types of elemental bolts, I definitely didn't enjoy the numerous drawbacks it had over Tasers.

Electrokinesis can be resisted by organic targets, mechanical/electrically powered enemies cannot save against it because they receive a different debuff short circuited. It costs a good chunk of AP and PSI though and the stun lasts 1 round only. It is also not advisable to be used when you fight alongside allies.

[Bruno]

The taser is cool, but if you play Ironman and rely on it to stun a powerful melee enemy... they will resist, I guarantee you.

[ciox]

Maybe it is possible for a monster to resist Electrokinesis with their Fortitude but I've never seen it happen, either they can't get stunned at all or Electrokinesis will stun them is my experience.

Any word on Dirty Kick being made to fit a little better in the stun pantheon? I don't really want to use it anymore outside of dedicated melee builds, which is sad since the "can use even if holding ranged weapons" aspect suggests you should go for it in hybrid builds, but it sucks too much compared to the other stun options, mainly because of the CD.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Can fleshbags resist it while taking the damage? As far as I know, it stuns if it deals damage.

Ancient Rathounds definitely resist the electrokinesis stun, at least on Dominating difficulty.  They seem completely immune to stuns, in fact, which makes handling them a bit of a puzzle for low-output builds like mine.  If they would just burn, it would be much simpler but they're implacable and unshakeable.

If immunity is different to resistance here, then I've missed the point.  Sorry, if so ^_^

[destroyor]

Can fleshbags resist it while taking the damage? As far as I know, it stuns if it deals damage.

Ancient Rathounds definitely resist the electrokinesis stun, at least on Dominating difficulty.  They seem completely immune to stuns, in fact, which makes handling them a bit of a puzzle for low-output builds like mine.  If they would just burn, it would be much simpler but they're implacable and unshakeable.

If immunity is different to resistance here, then I've missed the point.  Sorry, if so ^_^

They have always been immune to stun and flashbang even before the experimental patch. Bear trap is the way to go but if you don't have quick tinkering than try caltrops/toxic gas grenades.

[TheAverageGortsby]

They have always been immune to stun and flashbang even before the experimental patch. Bear trap is the way to go but if you don't have quick tinkering than try caltrops/toxic gas grenades.

Ah.  The much lower enemy health on Hard (and the substantial rarity of finding Ancient Rathounds) meant I didn't have any strong memories of trouble with them.  I must have forgotten that they weren't stunnable.

I do have Quick Tinkering, indeed.  I'm finding that I have to have a whole lot more combat-relevant feats on Dominating than on Hard.  A crafter build is a little lacking given that it only looks like I'm going to be able to afford two crafting feats.  Still, Dominating is  an enjoyably difficult experience with only very few "Aw, bull@#$%" moments.

[Twiglard]

Heh, psi is only getting better with Temporal Manipulation.

It should have a Finger of Death spell. Here's a description in its morbidity.

Target goes back in time and strangles itself with the umbilical cord. The target character disappears, is replaced by a floating fetus. The fetus goes dark and then violet. The fetus disappears.

Please? Mostly not serious.