the ice cure and ablaze

Aeldra

Hi,

I really try to be constructive about this. I really try to understand it. How is moving 'ablaze' to ice balance possibly a good idea? From what I've seen pyrochems and pyromancers already are really powerful as is. Now they get us onto the single cure that's already damn easy to synergize with, so in my book anyone who deals wounding + a pyromancer/pyrochem means certain death right now. Maybe am just a newb and overseeing the obvious, but I already felt that a halfway ok warrior alone could pressure ice rather nicely, adding ablaze to the same cure feels like pryo + warrior will be an almost unstoppable combination.

at the same time, I see other guilds really struggle and I really fail to understand the reasoning behind this :-( Maybe it's just me still being a newb, so please, explain.

edit: please consider this topic closed. No need for any further discussion here. Just me being a bad mood and beng overly emotional to some things. Nothing to see here, carry on.

CyndarinAscends

Let me guess, your guild is "struggling."

Burns was moved to ice to retain their synergy, as per the intent of the overhaul. Burns and breaks were both salve cures. With breaks on ice and burns on liniment, Pyros no longer had a way to stack burns or pressuring curing. This change restores the status quo.

Pyrochem cannot capitalize on burn levels, FYI. 

Some class combinations stack better than others. TKs have always stacked well with warriors, since curing vessels prevented wound applications. 

Could've just asked instead of trying to making a big public stink about it, but I guess I'm used to having the same conversation for the 15th time. It's like a Northern echo chamber lately.

Aeldra

@Cyndarin I am not 100% sure why I get this kind of response. I made a post because I wanted to -understand- not because I wanted to make a 'public stink' about it. I am unsure why I end up triggering you there, maybe there's been too much 'north/south' shit about everything?

Does it concern me? Yes it does. Am I a little annoyed about it? yes, I am. Do I have a hindsight of what was 'before the overhault', sorry, no I don't.

If you read any inflamatory things into this, that was most definitely not my intention :-(

Yarith

Pyromancers give two blocking afflictions on the same tic as a stun, and have access to throatlock. That's some pretty decent pressure when you compare it to, say, aquameld which does sprawled.

Edit: But yes, it doesn't pressure burns. Should it? Aquameld doesn't exactly block you from sipping fire, but the threshold for preserve is much easier to obtain as far as chills goes. 

Kaimanahi

Celina is just defending her babies.

I'll just give a warrior's perspective. It is really not that easy to build wounds at present; it is taking me around 40 seconds to deliver the (IMO) easiest kill condition across the specs, against mostly sub-par curing and little-to-no hindering, with an optimized offensive system, in 1v1. 40 seconds, in combat, is a lifetime. Also while warriors are building wounds, they're not doing much else to you in terms of afflictions. If you're talking group, the synergy is not nearly as comparable to the old warrior/monk wounding system, wherein it was a race to critical head wounds for all warriors. In my limited group combat experience with other warriors thus far, there has been little to no synergy at all.

The warrior instakills require combinations of ice afflictions and/or wound states that are not redundant with burns. It would be better to think of this like any other class in the game that has a kill condition with afflictions on the same balance, many of which will even use the same afflictions and not just the same cures. This has been a known result of the Overhaul for some time, and in general it makes balancing more straightforward and easier. I think this is a "monitor and see" type of change, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

CyndarinAscends

Aeldra said:

@Cyndarin I am not 100% sure why I get this kind of response. I made a post because I wanted to -understand- not because I wanted to make a 'public stink' about it. I am unsure why I end up triggering you there, maybe there's been too much 'north/south' shit about everything?

Does it concern me? Yes it does. Am I a little annoyed about it? yes, I am. Do I have a hindsight of what was 'before the overhault', sorry, no I don't.

If you read any inflamatory things into this, that was most definitely not my intention :-(

Because I'm prickly, and having to spend time unwinding public misinformation and people who really haven't tried to understand the situation before making grandiose claims directly related to changes I've suggested to restore my guild's functionality and pushed to have implemented through several discussions makes me more prickly.

If you want to understand, you ask before you make accusations of broken mechanics and "unstoppable combinations" and "certain death," and how unfair it is because your guild is "struggling." 

Starting the conversation with "I'm a noob, but this is OP and my guild sucks," isn't going to progress far. I'm happy to share the minutiae of the pre and post overhaul changes, and the ongoing talks with other envoys to address a myriad of concerns in and around this issue, but I'm going to prickle at you about your format first. Prickle prickle. 

Kaimanahi

Aeldra said:

at the same time, I see other guilds really struggle

If you can put a finger on this sentiment, then I'd suggest approaching the appropriate Envoy about the issues you see, or, failing that, bring up discussions on those topics!

Aeldra

CyndarinAscends said:

Aeldra said:

@Cyndarin I am not 100% sure why I get this kind of response. I made a post because I wanted to -understand- not because I wanted to make a 'public stink' about it. I am unsure why I end up triggering you there, maybe there's been too much 'north/south' shit about everything?

Does it concern me? Yes it does. Am I a little annoyed about it? yes, I am. Do I have a hindsight of what was 'before the overhault', sorry, no I don't.

If you read any inflamatory things into this, that was most definitely not my intention :-(

Because I'm prickly, and having to spend time unwinding public misinformation and people who really haven't tried to understand the situation before making grandiose claims directly related to changes I've suggested to restore my guild's functionality and pushed to have implemented through several discussions makes me more prickly.

If you want to understand, you ask before you make accusations of broken mechanics and "unstoppable combinations" and "certain death." 

See general dissatisfaction please. I'm sorry. You'll not have to spend any more time on posts of public misinformation from me. You made your point and my post was out of line. Won't happen anymore, because I don't have the strength for any of this. If some admin see's this post, please just go and delete the whole thing. Shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Enyalida

I agree, and there was some argumentation on envoys when the new cure for it was announced. It's not the same to have burns on ice as it was on liniment 'because breaks and burns were on the same balance before'. You can't balance in a vaccum, the big change in the status quo is that wounds and burns are now on the same cure as well. Now you have two delayed/repeated cures on the same balance, both of which are designed to stack up when you can't devote time towards curing them specifically. There certainly are concerns there that shouldn't just be brushed off. 

CyndarinAscends

So now that I'm settled in the office, let me explain how things were and how things will (hopefully). I've heard a lot of questions and complaints about this situation that is, ultimately, not all that different (or OP) from pre overhaul. 

Currently Pyromancers have 3 kill methods. One is through their tertiary (TK, TP, runes), one is through Pyromancy (Burns and Cremate), and one is simply damage with Inferno. Effectively, only 1 "works" and that is damage. 

Before the overhaul, burn levels stacked with the meld afflictions (pox, etc.) and broken limbs as salve cures (given by telekinesis Psychicfist). When broken limbs were moved to ice, there ceased to be a way for Pyros to effectively build burn levels. The burns applied form a meld tic are cured 4 seconds before the next tic, and active burn applications (ignite, phoenix breath, pyre) all do a very low level of burns. The short version is no one dies to burns unless they lag out or just don't cure it. 

Pre overhaul Pyros would go TK and build burns by breaking limbs forcing the target to prioritize limbs (mending) over burns (liniment) at some point (usually around level 3 burns) in order to survive. The move of burns to ice does 2 things. 1) it eliminates liniment as a cure, which remains an outlier cure that has not yet been rolled into the overhaul cures. 2) It restores pyromancy functionality to build burns through cure stacking. 

Pre overhaul, telekinetics could use vessels (cured by sipping health) to stack with a warrior who was building wounds (cured by applying health) forcing the target to choose between cures. This is no longer the case, as warriors now do ice. What's effectively been replaced for Pyro in this regard is now instead of pressuring healing/wounds cure, they are pressuring ice cures. Other TKs have been effectively eliminated from the equation as a consequence of the overhaul, but the status quo for Pyros is roughly the same. At the very least it's an apples to apples comparison to where Pyro+warrior was before the overhaul. 

There is a report to remove calcise due to how warriors stack with calcise (and subsequently how other guilds who pressure ice curing fit into the conversation). I've asked for a slight change to Pyrotoxin so that animatedagger retains its functionality. 

Will pyromancer+ warrior be strong? Yes, undoubtedly so. It, however, is not a particularly fast buildup and I don't see any indication that it's going to be more effective in small scale combat than a multitude of other combinations. 

Pyrochems do minimal burns, and cannot capitalize on burns other than the level 1 fire resistance reduction a level 1 burn will cause. Nothing in a pyrochem's arsenal can increase your burns significantly OR use those burns to kill you.

How does this compare to aquas/aeros/etc?

Well, it doesn't. All melds are not created equal. An aqua meld and preserve and a pyro meld and cremate are only superficially similar. Preserve is a spammable kill that, even if it fails, does upwards of 4k damage for a scaling amount of power. If it does not kill the target, it does not use the full power requirement. If it fails, it works towards its own condition by doing a ton of damage and applying a level of chill. Two aquas can kill 98% of the population just by spamming it due to the damage they output. 

A failed cremate still costs 5 power and does blackout. 

Ieptix

Potential balance issues are why this is being released in the arena to start, instead of being pushed full-live immediately. Maybe it works out where this does end up being overwhelmingly powerful (though with the ability to tweak burn curing/afflicting rates I thing this very unlikely), and if that happens a different solution will be found.

Malayn

Ieptix said:

Potential balance issues are why this is being released in the arena to start, instead of being pushed full-live immediately. Maybe it works out where this does end up being overwhelmingly powerful (though with the ability to tweak burn curing/afflicting rates I thing this very unlikely), and if that happens a different solution will be found.

The main problem I see is that your arena is a closed interval test.  It accounts for {1, 1} (a 1 vs 1) when in reality the issue is going to compound exponentially at the group stage. That is, the moment a warrior is hitting you have 2 attrition conditions on the same cure on a slower cure, when the hinders are on the same cure as well. Suddenly broken limbs and burns with any warrior nearby is an automatic loss. Usually people would say "this is groups for you", but in this case we could assume broken limbs from JUST the caster and still potentially run into this issue.

Times with fielding:

0s: meld tics. Ice is on balance. TK attacks: break limb, break limb, X.

1s: Stun wears off, ice is applied for the break that likely allows moving.

3s: Ice recovered, apply for other limb. Target can attack. No burns have been cured.

5s: Ice attempted for burns. TK attacks: break limb + stun.

6s: TK attack break limb.

7s: Ice applied for break.

Etc etc.   The moment meld hits again the target is incredibly behind. This ignores things like using trample after meld tic for quad breaks, or other such things.

My attempts to balance this out in math fail horribly in most cases, and there's no way to touch it for groups if it stacks with warriors.   Can we make this like shivers/frozen and create burned/ablaze (burned being minor) and give them their own effects instead? 

Pyros still are the only ones with this build up kill method, so like aeros (cloudcoil) it could go away.  Also of note, presently burns could be used by warriors to stack further as well. 

CyndarinAscends

I enjoy that your scenario has a two second gap where the target is drooling on themselves uselessly. Tough to balance around that. 

Then the target has a 3 second lag at the end where they have no broken limbs and roughly half a burn level with 3 seconds to go before the next meld tic and 5 more until Super balance is back.

It's a (bad) example of the first 7 seconds of a fight where the target does not hinder, and does not account for real time combat which involves active hindering (prones or stuns, in the case of psionics) and the mage counters like love potion, allheale, and beast curing.

This also doesn't account for burns and breaks working functionally identical to this scenario pre overhaul. 

The fact that anyone would want to delete a slow build kill method that requires time and effort to pull off with a copy of spam to win team cheese preserve is strange to me. How far off the rails are we willing to go?

Malayn

I only fielded curing times, the TK attacks are listed only for the purpose of ice times.  The whole thing is purely based around ice. 

Psionics is not easy to hinder, love potion isn't reliable (so I can't factor it in with any reliability), although I will note that if the target does not keep up on broken limbs they will not have much offense to counter with anyway.

I did not suggest an insta at all, I only said replace the burns system to be two tier. An insta can be made, but isn't required. Burns is currently shaping up to be "effort" but I notice no mention of skill or strategy, as it would be entirely spam based.

I know you are zealous about your burns, but we should still aim to bring them in line for overhaul, and I think making them more versatile (shivers and freezing are incredibly useful) would give us more possibilities to make use of them.

Previously, burns and breaks shared the same balance. It also occured twice as fast. Meaning 4s of balance to make up for trample before, 8s now, and that ignores burns.  The balance being far slower means a lot, even if it cured double (or more) burns than before. Hindering still becomes incredibly stronger.

Edit for minor points: Allheale is not a mage counter?  Beast curing is going away, instead only allowing focus (which you would already likely be able to do). Sub was actually 4s, but I placed it at 5 for ease, it could theoretically do slightly more than I outlined.  

Can we allow classflexing to pyro in arena so we can properly test this?

CyndarinAscends

Your entire scenario remains absurd and unrealistic for the reasons I stated. If you just stand there and allow yourself to fall behind in curing because "hindering is hard," that's your perogative as much as it is mine to ignore that as a balance concern. The entire premise of the scenario is to imply you will fall behind in curing, yet part of combat is countering your opponents. If you are dismissing that, which includes hinders, love, allheale, etc, then you aren't really  having an honest discussion. This is not momentum. What you do as the target actually matters.

No idea what "you are jealous of your burns," means, but I will restate what has been stated numerous times since the start of the overhaul.

The primary goals of the overhaul are to simplify combat, reduce curatives, and streamline PK while maintaining the existing game mechanics wherever possible.

It is not an opportunity to pursue one's own agenda about new mechanics. If you, or anyone, would like to address pyromancer issues or burns with me, I'm pretty easy to locate. As has been repeatedly stated by Ieptix, cure times and burn levels are easy to adjust. 

What I'm not really interested in pursuing is "curing is hard" replacement mechanics, and those most certainly won't get much support from the pyromancer envoy. I'm interested in incremental changes, like cure times, that address the issues. I'm really not interested in a preserve clone sans an actual kill at the end. 

Tarkenton

To be fair, your critique of axelord was in the same no hindering vacuum. /unhelpfulcomment

Malayn

Zealous, not jealous. I am jealous of your burns, you have mad rhymes.

You are still attempting to present hindering as being a substantial influence against a psionicist, something that is not currently true. I am more than willing to verify via testing however, which is why I asked for pyro skills in arena. 

I giggle at randomly bringing up momentum, as it is unimportant and unrelated. Making random comparisons does not reinforce your premise, nor does it make it seem more logical.  (Although still hoping for changes/removal of momentum, but we will see on that). 

There is no "agenda" here, as you said, maintain existing game mechanics wherever possible. So if a change is not possible due to balance reasons, that is still a valid "not possible" situation. 

We aren't all out to get you, and we aren't targeting your skills in the name of fun or spite. I am in your org, I don't even die to your skills.  

Since when did balancing PK become "having an agenda" or outlining why an affliction seems too easy to stack become "unrealistic"?

CyndarinAscends

My critique of axelords is on the design level of warriors, and if they should be doing high damage and wounding simultaneously. I maintain I don't agree with that as a design, regardless of hindering. It means you don't change your approach in group combat, because you pursue your kill method while pursuing the universal group kill method, when everyone else is having to pick and choose. I believe in an either damage or X thing but not both design concept most of the game revolves around. Monks being the obnoxious outlier that does a great job at demonstrating why I believe in it.

Rivius

Why not just make it so that curing wounds will also cure burns (similar almost to how numbs work atm if I'm remembering correctly), but breaks are always cured first when not specifying wounds? So you still need to choose between breaks and burns, but not between wounds and burns. And you can still leave APPLY ICE TO BODY for the situation when you don't have wounds. 

CyndarinAscends

Fine with me.

Malayn

Simple and elegant.

I approve this, though should still cure breaks, and we can leave "apply ice to body" to cure more than generic curing (so there is some trade off between body and specific area).

If you can't cure breaks and burns both, you end up with the "can't fight back but dying" still.  Since the hinder and kill are the same conditions, you are double dipping.

CyndarinAscends

Really need to stop pushing your agenda. You're not being constructive by doing so. We're not nerfing what was not broken in the first place. 

We can adjust cure speeds in needed. 

Ieptix

Rivius said:

Why not just make it so that curing wounds will also cure burns (similar almost to how numbs work atm if I'm remembering correctly), but breaks are always cured first when not specifying wounds? So you still need to choose between breaks and burns, but not between wounds and burns. And you can still leave APPLY ICE TO BODY for the situation when you don't have wounds. 

I'm fine with this. I'll whip something up over the weekend and see how it works.

Malayn

There is still no agenda here, but let's see what comes up.

If nothing else Rivius' suggestion helps specifically with warriors and pyro problems.  It doesn't help with the damaged limbs issue of being unable to fight back or die, but one step at a time. We can take care of this in due time, with testing and evaluation.

I am confident that a general cure can leave this a viable option if Celina is willing to work on the premise it shouldn't stack fast. 

Rivius

Hey, guys. Celina and I did some brief testing in the arena today. Below is a link of what we've done so far. 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16429247/burns_test_2.html

Keep in mind, I haven't scrutinized my curing all that much. If you notice any problems with priorities, please make a note of it and next testing round I can try to adjust it.

Right now, the problems we noticed are that (1) ablaze seems to eat a couple applies, (2) burns seem to build a bit fast with respect to ice curing (3) with psychicfist being able to work on two channels, you have to end up choosing between keeping up with burns and being hindered or not being hindered and getting cremated.

It's hard to tell at this point how much the upcoming focus changes will change things around too. But I think there's enough to warrant a few tweaks at this point.

CyndarinAscends

I've already message Ieptix to move ablaze to a chest application so it won't interfere with burns or breaks curing. 

I'm looking at removing psychic fist's second channel or some other possible solution to prevent spam to win strategies. This one is a bit more sticky. 

Incinerate could probably be reworked to fill some void here. Burst burns maybe and reduce the overall building of burns passively. Something that doesn't involve "just stand there until they die."

Ultimately with a few tweaks it'll be just like it was pre overhaul, which wasn't all that interesting or difficult. 

Malayn

We could also factor in beast ignite in here, other things will remain to be seen (like locking dagger instead). 

Ablaze is priority because it will also tic for more burns (unless that changes) while also causing damage. 

CyndarinAscends

Ablaze causes very minor burns and damage. Anything out of meld tics builds burns very slowly. 

You can't beast breathe while of psionic channel balance, so you are giving up offense to wait for channels to catch up to use it. 

Rivius

I haven't sat down to work out how much ice is curing burns at the moment. But one consideration we need to keep in mind is that ice salve is on a 2 second balance, while liniment was on a 1 second balance. So it would be reasonable for ice to be curing double what liniment used to cure in order to bring things back in line with pre-overhaul.

That said, salve stacking afflictions is a little more hairy now because of the above mentioned reason. One thing I was playing around with in my head was that apply ice to cure any non-burn aff would also cure some amount of burns (sort of like my original wounds and burns suggestion). However, we can make it so that this just cures fewer burns than if you were just applying for burns directly. 

I'm mostly just worried that at the moment, you will always have some degree of burns on you, and passive burns will just keep building, so ice stacking the way it does means you'll always have some ice affliction on you. So we need to make sure it's not too overwhelming.

In any case, those are just random suggestions to pick your brains a bit.

We definitely need to examine the rate of passive burns, burn accrual and burn curing. But I think we can play around and find a sweet spot before official release.

Raeri

CyndarinAscends said:

Well, it doesn't. All melds are not created equal. An aqua meld and preserve and a pyro meld and cremate are only superficially similar. Preserve is a spammable kill that, even if it fails, does upwards of 4k damage for a scaling amount of power. If it does not kill the target, it does not use the full power requirement. If it fails, it works towards its own condition by doing a ton of damage and applying a level of chill. Two aquas can kill 98% of the population just by spamming it due to the damage they output. 

Aqua preserve only does that damage if they're at fully frozen but not yet at the insta-kill threshold of health. Your posts are likely to lead to people assuming it always does this, which is not the case.