Really, if anything about demis needs nerfing, it's divinefire first, not zap.

I agree with this too, I have said before that DF should be bashing only. However, and yes this is biased commentary, with other mechanics currently I am not in any rush to be losing DF either. Namely, Blackout and impale trains

True, but doesn't mean zap isn't worth discussing at all.

Getting into specifics is trickier, but could always be something like making zap independent of int / magic rune, lock the first one at around 1300ish damage (capped at never being able to do more than 33%, or 50%, or 40%, or whatever of the target's health). Then each subsequent zap drops in damage by ~200 until it gets to 500. Three zaps together would do 3300 damage.

Then these numbers could be tweaked up / down as desired until it's felt to be "balanced," but that would be a starting place.

Okay, so four demigods could instakill me (level 85 faeling, +10% health arti) anywhere in the local area, without setup/warning/challenge, not to mention most other players below level 85. Do you really think that's an improvement?

A brief zap immunity seems to actually address the problem directly, without destroying the power of the ability, don't you think?

I think the problem here is Faeling.

What's your health? I mean, with my suggestion, 33% of 3000 health (for example, with one set of the numbers) is 1000, which means that a zap would never do more than 1000 damage to you. As such, you would take 1000 + 1000 + 900 (2900, versus 3300), keeping the person with 3k health alive.

Fighting with less than 3k health is, in general, a Bad Idea though.

And no, I don't agree with that last statement at all. It's definitely destroying the power of the ability (that's even the stated intent of both solutions, heh).

Edit: Oh, wait, I just noticed you mentioned four, not three. Wouldn't 4 demigods versus you, if you're not shielding / defending yourself, usually be a Bad Thing?

I have 4200 health with yellow. 33% of any amount of health means 3 hits is 100%.

Regardless of what numbers you choose, the problem remains - get enough demigods, and you can instagank anywhere in the local area. You're not addressing the issue by playing with damage - either it's going to be too little against high-health players or too much against low-health players.

Edit:

No it's not, it's removing the ability to instagank from a distance, especially against mid-level players who are standing within a defended area. Just like the archways were added to prevent cudgel-blasts hurting players standing at the entrance to Ethereal Glomdoring. Except in this case, you don't need line of sight, it's area-wide, and it does far more damage.


If they are willing to run into the room to attack, sure, they can gank me every which way but loose. From any location in the local area? No.

Which... means that if you add in a zap immunity, you're just pinning it at "too little". Because there is only one (just as my suggestion has the first zap at full damage). If it's too little even with grouping things up, it is going to be too little on its own, as well.

Further, read what I said-- it would be capping the maximum damage of the zap to 33% (or some percentage to be determined, not scaling the entire attack, but doing a base amount of damage, with a cap to prevent it from being an instakill on the soft targets).

Also: 4200, - 1300, - 1100, -900, -700, equals you with 200 health left. So it would take 5 zaps all at the exact same time, not four, with these numbers. (Sip/Sparkle once and it takes even more). So, as you can see, the numbers would need tweaking / balancing, but I believe that letting us still combine them (at less effectiveness) is a better solution than it just always doing not-enough to be helpful.

Edit to your edit: If they're not willing to run into your room, they can't break your shield and thus cannot zap you.

Let me ask again, because I think you're deliberately trying to sidestep the heart of the issue. How does your solution address this problem?

Because that same group of demigods can no longer near-instantly kill that (or even most, if we're discussing combatants) targets..? And it would take more to even go after non-combatants / lower levels, due to a damage cap.

How does that not address the problem?

But the same group plus one or two extra still can...?

Given decreasing damage, nope.

Edit: Perhaps I should clarify this. The more people you have, the more lag / discrepancy you add to the equation. If any of those people is even a hair slower than your trigger that tells you to sip health and eat sparkleberry, suddenly it takes a whole pile of extra Demigods zapping to "insta" you, given the decreasing damage each one does. Especially, in your case, given a sip bonus.

Okay, I think that any fix that merely boosts the number of demigods required to area-wide instagank from 3 to 4, or from 4 to 5, is essentially a superficial and token solution that offers nothing that would justify the time to implement.

Can anyone else find any problems with a temporary zap immunity? Is there a better solution out there?

So, you're not bothering to think about the numbers involved, or the fact that once you get to that many demigods each additional one is doing a mere pittance extra-- and once you add sip/sparkle into the mix, you're not talking about a boost of +1 zap but +3-4 more?

I see.

That's funny, I thought I was the one pressing you to reveal the exact number of level 100+'s you think it should take to instagank across a defended area?


Unless you're a demigod yourself, it's not a pittance.


Which is irrelevant because a single coordinated strike leaves little chance for restoring health, and given the victim could suffer as much lag (if not more) than the casters do, it is as equally likely they do not have time to trigger sip as it is that they do.

Target: 1 person, 1 person's lag to deal with.
Casters: Many people, and all of them have to be faster than the target. Odds, in general, favour the target (unless Lendren). And Demigods can't instagank anyone across an area who is either 1) Shielded, or 2) Gets someone to salt them as they put up demesne effects. I mean, there are defenses against this which can only be removed by you or by someone coming into the room to remove it. If you're in a safe area, you're not likely to have it removed on you.

And 500 health is a pretty small amount even to you... I bet that (if you were to hunt) you would hunt creatures that do more than 500 health in an attack, heh. That is a pittance, even to a level 85 Faeling.

Finally, to your first point: If you don't want to be able to zap someone from across the area, then you want the ability to be fluff. It's either got use in killing a target, or it does not. By scaling the damage and providing resistance as more zaps are thrown at once, you make it so that it is more effective to try to co-ordinate its use along with other things that have done damage (such as not using it to gank, but instead when someone is trying to run after already having been damaged, along the lines of uses you also seemed to agree with earlier). Which is a better use for the co-ordinated zap, I feel.

The primary issue is a group of demigods instaganking, so limit the ability to actually do that. Removing the coordination completely is overboard.

I'd actually be on board with a zap nerf...it has almost no use as a single target ability other than being cool, but the group form is a bunch less limited than rage/terror, which used to get whined about all day long (albeit unjustifiably) and obsoletes that whole aspect of things, along with being slightly harder to avoid for small people than stupid beckon ganks (albeit at least every org has access to it in theory.)

Yes. If you're sitting still in territory that's under attack, raise your shield.

And if you have to actually, you know, do anything? I was instantly killed by zaps while dragging some novices along to catch Viynain.

I agree with the temporary-zap-immunity idea, I mean the admins implemented this on stun for a reason: Because with more than one person it was possible to completely stun-lock someone untill they're dead, and in this case it's almost identicle: With more than one person (Granted, it's four or five) it's possible to wtf-pwn someone who's completely unaware, seeing as this person could easily even be a high-level combatant or the demesne holder that's defending it can EASILY be used to turn the tide of an entire battle and is obviously slightly OP.

It wouldn't have to be a huge immunity, .5 of a second would allow the person to heal if they're awake and if there's six or so people, enough to over-power the healing, well, they deserve the kill, surely.