...But it also makes them unable to actually do anything to others.

You're also aware that choke does eventually fade even if they just sit there, right.

I won't lie, just about every solution has its own sets of abuses, but we should probably try and go with the one that's least abusable.

That is true. I am just worried about two SDs being able to raise unbreakable Brume/Bonds and then making eahc other invulnerable. Other than that, I like the solution.

What good are they if they do that, that'd be two people out of a fight where numbers are never even.

Entourages can still attack just fine if you are prism'd.

EDIT: Hup, unless you force entourages to attack the other. I dunno, sounds complicated.

I don't understand why people don't kill entourages during fights, heh.

I don't think you need to touch entourages at all. The SD is free to order his entourage to attack someone else prior to choking, but it will leave him without a passive offense in his forced 1v1.

The important thing is that instead of having to worry about 5+ people's ents/effects/etc, you only need to worry about 1 person's, which I feel addresses the core problem.

Sojiro:

My bad, in my head, only the victim/caster can hit each other, and no one else.

So if Bob the SD chokes Sue the SD, they can only smack each other, Joe the nonchoked can only watch.

Yeah, if you were talking about potential for abuse in choke being contagious by targetting your side's melder.... SD targets allied melder, allied melder now has GOD MODE. Otherwise, very good idea.

EDIT: Unless you're saying that the meld itself will also only target the person choking, in which case I'd be worried about code-ability. However, if that is able to be coded, then the only real abuse I see is choke becoming a time-consuming trueheal, which is nothing that can't be done in many easier ways.

I've always found that killing entourages was a bad return on time spent, especially in groups. Plus, there's always the problem of killing the wrong ents and the fact that 90% of ents are cloaked.

Rathan:


Yeah, if you were talking about potential for abuse in choke being contagious by targetting your side's melder.... SD targets allied melder, allied melder now has GOD MODE. Otherwise, very good idea.

EDIT: Unless you're saying that the meld itself will also only target the person choking, in which case I'd be worried about code-ability. However, if that is able to be coded, then the only real abuse I see is choke becoming a time-consuming trueheal, which is nothing that can't be done in many easier ways.

My idea isn't about making it contagious, it basically just forces a 1v1, groups don't come into account at all.

Yes, codeability is pretty much the only problem, so I'm gonna have to ask Iosai about that.

And yes, who the hell would want to be truehealed (that doesn't actually cure) and leaves you with having to cure your affs one at a time under an aeon effect.

Slaugh, redcap, barghest. Only Shadowdancers have them, they can die in one hit (not even kidding here), and they're pretty important ents. 1p each.

Not saying I haven't done it before, but there are typically more important things to be doing in group fights.

Slaugh, redcap, barghest. Only Shadowdancers have them, they can die in one hit (not even kidding here), and they're pretty important ents. 1p each.


While I would agree that they are worth targetting, also remember that in place of two of those three, Moondancers have defensive ents (one of which doesn't even stay around more than 30 seconds), and in place of the third they have one with an arguably weaker list of possible afflictions. So while they may be important, they're not vital, and the SD will probably continue to be able to screw you up without them.

Yeah, I was more concerned with SD's making their own team members invulnerable while still being able to participate in group combat, as thier ents still contribute to the fight. There have been several times that a forced 1v1 mechanic has been suggested as a standalone and I'm pretty sure nothing was ever implimented because being able to force 1v1 is easily abuse-able (what, they walked in? Here, ally member, challenge me to a DUEL!!).

Yeah, just kill the ents, target slaugh, barghest, etc, though with the level of curing nowadays, the ents aren't what's gonna kill you.

If it comes down to it, I'm sure no one would overly mind the chokeprism to fall under distort or something.

Personally though, if I myself could vote, I would prefer just being able to cleanse it, simply because while it can stack with other cleanse affs, it is still way manageable given that multiple people do it.

I think it's pretty silly how people are terrorized of ents on the forums when even firstaid would handle them without issues. If you don't want to kill them or didn't know you could, or refuse to, well then, I don't think the balancing should cater to such personal choices. It's a smart move, and if this 1v1 prism thing does in, SDs will be boned against people with a brain to bash all the ents first - leaving the SD flailing helplessly (especially Healers. Aurawarp and bedevil aren't effective with ents to begin with, without them - no way of giving affs (curse scroll had no effect) - they'll literally have nothing to do but lash or nightkiss away uselessly).

What'll be interesting to see is a simple analysis of just how often does a single Choke lead to a kill. With people like Iasmos giving the idea that it's a guaranteed kill - it's for some reason in practice not turning out to be the case (if you fight these days).

Couldn't we get focus spirit to react differently to choke? Have it consume less mana and have a much higher (or even 100%) rate of cure? Naturally, the cost shouldn't be too small to be negligible, but not a whole quarter of your mana? It could act like impatience where it's always the first thing cured too. It would encourage locks. You'd need an impatience-lock over an anorexia lock in that case too.

I think if we tacked a cure onto it, focus spirit is definitely the better one, since cleanse just doesn't seem appropriate. Night just seems like more of a spiritual thing than "gunk on my skin" and I imagine the admins would prefer that instead.
Just having a cure in the first place makes it infinitely more capable of being dealt with than the way it is now, and it would require some level of setup beforehand (hence ending, as someone put it, drive-by chokes).

Yep, I think so too, but people focus too much on the 1/4 mana thing, which doesn't really matter in groups (since you might die to team haegl/lash/amissio etc anyway) and isn't a problem 1v1 unless you're locked up a bit.

I do think focus spirit having a chance for failure is pretty dumb though.

You're right though, it does prevent drive by chokes.

I still think losing a quarter of your mana is better off at the end of the day, except for maybe 1v1, since right now the complaint is that you die before you ever get out of choke anyhow. As soon as you're out of it, what stops you from quickly throwing scroll+sparkle+sip? I would support making it a 100% cure though, otherwise the mana cost complaints probably are merited.

Yep.

Being able to focus spirit out of choke means you're able to cure at your usual rate (on top of sipping normally), which will give you time to tumble away and whatever else.

Also I just asked Iosai, and it would be possible to make focus spirit cure x aff 100% of the time.

I absolutely -love- the 1v1 thing, except as people have pointed out, it has its problems.

If it forces a true 1v1 where the meld effects only affect the chocked people, just choke the enemy melder and bam, meld gone. On the other hand, you could make your melder invulnerable. Perhaps the prismatic should only be on the victim? That's also not ideal, because then a choker becomes an instant death in group while not doing anything to the chokee....Hrm. Another thing might be is to give prismatic-esque thing, but have an outside cure still that doesn't work if done by the choked person. Might not be ideal, though.

The 1v1 idea is a noble concept cannonball fired out of a cannon labeled "unintended consequences". Chances are, it's going to break something.

What if we lowered the power cost to 2p, and made Trueground in environment clear the shadows/choke? Or added some other ability to environment that did the same, and made it cost an appropriate amount of power/eq?

Barring that, my one and only concern with the focus spirit cure is the same as others. If it becomes too much a case of the cure killing the patient, we haven't really solved anything. If that can be shown to not be an issue, then sure.