I'm not, but my ENTIRE POINT was that while yes, all guilds power up and stack, the Scalar nature of warriors causes problems with artifacts and groups to a much higher degree than other guild styles and the the level of that problem goes up in levels of magnitude, and that this was really a bad thing for warriors, as it holds them back from a lot more interesting things and much better balancing (in the buffing direction).

EDIT: So, your example: thornlash. To Thornlash stack (which is the only thing you mentioned that we stack on, interesting) you have to have enough druids to beat writhe times by enough to build lashes. Flat balance, I believe that's three druids doing nothing else. You can nullify this with a ignite enchant. And, once you've cured it, you've cured it. It's boolean, you either cure it or don't.

Now, let's look at warriors. You have three warriors together (equivalent numbers). Each of them can hit you within a single volley on a non-stanced limb for about heavy wounds by expending (comparatively low) power costs, unlocking quite potent hindering afflictions (like pinleg and tendon) at the same time as dealing damage, poisons, and wounds which CAN NOT just be cured out of. Impossible, sorry. Unfortunately, that means that we're trying to balance around situations like that (and failing), and as a result, non-uber-artifacted, non-grouped warrior combatants have a really hard time getting anywhere. Mitigating the 'getting warrior'd' phenomenon is a GOOD thing, in fact a FANTASTIC thing, I have absolutely no idea why everyone is so against it.

Again:
Thornlash: three druids doing nothing else to do a non-hindering attack that does minor bleeding for a chance to instakill you, blocked by the application of an ignite enchant which takes 3 seconds but absolutly cures you.

Warriors: Three warriors progressing their own goals while doing attacks that build an afflict-state that can take a long time to cure out of (when doing nothing else), in addition to damage, in addition to the possibility of poison affs, in addition to the 'possibility' of wound-based affs, while building for an instakill. Lessen down the scalar portion of this situation, and you open the door for making warriors more interesting, more fun, and (wait for it) cheaper to play.


EDIT2: What that fix looks like, not sure. That's why I'm not proposing nerfing warriors or calling for wide spectrum fixes on the spot. From what I've noticed playing against warriors, and listening TO warriors, in addition to noticing similar problems in all the other IREs where warriors are the only scalar class, I really do believe that making the class less scalar will suddenly make them more fair and moderate instead of extreme, costly, and ganky.

Enyalida:

I'm not, but my ENTIRE POINT was that while yes, all guilds power up and stack, the Scalar nature of warriors causes problems with artifacts and groups to a much higher degree than other guild styles and the the level of that problem goes up in levels of magnitude, and that this was really a bad thing for warriors, as it holds them back from a lot more interesting things and much better balancing (in the buffing direction).

I'm sorry, but being able to instakill (or 8s kill) as in all the other examples I threw out there is a far better stacking mechanism than warriors are capable of, and it doesn't seem to hold those guilds back.

I do not get your point.

If three warriors come up to you and want you dead, and you're on your own, you should probably be dead... soon.

If three anything (I've argued this before, and people have agreed) gang up on you and you have no buddies to hinder them, remove them or remove you from the battlefield, pretty sure that you are in trouble. Regardless of whether it's a group of warriors, druids, monks, bards, whatever.

Group combat is what it is, it's all about working together for a common end. Whichever side is better placed (with skills, tactics or numbers) to pull this off should win.

Maybe warriors should be looked at? Maybe. Maybe we should see what the special report does before we go comparing warrior stacking to druid stacking, because we all know that it's on the cards for that comparison to change.

Xenthos:

I'm sorry, but being able to instakill (or 8s kill) as in all the other examples I threw out there is a far better stacking mechanism than warriors are capable of, and it doesn't seem to hold those guilds back.

I do not get your point.

Comparing apples to oranges. Insta-kills are their own class, and thornlashes are a bad example.... Stacking wounding contributes to a warrior's entire offense, whereas stacking thornlash only contributes to thornlash. The end result (death) and how quickly it gets there are totally unrelated.

One way to look at is what the stacking affects. If it's itself, okay. If it's itself which leads to other things, that's not good.


Monks: I hate them too. They need a rewrite if they're ever going to be properly balanced, and it will be less work to balance them this way than to make one-off changes over the course of the next ten years.

Comparing apples to oranges. Insta-kills are their own class, and thornlashes are a bad example.... Stacking wounding contributes to a warrior's entire offense, whereas stacking thornlash only contributes to thornlash. The end result (death) and how quickly it gets there is totally unrelated.

Uh, no. The end result (death) is in fact the entire point. If one class gets you there via stacking one thing, and another class gets you there via stacking another, both ways it still ends in death.

You can't just discard one method of stacking that is mathematically superior in achieving the end goal (especially in terms of timing), assuming equivalent numbers of each class. They're in no way unrelated.

If it stacks, it stacks. If you're going to complain about one class stacking, you have to consider the others as well. Period.

Do you really not think that warriors being able to buff themselves to extreme high degrees and subsequently being balanced around that capacity to the point that without such a large investement it's very hard to fight isn't a major problem? And that the nature of that higher scalability and unusually top-heavy balancing making it so that the problem (warriors spending high amounts of credits to roflpwn people with high wounds unless they themselves have all of the artifacts, unlike other classes) compounds itself in groups in a way that isn't matched by other guilds isn't an issue?

(Again, other guilds can stack. But warriors have this weird extreme problem, which is compounded in groups?)

Fixing THAT issue will unlock this huge window of improvement for warriors, and mean that non-artifacted warriors won't be useless. It'll mean that instead of having 4000 credit investment warriors that are very competent and who (when they hit, natural miss is just stupid, too much rng) bypass the attrition portion of their skillset completely matched up against 300 credit investment warriors who can't attain any sort of attrition with wounds at all. It'd hopefully make warriors actually match up to the strength of other guilds at similar investment, which will indeed nerf the HIGH end warriors some, but will make all of the other warriors much more powerful. It will also leave more interesting mechanic options for those high end warriors, and reduce reliance on gimmicky and spammy tactics.

How is any of that faulty, and how is it a bad idea? Warriors I've talked too always have complained that while they are strong in groups, they are weak in small combat. Making warriors stack less (so that it's less of a 'anything I do will stack with another warrior' and more of a 'if I do a similar thing or coordinate with another warrior, we will stack well') means that suddenly your reliance on groups can go down as your individual combat is buffed!

And yes, I'm kind of amused that the smallest part of what was said is what got fixated upon and ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE was thrown out the window. Sorry, if you accept that warriors are scalar (as they ARE), and that the vast majority of the other classes are not (except stupid damage strats which can generally die, for the same reasons that warriors have issues), then you have to say that while it may not be unbalancing and may be intentionalwarriors do stack better, or at the very least easier.

You have to consider all aspects of an archetype, including how well the comparatively stack. Period. Not saying it should outweigh everything else, but it must be part of the dialogue. Period.

Enyalida:

Do you really not think that warriors being able to buff themselves to extreme high degrees and subsequently being balanced around that capacity to the point that without such a large investement it's very hard to fight isn't a major problem? And that the nature of that higher scalability and unusually top-heavy balancing making it so that the problem (warriors spending high amounts of credits to roflpwn people with high wounds unless they themselves have all of the artifacts, unlike other classes) compounds itself in groups in a way that isn't matched by other guilds isn't an issue?

(Again, other guilds can stack. But warriors have this weird extreme problem, which is compounded in groups?)

Fixing THAT issue will unlock this huge window of improvement for warriors, and mean that non-artifacted warriors won't be useless. It'll mean that instead of having 4000 credit investment warriors that are very competent and who (when they hit, natural miss is just stupid, too much rng) bypass the attrition portion of their skillset completely matched up against 300 credit investment warriors who can't attain any sort of attrition with wounds at all. It'd hopefully make warriors actually match up to the strength of other guilds at similar investment, which will indeed nerf the HIGH end warriors some, but will make all of the other warriors much more powerful. It will also leave more interesting mechanic options for those high end warriors, and reduce reliance on gimmicky and spammy tactics.

How is any of that faulty, and how is it a bad idea? Warriors I've talked too always have complained that while they are strong in groups, they are weak in small combat. Making warriors stack less (so that it's less of a 'anything I do will stack with another warrior' and more of a 'if I do a similar thing or coordinate with another warrior, we will stack well') means that suddenly your reliance on groups can go down as your individual combat is buffed!

And yes, I'm kind of amused that the smallest part of what was said is what got fixated upon and ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE was thrown out the window. Sorry, if you accept that warriors are scalar (as they ARE), and that the vast majority of the other classes are not (except stupid damage strats which can generally die, for the same reasons that warriors have issues), then you have to say that while it may not be unbalancing and may be intentionalwarriors do stack better, or at the very least easier.

You have to consider all aspects of an archetype, including how well the comparatively stack. Period. Not saying it should outweigh everything else, but it must be part of the dialogue. Period.

Warriors being able to 'buff themselves up to high degree' has nothing to do with warriors stacking (except that it would take fewer of them to stack-- you know, such as if a cluster of geomancers with the raise staff defense staff-casting had the +20% magic damage rune vs. not having it).

You are discussing two separate things entirely and trying to smoosh them together, which is a pretty darned bad idea.

Addressing the runes issue and smoothing out warriors in general is a good thing; but you know what? That's still going to leave the 'stacking' issue that you seem so up in arms about, and there's absolutely zero reason to delve into that side of things unless you're willing to look at group combat stacking game-wide. It's extremely bizarre that you are fixated on hammering one archetype for no apparent reason while not even wanting to look at any others that suffer from the same 'issue' that you are describing.

If a class can stack well, it's the same 'issue'-- it does not matter whether it's done via wounds, or blood vessels, or mana drain, or ego drain, or counters up to an instakill. It's all stacking and it all has the same end goal; death. Whoever kills the other guy(s) first, wins.

I completely agree with your last paragraph, by the way; I just wish you were taking your own advice to heart.

Delete instakills.

Zarquan:

Delete instakills.

Delete kick. And punch.

We can emote each other to death, and it will be grand.

(Clan): Ssaliss says, "*emote kils xenhtos and he lieks it*."

Okay, maybe it won't be grand. :(

No, I'm not! I'm kind of starting to get discouraged here, and am finding it harder and harder to care about trying to... help. But I'll give it another stab.

Warriors being able to 'buff themselves up to high degree' has nothing to do with warriors stacking

Okay, it's fairly obvious that if something is a problem in an isolated situation, doubling the problem mechanic creates the same problem. Two people who individually have a 10% buff team up, and their group overall has a 10% buff as well. If warriors have a big single combat runes problem, they have just as much of a problem in a group situation. So yes, these are related problems.


As to warriors stacking better, 'easier' really is a better term, as odd as it sounds. A simple look at it is something like this: You can have multiple newbies stacking doing web enchant on someone. The second (and third and so on) person is redundant. With planning they can become more useful, but that's with planning. You can have multiple warriors hitting the same spot without ever becoming truely redundant. They may not be being optimal, but they never become redundant. Even hitting a different body part has the same effect -- as unlike most afflictions, wounds only have a single balance they cure on (with a few exceptions).

In other words, yes all classes stack to varying degrees. Warriors on the other hand, who are doing completly different and possibly conflicting strategies all contribute to increasing how difficult it is for you to cure other warriors in a way not seen with many (if any) other strategies that are outside of brute force vitals damage. (And yes, I do think this is a problem, and many outlier damage dealers probably should be looked at and reduced, I've always felt that way.)

Is that an unfair assessment?
- I look at warriors and agree that (assuming artifact curve smoothing happens) they need buffs, some pretty hefty ones to single combat.
- I then look at the wounding mechanic, and notice that it allows for great group synergy, by eliminating all chance of redundancy. Additionally, it's on a limited cure that is vital for other things, unlike the majority of other affliction strategies, which rely on non-time-based mechanical limits. (Well, bursts. Bursts are silly. Other things have more than one cure, or are costly/hard to pull off)
- I propose reducing (not removing) some of that synergy in exchange for supplying those buffs to smaller combat situations so that overall, warriors maintain usefulness in groups AND in single combat, and the class becomes more playable.
- Get yelled at?

I'm really confused by a lot of your statements. I think that the above outlined process IS considering all sides of the dialogue, and is presenting a fair trade that overall (assuming artifact smoothing which really NEEDS to happen) will help warriors. What's the issue?


EDIT: And yes, before someone says "but sap is good with more than one person, therefore a minor portion of what you said is in no way invalidated but your character is somehow flawed so let's throw out all of the dialog!!!". Yeah, I know. That's why I was against buffing sap.

I believe it is an unfair assessment, because none of the other 'stacking' methods I have described suffer from redundancy (excepting "oh, the person's already dead so I don't need to attack them").

You're comparing offensive actions aiming for a kill to... webbing.

You're not comparing it to, say, mana draining (not redundant), ego draining (nope), vessels (nope), thornlashing (nope), or even just straight damage stacking from those few guilds blessed with high output.

Further, you won't really get warriors stacking with 'different conflicting strategies' all that easily... since each body part has its own wounding levels, warriors need to co-ordinate with each other in group combat or there is no synergy at all... so I'm not entirely sure what you mean there.

There's no reason to reduce warrior synergy if you're not going to address every other guilds' synergy. It's non-productive, it doesn't help warriors at all. It's already a complicated class, and throwing even more hoops and whistles in when more than one warrior dares to be involved in a group fight is just not going to help.

If you want to help, then fine; feel free to discuss how warrior runes can be removed / revamped and warriors can be streamlined to not require thousands of credits in investment. Please lay off the synergy angle, because that end of it is just no good (I would even go into the realm of 'patently unfair') unless you are going to do it for everyone.

On Villages: Village revolts were, for a long time, one of my favorite features of Lusternia which has sadly become shorter and more easily missed over the years. While, I don't necessarily want to have 5-7 marathon revolts on a regular basis, having revolts regularly end within 20 minutes of their beginning due to the snowballing effect of village feeling bonuses really detracts from the experience. Grinding hours of influencing villages or doing commodity quests really does not evoke the same dynamic or sense of enjoyment that a normal (non-peaced) revolt can bring from the balance between combative with non-combative goals.

On Knights: After being a knight for a period of time and not being one, I think it is fair to say that knights could stand for some improvement. Some possible solutions here would be:

1.) Allow weaponmaster to have an active aspect. A knight focus their attention on a target, rendering their target's armor 20% less effective to the knight's strikes only (effectiveness can scale with skill in knighthood, actually). This level of focus lasts for 5 minutes with a 5 minute cooldown.

-> The reasoning behind this is relatively simple. The major difficulty behind knight offense are targets whom are at the upper echelons of cutting/blunt armor mitigation with the threshold around 100 effective cutting/blunt. A percentage skill would end up being more effective against those whom have high armor than those with low armor. Exactly where knights tend to need help.

2.) Add an ability to athletics that allows knights to significantly mitigate off-balance/equilibrium-causing afflictions and stun. On the order of 35-50%. It'd likely be much better to reduce duration of the effect here instead of having a hit or miss ability like passive dodge.

-> This solution approaches the issue in a slightly different manner and is not meant to be used in conjunction with the first. Essentially, knights are are the most limited as far as passive abilities go and hence are the easiest to hinder offensively. This would assist in limiting that hindrance to a degree.

On General Combat: It seems to me that combat, in general, really has shifted towards excessive defenses with excessive room-effect abilities. For instance, in a single room, you can have multiple bard songs, demene effects, maelstrom, multiple shaman/ecology effects, phantasm effects, moon/stag room effects, ascendant powers, avatar powers, shrine powers, on top of mass damage abilities such as mage area spells, balestone, etc. Count this on top of the mass spam and subsequent lag generated, it's not much of a stretch of the imagination that often those entering the fight don't get a chance to input 3 commands before they end up dead.

I feel this ends up having two detrimental effects. First, it degrades player skill in group combat to who has better mechanical effects and has artied up enough to do massive damage over time to the largest group or does the most effective on-going hindering. Secondly, the increase in defensive options really has killed player dueling since attempts at balancing the excessiveness that is group combat by increasing the variety and efficacy of defenses/cures has made it so 1v1 fights end up stalemating most of the time.

To this, I would suggest a couple of changes.

1.) Limit personal enemy lists to 3-5 players maximum. A great rune of domination would double this number.

2.) Change teas to only have a 33% chance of firing.

3.) Change bard songs to persist in a room as an effect that moves when called by the bard for no equilibrium or balance cost. By making this change, have only one instance of each type of song exist in a room at any given time.

So, a bit of a tangent here, but what sort of buffs do people think warriors need? I think it's safe to say that wounding is only a problem for unruned-nondemigod warriors. Whatever other problems the class has lie solely in its core mechanics, and depending on what you tackle, it might not even play any role at all in group combat.

Doh: Nydekion ninja'd me :P

Edit: Well, in reply to your first suggestion about armour reduction, I think the special report should help with that, and that could end up being problematic against lower-armoured people.

I think something to lessen hindering does sound good though...

Sure, disable bubblixes during domoths/flares.

Icewynd, the larvae could spawn a bit less. They don't spawn every hour, and as far as I can tell they do also de-spawn. I don't really think the bashing itself is an issue. I'll have to refrain what I've said at least 6 times before: the issue is everything worth bashing being painstakingly, debilitatingingly, terribly, awfully, horribly, most-assuredly, magnificently, or stupendously WEAK TO DIVINUS DAMAGE. People who aren't dealing fire/divinus have a tougher time in icewynd. I see at least 3 deaths to winds/gravediggers every time I'm logged in.

Edit: I agree about the buffs, too.

Someday they'll do something about the huge disparity between Divinus-being-amazingly-good-everywhere and all the other damage types.

Maybe. :(

Xenthos:

Someday they'll do something about the huge disparity between Divinus-being-amazingly-good-everywhere and all the other damage types.

Maybe. :(

Highly doubtful.

As far as the armor reduction goes, that's essentially why I am suggesting a percentage reduction. On folks in greatrobes and a normal shield, you'd have something like 55 on the robes and (effective) 16 on the shield for a total of 70 cutting. A 20% reduction to this would reduce it by 16 to to 54 whereas if that same target had around 100 cutting, it'd be reduced by 20 to 80.

If memory serves, the difference between 70 and 54 cutting will still be in the same range (it'll probably still be 2-3 health applications to cure a full combo) whereas if a target's armor is down to 80, they become significantly more possible to get into kill range with deepwounds.

Regardless of the way you cut it, folks in just greatrobes have been easy pickings for knights and monks since the get go. This doesn't really change much of their plight. Heh.

Oh and as far as Icewynd goes, just make all the demons aggressive and the area open pk. That would mirror astral well sans insanity, exactly where it should be.

Silvanus:

Highly doubtful.

One can always hope!