To people who think Gangrel Protean is weak...

[haydox]

I dont know if this has been pointed out but i have found a way to buff the buffs which protean gives, i havent yet figured out how to add effects, but Anax might know and i will keep looking...

To imcrease the wits/stamina/strength buffs you will need to edit traiteffects000.txt in the vdata\system folder.

Once open hit Ctrl+F and search for "protean", hit find 6 times and you should come to this:

Code: Select all

                TraitEffectGroup
		{
			"InternalName"	"Discipline (Protean-Eyes_of_the_Beast)"

			TraitEffect
			{
				"Trait"	"Wits"
				"Modifier"	"+1"
			}
		}

Simply change the +1 to whatever you want! You can also scroll down a little more until you see:

Code: Select all

                TraitEffectGroup
		{
			"InternalName"	"Discipline (Protean-Will_of_the_Wolf)"
			TraitEffect
			{
				"Trait"	"Stamina"
				"Modifier"	"+2"
			}
		}

		TraitEffectGroup
		{
			"InternalName"	"Discipline (Protean-Hunter_of_Night)"
			TraitEffect
			{
				"Trait"	"Strength"
				"Modifier"	"+2"

Just change the stamina and strength buff values here!

I am looking now at if you can modify the claw weapon damage, as if you study the code you can see that it automatically adds items to your character (the claws).

Hope this is useful to you, and i hope this isnt a HUGE repost!

[haydox]

Claw Damage

Altering this also seems very easy, i havent yet tried but im 99% certain it will work!

Go to vdata\items and open either "item_w_claws", "item_w_claws_protean4" or "item_w_claws_protean5" (depending on which skill level you are at).

Scroll down until you find:

Code: Select all

"Attack_Rate"	"0.5"
		"Range"		"0"
		"CriminalLevel"	"0"
		
		"SkillRequirement"	"1"		// min. skill requirement used in dmg calculations
		"BaseLethality"		"16"		// base lethality used in dmg calculations
		"Dmg"			"2 Aggravated Close_Combat_Brawl DMG_SUPERCLAWBITE"

Then it appears you can just change the base lethality, damage and attack rate if you so wish. (the above was taken from Protean5 claws)

Just to give you some comparison to ar, lethality and damage i did this:

Code: Select all

                  Claws        Katana         Fire Axe
AR                0.5             1               2
Lethality         16              12              12
Damage            2               3               2

I personally would only change the AR (as long as the attack animation doesnt mess up) as the claws are alreay high on lethality with aggravated damage.

Again, i hope this is helpful and not a repost and that it makes Gangrel more enjoyable for those who thought Protean was useless!

P.S. Mods, if this is useful you could link to it in your Sticky post of V:TM Info.

Weapon Altering Tip: I just tried upping the attack rate of the protean5 claws (war form) to 1.0 (doubled it), and the animation becomes very sudden, as it is forced to stop mid way through the first to bring the second in. I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you really want to, i would just settle with making them do more damage to account for the slower speed (even adding 1 to the damage, making it 4, should give a huge difference as it is altered by your unarmed skill, i'm guessing multiplied).

[Anaximander]

My problem with protean has nothing to do with the buffs or the claw damage. I even turned the redvision off so that's no problem anymore either. What I don't like about it is the way it knocks opponents back.

Here's what I mean: You attack with protean claws. The first hit knocks your target back. Because they've been knocked back, the second hit in your combo misses them completely. By now, they've recovered enough to attack you. Your combo is interrupted and you take damage from their attack.

With good timing, you can sort of work around this. Attack once. Pause. Attack again. This way you only execute the first attack of a possible three hit combo over and over again. It's effective, but annoying.

I've tried to find a solution to this, but to no avail. There is a knockback chance of 0.1 in the item files for the claws, but this can't be accurate since protean claws knock opponents back on every single attack. I can't find anything else in the files available to us that might change this. If you do, by all means let us know.

[ellipsis jones]

Interesting!

I'm playing a gangrel now for the first time, and I wasn't expecting much from protean, but it's been a pleasant surprise. I just cleared the warrens with my claws, and didn't die once, even to the big fleshcrafted monstrosities.

I think the key to making protean effective for me has been frenzy, since you move and attack so much faster. I also didn't seem to suffer any knockback from the big beasties' attacks while frenzied. I'm on zero humanity, and by careful blood management I've managed to go berserk in every significant fight thus far in the game. It's really paid off well.

Maybe some of the effects of frenzy could be applied to protean? It certainly ups the attack rate, but I haven't noticed any weirdness with the animation, so maybe it's a way to get the best of both worlds.

[haydox]

@Anax, Ill have a look in the files later, the Protean settings appear to be confined to 2 files so it shouldnt take long for me to find out if it is at all possible.

@ellipsis, if i knew what the standard frenzy effects were, i could just add on the Gangrel clan bonuses and modify the files to make Protean include some of them (including all would seriously overpower it)/

[Anaximander]

Frenzy effects are found in the traiteffects00.txt file in Vampire\vdata\system. Here is Gangrel Frenzy:

TraitEffectGroup
{
"InternalName" "Frenzy (Gangrel)"

TraitEffect
{
"Trait" "Strength"
"Modifier" "+10"
}

TraitEffect
{
"Trait" "Stamina"
"Modifier" "+10"
}

TraitEffect
{
"Trait" "Wits"
"Modifier" "+10"
}

TraitEffect
{
"Trait" "Excluded_Equipment"
"Modifier" "Value Clawed_Form"
}

TraitEffect
{
"Trait" "item_w_fists"
"Modifier" "-1"
}

TraitEffect
{
"Trait" "item_w_claws_protean4"
"Modifier" "+1"
}
}

Frenzy is great with lower forms of Protean, but the player is unable to frenzy at all when Protean 5 is active. Get Protean 5, open the console and enter the command frenzyplayer. Nothing happens.

[ellipsis jones]

Oh man, thank you for posting that. You just saved me the xp cost of Protean 5 and probably several hours of confusion and frustration about not frenzying. Looks like I'll pick up another couple levels of Fortitude instead.

[Bat22]

I was wondering how you reinforce Protean. Between Strength, Stamina, Brawl, and Melee, which do you juice up further?

[Anaximander]

Strength and Brawl. You want to get your unarmed feat up as high as possible.

Stamina and Fortitude combined with Protean will make you nearly indestructible, so put points into those as well.

[Valamyr]

Try setting the knockback chance to 0 or deleting the line altogether?

[Bat22]

^
^
Thanks a lot for the quick response.

[Lukeatus]

Weak Protean

Yep, I agree....
The knockback effect blows. You can't combo against most enemies, I've played a Gangrel and realized that fighting with bare hands has been more effective!! You can't combo with Protean... Which makes the Gangrel have the weakest set of disciplines in the game, if it wasn't for Fortitude, that in my opinion is the best fighting discipline in the game.
But Animalism to me is nearly useless and the Protean claw attack has been just clumsy to use. I thought it'd be kickass but playing a Brujah character, he's a lot stronger with close combat (Potence+Celerity+Presence with high melee).
It turns out, against tougher enemies like major bosses (Ming Xiao, Warren beasts, etc), you can combo with protean claws, making a Protean 5 gangrel a nightmare for bosses. But yeah, I was a bit disappointed with the Grangel in this game, while I played the older Vampire PC game (Redemption), the gangrel were by far the best for combat. (Fortitude + 2 aggravated attacks)

[Coruel]

The lower animalism disciplines are not exceptionally good, but communion of the bloodsuckers is a fairly good distance weapon.