The thing: If everyone becomes too strong, from a PvP standpoint that means little, as we're all about the same strength still.


And mobs are a much less complex thing to change then to attempt balancing and fixing character skillsets to be a happy medium for all. It's much easier to just scale up the damage and HP of mobs throughout the mud then it is to have to completely rework an Archetype due to the need of one change. Though I certainly agree with where you're coming from, it's all in the eye of the beholder I suppose. I've played a few MMORPG's in my time, and I've had some pretty ugly looking nerf bats swung my way on them, so.. I'm veery veery skeered of nerf bats.


And as for the avatar, I'm not really gay anything but I think I might become so if I could sleep with that bands lead singer.

"'ey boy, yoo shur got a pertty mouthk."

Try playing WoW, and tell me power creep doesn't hurt anything. All the items from the expansion are pretty much 20 item levels above what they would have been before, which makes 50-58 content pretty worthless for anything except leveling asap.

In M:tG, power creep is the same way. Cards get banned if they skew the format too much, instead of just printing other cards to counter them. If they had done it differently, the game would be dead by now, with insane combos and scores of bans ripping it to shreds.

@Saran, your fetish doing double venoms is going to out-afflict a shadowdancer in choke, if you can get it going. I would start with Morphite, get them to sleep, then use charybdon venoms to load them up with afflictions fast. On top of that, for group fights, it would likely do a lot of good to use smudges, such as desert or other such things.

If you're arguing from the point that everyone getting equal buffing makes everyone equal then you're still not solving the problems that existed in the first place.

"Mages are too weak, let's buff them!" "Oh wait now warriors are too weak, let's buff them!" "Oh but now mages..."

It's more than simple power, it's a fine balance.

And...well I'm already gay so I'll leave the pretty mouth comment alone.

That would be Gelo, not Saran. But yeah, thanks for that. So berserk fetish would do nicely then get a sap in perhaps, right? Hrm... I would have to get a shadowdancer to spar with me in order to be prepared for that. On that note how would bellow fare in group combat compared to smudges? My problem would be commands cancelling each other if I outr herb, outr herb, create smudge stick, then burn it. That would be 4 manual timed actions to get one smudge in against one action with bellow. Am I missing something?

No, don't sap. You can't stack sap with choke. They're already under choke too.

One suggestion currently being tabled for discussion is this.

Choke currently costs 3p, lasts 5 minutes.

Suggestion is for choke to be reduced to 1-2p, and duration reduced to 40-45 seconds.

I'd like some feedback, I feel this will drastically reduce choke's effectiveness in group combat, and perhaps help in 1v1 combat with the reduced cost.

Frankly, when fighting Shamarah I was dead before 45 seconds was up.

Note to self: Don't fight Shamarah in choke.

Ugh, no, that would be awful.

I think that three power for five minutes is a bit ridiculous, so lowering the time it lasts would be a very good thing. The power cost being lower (or higher) isn't so much an issue as the duration, obviously.

Does Choke deplete the number of shadows in the cauldron? If it doesn't, I feel it should. It's the shadows that are slowing everything down. Maybe the duration could be related to the number of shadows in the cauldron, releasing a shadow every few seconds until they're gone or the timer ends.

I disagree. Each shadow take 3 power to gather, 1 power if you have Nightkiss. Choke is essentially a 4 power skill to use per room, with a upkeep of 1 power every 5 minutes if you wish to keep it up.

I think Choke is fine as-is, Diamante. My issue has been with support skills, such as redcap, INSIDE choke. Redcap is already being reduced, thus, I do not feel Choke itself also needs a further reduction.

Choke is meant to be both powerful and limited, and that's what it currently is. If you reduce it to 45 seconds, you remove a LOT of its utility. After all, in the first 45 seconds the person's likely going to tumble away or use various means to screw you over in Choke instead (hadrudin, demesne, etc).

Choke is most definitely not an "IWin" button, because it affects everybody in the same way. Everybody has to learn to deal with it.

As I've said before, it's not just about "balancing the ability" for me. It's more about how it adds something that I feel Lusternia would be better without. It presents a challenge, sure, but it often times kills the fun I have of fighting in Lusternia. The general consensus seems to be "stay out of the choke," which to me says that people just don't like it being used, period. At any rate, we'll see what ideas are put forward and if any changes are ultimately made. Either way, we'll have to adapt.

Whore desert smudge. Drop smudge, shield. Drop smudge, shield.



I think choke isn't as bad as people make it out to be, the problem is that non-Glomdorians don't practice fighting in it, and people don't code for it. Here are the tactics that are useful for dealing with choke:

Take out 10-20 of each herb before entering choke, as Diamante said. Also, envenom your weapons, take out motes/runes, etc, in preperation for choke if you need to.

If you are a dreamweaver, whore Narcolepsy. Imbedded narcolepsy wins in choke, hands down. Use Slumber the second the mote hits if you manage to meld the room, otherwise, toss memoryloss, follow with narcolepsy, follow with slumber. Requires some pretty precise timing though.

If you have access to disloyalty, WHORE it. Weapons envenomed with hadruidin seem pefect against choke.

Bleed effects are great, but rarely enough on their own. I'd think Thornlash would be great fun in choke, but I'm not certain.

If you're fighting as a group against a lone shadowdancer in choke, one person should whore shieldstun.

Sleep is your greatest enemy. Keep insomnia and kafe up.

Stupidity is absolutely wonderful in choke.

Telepaths can out afflict hexen in choke. Every 1s, hit with stupidity, mindblast, and such. Just don't use afflicts that make them run out of choke, use ones that keep them from doing anything.

Telekinetics can keep the SD on the ground, and they can use a dagger with hadruidin on it.

Redcap is certainly an issue. At the moment, it's what, 500 passive mana drain outside of choke from the clotting, and absurd damage inside of choke? I don't think reducing it to 200 is enough, but we'll see.

As a side note, I agree with that. I wanted a further reduction, and it's not off the table. We'll see what happens.

Still, I find Zarquan's comments about waiting to see what happens and then adapting to be kind of odd. Choke's been around for a while now. People have made systems that can deal with aeon. It's not a much larger jump to deal with choke instead, just with different curing priorities. Yes, it's a completely different fight, but it's different for *everyone*, including the caster. The main complaint I've heard from combatants is that the caster "has the advantage of knowing when it's going to drop," which is somewhat valid-- but once it's down, you're both in the same boat.

I don't see anything wrong with that. As I said earlier, it's not an IWin button.

My choice of words was poor, I admit. It's not like I'm holding my breath for changes to the ability.

Still, it is different from curing aeon because it can't be cured. When aeon hits, most people stop their offense and let their script (or macro/alias, if you're more manual) take care of the aeon first. When choke is down, you stop your offense and try to get out of the room. The main difference between aeon and choke is that there is a readily available defense for aeon and you can see when someone strips that, meaning that the real aeon is coming shortly. How do I know that a room is choked before I waltz in other than to have fought a person enough times to know that this is their primary tactic?

It can be an "IWin button" when they have enough passive or triggered effects.

Except that, in this case, *everyone* has access to passive/triggered effects... well, everyone who isn't a warrior. It doesn't give anyone more of an advantage than anybody else. It depends on how you deal with it.

It can be very easily made into the IWin button by the one who drops it as they have the chance to prepare in it, and the attackers can't. Take hexes and fae. The second you walk in you are paralyzed, by the time you are out of that you are dw'd with sleep, once you're out of that (even with metawake) you can be and most likely will be pretty messed up.

It's mostly the preparation that the one that drops choke can do that gives them the definite edge in it.

In my opinion choke ruins combat entirely, especially if you have to deal with it -every- time you are raided. For something that lasts 5 minutes, a lot longer than most other skills, I find it funny that it costs only 3 power and has no 'cure'.