Org Class Synergy-Serenwilde

Shango

One of a small series of threads, wherein I wish to address the game's general imbalance in a way that will better benefit all with bringing a given org's group combat synergy into a better, more even keel. Glomdoring is known for having great synergy in combat, as most if not all of their classes have strong means to push for and support the application of a given affliction combo that will drive hard for ease of killing across the board. That being a synergy between Bleed and thus Mana pressure, leading to either death from the initial aff if not cured, or death to rapid toading if it is.

Serenwilde (pulling from my comment from a prior thread that got this started)

Serenwilde. Ah Serenwilde. There was a time we saw a Seren meld, EVEN with Glomdoring's budding reworks that got them out of the former ditch of uselessness they used to be stuck in, into the powerhouse they are now...that we feared to engage. The biggest strength was honestly Sap+passive paralysis granted by the Hartstone meld+Druid beast inherent being an active knockup 1/10s that can work mid-tic for Treelife letting their Druids actually work on the Sap focus that Glommie druids just cannot do the same level of focus despite also having Sap. Split teams, one on the ground, one in the trees to 'catch' the target and apply the Sap, absolutely brutal. Once Paralysis got its hit, no longer stopping all actions till cured, only affecting movement attempts to escape rather than Cleanse, curing, counter-hindering etc it used to...Sap became far less biting though still a potent tool in the Druids arsenal. Mutterings that Sap is to be eventually removed entirely however, forced a lot of the old combatants to try and find SOME way to compensate and not coming up with much, with the current build available. Mage rework will hopefully resolve this, so...till then. However, synergy? There really isn't any. Shofangi are arguably one of the stronger Monk builds, able to grapple and hinder-prone a target with the most effective outside of Nekotai's double leg break at base, but able to do so without Power use. Moondancers are a weaker version of Shadowdancers as they currently stand despite sharing a lot of the same fae...Wane just not having the same potency as current Choke for instance, and more conditional restrictions. Rest of it comes off as bland, general classes with no real 'vision' for what to aim for as a collective group. @Feyr, @Enyalida, and ironically @Avurekhos can discuss specifics for what I am missing in this, and perhaps suggestions to reverse this snowballing effect detracting for the Serenwilde.

From this we can move forward, with the various issues pointed out, on how best to address them, moving forward. Constructive disagreements and discussion is welcome, but as always keep it civil. And do NOT namedrop anyone in particular as a specific problem, or derail this attempt. This is a matter important to the general health and well-being of the game as a whole.

Lycidas

Can I please bother someone to let me know what afflictions Crone faesummon can do? Making a spreadsheet that is important to this conversation.

Lycidas

Here's what I have, I'm missing the Crone for Moondancers.

Enya

Where does paranoia come from in the Hartstone Druid skillset? The demesne affs are Blind/bleed, hallucinations/confusion/clumsiness, asthma, paralysis, bleed. 

You're missing luminosity in all of the Nature classes, and more directly in Wildewood who give it passively 50% of their ticks. Wildewoods also give clumsiness on branches.

Saran

As mentioned in the parent thread. There may or may not be some stuff coming for Serens with the melded overhaul that could have a pretty big impact on the discussion.

Enya

That said, while useful I'm not sure that such a chart is exactly going to show the way for going forwards here. The big lesson I take from the classes and combos that show success is that largely it's not a matter of what affs there is access to, but how, and how much buildup is separate from the affliction system. Bleed is so strong because it's not part of the aff system. Deathmarks, timewarp, and so on are only effective because they don't follow the normal rules of afflicting. Demonmarks can't be cured at all! 

The big problem with Serenwilde is that it has exactly one path to a kill: toad via a short window of mental affliction spam to drain with succumb. All of the classes either have very long term kill goals (warriors, bards), focus on an entirely different path to a kill (Shofangi), or have no path towards any strategic kill (Hartstone/Wildewood) once things like sap are fixed/removed or against people not using SSC.  Setting aside wildcards like dproph of course. 

Every class does its own thing entirely, tends towards the longer side of building up effects (which is useless in the meta), and doesn't measure up even WHEN the long setup is complete. My off the cuff opinion is that five of the six classes (all but Shofangi) of Serenwilde need bottom up, fundamental rewrites and that no other fixes will be sufficient to get things on track in a meaningful way.

Saran

From what I’ve been told from envoys at the time, the melder overhaul was actually a full overhaul, in part because Hartstone and Blacktalon druidry will be completely separated with sap being removed

Enya

Yes, even taking into account the meld changes coming down the pipes. The fundamental issue is that Seren skills are a random grab bag, whose themes were established over a wide range of years. Serenwilde DID once have a synergy, long ago: sleep locks. Moondancers were the champion of sleeplocks, tied in with the very best and most powerful users of dreamweaving when it could sleeplock and sleep attrition, and even spiritsingers once did sleep attacks in Wildarrane and through Glamours. Add in morphite poisons to the physical fighters to avoid breaking sleep locks and there's your Serenwilde synergy. 

But the game moved on, and these skills got patched in wildly different directions, but the skillsets that depended on them never really moved on. There's just so much piled on optimization in different directions at this point that the slate needs to be wiped clean. Unlike other orgs, I don't think there's really a solid, unique, and useful jumping off point either because it's all just so scattered. You look at Mag and can say "Okay, plague. Deathmarks. These are quintisentially Magnagoran themes and mechanical conceits, let's go from there." That just... doesn't exist for Serenwilde, making it hard as a player to pick a direction to go.

Saran

Enya said:

Yes, even taking into account the meld changes coming down the pipes. The fundamental issue is that Seren skills are a random grab bag, whose themes were established over a wide range of years. Serenwilde DID once have a synergy, long ago: sleep locks. Moondancers were the champion of sleeplocks, tied in with the very best and most powerful users of dreamweaving when it could sleeplock and sleep attrition, and even spiritsingers once did sleep attacks in Wildarrane and through Glamours. Add in morphite poisons to the physical fighters to avoid breaking sleep locks and there's your Serenwilde synergy. 

But the game moved on, and these skills got patched in wildly different directions, but the skillsets that depended on them never really moved on. There's just so much piled on optimization in different directions at this point that the slate needs to be wiped clean. Unlike other orgs, I don't think there's really a solid, unique, and useful jumping off point either because it's all just so scattered. You look at Mag and can say "Okay, plague. Deathmarks. These are quintisentially Magnagoran themes and mechanical conceits, let's go from there." That just... doesn't exist for Serenwilde, making it hard as a player to pick a direction to go.

Er no, I was an MD for that. A gaudiguch envoy pushed that MD had to be nerfed into the ground before they could broaden their scope beyond sleeplock which lead to self-nerfs. (it was particularly notable because I'd just been getting MD stuff going and it got wiped out, then ages later the hoped for improvements we're being ditched)

And again, from what I've been advised from envoys involved in the discussions the overhaul for Hartstone is/was intended to be significant enough that it could provide a basis for org-wide synergy moving forward. Such as taking allergies and reworking it significantly into something that is Seren specific and intractable by all of the forests classes. 

Lycidas

PathTwist apparently gives paranoia and disorientation, unless that is just flavor text tossed in. Also, calm down on the doom n gloom, I'm posting all the afflictions available in Primary and Secondary skills, skipping Tertiary mostly for now. I'm in the process of making a spreadsheet like that for EACH of these threads, so please give me time as it is a TON of information to compile. I have an awesome synergy idea for you guys, just let me finish this .

Enya said:

You look at Mag and can say "Okay, plague. Deathmarks. These are quintisentially Magnagoran themes and mechanical conceits, let's go from there." That just... doesn't exist for Serenwilde, making it hard as a player to pick a direction to go.

Plagues and deathmarks are not even kill avenues, why do people keep insisting they are? Also, this is about Seren, you wanna talk about that 'synergy' do it in Mag thread, please.

Enya

It's just flavor text, I believe it now... entangles on exit? Will check. 

I'm not insisting they're kill avenues. I'm saying exactly what I said: they are "quintessentially Magnagoran themes and mechanical conceits" that can provide guidance in a time like this as to a potential thematic direction to take discussion. There's no core Serenwilde mechanical idea.  

Saran

*shrug* The concept that was tossed around (and may be in the works already) was that HS would rework allergies into a stacking debuff on their targets which thematically represented the forest itself becoming more and more enraged at the victim for their various trespasses against nature.

There's a few ways to mechanically utilise this, something that slowly gets worse as it builds up, something you consume to cause certain effects, etc. For example, if you build up enough you could turn into a shape similar to what we've seen a druid utilising during the Nature Wars (kinda Viridian like). There was also some discussion on inverting that into a rage themed mechanic, or having both, which leads towards a relatively common "overheat" mechanic where you build up a resource and need to keep it in a certain range for maximum effect, going too high screws you up a bit while staying too low means you're less effective.

edit: It's really just an extrapolation of some stuff we've seen a few times in visions and the like, it's also generally fitting with lore concepts already present particularly a recurring in Crone, Buck, Winter, and the like  .

Lycidas

Whenever I started this project, I had a grand idea for theme and then the irony hit me and I cracked up a bit. My grand idea originally was, "They're all about their spirits and ancestors, what if we made their synergy focus around spiritual afflictions!?" And BAM, DISAPPOINTMENT. But I still want to find a way to incorporate that theme, and my idea is to make it work needs to either become a new skill, alter an existing one, or change the org-essence potion, whatever it is, to give this potency. Since Moondancers and Wildewood work together pretty well, maybe give it to Stag since they don't have a kill method? Asking you since it is your org, I'm just an idea guy.

Enya

Moondancers and Wildewood work together pretty well? Go on? 

Stag has an instakill, which (Evidently?) some argue is the best one in the game for groups. 

Saran

Except that is something entirely within the affliction system and it's been pointed out that effective synergies work outside of it.
We also already have significant concepts along the themes of the fae, ancestors, seasons, and so on already present in our skills, they're part of the reason for the guilds we now have.

Also echoing, what's the synergy between Wildewood? Succumb? Last I was asking about it the best a wildewood can contribute is breaking bones to keep people in place. The WW massive damage bomb is also based on primarily physical stuff which, MDs don't seem to really be able to help with.

Enya

Just checked pathtwist, it entangles. Enemies can still ENTER PATH freely. 

EDIT: Also, Bluehorn in Wildewood doesn't deal succumb. It does a one off mana drain and asthma.

Lycidas

Edited the spreadsheet for the changes to Wildewood having luminosity, mana drain instead of succumb, and removal of paranoia for Hartstone. I have limited resources to go off of for all these skills, so if I make a mistake while reading flavor text, humor me . Still missing Crone information. Also, I know you guys have a ton of concepts and themes, but ancestors is the unique one.

Saran

Lycidas said:

Edited the spreadsheet for the changes to Wildewood having luminosity, mana drain instead of succumb, and removal of paranoia for Hartstone. I have limited resources to go off of for all these skills, so if I make a mistake while reading flavor text, humor me . Still missing Crone information. Also, I know you guys have a ton of concepts and themes, but ancestors is the unique one.

Sorry, you're telling Serens what the themes of their org are?

You're seemingly suggesting that we should consider building our synergy in line with the key theme of one of our guilds without any consideration for the other two.

Lycidas

I'm here helping out of goodwill, you can push back for no reason and spin the wheels, or we can work together to try and get some footing. I'm tired of butting heads in every thread despite all I've done recently is try to improve the state of the game because people would rather complain than ACTUALLY put forth ideas. Do you want me to help brainstorm things with you or not?

Saz

iirc, Hartstone's paranoia comes from AncestralCurse

Saran

Lycidas said:

I'm here helping out of goodwill, you can push back for no reason and spin the wheels, or we can work together to try and get some footing. I'm tired of butting heads in every thread despite all I've done recently is try to improve the state of the game because people would rather complain than ACTUALLY put forth ideas. Do you want me to help brainstorm things with you or not?

I have posted ideas further up that are actually in line with Serenwilde's lore, one you have pretty completely just ignored, likely because it wasn't your idea.
Now your are getting your back up because it's being pointed out that your idea is so reductive to our identity that two thirds of the org wouldn't have any real connection to what you are suggesting.

In both this and the Timequake thread you seem far more interested in being able to one day claim responsibility for being the one to fix things, which then results in you aggressively posting against people who dislike your ideas and point out flaws in them.

If you cannot deal with experienced Serens coming in and telling you that your ideas don't actually work within the context of the forest then your "help" in brainstorming will only prove to be a distraction. If you are going to listen when people say "hey, that doesn't actually work lore wise" or similar then your comments might actually become helpful.

Lycidas

Yes, it is a chance from Stag's AncestralCurse, its why I put it in Stag since commune warriors can pick which Totem spec they want. Since all Warriors are essentially the same, except on their Org specific specialization.

Nelras

@Saran The idea around HS and converting allergies to a stacking aff is interesting, however I would be somewhat worried about basing an org's synergy too heavily around their melder. While the wrath of the forest is very much appropriate for Serenwilde, what would it do if the enemy was not in a forest?

Shango

Better to spread out things so you don't NEED someone of a specific class else neuter your entire offensive and defensive front, mm? Just as a suggestion for how to better focus things, so at least 2 classes able to build towards a thing as their main focus, with others able to assist if not require the same themselves, may be ideal.

Lycidas

Saran said:

*shrug* The concept that was tossed around (and may be in the works already) was that HS would rework allergies into a stacking debuff on their targets which thematically represented the forest itself becoming more and more enraged at the victim for their various trespasses against nature.

There's a few ways to mechanically utilise this, something that slowly gets worse as it builds up, something you consume to cause certain effects, etc. For example, if you build up enough you could turn into a shape similar to what we've seen a druid utilising during the Nature Wars (kinda Viridian like). There was also some discussion on inverting that into a rage themed mechanic, or having both, which leads towards a relatively common "overheat" mechanic where you build up a resource and need to keep it in a certain range for maximum effect, going too high screws you up a bit while staying too low means you're less effective.

edit: It's really just an extrapolation of some stuff we've seen a few times in visions and the like, it's also generally fitting with lore concepts already present particularly a recurring in Crone, Buck, Winter, and the like  .

If you're talking about this post right here, it wasn't here when I was typing up my post, because we were typing at the same time. Nor do the forums update the thread when you post, so I actually had no idea you posted that until now. So no, I didn't ignore it. How is it being reductive? I said UNIQUE not only, I swear people either cannot read or just choose to cherry pick and in the worst way possible.

Saran said:

In both this and the Timequake thread you seem far more interested in being able to one day claim responsibility for being the one to fix things, which then results in you aggressively posting against people who dislike your ideas and point out flaws in them.

If you cannot deal with experienced Serens coming in and telling you that your ideas don't actually work within the context of the forest then your "help" in brainstorming will only prove to be a distraction. If you are going to listen when people say "hey, that doesn't actually work lore wise" or similar then your comments might actually become helpful.

If you honestly think I'm here working my ass off to improve this game is just to be able to take credit, that says way more about you than it ever will me. Also, if you take my posts as aggressive and just trying to point out flaws, also says more about you. Tacked on that, you think I'm going to actually follow up on it and hound people because it wasn't my idea?

Lastly, if we're going to be talking about experienced Serens, there's a reason people were mentioned. Lore is great and all, but this isn't about lore, it's about combat. If we're going to make combat synergies that are org-themed and related, then everybody needs to lose their plague affs because that's Mag! Tangent aside, the one thing you've offered up is allergies but that is still locked to Hartstone proper, and not the org. Unless you're going to also suggest that each of these classes gets a way to generate and use these allergies, then nothing has been started.

Saran

Nelras said:

@Saran The idea around HS and converting allergies to a stacking aff is interesting, however I would be somewhat worried about basing an org's synergy too heavily around their melder. While the wrath of the forest is very much appropriate for Serenwilde, what would it do if the enemy was not in a forest?

Oh the idea was to implement the concept and then move on to giving the other classes ways to interact with the same concept. Starting point was the melder overhaul cause the opportunity was there, over time it'd be expanded so that each class would be able to utilise it in some fashion so that it wouldn't just be a HS thing eventually.

Enemies also don't need to be in the forest to provoke it's ire, I think it'd be more effective for a HS if you're in their meld. But with the right phrasing it can also be like... maybe a SS's songs remind the forest of the transgressions of the targets lineage or the like.

Part of the idea for having two sides (self and targeted) was also the potential to have transfers between the two. So like, the shofangi might go berserk with the self side and can leech some of the targeted effect to enhance that.

Nelras

Just borrowing some ideas from the discussion of timewarp in the aeonics rework thread for a moment here.
Would it be necessary to have two sides to accomplish this effect?

Consider a target who has really annoyed the forest and has a lot of stacks of this aff. Perhaps now they are getting entangled regularly, finds it hard to writhe let alone leave the room, AND the shofangi attacking them has a reasonable balance buff and does a bit more damage? Taking it one step further, perhaps the shofangi could then consume some of that to (or even just passively) give the target more hemorrhaging and the ancestors have been roused to the point where the spiritsinger's deathsong is actually quicker than usual. Alright, that last one might be a bit extreme, but you get the idea.

Feel free to ignore me if it is a bad idea, I am just throwing it out there for discussion.

Saran

Lycidas said:

Saran said:

*shrug* The concept that was tossed around (and may be in the works already) was that HS would rework allergies into a stacking debuff on their targets which thematically represented the forest itself becoming more and more enraged at the victim for their various trespasses against nature.

There's a few ways to mechanically utilise this, something that slowly gets worse as it builds up, something you consume to cause certain effects, etc. For example, if you build up enough you could turn into a shape similar to what we've seen a druid utilising during the Nature Wars (kinda Viridian like). There was also some discussion on inverting that into a rage themed mechanic, or having both, which leads towards a relatively common "overheat" mechanic where you build up a resource and need to keep it in a certain range for maximum effect, going too high screws you up a bit while staying too low means you're less effective.

edit: It's really just an extrapolation of some stuff we've seen a few times in visions and the like, it's also generally fitting with lore concepts already present particularly a recurring in Crone, Buck, Winter, and the like  .

If you're talking about this post right here, it wasn't here when I was typing up my post, because we were typing at the same time. Nor do the forums update the thread when you post, so I actually had no idea you posted that until now. So no, I didn't ignore it. How is it being reductive? I said UNIQUE not only, I swear people either cannot read or just choose to cherry pick and in the worst way possible.

That post was up for an hour before you made a two(?) line post saying we should focus on Ancestors, perhaps you need to refresh more often.

Yes, Ancestors are unique to Serenwilde, that does not make them the only unique thing to Serenwilde and they already are pretty well featured within our skills already.

Again, you seem only interested in pushing your ideas and not actually working with the other people trying to participate, as with the Timequake thread. (Read over it again, see how often you actually even acknowledge alternative ideas when you already had one posted, or adjust your ideas based on the responses of other people)

Lycidas

You mean how I acknowledged each and had it reflect that I acknowledged them? I also suggest this not get derailed with your conspiracies. Anyway, I like the idea of where Nelras is going, just a completely new mechanic that everyone can participate in and use to some degree. Whether it be the revamped allergies or wrath of the leaves, Seren desperately needs something, because all it truly has is loading someone up with mental affs during succumb for a toading.

Nelras

I am just working based on what @Saran has posted here and what has been discussed before.

Saran

Nelras said:

Just borrowing some ideas from the discussion of timewarp in the aeonics rework thread for a moment here.
Would it be necessary to have two sides to accomplish this effect?

Consider a target who has really annoyed the forest and has a lot of stacks of this aff. Perhaps now they are getting entangled regularly, finds it hard to writhe let alone leave the room, AND the shofangi attacking them has a reasonable balance buff and does a bit more damage? Taking it one step further, perhaps the shofangi could then consume some of that to (or even just passively) give the target more hemorrhaging and the ancestors have been roused to the point where the spiritsinger's deathsong is actually quicker than usual. Alright, that last one might be a bit extreme, but you get the idea.

Feel free to ignore me if it is a bad idea, I am just throwing it out there for discussion.

(nb: Going to use "Ire" for the aff and "Rage" for the buff)

Yeah that was kinda the expectation, certain abilities would "assuage the ire of the forest". And I guess part of the reason for having the two is there's some neat things you can do with that.

So like, if HS had a "Enraged" mode maybe they can enter that by consuming the ire on their target and convert it into rage on themselves, but duration could be relative to the strength of the ire they'd built so it's on a timer.

Maybe MDs instead "invoke crone" needing to use generators and consumers to keep them attuned just right so they don't let their rage slip or become consumed by Mother Moons cold fury, maybe they have abilities which generate low levels of ire that they can convert that into rage, but when other Serens are generating ire for them they have a pool they can just be drawing from but one which means the other serens are less likely to be able to use their rage stuff.