We're so addicted to peace

Ahkan

So, I threw in changes to PEACE and ADDICTION in the latest classlead round to make the skills more useful. I knew there were going to be complications, but I was going to wait to berate myself for being short sighted. So, having dinked around with the changes and seen some of the changes, I wanted to throw these ideas out into the ether and see if we can get this hot-fixed before waiting for who knows how long for another classlead cycle.

Addiction needs to be removed from any sort of combo-damage ability. You can replace them with something else. (I may have missed one here)

-Longslash/outrider

-Treant combination.

OR: Your addiction attack does the affliction, but no damage. (not comboable)

Peace shouldn't be able to be instilled (Spatium) or triggered (Supremacy)

Peace bandaid:
It blocks the next aggressive action, or next two aggressive actions.

--------End of bandaids-----

Peace/Paralysis:
I saved this one for last because it actually goes beyond the scope of 'hot fix' but I think it's worth the effort.  It's a tough problem to solve, but I think it would be better down the road if we actually addressed these issues. The classes that have access to both of these should be minimal, if at all. The problem you run into here is that hunter/malignist/wytchen/assassin have a lot of overlap because of toxins and quirky design.

Assassin: Honestly, I'd remove peace from hypnosis. I don't think they need it considering how powerful the skillset already is. A lot of people die to saboteurs 1v1 while hitting back the entire time. I don't think it's necessary to deny them that chance to flail uselessly against their attacker.

Wytch: Both afflictions are useful. I can't decide which I'd choose to lose, but I think it's going to be paralysis. You'd have to remove paralysis from curses/shamanism and probably replace it something else (at least in shamanism). 

Malignist: The issue here is toxins. Honestly, stop envenoming the daegger. It doesn't fit with the role. Make the daegger have the Malignist tainted blood on it and allow the daegger to channel the afflictions as chosen by the malignist. It would be analogous to envenoming, but more fitting for the role and it allows you to tailor the affliction list with regards to balance. You could even space awesome hunt toxins throughout the skillset. 

Hunter: Same problem as Malignist. We didn't learn our lesson from Hecate version 1 in the beta. You really can't give a class access to every affliction in the game and call it balanced, especially with the doom of supremacy lingering around. Remove the ability for hunters to use venoms and queue them up a system that allows them to directly poison their claws from a select list of toxins (even some unique ones, maybe) to deliver afflictions. 
Toxins for mental affs from hynosis.

Labil

Removing paralysis from Shamanism would be terrible. Shamanism is severely lacking in afflictions at the moment. It has freeze (wow), weakness, disloyalty, recklessness, dizzyness, slickness and paralysis. Peace removal sounds like a better option. Not to mention that paralysis is always useful against the random instakill, and it stacks (barely) with slickness. Furthermore, with the incoming removal of aeon, wytch would be left only with confusion as a way to hinder people's attacks for any reasonable window frame. (Well, and transfix, but that is kinda unreliable)

On further test, paralysis might go. Just give me an semi-useful aff in shamanism instead of it. Or a way for two witch to afflict someone at the same time.

I do think, however, that loshre with peace is silly.

Ahkan

Yeaaaaahhh. It's a tough call. Wytchen doesn't need both and can lock both of them in easy with their only useful 1v1 runes. 

Delrayne

Longslash can't be envenomed, nor do spear effects fire on it. It does however give a random affliction if you have hemophilia. Whether or not addiction is on that randoms list is beyond me, just throwing that out there. If it is I'd be fine with it being removed from that list, considering we have access to an addiction toxin.

Labil

Syntax: SPEAR LONGSLASH <target>

Plunge your spear into an opponent's thigh and drag it up the length of his or her body, damaging and causing heavy bleeding. If the target has haemoph
ilia, the attack will also cause elixir addiction and a random affliction.

Delrayne

Ah wow totally missed that. My bad. Yeah with new addiction that's a bit "insane in the membrane, INSANE IN THE BRAIN!"

Sarrius

Addiction change I knew about. I haven't experienced any problems with it, but I haven't duked it out with a class that can give the affliction while the user is doing more than make it filler.

What precisely did you do to pacifism/peace?

Ahkan

It's like a mental ciguatoxin. It prevents you from attacking. Which was the goal. Just running into hiccups like:

-hunters hitting with peace, triggering the peace cure. 

-Wytchen being able to nairat paralysis, loshre peace.

-Maligs alternating paralysis/peace on combos.

etc

Dicene covered my oops Read below.

Dicene

Peace sticks until cured now, instead of going away once you've been hit/aggressed.

Labil

Edit: Meh, lagged and ninja'd not one but TWICE.

Khizan

I would say that peace shouldn't stop an attack outright, but it should give the attack some kind of penalty, because your heart just isn't in it. Damage penalty with a balance penalty or some such.

Peace as it is now is too... Kyrockian. "You think fighting should be two people hitting each other?" etc etc etc.

Dicene

Question. Is there any class that can give masked addiction? And is it on the formaldehyde list?

Labil

Formaldehyde toxin just deliver toxin affs. Now, things like the bard aff attack, that can give every aff, as I have found the hard way. Not sure off-hand what other attacks are like that.

I just felt the need to remark the difference.

Ahkan

Khizan said:

I would say that peace shouldn't stop an attack outright, but it should give the attack some kind of penalty, because your heart just isn't in it. Damage penalty with a balance penalty or some such.

Peace as it is now is too... Kyrockian. "You think fighting should be two people hitting each other?" etc etc etc.

Haha, that was the other solution

Sarrius

Ahkan said:

It's like a mental ciguatoxin. It prevents you from attacking. Which was the goal. Just running into hiccups like:

-hunters hitting with peace, triggering the peace cure. 

-Wytchen being able to nairat paralysis, loshre peace.

-Maligs alternating paralysis/peace on combos.

etc

Dicene covered my oops Read below.

Gross. I would say remove Peace from trigger and Hypnosis - neither class needs it.

Wytch and Malign, I can't speak on as they are much more delicate 'ecosystems' in terms of contained balance. I like loshre and nairat flare as tools - on paper. The reality is that they can stick some dumb shit - but is removing that possibility neutering the class? I feel like pacifism's fix there is removing its classification as an aff, making it no longer subject to loshre or nairat..

Of course that comes with a lot of silly side effects, like focus no longer curing it. :l

Labil

As I said, I'm iffy. Sometimes I prefer that loshre doesn't work as it does. For wytch, it can get stupid OP fast. RG 1v1 not so much, but when combined with a Hunter, it could open a world of hurt if well coordinated. This is what I feel most of the time.

If, on the other hand, paralysis is removed from witch, then loshre might need to stay. But make exceptions, like peace.

Mathiaus

Labil said:

Formaldehyde toxin just deliver toxin affs. Now, things like the bard aff attack, that can give every aff, as I have found the hard way. Not sure off-hand what other attacks are like that.

I just felt the need to remark the difference.

Bard masked affliction only gives a certain list of afflictions. It cannot give addiction or peace.

Tsinghahla

Addiction in it's current state, however, is needed for Defiler combat. I know there might be some good people around to prove me wrong, and that would be wonderful, since I can't say I'm more than a mediocre fighter at best. However, to push that HP down during 1v1 it needs be there. When I was Defiler (athletic/l3 flail) I had a ton of spars where eventually it just got mathematically impossible (to me) to get someone down without addiction.

//bad combatant out of discussion now.

Labil

Mathiaus said:

Formaldehyde toxin just deliver toxin affs. Now, things like the bard aff attack, that can give every aff, as I have found the hard way. Not sure off-hand what other attacks are like that.

I just felt the need to remark the difference.

Bard masked affliction only gives a certain list of afflictions. It cannot give addiction or peace.

It can give shivering. Which is kind of weird. Yes, I'm sure it wasn't the sketch.

Kyrock

I haven't noticed anything wrong with outrider or defiler when I've fought them 1vs1. I spar outriders on a regular basis and there damage set ups are extremely easy to mess up. I've fought Sam three times and only killed me once because I was caught off guard. The other times I could tank his damage no problem (I do have a surcoat, fullplate, and trans evasion though).

cigua/peace combos: changing peace to a damage reducer is going to make weakness|ignorance/clumsy/weakness combos more appealing. You waste balance attacking me and you do next to nothing for damage? Sounds good to me. How about peace decreases mana when you attack? It's requires more mental effort to attack due to your state of mind?

@khizan your as bad as America's media: representing people out of context on a constant basis.

Delrayne

Kyrock said:

cigua/peace combos: changing peace to a damage reducer is going to make weakness|ignorance/clumsy/weakness combos more appealing. You waste balance attacking me and you do next to nothing for damage? Sounds good to me. How about peace decreases mana when you attack? It's requires more mental effort to attack due to your state of mind?

That'd stack to well with malig in my mind.

Khizan

Context supplied!

(Burt): You say, "I'm against any sort of combat strategy that locks down an
offense without serious sacrifice."

(Burt): You say, "Sorry if that means that iI'm against your super-skilled 2
second DSL and ciguaspam."

(Burt): Kyrock says, "Which means you want everyone to just hack on each other
and see who dies first."

Juran

The main problem with peace is that it isn't lovers but it really wants to be now. Peace went from being a generic knockoff that people wouldn't use to being a generic knockoff that is 100% better.

Lovers was balanced around Noctu, and by virtue of having a one target restriction was accidentally balanced already for group combat. Peace was never intended to be used like lovers, as a galingale based ciguatoxin that happens to let you touch tattoos.

I would probably roll back the peace change and give Malignists the lovers effect somehow. It would achieve the same purpose for them in 1v1, harden their historical ties to the Noctusari, and take away the play toy from the other classes that shouldn't really be using it.

Ahkan

Making it lovers doesn't really solve the issue of being able to spam it. In 1v1 it actually makes it much worse. Without the built in cool down you could get away with 2006 Malignist tactics of lovers/x lovers/y lovers/z and you would still not be able to attack. We'd really just be making life easier (for antimagick) and addressing this next class lead round.

Peace was a mid skillsetl affliction that is out shined by novice level afflictions like clumsiness and impatience. For all the classes involved, peace needed to be useful so you could cycle it in to strategies to divert curing away from lower tier afflictions you'll need to lock in later.

Malignist uses it to avoid infirmity stack cures.

Hunter this  forces you into a trigger. It's also brain melt fodder. 

Wytchen this is an affliction based hinder to avoid getting bursted down. And mark igniting fodder.

Assassin this is just icing on top of an already heavily weighted cake.

Truth be told, I think the second option of my classlead (#146) which reads as Khizan's idea (up a few comments) is probably the most reasonable fix with the least amount of effort. It could be a hybrid of lethargy and confusion with a smaller percentage. It's a mid-tier cure that keeps the affliction useful for all parties involved, something that's lacking in your proposal. I think it's possible to balance attack-block peace, but if we're looking for a quick and easy way out, I think "your heart just isn't in this attack" is most fair/balanced for everyone at the dinner table.

**It's important to note that the peace upgrade was a direct upgrade to Magick/Demonic and a really 'meh' upgrade to two AM classes who can't really capitalize on it. AM loses nothing in peace's 'deletion' but has everything to gain from it. And considering we're trying to nerf our own abilities and our own unstoppable combos, I think we'd rather avoid omg delete progress.

Juran

Arguably, the only classes that need to be able to divert attention momentarily away from key afflictions to 'stick' their core afflictions are malignists and wardancers, because the other affliction classes have additional tools in place to force precisely that.

Wardancers are obviously out, because wardancers do just fine through the 1000 needles method. Malignists however need a variety of important afflictions that they can stack around, with a flexible enough offense to leverage whatever boils up into an advantage and infirmity. Lovers/peace is a perfect way to do this, because it provides them with a high priority affliction that's off of the normal high priority healing table.

The question is, what other classes need this sort of advantage? It's arguable that affliction classes with pre-set ways to disrupt or slow down healing do not need additional methods that further leverage off-herb heals. I'm 100% on board for giving Malignists that sort of tool, but I don't see many advantages to offering it to Assassins, Wytchen, and Hunters.

That said, I'll repeat what I said earlier - I'm not sold on the change one way or another yet. If there's a viable way to heal through these classes and still maintain some form of reasonable offense, I'm all for upgrades that add flexibility.

Ahkan

WD doesn't have to divert anything. Oxalis --> Transfix --> stack. Repeat. 

After a few left turns, some restatement and another left turn, I think Juran likes solution 2.

Kyrock

@delrayne that was an intended consequence. Diablost needs a tiny bit of love and that's pretty much the only profession it would help.

@Khizan yeah, you wanna supply the whole discussion. Pretty sure this is the one where I figured out you lacked any intellectual honesty once so ever. Of what I remember, I'm pretty sure you stated, more or less, that you were against anything like web|cigua and felt like it should be, more or less, a straight up damage fight and who ever does more wins. Which, is why I said lets just stand around and hack (as in lets just use our bashing alias') each other and sees who dies first. No tactics, just who ever does more damage or hits first. Yep, that sounds fun. My stance has always been that paralysis was only a problem because people couldn't cure well. Instead of people increasing their abilities, they took the way of American f***tarded politicians and regulated it.

@ahkan the only way peace works is if you have impatience though. Other wise I just focus it off. If they try going a different route: stacking mental affs, then it's going to be easy to get out of ciguatoxin through purge, while I cure peace with galingale. Although, I do have rite of healing and this certainly skews my view of how well affliction classes are doing. When I sparred Iluv as diab umpteen times he couldn't do anything with it. When he switched to assassin though >:(  . Mathematicly I don't think it adds up to a problem either except for, maybe, assassin. Haven't had a spar with any wytches though.

Sarrius

Kyrock said:

@ahkan the only way peace works is if you have impatience though. Other wise I just focus it off. If they try going a different route: stacking mental affs, then it's going to be easy to get out of ciguatoxin through purge, while I cure peace with galingale. Although, I do have rite of healing and this certainly skews my view of how well affliction classes are doing. When I sparred Iluv as diab umpteen times he couldn't do anything with it. When he switched to assassin though >:(  . Mathematicly I don't think it adds up to a problem either except for, maybe, assassin. Haven't had a spar with any wytches though.

I believe Ahkan's problem is stemming from certain classes being capable of making you unable to cure pacifism without moderate to heavy consequences, see:

Instilled Pacifism being incurable until everything else is handled.
Triggered Pacifism making the Hunter net a free 2 afflictions unless you want to not fight back. (EDIT: The Hunter wants you to cure pacifism because then they get +1 Mental Aff count. Of course, if you don't, you lose because you cannot stop them.)
Wytch being capable of hiding pacifism beneath Runelore cure blocking.

Curing an affliction that literally makes all of your attacks unusable - and we are speaking quite literally, here - should never come with consequences that screw you over more.

Kyrock

yeah, just read his post with the triggered thing with gurn. And, some things were obviously over-looked. It shouldn't be just up to Ahkan, or any other classlead writer, to foresee problems with a solution. The admin should be able to go hey, we made an oops and this is how we're going to fix it for now. Not sure I'm convinced it's a problem with trigger though, @Gurn spar me  

Gurn

I'm so tempted to just spill on the fragility of Hunter offence but then that would seriously screw me and the other Hunters over and then we'd have to wait until the next classlead to be able to kill anyone anymore.


That being said, I don't actually have a problem with peace staying or going or whatever. I can always pick another affliction, it just happens to be a nice one that helps me live longer.

Iluv

I've never suggested peace in my Assassin hypnosis set up. It is not an affliction they can reliably use and abuse like Hunters can. It is very valuable for Diabolists though.