Classleads 2014/2015

Mathiaus

Starting out the new cycle. Opinions and thoughts on the upcoming classleads.

Ahkan

Last round of classleads decimated the defiler class (1 kill method). ETA on when the next round of class leads is going to rebuild it? I really don't want to have to waste 20-30 classleads to do your job for you, yanno?

Iniar

Important: in addition to the submitted reports, we'll also be doing some changes to the Smithing skill. This will include removing the randomness from weapon stats, as well as transforming the skill into a generally-available one. The knight classes will see some further changes as a result - these will expand the classes, but will not fundamentally change how they are played (ie., cornerstone abilities such as DSL will remain). I'll have more information for you on this later.

Will my lessons in Smithing be allocated to new general Smithing, or to the new(?) third skillset for Knight, or will I get to choose? @Garryn

Sarrius

I think when this last happened, they were offered the choice of keeping Druid/Hunter (Smithing) or using a limited time syntax for a full refund.

Garryn

Iniar said:

Important: in addition to the submitted reports, we'll also be doing some changes to the Smithing skill. This will include removing the randomness from weapon stats, as well as transforming the skill into a generally-available one. The knight classes will see some further changes as a result - these will expand the classes, but will not fundamentally change how they are played (ie., cornerstone abilities such as DSL will remain). I'll have more information for you on this later.

Will my lessons in Smithing be allocated to new general Smithing, or to the new(?) third skillset for Knight, or will I get to choose? @Garryn

Not decided on specifics, but there will definitely be a way to pick what you prefer,

Cassius

@Garryn‌: are details on the proposed skillset change going to be available before end of classleads?

Garryn

Not sure, still hammering out details.

Wysrias

I'm going to assume that claymores will nerf themselves a bit here and that I don't need to labor over a classlead for it, until proven otherwise.

(I will also assume that hammering pun was intentional)

Garryn

That's a bit tricky to quantify, as the changes to weapons are a bit bigger than what I've announced so far. Claymore damage will definitely be subject to beta tweaking, so there's no need to spend a classlead slot on it.

Iniar

Problem:

While I have no issue with the stun chance during 1v1, in group combat the problem becomes unbearable if multiple priests are using gold ink incense. Stun negates any response, and you can spend your entire life unable to do a single thing if they get the stun procs. There is zero way to counter this.

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Solution #1:

Make it so that a target can only be effected by the stun every X seconds, negating the ability for multiple priests to chain stun a target to death if they get lucky.

Solution #2:

Change gold ink's effect to do another affliction. Stupidity or something, whatever fits.

Solution #3:

Drastically lower the stun chance.

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Someone who has a stun class, can you clarify if stun doesn't already have an intrinsic cooldown?

Mathiaus

Bard did back when Myried did stun. I'd assume the same goes for the others.

Linslet

Fairly certain chainstun like that was done away with a long time ago with a self cool down that starts when you yourself are stunned. It's a short cooldown, but two people working together should not be able to stunlock completely.

Ahkan

Can someone help Aakrin polish up his complaint about gold ink? It's a valid complaint that is incredibly dumb, but he's not framing the problem correctly and it comes across like qq this killed me. Pls fix.

Khizan

'RNG stuns on a 'main' attack are awful and they shouldn't exist.'

Ahkan

Aakrin, hop to it.

Ahkan

@garryn

When you destroyed the defiler  class for the second time, you said that it was passable as is and that you would address  the short comings of the class in the next classlead cycle. Is that still your plan or do we need to write  24 classleads to migrate the class from a one-trick-pony (elder blood spam) to a versatile, playable class on par  with modern professions?

As a follow up, you agreed to reword a lot of the overlap of terminology in defilers bad mechanics, are you still planning on doing that without us filing a classlead?

Iniar

(Bel): Ahkan, "Your ether classlead conveniently allows aff offenses to ignore the affliction."

This is totally the main reason why it's written. #Templar2015

.. isn't affected by clumsiness, as then the issue becomes a one sided affair where one person is relying on the good will of the other to be able to sustain any kind of prolonged offensive effort.

A bit rich coming from you.

Garryn

Ahkan said:

When you destroyed the defiler  class for the second time

No specific plans regarding the Defiler profession - you are of course welcome to submit any ideas that you may have. Statements like this are unlikely to yield results, however.

As for terminology, that is indeed on the list.

Septus

Re ether: I'm definitely open to better solutions. (I'm aware mine sucks, hence the lack of a submition.)

@Iniar:

I could get someone to file it for me as a proxy instead if you'd prefer? I'm perfectly aware a clumsy change would benefit me, but that doesn't change that the current mechanic is silly, and you know it. If you have issue with other mechanics, rejoice: classleads are open. Ad hominem.

Mathiaus

Id be fine with changes like that if damage classes were easier to handle. I think that's what everyone's pushing for this cycle anyways. Now, on the other hand, I haven't seen anything yet helping stop the bbt timebomb that is monk.

Such a change definitely would help a class like monk, where they can effectively hit 100% of the time since coding around parry is easy.

Ahkan

@Mathiaus

The problem with monk is the overarching problem of limb damage. Last seasons restoration change did absolutely nothing to remedy the problem. BBT, Incendiary, Vivisect* are not the problem. Limb damage is the time bomb.

*Vivisect is it's own problem. It's the elephant in the room when classleading for necromancy. I hope it dies.

Ahkan

@Garryn

What would you recommend to fix defiler? I'm pretty iffy on the entropy mechanic because it's a really weird dynamic that is absolutely crazy against low health/low psychic resistance, but tapers hard when you're facing high health/high resistance targets. Would you be open to overhauling this mechanic in a different direction that's not target/psychic damage based?

This would also lead into a different mechanism that manifests seeds.

Linslet

I've done a lot of thinking on this the past few days and I run into a brick wall every time.  If we were to use the current dynamic of entropy building in your target, I would almost say the best tweak would be in entropy damage itself, making it scale on the target's health and being just a straight up unblockable instead of psychic, which is nearly unblockable for most people anyway.  Have each torment ability or ravage with a toxin put a static percent of the target's health as entropy up, something like 7% (5% is not feasible to hit the magic 25% number in the time it takes for a thornroot to seed automagically, I'd be open to a static 5% if the seed threshhold were dropped to 20% or so.)  Cap the possible entropy damage from a seed explosion at something like 40%.  This would be a bandaid, but it would HELP to solve the problem of squishies dying outright while allowing defilers to do anything to the "I have tank artifacts" crowd.

If we were going to overhaul, I'd say entropy almost has to become a resource mechanic, but a simple one geared at dealing more damage.  Build entropy on a target like taint, use entropy for all the things we currently use it for.  I think there's a lot of opportunity in a mini overhaul to streamline the process and make defiler a little less convoluted.  The framework is here for a great modern class, the execution is just a little sketchy.

Iniar

Entropy already exists as a resource mechanic. However, it is (a) time limited, (b) has one expenditure pathway that is relatively easy to beat. Reliance on (c) seed-conversion damage also detracts from the expenditure pathway. The two major problems with a class with this type of time-locked burst potential is that (1) in the era of 0-20s finisher moves doing 50% mhp, or 0-12s softlock, 0-16s truelock shenanigans, rigid tying of that burst potential to 30s is terribly woeful. (2) With the rigid tying of burst potential to (i) predictable timing or (ii) balanceless counterable mechanic, the class is extremely easy to dance around. My opinion is that a simple decoupling of the rigid timing for thornroot would change the class enough for it to recapture an element of surprise, however, I cannot imagine a suitable mechanic for the limitation of entropy build up in any given thornroot instance. Hard capping the seed's entropy -may- or may not end up being functionally the same as time limiting it.

Iniar

If one were to alter shadowplant, how would you go about doing it? @Ahkan raised a good point, and I would like to change shadowplant, but my classleads tend to be very convoluted.

Ahkan

@Linslet @Garryn

The entropy mechanic doesn't work in its current incarnation. Everyone pretty much agrees that if a Defiler can reliably push to entropy explosion + demonic seed that they are going to die. There's a lot of ways to cheese to this and it ends up being "The safest way to fight a defiler is to not." If you can't push to that threshold of entropy damage, the class doesn't offer much in the way of "What do I do now?" You're forced to really limp by until you can try to push for that 25% entropy threshold. As such, I think we just need to remove the 'entropy' mechanism entirely and re-purpose the skill as something else. 

The direction I'm hoping we can steer the class is focusing on the types of seeds and infusing them with demonic energy. All seeds will be 'demonic' seeds and we'll adjust the vocabulary accordingly. You can use these seeds for a variety of offensive abilities and a few defensive ones for personal use and allies. I'd like to push the class in a more limb damage oriented direction (Don't fret, I want to classlead the death of vivisection). After that, can we eliminate some of the awkward hentai in the class and shift it more towards bending nature to your will? Lastly, implant in it's current incarnation is a terrible kill condition. Can we delete it or rework it to be something more functional?

Defilers would get 3-5 'seeds' that refresh every 15-20s (max of 5) and you could cash these in through germinate/empower(and likely a 3rd ability, maybe evolve) to push an offense based around limb-damage (torso, legs, arms, back)  and conditionals based off of limb damage. Examples:

Hazel: Would increase % non-phys damage for next 2-3 attacks
Elder: Would proc bellow (with damage adjusted accordingly for frequent use)

Hawthorn: Burst bleeding damage

Torso limb damage -> Increased bleeding/reduced ability to clot
Limbs -> Repetitive proning, remove levitation?
Arms -> Status debuf, static damage on every offensive action

Linslet: Your classleads just exacerbate the existing problem of "entropy too good/entropy so bad"(referencing 84-87)

Classleads I'd probably have to push through.

-Reworking of the entropy mechanic into % on hit non physical (poison, lightning, cold)

-Renaming and reworking of germinate/empower for all types of demonic seed varieties

-Bellow would be procced off of the elder seed, for example.

-Whirpool consumes a 'seed' and makes the room quicksand (does increased damage to proned targets)

This is just a rough outline of terrible ideas, but take what you will. I think it's a good start in moving away from entropy which is all or nothing and not fun for either party.

Mercer

its a very a small thing, but making eagle feather plucking a less tedious task is a godsend

Sarrius

@Garryn - While this might not belong in the classlead thread, report 30's response makes me question what is going on here..

In all good conscience, I cannot possibly believe that while we are doing a Smithing and weapons alteration project, you cannot make the time to work on Wardancer. Functioning classes are crucial for PvP, and saying 'nobody wrote a clear enough report' to actually justify giving the class the time of day is unacceptable. Acknowledging that the class needs help, then saying your hands are tied? That is pretty low.

Before anybody decides to make a big stink about Defiler, it was never OK then either, we just never had a good excuse to work on the class. This time, we are basically saying that a weapon-centric class doesn't deserve a good look during a classlead and beta period where the main attraction is finally reworking weapons and Smithing.

At the very least, give 30 the same treatment you give every report that has a good point but shitty solutions: "I won't use these, but we will figure it out in beta."

Wysrias

Alternatively, in the absence of specific solutions and ideas, he may want to approach it as a separate project that could be worked on AFTER the fine changes to weapons and knights are worked out. There's a lot of things being changed in tandem, and trying to rework another class that is heavily intertwined with weapon stats while fine tuning another might be a recipe for disaster - people's attention can only be focused on so many things at once. You're essentially asking him to come up with a whole new class while he's in the process of releasing one. If you want the class to be improved in this context, you have to offer up more than the already agreed upon perception that it's broken.

Sarrius

I am asking him to change a class that isn't working as it is in to one that does, during a project that basically involves their most important implements. It is much like logically looking at wizard classes when you release the wizard staff update. Classlead seasons come too far and few between to just ask an entire side of the game to wait until next time for one of their classes to be looked at.

Edit: I am willing to accept bandaids until such a scenario exists, but absolutely nothing? That's not right.

Ahkan

Edit: I am willing to accept bandaids until such a scenario exists, but absolutely nothing? That's not right.

 ID D Classlead       Skillname       Problem        

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 30 R Sarrius         ??              The Wardancer class has been chipped awa

128 A Sarrius         General         Shielddance damage seems to be outright

159 A Sarrius         General         Wardancer has only mediocre mitigation,

Classleads filed: 3/8

Bladedance: 0

Wardance: 2

Shielddance: 1

You have to take responsibility for providing the impetus and the knowledge base to convince homeslice (@garryn) to do the crap to fix your class. See: Wytchen, Defiler, Diabolist. Classlead 30 was poorly worded and offered very little in the way of empirical evidence. The solutions were somewhat incoherent and too far reaching. You had 8 classlead slots (16, 24 based on friends) and you could have addressed skills individually. You only chose to go for 3.If the class is so bad, didn't it merit more than 3?