This is a pretty important comment. I think a lot of times Glomdoring gets by on our generally fewer numbers because what few we have know all the things. I can't comment too far on the situation with Serenwilde, but I know there's been a longstanding 'disconnect' as you say, between knowledge that a small group of people have, and which a lot of other people would benefit from. There's a broad patch of players in Serenwilde who remain active, who have been around a while, who most likely have knowledge to share. I would say you need to make it your business to know all the things, as well. Learning how things work and sharing that info is a big help to your org.

After Gaudi got horribly raided last night I visited and was kind of dumbfounded that they hadn't responded in a certain way (guards, shrines, discretionaries, melds) but it occurs to me that at this point, they have none of these people that know how things work, and going further, being without allies, have no one to ask or to tell them what to do. Maybe someone should start a 'what do I do when.." thread, to help disseminate some of this information. Would probably help everyone a bit more than merely venting frustrations. (Though it is appreciated that we're allowed to do this sometimes, even on the lor-free forums.)

@Neos- Don't forget Inagin. That's one crafty hamster.

Nu. Usuck Daed gtfo. You've died twice to me and your a stalker. Stalkers don't count.

Eh, most of the time Mag shows up in fights its unasked, because they just want to fight. I assume the same is true when there's fighting and Celest shows up or any other org for that matter - very rarely is the help actually asked for.

Edit: I'm slow, this was in response to something on like page 2.

Exactly what Talan just said. I need to get better at passing on what I know too, and I know there are people in Seren who know a lot more than me.

Wow, do I hate that 2million loss on death. My character was bugged until only recently in that she was congluting on death (loss of prompt power+essence loss, I thought that was NORMAL until Mnemosyne pointed out that power loss on death was not) THEN had to phoenix, so it's actually even been WORSE than 2million loss o_0 I think I went from 35 million to 19 million in a couple days once from utter fail in my raiding. Demigods got it rough for death, and it makes me sometimes wish I was Titan again just for conglut...well, conglut that works. One reason people won't raid the elemental/cosmic planes is because of that absurdly strong distort that locks down the entire plane and makes 2million loss almost guaranteed (if this is a bug, why isn't it fixed? It's a pretty serious one!)

Choke is hard to get away from, even for experienced people. You'll have someone scissorkick/squall/spam gust/icewall, then set up choke, then other people will spam stunshield (usually the choker) while another person vines or webs, and another person or two sets up a timed insta. Toss in druid meld if it's happening in Etherglom/Faethorn. Recently using p5, as mentioned by Tandrin, is another way that makes it fairly impossible for a person to leave a choke. This is even more intensified when you factor in Aqua melds that passively separate and make it difficult for you to leave the area (whirlpool+needlerain). If shadows could be dispersed in some manner through Moon, it probably wouldn't be as much of a game-breaker that it is. Really, I've experienced Glom gankings of 3 where it was impossible to leave because of insta-pin/p5 (amusing how it was Sidd mentioning Seren would pick off one target and retreat when more show up...he's often a part of these gankings and they aren't even on Ethereal! Or the attempts to summon folk, especially novices that don't know any better, from Etherwilde.) I personally haven't called for Mag to help, and when I was in Ironhart, I haven't really heard cries to summon help either. Kill hounds will come when they sniff blood from deathsights, plain and simple. For both Celest/Magnagora, though sometimes I think that too many show up together for it to be random folk interested in joining the killing.

Choke is...well, somewhat fine 1v1 (which skills shouldn't be based upon, considering Estarra hates rogues and loves organizational GROUP conflict.) Though even 1v1, it'd be difficult (getting away is far easier, however, and completely possible). The smart combo for a choker is healer/2hander, where you are either passively dangerous afflictions/health with a timed entourage wrecking havoc or are creating heavy wounds that won't be parry/stanced/rebound/applied.

I understand choke is a topic that both sides will eternally argue over, but the advantages in group-orientated combat are well, impossible to ignore, especially for super-organized Celedoring. I acknowledge that organization and experience wise, Serenwilde is lacking. But when facing those kinds of skills, anyone but the most determined might want to just give up and play an alt.

Sidestepping to avoid the potential rant-minefield which this thread could (and probably already has) become, I'd like to just support this here post. A lot of information simply isn't being spread to the newer playerbase, and asking would be a good thing to do.

Man,

This goes back to the whole whining vs getting better thing. No one is arguing choke isn't powerful in groups. All anyone is arguing is that it has the ability to be countered as well as, if not better than any other groupgank skill. I've seen serenwilde lay down a pretty solid wanelock in a matter of seconds, I've seen Mag crucify someone into a sac in seconds, I've seen celest telebomb people in seconds and halli balestone people in seconds. Everyone has access to lolwtf skills, but if you learn how to handle it, you can avoid it. Plenty of people escape choke.

This is what I mean when I say people would rather whine than get better.

Yes to Talan, yes to Viynain. Here's the thing - if you're so busy duking it out IC within the org, it's really tough to turn your attention to matters outside of it. I'm sure that dealing with raiders and pk on top of this aggravates the problem further, but sometimes you have to stop and figure out how to bridge some gaps to pull together. I could be completely off-base here in assessing things going on outside of Glomdoring (I am so sheltered), of course, but that's my generic advice to anyone dealing with a lack of know-how in an org with a population of 'oldbies' big enough to sustain more information sharing.

Please lower essence loss on deaths in enemy territory. Such a bad decision! I miss conglutinate. It rather sucks how having demigod cancels out a transcendant ability.

Conglutinate hasn't been a trans ability since before I started playing.

But yes I miss it dearly.

Psh, oldtimer. Conglut isn't trans anymore! You're showing your age.

No one cares about you newer players! It was trans at a time. Either way, I do miss it. More importantly, I think 2 million on death is extreme. We shouldn't work so hard to discourage raiding. Shrines and org defenses do that well enough.

Not getting into arguing semantics but I would like to see you support these for those of us who wish to learn:

1) How can choke effectively be countered?

Other than telling us that we need to just be prepared and drop the choker. The other alternative about escaping choke requires perfect response by the party choked and is more often than not routinely prevented by you having atleast an ally or two in the picture at the time.

2) How are these other groupgank skills superior to choke?

I am extremely curious since the majority of your examples require more than one person supporting the choking party.

protip: get more bards

Just to point out, the original 2 million number was suggested before the ascendance skill came out, along with demi powers. There was really nothing for most people to invest essence towards, so it was "reasonable" at that instance. I think any argument regarding a change to essence loss on death should keep this in mind, and reinforce it.

Keep the essence loss, take people out of the fight longer. Make phoenixing take longer and longer to do the more you die within a certain amount of time.

The only essence loss that needs to be addressed is the loss on non-org enemy territory.

The way to counter choke in group combat is simple: have someone who isn't the victim announce that the victim got choked, then everyone else simply has to react to it by either killing the choker or pushing away the victim.

Not sure what you mean by the second sentence. Choking someone alone with no prep or friends doesn't work very well.

Groupgank skills that instantly kill the target are superior, by a very large margin, to groupgank skills that do not. That's pretty cut and dry, I think.

Almost nothing prevents a tumble, or an ally gusting you, or tackling you, or moving you in any of the multitudes of ways there are to do so. Tumble is only stopped by pfifth/impale, it's pretty easy to insta tumble, plenty of people do it. The other alternative is to identify the choker to begin with and go in to instant hinder him to prevent choking in the first place. I know if I'm being targetted, I'm not about to choke anyone.

I didn't say other groupganks were superior, but they are on the same level, 3tps can drop someone instantly, a few tks can build vessels to heartburst rather quickly, I bet one moon user razing speed+wane with a second pb assaulting a slitthroat can drop someone fast (we use to do a similar thing with Desitrus as a sentinel, razing speed +aeon and me slitthroating), Only takes two people to crucify/sac train (one person crucifies, and if youtumble off the second hits crucify then bam sac, Jozen and Romero use to do it all the time). Hell, people just spamming web/shieldstun with an instakill (judge, chasm, decap, whatever) drops people faster than choke does sometimes.

That is fine and dandy when you have sufficient support. I will be the first to admit that we need to get better in dealing with a choker when we have a few folks present. However, it still fails to address how choke can stack with any number of other abilities and be an uncurable lock.

My point on the second sentence is that choke is extremely effective with just two people (the choker and someone hindering or holding the person choked) whereas it seems the examples used by Sidd for other groupganks required more folks and greater coordination.