Improving Imperian Combat
Iniar
Australia
Rule #1. Don't be a douche.
wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
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I believe that Iniar's point here is that this is an "affliction" that is actually causes damage, or at least effective damage, no matter what the target does. Either you eat the toadstool and take damage to both health and mana, or you wait out the poison timer and take effective damage in the form of lost healing.
However nice it would be to have the option to make intelligent combat decisions to deal with druid abilities, I'm not sure that really fits the class design.
2014/08/18 06:26:38 - Iniar has been slain by Ifreann.
2014/08/18 06:38:00 - Iniar rants.
Druid quarterstaffs need to stop scaling at 10/20/30 marks and go down to the 10/15/20 marks provided by collars, and earth needs to change somewhat. A flat 20% damage bonus is too much, especially with the extra +10% earthsong.
Maybe have Earth be consumed to provide a damage bonus to your next evocation attack, instead of being something that just piles on the modifiers to everything.
"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."
1. Having switched off numbness (from my queue) for testing (on myself)
2. Canceling my own Annihilate
3. Not bailing when Aakrin arrived to help Ifreann
4. Waiting until Aakrin had sludged me before I decided to run
There are a few 'problems' with druid, and a large number of 'mouth-froth inducing' aspects to boot, but wisp poison seemed inordinately unreasonable. Wisp poison contributed to the fact that without doing anything spectacular, Ifreann was able to drop my mana to 8% (and HP to 20ish%). I would like to have switched prios to mana, but I just bet on the fact that he wouldn't reclaim me (he didn't) ((you should, @Ifreann))
Let me put it another way: if toadstool didn't cure mana, I would have no problem with wisp poison. Ifreann's damage, I can tank, even as Fast. Me down to <10% mana in about 30 seconds, me no likey. Thank god Priest is Anti-magick and Diabolist is Demonic.
Not necessarily!
#yearadamirra
"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."
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General Skills Rank
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Revisionism 100% Transcendent
Perception 100% Transcendent
Survival 100% Transcendent
Weaponry 100% Transcendent
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At no stage should it be offered that wisp poison, when specified as mana denial, -do- mana damage.
If it happens, please consider carefully.
I am confused..it already -does- do mana damage (which is why anyone who uses rainbow wisps needs punched in the throat)
What Khizan said was "Adjust Choke's crazy damage and Earth/Imbue having 100% uptime and re-evaluate afterwards, because those are huge factors that could remove a ton of the problems and I don't want to drop the entire class into the gutter." This is because it's much harder to get a class back OUT of the gutter once you've put it there.
Accordingly, I've reevaluated and decided that, hey, further nerfs are necessary. Specifically, the dials on the multiple percentile modifiers need turned down some more. Artifact druids are getting +10% from Earthsong and +20% from Imbue and +10-30% from the staff and this adds up to a lot of freaking damage.
Why didn't it come up before now? Because there were no artifacted Druids fighting until Eldreth went Magick.
"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."
As Eldreth previously noted, making it a plant cure makes the option completely and inarguably useless. Changing it so that it only affects health or mana likewise makes it useless, as there are better wisps designed for both those roles already. Like it or not, the wisp was designed in order to pressure both health and mana simultaneously, to help the Druid force a lose-lose scenario between killing you with damage or reclaim. You can argue that it does this job too well at the moment, but the solution to that should not be to make it useless.
You did not seem to read my post at all, so I will reiterate; Wisp Poison is -not- a damage and denial effect in the same way you're making it out to be. In practice, Wisp Poison is a denial effect. The damage is 100% opt-in.
The way I envisioned a compromise poisonous working:
- Eldreth poison wisps Ellen HEALTH.
Ellen eats a toadstool, takes health damage and loses toadstool health benefit. The net effect is probably on par with a metallic reinforced wisp without wasting your valuable air (druids needlessly wasting air on fancy-pants combos also deserved punched in the throat). No impact on mana.
-or-
Ellen turns off her toadstool. As she notes, poison is now a (slightly) weaker metallic. But turning off toadstool has also denied her any mana benefits. So in effect the only change from wisp 1.0 would be active damage to mana - and with qstaff drain, root drain, oppression, and a much easier 40% reclaim route, this isn't the end of the world.
@Iniar can now resume his attempts at classlead diplomacy with terrible math posts - just wanted to share my insight as to why I didn't think the request is entirely unreasonable.
I don't really have an issue with druid being a super high dps class. End of the day it is a damage class.
I do kind of have an issue with them having this kind of damage out the door, though. Building up to a nuke like this or burning a ton of balance I can understand.
463/512h 456/543m 0e 0w bals:eb status:pdb arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Ifreann stabs you viciously with a hardened quarterstaff of the Wilds.
Damage Taken: 137 cutting, physical (raw damage: 148)
Several tiny rocks materialise above you and fall down, battering your body.
Damage Taken: 40 blunt, mental (raw damage: 47)
Your hearing is suddenly restored.
285/512h 456/543m 0e 0w bals:eb status:pb arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Ifreann swings his quarterstaff and an animated hawthorn root spins around and batters you, shredding your skin mercilessly.
Damage Taken: 74 cutting, physical (raw damage: 84)
A prickly, stinging sensation spreads through your body.
211/512h 456/543m 0e 0w bals:eb status:pb arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
You take 1 toadstool, bringing the total to 960.
You quickly eat a toadstool.
Your veins burn and you feel a stabbing pain in your head as the toadstool cleanses the wisp poison from your body.
Damage Taken: 51 poison (raw damage: 51)
The wisp poison has been cleared from your body.
159/512h 402/543m 0e 0w bals:eb status:pb arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Few points here. Firstly the damage in and of itself isn't really too appalling by artefacted damage class standards. I think I likely put out comparable numbers as templar. What is of note is that this is vastly faster than any other damage build that I can think of (that was athletic, so likely sub 3 s. Someone feel free to correct me). Also of note here is that that damage also ate one of the health regaining methods, meaning the next round is going to probably hit while you're still very low from the first one.
To add to this you need to remember that choke can be ticking in the background, you can be given a sip penalty, etc.
Relevant things to be aware of: I was in monk, so a lot less tanky than I could have been, and have a surcoat and high cutting leather (around artefact standard). All damage reducing blocks/toughness were active. This was the second hit of the fight from Ifreann (first hit rebounding, if at all important).
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, templar with earthshield, protective favour, fullplate, surcoat. Situations were as close as I could find from logs, but I can't be sure of Ifreann's statpack in this latter one. I also think he may have got an extra str or 2 from somewhere in the first instance, given the increase on the stab. Mostly including this to show druids definitely aren't pumping out 250 damage combos on tankier classes.
468/512h 505/543m 0e 0w bals:-- status:db arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Ifreann's aura of weapons rebounding disappears.
Ifreann stabs you viciously with a hardened quarterstaff of the Wilds.
Damage Taken: 67 cutting, physical (raw damage: 140)
Several tiny rocks materialise above you and fall down, battering your body.
Damage Taken: 17 blunt, mental (raw damage: 44)
Your hearing is suddenly restored.
383/512h 505/543m 0e 0w bals:-- status:b arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Ifreann swings his quarterstaff and an animated hawthorn root spins around and batters you, shredding your skin mercilessly.
Damage Taken: 35 cutting, physical (raw damage: 84)
A prickly, stinging sensation spreads through your body.
348/512h 505/543m 0e 0w bals:-- status:b arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Your bandages staunch a good portion of your bleeding.
Your wounds cause you to bleed 11 health.
337/512h 505/543m 0e 0w bals:-- status:b arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
You have regained your mental equilibrium.
You take 1 toadstool, bringing the total to 111.
You quickly eat a toadstool.
Your veins burn and you feel a stabbing pain in your head as the toadstool cleanses the wisp poison from your body.
Damage Taken: 41 poison (raw damage: 51)
The wisp poison has been cleared from your body.
295/512h 450/543m 0e 0w bals:e- status:b arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
The damage on that latter one isn't that bad at all (depending on the balance there: if its under 3 seconds I'd still find that questionable given the relative defences), but really just going by that is probably not going to resolve any of the issues people who fight druids have with the class. Its not really the damage that makes them impossible (I use the term loosely) for non tanky people to go up against, its the fact that they have so much healing denial (curse, wisp poison, etc). Its not the fact you're taking 50% a round; its the fact that you're taking 50% a round and have no real recourse for regaining it as the vast majority of classes. Khizan or Wysrias could claymore flare/soulstorm me all day, and I would keep up with this fine, even as fast. The same isn't remotely the case for druid looping the basic damage combo, and personally I feel it shouldn't be quite that easy.
Don't take that as an advocation for requiring hugely complex tracking systems and stuff. I'm fully aware that these are interesting to maybe 5% (an optamistic estimate) of the population, but there's a distinct difference between a friendly learning curve/low barrier to entry and what druid currently is.
All that said, I have no reasonable solutions that would satisfy all parties, so I shall let Iniar carry on with his campaign.
I was in monk... high cutting leather (around artefact standard).
Best line of the week.