Even More Balanced Mortician

A rebalance of Mortician, with a few new item interactions on top.

I came back to Risk of Rain 2 after a long break and found the Mortician mod. It's pretty neat! But holy moly is he overpowered. I wanted to play him with friends without him steamrolling vanilla balance, so I made this mod. Expect semi-frequent updates for a while as I playtest and tweak the numbers.

Incompatible with BalancedMortician. This mod disables itself if it finds it, so you'll need to remove one or the other. If you prefer Bloonjitsu7's numbers, they're included here as a preset.

What's different

The rebalance

Mortician's early-midgame damage mostly came from his primary that hit like a freight train, so that's where most of the nerf went. The swing drops from 800% to 340% damage, but now counts as primary skill damage, so items like Luminous Shot work with it. Flinging a ghoul or tombstone goes up a little, from 350% to 400%, which hits the breakpoint for items that need a 400% hit.

Ghouls got a big damage nerf (8 base damage instead of 12) and their spit's proc coefficient was dropped from 1.0 to 0.7. However sacrifice now scales with your damage stat instead of the ghoul's. Ghouls don't carry your items, so the original explosion fell off hard late in a run, and the damage nerf would have made it even worse. Honestly it still falls off a bit, but at least you can technically scale it. I've bumped it up to 800% of your damage over a slightly bigger radius, and anything that boosts your damage, (like Shaped Glass) boosts it too.

Mortician's passive in the base mod was pretty nutty. Every single ghoul death, regardless of how it happened, counted as a on-kill proc. When you've got a ton of backup mags, an ancient scepter, and a lysate cell things got pretty insane. Even in the base mod the proc-chaining could get pretty crazy just by letting ghouls die. Regardless, now each ghoul death has a 50% chance to trigger your on-kill items instead (affected by Luck), but sacrificing a ghoul still guarantees it.

The tombstone crumbles after 30 seconds instead of sticking around forever, and its vengeful souls hit for 280% instead of 350%.

Mortician himself is a touch less tanky, at 180 health instead of 200. Health gain per level was also reduced to match the 30% per level that every other survivor uses, which will make him noticeably less tanky later on. He's still a slow melee survivor with no mobility, so I've kept his armor as is, but his health stats were way outside of normal survivor numbers in the base mod.

Lysate Cell

Despite how strong Mortician is, I was genuinely surprised to learn that Lysate Cell did not work on the tombstone at all. This felt like a power gap that I could fill rather than one to reign in. Engineer gets an extra turret from a Lysate Cell, after all. So now Mortician gets an extra tombstone. With two up, a slain ghoul's vengeful soul goes to whichever tombstone is nearest to where it died.

Ancient Scepter

With Standalone Ancient Scepter installed, the Scepter upgrades Tombstone into Restless Grave: enemies that die near one of your tombstones rise as ghouls, up to one every 3 seconds per tombstone.

A ring on the ground shows the raise radius. Each player can hide it with Visuals → Show Raise Radius, which only affects their own screen.

The Scepter mod is not required. Without it, Tombstone works as usual.

Elite aspects

In the base mod, every ghoul copies whatever is in your equipment slot, regardless of the item. I suspect that this was meant to propogate passives like Elite Aspect Equipment, but it's hard to know for certain. The problem is that the default implementation worked on things like Fuel Array as well (lol). BalancedMortician turned that off entirely, which was fair, but I liked ghouls turning elite too much to lose it.

Now each new ghoul has a 33% chance to inherit each aspect you're carrying (affected by Luck). That covers aspect equipment, and aspect items from mods like ZetAspects, which roll once per copy you hold. Nothing else is ever copied. If you don't play with ZetAspects, you may want to increase this, but follow your gut.

Don't like my numbers?

Everything above is a setting, from base stats to cooldowns and proc coefficients, and you can change it in game with Risk Of Options or in the config file. Each setting's description lists its value in every preset, and skill tooltips update to match.

If you'd rather not tune things yourself, there are two other presets to fall back on:

• Original keeps Mortician's own numbers.
• BalancedMortician matches Bloonjitsu7's mod.

Both keep the Lysate Cell and Ancient Scepter support, since neither original mod had any. Everything else, Sacrifice scaling included, follows the respective source mod.

Changing any setting switches you to the Custom preset. While you stay on a preset, updating this mod moves you to that preset's new values.

NOTE: This mod's Ghoul Limit setting replaces the one in Mortician's own config, which will be ignored while this mod is enabled.

Multiplayer

The host's settings apply to everyone in the lobby, and your own config comes back whenever you host or play solo. Every player needs the same version of this mod.

Credits

Icon: Tombstone by Lorc, from game-icons.net, licensed under CC BY 3.0.

1.6.0

Requires R2API RecalculateStats.

Added

• New Config Setting "Ghoul Degen Growth Percent" (Raise Dead): a ghoul's degen grows the longer it lives. Healing still keeps ghouls alive longer, but no longer forever. 20% in the EvenMoreBalanced preset, 0% (unchanged) in the others.
• New Config Setting "Minimum Cooldown" (Raise Dead): the shortest Raise Dead's cooldown can get from cooldown reduction. Brainstalks would otherwise drop it to 0.5 seconds, the game's minimum for every skill. 2 seconds in the EvenMoreBalanced preset, 0.5 (unchanged) in the others.

Changed (EvenMoreBalancedMortician preset)

• Ghoul degen lowered from 10 (+3 per level) to 4 (+1.2 per level) to go with the new degen growth. An unhealed ghoul still lives about 15 seconds. I suspect this one might be a little divisive amongst those who like an immortal army, but hey, that's what configs are for.

Fixed

• A dying elite ghoul no longer counts as an elite kill for your on-kill items. Brainstalks, Defense Nucleus and the like could be triggered by your own ghouls, letting Brainstalks keep itself going with no enemies around.
• A dying elite ghoul's death effect (such as Mending's healing core) no longer happens twice.
• Ghouls no longer inherit ZetAspects' hidden items.

Players on 1.5.0 cannot join a lobby hosted on 1.6.0, or the reverse.

1.5.0

Updated for the Hallowed Concepts update. Requires Mortician v0.1.6.

Added

• New Config Setting "Ghoul Raising Uses Cooldown Reduction" (Tombstone): the cooldown reduction items the tombstone copies from you when placed speed up its ghoul spawns and Restless Grave's raise cooldown. On in every preset.

Removed

• This mod's fix for ghoul and tombstone ownership after a revive or death. Mortician 0.1.6 fixes both in the base mod.

Changed (EvenMoreBalancedMortician preset)

• Tombstone duration removed. (I decided that I hated this)

Fixed

• The assembly version is now properly written to the mod's DLL. (I screwed up and it was not properly being set, which could cause the game to think everyone was on the same version even though they weren't. Likely not a big issue for most people, but it could have been)

Players on 1.4.0 cannot join a lobby hosted on 1.5.0, or the reverse.

1.4.0

Added

• New Config Setting "Guarantees On-Kill Trigger" (Sacrifice): a sacrificed ghoul always triggers your on-kill items, skipping the On-Kill Trigger Chance roll. On in every preset. The passive's tooltip mentions it while the chance is below 100%.

Players on 1.3.0 cannot join a lobby hosted on 1.4.0, or the reverse. (He lied, lyingly)

1.3.0

Added

• New Config Setting "On-Kill Trigger Chance Percent": the chance for a dying ghoul to trigger your on-kill items. Mortician's passive triggers them on every ghoul death, including sacrificed and decayed ghouls. 50% in the EvenMoreBalanced preset, 100% (unchanged) in the others. The passive's tooltip follows the setting.
• Luck (57 Leaf Clover, Purity) now applies to the on-kill trigger roll and to every aspect inheritance roll.

Changed (Original and BalancedMortician presets)

Neither original mod supported the Lysate Cell or the Ancient Scepter, so these presets now include this mod's support for both. Their balance numbers are unchanged.

• Lysate Cell Adds Tombstone: off → on
• Soul Recipient: Newest → Nearest
• Restless Grave: off → on
• Restless Grave Raise Radius: 25 → 30

Fixed (base mod bugs)

• After Mortician died, his tombstone raised ghouls with no owner and logged an error for each one. Ghouls raised while you're dead now belong to you.
• After a revive (such as Dio's Best Friend), your existing ghouls and tombstones stopped crediting you for their attacks, and your tombstone stopped collecting vengeful souls. They now properly reconnect to you when you're revived.

1.2.0

Added

• New Feature/Config Setting "Lysate Cell Adds Tombstone": holding a Lysate Cell lets you keep 2 tombstones up at once, the same way it gives Engineer 1 additional turret. Defaults to on in the EvenMoreBalanced preset.
• Soul Recipient: which tombstone a slain ghoul's vengeful soul goes to while you have more than one up. The newest tombstone (as in the base mod), the one nearest the ghoul, or every one. Defaults to Nearest in the EvenMoreBalanced preset.
• New Feature/Config Setting "Detonation Scales With Mortician": a sacrificed ghoul's explosion scales with your damage stat instead of the ghoul's, so it benefits from items that raise your damage. Defaults to on in the EvenMoreBalanced preset.
• New Config Settings "Ghoul Base Health" and "Ghoul Health Per Level".
• Ancient Scepter support: with StandaloneAncientScepter installed, the Scepter upgrades Tombstone into Restless Grave. Enemies slain near a tombstone rise as ghouls, at most once every 3 seconds per tombstone. On in the EvenMoreBalanced preset, off in the others.
• New Config Settings "Enabled", "Raise Radius", "Raise Cooldown" and "Risen Ghoul Limit Per Tombstone" for Restless Grave.
• Updating the mod now moves your settings to the new preset values if you're on a preset. Previously, an update kept your old values and switched you to Custom. This applies to this update too, so EvenMoreBalanced players get the changes below automatically.
• Tombstones show a ring marking the Restless Grave raise radius. New local Config Setting "Show Raise Radius" hides it on your own screen; the host's settings never override it.

Changed (EvenMoreBalanced preset)

Walked back a bunch of my prior nerfs in the preset after some more play with him. I was a bit too harsh on the survivability and damage reductions. He is a melee survivor with zero mobility, after all.

• Health / Per Level: 170 / 51 → 180 / 54
• Armor: 10 → 20
• Regen / Per Level: 1 / 0.2 → 2.5 / 0.5
• Shovel Damage: 280% → 340%
• Launch Damage: 360% → 400% (Mostly just to hit the breakpoint for items that require 400%)
• Aspect Inherit Chance: 25% → 33%
• Detonation Damage: 880% of the ghoul's damage → 800% of Mortician's damage (Should help it scale better late game)
• Heal: 10% → 15% (This nerf was silly of me)
• Soul Orb Explosion: 250% → 280%

Fixed

• 1.1.0 reported itself as 1.0.0, so players on those two versions were not kept out of each other's lobbies. Unlikely to have happened to anyone but has been fixed regardless.

Players on 1.1.0 or earlier cannot join a lobby hosted on 1.2.0, or the reverse, they'll need to update. (He lied, lyingly)

1.1.0

Added

• Cooldown settings for Raise Dead, Sacrifice, and Tombstone.
• Ghoul Degen and Ghoul Degen Per Level settings, for how fast ghouls lose health.

Fixed

• Raising a ghoul logged an error every time, which stopped the Ghoul Limit setting and aspect inheritance from ever taking effect. Both should now work properly.

Changed (EvenMoreBalanced preset)

• Launch Damage: 350% → 360%
• Bite Proc Coefficient: 0.5 → 1.0
• Cling Bite Proc Coefficient: 0.4 → 0.8
• Spit Proc Coefficient: 0.5 → 0.7
• Detonation Damage: 600% → 880%
• Tombstone Duration: 23 → 30

Players on 1.0.0 cannot join a lobby hosted on 1.1.0, or the reverse. (He lied, lyingly)

1.0.0

• Initial release.