I mean... yeah, stealth is kinda underwhelming if you aren't a Thief with an ability that rhymes with annihilate and does precisely that.

But that said I don't think this ability is bad or misplaced, as it's definitely something I think falls within the Warrior Mage wheelhouse, just maybe not implemented with as much finesse as it could have been.

I think if you make the damage nonstacking and bump the cost up it'd probably be fine.

---

Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

> I think if you make the damage nonstacking and bump the cost up it'd probably be fine.

I believe thinking along these lines is a mistake. Nerve damage should be reviewed and scaled better so that a novice and a circle 200 both feel the effects in a similar way. Right now every level of nerve damage does the exact same thing to each character regardless of circle/stats or anything else for that matter. If this were scaled off of, for lack of better, fortitude stats and circle then by raising your stats and circle you alter your resistance to nerve damage. At the lower level a cap could be put into place so that you can at least cast, maybe not at your personal cap though. And at the upper end a player with completely destroyed nerves would not be capping their buff spells.

This can lead into nerve damage actually meaning something again. As it is now though at low levels you are shut down, but at higher levels it really is just a minor inconvenience.

I stand behind that nerve damage is in need of a review then if stacking nerve damage or cost is a problem deal with that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with how this spell was designed. What I can see from reading these forums, though, is that people don't like being able to be hit with something they can't avoid.

Well, there are a lot of spells or abilities that I cannot avoid, that I do not like.
-I don't like that Bards (DALU) spell knocks me over repeatedly and puts me to sleep on subsequent successes. (stacking, like EE in a way.) -Agility (stat), -Reflex (stat), -Strength (stat), Sleeps the target you are facing.
-I don't like that Moon Mages (MB) spell does the following: Single target nerve damage, stun, sleep, disarm. For one spell.
-I don't like that Thieves have a KHRI that completely negates my armor and there's nothing I can do about it, as far as I know.
-I don't like that Necromancers can dump constructs (like zombies) in the room that can be equipped with ranged weapons that can attack me.
-I don't like several things about Barbarians, including the anti-magic abilities, roar, and others.

As a WM, versus a stealth-based character, I feel there is little I can do to turn the contest in my favor. Before this spell, there was Fire Rain, which does not follow me from room to room if I need to move, and Rimefang, which needs an opponent to be engaged with me in melee to hit.

What other spell do I have in my toolset that I can use to protect myself that's mobile from a stealthier? Only this new spell, EE. Which does not cause vitality damage, but nerve damage, giving the opponent a slightly harder time in the battle to hide, but by no means making it impossible for them to hide and do damage on me.

There is no movement penalty. You are not slept. You do not get stunned, your body wracked with muscle spasms because you are paralyzed. Which would make sense to me to be added to the spell, if anything, because spells like DALU start sleeping you with more successes. So why doesn't EE have the ability to stun once the enemy has lost so many contests and has completely fried nerves?

There are things about Warrior Mages that could use looking at.
- If I train hiding, and use the spell Rising Mists, this even benefits a stealther because it's a room spell! Moon Mages have Shadows, and Necros have Eyes of the Blind (I think). Why is my hiding spell buff benefiting everyone, and not just me?
- Bows are in our SoI but we have a shield penalty when using it while wearing one. Dislike. Suggest making tailwind negate shield penalty.

I really do not see any problem with this spell EE spell whatsoever. Move out of the room and apply the herb to heal nerve damage when it gets bad, if its causing that much trouble then come back in and fight some more. I seriously doubt it makes a stealth class unable to win a fight because they have nerve damage. What I think it DOES do is make the Warrior Mage have a bit more viability against a stealth class, and that I like.

Please do not nerf this spell because the 'I hide you can't see me lalala and I win' crowd is upset. It fills a gap in my toolset that is desperately needed. I finally have a spell that I can move from room to room with that protects me from something other than just targeted magic.

Xionara Swiftstrike

I'm actually a little confused as to why EE costs 3 when the standard for AoE debilitation appears to be 4. If anything it should cost 5 but I don't expect that to be very popular.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

> If I train hiding, and use the spell Rising Mists, this even benefits a stealther because it's a room spell! Moon Mages have Shadows, and Necros have Eyes of the Blind (I think). Why is my hiding spell buff benefiting everyone, and not just me?

While most other magic using guilds have spells that help out others most of the WM stuff I view as being a bit selfish. I like the idea that my WM is selfish with his buffs. But when it comes down to casting something that he intends to effect the area I also like the fact that he does not waste time trying to be selfish and either explodes the area with TM or debilitation. As far as RM goes I see that as more he does not care about the status of the enemy only himself.

> Bows are in our SoI but we have a shield penalty when using it while wearing one. Dislike. Suggest making tailwind negate shield penalty.

This I would really like to see. Being armor tert is what is holding them back with the worn shield penalty toward bows and it would not hurt my feelings to see an ability like tailwind mitigate this especially considering that both bows and shield are within SOI. I also understand the SOI really has nothing to do with skillset placement and is only really used to determine buff strength. It's not like we would be asking for dual-load at least not yet anyway.

As to the rest of your post...I agree with you for what it's worth.

>>I'm actually a little confused as to why EE costs 3 when the standard for AoE debilitation appears to be 4. If anything it should cost 5 but I don't expect that to be very popular.<<

It's Cyclic. Cyclic is -1 slot.

>>It would work the same way MB does now, where the amount of nerve damage is essentially capped by the degree of success you achieve, rather than stacking to infinity with subsequent hits.<<

MB's nerve damage will stack once the diminishing returns period runs out, I'm pretty sure. It's not capped per se, just capped within a period.

Mazrian

>>MB's nerve damage will stack once the diminishing returns period runs out, I'm pretty sure. It's not capped per se, just capped within a period.

Nope. What stacking you see with MB is that it's easier to succeed in a vs. Will contest if your opponent has nerve damage, so the win amount goes up and a new threshold of nerve damage is reached.

Equal or lesser consecutive wins on MB will not stack the damage up.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

Well, it's off topic, but -
The reason why I don't like RM affecting the room rather than me is because that makes it useless to me in PVP. PVE it's fine. I can't imagine ever casting it to help someone else hide better along with myself.

I wouldn't mind YS being modified to be more useful, and negate the shield penalty. It might make more sense than Tailwind. It wouldn't be the only change that's needed to YS to make it viable, though, from what I understand, but it would help.

Thanks for your response. It's a bit disheartening to see so many people attacking this new spell when really it could be doing more, like stun/knockdown, for another spell slot.

Xionara Swiftstrike

>>Nope. What stacking you see with MB is that it's easier to succeed in a vs. Will contest if your opponent has nerve damage, so the win amount goes up and a new threshold of nerve damage is reached.<<

Neat, I learned a thing. Thanks.

Mazrian

Anyone claiming to have their casting completely shut down by this spell is just lying, plain and simple. What the truth is - you need to cast at 5-20% less mana than whatever you can normally cast at if you are COMPLETELY. I just had this tested against my CIRCLE ONE BARD, and complete paralysis didn't stop me from casting ANYTHING AT ALL.

>> No, it's about the slot cost being too low, the mana cost Extremely too low, and the OP nature of stacking nerve damage on an undispellable/uninterruptable cyclic.

Yeeep.

>> I personally think EE should retain stacking nerve damage because without it, it does make a choice as a cyclic questionable.

That and parity between comparable abilities. MB should have stacking nerve damage too if that has been deemed an acceptable thing for a debilitator to do. In the past when Moon Mages asked for such a thing it was deemed too powerful. If that has changed, whoopee.

At the very least though the cost needs to be high enough that you need to use the spell strategically, not merely throw it up and forget about it until your opponent's nerves are fried.

>> Unrelated to EE, I wish all cyclics were interruptable and endable by Dispel type spells and abilities, tanked concentration, stunning, sleeping or otherwise unconscious states.

Agreed with all of these.

---

Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

I do not think that MB should be buffed because EE was released.

MB for its cost does 4 things versus 1 thing that EE does. EE having stacking nerve damage makes it viable. If the spell is changed I likely won't take it, because it won't be worth having if it's negated too easily.

Please leave it alone :)

Xionara Swiftstrike

I think anyone claiming that nerve damage (stacking or otherwise) is OP needs to actually sit down and test what nerve damage really does. More accurately, what it doesn't do.

Complete paralysis does so little that its actually hard to test, ranging from a circle 1 fresh from the character manager to nearly circle 150.

Without changing my scripts/preps/etc, I have gone through my out-of-combat rotations AND gone to hunt at level while being apparently UNAFFECTED by the fact that I was completely paralyzed for the whole thing. Reactions are overblown /thread

Honestly even the pulling people out of hiding at missile thing by itself is really powerful and even if the nerve damage capped really low if you can't completely shut down someone's stealth between EE and Arc Light you need to l2wm.

I don't anticipate that the spell will be nerfed into the ground or anything but it'll be interesting to see how it's rebalanced with all these concerns in mind.

---

Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

Since we're all throwing out opinions out there, and the PvP crowd seems to be highly active on the forums.

I'm not sure I have seen one complaint about the PvE nature of the spell. As someone who has never engaged in PvP, I think the spell is fine and I would prefer dev time be put towards other ends.

Do I want to wade into this? Yes, I guess I do. Because I'm concerned that the comments from a few survival prime people will dominate the conversation. So here are my replies to the various points raised.

1) We shouldn't even be having this conversation - This spell has been out for less than a week. There's literally no way to determine the effects this spell has on the overall balance of the game regarding PvP yet. Maybe in a few months. What we have right now are the emotional reactions based on a handful of experiences. On the face of it, this spell isn't so crazy as to not give it a chance... so, why aren't we?

Judging from the level of reaction here, it seems to me - and this is the most forums-friendly way I can think to put this - some people are used to not having to worry about anything a certain guild can do to them at anything approaching parity of skill and are now very VERY upset that there's something to be concerned about.

>> Remind me to go to the other class boards whenever useful new abilities are developed that can help low-to-mid range characters and attempt to get them turned down or made ineffectual. It appears that is the thing to do around these parts.

Yeah, seriously. This reminds me of RL lobbyists.


2) A 20% debuff is no big deal - If we can stop for a minute, can we acknowledge all of the crazy things other debilitations can do and acknowledge that that level of debuff (assuming what Raesh said is accurate) is nothing out of the ordinary? My experience with nerve damage and casting tells me a %20 penalty there sounds about right as well.


3) "It should not stack and cost more" - Cyclics are already pretty costly as an opportunity cost. And putting in a ton of mana into a cyclic spell eliminates other options too. If it didn't stack it would eliminate the point of being a cyclic, and if it didn't stack and cost more, it would probably not see much of any use. Again, let's look at the size of the penalty and see.


4) Nonmagical ways to stop cyclics - Seriously? Setting aside how that would possibly work in the lore, IMO, a way to stop cyclics should require a slot cost, and preclude the use of other abilities, just as spell slots do for magic-using guilds. At best I could see a magical item from the enchanting system that can shut down buffs/cyclics for one person or a room, but it should shut down all buff abilities that interface the supernatural in any way, including Khri and Inner Fire abilities.


5) Concentration on Cyclics - A standard concentration check doesn't seem too bad at each pulse, but I would like to see the cost-benefit looked at for cyclics, and I'd want to make sure that you get to use the same "roll" for each check. In other words, if I keep casting the cyclic until I can get that 25 point cyclic cast without backfiring, I should get to use that roll for all subsequent concentration checks, taking into account the new penalties I have, of course. If not, the danger of a poor roll on one of those checks means that every cyclic gets a serious de-faco nerf as everyone has to lower the mana usage.


6) Spell slots cost of EE - There's a slot cost reduction for cyclics. My guess is that it was considered a 4, and then brought down to 3 by being a cyclic. See DEMA, and AEWO for other examples of this.


7) It can't be healed and this is horrible - This just doesn't seem like a big deal to me, especially given the numbers we're talking about. If someone is affecting me with spells, I'm going to get raked over the coals by that stuff the entire fight, regardless of what it is. To me, the point is irrelevant to the point of wanting to dismiss this issue entirely. If this is the sticking point, though, I could see capping the nerve damage based on how the contest goes (like MB), but also giving a stealth debuff on top of that for as long as the cyclic is active and you're being affected, as a full potency debuff, based on the stat contest.

For example, you get hit with EE. Nerve damage happens, and it's 10% to physical actions and spellcasting because you got halfway down on nerve damage. You're also affected with a debuf to physical skills and spellcasting - all the same stuff nerves do. When the cyclic is released, the debuff is gone but the nerves stay. Yes, this might mean that when affected you might potentially be under a greater penalty than was possible with the spell as it is now, due to the stat contests. And this is the only way I would be ok with capping damage. But, honestly, it seems like spliting hairs to me.


- Saragos

>>1) We shouldn't even be having this conversation

When a spell is still on preview, before anyone has actually invested slots into it, is the most appropriate time for fine tuning it. I welcome your input but I will disregard attempts to summarily shut down discussion as long as everyone can comport themselves well.

>>Setting aside how that would possibly work in the lore, IMO

How it should work in the lore is anything that interrupts your ability to keep one rigorous line of thought going constantly should disrupt the Cyclic. Whether or not we will do this for game-balance sake is under discussion.



-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

I agree with Saragos in that we shouldn't have the conversation to "nerf" it yet only because I think more testing would be appropriate with characters in appropriate ranges squaring off against each other and see how things pan out. After having a bunch of data available I would like more discussion. Right now it seems, to me, like a lot of jumping to conclusions.

I can't imagine that a 20% debuff in ranks is going to cause much of a problem in a survival primary guild, versus one that is survival tertiary. Ranks in those skills, such as stealth, should be extremely high, the way magic skills are easily high for WM. Versus a warrior mage's perception, which is learning at the slow rate. The way my ranks are now, if my understanding of everything is correct, the opponent would still be able to hide with the max nerve debuff.

My offer stands for anyone within range of me that is stealth-based to contact me in game for a testing session.

Xionara Swiftstrike

Oh hi,

Constructive feedback on the spell is welcome.

Constructive feedback on Thief things, should be in the thief folder, Clerics, the cleric folder and so on.

General magic issues should never be an Guild vs Guild conversation because they never go constructively, and those should take place over in Abilities, Skills and Magic.

And finally,further bickering regardless of it being off topic, will be removed.

Annwyl
Message Board Supervisor

If you've questions or comments, take it to e-mail by writing me at DR-Annwyl@play.net.

EE is the first cyclic a WM can grab, I think. Before AC or any TM. I'm sitting at 17 and can cast it. Need to get arcana up to 100 for the feat though.

As the target customer, I'm quite excited. Once I get another 200+ ranks in magics, sure I'll swap out something else. But it's still cool.