Doesn't take into account insta insomnia when you wake. I know it can get eaten by stupidity/jinx, but it might also not. The only way to nearly secure it is to time it with a pixie, and even then it leaves small room for error.

Plus the fact that beast balance is fairly long so you can't rely on it too much.

Edit: Also, it says a lot when a reknowned TP fighter says that addiction is fine. I'm inclined to take the side of people with ready access to said aff before anyone else. I think that's fair.

Enyalida:

Long rant right on out of the blue, when those aren't even real arguments being used against the current idea. If you thought choke was fine for groups, you weren't looking things with an objective of balanced eye. Needing to use something doesn't make it good or bad, requiring something in single combat doesn't make it balanced for group combat.

That's really all there is to say about most of that. I do kind of laugh at things like 'torture of drawing hexes', when I've seen people draw and fling a hex at about the same speed of my single eq cost abilities. Same with doublewhammy. Look at runist's doublesling. Sure you can hit adjacent rooms, but with two totally unmasked affs, for 1 less power!

EDIT: In short, getting a skill removed doesn't really give you license to be totally free of scrutiny in your subsequent ideas. If you have an argument for or against something (like addiction) that doesn't boil down to "But we're getting nerfed." or "Other people have x,y,x skill", go for it. I don't think addiction is a HUGE problem, but you can't just overlook potential problems with it.

There's no rant out of the blue, this entire thread has turned into "no, no, no, we want skills to be put in that have no actual impact or effect". You've spent pages arguing about Addiction being overpowered, with a limited resource being required to afflict with it!

Note that other skillsets can afflict with addiction much easier.

This thread is a waste of time and energy really, there's no interest in actually making something work, just 'nerf it, nerf it now'.

And if that's not what you are intending to do, read what you're saying and how you're saying it because that is how it is coming across. Highlighted, bold, and size 20 font. Also, blinking red.

Again, arguments for something shouldn't be LRN2SHIELD. I should tell that to everyone I ever fight. If I black you out, spam shield, and you're immune to me, tada! If you get pulled up, climb down and spam shield. Or just say in trees and spam shield. For better luck, also have up love potion, and have ents in the room to hinder. Also, can I have hexes instead of dreamweaving? I'll challenge the heck out of that assumption even without sap!

Never used the sleeplock argument, actually! I know how sleeplocks work out, I'm a dreamweaver druid. Sleeplocks are what I'm intended to do, though I only recently got the ability. Do your ents wake your target up as you're trying to drain the target's mana? Didn't think so. Can they tumble out of the influence of your fae? Didn't think so. Sure, you won't have an aeon effect, so things need to be re-examined, but please don't try to minimize other people's arguments instead of bringing up counter points?

The addiction thing is probably fine, but it's something to consider. The Throatlock/impatience thing is admittedly a bigger potential problem. Hit with Throatlock, beastspit senso, fling asthma/impatience, profit? You'd have to focus mind out of the impatience, and then focus body the thoatlock. I'd advise going for a bigger list of potential affs instead of heavy affs though, and allow a certain amount of aff stacking from that.

EDIT: (dubious grammar fixes): EDIT: I've been arguing on the last two/three pages that addiction is a problem. Never said "YOU MUST REMOVE THIS NAO", but tried to correct (totally accidentally) mistaken information surrounding how it works or could potentially be used.

iirc, nullify has faster balance than shielding. So not sure where 'stark century' comes from.

I'm a teeny bit worried about throatlock+impatience+paralysis+leglock. 2 stacked focus bodies alone is enough I think. Do you think raising the shadow cost on either throatlock or leglock to keep them always mutually exclusive would fix that problem and yet still retain utility?

This may not even be a huge problem 1v1, depending on how long it takes one to charge. For the very least, throatlock should probably be 3 shadows and leglock remain the same.

One thing I like about this idea though, is that if it ever does seem too overwhelming, adjusting the costs is fairly trivial.

I can understand the concern there. I'll look into it.

It might be leglock moving up to 3 instead of throatlock though.

Part of the issue that needs to be considered is the ease of recharging, or nonease. The moves to recharge, while fairly quick, aren't terribly afflicting.

I'm liking the charges idea, but I don't have any comment on the afflictions right away. I'll need to think about that.

TP attacks on a 6s bal and costs 2p to use dominate.
SD attacks closer to 3-3.5s and costs no power.

When is the last time a Telepath killed you?

SD have alot of potential either way, but the sad thing is until people try it we will not have good answers.

TP attacks are generally unblockable, have access to a reliable stun that they don't have to build up, have access to masked afflictions that don't need to be hidden under blackout, can slow down focusing balance, can screw with curing via illusions, and have access to passive effects that are very tough to shut off if you're a class that needs an enemy list as well.

I'm gonna nip this tangent in the bud and say we should just move on!

/resist

A bit late to the argument, so here's my two cents.

I don't think that Addiction is a major problem, even with Pooka. In my experience with a command skill, hitting a person with a command when they are on the appropriate healing/curing balance to throw them off is generally rather difficult in real combat; particularly if you are trying to time it with an attack. Besides, isn't pooka only every 10ish seconds in any case? Being able to hit with addiction after every attack is annoying, but hardly as deadly as it's being made out to be.

I'm more worried about throatlock+impatience+paralysis+leglock, but Shuyin already said that he is looking into this.

As to the SDs who feel the need to post massive rants: regardless of is Choke was fine or not, Estarra and co. have decided to remove the skill because the complaints weren't going away after multiple changes. I suggest that instead of making embittered posts complaining about said decision, and disparaging those who argue that the suggested skill, that many of us like, may have a few balance issues, you should be taking part in said discussion, and do so rationally, not emotionally. Remember, this is your replacement skill that we are trying to write; your input would be appreciated.

No rawr-bad opinions at this time either way. However, I am seeing a lot of "archtype X does Y so it is ok/not ok for B to do Y". When comparing archetypes, in any scenario, please take in to account defenses and offenses involved. If you're adjusting something that is going to be used by some rock of a knight in combat, that needs to be at least in the back of your head when you make decisions.

foolofsound:

EG have no problems even without choke. This skill isn't meant to affect them much if at all.

Yeah, don't forget Night EG (and Moon SG for that matter) already get a hefty amount of DMP and weapon aura with their trans skill.

Sojiro:

Edit: Also, it says a lot when a reknowned TP fighter says that addiction is fine. I'm inclined to take the side of people with ready access to said aff before anyone else. I think that's fair.

Just quickly, the proposed is different because SD can do it without consuming bal/eq/power (1* charge), whereas in telepathy you have to use psi balance to give addiction and therefore you have to force the sip before addiction is given. IIRC, addiction only affects pot bals used while you're afflicted (totally correct me if I'm wrong though).

Bit concerned about the raised umbris limit in terms of the possible affs given at one instant (+2 with hexes), but that'll come out better in testing than theorycrafting.

I feel like the reason that people get quite emotional and heated in a thread like this is the urgent feeling of voicing your concerns in terms of balance before it's been put into the game, since it's so much harder to change skills when they've already been implemented. And Shuyin gave the go-ahead to quibble about numbers/details, so whatever.

Well, not that much different.

Addiction is on substratus and id, while dominate is on id. It's not a huge stretch to psi sub addiction then psi id dominate sip one after another + one more aff on super.

The raised umbris limit, to me, is to give a chance for blackout to stick if it's applied a second time after the victim sips allheale to cure blackout the first round. If it remained at 3, then the Night user gets exactly 1 shot to land everything, else he gets to start over. That's kind of lame and would result in an even worse need to do a 'burst offense' than they already do now.

In my head, it goes: Total 5 charges -> aff blackout -> enemy allheales -> 2 charges left -> night attack here -> 3 charges left -> blackout once more -> 0 charges.

You're right though, testing would be better.

RE: the list of afflictions as whole, I tried to make it like a reverse pyramid where there are plenty of lower charge affs while the higher charge ones get less and less. I feel that the less (but more potent) affs that you have, the easier it would be to theoretically balance things instead of having to worry about 50 different combinations of 10 different affs (slight exaggeration).

Sojiro:
Well, not that much different.
Addiction is on substratus and id, while dominate is on id. It's not a huge stretch to psi sub addiction then psi id dominate sip one after another + one more aff on super.

Stopped being right, at that point. TPs cannot hit with affs on super. If we could, I'd be happy. Only attacks we can use on super(that contribute to getting a Mindburst) are PsyVamp and lolMindblast.

Sojiro:

The raised umbris limit, to me, is to give a chance for blackout to stick if it's applied a second time after the victim sips allheale to cure blackout the first round. If it remained at 3, then the Night user gets exactly 1 shot to land everything, else he gets to start over. That's kind of lame and would result in an even worse need to do a 'burst offense' than they already do now.

I'm not mentioning this to shoot anything down, but alot of guilds only have one shot to pull combos off, one being Spiritsingers, if you don't pull off a combo after building spirits, then you have to start again. Same can be said for Hexes. Unfortunately its the nature of combat, if you mess up or your opponent screws you up, then its a bad roll for you.

I would say that the theorycrafting has reached a point where application should occur to measure viability and volatility. Concerns are noted, while outright complaints or tangents, I personally find, are folk just reacting negatively to something new. I feel like something should also be restated:

There is by no means any guarantee that this proposal in this exact form will be implemented by the administration.

It might go in weaker, it might go in stronger, it might not go in at all, but the effort has been expended to propose something that will become the new crux of a whole guild. The proposal, as it stands, I think has a shot at being good enough to replace choke, but folk trying to water it down or just reject the idea aren't contributing much to the needs of the class.

Oh yeah I forgot to say in my last post, was if we could get an admin perspective on it now, do they like where we are going or not? Otherwise I would just say Shuyin to right up a final revision, and post it to the admin. Because really, we can't really test it on the forums properly other than theories anyways. And Vivi is right, it might not even get passed the doorstep.