Fighting Shadowdancers

Parhelion

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/Opx-gTwl

Anyone able to look at the second half of this and tell me what went wrong? It looks like AC stopped trying to heal vitals entirely, even after curing anorexia.

Also, the following is from one person, because Enadonella was mazed:

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/DoqDB13z

Why are Asthma and Aeon able to be given so quickly in this instance?

Parhelion

I made a lot of mistakes, but I'm trying to see what I can do to improve. I'd really like to start working on my curing priorities if that's an issue.

Shango

Well the Aeon is a nonreq'd new ability, Choke, that they can just spam whenever they wish now. And the inline Asthma is caused by having your shadow (no means to stop that from happening, and lasts till they or you are dead, or they leave the realms, sadly). Was a tad bit of an oversight where they argued they 'had' to have aeon to get their kills, despite never needing it before, but it's a faster skill than even Hallifax can dish out now, and a second faster than the similar Wane ability Serenwilde Moondancers get. Basically means the SD can spam aeon on you back to back, faster than you can cure it and get quicksilver up for a bit of breathing room, and let their ents do all the heavy lifting till you can be toaded. Unravel also applies aeon with asthma too, so...there's that.

Only real way to fight a shadowdancer is hitting them (since Aeon no longer effects offensive actions, only movement and curing) with disloyalty, or killing their ents. I'd start with the banshee as that's the main mana and health drainer, then redcap as they'll bleed you out and if you cure the bleeding you'll still drain mana fast. Hinder them if you can, breaking arms works best. But no ents, if they're fighting solo, you can at least fight on even ground and they have to expend Power to resummon the mobs slain before leaning back on Aeon again...giving you the needed room to cure the rest of the affs piled on you in the interim.

As to why it'd not cure, SSC isn't all that great vs aeon, blackout or impalements still. May need to code a separate bit of reflexes on your client side to deal with those instances, getting back to where you can cure via SSC. DIAGNOSE after blackout may be required, writhing reflexes on your end, and sending to pause SSC during aeon and track both aeon and asthma, focusing asthma if you have it, else curing aeon immediately. Sip quicksilver soon as you cure it, then turn SSC back on in the same reflex. About what is required at this point till it can be improved upon I suppose.

In before comments fighting that the new Choke is at all required. Don't care, it's really not, and has only resulted in being spammed by people that go SD JUST to spam it and nothing else, because of how damned fast and effective it is. If there was a Power cost, or you had to wait till you had their shadow or something, there'd be a bit more balance to it, but as it stands, there's no real valid argument given that will convince anyone not of Glom of its necessity.

Keegan

Why were they able to be given so quickly? 

That's a question we're all wondering.
After doing 4 twists the shadowdancer can simply, in a single balance after prepping your quicksilver, both apply asthma, and aeon. They can additionally also spit chansu for a chance of landing anorexia. 

Once they have gotten you to 4 twists with the shadow, in addition to instantly providing asthma, you will again be hit with asthma every 2.5 seconds. Given that shadowdancers also have anorexia, and asthma, alongside active 3s(?) balance aeon in their secondary skillset means that you can't really do anything about it once they get there. You can't really stop the person from twisting you since they have a wonderhorn. If you actively attempt to hinder them they'll recover balance and twist you again before you can hinder them again. The only real counter you have, if you're trying to avoid the twist is to run around like a headless chicken, ensure you have more celerity than your opponent, and have already killed the pidgwidgeon.

So, in this instance, you have to have killed them before they get to 4 twists + 1 choke. Avurekhos' tackle was good, but also stunned you and reset your aeon cure balance expense.

In my opinion, Shadowdancers should have choke extended to 4-4.5s, or/and lose both access to active aeon/asthma, and anorexia. Twist should also move to stupidity/hallucinations and not remain asthma. Having in-line access to aeon and tertiary hexes should really force you to make the hexes choice to pursue the level of aeon perpetuation Shadowdancers have in Night.
Additionally, there's no reason unravel is a free balance when you can time it to a static pulse ala aeonfield.

Aramel

Alternatively, I'd like to see some sort of reset ability on twist. Right now, I'm told by Glom players that twist unsets at one twist per 30 seconds, which means that at 4 twists (which is where it starts giving balanceless, instant asthma) you have to sit out of combat and avoid being hit by the shadowdancer with the twist for 120 seconds. This is unreasonably long and basically impossible in the same fight. For reference, the equivalent Moon skill, succumb, times out completely in 10 seconds, so it is a reasonable counterplay to just leave the room, as opposed to SDs.

Edit: I do agree that being able to queue up balanceless non-RNG asthma, and aeon in one go is something that is available to no other class in its primary skill, not even aeonics. I'm not entirely sure that it can be justified given how potent aeon-asthma is against SSC.

Orael

When twist was being re-worked into its current iteration, it was tested by a varying set of players and the only way that a SD was able to drain people to toad levels, in testing, was to aeon people with the passive asthma.

The big key was that because aeon only effects curing/defensive actions, the target could offensively hinder and break up the aeon chaining to get out of it. Again, this was in testing, and wasn't really group testing (though if I remember correctly, it was tested with HB as well).

 As an aside - making statements like 'In before comments fighting that the new Choke is at all required. Don't care, it's really not, and has only resulted in being spammed by people that go SD JUST to spam it and nothing else, because of how damned fast and effective it is. If there was a Power cost, or you had to wait till you had their shadow or something, there'd be a bit more balance to it, but as it stands, there's no real valid argument given that will convince anyone not of Glom of its necessity.' just precludes that there will be no productive conversation, even when you have no way to back up the claim that it isn't needed.

 If you want to have a productive conversation about this, you need to discuss it in the same good faith you expect from others.

Keegan

Also, you appear to be sending springup commands in aeon while trying to cure it off which is competing with curing going on at the same time. I'm not sure what the correct executive decision is to make here, since it looks like you were passively going to die to the unravel in the aeon and Deich was just spamming shieldstun at that point to make the aeon stick longer.

In regards to what you should have done at that point in unravel, I don't think I can give you an honest answer as to the best thing you could have done.

Kalnid

So a couple things went belly-up here. First, yeah, springup in aeon is not necessarily something you want to do since it's a command you could be using to cure otherwise. On top of that, Avu, while probably well meaning, did stun and prone you right at the start (although it did block a shieldstun right after, so). Would you have been able to recover out if he hadn't? Probably not, but it didn't help. At the start you're spamming shield against someone who a: breaks shield faster than you create it and b: doesn't care how slowly their offense builds because you cannot cure out of shadowdancer prep. So that's not ideal either. Deichtine either has a new trick I'm unfamiliar with or got unusually lucky (and/or you're missing whatever skill gives you a chance to ignore poisons. combat?), since with two basic weapon attacks anorexia hit twice from poison. That being said, even without the anorexia you would've had an awful time getting past the asthma to break aeon. SD untwist is the best solo aeon lock in the game, 2.5s passive asthma is an insane enabler.

As to solutions: If you had greened immediately after the aeon hit, you probably would've escaped. The only affs on you were aeon and asthma, so it'd hit both of those and you'd get quicksilver back up before the SD got balance back. But you didn't have power, so that's not an option. Plus that's only going to really work against one enemy, and that's if the SD doesn't bother to beast spit or time for ents. Your other option is to disrupt the SD using whatever means are available, entangles, stuns, whatever. But, again, you were proned. It's really hard to run an offense while prone. You could spend a second to springup, but mmf and ssc were fighting each other and the times you tried to either you were stunned in the middle of it or it both interrupted your curing and was interrupted by your curing. You can't stop an SD from building twists and it's hard to stop an unravel once it's in gear, but killing fae does help. You might also want to see if reflections are a better option than circling, but that's just something to experiment with.

edit: there was also discussion of twists all fading on masochism gain a while back, but I don't know if that was ever implemented or not. If so that's 30 seconds to duck out instead of 120, which is a bit less miserable.

edit2: the other thing you could've done was, if you're trans lowmagic, hit serpent instead of mazing. Recurring long duration prismatic is an incredibly potent defense button.

Anaklusmos

Orael said:

 As an aside - making statements like 'In before comments fighting that the new Choke is at all required. Don't care, it's really not, and has only resulted in being spammed by people that go SD JUST to spam it and nothing else, because of how damned fast and effective it is. If there was a Power cost, or you had to wait till you had their shadow or something, there'd be a bit more balance to it, but as it stands, there's no real valid argument given that will convince anyone not of Glom of its necessity.' just precludes that there will be no productive conversation, even when you have no way to back up the claim that it isn't needed.

 If you want to have a productive conversation about this, you need to discuss it in the same good faith you expect from others.

Any post or thread that criticizes Glom is already unproductive, anyway, since nothing would really be done to dislodge their totally balanced skills.

Anyway, hit ents first. Banshee redcap pooka slaugh barghest brownie nymph pigwidgeon is my prio list, although that probably depends on your own class. 

The SD would either try to keep aeon spamming (putting off resummoning for later), or start resummoning immediately. The former situation is better for you, since when they start resummoning, it gives you a window to start your own offense. The latter would just grind to an attrition war.

Orael

Anaklusmos said:

Orael said:

 As an aside - making statements like 'In before comments fighting that the new Choke is at all required. Don't care, it's really not, and has only resulted in being spammed by people that go SD JUST to spam it and nothing else, because of how damned fast and effective it is. If there was a Power cost, or you had to wait till you had their shadow or something, there'd be a bit more balance to it, but as it stands, there's no real valid argument given that will convince anyone not of Glom of its necessity.' just precludes that there will be no productive conversation, even when you have no way to back up the claim that it isn't needed.

 If you want to have a productive conversation about this, you need to discuss it in the same good faith you expect from others.

Any post or thread that criticizes Glom is already unproductive, anyway, since nothing would really be done to dislodge their totally balanced skills.

Yeah, it's definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't think anything's going to get done, so you're not willing to listen to the other side, and in turn, they aren't willing to listen to you and in the end, nothing does get done and then you just say 'see, nothing's getting done.' Keep on keeping on I guess?

I'll throw this out here, Anyone that wants to prove that SD's do not require aeon to toad people is more than welcome to hop on my test server to demonstrate that. Just message me in game and I'll give you the server details. Here is your opportunity to back up what you're saying with action. 

To re-iterate, this was tested by players prior to release and was found to be needed. I'll be the first to admit the testing wasn't exhaustive but it was pretty thorough and multiple avenues were tried. It's very possible something was missed during testing that changes things up, or something just wasn't realized, remembered or noticed, but it wasn't something that was just slipped through as is being implied.

Anaklusmos

Haha. Here's the thing:

Glomdoring, which is widely considered to have the superior skill sets, gets buffs, needed or not. They get the admin attention to fix their boo-boos.

I don't see that happening to other orgs. Institute researchers got a huge rework but nothing that really fixed what's lacking, overall, in Hallifax: synergy.

Mag is fine because dustaffs. Still laughing hard about that.

Serenwilde is also this hidden nuclear gem, we're all just too stupid to see it. Sure.

I don't need to go on to illustrate my point. This is exactly why the rest of the playerbase turns up its nose at Glomdoring, and why there's so little trust on the admin team.

Furthermore, stating that it's somehow our duty to come up with ways to fix the game is ludicrous. Sure, we'll help out and add suggestions when we have it. But that's not our job. It's yours. The responsibility is not on us to fix the game.

The situation further deteriorates when the Glomdoring players insist that nothing is wrong, that nothing needs to change with other orgs' skillsets, and the admin team isn't really doing anything to counteract that. Nope, they actually go ahead and send more cookies Glom's way. And you wonder why the rest of the game has pretty much given up on fighting.

Ridiculous.

Rivius

I feel pretty lost following all this. The wiki is a bit outdated on Night skills and I haven't done combat in >a RL year. What is the new choke mechanic? Also, how is Deichtine (presumeably) twisting and choking on what looks like the same balance? Also, what changed that even prompted the need for a new mechanic like choke?

- A confused old player

Kalnid

@Rivius Choke is just an aeon hit now. Unravel, which SDs use to start their twist burst, doesn't consume balance. You steal a shadow, twist up to seven times, each doing a modest mana hit and nothing else, and then unravel. Unravel ticks once every 2.5s for each twist with the first tick immediately, draining percent mana and, if you twisted at least four times, apply asthma.

Saz

@Orael
If the plan is to design skillsets to be able to get kills, without concerns of group combat and without relying on the tertiaries to function, then honestly Night sounds perfect and every other skillset in the game should get elevated to that point. If that's the route the game is taking, I've no objections.

Looking at the log above, a Shadowdancer can get someone into toad zone, while also crippling the target's curing by using twists and newchoke alone, right? I'm very curious to hear about how a Moondancer can do that. Sure let's throw away the aeon+asthma+anorexia pseudolock in a trade of succumb's raw burst power (Which isn't even fair, imho). But even then, Succumb and Dark's combined mana pressure isn't anywhere close to get anyone to %80 mana. No one is going to die to that not unless they sit still and turn off their curing. Are there any plans for Moon get a burst of mental afflictions in the skillset to stop relying on Hexes to get toads in the same sense that Night itself does the work?

Innon

Orael said:

When twist was being re-worked into its current iteration, it was tested by a varying set of players and the only way that a SD was able to drain people to toad levels, in testing, was to aeon people with the passive asthma.

The big key was that because aeon only effects curing/defensive actions, the target could offensively hinder and break up the aeon chaining to get out of it. Again, this was in testing, and wasn't really group testing (though if I remember correctly, it was tested with HB as well).

 As an aside - making statements like 'In before comments fighting that the new Choke is at all required. Don't care, it's really not, and has only resulted in being spammed by people that go SD JUST to spam it and nothing else, because of how damned fast and effective it is. If there was a Power cost, or you had to wait till you had their shadow or something, there'd be a bit more balance to it, but as it stands, there's no real valid argument given that will convince anyone not of Glom of its necessity.' just precludes that there will be no productive conversation, even when you have no way to back up the claim that it isn't needed.

 If you want to have a productive conversation about this, you need to discuss it in the same good faith you expect from others.

Is the direction we are moving toward a quicker offense and a viable killing method(s) for classes? I definitely think Hallifax and Glom are in good positions (excluding 1-2 classes), but when we are looking at buffs and nerfs to skills, skillsets, and classes should we look to SD as the balance point as far as speed, viability, resource cost, reliability, etc.? This would be useful information with the understanding  that some classes may have small resource cost therefore less reliability or vice versa. I do think we really should have a class we balance to in order to all be on the same page. In my opinion, this would make for more productive discussions. 

Orael

Anaklusmos said:

Haha. Here's the thing:

Glomdoring, which is widely considered to have the superior skill sets, gets buffs, needed or not. They get the admin attention to fix their boo-boos.

I don't see that happening to other orgs. Institute researchers got a huge rework but nothing that really fixed what's lacking, overall, in Hallifax: synergy.

Mag is fine because dustaffs. Still laughing hard about that.

Serenwilde is also this hidden nuclear gem, we're all just too stupid to see it. Sure.

I don't need to go on to illustrate my point. This is exactly why the rest of the playerbase turns up its nose at Glomdoring, and why there's so little trust on the admin team.

Furthermore, stating that it's somehow our duty to come up with ways to fix the game is ludicrous. Sure, we'll help out and add suggestions when we have it. But that's not our job. It's yours. The responsibility is not on us to fix the game.

The situation further deteriorates when the Glomdoring players insist that nothing is wrong, that nothing needs to change with other orgs' skillsets, and the admin team isn't really doing anything to counteract that. Nope, they actually go ahead and send more cookies Glom's way. And you wonder why the rest of the game has pretty much given up on fighting.

Ridiculous.

Yeah, I think your off base here.  It seems you are basing your position on the past, rather than the most recent happenings and then trying to sprinkle in recent stuff with those arguments.

The researcher rework actually brought in a lot more synergy (steam affs and timewarp), I'm not sure why you would (or could really) say otherwise. Hallifax players, in general, seem to really appreciate it overall. I'm not sure how you can justify that position? They got 'admin attention to fix their boo-boos' too.

The twist rework was a direct result of the admin trying to address things and make them better, but we're also not interested in neutering them completely.  It was player tested, by players from all orgs, and while there were still some concerns going in, we felt it was in a pretty good spot. We addressed two of the major complaints. The twisting AND afflicting mechanic as well as a lack of telegraphing. Those are all changed, you cannot afflict and twist, and it's pretty well telegraphed. Glomdoring was in and agreed to these changes. Is it perfect? No, but nothing is. I do think they are in a better spot than they were. Maybe they still need more tweaking and adjusting sure, I can get on board with that, but it needs to come from a place that isn't 'They don't need aeon and you can't convince me otherwise' and a position from 'here's why they don't need aeon and let me demonstrate' .  Hence my willingness to let you demonstrate. 

If you just want to complain, then feel free I guess, but I'm giving you an opportunity to back up some of the positions. Your choice at this point. 

Saz

I don't play much but I can echo that new institute players seem very enthusiastic about the rework. And Hallifax does have a rather strong synergy point now, despite I still believe bleeding is incomparible, it's safe to say timewarps look like the second best synergy in the entire game, by a huge margin.

Lycidas

Sounds like the big question we're still looking for an answer to is: Are we balancing combat around 1v1, or group? I've played SD before and after the changes and can honestly say before the change, they were not great in SOLO environments. They could be annoying, but minor pressure was exerted. Then again, SD were always a "Power in numbers" kind of class with the coven abilities. This change made them stronger in SOLO environments, and possibly overbearing in group environments. I think that is where a lot of people are having their disagreements and view points stem from. Hell, I can be wrong and just told to shut up, and that's fine.

But those interested in helping the admins balance combat with ideas, proofs, demonstrations, etc need to know if we're balancing for 1v1s or group combat. Because I do agree that if we're going based on the premise of 1v1s, then there are stronger classes out there, but based on group that ranking changes. Therefore, can we please receive the answer of how balancing is being aimed?

Orael

It's both, 1v1 and groups.

Maligorn

I will say that it's problematic that Shadowdancers no longer have to take Hexes to be able to afflict with asthma. Right now SDs can enjoy the huge boon of being Healing while still having a very strong aeonlock offense.

Certainly you could say the same about Researchers, given they have Aeon and Aeonfield in Aeonics, and asthma in Harmonics, but A. their aeon is on a longer balance and B. Aeonfield precludes the easy use of Timequake due to its power cost, and it is pretty dangerous to use especially in the presence of ego or mana killers.

How about this for a suggestion: make the affliction aeon itself time out much faster than it currently does. How does that sound?

EDIT: Maybe in addition or in lieu of that suggestion, aeon immunity a la blackout/stun immunity.

Tarken

In hindsight I don't think nightcurse needs to have asthma personally, but I'm not active enough to say that with anything more than a vague suspicion. The idea for that did predate the asthma-on-unravel tick thing that went in during testing though, which makes the offense work sans hexes which was originally why nightcurse asthma was there.

I thought choke was aeon tarot bal. Is that not the case? base 3s? (I may be misinterpreting some posts, it sounds like people are saying it might be base 2.5?).

@Choros some thoughts:
- Can't tell if you have one, but if not: get a truetime enchantment, will help a lot when you're looking to fit actions in between the stuns. The tackle was a good idea but really set you back in this particular case (since it let her slip in the anorexia) but in most situations it'll be a noticeable boost.
- Green on anorexia/asthma/aeon, that's a really bad place to be with the shadow unravelling but you've got good odds of hitting key affs (and even if you don't it'll make it less clear to the sd what you do have and introducing error at this phase is good for you).
- Don't springup/stand in aeon, already mentioned I think.
- What's the steam spam about? Not an issue but kind of weird.

Kalnid

Choke is 3s, to my knowledge. The 2.5s is unravel tick speed.

Shango

@Orael

Much as I would love to suggest removing the quick and easy aeon spamming via Choke entirely as unnecessary....I am not the sort to care to nerf people. And Aeon IS a strong affliction so can see why they'd argue its necessity. The ISSUE...isn't entirely that they have it now. It's that it's faster than everything else, even Hallifax's doling out of the aff outside of heavy timewarp that has a small chance to proc it....and can be spammed without much concern over and over and again with Ents going full tilt, to say nothing of mutiple SDs and/or their allies piling on more.

The suggestion of a slight Power cost to mitigate its overuse so that it's not literally the ONLY skill pumped out during combat...solo or group...or increasing the balance time to reflect the fact you're casting time magic and that the extra time the target has to contend with under aeon can be thus validated as coming from somewhere, given RPwise...spirit magic is all about equal exchanges with unforeseen costs associated. 

Would you say that would be more fair, than the current situation everyone that is NOT of Glomdoring has voiced as the problem with it? And yes, I realize this can be then turned into a report to be addressed....whenever the new system allows such to funnel through, minimum time till admin viewing is about a month isn't it? But that's fine, as long as such can be addressed at all is the point.

Maligorn

Oh, another neato solution I had was that only the Shadowdancer holding the victim's shadow could cast Choke on that person.

Anaklusmos

@Orael When I say "synergy", I mean it very broadly.

And vitals synergy (which is what Glom has; mana) will always trump affs synergy (everyone else). So when I say Hallifax is still lacking in the synergy department, I mean that, overall, whatever flimsy synergy that Hallifax has will continue to be lacking so long as it's rooted in affs, when one org's synergy is rooted in vitals.

What I don't understand is why all the other orgs are chained to their second-tier aff synergy (if you can even call it that), while Glomdoring gets to keep its easy-peasy vitals synergy.

No amount of "understanding the mechanics" or "learning your class" will fix that. You can't win a race on foot when your opponent gets to use a motorbike, no matter how good your feet are.

Shango

Anaklusmos said:

@Orael When I say "synergy", I mean it very broadly.

And vitals synergy (which is what Glom has; mana) will always trump affs synergy (everyone else). So when I say Hallifax is still lacking in the synergy department, I mean that, overall, whatever flimsy synergy that Hallifax has will continue to be lacking so long as it's rooted in affs, when one org's synergy is rooted in vitals.

What I don't understand is why all the other orgs are chained to their second-tier aff synergy (if you can even call it that), while Glomdoring gets to keep its easy-peasy vitals synergy.

No amount of "understanding the mechanics" or "learning your class" will fix that. You can't win a race on foot when your opponent gets to use a motorbike, no matter how good your feet are.

Well Mag, to a slight degree, can work very well around Bruising/Hemo at least. Just...tend to lack Ninjakari to pop that out. And seems far harder to build than straight bleed, else builds at a s/lower rate so never gets to the same degree. Likely due to blunt resistance being typically higher than cutting and bleed/bruising equations based on the damage output for a set % of it, but there you have it.

And Celest honestly has awesome strength to build for Ego kills, Aquachems are insane with how their passives ALL acclimate for the DW to get the kill so easily. Was a real problem dealing with them, just fortunate no one wants to play a serious Celestine and only go it for the cheese...lack of balance of PK and RP usually almost always ends up with people quitting after a while.

But yes, in general the synergy is based around aff application, which will NOT get the kill on its own, whereas the infamous bleed mechanic will kill you all on its own. So the complaint is a legit one...but stripping bleed from Glom would be a whole can of worms opened, sadly. I agree that their skills are overtuned...that Nekotai double legbreak at BASE (so 0s in, you're proned and can be kept prone for the rest of the fight if they wanted, that Nekotai won't get the kill, but anyone else with them absolutely will, if bleed/bruising doesn't take you out), new Choke spammed without Power cost and coming from multiple sources every balance, every bleed source stacking resulting in PBs getting their double to bleeding sources nerfed because of the oversight (poor Marcella...what was it, 34k bleed in a few seconds?)...aye. BUT, before about a year and a half, two years ago, their skills ALL were horridly weak, though a lot of it was people being actively driven away from the commune before they were told to be less selective. Then the MKO meltdown had a huge influx, bam. People in droves flooded in, and that provided a good stimulus to get skills fixed properly. 

Issues after with individuals behavior...well. Everyone knows how it's been, no need to dredge that up more, it's a given fact by this point. But I honestly cannot fault Glomdoring for gaining and doing all they can to keep the strength of mechanics they now possess. I just want everyone ELSE enhanced to level things, and slight tweaks to keep them from being overbearing.

Hell, from an RP standpoint, a forest SHOULD be one of the powerhouses of the game. Spirit power is not a force you mess with lightly in lore, that Glom's is dark and twisted? Makes sense then they get the razor's edge on things. Just...tone it down enough to give everyone else a fighting chance is what we all honestly want. Agreed?

Minkahmet

Not trying to take sides here, but I did warn about this last year in my thinking that the new Night mech shouldn't have a faster aeon and free asthma considering if they wanted asthma they should go hexes instead. I still think it should be on the same balance as waning or bring waning in the line of the same speed, but that's just me.

Now that I had some sleep, it comes to mind too that, astrologist have access to asthma via papaxi(?) and aeon via aapek when the stars right, and can be worse if antlers are positive. So that is likely something to let sink in the scheme of things with free aeon/asthma and spam access via hexes/astrology. 

Minkahmet

Also on old alts that I played as SD prior to the new changes, I had no issues of toading most people in one on one situations without having to need the full final twist, but rather final twist was needed for the more experienced or chunky players to tango with, so it was definitely doable.