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Comments
The problem is that this pattern has repeated over and over in this thread:
(1) Someone brings up an argument contra your position.
(2) You explain why you don't think that argument is valid (some of these explanations are quite nice too).
(3) People are not wholly satisfied by your counterargument, still think the argument has merit, and don't think your criticism of it destroys the totality of the argument.
(4) You repeat why you didn't think it was valid.
And then, for each argument, 3 and 4 keep happening until the other person just gives up. Because, if they don't, you'll just respond again and again making the same points. You've repeated the same points at least a dozen times over the last few pages. We get it. We understand what you're saying. Some people just don't agree with you about the severity of the problem or about whether the problem is acceptable in the grand scheme of balance.
And then when they do give up, you smuggly assert that this thread is nothing but insults and everyone who has disagreed with you is clearly wrong.
I don't even have any real stake in this and even I find it grating to read through.
Can we please move on and maybe discuss anything else about BM other than evade?
If it's easy to get out of it, evade is then OK against piety and, at least in that context, requires no nerf.
If it's not easy to get out of it, then it relies on an RNG mechanic which is incredibly imprecise in its utility. Another RNG mechanic? Rapiers. Rapiers were awful. Rapiers are getting standardized.
I see where you're coming from, and admit to being a bit defensive.
It's a side effect of having people consistently disagree with whatever I say, purely because of the name at the top of the post.
Not saying that everyone participates in this, or that everyone who does is entirely wrong. Just saying that that is the reason why I react the way I do, sometimes.
Trying to fight this by being as detailed and polite as possible.
Having re-read this thread like 4-5 times now, I seriously don't see any actual solid arguments though. There have been arguments just not good ones.
Sure, everyone's entitled to an opinion, but I've done my best to make this an opion-free discussion, by focusing on measurable, quantitative, or example (or lack of) based points, instead of a "it's right/wrong because I said so".
The only thing that's really open to opinion really is how important the problem is. The reason I believe it to be very important (in my opinion!) is that the problem applies to almost every class in the game, and essentially guarantees kills by any blademaster that decides to use it.
Also, @Tael's post highlighted most of my other concerns. Your arguments have mostly been "evade is broken defensively," without a lot of thought given toward how it works as a whole, yet rather than arguing for some nerf to keep that in check (for example, increase blademaster evade balance costs under certain circumstances eg. piety, tentacles, dizziness, whatever), you want its absolute removal.
Personally, one of my favorite things about evade is the whole suddenly appearing bit. It's mostly a roleplaying tool, but not having it anymore would really kind of disappoint me. What's your argument regarding that, for example?
Because various classes require (and thus, have) various forms of hindrance and disincentives (like Engage), as part of their class balance.
Evade bypasses literally all of them (other than Hamstring, ironically). The things that you listed (highleap, leap, hamstring/walking, dashing, bounding) are all stopped by various forms of hindrance, thus giving the classes that require hindrance a chance to actually fight back.
IMO Evade was added to the class as a method of escaping and to give the class more mobility. I do not think that it was intended to be used offensively to slow prep. It seems like an oversight, not a feature of the class.
It should also be pointed out that the class was almost entirely designed based on theory, making it completely impossible to predict every possible strategy/tactic that people would discover. I absolutely see this as one of the things that wasn't foreseen, and wasn't intended.
Having evade would be badass to roleplay for any class. That doesn't make it balanced for PVP. As an almost entirely PVP related ability, it's also kindof hard to justify its existence in Shindo for "RP". If you made a pie-chart of uses of Evade, I'm pretty sure you'd find that "roleplay" would barely be visible.
My personal uses of evade were:
- traversing through a room unseen (mostly for roleplaying reasons, as I rarely used it to sneak past enemies, although that did happen in some raids)
- sneaking up on someone (Nim would sometimes go for quite a while before being seen, though her best friend eventually made a point of learning to spot her anyway)
- going "bamf!" and then not being in the room anymore
- getting away from knights (in a pinch, leap or dash is also acceptable, except when it's not and evading over an ice wall is literally my only hope for survival)
- messing with occultists and serpents, though truthfully I used high leap rather than evade when I absolutely needed to heal up
- piety and gravehands are the worst things in the world why do they even exist!!!
Looks about half to me, but then again I am a very roleplay-centric player. It's basically all @Iocun's fault Nim's even into combat.Not trying to be abrasive, but this is what I got from your post:
Blademaster needs Evade because:
1) moving without being seen ( a function that already exists in the form of Shroud )
2) emoting
3) emoting / sneaking (see: shroud)
4) getting away from engage: 1: unecessary, 2: there are many other ways to escape engage (not the least of which is void/para or super-fast arm/leg breaks, which BM specializes in)
5) ?? (you answered your own question, highleap > serpent + occie hindrance, and void/para can be used to shut down their momentum)
6) piety/gravehands exist well within balanced 1v1 and group combat, particularly for the affliction classes that rely solely on them to build any momentum. (more debate/discussion specifically on piety/gravehands should probably be moved elsewhere, to avoid further derailing)
I do see what you're saying as far as roleplay/flavor, but essentially "breaking" BM combat to provide a bit of "ninja" flavor to the class seems a little absurd to me. Also: They're not freaking ninjas.
Maybe BMs should get shroud, and lose evade. If not, you can always buy the Shroud artefact. (almost everything you listed can be accomplished as any class, with the Shroud artefact)
tl/dr:
Nothing that you mentioned requires Evade.
Shroud would be an incredibly poor substitute (and again, balancing classes around the availability of utility artefacts is silly) - it doesn't provide the same functionality as any of the things I mentioned. You're also wrong that shroud would be a suitable replacement too - there are (pretty widely available nowadays) ways to see through shroud (the various lifevision abilities and artefacts) that can't see an evade. The utility of shroud pales in comparison to evade. It's would also be thematically weird for BM to get shroud - I think it's very much intentional that they can move silently right now, but don't have any ability to actually hide themselves.
There are also traps, out-of-combat walls (i.e., throw down a single wall and now no BM can ever sneak past the group since they'll have to leap over it - and groups already tend to wall pretty liberally during raids), etc. Hell, evade is even really useful in a number of PvE places to bypass on-exit and on-entrance mechanics like in Kasmarkin (and if there is another thing BM doesn't need, it's nerfs to their PvE utility).
If BM evade is causing problems or wasn't intended to work the way it does re slow prepping, it should be changed to respect hindrance or should be made somehow less viable in combat (obviously the same changes should not be made to serpent evade). I would be absolutely fine with an evade that wasn't practical for use in combat (hell, I'd be okay if you flat-out couldn't use it for x seconds after using/being the target of any hostile action). BMs have other tools to get out of the room in combat and they're not supposed to be sneaky during combat - they're supposed to be mobile, which the other abilities already achieve (but they are supposed to be sneaky outside of it). Just getting rid of evade wholesale would be a huge blow to the class outside of 1v1 and there are much better solutions than simply removing it if this really is a problem.
Evade is one of the most high-utility abilities in the entire game - maybe even the highest. I think this problem, if it exists, could be solved without removing it, but If BM is going to lose it, the class should get something in return. Obviously not greater 1v1 capability, but some additional ability to do useful things outside of melee (particularly since it makes it harder to get into melee without evade).
In general, I think you're making a lot of good points about why Evade is awesome, but you're not making any real points on why blademasters need it. Pretty much everything you mentioned as a reason for BMs having Evade could be applied to every class. Similarly, any class that relies on limb prep to kill having Evade would be just as broken.
On another note entirely, I think there are many ways you could implement the functionality of "sneaking into rooms" without having the ability to completely bypass every hindrance ability in existence.
For instance, here's a simple concept that'd meet everything you mentioned without having access to Evade:
Cloaking
At the expense of a heavy mana/willpower drain, you may hide your movements entirely, even past those abilities designed to detect most movement.
(essentially Shroud, but bypasses alertness, mindnet, Allsight, etc)
(would recommend still proc'ing hypersight, because ... it'd give it a reason to exist)
or:
Sneak
Move into a room undetected.
(essentially Evade, but affected by all normal hindrance abilities. Masks movement through all normal detection abilities, like Evade)
Forgot to mention Voidfist in group combat.
Here's what happens when you combine BM with priest for about 6 seconds:
diagnose chiam
: [void 3 ] [hamstring] [hell] [par] [imp] [ast] [slic] [stu] [wea] [clu] [nau] [inquisition]
Note: not saying that there's anything wrong with this, just saying: Claiming BMs "need" Evade to participate in group combat is pretty much just.. wrong.
This thread though.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
I know it's taboo to actually back up statements with solid points and respond to feedback, around here.
Thanks for keeping it real though.
I didn't say they were bad at group melee. They're great in group melee.
What I said is that they lacked range. They have no ability to affect the situation in rooms that they're not in. That's a significant disadvantage because a lot of combat in the game happens at range. It is a disadvantage that is not shared by other classes. You mention monk and knight, and both have multiple ranged abilities. Knights have archery, and falcons, and ranged runes/rites that can be left in rooms/all of the shit in necromancy. Monks have ranged kaido abilities and telepathy. They don't need to be sneaky because they can affect the fight without getting into melee.
Blademasters can't. The only way they can affect the fight is to get into melee. During protracted ranged encounters, the only thing they can do is sneak around. The ability to sneak around gives them the chance to get into melee to do things that will affect the situation. Take that away, and their position is made even worse - they just have to twiddle their thumbs during ranged encounters, even moreso than they already do.
Something like your "Sneak" would be absolutely fine. That does exactly what I was saying - it lets them avoid detection without giving them the tremendous combat utility of evade. I'm also not sure why you're acting as though this is somehow some sort of counter-idea to what I suggested ("For instance, here's a simple concept that'd meet everything you mentioned without having access to Evade") when what you are proposing is exactly the same thing I proposed ("If BM evade is causing problems or wasn't intended to work the way it does re slow prepping, it should be changed to respect hindrance").
And, incidentally, you are incorrect about lifevision (and its ilk) and shrouded movement. You can absolutely see shrouded movement with lifevision, and have always been able to.
...
In my seemingly pointless quest to see this thread discuss something other than just evade, I have a question: has anyone ever explained the reason Blademaster has no ranged/room hazards? Whenever I've seen it brought up, the answer has historically been because they're so powerful in melee. But that can't be the justification - the balance goal is to make their melee balanced versus the other classes. We clearly don't want them to just be an unbeatable, unbalanced melee class in exchange for not having ranged attacks. So why exactly has the idea been so consistently rejected?
Many classes don't have LoS. They all (including BM) have access to several insanely powerful LoS artefacts.
See: Priest, Bard, Alchemist, Druid, Magi (without cata), Priest, Sentinel & Sylvan (single room only).
Note that BM melee is better than literally all of those. Nor do any of them have Evade.
Not trying to indirectly answer your point, I was just responding to my understanding of your general point. Sorry if I did. Also, thanks for the info on Lifevision. Never bothered testing it because of alertness.
As I have already pointed out (repeatedly), Priest has Rites, which let them affect combat outside the room they're in. Magi have vibrations - same deal. I've played both of those classes and you can do extremely useful things during ranged combat laying traps. Sentinel has literal traps, and they also have one-room range on quite strong attacks, which is more range than BM.
...and I'll confess I have no idea what "senginels" are.
BM melee may be better than all of those, but, again, I'm not talking about melee. Melee is all well and good, but it's incredibly boring to just twiddle your thumbs during the not-at-all-uncommon protracted ranged engagements in the game.
BMs have Hamstring and voidfist, which extremely frequently impact combat out of their room.
Sorry, but the distinction between "LoS" and "range" is pretty vague, and frankly, BMs don't need what you're asking for.
@Tael Why're you being so defensive? I'm doing my best to have a polite conversation.
So why not implement something like 'elude' that is equal to leap in respecting room hindrance, but is unseen right when you move. As well, you could add flavour text like 1 or 1.5 seconds after the elude based on the stance the blademaster is in to make it a bit more visible like:
Thyr - A delicate wind drifts through the room.
Mir - Droplets of water strike the ground.
Arash - The temperature settles.
etc.
The 1 second or 1.5 second message would also force a tiny bit of timing for the blademaster.
I said they lacked ranged abilities, you responded with all of the reasons they didn't lack group melee ability.
I said they lacked range, you responded with reasons why lacking LoS wasn't a problem.
Anyway, to respond to this: It seems strange to me that you're saying the distinction between LoS and range is vague (I'll confess I'm not really sure that you mean by "vague" here) when that very distinction is pretty crucial to the points you were making: "Claiming that BMs "need" to be sneaky makes about as much sense as saying that Knights or Monks do". My contention was that it made much more sense for BMs than Knights or Monks because both Knights and Monks have ranged.
Hamstring and Voidfist are very much unlike Priest/Magi/Bard/Sentinel in that (again) you have to be in melee to use it. Each of those classes can lay traps in empty rooms while ranged combat is going on. They have something to do. You can't lay a voidfist or a hamstring in a room while ranged combat is going on. As BM, all you can do is twiddle your thumbs and it's a boredom that other classes largely don't have to contend with - pretty much every other class has something they can be doing. That's what I was trying to get at.
Not every class needs what you're calling "range". Not all classes have what you are calling "range". Every class has access to LoS, which is included in what you're calling "range", with boomerang/axes/bows/bombs/meteors.
There's also Dragon (accessible to everyone), which is essentially worthless in PVP except in group combat, which has a long list of "range" type attacks and abilities.
I know that in raids, about half the time, I go Dragon, purely because Priest lacks any and all LoS or "range" (despite losing rites) purely because Priest (like Blademaster) is an almost entirely melee-centric class. This is one of the only good things about dragon, is that it opens up options in raids that aren't generally available to most classes.
@Vaehl
See (the bottom of) my post near the middle of the page (linked).
http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/comment/210552/#Comment_210552
My point wasn't that BM can't affect things out of room, it was that they don't need to.
Caltrops was suggested, which would be fine, but only if Hamstring was removed. Any kind of summon would also be ridiculous considering that it's virtually impossible to escape them already. Any kind of in-room effect of any kind would be drastically overpowered, considering that in-room, BM is already pretty much a death sentence.
You're also operating under the assumption that every class needs to be able to hit other players without being in the room. It's important to realize that this is an assumption, and isn't necessarily the case.
Willing to entertain the idea of BM having out-of-room impact, but only with significant changes to how the class is currently balanced. Otherwise, you're looking at a significant buff to what is already one of the strongest 1v1 classes in the game.
I do realise that every class being able to hit players without being in-room is an assumption, but it's an assumption that every other class conforms to. While it can't be ignored that it is an assumption, the ubiquity of those abilities is also something that can't be ignored.
My preference is still just to see them given archery a la knights. It has pretty minimal impact on their 1v1 situation, far less than being able to, for instance, fill an area with caltrops. And, as you yourself have pointed out, they can already buy artefact bows, so it's not like this would be such a massive increase to their abilities - it just lets people who don't buy artefacts participate in ranged combat like the people who do (and since you pointed out the availability of artefact bows as a mitigating factor to their lack of range, I'm assuming you're not opposed to them having bows).
It fits the "samurai" theme plenty well too.
As for the "significant buff to what is already one of the strongest 1v1 classes in the game", I still think this is really strange logic. The goal has always been to make the classes at least mostly balanced in 1v1. If 1v1 prowess is the justification for them not having ranged, why are you complaining that their 1v1 is too strong as in the past few pages? It seems like people who say this are trying to have it both ways - they don't get to have ranged because their 1v1 is too strong, and their 1v1 is too strong and needs to be adjusted in various ways.
I've been rooting for BMs having archery since day 1, although you should probably note that Archery is significantly more than just SHOOT (which is all you get from artie bow). However with this suggestion comes stipulations.
I don't really care about what you call a caltrops ability, as long as it doesn't stack somehow with Hamstring, and doesn't add to their already insane affliction rate and/or incredibly high PVP dps, without otherwise balancing one of them out to reflect it.
Also kinda funny that you're opposed to "caltrops" but not "samurai", although if you're going to go the samurai route, they have absolutely no business having Evade, anyways. No samurai would ever flee from combat repeatedly, repeately re-entering, hitting someone, and fleeing again. Not that RP should impact combat balance, I just found that kindof ironic.
Archery is also very important to 1v1, particularly since it gives you free access to meteors. BM already has massive amounts of DPS, hindrance, and damage stacking capability. Adding a meteor stack to it, particularly for free, just seems reckless and not well thought out.
Perhaps you should come up with some "range" type things and submit some as classleads. I would suggest, however, including ways to balance out any impact they have on 1v1 or other forms of combat, if you are going to be essentially "adding" more abilities to the class.
+ Hits room hinder like Leap.
+ Bypasses block, walls and rubble
+ Movement is concealed with flavour text 2 seconds after movement. Give it a 2 seconds balance cost before nimble.
+ Bypasses mindnet.
This is still a very strong ability without the dumb combination of Evade and limb prep.
You're right that achery comes with more than just SHOOT (although all it actually adds is a bit of accuracy and AIM, which isn't so huge particularly now that bow accuracy is so much lower than it used to be). But I'm not sure about the meteor point you make, since artefact bows can do that already. Particularly as you were advocating the consideration of the availability of artefacts in balance, it seems like either the availability of meteors to BMs is a problem (in which case it's an issue that they can get it via artefacts) or it isn't that much of a problem (in which case it wouldn't be terrible if they didn't have to spend credits on it). Though personally, I've always thought the availability of meteors to everyone via artefact bows was a little bit questionable, so I'm not necessarily against you on this one. And nothing in principle actually prevents them adding a bow ability that doesn't allow you to fire meteors - there isn't one in the game right now, but it doesn't seem totally insane - perhaps BMs would use a kind of bow other than darkbows and that type of bow can't fire meteors? I could even see doing something slightly more interesting with it and giving them bow attacks that have elemental effects rather than just doing damage, to really tie it into their skills and possibly to further reduce the relative utility of it in 1v1.
I probably will submit some kind of bow to classleads next time. And I agree entirely that the goal would be to avoid giving them more useful tools for 1v1 - I don't think that's impossible by any means though, their 1v1 is so strong that giving them something that is more useful than any of their current ranged abilities (which any ranged ability is by default), but is less useful than anything else they could be doing in melee, shouldn't be too hard.
One other idea that might fit thematically would be a sort of ranged "wind slash" ability, which would be very much in line with the flavour of the class.
Would fix BM. Would endorse 10/10.
I actually quite like the idea of the movement message showing up after the movement, though I think it would also function perfectly well if it didn't have a message at all, similar to evade (and I think it might have a greater chance of seeing endorsements with that more minimal change). The lack of a message wasn't the thing that causes any real problems, it was the lack of hindrance. A two-second delayed message doesn't help much in 1v1, where two lost seconds is pretty huge and you're likely to notice and check your surroundings before that anyway, but it does decrease the utility of the skill. It seems like it would be better with no message.
Would favor a 1 second delay instead of 2, since a 2 second delay is essentially pointless to every class with an attack rate less than 2 seconds (most of them).
Still requires farsee/squint spam on every move, which is seriously underrated.
@Tael
Warms my heart to have come to some kind of agreement with you.
If it's delayed much at all, it's pretty pointless since, as Ernam points out, you're going to notice it before then anyway the majority of the time (that's probably even true of a 1-second delay, since it's not very likely that the BM will evade the moment after your first attack lands). And since most abilities in the game don't actually have a balance cost when they miss, you don't really lose anything by noticing it missed and having to relocate and move (I guess you do if you're slow, but there's no reason you couldn't script that against a BM - serpents have the advantage that you don't know which room they went into since they have HIDE, but BMs have no such advantage).
So it doesn't do much to reduce the 1v1 capabilities of the class. But it does significantly impact the raid utility, since it means you can't move through stacks of enemies anymore. If you use it to move through a stack of enemies, just after you use it again to move off the stack, they'll know you're in an adjacent room and murder you.
I think the idea without that (which is essentially the same as what Ernam and I both separately suggested, an evade that can't be used while hindered), is preferable.