Enyalida:

As a corollary to choke, can we adjust brumetower? There was a somewhat (in a far off sense) reasonable argument that treelife pulling out of choke was a problem, hence brumetower. If that is no longer applicable, and you don't need the brume to protect your core skill against druids (brumetower is designed to fight Hartstone, no other original reason) can we slap something else down? Perhaps something to go with the new mechanic as a secondary support for it, leaving two potential slots to work on a different focus.

I'm actually working on changes that will tie around Brumetower, Flight, and Penumbra. Choke, too, now that this has come up. I'll put it up sometime after Justice.

Here is my idea on adding a new mechanic that mainly caters to Shadowdancers but has its own benefit to warriors. It's very unique and isn't an aeon replacement.

I'm gonna call it Consume.

This will be a power move that requires a stolen shadow from the victim (2p?) with an added syntax of either eyes or tongue or throat - shadowdance consume shuyin throat for example.

What consume does is that it will block and take the corresponding balance of the next x number of the following actions depending on the syntax used:
Eyes - reading healing scrolls
Throat - Sipping health/mana/ego potions (not applying health)
Tongue - Eating sparkleberry effects

The cure is to do the corresponding action enough for the affliction to fade. For example, if I have my eyes consumed, I will need to read scroll 2 (random number) times (work in progress, actual number depends on how many times consume should block an action) before consume fades and you are able to read scroll again.

If the victim already has a part consumed, and that part is consumed once more, the duration of the block extends. So if say we decided that the blocks for an initial consume is 2, it will now become 5 if done again and the guy hasn't cured. There might be a cap here, but this is debatable.

The point is for the SD to hinder the enemy enough via aurawarp/hexes/uhhh so that consume will be able to consecutively work to get their mana to toadable level. Ideally, in my head, this will be balanced to the point that it is necessary for at least 2 consumes to different parts before the enemy can be toaded.

Should this idea be implemented, this also opens the way for a night instakill where if you manage to land all 3 consumes (and possibly some other requirement), the enemy gets to die. To balance this for group, only the person who put the consumes on the victim can land the instakill. Furthermore, the stolen shadow requirement makes groups stacking on the consumes impossible.

Further changes:
Released shadows should once more stop the regeneration of people who aren't the caster.
Allow only one stolen shadow per victim. Make other Night users unable to grab someone's shadow if it's already stolen.

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I like this idea because it is not an aeon effect, it is not a new affliction that requires an eaten herb, and it is definitely unique to Lusternia. Furthermore, its help to warriors is minimal given that it does not work with applying health, yet it still aids them. And on top of that, it minimally touches other Night skills. Other night skills may be changed to take advantage of it a bit more, but it's by no means necessary.

If the concern is that a SD can open up with consume throat then just lash away, the effect will be minimal because 1.) lash is an active ability and requires multiple balances to get to toadable 2.) there is still beast/sparkle/scroll/whatever to help keep up mana.

Please note that the numbers given above are not the actual numbers suggested. I'm quite open to changing those around to make something a bit more balanced if necessary.

Shuyin: I like the idea, actually but some parts worry me, specifically in groups. If there's to be an insta tied to it at all, I think it simply has to be the case that the same person must consume all 3 parts. Else you'll end up with a 3 person consume team that can instantenously kill a person.

Another worry: Consume rotation.

Absolutely, I didn't note it down, but if the insta was put in, it has to be the same guy who put all the consumes in, to balance group combat. I've edited that in to my post.

And what did you mean by rotation?

The problem with unhealable stuff is SDs already have access to Bedevil, Aurawarp and uncurable Recklessness. You end up killing people with sun allergy, or fae bleeds.

I like Consume. I think it can work.

I'd also like to point out that flat blocking cures may be a bit much on throat.

It's 4s to regain sip balance, that's where we can adjust the number of blocks to an acceptable level.

I see no problem with allowing only 1 block of sip for throat initially, while eyes/tongue gets 2, for example.

Would it be? Everyone is saying how all these new cure methods added lately amount to a lot.

Sojiro:

Absolutely, I didn't note it down, but if the insta was put in, it has to be the same guy who put all the consumes in, to balance group combat. I've edited that in to my post.

And what did you mean by rotation?

My worry would be a group of Night users creating a continuous block on cures. It's effectiveness is debatable, but I'm sure you could screw some people up pretty hard by doing that once you consider the other stuff being thrown at them. I'm not in a place to judge how much though.

Vadi:

Would it be? Everyone is saying how all these new cure methods added lately amount to a lot.

Well, that's entirely up to the admin, I'm just pitching my idea.

Problem is, there's nothing very interesting about any sort of aeon clone, which means that what you're gonna have to come up with is something new. Frankly, I'm a bit tired of the standard fallback of stun/offbal/offeq/blackout/attrition/build up x thing, so here's something new.

My worry would be a group of Night users creating a continuous block on cures. It's effectiveness is debatable, but I'm sure you could screw some people up pretty hard by doing that once you consider the other stuff being thrown at them. I'm not in a place to judge how much though.


Understandable, but truthfully, no matter what is suggested, it will be exacerbated by group combat. For such things, I take the view that if a group of people decide to focus on you, you should die.

You want a way to guarantee a target cant sip... so in a group 2 people can perma stop all sipping from a target.

In solo it mights a little more sense to be possible though at 1 and done, you will never be able to actually build on anything really unless I am missing something.

In groups its OP, in solo is UP. I cannot see this handling the issue unless you have more coming. I can also see a mugwump getting the insta off too easily.

At least current choke can get the SD killed too, this poses no risk at all to the caster while having the above issues.

Actually, we can adjust the group thing easily. Just have the requirement to begin consuming be a stolen shadow, then limit shadow stealing to one Night user at a time. In fact, I'll edit that in now.

1v1 definitely needs more help, so maybe we can extend the duration there if needed.

There is scarab and a lot of other abilities that hinder curing already, however.

For alot more power, some of which have cures.

I think given the proposed solution in group it is still OP as one person can use it like 7 times in a row. How often do you get hammered on and miss 7 sips and live?

That's where we adjust the power costs accordingly. If, for example, you think 2p is too cheap, then you raise it to 3p, which means that they can only do it 3 times in a row before you wait.

Furthermore, this is where we can discuss a cap on how many sips can block at the most, which again is another balancing factor.

-And- on top of that, you can even discuss what the block progression is for consume throat. I don't see a problem with capping it at 3 consumes and 4 total blocks max (1->2->4), as an example.

Another idea for a Choke replacement:

Something similar to Necromancy DeathMark; let's call it Night Gloaming (1p to place). Attacks of a Nightuser against a Gloamed target does extra bleeding damage (nightkiss, nightgaze, lash, warrior slash-slash). A person can only be Gloamed by one Nightuser at a time, and only that Nightuser's attacks will deal the extra bleeding. Gloaming can be cured with focus mind, or by clotting the bleed away (read: I cast Gloaming on you for 200 bleeding, you clot away 200 bleeding, Gloaming fades). The bleeding damage increases as the 'level' of Gloaming goes up.

It goes with the whole bleed theme for Glomdoring. It aides Shadowdancers because bleeding/focus mind costs mana, and it aides Ebonguard because bleeding is, well, bleeding.

I personally think that this Choke replacement should focus on hindering curing, rather than adding extra damage/bleeding/affs. I came to this thread thinking that it would be very difficult to come up with an effective replacement that wasn't aeon-like. But I think Shuyin's idea is very interesting and has merit. It does seem like an ability that is very hard to balance theoretically (i.e. needs testing on test servers to balance numbers) as it has a lot of variables.

One thing I would like to note is that you have to consider that Toadcurse is an 8p instakill, so if you go down the route of multiple / spamming Consumes you'd have to go for a damage/bleed kill. Also shielding would totally ruin it.

I like the idea as a concept.

I am against regeneration blocking. We have music boxes already for that general reducing effect, but the broad room effect of full regeneration blocking is just a bit too much.

Sparkleberry blocking and BC's could be scary!

Also, how viable would it be in debates? I'm not much of a debater, so I don't really know, but Glomdoring already has a nice perk in Faelings being their spec race, penumbra, etc.

Fine tuning aside, it seems like a good starting point!

Malarious:

I think given the proposed solution in group it is still OP as one person can use it like 7 times in a row. How often do you get hammered on and miss 7 sips and live?

Seems like it would be about as fair as how phantasms whisper works now, if you ask me.