Why is this still a thing?

Jovolo

Knights also have a much slower impale balance time than blademasters so they need limb breaks to actually do anything with impale.

You need one broken leg to do the SnB impale smash into dsb. Is that no longer the case?

Morthif

Jovolo said:

Knights also have a much slower impale balance time than blademasters so they need limb breaks to actually do anything with impale.

You need one broken leg to do the SnB impale smash into dsb. Is that no longer the case?

No, it's still the case. Need a broken limb and prone to CLUB which stuns to prolong writhe starting.

Atalkez

Interesting, I thought when they used Club they got balance before writhe regardless of a legbreak.
Although they still have the ability to prone you on a long balance, impale while off balance and get a free dsb.

Blademaster capitlizes off this situation better, to be sure. Although there is no good way to fix it. If you increase the balance time of BM impale, you in turn decrease the number of twists you can get with a leg break. There are lots of ways to not die to a BM setup, and making it so that 2 legs only gives 2 or 3 twists, you'll never be able to kill anyone without lots and lots of extra setup time. 

Break arms>Shield
Break torso>apply torso > legs
Impaleslash>Run
etc etc

Increasing the balance time isn't the answer. Taking away blademaster prone isn't the answer. Reducing pommel speed isn't the answer. I don't really know how to fix this issue.

Aegoth

rework the kill mechanics completely!

Mizik

Make Club not require leg!

Cooper

Out of all the things you could do when you knew your legs were set up and you were impaleslashed, doing effectively nothing (trying to move a direction while hamstringed) is kind of laughable.

Lots of things your particular class could have done to prevent this.

Amranu

I stated as much in the first post Cooper.

@Atalkez why is putting restrictions on pommel so that in can only be done with at least one broken leg not an option?

Atalkez

Amranu said:

I stated as much in the first post Cooper.

@Atalkez why is putting restrictions on pommel so that in can only be done with at least one broken leg not an option?

That negates the entire stacking ability that Blademaster has with pommelstrike.

That's the tradeoff between using pommel versus prep. Prep you can't stack afflictions, pommel you can't prep.

Amranu

You don't require prone to stack afflictions, it would be pretty simple to move that to a different strike or have pommel apply that effect without proning.

Atalkez

Amranu said:

You don't require prone to stack afflictions, it would be pretty simple to move that to a different strike or have pommel apply that effect without proning.

Not sure what you're talking about.

You pair pommelstrike/strike - or you have leg/compass/arm/centre slash with strike for prep.

I'm not using "x" ability, I'm using an ability in TwoArts paired with a Striking ability. They get changed depending on what you're trying to do.

Amranu

Right, not sure why I got caught up on pommelstrike.

Why is limiting strike knees to only work when they have a brokenleg not something that should be done, then.

Xinna

Imo, the biggest problem with impaleslash is you're done fighting until the BM's prep fades. Even if you do everything perfectly and just run away until impaleslash fades, they'll redo it instantly when you return. You can't put up any sort of momentum offense anymore until their prep fades entirely. It's counterable, if you're careful, but it's not a particularly interesting mechanic.

I think impaleslash should have a cooldown on it, or only be usable on someone who has a broken leg (cooldown would probably be better, since it leaves open an attempt at pre-impaleslash).

Aerek

Pommel/Knees also represents free parry bypass on pretty much every class in the game. BM has all sorts of tricks to bypass parry and secure pre-ImpSlashes. Void/Para can do it. Pommel/Neck a few times can do it.  Gale and double arm breaks can get around parry. But all of those are all made kinda redundant by the fact Banded BMs can just Pommel/Knees you on an attack and get either for free because of that 1s balance.

I don't think Pommel/Knees is the worst thing ever, but I don't think it's really defensible, either.

Rangor

Atalkez said:

Exelethril said:

@Atalkez : What's your Exelethril stats?

Slain: Exelethril

 Players: 2

  [     2] Exelethril

 Denizens: 0

 By: 8

  [     8] Exelethril

omgomgomg. What's your rangor stats and can I have this script?

Jovolo

Atalkez said:

Amranu said:

I stated as much in the first post Cooper.

@Atalkez why is putting restrictions on pommel so that in can only be done with at least one broken leg not an option?

That negates the entire stacking ability that Blademaster has with pommelstrike.

That's the tradeoff between using pommel versus prep. Prep you can't stack afflictions, pommel you can't prep.

The thing is, it isn't really a tradeoff because you aren't giving up or preventing your prep by using pommelstrike, especially to secure easy pre impaleslashes, you're supplementing your prep. The ability to impaleslash before breaks and the ease at which you can do it creates a window of no counterplay when it's certain death if you have impaleslash during breaks & bladetwists. 

What would be wrong with just increasing blademaster impale time to make them require broken legs in order to do anything with impale?

I'm not even sure that would be enough though, thinking about it. They can still pommel/knees - impale any time an opponent uses an ability for a pseudo perma-hangedman, but realistically if the blademaster is being adequately hindered themselves this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Seftin

Just pre-apply when you get blade twisted, if they notice and choose to break your arms instead of legs you can gtfo, if they don't and break legs, you can stand and leave before you get to 600 bleed.

Jovolo

They have more than enough utility to get around pre-apply, it's not very effective against smart BM's

Mishgul

make impaleslashed clot regenerate wp instead of costing wp. 

Atalkez

Jovolo said:

Atalkez said:

Amranu said:

I stated as much in the first post Cooper.

@Atalkez why is putting restrictions on pommel so that in can only be done with at least one broken leg not an option?

That negates the entire stacking ability that Blademaster has with pommelstrike.

That's the tradeoff between using pommel versus prep. Prep you can't stack afflictions, pommel you can't prep.

The thing is, it isn't really a tradeoff because you aren't giving up or preventing your prep by using pommelstrike, especially to secure easy pre impaleslashes, you're supplementing your prep. The ability to impaleslash before breaks and the ease at which you can do it creates a window of no counterplay when it's certain death if you have impaleslash during breaks & bladetwists. 

What would be wrong with just increasing blademaster impale time to make them require broken legs in order to do anything with impale?

I'm not even sure that would be enough though, thinking about it. They can still pommel/knees - impale any time an opponent uses an ability for a pseudo perma-hangedman, but realistically if the blademaster is being adequately hindered themselves this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The window is you're standing with balance 100% of the time before the Blademaster has balance to do anything. It's up to you to defend yourself properly. Isn't that what combat is based around? In this log (and the thousands I've been a part of at this point), people die from this setup because they don't know what to do to handle it. Not because it's a guaranteed death. I've still never beaten @Xinna or @Jhui with all of the tricks I can employ. People get so caught up in offense, they overlook their defensive options.

If you inrease the balance time of the impale, you decrease the number of blade twists you can get with 2 broken legs. With 2 broken legs, you get impale>4 bladetwits. Pre-Impaleslash this is enough to kill non-Robes, non-mana regen, non-mana sip people. Dropping to 3 bladetwists means you won't die to this setup with pushing salve balance with arms, or breaking torso. Impale>Impaleslash with 2 broken legs give you two twists before they writhe. You can either impale>twist again (they stand 100% before you get balance here), or you can multislash for a 4s balance (again, they'll stand and leave) -- Hamstring drops before you have any counter to stop them from leaving.

I'm not saying this isn't something that can be looked at, just seems like a duct tape fix for an issue. Increasing the balance time of impale essentially negates any pre-impaleslash methods, which pushes a Blademaster to not only have to handle hamstring/dismount/rebounding during prep, but also have to rely on prepping another set of limbs (arms, head/torso).

tl;dr Pre-Impaleslash is easy to get away from for nearly all classes. Taking it away as a strategical option for Blademaster doesn't seem to be the right way to go. Decreasing it's timer and possibly changing the mechanics of how it works could go a long way in making it more feasible to survive.

Amranu

I think most people that have a problem with pre-impaleslash have a problem mostly with pommelstrike impaleslash. It is basically one of the strongest ways to shut down momentum in the game for a class already very difficult to kill with momentum, on top of leading to situations like the one in the OP which is close to unavoidable brokenstar for certain classes. For this reason I'm confused as to why people want to touch impaleslash, when the problem seems to be the ability for blademaster to prone/impale without using any prep.

Xinna

It all addresses the same problem. Though, I agree that making knees unusable without a broken leg would be better than increasing impale balance. Increasing impale balance changes everything.

Impaleslash timer should definitely be reduced, too. I don't see why I should have to wait 15(?) seconds after a setup to finally be able to clot normally again. It results in being brokenstarable for ridiculous amounts of time, even if you get away.

Mizik

Not bad. 

Amranu

I did classlead a decrease to impaleslash time, didn't go through.

Dochitha

It is the Man, with the Band.

Make knee strike without leg break give clumsiness, and prone if legs are broken. So it helps aff stacks with pommel without affecting other things, while taking away pommel-knee>impale while people are off-balance.

Atalkez

Dochitha said:

It is the Man, with the Band.

Make knee strike without leg break give clumsiness, and prone if legs are broken. So it helps aff stacks with pommel without affecting other things, while taking away pommel-knee>impale while people are off-balance.

Already have a clumsy strike. Would have to rework more than just knees.

Amranu

No changes other than the restriction are necessary as far as I can tell.

Atalkez

Can do it without a band.

Amranu

Syntax: STRIKE <adventurer> KNEES

Works on/against: Adventurers

Details:

Manipulating your opponent's knee joint with a well-placed blade hand will reliably send them falling to the ground. Note that this will only work on adventurers with at least one broken leg.

Bam, done

Jovolo

Thats so boring though. It shows a poorly thought out combat system when we throw in hard requirements for abilities because they aren't balanced without them

Dochitha

Atalkez said:

Dochitha said:

It is the Man, with the Band.

Make knee strike without leg break give clumsiness, and prone if legs are broken. So it helps aff stacks with pommel without affecting other things, while taking away pommel-knee>impale while people are off-balance.

Already have a clumsy strike. Would have to rework more than just knees.

Change ear strike to pesante.