There are a lot of issues with that path, though. The most pressing and obvious is that Druids share 3/4 of their tertiary skills with other classes that don't necessarily need any buffs. Shamanism could be buffed up (and would need to be, it's still really awful) but eehhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I think we can reserve the change for Druids only, instead of making it an overhaul for the entire skillset. This isn't an actual suggestion but just a demonstration of the example. We can create a skill in Druidry with passive buffs like, "If you're specialized in Runes, then your masked runes get %20 chance to ignore the cure-attempt against their specific affliction."
Edit: I just thought it's a better method than creating a pseudo-sap, buffing melds. It might not be easily applicable, it was just an idea
Stuff like this seems like it could help with issues that sharing creates and ideally help get towards a point where all terts mesh well with their classes.
Might be more a fan cause of so many changes being shot down for one class because of the effect on another >_>
Well you say that but it wouldn't take too much work to adjust their terts and tweak other stuff. I mean the druid meld is decent in itself. Plus like On testing a druid in meld with the new dreamweaving can kill solo with ego drain. Similar to how runes has a semi workable instant kill with a bit of luck. So even without sap druids right now are viable.
Dproph is kinda weird in that the meld almost doesn't matter if you're playing it that way. Anyone with or without a meld can wait for a lucky double/triple rune proc. The only time it actually figures into it is if you get a rune that your meld can provide, then you can time the dproph to your meld tick (or updated fused rune tick) which does take some setup at least.
I think we can reserve the change for Druids only, instead of making it an overhaul for the entire skillset. This isn't an actual suggestion but just a demonstration of the example. We can create a skill in Druidry with passive buffs like, "If you're specialized in Runes, then your masked runes get %20 chance to ignore the cure-attempt against their specific affliction."
Edit: I just thought it's a better method than creating a pseudo-sap, buffing melds. It might not be easily applicable, it was just an idea
I think this is an interesting idea to explore. You could do things like make snakebane cost 1p less in your meld and things like that. The question is though without sap what are you working towards? I think it's important to really know the answer to that question before we go buffing things.
I think if the idea is that melds could be reworked to be less valuable than they are then shamanism really needs an overhaul (more than it probably does now) but that's somewhat tangential.
Druids sans sap being worse than mages is a myth btw.
And controversial statement of the thread goes to....
This is an argument that is a decade old at this point so we could definitely rehash it. I think for the most part that you're right but I think it's also not entirely relevant to the purpose of this discussion. I don't think it's really debatable that sap has been a central mechanic of druids for most of the history of the game. Druids would not have used it if it was not better than their other options so removing it is definitely leaves a void and is a nerf. The nerf part to me is not bothersome, most of these ideas, particularly option 3 are nerfs from where sap is now. The part about removing core mechanics and replacing it with nothing is bothersome to me though.
Basically I'd rather achieve balance by having all melders have something viable they can do rather than removing a central part of druids and calling it good.
Regarding removing sap, there's this old report I wrote up when Dylara was telling me she needed to replace an old BT effect made redundant by the overhaul. I didn't read most of the thread, but the gist of the idea is basically, delete sap, start re-tooling other abilities to lead to a thorn-rend kill:
Problem: This report aims to solve the deletion of blacklung (Murder ability) as an affliction due to the overhaul
for BTs. At the same time, it is a perfect chance to look at sap and resolve the longstanding problem with sap. The
first part of the problem is self-explanatory, but sap is more controversial. The argument: sap is a crutch, it is
a kill method for druids that involves tying down the opponent forever - when it is successfully IN-PROGRESS (not
even successfully executed, just to even begin working on killing a target via sap) it involves the target
literally being unable to do anything at all. They cannot attack, defend, and must invest all their curing
capabilities to getting out of sap - the druid, in return, must invest all of his active balances to maintaining
this state, and hope that his passives kill the target, or that he has an active ability that can damage AND
continue to maintain the state in a power/balance efficient manner (so that the target does not make progress in
getting out of the state). This is, in one word, unfun in the extreme for the target, and similarly so for the
druid. Removing sap as a crutch will open up the skillset to further proper kill method developments in the future
as well.
Solution #1: To keep the status quo, replace blacklung with scabies, which is
also a plague aff that knocks off balance (same effect as
blacklung).
Solution #2: To take this opportunity to remove reliance on sap - turn the
Murder ability into the following: When on the ground elevation,
the ability will have a 33% chance to do blindness + damage, 33%
chance to do scabies + damage, 33% chance to do nothing. When on
the tree elevation, murder becomes a 100% chance to do thornlash
+ a one-time, 1s balance knock. Delete sap in BT druidry. This
makes helps make the thornrend instant kill more viable for BTs
in the trees elevation for the price of giving up sap. The
Hartstone are advised to come up with their own way of removing
sap that is viable.
Player Comments:
---[Enyalida on 12/6 @ 18:41 writes]:
It makes more sense for the thorns ability to deal the passive thornlashes, which would then apply equally to both
BT and HS. However, this wouldn't make thornlash in any way viable.
<[exlrsSi][r] [10] [11915|100h][8380|100m][100e] [13.54m][22:20:26.298]
Not sure if it will help the brainstorming, but it's one more idea out in the open.
Passive lash sans any other changes doesn't make thornlash viable. It makes it "more viable" technically because you're dealing more lashes per ten seconds , but removing sap removes the core solo/small group viability of thornlash so its a net loss. The offbalance is a nice hindering buff, but doesn't improve thornlash viability at all, you can writhe while off balance. The fundamental issue is that there isn't anything active that can be dine to hinder the writhing as it exists now. Some solution that also introduces additional restrictions on the writhing of thornlashes might work
Thanks for that @Lerad. That report seems like a toned down version of Crek's OP wishlist. If I recall correctly you can writhe thornrend lashes off balance so scabies/balance knocks etc. won't impact them (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). We could always change that but then I'm wary of creating the same problems that were already in sap (that to go for it you have to entirely hinder your opponent) which is similar to the problems with Nihilist sacrifice.
Ah, should've known Crek would be on the ball already. Go Crekkie.
My report obviously had some problems. It wasn't that well thought out, but just something I cooked up randomly. I intended it as a general idea, my grasp of druid specifics are probably not quite as sound. If it helps give the discussion along, good, if not, well, at least it's out here in a thread where it's meant to be.
Simulate current sap to give you a chance to "lock in" thornlashes by giving other afflictions without the annoying aeon effect.
Is this a response to my question? Being off balance doesn't stop writhing. Even if it did, going off balance while already writhing doesn't cancel the so it wouldn't on its own (as presented) do anything to help lashes.
Passive lash sans any other changes doesn't make thornlash viable. It makes it "more viable" technically because you're dealing more lashes per ten seconds , but removing sap removes the core solo/small group viability of thornlash so its a net loss. The offbalance is a nice hindering buff, but doesn't improve thornlash viability at all, you can writhe while off balance. The fundamental issue is that there isn't anything active that can be dine to hinder the writhing as it exists now. Some solution that also introduces additional restrictions on the writhing of thornlashes might work
This document is getting unwieldy already but based on this idea I added a variant of Option 3 called 3a to allow sapcurse to hinder writhing lashes. For the lazy I'll write it out here:
Sap is changed into Sapcurse which allows you to target one balance on a victim. Whenever that balance is used it throws all other cure balances for 1 second, whenever another cure balance is used it throws the targetted balance for 1 second. Sapcurse is automatically cured when the target does not have any afflictions that could be cured by the chosen balance.
In addition, sapcurse prevents lashes from being ignited and does not allow writhing lashes to begin unless there are no afflictions of the chosen balance on the target.
I think this definitely makes it viable (gives you a goal of stacking on a balance and gives you the means to do it) the question is, does this now cross the line into OP territory? Thoughts?
Simulate current sap to give you a chance to "lock in" thornlashes by giving other afflictions without the annoying aeon effect.
Is this a response to my question? Being off balance doesn't stop writhing. Even if it did, going off balance while already writhing doesn't cancel the so it wouldn't on its own (as presented) do anything to help lashes.
It was an attempt to give something that will let us lock in afflictions to stop writhe without the mechanics of sap that makes sap so hated. If you have better ideas, by all means.
The Divine voice of Ianir the Anomaly echoes in your head, "You are a ray of sunshine in a sea of
Druids sans sap being worse than mages is a myth btw.
And controversial statement of the thread goes to....
This is an argument that is a decade old at this point so we could definitely rehash it. I think for the most part that you're right but I think it's also not entirely relevant to the purpose of this discussion. I don't think it's really debatable that sap has been a central mechanic of druids for most of the history of the game. Druids would not have used it if it was not better than their other options so removing it is definitely leaves a void and is a nerf. The nerf part to me is not bothersome, most of these ideas, particularly option 3 are nerfs from where sap is now. The part about removing core mechanics and replacing it with nothing is bothersome to me though.
Basically I'd rather achieve balance by having all melders have something viable they can do rather than removing a central part of druids and calling it good.
I was directing that at Enyalida saying that you can't buff the terts because most of them are shared with mages. Mages and druids have the same problems. None of the primary kills are viable in 1v1 (outside of some RNG cheese in the form of chasm). While I agree with the idea of giving druids a better instakill in their primary (I am of the belief that all primary skills should have one viable insta), I disagree with the idea that buffing the terts is going to introduce some ridiculous imbalance in the favour of mages, because mages and druids (without sap) are already on a more or less level playing field.
This may have been suggested before but why can't sap just incrementally increase the time it takes to writhe?
What would cure sap in this case? Keep in mind that part of the objective is to get rid of cleanse which is a challenge in of itself. In a model like this I imagine that sap would be cured by running away from the druid on a timer or something similar. If it's cured as a traditional affliction then in order for it to work the druid has to be able to stop the target from curing this affliction which presents other problems.
If sap were to continuously increase writhe time it would basically make it inevitable run or die which isn't very fun in my opinion although it does change relatively little which is a plus.
This may have been suggested before but why can't sap just incrementally increase the time it takes to writhe?
Edit: allergies does this already. Maybe sap doubles the effects of allergies. (Trying to reduce the amount of recoding required)
My earlier suggestion was sap upgrading lashes to take two writhes, and causing an increase in allergy accumulation, but I like this direction generally, whatever the specific form is.
I like the idea of sap supporting other kill methods to be more viable. (And if it also has multi-purpose utility, that's a bonus!)
Edit: Except I'm not too much a fan of time-cured afflictions. Having little setup and no counter doesn't usually seem very fair.
Allergies has the effect of slowing writhe as well as a few other things. Could increase Sap power cost, make it a time cured affliction which doubles the effects of allergies for 2-3 equilibriums? I don't know the interplay on this well enough but it seems like allergies is what is used to set up thornlash.
Maybe that's a direction we can go that minimizes recoding and supports the kill method that druids have now. (Also something that could be changed fairly quickly and wouldn't require a complete overhaul.
Edit:Of course this doesn't help getting away from run or die. Allergies is only cured by running.
Allergies has the effect of slowing writhe as well as a few other things. Could increase Sap power cost, make it a time cured affliction which doubles the effects of allergies for 2-3 equilibriums? I don't know the interplay on this well enough but it seems like allergies is what is used to set up thornlash.
Maybe that's a direction we can go that minimizes recoding and supports the kill method that druids have now. (Also something that could be changed fairly quickly and wouldn't require a complete overhaul.
Edit:Of course this doesn't help getting away from run or die. Allergies is only cured by running.
That's certainly a route that we could go, although sadly to make thornlash work I think even this would need to be combined with a ton of passive lashes (and ignite would have to be nerfed). I think making thornlash work without touching other things appears to be the path of least resistance on paper but I think to actually make it work will require more change than just sap. Especially if we want things to work in a more dynamic way.
My other issue with going this route (other than it being run or die) is while having sap protect from ignite and increase the effect of allergies/writhe time on the target can technically make thornrend viable with the right numbers, it also makes things pretty boring for the druid. At that point secondaries/terts don't really matter. The meld (if it's not providing passive lashes) also doesn't matter much with respect to achieving a thornrend kill. It's simply a race which is inevitably stacked in the druids favor if the target stays. Basically in that mode I can't imagine it being optimal to do anything other than lash with each balance (or maybe build allergies first and then lash with each balance).
Allergies has the effect of slowing writhe as well as a few other things. Could increase Sap power cost, make it a time cured affliction which doubles the effects of allergies for 2-3 equilibriums? I don't know the interplay on this well enough but it seems like allergies is what is used to set up thornlash.
Maybe that's a direction we can go that minimizes recoding and supports the kill method that druids have now. (Also something that could be changed fairly quickly and wouldn't require a complete overhaul.
Edit:Of course this doesn't help getting away from run or die. Allergies is only cured by running.
The problem is a fewfold. First it's still fundamentally a writhe cure, so there is almost no interplay with the rest of... anything. The druid starts allergies, builds allergies, saps, does nothing but spams thornlash. For most of the fight they're waiting or sitting in another room while allergies build, then they show up and just blitz thornlashes. Either you cure fast enough, ignite, run away, or die.
Druids sans sap being worse than mages is a myth btw.
And controversial statement of the thread goes to....
This is an argument that is a decade old at this point so we could definitely rehash it. I think for the most part that you're right but I think it's also not entirely relevant to the purpose of this discussion. I don't think it's really debatable that sap has been a central mechanic of druids for most of the history of the game. Druids would not have used it if it was not better than their other options so removing it is definitely leaves a void and is a nerf. The nerf part to me is not bothersome, most of these ideas, particularly option 3 are nerfs from where sap is now. The part about removing core mechanics and replacing it with nothing is bothersome to me though.
Basically I'd rather achieve balance by having all melders have something viable they can do rather than removing a central part of druids and calling it good.
I was directing that at Enyalida saying that you can't buff the terts because most of them are shared with mages. Mages and druids have the same problems. None of the primary kills are viable in 1v1 (outside of some RNG cheese in the form of chasm). While I agree with the idea of giving druids a better instakill in their primary (I am of the belief that all primary skills should have one viable insta), I disagree with the idea that buffing the terts is going to introduce some ridiculous imbalance in the favour of mages, because mages and druids (without sap) are already on a more or less level playing field.
It's actually been used to argue against changes in the past. Like, a change to dreamweaving to help the hartstone potentially causing issues due to interactions with aquamancy or phantasms or w/e so it can't be done.
It's potentially where the mindset comes from, at least. It just seems like the option of saying "well, then aqua's just won't get the skill, or only druids/hartstone will" never really gets used
My understanding is that it was removed not specifically because of aeromeld, but because haegl was already very strong and the introduction of yet another manakill was just the last thing to get someone to actually write a report about it. Miasma was actually given a very low threshold (25% vs the 50% most mana kills are at) as a balancing factor.
Wasn't double haegl (finally) removed because it was too potent with a new Aero demesne effect?
Double haegl days were dark times, although I mostly associate them with blacktalon faelings doing double haegl -> swoop pre racial-rework. The ease at which people could do that was probably enough of a reason to nerf it. I wouldn't buy into the problem statement of that report too heavily, it basically just says "There's a new mana kill now and they have access to runes" even though BT had the same threshold to kill and had access to runes forever before then.
Okay this got derailed a bit (which I definitely assisted in).
To refocus this I wanted to break down the solutions we have so far in various categories and talk about what the objectives are.
Here are my objectives (more or less in order of importance) which I would like to see if people agree with because it will help us narrow down on a solution:
Removing the cleanse cure from sap. This one has basically been handed down from the admin so I don't think there's much debate about it.
Retaining druid viability (including solo, if possible) without being imbalanced
The offense needed to kill using this instakill should have some sort of strategy/variation. It should not be optimal to spam one, and only one spell to achieve a kill.
Similar to #3, the combat strategy should incorporate terts.
The instakill attempt should not entirely hinder the target as a saplock does now (whether it's successful or not).
If an instakill is used, I personally would love a nature is metal theme (ala goreflower).
I like the aspect of sap that interacts with curing priorities and it would be neat if the replacement did too but in a different way (because command slowing is very strong hindering which we're trying to avoid in #5).
One objective which is notably missing in my list but I believe would be in many of yours is changing as few things as possible. When it comes to regular envoy reports (which at one point this was going to be), I'm of that mindset. However with something this central to druids I don't think there is much benefit to choosing a solution purely for its simplicity. I too want to save our coders work but I think addressing sap will be a fairly large amount of work whichever way you slice it, and given how long it's taken to change sap I don't want to stick druids with unfun/simple combat for the next 10 years to save us some time now.
Now viewing all of the solutions through the prism of the objectives above, here's what we have:
Option 1 meets #1-5, and could easily meet 6 if thornrend's death message/effect was changed into something more goreflowery, although now that I think about it maybe thornrend's message is already sufficiently metal. The only cons I can think of for solution 1 is that it changes the most, and that as written it involves having 2 instakills in the primary skill technically which may be one of those unwritten rules. If that second one is an issue it should be possible to rewrite thornrend such that the actual kill is anaphylaxis.
Option 2 meets #1-6 but has some other cons (requires changing herbbane, doesn't interact with allergies, only just barely meets #3).
Option 3 meets #1, maybe on #2, and meets #3-5, #7.
Option 3a shockingly meets #1-7 because I just rewrote it while writing this post (it only meets #6 with the optional goreflower update to thornrend).
Option 4 meets #1-2, possibly #5, and #6.
Option 5 is a lie.
Option 6 meets #1, possibly doesn't meet #2 depending on the timer involved (although geo chasm seems to work okay), and #6.
Option 7 meets #1-2, possibly #5, and possibly #6 if thornrend is sufficiently metal.
So the most important question is: Do my objectives listed above align with yours (particularly if you're a druid)? Is there something I missed? Is there something I value that I shouldn't? If we can develop some sort of consensus about what we should be achieving than we can start to remove some of these options which will make the discussion easier, in my opinion.
My biggest concern is turning druidry in to some convoluted meld where we have totally reinvented the wheel while all the mages have somewhat direct goals in their kits. It is great that non-druids/melders are putting in ideas and even offering to make the reports. I appreciate it so much. But ultimately very few of you would have to actually experience having to work with that kit.
Reading that it makes me sound so selfish but it is what it is.
The Divine voice of Ianir the Anomaly echoes in your head, "You are a ray of sunshine in a sea of
My biggest concern is turning druidry in to some convoluted meld where we have totally reinvented the wheel while all the mages have somewhat direct goals in their kits. It is great that non-druids/melders are putting in ideas and even offering to make the reports. I appreciate it so much. But ultimately very few of you would have to actually experience having to work with that kit.
Reading that it makes me sound so selfish but it is what it is.
Just so you know, Option 1 was written by a druid combatant and has not been modified by me. I have had my hands in most of the others though.
If druids are overall fine with buffing thornrend into viability, which I imagine you are, then that's fine. I personally think just spamming thornlash until kill is incredibly boring but as you pointed out I won't really have to deal with it except on the receiving end. I am also wary of the way in which we make thornrend viable. For example for your idea to work you'd need to nerf ignite (which is fine), and add some sort of gate to being able to writhe lashes. The most obvious one with the idea that you've provided is to make it so you can't writhe lashes off balance/eq. My worry there is that we're basically recreating some of the things that people hate about sap now. Which is to go for a thornrend you need to have the tools to knock people off balance so much that you can build lashes on them which means giving druids an insane amount of hindering (which they already have a decent amount of) to make their instakill viable.
By the way, mages suck one on one, so if you're using that as your yardstick, just delete sap and leave druids as they are. They'll be about as viable as mages then.
If you want to give them a little kick, a simple solution that wouldn't be too hard to code in (I imagine) is a 10s instakill (non-channeled) that uses allergies.
If target has max allergies -> pop insta (which cures all of their allergies). It would work like meteor in that you could support it with your active abilities.
My biggest concern is turning druidry in to some convoluted meld where we have totally reinvented the wheel while all the mages have somewhat direct goals in their kits. It is great that non-druids/melders are putting in ideas and even offering to make the reports. I appreciate it so much. But ultimately very few of you would have to actually experience having to work with that kit.
Reading that it makes me sound so selfish but it is what it is.
Just so you know, Option 1 was written by a druid combatant and has not been modified by me. I have had my hands in most of the others though.
If druids are overall fine with buffing thornrend into viability, which I imagine you are, then that's fine. I personally think just spamming thornlash until kill is incredibly boring but as you pointed out I won't really have to deal with it except on the receiving end. I am also wary of the way in which we make thornrend viable. For example for your idea to work you'd need to nerf ignite (which is fine), and add some sort of gate to being able to writhe lashes. The most obvious one with the idea that you've provided is to make it so you can't writhe lashes off balance/eq. My worry there is that we're basically recreating some of the things that people hate about sap now. Which is to go for a thornrend you need to have the tools to knock people off balance so much that you can build lashes on them which means giving druids an insane amount of hindering (which they already have a decent amount of) to make their instakill viable.
Having an instant kill build like that is a bit iffy. You'd basically be building in very good hindering into an instant kill build which doesn't sound right. Like other kill builds dont hinder at all or only exceptionally tiny amount, building for soulless, aurics wounds etc.
If your forcing an enemy to writhe every other attack while being able to build to a kill it just seem a bit off.
I'd happily give away Sap as a druid. Despite it somewhat plays a filler in 1v1 pvp for my tertkill, I don't honestly rely on it much often other than that.
If we just deleted sap, reworking the tertiaries(probably for everyone) and giving druids an useful instakill would be great. Even if we didn't delete sap giving druids an useful instakill would still be great.
To answer the previously asked questions (Sorry Wobou, I've been busy). The kill methods the Runist Druid have are. 1.)damage(like everyone else) 2.)afflictions via runes, but there's no reward for failing at it and you waste power too when that happens 3.)thornrend, i've only managed to pull that off under a saplock once and damaging would probably be faster than building thornlashes.
As you see, except damage, anything I can offer don't feed into a kill on their own. Except the hindering runes can bring (or lucky ones ending up in a kill) The runes are quite potent for hinder, there's no downplaying that imo.
There's no reason for any runist-druid to be on the front lines atm, except rad. And honestly, it's not worth the risk.
"Oh the year was 453CE, how I wish I was in Serenwilde now... aletter of marque come from the regent to the scummiest aethership I ever seen, gods damn them all...I was told we'd cruise the void for auronidion and dust, we'd fire no turrets, shed no tears.. now I'm a broken man on a Hallifax tier, the last of Saz's privateers."
If we're just going after a quickfix then here's the easiest way to buff thornrend into somewhat viability (stolen from various ideas in this thread and elsewhere) imo:
Make sap protect lashes from ignite lasts 1min. Make it so a sapped target with max allergies takes x seconds to writhe. If x is 5 it will take 84 seconds unhindered to be assured of a thornrend, if x is 6 it will take 52s unhindered, if x is 7 it will take 40s unhindered etc. This is all assuming that lash remains a 4s eq base. We can tweak the number based on how quickly we want a druid to be able to kill in an ideal situation. Note that these numbers are all after max allergies is achieved and I don't actually know how long that takes. My understanding from Veyils is that most warrior specs can get into a kill zone in 70s unhindered and unparried so I would imagine the target timeframe would be similar for this.
Whoops I missed @Veyils reply while I was writing this: If we extend the writhe timer that actually makes spamming lashes less hindering rather than more hindering. Right now writhing a lash takes 1s of balance. So if you can only writhe a lash once every 7s, that means that 1/7s you are spent off balance which I agree is extra punishing to balance users but is also no different than when I used to grapple every other form. Ideally in the longer term we can hopefully rework necro sacrifice to not be based on balance stacking and remove that inequality between equilibrium and balance once and for all.
Edit: I should also add that I would personally be concerned about the actual effects of the lashes if they are allowed to easily stack (like the arms -5/-5 bal malus, the chance to slow movement is slightly less bothersome to me).
Edit 2: I'm told that at max output it takes 23s to get someone to max allergies, with that in mind having x = 6 above = around 75s total unhindered. If that seems too long you could make it 6.5 etc.
Comments
Might be more a fan cause of so many changes being shot down for one class because of the effect on another >_>
I think this is an interesting idea to explore. You could do things like make snakebane cost 1p less in your meld and things like that. The question is though without sap what are you working towards? I think it's important to really know the answer to that question before we go buffing things.
I think if the idea is that melds could be reworked to be less valuable than they are then shamanism really needs an overhaul (more than it probably does now) but that's somewhat tangential.
And controversial statement of the thread goes to....
This is an argument that is a decade old at this point so we could definitely rehash it. I think for the most part that you're right but I think it's also not entirely relevant to the purpose of this discussion. I don't think it's really debatable that sap has been a central mechanic of druids for most of the history of the game. Druids would not have used it if it was not better than their other options so removing it is definitely leaves a void and is a nerf. The nerf part to me is not bothersome, most of these ideas, particularly option 3 are nerfs from where sap is now. The part about removing core mechanics and replacing it with nothing is bothersome to me though.
Basically I'd rather achieve balance by having all melders have something viable they can do rather than removing a central part of druids and calling it good.
Problem: This report aims to solve the deletion of blacklung (Murder ability) as an affliction due to the overhaul for BTs. At the same time, it is a perfect chance to look at sap and resolve the longstanding problem with sap. The first part of the problem is self-explanatory, but sap is more controversial. The argument: sap is a crutch, it is a kill method for druids that involves tying down the opponent forever - when it is successfully IN-PROGRESS (not even successfully executed, just to even begin working on killing a target via sap) it involves the target literally being unable to do anything at all. They cannot attack, defend, and must invest all their curing capabilities to getting out of sap - the druid, in return, must invest all of his active balances to maintaining this state, and hope that his passives kill the target, or that he has an active ability that can damage AND continue to maintain the state in a power/balance efficient manner (so that the target does not make progress in getting out of the state). This is, in one word, unfun in the extreme for the target, and similarly so for the druid. Removing sap as a crutch will open up the skillset to further proper kill method developments in the future as well. Solution #1: To keep the status quo, replace blacklung with scabies, which is also a plague aff that knocks off balance (same effect as blacklung). Solution #2: To take this opportunity to remove reliance on sap - turn the Murder ability into the following: When on the ground elevation, the ability will have a 33% chance to do blindness + damage, 33% chance to do scabies + damage, 33% chance to do nothing. When on the tree elevation, murder becomes a 100% chance to do thornlash + a one-time, 1s balance knock. Delete sap in BT druidry. This makes helps make the thornrend instant kill more viable for BTs in the trees elevation for the price of giving up sap. The Hartstone are advised to come up with their own way of removing sap that is viable. Player Comments: ---[Enyalida on 12/6 @ 18:41 writes]: It makes more sense for the thorns ability to deal the passive thornlashes, which would then apply equally to both BT and HS. However, this wouldn't make thornlash in any way viable. <[exlrsSi][r] [10] [11915|100h][8380|100m][100e] [13.54m][22:20:26.298]Not sure if it will help the brainstorming, but it's one more idea out in the open.
My report obviously had some problems. It wasn't that well thought out, but just something I cooked up randomly. I intended it as a general idea, my grasp of druid specifics are probably not quite as sound. If it helps give the discussion along, good, if not, well, at least it's out here in a thread where it's meant to be.
This document is getting unwieldy already but based on this idea I added a variant of Option 3 called 3a to allow sapcurse to hinder writhing lashes. For the lazy I'll write it out here:
In addition, sapcurse prevents lashes from being ignited and does not allow writhing lashes to begin unless there are no afflictions of the chosen balance on the target.
I think this definitely makes it viable (gives you a goal of stacking on a balance and gives you the means to do it) the question is, does this now cross the line into OP territory? Thoughts?
Edit: allergies does this already. Maybe sap doubles the effects of allergies. (Trying to reduce the amount of recoding required)
Edit 2: To add to this, maybe sap needs to be timed and druids should focus on building allergies.
If sap were to continuously increase writhe time it would basically make it inevitable run or die which isn't very fun in my opinion although it does change relatively little which is a plus.
I like the idea of sap supporting other kill methods to be more viable. (And if it also has multi-purpose utility, that's a bonus!)
Edit: Except I'm not too much a fan of time-cured afflictions. Having little setup and no counter doesn't usually seem very fair.
Maybe that's a direction we can go that minimizes recoding and supports the kill method that druids have now. (Also something that could be changed fairly quickly and wouldn't require a complete overhaul.
Edit:Of course this doesn't help getting away from run or die. Allergies is only cured by running.
That's certainly a route that we could go, although sadly to make thornlash work I think even this would need to be combined with a ton of passive lashes (and ignite would have to be nerfed). I think making thornlash work without touching other things appears to be the path of least resistance on paper but I think to actually make it work will require more change than just sap. Especially if we want things to work in a more dynamic way.
My other issue with going this route (other than it being run or die) is while having sap protect from ignite and increase the effect of allergies/writhe time on the target can technically make thornrend viable with the right numbers, it also makes things pretty boring for the druid. At that point secondaries/terts don't really matter. The meld (if it's not providing passive lashes) also doesn't matter much with respect to achieving a thornrend kill. It's simply a race which is inevitably stacked in the druids favor if the target stays. Basically in that mode I can't imagine it being optimal to do anything other than lash with each balance (or maybe build allergies first and then lash with each balance).
It's potentially where the mindset comes from, at least. It just seems like the option of saying "well, then aqua's just won't get the skill, or only druids/hartstone will" never really gets used
Double haegl days were dark times, although I mostly associate them with blacktalon faelings doing double haegl -> swoop pre racial-rework. The ease at which people could do that was probably enough of a reason to nerf it. I wouldn't buy into the problem statement of that report too heavily, it basically just says "There's a new mana kill now and they have access to runes" even though BT had the same threshold to kill and had access to runes forever before then.
To refocus this I wanted to break down the solutions we have so far in various categories and talk about what the objectives are.
Here are my objectives (more or less in order of importance) which I would like to see if people agree with because it will help us narrow down on a solution:
One objective which is notably missing in my list but I believe would be in many of yours is changing as few things as possible. When it comes to regular envoy reports (which at one point this was going to be), I'm of that mindset. However with something this central to druids I don't think there is much benefit to choosing a solution purely for its simplicity. I too want to save our coders work but I think addressing sap will be a fairly large amount of work whichever way you slice it, and given how long it's taken to change sap I don't want to stick druids with unfun/simple combat for the next 10 years to save us some time now.
Now viewing all of the solutions through the prism of the objectives above, here's what we have:
So the most important question is: Do my objectives listed above align with yours (particularly if you're a druid)? Is there something I missed? Is there something I value that I shouldn't? If we can develop some sort of consensus about what we should be achieving than we can start to remove some of these options which will make the discussion easier, in my opinion.
Reading that it makes me sound so selfish but it is what it is.
If druids are overall fine with buffing thornrend into viability, which I imagine you are, then that's fine. I personally think just spamming thornlash until kill is incredibly boring but as you pointed out I won't really have to deal with it except on the receiving end. I am also wary of the way in which we make thornrend viable. For example for your idea to work you'd need to nerf ignite (which is fine), and add some sort of gate to being able to writhe lashes. The most obvious one with the idea that you've provided is to make it so you can't writhe lashes off balance/eq. My worry there is that we're basically recreating some of the things that people hate about sap now. Which is to go for a thornrend you need to have the tools to knock people off balance so much that you can build lashes on them which means giving druids an insane amount of hindering (which they already have a decent amount of) to make their instakill viable.
If you want to give them a little kick, a simple solution that wouldn't be too hard to code in (I imagine) is a 10s instakill (non-channeled) that uses allergies.
If target has max allergies -> pop insta (which cures all of their allergies). It would work like meteor in that you could support it with your active abilities.
Having an instant kill build like that is a bit iffy. You'd basically be building in very good hindering into an instant kill build which doesn't sound right. Like other kill builds dont hinder at all or only exceptionally tiny amount, building for soulless, aurics wounds etc.
If your forcing an enemy to writhe every other attack while being able to build to a kill it just seem a bit off.
If we just deleted sap, reworking the tertiaries(probably for everyone) and giving druids an useful instakill would be great. Even if we didn't delete sap giving druids an useful instakill would still be great.
To answer the previously asked questions (Sorry Wobou, I've been busy). The kill methods the Runist Druid have are. 1.)damage(like everyone else) 2.)afflictions via runes, but there's no reward for failing at it and you waste power too when that happens 3.)thornrend, i've only managed to pull that off under a saplock once and damaging would probably be faster than building thornlashes.
As you see, except damage, anything I can offer don't feed into a kill on their own. Except the hindering runes can bring (or lucky ones ending up in a kill) The runes are quite potent for hinder, there's no downplaying that imo.
There's no reason for any runist-druid to be on the front lines atm, except rad. And honestly, it's not worth the risk.
-Kilian
Make sap protect lashes from ignite lasts 1min. Make it so a sapped target with max allergies takes x seconds to writhe. If x is 5 it will take 84 seconds unhindered to be assured of a thornrend, if x is 6 it will take 52s unhindered, if x is 7 it will take 40s unhindered etc. This is all assuming that lash remains a 4s eq base. We can tweak the number based on how quickly we want a druid to be able to kill in an ideal situation. Note that these numbers are all after max allergies is achieved and I don't actually know how long that takes. My understanding from Veyils is that most warrior specs can get into a kill zone in 70s unhindered and unparried so I would imagine the target timeframe would be similar for this.
Whoops I missed @Veyils reply while I was writing this:
If we extend the writhe timer that actually makes spamming lashes less hindering rather than more hindering. Right now writhing a lash takes 1s of balance. So if you can only writhe a lash once every 7s, that means that 1/7s you are spent off balance which I agree is extra punishing to balance users but is also no different than when I used to grapple every other form. Ideally in the longer term we can hopefully rework necro sacrifice to not be based on balance stacking and remove that inequality between equilibrium and balance once and for all.
Edit: I should also add that I would personally be concerned about the actual effects of the lashes if they are allowed to easily stack (like the arms -5/-5 bal malus, the chance to slow movement is slightly less bothersome to me).
Edit 2: I'm told that at max output it takes 23s to get someone to max allergies, with that in mind having x = 6 above = around 75s total unhindered. If that seems too long you could make it 6.5 etc.