All 1v1 fights are fair.

Atalkez

You hate Priest and here I am loathing Alchemist!

Patroklos

Everyone hates Jester. The biggest downfall is that once you kill someone one way, they're generally ready for that one again. There's only so many things you can do with Jester skillset that uses small numbers of fashions. Even at the larger fashions, I'd say most skilled combatants will start the tumble on the first mangle because they know there's an 80% chance that a cripple/command restore is coming. In Jester's current form, it's mostly a form of harassment and griefiness. I don't know many people who'd even stick around once I get to 40+ fashions.

Dunn

The biggest thing that jesters have is balanceless force IMO. Unique these days since Minuet nerfs. 

I know occies have it too, but they can't really leverage it in a lock context. 

Atalkez

A full doll is extremely terrifying.

Achilles

Atalkez said:

A full doll is extremely terrifying.

Agreed

Makarios

Pandora's avatar ritual was originally exactly what the name suggests, but we were worried people might not be able to get firecrackers and would find it underpowered as a result.

Trivia.

Krypton

But now it's underpowered for not being actual Obliterate.

Patroklos

Dunn said:

The biggest thing that jesters have is balanceless force IMO. Unique these days since Minuet nerfs. 

I know occies have it too, but they can't really leverage it in a lock context. 

That's assuming blissful ignorance doesn't screw the pooch entirely. It's becoming a real common occurrence of things I'm coming across when I fight people.

Puxi

The biggest complaints I see against classes are Priests and Alchemists. It seems like the common complaints are that there is little to no counters for some classes against them. Just my 2 cents, but I'm still a newb. Honestly, every class SHOULD be able to beat an equally artefacted and equally skilled person or at least have a legitimate kill condition/path that is possible, but with all the classes that becomes very hard to balance from a design perspective (just like with any game that has pvp). This is why there are classleads though, so I'm assuming if there is anything that extremely obvious, it will get fixed. Am I off base here?

Patroklos

Daeir said:

I dunno, the potential interactions between pranks/juggle/tarot are gigantic, not even considering the doors that Puppetry opens. Jester is obscene in its potential depth given what tools it has. Blackout and cure negation on demand with sub 1s affliction speed plus Tarot is a huge bag of dicks just waiting to be thrown at people's faces.

I'm not sure where you're getting all of that from. Tarot balances are pretty slow, even with nimble. Occie has the advantage of the ents and a whole other class set that can help hinder and put pressure. Sticking aeon requires either a concussion bomb on the ground or inventory (which there's still a timing issue with since you get get +- 3 seconds on the timer, or suicide mice which you can off with a single attack each and cost 1s balance to drop. Most decent combatants are either going to pick up the bomb and put it in their pack, or leave the room, or in the case of mice, just kill them and laugh as you sob in frustration. For the record, even in blackout, people can see you set the timer on bombs.

If I wanted to be an ass, mickey definitely affords me some grief capability. Fling a curare axe, watch them eat the mickey, slip again once you get balance back, repeat. It works, but it's a shitty move. I've been working on some things to work together, and puppetry is definitely powerful. Though why puppet slow is 30% slower than tarot is beyond me, especially when it's got a pretty high fashion cost associated with it (1 to strip speed, 10 to slow. Both with 4s pre-nimble). I'm hoping whenever Mak gets around to the Jester re-work, it'll bring some better kit along that makes Jester a little bit less lackluster in 1v1.

Ahmet

Patroklos said:

Daeir said:

I dunno, the potential interactions between pranks/juggle/tarot are gigantic, not even considering the doors that Puppetry opens. Jester is obscene in its potential depth given what tools it has. Blackout and cure negation on demand with sub 1s affliction speed plus Tarot is a huge bag of dicks just waiting to be thrown at people's faces.

I'm not sure where you're getting all of that from. Tarot balances are pretty slow, even with nimble. Occie has the advantage of the ents and a whole other class set that can help hinder and put pressure. Sticking aeon requires either a concussion bomb on the ground or inventory (which there's still a timing issue with since you get get +- 3 seconds on the timer, or suicide mice which you can off with a single attack each and cost 1s balance to drop. Most decent combatants are either going to pick up the bomb and put it in their pack, or leave the room, or in the case of mice, just kill them and laugh as you sob in frustration. For the record, even in blackout, people can see you set the timer on bombs.

If I wanted to be an ass, mickey definitely affords me some grief capability. Fling a curare axe, watch them eat the mickey, slip again once you get balance back, repeat. It works, but it's a shitty move. I've been working on some things to work together, and puppetry is definitely powerful. Though why puppet slow is 30% slower than tarot is beyond me, especially when it's got a pretty high fashion cost associated with it (1 to strip speed, 10 to slow. Both with 4s pre-nimble). I'm hoping whenever Mak gets around to the Jester re-work, it'll bring some better kit along that makes Jester a little bit less lackluster in 1v1.

It's slower because you don't have to be in-room for it.

Patroklos

Ahmet said:

Patroklos said:

Daeir said:

I dunno, the potential interactions between pranks/juggle/tarot are gigantic, not even considering the doors that Puppetry opens. Jester is obscene in its potential depth given what tools it has. Blackout and cure negation on demand with sub 1s affliction speed plus Tarot is a huge bag of dicks just waiting to be thrown at people's faces.

I'm not sure where you're getting all of that from. Tarot balances are pretty slow, even with nimble. Occie has the advantage of the ents and a whole other class set that can help hinder and put pressure. Sticking aeon requires either a concussion bomb on the ground or inventory (which there's still a timing issue with since you get get +- 3 seconds on the timer, or suicide mice which you can off with a single attack each and cost 1s balance to drop. Most decent combatants are either going to pick up the bomb and put it in their pack, or leave the room, or in the case of mice, just kill them and laugh as you sob in frustration. For the record, even in blackout, people can see you set the timer on bombs.

If I wanted to be an ass, mickey definitely affords me some grief capability. Fling a curare axe, watch them eat the mickey, slip again once you get balance back, repeat. It works, but it's a shitty move. I've been working on some things to work together, and puppetry is definitely powerful. Though why puppet slow is 30% slower than tarot is beyond me, especially when it's got a pretty high fashion cost associated with it (1 to strip speed, 10 to slow. Both with 4s pre-nimble). I'm hoping whenever Mak gets around to the Jester re-work, it'll bring some better kit along that makes Jester a little bit less lackluster in 1v1.

It's slower because you don't have to be in-room for it.

So what? It's not like aeon's hard to cure nowadays. I could see that justification back in 2006 or so when manual curing was still the go-to. Using puppet slow is like throwing aeon in room with them without following up on it. They walk away and giggle.

Cynlael

Jester's lackluster in 1v1? Lol I wanna play the same game you're playing.

Farrah

Puxi said:

The biggest complaints I see against classes are Priests and Alchemists. It seems like the common complaints are that there is little to no counters for some classes against them. Just my 2 cents, but I'm still a newb. Honestly, every class SHOULD be able to beat an equally artefacted and equally skilled person or at least have a legitimate kill condition/path that is possible, but with all the classes that becomes very hard to balance from a design perspective (just like with any game that has pvp). This is why there are classleads though, so I'm assuming if there is anything that extremely obvious, it will get fixed. Am I off base here?

That's the idea. People just disagree about what is and isn't balanced. It is also sometimes just difficult to come up with an acceptable solution.

Honestly though, priest has changed so much in recent years, and is faction-locked, a lot of people who have issues with it don't even know exactly what the class does and what counters what. Which naturally leads to over-exaggerated views.

Certain classes do have certain kill routes pretty much foreclosed against priest though. The idea balance-wise is that this is ok (for now) because they have other viable kill routes available. I don't think people like that though.

Puxi

Agreed. But I think becomes a problem if there is only one kill path against a priest and allows you to predict and pre-counter for only one option. As for alchemist, they build towards 2 killpaths at the same time so you either die to one or the other (obviously if you stay in the same room). 

Just out of curiousity @Farrah, how does the priest vs alchemist matchup play out? Anyway, good discussions regardless.

Cynlael

Puxi said:

Just out of curiousity @Farrah, how does the priest vs alchemist matchup play out?

Both sides run out of willpower, then stare at each other before quietly walking away.

Armali

I died to level 3 smite damage. I'll let you know when I get more health.

Farrah

Priest should slaughter Alchemist. It's the one class I'm not sure really has any recourse at all against Priest defense. 

Alchemist and Priest are by no means the "two strongest classes" though. It all depends on who you're fighting and what your preference is.

For example, I've never killed Jhui 1v1 as Priest and fighting him (Monk) as Priest was the most frustrating thing ever. I do much better against him as Paladin and if I want to kill him 1v1, that's what I'd choose. Same with Exelethril.

Pretty sure most people would pick a prep class if they wanted to have the best chances top tier. Alchemist and Priest are both momentum classes. But you could also see it as somewhat of a RPS element where you'd rate different classes higher against different opponents.

Anedhel

Alchemist is the only class I feel is total horseshit to fight  

Others can be annoying, but in an exciting kind of way, like Apostate, or Sentinel. It feels pretty good to beat 'em, and if you lose, you can usually go back and find the mistake you made and have an 'ohhhh' kind of moment, which is decent consolation for getting your ass kicked. 

I do echo @Dunn's comment about preferring to put my junk out on a train track than fight certain people, though (that group's super small, in my defence!)  

Aegoth

I fight anyone 1v1 for the most part (90% of the time). Sometimes I'm tired from work though, and just want to relax. I'll hop in a group fight (because it's easier to do group fights imo) if I'm feeling bleh... but for the most part I don't shy away from kicking anyone's ass. It's all dependent on my vagina's mood, really.

And no, fuck priests. -webs @Farrah-

Amranu

@Aegoth never fights me 1v1

Aegoth

Fuck automated shaman too. I play to fight people, not AI

Amranu

Automation probably hurts me more than anything now, because of all the nerfs to why it used to be necessary.

Puxi

If it hurts you, why do you continue to do it? Can't you change your offensive system to not be automated?

Devran

Aegoth said:

Fuck automated shaman too. I play to fight people, not AI

You're still fighting the person. It's their code and their logic.

I've never had a problem with Automation in terms of morally or whatever. With triggers it's the natural progression. /shrug

Not saying you should agree or anything, just my opinion.

Cooper

Devran said:

Aegoth said:

Fuck automated shaman too. I play to fight people, not AI

You're still fighting the person. It's their code and their logic.

I've never had a problem with Automation in terms of morally or whatever. With triggers it's the natural progression. /shrug

Not saying you should agree or anything, just my opinion.

No, you aren't fighting the person. You are fighting their code.

Just because you can code a system to track afflictions perfectly and decide which attacks to use based on that, doesn't mean the person behind it can do that.

Source: I made auto lock script for bard in 10-15 minutes that worked vs. Proficy, Aegoth, and Alrena. Literal push F2, walk away from keyboard. That doesn't mean I'm a good bard, or a good fighter at all. Just means that a computer can do things that it is impossible for a player to do.

Anedhel

There was a really great golden period a few months back where I was able to get a lot of 3v3/4v4s going and it was magical. And then it all went to shit and it was either a thousand versus two or three, or one on ones  

Makes me sad, Achaea was super super fun for a while. 

Devran

Cooper said:

Devran said:

Aegoth said:

Fuck automated shaman too. I play to fight people, not AI

You're still fighting the person. It's their code and their logic.

I've never had a problem with Automation in terms of morally or whatever. With triggers it's the natural progression. /shrug

Not saying you should agree or anything, just my opinion.

No, you aren't fighting the person. You are fighting their code.

Just because you can code a system to track afflictions perfectly and decide which attacks to use based on that, doesn't mean the person behind it can do that.

Source: I made auto lock script for bard in 10-15 minutes that worked vs. Proficy, Aegoth, and Alrena. Literal push F2, walk away from keyboard. That doesn't mean I'm a good bard, or a good fighter at all. Just means that a computer can do things that it is impossible for a player to do.

You're right actually. A person can't react as fast or make decisions as quickly. 

I just don't see how it's not natural for things to progress to that stage eventually. And I've never really had a problem with that personally, though I've never had to deal with it since i am not a top tier combatant by any stretch.

What's the alternative? Everyone agree to limit themselves to semi manual offensive actions and ostracize people who do automate stuff?

*Note: Not being sarcastic at all in case it reads like that. 

Atalkez

If you're competitive enough, it doesn't matter, like Farrah said.

I don't care if someone is auto or not (though I DO think manual takes more skill and effort than auto). I may give people shit for it sometimes, but I'll still fight them all the same.

We're not going to escape people using aff tracking or scripting to maximize efficiency in kill chains. It's just simply a way of life at this point. Limiting yourself on who you fight based on what scripts they may or may not be using seems asinine to me.

Cynlael

I wish we could go more than a week without this topic coming up. I swear it's arisen in virtually every combat-based thread we've had in the past year.

You're basically saying it's okay to not actually play the game, while playing the game.

Devran said:
Everyone agree to limit themselves to semi manual offensive actions and ostracize people who do automate stuff?

Idk about "ostracize" but don't expect to be treated as though you're as good at the game as you think you are. It's pretty similar to people who use bots in WoW to perform their rotation flawlessly, and then brag about how good at DPSing they are. (Note: speaking in general "you" terms, not directed specifically at you)

[spoiler] Alas, Blizzard has pretty capable detection of that kinda stuff, and they tend to get banned fairly quick. How different the genres of games are. [/spoiler]