Cement Socks/Featherweight Charm

Orael

Rooting artifacts tend to give the benefit of the rooting/lack of rooting without a real cost. Cement Socks and featherweight charms can be worn or removed off balance and the effect is instantly gained/lost. There should be a more significant effect when using these items.

I believe the solution should apply to both the socks and the charm as any argument made for wearing the charm could be made for removing the socks. Even though the removing the socks does not remove all your rooting, it removes a significant chunk of rooting, which is in the same vein as wearing the charm.

These might apply to the rune of Mass Resistance (or whatever it's called) that has a similar effect, but it may be more limited in that it's placed on jewelry as a rune.

Snald

How much balance are we talking here?

Orael

Probably 1-2s

Lycidas

I like the requiring of masochism more, so it's not just running away, removing it, and then a few seconds later being forcibly yanked to safety. Requiring masochism means that this is something you plot going into battle rather than reactionary.

Snald

Requiring masochism essentially makes featherweight charm useless because you're not intentionally walking into combat with 0 rooting

Lycidas

Being considered out of combat after running away is doable, and it should be this way. The charm should not be a get out of jail free card that you can slap on in just a few seconds.

Enya

Which frankly makes plain how busted it currently is, to me. 

I prefer both one *and* two. Should also require being unprone to put on or take off.

Lycidas

I'm willing to agree with Enya on this, I think a combination of 1 and 2 would be more in line with what I think it should be, I only voted require masochism because it would be along that.

Minkahmet

I'm not too fond of combining options one and two, I'm more of the mindset of either option one or option two.  I think option one should be more like 2s, 1s is still too quick to be of any real delay to the person putting them on/off.

Lycidas

Likewise 2s is too short. That is so easy to just step away a few rooms, switch and get pulled. Considering the balance option -alone- doesn't really fix the problem. Nothing stops me from quickie swapping and getting summoned to safety while still off-balance.

Innon

Would option 2 be RNG between 10-15?

Kagato

Enya said:

Which frankly makes plain how busted it currently is, to me. 

I prefer both one *and* two. Should also require being unprone to put on or take off.

Personally, as silly as it may sounds (and may be tricky to code), I think socks should REQUIRE prone to put on and take off without consuming balance, otherwise if done while standing, requires and consumes it.  I know it's kind of a real-world comparison, but it is far easier to put on and take off socks when sitting down than standing up :P

Zagreus

Masochism is my first choice, 30s delay second choice.

There's no reasonable argument to justify having the best of both worlds in the rooting department on command. Require/use 1-2s of bal/eq does nothing to fix that.

Kalnid

You could make it a few second channel, interruptable by the usual things that interrupt channels. That's like a softer version of forcing masochism.

Zagreus

@Kalnid not good enough IMO. To quote someone else who said it better, "You enter combat with a certain amount of rooting and have to live with your choice."

There are too many situations where forced movement is absolutely critical as a counter. If you want to protect against that counter, fine, but you should have to fully disengage for a while before changing (which is why I suggested 30s).

Deichtine

Solution 4. Wearing the charm doesn't set your movement resistance to 0. It now halfs your current movement resistance. No other restrictions on wearing or removing. Having high rooting resistance then wearing the charm still means you've got a high chance to resist any stuff moving you but the charm has a use then in that it allows you to toggle on having lower resistance.

Deichtine

The featherweight charm has become like the Nose. Its something that's become part of standard combat now days. I agree that a total free removal of all rooting is too much but being able to reduce your rooting is as much a part of standard combat as being able to scent instantly for all classes now.

A small balance use on scent from the nose and wearing or removing the charm would bring these things into a nice line for sure.

Kalnid

Deichtine said:

The featherweight charm has become like the Nose. Its something that's become part of standard combat now days.

I don't think this is true. It might be standard among a select group of whales, but it's not standard in combat as a whole.

Lycidas

@Deichtine It might be standard for you and your friends that you run with, but not many people consider it a standard or must-have.

Shango

Featherweight is not essential in the slightest and for its use, certainly not at all comparable in value to the Nose's essential status in battles. There is nothing equitable in the practical application when comparing the two. Balance cost to nose is a losing battle due to abhorrent negative impact on all combat situations for everyone else, knock it off. Not even the thread for this and you throw it in there, please stay on topic.

Whole point of Rooting was always to be a double-edged sword as its means to being balanced. You have heavy rooting, you move only when YOU want to rather than constantly scissored/gusted/tackled/lust summoned out of the room, or having greater defense against being summoned BACK into the room after escaping....in exchange for making it harder for allies to save you on their end, either summoning from range or gusting you out of danger. Featherweight negates that due to instantaneous negation of rooting at will, balance or no for the target, to escape every situation when they have others to save them, and can instantly be removed to regain that increased rooting to prevent resummoning back into the fray to take their death. The nature of Rooting's inherent balance was negated with the introduction of Featherweight as a result.

So yes, it's essential for those that resort to such maneuvers that rely on rapid engage-disengage methodology, and is frustrating af to deal with. But even if Featherweight was removed entirely and current rooting methods maintained, that would impact battle very little for the vast majority of the game. Save to encourage more 'standing your ground' and actually fighting approaches, but there IS value to the in and out strategy when utilized properly. Hard to pull off for full manual use, but reflexes can be made to manage it well enough.

Issue is that with the method I've described above, it creates a situation where you may as well not engage unless adjacent to each group, else people can zip about the area repeatedly at will, and little to be done for either side pinning down anyone. So adding a cooldown to channel, requiring balance/eq to wear/remove, delaying the application or removal of rooting value a few seconds, or requiring masochism to not be down (i.e. in combat) to force one to decide how they want to approach their advantage when engaging in the first place rather than switching it up midway all would work to fix the situation.

Personally, the delayed approach may be the most balanced method for overall gameplay. Forces real decisions made mid-battle based on changing needs, without making it easily gamed as it currently is...WITHOUT negating the value of the strategy all-together. Frustrating as it is to contend with, one can respect the intuitive approach used when it's performed properly.

Deichtine

Lycidas said:

@Deichtine It might be standard for you and your friends that you run with, but not many people consider it a standard or must-have.

The nose and charm are fairly standard. Its rare not to find someone in pvp who has the nose at least.

Kalnid

Deichtine said:

The nose and charm are fairly standard. Its rare not to find someone in pvp who has the nose at least.

Again, this is false. It's rare to find someone without a nose. It's incredibly easy to find someone without a charm.

Minkahmet

If 2s is still too short, I'm sure the admin can easily just bump that up higher accordingly or just go with channeling or masochism. I still disagree with combining both.

Deichtine

Kalnid said:

Deichtine said:

The nose and charm are fairly standard. Its rare not to find someone in pvp who has the nose at least.

Again, this is false. It's rare to find someone without a nose. It's incredibly easy to find someone without a charm.

I do recognise that the nose is a way more powerful artifact for group combat and I guess it is more common for people to buy it before the charm.

Lycidas

The noses are not the topic at hand. Also, the charm isn't as common as you may think it is, considering I know nobody that uses it currently.

Deichtine

I just had a look back over the war tournaments since 2016 and it looks like in the finalist rounds the majority of people in it had both noses and charms.

Lycidas

Again, NOSES ARE NOT THE TOPIC at hand. That is also 2016, which is not relevant to 2019.

Deichtine

Since 2016. So that Included 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Kalnid

You're telling me that the people in the grand finals of war trial, who are by definition the best equipped fighters in the game, tend to have a particular extremely useful artifact? I'm absolutely shocked.

Xenthos

But it does lend weight to it being "required" by those combatants.

Which is true.  It is so strong that it has become an essential part of certain combat routines, and this thread exists to fix that because it really needs to be fixed.

I am in agreement with Shango on the delayed toggle, though.  It allows for a level of strategy which is not just "hit alias that puts charm on and calls for empress."

Kalnid

Xenthos said:

But it does lend weight to it being "required" by those combatants.

Deichtine said:

The featherweight charm has become like the Nose. Its something that's become part of standard combat now days.

It being required by top tier combatants wasn't the argument I was disputing. If you'd like to say that because war finalists tend to use something it's necessary to the game then go for it, but that wasn't the initial claim - war finals ain't standard.