I just returned to the game to find illusion equilibrium has been extended quite a lot when used in conjunction with a dstab, making the conventional dstab/illusion impractical when fighting aside from one off illusions like a magi would use. From what I could see searching, this was to try and nerf serpent a bit at the higher artifact levels, correct me if I'm wrong, that's about the only info I could find. Serpent have always been a fairly stable class that I think most people would consider balanced, they have received some buffs to skills to make them more competitive as combat developed and systems/curing changed, although nothing I would have thought were game changing. I have been away from combat for a very long time though.
Illusion has always been an integral part of serpent combat, illusions add a whole other dimension to combat that isn't just a situation prep. With the advent of higher automation in combat, I think illusions are still quite valid and useful, and keep Achaean combat interesting as people have to code around them or employ their own knowledge of combat to ignore them. They also add an almost infinite depth to combat that can be tailored depending on class and situation, either against systems or the player. Anyway, I'm just shocked this was changed as this changes the dynamic of the class completely and brings it inline with most other affliction classes.
Anyway, seems the advanced search feature isn't on there forums, or I can't find it, and I'm not having too much luck after searching through 15 pages of "illusion" results. Can anyone enlighten me as to why illusion was changed specifically, if it was just a balancing issue, why illusion and not another skill?
Now that some time has past, would everyone say it was a positive thing, did it achieve what it was intended to achieve?
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The actual illusion nerf classlead was more about spam than anything else. I didn't mind anti-automation illusions, but then there were people spamming tumble illusion/fly illusion/etc. twice per dstab, and people tend to color/echo/etc. lines like that. The spam got really annoying.
Serpent is very strong now without confusing your opponent at all, so adding random spam and confusion on top of it really provides a benefit that's not warranted. It was definitely something serpent no longer really needed. Though, I had as much fun as anyone with illusions, so I get the sadness.
I guess I'm still fairly shocked to see the drastic change, I would have thought it would have been in the interest of promoting combat complexity that they remained a focal point, even if they were somehow limited to cures and/or a cool down imposed. I was quite looking forward to designing my illusion systems around fighting different people for the sole purpose of defeating automation, anyway, I guess I'm just a bit annoyed, it would have been nice to see the problem handled in a different way. Especially since illusions have been around since genesis and have never posed a problem before, and any spam caused is ultimately the responsibility of the recipient in coding echos that are not obnoxious or building in some anti illusion into them.
Also, I get that the class may not have changed too much on a power level, although I feel it lost a lot of what made it unique.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Serpents don't really need any combat buffs right now, but illusions were definitely a very fun aspect of the class.
The main problem they had was that they raised the complexity too much, especially where coding is concerned. Yes, I know, this is Achaea, where nobody ever automates and everybody is still doing everything manually on their Apple IIe and all that happy bullshit. Whatever. The truth is that combat is massively spammy, especially once you get into team fights. Players whose systems can verify and discard illusions have a sizable and significant advantage over players who can't do that.
Additionally, a good illusion detection system can largely negate the effects of many illusions, which means that most anti-automation illusions are really more like anti-bad-automation illusions. This ends up making one of the clearest tier lines in the game, and it's literally a "if you could code better this wouldn't really affect you" line. Those are awful for the game, and they really add to the "you need to be a CS major to play this game" feeling that a lot of people get.
When you get down to it, illusions increase both the desirability of automation as well as the quality threshold of that automation, and that's pretty much contrary to how Achaea is designed.
You can still of course use illusions standalone.
Illusion could also be put on separate class class balance or with a 15s CD or something and maintain 1s EQ cost.