Just like every AOE, right?

Mazrian

Shouldn't that show up in Assess? When were trying it out, the empath facing the WM retreated from combat, left the room and returned. Assess didn't show her engaged but EE continued to strike her when she returned.

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I like the spell, I think it's fitting of the elemental realm - especially electrical.

I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about stat vs stat/barrier damage without skill checks (due to some TDP gap stuff), but I appreciate the variety.

I've only tested with a handful, but can't all AoEs pull from hiding? I vaguely remember stuff like VS, RoS, and DALU hitting everything engaged too.

The only thing that I think it potentially out of whack here is a Debil doing physical damage. Maybe applying a debuff of 'electrified' or something would be a bit more in line, but then it's no different really than DALU/HYH-MALE, etc. So, I dunno. It's pretty cool.

>Just train your primary skills and you can completely circumvent a whole tert skill check.

It's something like a 75% chance to unhide, at complete paralysis of the entire body. And it's quite a few pulses to get to complete paralysis of the entire body. That doesn't scream "completely circumvent" to me.

>Damage scale is off, people with literally half the skill of others and 20 stat points behind are frying others.

Damage is based off winning the contest. And it's the same contest as any Magic vs Fortitude spell. Give me some hard examples (i.e. names of Caster/Target) and I'll investigate the numbers. It's entirely possible the damage is a little high, but it didn't seem that bad from my testing.

>I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about stat vs stat/barrier damage without skill checks

This is not the first spell that uses SvS to do nerve damage.

Javac
That one guy

If you have questions or comments in regard to this post please email me at DR-JAVAC@play.net.

I think this spell causes a lot of static because prior to this, stealth fighters had all the initiative vs Warrior Mages. A fight with a thief was a fight the WM had to work to win, and the Thief just sort of had to be Thiefly for. Now that dynamic is a little different in some cases.

I for one am enjoying some role reversal.

Mazrian

Diminishing returns only applies to crowd control. Cyclic debilitation that does crowd control isn't desirable for that reason in many cases (ie: Those where diminishing returns apply.)

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

I'm just going to throw this out there - and maybe I'm entirely off base (I won't pretend to be super up to date on PvP).

Is part of the problem the fact that it's hard to stop a cyclic spell once someone has started one? They can't be dispelled and really all they check after you've started them is that you have enough mana to feed them. This is a concern we've internally discussed in the past.

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

The only defense ANYone has aside from the stat check is a thief really off the top of my head... And the only possible way that could be done that I can think of is to clout the hell out of someone over and over and over until they have absolutely no concentration. I'd have to test it. Either way, it's not feasible at all really, not from a defensive standpoint.

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

Yes... the point of PVP is taking away someone elses vit before they take yours. You are starting to grasp the concept. lol

The concentration thing was a stab in the dark and an idea I just had. I appreciate you posting about that.

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

Hay, Raesh.


>>Is part of the problem the fact that it's hard to stop a cyclic spell once someone has started one? They can't be dispelled and really all they check after you've started them is that you have enough mana to feed them. This is a concern we've internally discussed in the past.<<

I don't know if it's a problem. It's a feature common to a whole bunch of "passively on" abilities in PvP:

Cyclic spells, non-ablative Wards, the cleric spell Sanyu Lyba, and others. Once they're in place you either have the raw numbers to power through them or they're sitting there messing you up and forcing you to figure out how to work around the disadvantage. Often that means you just lose.

Anything I can throw up that sits there and messes with my opponent while I'm free to do other things is going to be really good in PvP.

Mazrian

>It's also a debuff that's more akin to getting a leg lopped off.you can't dispel, rend etc it off.

But you can eat an herb (no RT) and have a pulsing counter to it.

>Further that with the fact that this new spell also has a high chance of popping people from hiding..

The first pulse, if you cap winning the contest, is less than 15% chance to unhide.

>How fast are the pulses?

The spell pulses every 16 seconds, I believe. I'd have to do a bunch of math I don't want to do at the moment, but I think it's somewhere between a minute and a minute and a half to hit complete paralysis if you cap winning the contest.

These numbers don't seem unreasonable to me, given that they require you to win the contest by a lot. If you're just barely winning the contest, it's going to take you forever.

Javac
That one guy

If you have questions or comments in regard to this post please email me at DR-JAVAC@play.net.

The hostility in this thread has been noted and needs to be taken down a notch before it becomes A Problem.

-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

>That's a little scary. Anything reasonably at-level, pvp wise, takes a lot longer than a minute.

Any reasonably at-level contest probably is not capping the contest win.

Javac
That one guy

If you have questions or comments in regard to this post please email me at DR-JAVAC@play.net.

>>Any reasonably at-level contest probably is not capping the contest win.

That's a tough call because at-level is usually a comparison of skill ranks, not stats. Since there is no skill contest with this, only stats, it opens up a different issue of comparison entirely.

Also, it's magic vs fortitude. In the realm of things, it's pretty common for most MUs to pump disc/int/wis early on (as well as most guilds) because of the experience/training alone. Fortitude of disc/str/stam isn't as common either, especially in the realm of thieves. Discipline, sure.. but not so much on strength and stamina.

Perhaps serenity could be expanded so that it isn't just vs Will? Seems a little narrow when MUs have Lay Ward and Barbs have their own Serenity, Turtle, etc.

I don't think that would "fix" it but it'd at least improve upon it.

>>Barbs have great anti-magic barriers. Thieves don't, but meh every guild has its blind spots?

Barbs do have anti-magic barriers that are pretty good. Do I think they are necessarily better than a combination of lay ward and the higher tdp gain that an MU gets? I don't think so, since that's just reactionary defense and they miss out on the TDPs for offensive roars. However, that being said.. I was primarily focusing on thieves.

It's a pretty big blind spot. Thieves have no real counter to it other than staying at missile (it doesn't hit at missile, does it?) and snipe, and hope they don't get seen when you use WATCH on them. But to have a chance at popping from hiding, while giving nerve damage, and there being no skill check.. IMO.. I think that's a little too much in the realm of balancing things. But I guess that's just my opinion.

>>I mean, there are a TON of things I find really annoying to deal with as a WM player - things for which I have no practical mechanical answer except "get more numbers".

I mean, the answer for eddy is basically "get more numbers" when it comes to thieves, and even then, assuming equal training, it won't be enough.

I'm not sure of your stats, but we can do testing of Mazrian vs some of my characters without barriers to see how things go. Just understand thieves are at a natural disadvantage - and personally I'm not trying to promote that as I'd prefer things to be more "balanced" overall.

Unless of course the goal of balancing is to introduce things that are hard for individual guilds to counter intentionally. I wouldn't be adverse to that either, just doesn't sound like the 3.0/3.1 way.

I love you but it's hard not to gloat at you, man. =)

It's impossible, with equal training time, for a Warmage's perception to keep up with a thief's Stealth ranks + passive bonus + abilities. That's by design. The only way a WM wins that check is by outclassing the thief.

I spent so many years PvPing in that dynamic and having to rely on intuition, timing, and luck to work around a stealth check that would lose me a fight guaranteed if I didn't do everything right. Now the tables have turned just a little bit, and Thieves have to consider timing and intution and have some luck to deal with EE (or just not tip a Warmage off that they're coming...), and you're mad about it.

Mazrian

I'd like Stealth to do something other than just 'provide optimized alpha strike and then be completely eliminated due to WATCH or other abilities that screw with engagement'. I don't have an easy answer for what that is.

>>I'm not sure of your stats, but we can do testing of Mazrian vs some of my characters without barriers to see how things go.

For sure. We can do it later tonight.

>>But to have a chance at popping from hiding, while giving nerve damage, and there being no skill check.. IMO.. I think that's a little too much in the realm of balancing things. But I guess that's just my opinion.<<

>>But to have a chance at popping from hiding, while giving nerve damage, and there being no skill check.. IMO.. I think that's a little too much in the realm of balancing things. But I guess that's just my opinion.<<

>>I mean, the answer for eddy is basically "get more numbers" when it comes to thieves, and even then, assuming equal training, it won't be enough.

They could choose to prioritize Fort save stats. Otherwise, they can try to time the pulses and bank on the small chance of being revealed not hitting before they can slow roll the WM with clouts and backstabs. Maybe hit and run, come back when Alpha strike is available again, things like that.

IDK. Like I replied to Elec, for years my life or death vs. Thieves depended on "Did I guess the timing on this AOE spell correctly so I pull him out before I get Ambush Slashed" or "Did I juke into the next room before he got a stalk off" because there was literally no way to win that stealth contest against anyone at level. So I have little sympathy for "but...I might get popped out of hiding too early if I mistime this".

>>Unless of course the goal of balancing is to introduce things that are hard for individual guilds to counter intentionally. I wouldn't be adverse to that either, just doesn't sound like the 3.0/3.1 way.<<

WMs and Clerics both have it really rough against Thieves and have since forever, I think?


Mazrian

There was a lot of discussion in the past of using Stealth as a kind of 'sneaky combat akin to tactics', and making a handful of combat maneuvers that utilize stealth for various effects, to make 'stealth combat' not be a binary of 'attacking from hiding' or 'not attacking from hiding'. I am all about abilities that pull someone from hiding, and think thematically and mechanically they make sense, but I think this sort of means Stealth needs some additional attention to increase the breadth and depth of what it offers.