Classlead Discussion Q2 2016

Anedhel

I still really really wanna see these logs of people beating the crap out of Seragorn when he's in Enervate/Truename mode, because while I can reliably win against someone like Archaon (4-2 against him) and comparable occies, artied-up occie seems pretty unstoppable. 

Exelethril

I'll fight @Seragorn for testing purposes

Devran

Anedhel said:

I still really really wanna see these logs of people beating the crap out of Seragorn when he's in Enervate/Truename mode, because while I can reliably win against someone like Archaon (4-2 against him) and comparable occies, artied-up occie seems pretty unstoppable. 

I mean this in a completely non snarky way, but is it possible that the problem may lie with you and your strategies rather than the Occultist class? I know we often don't want to admit it, but sometimes the error is in the way we are doing something rather than the task itself.

Cynlael

Lol at people defending truename strats. It's like Sylvan all over again.

PS. Looping fly should never be the "this is how you beat that strat" answer to anything. At all. And it doesn't even work in this case.

PPS. Extra lulz for trying to - with seriousness - say that impale/prone/web is a good way to hinder Enervate. Come on.

Calira

Cynlael said:

PS. Looping fly should never be the "this is how you beat that strat" answer to anything. At all. And it doesn't even work in this case.

Ring of Flying is not the only answer, it's just the most obviously effective one and is available to every class. And yes, it absolutely does work, seeing as you can FLY faster than the Occultist can Tentacle or Dervish you back down for followup Truenames.

Asmodron

All these comments of enervate being op..and here i am oldschool remembering enervate as some useless ability that occultists had no use for

Anedhel

Devran said:

Anedhel said:

I still really really wanna see these logs of people beating the crap out of Seragorn when he's in Enervate/Truename mode, because while I can reliably win against someone like Archaon (4-2 against him) and comparable occies, artied-up occie seems pretty unstoppable. 

I mean this in a completely non snarky way, but is it possible that the problem may lie with you and your strategies rather than the Occultist class? I know we often don't want to admit it, but sometimes the error is in the way we are doing something rather than the task itself.

Not super sure what you mean here. I already said normal occultists aren't super difficult to beat, although I still think TN name is very high for the effort required, but I've yet to actually see a log of someone 1v1'ing Seragorn (or another very artied and skilled Occultist) and killing him before he can get the Truenames off.

I'm genuinely interested to see it done, because he's very defensive, obviously has arties to tank most damage all day long, and as aforementioned, there's no reasonable way most people can slow down an Occultist that can tank you (yes, you can use impale with ferocity and leg breaks in 2h, but those are one attack out of every four in SnB at least, and I'm not sure the writhe time is enough to actually slow him down, since you can writhe right away, enervate being EQ, not balance, and writhe hovers close to the same amount of time it takes to get back eq with diadem/QW according to Aylek's test iirc) unless you have a class yourself that has the tools to do that. 

To note- I don't have a problem with Truenames since you can survive them if you know what you're doing- and since dying to Archaon that one time, I haven't died to them since (though, again, I feel the damage is very high for an unblockable type of damage)- nearly as much as I do with Enervate. 

Tbh, this resurfacing argument of 'just run' is kind of meh to me. If the best alternative is to basically move away and sip your health and mana up entirely before coming back in, that's a boring model to fight, just as having to run for thirty seconds to get rid of fractures or eat away humour stacks is boring. (This is a matter of opinion. I find it boring, I'm sure others don't.)

ETA: To clarify, I don't have an issue with Occultists as a class. I think Enervate has to be toned down and maybe TN damage is on the high side, but it's not like I'm out here with a pitchfork saying they're unfightable or anything! 

Keorin

Anedhel said:

Tbh, this resurfacing argument of 'just run' is kind of meh to me. If the best alternative is to basically move away and sip your health and mana up entirely before coming back in, that's a boring model to fight, just as having to run for thirty seconds to get rid of fractures or eat away humour stacks is boring. (This is a matter of opinion. I find it boring, I'm sure others don't.)

Though before anyone mentions it I know that, being a poor fighter, having one of the best classes for long, on demand prones, and being jumpy as heck and running far too much already, I'm not the best person to make this case, but this is what I don't like about enervate.

Without many other options for slowing enervate down, it seems like the best choice is to run every 2-3 of them. Things being balanced around running that much just feels like a frustrating mechanic.

Devran

I guess I just don't understand why it's bad design to have to include tactically running as part of your defense/combat strategy. I mean, I get that you might think it's not fun, but I don't see why it's a bad thing to had a class that you can't simply stand in the room with 100% of the time.

Dunn

This is definitely an agree to disagree situation. And wait to see the results of the classlead round. Or y'all can keep beating your dicks together. 

Archaon

Dunn said:

beating your dicks together. 

Kiet

Devran said:

I guess I just don't understand why it's bad design to have to include tactically running as part of your defense/combat strategy. I mean, I get that you might think it's not fun, but I don't see why it's a bad thing to had a class that you can't simply stand in the room with 100% of the time.

Having to run isn't bad. Having to run every 10 seconds or less is bad because then momentum classes can't do anything. By far the best counter to enervate/truename is just never letting them get the truename from you, and that requires going on the defensive as soon as your mana gets low, which doesn't take long even on mana prio.

Kenway

Devran said:

I guess I just don't understand why it's bad design to have to include tactically running as part of your defense/combat strategy. I mean, I get that you might think it's not fun, but I don't see why it's a bad thing to had a class that you can't simply stand in the room with 100% of the time.

Wanna throw out that serpent is a prime example of strategic retreat done well. Get out, cure for two-three seconds, and you can go straight back into the fight. Peoples issue with running mechanics are how long it takes to return. Often to the point of the proper defensive strategy feeling more like "dont fight even though youre here to fight" than "if xyz you should get out for a few seconds"

Serpent - snapping or darkshade
Knight - stuck nausea or arm/head breaks
BM - arm or head breaks (even impslash can feel like forever simetimes)
Magi - hypothermia

All good examples of good time frames for running to survive.

Cynlael

Enervate, enervate, enervate, enervate -> gotta run...
...Come back: enervate, enervate, enervate, enervate -> run.

Should not be a thing. It's not so much as 'not being able to be in the room 100% of the time' as much as it is 'Run every 3-4 combos or get truenames taken'. If there's a strategy where you can literally just DOR <action> and score a kill, it's a bad mechanic. It outpaces mana prio on its own, without anything else. Hound isn't needed, it just helps throw off sip bal. If it was like spiritlash and scaled from afflictions, that'd be an entirely different story.

Farrah

I don't feel like running on enervate is required. It seems like running anytime a dragon enmeshes or anytime a knight sticks nausea (no idea how running on nausea made Kenway's list of good times to run). Sure, you -can- do it, because occie's "prep" path requires momentum, but if you don't -want- to, don't. You can still counter the TNs themselves!

If you need momentum to win, turn on that mana prio and momentum that occie til they start throwing TNs at you. I've never had an unreasonable problem doing this (of course they get to the TNs sometimes - otherwise their kill path would be pretty awful). When they start TNing, smoke, sip/moss, shield. After the second TN, either evade/escape ability or hands/health healing ability (can do this after first TN instead of shield too if you have a repeatable ability). If you don't have class abilities that do any of that (not sure any class doesn't), fly if you have it, or touch crystal tattoo. Congrats, you survived. Restart momentum offense.

The only way it would be problematic is if the occie was collecting three Truenames and starting to use them faster than it was possible for you to to get enough momentum to kill them. I don't see this as a problem for any class.

Jinsun

Shielding is more than enough to stop enervate truenames due to the balance times. The people asking for enervate to be tied to affs don't really have much foresight because it gives the occie way too much interplay with an already high aff output and two very potent but distinct kill routes. Imagine you're trying to stop enlighten and I get you to four affs and you slow my aff route but I just built in truenames that you weren't watching for because they weren't distinct and predictable. That was actually something I asked for privately when the change got put in and I thought it was a boring route and I was told that may be too much if they intertwined and I'm inclined to agree 

Armali

Random fact:

Cleanseaura requires <41% mana, not <=40%.

Jinsun

Armali said:

Random fact:

Cleanseaura requires <41% mana, not <=40%.

Clearly OP. Game is broken, literally unplayable 

Aquil

I too like to be snide and bury it under combat knowledge, condescending tones and random facts. :^)

Szanthax

Dunn said:

This is definitely an agree to disagree situation. And wait to see the results of the classlead round. Or y'all can keep beating your dicks together. 

did someone say my name?

Gilt

Aerek said:

I'm glad to hear that.

Still, fighting Gilt, Jinsun, and I'm sure soon to be Archaon, the prep time on TN setups is much faster than anything dedicated prep-based classes manage. Sylvans are also annoying to fight because they build to 40 Arcane power in about 10s. That kind of prep time is absurd any way you cut it, and TN is stronger because they keep the TNs they do manage to harvest. Slowing it down would likely solve some of the gripes about TN setups without affecting TN's intrinsic power. (At least in 1v1. I have empathy with folks' gripes about groups, though I've not experienced that myself)

another things worth mentioning is if you know how to handle Truename like a lot of people do now, it's very hard to kill that way. Considering it takes two plus previous damage or 3 to kill anyone worth mentioning if they don't get out in between them which happens all the time. Learn to avoid/counter it and it's never a problem. Just like most kill strats 

Gilt

Truenames by itself even as artied as I am will never kill top tier fighters unless they screw up horribly. I can list probably 20 people that I know better than to even try that on. Even when using sneaky tactics or trying to stack tn's with other damage/affs. Enlighten is still a better kill strat imo.

Devran

Gilt said:

Truenames by itself even as artied as I am will never kill top tier fighters unless they screw up horribly. I can list probably 20 people that I know better than to even try that on. Even when using sneaky tactics or trying to stack tn's with other damage/affs. Enlighten is still a better kill strat imo.

What offensive artifacts do you have?

Aerek

Gilt said:

Aerek said:

I'm glad to hear that.

Still, fighting Gilt, Jinsun, and I'm sure soon to be Archaon, the prep time on TN setups is much faster than anything dedicated prep-based classes manage. Sylvans are also annoying to fight because they build to 40 Arcane power in about 10s. That kind of prep time is absurd any way you cut it, and TN is stronger because they keep the TNs they do manage to harvest. Slowing it down would likely solve some of the gripes about TN setups without affecting TN's intrinsic power. (At least in 1v1. I have empathy with folks' gripes about groups, though I've not experienced that myself)

another things worth mentioning is if you know how to handle Truename like a lot of people do now, it's very hard to kill that way. Considering it takes two plus previous damage or 3 to kill anyone worth mentioning if they don't get out in between them which happens all the time. Learn to avoid/counter it and it's never a problem. Just like most kill strats 

I don't necessarily disagree with this, and you know firsthand that I do know how to avoid TN setups. Again, I have little issue with the TN kill method, itself, it's just the speed of getting to it that bothers me. Even if a kill is "easy" to avoid, if it's 2x or 3x faster than most other kill methods, simple probability is against the target. If I have to dodge your kill 3 times before I get to attempt mine once, odds are not small that I will make a mistake and die before you're ever in danger, and that's a frustrating fight dynamic. Occultists are not the only culprit here, hence referencing Sylvans, but it's especially true for Occultist since we're dealing with Aeon, which lethally punishes even the smallest error.

Devran said:

Gilt said:

Truenames by itself even as artied as I am will never kill top tier fighters unless they screw up horribly. I can list probably 20 people that I know better than to even try that on. Even when using sneaky tactics or trying to stack tn's with other damage/affs. Enlighten is still a better kill strat imo.

What offensive artifacts do you have?

Feels like all of them. His TNs were walloping me for 2608 (49%) of 5229 health, and I had a Truefavour and Algiz at the time.

Armali

Well, he doesn't have +3 int, just +2, so that's kinda nice.

Ryzeth

Do true names even benefit from artifacts? I always thought it just helped the pre-damage be higher, every single true name I've been hit with was 48/49% regardless of arties.

Anedhel

Collars do, if what Calira and Armali mentioned is accurate. 

Armali

Calira's Truenames only hit me for around 48-49%, but Gilt's definitely hit harder. Also, reviewing logs, Archaon hit you with his truename for around 60ish, which would be in line with the level of collar he has over base 48-49%,

Rangor

This' just ridic.

 6280(100%)h, 6080(100%)m, ex [sen[100]] - 18:09:06.088

A bloodleech leaps at you, clamping with teeth onto exposed flesh and secreting some foul toxin into 

your bloodstream. You stumble as you are afflicted with healthleech.

Gilt draws back with a knowing smirk and utters some alien word that vibrates deep within your bones.

Your mind swirls and body convulses in excruciating pain as your very spirit cries out in agony.

(a) (svof): Won't batch curing commands to be done at once, but instead send them separately at once.

 2725(43%)h, 6080(100%)m, ex[hthl ae] [sen[100]] - 18:09:06.317

Exelethril

Come to think of it, that's not as bad as the day a gamma ray burst ignited Earth thus causing the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event.

Wouldn't allowing bloodleech -> truename = chance of lucky RNG asthma afflict?