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About this mod
Nerfs Aura of Murder from Bhaalist Armour and Bhaalist enemies. Instead of the aura applying vulnerability to Piercing damage, it causes melee weapon attacks to deal additional Piercing damage to the target.
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
WARNING: The links below contain spoilers for Act 3. If you wish to avoid spoilers, then reading just the mod's description is sufficient to understand everything about what this mod does.
What This Mod Changes
The Aura of Murder status that is from Bhaalist Armour as well as many Bhaalist cultist enemies in Act 3 is nerfed to make it more balanced.
Why The Changes?
This effect is incredibly overtuned due to how strong Vulnerability is. Bhaalist Armour is a contender for the single strongest piece of equipment in the entire game, and at the very least is one of the strongest. It completely warps the meta for martial builds around it - basically all the highest DPR martial builds revolve around abusing this armour, whether they're melee builds or ranged archer builds (which can combine the Aura of Murder effect with the consumable Slaying arrows to quadruble their damage). Easily-accessible Vulnerability allows such builds to completely break the intended balance of the game.
Additionally, many Bhaalist cultist enemies in Act 3 have the Aura of Murder on them. If you play with modded difficulty, then this status single-handedly makes those enemies' damage go through the roof. Even with a well-built party, in some certain fights, you're forced to get Resistance to Piercing damage on everyone, otherwise anyone without Piercing Resistance/Immunity is going to be one-shot in a single enemy's turn.
My goal with these changes is to still keep Bhaalist Armour as a top-tier endgame armour, and ensure that Bhaalist enemies are still a threat, just without both being as ridiculous as the original status allows for. I wanted to also introduce a thematic synergy with stealth gameplay to tie the effect and Bhaalist Armour into assassin-esque gameplay.
I'll admit that this mod's change also nerfs archer builds, as the new effect only triggers off melee weapon attacks. I think this is a fine tradeoff, as archers are still incredibly strong due to the existence of Slaying arrows in the game (e.g. Arrow of Humanoid Slaying), and the melee-only nature of the reworked effect fits the assassin theme of Bhaalist Armour.
What Isn't Changed
The Aura of Murder triggered by the Exploit Weakness passive on Bloodthirst keeps its vanilla effect. As this Vulnerability is harder to trigger than simply standing near an enemy, I don't consider it as big of a problem. I only changed the display name of the status triggered by Exploit Weakness to ensure clarity that its effect is different from the reworked Aura of Murder in this mod.
Compatibility
This mod just edits stats and localization. If you have any mods that change Bhaalist Armour (e.g. Vanilla Equipment Overhaul), or the Aura of Murder status itself (don't think any currently exist), then whichever mod is loaded later will override the previous one. Otherwise, the load order for this mod doesn't matter.
This mod is also fine to install and uninstall mid-playthrough.
Credits
Thanks to kuder for helping me brainstorm ideas for the reworked effect!
Credits to Ruojo for the Chinese translation!
What This Mod Changes
The Aura of Murder status that is from Bhaalist Armour as well as many Bhaalist cultist enemies in Act 3 is nerfed to make it more balanced.
- Original: Nearby hostile creatures become Vulnerable to Piercing damage, unless they are Resistant or Immune to it.
- Modded: Nearby hostile creatures take an additional 2d6 Piercing damage whenever they are damaged with a melee weapon attack. This damage increases to 3d6 Piercing damage if the attacker is Invisible or Hidden.
Why The Changes?
This effect is incredibly overtuned due to how strong Vulnerability is. Bhaalist Armour is a contender for the single strongest piece of equipment in the entire game, and at the very least is one of the strongest. It completely warps the meta for martial builds around it - basically all the highest DPR martial builds revolve around abusing this armour, whether they're melee builds or ranged archer builds (which can combine the Aura of Murder effect with the consumable Slaying arrows to quadruble their damage). Easily-accessible Vulnerability allows such builds to completely break the intended balance of the game.
Additionally, many Bhaalist cultist enemies in Act 3 have the Aura of Murder on them. If you play with modded difficulty, then this status single-handedly makes those enemies' damage go through the roof. Even with a well-built party, in some certain fights, you're forced to get Resistance to Piercing damage on everyone, otherwise anyone without Piercing Resistance/Immunity is going to be one-shot in a single enemy's turn.
My goal with these changes is to still keep Bhaalist Armour as a top-tier endgame armour, and ensure that Bhaalist enemies are still a threat, just without both being as ridiculous as the original status allows for. I wanted to also introduce a thematic synergy with stealth gameplay to tie the effect and Bhaalist Armour into assassin-esque gameplay.
I'll admit that this mod's change also nerfs archer builds, as the new effect only triggers off melee weapon attacks. I think this is a fine tradeoff, as archers are still incredibly strong due to the existence of Slaying arrows in the game (e.g. Arrow of Humanoid Slaying), and the melee-only nature of the reworked effect fits the assassin theme of Bhaalist Armour.
What Isn't Changed
The Aura of Murder triggered by the Exploit Weakness passive on Bloodthirst keeps its vanilla effect. As this Vulnerability is harder to trigger than simply standing near an enemy, I don't consider it as big of a problem. I only changed the display name of the status triggered by Exploit Weakness to ensure clarity that its effect is different from the reworked Aura of Murder in this mod.
Compatibility
This mod just edits stats and localization. If you have any mods that change Bhaalist Armour (e.g. Vanilla Equipment Overhaul), or the Aura of Murder status itself (don't think any currently exist), then whichever mod is loaded later will override the previous one. Otherwise, the load order for this mod doesn't matter.
This mod is also fine to install and uninstall mid-playthrough.
Credits
Thanks to kuder for helping me brainstorm ideas for the reworked effect!
Credits to Ruojo for the Chinese translation!