Expanding on stealing shadows to use choke idea.

Stealing shadows required to choke wouldn't really affect 1v1 combat, but it would impact ganking and group combats. Which is what I am seeing as the big issue with choke.

Another possibility is to have said shadows consumed on choking. If the shadows were consumed on choking then you could even drop/lower the power cost to compensate (though that might open up choke/serpent which I'm iffy on).

Also, saying just dropping shadows as it is balances the setup for choke is silly. Anybody can do it and you can just predrop them all over at minimal eq loss all over with no way for the opposing side to get rid of them. The cost of having to gather them shouldn't be a factor in balance either.

Edit: If the number of shadows you can carry/how long it takes to get them is that big a deal in balancing (which I don't think it is), I don't see a problem in upping the amount you can carry or the amount you get per a harvesting. Beyond the flavor reasons, I've never been a huge fan of adding additional resources beyond power in balancing skills. Commodities, flesh, gems, carrion, I'm looking at you! Though I see the flavor reasons at least for them being there.

Ssaliss:

Regarding destroying shadows with Kether/Violet... I just want to say "no" to that. Shadows aren't an infinite resource. Sure, you can carry about 100 shadows around, but once you're out of shadows, you're out. Plus, shadows affect so much more than only Choke; it's used for drink, bonds, brumetower, and probably a few more things I'm forgetting about.

This argument has and always will be nonsensical. Just because something has some sort of limiting factor does justify its existence. Consider a stark hyperbole for easier examination- if I can thunderclap and wipe out an entire group once every day, should it remain? Of course not. The effect, even if limited, should not have existed to begin with because its impacting potential is just too high.

Sidd:


What does choke do? it delays all actions for 1 second. It's cured by separation but it's 'effect' is aeon.

Kind of like paralysis and severspine or stupidity and fracturedskull.They have different cures, but the same effect

Yes the delay in curing is identical- taken as common knowledge.

By your own reasoning the effect is actually different, though. Your priorities are forced to change due to different circumstances (aka cures). In group combat (99% of outside arena fights) you're pushed into a higher risk situation by not moving, ergo, different effects.

Turnus:

Also, saying just dropping shadows as it is balances the setup for choke is silly. Anybody can do it and you can just predrop them all over at minimal eq loss all over with no way for the opposing side to get rid of them. The cost of having to gather them shouldn't be a factor in balance either.

I already said I'd be fine with a longer eq time on dropping them, I just don't think it's reasonable to have something to get rid of shadows. I can agree to allowing something like gust remove shadows IF a nightuser is not in the room or some other skill (like bonds or brumetower) is not being used in that room. but compensate by requiring shadows to cost no power to collect. I feel that's a reasonable compromise.

I am inclined to agree. Make shadows free to collect, make them removable when a Night user isn't in room, increase drop EQ time, make Choke instafade upon separation. I like this.

Possibly also: Make Choke consume Shadows, reduce power cost?

I was talking about stealing shadows of a player before being able to choke them fyi. See my edit above about my thoughts on having to gather cauldron shadows in general, I don't mind making it easier as I hate balancing around secondary resources beyond power.

Ixion:

Yes the delay in curing is identical- taken as common knowledge.

By your own reasoning the effect is actually different, though. Your priorities are forced to change due to different circumstances (aka cures). In group combat (99% of outside arena fights) you're pushed into a higher risk situation by not moving, ergo, different effects.

I think we're just defining things differently. Choke in itself, does nothing more than aeon, the issue with choke is the cure (separation). Just as you want to cure aeon as soon as possible, you want to cure choke as soon as possible in group situations (which is what we are discussing, choke in groups). That's what people complain about, that's why choke fading upon separation, I think will take care of the majority of issues with choke.

I think Sidd is right, ASSUMING that methods preventing you from leaving are weakened (P5, Bonds, ect.) while in Choke.

foolofsound:

I think Sidd is right, ASSUMING that methods preventing you from leaving are weakened (P5, Bonds, ect.) while in Choke.

In group fights, where you have teammates, pfifth doesn't stop them from getting you out, and there's options for physical forced movement as well. I don't think that's the issue.

Try to remember that part of the problem with Choke is during ganks as well. A SD+Bard should not be able to make it virtually impossibly for a lone target to escape, at least without sacrificing major offense, which they need not.

I think that everyone has many ideas about what to do with choke.

Is it generally agreed that removing choke chase is the simplest way to solve one of the main problems with it?


General:
-Remove choke chasing.

Pro:
-Balances choke better for groups

Con:
-Arguably makes 1v1 setup harder.

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I've slept on it some more, and I think you can address a majority of the problems with choke in 2 ways:

A. Adding extraneous requirements before you are allowed to choke someone.

Suggestions:
1. Requiring a stolen shadow
2. Only letting the guy who dropped shadows can choke (will need a way to disperse shadows by the night user or have releasing shadows overwrite the current shadows)
3. Increase cauldron release balance time along with #2.

I am unconvinced that making it consume shadows from a cauldron, or anything shadow related at all will do anything for choke. All it will serve to do is annoy SD's and unnecessarily affect other abilities by proxy.

Likewise, while it'd be nice for something like gust removing shadows when the Night user isn't in the room, what's that going to do about choke? I feel that this is just an annoyance with Night users dropping shadows everywhere, so I feel that this can be envoyed and is not a major imbalance related to choke.

Pros:
-lets the enemy group/victim know who will choke them ahead of time
-gives the enemy time to react appropriately and prepare gusts, etc
-Comparatively less code intensive than room choke

Cons:
-Doesn't address ganks
-Depending on where you fight, feasibility of moving away is more difficult.

OR:

B. Equalizing choke for everyone in the room (room choke).

Suggestions:
1. Make it room wide again
2. Have it require a caster/victim like current choke
3. Add a delay of time between 3-4s upon casting choke and it taking effect
4. Possibly have it slow down room effects (not ents, too tough to code says Iosai)

Pros:
-Hits everybody equally, the only advantage is that the choker team knows when to put it up
-Delay of time allows everyone time to react and prepare themselves accordingly
-Requiring a caster/victim for choke reduces the potential for abuse
-Slowing down room effects gives the victims more time to cure properly

Cons:
-Much more of a hassle to code than altering single target choke.
-Does not address ents
-Allows for chokemesne, and a variety of other debilitating room wide setups once again
-Allows for a single night user to affect the entire group more clearly/quickly

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Was I able to bring up and summarize most of the reasonable suggestions? Let me know what you guys think. I would prefer that we decide on whether to focus on single target vs. group choke, then discuss from there. Personally, I would vote for altering single target.

Please note that as always, the admin would prefer the simplest solution that involves the least amount of change, but I understand that sometimes, you just can't do that.

That's a nice summary, sojiro, but there are a couple of things I want to add to that.

Firstly, adding requirements to choke and talking about the setup for choke.

Talking about the "setup" for choke is missing the point of this special report. The very basis for this report is that choke is problematic. If choke is fine, but the cost is too low, then this is an envoy concern, not a special report OMG THIS HAS BEEN THE BANE OF LUSTERNIA concern. It doesn't matter whether choke requires shadows, a stolen shadow, 3 stolen shadows, or my mom's favourite curry recipe. If the effect of choke is OP'd, then as Ixion says, nothing justifies the existence of that effect, and tacking on extra costs or frustrating and delayed setup doesn't solve anything. Tackle the effect directly.

So this thread should be concentrating on over-the-top effects of choke and what solutions can solve them.

Secondly, one thing you missed in your summarized post is Ixion/Sidd's discussion regarding choke's movement capabilities.

One thing Ixion talks about is choke as a room-seperation skill. (Move or remain uncured -> leads to death.) Because the cure of choke is movement, using choke = forcing movement. While I don't want to make a direct comparison with movemvent abilities, because they are obviously different, this is also something Iasmos talks about too - it is incurable in-room, meaning he would prefer there to be a defence or a way to cure it... without moving. Sidd talks a lot about how this movement can be done by team-mates, thus curing the choke, but Ixion is talking about how this movement in itself is undesirable in a team-fight.

The question is, is this secondary effect the part that everyone has problems with? And if so, you're lacking a suggestion in your list that tackles this problem.

A number of things require movement to cure, though. Rubies, aurawarp, bedevil, Spiritsinger spirits, etc. "Movement" is now essentially a cure in Lusternian combat.

That trend needs to be reversed.

Lerad:

That's a nice summary, sojiro, but there are a couple of things I want to add to that.

Firstly, adding requirements to choke and talking about the setup for choke.

Talking about the "setup" for choke is missing the point of this special report. The very basis for this report is that choke is problematic. If choke is fine, but the cost is too low, then this is an envoy concern, not a special report OMG THIS HAS BEEN THE BANE OF LUSTERNIA concern. It doesn't matter whether choke requires shadows, a stolen shadow, 3 stolen shadows, or my mom's favourite curry recipe. If the effect of choke is OP'd, then as Ixion says, nothing justifies the existence of that effect, and tacking on extra costs or frustrating and delayed setup doesn't solve anything. Tackle the effect directly.

So this thread should be concentrating on over-the-top effects of choke and what solutions can solve them.

Secondly, one thing you missed in your summarized post is Ixion/Sidd's discussion regarding choke's movement capabilities.

One thing Ixion talks about is choke as a room-seperation skill. (Move or remain uncured -> leads to death.) Because the cure of choke is movement, using choke = forcing movement. While I don't want to make a direct comparison with movemvent abilities, because they are obviously different, this is also something Iasmos talks about too - it is incurable in-room, meaning he would prefer there to be a defence or a way to cure it... without moving. Sidd talks a lot about how this movement can be done by team-mates, thus curing the choke, but Ixion is talking about how this movement in itself is undesirable in a team-fight.

The question is, is this secondary effect the part that everyone has problems with? And if so, you're lacking a suggestion in your list that tackles this problem.

1. I am about 90% sure that attempts to tackle the effect directly will lead to failure. The admin have expressed an opinion (through envoy reports, comments, etc) that a two-way aeon effect is part of the flavour of being a Shadowdancer (The Vision). If you keep this in mind, the only other way you can address the effect itself (even indirectly) is to delay the casting of said effect.

2. You're right I missed this, but it was considered and we've talked about it on a clan.

What if focus spirit cured choke?

This is another way to address many of the issues related to choke (have to run to leave) while at the same time making it unnecessary to change many of its current facets (choke chasing, probably adding additional setup, etc). Additionally, making it a focus spirit cure enables a shadowdancer to capitalize on it given its high mana cost and chance for failure. This will also encourage the SD to focus more on sleeplocking/aff spamming the victim to make them unable to cure before the toad.

From there, should being able to cure prove to be not enough or too much, additional buffs/nerfs may be requested through envoys.

Sorry, but FocusSpirit is a lousy cure for just about anything, given the cost and 50/50 chance, let alone against an opponent who salivates at the thought of you sapping your own mana.

Would maestoso stop it from curing?

But this solves the movement problem while at the same time giving the Night user something else they could use to capitalize on the 3p lost and shadows spent (Hrm, that by itself would be interesting if choke consumed the shadows in the room, then if you increased the balance time on release, you'll be adding an artificial delay between chokes as well. But I digress).

You'll also have to note that they'll have to blow 3p yet again to choke, which makes it take even longer to toad.

I was under the impression that focus spirit was 75%, so hrm.

Rivius:

Would maestoso stop it from curing?

As far as I know, Maestoso ONLY prevents eating horehound, so it shouldn't have an effect.


Focus Spirit would only be effective if it directly or indirectly prevented Choke from being reraised on you for an appreciable duration, otherwise you still have the P5th plus Choke problem; you drop Choke with Focus Spirit, then are trapped by P5th long enough to allow the SD to reraise the effect, and now with -25% mana against someone with a manakill.

I'm not even gonna try to balance ganks. Too many things to take into account

Would both the caster and the target be able to focus spirit to cure it, and would focusing cure both of them or just one of them?