Shaman Changes when are they coming?

Jovolo

Well you don't have to do that tbf. Hangedman and bind are also ridiculous

Kaie

Yes and no on that. Sure hangedman/Bind is great against affliction classes like serpent or occultist. However, Shaman doesn't really have Hangedman so, it's kind of at a disadvantage with that approach. If we're talking just about getting that doll to a level where you can break hell on some one, you can't really be using Bind all that much. It has a cost of 2 fashions which means you'll be lucky if you get 1 fashion up when truefashion procs by the time they writhe. You'll still get ahead in the long run while they restart prep, but it won't really save face from limb prep classes all that well, it'll only delay it and with bind it'll delay you both.

Building an adequate puppet/doll to secure a solid (hard to escape) kill attempt means 50+ fashions which means any limb prepping class can prep legs about 3 times over before you reach goal, keeping in mind you can do nothing prone. However once you're there it can be hell for the opponent. So, it's love/hate with that. Sometimes it's golden, other times it's miserable and you're running for your life.

Bukariin

Jesters also have a variety of defenses (e.g. Balancing and Acrobatics) that impede prepping which Shamans don't.

Austere

sorry,  but no.  Lowest, non-illusion, highly reliable lock I found was 15 fashions. You can whore clumsiness against prep class and you have nairat and stonewalls.  Throw in illusions on svo, and you should never need fifty fashions. 

Edit: on svo, it is 7 fashions. 

Hasar

Runelore has a nice set for defence. Tumbling past a stonewall into wunjo/nairat is pretty effective. That being said, fashioning does seem a 'meh' mechanic and maybe it'll be addressed, haven't heard / recall any good replacements though.

Kaie

Austere said:

sorry,  but no.  Lowest, non-illusion, highly reliable lock I found was 15 fashions. You can whore clumsiness against prep class and you have nairat and stonewalls.  Throw in illusions on svo, and you should never need fifty fashions. 

Edit: on svo, it is 7 fashions. 

With runelore yeah, you have other options. I was just talking about Bind/Hangedman there. It's not endall and svo breaking illusions don't count.. it just falls to pieces with certain illusions until some one gets wise and fixes it. @hasar has it right. It's meh, but there are no great replacements named. I can't see you really being extremely reliable with 15 fashions, but then again I've been Jester for 3 years and dont' class hop. So I might be missing something by just glancing at the skills.

Austere

Loving Bluef's disagree.  Instead of crying about your class so much,  why not try something else.  Be creative.  If all else fails,  ask Howdin. You two are tight,  and he and I figured a lot of our locks out together. 

And no,  the svo lock isn't whoring Concussion illusions.  It is just a defense strip illusion. 

Bluef

Austere said:

Loving Bluef's disagree.  Instead of crying about your class so much,  why not try something else.  Be creative.  If all else fails,  ask Howdin. You two are tight,  and he and I figured a lot of our locks out together. 

And no,  the svo lock isn't whoring Concussion illusions.  It is just a defense strip illusion. 

I'm not sure why you're calling me out. Disagreeing isn't a huge deal, is it? To clarify though, I disagreed because the only person I've ever seen pull off a less than 10 fashion lock was Andraste and that was a one-trick pony. Same as a defense strip would be once someone realized what you were doing. 

Also: I don't see -anyone- crying about the class here.  They were having a discussion, which is what the forums is used for. From everything I'd heard about you IC, your  attitude in this post sort of surprises me. I hope I'm just misreading its tone. 

Jovolo

I had thought out an extensive replacement but I'm on my phone currently. Will post it all tomorrow for some open discussion.

Also Bluef, your disagreeing with Austere isn't constructive - you don't even know what his idea is, anymore than you can comment on how successful it is. I think it's safe to say you don't know of all, or the best, strategies available to Shamans. To add to that, because beliebe me I'm not "calling you out" Bluef- claiming something works and is highly reliable and then neglecting to mention what it is isn't constructice. Your stratrgy might be awesome, and it might be shit. It might even be non-existant, butjust alluding to it is both pointless and useless.

Not even going to try and correct those typoes. What a mess!

Austere

Yeah,  I showed Andraste a few of my low fashion locks too.  Of course people figure out how they work and you have to change it.  There is no static kill all combo, which is why I have never copy/pasted my stuff for novice use.  You can avoid even having to use the illusion strip on 90% of classes if you follow their balance properly. 

Was not meant to offend you,  Bluef. The fact is, shaman is very much a class that if you can't figure it out on your own with minimal guidance,  you will not succeed.  If someone shows you a low fashion trick,  the reason it works will be fixed by the time you get around to using it. 

Andraste

Yea, and since a lot of those low fashion locks were illusion based, the server side curing system sent me back to the drawing board. It hasn't totally killed me since there are still features SVO has that keeps people using it, despite that fact. I'll be holding out for these sweeping changes to see if the class is worth staying with or bailing for something new like Serpent or back to Bard. Time will tell.

Achimrst

I just have to say I have made low fashion, like 17 fashions I think it was, ideas for locking and have run into a lot of the problems with them being one trick ponies like people are saying.

It is really fun coming up with different ideas on how to kill someone as a shaman though, it's one of the reasons I like the class so much. It's so versatile and you have to actually think about it and plan things in advance. Especially for different classes!

Achimrst

Hasar said:

Runelore has a nice set for defence. Tumbling past a stonewall into wunjo/nairat is pretty effective. That being said, fashioning does seem a 'meh' mechanic and maybe it'll be addressed, haven't heard / recall any good replacements though.

If I use stonewall in a duel/spar the person will just brazier me unless I have time to actually drop a monolith. Takes too much time if you ask me, runelore just takes too much time period!

And if you run away to set up some runes in rooms around the area, you immediately get called out as being a "forestal fighter" and get told how you're not actually fighting you just running away.

Jovolo

Kaie said:

Yes and no on that. Sure hangedman/Bind is great against affliction classes like serpent or occultist. However, Shaman doesn't really have Hangedman so, it's kind of at a disadvantage with that approach. If we're talking just about getting that doll to a level where you can break hell on some one, you can't really be using Bind all that much. It has a cost of 2 fashions which means you'll be lucky if you get 1 fashion up when truefashion procs by the time they writhe. You'll still get ahead in the long run while they restart prep, but it won't really save face from limb prep classes all that well, it'll only delay it and with bind it'll delay you both.

Building an adequate puppet/doll to secure a solid (hard to escape) kill attempt means 50+ fashions which means any limb prepping class can prep legs about 3 times over before you reach goal, keeping in mind you can do nothing prone. However once you're there it can be hell for the opponent. So, it's love/hate with that. Sometimes it's golden, other times it's miserable and you're running for your life.

You're right, Shamans don't get that. Instead they get Gular, Wunjo/Nairat, Algiz, Jera, Hidden weariness/clumsiness to mitigate and avoid physical damage, etc etc. Every single class has the same problem against prep classes: You don't reset their offence, you just slow it down. It isn't something exclusive to fashion classes. Bind is one of the longest writhe times in the game, close to transfix. You should often be able to fashion x2 inside the time they writhe.

Fashion classes are in a great position against prep classes defensively, and even better against momentum classes.

I'll post up those fashion ideas momentarily

Jovolo

Fashioning idea:

Add the ability of 'TETHER' to Vodun and Puppetry.

"TETHER <person>" - "Daeir raises his fingers in the air and begins to produce ethereal strings from them. Jovolo's eyes widen momentarily as the strings envelop his body before seemingly disappearing from view." This would cost a second of balance.

"FASHION DOLL/PUPPET OF <person>" - "Daeir squints shrewdly at Jovolo. A puppet|doll of Jovolo begins to elevate as Daeir whispers words of ominous power to himself." The activation of this ability would require both balance and equilibrium, and would cost one second of equilibrium (before Diadem).

[This begins a process where every 1.5 seconds a fashion ticks for the user including at the time of activation of the ability, making a total of four procs. There would be a chance for truefashion to occur on each of these procs. At the end of this process - 5 seconds later - The Jester|Shaman gets all of the accumulated fashions of the target. The target must be in the room at the end of this process for the Jester|Shaman to gather the accumulated fashions, but may leave during the process without interrupting it.];

The Jester|Shaman would be able to prematurely end the process with END FASHIONING, which would call the puppet|doll back to them, canceling the process altogether and eliminating any acquired fashions during that specific process. This action would require balance and equilibrium, returning the puppet|doll back to the fashioner's inventory and costing a second of balance. This would not break the tether: The command of which would be CUT TETHER, or something else that's agreeable.

As the act of fashioning would cause the Jester|Shaman to no longer actually be wielding the puppet|doll, the Shaman can wield a shield/weapon, and the Jester can juggle three weapons while the fashioning takes place, or likewise wield a weapon and shield.

** The process needs to be restarted every time it finishes, but the tethered connection lasts for as long as the Jester|Shaman isn't separated from their target for longer than sixty seconds. The fashions would decay back to 0 as usual if the target and fashioner are not mutually allied, after an hour has passed since the last fashion. A tether needs to be created for fashioning to begin. For any puppetry|vodun abilities to be used, the Jester|Shaman must be holding the doll/puppet like usual. This means they cannot use the fashioning process while using puppetry or vodun abilities, and vice versa. **

Altogether, this allows the Jester to actually use their room control abilities - Tower, Peels, Bombs, Hangedman, Juggled Daggers/Hierophant, and so on - while they're fashioning, but allows the target to tumble away from a Jester before they get their guaranteed amount of fashions. Shaman's have the ability to use curses while this process takes place, and they also can pre-rune a few rooms, and keep Gular's up for room hindrance. The Jester|Shaman would be able to play more offensively, while making a fashion and run tactic not only disfavourable but highly impractical. 

With the discussion of an overhaul to Shaman which I see as them potentially losing runelore in place of another skill which would give them adequate defensive replacement with the loss of gular, jera, algiz, wunjo and nairat, and greater offensive diversity without the need of a doll to enact, the idea could be created with this new Tether/Fashion idea in mind should it take off.

That's it so far.

Hasar

Achimrst said:

Hasar said:

Runelore has a nice set for defence. Tumbling past a stonewall into wunjo/nairat is pretty effective. That being said, fashioning does seem a 'meh' mechanic and maybe it'll be addressed, haven't heard / recall any good replacements though.

If I use stonewall in a duel/spar the person will just brazier me unless I have time to actually drop a monolith. Takes too much time if you ask me, runelore just takes too much time period!

And if you run away to set up some runes in rooms around the area, you immediately get called out as being a "forestal fighter" and get told how you're not actually fighting you just running away.

Well...if they brazier you, you already make them lose momentum (however long the EQ is for brazier). Usually enough time to cure limb breaks. And you can also put monoliths down beforehand..

Wait, they'll kill those monoliths or pick them up!??! - Welcome to every Magi sigil war fight ever. And uh...if people are talking shit for you leaving to place runes and using your skillset, who cares? Maybe just journal idk.

Achimrst

Jovolo said:

Fashioning idea:

Add the ability of 'TETHER' to Vodun and Puppetry.

"TETHER <person>" - "Daeir raises his fingers in the air and begins to produce ethereal strings from them. Jovolo's eyes widen momentarily as the strings envelop his body before seemingly disappearing from view." This would cost a second of balance.

"FASHION DOLL/PUPPET OF <person>" - "Daeir squints shrewdly at Jovolo. A puppet|doll of Jovolo begins to elevate as Daeir whispers words of ominous power to himself." The activation of this ability would require both balance and equilibrium, and would cost one second of equilibrium (before Diadem).

[This begins a process where every 1.5 seconds a fashion ticks for the user including at the time of activation of the ability, making a total of four procs. There would be a chance for truefashion to occur on each of these procs. At the end of this process - 5 seconds later - The Jester|Shaman gets all of the accumulated fashions of the target. The target must be in the room at the end of this process for the Jester|Shaman to gather the accumulated fashions, but may leave during the process without interrupting it.];

The Jester|Shaman would be able to prematurely end the process with END FASHIONING, which would call the puppet|doll back to them, canceling the process altogether and eliminating any acquired fashions during that specific process. This action would require balance and equilibrium, returning the puppet|doll back to the fashioner's inventory and costing a second of balance. This would not break the tether: The command of which would be CUT TETHER, or something else that's agreeable.

As the act of fashioning would cause the Jester|Shaman to no longer actually be wielding the puppet|doll, the Shaman can wield a shield/weapon, and the Jester can juggle three weapons while the fashioning takes place, or likewise wield a weapon and shield.

** The process needs to be restarted every time it finishes, but the tethered connection lasts for as long as the Jester|Shaman isn't separated from their target for longer than sixty seconds. The fashions would decay back to 0 as usual if the target and fashioner are not mutually allied, after an hour has passed since the last fashion. A tether needs to be created for fashioning to begin. For any puppetry|vodun abilities to be used, the Jester|Shaman must be holding the doll/puppet like usual. This means they cannot use the fashioning process while using puppetry or vodun abilities, and vice versa. **

Altogether, this allows the Jester to actually use their room control abilities - Tower, Peels, Bombs, Hangedman, Juggled Daggers/Hierophant, and so on - while they're fashioning, but allows the target to tumble away from a Jester before they get their guaranteed amount of fashions. Shaman's have the ability to use curses while this process takes place, and they also can pre-rune a few rooms, and keep Gular's up for room hindrance. The Jester|Shaman would be able to play more offensively, while making a fashion and run tactic not only disfavourable but highly impractical. 

With the discussion of an overhaul to Shaman which I see as them potentially losing runelore in place of another skill which would give them adequate defensive replacement with the loss of gular, jera, algiz, wunjo and nairat, and greater offensive diversity without the need of a doll to enact, the idea could be created with this new Tether/Fashion idea in mind should it take off.

That's it so far.

I definitely like this idea, although Shaman don't typically have a weapon that they use so I'm not sure what else I would hold in my hand. I can imbibe easier than I can stab for a lock.

Although didn't @Tecton basically say he was tearing Shaman skills up and reworking them? Or they were, whoever does that stuff blah blah whatever. I honestly don't even think fashioning or Vodun are going to stay with Shaman.

Austere

Need dagger for slickness and a shield.  Imbibe requirement is to high. Don't have to worry about missing because at that point, they should have paralysis.

Achimrst

Austere said:

Need dagger for slickness and a shield.  Imbibe requirement is to high. Don't have to worry about missing because at that point, they should have paralysis.

imbibe is 10 fashions, it's not that high if you have a fashion per second with this tether thing. Add Diadem and Quick-witted and fashions taking equilibrium, it would be pretty fast from how it sounds.

Austere

I forgot how low it was.  Either way, burning a fashion that you don't have to.

Edit: not taking into account throw speed or having to buy daggers.  Weapon rune changes definitely hurt it some. 

Achimrst

Maybe, but you gotta use it for something! The point was to make fashioning more useful and I'm either going to totem that lock or curse it!

Bluef

Jovolo said:

Fashioning idea:

Add the ability of 'TETHER' to Vodun and Puppetry.

"TETHER <person>" - "Daeir raises his fingers in the air and begins to produce ethereal strings from them. Jovolo's eyes widen momentarily as the strings envelop his body before seemingly disappearing from view." This would cost a second of balance.

"FASHION DOLL/PUPPET OF <person>" - "Daeir squints shrewdly at Jovolo. A puppet|doll of Jovolo begins to elevate as Daeir whispers words of ominous power to himself." The activation of this ability would require both balance and equilibrium, and would cost one second of equilibrium (before Diadem).

[This begins a process where every 1.5 seconds a fashion ticks for the user including at the time of activation of the ability, making a total of four procs. There would be a chance for truefashion to occur on each of these procs. At the end of this process - 5 seconds later - The Jester|Shaman gets all of the accumulated fashions of the target. The target must be in the room at the end of this process for the Jester|Shaman to gather the accumulated fashions, but may leave during the process without interrupting it.];

The Jester|Shaman would be able to prematurely end the process with END FASHIONING, which would call the puppet|doll back to them, canceling the process altogether and eliminating any acquired fashions during that specific process. This action would require balance and equilibrium, returning the puppet|doll back to the fashioner's inventory and costing a second of balance. This would not break the tether: The command of which would be CUT TETHER, or something else that's agreeable.

As the act of fashioning would cause the Jester|Shaman to no longer actually be wielding the puppet|doll, the Shaman can wield a shield/weapon, and the Jester can juggle three weapons while the fashioning takes place, or likewise wield a weapon and shield.

** The process needs to be restarted every time it finishes, but the tethered connection lasts for as long as the Jester|Shaman isn't separated from their target for longer than sixty seconds. The fashions would decay back to 0 as usual if the target and fashioner are not mutually allied, after an hour has passed since the last fashion. A tether needs to be created for fashioning to begin. For any puppetry|vodun abilities to be used, the Jester|Shaman must be holding the doll/puppet like usual. This means they cannot use the fashioning process while using puppetry or vodun abilities, and vice versa. **

Altogether, this allows the Jester to actually use their room control abilities - Tower, Peels, Bombs, Hangedman, Juggled Daggers/Hierophant, and so on - while they're fashioning, but allows the target to tumble away from a Jester before they get their guaranteed amount of fashions. Shaman's have the ability to use curses while this process takes place, and they also can pre-rune a few rooms, and keep Gular's up for room hindrance. The Jester|Shaman would be able to play more offensively, while making a fashion and run tactic not only disfavourable but highly impractical. 

With the discussion of an overhaul to Shaman which I see as them potentially losing runelore in place of another skill which would give them adequate defensive replacement with the loss of gular, jera, algiz, wunjo and nairat, and greater offensive diversity without the need of a doll to enact, the idea could be created with this new Tether/Fashion idea in mind should it take off.

That's it so far.

I don't mean to be overly critical because I can tell you put some real thought into these ideas, but I see some problems right off the bat:

1. This would make it incredibly easy for people to stop the fashioning process. Oh, you're a shaman? Run away before the process ends and stay on the run for 60 seconds. It turns shamans away from a fight and flee (and fight again) class into a fight and chase one, thereby limiting our ability to use runes offensively because if we're chasing someone down we won't have time to re-sketch them or throw up walls. [Edit: Actually walls could be used against us in this instance because we'd either have to find away around them ourselves or take the added time to sketch gular again to take them down so we're not leaping into the unknown in chase].

2. I don't see where shamans have any difficulty wielding items now as things stand. I wield my shield and a doll without difficulty, and even I have other pretty basic wielding stuff set up to allow me to very easily switch out a rapier, totem, etc. and then rewield the shield/doll later. For jesters, yes I guess this might help them out if juggling and fashioning is really an issue. From what little I've heard though, the re-work of the class is intended to separate shaman/jester not make it so that the mechanics of one work better for the other.

3. This doesn't address the problem of people simply running as soon as a shaman (or jester) has a workable number of fashions. I'm not much of a combatant but even for me this has been a big problem. You fight someone. They run back to their city or ship and just wait out the decay time on the doll. Then they jump you again or re-initiate conflict. Sure, their prep is ruined too, but ruining that was a choice they made only because they knew you had the fashions to be deadly. 

4. We would still have the problem of having to stand in the room with heavy damage classes that could easily prep us three times for a kill within the amount of time we gather one decently made doll if #1 on this list is abused regularly.

5. This goes along with a few other things I've already mentioned but the flavour of tether seems very puppetry-ish, whereas shamans invoke spirits to fashion a doll. I'm sure that could be worked out in the wording of the final ability messages though.

Again, I'm not trying to be a pill; I am happy to acknowledge that you are very attuned to the mechanics of the classes. But at the same time I'm concerned that the problems that low to mid-tier combatants face aren't really wholly addressed by these suggested changes. 

I wish we had more details on what this re-work was going to entail. I've heard everything from rumours that shamans were losing vodun entirely to we're losing vodun and runelore in exchange for some flavourful mechanics that make the class truly unique and set it apart from jesters. I guess only time will tell - unless @Tecton‌ will give us a sneak peek? 

Achimrst

Hisssssss @Bluef

Edit: Also, I am pretty sure Shaman are losing everything. No Curses, No Runelore, No Vodun. At least that's how it sounded to me.

Austere

I agree with Bluef. A little more transparency goes a long way.  Not just for Shaman, either. We all like surprises,  but there is quite a bit of cliffhanger,  in the works, stuff going on right now.   I am on credit buying strike because of a lot of what is going to change, we have no clue about. Could be today, could be a year. 

Achimrst

Austere said:

I agree with Bluef. A little more transparency goes a long way.  Not just for Shaman, either. We all like surprises,  but there is quite a bit of cliffhanger,  in the works, stuff going on right now.   I am on credit buying strike because of a lot of what is going to change, we have no clue about. Could be today, could be a year. 

Meanwhile Shaman are fundamentally broken.

Jovolo

No, they aren't.

Achimrst

Jovolo said:

No, they aren't.

Yes huh! :P Tecton said so himself! They going back to formula Jovolo! Back to formula!!!

Edit: For the record I am just exaggerating.

Tecton

We've got some thoughts, but we've not started fleshing them out yet. Knights are the current project, but Shamans are the next class that we'll be working on in an in-depth fashion.

Austere

@Tecton‌ out of curiosity,  why were most of the suggestions for Shaman blocked the last round of classleads when there was going to be such a huge delay.  Not trying to complain or criticizing,  so I apologize if it comes of that way.  I am just curious as to whether you guys had a plan and decided not to follow through and change it,  or what.

Edit: While shaman is by no means broken,  it does have rough spots that got to the irritating point of quitting for people like me.  It's definitely one of the least popular classes, so it needs tlc. Glad I was impatient. 

Achimrst

Tecton said:

We've got some thoughts, but we've not started fleshing them out yet. Knights are the current project, but Shamans are the next class that we'll be working on in an in-depth fashion.

Yeah because knights need help killing people.

Edit: Because emotions are hard to express online. #Bitter