But yes, that would be great. I think I hear my complaining about tradeskills than most other things.

I do not know if the envoy summit is the best place to raise issues like tradeskills and non-combat related skills. However, it isn't quite fair that only combatants get to have their grievances heard on a regular basis, while non-coms do not have much avenues.

Perhaps a non-com Envoy for each org? Non-com skills do not need as much tweaking as combat skill do, but an avenue to do so would be very much appreciated.

Actually, you could likely argue that most tradeskills greatly change combat. I'd just say have a meeting about tradeskills.

I'd also like to point to my post on why I feel Bookbinding needs to be fixed here.

that is very constructive

Personally, I would like to see being able to get undeath not being tied to a player skillset. Lichseed giving you auto-raise is good as it is, but make undeath available through the crypt, please.

That would be nice. Although, of the tradeskills that really need working on (Forging, Artisan, Bookbinding), only forging has a moderate impact on combat. For Bookbinding, only MagicScrolls and MagicTomes affect combat.

I'm a titan Aquamancer. I bash quinotaurs because they're just as fast as astral (can usually only handle one linked mob at a time, with splendor, trans resilience, trans telepathy defs, and attune).

-Geomancers should be able to taint and meld underwater, by filling the water with scary taint juices. Currently, we cannot meld underwater, which is like 200ish rooms. It's like saying aquamancers can't flood mountains.
-The forcetaint/defoliate division is silly. Just make everything forcetaint.
-Add defoliate as a new skill which destroys saplings. Both mages get it.
-Burnout make me sad. Forcefield is basically vitality + xp cost as a trans skill.
-Let people with tomes not have to wield them, pretty please?
-Stolensight, stolenthoughts, phantomsphere. All of these are dispelled by leaving the demesne as far as I can tell. That makes them pretty weak. It would be better if you had to cure it with something.

This thread's gotten a bit off track.

The meeting is to address major combat imbalances. While I do like seeing comments and general ideas, it won't be the focus of this meeting.

Oh. Monks building momentum with mounts.

The Avenger.

It's a nice enough idea, but it has some flaws. Here's a major one:

If someone who is on your Victims list attacks you while you're in enemy territory (or you have otherwise autodeclared them), you can't hit back.

This leads to situations such as where your target jumps you while you're in enemy territory, you kill them, they get suspect on you (bad enough as that is!) and then they continue to hit you while you can't hit back. Lovely.

Permitting you to defend yourself if they attack you, without removing them from the victims list (so they're still protected outside that fight) would be best, I think. There are some who might argue that they should be cleared from the victims list, but I disagree - you shouldn't lose suspect for defending, but nor should someone not be able to defend themselves.

As I had feared, combat only.

Edit: Well, not quite right. Perhaps 'desperately hoped not' would be better than feared.

1. Geomancers not being able to Taint underwater environments seems like an insensible thing if we argue that we're able to taint the surface environments because we can gather the sediment particles then put them together. From a combat perspective, this makes protecting any underwater installations which we have intended to take over for some reason or another (i.e. Kelpies in the Inner Sea, Ladantine in the Sea of Despair) with our demesnes. Arguably, this is a minor thing as there are not many underwater installations people actually care about. Clearly, there is no issue for Aquamancers which flood here and there, in Mt. Zoaka and the Skarch Desert where the blistering heat should cause water to vaporize and the 'shallow pool of crystal clear water' to dry up. Dysolis should be able to testify to this.

2. The purpose of ForceTaint is supposedly to forcefully break a melded demesne. It works perfectly fine for Forested and Flooded Melds, but not Wyrded melds. Arguably, Magnagora doesn't really fight Glomdoring so this seems like a redundant division but during FFAs and Wargames, having to spend extra thought to use GEOCAST FORCETAINT over GEOCAST DEFOLIATION sometimes costs you the extra few seconds that may have stunned the enemy and led to their demise.

3. Having Defoliation as a substitute for the Axe may be a viable solution, but you also have to consider that while REALITYCHECK can be learned by anyone, DEFOLIATION can't be and so cities will still be at a disadvantage as opposed to the forests when it comes to breaking Forested/Wyrded melds. This is in addition to Gregori's suggestion about axes.

Aquamancers cannot meld underwater so why should Geomancers be able to do so? (I bet you feel silly right now...)

That's hardly a "major imbalance" even if it were true...(and why is that rule there again? It seems like there must be a reason but I can't think of it.)

As I recall, Roark decided that no one should be able to meld underwater because of some issue - likely that it's mildly retarded for anyone except an Aquamancer to be able to meld underwater and to allow them to so would open the door for future complaints about who should be able to meld where.

Figures.

Hm.



I think every time a "general" combat balance meet happens, I have to bring this up. Why is it that there is such a focus on locks involving things that can't be cured out of? Nobody likes losing control of their character, be it to stuns, insane balance loss, insane eq loss, etc. Some of the cures to prevent these locks even require you to be on a balance/eq that is stolen by the skills themselves, while attached to instakills or passive increase of the length of usage. Why does acrobatics dodging even remove equilibrium? I actually use more equilibrium on certain dodged actions than I'd have consumed doing the action itself, it's ridiculous. Should just be as fast as a stance dodge.

Similarly, you have kills or instakills that are based around cure denial and present a run or die situation in most circumstances. The "balancing factor" of a channeled instakill is that it is typically easy to avoid unless set up properly. Then you factor in things like Lusternia's "unique vs balanced" mechanics of things like Size, which suddenly make it impossible and/or highly unlikely to move a player with an unhinderable instakill. Then you add something like cure denial, such as unable to writhe until balance lock ends, inquisition without focus spirit, batbane, herb bane, barrierchasm, p5th, etc. I think these problems are symptomatic of having cure-alls (green/gedulah). Instead of working towards a lock through optimal curing and having the lock stick, instead classes are "balanced" by having incurable stages.



Hardly matter outside of speed-max/highest precision/damage with said speed, maybe look at fixing this sometime soon. It's nearly less than 1 wound per point of precision with 22 strength.



Because I can't ever bitch without mentioning it. You forge for combat, that's the whole reason it takes so long, since you can't compete without the best.



Makes baby Jesus cry. You (Divine) didn't like the Sacraments report because it didn't nerf enough with the changes/buffs/replacements, but with Sacraments you have a skill that is far more geared to the Guardian's usefulness than it is to the Knight's. I'd gladly gut things like Trueheal and Inquisition for actual offense-related abilities that don't require me to not use power as a Knight. Suddenly it would become lackluster/useless for Celestines. Blah on that.



Still needs about 3 adjustments to bring itself onto a tier with the other three. Right now, al/bc/bm are actually all very viable; the closest to having all four specs be even in a long time. Axelord for its best-in-show trans instakill with nice stun and Bonecrusher for its synergy with certain other skillsets providing both stuns and uncurable statuses like balance locks both sit slightly above blademaster, which also got a very nice set of buffs recently. Pureblade on the other hand has a couple glaring omissions. Needs a few changes that would take months in normal envoy process. Thoros and I spitballed these back and forth a bit while I was PB recently. Not all are his and not all are mine.

OpenChest for Pureblade needs a 1s stun like crushchest. Some minor cure hindering to actually allow wounding to outpace curing.

SeverPhrenic should delay smoke cures and be a delayed smoke cure itself, rather than random chance to fail smoking. Stacks better with hemiplegy and prevents an avenue of work.

Pureblade LegTendon needs to NOT be cured by allheale. Blademaster and Ninjakari tendons can stay the same, because one gives it without wounds and both give it with two toxins plus combo afflictions. It's a bread and butter affliction for pureblade, but they also can not instantly combo it with anything but one toxin.

Give Pureblade HeftySword like Axelord. Far more useful than the split-second balance loss.

Critical Gut wound impale with extended writhe time (like shackles) on a jab. This means it can't be power attacked (sweep is a swing). Gives double the normal rend bleeding if ripped out. Gives pureblade another non-standard parry punisher. Limited by not being a power attack and requiring critical wounds.

Increase the drain of nutrition on RuptureStomach. Currently I believe it takes around 20-30 attacks to take a person from full to starving. That's 20-30 gut hits at heavy, all scoring the wound. Should be down around 3-5.



Still ridiculous pre-balance/eq auto prone with writhe. Why is this still in game?



Things like vivisect/sacrifice are hold-overs from a land where you can't be stuck on a cross and unable to cure them. Otherwise, buff Thornlash and make it incurable in trees/while nature vined. How many others of these exist? IE, things not based on pools. DeathProphecy, Thornlash/rend, and?



Is pretty much out of control. This goes for gusting, tackling, barging, empressing, beckoning, currents, whirlpool, etc etc etc. It's probably near 70% resist rate when combined with defenses. Lots of viable skill counters that prevent timed instas or punish poor planning of blocks/reject managing are all destroyed by size 25 + summon resist def.



Morgfyre was working on this a while back, but it got thrown by the wayside? When you look at things like leg swings which have a 60% chance to miss the body part that you want WITHOUT counting stance/parry/rebound/natural miss rate/dodging, it's a bit ridiculous.



Still garbagetown. It would be nice if all warrior trans's were replaced with similar kills to Axelord, but maybe that's just wishful thinking. Both of these use a ridiculous amount of power for a return not even close to what actually managing your power and using crushes/lunges gives.



Already in discussion it looks like, hooray. 5-7 actions versus 1 action, plus all the side effects. Just even them out please? A ridiculous log example is the wargames where we were trying to chop in choke and shuyin has to rewield his dual wield after wielding an axe so that I could demesne off his chop. In return, it's just realitycheck/forceforest. Yoink. Plus all the comparable blocking of melding like Gregori says.



Massive suck. I still maintain 100% that if you engage in PvP combat, that is you HIT another player with an aggressive action, you should be OPEN to PvP combat. If you don't hit back and take the death, then the avenger should protect you. But if you start HITTING SOMEONE, that means that you are engaging in PvP and should be open to such yourself. From Defend-chain-rape to Victim status in Enemy territory, this stuff has GOT to go.



Give it a 1p cost to fling. Coughcoughinquisition.



I've never really liked the massive AE stun, slow, pile-o-mobs spawning, and damage of these things. I get that you shouldn't be able to occupy an area forever, but wouldn't that be better served by drastically increasing the insanity gain of being on an opposing/enemied Plane than Shrines? Toning down shrines would go a longer ways towards increasing casual conflict, while tightening up the longer-term negatives would discourage permanent occupation. Spam stun is just ridiculous.



Who else uses a 6s attack balance? No chasing, outsipped drastically if hindered at all during the end seconds of the balance, etc. Seems like a global reduction of super abilities combined with a lowering of the balance would be best. You can't even haste it with racials/shrine celerity.



Are not in keeping with the reductions to bonuses/penalties. Need to be halved or 65%/whatevered like everything else.

I think that's my list for now.

Nice compilation.

A lot of very good stuff here.

Not to mention that mages would have an advantage over communes with not needing to learn a separate skill set in order to break commune melds (their skill is in their guild skills). While communes are still forced to learn reality check, from an outside skill set.

The only change that needs to be made is make chop not require you to wield the axe. It is simple enough to have the code check to see if an axe is inventory and change the messages to suit the mechanic.