Serpent Thievery Buff

Santar

Basically what Mizik said.

Serpent was an underused and outdated combat class so I was hoping for some neat changes, but all I see here is that they slightly increased dstab and flay speed at the cost of 1000 max health. I'm utterly perplexed at the changes. Did anyone think dstab needed to be sped up any? Dstab was at a perfectly fine speed as is, and that would have been pretty much the last thing that I changed about the class. Seems like they're trying to fix something that wasn't broken in that regard.

The class had a few main weaknesses that needed to be addressed. The balance costs on all the skills were fine as is. Three changes that actually needed to be made and would have added to the versatility of the class: Increase snake ent HP, add some type of single target room-movement-hindering method, bring illusions back into the game via allowing serpent illusions to bypass lifevision or giving us 3 line illusions.

On top of that, the shrugging nerf was pretty massive. Current shrugging is pretty much 33% of the effectiveness as old shrugging against anyone using venoms. 10 seconds is a super long cooldown plus the 250 mana cost isn't insignificant, considering the abillity never used mana before. If it were 8 seconds and 0 mana cost, it'd probably be closer to an acceptable realm. 

So yeah, classlead was pretty abysmal overall. Serpent was already an underpowered class and is just getting trashed on more and more.

Nakari

I don't think that it's any slower at any level of arti dirk, or lack thereof, then it was before though. 

I mean, I get that there's a con drop if you want the dec spec, but it seems like that's just to make things go faster then they were before the changes? 

Jarrod

The issue with Thoth's is that the one source of offensive potential you could get as a Serpent got cut off at the top end, and turned into defensive potential.

There is no tradeoff for me, there is simply a net loss of 800cr because I have Thoth's post change. I have over 6000 health as is, getting more Con would just be a waste.

Santar

Daeir said:

16 dex unartied dirk nimble dstab is 2.1s, l1 dirk 16 dex nimble dstab is 1.9s. 12 dex unartied dirk dstab is 2.5s, same as before.

Tested just last night across 100 dry doublestabs for each test. Observed variance of up to 100ms either way that I couldn't attribute to latency. In my case, I sacrificed 4 con (spec and trait) for 5 dex (spec and trait) and improved dstab time by 600ms, which is an absolutely tremendous improvement.

Basically if you bought a Thoths, nothing changes for you and you can stay con spec. You are essentially paying 800cr to retain specs that equate to far more than that in con artefacts alone, so it's not a terrible tradeoff. On the flipside, you are about 50-100ms slower on flays, marginally slower on backstabs, phases and pickpocketing.

Also: shrugging is tree 2.0 meaning that protracted blackout spam no longer works against serpents at all, since you will have maybe a 3-4 second window to actually stick blackout before tree or shrugging gets it. Sniping doesn't miss at all with aiming and marksman trait. Faster net dstabbing overall reduces reliance on hypnosis (though it is sort of required for some things) and opens a lot more people up to other techniques. These changes may not have been buffs or nerfs, but rather proper rebalancing, which is what I was really hoping for.

The changes allowed unartied Serpents to be competitive but the changes completely sucked for anyone that was already a top tier Serpent fighter with artifacts.

Also, everything you said after your "Also:" segment was pretty retarded. Would just edit that out if I were you. Quick corrections: Blackout is already mostly irrelevant to combat with or without shrugging, The snipe change definitely was a sizable nerf to Serpents. Dstab speed change won't affect 'reliance on hypnosis' whatsoever. You can't kill someone with just dstabs. Slightly faster dstab speed doesn't "open up a lot of techniques".

If you have no idea how to fight or how these skills are applied in combat, then you probably shouldn't be making judgement calls like that. If you had any combat experience whatsoever you would realize how ridiculous your statements were.

Santar

Jarrod said:

The issue with Thoth's is that the one source of offensive potential you could get as a Serpent got cut off at the top end, and turned into defensive potential.

There is no tradeoff for me, there is simply a net loss of 800cr because I have Thoth's post change. I have over 6000 health as is, getting more Con would just be a waste.

This is pretty much the way I see it. Combat should be primarily balanced for the upper echelons of players, and this classlead definitely didn't add any high-end versatility for Serpents vs. top tier fighters.

Iocun

Santar said:

Basically what Mizik said.

Serpent was an underused and outdated combat class so I was hoping for some neat changes, but all I see here is that they slightly increased dstab and flay speed at the cost of 1000 max health. I'm utterly perplexed at the changes. Did anyone think dstab needed to be sped up any? Dstab was at a perfectly fine speed as is, and that would have been pretty much the last thing that I changed about the class. Seems like they're trying to fix something that wasn't broken in that regard.

Dstab speed was perfectly fine for level 2 dirks upwards, but unartied dstab was a bit underwhelming. The point is also that they didn't just change the speeds. All they did was to give more options for a more individual character build, which is a good thing in my eyes.

The class had a few main weaknesses that needed to be addressed. The balance costs on all the skills were fine as is. Three changes that actually needed to be made and would have added to the versatility of the class: Increase snake ent HP, add some type of single target room-movement-hindering method, bring illusions back into the game via allowing serpent illusions to bypass lifevision or giving us 3 line illusions.

Snake ent: yeah, it's weakness is absolutely horrid. Outside the arena, I often don't even bother summoning my snake, as it will get killed in the first few seconds and I won't have a realistic chance of summoning a new one. Not sure if more HP alone would have helped terribly much though unless it was actually buffed up to, say, falcon levels. Otherwise it would still be killed relatively fast and we'd have no realistic chance of summoning a new one.

Movement hindering: definitely high up on the wish list, but I haven't seen many complete thought-out suggestions for this. Maybe write up a classlead on your own next time?

Illusions: yes, the "dementia to stop lifevision" change was a bit disappointing. Lifevision illusion detection should definitely be removed from the game altogether. I see nothing positive that it adds to Achaea. I still like my "deep illusion" idea I classleaded too. But hey, it isn't the last classlead round.

On top of that, the shrugging nerf was pretty massive. Current shrugging is pretty much 33% of the effectiveness as old shrugging against anyone using venoms. 10 seconds is a super long cooldown plus the 250 mana cost isn't insignificant, considering the abillity never used mana before. If it were 8 seconds and 0 mana cost, it'd probably be closer to an acceptable realm. 

I disagree here. It may, all in all, shrug less venoms than it previously did, but it allows you to choose when, which is worth much more, to me. What use is it to me if someone hits me with two venoms I could cure instantly, but I shrug them both? I'd rather have a guaranteed shrug at a time when I really need it (almost locked, being knight-pummeled with stuck sensitivity, paralysis stuck just when I want to get my finishing move off, etc.). Personally, I feel more comfortable knowing that I can shrug for sure in moments when I truly need it, than hoping for RNG luck.

Venoms also only constitute a subset of all afflictions, which mainly affect a few specific classes. New shrugging is more versatile in that effect. Consider also that shrugging can cure many things that otherwise only have very limited curing options (blackout, priest disruptions, etc.).

Then there's the whole area of serpent-vs-serpent fights, which ought to be far more enjoyable with new shrugging and no more "cleanse me impatience".

Last, but not least, old shrugging simply brought forth uninteresting tactics of other classes when fighting serpents. I'd much rather fight a knight who tries to go for a rift lock than one who just piles on damage.

So yeah, classlead was pretty abysmal overall. Serpent was already an underpowered class and is just getting trashed on more and more.

Serpent wasn't and isn't underpowered in the least. Defensively it has been strong for a long time, offensively it always had a great number of viable killing options. The only real offensive weakness (apart from stupid details like lifevision) is how easy it is to hinder or run from serpents, but that's a problem most classes suffer, which is now slowly being improved, but probably will still take time.

The classlead did successfully address quite a few real issues with the serpent class:

- the really annoying randomness of shrugging and how frustrating it is to go against that.

- the huge disparity between Thoth's owners and unartied serpents.

- the huge randomness factor in hypnosis chains.

- the stupidity of serpent/serpent fights due to shrugging and self cleansing.

Not commenting on the pickpocket changes, because it doesn't really affect me, so I haven't looked into it much.

Sure, there still are some open problems that should be addressed eventually, as there are for all classes, but we got a classlead round with a couple of fixes that are definitely vast improvements in my eyes and should make many fights more controllable and less luck-based.

Strata

Thoth's owners (and only Thoth's owners) with dex spec above 16 should get 1.6s dstabs. Otherwise nobody is going to buy one ever again. Buckawn's spine is good enough.

Iocun

There's absolutely no reason why anyone should hit that fast though.

I see nothing wrong with nobody ever buying a Thoth's anymore.

Jovolo

What does a Thoth's STAB at compared to a Buckawn's? Doublestabbing at herb balance as a serpent, hmmmmm! 1.8 is plenty quick.

Iocun

How do you get to 1.8?

P.S. I -do- also share the impression that the cap is broken in some way, but I can't really figure out how. My own ping is far too random to make any sort of accurate assessment on dstab speed.

Makarios

Cap isn't broken (the formula isn't complex, there's no real room for inconsistency).

Sena is correct about the dstab balance modifications.

Iocun

I was just wondering because I heard several people talk about getting balance times as low as 1.6 or 1.7 seconds, but I'm just going ahead and assume that those numbers were based on improper testing procedures.

Jarrod

Daeir said:

Just realized that the entire time I've been sniping thus far, I've never actually waited for aim to proc properly.

Tested 30 shots without aim: 100% accuracy with marksman (30/30)
Tested 30 shots with aim: 100% accuracy with marskman

The "sniping got nerfed" thing isn't really holding water for me. The chance of missing appears to be so small in adjacent/2-room scenarios that it might as well not exist.

I'd just like to point that the day after the change, I called that you probably weren't using Aim right.

Iocun

Only pros like me can aim without a delay.

Zeon

New shrugging sounds way too powerful.

That being said, I'm all in favor of powerful mechanics that require some level of thought, over annoyingly strong passive mechanics (old shrugging).

Iocun

To be fair, new shrugging will also stop requiring some level of thought as soon as popular systems get updated next.

Sylvance

I'm surprised how long after getting what they asked for it took the whiners to start whining again.

Jarrod

Further proof of my infallibility and genius level deduction powers from a single complaint.

Decan

In my something like 15 years playing this game Ive never seen Serpent Class get anything other than nerfed. Our artefacts do not offer the same gains as those for other classes unless its an artefact other classes can use.

Bows were not ment to be used by every class, and because of that were perfectly balanced in that context. It became an issue when everyone under the sun bought one and used them.

Thoths fang was not ment to be used by any class other than Serpent, but because of the way other skills work (Meta reflexes) a change was needed in how they performed. This change has fixed the way other skills handle the fang, but does not address the fact that a Serpent with a Fang is not gaining as much. Also Serpent Class is one of the only classes that has a hard cap in their balance skills yet requires balance speed to perform well. Apostates only have to worry about curseward stopping them, which is a joke of a defence that cant actually be kept up during combat, yet Sileris, shield and rebounding can be in comparison to Serpent class. 

No one has addressed the issues with Bite. The issue I see is that biting is useless when considering 'modern' curing methods + defences like sileris/quicksilver. You will not see a Serpent lead with bite, or use biting when the opponent turtles (shield spamming + rebounding). You will only see bites used after the person is already locked down and then usually its used to damage, not afflict.

The use of flay in a fight is mostly pointless. If flaying shield/rebounding is required it allows people to catch back up in their curing easily and wastes balance time that should be used for afflicting or using hypnosis suggesting. No one at top tier I know of has ever been able to finish off a lock if they have to use Flay at any time, let alone twice in a row (rebound and shield).

It is still the best option to turtle up on a snap, and keep turtled up until hypnosis is complete making hypnosis a smaller threat. This means that dstab is the only reliable way to afflict, and that too can be stopped using the above turtle method. 

Serpent Class remains the only class that requires you to put in 10x as much effort for half of the effect. Also Serpent Class is the only class that shares half of its defining skills with other classes or purchasable artefacts. And Serpent Class is one of the only classes that an opponent can sit around keep up shield and rebounding while laughing at the person who is trying to flay away their defences.

Be nicer if the people who came up with these changes actually played a top tier Serpent fighter, sadly however, no one would want to pay to be a top tier Serpent Class fighter when they can spend the same or less to be a top tier fighter of any other class with greater success.

Let the verbal barrage begin!

Iocun

Decan said:

In my something like 15 years playing this game Ive never seen Serpent Class get anything other than nerfed. Our artefacts do not offer the same gains as those for other classes unless its an artefact other classes can use.

Tunnel vision if I ever heard of one.

Won't go back at all the previous, buff-filled classleads, but let's just look at the current one:

Subterfuge

----------

* DIRKs (artefact and regular) have had their damage statistic reduced significantly.

 Nerf, but not particularly relevant to ordinary serpent combat.

* FLAY balance time is now modified by the serpent's dexterity.

 Buff giving you more viable stat choice options.

* BACKSTAB channel time is modified by the serpent's dexterity.

 Buff giving you more viable stat choice options.

* PHASE channel time is modified by the serpent's dexterity.

 Buff giving you more viable stat choice options.

* DOUBLESTAB balance time is now modified by the speed statistic of the serpent's dirk, and his or her dexterity.

 Buff giving you more viable stat choice options.

* PICKPOCKET speed and effectiveness are more reliant on the serpent's dexterity.

 Haven't tested it so no idea.

* PICKPOCKET maximum gold values have been increased.

 Buff.

* PICKPOCKET will now steal groups of items, rather than a single one.

 Buff.

* PICKPOCKET can now steal specified items from the person. (**)

 Buff.

Hypnosis

--------

* DEMENTIA now prevents the illusion detection aspect of LIFEVISION.

 Small buff.

* CLEANSE can now only self-strip actions (not afflictions) from the serpent.

 Neutral. Helps the hypnoing serpent, harms the hypnoed serpent.

* HYPERSOMNIA and CONFUSION now have a third-person message when they fire on the victim.

 Buff.

* Suggestions now have a lower random variance in their timing.

 Buff, especially since the timing is now also faster in average.

* MESMERISE has been reworked to boost the chances of a pickpocketing attempt. (**)

 Haven't tested it so unsure whether neutral or buff.

Venom

-----

* SHRUGGING has been reworked, being repurposed from a passive ability to an active one.

 Can be considered a nerf or a buff, depending on the circumstances.

Now, the truly interesting thing is that none of the people who are complaining about these classleads actually submitted any on their own.

Strata

Shield spamming, rebounding, lyre, icewall vs. firelash battles are annoying. Not just for a serpent. I enjoy fighting people who know when it's time to turtle up a lot more than people who just constantly touch shield because omgwtf Thoth's. Likewise, I am constantly trying to improve my ability to do the same - turtle up or escape when necessary.

The sileris mechanics are fine as they are - but I would like to see either the forming time increased or maybe an affliction that gets rid of it so you don't have to waste a balance on flay.

Epilepsy might be a good choice for this - You shake uncontrollably and thus "shake off your sileris coating".

Sena

Decan said:

In my something like 15 years playing this game Ive never seen Serpent Class get anything other than nerfed.

Announce 2405, serpents gained disrupt and targetable illusions, as well as some other buffs (nechamandra, execution, seeing what loki afflicts with, improved dstab accuracy), no nerfs.
Announce 2233, scales was massively upgraded by making it resist all damage types, and diagnose eq cost was doubled. Flay was also upgraded to be able to remove rebounding, but I'm not sure you'd actually count that. All buffs that time, too.
The biggest direct combat nerf (so not counting things like the theft changes, and not counting general changes that affected everyone, not just serpents) that I can think of was when disrupt was changed to wear off automatically after 10(?) seconds.

Without Rakon's news archive it's too much work to find every serpent change again, but last time I checked (in 2010), there were far more buffs than nerfs for serpent. Serpent hasn't had many major changes though, so most of the buffs and nerfs were pretty minor, or were wider changes that impacted a lot of classes.

Decan

Iocun said:

Decan said:

In my something like 15 years playing this game Ive never seen Serpent Class get anything other than nerfed. Our artefacts do not offer the same gains as those for other classes unless its an artefact other classes can use.

Tunnel vision if I ever heard of one.

Won't go back at all the previous, buff-filled classleads, but let's just look at the current one:

Subterfuge

----------

* DIRKs (artefact and regular) have had their damage statistic reduced significantly.

 Nerf, but not particularly relevant to ordinary serpent combat.

Nerf, I used single stabbing with fang to break limbs.

* FLAY balance time is now modified by the serpent's dexterity.

 Buff giving you more viable stat choice options.

 Nerf, forces you to go DEX specialisation

* BACKSTAB channel time is modified by the serpent's dexterity.

 Buff giving you more viable stat choice options.

Nerf, forces you to go DEX specialisation

* PHASE channel time is modified by the serpent's dexterity.

 Buff giving you more viable stat choice options.

Nerf, forces you to go DEX specialisation and doesnt matter.

* DOUBLESTAB balance time is now modified by the speed statistic of the serpent's dirk, and his or her dexterity.

 Buff giving you more viable stat choice options.

 Nerf, forces you to go DEX specialisation 

* PICKPOCKET speed and effectiveness are more reliant on the serpent's dexterity.

 Haven't tested it so no idea.

Nerf, pickpocket is a joke considering selfishness.

* PICKPOCKET maximum gold values have been increased.

 Buff.

Nerf, pickpocket is a joke considering selfishness.

* PICKPOCKET will now steal groups of items, rather than a single one.

 Buff.

 Nerf, pickpocket is a joke considering selfishness.

* PICKPOCKET can now steal specified items from the person. (**)

Haven't tested it so no idea.

 Nerf, pickpocket is a joke considering selfishness.

Hypnosis

--------

* DEMENTIA now prevents the illusion detection aspect of LIFEVISION.

 Small buff.

Nerf, Dementia is not more valuable than Impatience when afflicting, and if you are locking them with impatience it doesnt matter what illusions you use because they are locked.

* CLEANSE can now only self-strip actions (not afflictions) from the serpent.

 Neutral. Helps the hypnoing serpent, harms the hypnoed serpent.

Nerf, Serpents cant hypnotise another serpent if both are trying for a lock at the same time, and now you cant clear the afflictions, only actions. Double Nerf.

* HYPERSOMNIA and CONFUSION now have a third-person message when they fire on the victim.

 Buff.

Nerf, does not effect combat strategy in the least. Only added as a caveat.

* Suggestions now have a lower random variance in their timing.

 Buff, especially since the timing is now also faster in average.

Bug Fix, ACTIONing people was the only thing that had significant random variance.

* MESMERISE has been reworked to boost the chances of a pickpocketing attempt. (**)

 Haven't tested it so unsure whether neutral or buff.

Nerf, Mesmerise is trans skill that is completely nullified by <100 lessons in survival required by every Organization in the game. Can only be used once an hour because it grants "better-than-vigilance" immunity.

Venom

-----

* SHRUGGING has been reworked, being repurposed from a passive ability to an active one.

 Can be considered a nerf or a buff, depending on the circumstances.

Nerf, instead of ignoring +/-60% of venoms you can only choose which affliction to cure every 10 seconds. Shrugging went from no cost passive to a tree tat that can be prevented in a number of ways.

Now, the truly interesting thing is that none of the people who are complaining about these classleads actually submitted any on their own.

False, me and many of the other Serpents who have been Serpents for many years have made many classleads that addressed the issues of the class far better. However classleads work like "If we arnt trying to change the class we will ignore any suggestion made until we are trying, then we will only take the better ideas from that one classlead and run with it"

As you can see, most of the changes have no impact what so ever on the Class. The ones that have an impact do not have an overly positive impact, if there is any positive impact to be construed. The changes do not address the lack of viability in biting, or ability to afflict the opponent. No new strategies have been opened up as a result and in fact some are now even obsolete. 

You can say this is a buff or this is a nerf, but that doesnt take into account the Class as a whole. As a whole the class is 99% unchanged, and sadly the 1% that was changed didnt address the problems of a Serpent Class in the context of top tier fighting. If anything they only made them worse.

Decan

@Sena -

The buffs you mentioned are from 7 years ago. Nuff said.

And Im pretty sure almost no one playing today knows what "HypnoWords" were or how they worked with hypnosis.

Jacen

And I hoped so hard that the logic you use in game was RP.

Jarrod

Decan, your prowess has always been in doubt, and I can't recall reading any viable classleads from you ever. Iocun is the only one who proposed reasonable Serpent changes last time around.

Based on how long ago classleads were, I think I was bard at the time, and my few classleads were nerfing it. I'll probably put in classleads this time coming time, but I don't know whether they'll come shortly after Sylvan, or how long it will be until Serpent comes around again.

Nakari

you know that something not being straight better, or even going from not that great to still not that great isn't a nerf, right?

Decan

@Jacen All the logic I use is RP, regardless of the media used to convey it.

@Jarrod I never claimed to be top tier. And I gave up on submitting classleads after 5 years of them not doing anything with them. The fact you mentioned "last time around" only further illustrates the point I made about good ideas being lost because "this isnt the round of leads we are looking for". Only the most recent classleads were looked at even though as @Sena pointed out, its been 7 years since they even looked at the Class. (Minus Theft Nerf that is)

Strata

* DIRKs (artefact and regular) have had their damage statistic reduced significantly.

 Nerf, but not particularly relevant to ordinary serpent combat.

Nerf, I used single stabbing with fang to break limbs.

^ i only agree with that part. The dex cap ... sure fine whatever. But decreasing damage on jab was not cool. I don't understand where that idea came from and why that was put in as one of the changes. There seems to be this trend recently where many changes are being conceived that could promote more melee activity among all the classes instead of LoS retardedness... That dirk damage change is contrary to said trend - it makes NO SENSE.

Iocun

Strata said:

* DIRKs (artefact and regular) have had their damage statistic reduced significantly.

 Nerf, but not particularly relevant to ordinary serpent combat.

Nerf, I used single stabbing with fang to break limbs.

^ i only agree with that part. The dex cap ... sure fine whatever. But decreasing damage on jab was not cool. I don't understand where that idea came from and why that was put in as one of the changes. There seems to be this trend recently where many changes are being conceived that could promote more melee activity among all the classes instead of LoS retardedness... That dirk damage change is contrary to said trend - it makes NO SENSE.

I used single jabs for breaks too, which is why I specified "ordinary serpent combat". Sure, breaking limbs with the dirk was a viable tactic in some situations, but due to the inability of serpents to prevent shielding by proning someone directly after a break (excepting unreliable hypnosis methods) it was never bound to become a staple technique. You can also still break limbs using other weapons.

Thoth damage was simply getting a bit crazy with sentinel reflexes, yet completely removing the ability of non-serpents to use artefact dirks would have resulted in many classes having much fewer viable affliction methods, which would be a pity. I'm also not perfectly happy with the change, but I can deal with it, since limb breaking with a Thoth's as a serpent was never that amazing to begin with.

What would be fun is a new subterfuge ability to hit with the dirk's pommel for increased limb damage.