Them droods pounding away

Aepas

I've gone into a few battles now, and had tons of fun as a druid. I typically go in as Hydra and work towards the freezepound. It normally works like a charm, except against those particularly tanky opponents who just refuse to die..

Freezepound- What I always assumed the druids true instant-kill should be. It's pretty hard to pull off, yet it does not fully kill. It does get it's own killing message, much like BBT, but it's still not a true kill. It's a pretty superficial problem, not a lot of people are actually able to tank a full pound as it is, especially if there was a good momentum going into it or you get lucky with the bees right before or after the pound actually hits. Freezepound hits at about a 97% damage. Why? why is the number this high, and not simply an instant kill? This mainly becomes a problem when fighting classes with vitality, or runies. (I may be wrong, but I think Algiz is the only thing that changes the 97% damage blast.)

I assumed that the refusal to allow this to be an instant kill had something to do with abusable properties of freezing, but I can not really find many. It requires less to freeze someone then say, prep for a vivisection, but with how systems cure anymore, two knights could be just as effective for a vivisection as two druids could be blasting ice, so that seems out of the question. Just as well the pound is prevented by shield, and freezing will not stop the arms.

The main problem I've found is with high health regeneration and a good parry system. Hydra heads are quite slow, and so is jaguar, even with reflexes on. It's difficult to stack enough salves to get all the freezing on top of that to get a good freezepound. Hydra generally seems the most versatile at breaking limbs and multitasking, but it's damage is horrible. If you have to get around parry with an axe or staffswing, the actual clamping head does around 100 damage, and that's to high health opponents. Once the opponent is fully broken and on the ground, you still have to freeze them up before the pound. We'll assume this process takes about five seconds. Even if the momentum was good going into it, this last part deals virtually no damage to the opponent, and even gives them the time to heal up quite a bit, between passive/health/moss which they might get one of each in before the pound hits. As I said before, if the vitality hits, it's all back from stage one, and the heavy artied ones will sip for more then a druid can deal to kill after a pound. Balance there is pretty long.

Tl:DR
Freezepound should be an instantkill

Kaden

That'd probably be crazy in group combat, actually. Just have a couple of magi spam deepfreeze and pick them off one by one.

Vaehl

Algiz looks like the main problem to me. Maybe make it 94% and unblockable damage?

Dunn

Doesn't seem much different, with regard to groups, than sweep trample for vivi. Both aoe, both salve cures requiring two or more apps, both instant kills (not pound currently, obv).

A level two torso DSB is ~98%, by the by.

Edit: and I don't have dem BEEEEZ for predamage

Tanris

I don't see a real problem giving Eleusis that for groups if they were inclined to try to time it well enough. Its kind of like the argument for tramplesect in groups: its viable, but people rarely do it because if you get outpinged/mess up, you just wasted like three peoples bal for 4 seconds or so each, which is pretty game changing in teams. Get freeze pounded in a group already and you're probably dead anyway.

Mizik

Agree.

Cooper

Tanris said:

I don't see a real problem giving Eleusis that for groups if they were inclined to try to time it well enough. Its kind of like the argument for tramplesect in groups: its viable, but people rarely do it because it is lame and it will get fixed if they abuse it like they used to.

Garao

You're gonna die to 97/94% damage in a group situation anyway (usually). This just makes it more viable 1v1. It's a fine change.

Arador

Agreed.

Tanris

@Cooper: we both know that would not stop the majority of the people who have access to vivisect and the inclination for quick kills.

Dunn

Delphinus

As far as Meta changes go, I'd much rather see something that lets one stick a freeze-pound reliably.

The special kill message means nothing, by the way. It's just like the special kill message for meteor, warp, etc. -- generic deathsight and an in-room line.

Halos

Dunn said:

Doesn't seem much different, with regard to groups, than sweep trample for vivi. Both aoe, both salve cures requiring two or more apps, both instant kills (not pound currently, obv).

A level two torso DSB is ~98%, by the by.

Edit: and I don't have dem BEEEEZ for predamage

Cain has been slain by the might of a swarm of bees.

Dem bees

Zeon

Classleads have been slow but there's been some talk about this, since druid while lack luster right now is in a good position to be easily remedied. Would probably be more of a buff to 1v1 and freezepounds reliability.

Also @OP are you sure you've been freezepounding properly and not just pounding someone you thought was frozen. Between break damage and bees which do a flat percent of target health, I can't imagine many people (even the heavily artied) surviving one.

Asmodron

preaching to the choir son. Druids have need a real instant-kill for centuries (anyone that says Incinerate, I will person throttle until they turn blue and drop  dead). Freeze-pound is monstrously hard to pull off, I should know, I have done it! I still recall that after I had accomplished this difficult task, how painful it was to see the target  still alive...I just give up.

If only Incinerate didnt require 10 seconds of preparation of flame level time..THEN it would be useful!!!

Honestly I consider the only Druid viable kill to be behead . Or mauling a squishy target with reflexes on as a troll

Garao

Bees only have a 1/3 chance of proccing damage and hit every like 9s with a variation of 1 second either side? I think. If this is the case, it's a slim chance between his breaks and actual freezing that he will seriously cause enough damage to put someone at risk of dying. Especially if they can vigour, vitality, transmute/kai heal, priestess, hands, fucking SIP and MOSS. Basically anything that means they won't be below 97% health at time of freeze/pound.  

Provided he can actually frozen stiff freeze pound. No real reason for it not to be an instakill if you've let yourself be freeze pounded (you will die in a group if you get freeze pounded even before such a change unless they are mentally retarded).

Tweaks to the way it mechanically works would be interesting, but something like freeze/pound is difficult to balance because it has the capability to be either fairly simple to stop or ridiculously difficult to near impossible. (Imagine a vivisect without restore.)

Delphinus

Garao said:

Bees only have a 1/3 chance of proccing damage and hit every like 9s with a variation of 1 second either side? I think.

Bees do damage every five seconds without fail. It's the afflictions that have a chance to proc.

Garao

Ugh I'm so sorry, misinformed. Are you sure it's five seconds though? I was also told that they hit shield now. Is that the case? (needs to make an alt and play achaea again, ahem.) In that case, it's mainly vigour and vitality that is the issue. Disregard the first part.

Aepas

Zeon said:

Classleads have been slow but there's been some talk about this, since druid while lack luster right now is in a good position to be easily remedied. Would probably be more of a buff to 1v1 and freezepounds reliability. Also @OP are you sure you've been freezepounding properly and not just pounding someone you thought was frozen. Between break damage and bees which do a flat percent of target health, I can't imagine many people (even the heavily artied) surviving one.

Quite sure of this, and have many logs reguarding it, mostly against monks and shaman. As I stated before, the most effective way to stick the freeze that I have currently found pretty much allows the target to heal up before the pound hits. On a sidenote, this commonly happens when I do -not- have bees. This means most of these situations could have been remedied with bees. It is a bit hard to tell sometimes, between salves and cures, and the pound message actually being the same, it is hard to tell. However, pound is generally pretty weak by itself, and one pound will -not- hit vitality.

People I know that can account for my freezepounds but have lived by a slim margin are Laila, Cahin, Ruth, Mycen, Draqoom, and some random priest.

Also, since I'm kind of discussing small issues here
Hydra freeze =no damage
Hydra bite =damage, afflict venom (nechamandra), faster than hydra freeze

So they do the same thing, one is just vastly superior?

Remove nechamandra, make hydra freeze faster, or let hydra freeze do decent damage.

Mizik

Eh. Less work to just make Freeze Pound insta. If you get freeze pounded under current curing mechanics you should be dead.

Asmodron

Aepas said:

Also, since I'm kind of discussing small issues here
Hydra freeze =no damage
Hydra bite =damage, afflict venom (nechamandra), faster than hydra freeze

So they do the same thing, one is just vastly superior?

Remove nechamandra, make hydra freeze faster, or let hydra freeze do decent damage.

Nooooo! Dont remove Nechamandra, it is awesome. I do however agree that Hydra freeze needs some changing, perhaps does a decent amount of frost damage.

Delphinus

@Aepas: Nechamandra being a venom is a pretty big downside against Serpents.

Aepas

Delphinus said:

@Aepas: Nechamandra being a venom is a pretty big downside against Serpents.

Ah, I had meant to say remove Nechamandra for druids to secrete. The nechemandra/bite that druids can do serves the purpose that hydra freeze should, but it's faster and does damage. Should not make two completely redundant skills where one is obviously better, yet you gain access to both of them at the same time.

Delphinus

Well, what I meant is that one isn't unequivocally better than the other. It's situational.

Asmodron

hmm the only time I think hydra freeze would be better than nechamandra bite is if for some reason you do not want to damage the enemy in the process. Other than that....there is in -no- situation that Hydra freeze is better than nechamandra venom bite.

Sena

Asmodron said:

hmm the only time I think hydra freeze would be better than nechamandra bite is if for some reason you do not want to damage the enemy in the process. Other than that....there is in -no- situation that Hydra freeze is better than nechamandra venom bite.

Like Delphinus said, serpents can shrug nechamandra but not freeze. That's a situation where freeze has a significant advantage. There are others as well.

Vaehl

I used to clamp break with hydra freeze then morph icewyrm for last freeze then pound. That was one of my main strats, though I had a few more. What's yours?

Idelisa

 

This thread makes me SO angry cause every time I see the title I get Rise Against stuck in my head. 

EVERY TIME.

Arador

I'm in your forest, killin' your droods.

Idelisa

ALL YOUR DROODS ARE BELONG TO ME.

>:P

Aepas

Vaehl said:

I used to clamp break with hydra freeze then morph icewyrm for last freeze then pound. That was one of my main strats, though I had a few more. What's yours?

There is no reason to do that because A) Hydra bite nechamandra is faster, and there are a ton of other more useful things that you can do with your head balance than freeze. I never use the hydra to freeze unless it is a four limb setup, in which case handaxes are still more useful

Also, the amazingly slow speed of hydra freeze almost never makes it more viable against anyone, even serpents. I'd always take flat damage and chance to freeze over nothing, especially on squishy serpents.

I really doubt that the mechanic there was left as a specific alternative, and more likely an oversight with how randomly unbalanced it is with itself.