Classleads

Alrena

Jovolo said:

That isn't really a fair comparison Kuy. You have to consider what bonuses a Sylvan needs to achieve that state - comparitvely, the same bonuses will cause just as much imbalance in damage for Monks and Magi too. It's just that those two are more easily escaped from or hindered, whereas Thornrend and Wildgrowth and Freeze Ground make for an almost un-winnable situation. Details like that are important, because it will affect the ideas and overhauls that are generated as a result. 

Un-winnable situation? Flying completely bypasses both wildgrowth and frozen ground (so does Evade, obviously). A shield tattoo slows down the Sylvan and makes them lose momentum. There are THREE ways to stop a Sylvan from attacking at all: a single broken/shriveled arm, paralysis and confusion. Even without any of these, you can eventually walk out and keep running.

Florentino

Flying balance is longer than tentacle, so that's a non-starter, honestly. And isn't erode faster than shielding, too?

Alrena

Florentino said:

Flying balance is longer than tentacle, so that's a non-starter, honestly. And isn't erode faster than shielding, too?

Yes, but more often than not, you're off-eq when your enemy shields and flies, and that will make the difference they need to recover health. In reality, I need to erode/tentacle two-three times before I can get another thornrend in. Granted, my ping isn't fabulous, but it is with a diadem.

Flying with a RoF is faster than normal flying too, isn't it?

Jovolo

Place that in context. 

Confusion is a focus cure, which means they need to stick impatience first. How many classes can deliver both confusion and impatience quick enough to actually accomplish that? Apostate, maybe Bard.

Now add Panacea and Tree. 

Paralysis isn't even an issue, this is the exact same case with all other classes. Eat bloodroot. You have bloodboil and passive curing, you'll be fine. 

Erode is like two seconds of equilibrium. Shield is nearly four.

So Runewarden's with fast weapons using nairat epteth and epseth can slow down your momentum, sorry but that doesn't quite make thornrend a very hinderable delivery of damage.

Flying is fair enough, it's a decent counter yes, but you also have access to geyser and passive damage. It's not like the ability to fly just stops you in your tracks and you retain your limb damage even if they do opt to do this. I don't really get the opposition to the idea that the high-end of Sylvan damage is currently too much. You aren't fooling anyone if this is what you're trying to argue.

I shouldn't have used the term un-winnable situation. It was hyperbole as part of the comparison between other classes with high DPS. 

Sena

Dunn said:

Changing their damage type back to cutting or blunt would be a revert back to what they were damage wise. Leaving it as magical at least leaves it possible to scale with int artifacts such as collar and +int arties. Why would you want to go back to cutting where it would scale with neither?

Why couldn't it be cutting damage that's increased by int and collars? The damage type shouldn't matter for that (there already is a blunt attack increased by int and collars after all).

Dunn

It'd have to be a hybrid damage type.

Viridian grants +2 con, +2 int, physical resistance aura.

With quick-witted and diadem you rend at about 2.1 seconds. It hits harder than a sensitive DSL at a similar speed with a four limb count to break with a parry bypass.

I don't feel the need to say more than that.

Jovolo

3 seconds with neither. 2.7 with quick-witted. 2.35 with quick-witted and diadem. Not that much difference but give unartifacted Sylvan's some love, their damage is really not that bad. Getting their base speed wrong could lead to unfair witch hunts.

Everything else I agree with, and the damage is stupid high. I'm confident it will be reworked to have reduced DPS and higher burst potential in line with Heartseed though. 

Dunn

I said about. I'll include variance next time.

Alrena

What... so you have two classes who could stick confusion. Three more can use double epteth or epseth/epteth to slow Sylvans down. Two can evade. How many can fly? 

I don't get how you say Thornrend isn't a hinderable offense when it's so easy to. Sure limbdamage sticks, but how is that different from monks? Just that we have wildgrowth, right. Except you can eventually just walk out of that, or just fly out.

Yes, artied Sylvan damage is high, but is it worse than an artied Occie warp/hound? An artied monk or magi? It's the same problem with monks, if you nerf the damage, it's going to hit the unartied sylvans pretty bad, whose damage is really manageable. If the problem is the fact we can do limbdamage at the same time, I suggested a solution to that.

I'd also be happy with heartseed doing more damage if cured with breaks, because it's hard to get it done with more than 3 broken limbs on an enemy, and the damage is still not worth it then. Then it'd be manageable even if thornrend damage is toned down a bit.

Kresslack

The thread isn't to call anyone out on their classleads, nor should it be used in that manner. It's to review classlead submissions and discuss why (if) they're really necessary.

Trey

Alrena said:

What... so you have two classes who could stick confusion. Three more can use double epteth or epseth/epteth to slow Sylvans down. Two can evade. How many can fly? 

I don't get how you say Thornrend isn't a hinderable offense when it's so easy to. Sure limbdamage sticks, but how is that different from monks? Just that we have wildgrowth, right. Except you can eventually just walk out of that, or just fly out.

Yes, artied Sylvan damage is high, but is it worse than an artied Occie warp/hound? An artied monk or magi? It's the same problem with monks, if you nerf the damage, it's going to hit the unartied sylvans pretty bad, whose damage is really manageable. If the problem is the fact we can do limbdamage at the same time, I suggested a solution to that.

I'd also be happy with heartseed doing more damage if cured with breaks, because it's hard to get it done with more than 3 broken limbs on an enemy, and the damage is still not worth it then. Then it'd be manageable even if thornrend damage is toned down a bit.

Just wanted to point out that the high Hound damage was apparently a bug, given that it shouldn't be affected by Collar. 

Also, the point isn't -solely- the damage. It's the damage coupled with the fast limb prep coupled with with the parry bypass. Essentially, Sylvans do a knight's job better than a knight in every category, artefacted knights included.

Dunn

Hound also scales off of total afflictions. It doesn't do a lot on its own.

Nakari

Sena said:

Dunn said:

Changing their damage type back to cutting or blunt would be a revert back to what they were damage wise. Leaving it as magical at least leaves it possible to scale with int artifacts such as collar and +int arties. Why would you want to go back to cutting where it would scale with neither?

Why couldn't it be cutting damage that's increased by int and collars? The damage type shouldn't matter for that (there already is a blunt attack increased by int and collars after all).

yeah, I don't feel like there's really been a reason given as to why this would't fix a lot of the problems. It would make it affected by armor again and could potentially make it not affected by collar, which would help reduce the damage at the high ends of artifacted that seem to be a problem. 

I guess my biggest issues with this discussion are that the proposed fix would have pretty strong effects on unartifacted sylvans, slowing down hunting speed, mana, and damage on all their other, less problematic attacks, but also that the proposed fix targets one of the features that makes the class so unique. Every time people start complaining about soulspear/truename/whatever, one argument that usually seems to arise is that the game should have unique, powerful skills in some form, and that just nerfing everyone down is a boring approach. I suppose there just aren't enough sylvans to get up in arms about things like this, though.

None of this is to say that a fix isn't needed, but I think that it would be significantly better if it could be done without pretty seriously hurting the viability of unartifacted sylvans (already hurting in this equation because not having a diadem limits damage and heartseed potential rather drastically), and also preferably while leaving a large part of what makes heartseed cool in place. I'm certain that there is a more creative, viable solution then just a flat -2 int.

Alrena

Having given it some serious thought... if the problem is artied Sylvan damage, rather than unartied, why not just reduce the benefit from intelligence after 17-18int? Or, as I already stated, reduce targetted thornrend damage much like targetted dsl's hurt less than untargetted.

Jovolo's classlead seems decent, until you start thinking about the many ways magic damage can be mitigated, as in trans Constitution, resistance ability, blessings, magic resistance enchantment and a ring of the magus. @Aegoth got all of this, and it turned my damage into a manageable state for his 4K health. This is extreme, but imagine if Sylvan damage was nerfed. Artied people could even more easily tank Sylvan damage, and heartseed is easily preventable if the enemy knows what they're doing. The damage heartseed currently does is not worth using it for this purpose due to the long EQ time, and the amount of work it takes to have your enemy cure it with even three limbs.

Sylvan used to be absolutely pointless in 1v1 before it got buffed up to the point it is now. So pointless, that 90% of achaea doesn't know how to deal with heartseed. I don't know if the damage is that crazy, considering there are very few Sylvan combatants, and I think all of those have arties of varying degrees. There are almost no unartied Sylvan combatants (I'm unsure of Twil's arties, though he's pretty good).

If thornrend damage is nerfed for higher end Intelligence, it'd be fine. If damage for targetted thornrends is reduced, it would make Sylvans choose between damage, or prepping. If damage is drastically nerfed, Sylvans would have to get another option. Perhaps lvl2 lacerate could be more reliable in it's sip decrease, to make it worth using. Perhaps heartseed should do more damage when cured with multiple broken limbs. 

Makarios

I haven't ran any numbers yet on sylvans (will do after the classleads end), but personally I'd think it would be better to make it harder for sylvans to hit the cap rather than lowering the cap. If people are hitting the point of no further worthwhile growth from stat bonuses trivially, that's probably an issue.

That isn't to say they are though, its amazing how much more it seems to hurt when you're the one being hit!

Strata

Alrena said:

... So pointless, that 90% of achaea doesn't know how to deal with heartseed. ...

Hopefully a fix for that will be in store for the 90% you speak of. Personally, I am working on getting into that 10% by replacing svo's salve curing with a completely custom system - something I should have done a year ago.

Myself and Lothiac have sent logs. He still doesn't see that there is a problem. For one, there is no autodetection of class - so when fighting sylvans you have to manually enable sylvan class tricks (not sure what that will do anyway).

Anti-illusion on heartseed just increases the time it takes for the system to recognize it. Meaning if you're fighting sylvan, might as well turn it off.

I have a log from fighting Twil where he managed to get torso in before heartseed - which means you're dead. But -might- have been survivable had svo not completely ignored salve priorities and wasted 2 salve applies on other things before resto'ing torso.

Didn't mean to derail - but... Not sure what the big fuss about sylvan damage is. Just break some shit and heartseed. Only people on custom built systems will survive it. If they're on svo, they're dead.

Valdus

I'm sorry that you feel I'm calling you out @Dunn. That wasn't my intention. Rather, it was to generate discussion about something that many of us feel is an important subject (Sylvans) in order to have a better classlead round and to avoid what I feel is a poor solution to the situation (Removing a flat 10% damage from the class).

Jarrod

It's an 'uninteresting nerf' in the same way it was an uninteresting buff. Taking away the INT and adding in another way for Sylvans to capitalize off limb damage is a good solution without having to rework formulas, and the only real objection to an INT nerf at that point would be 'I want to have higher numbers'.

Blujixapug

Just switch thornrend back to cutting damage, and leave it int-based. The intention was to allow sylvans to spec for a single stat - intelligence, not str for thornrend and int for everything else - not to switch thornrend to a damage type for which most people have 10-20% less resistance.

Exelethril

I think we're treading a thin line here. Sylvans were an irrelevant 1 vs 1 class not too long ago and heartseed, like vivisect, is preventable if you know how to cure. 

If their opponents can cure heartseed perfectly, they only have damage to rely on and in light of these suggested nerfs, would make them largely irrelevant against high armour classes. At present, thornrend/bees/efreeti damage is high but reducible by a good margin with proper resistance.

Frankly, I would much rather fight a damage based class with a preventable finisher, where tanking artefacts would help against rather than against a momentum based afflicting class with little hinderance against and a movement hindering ability. 

At present, I think occultist combat scales too well with a Thoths fang/torc/diadem/buckawns and is almost impossible to cure perfectly against.

A Thoths fang's speed enables an occultist to beat herb balance reliably(high accuracy/speed) and if wielded on the right hand, two crippled arms would rarely slow them down. When rebounding is up, a diadem allows them to inflict without losing much momentum. Proning doesn't hinder their momentum since a diadem with a torc allows them to maintain paralysis while prone at a ~1 sec balance. Gremlin's EQ balance scales too well with diadem and afflictions, making shielding useless past a certain point. Etc.

Jarrod

Jarrod said:

It's an 'uninteresting nerf' in the same way it was an uninteresting buff. Taking away the INT and adding in another way for Sylvans to capitalize off limb damage is a good solution without having to rework formulas, and the only real objection to an INT nerf at that point would be 'I want to have higher numbers'.

Aegoth

So how about those Magi classleads. Some discussion on those (88, 89, 90, 10) would be awesome, because I know for a fact that my suggestions aren't as good as they could be on a few of them, and are only bandaid solutions to the problems reported.. but it's all my school-addled brain can mustre. Gather, my fellow combatants, and discuss! (Also, where the hell is our Classlead #39 [the vibe stasis one] from last classlead report @Tecton, @Makarios !!!)

Kuy

People keep saying Sylvans were irrelevant until recently.  I don't think that's because of the classlead changes to them.  I think it's more because some people who know what they are doing became sylvans and lots of folk still struggle with heartseed.

The damage is just icing on the cake.

Valdus

It seems to me that everybody complained about Monk damage, but there was a rather resistant outcry to lowering monk damage since there are a lot more Monks than there are Sylvans.

I agree with @Kuy. My concern is that since people are suddenly dying to Sylvans they're going to get nerfed back into obscurity because there aren't enough Sylvan players to argue against the nerfs.

Alrena

Valdus said:

It seems to me that everybody complained about Monk damage, but there was a rather resistant outcry to lowering monk damage since there are a lot more Monks than there are Sylvans.

I agree with @Kuy. My concern is that since people are suddenly dying to Sylvans they're going to get nerfed back into obscurity because there aren't enough Sylvan players to argue against the nerfs.

I can always argue harder to make up for it! 

Regardless, how about... 

Problem:

Ring of flying completely negates the effect of tentacles. Fly never fails to escape.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solution #1:

Make ring of flying/normal flight subject to tentacles

Solution #2:

Solution #3:

Is this really necessary? It's been argued above that tentacle tattoos are sufficient to stop flying, and tentacles are pretty much the same as wildgrowth. Should these two abilities not have an innate weakness in the form of flying completely bypassing them? I know very little about occie combat, so I'm wondering if flying really messes them up that much.

Xer

As a note, no one needed to know how to cure Sylvan heartseed before its timer got buffed because you could cure both broken legs, torso and heartseed in the standard way and heartseed still wouldn't kill anyone if it were done in time. I think it got buffed from 12 to 11? Something along those lines. The buff to heartseed time is what allows artied Sylvan to kill people with it assuming most standard curing. But now I go back to my hidey hole and study for my finals so I can maintain my scholarships and not have to live on 10 dollars a day for food lol.

Tharvis

it shouldn't, flying takes balance, and if you're fighting without a tentacle tattoo or any other way to drag them to the ground, that's pretty much their own fault

Kuy

Valdus said:

It seems to me that everybody complained about Monk damage, but there was a rather resistant outcry to lowering monk damage since there are a lot more Monks than there are Sylvans.

I agree with @Kuy. My concern is that since people are suddenly dying to Sylvans they're going to get nerfed back into obscurity because there aren't enough Sylvan players to argue against the nerfs.

Monk damage is crazy as well, yes. However, Lothiac-level sylvan damage is simply too much. It's one of those cases where you just don't stand a chance if you're not on his monetary tier. While anecdotal, as a shaman I can at least survive against Kross (another artied monk) if I play super super carefully. That doesn't happen against the sylvans I've ever fought. But anecdotal evidence is worth about nothing.

Coming from my still limited experience, I really like @Alrena's suggestion of lowering (preferably greatly) the amount of damage a targeted thornrend does.

Jarrod

Flying is annoying at least because you can just put a paperweight down on your enter key with 'fly' in the command input and you'll negate their offense.

This is true for a lot of classes though, so it's hard to say if anything needs to be done about it or if it's another one of those 'if someone doesn't want to die and is smart they'll get away' situations.

Antonius

Flying being stopped by tentacles was rejected last classlead round and nothing has changed since.

Kuy said:

People keep saying Sylvans were irrelevant until recently.  I don't think that's because of the classlead changes to them.  I think it's more because some people who know what they are doing became sylvans and lots of folk still struggle with heartseed.

The damage is just icing on the cake.

Sylvan was irrelevant because it was almost mechanically impossible for them to kill anybody. Saying it's because "some people who know what they are doing became sylvans" seems pretty insulting to the Sylvan(s) who did all of the work involved with actually making it a viable class.