A sleek black hound stands stone still, ears perked and alert. A hulking velociraptor crouches here. A bleeding cobra lounges here, glaring haughtily at the world. Abigail Murne is here, her incorporeal form ever-shifting. She wields a wickedly curved sabre in her left hand and a Stavennite banded shield in her right. Kryss Miyumae is here, a soft glow of a multi-coloured aura surrounding her. She wields a striped tiger doll in her left hand and an extravagant feather-tied javelin in her right.
You see exits leading southeast (hidden), up, and down.
363[100] 384[91] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Kryss entered from ether.
Kryss exited to ether.
363[100] 384[91] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
You suddenly perceive the vague outline of an aura of rebounding around Kryss.
363[100] 384[91] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Mana Gain: 8
363[100] 393[94] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
(R): Kryss, "Warpaura - Aros [clarity]."
363[100] 393[94] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Ultrix is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Aros is nearby.
363[100] 393[94] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Ultrix is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Aros is nearby.
[up - Septus, Ultrix, Celestine, Aros (4)]
363[100] 393[94] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Aros, Celestine, and Ultrix enter from the up following Septus.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Ultrix is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Aros is nearby.
[here - Septus, Ultrix, Celestine, Aros (4)]
363[100] 393[94] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Kryss entered from ether.
363[100] 393[94] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Septus climbs onto a hulking velociraptor.
363[100] 393[94] eb db 0 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Septus swings a claymore at you powerfully.
-93 [25.6%], 123 (24.4%)
Terror takes hold, as a numb sensation overcomes your body.
You are afflicted with numbness.
With a lightning-quick motion, Septus slashes you with a claymore.
-93 [25.6%], 123 (24.4%)
A numbness seizes you, and your left arm and left leg goes limp.
You are afflicted with metrazol.
176[48] 393[94] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Septus moves in to engage you.
176[48] 393[94] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Ultrix quickdraws a truesilver mace and a kite shield.
176[48] 393[94] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Autocuring: sip health
You take a drink of an elixir of health from an elegant diamond vial.
+46 [12.7%]
The elixir heals your body.
223[61] 393[94] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Autocuring: eat toadstool
You take 1 toadstool, bringing the total to 1106.
You quickly eat a toadstool.
+36 [9.9%]
Mana Gain: 25
You feel your health and mana replenished.
259[71] 418[100] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Autocuring: eat maidenhair
You take 1 maidenhair leaf, bringing the total to 1196.
You quickly eat a maidenhair leaf.
You feel a tingling sensation run through your limbs as the paralysis fades.
[Take metrazol from Iniar]
You have cured metrazol.
[Take metrazol from Iniar]
259[71] 418[100] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
You suddenly perceive the vague outline of an aura of rebounding around Celestine.
259[71] 418[100] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Autocuring: purge blood
Mana Lost: 9
You concentrate on purging your body of foreign toxins.
Your muscles are no longer so numb.
[Take numbness from Iniar]
You have cured numbness.
[Take numbness from Iniar]
259[71] 409[97] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
A great weight seems to have been lifted from Abigail.
259[71] 409[97] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Aros's knuckles grow momentarily white as he strengthens his grip.
259[71] 409[97] eb db 8 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Aros's knuckles grow momentarily white as he strengthens his grip.
Aros whips a Dreadscythe Claymore through the air in front of you, to no effect.
With a lightning-quick motion, Aros slashes you with a Dreadscythe Claymore.
-99 [27.3%], 131 (24.4%)
An attack on your immune system causes your body to feel weak.
You are afflicted with hemotoxin.
Aros moves in to engage you.
159[43] 409[97] eb db 12 0 92.55 0 [a: 0][h: 0]
Celestine's aura of weapons rebounding disappears.
Celestine viciously slashes you with a claymore!
-93 [25.6%], 117 (20.5%)
Your hearing is suddenly restored.
Celestine viciously slashes you with a claymore!
Multicolored fragments fly out of your wormhole as its connection shatters.
You have lost the insomnia defence.
Your faith decreases as you fall to the might of Celestine.
The final blow is too much for you, and you fall to the floor a broken, bloody mess.
I've died more than once to the "forgot I lent somebody all my artifacts" thing.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
While sitting on a 2-hour hold for iPhone pre-order (web site crashed a few minutes after it went live), I got through only to eventually be put back on hold because their own systems were not responding/sluggish. The young lady suggested I spend my time waiting, "doing some household chores". That's owned right there.
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
In hindsight I agree with you, but in my defense the initial "hold time" was six minutes, and then every 5-10 minutes you get angrier and angrier and convince yourself that waiting just a few more minutes might make it all worthwhile. Not too dissimilar from what we Imperianites might call "the phylactery effect"
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
In hindsight I agree with you, but in my defense the initial "hold time" was six minutes, and then every 5-10 minutes you get angrier and angrier and convince yourself that waiting just a few more minutes might make it all worthwhile. Not too dissimilar from what we Imperianites might call "the phylactery effect"
Earthburst is effective when your team follows directions (and is outnumbered). Creates a hilarious RNG cluster$%#@ when they don't.
(Ring): You say, "Inc."
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Ander is nearby. Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Raykel is nearby. Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Tsildra is nearby. Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Menoch is nearby. Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Morgoth is nearby. Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Caitryn is nearby. Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Wysrias is nearby.
(Ring): You say, "GET IN TENT." <----unfortunately for Erliovan, he is the only one who listened
Caitryn, Menoch, Morgoth, Tsildra, Raykel, and Wysrias enter from the down following Ander, riding a belligerent cinereal stallion.
You thrust a gnarled staff of blackened snakewood into the ground and the earth shakes on impact, attempting to toss everyone out of your location in an outburst of rocks. The Song of Mass amplifies the effect of the outburst.
[AL] Caitryn - Inside a simple tent. [AL] Cassius - down [AL] Tsildra - Inside a simple tent. [AL] Morgoth - northwest [AL] Ichimoru - northwest [AL] Menoch - Inside a simple tent. [AL] Wysrias - down [AL] Raykel - Inside a simple tent. [AL] Ander - northwest
(Ring): You say, "EARTHBURST UNLEASHED!!"
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
I'll be honest. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't even see you put your tent down. I was on the phone and only paying half attention. I didn't even realize you had earthbursted already until Wysrias was already hitting me.
I would love it if Demon Blast worked similar-ish... What Imperian needs is a mass CC technique for each circle to prevent zerg mentality. To clarify, zerging is ok, but zerg mentality needs to change.
A version of demon blast that worked in that manner would be amazing (with similar requisites obviously - have to carve a pentagram and summon something else in that room, maybe, to account for how the earthsong works). Anything to move more abilities in malignosis out of the 'useless' tier. Looking at you, "4s balance to activate on one target and all I get is ablaze every 15 seconds, really?" demon sear.
Another way to improve demonic mass CC would be to classlead some sort of enhanced capability for firewalls - double wheels are already a nice prepped crowd buster (especially since you can target who you want to get rid of), but suffer from the fact that they generally don't work if people fly/track/prism/portal into the room. Full coverage fire may be a bit much, but perhaps either/or (you can firewall exit(s) -or- the sky to deliver effect on non-exit arrivals).
edit: Not expecting any druid sympathy, but in terms of Earthburst tradeoff, you do need to cancel your Strength Song in the room, in favor of Mass Song, which (particularly for non-artifact druids) is a pretty good buff - just throwing that out there if you want to shape a comparable demon blast effect.
“We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
Want it to be room effect, because CC 1 person doesnt matter much when the incoming group has 7 or 8 people. Arc/screech only works if your ping is amazing and you hit everyone first than that... Nothing I can see that would really ramp up that learning curve for zergs.
The way Earthburst works now is really sweet -it could go either way for your team, but sometimes that risk is 150% worth it. Using it senselessly like Aakrin's twist ring could potentially hurt your own team, which means its either something people learn how to use, or their leaders ban them from being derps. Finally, creating small 2v2s-ish from a 8v8 with the options to regroup means that zerglings will learn a little bit about combat tactics with their little toe in the wading pool.
What would I give up for a Diabolist to use mass-ignoring Demon Blast. Maybe demon armour.
Do you remember when demon blast was bugged and would blow you out of the room only to instantly draw you back? Took like 3 years to fix. "Cannot reproduce problem."
I don't think diabolists have anything equivalent to trade. The class doesn't really have a lot of 'choices' like the earthsong one - you get one of three demons, however only the fiend has any functional use - the 'top ranked' demon, daemonite, does negligible damage and literally nothing else on a 6 second tick. Ouroboros provides armor and syphon, however these are fire and forget defenses. All demons despawn on death or starburst, including the ouroboros, meaning the entire skill is effectively disabled. I know there's still a lingering feeling of "diabolist is fine, if anything it needs nerfs", but all three of its class skills are majorly deprecated when compared to more modern classes that fit the metagame. I'm not trying to say to go crazy and buff the class, but I would argue malignosis as a whole needs some serious redesigning, and more options for crowd control could easily fit into that.
The malignist class was built and designed in Achaea and predicated on affliction overwhelm against people who could not heal. It was always assumed you would have hunt running + nightmare and you'd be able to lock your opponent or push bad curing into 50% mana for a kill. This isn't the case anymore. Garrynbot is on point with healing. Daegger hunt turned a good classlead idea bad. Infirmities were stolen from Cabalist and the mechanic is somehow worse. The class is still predicated on affliction overwhelm but it's more of a batch setting of sticking affliction triplets and moving on to the next. The afflictions aren't there to support a mechanic like that. Malignosis brings very little offensive ability as a secondary ability. The only real affliction support you're pulling is from hunt and that's pretty unreliable and restrictive as your daegger is out of commission regardless of hit or rebound.
tl/dr: It's a spam affliction class to stick triplets of herb cures. This mechanic sounds cool until anyone with a clue sees 2 infirmities and gets the eff out of dodge, leaving you high and dry.
Problem 1: Evileye affliction list is pretty much a limp noodle. It's a broad list of affs, but none of them really serve as any sort of mechanic outside of orphine cure, kelp cure, nightshade cure. Let's not even mention mental dsl or Iniar's going to followup with some weird tangent.
Problem 2: Daegger hunt was an amazing idea (I'm biased because I came up with it). The skill as is now is pretty bad. There is so much to capitalize on here and you're missing the theme, the point, and the balance. This leads into 3:
Problem 3: Necromancy forms
This is pretty much the weapon wielding choice of malignist. I can field a claymore (ghast), a sabre (lich) or a brain needle (wight). Whereas every class in the game can quickdraw every eq/bal for free, malignists have a 12s no movement channel. You are 100% committed to a strategy the MOMENT you animate yourself. Bad design when the metagame is all about newbie buttons and versatility.
Solution 1: Slow down the entire class. Why? So you can build in secondary mechanics based on the daegger. Deliver affliction through aura. Do a unique malig affliction. Do a non-physical damage type. Do more bleeding. Shadowstrike. The sky is the limit. Go watch the shadow and look at this creepy mfer. Build on that but with crazy demon shenanigans. I could do it for you, but a lot of my ideas get lost in translation.
Solution 2: Get rid of infirmities. Replace them with something. Anything
Solution 3: Make animate more efficient and less clunky. If you're going to stick with it, renimation is boring when the idea exists that you can stab yourself in the heart and infuse demonic power into and BECOME a ghast/wraith/wight. RP is cool. Learn it. Love it.
The underlying mechanics are bad, that's the problem. Nobody wants to stick triplets of afflictions (which take multiple rounds to set up, and the affliction pressure itself is automatically lost when you stick the infirmity because it can only be used standalone). Daegger is horribly clunky with hunt being an active ability, because you can no longer 'cancel' hunt by resummoning the daegger to go for a shadowstrike - if the daegger is off hunt balance, you can't use -anything- with the daegger.
I know we don't draw direct comparisons to classes, but let's be real - diabolist is the priest of demonic. Look at the offensive options that priest has combined with the sheer group support and tankiness - diabolist doesn't really have any of these, and its only 'support' effect has a 10 second neutral equilibrium cost. Deadeyes is an outdated affliction pool that boils down to prioritizing a few afflictions in a fight or trying for a lock, something virtually every other demonic class can pull off easily.
If I had my druthers, evileye would be removed as a skill and replaced with something that better expands the 'demonic priest' role. Turn daeggers and pentagrams into their own skill separate from the ouroboros/demons, maybe even set up the latter as its own 'Demonology' skill and let Malignosis rely on the demonic ritual aspect. There are some truly cool themes that are barely touched on with the class - blood magick, corruption, undeath (the animate ability itself could be fleshed out into SO MUCH MORE). Remove infirmities as a mechanic - they have no place in this game - and utilize this blood magick/daegger theme to replace the affliction pressure with a more balanced and focused affliction pool. Slow down direct delivery via 'mental DSL' and provide more tactical choices for burst affliction pressure or ways to emphasize afflictions outside of locks. Create rituals or uses for the pentagram that function analogously to the prayers that priests can provide for their group. Want to keep catharsis around? (I do.) Kanai is great as a dynamic resource in a fight because you expend momentum as an opportunity cost, with multiple choices for this pressure - infirmities are terrible for the same reason, because they telegraph the offense in advance and basically scream 'this is how you're going to be killed'. The diabolist can't change animation forms so that's actually 100% true. Anyway, this is turning into an Ahkan-esque rant, so I'll stop sidetracking the thread now.
TLDR: Diabolists are pretty much the same as they were when the game opened, with only a few changes to separate them from their Apostate heritage. The bandaids need to be ripped off so that the problem beneath can be fixed. I don't think this can be done via classleads, but I'm certainly going to try, what other choice is there?
If that's the case, why were Druids redesigned with added mana pressure and a mana kill?
I'm not disagreeing that Diabolist could use some work. I'm just saying let's get rid of 50% kills with 0 conditionals.
It's not actually very easy to drive down mana vs. most classes - using Wight, diabolist does a small drain on each deadeyes, but the overall speed is capped at 2.44. As lich, speed is high enough to push locking or infirmities, but there's no periodic mana drain. The only other drains on mana are going to come from focus and clot, with the former being useless if you're prioritizing impatience (or if anyone in your group is - and in demonic, they almost certainly are), and the latter being far too low to matter. Sticking addiction works against you in teams if anyone is doing any amount of health damage (they are), since it will force every sip to mana.
In fact, knowing that 50% is a difficult threshold to hit outside of any accompanying mana drains, infirmities were designed to force that threshold up by a large margin (10% per infirmity), AND increase the drain from wight effects. Unfortunately you never see this, because infirmities are far too slow to push in a team outside of a group coordinated effort to solely stick infirmities (this is a waste of effort).
Sap and leech drain mana, but they ONLY drain mana, and have half effectiveness in situations where druids are involved, granting them both a resistance to other class' mana drain efforts while compounding their own. Druid is in the unique situation where it pushes mana by virtue of constant toadstool deny combined with oppression effects increasing mana consumption massively. You can't afford to not sip health, or you'll die to damage, leading to a situation where mana drains become cumulative. Priests get supremacy to pressure on multiple fronts at the cost of other opportunity skills. Diabolists have been bandaid fixed with infirmities, which are an untenable, extremely boring mechanic. This is why I think this central mechanic needs to change, not the concept of mana kills.
EDIT: Because it might not clear what the point of my rambling is - 50% mana isn't the problem. The pressure from the class does not exist to force that DOWN further, in fact current mechanics raise that threshold because it's too difficult to push down to 50% on its own. If diabolist were redesigned to actually be able to apply consistent pressure, then I would very much be open to changing the conditions/threshold.
Mana drain conditionals are healthy for team combat, as long as there are only ever a limited number of classes with active mana drain attacks to force a split pressure.
Comments
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
(Ring): You say, "Inc."
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Ander is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Raykel is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Tsildra is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Menoch is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Morgoth is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Caitryn is nearby.
Your foreboding stone glows, warning you that Wysrias is nearby.
(Ring): You say, "GET IN TENT." <----unfortunately for Erliovan, he is the only one who listened
Caitryn, Menoch, Morgoth, Tsildra, Raykel, and Wysrias enter from the down following Ander, riding a
belligerent cinereal stallion.
You thrust a gnarled staff of blackened snakewood into the ground and the earth shakes on impact,
attempting to toss everyone out of your location in an outburst of rocks.
The Song of Mass amplifies the effect of the outburst.
[AL] Caitryn - Inside a simple tent.
[AL] Cassius - down
[AL] Tsildra - Inside a simple tent.
[AL] Morgoth - northwest
[AL] Ichimoru - northwest
[AL] Menoch - Inside a simple tent.
[AL] Wysrias - down
[AL] Raykel - Inside a simple tent.
[AL] Ander - northwest
(Ring): You say, "EARTHBURST UNLEASHED!!"
edit: Not expecting any druid sympathy, but in terms of Earthburst tradeoff, you do need to cancel your Strength Song in the room, in favor of Mass Song, which (particularly for non-artifact druids) is a pretty good buff - just throwing that out there if you want to shape a comparable demon blast effect.
The way Earthburst works now is really sweet -it could go either way for your team, but sometimes that risk is 150% worth it. Using it senselessly like Aakrin's twist ring could potentially hurt your own team, which means its either something people learn how to use, or their leaders ban them from being derps. Finally, creating small 2v2s-ish from a 8v8 with the options to regroup means that zerglings will learn a little bit about combat tactics with their little toe in the wading pool.
What would I give up for a Diabolist to use mass-ignoring Demon Blast. Maybe demon armour.
I know we don't draw direct comparisons to classes, but let's be real - diabolist is the priest of demonic. Look at the offensive options that priest has combined with the sheer group support and tankiness - diabolist doesn't really have any of these, and its only 'support' effect has a 10 second neutral equilibrium cost. Deadeyes is an outdated affliction pool that boils down to prioritizing a few afflictions in a fight or trying for a lock, something virtually every other demonic class can pull off easily.
If I had my druthers, evileye would be removed as a skill and replaced with something that better expands the 'demonic priest' role. Turn daeggers and pentagrams into their own skill separate from the ouroboros/demons, maybe even set up the latter as its own 'Demonology' skill and let Malignosis rely on the demonic ritual aspect. There are some truly cool themes that are barely touched on with the class - blood magick, corruption, undeath (the animate ability itself could be fleshed out into SO MUCH MORE). Remove infirmities as a mechanic - they have no place in this game - and utilize this blood magick/daegger theme to replace the affliction pressure with a more balanced and focused affliction pool. Slow down direct delivery via 'mental DSL' and provide more tactical choices for burst affliction pressure or ways to emphasize afflictions outside of locks. Create rituals or uses for the pentagram that function analogously to the prayers that priests can provide for their group. Want to keep catharsis around? (I do.) Kanai is great as a dynamic resource in a fight because you expend momentum as an opportunity cost, with multiple choices for this pressure - infirmities are terrible for the same reason, because they telegraph the offense in advance and basically scream 'this is how you're going to be killed'. The diabolist can't change animation forms so that's actually 100% true. Anyway, this is turning into an Ahkan-esque rant, so I'll stop sidetracking the thread now.
TLDR: Diabolists are pretty much the same as they were when the game opened, with only a few changes to separate them from their Apostate heritage. The bandaids need to be ripped off so that the problem beneath can be fixed. I don't think this can be done via classleads, but I'm certainly going to try, what other choice is there?
In fact, knowing that 50% is a difficult threshold to hit outside of any accompanying mana drains, infirmities were designed to force that threshold up by a large margin (10% per infirmity), AND increase the drain from wight effects. Unfortunately you never see this, because infirmities are far too slow to push in a team outside of a group coordinated effort to solely stick infirmities (this is a waste of effort).
Sap and leech drain mana, but they ONLY drain mana, and have half effectiveness in situations where druids are involved, granting them both a resistance to other class' mana drain efforts while compounding their own. Druid is in the unique situation where it pushes mana by virtue of constant toadstool deny combined with oppression effects increasing mana consumption massively. You can't afford to not sip health, or you'll die to damage, leading to a situation where mana drains become cumulative. Priests get supremacy to pressure on multiple fronts at the cost of other opportunity skills. Diabolists have been bandaid fixed with infirmities, which are an untenable, extremely boring mechanic. This is why I think this central mechanic needs to change, not the concept of mana kills.
EDIT: Because it might not clear what the point of my rambling is - 50% mana isn't the problem. The pressure from the class does not exist to force that DOWN further, in fact current mechanics raise that threshold because it's too difficult to push down to 50% on its own. If diabolist were redesigned to actually be able to apply consistent pressure, then I would very much be open to changing the conditions/threshold.