In the current status quo, you won't know if three wildewood have activated their glinshari or not when they walk in. You don't even know how long there is until the glinshari blows, if they do have it activated. As it is, those on the receiving end already have to assume the worst, and high-tail it out of there, or risk getting nuked. This isn't a solution, this is the current, only option. So if you manage to dodge it, you win, sure. It's a one-trick pony. But it's a one-trick pony that can potentially wipe out any team even with, as you say, "poorly executed technique".
In group combat, a team that has 2 or 3 of these specs is going to hold an anvil over the heads of every enemy in the room. Each time they blow, it's a good ~40% health gone for them. If the 2 or 3 of these have even an iota of coordination, this danger greatly increases. If you force everyone in the enemy team to shield, you've already won for your team a huge breathing space. Of course, it doesn't mean it is an insta win. But is this a fair, fun mechanic in group combat? The difference immunity would make is that you can no longer hit the entire opposing group multiple times. A target that is already tanking your team will likely die with a single 40% aquo/glinshari/whatever. Everyone else in his team will take 40% health damage. But those others won't be able to get hit by another within the immunity period. They, who are not being focused, won't immediately fall over from multiple glinsharis.
40% is still a respectable number. It's nothing to scoff at. As it is, it is still hugely potent in teams. Certainly far less so than when it was doing 70% in the logs. There is a reason why melders are often the first target - the team who loses their melder first loses an important, strategical mechanic - group based damage/affliction. And melds don't even do anywhere near 40% damage. Obviously, they don't have the same costs as well, but my point is that group damage or affs is extremely important. The fuss with balestone when it came out, the complaints about geo boulderblast are all good examples. As a wildewood, you're going to draw as much priority as a melder, even with 40% health damage on un-affed glinshari.
Whether or not immunity is going to be needed is still open for discussion, of course. We haven't seen the skills in action after the changes yet, but with these numbers, there's no doubt they are still extremely important in group fights, and that they can still easily decimate an opponent team just from sheer numbers, if you have enough people in these specs.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I feel like history and evidence is important here. So, with that in mind, I present this evidence about skill bombs destroying teams almost instantly at the start of a fight with just a little coordination and timing, where "run away" proved to be not all that effective:
I do agree that the way Glinshari works atm is problematic. My very best fix (that doesn't redirect the skillset) isn't an immunity, it's dropping the 'no aff' damage to a lower amount, and boosting the amount of damage each affliction stacks. That way, even if you figure out some way around other restrictions put on the skill, you still won't realistically be able to nuke people who you aren't focusing on already.
However, the problem I'm forseeing with immunity is that it's a bandaid fix, when better fixes are already in the pipeline. Historically, after these bandaids are no longer needed, they linger on, causing all kinds of issues when the need that spawned them is no longer relevant.
For instance, one of the problems Lerad (and others, including myself) has pointed out is where where a Wildewood (or several Chemancers) can start timed adjuvant-mechanic skills 'off-screen' and rush into combat, decimating unsuspecting opponents with a surprise burst of huge damage. You can fix this by making them not stack in some way, but you'll still have Aerochemancers or the other skillsets dropping 6k damage on you out of the blue, which can be just as dangerous in combination with other group attacks. Or, you can fix it so that any time you're a target for these attacks, you are ALWAYS warned. No out-of-the-blue adjuvant attacks!
In my report (1047), I address that problem by proposing a combination of three changes: Introduce a second warning line, after 5 seconds and have both warning lines display in any target room; have the effect NOT follow the caster, instead have it only hit centered where it was originally cast; and the aforementioned "lower base damage, increase affliction bonus damage" change. As well, I propose a 'solution 4' in the comments, I suggested also making a QL warning in every target room (on second thought, this makes sense only after the second warning message, after 5 seconds).
Would that solve the problem of stealth bombs, or walk in group destruction?
No, it wouldn't, a second warning line and anchor point doesn't really stop anything. This is group combat where shielding and running away isn't always something you can do. You just need 1-2 people hindering a person to readily make sure they get hit by it. If your problem is other chemantic skills doing the same, include it on the report as well. I can get behind that
Testing the damage against various people, both in full spar environments and having them hold still while I stack all of the affs I can (4 out of 5), I'm still regularly leaving people with 1.5-2.5k health, more than my active attacks can do. I've tried stacking this damage with forest smudge for more damage (against Dynami, my forest smudge was only doing ~700 damage), and Desert smudge so that they bleed while stunned from Glinshari. Neither helped. We don't get 2 power back for 6 seconds after Glinshari fires, which is more than enough time for a full complement of health/scroll/sparkle.
Why not instead of full immunity from a Full-Adjuvants for ~5 seconds or whatever it is, anytime you are hit by a 2nd or 3rd (or 4th or 5th) it is a %-based effectiveness on how much it does?
So if two Wildewoods and an Aqua do their adjubvants attack, the first Wildewood attack does ~40% of your health. The 2nd Wildewood attack can only do at maximum, half of that adjuvants damage (20% health). The third Aquachem will only do half of the 2nd Wildewood attack, so for a maximum of 10%.
Obviously the numbers above are just made up, but I tend to have a problem with group combat when it becomes "who has the biggest room-wide attack that hits first wins." Which is where we seem to be heading.
2014/04/19 01:38:01 - Leolamins drained 2000000 power to raise Silvanus as a Vernal Ascendant.
2014/07/23 05:01:29 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Munsia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:07 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Arimisia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:58 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Lavinya as a Vernal Ascendant.
That could work. That way, coordinating and being able to hold down enough opponents for it to matter will still benefit you, just not as much.
We're currently brainstorming other kill methods this skillset could use, outside of 'loldamageburst', because damage burst is so incredibly hard to balance. It's either not enough damage and its gimpy (kind of like now), or it's way too much damage and it's totally OP. There really isn't much of a middle ground, especially when the damage comes in the package that it does in these skillsets. To balance the 'group damage' aspect, you have to drop the damage low, which makes it untenable in single or small combat. To balance the small combat, you have to increase the damage, which makes it hilarious OP in group combat.
If you have it juuuust right, any little thing can screw up the balance, because absolutely everyone in the game can contribute to damage. On top of that, damage is the most widely variable thing from person to person (even in the same guild) because of differing dmp values and the huge number of things that can contribute either to damage or damage mitigation. All kinds of consumables, curios (good old +10dmp 'non-necessary' curios), tattoos, favors, shrine abilities, quest perks, karma blessings, and so on. On top of that, many defensive skills are based around reducing incoming health damage, as that's useful in PvE. Bodyguard, Vitality, healing tick abilities (like Stag Totem and Night Shadows), and others. You can balance one specific instance (say, me against Sondayga), but if you switch to two other players, the attacker could have -15% boost when compared to me (no curio, not an ecologist), and the opponent could be a different guild that has more magical dmp, or more physical dmp, or better armor, and the damage will be no where near enough. On the other end, they could have a better tattoo spread (at least +5%), and worse dmp/armor, and the damage will be lulzing them to death.
Really, there is a reason that other health killing methods either involve wound buildup, or are functionally just timer kills (meteor), because the damage-increasing affs cannot be cured.
Comments
In group combat, a team that has 2 or 3 of these specs is going to hold an anvil over the heads of every enemy in the room. Each time they blow, it's a good ~40% health gone for them. If the 2 or 3 of these have even an iota of coordination, this danger greatly increases. If you force everyone in the enemy team to shield, you've already won for your team a huge breathing space. Of course, it doesn't mean it is an insta win. But is this a fair, fun mechanic in group combat? The difference immunity would make is that you can no longer hit the entire opposing group multiple times. A target that is already tanking your team will likely die with a single 40% aquo/glinshari/whatever. Everyone else in his team will take 40% health damage. But those others won't be able to get hit by another within the immunity period. They, who are not being focused, won't immediately fall over from multiple glinsharis.
40% is still a respectable number. It's nothing to scoff at. As it is, it is still hugely potent in teams. Certainly far less so than when it was doing 70% in the logs. There is a reason why melders are often the first target - the team who loses their melder first loses an important, strategical mechanic - group based damage/affliction. And melds don't even do anywhere near 40% damage. Obviously, they don't have the same costs as well, but my point is that group damage or affs is extremely important. The fuss with balestone when it came out, the complaints about geo boulderblast are all good examples. As a wildewood, you're going to draw as much priority as a melder, even with 40% health damage on un-affed glinshari.
Whether or not immunity is going to be needed is still open for discussion, of course. We haven't seen the skills in action after the changes yet, but with these numbers, there's no doubt they are still extremely important in group fights, and that they can still easily decimate an opponent team just from sheer numbers, if you have enough people in these specs.
I feel like history and evidence is important here. So, with that in mind, I present this evidence about skill bombs destroying teams almost instantly at the start of a fight with just a little coordination and timing, where "run away" proved to be not all that effective:
Fillin.
Case closed.
Would that solve the problem of stealth bombs, or walk in group destruction?
Just wondering if a village influence boost might be out of the question for Wildewood?
I mean a walking talking representation of the forest should be pretty convincing.
So if two Wildewoods and an Aqua do their adjubvants attack, the first Wildewood attack does ~40% of your health. The 2nd Wildewood attack can only do at maximum, half of that adjuvants damage (20% health). The third Aquachem will only do half of the 2nd Wildewood attack, so for a maximum of 10%.