Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
New damage types have been out for a while. How many of these elusive, mythical, fair and balanced new areas have been released? None....yet you still give more of Celest access to Divinus.
Stop it. Admin need to be fair with players, period. End of story. Not mock them with tales of secret areas that we have yet to see despite many, many months, and continue to funnel the best damage type to a specific org.
Honestly, have you never heard to boy who cried wolf story? Just saying "new bashing areas for everyone," over and over doesn't make it believable. In fact, when you have zilch to show for the claims, it makes it less.
The thing is, you do not inherently get dissolve from the new skillset.
So the new version could have a power cost and longer balance association. Since you can still use psionics with it, maybe make it cost 2p or 3s bal and require all chans.
Some very specific problems I am seeing just from reading about the skills. Not sure if they'll be borne out as I predict, but these are my two cents from my experience. I hope they will be read without being dismissed outright, pending more feedback from others:
1) Protection scroll and passive offense effects.
The new aquachemantics stuff is meant more for 1v1 than group, as has been stated explicitly. I hesitate to suggest that they should thus be treated more like guardians than mages in terms of passive effect blocking, but the logic is theoretically sound.
Regardless of whether we want to make the new mage primaries blockable via love or paranoia or disloyalty, the protection scroll is not a good candidate. The reasoning behind protection scroll being so easily stripped and so difficult to put up is because a mage can only strip one person's protection every balance, and there can only be 1 mage meld in a single room at a single time. Therefore, against large groups, which a mage meld is meant to have the most impact in, the mage STILL has to work, over time, to get his full effect. Doubly so when stand-offs occur and people actually put back their protections. Single-target passives have no such enlarged effect on groups, which also means a defense that blocks it, but is stripped in the same balance as a normal attack is as good as not having the defense at all.
2) Passive peacing
I will also like to echo Malarious' concerns about Sheens. Having passive defenses, in particular peace, on top of phantasms, is going to make things very difficult for monks in particular, but two-handed warriors as well. The only other skill with passive peace on-hit is Harmony, and the reason I haven't been spitting and scratching at Shofangi/Tahtetso envoys is that Harmony monks give up other passive defenses to maintain passive peacing. This is not only not the case for the new Aquachemantics, but it also stacks with already available, and already balanced passive defenses from their secondary skill. While on the whole, 4 passive defenses in Aquachemantics as designed may be balanced, in this specific area they will prove to be overbearingly and frustratingly difficult to fight.
3) Costs and duration
Just to clarify, I'm not concerned with platinum, like Eventru stated, Celest can afford to give out free plats if they want. I'm concerned with the reagent aka essence costs.
I'm not sure how long sheens last, but having them cost 100 reagents is a bit of a grind. 100 reagents is basically 20 essences,. unless I'm reading the ABs wrongly. The whole of Water gives 35-37 essences in a single run. They respawn roughly hourly, as far as I have been able to discern. If these sheens don't last more than a single session, this means that they have to do 2 hours of water grind, or 2 elemental planes of essences, to put up their defenses every day they log in.
On the other hand, if sheens last permanently or semi-permanently, this means they get passive defenses that can't be stripped, which is another huge problem of its own, especially considering my concerns above.
The costs need to be tweaked. It has to be more reasonable, and shouldn't lock out novices who will be unable to compete for essences as quickly as their older guild members can. The defenses should last in a proportionate manner to their costs, but not to the extent that they will be problematic to fight against.
4) Too much blackout.
There can be such a thing as too much synergy. It's nice to have skills that complement one another, but sometimes, too much is too much. The primary has a passive blackout and an active, delayed blackout, the secondary has a passive blackout-on-hit chance defense and two out of their three tertiary choices have active, immediate blackouts. The dreamweaver version lasting for up to 8secs, if I remember correctly. Fighting against a single aquachemantic with either of those terts will likely mean you're blacked out for a large portion of the fight, probably without them even trying to make your life hard, but just as a matter of course. I'm not sure of the passive tick timings and mist calling eqs, but a single aquachemantic who plans properly can make the majority of your fights blacked out, most likely. Whether or not they can go for perma will need to wait for feedback from the players, but...
If the admin are going to do some tweaking before putting the skill into the long and uncertain envoy process, please consider these points with the data you're given. I believe these are those with the highest priorities, from my experience.
On an unrelated note, I'm sad that the Nekotai are no longer the most efficient bleeders in the game. Hasn't been for a while, but with this new spec and the bleeding numbers Eritheyl provided, a TK Aquachemantic is going to out-bleed a nekotai 90% of the time. Deepsigh.
Just to clarify, I'm not concerned with platinum, like Eventru stated, Celest can afford to give out free plats if they want. I'm concerned with the reagent aka essence costs.
I'm not sure how long sheens last, but having them cost 100 reagents is a bit of a grind. 100 reagents is basically 20 essences,. unless I'm reading the ABs wrongly. The whole of Water gives 35-37 essences in a single run. They respawn roughly hourly, as far as I have been able to discern. If these sheens don't last more than a single session, this means that they have to do 2 hours of water grind, or 2 elemental planes of essences, to put up their defenses every day they log in.
On the other hand, if sheens last permanently or semi-permanently, this means they get passive defenses that can't be stripped, which is another huge problem of its own, especially considering my concerns above.
The costs need to be tweaked. It has to be more reasonable, and shouldn't lock out novices who will be unable to compete for essences as quickly as their older guild members can. The defenses should last in a proportionate manner to their costs, but not to the extent that they will be problematic to fight against.
I'd suggest, if it actually proves neccessary, maybe a method to make them inert rather than stripping them. Probably with just a command to make them active again but without the full cost associated with that.
Ah, thanks for letting me know about the alternate costs and durations. Having a gold-paid source for reagents does negate the need to grind for it, mostly, which is good. I reiterate my concerns about sheens, however. Globes are mostly utility based, and the only ones who would want to strip waterwalk will be aquamancers as well. So there's little problem with the four globes being unstrippable.
I still feel that sheens shouldn't be made so permanent. There aren't many ways to strip defs en masse, and those few that do usually mean that the victim is almost cetainly dead (toad/inquisition) so having one or two defs unstrippable in those conditions is probably fine. It does screw over single defstrip skills like moon dark, however. We'll have to look and see the skills in action more before being able to say for sure if they need to be tweaked, of course.
I wouldn't suggest protection scroll as the preventative measure unless we change protection scroll as a whole, given that it's not really that good of a preventative measure to begin with 1v1. I'd rather change protection scroll mechanics first before adding more effects that it can block.
With that said, I'd prefer paranoia or lust plus something active like an emote that will take balance, writhe, or hold breath. I'm not sure of any active commands that make sense though.
I think they were made a long-term unstrippable defence because they are a passive thing, with only a certain chance to afflict an attacker, on the attacker attacking, and the aquachemancer has no control over them.
I'm not a combatant, so I'm asking this seriously: Is a way to counter them really necessary? Is there a point at which the chance to afflict is low enough that neutering sheens is of little value, but they are still valuable enough to be useful?
I think they were made a long-term unstrippable
defence because they are a passive thing, with only a certain chance to
afflict an attacker, on the attacker attacking, and the aquachemancer
has no control over them.
I'm not a combatant, so I'm asking this
seriously: Is a way to counter them really necessary? Is there a point
at which the chance to afflict is low enough that neutering sheens is of
little value, but they are still valuable enough to be useful?
The suggestions for protection (or alternatives) blocking effects are for the offensive passives, AKA the mists. I don't think anyone's suggesting that the sheens be blocked, though that's a possible idea - a way of disabling them that allows the opponent to bypass the defenses for a while.
For sheens, there already are such effects in the game in general, and the mechanic by itself is not overpowered. In effect, they allow the user to pressure their attacker's herb balance, by giving them afflictions upon getting hit. The problem with sheens is that these passive defenses proc on their attack hits, meaning that one-handed
warriors get double the chance of getting affected by these passives as
compared to their two-handed counterparts. The peaceful sheen, in particular, not only pressures the attacker's herb balance, but also prevents follow-up attacks from hitting, for one-handed warriors, if their first swing hits the peace effect, their second swing is cancelled because they are peaced. Similarly for monks, though monks do not suffer from the additional chance of getting affected, if the first hit of their combos proc the peace, the rest of their combo is cancelled. For mages and the rest, only some of their combo effects will suffer from this kind of punishment, notably TP/TK mages (who use up to 3 different attacks in a single balance).
I understand the need of passive defensive abilities to replace those provided by aquamancy melds, and I understand the need to make them distinct, as well as to synergize with the rest of the new skillset. However, passive peacing is an effect that breaks combo the same way acrobatics dodging breaks combos, the difference being that the first hit which proc'd the effect isn't negated. Furthermore, phantasms already have an ability that punishes combo based archetypes as well, adding passive peacing is going to exacerbate and compound this effect, perhaps to unacceptable levels.
I think you are working on some incorrect assumptions. The sheens proc at a rate dependent on the number of hits per combo. Therefore, casters and two-handers attacking once per combo will be afflicted at approximately the same rate as a monk hitting the chemancer three times per combo.
... The problem with sheens is that these passive defenses proc on their attack hits, meaning that one-handed
warriors get double the chance of getting affected by these passives as
compared to their two-handed counterparts. ...
The peaceful sheen, in particular, not only pressures the attacker's herb balance, but also prevents follow-up attacks from hitting, for one-handed warriors, if their first swing hits the peace effect, their second swing is cancelled because they are peaced. Similarly for monks, though monks do not suffer from the additional chance of getting affected, if the first hit of their combos proc the peace, the rest of their combo is cancelled.
Yes, I mentioned that one-handed warriors get double the chance for their combos, can I ask if this is still the case? I'm aware that a monk's combo procs these effects at the same rate as mages doing a single hit, which is why I didn't mention monks in that first bit.
I am, however, pretty sure that passive peacing affects monks in the way I mentioned in bold. If the first hit of my combo procs the peace effect, the other two hits are automatically cancelled. Please let me know if I'm wrong on this.
Edit: I added italics for emphasis that I was aware of monks combos not being disadvantaged in my original post.
On a totally unrelated note, I've a question that's been vaguely bugging me since the release.
What are users of Aquachemantics called? Iosai mentioned "chemancers" above, but if I'm not wrong, the ABs refer to them as an "Aquachemantic". I personally prefer "Aquachemist", because I thought the turning of platinum into effects has a rather "alchemy" feel too it, but well, I guess that's just my wishful thinking. >_>
I think you need to engage the skillset a bit more, Lerad, because it is clear you haven't. The same really goes for everyone.
While it's nice to theory craft, it becomes painfully apparent 99% of you haven't fought an Aquachemancer, and I'm not sure they've really figured out how to fight with it well yet, either. It's nice to make suggestions, and ask they not be discarded, but it's difficult to take suggestions seriously when everyone knows and says they haven't actually engaged with it yet.
My thoughts on the passive offense and retributives is this - you usually cannot stop a meld from attacking you. Indeed, as has been noted, protection is only good in groups in a meld, and against nublets who don't know how to dissolve. The notion of making xyz ability to stop mists or retributives is about on par with a xyz stopping demesnes or stripping the effects. It's actually a bit harsher, since mists are required for their primary kill methods (adjuvants).
You should really play with it a bit, on both sides, before coming up with "solutions" (since you actually don't know what the problems are, beyond suspicion). If you go into it assuming mists will be a problem, then that's all you're going to see. Go into it with an open mind, then come back with honest impressions about fighting it and fighting with it. You're far more likely to be taken seriously.
Now, none of that says Aquachemantics is balanced, of I think it's balanced, OP, UP. I've my own thoughts, but I think you all should see for yourself!
Well, so far, all of the people - three Aquachemancers included - have agreed that Aquoxitism with Fellowship is all sorts of broken to the point of hilarity.
Incurable/unblockable kinda takes the strategy out of fighting if the only option is to take it on the chin and hope you live. Even nigh incurable/unblockabe is more palatable because at least having theoretical options can help soothe getting curb stomped. I can see why it is not the most popular mechanic to build upon.
Well, so far, all of the people - three Aquachemancers included - have agreed that Aquoxitism with Fellowship is all sorts of broken to the point of hilarity.
I've mixed feelings. It's a 10p attack, and should still be viable 1v1 as a kill method.
Its base damage may be a bit high though.
We'll see how it works out.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
They're called Aquachemancers.
I think you need to engage the skillset a bit more, Lerad, because it is clear you haven't. The same really goes for everyone.
While it's nice to theory craft, it becomes painfully apparent 99% of you haven't fought an Aquachemancer, and I'm not sure they've really figured out how to fight with it well yet, either. It's nice to make suggestions, and ask they not be discarded, but it's difficult to take suggestions seriously when everyone knows and says they haven't actually engaged with it yet.
My thoughts on the passive offense and retributives is this - you usually cannot stop a meld from attacking you. Indeed, as has been noted, protection is only good in groups in a meld, and against nublets who don't know how to dissolve. The notion of making xyz ability to stop mists or retributives is about on par with a xyz stopping demesnes or stripping the effects. It's actually a bit harsher, since mists are required for their primary kill methods (adjuvants).
You should really play with it a bit, on both sides, before coming up with "solutions" (since you actually don't know what the problems are, beyond suspicion). If you go into it assuming mists will be a problem, then that's all you're going to see. Go into it with an open mind, then come back with honest impressions about fighting it and fighting with it. You're far more likely to be taken seriously.
Now, none of that says Aquachemantics is balanced, of I think it's balanced, OP, UP. I've my own thoughts, but I think you all should see for yourself!
FYI Love potion is actually a pretty decent counter to melds and gives you breathing room. Especially in groups. Protection is very useful in groups because the mage won't go through and dissolve everyone,, but seeing as how aquachemewhatevers only target one person at a time, they will just dissolve whoever they target, thus making protection useless against them in groups.
That being said, vapors among other affs on a 9 second tic should probably have some sort of counter. Know who else has that? Celestines, and angels are affected by disloyalty, forced movement, nymphs, and being killed. Who else? Researchers. Can be stopped with violet. For some reason, blackout is handed out like candy and it's generally good for balance if there is a way to counter it when it's given passively.
As an aside, Estarra was agreeable to the idea of removing blackout from tk choke or phantomarmour. I vote phantomarmour.
Yes, a lot of what people are saying is theorycrafting. However, things like what I just said are based on very solid foundations of what we know about skills. Some of us are pretty good at what we do....aka pk. Should probably take out word on some things.
As a note to your large post, Eventru: it is indeed possible to end demesne effects in a room (all of them), though it does require having a melder of your own to break it and end those effects.
So there is at least a little difference between the two styles, even beyond protection scrolls- and protection scrolls *are* useful in group combat while there is no similar mechanic for these.
Now, none of that is to say that I think aquachemantics is balanced, OP, UP, or just broken; simply a response to the point made. Almost all Lusternian combat is group combat and "we need a mage / druid to break the demesne" is a common refrain.
Comments
Better than no block or a completely unstrippable defense.
So the new version could have a power cost and longer balance association. Since you can still use psionics with it, maybe make it cost 2p or 3s bal and require all chans.
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Obviously, they will be doing gemcraft
1) Protection scroll and passive offense effects.
The new aquachemantics stuff is meant more for 1v1 than group, as has been stated explicitly. I hesitate to suggest that they should thus be treated more like guardians than mages in terms of passive effect blocking, but the logic is theoretically sound.
Regardless of whether we want to make the new mage primaries blockable via love or paranoia or disloyalty, the protection scroll is not a good candidate. The reasoning behind protection scroll being so easily stripped and so difficult to put up is because a mage can only strip one person's protection every balance, and there can only be 1 mage meld in a single room at a single time. Therefore, against large groups, which a mage meld is meant to have the most impact in, the mage STILL has to work, over time, to get his full effect. Doubly so when stand-offs occur and people actually put back their protections. Single-target passives have no such enlarged effect on groups, which also means a defense that blocks it, but is stripped in the same balance as a normal attack is as good as not having the defense at all.
2) Passive peacing
I will also like to echo Malarious' concerns about Sheens. Having passive defenses, in particular peace, on top of phantasms, is going to make things very difficult for monks in particular, but two-handed warriors as well. The only other skill with passive peace on-hit is Harmony, and the reason I haven't been spitting and scratching at Shofangi/Tahtetso envoys is that Harmony monks give up other passive defenses to maintain passive peacing. This is not only not the case for the new Aquachemantics, but it also stacks with already available, and already balanced passive defenses from their secondary skill. While on the whole, 4 passive defenses in Aquachemantics as designed may be balanced, in this specific area they will prove to be overbearingly and frustratingly difficult to fight.
3) Costs and duration
Just to clarify, I'm not concerned with platinum, like Eventru stated, Celest can afford to give out free plats if they want. I'm concerned with the reagent aka essence costs.
I'm not sure how long sheens last, but having them cost 100 reagents is a bit of a grind. 100 reagents is basically 20 essences,. unless I'm reading the ABs wrongly. The whole of Water gives 35-37 essences in a single run. They respawn roughly hourly, as far as I have been able to discern. If these sheens don't last more than a single session, this means that they have to do 2 hours of water grind, or 2 elemental planes of essences, to put up their defenses every day they log in.
On the other hand, if sheens last permanently or semi-permanently, this means they get passive defenses that can't be stripped, which is another huge problem of its own, especially considering my concerns above.
The costs need to be tweaked. It has to be more reasonable, and shouldn't lock out novices who will be unable to compete for essences as quickly as their older guild members can. The defenses should last in a proportionate manner to their costs, but not to the extent that they will be problematic to fight against.
4) Too much blackout.
There can be such a thing as too much synergy. It's nice to have skills that complement one another, but sometimes, too much is too much. The primary has a passive blackout and an active, delayed blackout, the secondary has a passive blackout-on-hit chance defense and two out of their three tertiary choices have active, immediate blackouts. The dreamweaver version lasting for up to 8secs, if I remember correctly. Fighting against a single aquachemantic with either of those terts will likely mean you're blacked out for a large portion of the fight, probably without them even trying to make your life hard, but just as a matter of course. I'm not sure of the passive tick timings and mist calling eqs, but a single aquachemantic who plans properly can make the majority of your fights blacked out, most likely. Whether or not they can go for perma will need to wait for feedback from the players, but...
If the admin are going to do some tweaking before putting the skill into the long and uncertain envoy process, please consider these points with the data you're given. I believe these are those with the highest priorities, from my experience.
I'm sure the sheens were specifically intended to be non-strippable.
I still feel that sheens shouldn't be made so permanent. There aren't many ways to strip defs en masse, and those few that do usually mean that the victim is almost cetainly dead (toad/inquisition) so having one or two defs unstrippable in those conditions is probably fine. It does screw over single defstrip skills like moon dark, however. We'll have to look and see the skills in action more before being able to say for sure if they need to be tweaked, of course.
I'm not a combatant, so I'm asking this seriously: Is a way to counter them really necessary? Is there a point at which the chance to afflict is low enough that neutering sheens is of little value, but they are still valuable enough to be useful?
The suggestions for protection (or alternatives) blocking effects are for the offensive passives, AKA the mists. I don't think anyone's suggesting that the sheens be blocked, though that's a possible idea - a way of disabling them that allows the opponent to bypass the defenses for a while.
For sheens, there already are such effects in the game in general, and the mechanic by itself is not overpowered. In effect, they allow the user to pressure their attacker's herb balance, by giving them afflictions upon getting hit. The problem with sheens is that these passive defenses proc on their attack hits, meaning that one-handed warriors get double the chance of getting affected by these passives as compared to their two-handed counterparts. The peaceful sheen, in particular, not only pressures the attacker's herb balance, but also prevents follow-up attacks from hitting, for one-handed warriors, if their first swing hits the peace effect, their second swing is cancelled because they are peaced. Similarly for monks, though monks do not suffer from the additional chance of getting affected, if the first hit of their combos proc the peace, the rest of their combo is cancelled. For mages and the rest, only some of their combo effects will suffer from this kind of punishment, notably TP/TK mages (who use up to 3 different attacks in a single balance).
I understand the need of passive defensive abilities to replace those provided by aquamancy melds, and I understand the need to make them distinct, as well as to synergize with the rest of the new skillset. However, passive peacing is an effect that breaks combo the same way acrobatics dodging breaks combos, the difference being that the first hit which proc'd the effect isn't negated. Furthermore, phantasms already have an ability that punishes combo based archetypes as well, adding passive peacing is going to exacerbate and compound this effect, perhaps to unacceptable levels.
Yes, I mentioned that one-handed warriors get double the chance for their combos, can I ask if this is still the case? I'm aware that a monk's combo procs these effects at the same rate as mages doing a single hit, which is why I didn't mention monks in that first bit.
I am, however, pretty sure that passive peacing affects monks in the way I mentioned in bold. If the first hit of my combo procs the peace effect, the other two hits are automatically cancelled. Please let me know if I'm wrong on this.
Edit: I added italics for emphasis that I was aware of monks combos not being disadvantaged in my original post.
What are users of Aquachemantics called? Iosai mentioned "chemancers" above, but if I'm not wrong, the ABs refer to them as an "Aquachemantic". I personally prefer "Aquachemist", because I thought the turning of platinum into effects has a rather "alchemy" feel too it, but well, I guess that's just my wishful thinking. >_>
Aquachemist sounds cooler though.
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
I think you need to engage the skillset a bit more, Lerad, because it is clear you haven't. The same really goes for everyone. While it's nice to theory craft, it becomes painfully apparent 99% of you haven't fought an Aquachemancer, and I'm not sure they've really figured out how to fight with it well yet, either. It's nice to make suggestions, and ask they not be discarded, but it's difficult to take suggestions seriously when everyone knows and says they haven't actually engaged with it yet. My thoughts on the passive offense and retributives is this - you usually cannot stop a meld from attacking you. Indeed, as has been noted, protection is only good in groups in a meld, and against nublets who don't know how to dissolve. The notion of making xyz ability to stop mists or retributives is about on par with a xyz stopping demesnes or stripping the effects. It's actually a bit harsher, since mists are required for their primary kill methods (adjuvants). You should really play with it a bit, on both sides, before coming up with "solutions" (since you actually don't know what the problems are, beyond suspicion). If you go into it assuming mists will be a problem, then that's all you're going to see. Go into it with an open mind, then come back with honest impressions about fighting it and fighting with it. You're far more likely to be taken seriously.
Now, none of that says Aquachemantics is balanced, of I think it's balanced, OP, UP. I've my own thoughts, but I think you all should see for yourself!
Incurable/unblockable kinda takes the strategy out of fighting if the only option is to take it on the chin and hope you live. Even nigh incurable/unblockabe is more palatable because at least having theoretical options can help soothe getting curb stomped. I can see why it is not the most popular mechanic to build upon.
Its base damage may be a bit high though.
We'll see how it works out.
So there is at least a little difference between the two styles, even beyond protection scrolls- and protection scrolls *are* useful in group combat while there is no similar mechanic for these.
Now, none of that is to say that I think aquachemantics is balanced, OP, UP, or just broken; simply a response to the point made. Almost all Lusternian combat is group combat and "we need a mage / druid to break the demesne" is a common refrain.
http://extra-credits.net/episodes/perfect-imbalance/