Sylphas:

If you want all tertiaries to share the same usefulness, which seems to be what you're suggesting, either we should take TK as the baseline and bring the others up, or nerf TK. You can't have it both ways unless you're totally ok with being internally inconsistent in your logic.

lolwut? You make it sound like I care about TK. Either you're totally misinterpreting what I was trying to put across or you're trolling. Either way, go back to the drawing board; I was suggesting absolutely nothing, heh.

I was under the impression that present claws was already nerfed, and quite hard (though it definitely needed it). I don't know about sheathe claws.

foolofsound:

I was under the impression that present claws was already nerfed, and quite hard (though it definitely needed it). I don't know about sheathe claws.

I don't think any other nerfs have been applied to it other than the initial nerf it took when the skillset was released

Buncha feedback. Keep in mind that I've got a report in the works to drastically slow down pollen generation, and possibly lower the effects of it as needed already going up. That's going to go in before the special report.

foolofsound:

Land- Land is already very powerful, if limited. I'm not sure if it should be buffed without also taking a nerf.

The indoor part was something that we were told should in theory already work. That would expand the terrains by a single type... Natural underground. For instance, a big part of Prime Glomdoring is Natural Underground! Again, this is not trying to change it to ANY indoors, it's asking to have the 'indoors' tag no longer stop this skill if it's otherwise an okay area, expanding it only to natural underground. A few other skills need this fix also, pressure for instance. Has nothing to do with being outside! I was just adding what makes sense - Why can't you be sent through the earth when you are... under the earth?

Frogs- Passive seems fair, as long as the effects are not shrouded.

This would work just like getting smacked by a poison as normal. If that poison is masked normally (ibululu, sorta) it would be. Otherwise, no: it would not be masked/shrouded.

Bloom - Bloom as it stands seems kinda lackluster (Dizziness is NOT a good aff), but these suggestions seem kinda OP.

I agree mostly. I wasn't sure if I wanted to put dizzy back on the list and leave it at the same number of affs, so that it's less good stuff. Keep in mind that this is currently the only reliably useable active afflicting in the skillset, besides bone! And you can't have the empowered versions without locking yourself out of things like empowered bone! I'm looking for affs for this list.

Root - Not sure if the golem needs a speed buff, but a damage buff might be welcome, in addition to movement.

Okay.

Lightning - Wouldn't those changes allow a team of Druid to zapcannon a target with a much more powerful version of zap? I recommend simply speeding it up, to give the druid what amounts to a power attack.

My suggested changes would make it about as powerful or less so than a ranged attack with point cudgel, but with a power cost and a loss to action speed/flexibility. With the suggested reduction of damage on hitting people out of demesne, my lightning would stand at below my current point cudgel dps. That can be raised another 5% if that solution is one to preserve.

Draylor:


LIMITS: Problem seems confined to user error to me and is also a downside to what can be a nice ability.

The limits are honestly never part of the nice abilities of weather change. Any time you're really making use of weather involves fierceweather... which is demesne only, during which limits are not relevant! It's also very hard to keep records of this accurately, even spending a buncha time figuring stuff out. I'm sure it can be done and a list can be made and saved without TOO much extreme effort, but this is a pretty easy fix, even if it's made vague.


DEATHTRANCE: Was your recent report not sufficient to address this? I would like further feedback on this if possible, please.

Solution 4'd. It tried to fix the movement problem and borked a lot of other things. Putting a few of the old limits back in to make this less of a "Time window to use each time (10 seconds), have to stand in a room for at least 10 seconds before you can use it, every time you move, and every cycle you wait, you're losing time on the trance." Most instas have a build up to get the condition. This one has that... and a build up to get the kill. It'd be like if you had to get someone to 50% mana, AND have them ready for deathsong all at once.

FREEZE: Absolutely no to double freeze. Even a hidden freeze might be too much here, but I find myself not overly worried at this. Would need testing.

This is less important after the pollen change. I'm still disappointed that this is currently a clone of elementalism - freeze... with some hefty restrictions. This skill should do SOMETHING else/extra.

SKY: Whilst at first glance appears as a nerf, turning this into a single targeted effect makes this considerably more useful. No.

Suggestion 2, then?

BLOOM: Dizziness seems to be downplayed here. The presented affliction changes seem far too powerful.

Dizzyness on an active skill, with no uncertainty involved has no use to the druid. If it comes to the point that you are trying to move about, or are able to but are not able to just cure dizzyness, you'd just cure sap (presumably why you can't cure dizzyness). Having a random chance for these affs makes them somewhat less powerful, as you can't be certain as you hit them.

ROOT: Am fine with the proposed changes here. Seems a prudent move, although I would seek further evidence of the damage dealt by this effect.

Sure. I will get number tomorrow when I can get back to internet. About 1-ish, that will be.

LIGHTNING: Absolutely no.

Explain? Which part of this do you object to? Right now, there isn't any real reason someone would want to use this skill. Because of the very long eq, you have far less flexibility of action. If you are in your demesne that is not being broken with an enemy, you should be engaging them, or you should at least be adjacent. In that situation, point cudgel is MUCH better to use.


MICROCHANGES: Whilst I find myself in agreement that -some- change might be warranted, I feel the solutions presented in no way address the issue.

Suggestions?

Sidd:

Fierceweather could stand to be toned down a bit, and even then, with snowman (especially with the targetting change, which is reasonable) and coldweather effects, I don't think freeze needs any adjusting. Druids are perfectly capable of getting someone to frozen without much effort (BT's better than HS obviously, but I don't see HS struggling at all with it).

This has some.. problems. Ones that I'm actually going to talk to Neos about, having to do with freeze affliction stacking in general. The short is that the highest level is the most useful one, and there isn't any sort of curing buffer against lowering down from it.

Sidd:

the only adjustment I can see to land is including swamps in it's terrain choices, but I think it should come with a power increase, making it 7-8p per use. It's seriously reality on steroids, like stronger than reality by a huge factor given it's enemy only. Deserts and Beaches no because having roots come out of the ground and pull you into another room is just not thematically appropriate.

The message (IIRC) is actually the earth itself coming up to swallow you, not roots! 7-8 power is absurd. Again keep in mind that for it to be entire area shift, it requires present trance, locking out any other ability for at least 30 seconds during which you don't get the benefits of any trance in that tense.

Sidd:

Bloom is nice as is.

Why? It's got one decent aff that our demesne gives (confusion) and dizzyness for 1p, unmasked. It gives a short vapours in present tense, after the bloom message (dizzyness and confusion unmasked).

You don't need concussion on top of sap(which has been HUGELY buffed).,

Then sky needs to do something else. If we don't need concussion and we don't need broken bones, we just don't need this effect.

I still notice there was nothing addressing claws, both the claws attack and sheatheclaw are really really powerful. Something that's been complained a lot about, something Enyalida has said she would address before, yet it's being left off the special report.

I haven't heard any sheatheclaw complaints. Envision claw was handled. The damage was toned down and the stun was dropped enormously (because it was silly). I'll put up some test numbers.

Sojiro:


Death trance - I doubt the admin will roll back the changes, so you shouldn't approach the issue from that direction. Why not just lower the the time gap when it's inactive from 10s down to something like 5?

I'm really not sure what to do about this. I really don't like the idea that you can 'chase', but you have a limited number of cycles. You already are trying to chase down and hold down someone for seconds (10 atm) while they are under 50% health, or in preparation for that. Instakills should be limited, but this is already a difficult proposition without all the crazy limits on death trance.

Weatherguard - not necessary. Why not learn weathersight?

Well. Why does psiblade work on out of phase people when psionics users can learn kether/violet? Because it makes sense!

Bloom - Not necessary, bloom is fine. This seems to be something you pair with sap.

In sap , there are myriad other things to do. I'm pretty dead set on making this skill do one/two afflictions off a list instead of the same two (one of them very weak) afflictions every single time. I'd prefer doing that to making it shrouded, because that would be silly..

Lightning - The solutions aren't good. I'd rather just remove the meld limitation. Just have it require the right weather conditions.

Just make it exactly as it is now, useable to any other applicable point in the area without any sort of damage reduction at all? That seems a bit... over powerful.

Saying you have a report to tone down allergies is nice and all....but that doesn't really mean anything will be done. Your report this month is making druids not fall out of trees, which isn't really a huge deal compared to the OP that is allergies. Allergies is the bigger problem and your reporting something that is only helpful. It's good and dandy that you say things are going to be changed, but the reality is, you don't know, and until it actually is changed, they need to be considered as they are.

Freeze is easy to build up in sap, I'm not sure how that's a problem, that's also the only time you really need it.

You were right about the Land message, my bad there. As far as power increase, I don't think it's absurd at all. lets compare two abilities that are similar to reality/land, squall and scissorflip. Squall moves everyone 1 room for 1p, Scissorsflip moves enemies only 1 room for 5p. That's a 500% increase in power cost for making it an enemy only skill. The reason Land and Reality had the same cost was the severely limited places Land could be used. Opening that up to include more rooms, even if it is just swamps, makes it less limited, thus justifying a power increase. It's not absurd in the slightest. Keep in mind, using Land in present, doesn't stop you from using your present tenses of the trances being used in future/past slots, so that isn't really a fair argument to make. Land is incredibly powerful, it needs to have appropiate costs associated with it, and 5p just isn't enough to justify opening up it's usage.

Sky does something, Bloom does something. Dizziness isn't a bad affliction, it's not great either, but vapors is pretty swell. They don't really need to be buffed at all. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not useful or really needs changing.

As far as envision claw, there hasn't been a nerf since it was introduced (I've asked several people and they've confirmed it). It's still really powerful and it was after the nerf that you said it still needed to be toned down. The reason no one complains about sheatheclaw is because it's an awesome curing skill. Like really awesome.

I note that you skipped right over my concerns; all I can say is that I'm going to request you attach my response in its entirety to your report if you are going ahead with the 'buff everything' approach, or I will submit it myself.

I especially hate the notion that 'everything in the skillset needs to do something effective' (a la "Then sky needs to do something else."). It doesn't necessarily need to do anything else! Some skills are intended to be more for flavour / incidental use (but not the focus of the skillset). You can find examples of this in every other skillset in the game. Not everything needs to be buffed just because it won't see use in every fight.

Once again, I would like to see this report reworked in such a way that it looks at problems with the skillset, and works to address those problems (both on the powerful and not-powerful-enough sides), rather than a one-by-one listing of "I just don't like this skill and thus it should be made better". For 60+% of the skills in the skillset.

What is the purpose of Shamanism for Druids? Where does it fail to meet its intended purpose? Where does it succeed too well? Start here. Present a reasoned report instead of a laundry list of improvements.

Just a reminder that the deadline for submitting reports on Shamanism is in 38 hours. Please submit by e-mail to iosai@lusternia.com. Thanks!

was this submitted with Xenthos and mine's concerns?

All envoys were invited to submit something, and I would guess emails from others would be welcome too.

Was this submitted at all?

I'm not even seeing a finalized layout... or a report that took into account any of the comments here. The only one I'm seeing is the one on the first page followed by a lot of discussion-- but no changes.

Nothing was submitted, from what I hear

Heyo, I've been herding cats all week, chill folks. To echo the above concerns, I started this thread to get feedback on what I personally was planning to submit. If you have something you want to submit (especially if you are an envoy), go ahead and send it in.

The request was for anything that could be fixed in shamanism.

I'm now accepting feedback on Shamanism from all envoys. If you think
something desperately needs attention, and it would not be viable or
would take an excessive amount of time to fix it through the Envoy
system, please e-mail me a summary of the problem and changes you would
suggest making (iosai@lusternia.com).

Some of the larger stuff would take excessive time (I think) on coding side for a monthly report. Some of the minor stuff would take excessive time on the envoys side (a month) when they are very simple fixes on the coding side (I think, that stuff is always hard to predict). This is my feedback, going through each and every skill, commenting on ways those skills have flaws/can be improved. Many of the abilities are fine as they are, some are fine but could be cooler/easier to use with some tweaking. Some have major problems. I don't expect that all of them go through, and I'm okay with that. If you're not okay with any of this, send your own email!

Already did. It was sent to Iosai yesterday.

RE: Claw


I have 19 int. His robes are 65/73. I subtracted my % damage increase dmp to the appropriate types from his defense dmp and multiplied the damage he took by the result. So, he actually recieved ~1600 damage from my tensed claw effect, but had an overall dmp resistance of 20% and so on

.These tests are unfortunately not really all that exact, but there you go. Armor stats are hard to account for.

Claw (Tensed/no robes) -On Sondayga, 2k damage when adjusted for dmp + 150 bleed. One racial resist level. 1.7s stun. 4.3 second eq when neutral.

Claw (Untensed/no robes) - On Sondayga 1.4k damage when adjusted for dmp + 150 bleed. One racial resist level. same stun. Same eq.

Cudgel w/ Lightning bugs -On sondayga, 1.7k damage when adjusted for dmp + 150 bleed. One racial resist level. 3.8 second eq.

Claw (Tensed/Robes) - 1.3k damage. All else same.

Claw (Untensed/Robes) 1k damage (794 actually received). All else same.


The damage on claw seems to be about right. The stun should definitely go down when the ability is not being tensed compared to when it is, and could stand to be toned down in general.

EDIT: And yeah, holding off on the allergies report while I read back over comments/feedback on the druidry special report to try and work the BT to get the 'remove sap' portion of the special report through the regular report system. IF that happens, there will be far less need to nerf the actual abilities of allergies, we'll just have to slow it down at that point.

The deadline was almost 24 hours ago, we sent one in.

Hopefully one of the people with it can post it!

(Claws wasn't on it though, there was some testing done that came to the same conclusion as yours-- though if you want to do an envoy report to address the stun, or the Blacktalon do, that'd be fine)

- Snipped out the version here-- it was apparently an older one. -

There was also a general belief that frogs could use something, but nobody really liked the solution for it and so it should be gone through in an envoy report with discussion, etc.

- Edit again-- returning what I previously pasted as the only modifications made were typos -

Shamanism Report

To begin with it ought to be made clear that Shamanism is a strong skillset that offers both general use skills as well as utility and situationally useful skills. The concept is one that people really like and largely this is well realised.

However we believe that there are a few things that can be done to improve the use of the skill, as well as address a few concernes have arisen having seen the skill in practice.

----

Problem 1:

One of the biggest problems with Shamanism is the lack of weather everywhere. Shamans are suppose to be masters of the weather, but when they cannot control weather on Astral, Cosmic or certain aetherbubbles, it presents a weakness.
One of the biggest problems with Shamanism, and a factor that causes many Druids to be put off choosing the skill, is the fact that it requires the presence of a weather system in order to be used. Many of the popular combat areas, including Astral, Cosmic and some Aetherbubbles, do not have weather systems. Therefore when fighting in these areas, Shaman are essentially locked out of a huge part of the skill.

Whilst we understand the thematic reason for the lack of weather system in many of these places, we would counter that Druids are still able to meld these areas - so they cannot be resistant to all sorts of nature!

Solution 1:

Allow Shaman to control the weather within their own demesnes on any plane.

Solution 2:

As per solution 1, but on planes without natural weather, have weather effects fire 100% slower (half as often) as planes with natural weather.

-----


Problem 2: Fierceweather ticks once every 6 seconds. This is considered to be far too often as it means that stacking afflictions - especially in sap - is made very easy.

Solution 1:

Reduce Fierceweather ticks to every 8-10 seconds.

(NB - If combined with Solution 2 of Problem 1 this would be every 18-20s).

-----

Problem 3:

Setting up weather systems is already quite time consuming for Shaman - this is made worse when altering wind factors as changing them is slower than changing temperature/precipitation.

Solution 1:

Increase wind changes from 3 knots to 4-5 knots per increase.

-----

Problem 4:

Land has the potential to be a hugely powerful ability. At present, however, it doesn't see much use due to its limited terrain restriction. Whilst it is accepted that this restriction exists to balance out the enemy-only aspect of Land, it is not balancing if the skill ends up seeing no use. Currently it costs 5p.

Solution 1:

Allow Land to be used in swamp/desert terrain rooms, but to offset this, increase the power cost to 8p. (This prevents Land from being spammed, but still allows it to be worth using in certain domoth and other group fighting situations.)

Solution 2:

Increase power cost to 8p, but allow Land to be used within a demesne regardless of terrain by the demesne caster only.

Solution 3:

Increase power cost to 8p, but allow Land to be used within a demesne regardless of terrain. This would work for all druids within the demesne, not just the caster.

-----

Problem 5:

Root Golem is a 5p ent that cannot be ordered to be moved into a different room. This makes it easy to avoid by the target just changing rooms.

Solution 1:

Allow the golem to be ordered to move rooms.

Solution 2:

As solution 1 but only within the terrain type required to summon it.

Solution 3:

As solution 1 but only allow the golem to move in the caster's demesne.

-----

Problem 6:

Quicksand allows the druid to quickly halt all tumbling and slow nearly all movement from a room for 5p. While leap/pogo type movement and CLIMB UP/DOWN bypass this, and though this skill hits everyone - even the caster, it is still quite potent.

Solution 1:

Make quicksand take 10-15 seconds to come into effect in a room. This is not a channeled action, simply a warning before tumbles are disabled. The rubble effect should begin immediately upon casting. Once in effect, everyone who enters that room is instantly within the full quicksand effect, this change is just time at the beginning that the ground is softening up!

-----

Problem 7:

In 1v1 combat, Snowman is not a bad ability - it ticks every 12s which is useful (but not unreasonable) for offering support to building an offence, especially in sap.

However in group situations, because it hits random enemies in the room (rather than a single target) it is unreliable as a part of a structured offense.

Solution 1:

Allow the Shaman to , to direct who the snowman attacks.

Solution 2:

As per solution 1 but also lower the tick time to 10 seconds.

-----

Problem 8:

Micro level weather changes are extremely limited both in degree of change (usually 3-4 factors at most in either direction, or more in one direction only) and in range, being one room only. The degree limit means that micro weather changes are almost never enough to enable or disable effects in a room. Both limits taken together makes all three of these skills essentially cool RP skills. The problem comes in the hefty power price tag on these abilities. This is marked as important as these skills currently occupy no real niche.

Solution 1:

Make all micro level changes free. This doesn't really change anything in combat, as you can't change weather in a demesne that is not yours, and it's non-feasible to change the weather effectively one room at a time.

-----



We think these changes will give Shamanism just enough to make it more widely used, as well as adjusting some of the ease of use without making it too strong. We understand that Druidry in general has recently been improved with the special report and have kept in mind those changes when submitting this report. Changes to druidry in any fashion may require other changes to Shamanism in the future.

Submitted with input from Enyalida, Sidd, Shuyin, Tacita, Vadi and Xenthos.