Quick Questions

Tvistor

Can you elaborate a little bit on band making a 'tiny' difference, Mizik? Most of the blademasters I've spoken to have implied quite strongly that a L3 band is bordering on as important as artie dirks for serpents.

Nellaundra

Tvistor said:

Can you elaborate a little bit on band making a 'tiny' difference, Mizik? Most of the blademasters I've spoken to have implied quite strongly that a L3 band is bordering on as important as artie dirks for serpents.

It's not -as- needed as that.  It's more in line with the rest of the artefacts, such as a diadem.  Biiiig difference, but it's not vital.

Aeolithon

It's not as critical as an artefact dirk for Serpents, as you can still perform at a very high level as an unbanded blademaster - A testament to its melee strength. It just improves the amount of slashes you can get per Fist/hamstring, how quick you break, damage ... Etcetera. Definitely useful and a noticeable improvement, though, imo.

Iocun

I don't think I'd die to a blademaster without a band unless I quite messed up.

But then I'm quite defensively artied, so that's an unfair comparisation. Unartied versus very artied is obviously always at a severe disadvantage.

You definitely don't need a band to kill (most) other unartied people.

Mizik

Yeah, you're all right. What was I thinking.

PM me more tips

Iocun

PMing. Always glad to help out a newbie.

Tanris

Band really not that major anymore. Its nice, but wouldn't be anywhere near the first thing I'd buy as bm. Trans avoidance, get l2 sip ring, profit.

A bit late, but @katzchen: get wings. Seriously.

Aeolithon

I wasn't even disagreeing with you @Mizik, just pointing out the actual advantages of having a band and why it's not as critical to have one as an artied dirk for serp.   :-bd

Jacen

Get a band. More strike necks per voidfist.

Aeolithon

Thought was trolling, but then saw is Hashani...

Jacen

-shrug- I point you to Caladbolg's post in the combat logs. That's all my duels yesterday were with him, voidfist para impale. I generally don't even duel blademasters because if it, figured Caladbolg wouldn't do it though.

Tanris

You're monk, the one class most equipped to deal with that nonsense. Banish him on voidfist.

Dorn

This is why Voidfist needs changing, IMO. Much as I like having a big shiny I WIN button, it makes things tedious. I mean hell, I can kill people with Voidfist and Striking alone, no blade - sure, good fighters will get around it, but the fact that I can remove the need for my sword with Voidfist at all is just silly.

Been trying to come up with some ways to preserve its utility while making it more reasonable, right now the best idea I have is extending herb balance by 0.5s - the time a failed eat under voidfist would take. So with perfect curing and an assumed 50% proc rate, it'd be almost like current voidfist for affliction stacking or groups, but 1v1 void-para-impale would be harder and perma-paralysis while prepping would be pretty much impossible.

Only problem I can see with it is that a level 3 banded, Thyr stanced pommelstrike is around 0.8s - you'd be getting three, sometimes four afflictions inside one herb balance. Not sure if that's OP or not, since we don't really have sensitivity, and our afflictions aren't in and of themselves all that dangerous.

...Okay, since this is meant to be 'quick questions', there's my question. Thoughts?

Tanris

The idea that voidfist is necessary as a drop and leave mechanic at the cost of striking twice (pretty sure mizik said it was two or three strikes for him to get enough shin) is pretty laughable. It needs either to have a proper prep requirement or to have its functionality changed (I prefer the former personally, as the concept is neat). Blademasters don't even need voidfist for free impales, so the pre impaleslash argument falls flat. It doesn't serve that purpose presently, it serves as a spam twist enabler.

Aktillum

How many seconds after flinging death can you perform regular commands without interrupting the kill. Or is that another skill? Or am I imagining things altogether?

it's cold in here

Tanris

Death duration is 8 seconds, channeled action, so nothing while its doing it.

Dorn

Tanris said:

The idea that voidfist is necessary as a drop and leave mechanic at the cost of striking twice (pretty sure mizik said it was two or three strikes for him to get enough shin) is pretty laughable. It needs either to have a proper prep requirement or to have its functionality changed (I prefer the former personally, as the concept is neat). Blademasters don't even need voidfist for free impales, so the pre impaleslash argument falls flat. It doesn't serve that purpose presently, it serves as a spam twist enabler.

Or a total lockdown enabler. I've started and finished fights in 30-40 seconds using Voidfist to lock my target down so hard they couldn't actually attack me.

That isn't fun for them, and while God Mode has its attractions initially, anyone serious isn't going to find it fun being on the giving end either.

Personally I don't like the RNG aspect of it (or Airfist for that matter), hence suggesting an adjustment that removes that aspect in favour of something more reliable but less broken, or at least that appears less broken at a glance.

(I'm not sure how to make Airfist less random. Perhaps making it so you can't move parry? I'd trade that for negating Chaos Orbs 100% (it already negates Guarding 100%), a good Blademaster ought to be able to prep a parried limb without targetting it.)

I suppose I'd be okay with it having a proper prep requirement, but, in that case, what would it be for? Twist spamming? That's what limb prep is for. Pre-impaleslashes? We've got other ways to get those, though if this made it more reliable (such as making it harder for the target to escape somehow) then that would be pretty cool - it'd add options. Other than that, though, we really don't need afflictions much 1v1, and in groups if it needs a prep it just won't be used.

Aktillum

Tanris said:

Death duration is 8 seconds, channeled action, so nothing while its doing it.

What skill was I thinking of? I swear there's an unchanneled after x seconds instakill. Daegger?

Tvistor

Voyria? Darkshade?

Old age?

Aeolithon

Dorn said:

Tanris said:

The idea that voidfist is necessary as a drop and leave mechanic at the cost of striking twice (pretty sure mizik said it was two or three strikes for him to get enough shin) is pretty laughable. It needs either to have a proper prep requirement or to have its functionality changed (I prefer the former personally, as the concept is neat). Blademasters don't even need voidfist for free impales, so the pre impaleslash argument falls flat. It doesn't serve that purpose presently, it serves as a spam twist enabler.

Or a total lockdown enabler. I've started and finished fights in 30-40 seconds using Voidfist to lock my target down so hard they couldn't actually attack me.

That isn't fun for them, and while God Mode has its attractions initially, anyone serious isn't going to find it fun being on the giving end either.

Personally I don't like the RNG aspect of it (or Airfist for that matter), hence suggesting an adjustment that removes that aspect in favour of something more reliable but less broken, or at least that appears less broken at a glance.

(I'm not sure how to make Airfist less random. Perhaps making it so you can't move parry? I'd trade that for negating Chaos Orbs 100% (it already negates Guarding 100%), a good Blademaster ought to be able to prep a parried limb without targetting it.)

I suppose I'd be okay with it having a proper prep requirement, but, in that case, what would it be for? Twist spamming? That's what limb prep is for. Pre-impaleslashes? We've got other ways to get those, though if this made it more reliable (such as making it harder for the target to escape somehow) then that would be pretty cool - it'd add options. Other than that, though, we really don't need afflictions much 1v1, and in groups if it needs a prep it just won't be used.

1) Chaos orb isn't a good reason to boost airfist up to 100%. The fact that it already hits guarding 100% of the time is amazingly strong anyway, and as a Blademaster (Especially with a level 3 band) parry should be the -least- of your problems.

EDIT: sorry; To clarify this point: I know that wasn't directly dealing with your actual proposition but I just wanted to account for sweeping ideas to make it 100% negation of parry across the board - You can deal with chaos orbs by 'Drawslash orb' or 'Throw orbsigil at orb'.

2) Voidfist does need a change... Hmmm, radical, but, thoughts on making people who are voidfisted unable to be impaled for the duration of it?

(Think about it.)

Dorn

Aeolithon said:

1) Chaos orb isn't a good reason to boost airfist up to 100%. The fact that it already hits guarding 100% of the time is amazingly strong anyway, and as a Blademaster (Especially with a level 3 band) parry should be the -least- of your problems.

EDIT: sorry; To clarify this point: I know that wasn't directly dealing with your actual proposition but I just wanted to account for sweeping ideas to make it 100% negation of parry across the board - You can deal with chaos orbs by 'Drawslash orb' or 'Throw orbsigil at orb'.

2) Voidfist does need a change... Hmmm, radical, but, thoughts on making people who are voidfisted unable to be impaled for the duration of it?

Just to note, the idea was to boost Chaos Orbs to 100% but reduce Parrying to 0% - and just make it so you can't move the parrying. With Chaos Orbs not being affected by it (with this idea Airfist wouldn't be random, so either it negates Chaos Orbs or it doesn't), an Occultist can just Parry left leg, Orb right leg, and you can't do a thing about it except kill the orb until they stop resummoning it.

That one's not really important, though - Airfist works pretty well as it is, and Chaos Orbs aren't a big deal, I just don't like things being random and that seemed a fair trade. ^^'\

As for Voidfist making you unimpaleable... That wouldn't stop me just permanently paralyzing you and prepping you while you can't do anything to stop me. And if I overshoot how much time I need with you voidfisted, well, I'll just prep your torso or head while I'm at it, or loop a bunch of afflictions to make your day worse. I never use it for void/para/impale, pom/neck-pom/neck-impale is just as reliable and harder to predict, as is pom/knee into an attack and impale off that, or raze shield/knee and impale. That's just off the top of my head.

What Voidfist needs is to have the random aspect reduced/removed, or altered at the least. Tacking the 0.5s herb balance loss of a normal proc onto every herb balance sounds like the simplest way to do it - another way that keeps the random aspect might be to give it a 50% proc rate but have it extend herb balance by a second, or similar. The herb still works - it'll just take longer till you can eat another.

Aeolithon

Exactly, remove the aspect to impale and you destroy a significantly abusable part of it while retaining their ability to pre-impaleslash/prep via prone or para. Then can work out how to balance the hindrance aspect of it; It would be nice if the chance to prevent a herb from working was significantly reduced over the course of a voidfist, and it didn't make you lose herb balance. This provides some great new ideas for Blademasters to employ with voidfist while reducing the spam para and/or impale with it. Increasing herb balance kinda decreases one of the strongest points of voidfist imo.

Tanris

If you don't want it for hinder or impale and primarily want it for afflicting, removing paralysis as a blockable aff is the obvious solution. No doubt many blademasters will look in horror at that suggestion, but it is the most sensible fix: and would allow for a potential buff saying voidfist will always block at least one herb eat.

Iocun

My extremely awesome, but perhaps insufficient and overly complicated idea I had for voidfist yesterday:

Allow people to eat multiple herbs at once (i.e. groups of herbs). Each additional herb eaten increases the time you're off herb balance by one herb balance duration, but also gives you an additional chance to bypass voidfist. E.g. if you're voidfisted with paralysis and eat a group of three bloodroot, you're off herb balance for 4.5 seconds, but have a triple chance of successfully curing paralysis. Wouldn't be a big nerf to voidfist all in all, but would allow those affected by it to get unafflicted with great certainty, if they really need it, but also require them to get the hell out after that in order to not be re-afflicted immediately.

I'd like that because of the defensive considerations this would add (which are also of a kind that's not quite as easy/optimal to automate), but yeah, would perhaps not be enough of a nerf and it would likely be difficult to implement (since there's currently no mechanic for eating groups of herbs at all).

Mizik

Erm, what's wrong with Airfist? It's like our single most useful ability. We won't be changing that.

If changed to not block paralyse, Voidfist's 1v1 utility will be brought down to 0. I have to disagree with those who say that the mechanic is worth preserving. There is nothing fun about A) 15 sec incurable paralysis (-ing joke), Needlessly and wastefully burning herbs (stupid). Its utility lies in allowing us to capitalize on an affliction that would otherwise be instantly cured.

I think extending herb balance by a full second would be an interesting and more balanced alternative. It would serve as an unique way for the class to emulate afflicting (as knights do) by EFFECTIVELY stacking stacking consecutive afflictions. Compare to double slash effectiveness in keeping one affliction stuck on the opponent.

The only thing that would be missed is Voidfist's use for burning pre outr'd herbs. But riftlock so tedious these days. Just outr more.

Aeolithon

No ur dumb.

Tanris

Extending herb bal would be a step up I guess, although I suspect we'd see the same problem (void/pommel neck/impale). You can always run then though, so this would be a marked improvement.

Iocun

I'd be fine with that, as there'd still be a guarantee then to cure paralysis once at the right moment, if you cure carefully.

Aeolithon

I didn't know Voidfist made it 100% impossible to cure a herb for its duration.

Vaehl

perma clumsy life