I can only really comment on Researchers as I haven't fought many Illuminati or Templars.

First step is to make sure that you have the messages for all their passive afflictions (onyx, sapphire, oracle, echoes). Then build up a list of each of the afflictions that they can give and make sure your system is picking up the symptoms properly. Then make sure your system is able to cure warp properly. Perhaps look at gagging some things (warp cure messages, ruby ticks etc) once you've got the basics down, because Researchers are incredibly spammy.

The only time I really get behind with researchers at the moment is when Sapphire gives hidden omniphobia and it starts breeding with the oracle phobias.

What was stated so far in this thread about it is correct. Badluck can fire on Focus Mind, Focus Body, Stancing, and aggressive actions. It can stack with itself, so if you focus and fail and attempt to focus again and fail both attempts will stack the balance loss. So the best way to deal with it is to avoid using Focus Mind while you have it, limit your changes in stances while you have it, and pray you are not afflicted with paralysis a lot so you are not forced to focus body too much.

This is basically it. Stance legs or lower (depending on combat and dex) and leave it alone, then use parry to handle the rest. What you don't want to do is allow your system to unstance and restance every time you're hit by a Templar. I don't know how practical it is for fighting an Illuminati, but when you're fighting a Templar, just turn off focus mind when you're under badluck. It makes GreyWhispers obnoxious, but it's manageable.

@Gregori: If that's the case, maybe you could post the factual information? Obviously, it's going to be hard to find the real stuff if 95% of what's floating around is false.

@Xavius/Geb: I'll do that, then. Still haven't fought an illuminati, but frankly that's a fight I try to avoid.

Badluck shuts down focusing (if it affects focus body, too, which I don't know for a fact, then there are cases when you can't help but focus; then it would add to the hindering it does against any offense already) and provides anyone you attack with the equivalent of foresight (dodge++) since your attacks fail about as often as against someone who uses that and throw you off balance just as foresight or dodge throw you off eq.

Sure, bad curing adds to it, but it's one overpowered ability at its current cost and duration. And report 433 solutions are a joke. It simply shouldn't be an ability that can be maintained on someone nonstop and without much trouble. And the room version snafu is even worse. Imagine groupcombat and providing your whole group with a dodge equivalent (since all enemies now fail to attack as if your allies dodged), plus hindering focus mind which is even more vital in group combat to keep pace with afflictions.

I seriously hope the stackability of balance loss and the chance for actions to fail get fixed, on top of any power cost it might get.

Judging by the recent group combat where we had badluck and snafu going I would say your assumptions fall far short of the mark.

Edit:: For those who weren't there, the badluck/snafu team died to the non-badluck/snafu team who were unable to maintain an offense cause of snafu and badluck.

You mean because it doesn't make you win against -any- odds it's not overpowered? Ooooookay.

No, because it's not insurmountable as proven time and again. Nobody said it's not a powerfull skill. It could be worse though, it could only let you have 1 action per second.

I mean just because your team sucks, doesn't mean the skill isn't too OP. Choke still has a powers and shadows cost with backfiring ability.

Well to borrow a comment from a former choke user "I have fought against choke badluck and snafu and managed just fine."

I thought it was "gust the choker"?

At which point does Greg get to call people scrubs?

Is there ettiquite to a forum lynch and defense?

As to the lynch itself? After what was done to pyro, and how well aero was boosted up, hopefully the furies took a lesson from it. Kalin's actually been compromising on the subject- He compromises, and people who have barely, if at all, fought in it, and form their opinions on very bad information, akin to

(SUPERCOOLCLUB): Dingus says, "DERP, badluck fires on all things all the time and is a win button. DERP."

...and proceed to scream "Its not enough! Destroy the skillset!", and wonder why other envoys never compromise.


Now, if we want to start throwing out other skills that get called win buttons, sure. If we want to remove choke, sure. If forming an ill-informed mob is the best way to hammer a skillset to crap now, I can probably find it in me to incite a forum riot or two. But I'd much rather back things up with logs, evidence, and how skills actually work. Which is time consuming, and a disproportinate effort to an unproven, one line comment.



To Kio-

As a former templar, now TK pyro, and with a subtantially invested aero alt skillflexed between DW and TP, here's what I'm seeing.

You are having problems with badluck above the norm because you're a psionics user. Currently, for whatever reason, the change that was made that reduced the chance on procing various abiliites if attacks were made in "combo" form, ala, two weapon knight and monks, doesn't seem to impact the psionics combos- perhaps because they're on three pretty seperate balances. If you weren't psionics, it wouldn't seem nearly as bad, especially inside of your demesne.

As for your own strategy, the aeromancer demesne got a trip to the shopping mall during the review. Apart from the passive curing and limb piercing, which is generally useful, you had a knockdown effect added to thunderclouds. This meaning, you have a passive tic that knocks down and causes balance loss. Something I've considered playing around with on my own areo is thus:

On meld tic, beast trample. TK combo with slickness, throatlock, and anything else that works towards your strategy. TK especially seems built around aggressiveness, which combined with the psionics issue above, make it particularly suseptible to bad luck (comparatively, as a pureblade knight sparring other para users, badluck was entirely annoying, but also entirely tolerable.)

Against paradigmatics and illus in general, if you can mess with their enemies list in any way, you can take out some of the nasty stuff. Just be wary about getting yourself lusted to illus using love potion!

Quick follow-on to Rainy's comments about psionics in badluck. If the proc rate is really not lowered (as it should be?) for the triple balance of a psionicist, you may try locking a channel or two (I'm thinking of leglock), just so that you get SOME passive offense from that channel without having to worry about feeding that channel's actions through badluck.

I don't know if it is or not, but it should be under the same "nerf" that happened a couple months back to all action fail causing skills. Stupidty, Jinx, badluck, snafu, whatever else there may be should have lower chances of proccing/balance among split balance classes.

edit:: if it's not lowered for psionics I would either bug it or failing that envoy it. Though I would suggest bugging it first to find out if it is even supposed to be at this time.

Double checking the testing now!

Tested- yes, this still seems to be the case, though I'm just eyeballing it and didn't do any real counting for lack of time, which can often inflate things. Like other things, it will fire, and break the combo, as would be expected, so it won't stack of this, naturally.

I've actually thought of the first! Just can't do it quite yet, as I don't have beast trample. Getting it soonish, though.

As for the second, how can I mess with their list as a TK, other than love potion? My first instinct is locking dagger with hadrudin, but that's not really the same.

@everyone else: Thanks for actually taking the time to help out, instead of just argue about the skill! (No sarcasm, this is a serious comment.)

I think people already stated how badluck works. According to the information here, it procs on offensive actions, focus mind and possibly focus body. It fires with a chance of 33%. It lasts a minute.
If any of that is false, correcting it will achieve more than complaining about how misinformed people are.

Should it work like this, however, badluck and snafu are simply overpowered, and Gregori's suggestion to give badluck a powercost reeks of an attempt to prevent an adequate nerf by pushing through an inadequate one.

Some of these posts reek of 'If you can't beat it, nerf it'. To the guy who started the thread, I think Xiel might have triggers, but any affliction lines you get will have to be from here on the forums or from someone who makes systems. Any lines you get in game will probably be a smokescreen, since giving away the secrets to the skills is worth a GDF at best.

It's kind of nice that the similarity of badluck threads to choke threads even extends out to 'if you can't beat it, nerf it', 'lrn2cure', and 'it's not that bad, x person cures it just fine'.

Oh, you noticed that too?

How low would the proc rate (?) have to be to get people to quit complaining? 20%? 15%? Would reduction in the duration or adding an herb/smoke cure help?