Quick Combat Questions

Rackham

It's worse than that, in that the prone only comes if they didn't raze. So like, if they attempt to raze, and you don't have a shield, you get proned. Else it's just a raze.

And yeah I don't get it either. Maybe for groups?

Armali

If you study the DW kit, you'd notice they literally have almost no other direct prones. A prone is useful in a post-lock situation, because you can still do a lot of stuff if you're standing even while paralyzed. Imagine if you locked someone with a passive cure and they could just loop touch shield and you had no way of getting past that. It would be really frustrating.

Archaeon

Imagine DW having a drawback.

Archaeon

It's pretty stupid that they'd change clumsiness to remove both affs, thus removing the ability for psion to bury any afflictions.  I know a lot of people think psion's pretty overwhelming which is an argument we can have, but to silently change clumsiness to affect prepares, without any input (if that's what happened, rather than this being a bug) is a bit.... wtf mate.

Kog

Sounds like it was a bug, and is fixed- though prepare won't proc on reflection still.

Keorin

Rackham said:

It's worse than that, in that the prone only comes if they didn't raze. So like, if they attempt to raze, and you don't have a shield, you get proned. Else it's just a raze.

And yeah I don't get it either. Maybe for groups?

Actually, you have to select whether or not you try and use it to prone, it won't auto-prone if you try to raze shield and fail.

As far as the DW raze itself goes, though, it's not actually that bad. Shield seems to be targeted to take about 1 second to break, which can either take the place of one affliction or be one second on its own. Razeslash breaks shield and delivers an aff, but at around a 2 second balance, for instance. There are some classes with better breaks, but DW's isn't super out of line with the others.

Archaeon

wtf is 'grievouswounds'?

Mizik

https://ada-young.com/pastebin/7W9NhWYY

Nooooo, @Makarios why the SNB hate?

Gallida

Maybe he'll boost the PvE damage to compensate?

Mizik

The damage is fine, in my opinion, they just bugged the balance. Especially unartied. 

Jakiro

anyone here I can pester for some DWC questions? Thinking about switching up classes specialisations and I've got a few stuff I wanted to ask in messages (so I don't clog up this thread). Thanks in advance!

Mizik

Fire away, bud.

Dominius

I have a quick question concerning salve balances.

In theory, I want to create a profile that holds using salves until an arm is broken, then cure the arm before curing th other. I know how to swap Prios and how to cancel the curing of a certain limb, but I'm not sure what the best way to code something like this would be..

Telinus

Dominius said:

I have a quick question concerning salve balances.

In theory, I want to create a profile that holds using salves until an arm is broken, then cure the arm before curing th other. I know how to swap Prios and how to cancel the curing of a certain limb, but I'm not sure what the best way to code something like this would be..

Are you using a system at present or would this be purely on serverside?

Dominius

I have some things setup to create different curing profiles, but I am using serverside to handle the curing

Chubbs

Not sure about the whole 'hold using salves until an arm is broken' part, @Dominius . No using caloric/epidermal? But if you want to fully cure an arm before curing the other arm, you can achieve that through aff prios.

Say, for instance, you had both your arms broken and you wanted to fully cure your left arm before your right.

Swap your prios so brokenrightarm && brokenleftarm are both higher prio than damagedrightarm && damagedleftarm.

I.e. brokenrightarm && brokenleftarm are prio 12 while damagedrightarm && damagedleftarm are prio 13 or lower.

With those prios and both arms broken simultaneously, serverside will pick an arm, (lets say right in this case) apply restoration to you right arm, then apply mending to your right arm, making sure your right arm is fully healed before applying restoration to your left arm and beginning to cure it.

Not sure if this is the BEST way to do this, but should work.

Sobriquet

I'm not a great fighter, especially when it comes to theory.. but I can't get my head around why they changed Occie so assume I must be missing something.

It seemed a nice middle ground for Aff classes in that we didn't have to know specific affs or cures just keep track of physical and mental afflictions. It looks, to me now anyway, that it's gone down the standard Kelp / Ginseng Aff stack route and it seems disappointing. I also can't see a real use for the all the sudden limb damage additions other than rift lock, but that seems weak compare to, say, Jester.  Is this to open up a possible Death Tarot use finally? Primebond looks quite good and can see why they only allow 4 at a time, but indicates you are forced down a certain strat unless you head back up to the Chaos Plane and rebond with other Chaos Lords. 

So rather than get frustrated and start to sound negative, thought I'd ask here as more people are in the know than me. It's clearly been worked on for months by arguably the best Occie fighter we've seen, so can someone enlighten* me?



*Pun intended

Saonji

Sobriquet said:

 but I can't get my head around why they changed Occie so assume I must be missing something.

I'll give my thoughts on the class so far. People are free to disagree.

Why it changed?

Occultist, for the past year or three has been in a slump after a slew of nerfs pretty heavily reduced its effectiveness. People lauded it as still being a good class, but compared to literally any other momentum class it got shafted pretty hard if they were equally skilled. When its vitals-based finisher (truename) is better than its affliction one, despite being an affliction-centric class, you know something's wrong... It was in an unfortunate state of not knowing really what you could buff/change, without making the class broken, thus they decided to change pretty much the entire class.

Salve-related stuff.

I'm at a loss here as well, to be completely honest. There's no real way to capitalise on its salve stuff, best I can presume is it's for group support shenanigans with a Magi. Ague + passive freeze from Primebond seems pretty good in that regard. Solo I don't think it has any purpose. Ruinate also looks good on paper, but in reality I think it missed the bar a bit. Ruinate lovers is about the only one currently worth using (more on that soon). Justice isn't great because Occultist has nothing to capitalise on broken limbs, especially not when it's just a discount version of Trample that makes you lose all those affs. Wheel is too slow to actually be useful currently, I expect some things to change with both of these at some point, tbh.

Primebonds.

I'd disagree here. There's actually quite a bit of flexibility in what you can use. Feels like the passive nausea one is about the only 'required' one due, the other three there's definitely flexibility. I've been experimenting a bit, and I gotta say it's pretty cool. A little annoying you have to take trips to the Chaos Plane to redo them, but no big deal. Will let you explore those, rather than telling you every neat thing you can do. Fun fact despite it not being mentioned, you automatically have everything primebonded if you're on the Chaos Plane (so I'm told; haven't seen myself yet). RIP to anyone who wants to fight an Occultist there.

Afflictions.

I think one of the biggest changes is WhisperingMadness no longer being a smoke cure, nor does it block mentals from being cured any more. It pretty heavily reduced the priority on curing it. Now it's basically guilt, except with a much lower chance to proc. But it does 'reduce' how many affs you need for Enlighten by 1. (in reality not really, it has a longer EQ than instills, so there's some curing leeway when it gets used). Now Occultist actually has a rather potent affliction forking route, which is made even stronger depending on what primebonds you're using. Truename can also actually be used as more than just a damage tool as well, now that they have ready access to asthma. Will leave you to explore that, I've personally found it to be pretty fun. eta: Also being able to lock someone if the stars align, and madness gives them impatience. Kinda hilarious when it happens.

eta: Occultist's always been ginseng/kelp focussed. Just now it has paralysis to help you manage the stacking better.

Overall thoughts so far.

I think the average Time-To-Kill has raised a little bit (maybe 6-8/10 seconds), at the cost of becoming more consistent than it used to be. Having access to paralysis gives it actual hinder that it's sorely needed for a long time. Having the ability to fork between different paths (even if they both lead to Enlighten) allows for flexibility in how you kill people. Overall I don't think it's super OP compared to release Shikudo/Psion/DW, but it's definitely quite a bit better than it was. As far as 'new' releases go, I think it's actually one of the more balanced ones. Even the previous Occie rework was stronger on release (mostly due to Torc, but ye). I'm also extremely glad Cadmus/Hecate are gone. Timed affs are fucking shit, and just make a class ludicrously telegraphed (timeflux is like the only exception).

Archaeon

looks like truename route was given more options then enervate/glaaki and that the aff pool for pyradius flip to mentals has been widened to allow for paralysis, making it much easier for the occie to keep a target in the room.  It's the same thing as old enlighten, just without camus/heceate.

Calira

I agree with most of what @Saonji wrote, but not all. Madness is noticeably faster than Instill now, the AB wasn't updated with the new cast time. Enlighten comes -much- faster than before. I've gotten a few sub 13 second Enlightens and a single sub 12 second one so far, but mostly they come in the 13-15 second range. Because Enlighten is so quick, the choice of Prime Bond is entirely up to preference. Palpatar might have the strongest Prime Bond, but it's far from necessary since nausea isn't a Pyradius affliction anymore, and those listed times were achieved without it. My opinion is that one particular Enlighten route is the strongest solo affliction route that the live game has seen since I began playing, and I would not be surprised to see it scaled back at some point.

Truenames haven't changed much themselves, but they're much stronger now when considered alongside the new changes. They're the closest thing to an 'I Win' button since Oblit and a very good reason to mind your mana when fighting an Occultist. Corpse-gained Truenames are even spookier than before, and I'm worried that the only counter to those is to avoid fighting the Occultist a second time until it decays away, however long that takes.

My favourite set of Prime Bonds is Rixil, Scrag, Nin'kharsag and Nemesis. These ramp up pressure surprisingly well with the kelp and ginseng synergy afflictions, especially if you use Distortaura, Justice, Manaleech, and add on the natural mana usage from the opponent. It's nowhere near as fast as Enlighten, but it fits the fantasy that I think Occultist should have; debilitating someone while your stable of monsters does the actual murdering.

Sobriquet

Really appreciate the comments, thank you.  

Does make me realise though how little I understand this place at times when you can get sub 12 second kills and I've spent 4 hours this evening going through the AB files and still haven't a clue how to even get there!

Saonji

Yeah you're right, I never paid attention to the WHM balance. Looks like it's the same as Instill now, maybe 0.1-0.2s faster. I typo'd it.

I liked Palpatar primarily because it helps to layer over the other ginseng affs. Nausea being a pyradius aff would probably make it a little silly, honestly.

I need contemplate, to make my truenames more reliable. Hopefully Makarios gets around to putting something similar into Readaura like we discussed, since he said he wasn't against it. I don't have 1000 lessons to get it.

eta: @Sobriquet there's some RNG involved in getting kills that quick, just as Occultist has always been. Its average against other momentum classes (namely stuff like Apostate/Psion/Thoth serp) are gonna be higher once the dust has settled.

eta2: That has basically been my preferred Primebond as well, except with Palpatar over Rixil.

Paux

Thank you all for the Occultist combat tips.

I have been reluctant to ask, because Paux sits nervously on the fence between Hashan and Ashtan and I didn't want to pressure people with asking for combat help during such a huge change. 

That said, Paux will be tinkering with it and looking for help, if anyone happens to see him. 

Telinus

function ignorearms()<br>  cecho("\n<yellow>Ignored arms")<br>  if not  svo.ignore.mutilatedleftarm <br>  then expandAlias("vignore mutilatedleftarm")<br>  end<br>   if not<br>  svo.ignore.mutilatedrightarm<br>    then expandAlias("vignore mutilatedrightarm")<br>    end<br>  if not<br>  svo.ignore.mangledleftarm <br>     then expandAlias("vignore mangledleftarm")<br>   end<br>   if not<br>  svo.ignore.mangledrightarm <br>    then expandAlias("vignore mangledrightarm")<br>  end<br>end<br><br>function curearms()<br>  cecho("\n<green> Restored arms")<br><br>  if   svo.ignore.mutilatedleftarm <br>  then expandAlias("vignore mutilatedleftarm")<br>  end<br>   if <br>  svo.ignore.mutilatedrightarm<br>    then expandAlias("vignore mutilatedrightarm")<br>    end<br>  if <br>  svo.ignore.mangledleftarm <br>     then expandAlias("vignore mangledleftarm")<br>   end<br>   if<br>  svo.ignore.mangledrightarm <br>    then expandAlias("vignore mangledrightarm")<br>  end<br>end<br><br>function blademasterfake(event, aff)<br>  if event == "svo enabled class" then<br>    if svo.enabledclasses.blademaster then<br>      ignorearms()<br>    end<br>  end<br>  if event == "svo disabled class" then<br>    if not svo.enabledclasses.blademaster then<br>      curearms()<br>    end<br>  end<br>  if event == "svo got aff" and svo.enabledclasses.blademaster then<br>    if<br>      aff == "mutilatedleftarm" or<br>      aff == "mutilatedrightarm" or<br>      aff == "mangledleftarm" or<br>      aff == "mangledrightarm"<br>    then<br>      cecho("\n<yellow>Temporarily ignoring arms for legs!")<br>      send("apply mending to arms")<br>      fakeapply = tempTimer(3.5, [[curearms()]])<br>    end<br>  end<br>    if event == "svo lost aff" and svo.enabledclasses.blademaster then<br>      if <br>        aff == "mutilatedleftarm" or<br>        aff == "mutilatedrightarm" or<br>        aff == "mangledleftarm" or<br>        aff == "mangledrightarm"<br>      then        <br>        ignorearms()<br>      end<br>    end<br>end<br>registerAnonymousEventHandler("svo lost aff", "blademasterfake")<br>registerAnonymousEventHandler("svo got aff", "blademasterfake")<br>registerAnonymousEventHandler("svo enabled class", "blademasterfake")<br>registerAnonymousEventHandler("svo disabled class", "blademasterfake")

Example of code to ignore limbs for svo - you can remake this for your needs.

You can do this by changing the aff to match the gmcp name for the affs

Edit the svo lost aff and svo got aff to however you call gaining/losing afflictions (can even just be the gmcp call)

Edit the enabled class event call to either match your system setup or to be a toggle with a turn on feature to match whatever you want it for.

Let me know if you have any questions @dominius

Sobriquet

Thanks to @Saonji here, and @Calira here and in game for these tips. Managed my first enlighten on a static target, so slowly getting there. 

Telinus

@Dominius so just checked and it doesn't appear to have saved the code in that box...

https://www.pastebin.com/qNsXzPaj

Antonius

Telinus said:

@Dominius so just checked and it doesn't appear to have saved the code in that box...

https://www.pastebin.com/qNsXzPaj

It's a display issue with the forums; if you quote the post the code is there in the comment box, but it doesn't render anything beyond the first line when actually viewing the post.

Hau

Are there any particular reasons why it seems that nobody plays Jester? I've been trying to look for a class with good utility and bashing... Jester seems to fit the bill but I'm almost certainly missing some data since as far as I can tell, nobody actually plays the class!

What's going on!? 

Archaeon

pk hard

Sophi

Jester is a lot of fun and has a lot of utility that makes them strong in groups, so they tend be the first ones to die. They have a lot of defensive tools and in a 1v1 can probably survive almost anything though.

A lot of people also really hate the flavor of the Pranks abilities. I bet if they removed a lot of the silliness and modernized the class a bit the jester population would double.

I didn't spend a lot of time bashing as jester but iirc it was probably average. Can't speak to artied blackjack bashing numbers either.