Prep vs. Momentum

Vender

here's a thread to bring the discussion in the auto target thread to appropriate place. I've noticed that in achaea that prep is a much more acceptable and standard. alchemist here is referred to as a timebomb, but tempers can be cured and at a much faster rate without the presence of alchemist in the room.

a true timebomb cannot be cured out of by any means. by that definition, limb prep is the more timebomby of the two. now some say that is prep is fair because post breaks set ups are survivable but when it comes to dragon and magi, they seem very hard to survive.

the biggest issue I have is that dragon and magi and blademaster have powerful active cures that are very hard to block (as well as magi having a passive). to me, this doesn't seem like the best design philosophy as both classes already have incentive to leave the room as quickly as possible (without losing their prep) when faced against momentum and if their active cures require conditions that momentum can only achieve after the being in the same room for a while then those prep classes are almost never at risk (unless fighting alchemist).

i could be wrong since I'm still new so I would like to hear some differing opinions on this.

Armali

Dragon set up is one of the easiest preps to survive, I can't imagine how you'd be having problems with that. It has a huge telegraph (BREATHSTORM) that you just need to get away from.

Blademaster is hard countered by robes and torso tracking/heuristics. There is literally nothing a Blademaster can do if you have tank arties and robes assuming you have moderately good play.

Magi is tough with scalded permitting double leg breaks. There's some class leads looking into it.

You might've had a larger case if you cited something like DWB, which has no reactive counterplay possible at the moment. But, there's classleads approved looking into that class too. I think Achaea's been doing a pretty good job in ensuring that prep setups are either survivable or require pre-momentum going in.

Even jesters. And fuck those guys.

Vender

those make sense but you didn't address the main concern, which is the powerful actives those prep classes have.

basically, it doesn't make sense to me to put actives cures that can only be blocked by after gaining momentum on classes that can not only bypass momentum but already incentivized to do so.

Armali

I was addressing the broader dynamic of prep vs. momentum - your specific concerns are more bard vs. dragon/magi/blademaster concerns than anything else.

For example, priest kill routes either involve mana drain, which active cures won't hit, or overwhelming them with a hellsight lock, where a ton of chaff affs will be coming in play that'll eat up actives. Occultists can burst you down extremely quickly, and rely more on quantity rather than quality, mitigating the effect of the actives (and rendering some useless, like fitness). Alchemists can ofc KO with every single lock aff in the book. Shamans have non-lock routes and semi-prep of their own, serpents pressure extremely quickly and have ginseng slowlocks and darkshade to fall back on (which creates large aff volume) in case their fast locks don't work. IDK about apostates.

Atalkez

I think you're better off arguing that prep classes that have access to an active and a passive are putting an unreasonable burden on momentum classes. Not that I necessarily agree with that. You have more mitigation on prep classes due to the speed to kill being much greater for momentum than traditional prep.

Actives alone aren't generally an issue, unless they're an outlier that adds another affliction to the lock chain (shaman active in selarnia, magi active in BB, dheal with recklessness) - but with the recent change to weariness being non-focusable affliction, I'd say fitness is a much weaker active in comparison. This comes into play because the knight classes all only have fitness. BM is an outlier there with alleviate and phoenix, granted.

For instance: Most momentum classes that lock, have a way to softlock to burn actives on people that save them. Here, all passive cures also cure voyria first, so you can also negate the procc if you handle it properly (not that there is anything stopping someone from just sipping immunity right before the procc, unless they have anorexia) since the vast majority use their passive as a 'turn it on and forget'.

I think overall the balance is pretty good, there could certainly be some tweaks here and there, but that comes with time and balance considerations.

Anedhel

Bard's in a tough spot against a lot of opponents because they don't have a great way to hinder movement, which is regrettable, but it's offset by a pretty powerful offence. Yes, a lot of classes have active cures, but as far as I can tell, you can't really spam any of them (most have a cooldown, like serpent shrugging or magi bloodboil, etc., don't they? Not sure how alleviate works, but if it's not on a cooldown, it ought to be!) and most have an aff that blocks it (like weariness for shrugging). 

Passive healing can be a pain in the ass, but all classes have to deal with it (Rites of Healing, for example, are pretty much a nuisance for everything except Alchemist, 2h, and DWB, I think). Getting rid of passive healing would make it very difficult to handle many classes; defensive ability is usually traded off for a less impressive offence (dragon's a great example. You have excellent resists and a strong active heal in exchange for having very boring and predictable offence, most of the time). 

Good fighters have found ways around that kind of obstacle. Learning to work around certain defensive aspects can actually be pretty rewarding, look for people who play a certain class well, learn from 'em! Most Achaeans are pretty good about sharing tips, as long as you ask politely. 

Calira

I don't think Fitness is necessarily a weaker active than the others. Being guaranteed to cure a lock aff makes it not strictly worse than Shrugging, and Weariness sharing a cure with Asthma can be a source of cure ambiguity. It's also usually accompanied by a passive or another active, with Infernal and Monk being the only two that come to mind without.

Aerek

The question (or rather assertion) is so broad, it's hard to address in anything less than a thesis. Prep classes aren't uniform, each has their own tells, strengths, weaknesses, and counters, so it's difficult to generalize beyond a few points:

• Prep classes generally have longer setup times than aff/momentum classes, and thus have to dodge at least one kill attempt before getting to attempt their own. This does justify putting some good defensive options in their corner, and it's not as though aff/momentum classes don't have similar actives. (Or better! Alchemist Salt can be chained with Temper/Wrack.)
• Aff/momentum classes often have better hindrance than prep classes, which exacerbates the long prep time above.
• Limb damage resets after 3 minutes after not being hit, and with good parry usage and hinder, this is absolutely a threat against some prep classes. If you know one of your limbs is edging toward that time, you can run from us and reset our prep just as easily as we can run from you to reset your momentum.
• Most prep classes use prone-based finishers that take some time to execute, and some even have mandatory pre-finisher steps (Impale) that must be present to use the finisher, so tumble and walls are strong obstacles against them.

You did select two classes, Dragon and Blademaster, that do have powerful actives, but that's not true of all of them. Jesterdoesn't have any outside Fool, Shaman has to sacrifice a binding for Daina, and Knight/Monk Fitness is countered by the same kelp stack most classes already use to stick asthma, so they're among the easier classes to lock these days. No doubt Shin Phoenix is strong, but necessitates near-full Shin, which in turn stops BM from using Shindo for much anything. Dragonheal is strong, but coincides with one of the weaker prep offenses. (I agree that Dragon is actually pretty difficult to survive for most targets, but past a certain health threshold or against anyone who refuses to fight in Breathstorm, they're pretty SOL)

Armali said:

You might've had a larger case if you cited something like DWB, which has no reactive counterplay possible at the moment. But, there's classleads approved looking into that class too. I think Achaea's been doing a pretty good job in ensuring that prep setups are either survivable or require pre-momentum going in.

What's unstoppable about DWB? Unless you're just referring to L3 flail/L3 gauntlet mangle locks, I've never had too much trouble with DWB. Just need a wall and a good tumble time.

Vender

I'm fine with passive healing but I think the problem with is with prep classes with actives, a 15 second cooldown is not really a big deal when you can leave and wait for the cooldown and without losing any prep because it takes 2 minutes to clear. also when the block conditions for the actives need pre-requisites that are hard to achieve without momentum (weariness + recklessness requires kelp stack and impatience) (bloodboil requires haemophila which can be unobtainable for most classes) (selarnia requires asthma and slickness) it takes a certain length of time to get there, which could be 10 seconds and by that point they will have the active again if not sooner from leaving the room.

Armali

Actives and passives simply don't have as much of an effect as you're claiming for most classes, is what we're saying. 

For bard specifically it's an issue if you don't integrate limb breaks into your lock sequence, but for most other momentum classes, the design is such that you CANNOT reset easily by movement. A magi using bloodboil or a dargon using dargoncure isn't going to phase me as an alchemist anymore than usual, because I can keep them in room and I'll chase /aggressively/ if I can't. Same for priest or occultist or what not. The aff volume is also such that one or two affs here and there just aren't that significant.

@Aerek: I do refer to those. They work a lot better if you mix up your weapons, too.

Bann

Alleviate's a 10s cooldown.

Antonius

Aerek said:

Armali said:

You might've had a larger case if you cited something like DWB, which has no reactive counterplay possible at the moment. But, there's classleads approved looking into that class too. I think Achaea's been doing a pretty good job in ensuring that prep setups are either survivable or require pre-momentum going in.

What's unstoppable about DWB? Unless you're just referring to L3 flail/L3 gauntlet mangle locks, I've never had too much trouble with DWB. Just need a wall and a good tumble time.

Pulp can be unstoppable if you only defend against it reactively and don't have room-based hinder (piety, gravehands, noose, peels, etc) or runes in the room you're tumbling into; just a wall and tumbling in a timely manner might be sufficient against dual blunt Knights using forged morningstars, but with level two (and now level three) morningstars I have more than enough time to add mountjump/leap into the mix and still pull it off, even if they do apply restoration to legs -> apply restoration to head.

I don't think that's necessarily a problem, though. The issue is how easily dual blunt then punishes the curing choice you have to make to reactively avoid Pulp (don't apply to legs, pre-apply to - or at least save salve balance for - head) through switching to flails. The damage can be absurd, and the bonus limb damage makes mangle locks a certainty. Losing that bonus limb damage might help a bit, but there's almost certainly going to be more balancing that needs to be done. I want to see what happens with torso assault before I really start brainstorming the best way to fix the issues though.

Farrah

Bard can definitely beat all the actives once you learn to use it most efficiently. Most, if not all, classes can, so places where specific problems do exist are something for classleads. It's hard to go into more detail when it's such a broad topic.

Farrah

Vender said:

I'm fine with passive healing but I think the problem with is with prep classes with actives, a 15 second cooldown is not really a big deal when you can leave and wait for the cooldown and without losing any prep because it takes 2 minutes to clear. also when the block conditions for the actives need pre-requisites that are hard to achieve without momentum (weariness + recklessness requires kelp stack and impatience) (bloodboil requires haemophila which can be unobtainable for most classes) (selarnia requires asthma and slickness) it takes a certain length of time to get there, which could be 10 seconds and by that point they will have the active again if not sooner from leaving the room.

This was somewhat already touched on but a huge part of playing a momentum class is not allowing prep classes to simply leave and reset your offense. True momentum classes all have room hinder for this. Bard and shaman have prep routes that bolster their momentum routes. 

Bard is actually, if considered a momentum class at all, hands down the best momentum class at securing a kill against fleeing types due to its amazing ability to fluidly break legs and prone while locking.

Vender

hrm alright, thank for this. I think I gained some perspective here.