Everyone is going to ignore this part, but I need to type it out anyways. I am obviously lying, when I say that I understand kill skills need to be complicated to execute, not simple. My intention in this thread is obviously to make it so that all I have to do is get to five momentum then FinalSting and kill my target and that's that. /sarcasm.

In all seriousness, though, kill skills do need to be complicated to execute.
Not impossible.
The following is a step-by-step argument as to why Finalsting is impossible to use (Or if it is possible, not worth the Five Power at all)

FinalSting: The Facts.
FinalSting, when executed, will kill the target six seconds after the initial affliction line
FinalSting has two affliction lines; The affliction line from the Kata execution, and one crotamine line which appears around 1s after the initial kata line.
FinalSting is a kata which requires 1500 ka. Max momentum is 1000 ka, so therefore FinalSting requires that you use Five power to boost your max ka to 1500. There is no Ka level beyond 1500.
FinalSting induces Crotamine, Yes, Crotamine, at a very advanced stage. The cure is to sip antidote.
FinalSting requires that you bind a poison dart to the foot doing the kick, but does not require any kata modifiers, it is a standalone skill.


Supporting Nekotai Skills
Ootangk Head: The Theory
Ootangk is a Nekotai grapple which gives a chance for cures failing. When it is used on the head, the target has a chance, when sipping a potion, for that potion to fail to cure whatever it should cure. If one were able to Ootangk after FinalSting, one could prevent the target from sipping antidote (potentially), thus fitting the requirement of complicated, or difficult to pull off, but not impossible

The Problem: Balance was not recovered until 1.5 seconds after my target had sipped antidote. The target cured the crotamine 1.3 seconds after the initial kata execution, and .3 seconds after the last crotamine line. These times are calculated as a Loboshigaru Nekotai with 120 speed nekai (Not that it matters, I think?)


Sprongk Head: The Theory
Sprongk is a Nekotai kick which, when applied to the head, causes the target to have increased potion sip balance and pinches the nerve. If one were able to Sprongk in the same form as another ability which took up antidote sip balance (spit crotamine, perhaps?) then the potion recovery time would potentially be longer, and allow one to FinalSting, and then Ootangk, or some other ability thereafter

The Problem: First of all, Sprongk makes you lose momentum, so using it at 5mo would force me to double boost FinalSting and use 10p. Second of all, the cure for it is a .5 second eat marjoram reflex, so by the time I regained balance to Final sting, the target had cured the Sprongk and the crotamine I had spit to consume antidote balance, and was able to cure the crotamine again before I could regain balance after Final Sting


Angkhai Head:The Theory
Angkhai is a Nekotai nekai kata which, when applied to the head, slit's the target's throat, and induces poison relapsing as long as it's used above 4 momentum. Using it at 5 momentum would not only induce poison relapsing, which would have to be cured, but also prevents the target from swallowing antidote in the first place. If one could Angkhai, recover the momentum, and then Finalsting, the target might not be able to sip antidotei n time.

The Problem: Well, we all know that FinalSting's induction time is far too long for this. Six seconds is easy enough to clear this up and sip antidote. Moreover, Relapsing is a yarrow cure, and the slit throat is a mending cure, which can be accomplished, again, before I recover balance at 4mo. I would have to double boost to FinalSting, but that would do me no good.


The underlying problem, I'm sure you've noticed, is that I need to somehow mask the crotamine lines in order to make it work.


HypnoticGaze, SlitLock, and other Addenda

SlitLock
Some of you by now are like, "Omg you silly, why u no slitlock (Sprongma Gut, Angkhai Head +Poison mods with senso envenomed + spit senso)?"
Let me explain why. The Slitlock, as the Nekotai use it, is also a 1500 ka maneuver, and still doesn't guarantee a lock
Ok well, so what, doesn't guarantee a lock, my skills aren't guaranteed either.
Well, first of all, I've wasted five power trying to do something, and second of all, lets suppose I do manage to successfully pull off the slitlock. The Target Invokes Green, or Evokes Gedulah, and its mostly cured. So why don't I stack other afflictions up with it and THEN Slitlock? Well, Again, Green can still potentially cure all of that, but lets suppose it doesn't and I have my target locked up. Why would I waste another five power to wait six seconds for the target to die, when I can just spam 0p Bleed forms, and make the target bleed to death. Or burst vessels them to death. Or oothai them to death. Final Sting becomes a waste of 5 power, in that case.

HypnoticGaze
I heard that someone suggested I ought to use a beast and cause blackout to the target to cover up the crotamine lines. My initial reaction was, "Wait, you want me to Transcend 2 skills in order to use my one kill attack?" (To the tune of ~286 credits by the way). Frankly, this just isn't a viable option, for two reasons. First, the expense is just stupid. I realize I get other things out of Beastmastery, but still, that I should HAVE to do so in order to make my skill viable is just plain stupid. Second, Through testing, I've noticed that the blackout does not last nearly long enough. At a 2/13 chance, the blackout lasts .5 seconds from initial affliction (with allheale cure), and if you recall from above, the finalsting aff line + crotamine aff line is a full second.

What would I get AT BEST with a Beastmastery investment:
-Two seconds of Blackout against someone who has no system at all, and a kill ONLY if they didn't diagnose after blackout
-Two seconds of Blackout against someone who has a system, but for some reason doesn't cure the blackout, and then the diagnose is triggered after the blackout ends, and they have 4 seconds to sip antidote
-Half a second with someone who has a decent system, and if I manage to hide the line at all, they still diagnose after it ends and have four seconds to sip antidote.

Moreover, Warriors don't have such a requirement in order to successfully decapitate. Bards don't have such a requirement in order to successfully deathsong. I'm sure there are other examples that don't come to mind right now. Toad maybe?
Shocree
This is a Kata modifier which prevents the target from immediately seeing poison affliction. Would be nice to use, but Final Sting's 1500 ka cost doesn't allow me to apply it.

Scorpionfury
Allows me to use Nekcree, Creehai, and more importantly, Shocree, for free. That's great, but this would make FinalSting cost an Unprecedented (I think) 15 power to pull off. Not only that, but I have to wait about 45 seconds to have enough power to Final Sting, giving me a 15 second window to pull it off in, assuming I'm not being hindered, my target is still in the room, the fight isn't over, and I'm not running away



This is by no means an exhaustive list of reasons why Finalsting sucks, but I eagerly await the replies which will show me why I'm wrong. Either I get more demonstrable proof that Finalsting is unusable, or I get demonstrable proof that it is usable and I can begin killing people with it. Win-win.

Nekotai lock has higher % of working than other monk and warrior guilds.
You could also use your beast to afflict with escozul to take antidote-balance instead of attempting a 0.5s blackout.


Wound levels for warriors. Earwort balance being quicker than deathsong channel duration (plus the unable to act and vulnerability to room movement) for bards. Toads can technically run away to safety at times. The skills listed have set requirements of their own that need to be met. Besides which (if I interpreted your post wrong and you were in fact referring to the beastmastery aspect for requirement mentioned), if you balance around someone not having beastmastery, then someone using it in conjunction with the skill is going to have someone call it OP and get it nerfed back for balance.

That said, you could ask for a rework of the crotamine message timings, maybe?

You could try to envoy through a change to make Shocree similar to Skive, etc. and take 3 power rather than have a ka cost. I am pretty sure combatants have reliably pulled off FinalSting in the past, though, so I'm not sure if this is needed or not. I'll leave it to the experienced people.

Nekotai lock is also the only lock requiring power to complete, no other guild in the game has that stipulation (in reference to slitlocks)

escozul doesn't really work to stack with antidote mostly because purg balance is short (1.5secs or so), you're better off using escozul to try and prevent using green/gedulah to cure the slitlock in the first place and just bleed them to death.

As to combatants pulling it off reliably, I don't think it's been done since the monk report ages ago where momentum loss was made to stack. Before that, the slitlock would cost 1mo, meaning you hit 1 more form, then finalsting, now it loses 3mo, meaning you drop to 2mo. As Tau said, it's easier just to bleed someone out at that point.


All this considered, I don't really see much that can be done to make it more viable. I don't think nekotai is reliant on finalsting at all and to be honest, I think it could be great in groups in choke.

Just wanted to point out that a non-hexen Nihilist, to get a reliable sacrifice, must scourge (10p), ecto (1p), crucify (7p), and sacrifice (3p). That's 21 power. However, there is only one prevention method to it, if I recall correctly, and it costs 10p itself.

Contagion should be thrown in there. You'll also want a pretty full deathmark to knock them off balance. So that's another... Iunno 4 or 5?

Not at all. Instant kills are obviously high risk/high reward maneuvers-- power cost is one means of upping the ante. I think having a wider understanding of under what circumstances insta's are viable for other guilds is a very productive conversation. I'd love to have more of a "backwards design" understanding of these maneuvers. Perhaps the question should be, "Under what conditions should FinalSting be viable?"

My real beef is writing a thoughtful envoy report based on only to have other envoys ignore said report by choosing to not comment, even when asking for comments over the ENVOYS channel.

Clarification: Decapitate is the timed PB instakill. It does not require wound levels, just that the person doesn't do anything to stop the attack, including running away. Behead is the critical-wound level instakill.

I think that changing the message structures for crotamine would do the trick honestly, this seems like it's supposed to be a group kill skill. If it only had the one spasm of messages, where the finalsting message and the crotamine stage message hit all at once, it would be easier to conceal in groups and fairly (somewhat more, at least) nasty. Not particularly awesome unless someone is otherwise locked down, but that happens.

Though the nekotai green skill is in fact higher momentum then everyone else's (550 mo instead of 400mo) keep in mind that it also does do guaranteed relapsing. I'm somewhat mystified why everyone wants to use the maximum greenlock all the time (the power costing version), when you are complaining that it's green-able. Seems like a waste to me. With timing, you can deal out 5 poisons in a round (spit, beastspit, nekai attack, nekai attack,kick+sprongcree) and using a spit*2+angkhai (550) +anghai (125)+ kick(100) + sprongcree (125) looks like it would do the trick, hitting with 5 poisons, slit throat, and one of the sliced afflictions for a total of 900 (not requiring power at 5mo) for a nasty combination, that only drops you 1 mo. It's not ideal, having to get to 5mo first, but it's totally do-able, and repeatable. If they are still greened by the time you get the next round off (being at 4mo now), you can go for severspine, if not, you oothai with poisons+kaiga kick and try again next round, with less poisons.

In fact I was referring to the beastmastery requirement. I realize these other skills have their own difficulties to go over, and that's my problem. At the risk of incurring unnecessary nerfs, I think, they are used constantly. There are more Decap, Toad and Deathsong kills every day, I bet, than I have kills total (My kill count is pretty abyssmal). Those skills don't require them to make an additional 200+ credit investment to execute.

Mirroring what Janalon said, yes, thank you for correcting me! I think that's a ridiculous power cost honestly.

@Enyalida
I mean, Really its four poisons, and only five assuming I've made the investment into Beastmastery (which I haven't). Which is still quite the punch, but unless I miss my guess, it doesn't really lock the target? I guess it would depend on the poisons? Moreover, poisons on the nekai don't always enter the bloodstream, thats what modifiers like creehai are for, so the only two that are likely to stick reliably are spit and Sprongcree, and even then I have to be concerned about Resilience, and who my target is. It's not quite as awesome as you make it out to be, I think, but I will do some testing with it, and we'll see if I put my foot in my mouth.

Yes, but rubbing of and shrugging chance puts you in the exact same boat as all the other physical classes, and STILL AHEAD. You get to try with more poisons then anyone else, and you have guaranteed relapsing. Hit them with senso, sliththroat and sacrifice the anghai for a brake modifier and kick one of their legs out. It's not guaranteed, but it's pretty good, and you get more chances with the RNG then the other guilds who get the same thing.

And, as far as credit allocation goes, monks aren't on the high end. There probably aren't as many monk kills because there are far fewer monk combatants then bard combatants (and deathsong usually kills those who were on the way out, you've got to be fairly locked), same goes for warriors and their kill, and toad is a group effort. Monks' big thing isn't their instakill, it's being fast and outputting lots of damage and afflictions. Beastmastery isn't required, but it puts you ahead just like everyone else, and everything is intended to be balanced around omnitrans. It's not like you have to invest in say, environment (for traps), or dramatics, neither of which is otherwise of extreme use.

EDIT: and it's four poisons, compared to two everyone else does. You don't have a guaranteed slit, and I still think that in general it's not a winning strategy to slitlock, unless you have a really cheap slit, but it's not totally impossible.

You will never recover fast enough from the slitthroat to readily get the finalsting off. Your combo above is curable by cleanse/scrub, its a soft lock not a proper lock. It will not allow you to use finalsting and you are likely to run out of power because they can also just parry/stance for it if you do not use power yourself. I think the last time I died to a solo nekotai was a hyperactive faeling using the burst vessel kick, I survived all the hardlock spamming ones.

Malarious, what do you think of REPORT 643? Was kinda thinking we need something to tide over slitlock TO FinalSting TO maintaining advanced crotamine through either an Ootangk, Ootangk or Ootangk+Sprongma sequence. This would still require the same setup, require follow up, but provide some tactical maneuvering during the FS sequence. Keep in mind we are tempering the skill for group kill, high risk/reward with appropriate penalties to power and momentum. Really just bring it back from "broken" to "barely viable." After all, that is what this thread is really all about. I hate to bring this to the forums, but there are only four comments (two of which are mine) on REPORT 643. Not looking to repeat the "failure to comment" of REPORT 618.

You can't tide over from from slitlock to finalsting, costs are too high.





What would Mala do?

Knee jerk: Make it 4s, the same window ninjakari burst organs gives. This would not really make it any better than it is now unless you also implemented one of the above. That however feels like a cheap way out.

More realistic: Will get back to you when I get out of bed next.

Most of our powerful afflictions come out of kicks, so that would preclude them from being used during a FinalSting. Slit kata action costs 550 ka, so it would also be exempt from use during a FinalSting... even under solution 3.

Without also listing kata mods, here are the non-grapple arm affs THAT ARE ALSO under 450 ka (as per solution 3):

Nekotai are the premium poison class. We have the best poison capabilities. Well, maybe rivalled by ecologists for snakebane, but ecologists don't get the chance for 5 poisons in a 3-command stack. Well, with a 2-dart limitation and a 4sec balance loss to attach a dart, you won't see such a thing happen more than a couple of times in a fight against a Nekotai, anyway. But that's beside the point, Nekotai DO have the capacity for 5 poisons in a single instance of stacked commands (though not exactly simultaneous, it's close enough) and with the most anti-poisonresist skills available in the game.

For those who are math freaks, here's the exact details of the maximum Nekotai poison output:

Beastspit - 100% transfer rate, 50% shrugging rate at trans resil. 10s cooldown.
Nekotaispit - 100% transfer rate, 50% shrugging rate at trans resil. 8s cooldown.
Kataform - 3 actions, each with a poison. 50% transfer rate, 25% shrugging rate (poison mod). Bal time usually 3-5s.

With certain smart combos, a Nekotai can give a total of 9 afflictions in such a burst. (4 action-based affs, 5 poisons, assuming all poisons get through).

Certainly nothing to scoff at.

The problem with connecting this capability with landing finalsting is with how crotamine works.

Crotamine is cured by antidote, and is ALWAYS the first cured, so there's no way to stack it behind another affliction. Purgative balance is 1s, so even assuming the target is off purgative balance for the maximum time from the instance finalsting is done, there is 5 more seconds to go for an instant-sip cure. This makes it impossible for any kind of shenanigans with "smart poison application". Unless the target is slit-locked or systemless, there's no reasonable chance for finalsting to succeed, period.

Nekotai slit-lock capability is also top-of-the-game. Our poison capabilities being premium translates directly to our slit-lock being premium in the game. With poison mod and large amount of poison chances, we directly get the most reliable slit-lock with an 8p investment. Problems arise when you look at finalsting and our slit-lock and you realise that the two are almost entirely seperate and mutually exclusive strategies.

- If you perform the 5p slit-lock (slightly less reliable, but still premium), you're still at 2mo, and need 2 more balances (using the +2mo ability, assuming it lands) before you can even attempt a finalsting, assuming that the slit-lock lasts through all that time. The 8p version is, for obvious reasons, not possible.

- Similarly, after a finalsting, you're at 3mo, and need 1 more balance before you can attempt a slit-lock, by which time the target would have died to finalsting if he hasn't cured it.

There's no way for a Nekotai to slit-lock and finalsting back-to-back, and frankly speaking, there's no need. As already mentioned, monks are strong for the sheer affliction and damage output. There is no incentive to try and land a finalsting, when a Nekotai can do the job better and faster and more reliably by pursuing an entirely seperate strategy line (herb stacking for a slit-lock/wound-damage burst, or just plain vessels for bleeding burst). Even if there were an incentive, it's simply impossible given momentum mechanics and the finalsting reliance on slit-lock.

This creates the unfortunate situation of having a transcendant instantkill that's entirely obsolete and unused. There's no need to change the Nekotai poison or slit-lock capabilities. Those are already competitive with the other classes of the game, and shouldn't see another buff. If anything, weaning finalsting off slit-lock reliance is the way to go, but for as long as the current crotamine mechanics is involved, there's no way to do so. Maybe Jan's report will help, though, you never know.

Just make crotamine not an instant cure when done with finalsting.

Edit: Fine, something like 4s (however long it actually is) from sipping antidote to cure, like applying regeneration.

Personally, I think only having a one-in-four shot at curing the crotamine in six seconds is actually pretty overpowered. I don't know if you could gust a target while they're grappled, but, if you can, I suppose that would be a reliable defense against it, similar to deathsong. Just trigger the Finalsting line to a gust warning or whatever. Anyways, Unless I'm fighting a monk or a bard I'm probably going to be hammering the ootangk form immediately after FS+Ootangk (if that report went through, hypothetically), and so it pretty much would be a consistent Ootangk and 75% which sounds a little overpowered. I think the idea that I fancy is using Shocree with it to hide the crotamine message. This would force systems to trigger the Finalsting message, and then using beast hypnoticgaze wouldn't seem like such a huge investment for such little gain (.5s-2s window to hide one message instead of .5s-2s for two messages 1s apart).

I do think, however, that Lerad and Sidd's opinion is spot on. My biggest frustration is that there's really no reason for any Nekotai to learn past Mythical 60% because the last two skills are absolute garbage (not that this isn't the case for anyone else). Does something have to be done about it?

I actually made up the 4s, but I think the idea behind it is what matters.

Let's take a look to the past...



Yada. Yada. Yada.



Maybe Thul worded it wrong. Dunno. But I imagine he meant to put a longer balance on antidote.



Mhm. Easy "fix," but did nothing to solve the problem.