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Classleads
Well I was informed a while back that until the massive world events are over, classleads won't be reviewed or implemented.
So while we're passing the time, I want feedback on my ideas. Feel free to either call attention to your own here or in another thread, as long as it doesn't get super disorganized.
135 S Xith Juggling Tarot juggling.
230 S Xith Glue Timed bomb fix.
249 S Xith Fashion Fashioning remedy.
251 S Xith Damage bomb Follow-up on damage possibilities for jester. Needs balancing.
252 S Xith Lay Lay fix.
Going to start with #135, which I'm proud of as an idea and for the way I balanced it.
Problem:
The disparity between Occultist and Jester tarot has been remarked on numerous times. Devilmark allows Occultists the ability to benefit from Devil three times, making their aeon incredibly easy to stick, and with their entities' passive effects, the devastation is far greater in comparison with a jester landing aeon, even if their proficiency with juggled blades allows venom use. With my best two-tarot aeon combo with daggers, speed still manages to come up on occasion before the second fling.
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Solution #1:
Allow tarot cards to be flung from a juggled state at a 33% balance decrease (from 3 to 2). This makes the balance of juggle (1) + fling (2) = normal fling (3). With Nimble trait, (0.8) + (1.8) = (2.6) instead of 2.8 normally. A 0.2 second to nimble card juggling per card with a juggle-throw-juggle-throw pattern. So most likely Nimble should not affect the juggleflinging itself.
Solution #2:
This gives the jester a way to overcome speed as Occies can with their speed-slowing entity and multiple devil flings. Juggling 3 hangedmans could also aide in fashioning between the shorter flings. Other possibilities include added healing boosts via priestess and magician to reduce our problematic "squishiness". But of course only when the jester thinks to prepare juggling beforehand. The final use I foresee is faster bursts of Star tarots (more likely raid kills for us and more damage application).
The in-game report for you. I realise Occies don't have the same venom delivering advantages to seal aeon, but being hit with aeon 3 times in a row with moon bonus flings and entities jumping down your throat... well we've all seen it.
So, thoughts on the pros and cons? Do you approve or would this make you cry? And do take note that juggling is limited to 3 items and that would be our maximum advantage here.
I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
Comments
Also, I'd be down for no bomb defense. Bombs and timers are the best part of Jester. I am concerned about their immediate spamability, defensively. The fact that I could keep an opponent permanently blacked out (!!!) and webbed/bound made for an extremely safe and potent Jester experience. Then people started adding pack bomb.
The problem with bombs now is that literally the only thing that stops them being dropped is off bal/eq. Not both arms mangled, not entangled. So sticking them on your opponent is really tough if they know what they're doing. Which mainly hurts on damage classes that force us to stay on the defensive and never get our fashions.
But why would faster tarot matter with concussion? Anyone who uses aeon tarot for a slowlock is a fool, because it wears off after 15 seconds, so to truly seal that, you'd have to puppet slow anyway. And once you have the fashions for all of it that's game over as it is. I don't think 33% faster tarot would change anything that involves concussion.
Moving on to #230. The way I envisioned Glue was as a prop that costs 20 gold in itself, thereby doubling each affected bomb's resource cost for a better payoff. Additionally, it'd have 2.5 eq (5 with confusion) or 3 sec balance (2.8 with nimble). A bomb is around 0.5 seconds to time and another 0.25 to give to someone as it stands. So this quadruples the total time used for one bomb attack, but makes each more efficient.
Problem:
The practicality of giving timed bombs has taken significant blows in recent times. Not only do many fighters have sufficient reflexes to give back, pack, or drop bombs on balance, they can now drop the bombs unconditionally. Mangled arms, webs, ropes, nothing stops them from being dropped, and so we cannot stick bombs on our target by any practical means. Shortening the timers helps only slightly, especially as too short a timer can result in the bomb backfiring on us.
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Solution #1:
Create a skill called Glue after Timers in Pranks. Using a 2.5-3 second equilibrium, the jester may coat a timed bomb in glue. When this bomb is given to the target, they will be unable to give, drop, or pack it until its detonation. Glue itself should be a Prop to be wished for, at a cost of 20 gold and lasting a few months. The popularity of this prank would mean that dozens of glue would be carried by a jester at one time, so its decay time should be nearer to that of balloons than to mickeys. The longer eq/bal of this skill's use should minimize its overuse in combat.
Solution #2:
My second idea is to create an affliction called "stickiness" that would be cured by an epidermal salve and mutually exclusive with slickness. The subject's skin would either secrete or become somehow covered in a sticky substance that inhibits manual dexterity, preventing them from giving/dropping/packing/throwing items. The idea with stickiness is that you would have to stack salve balance for it to be effective, which jesters can do. APPLICATION: Smokebombs' practicality is approximately zero. A smokebomb has no effect when set off in an inventory. Allow its smoke to give stickiness, so that a jester would aim to stick the stickiness before giving other bombs. Stickiness would be mutually exclusive with slickness, meaning they'd cancel each other out. So if a Jester afflicted himself with it to protect from slickness, an extra gecko stab would strip it. Alternately, make the stickiness effect an uncureable 10-15 second effect.
Solution #3:
Alter Firecrackers to be utilized for combat purposes as well, so that the flash of a firecracker's detonation blinds those in the room, making them unable to see the timing and giving of bombs for a short duration.
Stickiness was an afterthought I had. We rarely use gecko except in slowlocks, so similar function. Mangle leg. Give smokebomb. Give other bombs. And the firecracker idea is a bomb-specific blackout.
The glue thing: bombs are already unpredictable, and the length is what makes it balanced. If I have to choose between 'too long' and 'ineffective' I'm going with 'too long'.
Web bombs stripping speed: Goes in the box of dumbest ideas ever, so props for that. :P
Tarot juggling: You said it could be abused but gave no examples. I balanced it against abuse, so give a reason it would be overpowered?
And moving on to the damage bomb, the oh so controversial.
Problem:
This addition goes in hand with the Suicidemice fixes that we'll be seeing. Offered below are the mechanics to implement a useful, but fair and controlled damage bomb, a slight revision on my previously submitted concept. It is primarily to address a jester's inability to ever kill by damage. I submit the name Cuckoobomb, for the noise made when it explodes.
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Solution #1:
When Suicidemice are made available to Jesters everywhere, we would have a damage bomb to send with them. In effect, it would do what a Thurisaz rune does, except that our clever mice can run on water and are limited to 10-15 rooms away from the target. An average person with 12 constitution should take about 400-500 damage from one of these bombs on a mouse. (If you want to make it fun, the damage could be dexterity-based, as nothing else is) So the Jester has to get within range of the raiders/defenders and send their mouse(s) on the way with presents.
Solution #2:
Of course, since we can time such bombs, there must be safety measures put into place so that we can't simply time a few bombs and drop them to create an explosion that makes holocaust look like a sneeze. That wouldn't be fair. Timed bombs on the ground should do 50% less damage than mice. Bombs in the inventory should do 25% less. So, 500 untimed, 375 inventory, 250 timed on ground roughly. Also, 2 seconds before a bomb explodes, it chirps "Cuckoo!", which isn't hidden by blackout, to prevent sneaking damage stacks into the inventory that way. TIMERS should only have a window of 2-10 seconds on damage bombs to prevent overly large stacks from accumulating.
Solution #3:
These bombs should be 1 bomb per iron, as opposed to 2 per iron like other bombs. And to prevent parties from spamming one another from adjacent rooms and killing an entire group, either: a) give them a 75% dud chance when being simply thrown, or b) make these bombs interceptible by arrowcatch as well.
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You'll notice I had your issue in mind in solutions #2 and #3.
Throw at ground/direction/mouse = 500 (100%)
Inventory timer = 375 (75%)
Ground timer = 250 (50%)
Timers between 2-10 on damage bombs, takes 0.5 to time and drop. Assuming perfect 10 secs on the first, that's a maximum on the ground of about 250 x 16 = 4000 at one time, and that would involve the jester carelessly sticking around in the room and likely killing himself. (Keep in mind inventory bombs would hurt the jester himself more if he gets hindered)
For throwing, also a 75% dud chance, making them less ideal for raids and more expensive with the iron ratio.
Am I overlooking anything?
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
Throttle definitely needs attention. The best I've been able to do with it is hidden confusion, then force shield and choke while they can't breathe. But a choking attack can't go far when it requires 20 fashions and uses 6. I'd keep the required the same but it should use 3 or 4, OR should do much better damage, OR be unblockable by breathing.
@Aktillum webs exploding in pack is a partial fix to one bomb, but also sounds like more work than the gardan would deem necessary. Glue is the solution on bombs. And it's a perfect prank, adding something sticky. (Reminds me of Dick Dastardly from Wacky Races)
@Rean I meant that it doesn't make logical sense that web would strip speed, and also sounds overpowered. Though smoke bomb still needs a use in inventory, so it could have a speed-slowing effect like that Occultist entity. I'd agree with that change to solve tarot juggling, but would still prefer tarot juggling.
I agree that damage bombs should be revisited after mice fixes and other jester 'overhaul' that we've been hearing about. Not a necessary change, but one that would make things interesting.
So, classlead 251 was about Lay, because when it's on keepup it makes fashion combat against a bard beyond annoying. Or a stalemate at least. I suggested either lengthen lay's voice balance or simply allow double-fashions from true fashion to "trample" over the defense.
But onto my last interesting one.
Problem:
Several rounds of changes ago, puppetry/vodun was altered so that puppets could not be used to continually harass their victim, while keeping in place an 'ally' function that allows friendly puppets to remain fashioned. The Problem is that the target can avoid death by simply leaving the battle and waiting for an amount of time (of which I am not sure) for the fashions to decay when they think we have enough to do our damage. I have had a serpent phase and inform me that he'll 'wait for those to decay'. It was a good fix at the time, but it has put an extreme damper on out-of-arena jester/shaman combat.
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Solution #1:
Allow fashions to 'fall off' in stages. After 12 hours without additional fashioning, round fashions down to the nearest 10. 50,40,30,20,etc. However, I believe that until the jester is killed and their puppet cancelled, fashions should not 'fall' while below a certain amount, 15 minimum, so that combat does not have to start over at each new encounter but still does not give the jester any advantage he/she does not deserve.
Solution #2:
Alter Fashion and Truefashion so that one gives a consistent 1 fashion but does not decay, while the other gives 'decayable' fashions, but always 2. FASHION|TRUEFASHION PUPPET OF <target>. Allow for mixing and matching of the types of fashions. The Trans skill "Truefashion" should ensure 1 solid, non-decayable fashion of the puppet. The ability to burst fashion not only gives jesters/shamans a chance to "jump" their prey or have a short-term fight without killrooms and cheap tactics, but also stops us from having to fashion-flee-fashion-flee, making the fight tedious not only for us but for the opponent as well.
Solution #3:
A Jester's enemy list currently serves no function. Allow an enemied target's puppet to either not decay or decay more slowly than one not on the list. Please consider any potential combinations of these solutions, as long as the problem gets addressed, because as it stands, I could never consider joining the Mark as a jester/shaman. There is no way to fulfill a contract on someone decent who doesn't want to fight me. When fashions 'stuck', it was always incentive to face your puppeteer instead of allowing them to amass fashions. So again, it needs rethinking.
I imagine #2 would be most complicated for Them to implement, but it's my favorite.
TRUEFASHION PUPPET OF <target> = 1 permanent fashion
FASHION PUPPET OF <target> = 2 decayable fashions
I should add that if that route were taken, the decayable ones should probably fall off much faster (within 10-15).
@Jarrel It comes down to good timing with bombs anyway. Tower/peels is no different than the mangle. And I do shield to avoid my dropped bombs when I use that as an intentional strategy. But shield balance is like over 3 seconds and bombs have variation on the timers so things can go wrong. Plus butterfly and web don't do anything on the ground unless they're flying, and dust doesn't serve to hinder for a jitb. I have done timed conc stacks to interfere during my winding so they can't tumble fast enough.
Truth about jester is that having to stick to one kill tactic makes it boring for both parties and highly predictable. It's a fun class because you can innovate.
As for sticking tarot the paralysis jump-check screws hocuspocus a little, and again comes down to timing. I do know how daggers can be used in aeon, but the tarot wears off after 15 seconds, which is a maximum of about 8 throws in aeon. The best possible combination there might be asthma/paralysis/anorexia/slickness/stupidity/ and 3 other mental afflictions. Or skip the mentals and wind a jitb, but I don't think it takes that long to cure out of that stack. The issue is that when speed gets stripped and they shield or hinder, it will come back up faster. And sometimes they double sip or whatever causes it to come up faster.
I love using hangedman to annoy the hell out of people, but the chance for variety in tarot would be nice. In essence, this would be the same as a Devil'd fling (3 seconds) + an additional fling (3 seconds) = (6)
Juggle fling (2) x 3 = (6). In the 6 second span, the only thing that changes is we specify the middle card. Fair?
..Did not know that. But that makes occultist follow-up devil flings scarier.