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Comments
I'm not trying to be argumentative, I really want to know the rationale! If anyone who understands combat balance better has time to explain it.
Not sure about shaman. Have not played as one in years.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
@Tael:
Curseward has a longer equilibrium than shield, so its not actually as spammable. It also gets progressively longer (the equilibrium) the more you consecutively spam it. So its fairly distinct from shield.
Other affliction classes generally have multiple things to deal with as an offensive barrier. Rebounding, sileris for serpent. Rebounding, deafness for bard, etc etc. Typically, most affliction classes have parts of their offense that are stopped by one thing, but said thing will not stop other parts of their offense, which allows for transitions situationally.
So basically, it comes down to a case of diversity, and lets us handle the primary defence against cursed base classes slightly differently, without impacting other classes (as would be the case if we tweaked shield, which would impact just about every class to one degree or another).
Using pure curses and mangles to lock a class not willing to stick around for curses simply cannot really happen, except with salvelock trickery that is easily defeated by curseward. The cost of 2.25 seconds balance per mangle is simply too high to use it to hinder for a lock setup, however it has been generally enough to let me get an aeon setup similar to what I used to be able to do. That being said, the cost for this setup has increased drastically from 43 fashions to about 53, which is unfortunate as against many fighters Maligus is simply not an option. It's also less reliable, as I have yet to actually get someone into aeon while prone, meaning that classes such as Blademaster and Occultists that can take advantage of not being prone to get away or escape this no longer works on.
The reliability of kills seems like it was the main target for this change, so this is fine and with some tweaking and additional fashions I should be able to make this work against those classes. However I don't think the cost increase was realistically justified. If Maligus is difficult to balance at this point (this seems to be the case) I would prefer removing it rather than being given a severe disadvantage against anyone with the stats to make Maligus not even worth attempting. (Most INT classes, any prep class that feels like running whenever their mana gets low, anyone that has any artefact at all that increases mana regen/sip rate)
Putting people off salve-balance and prone to attempt a lock is not always possible, not before, not now, since curseward can be used while prone. Curseward is the single ability that can easily be used to break all finishers. There is nothing to counter Curseward either, except opponent if off-EQ for the entire lock attempt, which typically takes more than 8-10 curses as almost everyone has some sort of active/passive curing.
Aeon setup is what I am currently doing, and I avoided relying on curses until target is actually in aeon (won't even try relapse asthma into aeon). The reason is the same, they can run - so we break their limbs and prone them, then they can still just curseward while prone.
Mangle can have lower required fashion rather than 25. For a Shaman to pull off a kill strat, it likely takes more than 50 fashions against anyone prepared to defend against it. Many of my setups are at 70+ fashions, and I think the cap of 101 is too low too...can we have a higher cap at say 125-150 range? I can't complain about the fashions count needed to execute a kill, as Vodun is meant to be scary and powerful. Vodun cannot be nerfed to be NOT scary and NOT powerful, since we are going to stand there open for attack with very mild offensiveness while being patient fashioning up. Like all classes, if the prep fails, we have to re-fashion. Against many classes, our lengthy prep means surviving at least one or two of opponent's kill/lock attempts. It's hard to see a Shaman executing kill/lock attempt quicker/ahead of any other classes. So please don't nerf Vodun's power. If Vodun is going to be nerfed, the balance can be lower fashion required, and it's not sexy this way.
Maligus is cool, I don't think it needs to be removed. While it gets nerfed and it's indeed tough against certain races with high INT or artied to the teeth, that is just the nature of it that we have to deal with fairly. We can still fashion slowly (made fair with our truefashion being higher than Jester, of course, we can't throw 3 daggers into a slow-lock slipped with mickey and powder and without using a puppet at all).
Here's one opening:
If a person is artied to the teeth going defensive with health arty, knights artied with str and weapons can take them down fairly. But if a person is artied with mana sip, regen, high INT, our bleed, Teraile bleed and Maligus mana drain are all flat. Bleed, Teraile bleed and Maligus drain can have a flat and int-scaled effect, not going too far off, but reward people with higher INT and respect Collars.
Shaman can also have more artefact:
- Arty that slows down fashion decay
- Arty that improves truefashion hit chance by 2/5/10%
- Arty that improves curses speed by 3/6/9%
- Arty that increases the cap of fashion to 130/140/150
(derailed a bit from room hindrance)
1) Maligus has a risk/reward component. Quite often attempting Maligus results in the enemy leaving before you can obtain fashions equivalent to what you would have managed just using straight fashions instead of prep. Alternatively, attempting Maligus actually strictly makes you less fashions than you could have made using normal fashion over the time you were prepping the person (e.g. @Proficy, @Santar, @Atalkez*). Does Maligus pay off sometimes? Yes, generally against people not watching their mana properly, or getting close enough to a kill so as to take that risk. Does this mean fashions should be lowered in value? Absolutely not.
2) Use of Maligus inherently requires the loss of momentum, so I'm really not sure where this "in some situations you can use it to maintain momentum" stuff comes from. Either you're prepping someone for Maligus use by deliberately using abilities to drain their mana, or you're trying to do something else. These two only overlap when the opponent is not on mana priority, in which case Shamans should not be punished for their lack of combat knowledge/awareness. Either way, switching to Maligus instantly results in a loss of momentum - they will have cured either cured two afflictions that you could've maintained after one slow curse , or they cure one affliction and therefore you could have stuck another affliction. This is the opportunity cost of using Maligus, which alone is a good enough reason to remove the increased cost for Shaman.
3) The logic of applying a cost increase to a single vodun ability alone is beyond me. Cripple buys at least as much breathing room as mangle, yet a similar cost increase applied to it would bring it to 12-13 fashions. Even a 25% cost increase due to us having abilities in vodun is insane, concussion for instance costing a massive 32 fashions. Due to this cost increase, and the inherent risk involved in using Maligus against people with situational awareness I am now needing to survive 2-3 kill attempts by prep classes before I can make even one of my own. I seriously doubt that this cost increase was intended to weaken Shaman on top of the general utility loss, but this is definitely the effect it has had.
For all of these reasons the 75% fashion cost increase for Shaman just simply does not make sense and needs to be removed. If Maligus has problems, change or remove Maligus, as currently it is not usable against practiced opponents in any real form. This is of course partially due to people's ability to run whenever they see their mana fall below 85% with nothing stopping them, but also due to the problem @Dochitha posted, that -all- of our bleeding damage is flat and so we have no way of using Maligus against people with moderately sized mana pools, or artefacts to increase the rate at which they regain mana.
* Atalkez is nice and occasionally lets me get fashions from Maligus off him instead of immediately evading away when his mana gets low. But then again, he rarely diagnoses my blights so there's that too. He plays suboptimally and still tends to win against me more often than not. Mostly due to learning to cure out of the aeon setup I'd mention previously and the fact that he now gets two kill attempts before I am really ready to attempt even one (prior to the nerf).
This is obviously one of those threads where people are hoping that if they complain enough Sarapis might take pity on them and rebuff them. Nice try as well Mishgul! No dice! What good is a shield if you've been soft locked, venom locked, hard locked, rift locked, ball locked, humgii locked, pad locked ...
My last post contained several arguments for why mangle for Shamans is overpriced. It is currently 7 fashions, whereas Jesters get it for 4 fashions. I merely outlined why the reasoning behind this price increase was flawed in several ways, do you have anything to contribute regarding that. Any flaws you notice in my arguments? Feel free to post if so.
Regarding Jhui, Maligus simply doesn't work on him. The best mana drain Shaman has is curse bleed, and after 11 full bleed swiftcurses I obtained a grand total of 0 fashions from maligus on the following slow curses. So in this respect, this cost increase is simply fucking Shaman over at the highest levels, simply because Maligus allows us to crush people that don't have arties or are otherwise unaware of Maligus.
You're not the only one. The dude has 9k mana. He clotted through a broken torso pre impaleslash 4x twist setup versus me. You at least have a way to get him, he is 100% unbeatable by a blademaster outside of locking which is very very difficult to do.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Like maybe torso damage makes impaleslash add a percentile component to clotting too?
And maybe some similar percentile thing for shaman? Maybe make Teraile a debuff that adds a percentile cost to clotting for bleed (maybe with some sort of affliction prerequisite) rather than a little extra bleeding?
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
I think I've provided excellent arguments to bring Shaman mangle back into parity with Jesters. Do you actually have any reason why this shouldn't be the case, or can I stop wasting my breath on someone who's not willing to have an intellectual conversation of any kind.
Just an outsider thought. I may be crazy.
effective curing a smart use of their
skills can potentially avoid a previously unavoidable lock, but that you can still get kills if you can trick them or outpace them, which is really the case for many classes. Why on earth would someone want to fight a class where having enough fashions = a win? That you're providing arguments that you think are excellent for something that you think needs to be changed. My counter has and is still that you don't need room hindrance or easier mangles. Curseward not usable prone might be suitable though I still think is unwarranted given that it can't be spammed. Your arguments don't really make sense to me and I'm guessing a few others because you're complaining that you have trouble killing people in top tier while littering death sight with some pretty upper tier fights. Shaman has very few weaknesses and problems right now and you see the argument as something that needs to be fixed ASAP while the rest of us are like "phew shaman is a little more bearable." It may need tweaking in the future but you're still playing an awesome classes with amazing capabilities and it may be time to give it a rest. Take it from someone who complained as much as their class got chipped from god mode to boring.
I have therefore been arguing that the 75% mangle cost increase is unjustified, as that is currently the main problem following the mangle nerf. At no point have I suggested any mechanical change to mangle since the nerf as some others have (i.e. lower balance times or whatever) because I don't know if those are really justified at this point. I do think Shaman might need something new to help prevent movement, but I think the cost of mangle is something that needs to be adjusted immediately, as it is punishing Shaman for having an ability that is not worth using against people that play properly against it. Jesters not having this ability have mangle at 4, and Shaman have it for 7 fashions. A 75% cost increase due to Maligus even though Maligus is not worthwhile against smart and/or artied opponents. Because of this, Shaman is in a worse position in the higher tiers than they should be with this costlier mangle.
All I've been arguing for has been parity with Jesters for as long as Maligus remains in it's current state. In my personal opinion I don't think Vodun should never be balanced around Maligus, but that any adjustments needed to Maligus should be done to that ability unless Maligus becomes consistent enough that fashion could be completely removed from vodun and still have it as a usable skill against -all- opponents.
I swear, is no one reading what I have been saying? I'm not sitting there hitting a brick wall trying to use Maligus against people. I'm using normal fashioning against people that I can't use Maligus on, but this doesn't change the reasoning behind the 75% higher fashion cost on mangle being due to Maligus. This is completely bullshit, for reasons I have already outlined multiple times in this thread.
It probably needs to be scaled back in general, but it's independently shitty if there are people you literally cannot kill not because they're playing intelligently, but simply because they have high stats.
Adding a percentile component to torso-damaged impaleslash wouldn't really change anything other than allowing you to be able to kill people who you previously couldn't - it wouldn't really make it any easier to kill people you already could. Hell, it could be used to make it harder by reducing the flat portion of impaleslash's cost increase in favor of the percentile portion (so, functionally, it costs high-mana targets more mana than right now to clot, but it costs low-mana targets less mana than right now to clot).
Re Shaman: Similarly, Shaman might be independently strong, but it's sort of silly that, again, there is a big ability (one they're apparently balancing around) that is useless not because someone is smart, but simply because their stats are high. That seems like something worth maybe fixing, even if shaman in general could use some toning down.