New trait changes

Sidonia

Tested limbprobe and expert diagnoser for those that don't want to do so themselves.

Limbprobe is ~1.5s balance (without nimble, if that affects it). Can't be used off balance or off eq. Tells you if it is not/barely/lightly/moderately/heavily damaged, then it says 'broken' for mending level break, 'crippled' for restoration, and 'mangled' for mangled. Doesn't tell you how close to mangling, just tells you crippled all the way up until it's mangled.

Expert diagnoser can be done off bal/eq, takes neither and has its own 10 second timer. Can't check for epseth/epteth unless I just have the syntax wrong.

Neither can be used on self while clumsy. Didn't have restore to check how much longer it is, but tree is 30 seconds without recovery and with expert diagnoser.

Sena

Tael said:

Now I need Sena to tell me if I should take receptive body or robust.

For bashing, definitely robust. For PvP, not sure.

Tael

Sidonia said:

Expert diagnoser can be done off bal/eq, takes neither and has its own 10 second timer. Can't check for epseth/epteth unless I just have the syntax wrong.

Neither can be used on self while clumsy. Didn't have restore to check how much longer it is, but tree is 30 seconds without recovery and with expert diagnoser.

Well, at least that's slightly nice. I still doubt anyone even moderately capable is going to take it though (at least as serpent).

If I don't know whether an affliction stuck I (a) can usually use an illusion to find out and (b) don't actually care for the most part. The only situation I can think of where it would be useful is to avoid wasting a snap if asthma didn't stick, but there's a very simple way to find that out without it.

There is absolutely no way that I can see where it's worth a significant hit to tree time.

(And I meant for PvP - what's the sip formula again? And the amount of health granted by con? This is going to involve some math given that I have a l2 sip ring and a l2 health bracelet.)

Edit: And if, as Sena suggested, we just had 24-48 hours to try things out, this would be way easier. But I can't try them out and then choose because I only have one reset.

Zeon

@tael As a blademaster I too wouldn't take expert diagnoser, if that makes you feel any better.

Evali

uhh wrong thread

Synbios

Didn't put in Nondescript. How can I be an official serial killer of the undead now?

Tael

Zeon said:

@tael As a blademaster I too wouldn't take expert diagnoser, if that makes you feel any better.

Not much. You got squishier, but at least your opponents are going to be easier to kill too. BM could already do some pretty serious damage. I'm going to have to run even more often now against a lot of BM, monks, and knights. Cat and mouse combat is the worst kind of combat.

And since the defensive problem regarding health is primarily a threshold problem, this seems like a serious misstep - the people with stupidly high health still won't care and the people with low or middling health just got even easier to kill unprepped.

The thing we need to solve the stalemate issue is a look at how prepping works against modern systems and, in a few cases, a look at the effectiveness of finishers once the prep is done. We certainly didn't need to make it easier to get lolkills by mashing high damage attacks. I'm terribad and even I get this.

Bah. I'm going to go away before this makes me even more bitter than it already has. And my bimonthly combat interest was just piqued too.

Sidonia

Tael said:

Well, at least that's slightly nice. I still doubt anyone even moderately capable is going to take it though (at least as serpent).

Honestly, I think that people that lived without these for so many years aren't going to be super excited in most cases, but I can see that they'd be quite useful for people that are new, or that struggle with tracking enemy afflictions/limb damage etc

Katzchen

Why so many major traits, and so few minor?

Sena

Tael said:

(And I meant for PvP - what's the sip formula again? And the amount of health granted by con? This is going to involve some math given that I have a l2 sip ring and a l2 health bracelet.)

Max health is (3*constitution+4)*level+300, sip is (70+MaxHealth*15/100)*(80+(1..40))/100.

Jonathin

This is Sena and her boyfriend.

No censor needed, they just got back from a walk in the park.

Katzchen

Anyone have any idea of the damage from 'cheap shot'?

Sena

Katzchen said:

Anyone have any idea of the damage from 'cheap shot'?

I heard 40-70.

Katzchen

Ugh. Now if I want the same ish health I had before I have to take a major trait instead of a minor, and then I can't get the 5% sip bonus. Which is better @Sena, +1con or 5% sip? I have a level 1 sip ring, no belt. 4955 health.

The sawbones, limbcrusher, cheap shot, and sticky stirrups all sound interesting, but so few major trait slots.

Iocun

People who claim that reducing the prevalence of high health and resistances doesn't help affliction classes are mistaken. That may be the case for some of them, but for many, those things matter quite a lot.

As a serpent, high health and venom resistance makes it much harder to kill someone before their passive healing gets them out of a lock, and sniping a sleeplocked opponent to death became quite unviable because they'd always wake before dying. Reducing this most certainly doesn't only help "loldamage"...

And even if it did, there's the often-voiced desire to make entry-level combat easier, and making straight damage without arties more viable certainly goes in that direction.

Nellaundra

I've probably asked this before, but what are the direct differences between Reinforced and Light Stepper?  Thinking about which major traits to grab.

Aerek

I'm actually excited about the general decrease in tankiness. Damage as a strategy had almost disappeared, achievable only by artied monks and Knights with swords dripping in curare/prefarar.

Achilles

Reinforced is out, but shows up on trait list all for some reason.

Drauka

Just as I was excited about the traits and had them all in place, they get wiped and nerfed. *gawh!*

I still have "a Ceylonese bracelet" and "a golden band of Draconic vigour", so I suppose crocodile tears. Lost about 400 hp.  I do think there should be a racial trait reset, too.

Drauka (male Grook Warden)

You are level 80 (Logosian) and 72.9% of the way to the next level.

Health:       4781 / 4378     Mana:         3994 / 4114

Endurance:   18800 /18800     Willpower:   17600 /17600

Strength: 11  Dexterity: 11  Constitution: 14  Intelligence: 13

Drauka

I do think the usability of selecting traits is improved. Only shows what you can actually select at each level instance, instead of a generic list and you figure it out.

Berenene

Jonathin said:

This is Sena and her boyfriend.

No censor needed, they just got back from a walk in the park.

You know, I did find an elusive pic of Sena once, at home, working on some Achaea stuff...I'll see if I could find it.

Here it is

Sena

Jonathin said:

This is Sena and her boyfriend.

Here's a better picture, Sena flirting with her boyfriend.

So this post isn't entirely off-topic; the changes aren't as bad as I initially thought, though some of the traits still seem questionable (some too good and some not good enough). And there are more traits that I want than I have slots for, which is frustrating, but still a good thing.

Tael

Berenene said:

You know, I did find an elusive pic of Sena once, at home, working on some Achaea stuff...I'll see if I could find it.

Here it is

...so who's this girl hanging out with Sena?

Delphinus

On a completely unrelated note, it would be nice if Marksman affected grove lightning's fizzle rate (which is meant to approximate the miss rate of arrows).

Sidonia

Delphinus said:

On a completely unrelated note, it would be nice if Marksman affected arrowcatch could catch grove lightning's fizzle rate (which is meant to approximate the miss rate of arrows).

Delphinus

Actually, it occurs to me that I have no idea how dex/avoidance affects lightning. I'm doubtful that it does.

So, never mind! Back to square one.

Iocun

Daeir said:

limbprobe is almost completely worthless, functionality is achievable with scripts and done on the fly

damage boosting artefacts/abilities just got a lot more valuable in combat now that everybody is likely missing 3% of their former health plus either 1 con or a sip bonus

The above two are incorrect.

There are several things that can affect the limb health of a target in a way that is barely or not trackable by yourself through scripts. Most notably: Pre-damage (with possibly added clever fake applying), and several people attacking the same target.

Damage boosting artefacts don't get "more relevant" when people have less health. If you want to kill someone with damage, they were relevant before and are relevant now. Generally lowered tankiness actually means that fewer offensive artefacts are needed to kill the same person as before.

Xith

Sena said:

I'm too tired to really judge the changes right now, but my first impression is that I dislike them overall.

The one thing that's really obvious though is that a free trait change is far from sufficient. It would take at least 3 trait changes just to test the new traits, preferably a lot more to test them thoroughly in a reasonable amount of time. If more transparency in the exact details of the traits isn't an option, then we should have a couple days of unlimited trait changes, like when traits were first introduced.

@Garden We're all totally okay with you guys giving Sena an extra 5 trait resets.

Sylvance

Iocun said:

Daeir said:

limbprobe is almost completely worthless, functionality is achievable with scripts and done on the fly

damage boosting artefacts/abilities just got a lot more valuable in combat now that everybody is likely missing 3% of their former health plus either 1 con or a sip bonus

The above two are incorrect.

There are several things that can affect the limb health of a target in a way that is barely or not trackable by yourself through scripts. Most notably: Pre-damage (with possibly added clever fake applying), and several people attacking the same target.

Damage boosting artefacts don't get "more relevant" when people have less health. If you want to kill someone with damage, they were relevant before and are relevant now. Generally lowered tankiness actually means that fewer offensive artefacts are needed to kill the same person as before.

I'm with you on the rest of the post, other than the bolded, @Iocun, though perhaps its a personal failing more than anything that makes me say this. My first reaction to group combat is to stop counting limbs and do Anything Else Helpful.  I suspect that even with this trait, with more than one person hitting the target's limbs, the time between your probing the limb and doing something with that information could easily be big enough for the limb to have changed for one reason or another.

Honestly, I can't think of a single use for that trait, because I have a limbcounter. It's great for folks who don't have one... but I'm wondering how useful it is for anybody who actually needs one. I can't think of a situation where I would need to know if a single limb was damaged.

Iocun

Yes, the "multiple people attacking" thing was more something theoretical I added. The main application is to fight pre-damage and fake applying. A limb counter simply can't know the state of someone's limb before you first attacked them.

But even if we were to assume that it is completely replaceable by a limb counter, does that necessarily make it useless? It just makes it useless for some people - but not everyone needs to take it.