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
Replies the scorpion: "It's my nature..."
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Comments
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.
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.
Party right, party hard,
Sing and dance, perfect bard.
Prefarar loop, accentato whore,Buy a new rapier, get nerfed some more.
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
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.
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.
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.