I believe the fun thing with group combat/raid/raid defence is in the preparation of coordination between teammates, the formulating of plans during the fight as well as the successful execution of said plans.

However, with a skill that can throw more than half your opposition into a pit and taking them out of combat, all the coordination and planning of the targetted group just go to waste. In my opinion, such a phenomenon does not contribute to group conflict in Achaea at all.

Even Kai banishment, the most similar ability I can think of, only affects one target and brings them back to the same room after a short time. Why should the pit be so vastly more damaging?

Also, if one argues that the pit of golgotha is mostly only used when the fight is not going well for one with the ability, note that occultists already have astralform for escape(which others in the past have called for a counter and changes to downgrade it).

Proposed change to Golgotha(mild):
Golgotha cannot be used indoors, due to the confined area of an enclosed environment which disallows the opening of any pit.

It's already been nerfed 3 times. Give it a rest.

Proposed change to Golgotha (mild):
Golgotha can only be used on Tuesdays, because Chaos is weird like that.

Really? For a skill to be nerfed three times. That speaks volumes.

I thought pit was changed to only pull one person at a time or something, on a timer over a certain period.?

Ie Pit flares for 10 seconds and has a percentage chance to pull one person a second or something.

If not it should be changed to something like that, because the last few times I have seen it used, it has sucked in the majority of the group in the first second or two.

I think pit should have the probability of sucking anyone in, friend or enemy.

That would be not only fun but hilarious

So long as the user him/herself can't be sucked in, I could see that working.

If that was increased to include the occie who set the pit, then that would be hilarious..

But sure why not, you open a big hole in the ground, then anyone should fall in.

Though Pit is pretty retarded and really should just be deleted.

Or they could make THE HOLY PIT for priests and the good side. Epic Idea.

A skill that tosses you miles into the sky where you're immediately attacked by a host of angels.

No. Yet again, people, the answer to winning in combat is not nerfing the opposition's skills. As Santar said, Pit has been nerfed over and over again..and that really doesn't "speak volumes" at all, Caprica. Right now, pit is guaranteed to take in one person, and then is percentage based beyond that. I used pit twice in a relatively short time frame..once, it took 3 of a group of 15 or so. The next time, it took about 5 out of a group of 11. It's a fantastic way to break up a raid or raid-defense group, yes, but it's also our TRANS SKILL, and comes at a heavy cost. Leave it alone.

my TRANS skill is useless and laughed at in epic volumes. STFU.

So are the latter half of my high end skills.

I saw a gross imbalance with the use of pit, hence my proposed change to it. From what you are saying, any proposed change that reduces the effectiveness of a skill is invalid unless the proposal came from the side that possess the skill itself. If we go by that, any combat related suggestion that 'nerfs' a skill on this board by players will be invalid since there will be a perceived 'opposition' each time. I think we can try to be more objective here and think more in terms of balancing on the whole. I do try not to be bias. It was very tempting to call for a even greater reduction to pit instead of just a change that stops it from working indoors.

oh no it's my TRANS skill so it's suppose to be unbalanced

Yes, a skill that can get rid of up to half of a raiding defense party by putting them in a maze that can take several minutes to get out of if it doesn't kill some of the lesser might people getting pitted. This certainly isn't overpowered...especially in group combat. Let's not add that raiders are now grouping at the cave to kill those people who have been pitted.

Edit: Also, what's the reasonable counter in a group situation?

All the high end "good" class skills suck, well unless you whore damnation or something. but the last three in devo are Absolution, Damnation and Bloodsworn, and Chivalry has Disembowel, Healing has Bedevil. Spirituality does have Absolve but still on comparison Pit is a pretty OP TRANS skill.

I would say the only other two TRANS class skills that compare would be Deliverance and Holocost.

As a Runelorist my TRANS skill final three are Implant, Designate and Empower... so yeah

You're a jester?

Pit is ridiculous. However, it cannot be changed to be 'balanced'. Because of its design, it is either OP or more useless than Bloodsworn.

Golgotha needs to be replaced with something that can actually be of use in normal combat situations without being retardedly overpowered.

What Gorlasintan said. Making pit only work in an outdoor room would effectively make the skill worthless, considering a smart raid defense group generally groups indoors anyways. And no, Caprica, my logic was not leading to the idea that the only proper proposals for a nerfing would be from the class that possesses the skill - however, I am growing tired of people searching endlessly for hard-coded solutions to problems that they can attempt to avoid or alleviated themselves without such solutions.

Edit: Also, Teg, stop responding to my posts. You have yet to post anything of worth yet...your trolling isn't even funny, it's annoying. Stop. Thank you.

I think you probably got it right. Especially after hearing how pit was nerfed three times before.


I do not see changes to code on skills to be a problem. I understand your point of view however when applied to Achaea on the whole. Still, I wouldn't be too adversed to hardcode changes. Afterall, everything in Achaea was coded up at some point of time, and the process of coding should be ongoing gearing towards balance so that more instead of less can enjoy the different aspects of the game. Unless the majority thinks Achaea the way it is now is good enough, I see no problem with hardcoded adjustments.

As for this change making pit "worthless", I don't think so. In fact it may even help expand the strategies a raider with this skill can employ against defenders. Example - Defenders rushing to engage raiders will always need to walk from an outdoor area into an indoor one. Ambush opportunity there against the unwary defense group. Also, not all popular spots raiders like to hold/attack from are indoors. Skirting/Shallam Docks/Streets of Cyrene like Bard's way/Eleusian Fields.

Sucks one person at random from your enemy list who is in the room with you in the pit every 10-20 seconds (time might have to be tested for balance). Your enemy list cannot be changed while the pit is down. When the pit disappears, everyone in the pit goes directly to the cave. The pit disappears after 3 minutes or the occultist dies or mogs.

Edit: Just to speak to the uses:
Just enemy one person and it guarantees it'll get rid of them.
Enemy three people and you've got your top 3 gone in 30-60 seconds (though not in any particular order)

...that does nothing to fix the problems of pit.

I suppose it depends on what you think the problems are. What do you think the problems are that I didn't address?

Proposed change to Golgotha (mild):
Golgotha can only remove the user.

The rationale heard behind Poergh, Manifest, et al. for why they raid so frequently is that they love to raid, and presumably love the combat and roleplay aspects of it (whatever the latter may be) - not for experience and certainly not to provoke people into fighting them so that they can defend themselves.

But using Pit on defenders really isn't the action of someone who loves the challenges mutli-faceted group combat presents; it's the action of someone who wants to kill the people who are left over, so they can continue to idle? in Shallam, or do whatever super fun role-play-y things they do when they raid. Furthermore, the cities often hit the most are the cities which can make at best a feeble claim to defending themselves during these raids, as they're often numerically challenged. At the very least, it's poor sportsmanship.

Ergo, make Pit unusable in enemy territory or defendable. Generally speaking, if you're going to raid a city any way, you deserve everything you get: be that a 15-man team for defense, or getting pitted (in the event of raiding Hashan/Mhaldor/Ashtan).

Deletion of the pit mechanic and re-making Golgotha to be a direct or supportive combat ability that is usable in both group and solo combat, rather than the 'entirely remove a random portion of the enemy group from a fight' pile of bollocks that it currently is, would be a much better solution. I have no idea -how- to remake it (that's not something I'm very good with), but throwing on random restrictions like 'cannot be used in enemy territory' or 'can only be used if the occultist is wearing at least three rainbow-colored items' is terrible and does nothing to actually fix the ability.

While that's true, I'd think not pitting the conflict you initiated by raiding a city is a decent stopgap measure for the skill which has yet to be coded. Fair point?

The game really does need more restrictions on skills similar to the second example given in this.

Alright, so Golgotha is the Emperor of nastiness. Random afflictions for enemies, maybe? Is there a chaos entity that does that already? I know I'm inexperienced, here, but no one else is suggesting anything, so I figure I'm better than nothing.

yes, there is.

Well, that makes me just as good as nothing, at least.

Your posts are so trollworthy

Pit is retarded.

Chris Burke is retarded.

bolded ftw.

Also, the pit "area" should be open PK, and instead of it dropping you at the cave, it should exit into a random enemy city, and if you have none, the underworld

I could actually see that happening. An Occie sets down a pit and then everyone, including the Occie, flees in terror.

remove damnation. Give devotionists MASS PREACHING. Everyone in the room instantly becomes a priest.

Would instantly lead to cries of "MASSPREACHING/EXCOMM IS OVERPOWERED, NERF."

maybe we can make pit instantly move everyone to High Above the Clouds.

The interesting thing about Pit is that it has a chance of decapitating the defence party by removing members from the defence party with nearly no other pre-requisite than the ability to summon one. Sometimes the people who are pitted are the defence leaders or key defenders, leaving behind a group of clueless non-comms who only function properly under appropriate guidance. This remaining lots is often then slaughtered by the smaller but much more experienced group of seasoned raiders. I believe at one point someone pointed out that quality sometime really can't be made up for just by supplying in large quantity. Especially if the small group of quality is spamming chaosrays together.

Incidentally, barring all the other abilities, a grove in defendable did almost the same thing with eject when there was a third of a chance of being thrown into guards and removed for the duration of a prayer. To be honest I'm not sure which is longer, being stuck in the Pit or having to pray (but did I mention the possibility of having to pray in the pit if you die and there happened to be no one around to rezz you?). Raiders complained it was all kinds of overpowered. However, the only difference was that you couldn't drag a grove around like a visa card and throw people out of your room wherever you liked.

You can carry your grove around in your staff now!

Meh, I don't even know why we're discussing this. The administration has shown the only way to get a balance change is to constantly use something that's overpowered (e.g. the way Manu used to). Poergh will have to abuse this tactic for another three to four months before the administration will consider changing it.

Edit: It would be nice if they tried to preemptively balance things by looking at what's actually happening, but I can't imagine that that's ever going to happen.

As far as I remember there have been total of two nerfs for pit, Removing it from Nish (absolutely ridiculous) and making it on a tick rather then 20 enemy at once (was insane). So Don't know where third one came from.

I think it was made so that you had to use karma to get the pact rather than allow gold to be used.

Edit: The second nerf was that it would only pull random people off your enemies list. I believe it still happens all at once.

Correct. Regarding pre-emptively fixing it, I think the administration is just as confused as we are when it comes to how to -properly- fix it. As it IS a trans skill, the idea of nerfing it into uselessless is just as disagreeable as the idea of keeping it OP is. I would imagine once a proper fix is thought of, they'll work toward putting it in. I'd be fine with the pit having a random chance to suck -everyone- in, excluding the summoner. However, you realize that most of the time when I pit people, I'm by myself anyways - so I'm not sure how this would really effectively fix it. (Occultist moves north, pits, group moves north).

Well, obviously something that's specification is "Will randomly pit a number of people off your enemy list" is going to be hard to really balance without changing it a bit.

Right now it can pit 2 people, or it can pit 15.

The answer to this is simple.

Change pit to work 100% of the time, but make it only work on like 2-3 people.

For example

SUMMON GOLGOTHA FOR VOY MANIFEST LAORIR


Those three would get guaranteedly pitted, and noone else.

This crap where you have an enemy party with 20 people in it and it 'randomly' pits between 2 or 20 doesn't balance anything.

The above method makes it useful for the Occultists in a reliable manner, without being ridiculous to some extremes, and useless to other extremes.

Except...if it is Laorir, Manifest, Voy and 20 noobs in a party, you just won. Easily. All you have to do is drop the 3 top fighters from any given group and watch as the rest panic and die in short order.

The solution to that is to train the noobs, not continue begging for nerfs. 20 people should be able to kill Poergh and Santar very easily.

Eleusis/Shallam/Cyrene can't FORCE people to train. Mhaldor can say, "Do this or die". At best, the Sentinels can require combat knowledge. Most people in our raid defense parties aren't exactly sure what they are doing so they stick to the basic maulmaulmaulmaul tactic. I'm not saying nerf the skill, I was pointing out that Santar's idea wasn't a nerf but a huge buff. Besides, all you have to do is grab an occie, take the Mhaldor raid group, pit Cooper/Spire/Rangor and then watch us die in huge numbers.

So when are you going to train?

Or is it only okay for you to beg Maya to nerf the opposing faction when you feel you can't win?

I'm sorry, I don't speak Bitter. Can you repeat that in English?

You also quoted the wrong thread. At any rate, I don't think you'll find many suppoters of Daje doll tactics.