Improved Hypnosis

Jarrod

First, let me preface this by saying I don't think Serpent is bad in any sense. It's a very strong class right now with lots of options. This is primarily focused on QoL improvement to Hypnosis so that it's not an effectively useless skillset in even small groups, for example.

The 'problem' is that a full Hypnosis setup for even a single aff takes too long to be useful in a group to have any impact, and you're better off not using the skillset unless you absolutely have to for impatience as an example. Even then, in any size group 2 or larger the time to get that 1 impatience hypnosis set  is likely long enough for many groups to kill someone or remove them from the fight.

My proposed QoL improvement to this is the option to load a single aff hypnosis into a target instantly with some obvious drawbacks compared to regular hypnosis:

-Only one affliction

-Always 1 second seal time

-Cannot give ACTION commands

-Using it is visible to the room every time

-Cannot dstab in conjunction

-2-3s EQ base

I'd be ok with adding another quick requirement to use something like this if it seems too powerful for repeated lock attempts. At 3s it's slightly more than twice as fast as hypnotising impatience normally (assuming hypnosis doesn't RNG fail on the target), so I don't think that would be a real issue but others might disagree.

Dochitha

I think a variation to allow hypnosis to suggest just a single affliction with fixed 1s seal time sounds fair.

It does not make it any stronger in 1v1, yet more useful in group, looks good. Though I am not a serpent, just my opinion.

Seftin

I like the idea, one of the more frustrating things about serpent was the time it took the re-hypno/impatience someone if you had a stack going and they just manage to cure impatience before the lock, as well as real utility in group combat outside of snipe.

Austere

My personal feeling is that snipe is one of the most powerful group abilities.  Serpent meshes well with just about any class. I think if you guys want to buff your strength in room, out of room is going to have to take a little nerfing.  I love the idea, but snipe is going to have to be scaled back some for me to back any buffs on the grounds of improving group serpent. 

Herose

Austere said:

My personal feeling is that snipe is one of the most powerful group abilities.  Serpent meshes well with just about any class. I think if you guys want to buff your strength in room, out of room is going to have to take a little nerfing.  I love the idea, but snipe is going to have to be scaled back some for me to back any buffs on the grounds of improving group serpent. 

Are you talking about snipe, in general, or sniping with a LVL 3 artifact weapon?

Austere

Herose said:

Austere said:

My personal feeling is that snipe is one of the most powerful group abilities.  Serpent meshes well with just about any class. I think if you guys want to buff your strength in room, out of room is going to have to take a little nerfing.  I love the idea, but snipe is going to have to be scaled back some for me to back any buffs on the grounds of improving group serpent. 

Are you talking about snipe, in general, or sniping with a LVL 3 artifact weapon?

Snipe is powerful with or without a level 3 weapon.  Arties just put it over the top.

Edit: and no hypochondria. I agree fully on that one. 

Tael

Serpent can already phase and snipe and evade, and deliver two locking afflictions at once in a melee, and all manner of other things. Sure, someone else has to deliver the impatience, but it's not like serpent is left there twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do.

I don't think giving them the ability to deliver impatience unprepped too is necessary for them to be useful in group combat. They're already useful. Let impatience in group fighting be the contribution of other classes. Even if you don't have someone with impatience in your group, you (collectively) almost certainly have the affliction pressure to keep up with focus balance anyway to hold someone locked long enough to kill them, no?

I'm really not convinced that it's important for every skill to be useful in group combat - why should it matter whether the group combat abilities are distributed between the skills? Subterfuge (and to a degree venoms) already has a ton of group stuff, probably more than most classes. If there's a problem here, it seems to be more the age-old "problem" that serpent's abilities are distributed kind of weirdly between the skills with subterfuge being hugely overloaded and the other skills relatively impoverished, not with an actual lack of stuff you can do.

Austere

I think everyone missed the point here. The goal is to nerf snipe.  Get with the times.  Would totally change snipe into being affliction only, with a quicker balance, for 3-4 second impatience hypno(with a warning). 

Tael

But, even as a non-serpent, I like snipe

Jarrod

I disagree Serpent should be the only affliction class without the capability to deliver all locking afflictions without a prep time in a group setting.

I'd be ok with removing hypochondria from the list of potential affs, though I fail to see how building up kelp/ginseng aff stacks in a group is even remotely relevant when every other group strategy would be significantly faster. To clarify: Any other pairing of two affliction classes can lock a single target faster than the proposed 3s EQ time on this ability. The idea of making hypnosis twice as fast is basically saying do this but allow every affliction as well.

Re: Out of room sniping - Not the topic of this thread. I've brought up my opinions on ranged combat elsewhere, Snipe included, this is not the place for that discussion.

Austere

If you're wanting a group combat buff, snipe should be taken into consideration

Tael

Huh, I didn't realise they were the only one at this point. Nevermind then.

Jarrod

Given I'm the person who's brought up nerfing ranged combat in general with detailed plans to scale it back in the past, I don't really care if snipe gets nerfed. This thread is about a way to make hypnosis useful in groups in a limited way, if it comes up that Serpent needs to lose something in another area for this to be considered, then what specifically should be lowered will become the topic.