Heh, a nihilist complaining that passive shielding is ruining his setup. You know what ruins a physical class' setup? passive shackles and ectoplasm.

No, passive shielding is not overpowered. Some classes have ways to deal with it better than others, but that's life.

How do you feel about dodging?

Eh. It was much worse in the past, now that you can't dodge while prone, I don't mind it. Still a pain of course, but it's not impossible to beat them.

What about while in plate and while prone?

Heh, I don't really care about the halli dodge thing.

Maybe if they get someone whorey enough to really make use of it. IIRC the dodge rate isn't even as frequent as acro dodge, but I could be wrong! If so, then it could probably use re-evaluation.

Yeah, it isn't even close to acro dodge, but it DOES work while prone. That is always fun to hit.


Edit: Should get to using the passive shield and then put up the dodging. That would be fun.

Heh, I guess, but that's RNG screwing you, not really anything you can do about that. As a warrior, I'm well familiar with RNG screwing me over.

It isn't like a HORRIBLE chance to hit. Often enough to be annoying, but rare enough to piss you off when it does hit.

If anything, you don't have great/many (but still some) dmp skills. Anything beyond that is purely a result of your choice of race.

To the OP:
I think Shaddus hit the mark fairly well; as a Nihilist, you could order them to remove the diamond just before crucifying. Though you may need your domination to be able to stick ectoplasm before that, not sure. It's an idea, in any case.

Sheesh. Didn't mean to come off like I was complaining about the diamond ruining my setup. That's actually not what ruined it. I was apparently out of liniment, caught scabies from Wuylinfe, and it ticked right after I regained balance from crucifying him. Had I not forgot the liniment, I would have had the time to void and fling soulless, and only had to deal with about 2 seconds of him NOT being crucified (which would have been covered by the epilepsy tic and shackles right after he writhed).

There are better ways of dealing with diamond than ordering them to remove it. All ya gotta do is make sure your setup is spot on, and have something to keep them busy for a second or two after they writhe off the cross. Easy peasy.

Regardless, I'm still gonna sit over in my corner with Zarquan and think passive shielding with no caveats (see: Wyrdsong) is OP. Thought it in Achaea when Druids had it (and they even had to be in their one room grove!), so maybe I'm just a little bias >.<

Pretty sure diamond (and most gems) are on some kind of unified tick. I've spun diamond and had it shield less than a second after spinning it, and I've spun it and had to wait a full 15s for it to proc. Haven't tested two Researchers with diamond up in the same room, to see if they proc simultaneously, but I would wager that they would. If they are, that makes timing things a bit easier, on your end; otherwise, deactivation is a forceable action.

Geb has included in his Harmonics special Envoy report a change to diamond. I don't personally agree with the direction he took, but I do agree that passive shielding is a powerful ability and any instances of it should be watched carefully.


Foresight still works while prone, which I believe is classified as either a bug or is included in Casilu's upcoming Envoy report.

I don't see it as a bug. I see them being different because dodge actually comes in a skillset that has a couple of other abilities that aid it in working as effectively as possible. The abilities include the following:

1. Balancing (So acrobatics users are harder to knock prone via methods like knockdown, headslam, etc)

2. Springup (Acrobatics users can stand while off-balance/equilibrium, so being knocked prone will off-balance/equilibrium is not enough to keep them down).

3. Contort (Able to writhe out of entanglements quicker, meaning even various entanglements will not keep them in the prone state for long).

4. TripleFlash (Adds 50% to the dodge rate the person already has, for 10 power for 30 seconds. Does not work while prone, but see 1 to 3 above concerning that).

Dodge is also always on while as Foresight must be placed on and wears off with time, and Foresight does not fire as much as Dodge. Last, as Prav has mentioned I have suggested that diamond be changed in scope and function to act similar to Beastmaster Bodyguard, so it will pretty much only be an ability that aids in bashing.

edit: me and my poor grammar

Oh good, I was going to raise concerns how this would affect PvE. Otherwise I'd die to rockeaters (well maybe not literally). But no usefulness in player combat? Be nice to have defensive perks.

maybe diamond can also give physical or elemental dmp of your choosing, tuned when you spin it and based on your harmonics skill?

Contortrin, the acrobatic poison.

No clue why I added the rin on the end. Maybe I was thinking about how Reckless and Timewarp interacts while I was typing.