Choke passively wears off after a while. I don't know the times, but it's not a case of "shadows gone -> choke lasts forever" as it was implied.

Currently trying for the simple approach now, given Ciaran's post:

-Add a delay between casting choke and the effect taking place, 4s, where it will be obvious who the caster and victim are. It will cost 0p to start, but it will take 3p upon success. Separation between caster and victim here will break the effect as with the current choke. Have it check for shield when it is cast and when it takes effect, a shield at any point will block it.

Ex: The shadows begin whirling around Alacardael and Akui, 4s later, CHOKE MESSAGE HERE.

-Reduce choke balance to a flat, unmodifiable 3-3.5s (currently 4-5s).

4s delay does make it more possible to prevent. At this point, I'd like to bring up the two more credible combatants' (Ixion/Iasmos) complaints against choke near the start of the thread. That the cure to choke (movement) was problematic because it is undesirable in a fight. I'm not sure if increasing prevention mechanics on the ability will balance it enough so that the effect that is being complained about (being forced to move) is justified. With this solution, anyone who has been choked succesfully will still face the same problem.

A clarification: is the 4s delay channeled, or is it not channeled? If it is not, an SD can possibly entangle the target just before the choke lands (assuming an unmodifiable 3-3.5s eq cost as suggested) and make it a stronger effect. If channeled, this will make the ability highly dangerous to use in group combat, and maybe a lower power cost might be considered instead.

It may be wise to keep the focus spirit suggestion in reserve, at the very least, for future envoy reports after this special report, if further changes are deemed neccesary. Also, if the focus spirit suggestion is implemented alongside the above suggestion (either as part of the special report, or after) it would probably be a better idea to leave it as a % to cure. 100% chance to cure on an attack that takes 4s to land will render it laughably easy to counter/escape.

Finally, just to weigh in on the shadow argument.

Imposing a balance action to "prep" a room for other skills to be used is a RP mechanic, nothing more, unless the CLASS is a melder class. Comparing a WICCAN/GUARDIAN class to a MELDER class is apples and oranges, and entirely irrelevant. The admin could well have scrapped the entire shadow mechanic and made shadowdancers the same as any other guardian class: able to use their abilities as and when they are casted. The shadow mechanic as it exists is nothing more than an extra hoop for shadowdancers to jump through that was imposed for the sake of aesthetics. "Wow, shadows. Feels cool, looks good. Nice on the imagination and immersion. Whee."

As it is, shadows exist as an imbalance that disadvantages the shadowdancers. Unlike every other guardian/wiccan class, they require an extra balance action before a good 6-7 of their abilities can be utilized. This extends to the warriors who choose it as their tert, but to a lesser extent, because it is a tert for them, not their secondary. My suggestion for balancing shadows:

-Destroy cauldrons.
-Remove the requirement for shadows in a room for any Night spell.
-Take the balance cost of dropping shadows, and divide it equally amongst all the spells that used to require shadows. (Ie. if there were 5 abilities that required shadows, and dropping shadows costed 3s, then each of those abilities will get an increase of 0.6s on their casting cost)

There, isn't it now balanced?

I like the potential RP of cauldrons :(

I dont think going as far as completely removing cauldrons and Shadows is really needed o.o . The simple addition that was asked for was a way to remove shadows. The reasons stated that Shadows are a necessary requirement for Night casters and it is frustrating to be walking around your area or standing in a room (perhaps attempting to claim a domoth or protecting an important mob) and there are shadows in there that can be utilized whenever a group with a choker walks in.

All other forms of "pre-request abilities" that need to be activated beforehand for powerful spells to work have -some- form of way to dispel them. tainted/flooded/etc rooms can be overmelded. Terrained rooms can be reality checked. harmonics gems can be severed with kether. Contagion can be gusted away. A melded room can be broken. Octave can be removed by another bard or if that bard is pushed out, etc. So yes I believe Shadows should also have some way of dispelling them.

Also I would like to point out that Shadows -DO- have to be taken into account with Choke, as has already been accepted by the idea of extending the EQ recovery of releasing shadows. Shadows do need some way to dispel them as well as extending the EQ recovery of releasing shadows, in order to level the playing field with choke aswell. if Ignite enchantment isnt good, then trueground can work also I guess.

Also I am in agreement that Shadows not cost power to be created...I honestly do not see the problem with it in truth. Simply collecting and storing shadows beforehand whenever you are standing around seems rather uncomplicated. I think -anyone- can easily have up to 102 shadows in no time with its low power cost. Though as I said, I have no problem with this if a form of Shadow dispelling is introduced

Arcanis:

I dont think going as far as completely removing cauldrons and Shadows is really needed o.o . The simple addition that was asked for was a way to remove shadows. The reasons stated that Shadows are a necessary requirement for Night casters and it is frustrating to be walking around your area or standing in a room (perhaps attempting to claim a domoth or protecting an important mob) and there are shadows in there that can be utilized whenever a group with a choker walks in.

All other forms of "pre-request abilities" that need to be activated beforehand for powerful spells to work have -some- form of way to dispel them. tainted/flooded/etc rooms can be overmelded. Terrained rooms can be reality checked. harmonics gems can be severed with kether. Contagion can be gusted away. A melded room can be broken. Octave can be removed by another bard or if that bard is pushed out, etc. So yes I believe Shadows should also have some way of dispelling them.

Also I would like to point out that Shadows -DO- have to be taken into account with Choke, as has already been accepted by the idea of extending the EQ recovery of releasing shadows. Shadows do need some way to dispel them as well as extending the EQ recovery of releasing shadows, in order to level the playing field with choke aswell. if Ignite enchantment isnt good, then trueground can work also I guess.

Comparing shadows to foresting and melding and octave and other stuff has already been compared and shown to not really be comparable. The most simple one is foresting vs shadows, foresting costs 1p to change a room UNTIL someone else changes it via trueground, overforesting etc.. Foresting also has mechanics in place to prevent it from being changed. Shadows only lasts 10 mins and doesn't have such mechanics. Thus they aren't the same thing and can't really be compared. Octave is an even worse thing to compare it to, octave actively hinders you healing while you are not deaf. Shadows do NOTHING to you. The only reason I'm willing to compromise isn't because I really see a problem, it's because it's not worth fighting tooth and nail over, as long as it stops costing power to collect and can't be dispelled if a night user or some skill is using those shadows (ie a brumetowered room can't be simply gusted away or removed). I'm ok with giving you a way to dispell, until that point, you can deal for the 10mins it takes for them to dissipate because it literally does nothing except present an eyesore to you.

Shadows taking longer balance to release is another 'fine I'll give it to you because it's not worth arguing and won't really make a difference in the long run' compromises. You guys want the mental victory, not any real changes. I'll give you that, sure, no skin off our backs. You get your mental victory, we get same old choke. We're all happy

Arcanis:

Also I am in agreement that Shadows not cost power to be created...I honestly do not see the problem with it in truth. Simply collecting and storing shadows beforehand whenever you are standing around seems rather uncomplicated. I think -anyone- can easily have up to 102 shadows in no time with its low power cost. Though as I said, I have no problem with this if a form of Shadow dispelling is introduced

You can't even gather shadows ~60% of the game time... so, again, no? You can't easily have 102 shadows in no time. They do take a bit of time to gather and you can't do it the majority of the time.

Just drop it, shadows are required for a lot more than choke, they decay on their own in 10 minutes, and other abilities that build off of them have their own EQ and (most) power costs in addition. Unless you take into account all of those abilities as well as restrictions and duration on collecting the things, which you are refusing to do, there does not need to be any way to remove shadows.

Xenthos:

You can't even gather shadows ~60% of the game time... so, again, no? You can't easily have 102 shadows in no time. They do take a bit of time to gather and you can't do it the majority of the time.


Cauldron
Syntax:
CAULDRON CREATE
CAULDRON CALL
CAULDRON GATHER
CAULDRON RELEASE
Power: 3 (Master Ravenwood) (to gather)
10 (Master Ravenwood) (to create)
As a Shadowdancer, you should always be prepared to have shadows ready at your call. First, you must have a cauldron created to store your precious shadows, which must be gathered at night under the open sky. Releasing a shadow in your location will prevent regenerating abilities of all except followers of Mother Night or Crow.


Night time in lusternia lasts 30 mins, and then you have to wait another 30 mins until it comes back. How difficult is it exactly to simply to be standing around in Glom having nothing to do except CAULDRON GATHER over and over when it is night time? With your Nightwraith construct you also will be gaining 2 shadows at a time instead of 1, meaning 1 shadow only costs 0.5 power. Then later you can release a shadow for 0.5 sec eq recovery. Yes this is obviously an extraordinary difficult and tiring procedure...

Just drop it, shadows are required for a lot more than choke, they decay on their own in 10 minutes, and other abilities that build off of them have their own EQ and (most) power costs in addition. Unless you take into account all of those abilities as well as restrictions and duration on collecting the things, which you are refusing to do, there does not need to be any way to remove shadows.

Your very comment is flawed by insinuating that I have -somehow- been refusing to make calculations and rejecting any other ideas about the Night skill. All here have been giving their own opinions and listening to other ideas. The very bullying attitude you project and comments you toss at others is the very definition of why people dont bother with these forums and believe fairness was tossed out the window years ago.

Of the ideas of Choke and its pre-requests given so far, I think this setup is fair:

- Delay on Choking (first message) around 3-4 seconds until second message (the actual choke) occurs
- Shield stops Choke
- Shadows in the room are consumed upon usage
- Shadows can be dispersed by trueground or ignite enchantment

You can only gather shadows in a location once in a nighttime (so you have to move to gather more shadows; this is also marked on the room and not the Night-user, so 1 nightuser would need 50 rooms, 2 would need 100, so on and so forth). The eq time to gather shadows is around 1 second. It takes power from your active (10p) power, so when you've spent your active power, you have to wait for it to replenish before you can continue.

While offensive tones are quite annoying, so are statements made by the uninformed.

My vote:
- Delay on Choking (first message) around 3-4 seconds until second message (the actual choke) occurs
- Shield stops Choke
Plus one of:
- Stop Choke Chasing
- Add a Focus Spirit or Cleanse cure.

Allowing Shadows to be dispersed does not affect the balance of Choke, the abillity being discussed in this report, at all. I would eventually like to discuss making shadows easier/cheaper to gather and make them dispersable, but that is not a topic to be pursued in this report.

Arcanis:



Cauldron
Syntax:
CAULDRON CREATE
CAULDRON CALL
CAULDRON GATHER
CAULDRON RELEASE
Power: 3 (Master Ravenwood) (to gather)
10 (Master Ravenwood) (to create)
As a Shadowdancer, you should always be prepared to have shadows ready at your call. First, you must have a cauldron created to store your precious shadows, which must be gathered at night under the open sky. Releasing a shadow in your location will prevent regenerating abilities of all except followers of Mother Night or Crow.


Night time in lusternia lasts 30 mins, and then you have to wait another 30 mins until it comes back. How difficult is it exactly to simply to be standing around in Glom having nothing to do except CAULDRON GATHER over and over when it is night time? With your Nightwraith construct you also will be gaining 2 shadows at a time instead of 1, meaning 1 shadow only costs 0.5 power. Then later you can release a shadow for 0.5 sec eq recovery. Yes this is obviously an extraordinary difficult and tiring procedure...



Your very comment is flawed by insinuating that I have -somehow- been refusing to make calculations and rejecting any other ideas about the Night skill. All here have been giving their own opinions and listening to other ideas. The very bullying attitude you project and comments you toss at others is the very definition of why people dont bother with these forums and believe fairness was tossed out the window years ago.

Of the ideas of Choke and its pre-requests given so far, I think this setup is fair:

- Delay on Choking (first message) around 3-4 seconds until second message (the actual choke) occurs
- Shield stops Choke
- Shadows in the room are consumed upon usage
- Shadows can be dispersed by trueground or ignite enchantment

Night does not last 30 minutes, actually. It begins at 8pm and ends at 6am by the watch. This means that if you run out in a fight... odds are that you cannot replenish them, unlike any of the other resources that you are trying to compare the things to.

Further, my statement that you are refusing to take into account any of the other abilities that use shadows and consume power is not 'bullying' or even 'flawed' because... you do it again right in this post! Once again, you want ignite (free) or trueground (2p) to remove things which take even more equilibrium and power to cast. You are just bulling on through, regurgitating your opinion over and over again despite people telling you that you are blatantly ignoring things which make your proposed solutions, at best, fatally and fundamentally unfair and imbalanced.

Edit: Anyways, moving on from the shadow thing; as long as delayed-Choke doesn't consume power until it hits, that's something I'm willing to consider. It's an interesting idea at least.

Point of fact, but TrueGround (2p) is less power than collecting shadows (1p), and if I recall correctly has a longer equilibrium time too. However, let us move along now, since it doesn't matter who is right if Shuyin has said he does not intend to include this in the special report.

Do other power consuming abilities not use power unless they are successful? I may have too limited a window of experience to comment on this in generality, but I know chasm and judgement, also channeled actions, use power at the start rather than when they take effect. Why should choke be different?

Rathan:

Point of fact, but TrueGround (2p) is less power than collecting shadows (1p), and if I recall correctly has a longer equilibrium time too. However, let us move along now, since it doesn't matter who is right if Shuyin has said he does not intend to include this in the special report.

Do other power consuming abilities not use power unless they are successful? I may have too limited a window of experience to comment on this in generality, but I know chasm and judgement, also channeled actions, use power at the start rather than when they take effect. Why should choke be different?

Other Night abilities that use shadows consume power; for example, Bonds takes 3.

Point of fact: 3 > 2, even when you don't factor in the cost of the shadow itself. Plus the EQ time of the bonds, PLUS the EQ time of the Brumetower... all gone for 2p. Or for free, with ignite.

Chasm and Judgement are also instakills, while Choke most definitely is not.

Drums of Kiakoda (for example) also only consume power when they are successful at the end, so it's definitely possible; giving a Crow egg to a target does take 5p from them when it finishes as well (they need the power to start it, but it's not consumed until it is successful).

You are the one who said choke and shadows are two different things, and that shadows do nothing throughout this thread. In my opinion, this means you cannot stack the cost of shadows to the cost of any abilities which require shadows, or you are saying that shadows are only equated to those abilities when it is beneficial for you.

Drums of Kiakoda and the Crow egg are both skills which are not done in the middle of combat (this argument can be made for drums because they're only usable once per month). For this reason, it is okay for them to consume power at the conclusion rather than at the beginning, because conservation of active power is not as huge deal in these cases, and it's simply a convenience for the users. If you need non-instakill examples of abilities which consume power when they do not succeed, take ToadCurse. It is not an instakill, but even if you try to use it when the target is above 50% mana, it will still waste 8 power. Teleporting and summoning both consume power when they begin, not when they end. If you need me to, I can find another half dozen examples - skills which are used in combat should consume power at the beginning rather than the end of the action, to prevent overuse of them in situations where it is not appropriate only because little is lost from the attempt. Exceptions to this are just that, exceptions, and if you want Choke to be added to this the burden is upon you do demonstrate why it is a necessity.

If you really must carry on the shadows issue...

Make trueground remove them, fine.
If any night skill using shadows is used in the room trueground will not work.

Tada, you can clean it up, but you wont be undoing skills that are already up.

Back to choke!

Rathan:

You are the one who said choke and shadows are two different things, and that shadows do nothing throughout this thread. In my opinion, this means you cannot stack the cost of shadows to the cost of any abilities which require shadows, or you are saying that shadows are only equated to those abilities when it is beneficial for you.

Drums of Kiakoda and the Crow egg are both skills which are not done in the middle of combat (this argument can be made for drums because they're only usable once per month). For this reason, it is okay for them to consume power at the conclusion rather than at the beginning, because conservation of active power is not as huge deal in these cases, and it's simply a convenience for the users. If you need non-instakill examples of abilities which consume power when they do not succeed, take ToadCurse. It is not an instakill, but even if you try to use it when the target is above 50% mana, it will still waste 8 power. Teleporting and summoning both consume power when they begin, not when they end. If you need me to, I can find another half dozen examples - skills which are used in combat should consume power at the beginning rather than the end of the action, to prevent overuse of them in situations where it is not appropriate only because little is lost from the attempt. Exceptions to this are just that, exceptions, and if you want Choke to be added to this the burden is upon you do demonstrate why it is a necessity.

Turns out Toadcursing hitting a shield, costs no power to the user, it's only when they are >50% mana (your fault if that's the case) that it costs power on a fail. The target shielding should have a similar effect no?

Also, lots of other skills don't take power upon failure as well, Warrior powerattacks for instance.

Rathan:

You are the one who said choke and shadows are two different things, and that shadows do nothing throughout this thread. In my opinion, this means you cannot stack the cost of shadows to the cost of any abilities which require shadows, or you are saying that shadows are only equated to those abilities when it is beneficial for you.

Drums of Kiakoda and the Crow egg are both skills which are not done in the middle of combat (this argument can be made for drums because they're only usable once per month). For this reason, it is okay for them to consume power at the conclusion rather than at the beginning, because conservation of active power is not as huge deal in these cases, and it's simply a convenience for the users. If you need non-instakill examples of abilities which consume power when they do not succeed, take ToadCurse. It is not an instakill, but even if you try to use it when the target is above 50% mana, it will still waste 8 power. Teleporting and summoning both consume power when they begin, not when they end. If you need me to, I can find another half dozen examples - skills which are used in combat should consume power at the beginning rather than the end of the action, to prevent overuse of them in situations where it is not appropriate only because little is lost from the attempt. Exceptions to this are just that, exceptions, and if you want Choke to be added to this the burden is upon you do demonstrate why it is a necessity.

Shadows do nothing.

However, removing shadows takes down anything that was done on top of them... so, what is your point? Trueground would not only remove shadows, it would remove multiple other abilities that have shadows as a pre-requisite, for the same cost.

This has been my point throughout as well; that those arguing for shadow removal absolutely refuse to take a look at the further impact it would have. I am not sure why the concept is difficult. Asking for Trueground to remove shadows is exactly the same as asking for Trueground to remove Shadows, Bonds, and Brumetower because that is exactly what it will do (strangely, it would not cure Choke...). They are different abilities, they have their own costs and times, but the moment you drop shadows anything built on top of them also goes away immediately.

Further, teleport actually costs me 0p, so that's a bad example. :P In the case of delayed Choke, if you use it and the target simply shields, you're down 3 power. Chasm and judgement are not stopped by the target raising shield (they will continue right along their merry way). I feel it's pretty obvious why it needs to not take power upon casting it, when looking at the suggestions being thrown around. Especially considering that if the SD throws it, they are doing nothing else more hindering, it is an absolute core of the Shadowdancer offense (unlike Chasm, Judgement, and Toadcurse which are end-conditions), and if you are repeatedly throwing away 3p to even get someone in an aeon condition so that you can drain them down you won't even have enough for the Toadcurse end-condition -anyways-.

I do agree that my examples are not combat-related, but they do indicate that such has been done to abilities in the past and thus it is not completely unprecedented to ask for it to apply to this modification as well.

Lerad:

4s delay does make it more possible to prevent. At this point, I'd like to bring up the two more credible combatants' (Ixion/Iasmos) complaints against choke near the start of the thread. That the cure to choke (movement) was problematic because it is undesirable in a fight. I'm not sure if increasing prevention mechanics on the ability will balance it enough so that the effect that is being complained about (being forced to move) is justified. With this solution, anyone who has been choked succesfully will still face the same problem.

A clarification: is the 4s delay channeled, or is it not channeled? If it is not, an SD can possibly entangle the target just before the choke lands (assuming an unmodifiable 3-3.5s eq cost as suggested) and make it a stronger effect. If channeled, this will make the ability highly dangerous to use in group combat, and maybe a lower power cost might be considered instead.

It may be wise to keep the focus spirit suggestion in reserve, at the very least, for future envoy reports after this special report, if further changes are deemed neccesary. Also, if the focus spirit suggestion is implemented alongside the above suggestion (either as part of the special report, or after) it would probably be a better idea to leave it as a % to cure. 100% chance to cure on an attack that takes 4s to land will render it laughably easy to counter/escape.

4s is a long enough time for anyone to regain balance to either attempt to shield their buddy, gust away either party, or whatever else they may like. At this point, it seems that 'being forced to move' really is a valid cure in Lusternia, given the existence of mechanics such as the following: inquisition, phantomspheres, rubies, aurawarp/bedevil, maestoso, and more. What this change does is give the defending group more of a chance to work as a team to save said buddy while at the same time leaving choke (which people have acknowledge is more or less fine 1v1/small groups) intact.

No, it won't be channeled, the SD will be able to cure and whatnot considering the opponent can do the same. Yes, the opponent can possibly entangle or move along with the opponent within 1s, barring any extenuating circumstances, but this is done to allow the Night user more leeway in that regard. This part isn't set in stone though.

I'm not going to include the focus spirit cure with the report, assuming this is the idea we will go with. If you already have enough time to prevent the effect from happening, then adding a cure to choke is unnecessary and far more complicated a change than may be needed. That's because then you'll have to consider the focus spirit effect in a 1v1 setting, and frankly, the SD doesn't have much in the way of preventing the victim from focusing. Also, you'll then have to examine each and every skill and spec combination possible for both warriors and wiccans to make sure that focus spirit isn't terribly overpowered/useless, then at that point, we might as well call the report 'rework Night'. Furthermore, let's just say it's been particularly difficult getting a reasonable give-and-take scenario ("compromise") amidst clamors for deleting choke and unrelated requests to nerf shadows.

By the way, the reason why it doesn't take 0p until it works is because choke is the way to getting to the end-condition, not the end-condition itself, as Xenthos has explained. With that in mind, choke is more like ectoplasm, badluck, mindblast, burstvessels, and so on, all of which do not have much cost in power or balance, if at all.

I'd like ancestral spirits to be destroyable too, if shadows are made so. That's my beef with other undestroyable stuff, room-wide, passive 1400 damage ticks that is quite something!

What about Choke Chasing? Is getting rid of that on the table?