I'm fine with choke on principle, but:

a. It lasts to long. Decrease the cost, and make it last less long.

b. Combined with either fae (yes, moondancer too), brumetower, or succumb it is a pain in the arse. Even with manual curing. Even trying to run.

c. Comparable Moon skills are: Wane (which doesn't affect whole groups, caster can be disabled, requires roughly equal sized forces to be effective in group combat, but has a greater effect and can be rage covened), shafts (woohoo, frickin useless since the only time I've really been lucky with it was putting down dark, shafting, and changing the directions I block, which is way too much power for a crappy hindering), and darkmoon (which when cast on a location is frankly useless, unless you are fighting 8+ people, in which case succumb/brumetower and a smart druid is infinitely better).

Nerfnerf

Every time I walk into (or am dragged into) choke, I hit hexes (vapors!), fae (ow), and succumb (toad no fun). Even going in fully deffed up (deaf, smaller size, and all), and pausing my curing to tumble out ASAP, I can only get away about 20% of the time. I was toaded about 20-30 seconds after the start of an encounter, which I feel is far too quick. I didn't even have time to get unparalyzed and disentangled.

Another thing I noticed today was that a single person was able to move the Choke around to a few rooms rather quickly. In my opinion, it shouldn't be something you can cast in a new room until it expires in the first room. Is there something I'm missing in the way this ability works?

If you're talking about me, I'm nearly positive that neither of my kills on you were in choke, I'm pretty sure I toadcursed you out of it. The one time you walked in I didn't have hexes up or anything.



We have to cauldron call, cauldron release in each room before we can choke, each of which takes eq and cauldron release costs a shadow which we have to gather beforehand. Also choke costs 3p.

That and it's a SD's only form of aeon, so if it was limited to a single room, it would be vastly sub par to every form of aeon in the game.

And really, Shadowdancers isn't the right term.


I hereby dub us, the Shadowmancers. We have a demense of shadows, inside it we're quite powerful, outside of it wholly lacking to all but bards.

You all make it sound like it's a whole lot harder to use then it obviously is. Sure, maybe that initial set up is a tad complicated, but Shamarah was choking new rooms left and right with little obvious problems in doing so.



And who says they require a form of Aeon at all? If choke was completely removed and replaced with something a little more creative, a lot less stupid and a tad less powerful, so long as it was well thought out it shouldn't be that big of an issue.

And as for Aeon, things can be done to combat Aeon, it doesn't completely ruin any chance for offense as a warrior, nor does it take what should be an instantaneous death and retarded thing to do for any other archetype/guild to try and do and make it an amusing romp toadcursing and stomping people that you'd otherwise not have a chance against. When Aeon can accomplish all that, (Which it can't, no where close.) you can compare Aeon and Choke. Combats normally all about numbers, except when you have one person choking a bunch of rooms and little but a couple warrior archetypes to defend against them. Then it's all about choke and wether or not the warriors can manage to barge you out of a room and keep you out of choke long enough to do anything. Either way, I like it as an idea.. I've said so before, but it really just has too great an affect on combat as a whole, particularly group combat to be left as it currently is. No other single ability in practically any IRE game can so substantially change the all aspects of combat the way choke does.

I honestly find combat to be utterly confusing, but everyone else makes it -look- simple. Does it mean that it -is- simple?

I'm not a combatant, but from reading the forums, what I see is that wiccans and guardians rely on aeon in the form of tarots, waning and choke to make their hindering afflictions stay unhealed. And wiccans cannot damage kill, as I've tried in the arena and they have always ended up in draws, so they'll have to use their instant kills. And these instant kills require the target to be, well, hindered. So unless there is an ability which can do that, I doubt that Shadowdancers would have Choke removed entirely.


I'm just curious. What's wrong with that?

And from what I see of your posts, your main gripe is that you find yourself as a warrior to be unable to fight at all in choke. And since that the opinion of people who have posted is that any archetype other than warriors (and bards?) can fight effectively in choke if they make an effort to learn how to, It seems then that the only problem is the making effort part and the warrior part.

The taking time to learn part, I think Diamante has covered quite nicely with his post on how choke works.

As for the warriors, I'll try to think of ideas.
If, like Diamante says that choke is essential to Shadowdancer combat the way melds are to mages and druids, then perhaps we should treat choke the same way as melds instead of treating it as a affliction. If that is the case, then what is needed is a method to dispell choke. However, melds have restrictions as to who and how to unmeld, such as only druids and mages being able to unmeld, having to start at the edges and using 1 power. Then choke should also have restrictions, but perhaps not as strict as melds are. Ideas could start with warriors being able to dispell choke, delayed dispelling of choke, and a power cost to dispell.

Of course I'm talking about you. Who else lives only to cause others grief?

You didn't toadcurse me in the choke, but it was a contributing factor in at least one of the two instances. I walk in and can barely tumble out, at which point it's too late because I'm out of mana in no time. The succumbing is maybe worse than the choking at this point.

It only costs three power? For something that has been called one of the most powerful abilities in Lusternia, that's a very low number.

I typically really enjoy combat in Lusternia, even if I die a few times. Choke literally kills the fun for me because you have to re-learn how to fight in a whole new way or avoid it completely because you're just struggling to get out of the room alive while eight things are hitting you. The loss of fun is my real problem with your little raids.

No. If people could remove choke it would be worthless.

Also, in other games there is a retardation vibe which does the exact same thing as choke... except the class that has it is a mage instead of ent user, and the mages have effects that hit EVERYONE in the room, not just one person like wiccan fae.

Because some other game has a similar ability does not make yours balanced or fun. Retardation also has other drawbacks, like killing vibes in the room, in case you've forgotten about that.

I think that's more of a problem with your choice of race than with choke. Yes, succumb > igasho mana, and choke > igasho tumble speed.



Keep in mind that doublewhammies cost 2p, and we generally need to use 3 of them. Choke would be massively difficult to use if it cost any more than 3p.



Honestly, if I were you, I'd just avoid going into the choke. Some people have a chance in choke... as an igasho warrior, you're really screwed. I'm not a particularly patient person and I'll probably come out of it to kill you.

(That, or just, y'know, get the rest of Serenwilde. Why is it that Seren seem to have the urge to dive one by one into my choke, fae, and hexes?)

Now you know how non-combatants feel.


Hrm. How about this:
Victim casts WeakenShadow
Choke will be dispelled in x secs.
Shadowdancer then recasts choke again (at a lower power cost perhaps?) or release a shodow again to restrengthen the shadows.

I do reduce my size to increase writhing and tumbling times, but I know 15 isn't too much better than 18. I also try my best to conserve my mana and I switch sipping priorities to protect my mana when it's being drained. Mana potion, sparkleberry, and a healing scroll can never keep ahead of succumb. Again, toadcurse shouldn't be doable in less than 30 seconds, no matter how low my max mana starts (and I don't consider 2811 to be THAT low).

No, I don't know how non-combatants feel. I might know how inexperienced combatants feel, but if you're a non-combatant, you're not fighting, eh?

Er. Ya. What you said. Inexperienced.

Oh, I agree, succumb is WAY too strong. Diamante is getting it toned down a bit in the next envoy report, I believe.

I'd just like to see something that's not going to screw over Shadowdancers but makes the archetypes that are really hurt badly by choke able to actually put up a fight, that's my only real gripe. And the vibes you're citing aren't really comparable even if they do similar things. In any case, I think with time I'll surely be able to better deal with choke, but that doesn't change the problem that Zarquan brought up in concerns to succumb and toadcurse.


I'm a Tae'dae, so, it currently takes one hit from succumb and one tick from your entity that drains mana before I'm able to be toadcursed. It could be done in the matter of seconds if you're good at timing these things. So... yah.. I'm pretty much completely boned when it comes to fighting shadowdancers. The only problem therein: As a Serenguard, and looking at topguilds, looks as if I'll be fighting an awful crapload of Shadowdancers. Which makes me think I might as well just throw in the towel now if there's not something done to even things out.

Well, tae'dae pretty much suck as a race. But you're also a pretty low level.

That can be a problem. You must learn to fight in choke it is different from fighting in other things you need to learn to fight in choke if you wish to fight shadowdancers. You must learn to parry, stance, cure and balance wounds and health to fight warriors, it is just something extra you have to learn.



You are Iasmos yes? You seem to deal with choke badly and cure little, the serenguard Dinoniel is better in it than most ask him for advice.

I'm practicing dealing with Choke better, but it's not an easy path for me. Dinoniel had an easier time because he was without his scripts and was doing everything manually. He says that's the one nice thing about Choke, he can keep pace with other people and doesn't have to automate anything.

I'm still a newer Champion and I've never been a big fighter because I prefer relative peace and calm when I play. I like the occasional scuffles when I defend against incursions, but I do not raid others (i.e., looking for trouble). Tactics are something I'm still learning, so I suppose I should thank you for showing me the usefulness in a few of my abilities that I had previously not realized.

Nobody is more eager than me to see Estarra have to fight in choke for two days and then rip it out in disgust saying "I can't believe we did this to anyone". But that's not the point of this thread. Choke is hardly the only, or even the most important, or even a vaguely important, aspect of why numbers trump everything in most combats in Lusternia.