It's been up for a while, yes. A lot of it seems to be that it's in a direction which actually has been getting comments... just not positive ones. :/

That would be the first reason it hasn't been submitted-- they usually require some kind of agreement.

If you believe that our response to anything is "we're not combatants", then let me be the first to retract any statement that may have led you to hear that. Anyway, that really isn't the best way to characterize our "stance". Rather, it is more correct to say that the admin who make combat decisions ARE combat experts; however, being that we are not necessarily active combatants, we look for ADVICE from players to help guide our decisions. (Even so, I would characterize some admin who have input in our decisions to be for the most part, not only "active combatants" but expert combatants.) In any event, we certainly are not abrogating this responsibility and leaving decisions of combat balance to players.

You are also making some assumptions. Just because you and Narsrim (or whoever) think that there are "issues" with some skills does not mean that we necessarily agree. I certainly do not agree that there is a "major problem" and that all the ailments are "garbage" or that the admin (who are somehow the "root of all evil") must develop a new mechanic for a skillset, etc. We believe any issues can be resolved through the envoys. I note there is a discussion on another thread to brainstorm ideas for Necroscream. That's fine! Please do it more often! Maybe we'll be impressed enough to take those ideas up. However, if not, those ideas should be filtered through the envoys.

I think I'm done with this topic....

Pressing the zap alias to kill people doesn't constitute as "combat expert"

/sarcasm

Cats and dogs living together... MASS HYSTERIA!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

And to further go along with this - I'll likely be bringing back a test character soon enough like I did for monk testing so prepare for some more active combat testing from the admins.

Some thoughts on Necroscream. Recent edit includes a few corrections.

Hunger
Hunger is very nice, if it isn't cured. It leads to good damage, and then unconsciousness. Unfortunately it doesn't often get to that point, because of platters and really food in general, which doesn't even have a balance and most people carry around. Beyond food, there's orange, (lowmagic, 1 power) which halves the effects of hunger. So instead of taking 1 minute and 10 seconds to get from satiated to starving, (that's assuming sickeningplague hits every time) it takes 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Then there's consciousness, which warriors have, that stops passing out from hunger. It's stripped by sickeningplague but can be put right back up.

Hunger is attrition damage, like the sleep Spiritsingers used to have, but it isn't nearly as good. There are more skills working against it, and it is cured much more easily.

Plague afflictions
- pox: about 200 damage a tick
- rigormortis: breaks legs/arms over time
- worms: food eaten does not satiate
- scabies: balance loss, and is contagious
- epilepsy: equilibrium loss

For the moment let's ignore the fact that these are all quick, simple cures. Pox is terrible, for anyone. Rigormortis is not quite as bad but it's close. Worms would be fairly useful if there was some way to stick it. Scabies is decent, but doesn't really sync with any of our other skills, and the same goes for epilepsy. Now consider that all these afflictions are extremely easy to cure, and even though the song that gives them, sickeningplague, does it so they're masked, they aren't going to do any damage on their first effect (when you cure them). Add to that the fact that they are instant cures that no one should have trouble with.

Hunger and plague afflictions are the biggest parts of Necroscream, and in theory, the foundation for our combat. The bolded songs below are those that are related to hunger or plague afflictions:

VileBlood Let dark music surge through the blood of allies.
UndeadBlues Undead flesh can withstand physical punishment.
TortureSong Bindings will cut into the flesh of your enemies.
DespairWeb Entanglements will hold enemies longer.
Refrain A musical structure that allows repetition of a stanza.
NecroBallad Who will flourish under the ballads of the dead?
CarillonKnell The raging sound of Ashtorath harms plague victims.
SickeningPlague Plague your enemies with pox and hunger.
SobbingDread A dark despair so deep it is difficult to move.
EngineWords A sound to inspire the citizens of Magnagora.
DemonSong Demons who hear will increase their speed.
QueensLament Let the Laments of Nifilhema touch another.
WrathfulCanticle The wrath of Ashtorath shall incite terrible violence.
TaintedLove Love for you can be a twisted and cruel gift--or not.
DarkMaster All must obey the Voice of the Dark Master!
BlackDeath This terrible tone will cause plagues to persist.
Threnody Accompany enemies to the grave with the song of death.

Carillonknell does a little damage for each plague affliction you have. After a little testing, here are some numbers:
0: 94
1: 244
2: 327
3: 406
4: 576
5: 630
Not that great, especially considering how it's very unlikely that anyone will have plague afflictions, much less five of them.

Sickeningplague is the song that actually gives the plague afflictions, a masked one every 10 seconds, as well as hunger.

Wrathfulcanticle has a 10% chance for you or an ally, if they are undeaf, to give the target an unmasked affliction/damage: a small boost to damage, paralysis, epilepsy, impatience or dysentery. None of these work well with our other skills, and can be cured easily.

Blackdeath has a 50% chance to cause one of the plague afflictions cured to come right back, unmasked. Again, it's easy to keep up with the curing here.

After some testing, with Sickeningplague, Carillonknell, Wrathfulcanticle and Blackdeath all imbued I had no trouble keep up with curing against that, rainbowpattern and constant colourbursts from Llandros, who's an irontongue viscanti. I ate earwort when I could, but didn't bother keeping up sixthsense (which anyone else would do). After more testing with Ceren, where I used my song with those four powers imbued against him, contagion, constant colourbursts, colourmaelstrom and rainbowpattern, he had no trouble keeping up with afflictions. He was keeping sixthsense and earwort up, and I'm irontongue viscanti too.

So I guess what my point is here with all this is that even if I had managed to stick plague afflictions on Ceren, he would have been fine. All he would need was a simple alias to drink choleric;eat platter and the affliction with the most potential would be useless.

So the passive damage of Spiritsingers is higher (when comparing 1 plague affliction to 1 spirit called), but spirits can be called up beforehand and are consistent through any number of targets. Either the Plague business needs to be worked out better, or the effects of sticking plague afflictions needs to be substantially upgraded. I guess my biggest qualm with Spiritsinger is that they were originally argued to be balanced because the Spiritsinger cannot setup beforehand due to spirits being lost upon movement, but it was later revealed that it's a small chance to lose a spirit instead.

I feel violated.

Don't you guys have 15% resistance to mental affs? Try it on a Glom or something.

Lich gives some resistance, but Ceren wasn't liched. That's why I used contagion too.

Ceren was not undead. No resistance.

Ok. What about Estwald vs. Llandros?

I was liched, yeah.

I figure that the people who spend their free time (their free time with which they spend on Lusternia being entertained, thus they are entertained with and are interested in) fighting as or against these classes would probably be one of the greatest authorities on them. That is not to say that being a combatant automatically makes you an expert (which is another point I'm trying to make), nor does it make you automatically knowledgeable on these subjects. However, I am saying that a good person to ask about fixing a car would be a mechanic, or a good person to ask about baking a cake would be a baker.

If the consensus of several good mechanics is that your transmission is shot, or that the consensus of several good cooks that you undercooked your meat, then perhaps it may be a good idea to give it another check yourself. Or trust the opinion of professionals who do this for a living and get your transmission replaced/fixed or your meat sent back to the kitchen. Some issues can't be fixed by a normal envoy process, in my opinion, and whole skillsets and their lack of potency is one of these issues.

Perhaps it's that you do not actively fight in your own game that you think those afflictions are decent. But if you ask any combatant who has a grasp on the concept of priority or healing, you will likely get the answer that the aforementioned 'plague' afflictions aren't all that good. In a world where the normal health is anywhere from six-thousand to eight-thousand (and I've seen upwards of twelve or thirteen thousand in logs) in a PK setting, 200 damage per tick (a tick that I assume to be no less than 3 or 4 seconds) is not a noticeable amount of damage. Not when your healing methods far outstrip it. Rigor mortis is the only plague affliction I think I wish I had at my disposal in any IRE game - the rest, honestly, are not too hot. They are easily cured, do not cure on the same balance so they are not stackable, and their effects are very negligible.

Nor, in fact, do I believe that the concept of hunger attrition is an effective one. My argument for this is that, not only is it an ineffective concept if your opponents are carrying food (and believe me, any combatant worth their salt in an IRE game should be carrying food), it isn't NOTICEABLE or satisfying to fight with this strategy. You don't see your opponent suffer the effects gradually - it's an all or nothing, and you only take all if your opponent is inept and does not come prepared. "Is my opponent prepared?" should never be the way a class operates or wins. It should be a factor in all classes, but it should never (so clearly) decide a win or loss for the player using such a strategy.

A tick (on any song, I believe) is 10s. The damage is supposed to increase with the plague afflictions they have, but it's marginal, from what I've seen.

I am very well aware of who to listen to when it comes to combat balance. Indeed, I go to the top mechanics and consult the most expert bakers. They may not be the mechanics or bakers that you patron, nor may they advertise as loudly as the ones you hear most often, but nevertheless I trust them!

(Metaphors work well until they don't.)

That's what I was going for, but I'd at least like to make it clear that if you go to school to be a mechanic and can prove you went to school as a mechanic, and get a job as a mechanic, you're probably worth listening to, to some degree, when it comes to fixing things. In the same vein, this point supports us both: one mechanic may overlook something another may not.

The people you go to may not notice something the people who are currently decrying Necroscream do. The other side of this may work, but I think it's always a healthy thing to go back and take both parties and their feedback in to account instead of dismissing it as simply as saying 'I disagree'.

Good thing we have some world-famous mechanics on our side, then.


I don't see us dismissing anything. The only thing I disagreed with in this thread was the claim that scabies and epilepsy are bad afflictions. No, they don't synergize as well with Cacophony as, say, Nihilists, but they are very good afflictions for hindering an opponent. It's not only nihilists who use these affs, though, to hinder.

Your claim was completely fine, I can understand a misunderstanding - and part of my statement was corrected. However, I'm getting a feel that maybe you guys don't think Necroscream is bad off, and that's where I get the 'I disagree' thing from. I don't think it's horrible off, but I haven't fought as it - from an outside point of few, I can however understand that it may be a little impotent. I figure that you guys see something we don't, or we see something you guys don't, and you guys not asking what it is we might be seeing is what makes me say you don't agree with us or are just passing it over.

No offense, I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but that's just how it kinda feels.

In retrospect, as a player and somebody who makes things/develops things, I can entirely understand though that you would not be able to say 'we're looking in to it' or 'we'll give it a looksee later'.

What is this about quicksilver dodging melee attacks?