Classlead Discussion Q2 2016

Armali

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Problem:

Unnamable is a timed aff-deliver mechanic that is long enough to tie together

with an instill and entity balance. It also has an RNG chance to deliver 1, 2,

or 3 afflictions. On the high end, when you get the RNG hit of 3 afflictions,

you're nearly to Hecate in 1 herb balance. With any sort of momentum on the

side of the occultist, this 3-aff procc is nearly certain death.

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Solution #1:

Reduce the maximum chance of proccing from 3 to 2

Solution #2:

Reduce Unnamable to 1 affliction, reduce the balance to compensate

Solution #3:

Something I haven't thought of

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Okay, let's look at classlead 82 as an example. I've posted it above for reference.

Let's assume that unnamable's aff-proc chances are equally divided. Without doing trials, we won't know for certain of course, but it stands to reason, and the report makes no mention of what it assumes the proc rates are.

Unnamable's cast time is 3.2s eq according to the AB. Instill is 2.5s eq. We can immediately see that 33% of the time, a one-aff unnamable will go off and you've lost aff progress over an instill, because the target can just focus away your aff. What if they're off focus balance for one reason or another? Than you've still lost progress because Unnamable is slower than instill.

What happens if you get a 2-aff unnamable? The target will focus off the first aff, and be left with one remaining. In this scenario, you've knocked their focus balance and given them one aff. This is similar to the, 'one aff unnamable without focus scenario'. If they're off focus, then you get two affs and you've made some progress towards Hecate/whispering madness.

What happens if you get a 3-aff unnamable? Well, you have two mentals on you. You may have one or more physical affs. If you have 2 or more when they regain balance, you'll probably get hit with an instill and a hecate, then a whispering madness, then an enlighten. If you don't have focus they can probaly just whispering madness into hecate immediately, then enlighten. -- keep in mind though, because of the eq costs involved, you still have maybe a second or two to try and get the hell out, which is similar to the reaction time you have to tumble against certain set ups.

An argument will be that, 'well, a smart Occie will time unnamable to land after Cadmus, a smart Occie will use the unnamable with some momentum built up'. But that's fine. That's like saying, 'well, a smart BM can pre-impaleslash you off of your attacks'. You can see unnamable casting. You can take precautions to disrupt their timing, like active hindering (for example, on cast, if an snb is on-balance they could attack/guardbreak to get to 4mo, then strike low impale to buy themselves a bit of time where the Occie can't capitalize on the unnamable shot), or running away, just like you can disrupt a prep setup by fake or pre-applying. It's true, a 3-aff timed with instill and entity will get you to 4 affs, right up to a hecate. But a hecate isn't death, and neither is hecate + whispering madness. Enlighten is. And the Occie still needs balance to actually cast each of those abilities in sequence and such a scenario can only really occur maybe 33% of the time, a bit more if you happen to be off focus balance (in which case you're either so far behind they could've just cadmused, or their pre-momentum has been reduced because they spent a balance somewhere burning your focus). 

A further argument might be, 'well it's annoying that I have to run away so often!' That's not really an argument though. If you successfully escape as a prep class, you make definable progress towards your kill condition as long as you've hit them a few times. They haven't if you manage to get out. As a mo. class, you already generally have the tools to slow down their momentum sufficiently (for example, I do as an alchemist, and a spine serpent probably would do, if they get that para spamming down pat), so the instances of an unnamable shot coming out are farther in between.

Unnamable is a gamble that, if it pays off, can pay off big, but most of the time fizzles and can be mitigated. Is it annoying that you don't know how many affs you get and thus might not know when to run? That's certainly a possibility! Neutering unnamable in the solutions described would render the skill nearly useless though -- so maybe the 'Something I haven't thought of' should be, 'let the target know how many mentals they go so they can react accordingly'. Beyond that, it's just a matter of watching your own status, highlighting unnamable cast, and then weighing the risks to make a decision of stay-leave.

Shirszae

@Kenway As a class based around damage, I don't think it makes sense to argue that its main artefact should not grant a boon to said damage. Most people who don't actually pretend to just sit there and eat everything do reasonably well against the spec. Yes, you probably have to run at some point, but so you have to run against a lot of other classes too. Its just how they are designed, even if admittedly most of those seem to be purely aff classes.

And yes, I am likely biased. 

Armali

I note a lot of the Occultist reports are group combat focused, and while I agree with Jinsun that some of these reports are unwarranted, I can get behind a lot of the group ones. /Some/ of the reports also have more general solutions that I'm pretty wary about, though, like the truename one where one solution is, 'make it not ignore speed' and the other one is, 'remove the ability to harvest truenames from corpses'. One only really affects group fighting, the other is a pretty hefty nerf to truename even in 1v1.

Kenway

Shirszae said:

@Kenway As a class based around damage, I don't think it makes sense to argue that its main artefact should not grant a boon to said damage. Most people who don't actually pretend to just sit there and eat everything do reasonably well against the spec. Yes, you probably have to run at some point, but so you have to run against a lot of other classes too. Its just how they are designed, even if admittedly most of those seem to be purely aff classes.

And yes, I am likely biased. 

Imo its not based around damage so much as sip balance. I think both sides have valid arguments. On the one hand even forged level precision is enough to outpace fracture curing. On the other hand another way to build fractures quickly is to force sips instead of applies. I do however think 2h is largely untapped right now and if any of the people i see with level three weapons were fighting with all the tricks it has that no one bothers with because they can usually just hew a leg till the target dies, theyd probably be ripping through top tier right about now.

Atalkez

Don't have time to respond to the novel, but I told you this when you were talking about Infernal - fighting is a lot more than simply looking at 'time from 0 plus this plus that minus this'. Everything looks better in a vacuum, though more often than not the practical is not the same as the theoretical. You can't account for how many focuses you lose because of stupidity, which can easily ruin you. You also can't account for secrets/shield (that hurts you worse than not using it vs occie).

Anyway, forum brigade isn't who classleads are for. Makarios has a solid idea of where he wants to see combat progress, and classleads are just a sugestion.

Kenway

Also gonna throw out a speed increase = a dps increase.

Armali

You asked for logic, and then you dismiss logic (by literally saying tl;dr) when you get it by citing anecdotes (I not focus in time because of stupidity which I will IMMEDIATELY FOCUS away again because it procs aff discovery on serverside, and I /might/ procs secrets/shield when I'm on balance), when you originally asked for not-anecdotes. I'm not sure what you want anymore.

By the way, your Infernal trick doesn't work. If you tumble immediately you just get impaled off one leg and eat the (hypothetically torso because of torso damage on impale) DSB. You won't tumble away in time because of intimidate (pretty sure that will lengthen tumble time just enough with one leg break). And if you're clever enough to pre-tumble, who's to say your opponent isn't clever enough to you know, actually dsl you twice to make sure you're not pulling off BS before they actually go for the kill shot?

Szanthax

Armali said:

You asked for logic, and then you dismiss logic (by literally saying tl;dr) when you get it by citing anecdotes (I not focus in time because of stupidity which I will IMMEDIATELY FOCUS away again because it procs aff discovery on serverside, and I /might/ procs secrets/shield when I'm on balance), when you originally asked for not-anecdotes. I'm not sure what you want anymore.

By the way, your Infernal trick doesn't work. If you tumble immediately you just get impaled off one leg and eat the (hypothetically torso because of torso damage on impale) DSB. You won't tumble away in time because of intimidate (pretty sure that will lengthen tumble time just enough with one leg break). And if you're clever enough to pre-tumble, who's to say your opponent isn't clever enough to you know, actually dsl you twice to make sure you're not pulling off BS before they actually go for the kill shot?

I totally read your post thinking you were for nerf... Lol.

I can't do anything vs occies. 

Anedhel

@Kenway: Not sure what you're driving at here. All artefact weapons make it easier for you to kill your opponent (that's why you pay for them). I'm not sure why 2h should have a 1600cr weapon nerfed on the logic that 'since it kills you with damage, it shouldn't hurt more.' Making any knight weapon's accuracy good enough that you won't miss when you're clumsy (which is what you seem to be suggesting, at least with warhammers) is a pretty rough idea- that puts 2h in the same bad spot as Alchemist in that you can't do -anything- to slow them down (carve/splinter makes shielding not a great defence at all).

In the end, your damage argument seems akin to suggesting that Thoth's fangs shouldn't be faster because serpents can already outpace herb balance. It kind of seems like you don't like that some people hurt a lot (which is fine!), but cutting into an artefact because it makes you ridiculous kind of beats the point of artefacts, doesn't it? 

Yes, I feel people with 20+ strength and an artefact weapon (a combined value of 4100 credits) -should- be able to kick your ass if you're not very, very careful. Just like someone with crazy dex and a Tfang'll kick your ass if you're not very, very careful. Or a monk with a collar, diadem, and sash'll able to kick your ass if you're not very, very careful. And so on. 

2h's skill threshold is deemed lower than other classes', but once the Tendons effect goes away (which everyone seems to suggest will happen soon), it won't be nearly as bad as the other momentum classes; it'll be a matter of playing good defence to survive, which I'm fine with. 

Kenway

Anedhel said:

@Kenway: Not sure what you're driving at here. All artefact weapons make it easier for you to kill your opponent (that's why you pay for them). I'm not sure why 2h should have a 1600cr weapon nerfed on the logic that 'since it kills you with damage, it shouldn't hurt more.' Making any knight weapon's accuracy good enough that you won't miss when you're clumsy (which is what you seem to be suggesting, at least with warhammers) is a pretty rough idea- that puts 2h in the same bad spot as Alchemist in that you can't do -anything- to slow them down (carve/splinter makes shielding not a great defence at all).

In the end, your damage argument seems akin to suggesting that Thoth's fangs shouldn't be faster because serpents can already outpace herb balance. It kind of seems like you don't like that some people hurt a lot (which is fine!), but cutting into an artefact because it makes you ridiculous kind of beats the point of artefacts, doesn't it? 

Yes, I feel people with 20+ strength and an artefact weapon (a combined value of 4100 credits) -should- be able to kick your ass if you're not very, very careful. Just like someone with crazy dex and a Tfang'll kick your ass if you're not very, very careful. Or a monk with a collar, diadem, and sash'll able to kick your ass if you're not very, very careful. And so on. 

2h's skill threshold is deemed lower than other classes', but once the Tendons effect goes away (which everyone seems to suggest will happen soon), it won't be nearly as bad as the other momentum classes; it'll be a matter of playing good defence to survive, which I'm fine with. 

As you seem to often do, youre putting words in my mouth. As is, warhammers can miss -without- clumsiness hence my opinion that the -current- accuracy increases are fine.

Anedhel

Forged warhammers against high dex targets? Or artefact warhammers? Don't think I've ever seen an artie knight weapon miss against me without clumsiness (in any spec) (12 dex, trans avo + legendsteed). 

ETA: Could also just classlead forged warhammers getting an accuracy boost? If you lump in 'added accuracy' with a classlead about artefact weapons, the logic follows that you're arguing for increased accuracy for all warhammers, and given that I already hit non-high dex targets often enough even while clumsy, I don't think it's a big leap to extend that to 'I'll probably mostly never miss, even while clumsy.' I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm just extending the argument you put forth. 

Armali

Can confirm, two misses in a row got Kenway killed because he couldn't leg break to prone me to slow me down (what's this Anedhel? Can't slow down Alchemist? Kenway does it all the time!)

Anedhel

Edit: Nvm, not worth it.  

If you have the log of him missing without being clumsy twice in a row, I'll put in the classlead to up forged warhammers' accuracy as soon as I can!

Armali

Anedhel said:

that puts 2h in the same bad spot as Alchemist in that you can't do -anything- to slow them down (carve/splinter makes shielding not a great defence at all). 

That's where the snipe comes from. You can demonstratively do things, and it compromises your argument when you make comparisons to things that are untrue.

And 100% sure he wasn't clumsy. It was a fresh engagement, no rebounded leg hits, and my rotation against two hander doesn't use clumsiness. No log though, sorry. I can do tests with him when he's around. This was using a forged hammer, iirc, but he has level 1s now.

Anedhel

Neat, I have a classlead left, I'll put it in as soon as I get the chance, in that case! 

Edit: Nvm, still not worth it.

Kenway

Anedhel said:

Edit: Nvm, not worth it.  

If you have the log of him missing without being clumsy twice in a row, I'll put in the classlead to up forged warhammers' accuracy as soon as I can!

Cute ninja edits
Anyways, in breakpoint testing with my level 1 ive missed hosko a few times(horki monk for ref)
If you had actually read the full classlead, there is a specific example of stats showing current stats save for damage. Warhammer doesnt need tohit buffed, the accuracy increases just need to remain as they are. Not sure why you think thay arties are supposed to make you over the top powerful, theyre not. Theyre there to give you and edge and in their current itteration 2h arties give -more- than an edge. 

Jhui

@Armali taking people to school. Someone get this man in ACC

Anedhel

No real reason forged (certainly not level 1) warhammers should miss if your target doesn't have really high dex and trans avo, imo. 

Farrah

Armali said:

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Problem:

Unnamable is a timed aff-deliver mechanic that is long enough to tie together

with an instill and entity balance. It also has an RNG chance to deliver 1, 2,

or 3 afflictions. On the high end, when you get the RNG hit of 3 afflictions,

you're nearly to Hecate in 1 herb balance. With any sort of momentum on the

side of the occultist, this 3-aff procc is nearly certain death.

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Solution #1:

Reduce the maximum chance of proccing from 3 to 2

Solution #2:

Reduce Unnamable to 1 affliction, reduce the balance to compensate

Solution #3:

Something I haven't thought of

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Okay, let's look at classlead 82 as an example. I've posted it above for reference.

Let's assume that unnamable's aff-proc chances are equally divided. Without doing trials, we won't know for certain of course, but it stands to reason, and the report makes no mention of what it assumes the proc rates are.

Unnamable's cast time is 3.2s eq according to the AB. Instill is 2.5s eq. We can immediately see that 33% of the time, a one-aff unnamable will go off and you've lost aff progress over an instill, because the target can just focus away your aff. What if they're off focus balance for one reason or another? Than you've still lost progress because Unnamable is slower than instill.

What happens if you get a 2-aff unnamable? The target will focus off the first aff, and be left with one remaining. In this scenario, you've knocked their focus balance and given them one aff. This is similar to the, 'one aff unnamable without focus scenario'. If they're off focus, then you get two affs and you've made some progress towards Hecate/whispering madness.

What happens if you get a 3-aff unnamable? Well, you have two mentals on you. You may have one or more physical affs. If you have 2 or more when they regain balance, you'll probably get hit with an instill and a hecate, then a whispering madness, then an enlighten. If you don't have focus they can probaly just whispering madness into hecate immediately, then enlighten. -- keep in mind though, because of the eq costs involved, you still have maybe a second or two to try and get the hell out, which is similar to the reaction time you have to tumble against certain set ups.

An argument will be that, 'well, a smart Occie will time unnamable to land after Cadmus, a smart Occie will use the unnamable with some momentum built up'. But that's fine. That's like saying, 'well, a smart BM can pre-impaleslash you off of your attacks'. You can see unnamable casting. You can take precautions to disrupt their timing, like active hindering (for example, on cast, if an snb is on-balance they could attack/guardbreak to get to 4mo, then strike low impale to buy themselves a bit of time where the Occie can't capitalize on the unnamable shot), or running away, just like you can disrupt a prep setup by fake or pre-applying. It's true, a 3-aff timed with instill and entity will get you to 4 affs, right up to a hecate. But a hecate isn't death, and neither is hecate + whispering madness. Enlighten is. And the Occie still needs balance to actually cast each of those abilities in sequence and such a scenario can only really occur maybe 33% of the time, a bit more if you happen to be off focus balance (in which case you're either so far behind they could've just cadmused, or their pre-momentum has been reduced because they spent a balance somewhere burning your focus). 

A further argument might be, 'well it's annoying that I have to run away so often!' That's not really an argument though. If you successfully escape as a prep class, you make definable progress towards your kill condition as long as you've hit them a few times. They haven't if you manage to get out. As a mo. class, you already generally have the tools to slow down their momentum sufficiently (for example, I do as an alchemist, and a spine serpent probably would do, if they get that para spamming down pat), so the instances of an unnamable shot coming out are farther in between.

Unnamable is a gamble that, if it pays off, can pay off big, but most of the time fizzles and can be mitigated. Is it annoying that you don't know how many affs you get and thus might not know when to run? That's certainly a possibility! Neutering unnamable in the solutions described would render the skill nearly useless though -- so maybe the 'Something I haven't thought of' should be, 'let the target know how many mentals they go so they can react accordingly'. Beyond that, it's just a matter of watching your own status, highlighting unnamable cast, and then weighing the risks to make a decision of stay-leave.

I mostly agree with this, except that I never have any success at all running against Seragorn without a lucky piety proc to hold him back. Flying seems too quickly negated by their ent that lands you, and running seems too easily negated by simply chasing immediately. This makes it quite a bit different from tumbling against a different kind of setup, where the tumble actually stops the kill. Not to mention iced ground for that little extra annoyance.

Using various hinder methods like you mentioned works well. I don't find running to be reliable vs Occultist though.

Jinsun

Atalkez said:

Still waiting on facts to back up the opinions.

Anecdotal evidence isn't gonna cut it. Explain why the logic is unsound, not why you disagree with it.

Atalkez said:

Anyway, forum brigade isn't who classleads are for. Makarios has a solid idea of where he wants to see combat progress, and classleads are just a sugestion.


Well after that Lol I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, but I'll take a stab at it.
Starting at 66

Truename is currently an extremely potent ability, and once a Truename is 

obtained, its single use generally leads to death on a target in group. It's an 

overly effective neutralizer, since it bypasses the speed defense and give aeon 

automatically, making it the best Aeon-deliver ability available.

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Solution #1:

Change Truename to only give the Aeon affliction if the Speed defense has been 

stripped. This allows counter-play to the strategy through Glaaki harvesting, 

and make it not so potent in group settings, while also bringing it back in line 

for the current mechanics of Aeon delivery.

The Occultists were given the enervate setup to give -some- option against classes with fast aff out-puts and stupid high health like Knight SnB. Adding the speed requirement would only meaningful thing this changes is that the occultist would have to strip speed before the first truename. Good luck sipping speed over health when I have two truenames.

Solution #2:

As stated in classlead 7, remove the ability for Truename to be harvested from a 

corpse. It currently is a positive feedback loop that is generally a major 

difference in group settings against the class.

This one also seems silly to me as it's been a mechanic for years and only applies to the corpse you take it from. Imagine for instance, we're losing a group battle and want to own you in the next round. We'll all just enervate, stack three truenames a piece and laugh the next classlead round when you regret your classlead.

Submitted by: Anonymous      Status      : Submitted

Skill       : Miscellaneous  Ability     : Aeon

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Problem:

Aeon currently is locked into two select classes, one of which is centered 

around a single faction, the other one that is generally viewed as laughable for 

many reasons and is rarely played. What this leads to is a situation where, the 

instanced where one has to deal with the Aeon affliction in group settings is 

generally pairs with razers, afflictions and the like from allies. In a melee, 

there is no real way to keep yourself from suffering from the affliction versus 

a Tarot user who wants to seal it on you - assuming they have anyone that will 

raze/afflict kalmia leads to situations where it hitting you is assured death 

with very little actual recourse.

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Solution #1:

Remove the ability to RAZE the speed defense, and add a condition that the 

person that strips the speed defense must be the one that delivers the Aeon 

affliction. This will not affect 1v1, only group, and force the Tarot user to do 

the work alone instead of it being so easy to stick as currently sits

The and add a condition is what bothers me here. You're so geared towards taking down Ashtan, you're worried about the only city that can appreciably LoS aeon.

Report #69

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Submitted by: Anonymous      Status      : Submitted

Skill       : Tarot          Ability     : Lust

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Problem:

With the way this mechanic currenlty operates, it bypasses enemy status and 

instantly Lusts the person. To reject a person, you have to be on balance, and 

reject also takes balance. In both 1v1 and group combat, this has often enough 

been used to kill someone with the Empress ability (generally to a honours mob, 

or a guard stack). Sorry this is so silly that I had to stop before I got to the solutions. It only requires like a 2 second eq to reject lust. Do you know how long it takes 1 v 1 to get to an honours mob and drop you on a doppie? Even with pathfinder, I still have to set it up well in advance which is also a two second balance. If you are getting repeatedly empressed onto an honours mob, stop sucking at 1 v 1. It has also been used to doppie lust targets that are getting 

sniped (forced to shield), enabling them to be pulled to the attacking group 

with little to no recourse if you are off EQ/Balance long enough. In comparison 

to other 'player to player movement' mechanics, this has a much higher 

abusability in that it does not require an 'ok' from the person.

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Solution #1:

Allow REJECT to be done balancelessly, which will allow anyone to reject an 

enemy Lust regardless of the situation where they find themselves. This leaves 

it more as an ally help (whitelisted Lustlist) versus drawing enemies away in 

such a manner. 

Solution #2:

Remove Lust from Doppleganger-able Tarots

Solution #3:

FOR THE LINE OF SIGHT COMPLAINTS SOLUTION 3 is A MONOLITH SIGIL.


Report #71

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Submitted by: Anonymous      Status      : Submitted

Skill       : Tarot          Ability     : Fool

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Problem:

Fool curing three afflictions, used in conjunction with the Sun tarot for a 

passive cure, leads to two super-fast affliction classes paired with some of the 

best passive and active curing mechanics available.

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Solution #1:

Reduce Fool to a single affliction (comparable to almost all current active-cure 

mechanics).

Solution #2:

Reduce Fool to 2 afflictions

Solution #3:

THE THING THAT ACTUALLY EXISTS TO MITIGATE FOOL A ONE MINUTE COOL-DOWN (higher than any other active heal) and sun ticking at 15s when other passive heals tick at 10.

The hound change, Eh, I don't really care about as it's pretty eh damage, anyway, it's like 5% every two affs. It can add up if people really focus, but we generally either go damage or affs, not both.

Problem:

Occultist has the ability to entity/Tarot, which seems to go against the entire 

point of removing Tarot/Entity in previous classleads. If this is intended 

functionality, then I believe looking into Hound able to be paired with 

Hangedman is called for. Ability to do damage coupled with a guaranteed Hinder 

(damager on balance from the Tarot, since it's generally faster than the writhe) 

seems uncalled for

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Solution #1:

Disallow Hound entity to precede the Hangedman Tarot (This I don't really care about because honestly I have no clue why at all it has enough of an effect for you to waste anyone's time on it)

Solution #2:

Remove the ability to entity/Tarot skill-wide, with Moon being an exception to 

this so as not to hinder the overall offense too much 

Again this classlead shows just how little you know about occie. Because it effects soooo much more than just hangedman, but you wouldn't know enough to know that. It effects any aeon setups (if anyone still bothers anymore) because aeon requires an ent for an effective setup, not to mention it's so easily cured. Sometimes you don't use moon in a fight, you use lovers tarot which already only gives one specific aff, so it can hinder the opponent but not really stack super well. 

Report #80

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Submitted by: Anonymous      Status      : Submitted

Skill       : Domination     Ability     : Hecate

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Problem:

With the change to Cadmus pushing paralysis on a person that is focusing with it 

active, this means that once Hecate is given the occiultist is passively 

punishing curing with hinder that stacks with their already mobile room hinder. 

This leads to a positive feedback loop at the end-game, where curing helps them, 

not curing helps them and you can't leave without paralysis cured, but even 

curing that means you play RNG with tentacles. Shield is no help with gremlin, 

neither is flying with dervish. It's extremely punishing at a point in the fight 

where you're already being punished pretty heavily and need every opportunity to 

escape

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Solution #1:

Make Cadmus fade on Hecate

Solution #2:

Make Cadmus not relapse paralysis while Hecate is active, relapsing something 

else instead

Occultist is an extremely predictable class. Everyone knows when to run. The paralysis/Cadmus change was put there to hinder people who stuck around long enough to get cadmus, but tried to run as soon as cadmus or hecate hit, so they could prep for a kill. Both of these changes go completely against the spirit of the buff (which was only from last classlead).

Submitted by: Anonymous      Status      : Submitted

Skill       : Domination     Ability     : Hecate

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Problem:

Hecate currently counts non-occultist delivered afflictions towards it's 

requirement.

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Solution #1:

Give it the Petrify treatment, where non-occultist afflictions do not count 

towards the finisher

Solution #2:

Solution #3:

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Cool, while we're at it, let's do that for Alchemist locks, serpent locks, limb damage, dsbs, absolve, etc etc etc etc. 

Alchemist and Occultist currently are only really hindered by the paralysis 

affliction. Shielding, while somewhat of a hindrance, rarely gets you anywhere 

(and in the case of occultist is objectively worse than just chancing RNG 

tentacles). Their ability to not have to deal with rebounding and largely ignore 

shield makes them nearly unhinderable

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Solution #1:

Make instill/entity and wrack/truewrack succeptible to clumsiness to bring their 

affliction potential into line with the other mechanics in place, with 

clumsiness being an alternative active hinder to paralysis and shield/rebounding

There are hugeeeee differences between wrack offense and instill offense namely that you can start with paralysis as an Alchemist, and you -might- get paralysis as a hindrance as an Occultist. 

Why did I go to all that effort? Because if you're going to be ACC actually put some thought into your classleads and learn about the skills you're asking for nerfs for and how they work with the rest of the class before spending so much of your time trying to derail one class because you feel burned. I don't submit many classleads because, honestly, I don't have time to learn all the other classes, and it's not fair for me to beg for nerfs if I don't understand how they effect the class in the bigger picture.

Farrah

Armali said:

You asked for logic, and then you dismiss logic (by literally saying tl;dr) when you get it by citing anecdotes (I not focus in time because of stupidity which I will IMMEDIATELY FOCUS away again because it procs aff discovery on serverside, and I /might/ procs secrets/shield when I'm on balance), when you originally asked for not-anecdotes. I'm not sure what you want anymore.

By the way, your Infernal trick doesn't work. If you tumble immediately you just get impaled off one leg and eat the (hypothetically torso because of torso damage on impale) DSB. You won't tumble away in time because of intimidate (pretty sure that will lengthen tumble time just enough with one leg break). And if you're clever enough to pre-tumble, who's to say your opponent isn't clever enough to you know, actually dsl you twice to make sure you're not pulling off BS before they actually go for the kill shot?

I agree this kind of thing might be a problem.

When I read the torso/impale thing, I was thinking about Intimidate. I don't play DWC, and have no idea what intimidate actually does (other than that it extends tumble in some way). I was thinking the impale change might create impossible to stop torso dsbs in conjunction with intimidate, but was also thinking intimidate might not be necessary if the torso impale thing was added. I can't really say if it's a problem without knowing exactly what intimidate does though.

Farrah

Armali said:

I note a lot of the Occultist reports are group combat focused, and while I agree with Jinsun that some of these reports are unwarranted, I can get behind a lot of the group ones. /Some/ of the reports also have more general solutions that I'm pretty wary about, though, like the truename one where one solution is, 'make it not ignore speed' and the other one is, 'remove the ability to harvest truenames from corpses'. One only really affects group fighting, the other is a pretty hefty nerf to truename even in 1v1.

My own Truename lead (#7) focuses on corpse TN only and suggests making it weaker for corpse TN only, or deleting corpse TN. Agree the mechanic's fine for 1v1. The group opener TN is massively imbalanced though. Imo, group fights shouldn't be decided by who won the last fight or a fight a week ago.

And I don't think anyone can argue Truename would be balanced as a normal, use whenever you want ability, so why should it be ok if you've happened upon the corpse of someone before?

Jinsun

That's how the majority of us feel about soulspear or bloodsworn. They're crazy factional advantages.

Farrah

Soulspear and Bloodsworn aren't even comparable.

Jinsun

They're comparable in that they are mostly factional. They just give you a different advantage which is part of the Flavor of group combat in Achaea. If every factional ability had the -same- advantage, it wouldn't really be an advantage.

Ahmet

Jinsun said:

They're comparable in that they are mostly factional. They just give you a different advantage which is part of the Flavor of group combat in Achaea. If every factional ability had the -same- advantage, it wouldn't really be an advantage.

It's not about having the same advantage, it's about having an equitable advantage. If one side's advantage is much more advantageous than the other's, that should probably be reworked.

Farrah

Jinsun said:

They're comparable in that they are mostly factional. They just give you a different advantage which is part of the Flavor of group combat in Achaea. If every factional ability had the -same- advantage, it wouldn't really be an advantage.

Yes, but we still care about balancing the factional advantages. Bloodsworn is balanced by the fact that most attacks do %-based damage, as well as affliction kills. It provides a fairly minimal advantage, all things considered, most of the time.

Soulspear is gravehands + damage for ~6-7 second balance. What is truename balance? For double Aeon Tarot + two kai choke's worth of damage. With my solution 1, TN would still be a single Aeon tarot + a single kai choke (ish) of damage. That's still strong, in addition to all of the other factional advantages of Occultist (doppleganger chief among them, for tons of uses).

Armali

Truename is around 3-4s.

Jinsun

Farrah said:

Jinsun said:

They're comparable in that they are mostly factional. They just give you a different advantage which is part of the Flavor of group combat in Achaea. If every factional ability had the -same- advantage, it wouldn't really be an advantage.

Yes, but we still care about balancing the factional advantages. Bloodsworn is balanced by the fact that most attacks do %-based damage, as well as affliction kills. It provides a fairly minimal advantage, all things considered, most of the time.

Soulspear is gravehands + damage for ~6-7 second balance. What is truename balance? For double Aeon Tarot + two kai choke's worth of damage. With my solution 1, TN would still be a single Aeon tarot + a single kai choke (ish) of damage. That's still strong, in addition to all of the other factional advantages of Occultist (doppleganger chief among them, for tons of uses).

As I pointed out soulspear is any corpse, at all, ever. You can have like a million soulspears. You can just chuck them ad nauseum. Truename still requires a  specific corpse, was changed so you can't combo with others' truenames, and is capped at 3 a person. It's a lot of damned work to get 3 truenames on one person when everyone wants their corpse for random shit, and to be honest, it's not something I really even factor in to group fighting. Sure it's cool after we have a few, but it's not normally a game changer. If you could still do like 10 occies with unlimited truenames, sure, I'd agree. I just don't think it's as OP as you think it is. Agree to disagree.

Atalkez

Armali said:

Unnamable's cast time is 3.2s eq according to the AB. Instill is 2.5s eq. We can immediately see that 33% of the time, a one-aff unnamable will go off and you've lost aff progress over an instill, because the target can just focus away your aff. What if they're off focus balance for one reason or another? Than you've still lost progress because Unnamable is slower than instill.

It may be slower than instill, but it allows the class to unlock afflictions that instill does not have access to, so pairing it works better than repeating instill over and over imo.

What happens if you get a 2-aff unnamable? The target will focus off the first aff, and be left with one remaining. In this scenario, you've knocked their focus balance and given them one aff. This is similar to the, 'one aff unnamable without focus scenario'. If they're off focus, then you get two affs and you've made some progress towards Hecate/whispering madness.

If you have Cadmus, you've now given yourself paralysis (potentially, though it's pretty often), otherwise no disagreement here.

What happens if you get a 3-aff unnamable? Well, you have two mentals on you. You may have one or more physical affs. If you have 2 or more when they regain balance, you'll probably get hit with an instill and a hecate, then a whispering madness, then an enlighten. If you don't have focus they can probaly just whispering madness into hecate immediately, then enlighten. -- keep in mind though, because of the eq costs involved, you still have maybe a second or two to try and get the hell out, which is similar to the reaction time you have to tumble against certain set ups.

An argument will be that, 'well, a smart Occie will time unnamable to land after Cadmus, a smart Occie will use the unnamable with some momentum built up'. But that's fine. That's like saying, 'well, a smart BM can pre-impaleslash you off of your attacks'. You can see unnamable casting. You can take precautions to disrupt their timing, like active hindering (for example, on cast, if an snb is on-balance they could attack/guardbreak to get to 4mo, then strike low impale to buy themselves a bit of time where the Occie can't capitalize on the unnamable shot), or running away, just like you can disrupt a prep setup by fake or pre-applying. It's true, a 3-aff timed with instill and entity will get you to 4 affs, right up to a hecate. But a hecate isn't death, and neither is hecate + whispering madness. Enlighten is. And the Occie still needs balance to actually cast each of those abilities in sequence and such a scenario can only really occur maybe 33% of the time, a bit more if you happen to be off focus balance (in which case you're either so far behind they could've just cadmused, or their pre-momentum has been reduced because they spent a balance somewhere burning your focus). 

You will have to make the argument for a smart occie using it after they've already stacked you a bit. There's no reason to start a fight with Unnamable, because as you mentioned yourself it's simply less efficient to use in that manner. It's best comparable to a serpent snap with an EQ cost than a pre-impaleslash of a prep class. I can cure my legs and be okay easy enough. Affliction class isn't like that in the slightest. The best use, to me, would be after Cadmus when focusing can lead to the target not being able to run or hinder you because of paralysis. As Farrah mentioned, running really doesn't seem to work at all. You can't fly, and you can't shield because occultist beats both of those with no real loss to momentum. You have one/two seconds to attempt to walk out of tentacles, and a high chance you have paralysis so you sacrifice that curing chance on something that doesn't help except to give you an rng chance to leave the room seems pretty over-the-top no?

A further argument might be, 'well it's annoying that I have to run away so often!' That's not really an argument though. If you successfully escape as a prep class, you make definable progress towards your kill condition as long as you've hit them a few times. They haven't if you manage to get out. As a mo. class, you already generally have the tools to slow down their momentum sufficiently (for example, I do as an alchemist, and a spine serpent probably would do, if they get that para spamming down pat), so the instances of an unnamable shot coming out are farther in between.

As was said, I don't see running away as a viable option versus occultist. The issue, is that it also can't be cured around. There is not (cure impatience if snapped for serpent), or (cure asthma for apostate if slickness) defensive mechanisms in place. The class punishes shield, flying, running, and curing. To me, that's a bit much. I'm not big on the 'run or die' mentality. I'm much more inclined towards curing you way through situations, or managing/manipulating your opponent/situation than simply being overrun with little way to manage it. 

Unnamable is a gamble that, if it pays off, can pay off big, but most of the time fizzles and can be mitigated. Is it annoying that you don't know how many affs you get and thus might not know when to run? That's certainly a possibility! Neutering unnamable in the solutions described would render the skill nearly useless though -- so maybe the 'Something I haven't thought of' should be, 'let the target know how many mentals they go so they can react accordingly'. Beyond that, it's just a matter of watching your own status, highlighting unnamable cast, and then weighing the risks to make a decision of stay-leave.

Again, we disagree that running is an option versus the class. I think something needs to be done, and it doesn't even have to be this. I don't care if I get approved/declined. I'm just offering suggestions for issues that I see. That's what my job is for the ACC, imo, and I'm gonna do that.

@Jinsun

I'm not geared towards taking anyone down, not sure where that comes from. I see what I perceive to be an issue, discuss it and see what I can do to manage it, try it again and again and again and if I think there is a problem, then I add it to my classlead list that I keep open on my dekstop when I'm in Achaea. Things get added/tweaked as time goes on. I weigh the issues I see pretty heavily before you ever see the classlead on it.

Sigils aren't a balancing factor where the Lust mechanic is concerned, imo. Truename is OP as shit, don't see how you can disagree there. I'm fine with making Fool a faster cooldown in exchange for less-cures!

At the end of the day, they're just suggestions. You can disagree with them, you can love them, that's cool. Still gonna write them up!