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Comments
Basically would allow a Priest to cast a Blessing offensively to have the reverse effect on an enemy. Willpower would reduce willpower regen, Earthshield would decrease cutting/blunt defense, etc.
So who fought a Shaman 3 times and ragequit instead of actually trying to figure out how to fight them?
I don't agree with the solutions there, but the problems are fairly accurate.
I agree that shaman paralysis is very annoying, and different than most classes with respect to how hindering it is. Though, removing it would impact shaman momentum afflicting a ton (1.5 second single afflicting is pretty slow, so you're essentially getting rid of it for affliction stacking purposes).
On the other hand, vodun paralyse is actually really quick and could be substituted, so you're basically reducing momentum truelocking some, in favor of slightly more prep being needed to do the same.
I probably wouldn't make paralyse un-swiftable though. If anything, maybe have it on a cooldown. You can only paralyse swiftcurse once every 2 curses (once every 1.5 seconds?). This essentially makes it the same as other classes. Paralyse, asthma, paralyse, asthma is basically like using curare/kalmia dstab, etc.
For instance, Proficy who I was initially destroying, figured out to 1) run if he doesn't have momentum, 2) how to kill me when he does. Against Ayoxele, my win rate is in the toilet and this is largely due to his ability to run when needed against one of the few classes that have no way to stop movement, and take advantage of his momentum when he gains it to lock me. Against Mizik, who has recently switched to Serpent I currently have a 60% win rate (3/5) but prior to his very recent switch he had more wins than I did against me, and I've found Serpent to be a very interesting match against Shaman due to their ability to lock far, far quicker than my own.
Hell, I even have a ~50% win rate against Yurdan's dual blunt, who has no hinder to speak of. The problem with Shaman is not it's affliction speed, which is mediocre except when going for lock, at which point it is certainly above average. Nor is it with curseward, which when used smartly just like shield against can completely shut down my momentum. We already have to swiftcurse every 8-10 curses which effectively acts as the curseward idea above to slow momentum. Curseward is equivalent to a shield that can be used while hindered at the cost of a longer eq time, and when used smartly makes locking virtually impossible (especially against any class with active or passive curing). The problem with curseward isn't curseward, but people's refusal to learn to use it properly.
Coagulate + soulscourge is an interesting combination, and certainly one of the quickest affliction rates when used together in the game. This is not to say it needs to be nerfed though. Alchemists, with prep are able to deliver 4 locking afflicts in one move. Serpents are capable of delivering 3 lock afflicts at once, have a higher base affliction speed as well as being able to lock far quicker than Shaman with far less momentum due to the utility of hypnosis. Bards are able to stun for to allow for 4 afflictions with Percussia for the lock, with very little prep. Meanwhile, coagulate requires momentum (150 bleeding, which usually requires haemophilia to also be stuck as well as several curses following that). And soulscourge requires some prep in the vodun to use, and requires rebuilding that prep if the lock attempt fails.
If people want curseward to act more like shield, that's fine and I've already submitted a classlead to that effect.
tl;dr Shaman is one of the few classes that have no room hinder, making paralysis fine as you can run and come back until you gain momentum over the Shaman. Curseward is pretty useful in it's current role in my opinion, but could be made to act similar to shield if that's what people want, as curses is already time limited by swiftcurse. As far as I can tell Shaman is relatively balanced against those that have experience fighting it, but it does take some experience to not get locked quickly, and requires the ability to know when to run and to only attempt the kill when you have momentum over the Shaman.
Did you not necro your thread asking for Shaman room hinder explaining your newfound opinion that Shamans don't need room hinder and you were overlooking something? Now I'm confused, do you feel they do actually need it again to be effective?
I'm sorry for the brief reply, at work atm. You put in the effort to post a full reply so I'll give you one of my own opinion when I get home.
I'm not arguing for room hindrance for Shamans, I'm saying it's something that should be used against Shamans, as it is a significant factor in how the class is currently balanced.
Which means against classes such as Apostate (re: your fights against Ayoxele) are in a worst position against Shaman than Shamans are against them, because you don't lose your overall end-game prep if you leave the room for a breather.
Ayoxele was an interesting case, due to gravehands keeping me stuck in the room he required significantly more prep to begin to attempt anything. He ran appropriately to prevent locks/maligus and he used curseward when necessary to prevent locks when I used my prep to attempt to lock him. In cases where his momentum didn't manage to beat me before I got enough fashions to do anything to him, he usually managed to defend successfully via curseward, refuge or blackwind when he saw the doll being used.
Yes, Shaman preps for kills. But they don't have anything nearly as guaranteed as dsb to finish people off once they use their prep. That being said, more often than not the use of proper prep does work, but I don't believe this in particular is a balance issue, as virtually every prep class has a large opportunity to win once they've used their prep.
I don't really have a huge problem with shaman, as is, but I do think you're misrepresenting its analogy to other classes quite a bit.
Apostate is much slower at locking than shaman, unless you're being daegger hunted. They are also much more confined to a single room and thus harmed more by a target running (as well as having no "prep" option for those who run).
Serpent needs to hypnotise, and once they snap, if you defend and wait out the hypnosis, they can't do anything until they hypnotise again. That is not "no prep required."
Bard is a bit difficult to discuss since percussia is weird and dumb. I don't ever use it in 1v1 personally, it's bound to get nerfed, and, again, is hardly "no prep." Each percussia you play has 4+ sec equilibrium. And you cannot deliver 4 afflictions within one percussia stun (you can do three if timed extremely well). But it is not something you can simply fire at someone in the middle of a fight, even as is. You either have to throw yourself off eq for substantial periods of time while your target is standing there with you, and hope they don't do anything to throw off your timing, or run away and prep a chain in another room, then return, in which case, be wary when a bard leaves for a substantial period of time and returns! But again, it shouldn't stay as is, so I wouldn't base "balancing" arguments on it.
The better example about bard is that it can Curare jab, wait for magnesium eat, sing epic, to keep paralysis on just like a shaman can.
Curseward is quite different from shield because you can't use it while having an offense (since it has a long equilibrium cost) and you can't use it last minute (since it takes time to come up). With shield, you basically just try to race your opponent's momentum with your own, then fall back on shield when you realize you are losing. You can't really do that with curseward, since you can't put it up immediately. You can run, sure.
But I think the main argument is that shaman paralysis spam is worse than other momentum classes' hindering and thus shaman should always gain the momentum advantage (which would obviously be a huge problem for non-prep classes, even if they can run, since they'll never be able to kill). Is this true? Idk. But most of your post doesn't address it.
Edit: Pretty sure shaman can essentially 100% guaranteed kill someone with enough prep. You're undervaluing Vodun if you think it's worse than DSB. Though, it is obviously not as simple to use. But people also aren't really discussing Vodun atm. They're just saying you should have to go there, against a good opponent, just like a knight might have to go to DSB, rather than simply killing with DSLs!
Shaman isn't 100% guaranteed lock with vodun, but against someone that does not precache a considerable amount of herbs, quad limb mangle is not pleasant at all. We do certainly have nice tricks though, that's for sure. But yeah, I think we all agree vodun isn't really the problem here. It's my opinion that if something needs to be done with curse paralysis, it should be given a cooldown so that it cannot be doubled up. I don't think this should honestly be the case however. Shaman has a comparatively slow affliction rate initially until going for the lock as well as having no ability to hinder people to stay for the lock without the use of prep, making Shaman's ability to gain momentum with double paralysis not as large of a problem as it would be for those that can keep people around.
One curse with nimble + swiftcurse is ~1 second, approximately 0.99 seconds, if the math is correct. 50% from swiftcurse, 10% from nimble.
I couldn't even beat Ayoxele with quad limb breaks and addiction. Ayoxele OPYou said a lot of times after our fights that your offense is 'optimized' and I think that's where the problem lies. You're assuming there is no room for growth, and that's why you couldn't adapt to defeat me like a high tier fighter would.
There's a lot of power in shaman you're not using and like I said to you privately before, when you say you can't beat me because my class beats yours it is similar to you killing a mid tier apostate and them making the same claim about your class.