New Class: Pariah

Shecks

Shirszae said:

I have a question actually. Will the sickness stick to the person who gets the killing blow or to anyone who Co tributes to it? I mean, I assume the former, but the latter would make it all the more interesting.

it's only the killing blow

Mizik

@Shecks you have a good head on your shoulders and a knack for mechanics. My recommendation is to move your reports away from the subjective and provide changes that you think would be solutions. That is the difference between our posts. You have a lot of content that I agree with, but I'm given nothing to chew on - it comes off as a vent seething with frustration. 

The class is in its inception. There will never be as much opportunity for improvement as there is now. 

To provide examples: 

1) Don't say 'bashing is terrible'. Say it needs change 'x' to be competitive. Increase dps? DR? Battlerage abs?

2) Prone: it would benefit jumps to have an earring counter. We could add it to 'x' ability under 'y' conditions.

3) Eclipse vs wings: I don't agree, since Ensorcell is on even playing field with every other class, but you could argue it could stop all in room, allies included as an equalizer. 

Etc.

I do agree that limiting Weaponry puts the class in a box that makes it less appealing to me. No Behead? No bow? Can I deliver Selarnia/haemo/confusion etc to seal? Lowest DR in the game, no armour/shield? Why? 

Etc.

Zulah

On the bashing heavy artied 20int side it does feel on level with shaman/bard as @Gallida said.

Only bashing issue I've felt is a few hard zones stepping outside cut/blunt/mag you get quickly destroyed by damage even with all the healing and damage mitigation tricks stacked in your advantage.

Mizik

Is it magic damage? Maybe it should be cold, so it's not mega commonly resisted. Like, as Apostate, I can't touch Sidhe. 

Farrah

To be honest, I think Mak just forgot to add a prone. I think it should have one too, but it's a relatively minor thing. 

Also arise is good mobility and doesn't require you to be in a desert. You can make rooms have sand.

I don't know why you think the class doesn't have enough kill paths. It has three and they fork nicely. Its only real weakness is shield (which might be too strong against it atm).

Mizik said:

@Shecks you have a good head on your shoulders and a knack for mechanics. My recommendation is to move your reports away from the subjective and provide changes that you think would be solutions. That is the difference between our posts. You have a lot of content that I agree with, but I'm given nothing to chew on - it comes off as a vent seething with frustration. 

The class is in its inception. There will never be as much opportunity for improvement as there is now. 

To provide examples: 

1) Don't say 'bashing is terrible'. Say it needs change 'x' to be competitive. Increase dps? DR? Battlerage abs?

2) Prone: it would benefit jumps to have an earring counter. We could add it to 'x' ability under 'y' conditions.

3) Eclipse vs wings: I don't agree, since Ensorcell is on even playing field with every other class, but you could argue it could stop all in room, allies included as an equalizer. 

Etc.

I do agree that limiting Weaponry puts the class in a box that makes it less appealing to me. No Behead? No bow? Can I deliver Selarnia/haemo/confusion etc to seal? Lowest DR in the game, no armour/shield? Why? 

Etc.

Transpose gives the sealing venoms. No weaponry is mainly to stop weaponry from replacing transpose. I agree either being able to wield a bow only or having a class based ranged attack would be nice though, since every other class can with an artie bow.

Ainly

Noticed there's no message when leech cures an aff while dustformed.

Mizik

I don't like that transpose is a slow one off

Shecks

Mizik said:

I don't like that transpose is a slow one off

I really hate it too but it sorta has to be, I guess.  I try to avoid it entirely unless it's absolutely required as a finisher.

Makarios

The ranged thing is something I'm thinking about at the moment. I agree no bows makes that a tough sell.

Accipiter

@Makarios is being able to wield a SoA a bug or is the armour help file wrong?

Gurklukke

Have some Pariah Xoran art, since this is the Pariah Thread....

Shecks

Accipiter said: @Makarios is being able to wield a SoA a bug or is the armour help file wrong?

* The artefact shield of absorption may be wielded by everyone except blademasters and pariahs.

oh that's weird.  Yeah, I'm definitely wielding SoA right now (as a Pariah).  can't use it while actually attacking though.

Gurklukke

It is okay for hunting, but you cant use it while doing combat.
Please don't take it away from me

Makarios

It was not intended to work, I am still deciding if it will stay that way or not in light of seeing things play out post release. I would not purchase one expecting it to work if you don't have one already, but we will see.

Shecks

Makarios said:

It was not intended to work, I am still deciding if it will stay that way or not in light of seeing things play out post release. I would not purchase one expecting it to work if you don't have one already, but we will see.

We can still use it when doing things other than attacking -for example I wield it with shield tattoo, mountjump, tumble, etc.   It's not huge but it's not nothing.  It can also be used with Transpose and stuff.  Anything other than Trace, I think (but haven't tested everything).  Still you're only wielding it maybe 5% of the time, and honestly I don't think it breaks anything considering pariah is extremely squishy without SoA, and still is with it.

Saonji

Makarios said:

It was not intended to work, I am still deciding if it will stay that way or not in light of seeing things play out post release. I would not purchase one expecting it to work if you don't have one already, but we will see.

The shield buff, while nice, frankly wasn't enough when it comes to hunting. Without a cape, hunting anywhere above like level 80 is going to be super rough. SoA alleviates a lot of that problem (not entirely, but 'enough'). They still can't make any real use of it for combat, so I don't see it being a huge issue personally.

Combat is another thing entirely when it comes to their mitigation.

Shecks

Just for sake of conversation here.  Noting Colbey always hurts, but this is kinda surprising considering I have the following damage mitigation up (for cutting):
Trans avoidance
Clotharmour + 5% cutting paragon (and SoA paragon but it obviously didn't proc here)
Algiz
Pariah Shield defence with 19 Int


To be 100% clear, I know Colbey will always hit like a truck, but still seems to be a lot more painful than any other class, including those that have armor but do not have damage mitigation skills, which tells me that 19 Int Pariah shield buff is reducing a lot less damage than a normal scalemail (DW), for example.



As a sidenote, I'm pretty sure this is going to force most Pariah players into a horkval meta.  Not sure if that's intended, but I think it's going to be the obvious answer here.  You lose 2 Int (down to 17 Int with arties & traits) but as far as I can tell, it doesn't do much anyways, and you get 2 more Con + horkval damage resistances which is incredibly worth.

Accipiter

Horkvals commanding giant swarms is flavourful at least.

Shirszae

Think it was mentioned already , but the fact there are no custom learning lines for Pariah is kind of sad, specially considering how much flavour there is otherwise.

Seems really odd that one thing was overlooked. 

Cooper

Shecks said:

Just for sake of conversation here.  Noting Colbey always hurts, but this is kinda surprising considering I have the following damage mitigation up (for cutting):
Trans avoidance
Clotharmour + 5% cutting paragon (and SoA paragon but it obviously didn't proc here)
Algiz
Pariah Shield defence with 19 Int


To be 100% clear, I know Colbey will always hit like a truck, but still seems to be a lot more painful than any other class, including those that have armor but do not have damage mitigation skills, which tells me that 19 Int Pariah shield buff is reducing a lot less damage than a normal scalemail (DW), for example.



As a sidenote, I'm pretty sure this is going to force most Pariah players into a horkval meta.  Not sure if that's intended, but I think it's going to be the obvious answer here.  You lose 2 Int (down to 17 Int with arties & traits) but as far as I can tell, it doesn't do much anyways, and you get 2 more Con + horkval damage resistances which is incredibly worth.

Have you had a chance to test if the defense ability is actually working and scaling as intended? Maybe the intelligence increase isn't working, or maybe intelligence makes you take more damage instead of less. Definitely worth checking for bugs.

Gurklukke

My testing is not as "scientific" or as I guess involved as probably some people, but I did bashing with 14 int, then changed traits and had 15, and then sipped epicurus for 16, and I definitely noticed a difference.  That being said, I also am pretty defensively artefacted, with an SoA and a cape....some things still do hurt pretty bad, but there is obvious improvement.

I think losing SoA would be pretty bad, as I tried bashing without it, and it was absolutely terrible. Not...impossible, just a lot more...stressful I suppose.

Amranu

So I've been withholding comment on the class, because it's new and whatnot. But two rather glaring problems have appeared in my testing, that should probably be looked into:

- Stupidity procs can completely shutdown momentum. This is because generally you are doing swarm/trace, where swarm is balanceless. If you get a stupidity proc on the trace and resend your command, you will now use your swarm attack a second time. Because swarm attacks take significant equilibrium without weakness, this interrupts your epitaph chain and also means you don't have weakness for your next attack. This might be able to be mitigated somewhat with some checks on attack, but this interaction is likely to be relatively common and only made worse by higher ping, where you can't effectively check weakness in time. As long as this is a problem, stupidity will effectively shut down Pariah offense unless they get extremely lucky or have really good ping.

- There are multiple, class agnostic ways to shut down accursed wave, one of which has 0 counterplay. The latter method is using aqueous sceptre to flood room, which overrides accursed eternity and completely removes the option to use accursed wave. It might be better to have neither of these override the other, but instead have eternity prevent flood and keep the mechanic where flood prevents eternity, therefore letting the person that initially setup the room get the advantage rather than letting any joe blow with a sceptre prevent the class from using one of its only defensive options.

Other than these rather two glaring problems, I love the class. It feels good to play, and feels powerful but in exchange has a rather weak defensive game. The suspense of whether or not you're going to survive for latency to let voyria kill is fun as hell, and wrecking people with bad prios on scourge is just satisfying.

Taryius

There might be some disparity between PvP (which I know is still squishy, but that seems to be somewhat intended) and hunting because the shield logograph is resists, not armour. Because denizens have no scaling component armour is always in full effectiveness against them.

Could look at adding more PvE specific resistance to the defense, similar to what they did for secondskin which had the same issue.

Ainly

Amranu said:

- Stupidity procs can completely shutdown momentum. This is because generally you are doing swarm/trace, where swarm is balanceless. If you get a stupidity proc on the trace and resend your command, you will now use your swarm attack a second time. Because swarm attacks take significant equilibrium without weakness, this interrupts your epitaph chain and also means you don't have weakness for your next attack. This might be able to be mitigated somewhat with some checks on attack, but this interaction is likely to be relatively common and only made worse by higher ping, where you can't effectively check weakness in time. As long as this is a problem, stupidity will effectively shut down Pariah offense unless they get extremely lucky or have really good ping.

I noticed this yesterday as well. I wonder if just allowing a logograph and a swarm action to be combined inline would fix this. That way either both attacks go through or neither does.

Amranu

Ainly said:

I noticed this yesterday as well. I wonder if just allowing a logograph and a swarm action to be combined inline would fix this. That way either both attacks go through or neither does.

Probably, but it would need to account for when you want to do swarm/trace/swarm.

Dochitha

Or reduce the proc chance on stupidity.

I noticed this yesterday as well. I wonder if just allowing a logograph and a swarm action to be combined inline would fix this. That way either both attacks go through or neither does.

Also, using weakness first is better in many situations, allows you to swarm/trace/higher sorcery ability when you need to seal certain conditions, like swarm/trace/virulence, swarm/virulence etc.

Amranu

No, the interaction of the mechanics of the class with stupidity is the problem, not stupidity itself. Making it happen less doesn't resolve the problem of a single stupidity proc (not secrets) having deleterious effects on your momentum.

Farrah

Maybe just a way to specify that you only want to use the command via expose. Like SWARM STING <target> EXPOSE. And if you don't have them exposed, it doesn't fire. So if you spam through stupidity you don't accidentally use it on eq.

Saonji

Amranu said:

So I've been withholding comment on the class, because it's new and whatnot. But two rather glaring problems have appeared in my testing, that should probably be looked into:

- Stupidity procs can completely shutdown momentum. <snip>

I got around this by properly checking if I have expose or not. On high ping it's not an issue, because I just clear expose on swarm hits. Stupidity procs on trace -> I just resend -only- the trace, rather than both... The reverse will mess it up though, if stupidity procs on the swarm hit and not the trace. Can't do much there, really.

Other than these rather two glaring problems, I love the class. It feels good to play, and feels powerful but in exchange has a rather weak defensive game. The suspense of whether or not you're going to survive for latency to let voyria kill is fun as hell, and wrecking people with bad prios on scourge is just satisfying.

Personally I don't think the tradeoff is particularly great, or it won't be when people work out the class. It's definitely solid, but the damage it takes doesn't match its strength. Part of its strength is attributed to people still not knowing much about the class.

I think the class is in a pretty great spot at the moment, but yeah there's two or three real glaring issues that hopefully get fixed.

Reiv

There really needs to be a way to 'release' reserved insects without collecting a full swarm, building it, and sacrificing it. Trying to find and see what all the bugs do has been painful with 10 balance-consuming gathers and the whole build-and-sacrifice sequence.