As an aside, all demesne effects can be cast without the modifier. I sometimes use storm as a grumpy emote.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited December 2012
Just wanted to comment on some of the suggestions in the report. Answers are in italics.
Need a way to refresh mist, as if you need to go into a fight with 2 minutes left on mist, you're left to either wait 2 minutes, or go in with a disadvantage.
Sure
An increase in amphorae capacity would also be nice, at least a total amount to cover all the outlays when trans'd.
I don't know what this means.
A way to raise all the mist at once. 12 seconds spent when you really need to get into a fight really hurts in certain situations.
For a hefty power cost, sure. 12 seconds is actually not long at all. Fae take over 20 seconds to summon. Timing demenses does as well.
Being able to focus mist even without a target present. Not sure why it's like this.
Sure
Really need some hindering added, because sans TK, there's no proper and effective hindering available to this skillset nor any tertiaries.
Uhhh...no. The crux of psionics is that you can barely hinder it. You have to prone the person, nothing else works. Unstoppable active and passive offense does not need unstoppable hindering as well. It needs to have a downside, but this is it.
Possible new skill to make turtles effective for Aquachemantic users without forcing them to teach it hypnotic gaze, but again, only for those already with turtles. Maybe even an alternate beast.
Kind of a waste of time, especially adding a whole new beast. If you want a turtle, learn aquamancy. This is a want, not a need, and while it may be Christmas time, there are better things to do.
2
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited December 2012
Also: need to start considering changes to psionics if you want support for a "buff mists" report. Including the removal of some of the blackout.
As far as the demesne aspects go, believe me, I share that concern. I'm horridly excited for the Hartstone version, but at the same time I look at my tertiaries.
I lose fuse from Runes.
I lose embed from Dreamweaving. (Sleepmist, as aforementioned, functions without a meld - I actually use it like that sometimes)
I lose half of Shamanism, including full weather manipulation, imprints... Without those I can effectively kiss many of the skills goodbye, as local weather manipulation is limited at the best of times, and Shamanism's benefits mostly come into play at weather extremes. Also, I can't use my shiny lightning attack in it without a demesne.
Ecology doesn't use a meld, and I half expect it to be the 'go-to' set for this skill. Then again, it's also the only one without a kill method.
I think that with mists being eaten up in battle I could see some benefit to having a skill that would raise multiple mists at a time. I would want it to have a power cost. 2,3,5 maybe, depending on how many mists past the first?
Mists I still don't think need any significant buff, at all. Adjuvants I feel do, as for a kill, they're awfully weak one on one. Except the one that requires afflictions.
I had a light spar with Lorina today, and here's some of my preliminary thoughts. It's a bit disorganised, unfortunately.
She
didn't use any adjuvants, as far as I could see, and there were still a
couple of kinks with my triggers. I was also spamming diag as much as
possible to keep track of what's happening, so it's basically a sort of
test spar.
It was a short spar, so the only concern I was able to
confirm with solid is blackout. I was blacked out 52 seconds out of 202
seconds of the spar, partly because of TK throatlocking. The mist
blackout is ~2secs, give or take 0.5secs. Assuming adjuvants aren't
used, ~20% of the fight blacked out is pretty much guarantee'd.
Significance: With
good timing and a bit of luck, the combination of mists, adjuvants and
terts can easily create a situation where a huge burst of hidden
afflictions are achieved. Start an adjuvant with blackout 2secs after
your mists tick. Your target will have ~4secs of blackout starting from
the next mist tick. If TK, throatlock + combo 2secs before the next mist
tick, and then make sure you have the balance to throatlock again 6secs
after that and target will have ~8secs continuous blackout.
Dreamweavers have an 8sec blackout too, but they can't really afflict to
capitalize on it. TK is a totally different matter. Allheale/love
potion messes with that, depending on your luck, and you can't pull off a
100% consistent blanket blackout all the time. But if you can do the
timing, the majority of your affs during this time will be hidden under blackout, and you're going to pull out ahead very very quickly.
Just
this alone makes TK Aquachemantics a very potent, if not overpowered,
archetype to fight against. I haven't even had the chance to be on the
receiving end of the lovers sheen or the adjuvants yet.
Opinions: Putting
blackout aside, the pressure on herb/purgative balances seem like it's
at a sweet spot. I need to fight more to confirm this, so I'm putting
this down as an opinion for now, but from my spar, I wasn't being
overwhelmed at all, though that's also partly because I was diaging a
lot. Of course, against blackout heavy classes, diaging a lot is a
standard operating procedure, so that's not saying a lot. Because of the
unstoppable nature of the mists, however, there was no way I could slow
the aff rate to a comfortable pace, so I was constantly chasing balance
and keeping affs off me. Which is fine. Like I said, it was only a test
spar, so a more serious one might see me getting overwhelmed,
especially with the right timing tactics, but as far as I can see at
this point, aff rate seems at a decent place.
Having more than 1
aquachemantic on you won't change that by a lot, since most of the
mists only give 1 aff. I'm not sure if multiple aquachemantics have
their mists all tick at the same time or not, though. If Neo's
suggestions to make mists able to give an affliction from a pool,
however, this will make group fights against aquachemantics very quickly
overwhelming. This is just speculation, though.
The concerns
about aquachemantics meshing badly with Illusion/Phantasm is a real one.
Blackout hides illusions, so har har. The Phantasms passive effects
(phantom, claws) mesh very very well with the unstoppable nature of the
mists, though. There's never any time to dispel illusions on yourself in
a fight, and blackout hides those affliction ticks, so they add to the
stream of passive afflictions constantly pressuring your herb/purgative
balance.
Suggestions: I can see where wanting to buff
mists come from, since mists alone won't put a target anywhere near
threatened. However, you have to keep in mind the abilities of terts and
their combined effect. Because mists are unstoppable at the moment, at
this current incarnation, it means you have a constant pressure on the
target's herb/purgative balance. Adding to this will likely push the
afflicting capability psionicist aquachemancers over the balance.
I
notice that Neos mentioned that faeriefire is "useless" in his report,
because it will be a low priority affliction to cure. I want to point
out it will be a low priority affliction not because it is not a good
affliction, but because it refreshes every 10 seconds. Doing anything
except ignoring it is not feasible, period. If you want to put it into an active attack, you'll definitely see people curing it, because it is very useful indeed.
Sheens
need to be changed to not give afflictions but other defensive affects.
I'm saying this at this point not because sheen afflictions are
overpowered. (I haven't fought enough to say one way or another) But
because these afflictions are required for aquoxitism. Putting them on
an ability that cannot be actively afflicted cripples the ability
needlessly. I suggest taking blackout out of the adjuvants and putting
these afflictions in, reworking the adjuvants a little where appropriate
so aquoxitism becomes viable. This encourages aquachemancers to give up
their unstoppable passives in order to work toward their "finisher".
Aquoxitism
damage being broken in links is easy to solve, just make links affect
radius but not strength of the adjuvants. If you do the above paragraph
and put justice/lovers/addiction into adjuvants as well as removing the
strength-boosting effect of linking, this will mean that a team of
multiple linked aquachemancers can each do a different adjuvant and have
one aquoxitism hit from a range along with the boosting affs being
afflicted at the same time. This allows linked aquachemancers to boost
the power of their aquoxitism without making it too obscene. Again, this
is speculation on my part.
Still on the topic of sheens and
their affs: I understand the design of making it so that aquachemancers
can pressure herb/purgative balances of their targets when their target
attacks them. However, it translates to a not very useful defensive
mechanic: it doesn't mitigate any damage or affliction. And it, as
mentioned, makes aquoxitism harder to reach its potential. It's a good
idea on paper, but it's not fun. The only sheen affliction that gives
defensive potential is lovers, and I've already said that it punishes
monks and one-handed warriors more, not because it procs more but
because it breaks and affects their combos. Taking these affs away from
sheens solves that disparity as well as makes aquoxitism more viable.
The adjuvant/mist blackout wont quite work like that. It's vapors, which is 1.5s of blackout, and a chance to recur/prone if vapors isn't cured. I -believe- that vapors will cause another blackout if you're already afflicted, but that's harder for me to test at the moment.
That said, using the adjuvant actually eats up the mist, I believe immediately. So the mist wont fire prior to the adjuvant.
After posting, I went back to the log to look some more, and something
occurred to me. I realised I might have been wrong about the blackout.
I'm not sure if adjuvants remove mists upon command entered or when the
delayed effect takes place. If the former, it means that there will be
no next mist tick after starting an adjuvant.
If that's the case, I apologise for the mistake. What that would mean
is that TKs can't do 8secs of continuous blackout, thankfully. It also
means that adjuvants need the sheen afflictions, since adjuvants remove mists from the equation for a
short while. Sacrificing mists is good. Replacing sheen afflictions with
other defensive effects, and moving those afflictions to adjuvants looks
like an even better idea now. As I've already mentioned, I'll have more
input and suggestions after I spar some more.
I also point out that 8 seconds of continuous blackout is perfectly attainable by dreamweaving as well, as memoryloss has an 8s blackout time. That could get very nasty, and I see potential for a DW actually paying attention to possibly secure a sleeping target. I have to test just what DW attacks show through blackout.
I've gone back and done yet some more thinking, and I think this depends on whether mists proc on a global timer, or on their own timer like fae/meld ticks. If it's a global timer, then it's still possible to stack exactly blackouts like I mentioned, by re-casting the humid mist after using it in an adjuvant, and still have just enough eq to throatlock roughly 1.5s before the mist ticks, followed by adjuvant etc.
If it's on a personal timer from when mists are cast, TKs can still chain blackouts together, but there'll be more significant gaps in between:
0.0s start an adjuvant with blackout. 4.0s start a new humid mist. (blackout) [assuming adjuvant casts cost 4s eq.] 8.0s throatlock for 1.5-2s of blackout. [mist casts cost 3s eq according to Neos' report.] 10.0s throatlock blackout cures. Adjuvant blackout ticks. 12.0s adjuvant blackout cures. 13.0s throatlock for 1.5-2s of blackout. 14.0s mist ticks for 1.5-2s of blackout. 16.0s throatlock/mist blackout cures.
Starting from 8th to 16th seconds, you're roughly blacked out except for 1-2s. Also, I'm aware that dreamweavers have 8s of continous blackout, but frankly speaking, a TK who can possibly chain such long blackouts is scarier.
2nd Edit: I want to note here that long blackouts by itself isn't OP'd per se, or that aquachemancers should not be able to chain blackouts. I'm just pointing out that timing things properly can easily give TK aquachemancers a huge blackout they did not have access to before, and that this can be potentially problematic. Exactly how bad it is, and whether/how it needs to be changed will need more sparring to determine and confirm.
I'm not all that worried about TK aquachemancers getting long blackouts. While it's definitely different than what normal TKs do, it doesn't actually seem all that more powerful. Yes, you're in blackout. But since they're a aquachemancer, you know that they aren't going for a preserve kill or a detonate kill since they don't have those skills. All that leaves is burst vessels or damage, so you're going to be spamming health and sparkles blackout or not.
In some ways, I would hope that the chemantic skills would provide power enough that they don't need to replace demesne specific effects in other skillsets. It should provide a vastly different style of combat after all!
There is no way to properly time when mist will hit. Even focusing can take up to 11(maybe more) seconds to come into effect. The 12 seconds total to re-raise mist was my derp, it's actually 16 seconds, because I no math good. Re-raising mist at a power cost isn't good, because if you need to re-raise mist in a fight, you either only have 0/5 power from (maybe) using an adjuvant.
I'm not all that worried about TK aquachemancers getting long blackouts. While it's definitely different than what normal TKs do, it doesn't actually seem all that more powerful. Yes, you're in blackout. But since they're a aquachemancer, you know that they aren't going for a preserve kill or a detonate kill since they don't have those skills. All that leaves is burst vessels or damage, so you're going to be spamming health and sparkles blackout or not.
As a combatant and envoy, this comment is physically painful to me. Blackout hides everything, not just vessels.
My initial impressions. Truthfully, I feel like we'll learn more about what the skillset needs further down the line after we've seen it in action more. We might need to revisit them for another review some months down the line.
Keep in mind, the skillset still has that new-skillset smell, and such has yet to really be used-and-abused to the extent that we'd like it to be before submitting a real report about it. These are my very initial impressions from reviewing the AB and running some small tests with Neos.
1) The passive effects on mists are mostly fine. Neos made the comment to me that you couldn't focus them on a target without the target being in the room. I think that should change.
2) I'm not sure if this is intended, but it looks like humid always hits after pellucid, then followed by other mists. Humid gives vapors, which means the other mists are always hidden from view. I'm not sure yet how impactful this is, but it feels like a very minor oversight.
3) The sheens all seem very good when considered as rebound-defenses.
4) Adjuvants seem to be of very limited use. I feel like one would always elect to use percolation over depuration. While depuration does do damage, I feel like aquoxitism will always be used instead if the mage is going for group damage.
5) I'm worried about the damage of Aquoxitism + Fellowship in groups as others have said. I personally think damage spam has watered down group combat a heck of a lot and I hope it isn't as powerful as it sounds. We should be moving away from that sort of thing. I'm hearing reports of base aquoxitism without affs taking 45-50%. I personally took 35% from aquoxitism with no link and no affs and feel like that should honestly be the limit. I'd have to see it in action in groups, but we may have to tone it down in the future if it's too high.
6) As far as synergy with tertiaries go, it's mostly theory-crafting at this point. It's hard to say what the skillset needs added to it to make it flow better, given how very differently all the tertiaries function. There was mention of wanting more hindering, and I agree that the skillset on its own offers very little. However, telekinesis in particular provides sufficient hindering and is extremely hard to hinder on itself. For sure though, if hindering is to be improved in the skillset, it should not be through mists which can get overwhelming in groups fast if there's multiple aquachemantics users focused on you.
7) Overall I can't seem to get to the bottom of the 'focus' of the skillset. How do the designers intend for it to be played? What sort of goals and combinations did you have in mind? It feels a bit like a hodgepodge of passives and questionable actives that don't really contribute to a clear goal.
I'm not all that worried about TK aquachemancers getting long blackouts. While it's definitely different
than what normal TKs do, it doesn't actually seem all that more
powerful. Yes, you're in blackout. But since they're a aquachemancer,
you know that they aren't going for a preserve kill or a detonate kill
since they don't have those skills. All that leaves is burst vessels or
damage, so you're going to be spamming health and sparkles blackout or
not.
As a combatant and envoy, this comment is physically painful to me. Blackout hides everything, not just vessels.
I'm well aware. Used to be an envoy too, if you recall?
My stance
is that TK Aquachems hiding everything behind blackout is not a big
deal because they only have a very limited number of attacks that will
contribute to a kill. Using the tactic Lerad posted above, they
get a Sub attack at 8.0s, 12.0s and 16.0s.You'd get an Id at 8.0s,
13.0s and at 17.0s. Just outside the blackout window, but whatever, we'll count it. Aside from mists and sheen procs, that's their whole
offense for that 16 second period that isn't devoted to building up
blackout. Your options are: Sub (pick three): Amnesia, AlterAura, Trip, Burst, Pyre, ForceFeed, Sweat Id (pick three): Amnesia, Trip, ForceFeed, AnimateDagger, PsychicFist, Clot, ThroatLock, Sweat, Heartburst You also get to assume they're going to get hit once, maybe twice with FaerieFire and some Health/Ego damage. No Recklessness, since the adjuvant consumes your bubbling mist and Lerad doesn't mention putting it back up and doesn't leave time to do so in between all of the choking.
So,
yeah. There's only one killing tactic in there to worry about. You're going to assume your enemy is not being dumb and that
they're going to try to work towards heartbursting you. You might also want to
drink antidote on the side, just in case they decided to forcefeed you
crot and hope you don't catch the secondary messages, but it's basically heartburst or bust as far as real tactics go.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I'm not all that worried about TK aquachemancers getting long blackouts. While it's definitely different than what normal TKs do, it doesn't actually seem all that more powerful. Yes, you're in blackout. But since they're a aquachemancer, you know that they aren't going for a preserve kill or a detonate kill since they don't have those skills. All that leaves is burst vessels or damage, so you're going to be spamming health and sparkles blackout or not.
As a combatant and envoy, this comment is physically painful to me. Blackout hides everything, not just vessels.
I'm well aware. Used to be an envoy too, if you recall?
My stance is that TK Aquachems hiding everything behind blackout is not a big deal because they only have a very limited number of attacks that will contribute to a kill. Using the tactic Lerad posted above, they get a Sub attack at 8.0s, 12.0s and 16.0s.You'd get an Id at 8.0s, 13.0s and at 17.0s. Just outside the blackout window, but whatever, we'll count it. Aside from mists and sheen procs, that's their whole offense for that 16 second period that isn't devoted to building up blackout. Your options are: Sub (pick three): Amnesia, AlterAura, Trip, Burst, Pyre, ForceFeed, Sweat Id (pick three): Amnesia, Trip, ForceFeed, AnimateDagger, PsychicFist, Clot, ThroatLock, Sweat, Heartburst You also get to assume they're going to get hit once, maybe twice with FaerieFire and some Health/Ego damage. No Recklessness, since the adjuvant consumes your bubbling mist and Lerad doesn't mention putting it back up and doesn't leave time to do so in between all of the choking.
So, yeah. There's only one killing tactic in there to worry about. You're going to assume your enemy is not being dumb and that they're going to try to work towards heartbursting you. You might also want to drink antidote on the side, just in case they decided to forcefeed you crot and hope you don't catch the secondary messages, but it's basically heartburst or bust as far as real tactics go.
Having been a past envoy doesn't mean much.
I'll run through blackout and how it applies to all aspects of combat real quick, and how excessive blackout to hide large swathes of combat rather than selective hidden afflictions becomes a huge issue. You seem to think it only affects curing (or I guess you don't think it affects curing), and that is wrong.
1) You will not see primary affliction lines, so your curing, as a result, will lag behind. This includes broken limbs, throatlock, leglock, whatever they envenom their dagger with. Instead of curing throatlock before you need a sip, for instance, you will be curing it after you attempted to sip, failed, and got the secondary affliction line OR stopped your offense to diagnose. What does this mean? It means that TK, which already outpaces curing, will not outpace it further.
2) You will have to repeatedly diagnose, which is a pretty big hinderance to your own offense.
3) You will be functioning with much less information, meaning running and playing defensive (as defensive as you can be against a psionic) become much more difficult. Map awareness is much more difficult. Keeping track of afflictions that hinder movement is already more difficult because of point 1. If you are at a third of your health or your mana is pittering off, you won't know to move rooms.
4) Your offense goes to crap. You can't maintain any real offense in blackout. With few exceptions, you really have no idea what you're actually doing. There are a few classes that can kind of feel their way around (SD is one of them thanks to PROBE SHADOW and NATIVITY), but most can't. This is compounded for warriors and monks, who need to track several things, and write complex code to do so. Timing with ents or anything else become much more difficult even with a timer.
You are functioning in a void of information, which affects so much more than just your curing. You should never be able to hide an entire judge within a blackout, or ever be able to hide 25-30% or more of a fight behind chunks of blackout. This is an issue with dreamweavers that has existed forever that people complain about repeatedly. It takes the target's skill out of a fight, and reduces them to button mashing and a prayer, which should never happen in top tier pk.
Blackout is already too plentiful in Lusternia. It should be used to hide key afflictions and used strategically, not completely shut someone down in a vast expanse of a black screen and diagnose spam. You can't just say "sip health, you'll be fine, it's just a tk." That is simply ridiculous.
4
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
You also don't see when you eat a herb or sip a vial. Let's say you think you have a clot under blackout and you eat yarrow, if it's a long blackout, you spend the whole time eating yarrow every now and again, because you can't track to see if you ever completed the action to know for sure you don't have the aff. This is something I sort of want to change about blackout. You're forced to diagnose too often.
BTW, just a bit of a sidenote. I'd love to have an ability that puts up all my defenses in a skillset for a power cost and 5sec of bal. Please do it for every skillset. I'm tired of spending 8secs for a single hide.
Comments
Alright, disregard that complaint.
Just wanted to comment on some of the suggestions in the report. Answers are in italics.
She didn't use any adjuvants, as far as I could see, and there were still a couple of kinks with my triggers. I was also spamming diag as much as possible to keep track of what's happening, so it's basically a sort of test spar.
It was a short spar, so the only concern I was able to confirm with solid is blackout. I was blacked out 52 seconds out of 202 seconds of the spar, partly because of TK throatlocking. The mist blackout is ~2secs, give or take 0.5secs. Assuming adjuvants aren't used, ~20% of the fight blacked out is pretty much guarantee'd.
Significance:
With good timing and a bit of luck, the combination of mists, adjuvants and terts can easily create a situation where a huge burst of hidden afflictions are achieved. Start an adjuvant with blackout 2secs after your mists tick. Your target will have ~4secs of blackout starting from the next mist tick. If TK, throatlock + combo 2secs before the next mist tick, and then make sure you have the balance to throatlock again 6secs after that and target will have ~8secs continuous blackout. Dreamweavers have an 8sec blackout too, but they can't really afflict to capitalize on it. TK is a totally different matter. Allheale/love potion messes with that, depending on your luck, and you can't pull off a 100% consistent blanket blackout all the time. But if you can do the timing, the majority of your affs during this time will be hidden under blackout, and you're going to pull out ahead very very quickly.
Just this alone makes TK Aquachemantics a very potent, if not overpowered, archetype to fight against. I haven't even had the chance to be on the receiving end of the lovers sheen or the adjuvants yet.
Opinions:
Putting blackout aside, the pressure on herb/purgative balances seem like it's at a sweet spot. I need to fight more to confirm this, so I'm putting this down as an opinion for now, but from my spar, I wasn't being overwhelmed at all, though that's also partly because I was diaging a lot. Of course, against blackout heavy classes, diaging a lot is a standard operating procedure, so that's not saying a lot. Because of the unstoppable nature of the mists, however, there was no way I could slow the aff rate to a comfortable pace, so I was constantly chasing balance and keeping affs off me. Which is fine. Like I said, it was only a test spar, so a more serious one might see me getting overwhelmed, especially with the right timing tactics, but as far as I can see at this point, aff rate seems at a decent place.
Having more than 1 aquachemantic on you won't change that by a lot, since most of the mists only give 1 aff. I'm not sure if multiple aquachemantics have their mists all tick at the same time or not, though. If Neo's suggestions to make mists able to give an affliction from a pool, however, this will make group fights against aquachemantics very quickly overwhelming. This is just speculation, though.
The concerns about aquachemantics meshing badly with Illusion/Phantasm is a real one. Blackout hides illusions, so har har. The Phantasms passive effects (phantom, claws) mesh very very well with the unstoppable nature of the mists, though. There's never any time to dispel illusions on yourself in a fight, and blackout hides those affliction ticks, so they add to the stream of passive afflictions constantly pressuring your herb/purgative balance.
Suggestions:
I can see where wanting to buff mists come from, since mists alone won't put a target anywhere near threatened. However, you have to keep in mind the abilities of terts and their combined effect. Because mists are unstoppable at the moment, at this current incarnation, it means you have a constant pressure on the target's herb/purgative balance. Adding to this will likely push the afflicting capability psionicist aquachemancers over the balance.
I notice that Neos mentioned that faeriefire is "useless" in his report, because it will be a low priority affliction to cure. I want to point out it will be a low priority affliction not because it is not a good affliction, but because it refreshes every 10 seconds. Doing anything except ignoring it is not feasible, period. If you want to put it into an active attack, you'll definitely see people curing it, because it is very useful indeed.
Sheens need to be changed to not give afflictions but other defensive affects. I'm saying this at this point not because sheen afflictions are overpowered. (I haven't fought enough to say one way or another) But because these afflictions are required for aquoxitism. Putting them on an ability that cannot be actively afflicted cripples the ability needlessly. I suggest taking blackout out of the adjuvants and putting these afflictions in, reworking the adjuvants a little where appropriate so aquoxitism becomes viable. This encourages aquachemancers to give up their unstoppable passives in order to work toward their "finisher".
Aquoxitism damage being broken in links is easy to solve, just make links affect radius but not strength of the adjuvants. If you do the above paragraph and put justice/lovers/addiction into adjuvants as well as removing the strength-boosting effect of linking, this will mean that a team of multiple linked aquachemancers can each do a different adjuvant and have one aquoxitism hit from a range along with the boosting affs being afflicted at the same time. This allows linked aquachemancers to boost the power of their aquoxitism without making it too obscene. Again, this is speculation on my part.
Still on the topic of sheens and their affs: I understand the design of making it so that aquachemancers can pressure herb/purgative balances of their targets when their target attacks them. However, it translates to a not very useful defensive mechanic: it doesn't mitigate any damage or affliction. And it, as mentioned, makes aquoxitism harder to reach its potential. It's a good idea on paper, but it's not fun. The only sheen affliction that gives defensive potential is lovers, and I've already said that it punishes monks and one-handed warriors more, not because it procs more but because it breaks and affects their combos. Taking these affs away from sheens solves that disparity as well as makes aquoxitism more viable.
Will post more when I spar more.
The only time link affects damage is when you have an Aquamancer in your fellowship, /and/ the target is inside that Aquamancer's meld.
If that's the case, I apologise for the mistake. What that would mean is that TKs can't do 8secs of continuous blackout, thankfully. It also means that adjuvants need the sheen afflictions, since adjuvants remove mists from the equation for a short while. Sacrificing mists is good. Replacing sheen afflictions with other defensive effects, and moving those afflictions to adjuvants looks like an even better idea now. As I've already mentioned, I'll have more input and suggestions after I spar some more.
The concern is when all of the Linked Aquachems all cast Aquoxitism (each damaging all enemies within the radius).
If it's on a personal timer from when mists are cast, TKs can still chain blackouts together, but there'll be more significant gaps in between:
0.0s start an adjuvant with blackout.
4.0s start a new humid mist. (blackout) [assuming adjuvant casts cost 4s eq.]
8.0s throatlock for 1.5-2s of blackout. [mist casts cost 3s eq according to Neos' report.]
10.0s throatlock blackout cures. Adjuvant blackout ticks.
12.0s adjuvant blackout cures.
13.0s throatlock for 1.5-2s of blackout.
14.0s mist ticks for 1.5-2s of blackout.
16.0s throatlock/mist blackout cures.
Starting from 8th to 16th seconds, you're roughly blacked out except for 1-2s. Also, I'm aware that dreamweavers have 8s of continous blackout, but frankly speaking, a TK who can possibly chain such long blackouts is scarier.
2nd Edit: I want to note here that long blackouts by itself isn't OP'd per se, or that aquachemancers should not be able to chain blackouts. I'm just pointing out that timing things properly can easily give TK aquachemancers a huge blackout they did not have access to before, and that this can be potentially problematic. Exactly how bad it is, and whether/how it needs to be changed will need more sparring to determine and confirm.
Signature!
My stance is that TK Aquachems hiding everything behind blackout is not a big deal because they only have a very limited number of attacks that will contribute to a kill. Using the tactic Lerad posted above, they get a Sub attack at 8.0s, 12.0s and 16.0s.You'd get an Id at 8.0s, 13.0s and at 17.0s. Just outside the blackout window, but whatever, we'll count it. Aside from mists and sheen procs, that's their whole offense for that 16 second period that isn't devoted to building up blackout. Your options are:
Sub (pick three): Amnesia, AlterAura, Trip, Burst, Pyre, ForceFeed, Sweat
Id (pick three): Amnesia, Trip, ForceFeed, AnimateDagger, PsychicFist, Clot, ThroatLock, Sweat, Heartburst
You also get to assume they're going to get hit once, maybe twice with FaerieFire and some Health/Ego damage. No Recklessness, since the adjuvant consumes your bubbling mist and Lerad doesn't mention putting it back up and doesn't leave time to do so in between all of the choking.
So, yeah. There's only one killing tactic in there to worry about. You're going to assume your enemy is not being dumb and that they're going to try to work towards heartbursting you. You might also want to drink antidote on the side, just in case they decided to forcefeed you crot and hope you don't catch the secondary messages, but it's basically heartburst or bust as far as real tactics go.
Having been a past envoy doesn't mean much.
I'll run through blackout and how it applies to all aspects of combat real quick, and how excessive blackout to hide large swathes of combat rather than selective hidden afflictions becomes a huge issue. You seem to think it only affects curing (or I guess you don't think it affects curing), and that is wrong.
1) You will not see primary affliction lines, so your curing, as a result, will lag behind. This includes broken limbs, throatlock, leglock, whatever they envenom their dagger with. Instead of curing throatlock before you need a sip, for instance, you will be curing it after you attempted to sip, failed, and got the secondary affliction line OR stopped your offense to diagnose. What does this mean? It means that TK, which already outpaces curing, will not outpace it further.
2) You will have to repeatedly diagnose, which is a pretty big hinderance to your own offense.
3) You will be functioning with much less information, meaning running and playing defensive (as defensive as you can be against a psionic) become much more difficult. Map awareness is much more difficult. Keeping track of afflictions that hinder movement is already more difficult because of point 1. If you are at a third of your health or your mana is pittering off, you won't know to move rooms.
4) Your offense goes to crap. You can't maintain any real offense in blackout. With few exceptions, you really have no idea what you're actually doing. There are a few classes that can kind of feel their way around (SD is one of them thanks to PROBE SHADOW and NATIVITY), but most can't. This is compounded for warriors and monks, who need to track several things, and write complex code to do so. Timing with ents or anything else become much more difficult even with a timer.
You are functioning in a void of information, which affects so much more than just your curing. You should never be able to hide an entire judge within a blackout, or ever be able to hide 25-30% or more of a fight behind chunks of blackout. This is an issue with dreamweavers that has existed forever that people complain about repeatedly. It takes the target's skill out of a fight, and reduces them to button mashing and a prayer, which should never happen in top tier pk.
Blackout is already too plentiful in Lusternia. It should be used to hide key afflictions and used strategically, not completely shut someone down in a vast expanse of a black screen and diagnose spam. You can't just say "sip health, you'll be fine, it's just a tk." That is simply ridiculous.