Alchemist combat.

Jovolo

They didn't hurt Alchemists. They got a single "Negative" change in not being able to repeatedly touch shield while also being able to temper.

Vayne

-Sulphur/Mercury are obvious gains, longer effects of already excellent bonuses
-Silver change made gave them more use in raid pre-empting/city security
-Corruption is now more easily tracked so you can keep it up more efficiently.

The only "nerf" is that shield requires temper balance now, which brings them more in line with other classes. Was not really fair that they could prep then immediately reshield, no other class can really do that. So overall, it was all buffs and one change that made a rather cheap oversight more fair.

Vastus

As was said only the Shield one, besides that some minor buffs and convenience things. The shielding fix though is a bit weird in the sense that if I just temper and wrack I will get balance back long before humour balance and if I suddenly get hit with some burst damage or something I won't be able to shield for a few seconds. I would have prefered if they changed it so you couldn't touch shield for one second (or two) after tempering, which would have done the same to shield whoring.

Doss

What happens if two alchemists try to raise the fluid levels on a single target?

Isaiah

It goes up?

Cathy

Vastus said:

As was said only the Shield one, besides that some minor buffs and convenience things. The shielding fix though is a bit weird in the sense that if I just temper and wrack I will get balance back long before humour balance and if I suddenly get hit with some burst damage or something I won't be able to shield for a few seconds. I would have prefered if they changed it so you couldn't touch shield for one second (or two) after tempering, which would have done the same to shield whoring.

I thought they changed it to be 2 seconds.

ANNOUNCE NEWS #4010 (12/20/2013 at 06:23)
From : Tecton, the Terraformer
To : Everyone
Subject: Traits and tempers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm pleased to announce another couple of small changes, the details are as follows:

* Adventurers can now specify a level slot when learning a trait - simply use TRAIT SELECT [level#]
.

* The SHIELD tattoo hinderance on an Alchemist's TEMPER ability now only last two seconds after the
temper, instead of the entire temper balance.

Penned by My hand on the 15th of Daedalan, in the ye

Jovolo

That post was from ages ago, Cathy. (and ironically, a result of Vastus' complaints)

Sena

Doss said:

What happens if two alchemists try to raise the fluid levels on a single target?

Nothing special. Two alchemists will raise fluid levels twice as fast as one alchemist.

Vastus

What Jovolo and Sena said to both questions.

Iocun

What Vastus said.

Cathy

I know it was, I didn't notice Vastus' post was old though! Oops!

Doss

If alchemists can stack fluid as a group then would a group of alchemists be pretty formidable? Or are they about the same compared to other classes in groups?

Sena

In group combat, taking the time to actually temper someone is usually a waste. Damage stacks just as well as tempering (and has the advantage of actually killing them at some point instead of just opening them up to other attacks), and afflictions stack even better, so pretty much any group regardless of class can usually kill someone quickly. By the time a group of alchemists has you tempered enough to do anything good with it*, you should already be dead.

On the other hand, tempering doesn't cost you anything, so you could temper someone just in case they end up being hard to kill, or possibly temper one enemy while killing a different one.

*Tempering sanguine can be useful, but tempering one humour is already pretty easy for a single alchemist. Having more alchemists would just save a few seconds, nothing terribly powerful.

Vayne

In melee, a group of alchemists would probably kill faster by wracking/educing iron to hinder and burst rather than a group set up of reave, but a few coordinated alchemists could be a decent gank squad and always a good supplement to any raid party.

Kross

Imagine 3 Homonculi stopping you from running... O.O

Jovolo

Don't stack

Shirszae

Are artie rapiers worth it for bards?

Shirszae

Daeir said:

This is sort of the wrong thread, @Shirszae, but no, they're not. You want higher speed over damage/tohit and while Soulpiercers are okay, you generally want something with 235+ speed at a minimum.

My mind is addled. I swear I read Bard Combat... Anyway, thank you for the response.

Hellen

I don't know where else to put this, but can we talk about Disrupt for a moment?

[quote]
Syntax: ETHER DISRUPT

By sending ripples through the ether, you may temporarily disrupt telepathic communications into and
out of the surrounding area. This will require a long period during which you may not perform any
actions, and comes with a very steep mana and willpower cost.[/quote]

It costs about 40% of my mana and maybe a quarter of my willpower, takes what feels like ten seconds to use (Haven't actually checked properly), and only lasts five minutes. It isolates all communications (Tells, channels, and so on) to that single area. Nothing outside the area can hear what people are saying inside the area, and nobody can hear what is being said outside the area. The alchemist can't disrupt the ether again for a while afterward.

I find this an interesting ability, but it seems extremely situational. I don't blame it, it could -easily- be a very powerful ability. Still, it seems to last too short for what it does.

Maybe make it last longer? Let's tentatively say half an hour? Seems like it could be easily used to grief, so if that were a thing, there would need to be a counter.

Let's say maybe ten minutes? That's double the time. Again, the entire thing seems situational. I'm not sure if I should just be popping this off in a raid regardless, though. Didn't seem to help anything the last few times I did. I think I'm being a bit meta with all this though.

What do you guys think? I'm just not sure what to do with this. It's a super-interesting thing that has a lot of implications IC, but in group combat, I'm not sure it's worth it to pull out.

Kuy

Don't forget that the length of its duration is not the only balancing factor.  If the cost for the effect feels too imbalanced, you can also decrease the cost instead of increasing the effect.

Achimrst

I always liked Ether Disrupt, decreasing cost sounds awesome! Yet if you increase length to say 15 min or even 10 you can give bards an ability to bring sound back into the room?/Counter that Ether Disrupt crap :P

This is just an addition to Hellen's ideas. Yet having Bards counter seems like something they should be capable of doing.

Hellen

Kuy said:

Don't forget that the length of its duration is not the only balancing factor.  If the cost for the effect feels too imbalanced, you can also decrease the cost instead of increasing the effect.

True! I guess I just haven't figured out how to really work Disrupt into a raid situation, and I'm not entirely sure what changes could be made without it being griefy. It's more that I don't think the -effect- is worth it, for how short it lasts, and the long cooldown time. Achimrst said something about 15 minutes, let's assume that for now.

As for the concept of having bards be able to counter it, that's actually rather interesting, though I wouldn't say let it counter the effects of the entire area. Maybe have them be something of like, one of their already-existing harmoinics has the effect of being a counter for it when people are in the same room as the harmonic. Dunno. I'll speculate more about this in a bit!

Hellen

Alright, now that I've had some dinner, let's keep going. Remember that only Messages are able to get past disrupt

Let's assume the time is altered:
First change proposed was 15 minutes. I think that would be a bit more reasonable for the cost, since I feel that 5 minutes is simply too short for it to be really effective. The problem is, griefing. People can be dicks and just walk into a place and Disrupt, just screwing up a bunch of stuff.

This is powerful enough that it will need a counter.

Maybe it will last as long as the alchemist in question is alive and in the area. This seems like the most balanced thing, really, as long as the alchemist is able to stop doing it. I think there might need to be an area-message about that, though.

Let's assume the effect is altered:
Make Disrupt -suppress- the channels in that area. No tells, CT, HT, OT, -nothing- for those five minutes. That seems a lot better, even if it is for 5 minutes.

Maybe Disrupt scrambles the channels, making you say something randomly on another channel.

Either way, these two are significantly more powerful than what Disrupt is right now, and thus could require a counter.

The problem from making the it last longer, or make it more powerful, is now it's something that's effective at screwing with people, and since the alchemist can just cast it and GTFO, that needs to be dealt with. So, let's talk about a counter to this particular version. Bards were suggested, though other alchemists could be a thing too, or heck, even forestals. Either way, let's assume such a counter did exist. How could this be balanced?

Well, the first thing I had in mind was make it work for only a single room. Say, if you're in a room with the proper ability set up, everyone would be able to hear outside the affected area from there. Make this effect fade as the caster dies. It's interesting, to say the least.

How about negation? Some alchemists can work to disrupt, while others work to negate it. The negating side needs more alchemists to overcome the disruption. Not sure how I feel about this one, though, and it seems like it'd be too powerful to really rely on numbers when it affects an entire battlefield. It's an option, though.

What do you guys think? I feel I may have been suggesting a lot of powerful things Disrupt could be, but I'm not aiming to win, more to have fun with it. Really, suppression or making it last longer would probably be my picks, but I like the other concepts too.

Tahquil

Totally OP suggestion.

Ether disrupt makes it more difficult for telepathic attacks in the set room. By difficult I mean it might have a half-second delay between the ordering of an act and the act itself or increased chance that mindlocks will fail. It has large re-occurring mana/willpower ticks. Huge costs to the alchemist and near impossible to have up for more than 8 minute stints unless you have alchemists tag-teaming it. Gives them a bit more raid utilty/defense utility since they should be a heavily cityteamwork class.

Sena

The main point of the ability is confusion, disrupting communications without the enemy noticing that anything is wrong. The primary problem is that it's too situational, since a lot of the time the enemy will be mostly inside or mostly outside the area, so inter-area communication is less important. Extending the duration or reducing the cost wouldn't really change anything in regards to that, it would still be just as situational.

There are two changes I can think of that would improve it. The first is to give the alchemist more control over the range. Allow the option of disrupting a single room, or everything within a certain number of rooms (ETHER DISRUPT RADIUS <#>, with radius 0 making it just the current room), so you're not just limited to disrupting communication into/out of the entire area.

The second possibility is making it disrupt communications within the area of effect, not just between areas. Say I disrupted Targossas, any communication within the city would have a small chance of being disrupted, in addition to the current effect. This has the benefit of being useful even when the enemy is entirely grouped in a single room, but it also means that the side using disrupt will have a harder time avoiding the effects, making it more of a double-edged sword (although if you just always send everything twice, you can mostly negate the effect).

Either would make it less predictable and allow it to be useful in a wider variety of situations.

Achimrst

Tahquil said:

Totally OP suggestion.

Ether disrupt makes it more difficult for telepathic attacks in the set room. By difficult I mean it might have a half-second delay between the ordering of an act and the act itself or increased chance that mindlocks will fail. It has large re-occurring mana/willpower ticks. Huge costs to the alchemist and near impossible to have up for more than 8 minute stints unless you have alchemists tag-teaming it. Gives them a bit more raid utilty/defense utility since they should be a heavily cityteamwork class.

Idk I don't see it that way and I am not sure if it would hinder allies to the Alchemist as well, Which I assume it does. Magi can flood a place and make it impossible for Shaman to use runes for los combat. In my view an Alchemist using disrupt is similar in that it would stop both allies and enemy monks from using telepathy to radiance everyone out of the city.

Trevize

Achimrst said:

Tahquil said:

Totally OP suggestion.

Ether disrupt makes it more difficult for telepathic attacks in the set room. By difficult I mean it might have a half-second delay between the ordering of an act and the act itself or increased chance that mindlocks will fail. It has large re-occurring mana/willpower ticks. Huge costs to the alchemist and near impossible to have up for more than 8 minute stints unless you have alchemists tag-teaming it. Gives them a bit more raid utilty/defense utility since they should be a heavily cityteamwork class.

Idk I don't see it that way and I am not sure if it would hinder allies to the Alchemist as well, Which I assume it does. Magi can flood a place and make it impossible for Shaman to use runes for los combat. In my view an Alchemist using disrupt is similar in that it would stop both allies and enemy monks from using telepathy to radiance everyone out of the city.

Hm. Doesn't the shaman rune let you prevent that, if you get to it first, essentially? If it does go in, there should be a way for monks to get around it - but something that requires preparation beforehand, not something you can do after, maybe?

Tahquil

I don't know or understand combat. It was more of a 'Duuuuuuude! Do you know what would be awesome? A unmanned drone that would like... seek out depressed people and drop kittens on them" moment.

Trevize

Tahquil said:

I don't know or understand combat. It was more of a 'Duuuuuuude! Do you know what would be awesome? A unmanned drone that would like... seek out depressed people and drop kittens on them" moment.

It's all good. I'm sure Achaea got its start with someone going "Duuude, you know what would be awesome?"

@Sarapis, can you confirm?

Antonius

@Trevize: Unfortunately that's how we get things like Puppet Obliterate.