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Comments
Not to mention as I said, your momentum is far faster than a shaman using vodun, and a shaman using curses loses ALL momentum when you run away. You're making it a bit lopsided and pushing shaman into using only curses since fashions will just fade if they run away from you because they think you have too many, or you run from them to cure.
If someone vodun travels from your room to a guard stack, just hire on the person they travelled to or kill that person later. I agree it's a stupid tactic to use in a fight but it doesn't completely destroy the other uses that vodun travel offers.
It would be silly if vodun actually became a full momentum skill (unless you could combo it with curses, which would be neat, but I imagine a balance headache) - since you're absolutely right that other momentum classes would blow it out of the water - but losing one or two fashions for curing up is not that. If that were the intention, he would have suggested losing all fashions. The point is that you can still fashion and run away, but running away has a cost. And that cost incentivizes only running away when you need to rather than "playing it safe" and running away after every fashion like a BM prepping limbs by evading after every single attack (but with a one-hour reset timer).
I'm certainly not super-knowledgeable here (though I guess neither are several other people posting in this thread, so I don't feel like I'm speaking entirely out of turn), but I can't really see how losing a small part of your prep in return for forcing your momentum-based opponent to lose their entire prep is "over the top".
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
I think you both have pretty much nailed what I was trying to say on the head.
Fortunately, IRE has been quite visibly shifting things away from both slow prep and using fast-travel during combat.
I mean, exactly. It's silly that this is even possible, but as it currently works, it isn't just possible, it's the obvious "best" method to use, as it is heavily incentivized, easy to do, and works every time (unless the person just decides to sit in their city for an hour). (which is exactly what @Antonius said). This is particularly true because of countless changes in affliction momentum that make it slower, and several changes to limb damage (both slower, and resets after 3 minutes).
a) 99% of shamans are idiots and don't know how to fight because they're binding the wrong things
b) There are several different strategies for fighting as a shaman that don't include binding Maligus.
Considering that shaman has always been an incredibly flexible class, and Spiritlore seems as though it was intended to maximize that, I'm obviously supporting the latter position. But since some people believe everyone should always be binding Maligus, fine. Let's run with that.
Everyone binds Maligus. You incorporate rather drastic doll decay for movement. Now let's go with Ernam's suggestion: What we really need then is a quick escape method to move away and not lose fashions. Alright...
But we already have that already: It's called INVOKE PROJECTION under Aelkesh: "It will allow you to fling yourself out of potentially fatal situations. Be warned, however it is far from accurate." Even if Aelkesh were made more accurate, increased from one room out to three or had its balance decreased, etc. this means that to be "most effective" shamans would now have to bind both Maligus and Aelkesh.
We can only bind 5 spirits, leaving just 3 empty slots. Such changes (and mindset) diminish the agility of the class as a whole in favour of nerfing one top tier player (who is artied to the hilt) by suggesting tweaks that make these two spirits must-haves while simultaneously ignoring that there are other strategies in existence for combat that focus on only one skillset or combine the three minus Maligus.
Edit: I'll be honest, I may be more likely to say "Oh okay..." if limb prep were anything at all like doll prep but the fact is that you can't do anything with a handful of fashions and you can do a lot with a prepped limb. Likewise, if the problems with communion and making bindings much more easy to do mid-fight were addressed first, then I could see discussing these things. But as it stands, a shaman has to sit down, commune with spirits, and go through a lot of rigamarole to re-bind and attune spirits, making it impossible for them to switch out strategies mid-fight or even to fight at all if they're in "bashing mode" as far as bindings go.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
Now let's actually add in that you stay in a room for 5 sec and you might gain 2, 3, or 4 fashions based on if you truefashioned or not. Now you lose one fashion for running, and you go down to 1, 2, or 3 fashions left. IMO that would make it waaaay slower than it is now. It would literally make vodun impossible to get enough fashions without using curses to drain mana, in which case you might as well set them up for an inflame kill giving shaman absolutely no use for the entire skillset of vodun.
60 seconds for 20 fashions, where you give your opponent zero opportunity to get anything on you, might be slow, but it's possible, easy to do, and extremely frequently the only strategy many shamans/jesters use.
It's hard to discuss all at once because Jester is so insanely good at slow prepping (thanks to having so many evasion/survival/hindrance abilities, while Shaman has it a bit harder when it comes to long, drawn-out fights.
Wouldn't mind seeing @Jarrod's idea implemented alongside something to help Shamans in this regard, however you have to keep in mind that they did just get an entirely new skillset - that does address this and other issues for the class. It would be kindof interesting to see what'd happen if you made Curse/fashion combinations (for shaman only) possible, to make it more momentum-based instead of a long-term slow prep.
Only hesitant about its use in raid defense/group, since you will spend a lot of your time not in your targets room, essentially leaving you with 0 fashions if that was changed. Although a doll in group pvp can get pretty absurd, kinda overkill on what the shaman has access to as a fight draws on longer.
Maligus could probably use some looking at to. My experience is you either get no fashions, or wayyyyy too many in a fight.
You -have- to assume that a Shaman wanting to fashion is using Maligus. It would be stupid (and unbalanced) to assume otherwise.
Your statement that "If shaman were half as OP" etc. is also wrong. Not everyone plays the class that is most OP.
Your other arguments that there is more than one way to play Shaman is also right and wrong. You can do many, many things as Shaman in both group and 1v1 combat that are amazing. You have to assume that the Shaman is going to correctly bind for their preferred playstyle. Yes, this means that there are wrong binds for your playstyle.
Your examples are like a pre-knight change Infernal using slow battleaxes and saying he can't vivisect so the class needs changed. No, he chose an inferior play style, and is incorrectly playing his class.
There are many shaman who don't use Maligus at all. In addition to those that do regularly, we should also -have- to take that into consideration when we're talking about lessening fashions for movement.
There is no 'correct binding' for a shaman because playstyles are diverse. People trying to argue there is just want to get this classlead across. Again, this is where other prep classes and shamans diverge greatly.
Finally, again, doll prep is nothing like limb prep. We're comparing apples and oranges. Using top tier combatants and their singular play style, more to the point, is like comparing Eris' golden apples and diluted orange concentrate.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
Cascades of quicksilver light streak across the firmament as the celestial voice of Ourania intones, "Oh Jarrod..."
Shamans who don't use maligus AND are fashion based, are dumb. No other way around it.
I also said nothing about there being "correct bindings", only that there are wrong bindings for play styles. If you're going to quote what I said and twist it into something that it wasn't, please just stop talking now.
Saying doll prep is not like limb prep is irrelevant. Doll prep is -much- stronger than limb prep in pretty much every scenario. It can only be reset by leaving for an hour, and is much stronger than limb preps after it's finished if used properly.
Using top tier combatants and their (not singular, at all, not even a little bit) play styles is exactly what we have to balance around. We don't balance around your play style of using your skills inefficiently.
Vodun users have many options since the introduction of Spiritlore. Many of these strategies include lower fashion counts. By 'balancing' the class in this way, you're imbalancing this agility. Shaman do not need to be solely focused on getting high fashions anymore, and this proposed changed hurts those that don't in favour of 'balancing' those that do.
There is no reason to insult players who have different combat strategies than going for high yield fashions.
Discussion of 'correct bindings' was in reply to someone else - I reply to ideas posted, sometimes in bulk not just to specific people I single out for rude comments.
This particular classlead is absolutely attempting to balance around one person's play style. A top tier person who is artied out. This has already been stipulated to in prior postings.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
It is not a classlead that 'hurts' high fashion strategies unless you consider the fact that they're effectively unbeatable once obtained and this gives them a counter is a hurt. I think it improves the game as a whole.
Cascades of quicksilver light streak across the firmament as the celestial voice of Ourania intones, "Oh Jarrod..."
The thing people are talking about as problematic is that, at present, nothing stops you from just fashioning once, moving out of the room to reset the opponent's momentum, and repeating. It's boring and it's slow, but there is no downside to it at all. There never has been either. This is not a new problem brought on by Malignus for instance. Malignus makes the problem more apparent since it makes it less slow, but isn't at the core of it. It has nothing to do with artefacts either - if anything, it's a stronger strategy for people without artefacts, who have less ability to weather the enemy attacks and are even further incentivised to frequently leave the room and heal up.
The point is that the speed at which you can acquire fashions is completely meaningless as a balancing factor against momentum classes if the fashions don't decay. If it took five fashions to make a useful doll, you could run after each fashion, reseting your enemy's momentum, and then use the doll. If it took three-hundred fashions to make a useful doll, you could run after each fashion, reseting the enemy's momentum, and then use the doll. Without some decay mechanism, the number of fashions it takes and the speed at which you acquire them only changes how boring it is to play that way, not how powerful a strategy it is.
With a decay mechanism, you have to balance leaving the room to heal up and staying in the room to get fashions. You can't heal up as much as you want and fashion once or twice whenever it's convenient. You have to give momentum classes a chance against you while you're fashioning.
And all of those problems are made worse by how safe you can be while running between fashions, largely as a function of distance. If all you can do is run one room away after each fashion, the person can chase you (possibly with jumpkick or lunge too). If they react quickly or plan ahead, they can have a hope of keeping their momentum going. If you can get twenty rooms away, however, you've pretty much robbed them of any hope. Hence the suggestion that it be distance-based: you can still run away to heal up, but you have to decide whether to reset your own offence in addition to theirs by getting to a truly safe distance or dance around near the enemy to keep your offence going and also give them a chance to keep theirs going.
That's the reasoning behind it. It isn't about Malignus or about artefacts. It isn't really about anything new at all. People are discussing this because it's an opportunity to address a longstanding issue with dolls and combat balance.
(Also, you should maybe reread a few of your posts and the ones you've been responding to. Your complaint about the post starting with "you" being a personal attack was silly. Of those "you"s, one was a generic "you" (used in a similar way to the pronoun "one"), three were "your argument", "your statement", and "your example", which should obviously be fair game for discussion, and the other one was just "You are wrong". There is no reasonable way to construe his usage of "you" as indicative of a personal attack.)
The statement you crossed out says that if you are wanting to be fashion based and are not using maligus, then you are dumb. That is a true statement.
And again, I clearly stated that I was not in any way talking about the classlead you're referencing. Please stop trolling.
This wouldn't work, as we're talking about anyone being able to shutdown an entire class skill by typing "say duanathar". Leaving for 30 seconds then coming back and laughing in our face.
I suggested that the current fashion decay mechanic could be changed to cause some fashions to begin to decay earlier, instead of all fashions decaying after an hour. What are your thoughts on that?
I think you need to be a bit more realistic than "I want dolls gone in 6 minutes and their prep to start decaying in 10 seconds!"
You say fashioning is much slower than limb prep? Okay, make it six minutes, no fashion loss in the interval. Does that seem more reasonable?
These things are not comparable. I haven't heard anyone comment on slow decay over the course of an hour, instead of all decay after an hour. This is a far less radical change, that still accomplishes a lot of the goals here.
Think about the reverse. What do you think someone is accomplishing by walking out of the room for ten seconds consistently enough to actually hinder fashioning? I suggested the six minute decay time could be partitioned into twenty seconds too, which sounds pretty fair. Momentum classes will completely ruin their momentum, and limb damage classes will have to deal with your limbs resetting.
It's a realistic approach to the dilemma of a Jester or Shaman playing the fashion-and-run game.
A realistic approach is to punish them for leaving yes, but not nearly as severely as you're talking.
You're talking about denying an entire class skillset after 6 minutes of someone chilling in guards. Right now decay is set at an hour, which is reasonable except for the problem you're talking about, where there is no punishment for leaving.
As I've suggested multiple times, decay can begin earlier (not 20 seconds, but I could say after a minute?) With the end result having been a full decay after an hour.
I would even be okay with fashions decaying every sixty seconds instead of ten or twenty, but if you assume that it still takes a full hour for a doll to decay, that makes the fashion loss each minute proc negligible. It's barely two fashions decaying for every minute a Shaman/Jester wants to remain out of the room of the target.
The overall decay time needs to be much, much shorter.
So sure, Vodun/Puppetry have huge impacts an hour after the fight, because the entire skill is designed around requiring huge amounts of dedicated prep during which time little or no pressure is being put on the opponent. Completely unlike any other prep in the game.
A nerf down to minutes means any momentum class can try to kill the Shaman/Jester, and if they fail twice they can run and just never have to deal with an entire skillset of a class, which I think we can all agree would be pretty dumb.
Right now, a slow decay over an hour is reasonable, so that the affects of the skill lessen but aren't completely diminished over that period. If the skills are completely redone to change how fashioning is implemented, as an entirely passive part of Regular Jester/Shaman offense like every other prep class in the game, we can look at bringing it in line with the decay of that sort of prep.