Announce 4368: Puppet/Vodun Mangle

Achimrst

Amranu said:

He hasn't made any changes yet. My theorycrafting is just proving that the current bonus from manaleech wouldn't work, which doesn't really mean much anyhow as that can be tweaked based on what Mak wants to see.

I'm just throwing out ideas, he did make Spiritlore so I'm sure he can think up a great something to make it useful to Shaman who play as the Shaman class exclusively.

Dochitha

Yes, many have pointed out that getting manaleech to stick to benefit the next soulrend for fashion is not likely viable.

Dochitha

Just suggesting:

Previous soulrend before the recent announce can work well with addition to make attuning to maligus also increase vodun fashion by 1.

Hence, we can either go momentum to drain mana invoke soulrend just like we did, or straight fashion against people with high mana pools (but now with attuning to Maligus giving 2 fashion per instead of 1).

eg:

FASHION DOLL OF AMRANU - gives 1 fashion (+truefashion chance)
FASHION DOLL OF JHUI INVOKE SOULREND - gives 2 fashions (+truefashion chance)

BLIGHT/CURSE TARGET somecurse INVOKE SOULREND (Like before, gives 1-8 fashions depending on mana level, no changes required).

Remove recent change of manaleech being prerequisite to soulrend.

@Markarios Sorry we made so much out of this but yeah, it's fun to see things happening.

Amranu

Honestly, best change might to be to move the maligus affecting affliction to a non-smoke cure, maybe ash. That way everyone can't just can't smoke for no reason after a blight at no real cost and make this useless (although they should all still be doing this to check for asthma, don't know why they're not). Also allows it to stick around easier with the slow curse required.

Tesha

If you think people predicting manaleech on blight would be remotely bad, you need to stop looking at Shaman as though it only ever has one option or kill strat. Having many options and killing strategies is the strength of Shaman. If you blight manaleech, either they smoke valerian to cure or they don't. If they are obviously predicting manaleech on every blight, you can take advantage of that for an easy pipelock. If they aren't predicting manaleech and it gets stuck, you get exceedingly easy fashions and curing slickness now becomes 50% chance rather than 100%. And that's without the implications of having low mana for bleed or 0mana lock.

The mechanics are all there for you to take advantage of. If you don't know how to, that's not a balance issue, that's a practice issue.

Amranu

Tesha, the balance time on blight is two seconds. Shaman have 0 way to abuse that for a pipe lock.

Also, who actually waits until their pipe is empty before refilling, honestly.

Tesha

Shamans absolutely have ways to abuse that for pipelock, as well as other strategies. Get creative. It's like how serpents use darkshade to threaten an instakill while pressuring a lock. Darkshade isn't useless if they cure it, it lets the serpent snap and seal their lock. 

Amranu

Pipelocking anyone relies on them waiting for their pipe to be nearly empty before refilling, as well as not precaching the right mineral/herb. If this is setup, Shaman has no way of abusing this what-so-ever. Shaman also can't give slickness as easily as Jester can Tesha.

Tesha

We're getting pretty off topic now, but you have addiction and imbibe. What's the balance on imbibe? Are you aware addiction has been changed, and it now forces you to eat all outrifted herbs of the type you eat? Shamans can keep arms mangled longer than most classes can. I'm not saying pipelock is an ideal go-to strategy, I'm just making the point that it's one of many, many viable options. Don't limit yourself by assuming there are only one or two viable Shaman strategies.

Amranu

Soulrend buff seems to work ok @Makarios

Dochitha

Revisiting:

When Maligus came out, I totally love the idea that Shamans are able to afflict at the same time accumulate preps. This is on par with knight classes.

The issue that made Maligus taken off swiftcurse was the fact that it gets too many fashions off a soulrend. I still think swiftcurse-able soulrend is a good thing, interesting, lots of strategies and versatile. But it should only just give 1 fashion per swiftcurse and scale up to 3 if target is low on mana. 

Therefore over a course of 2s, Shaman can only fashion once, getting 1 fashion (+truefashion chance), or do a blight manaleech getting 3 fashions, or do two swiftcurses getting 2 fashions or more if target is low on mana. This doesn't seem to far off from what has been changed/implemented, but return the idea of cursing+prepping slowly and reward on mana drain.

Achimrst

Dochitha said:

Revisiting:

When Maligus came out, I totally love the idea that Shamans are able to afflict at the same time accumulate preps. This is on par with knight classes.

The issue that made Maligus taken off swiftcurse was the fact that it gets too many fashions off a soulrend. I still think swiftcurse-able soulrend is a good thing, interesting, lots of strategies and versatile. But it should only just give 1 fashion per swiftcurse and scale up to 3 if target is low on mana. 

Therefore over a course of 2s, Shaman can only fashion once, getting 1 fashion (+truefashion chance), or do a blight manaleech getting 3 fashions, or do two swiftcurses getting 2 fashions or more if target is low on mana. This doesn't seem to far off from what has been changed/implemented, but return the idea of cursing+prepping slowly and reward on mana drain.

This could potentially be abused so badly though, I mean it's not really on par with a knight class only because we can literally just use vodun and be pretty good, not the best, then you add in curses and it will be a nightmare of being paralysed with impatience and falling over dizzy constantly while the shaman just gains fashions and then runs away to murder you. Shoot, most of my prep can be done with curses, can probably just mangle the crap out of you and murder you there!

Vodun is a very strong ability on its own, there is no doubt about that. It just takes FOREVER....when using it alone. Mostly because you have to run away from other peoples prep, so I personally feel like this would definitely make us OP and approve of it, @Makarios should take notes from @Dochitha and implement every piece of it with no nerfs.

Thank you.

Dochitha

Amranu said:

Soulrend buff seems to work ok @Makarios

Soulrend buff, if not mistaken, now soulrend from manaleech works after manaleech is stuck right? Tested a bit it looks that way. If anything, given the risk of getting it sticking at all for a subsequent soulrend and increased chance/time trade-off, I propose increasing the soulrend off this from 3 to 4.

Amranu

It's fine, after doing some theorycrafting you can definitely stick it for subsequent soulrends, you just probably can't do two in a row. But you can for instance soulrend -> swiftcurse -> soulrend

Dochitha

Amranu said:

It's fine, after doing some theorycrafting you can definitely stick it for subsequent soulrends, you just probably can't do two in a row. But you can for instance soulrend -> swiftcurse -> soulrend

You mean blight manaleech > swiftcurse > soulrend?

Tested a bit it looks like blight manaleech > blight soulrend works pretty well. 

Dochitha

I really like to contest the fact that Shamans take a long time to prep. Against few fights lately, knights and knights were able to pull their kill sequence on me 2-3 times before I was able to get enough fashions to pull my sequence.

I know I am not the best fighters and but going for a slow into lock takes like 50-70 fashions depending on who I fight. It's definitely not on-par in terms of prep time against knights.

Between getting paralysed and hindered, fashioning with soulrend/manaleech can get really slow. Since soulrend is not usable on swiftcurse, hindering them + soulreding is out of question. We have to deliberately dedicate time for fashioning, without doing anything offensive or hindering.

Ahmet

Dochitha said:

I really like to contest the fact that Shamans take a long time to prep. Against few fights lately, knights and knights were able to pull their kill sequence on me 2-3 times before I was able to get enough fashions to pull my sequence.

I know I am not the best fighters and but going for a slow into lock takes like 50-70 fashions depending on who I fight. It's definitely not on-par in terms of prep time against knights.

Between getting paralysed and hindered, fashioning with soulrend/manaleech can get really slow. Since soulrend is not usable on swiftcurse, hindering them + soulreding is out of question. We have to deliberately dedicate time for fashioning, without doing anything offensive or hindering.

Reread that.

Amranu

Soulrend can be used while hindering fine, just have to use a slow curse once you stick manaleech with swiftcurses while hindering. Blighting with manaleech is a strategy that people are already working around.

Whether or not Shaman are at the proper prep speed I'm not sure. I'm having problems recently getting a ton of fashions against some classes, especially Alchemists who also have the ability to nullify curses with proper timing of their temper/wrack combos. This is a big problem considering they also get to pressure towards a basically unavoidable lock for Shaman given their room hindrance and ability to finish the lock with paralysis.

Xinna

This trend of "I'm having this problem today so it might be a balance issue" is getting a bit old. Learn to play your class better instead of complaining about everything that beats you. People will take you more seriously.

Before you say "I'm not complaining because I said I'm not sure," we don't really need to know everything you die to if you're not complaining, unless you're asking for help, in which case you'd want to post in a shaman help/advice thread and not post in terms of "whether it may or may not be balanced."

Atalkez

Amranu said:

Soulrend can be used while hindering fine, just have to use a slow curse once you stick manaleech with swiftcurses while hindering. Blighting with manaleech is a strategy that people are already working around.

Whether or not Shaman are at the proper prep speed I'm not sure. I'm having problems recently getting a ton of fashions against some classes, especially Alchemists who also have the ability to nullify curses with proper timing of their temper/wrack combos. This is a big problem considering they also get to pressure towards a basically unavoidable lock for Shaman given their room hindrance and ability to finish the lock with paralysis.

Exactly what classes do you actually struggle with? Every class has a near "anti-class" that they struggle to beat. Some have two or three. Shaman is no different.

Ahmet

He seems to be having trouble with alchemists currently  

Amranu

I just felt like ranting about Katlin

Xinna

This isn't the rants thread though!

There are options available for beating every class.

Atalkez

Amranu said:

I just felt like ranting about Katlin

I heard she's pretty good.

Dochitha

@Makarios said:
 DWC and SNB knights are a much closer ballpark to what I'd hope to aim for with shaman.

@Xinna I was referring to what Makarios said about comparing the prep time with knights, presenting some of my experiences with regards to that. I am not a top tier fighter, hence wanting to see if my finding is generally appropriate, if not, willing to get any tips to quicken MY prep time to be on par with knights.

Achimrst

Dochitha said:

@Makarios said:
 DWC and SNB knights are a much closer ballpark to what I'd hope to aim for with shaman.

@Xinna I was referring to what Makarios said about comparing the prep time with knights, presenting some of my experiences with regards to that. I am not a top tier fighter, hence wanting to see if my finding is generally appropriate, if not, willing to get any tips to quicken MY prep time to be on par with knights.

If only right, I think Makarios was pointing more toward Shaman using curses to lock not really using Vodun. That is basically the direction we are being pointed in IMO, Maligus has always been offering faster fashioning through curses and typically works best when attempting a lock on someone. From my experience anyway.

Kasa

@Dochitha You don't need 50-70 fashions to kill someone. Try learning how to use your curses more, and learn how to secure a kill with 35 fashions, tops.

Kasa

Kasa said:

@Dochitha You don't need 50-70 fashions to kill someone. Try learning how to use your curses more, and learn how to secure a kill with 35 fashions, tops.

By this I mean, you don't need to use a concussion slow lock to kill someone. Shaman can very easily lock without ever touching vodun slow or vodun concussion.

Amranu

Kasa said:

@Dochitha You don't need 50-70 fashions to kill someone. Try learning how to use your curses more, and learn how to secure a kill with 35 fashions, tops.

You do need that amount to kill someone. I'd even go as far as to say 50 simply will not kill anyone that knows what they are doing, 60 is probably on the low end of what is now needed to have any chance at all to secure a kill, and any tumbling through icewalls immediately brings that up by 7-21 per tumble, due to the fact that the delay caused by needing to mountjump over an icewall simply invalidates any possible lock combo in the time remaining after proning someone, even in the best possible scenario (ignoring slow as an option, as many people are perfectly capable of curing out of that).

The longest possible time a Shaman has to use when someone is prone is currently 6.75 seconds. The shortest possible lock outside of salvelocks takes approximately 7 seconds. Salvelocks are about one or two seconds faster, but also require specific timing that is difficult or impossible to achieve while following someone past an icewall.

So, any icewall immediately means that the Shaman is likely to have to reset as soon as they tumble past it. In general this will likely require an additional two mangles, if not two followed by a third to reset the time on the ground to the maximum possible to even attempt anything. Any attempt to cancel tumble also requires at least an additional mangle, which removes virtually all the time gained from cancelling the tumble.

Dochitha

@Amranu completely agree about going above 50 fashions to really matter. I need more, often attempting kill sequence only above 80 fashions, as I rely on concussion and slow into lock. I see you use mangle, does it lead into a lock attempt? I can't get it to take off people just tumble...