Combat Logs

Kiet

Mangle is too strong to have it easily done, though. The damage would have to tickle for perma-mangle to not be overwhelming, and in groups it'd be absurd.

Jovolo

Aerek said:

Kiet said:

I mean we already have a lot of health-gating going on, we shouldn't need to expect people to have 4500+ hp now just to survive against one class as a hard rule. Might be better to just  make the limb damage static, at least while prone, if you're set on keeping the bonus limb damage.

That's my point. DWB just needs to be adjusted so that perma-mangles on low-health targets aren't a thing, and to have health damage adjusted so that you can actually survive DWL without being gragon, without removing DWB's ability to actually kill dragons.

Lavakhi had 5.5k health and could still be perma mangled. As long as they can deliver 100% limb damage within 4 seconds it's possible. 3 individual slashes/2 dbwhirls accomplishes that. Idk what the limb.formula is

Aerek

Anyone over 4500 health won't mangle in a single prone/damaged flail DWL; you need 3 hits to do that, not 2. In that log, Ainly breaks Lavakhi with the first flail, the second flail getting a hit post-break, and that's the key. He mangled her with the next prone/damaged flail bonus only because of the hit he already had on that leg. At a 3.5 balance on flail DWL, he couldn't sustain that indefinitely. Had she lived, the already-applied restoration would have kicked it back to damaged before he got balance back, he'd get 1 more DWL in on the damaged leg (not enough to mangle again) and then the leg would fix completely and she could stand. At most, Lavakhi would have been prone for 8 seconds off that single leg break/mangle:

Standing Breakpoint: 4
Prone/damaged Breakpoint: 3
                                   [rl0]: 3/4
0.0 DWL EX rl/rl  0.0 resto legs   [rl2]: 1/3
3.5 DWL rl/rl                      [rl3]: 0/3
                  4.0 resto legs   [rl2]: 0/3
7.0 DWL rl/rl                      [rl2]: 2/3
                  8.0 mend legs/stand   
10.5 balance                       

In a double-leg-break scenario, you generally only keep an opponent prone for 12 seconds if you're chasing balance, and it's not as simple as DWL left/right for the breaks, DWL right/right for the mangle; that will not get the mangle, you need an extra hit on the right leg first, which costs you time even if you optimize with morningstars:

Standing Breakpoint: 4 (flail)
Prone/damaged Breakpoint: 3 (flail) 

0.0 star DWL EX rl/ll  0.0 resto legs  [rl2]: 0/3 [ll2]: 0/3
2.5 star DWL rl/rl                     [rl2]: 2/3 [ll2]: 0/3 (2 star hits, but still enough)
		       4.0 mend legs   [rl2]: 2/3
5.0 flail DWL rl/rl    5.0 resto legs  [rl3]: 0/3
8.5 flail DWL rl/rl                    [rl3]: 2/3 (massive health damage here)
		       9.0 resto legs  [rl2]: 0/3
12.0 flail DWL rl/rl                   [rl2]: 2/3
                       13.0 mend legs/stand
15.5 balance

You can technically achieve 17 seconds prone if you stop and wait for the 3rd restoration apply before hitting again--the only way to get 2 flail DWLs inside a resto balance--but you're fighting Tumble and rebounding by this point, and having to Fracture and/or MountJump (walls necessary against DWB) should make you miss the window of opportunity for that:

Standing Breakpoint: 4 (flail)
Prone/damaged Breakpoint: 3 (flail) 

0.0 star DWL EX rl/rl  0.0 resto legs  [rl2]: 1/3
2.5 star DWL ll/rl                     [rl2]: 2/3 [ll2]: 0/3 (2 star hits, but still enough)
		       4.0 mend legs   [rl2]: 2/3
5.0 flail DWL rl/rl    5.0 resto legs  [rl3]: 1/3
8.5 wait                               [rl3]: 1/3
		       9.0 resto legs  [rl2]: 0/3
9.1 flail DWL rl/rl                    [rl2]: 2/3
12.6 flail DWL rl/rl                   [rl3]: 1/3
                       13.0 resto legs [rl2]: 0/3
16.1 flail DWL rl/rl                   [rl2]: 2/3
                       17.0 mend legs/stand
19.6 balance

Bottom line, DWB can mangle and that is scary, (as it should be) but it's not as simple as it looks. Anyone higher than 4500 cannot be perma-mangled even with the limb damage bonuses. The issue is just the massive, massive damage DWB deals in the 8-12 seconds you spend prone, plus Engage if you actually try to escape it. Like I said, I agree DWB is OP in some aspects--they shouldn't be perma-mangling low-health targets, or destroying 5k-health targets with 2k damage DWLs (even more if the leg was mangled)--but it would be very easy to over-nerf, here. They need their mangle ability to counter hinder-heavy classes to build some momentum for Assault, which is why I'd adjust the health damage bonuses before the limb damage bonuses. They still have torso Assault to spike health damage when an opponent dodges Pulp.

Ainly

Thank you

Jovolo

Nvm. Almost everything you said is what I said, so I don't get why this is turning into an argument. You said they break in 3 hits, so did I. You said the health scaling portion should be looked at, me too. I disagree that it's harder than it looks. That Ainly broke on the first slash of the break on Lavakhi wasn't luck, it was just accurate prep. 

Ainly

I think something to consider is since mangling is really only something a few specific classes ever really do, mangling itself could be put on a cooldown in the sense that after you mangle a limb it can not be mangled again for a short period. I think we all agree that permanent mangles, even on low health targets really shouldn't be a thing.

However, if we decide instead to reduce the overall damage a target takes while prone on a broken limb, then mangle should stay as it is to allow for the momentum build needed to assault.

Szanthax

Szanthax walks into guards..a lot

Kellonius

Antonius said:

@Ainly Do you have gauntlets?

I think the best place to start is getting rid of the limb damage bonuses, they really don't need to be able to just mangle as soon as they get you prone.

I really wish it was that easy, I really do. Even with L3 flails, on most people it takes 2 doublewhirls with the bonuses to mangle an already broken leg. 2 doublewhirls at 2.8 seconds a piece, with nimble. Salve balance still beats this. And then you have to contend with rebounding too.

@Aerek regarding pulp, it is extremely difficult to pull off without L3 morningstars + nimble and even then it can still prove difficult. For 3200 credits it shouldn't be completely impossible imo.

Aerek

@KelloniusI spent time as DWB. I know there were some problems early on, but I'm not sure if you've attempted Pulp since Assault was sped up. It used to be 3s or 3.something, but now it's like 2.5, regardless of stars or flails. As long as you can get to 8 momentum, it's very easy and extremely dangerous, requiring optimal priorities and an immediate tumble (over a wall) to survive:

0.0 DWL EX ll/rl        0.0 resto legs
2.6 DWL head/head       
                        4.0 resto head
5.2 Assault head
7.7 Pulp
                        8.0 resto head

That's with forged morningstars. In my time, I struggled as DWB against strong hindrance or quick kill setups that forced me on the defensive often, but I never struggled to Pulp as long as I could get the momentum, and surviving other DWBs' Pulp took some learning. @Arietedemolished Dochitha and I with Pulp for months while we searched for reliable ways to survive it (and the damage that comes from avoiding it), even though Ariete, herself, would be the first to admit she's far from top-tier.

Salindera

Kiet said:

I mean we already have a lot of health-gating going on, we shouldn't need to expect people to have 4500+ hp now just to survive against one class as a hard rule.

This has been something that's been pretty frustrating to me. Back when I started playing the rule of thumb that I always saw was that you wanted to be lvl 80 before getting into combat. I only dabble, and I know I'm far from decent, but with classes like dwb/2h knight it sometimes feels like I just need to go get dragon/defensive artifacts before I can even seriously compete, even against people without any artifacts.

Dochitha

Salindera said:

Kiet said:

I mean we already have a lot of health-gating going on, we shouldn't need to expect people to have 4500+ hp now just to survive against one class as a hard rule.

This has been something that's been pretty frustrating to me. Back when I started playing the rule of thumb that I always saw was that you wanted to be lvl 80 before getting into combat. I only dabble, and I know I'm far from decent, but with classes like dwb/2h knight it sometimes feels like I just need to go get dragon/defensive artifacts before I can even seriously compete, even against people without any artifacts.

Not necessarily. You can start anytime and there are decent combatants below level 70 without Arties too. Even the top tiers aren't necessarily totally Artied. Knowledge and skill > arty. Arty really just give you more room for error. 

Salindera

Dochitha said:

Not necessarily. You can start anytime and there are decent combatants below level 70 without Arties too. Even the top tiers aren't necessarily totally Artied. Knowledge and skill > arty. Arty really just give you more room for error. 

Sure, I get that's how it is generally, but certain classes do enough damage that I can't stay in the room for more then a handful of seconds at a time. You can call that room for error, but running constantly isn't fun for anyone (and that only works if they don't know what they're doing).

Jovolo

Dochitha said:

Salindera said:

Kiet said:

I mean we already have a lot of health-gating going on, we shouldn't need to expect people to have 4500+ hp now just to survive against one class as a hard rule.

This has been something that's been pretty frustrating to me. Back when I started playing the rule of thumb that I always saw was that you wanted to be lvl 80 before getting into combat. I only dabble, and I know I'm far from decent, but with classes like dwb/2h knight it sometimes feels like I just need to go get dragon/defensive artifacts before I can even seriously compete, even against people without any artifacts.

Not necessarily. You can start anytime and there are decent combatants below level 70 without Arties too. Even the top tiers aren't necessarily totally Artied. Knowledge and skill > arty. Arty really just give you more room for error. 

This unfortunately hasn't ever been proven, at least in recent years.

Dochitha

Jovolo said:

Dochitha said:

Salindera said:

Kiet said:

I mean we already have a lot of health-gating going on, we shouldn't need to expect people to have 4500+ hp now just to survive against one class as a hard rule.

This has been something that's been pretty frustrating to me. Back when I started playing the rule of thumb that I always saw was that you wanted to be lvl 80 before getting into combat. I only dabble, and I know I'm far from decent, but with classes like dwb/2h knight it sometimes feels like I just need to go get dragon/defensive artifacts before I can even seriously compete, even against people without any artifacts.

Not necessarily. You can start anytime and there are decent combatants below level 70 without Arties too. Even the top tiers aren't necessarily totally Artied. Knowledge and skill > arty. Arty really just give you more room for error. 

This unfortunately hasn't ever been proven, at least in recent years.

You spoilt it. Fine. I lied. 

Kiet

100% unartied combat is completely viable and not too challenging as apostate, alchemist, jester, shaman, and a couple of other classes. If you're not one of those classes, you could do unartied combat, but it's really not worth the massive effort from personal experience. Few things feel as frustrating as knowing you're fighting 10x harder and better than the other guy and he's just mashing his one macro.

Jovolo

That depends on how you define viable, though. No one in the game has shown they can compete at a high tier vs artefacts if they themselves don't have artefacts in the past 3 years. The closest in recent memory was Ayoxele who not only happened to be Apostate, but also had a sip ring/wings and a few other small level 1 artefacts on top of being level 90+. Trying to compete with Occultist at a high level bored him into quitting the game.

When I played a couple of years ago I could beat people with artefacts if they weren't that good at their class or combat generally like Leviticus, Lothiac, Sliff and could beat more skilled players who had minimal artefacts like Sabiru/Ayoxele/Sohl/Jinsun but I had literally no chance against Rangor (when he was Monk), Jhui, pretty much anybody that played Knight who had defensive arties (Mizik/Dunn Runewarden), Jarrel, Akia, Carmain was too tanky to kill and would never die to vivisect. I just don't see, from the experience of being unable to overcome the bridge and the observation of zero people who have, how it's possible to compete with players who had arties. 

And I was Infernal back when it was not understood very well. It'd probably be way harder to do it nowadays. 

Kiet

Why would apostate need artefacts though? They can reach close to 5k hp unartied since they can safely con spec, and no arties speed up stares, and they have decent hinder/natural tanking abilities. Maybe in the most obscene of damage cases (like artied dwb) it becomes not doable, but otherwise I'm not sure what the issue is.  Also do you mean like straight damage occultist or something? Because I'm not sure how arties would help you not get enlightened there.

As a damage class you're outmatched without arties, though, sure.

Jovolo

I can't really give you any evidence other than anecdotal now because I haven't played an Apostate into damage classes since all of the reworks so I'll try not to do that but just speak on arguable points. Apostates firstly, are the best unartied class to play as anyway just because of how it's designed. No class really comes close. They have an oppressive hindering offence as well as survivability built into their kit, but their main problem was how easy it was to actually survive against them. I would always, always have 30+ minute fights against both Ayoxele and Carmain because their offence is easily predictable and I could survive it, but they could also live through everything I threw at them. 

When you play that vs people that know what they're doing like I mentioned in my last post, artefacts make up the difference. Carmain dominated the scene a few years ago because he had artefacts to increase his survivability in tandem with Apostate's kit while being able to out-attrition other fights, Ayoxele did not. He'd still get blown apart by Runewardens with their 80/150/253 rapiers or Monks with level 3 crush (can't deadeyes vs level 3 crush without artefacts) or Sylvan/Magi DPS. Artefacts made the difference, not the opponent's skill levels. 

Sure you can reach a fairly high level, but you need artefacts to be able to be dominant in Achaea ever since the adjustment to illusions and increasingly improving systems as evidenced by just looking at the combat scene evolving over the past ~5 years.

Kiet

Well okay but that was old apostate and apostate is absurdly strong offensively now after the buffs. It doesn't really apply. It'd be like me arguing about runelore shaman.

Ainly

Artefacts cost a lot of $.  I would be sad if after spending thousands of dollars on them they didn't give us an edge against people who didn't.  Artefacts make people more powerful.  Tale as old as time. Tune as old as song.

Kiet

What's hyperbolic about it? That's exactly the experience of fighting level 3 artied axe runewardens or mages back in the day, lol.

Lavakhi

@Ysela - omg sob...leaving me with piles of salt on the ground.  
(I had fun regardless with you two though. )

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/c6307f14

Kiet

Ainly said:

Artefacts cost a lot of $.  I would be sad if after spending thousands of dollars on them they didn't give us an edge against people who didn't.  Artefacts make people more powerful.  Tale as old as time. Tune as old as song.

Ninja edit!

We understand that arties make people stronger for a lot of $. That doesn't make it fun to fight against.

Jovolo

Ainly said:

Artefacts cost a lot of $.  I would be sad if after spending thousands of dollars on them they didn't give us an edge against people who didn't.  Artefacts make people more powerful.  Tale as old as time. Tune as old as song.

No one has made any arguments against whether or not it SHOULD be the case. The discussion is more about whether or not it actually is the case in regards to how much an advantage artefacts give. Sure you can spend a ton of money and gain benefits from that, it's Achaea's business model and how they sustain the game. No biggie.

Jovolo

Lavakhi said:

@Ysela - omg sob...leaving me with piles of salt on the ground.  
(I had fun regardless with you two though. )

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/c6307f14

Tsk tsk. Need to keep tabs on your angel power. It's not good to just keep every single angel passive up at all times.

Lavakhi

I was up against what I think was an Infernal Two-handed and a Magi. So in my mind, I needed to throw up Angel Care/Angel Empathy. I also had spiritwracking going too. By the time the Infernal was knocked out, I was so hyperfocused on being offensive that I totally screwed myself in the end. Great fun, great lesson to learn. Hopefully for all the parties involved.  

Szanthax

My level of scrub is high... like... super high. Where is my 1 button mash combos?

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/005ab392

really just for the plaugh at the end...

Kafziel

Your colours make it so hard for me to read that log. I feel so confused and afraid when everything is different

Szanthax

Kafziel said:

Your colours make it so hard for me to read that log. I feel so confused and afraid when everything is different

fear the unknown!

Kiet

Daeir said:

Depends on how you define viable, really. Mechanically viable? Sure. In Makarios we trust. Realistically viable to enjoy/compete with? Not really. Not unless you're a huge masochist and enjoy welping dozens of times.

It's like arguing that something like AP Udyr from LoL is "effective". Does it work mechanically? Yeah, it kind of does - he scales with it on two abilities and they're both pretty potent ones, but it is never going to come close to a more tailored build or experience (artefacts), and if you put one against the other, 90% of the time the classically superior approach (artefacts) is going to lever their large advantage and win from it.

That's what we've been saying, yes. The few exception classes are 100% viable in the 'they absolutely need nothing else' sense, but everyone else is in for a rough time.