Brainmelt takes no more or less coordination than Bloodfreeze. A big brainmelt is going to happen eventually. A big bloodfreeze will happen eventually. The difference illustrated is that big bleed is an Outrider thing. Tons of tertiary mentals is a Magick thing. The difference is not subtle. Both skills are dumb for different reasons, but at least big bleed is generally gated by needing the Outrider to make it happen. Almost all of Magick accidentally afflicts with piles of afflictions -it is only a matter of time, not effort, that decides a brainmelt (or cirisosis, actually..)
<div>Message #2062 Sent By: (imperian) Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>ass, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
While Wyssy crusades against Malignist being bad, I'm going to take pot shots at Wytchen.
Wytchen is a clunky mishmash of barely compatible skills.
-New runelore is the bee's knees on Runeguards. Not so much for Wytchen.
-Cadmus is the best mark. Everything else cannot and will not compete. Ever.
-Given the 'ho hum' offense that is incredibly reliant upon tracking/momentum, the class isn't durable or versatile enough (damage or affs) to survive the current meta.
Suggestion 1:
Design the class around curse/dustthrow. Alter Belial/Hecate (I will provide more awesome suggestions later). Delete swift curse and blight.
Classes are balanced around the synergy between the primary and the secondary skill, often picking up some utility from the tertiary skill. Wytchen's offense is forced into the decision of "Do I pk with 100% curses or 100% shamanism." Neither are potent by themselves and the real sweet spot is pairing curses with the back up afflictions from shamanism. Even then, the affliction list leaves a lot to be desired, especially when we consider that not all shamanism afflictions feed into igniting marks. The class needs to be balanced around curse/dustthrow as the fundamental mechanic,
Suggestion 2:
Runelore doesn't fit the class or the core mechanics of the class.
As I already mentioned, there's a few missing afflictions or delivery options for wytchen. Runelore doesn't address these at all. Sure, you pick up buffs from 3 runes, but runeflares bring so little to wytchen combat. We just cut pasted runeguard runelore onto wytchen because of :effort:. It doesn't fit. The timing is terribly of and you're actually hamstringing yourself if you're going to try to work runelore into your offense. Let's not even get into the lack of compatibility with some of the mechanics...see: eihwaz. Trash it, reintroduce runelore mechanics under a more 'wytchen' feel.
Suggestion 3:
Remove the % failure from marks with regard to dustthrow afflictions.
If you want to tweak the aff output of the class, go after the balance time and the cool downs. Building an aff class around "If I do this, I have a 33.3% chance to do a secondary affliction." That's a terrible gamble. I want that affliction to be paired with this other affliction at exactly this time. If it doesn't fire, I want to do it again until I hit with the combo I want/need. Terrible mechanic that favors spamming the same combo ad nauseum until it works. Reduce the effect or raise the cooldown to put it on part with current affliction builds in the game. Seems like 4 afflictions a round is pretty standard.
Suggestion 4:
Remove the clutter and tighten the 'curve' of balance-eq.
Here's a list of things that all have different balance times: Curse (hecate belial), Swift Curse, Blight, rune flare, sketch, dustthrow 1, dustthrow mixing 2, curse cadmus. How can you balance this class when you're looking at affliction times at a range of 1-4affs between 1.5-3 seconds? Never mind that none of these are compatible in the least. There are too many confounding variables from incompatible mechanics that really hold the optimization back and prevent this class from being an 'efficient' and fun affliction class. Also, suggestion 3.
Suggestion 5:
Admit we screwed the pooch and go back and fix it. This applies to defiler as well.
I'd just like the profession to have a solid theme, to be honest. It doesn't seem very cohesive. Right now, I throw bonedust, draw marks, wield tablets, wield totems, and point. It just seems like a lot of different things that don't necessarily mesh well thematically.
@kanthari I never really thought the wytchen communed officially with the demons. Wytchen and demons have more in common with Kachinas than they actually have with devil worship. You can totally spin it that we're actually communing with demons, but it's a very informa, primitive relationship which relates much more with the founding and continued development of the wytchen 'role'.
Example: Kanthari doesn't actually speak to Hecate. Kanthari speaks to a spirit who is the old woman who bridges the gap between the living world and the underworld, whom so happens to BE Hecate, but Kanth isn't aware of that.
I felt like I was only griping and providing 0 feedback.
Make redemption a free starburst tattoo that costs 100% devotion. (so you can't put it up in combat and is a prep skill). Then prevent this from stacking with existing starburst tattoos. This defense is removed on log off.
After that, I think it's worth looking into to add further restrictions on redemption:
-not 100% devotion
-not 100% health
-not 100% mana
Right now it's effectively a 2x health buffer that allows you to frivolously push a bad position at 0 cost. Hey, I redemptioned Lionas. Oh well, Lionas just absolved me.
Despite whatever is said to the contrary, hivemind mentality gets more done around here than anything else, and this has pretty much always been the case in my experience.
Iniar makes observation. Shou stops using cirisosis, cirisosis complaints go away. Cirisosis no get hot nerf.
People must :really: bitch about demonic PK.
We use Cirisosis when two criteria are met:
Septus is around to coordinate the tracking.
We have a primary target like Risca/Eldreth, who's so tanky that it's faster to cirisosis them, to death than it is to just beat them down.
With the influx of claymore we have been getting, basically nothing in the world meets the second criteria, so we never have to resort to it.
"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 I think 100% devotion for redemption seems like overkill, I agree pretty heavily with full health/mana like vitality. Then again, I haven't used devotion since it was changed so maybe that wouldn't take an eternity to recover from now.
100% is perfectly legitimate considering it only takes what, 2-3 minutes to recharge up to full? The cost -has- to be high so you cannot use it mid-combat or just before.
While I think 100% devotion for redemption seems like overkill, I agree pretty heavily with full health/mana like vitality. Then again, I haven't used devotion since it was changed so maybe that wouldn't take an eternity to recover from now.
Vitality isn't full health/mana. Don't know the numbers on bladesurge but I don't think that is either.
At the least, the extra life effects (Redemption, Starburst, Combust) need to not stack with each other. It is staggeringly disheartening to go into battle with Antimagick knowing that what looks like a 4v4 is in many ways a 4v12+.
So while simply preventing the stacking of said effects may be a boring solution, can we at least have that if nothing else?
Nah. We should nerf all HP bonuses, then work from there. At least it's an equal platform to start with, then more honest conversations can be had. But it is unlikely to happen.
Health buffs aren't a very big deal, honestly. You're paying a premium to break 700h. You're also sacrificing stats, balance modifiers, etc. There's really no problem at the top there.
A larger problem are active heals. It's been classleaded before and dismissed out of hand several times, but the problem remains. A 'fighter' can sit there and do nothing but chain active healing. Kliko, Sarrius, Chani, Celestine, Septus. When you're adding up sip, regen, toadstool, passive skills, AND an active heal you're outpacing the damage done to you. The company line has been "it's not possible to spam them." Thanks to the new and improved system we can arguably say that base devotion provides for 166 uses of hands which at neutral balance probably comes out to 8 minutes of hands spamming for 20% health recovery. You'll notice that's longer than your actual team engagement and the 100% regen time is 2 minutes.
Now apply this other active healing abilities. It's a problem since they stack.
I nearly walked away from our 'fight' yesterday, Ahkan. Hands, hands, hands? No. It was only because Celestine is fairly squishy that I thought it would be worth trying. There's nothing more infuriating than beating on group 20% heals, as well as hidden affliction curing. I can see why Kryss went DK (<3 60s kill method - see all of AM). Sorry, @Celestine.
While I think 100% devotion for redemption seems like overkill, I agree pretty heavily with full health/mana like vitality. Then again, I haven't used devotion since it was changed so maybe that wouldn't take an eternity to recover from now.
Vitality isn't full health/mana. Don't know the numbers on bladesurge but I don't think that is either.
vitality You need to be fully healthy in both body and mind before you can call upon your vitality.
@Ahkan: Oh, that's much more reasonable sounding. I didn't realize how insanely fast that was now.
Thanks to the new and improved system we can arguably say that base devotion provides for 166 uses of hands
Not sure how you came to that number! The devotion pool allows for a total of 2000(max) / 120(cost) = 16 uses before being depleted. After factoring in regen (200 every 15s), the total rises to 20-22. This assumes that the devotionist isn't using any rites at all (-40 max per rite), and isn't preserving the 1,000 devotion required for Redemption to fire.
Worth noting that the beads artifact reduces costs by 33%, which may be contributing to the overall perception.
I asked the wrong people for information, clearly. Luckily, it doesn't really diminish the point at all. The problem still stands that you're able to heal more damage than is being done with very little trade off. Most modern games have adapted to this and added mechanisms to prevent something like this from occurring.
I'm taking pot shots at devotion because it's by far the worst offender. You knew this in the beta and even admitted as much. Cleric and Templar are badass classes since they're defense ++ and offense ++. Between their passive, active, class buffs, and redemption they're two of the best classes in the game and you're expending everything in your arsenal to kill them once. Oops, gotta do it over again. Crap, AGAIN.
Cleric/Templar are like the inverse of Defiler and Wytchen. Classleads made them too strong.
Comments
Suggestion 4:
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
I never really thought the wytchen communed officially with the demons. Wytchen and demons have more in common with Kachinas than they actually have with devil worship. You can totally spin it that we're actually communing with demons, but it's a very informa, primitive relationship which relates much more with the founding and continued development of the wytchen 'role'.
Kanthari doesn't actually speak to Hecate. Kanthari speaks to a spirit who is the old woman who bridges the gap between the living world and the underworld, whom so happens to BE Hecate, but Kanth isn't aware of that.
Thoughts?
What justifies a hot fix nerf?
People must :really: bitch about demonic PK.
We use Cirisosis when two criteria are met:
With the influx of claymore we have been getting, basically nothing in the world meets the second criteria, so we never have to resort to it.
"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 I think 100% devotion for redemption seems like overkill, I agree pretty heavily with full health/mana like vitality. Then again, I haven't used devotion since it was changed so maybe that wouldn't take an eternity to recover from now.
So while simply preventing the stacking of said effects may be a boring solution, can we at least have that if nothing else?
You need to be fully healthy in both body and mind before you can call upon your vitality.
@Ahkan: Oh, that's much more reasonable sounding. I didn't realize how insanely fast that was now.
Worth noting that the beads artifact reduces costs by 33%, which may be contributing to the overall perception.
Cleric/Templar are like the inverse of Defiler and Wytchen. Classleads made them too strong.