I'm going to repeat my agreement with both Xenthos and Rivius; it isn't fair to remove a moderately useful EG skill with one that they cannot use at all. My suggestion (10/20% umbra generation per swing) allows EG to use the skill, but not to the same extend as SDs, in much the same way Choke itself was.

The thing is, it isn't like they won't be able to use it if they aren't generating it passively. It just won't be essentially for free. Heck, even with active generation, it will still be far far far easier to build up than Holy Light is. The misrepresentation here is that I'm dead against it being unhinged from general balances. But really, my biggest beef is with having both that, and passive shadow point accumulation.

If that goes through, they will build passively, and use the skills on their own balance. On top of DMP and weapon aura. At least if they have to build shadow points actively, they "paid" for the later bust of offense.

I mean, you don't have to be too creative to realize what sort of affliction power is going to come from, say, a blademaster, envenoms, beast, and shadowbalance on top of that. That is way too much to essentially be free.

Requiring EG to actively accumulate shadows instead of having it passively happen as they otherwise fight normally means that they are more likely to burn those shadows the same way they used choke- as a finisher.

Either it demands a downgrade away from fractured skull and limiting to the very low affs or require active use if they want access to anything past 1, and even then, fractured skull should still be replaced imo. They can use it if they want to use it as designed, but passive generation is bad to me. Allow some special powers for them that requires having a weapon and attuning it to the shadow.

1 shadow:
* 10% boost to wounding on next hit ("You assess a shadows weak points in preperation to strike.")

2 shadow:
* Bleeding (requires weapon, otherwise same)

3 shadow:
* Prone + 10% boost to wounding.

Even that seems minor, but the 3 shadow one means you could prone stun on demand before trying an insta, so that is worrisome. Not much else to put in 3 shadows though.

Asmodea:


Yes that may be true but so do many other things. SS use spirits to execute all which are on balance, hexes to a smaller degree use charges. I have to agree with Lilia. 1-2 attacks at a time was passable, but any more than that seems off. I also understand that it was to help with sleep locks, but not ever tertiary that the SD's choose has to have a sleeplock. MD's for instance don't have access to a sleep lock with healing or astro either.

And yes they may be minor afflictions on their own, but if you talking hitting with all 5 for free, plus a beast attack, plus a pooka order, plus an eq/balance attack (or two hexes), they're not so minor anymore.

Why not go back with the original seperate "shadow balance" tossed in with maybe a 1-2p "empowered" cost to hurl two attacks at once on that balance?

But unlike Moon, Night will now have no aeon-effect to stick a toad situation in. The sleeplock is all that we'll have, so it needs to be easier (and more reliable) for us than for MDs.

Note that this doesn't include the (small) chance that a target can be aeoned through Astrology, but I feel like Astrology, in general, is hard to balance around given the skills' unpredictability.

I think I'm gonna have to agree that either criteria needs to be loosened a bit, regarding warriors:

-Access to the powerful moves
-Generation of shadows

Would one or the other be preferred? I'd like to hear thoughts there.

I know there is a big hubbub over warrior generation of shadows, so is there an alternative? I'm pretty sure there is, just gotta think on it.

I'm still leaning on making all shadow manipulations moves be on a short eq, with a 1p power cost to make it bypass said eq in order to discourage 5 aff spam. Even if they did do that, I'd argue that it's a similar price to pay for other bulk-aff spells like malignantprophecy.

Sojiro:

I'm still leaning on making all shadow manipulations moves be on a short eq, with a 1p power cost to make it bypass said eq in order to discourage 5 aff spam. Even if they did do that, I'd argue that it's a similar price to pay for other bulk-aff spells like malignantprophecy.

Seems like a pretty elegant solution to me.

I think what needs to be considered here is we are trying to find a skill that will -help- a SD sleeplock and work towards toadcurse, not a skill that will -guarantee- it, which is why you do have to consider how much a SD can really do if all they needed was to spend the first twenty seconds doing whatever to get full charges and then unleash everything all at once.

Thing is, even the best sleeplock won't be as reliable without aeon. Not much, aside from aeon, stun, and a stupidity effect (not too sure about stupidity, but whatever, can test that at least) will delay someone from entering 'wake'.

That's where testing would come in, which depends on whether the admin would be interested in the idea.

Putting up prototypes for testing is a fair bit of extra work for the admins, but I do think if we can get their support with that and let us tweak this skill before releasing it, we'll have more universal satisfaction levels.

Sojiro:

I'm still leaning on making all shadow manipulations moves be on a short eq, with a 1p power cost to make it bypass said eq in order to discourage 5 aff spam. Even if they did do that, I'd argue that it's a similar price to pay for other bulk-aff spells like malignantprophecy.

1p to bypass eq to deal 5 free affs isn't really much of a deterrent unless you mean 1p per afflictions. This just seems to remind me alot of the old ALLHEX skill that threw 6 hexes for 10p and even that was deleted for being too strong. I think giving it its own balance, with a 1-2p power cost to hurl two charged afflictions is fair, it still allows for a sleeplock with a beast and still being able to use a pooka and whatever eq attack of the SD they choose, be that hexes, astro, healing or whatever.

On the matter of knights, why not create a different set of afflictions or benefits for them to use?



But unlike Moon, Night will now have no aeon-effect to stick a toad situation in. The sleeplock is all that we'll have, so it needs to be easier (and more reliable) for us than for MDs.

Note that this doesn't include the (small) chance that a target can be aeoned through Astrology, but I feel like Astrology, in general, is hard to balance around given the skills' unpredictability.

I realise they won't have constant aeon, but it is doable with astrology. Otherwise you have sleeplocks, hexes, decent mental affs to build on a jinx, it is doable, just not guarenteed death for free.

It is doable with Astrology...when the situation is right. And let's face it, there is only a very slim window of time when Astrology can even dish out aeon. Do not balance it around that.

In my head, the empower command for manipulation can't be comboable, so if you have to do the 5 aff spam, you're gonna have to manipulate fracskull, drain, etc separately, which will each cost 1p, for 5p total.

Perhaps another revision written down might be an idea to see where we are up to then?

I still think a short duration, reasonably periodic tick based unconsciousness would fit the bill quite well for a change to choke. Dunno. Maybe I'm looking over something.

Unconciousness is crazily too powerful, that is a huge gaping no.

Bump on replacing fractured skull, and ideally.... making other noted changes to cost for addiction etc.

I don't see fracturedskull being a big deal where it's at

Sidd:

I don't see fracturedskull being a big deal where it's at

I don't think it's probably a problem if we are going to be charging 1 power per EQ-free aff. That should prevent the SD from tacking FracturedSkull onto every Lash/Nightkiss.

foolofsound:

I don't think it's probably a problem if we are going to be charging 1 power per EQ-free aff. That should prevent the SD from tacking FracturedSkull onto every Lash/Nightkiss.

Honestly, why would that even be a big deal?

Sidd:

Honestly, why would that even be a big deal?

Being able to freely and reliably afflict with stupidity on every (full power) health/mana attack, on top of passives from ents, is honestly unparallelled.

foolofsound:

Being able to freely and reliably afflict with stupidity on every (full power) health/mana attack, on top of passives from ents, is honestly unparallelled.

what? how many herb affs do ents stick that applying arnica prioritized is going to be OP? All I can think of off the top of my head is rigormortis, which wouldn't be a big deal at all