Improving Imperian Combat

Iniar

Rule #1. Don't be a douche.

Iniar

Affliction:    wisp poison

Cure message:  The wisp poison has been cleared from your body.

Diagnose:      poisoned by a wisp.

Cure:          (not available)

Physical:      No

Mental:        No

Can be purged: No

Causes the next successful attempt to eat a toadstool to inflict damage instead of curing health or mana. Used by Druids.

Can we please at least make wisp poison curable by galingale?

Ifreann

Iniar said:

Affliction:    wisp poison

Cure message:  The wisp poison has been cleared from your body.

Diagnose:      poisoned by a wisp.

Cure:          (not available)

Physical:      No

Mental:        No

Can be purged: No

Causes the next successful attempt to eat a toadstool to inflict damage instead of curing health or mana. Used by Druids.

Can we please at least make wisp poison curable by galingale?

You can still eat toadstool to cure it. (;

Mathiaus

It's also cured over time.

Ozreas

I believe that Iniar's point here is that this is an "affliction" that is actually causes damage, or at least effective damage, no matter what the target does. Either you eat the toadstool and take damage to both health and mana, or you wait out the poison timer and take effective damage in the form of lost healing.

 However nice it would be to have the option to make intelligent combat decisions to deal with druid abilities, I'm not sure that really fits the class design.

Eldreth

This is a typical example of a knee-jerk reaction that takes a skill that sits on one side of the spectrum and swings it all the way to the other - making it a galingale cure for a profession with almost zero affliction pressure is a joke. A more reasonable request would be to have the skill simply neutralize the toadstool ability, instead of neutralizing and causing damage, putting its benefit on par with people who already shut off toadstool healing while afflicted (not many do this but I have seen it in my logs).

2014/08/18 06:26:38 - Iniar has been slain by Ifreann.
2014/08/18 06:38:00 - Iniar rants.

Eldreth

Ozreas said:

 However nice it would be to have the option to make intelligent combat decisions to deal with druid abilities, I'm not sure that really fits the class design.

I agree with the gist here but the arms-race that has been profession evolution over the last couple years ensures that intelligent defensive combat decisions are not terribly dynamic against a lot of classes. 

Khizan

Druid quarterstaffs need to stop scaling at 10/20/30 marks and go down to the 10/15/20 marks provided by collars, and earth needs to change somewhat. A flat 20% damage bonus is too much, especially with the extra +10% earthsong.

Maybe have Earth be consumed to provide a damage bonus to your next evocation attack, instead of being something that just piles on the modifiers to everything.

Ahkan

Who knew that overlapping scaling % modifiers were bad? Crescent cut seems to have sacrificed itself for naught.

Iniar

Sorry Eldreth, been ranting about druid since last year. I died to Ifreann in that fight because I didn't do four things:
1. Having switched off numbness (from my queue) for testing (on myself)
2. Canceling my own Annihilate
3. Not bailing when Aakrin arrived to help Ifreann
4. Waiting until Aakrin had sludged me before I decided to run

There are a few 'problems' with druid, and a large number of 'mouth-froth inducing' aspects to boot, but wisp poison seemed inordinately unreasonable. Wisp poison contributed to the fact that without doing anything spectacular, Ifreann was able to drop my mana to 8% (and HP to 20ish%). I would like to have switched prios to mana, but I just bet on the fact that he wouldn't reclaim me (he didn't) ((you should, @Ifreann))

Let me put it another way: if toadstool didn't cure mana, I would have no problem with wisp poison. Ifreann's damage, I can tank, even as Fast. Me down to <10% mana in about 30 seconds, me no likey. Thank god Priest is Anti-magick and Diabolist is Demonic.

Ozreas

Iniar said:

Thank god Priest is Anti-magick and Diabolist is Demonic.

Not necessarily!

#yearadamirra

Iniar

Here's a compromise:

-> When evoking the poison wisp (so cute), the user should specify either health or mana to be affected.

I would be very happy with this change.

Khizan

You couldn't tank Ifreann's damage if Ifreann was at all good at the class, though.

Iniar

Maybe... I'd give it a shot. :P

"earring74235"            a fist-shaped earring

"lyre167774"              a Golden Lyre of Shallah

"ring93908"               a ring of Epiphany's Gift

Cassius

I don't understand. The wisp and scaling and choke stacking were just fine when Khizan was Druid?

Eldreth

Secret to Imperian longevity and success:

-----------------------------------------------------------
General Skills     Rank
-----------------------------------------------------------
Revisionism       100%  Transcendent
Perception         100%  Transcendent
Survival              100%  Transcendent
Weaponry          100%  Transcendent
-----------------------------------------------------------

Iniar

I'd like to addendum a proviso to my proposed compromise:

At no stage should it be offered that wisp poison, when specified as mana denial, -do- mana damage.

If it happens, please consider carefully.

Eldreth

Iniar said:

I'd like to addendum a proviso to my proposed compromise: At no stage should it be offered that wisp poison, when specified as mana denial, -do- mana damage. If it happens, please consider carefully.

I am confused..it already -does- do mana damage (which is why anyone who uses rainbow wisps needs punched in the throat)

Iniar

Haha I r noob. OK, back to proposal 1. How about it, Eldreth?

Eldreth

I am not generally in the business of enthusiastically nuking my own class, especially as I watch knights get better and better while somehow staying off the rage grid, but when classleads come around I wouldn't think asking for 10/15/20 artifact staff and targeting a poisonous wisp for health OR mana effect is that unreasonable. Along with the change to earthquake (crunching the numbers shows isn't really worth using now), imbue (I was on the other side as this was gamed), and entangle combos (a bit much..) maybe then you people will leave us alone so we can exist peacefully

Iniar

========

[Magick,Druid]: Artifact Staff - 10/15/20

[Magick,Wisp Poison]: - Health OR Mana

========

Next up on Iniar's hit-list:

This deadly, thick morphing toxin is the one of the few toxins that have the proper consistency to be envenomed on a sitara, but only on a sitara.

It is known to interact with the various toxins already in a target's system. For this reason, it has been nicknamed the "morphing toxin".

If your target is currently afflicted with three other toxins when cirisosis is introduced into their system, cirisosis will then morph into a random toxin that the target is not currently affected by. The following toxins can be morphed by cirisosis: ether, mebaral, noctec, calotropis, cyanide, butisol, mazanor, ketamine, metrazol, luminal, digitalis, xeroderma, atropine, mercury, ciguatoxin, strychnine, vitriol, botulinum, arsenic, lindane, bromine, and iodine.

Furthermore, some remnant of cirisosis will stay in the target's system for a short time. Should your target continue to be afflicted with six or more toxins shortly after cirisosis has been introduced, the victim will go into toxic shock, and subsequently die shortly after.

Now that this genie is out of the bottle (hi @Shou), I am tempted to say we let this ride until classleads (like we honestly have a say in it but w/e).

Having used cirisosis, I will say that it is extremely fun and satisfying. Furthermore, I think we should let Shou have the next 3-6 months to really learn how awesome affliction combat can be, given that he has played for years not using afflictions in the manner they were designed. The aim here is that potentially he could turn into a strong middle-ground advocate for affliction combat (having been a non-afflictor for years).

That said, cirisosis is powerful. I am unsure how I personally would like to see it changed. People have suggested making the cirisosis count only the user's toxins, or count only a certain type of toxins, but that to me is fairly standard fare (read: boring). Certainly, the easiest first step would be to make limb cripples not count towards the cirosis.

Khizan

Cassius said:

I don't understand. The wisp and scaling and choke stacking were just fine when Khizan was Druid?

What Khizan said was "Adjust Choke's crazy damage and Earth/Imbue having 100% uptime and re-evaluate afterwards, because those are huge factors that could remove a ton of the problems and I don't want to drop the entire class into the gutter." This is because it's much harder to get a class back OUT of the gutter once you've put it there.

Accordingly, I've reevaluated and decided that, hey, further nerfs are necessary. Specifically, the dials on the multiple percentile modifiers need turned down some more. Artifact druids are getting +10% from Earthsong and +20% from Imbue and +10-30% from the staff and this adds up to a lot of freaking damage.

Why didn't it come up before now? Because there were no artifacted Druids fighting until Eldreth went Magick.

Ellen

Making the Poisonous affect only health or mana makes it a worse version of Metallic (if health is chosen,) or a worse version of Rainbow (for mana). The entire point of the wisp is that it can do both, simply not as well. Changing it to not do damage and simply nullify the toadstool would keep that intact and get rid of the unnecessary damage spikes against people unfamiliar with the ability.

Iniar

I'm not worried about the HP damage. I am worried that in the face of druid damage, I am actually being splayed open from a mana point of view because toadstool is my defense against oppression -> reclaim. 

 Also, any denial + damage method is stronger than it looks - you have to account for it twice. Wisp poison definitely fits in that category.

Like so:

Straight:

t1 = -120 

t2 = +70

t3 = -120

t4 = +70

= -100

Denial:

t1 = -120

t2 = +70

t3 = -0 (denial)

t4 = -70

= -120

Multiply that across 2 metrics and you have a pretty bad problem.

Math. Gotta love it.

Ellen

Iniar said:

Also, any denial + damage method is stronger than it looks - you have to account for it twice. Wisp poison definitely fits in that category.

This is true only if you eat toadstool while under its effects, which there is absolutely no reason to do. That alone is reason enough to remove the damaging portion - there is no downside to the 'counterplay' of triggering the afflict line to shut off toadstool, so everyone properly informed about the class would do it, and the mechanic only serves to punish the ill-informed.

As Eldreth previously noted, making it a plant cure makes the option completely and inarguably useless. Changing it so that it only affects health or mana likewise makes it useless, as there are better wisps designed for both those roles already. Like it or not, the wisp was designed in order to pressure both health and mana simultaneously, to help the Druid force a lose-lose scenario between killing you with damage or reclaim. You can argue that it does this job too well at the moment, but the solution to that should not be to make it useless.

Iniar

nvm, that was pigheaded of me.

Here we go, I do more math, and will reconsider my position:

Straight:

-120/-0

+70/+0-70

-120/-0

+70/+0-70

-120/-0

+70/+0-70

(-160/+0-210) = -160 to +50

Active:

-120/-0

+70/+0-70

-0/-0

-70/-70

-120/-0

+70/+70

(-170/+0-70) = -240 to -170

Skip:

-120/-0

+70/+0-70

-0/-0

-0/-0

-120/-0

+70/+0-70

(-100/+0-140) = -100 to +40

The math does not lie! @Ellen. Obviously, the ranges vary with how straight:cure, but in this scenario, at least, it's reasonable-ish.

I suspect (and I don't know how accurate this is) that the problem lies in being able to re-cast poison wisp every toadstool balance. Is this possible?

Ellen

Iniar said:

Ellen said:

Changing it so that it only affects health or mana likewise makes it useless, as there are better wisps designed for both those roles already. 

See math.

You did not seem to read my post at all, so I will reiterate; Wisp Poison is -not- a damage and denial effect in the same way you're making it out to be. In practice, Wisp Poison is a denial effect. The damage is 100% opt-in.

Iniar

Eldreth said:

I am not generally in the business of enthusiastically nuking my own class, especially as I watch knights get better and better while somehow staying off the rage grid, but when classleads come around...

What bugs you about them?

Eldreth

Ellen said:

You did not seem to read my post at all, so I will reiterate; Wisp Poison is -not- a damage and denial effect in the same way you're making it out to be. In practice, Wisp Poison is a denial effect. The damage is 100% opt-in.

As a pure denial effect, I am pretty sure that at least on the mana side, poisonous still yields better results than a rainbow - the latter % is pretty low (4-5?) likely because of being able to combo with two other mana-draining attacks, and toadstool healing (or lack of) is going to scale better with buffer/smarter dudes. I agree the health side is probably a wash, maybe a little weaker unless they are in the 500+ health range.

The way I envisioned a compromise poisonous working:
- Eldreth poison wisps Ellen HEALTH.

Ellen eats a toadstool, takes health damage and loses toadstool health benefit. The net effect is probably on par with a metallic reinforced wisp without wasting your valuable air (druids needlessly wasting air on fancy-pants combos also deserved punched in the throat). No impact on mana.

-or-

Ellen turns off her toadstool. As she notes, poison is now a (slightly) weaker metallic. But turning off toadstool has also denied her any mana benefits. So in effect the only change from wisp 1.0 would be active damage to mana - and with qstaff drain, root drain, oppression, and a much easier 40% reclaim route, this isn't the end of the world.

@Iniar can now resume his attempts at classlead diplomacy with terrible math posts - just wanted to share my insight as to why I didn't think the request is entirely unreasonable.

Septus

I don't really have an issue with druid being a super high dps class. End of the day it is a damage class.

I do kind of have an issue with them having this kind of damage out the door, though. Building up to a nuke like this or burning a ton of balance I can understand.

463/512h 456/543m 0e 0w bals:eb status:pdb arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Ifreann stabs you viciously with a hardened quarterstaff of the Wilds.
Damage Taken: 137 cutting, physical (raw damage: 148)
Several tiny rocks materialise above you and fall down, battering your body.
Damage Taken: 40 blunt, mental (raw damage: 47)
Your hearing is suddenly restored.
285/512h 456/543m 0e 0w bals:eb status:pb arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Ifreann swings his quarterstaff and an animated hawthorn root spins around and batters you, shredding your skin mercilessly.
Damage Taken: 74 cutting, physical (raw damage: 84)
A prickly, stinging sensation spreads through your body.
211/512h 456/543m 0e 0w bals:eb status:pb arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
You take 1 toadstool, bringing the total to 960.
You quickly eat a toadstool.
Your veins burn and you feel a stabbing pain in your head as the toadstool cleanses the wisp poison from your body.
Damage Taken: 51 poison (raw damage: 51)
The wisp poison has been cleared from your body.
159/512h 402/543m 0e 0w bals:eb status:pb arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0

Few points here. Firstly the damage in and of itself isn't really too appalling by artefacted damage class standards. I think I likely put out comparable numbers as templar. What is of note is that this is vastly faster than any other damage build that I can think of (that was athletic, so likely sub 3 s. Someone feel free to correct me). Also of note here is that that damage also ate one of the health regaining methods, meaning the next round is going to probably hit while you're still very low from the first one.

To add to this you need to remember that choke can be ticking in the background, you can be given a sip penalty, etc.

Relevant things to be aware of: I was in monk, so a lot less tanky than I could have been, and have a surcoat and high cutting leather (around artefact standard). All damage reducing blocks/toughness were active. This was the second hit of the fight from Ifreann (first hit rebounding, if at all important).

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, templar with earthshield, protective favour, fullplate, surcoat. Situations were as close as I could find from logs, but I can't be sure of Ifreann's statpack in this latter one. I also think he may have got an extra str or 2 from somewhere in the first instance, given the increase on the stab. Mostly including this to show druids definitely aren't pumping out 250 damage combos on tankier classes.

468/512h 505/543m 0e 0w bals:-- status:db arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Ifreann's aura of weapons rebounding disappears.
Ifreann stabs you viciously with a hardened quarterstaff of the Wilds.
Damage Taken: 67 cutting, physical (raw damage: 140)
Several tiny rocks materialise above you and fall down, battering your body.
Damage Taken: 17 blunt, mental (raw damage: 44)
Your hearing is suddenly restored.
383/512h 505/543m 0e 0w bals:-- status:b arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Ifreann swings his quarterstaff and an animated hawthorn root spins around and batters you, shredding your skin mercilessly.
Damage Taken: 35 cutting, physical (raw damage: 84)
A prickly, stinging sensation spreads through your body.
348/512h 505/543m 0e 0w bals:-- status:b arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
Your bandages staunch a good portion of your bleeding.
Your wounds cause you to bleed 11 health.
337/512h 505/543m 0e 0w bals:-- status:b arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0
You have regained your mental equilibrium.
You take 1 toadstool, bringing the total to 111.
You quickly eat a toadstool.
Your veins burn and you feel a stabbing pain in your head as the toadstool cleanses the wisp poison from your body.
Damage Taken: 41 poison (raw damage: 51)
The wisp poison has been cleared from your body.
295/512h 450/543m 0e 0w bals:e- status:b arms: pp Kai: 0 fanatism: 0

The damage on that latter one isn't that bad at all (depending on the balance there: if its under 3 seconds I'd still find that questionable given the relative defences), but really just going by that is probably not going to resolve any of the issues people who fight druids have with the class. Its not really the damage that makes them impossible (I use the term loosely) for non tanky people to go up against, its the fact that they have so much healing denial (curse, wisp poison, etc). Its not the fact you're taking 50% a round; its the fact that you're taking 50% a round and have no real recourse for regaining it as the vast majority of classes. Khizan or Wysrias could claymore flare/soulstorm me all day, and I would keep up with this fine, even as fast. The same isn't remotely the case for druid looping the basic damage combo, and personally I feel it shouldn't be quite that easy.

Don't take that as an advocation for requiring hugely complex tracking systems and stuff. I'm fully aware that these are interesting to maybe 5% (an optamistic estimate) of the population, but there's a distinct difference between a friendly learning curve/low barrier to entry and what druid currently is.

All that said, I have no reasonable solutions that would satisfy all parties, so I shall let Iniar carry on with his campaign.

Eldreth

On the issue of physical damage mitigation:

I was in monk... high cutting leather (around artefact standard).

Best line of the week.