We're trees with animals (And infinite nuts) chilling in our branches, and various others coming to our call, no matter where we are. We splash you with spores and an animal gets enraged and divebombs you. Less 'what it's like to fight a tree', and more 'what it's like to fight the forest'. If that's what's stretching your credulity...
The idea of having attacks that power up based on the opponent's affs (outside of just more damage) is indeed interesting. How would that work, though? I can only help but point out that all of your suggestions rely on a lot of chance work, all being triggered off a backlash effect! We can give a broken limb with our treehug, but having them not just cure it before we can treehug again is a long shot, and it is still one random limb out of four targeted!
EDIT: In other words, with things as they stand now, we can't stick any aff long enough to get another attack off.
RE: Bashing. I agree that squirrels should probably be switched to cutting/magic. I'm pretty wary about moving treehug to 100% asphyx because of hold breath. Also, less blunt attacks will devalue (or remove) the racial stun chance, as well as making iron branches not do anything...
There is precedent for that. If you have gluttony and anorexia at the same time you eat/barf all your food super fast.
Mostly cosmetic iirc
I take issue with the stupid mechanics part though. Lots of us have to deal with mechanics that we find frustrating.
The aqua version meshes really well with tp and poorly with everything else. Having this work real well with one tert is better than having it be just ok for all of them.
Having skills that you have to carefully time to hit with various tics is already out there. Just ask any guardian or wiccan. And you don't even have to wait for a tic, since you get some that fire on being hit.
Sure it can use some tweaks but the overall design of the class is solid.
Having to deal with frustrating mechanics is one thing, we've had that all along. Trying to work with mechanics that penalize your finisher if you're doing a good job at hindering your opponent is another.
What effects are you talking about having to be timed with ticks?
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
The affliction on hit mechanic isn't as inherently flawed as you are making it out to be. You're going to get hit. It's going to happen. It's probably going to happen a whole lot. It's a different style of combat involving turtling and timing, and can use some adjustments, but the idea is usable.
Just as a note, all guilds work best with one tertiary over others.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
One option is to have the passive affs on hit to be a defense with a cool down timer that you activate, and when you are next hit, the branch affliction is triggered.
Your Sereny, snuggly branches sway back and forth blah blah and are ready to be used again.
Activate snugglebranch
Joe the evil glom stabs seren in the face. broken arm.
8 seconds later
Your sereny, snuggly branches sway back and forth blah blah and are ready to be used again.
Yes, but generally every guild is passable with each of its tertiaries!
Anyways, we've moved past getting rid of the branch mechanics, though we've established that kill reliance on them isn't for the best, really. Without changing the overall mechanics, I think we can agree that the afflictions on the branches (and the flower) aren't necessarily coordinated.
We've established that a change to spores to make them have a variable timer would be a good change, though I'd be alright with leaving Glinshari as long as it is (and probably as costly) if it broke shields. Additionally, the Glinshari effect should not scale as extremely as it does. Doing two affs just before it hits should not be sufficient to put people in danger, or outright kill them. Similarly, we have established that two of the spore effects (hartpine and bluehorn, manabarbs and succumb) do not function well with the rest of the skillset and aren't sufficient to drain mana for an eternalsleep, not as is, or without a fair amount of retooling.
Beyond that, things have stalled as far as consensus goes.
I think everyone agrees that the afflictions that the class has control over are not synergistic. What afflictions would you suggest, on both the flowers and the branches? Looking for something that does at least minor hindering, and accomplishes some sort of goal that a 1v1 Wildewood is capable of utilizing at least a little, no matter the tertiary.
What changes would you make to the two mana-based spores? Shuyin suggested an incurable affliction that would work similar to psyvamp, in that it lasts for a set time, and during that time 'pulses' a few times, draining health relative to the amount of mana the target has remaining, and then fading out. How would the succumb spore be changed to allow the Wildewood to lower a target's mana enough for this to pressure health? As you said Celina, what people fear about Wiccans isn't their banshee mana drain, which is only a little weaker than the flower drain in terms of mana drained over time, and Moondancers are an entire class based around sticking the succumb affliction long enough.
Do you agree with my changed list for branches? It was said that we could move one branch away from a backlash effect, so I do think we should, as it will make a far better defensive ability that way. Other than that, does broken limb, prone, stupidity seem like a good mix?
From a noncombatant perspective, losing the utility skills is a bit concerning. As it stands now, we have people calling out elders, several Hartstone members online, and nobody who can carve. Every time someone who can carve logs in, they're getting bombarded with carve requests, and having to sweep the forest.
Not being able to mulch and carve is sort of shoving all the work off on those who kept druidry, and thematically, i don't see why we wouldn't be able to. At the very least, if barkguard could protect elders, we could hold them until someone arrives who can carve them. Another option would be to give moonhart bark an "elder sense", letting us speedwalk to uncarved elders. Combining those two wouldn't be as nice as being able to carve them, but it would certainly go a way towards avoiding some impending resentment.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I don't see one broken limb doing much of anything. I'd look at 2 broken limbs, stupidity, and paralysis or a brief (1s or less) stun. Prone on its own tends to be pointless. Could even look into each branch triggering 1 aff from a pool of afflictions to not make it so easily countered and cured. I think once you figure out some solid branch afflictions, you can retool the Glinshari attack to work with the new proposed afflictions.
I'm a bit stumped on the mana drain thing. I think one could be a the psyvamp style thing but instead of draining health based off current mana, it could tie in the same mechanics of glinshari and drain health/mana/both based of the current number of afflictions from the set list. Would tie in with both eco and shamanism.
I like the idea of broken limbs because then Wildewoods could be like giant womping willows.
Okay! I was erring on the side of caution with those effects. Paralysis isn't likely to be on the glinshari list but stupidity and broken bones may well be. I'll change the suggestion to paralysis, stupidity, and (more) broken bones.
That would do alright, for an "offense" spore. So, we'd have the finisher spore (glinshari), the hinder spore (flowerpower), the offense spore (drain based on affs) and one other, currently occupied by the succumb slot. Perhaps the offense spore could be an aff that creates a window where any of the incoming affs on its list also drains a bit of vital stat? Kind of like how manabarbs works, but on afflictions?
The other thing I was considering was some sort of way to use the branches/sheens actively to some capacity. That way you don't have to pump up the hit rate on them, and the Wildewood has some measure of control over those afflictions? Perhaps instead of treehug always breaking a limb, you can choose which branches to hug with, and it adopts that effect?
I'm not really able to give a thorough review at this time. Perhaps sometime later. But brief thoughts:
1) I like Hiriako's suggestion on the damage scaling on glinshari. If it were reduced to 8 power, it would be possible to follow up with a gore.
2) Faeriefire should probably be replaced on the list of afflictions that boost glinshari, mostly because it's a focus spirit cure that's also passively given way too quickly.
3) I actually like Estarra's idea of a shoflai equivalent for one of the branches. That said, I don't see where the argument of them 'being bad for offense' comes from. It's a defensive backlash effect. You can't possibly rely on it for a planned and consistent offense. If you want to adjust the skillset's offensive power, focus on spores and flowers. I do agree though that they tend to punish monks and 1-handers more than anyone else though.
4) Manabarbs is interesting however the only way to use it is to time the spore with something like double haegl. I think it could stand for a power decrease, really.
5) No idea what you're supposed to do with succumb. You can't stick manabarbs with this skillset long enough for succumb to be useful. The only scenario I could come up with is if a dreamweaver is attempting an eternal sleep and has someone well sleeplocked. I don't see it as being a very good spore.
If you're going to adjust Glinshari so that it can be followed up by Gore, it really does start to justify secondary lines like Meteor. If you miss the cast due to blackout or other reason it's going to be guessing games at whether or not you're going to die in the next few seconds.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
That's probably fine. Glinshari is probably not going to participate in the change to other spores that gives them a variable (caster's choice) time/power cost. In addition to the scaling being a bit more strict, it can also have a second message, half way between casting and hitting. However, it should probably at that rate be at least slightly faster than 10 seconds, but that should be fine as it will no longer be an opening killer, rather than the finisher of the skillset.
If the rest of the skillset gets whipped into shape, those changes should still leave it possible to use it to kill.
Might the mana effects just be designed to help in group fights alongside wiccans and bards? Most skillsets seem to have a primary way to kill and the Glinshari spore seems like Wildewoods's.
Not all of my examples relied entirely on branch effects. I very intentionally included one for branches, one for spore tics, and one for an active ability for the purpose of displaying that there are ways to work those kinds of things into each portion of the class. The examples were also only meant to be examples, and slight tweaking of other abilities could easily resolve the problems with them. Treehug, for instance, could break two limbs instead of one, making a well timed treehug right after you see a knobbled branch backlash reasonably effective at getting mangled limbs without it being a sure thing.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited January 2013
Going to go ahead and stamp a big fat "no" on the scaling Hiriako suggested. Not only does it entirely bypass dmp (which is ridiculous to even suggest), 70% of your health from having 2 afflictions is absurd.
The additional suggestion to allow for it to be followed up with insta gore is equally ridiculous. That means all you need is 2 afflictions and the target to be at 95% health at the start of the combo to insta gank them. Seriously? Pass.
Also: no mangles.
Edit: Also, giving it a second message that it just needs to have regardless of any changes does not inherently mean it should be sped up. Going forward with this report I think you should really only be pushing buffs you can justify, rather than "It should be sped up because nothing."
It should probably be sped up because of the large list of things that limit or block it entirely and due to the reduced damage scaling it'll have. A timer finisher (at high power) that is stopped completely by shielding, lust ticking (or any other lust type effect), or blindness. Compare to meteor.. 6 seconds, all the setup affs are essentially incurable, disregards shield, lust, or blind(?). That's why, not 'nothing'.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Okay firstly, balancing the damage does not justify over compensating in other areas. Secondly, 3 things, all of which the caster should be prepared and watching for, is not a "large" list by any stretch of the word. Thirdly, meteor has a longer set up, can only be attempted 2, possibly 3 times depending. Fourthly, and the most most important, you can hard counter meteors with any roof or ceiling. It has literally zero purpose in large portions of the game. Oh and it doesn't stun or function outside of dmp like what is being proposed.
Like I said, you're getting a little carried away. Settle on the damage formula/scaling issue first then address the delay of the skill. Currently 70% of your health + 3 second stun from 2 affs (lol) outside of dmp justifies high power costs and long delays. Because it's crazy.
Going to go ahead and stamp a big fat "no" on the scaling Hiriako suggested. Not only does it entirely bypass dmp (which is ridiculous to even suggest), 70% of your health from having 2 afflictions is absurd.
2 affs currently takes me to 18% surged and unsurged. I'm guessing it's based on DMP and scales with max health, but what Hiriako suggested definitely is weaker than current. That said, I actually will admit I misread this thread and thought he was the one that said it had to be reduced to some degree without specifications. My idea is, reduce it to 8 power and make it so that the maximum number of affs feasibly possible to stick bring you a little below gore's required level. This way, we should plan out how much each aff does along the way and which affs we're adding and removing and also how many we're expecting to see on average.
Also, Enyalida, I don't agree it needs to be sped up. That said, comparing this to meteor is like comparing apples and oranges.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Hiriako's suggestion doesn't go far enough IMO. It has a stun that gives plenty of room to damage someone out and the delayed timer allows for damage before. I used this tactic with meteor/twist. You have to consider the damage in context with gore, which means anything that does 70%-90% of your health+stun is basically an insta kill if the power cost is not high enough. Negating a fourth of someone's health from the get go is just not a path I want to see any guild go down.
It's one thing if you have to stack 4 afflictions that are difficult to stack, and then pull off the combo. When you are just worrying about 2, however, then it's kind of dumb.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Especially considering things like mountain smudge/familiarsting timed with passive effects to hit just before the finisher.
I think you're assuming that what's being asked for is 'make this fast, impossible to stop, and guarantee a kill with 1-2 affs layed on right before it fires', which isn't the case at all. Any suggested change to the workings of glinshari will come after all other changes have been discussed and at least somewhat agreed upon, so that all of those proposals can be taken fully into consideration. And in any event, I will not ask for an ability that will bring someone to 20% health or less right out of the gate, as it does now.
Yes, 70-90% of your health with a stun does mean death. However, if to get to that point you need to stack five different affs (not including multiple bone breaks. 5 discrete affs) you deserve to die. Do keep that in mind. Personally, I think that the first broken bone should scale the damage up on Glinshari fully (as the other affs will), with subsequent broken bones contributing a smaller upscale to damage, but all of that will have to wait until we know what the rest of the skillset is likely to look like! Until then, all this talk of "you only want OP lasers of death" is stupid. We haven't said what we want yet.
I'll be compiling what's been said and suggested so far here in a minute. What still needs discussing is proposed flower affs, the treehug-branches proposal, and that last spore effect (The succumb one). Everything else has been mostly settled.
You can use your garland for everything you can use a talisman for. That comment comes from the fact that every other build that has access to vines also has some method of changing the room so that they can use the skill, be it foresting or raising a dryad. Wildewoods do not!
Perhaps something to the effect could otherwise be arranged?
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Oh you want a guild specific talisman. I think that's your garland, yeah.
I'm okay with a large (5) group of afflictions resulting in an insta health gank, which is what I said. I was merely disputing the solution hiriako proposed and the "buff this because of meteor" arguments.
Thinking about it further, I also think just giving wildewood vines anywhere (sprouting from their fingers or something else tree people-y) is totally fine.
I'm also not sure the treehug branch thing will amount to anything. I will say treehug could stand to be sped up. 4+ seconds is terrible without a huge change to the damage formula. It's why nightkiss/moonfire hurts more than staff/bard attacks, it was designed to hit harder but slower.
Mountain Smudge cannot be timed. It can be used actively for 3p, but otherwise it cannot be timed. Familiar sting can be timed. At most, that would give 2 of 4 afflictions, and with a failure rate. Poisons (even with snake bane) can be shrugged, and mountain smudge is not guaranteed to break limbs. That's a lot of random chance at a power cost. (Familiar sting is 3p. Mountain smudge is 0p if cast normally, 3p if quick burned)
Comments
The affliction on hit mechanic isn't as inherently flawed as you are making it out to be. You're going to get hit. It's going to happen. It's probably going to happen a whole lot. It's a different style of combat involving turtling and timing, and can use some adjustments, but the idea is usable.
Just as a note, all guilds work best with one tertiary over others.
One option is to have the passive affs on hit to be a defense with a cool down timer that you activate, and when you are next hit, the branch affliction is triggered.
Your Sereny, snuggly branches sway back and forth blah blah and are ready to be used again.
Activate snugglebranch
Joe the evil glom stabs seren in the face. broken arm.
8 seconds later
Your sereny, snuggly branches sway back and forth blah blah and are ready to be used again.
I don't see one broken limb doing much of anything. I'd look at 2 broken limbs, stupidity, and paralysis or a brief (1s or less) stun. Prone on its own tends to be pointless. Could even look into each branch triggering 1 aff from a pool of afflictions to not make it so easily countered and cured. I think once you figure out some solid branch afflictions, you can retool the Glinshari attack to work with the new proposed afflictions.
I'm a bit stumped on the mana drain thing. I think one could be a the psyvamp style thing but instead of draining health based off current mana, it could tie in the same mechanics of glinshari and drain health/mana/both based of the current number of afflictions from the set list. Would tie in with both eco and shamanism.
I like the idea of broken limbs because then Wildewoods could be like giant womping willows.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
"Unlike Aquamancy which is designed for group combat, Aquachemantics is more tooled for 1:1 combat"
Signature!
Going to go ahead and stamp a big fat "no" on the scaling Hiriako suggested. Not only does it entirely bypass dmp (which is ridiculous to even suggest), 70% of your health from having 2 afflictions is absurd.
The additional suggestion to allow for it to be followed up with insta gore is equally ridiculous. That means all you need is 2 afflictions and the target to be at 95% health at the start of the combo to insta gank them. Seriously? Pass.
Also: no mangles.
Edit: Also, giving it a second message that it just needs to have regardless of any changes does not inherently mean it should be sped up. Going forward with this report I think you should really only be pushing buffs you can justify, rather than "It should be sped up because nothing."
Okay firstly, balancing the damage does not justify over compensating in other areas. Secondly, 3 things, all of which the caster should be prepared and watching for, is not a "large" list by any stretch of the word. Thirdly, meteor has a longer set up, can only be attempted 2, possibly 3 times depending. Fourthly, and the most most important, you can hard counter meteors with any roof or ceiling. It has literally zero purpose in large portions of the game. Oh and it doesn't stun or function outside of dmp like what is being proposed.
Like I said, you're getting a little carried away. Settle on the damage formula/scaling issue first then address the delay of the skill. Currently 70% of your health + 3 second stun from 2 affs (lol) outside of dmp justifies high power costs and long delays. Because it's crazy.
Hiriako's suggestion doesn't go far enough IMO. It has a stun that gives plenty of room to damage someone out and the delayed timer allows for damage before. I used this tactic with meteor/twist. You have to consider the damage in context with gore, which means anything that does 70%-90% of your health+stun is basically an insta kill if the power cost is not high enough. Negating a fourth of someone's health from the get go is just not a path I want to see any guild go down.
It's one thing if you have to stack 4 afflictions that are difficult to stack, and then pull off the combo. When you are just worrying about 2, however, then it's kind of dumb.
Oh you want a guild specific talisman. I think that's your garland, yeah.
I'm okay with a large (5) group of afflictions resulting in an insta health gank, which is what I said. I was merely disputing the solution hiriako proposed and the "buff this because of meteor" arguments.
Thinking about it further, I also think just giving wildewood vines anywhere (sprouting from their fingers or something else tree people-y) is totally fine.
I'm also not sure the treehug branch thing will amount to anything. I will say treehug could stand to be sped up. 4+ seconds is terrible without a huge change to the damage formula. It's why nightkiss/moonfire hurts more than staff/bard attacks, it was designed to hit harder but slower.