Sidd:

(Lekius/Nienla duel comes to mind with this).

Yes, this and most of what you said are examples of very small or 1v1 combat, and I'll agree with you in those situations. But please, let's move this ongoing conversation to the choke thread?

Actually, if we think about it, Choke has a cure. "Move out of the room". Like Harmonics Ruby/Shatterplex and Wildarrane spirits.

The scuba diver analogy is cute, but that is, again, more on solo fights rather than group combat. The scuba diver can drag his target underwater, but then if the target's friends on a ship were smart enough, they would harpoon the diver to death. Or, like, pull him back out of the water or something (gust, tee hee).

Bit too late on the choke thing guys.

I'm probably just gonna start a new thread when I receive feedback at this rate.

In the spirit of beating deceased equines...

As a former Choker, I stand by the fact that Choke in its current form is fine. The only advantage Chokers have over their targets (besides choosing when) is a faster learning curve. Complaining about SD passives is just an excuse for not bothering to learn to fight in it properly.

I sparred someone not all that long ago, I warned them about choke.

The fight went something along the lines of...

1) Choke dropped > my metawake went up
2) Lunge modded form with hidden hadrudin
3) Hold > SD scourges
4) I cure blind + throw
5) Tendon
6) They start tumble > I start tic entering jumpkick.1
7) Jumpkick finishes, hardlock. gg

It might have been a mistake to let me hit momentum 3 before choking, but against curing there is alot of issues for the SD if they are not wholly prepared to turn the tide. And if they do I can somersault out with relative ease if not use beast gust. I hated choke, I complained about choke, now I laugh. In solo it is not an issue in the least.

In groups, I think the change has a good intent, but that overall it will fall kind of flat. I personally already know what tactic I would abuse in this situation to make it almost unmatchably powerful.

With all that in mind, let us consider how useless choke will become. You see choke starting, you move, you shield, you serpent, you spam full (moon), you get starleaper, etc etc. I think everyone will have a very good reaction. Personally I think one of the best ones will be to count to 2 and start tumble so the power is used but you leave immediately.

Just my thoughts on what I would do given the change.

1 Tic entering: Every .7s or so I hit enter to renew the command against the delay, when I see SD left I dont hit it again, so the command finishes.

Speaking as a victim of choke, I don’t think that this change will have much of an effect in terms of choke’s effectiveness If the choking group is co-ordinated, they can compensate for this by hindering for the choke as already emphasised above, grapple/pfith/web (which they probably already do since its quite simple to just walk away from a choke in its early stages). The hindering which is applied to harden this aeonlock will apply just as well to the time between the “warning” line and the actual choking. This proposed warning I think is quite fair for an uncurable aeon effect. It is already literally impossible to survive being the target of a co-ordinated group, choke basically guareentees death since you’ll be afflicted to hell and back.

Sivas:
Speaking as a victim of choke, I don’t think that this change will have much of an effect in terms of choke’s effectiveness If the choking group is co-ordinated, they can compensate for this by hindering for the choke as already emphasised above, grapple/pfith/web (which they probably already do since its quite simple to just walk away from a choke in its early stages). The hindering which is applied to harden this aeonlock will apply just as well to the time between the “warning” line and the actual choking. This proposed warning I think is quite fair for an uncurable aeon effect. It is already literally impossible to survive being the target of a co-ordinated group, choke basically guareentees death since you’ll be afflicted to hell and back.

No, no it doesn't, if you die in choke in a group, your team failed you, not because choke is OP. I am not worried about the group aspect of choke, its the solo use of choke that is getting nerfed here. I said it in the original thread, and I am saying it again here

Speaking as a user of choke, I don't think this change is needed because the target group just has to be coordinated. And they can be, since experience shows that a defending group just has to gust away the target (or whatever other forms of forced transportation there are). There is already a very clear message, when Choke hits, who the caster and the target is.

We already have/had a thread for this, and went over this argument, and the virtues of this solution. It sat there, with this decided on, for months.

Fact is, this solution rewards coordination on the part of the using and defending groups. There were loads of arguments in the last thread about making choke require some sort of set up, or giving it a cure. There was a serious and realisitic chance that the conculsion of that thread would be to give it a cure at several points.

It isn't as if that thread was deleted. This solution kept the core power of choke in the context of 1v1 fights, but gives an option that rewards coordination in the situations where it was deemed to be problematic.

Except there are already rewards to coordination under the current incarnation of Choke. For the offensive team, knowledge and timing before hand allows for better focus fire. For the defensive team, knowledge of who potential Choke users are before hand and knowledge of the target during allows for coordinated strikes against the Choke user or coordinated moves to save the target.

Rainydays:
We already have/had a thread for this, and went over this argument, and the virtues of this solution. It sat there, with this decided on, for months.

Fact is, this solution rewards coordination on the part of the using and defending groups. There were loads of arguments in the last thread about making choke require some sort of set up, or giving it a cure. There was a serious and realisitic chance that the conculsion of that thread would be to give it a cure at several points.

It isn't as if that thread was deleted. This solution kept the core power of choke in the context of 1v1 fights, but gives an option that rewards coordination in the situations where it was deemed to be problematic.

I said pretty much the same things I am saying now in that thread, in fact you and me talked about it as well. All I am doing is responding to others when they make statement I believe to be false or misleading.

Except there are already rewards to coordination under the current incarnation of Choke. For the offensive team, knowledge and timing before hand allows for better focus fire. For the defensive team, knowledge of who potential Choke users are before hand and knowledge of the target during allows for coordinated strikes against the Choke user or coordinated moves to save the target.


Go read the thread, this is nothing new. All this is is an 11th hour emotional appeal to try and scuttle a solution to a problem that was reached after a long conversation. The last reply in the choke thread was November 1st, for pete's sake. It is, to the day, 3 months later.

This solution doesn't end choke. Heck, once it is on the target, they're in the same amount of trouble as they ever were, and it leaves intact the 1v1 power. It just levels the playing field in terms of large group combat, and gives the defender a better chance to react.

But really, read the thread, we shouldn't have to hijack this one, or re-hash arguments that died down around Halloween.

Rainydays:


Go read the thread, this is nothing new. All this is is an 11th hour emotional appeal to try and scuttle a solution to a problem that was reached after a long conversation. The last reply in the choke thread was November 1st, for pete's sake. It is, to the day, 3 months later.

This solution doesn't end choke. Heck, once it is on the target, they're in the same amount of trouble as they ever were, and it leaves intact the 1v1 power. It just levels the playing field in terms of large group combat, and gives the defender a better chance to react.

But really, read the thread, we shouldn't have to hijack this one, or re-hash arguments that died down around Halloween.

It is pretty disingenous to make comments about choke, then hop on us for responding to said comments. Nothing I have said here waasnt already said by me in the previous thread.

At this point, I feel like we are being treated like the pyros in the report you oh so hate. The playing field was level, now it is an uphill climb and I bet people will still scream nerf choke

To be fair, I never said that pyros didn't need to be nerfed back then. My rage came/comes from the fact of how massive skillset changes were pushed through without recognition that the one being hit had no representation at all.

That was never the case with this. It has all been entirely on the table, and anyone could reply.

And you know what? When I adjusted my opinion away from a cure and to the current compromise, I was accused of being bias in favor of glom/equinox by backing off the cure/set up arguments that actually would have potentially hurt SDs 1v1.

Circumstantially of course, that would make it a great compromise, strictly in the axiomatic sense. :P

And, I didn't make comments about choke in this thread until this came back up after a very long and reasoned debate that was concluded three months ago. And some of the first things I said were, "Hey, we already talked about all of this."

If anything, with the implementation of shamanism-quicksand, this solution, and the concerns regarding groups that gave rise to it, are that much more relevant than they were at the time.

Rainydays:
To be fair, I never said that pyros didn't need to be nerfed back then. My rage came/comes from the fact of how massive skillset changes were pushed through without recognition that the one being hit had no representation at all.

That was never the case with this. It has all been entirely on the table, and anyone could reply.

And you know what? When I adjusted my opinion away from a cure and to the current compromise, I was accused of being bias in favor of glom/equinox by backing off the cure/set up arguments that actually would have potentially hurt SDs 1v1.

Circumstantially of course, that would make it a great compromise, strictly in the axiomatic sense. :P

And, I didn't make comments about choke in this thread until this came back up after a very long and reasoned debate that was concluded three months ago. And some of the first things I said were, "Hey, we already talked about all of this."

If anything, with the implementation of shamanism-quicksand, this solution, and the concerns regarding groups that gave rise to it, are that much more relevant than they were at the time.

Quicksand doesn't really change the argument, a coordinated group will still be able to work around it, even in its current form

Again: too little, too late. Where the hell was this conversation when the discussion was wrapped up around November?

It's not even like the monk report where feedback/commentary was delayed. People were consistently commenting about choke for 6+ pages, and rehashing the same arguments now of all times does nothing.

So please drop it. Or take it back to the choke thread and argue there until you all get tired of it.

I changed my mind

Seems that the monk thread is pretty much getting ignored, so:


Since no one asked the obvious question from a Ninjakari's aspect, I’ll decide to care again enough to respond. Shuyin’s latest post is the unbolded, my replies will be bolded.

Monks:

Mechanics:

-Cap the momentum loss from changing targets to momentum level 2, i.e. don't drop below momentum level 2 when changing targets (Currently it just drops you a flat -2 momentum regardless). Excellent. This will undo some of the problems introduced to bashing due to the changes over the past year and some time.

-Make it so you only lose momentum if you actually hit a new target, ex: don't lose momentum if you try to hit someone and get the 'no one here message' (Ahh, I am truly sorry, but I do not see anyone by that name here.) Good addition.

-Standardize grapple length and balance recovery. Writhing from a grapple should always take 3s. Monks that are of neutral balance should always recover balance (from grappling) in 3.2 seconds, with the speed mod allowing the recovery to get up to 2.8s (thus allowing the completion of an ender). Do not take weapon stats into account, only racial. Here’s where I begin to worry. I’m not…super against it, but this does adversely affect Ninjakari specifically. Ninshi is a grapple, but it’s also our staple skill. It leads to ninughi, illgatharu, constrict, and 1 to 2 more enders. The simple fact is that no other monk guild relies on grapples like we do, and this is very close to removing the effectiveness of runes on jakaris entirely. Not quite, but close.

-Grapples will no longer build momentum, but they will sustain momentum (reset the momentum loss timer). If you are at Mo3 when you grapple, you will stay at Mo3. This simply cannot affect ninshi. As above, much of the guild relies on it, and there are balance measures in place. If it must affect ninshi, then I think Ninjakari need a full rewrite, hands down, and no, not through envoys. No other guild relies on grapples to the extent we do. This one simple change will make the guild’s narrow offense collapse, and I dare say into nothingness.

-Add new optional parameters for kata perform:
*Kata Perform (form name) (target) (part1) (part2) (part3)
*Part1, Part2, and Part3 are over-rides for the defined form name that will tell it what body parts to target instead of the ones that are currently defined in the form. If you leave them blank, it will use the defaults set up in the form (including none, if it is a kata form that does not target any body parts). I think it should be at least optional (or a requirement) to put 'none' if you use the extra syntax to override one but not all bodyparts. In some cases, skill order matters and moving the 'none' skill to first or last could throw that off. For instance, KATA PERFORM TESTFORM SAHMIAM NONE LARM RLEG or KATA PERFORM TESTFORM SHUYIN HEAD NONE LLEG, etc.

-Remove the balance loss when a chain of more than 1 form fails. Right now, if you try a chain and it fails, you lose a burst of balance loss.

Skills:

-Make lunge mods (nekotai nekreve, shofangi skive, tahtetso tahtai, ninjakari jakati) cost 1p less per limb that misses. Ex: If your weapons both hit but the kick misses, that should be 2p, not 3p as it is currently. This is in line with warriors where they do not pay power if the attack misses. Good idea.

-Add a 3p power cost to Shofangi butojo, with a caveat that it cost 1p if done with the skive modifier.

-Increase the equilibrium time of Harmony Akhoosh to 3s (+1 from original) and increase the power cost +1 (2 total).

-Add a 1s balance loss to Ninjakari Ninukhi regardless of whether or not a target is in the adjacent room. Eh, no. Not unless we’re doing this across the board to all adjacent-room forced movement skills. If I remember correctly, there are other forced-movement skills that don’t have this restriction

-Add a 1 minute cooldown to Stealth Veil, have the cooldown take place when stealth veil fades. Overall duration is still 3 minutes, but you need to wait 1 minute before you can do it again.

-Reduce Tattoos TattooMaster's armour effect from 84/84 to 74/74.
*Possibly increase a tattoomaster's maximum tattoo weight (50-100 weight "spirit" tattoo for example) if deemed too harsh.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Otherwise, I approve of the changes, and I really do agree with the grapple changes (if ninshi is ignored or if Ninjakari get a rewrite). The Ninukhi change...it seems a bit jaded, was brought to envoys once (and nerfed) and I fully support it provided that all the other forced-movement skills have the same restriction.

Sojiro:

Again: too little, too late. Where the hell was this conversation when the discussion was wrapped up around November?

It's not even like the monk report where feedback/commentary was delayed. People were consistently commenting about choke for 6+ pages, and rehashing the same arguments now of all times does nothing.

So please drop it. Or take it back to the choke thread and argue there until you all get tired of it.

Too little too late, but most of the discussion I'm bringing up didn't happen until this past week. I really hope that "too little too late" isn't going to be used as the excuse when an entire guild is potentially thrown under the tires, and it could be on the level of the pyros or worse.

Certainly having a change discussed for a week or less is enough time to gauge how much impact it could have on several guilds, especially when it is a purely subjective assessment of "needed", right?