The most important skill in group combat is maneuvering your forces. This hardly lessens that.

Groups can sit in stalemate for large periods of time over simply a demesned room. Why should a choked room be any different? If you want to run in there blindly, you have proven to be the less skillful side.

Try sending someone it with serpent to raze people's shields and watch how easily they die through ranged cudgeling, or how suceptible to rad and pushed agoraphobia hexes they become. Let alone beckon and such from the cities.

Just because Serenwilde can't zerg flow, *cough* I mean zerg fast-walk right into every situation and beat down smaller teams doesn't mean the skill's overpowered. It means you should learn how to do more than overwhelm people with numbers to win.

How is choke fun or feasible for a bone crusher? *peer*

Half the tactics available rely on stunning/prone with the first hit, and getting past parry/stancing with the second.

Proning alone is doubly effective inside choke. Choke will also add an extra second of stun on as well unless someone is manually timing their actions. Once they're down, depending on your poison selection you will certainly be able to keep them down.

Attack. Attack. Insomnia. Attack. Attack. Allheale.... against a Shadowdancer or similar patterns depending on the speed of your weapon. Once they're prone though, they should be yours since handling fae should be easy if you can keep insomnia up.

So the reason choke is fair is because there are ways to deal with it, aka forcing people out of the room, or fighting only ranged, which you can do too, and it disallows the Seren zerg?

So at least half of the basis for a skill is the Seren zerg?

O.o

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree, my friend.

I just meant for one on one, the caster of choke is really only overpowered if they are a hexen.

I don't see how one on one choke wouldn't fix everything. It would be entirely stupid to use it when the caster is severely outnumbered, which is a chief difference from how it is right now, choke being a real kill factor in groups. If the victim is outnumbered, sure he is slowed and only one other person is, but outnumbered people die anyway. Of course, some classes have better passive effects than others, but one on one fighting doesn't happen often outside the arena, and some classes just beat others anyway. Make choke one on one, eat hexes, disappear when either party leaves the room, and choke will be alright.

Also, if choke will be downgraded, it's power cost should be reduced from three to two at least.

Also also, choke should not be dependent on shadows, because that seems to create coding complications, and it won't make an enormous difference as it takes like half a second to release shadows anyway. Shadowdancers aren't meant to have a demesne.

I -completely- agree. I think it should really be one on one only, and SHOULD affect the caster. It's really what seems to have been intended by Estarra's comments and what it seems to me to be intended design.

That is just asking to get gankged!

Oh look I choked person A.

Person A shouts, " Night user B just choked me! Free killz! send tells to DEFEND"

Myndaen, you could disagree on the merits of group combat all you want. Doesn't change the facts. I would also love to see a druid inside choke outpace a druid outside of choke in a cudgeling match against one another though. This statement of yours intrigues me.

The basis of choke is not the seren zerg. The foundation of choke complaining is the seren zerg. Pay attention.

Ashai, what is the RP basis of a caster and target getting choked together and not people around them? Surely someone who can manipulate the shadows would avoid getting stuck in there? And even so.. all that idea turns out to be is a terrible version of aeon that costs power to aeon yourself too. Bad idea.

have you missed all the previous pages of arguing..and i guess the continuation else where..there are many many many many ways to avoid a hexen ever damaging you if they sit in choke..if you walk in and get owned that means your not fighting right and you need to sort out your own tactics, how many times do i really have to say this..

... RP basis? Ashai points ominously at you, as thick, crawling shadows slither about his form, travelling up his arm and engulfing you in a constricting mass of gloom. I don't know, you can kind of justify anything. The point is that while it does cost power... and the power should be reduced from three to two or one, it's uncurable. So would you rather just have aeon and do away with different flavors of combat?



Well, having been an SD for a really long time, I'm pretty aware of what works and what doesn't. Choke eating hexes makes sense when applied to a situation when the SD sits in choke, but it is not the best strategy to pre-choke . Though, even if you don't pre-choke, choke eating hexes will really only interfere if you try to choke before you afflict massively, which isn't the best idea either, so I don't see what we're talking about.

By the way, who are you?

i would be sharael, so yes i know what im talking about and know what works and what doesnt both with what i can do and how they can defend, but i think ive seen maybe 5 people ever that deal with choke properly

Meh, just turn it into an active form of aeon with fun flavour text and be done with it!

Maybe throw in some asphyxiation damage too.

well i know 1 on 1 with an enemy. My bard would probably do exceedingly well in choke. Its just a new style of play you have to learn to fight in not an omg pwned all move. If it really is that bad for your class to fight in I.E. Warriors being the only real class with out passive attacks. To bad simply move out of the way? but make it unusable in super mobbed rooms. or! Give it a message than 5 seconds after the message it goes off into its normal ability.

I still really like the idea that as you choke you might suffer minor asphyx damage, and it slows the use of eaten or drank cures or something.

As eat try to swallow you choke mildly.

Or something... and adds 1-2 seconds on bals while choked.

Might get you bogged faster but works on SD too.

Yeah, if the skill must get replaced, it seems like a good change. works for Warriors and shadowdancers.

if its a 1 person targetable attack it should not affect the caster i think.

I think the herb or balance thing would be fine (maybe even warriors get the balance one and wiccans get the herb one?), since it stays true to the purpose of aeon and works for warriors too, but doesn't this make sleep locks not really viable for non-hexen? Could it also slow putting up insomnia?

Edit: also, I don't think it's fair that the SDs don't have an envoy at a time when our biggest skill is being completely changed

Also, what about the power cost (if any) and other specifics of your idea?

I don't really like this idea. I don't like anything that would slow me down anymore for the balance of things. In choke now you can work around the shadows with enough practice knowing how long your balances last and just sending in the command a little less than a second before you regain balance/EQ. Not sure this would slow down people who are better at curing also, but I'd have to see it in action, as it is current choke is the only way to kill anyone with trans magic and a decent head on their shoulders. Ashai hit on how it makes hexen a lot better choice for combat than Astrology (I think, never been an astrologer) and Healing as choke kind of helps equalize it a bit with hexens being more powerful usually.

I like the concept of choke how it is personally and it's not too wrong for 1 vs 1 fights because in some way it can always be given to someone elses advantage, and tumble will ruin setting up choke in most cases. Most of the complaints I hear on the forums is how it just kills groups quickly when prepared with demesne/maelstrom if I remember what Furien usually complained about after choke ruined a raid on the nexus worlds or something and I really agree with him.

I'm not sure why people don't like it being able to cast it on one person and the caster but I've only read through the thread once and can't remember if anyone said anything against it. I'm also not sure why people think it should eat hexes slowly. Rarely if ever will a person use 3 doublewhammies in choke, usually it's just one and maybe a whammy. If you are going for a sleeplock. I've seen where someone throws 3 doublewhammies before choking that room and then trying to damage kill someone while they are hindered by the afflictions and it worked ok. I just very rarely see someone throwing 3 hexes in a row in choke at all, usually a hexen in choke has enemies prepared to run into the hexes and then it isn't really hard to just redraw the hexes. To me it doesn't seem necessary. Of course I'm not the best fighter or anything but I fight pretty well against Shadowdancers and I've seen a lot of things, though I admit I never sparred amazingly good people or anything.

I still sort of like the % based idea for full room, just because it isn't too much of a change and randomness isn't a good idea, set it at 50-60% or something. I was thinking about it and luck wouldn' t have much to do with it as it still pretty much breaks a system for the most part, but gives a person more chance to deal with the passiveness of a Shadowdancer's more offensive fae, and more of a chance for them to heal out of succumb, clot, eat chervil, or do whatever, it'd make Shadowdancers more interesting in my opinion, but whatever, I still like my other idea nobody commented on too and think it would help with the groups problem.

I'm not the best fighter or anything but that's my four or five cents.

edit: Wow that was long for me.

The only real thing i see is that Warriors in choke get screwed hard. Give warriors some passive area attacks and they would be perfect in choke?

Because... the game should be balanced around choke as it is now?