New Class: Pariah

Dochitha

Both losses, neither are good indicators of anything except how quickly the offense goes from 0 -> crazy. 

0 -> crazy is a perfect description of it. Your log is a perfect illustration of instalock that somehow needs to be fixed. Didn't matter if you ate flushings or mag before the lock, he would still get it. You could shield right before the lock but he would transpose kalmia and still gets it. Defensive option is very limited. But that said @Amranu is pretty good at it.

Lyrin

This section of the log highlights what I think is an issue with pariah; namely the oppressiveness of enscorcel when the pariah focuses on keeping it up.

Even with a priority to escape when ensorcell falls off, if you:

 - Used a longer balance attack than the pariah prior to ensorcell dropping (very likely given pariah speed)

 - Are afflicted with epilepsy or mycalium and suffer a proc

 - Have priority on paralysis lowered to deal with something that's threatening a kill

 - Have sandfever and only move 1 room prior to follow/re-ensorcell.

You will be signed up for another 20 seconds in room with the pariah.

In the snippet below, Mizik uses exsanguinate which has a fairly standard 2.0s attack speed and has no time to respond between ensorcell falling of and being reapplied.  Although the balance cost of ensorcell is a cost the pariah has to bear, in this snippet Mizik gets 2 herb eats - this momentum is quickly recouped and built upon.

In my opinion, the hard-to-slow momentum of pariah (for other momentum classes this largely comes from clumsy immunity) makes getting away to reset your affliction stack critically important.   Obviously the pariah needs tools to prevent this, but i think the current combination of high momentum and movement hinder is too strong.

The unimaginative solution would be some window of immunity similar to lightbinds.   Other options may be to make ensorcell less reliable could be:  randomness in ensorcell timer with pre-drop warning shown to victim only, needs 2 unbroken arms, affected by clumsy etc.

5379h, 8513m, 26620e, 20374w cekdb[cl add impat]- 0 2 0-0 0-0

You have recovered balance on all limbs.
You will now attempt to parry attacks to your left leg.
Stepping forward, you brutally drive a translucent sword into Amranu's guts, ripping it free in a
spray of crimson.
You have achieved transcendence: your body and mind operate as one.
Lightning explodes from your blade as you hack into Amranu, his body locking up as the current rips
through him.

--- got aff euphorbia ---
--- got aff paralyse ---5379h, 8513m, 26620e, 20374w cekdb[cl add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
You may eat another plant or mineral. (1.64s)
5379h, 8513m, 26620e, 20374w cekdb[cl add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
AFF| ENSORCELLED
A sudden flush of heat drives out a chill that you didn't realise was there until it is gone; your
limbs tingle, and you feel unburdened.
ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!
ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!
ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!
ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!ENSORCELL DOWN, RUN!!
5379h, 8513m, 26620e, 20374w cekdb[cl add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
[Curing]: OUTR AURUM
You remove 1 aurum, bringing the total in the rift to 533.
5379h, 8513m, 26620e, 20374w cekdb[cl add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
AFF| REBBIES
[Curing]: EAT AURUM
You eat an aurum flake.
Your addiction can never be sated.
Your skin ceases secreting slime. (0.375s)
5379h, 8513m, 26620e, 20374w cekdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
69 69 69 69 69 69 69 69 69
98 98 98 98 98 98 98 98 98
5379h, 8414m, 26620e, 20364w ckdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0(-99m, 1.1%)
(Party): You say, "Euphorbia and paralyse on Amranu."
5379h, 8414m, 26620e, 20364w ckdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
Amranu takes a drink from an amethyst vial.
5379h, 8404m, 26620e, 20364w ckdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0(-10m, 0.1%)
(Party): You say, "Amranu's mana at (98.60%)."
5379h, 8404m, 26620e, 20364w ckdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
You have recovered equilibrium. (0.734s)
5379h, 8404m, 26620e, 20364w cekdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93
5379h, 8338m, 26620e, 20364w cekdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0(-66m, 0.7%)
[Amranu ATE BLOODROOT]
--- lost aff paralyse ---
5379h, 8338m, 26620e, 20364w cekdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
AFF| ENSORCELLED
Amranu sweeps a leaf-bladed ritual knife in a circle above his head, the point of the blade coming
to rest aimed at you. You feel a sharp pain, gone as swiftly as it came, and a fine crimson spray
falls about you and Amranu.
5379h, 8338m, 26620e, 20364w cekdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0

You may eat another plant or mineral. (1.437s)
5379h, 8338m, 26620e, 20364w cekdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
(4.906s)AFF| IMPATIENCE

[Curing]: EAT PLUMBUM
You eat a plumbum flake.
Your addiction can never be sated.
You are patient once again.
5379h, 8336m, 26620e, 20362w cekdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0(-2m, 0.0%)

You have recovered balance on all limbs.
You will now attempt to parry attacks to your right leg.
You lash at Amranu with a translucent lash, directing the fundamental weave of his body to begin
unwinding.
Your body and mind are in perfect harmony; transcendence is yours.
Lightning explodes from your weapon as it smashes into Amranu, his body locking up in agony as it
rips through him.

--- got aff unweavebody ---
--- got aff prone ---
--- got aff paralyse ---5379h, 8336m, 26620e, 20362w cekdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
73 73 73 73 73 73 73 73 73
98 98 98 98 98 98 98 98 98
5379h, 8237m, 26620e, 20352w ckdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0(-99m, 1.1%)
Amranu eats a potash crystal.
81 81 81 81 81 81 81 81 81
100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
5379h, 8237m, 26620e, 20352w ckdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
(Party): You say, "Unweavebody and paralyse on Amranu."
5883h, 8822m, 26620e, 20352w ckdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0(+504h, 8.3%, +585m, 6.6%)
(Party): You say, "Amranu's mana at (98.48%)."
5883h, 8822m, 26620e, 20352w ckdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0

You may drink another health or mana elixir. (4.359s)
5883h, 8822m, 26620e, 20352w ckdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
You have recovered equilibrium. (0.922s)
5883h, 8822m, 26620e, 20352w cekdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
[Amranu ATE BLOODROOT]
--- lost aff paralyse ---
5883h, 8822m, 26620e, 20352w cekdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
You may eat another plant or mineral. (1.546s)
5883h, 8822m, 26620e, 20352w cekdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
[Curing]: OUTR AURUM
You remove 1 aurum, bringing the total in the rift to 532.
5883h, 8822m, 26620e, 20370w cekdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
AFF| CLUMSINESS
[Curing]: EAT AURUM
You eat an aurum flake.
Your addiction can never be sated.
Thank Maya, the Great Mother! Your clumsiness has been cured.
5883h, 8822m, 26620e, 20370w cekdb[add]- 0 3 0-0 0-0
AFF| REBBIES
AFF| IMPATIENCE
Amranu stands up.
--- lost aff prone ---
Amranu raises his right hand, and snaps his fingers.
A great black cloud of buzzing humming bodies descends upon you, lances of agony driving into your
body as their myriad number plunge stingers into your flesh.
You feel... odd. So very odd.
Amranu traces a logograph shaped like a skein in the air before you, the blood upon his knife
bursting into arcane flame as it hangs in the wake of the blade's passage.
As he completes the logograph Amranu brings his knife slashing down, severing it in twain. You
suddenly realise how little time you have left, so much to do, so little time!
Your heart gives a shuddering stutter in your chest, a wave of nausea and weakness flooding through
you.
5209h, 8822m, 26620e, 20370w cekdb[add impat]- 0 3 0-0 0-0(-674h, 11.1%)

Taryius

I personally like the idea of ensorcell ending your epitaph, similar to scorpion. Would have no effect on starting fights with ensorcell, but increase the cost to re-apply it mid fight. 

Right now its just barely fast enough that you don't lose your epitaph if you queue after ensorcell.

Amranu

Nevermind.

Amranu

Ensorcell effectively needs to be kept up in Pariah's current state, in my opinion. This is because it is both effectively necessary to achieve any kill condition against competent opponents, due to how effective shield spam -> running away currently is without ensorcell keepup, and also because it is effectively Pariah's only defensive option, as without it they have absolutely no other defensive utility whatsoever. Keep that in mind when discussing the ability.

I think the lock above that Dochitha mentioned is a problem that needs to be ironed out, but I would also like to see the class be given time to breathe before other sweeping changes are made.

Yes, ensorcell is oppressive. So are 2h's leg fractures, so are Occie tentacles, etc etc. That oppressiveness comes with the territory of being a momentum class, and needing people not to be able to run away in order to achieve a kill.

Gallida

To add onto that, Pariah is the only momentum class (elemental lords don't count as full classes) that cannot give paralysis on demand. Other momentum classes either have room hinder (DW, Apostate, Occultist, Alchemist, Psion, 2H), very fast paralysis delivery to serve as hinder (Shaman, Bard), or some form of limb prep (Sentinel, DWC, SnB, etc). Taking away Pariah's room hinder is going to relegate them to the same tier as Air and Fire: Hilariously OP against people who don't know what's happening, and nigh useless against people who can simply walk away.

Lyrin

Did someone suggest taking away their room hinder?

Amranu

I'm not convinced that Pariah being able to keep you in room by giving up momentum is a problem, nor am I particularly convinced that it should be more expensive. It is still quite possible to run, or shield spam until the next ensorcell re-apply. I already fight Mizik and Atalkez for 20 minutes without achieving a kill, because of how effective defensive prios with shield spam is, moreover it is quite possible to get away even with ensorcell on keepup, though it is quite difficult. Given the massive role ensorcell plays in the kit, I feel like any discussions about changes to ensorcell given how little time Pariah's been around are somewhat premature.

Furthermore, as has been pointed out, running away or feeling oppressive is a hallmark of momentum classes in recent times. Pariah already sacrifices more for room hinder than effectively any other comparable class, it's application being more expensive than the comparable pinshot that Serpent's have, or lightbonds of Psion, despite both of these classes having additional defensive options that Pariah lacks, and relies upon ensorcell to fulfill.

Atalkez

I would start, as I've said repeatedly, with capping the balance time so that it doesn't beat herb balance.

I don't like ensorcell without a cooldown, or Taryius suggestion of ending epitaph would also probably work. Right now you don't lose anything because you're so fast, the window to run is effectively 0 as Lyrin detailed and then because you keep epitaph you're right back at 1.5s after using it. Heartbeat and boom  you're back to 3-4-5 aff deeps less than 5 seconds later.

Often, the cost to drop ensorcell is immediately regained on the next attack - or two at most - and that means you have ~10 seconds of building before you even have to worry about it again. I'm not sure that's a great situation to be in while being effectively unhinderable. I do see the issues of it being tough to actually kill vs shield spam - but it's also cancerous and not fun whatsoever to force me to shield 8 times in a row. You forget that shield spam is a necessity, not because someone just wants to do it. 

Edit: @Saonji sure I'm not debating that. I still hit room hinder 10 times in a row, roughly 1.1s balance cost per hit and got locked without ever leaving the room when I was clearly only trying to leave the room. That's 11 seconds of doing nothing but trying to leave and getting locked without successfully moving a single time. Had herb balance and tree to start the log, so from 0->locked versus pure run spamming. That's not really my point with the log, though, it's more that no priority switching would have saved me there. With 2x impatience because of sandfever, the virulence lock is very strong and consistent except against shield spam. 

Amranu

Is there an argument for the window to run being non-zero other than "lol you get to keep momentum and your offense is dumb"? Because that seems like a problem with the offense, not a problem with the ability to not run.

There is 0 window to run against virtually every other momentum class, Pariah doesn't need to be the special snowflake that has it, given that for instance Occie has a time to kill at least as short as Pariah, has a room hinder that only costs momentum once every 5 minutes instead of 20 seconds, and against which shield spam is not nearly as effective. It is already weak relative to other momentum classes currently. Toning it down even further at this point seems silly. Implement the balance change, and then give it a couple months.

Atalkez

I guess it depends on what your bar is. I think Psion is a better option to compare to than Occultist, I don't think anyone is going to say that Occultist as it sits is remotely fine.

Amranu

Psion can keep up lightbonds near permanently without losing as much momentum as Pariah. Their offense is arguably much harder to survive against with shield spam than Pariah's, and they also have limb breaks available for additional defensive hinder or to go for a kill if they need to use what little momentum they give up for lightbinds in their kill. Comparatively, Pariah has significantly fewer options, with a faster time to kill.

Seriously, tweak the offense so silly cheese like that lock above can't happen, and then give people time to adjust. Pariah already seems mid-tier right now and, despite that, we effectively all agree that it needs to be slowed down slightly to avoid that herb balance cheese.

Shecks

@Amranu's points about ensorcell are dead-on, and I'm surprised to see @Atalkez arguing for any form of nerf to ensorcell given those points (if anything it should last longer as its current duration isn't even a third of the time of a typical kill path even against fairly bad curing).  Having to ensorcell (~2s) every 10s (giving you ~8s to attack) is pretty rough when, as Amranu mentioned, it's 100% mandatory for both your offense as well as your defence (as it is the only active defensive tool you have on the kit).

That's just a recap.  The point I want to add though, is that @Amranu's point is already countered by almost everyone having some form of fast-travel or local mobility skill that bypasses ensorcell.  It's certainly not just earrings - there are maybe a dozen things that let you leave, many of which are available on artefacts which everyone can use.

In other words, the class cannot and should not be balanced around ensorcell working, because everyone has access to multiple ways to ignore it.  As mentioned above, it's also simply too short duration to rely on this heavily.  Lastly, as a defensive option, it is completely countered by your opponent using something like pinshot/tentacles/gracehands/piety/lightbinding, which means against classes that have access to room hinder, the class loses its /only/ form of active defence (ensorcell + run away), other than shield tattoo.  Several classes have access to both room hindrance and attacks that ignore shield - which basically renders Pariah completely helpless defensively.  Combining this vulnerability with a lack of active offensive hindrance, if the Pariah cannot kill an opponent in this fairly common scenario within 10-20s (or fast travel away), they are basically dead assuming a competent opponent.

Also just going to point out that things like gravehands + frozen ground or even just gravehands + block are basically a death sentence for Pariah.  The inability to move either yourself or your opponent on a class with no active defence or ability to tank even moderate DPS is just a dealbreaker IMO (which is why I was shocked to see Wave nerfed into oblivion as Eternity/Wave despite being a 3.5-ish second balance was the /only/ counter to hard CC, and now it's gone).

Pretty any Damage class could just drop some form of hindrance (any will do) and just bash attack Pariahs to death, as long as they cure right and shield properly.   Assuming even arties they will just die to straight damage long before their kill conditions come into view.

Eryl

Dude you opened your entire argument with a massively false statement.  If you're ensorcelling every 10 seconds, you don't know how ensorcell works.  It can't be refreshed, and it lasts way longer than 10s.

Eryl

Please excuse the double post.  Everyone is asking for logs to demonstrate specific scenarios, and I didn't have logs while at work.  Here's a log from a few days ago showing just how badly shield spam shuts down Pariah.

https://ada-young.com/pastebin/dCzpjnJ6

My favorite part is when the person spamming shield flashes the victory sign and then dies anyway because Pariah can deal with shield exceptionally well.

Saonji

                       

Farrah

I've always thought pariah should have a prone because I think every class should have one. But I am thinking non-comboable slow prone like DW. Not something you'd use fluidly with offense. I agree combinable prone would be too strong.

Technically a prone is available already, since there's an artie tank that does it. I would probably buy that if I played pariah just because I want to stop phoenix, duanatharic, etc post-lock.

Amranu

Wait what artie prones?

Farrah

Trembling spark.

Dochitha

Has a tablet been found yet?

Shecks

Dochitha said:

Has a tablet been found yet?

I gave up.  Can say I spent several days poring over every clue I could think of including questing and bashing out huge areas, even interviewed 3 people who were at the event.  Have dug up hundreds of rooms in a dozen areas on the off chance that does something (including every desert room in existence that I'm aware of across around 20 areas).  

Absolutely nothing.  Moved on.

Chances are they'll be found by someone randomly bashing or questing at some point or another and that'll be that.

Sooner or later though I do hope to be able to use the abilities I paid 15,000 lessons to unlock though

Eryl

Prone tank was so worth buying for Pariah.

Austere

Shecks said:

Dochitha said:

Has a tablet been found yet?

Have dug up hundreds of rooms in a dozen areas on the off chance that does something (including every desert room in existence that I'm aware of across around 20 areas)

You missed one. 

Torrent

I am thinking whoever finds a tablet first deserves a honours line.

Shirszae

At this point I just want someone to find one to see what kind of things they can do. I am completely stumped though. 

Saonji

This is gonna be like the BFA/WoD expansions for WoW. Or Borderlands 3.

Super hyped for months, then when you finally get to play it, it doesn't live up to the hype and gets boring in like a day.

Gallida

I definitely don't have any in my crypt, for the record.

Shecks

It was hinted at that they could be found in Istarion and World Tree but could easily be intentionally misleading or just a bread crumb that leads elsewhere.

Glathna

It would be nice if the Pariah artifacts, whatever they wind up being, made the hunting equal to, or very close to equal to serpent. Serpent and two hander, I feel, could really use more competition. Since it's the knife that gets used against denizens, damage and epitaph expose time vs denizens linked to a knife artifact would make sense. Serpents have to have an l3 lash and l3 dex to really get rocking with hunting. Similarly, a Pariah could require an l3 knife and l3 int to really get rocking with their hunting. For Pariah, it would be an even bigger investment, as an l3 collar would also help. We haven't had a new hunting class in quite some time, and it would be awesome to see Pariah evolve into something to really get excited about in that space.

Shirszae

I don't have personal experience with lvl 3 intelligence arties but I heard pariah with those get close to shaman at least damage wise. Bigger expose time versus denizens would be cool though, and a nice excuse for an artie knife without unbalancing pvp