Huh, the more you know. I wish I had known that about flow during my SD days. I always thought it was a lazy man's autowalker.
Either way, I don't think the brume in 1v1s is a particularly relevant argument since 1v1 isn't all that relevant. Brume shines in small group combat (like war), raids where the blacktalon can't meld or no blacktalon is present, and killboxes (like we had in etherglom yesterday).
Ultimately I found brume's greatest strategic value (or at least when I used it the most) was when you had a druid on your side that didn't know how to control treelife and kept bouncing enemies in and out of safety. They were too busy running for their life or curing or whatever.
Ultimately I think brume is the most balanced counter to forced group splitting that can't be resisted (treelife). You could delete brume's current effect, add movement resistance checks to treelife (and stag toss) and call it even.
Treelife has a easy counter. Read protection scroll, climb down. Unlike the only other ticking demesne splitting effect (in Aquamancy), there isn't anything passive in Druidry that stops you from returning after a second, or that hits the entire enemy group without a lot of time put in by melders in the room of that group.
It's nice noting that treelife has the very easy potential to bone your own team, something always glossed over. Similarly, I've always hated how everyone ignores the fact that always fighting in tree terrain screws over groups in some ways, such as always giving your enemy an avenue around traps and an easily accessed elevation level with which to escape your team. Being able to selectively turn off tree level with the help of Night user friends is a massive boon. In misty dreams of a post-sap druid, I've always envisioned a 'thick canopy' skill that let the druid toggle off the tree elevation for the demesne. Not brume (so, still flying), but no trees.
The big benefit of brume is forcing an enemy team to come in an expected manner, on your terms. Those terms can sometimes screw you too, but they're your terms and you get to decide when you use them with no opportunity cost to doing so. This means that if you hve a tracker on your side, you can force people to hit traps and so on. Yes, it shines in small group combat and killboxes.... so, small group combat and big group combat! Everything but 1v1, which doesn't happen anyways.
I get annoyed by a lot of habits that some people have that they use during combat too! Pulling single players from their group to kill them in a collective few hits, for instance.
This is probably one of the best things to do, honestly. It's easier to break up groups, plus some people will freak out and scramble. It's great
Out of curiosity, if you got rid of brumetower and added resistance checks to treetoss, treelife, would you then still want to get rid of sap? Sap is strong, I agree, but I am wondering if the lower chance to get the person in the trees would have impact on that. Since right now it is 100% the person is going in the trees (barring brumetower), and if they are in the trees they are sapped. If you had to work harder to get them in the trees would that make sap useful, but not over powered as it is?
Or is Sap one of those mechanics that people are just tired of and they want gone no matter what, which is also a fair stance?
Out of curiosity, if you got rid of brumetower and added resistance checks to treetoss, treelife, would you then still want to get rid of sap? Sap is strong, I agree, but I am wondering if the lower chance to get the person in the trees would have impact on that. Since right now it is 100% the person is going in the trees (barring brumetower), and if they are in the trees they are sapped. If you had to work harder to get them in the trees would that make sap useful, but not over powered as it is?
Or is Sap one of those mechanics that people are just tired of and they want gone no matter what, which is also a fair stance?
People hate sap not because of treelife but because it's so strong in specific scenarios and borderline useless in others.
It has no inbetween. Either 2 or 3 people lock you down enough so that you have little to no hope of escape/curing or you have friends that just cleanse you. Adding resistance to treelife doesn't resolve either of these, all it does it stop the annoying elevation bouncing that makes working together on a specific target a pain in the ass.
Sure, things like stagtoss make it more accessible for HS than BT, but even then, it's not the core of the issue.
Sap is either stupidly strong, or too easy to cure (when done right). If you have an observant group, they'll just cleanse the sap and you just wasted 5p. If you catch someone by themselves in sap with your group, they should never ever be able to cure out of it (even with just two people).
1v1 is a different scenario though, it takes better timing, but with allergies, sap is really strong 1v1.
Out of curiosity, if you got rid of brumetower and added resistance checks to treetoss, treelife, would you then still want to get rid of sap? Sap is strong, I agree, but I am wondering if the lower chance to get the person in the trees would have impact on that. Since right now it is 100% the person is going in the trees (barring brumetower), and if they are in the trees they are sapped. If you had to work harder to get them in the trees would that make sap useful, but not over powered as it is?
Or is Sap one of those mechanics that people are just tired of and they want gone no matter what, which is also a fair stance?
People hate sap not because of treelife but because it's so strong in specific scenarios and borderline useless in others.
It has no inbetween. Either 2 or 3 people lock you down enough so that you have little to no hope of escape/curing or you have friends that just cleanse you. Adding resistance to treelife doesn't resolve either of these, all it does it stop the annoying elevation bouncing that makes working together on a specific target a pain in the ass.
Sure, things like stagtoss make it more accessible for HS than BT, but even then, it's not the core of the issue.
Fair enough. I wasn't sure if the meta around sap might change if you had to work harder to get them in the trees to begin with. Though, I don't totally agree with the statement about 2-3 people locking you down as something that is relevant only to Sap. 2-3 people can/should be able to lock you down with the right skill combinations, sap or not.
TBH I can't stand treelife. I seldom use Cavalier anymore because treelife makes my steed skills useless, which is the main reason I took Cavalier. I have found more often than not that Treelife saves my target from death more than it aids in killing them.
I don't care what Celina's feelings on sap wrt deletion are, honestly. We should get rid of sap regardless.
Making it chancier to get someone in the trees wouldn't meaningfully change or alter the power of sap. The issue with sap is that barring a screwup by the druid, your ability to survive it is static - either you have a class ability or friend that saves you, or you don't and you die. On one hand, with any kind of group with even a modicum of battle awareness and coordination, you can shut down a druid pretty damn easily, even a slight screwup means that someone dies. As a result, sap is either tremendously op or useless depending on the scenario, and swings wildly between the two. This isn't a problem in-and-of-itself, you certainly can and should have abilities that are situational. The issue is that the entire archetype (and by extensions portions of every other archetype besides monks) hinges around the potential presence of sap, so when sap isn't a factor in a fight, druids are.... more or less toothless - at least in comparison to mages.
So yes. Druids are very powerful... sometimes, but when they're not they're incredibly underpowered - their secondaries and tertiaries are designed to give a modicum of fairness to a sapped target. To an unsapped target or group, they rank lowest on basically all metrics with some type of mage. While the different sorts of mages might be lowest of all melders on a few of the metrics, they aren't on ALL of them. Lowest/tied for lowest damage. Lowest/tied for lowest afflicting. Lowest/tied for lowest group buff. Lowest/tied for lowest hindering. Lowest/tied for lowest group disruption/scattering/map hiding/that-kind-of-thing. This is made up for the fact that to the single victim of sap at any given time, it's a deathtrap.
It's an issue when the primer group-oriented archetype in your org is actually centered around a 1v1 style mechanic that is obviated by groups. The much-harped on Allergies aren't really much of a factor in any fight that goes over 3 members per side, the way they're implemented makes them a long-term fight decider in situations where the druid has a chance to start allergies on more than one target and wait for them to mature to severe allergies before needing to fully disengage. In other words, even assuming that allergies themselves are overpowered, it just doesn't affect the actual combat meta, which is for long fights but short, violent, bursty engagements.
Personally, I don't think sap is possible to balance. Sap's centrality and concept makes it really sensitive to any changes, because they're compounded across every effect. In the past, this was kind of okay, because curing and tactics were so far from optimal that there were enough variations and screwups on both sides that sap was less deterministic. In those days, the curing delay really wasn't long enough to sap lock someone who was curing most optimally... but only a tiny handful of players (if any) were, so it didn't matter. Improvements to the information provided by the game, platforms (everyone remember playing on ti-84 calcul- I mean zmud?), and coding have removed those uncertainties - nevermind outright changes to the game's mechanics. The sap delay was accordingly increased for 1v1 and small group cases via the allergy mechanic and fiddling with balance times to be able to saplock such cases, which swung things the other way.
EDIT: It's really its own thread, and at this point basically everyone agrees on these facts and that sap should go. The problem is coming up with a viable alternative archetype, because imo druids will need a full overhaul.
I don't think two people can really lock you down in any other situation than sap. Aeon would be the only other skill that would be possible, but it's a lot harder to lock out aeon curing than it is for sap curing. Aeon also cures itself after a set amount of time where as sap doesn't.
I can't really think of any 2 people combinations that I couldn't escape.
It's hard to justify any kind of substantive upgrades or changes to Druids because of sap, even though it's acknowledged that no kind of change will really affect the core issue with sap either way.
It was much the same with Night and Choke, back in the day. While night (and all of the totems skills, honestly) still need facelifts, I feel like a lot more has been done to improve Night and Wicca since the removal of Choke because of it.
Uh awkward. I don't think he asked what your feelings about my feelings are.
Druids aren't remotely as bad at everything as Enyalida makes them out to be, and not many people actually agree that they are terribad at everything, but she's right in that sap consumes such a large part of the druid discussion due to it's potential of being so strong, even if that potential is not often fully realized due to its design limitations (like ally cleanse).
edit: Sidd's correct. There aren't many, or any that I can think of off the top of my head, two man groups that I don't feel comfortable saying I have a reasonable chance of escaping.
I should have phrased that more cleanly. More clearly the question posed "Out of curiosity, if you got rid of brumetower and added resistance checks to treetoss, treelife, would you then still want to get rid of sap? " is coming at the problem wrong. Not only is the 'adding resistance checks' portion irrelevant, so is the "would you then still want" part. Arguments for or against removing sap on the basis of concessions to other mechanics don't really matter.
Treelife has a easy counter. Read protection scroll, climb down. Unlike the only other ticking demesne splitting effect (in Aquamancy), there isn't anything passive in Druidry that stops you from returning after a second, or that hits the entire enemy group without a lot of time put in by melders in the room of that group.
That might be an easy counter for some of you who are able to track those things, but not for everyone. Have we moved from complaining about bonds to complaining about brumetower? Because this argument is getting a bit silly, all abilities should stay right where they are until they are obviously game-breaking and overpowered, which none currently appear to be.
There's a pretty big difference between "complaining about" whatever and responding to misleading (or flat incorrect) comments made. If anything, that post is actually a response to a player 'complaining about treelife'.
My tip is actually to either toggle on protection scroll upkeep or highlight it, and use lust potion. If you aren't the primary target of the melder, it's highly unlikely that they will do more than toss a single dissolve at you, as part of trying to dissolve as many people in the room as possible. If it's clear that they're not scripting some kind of response to you reading protection in their room, it's fine. So yes, you should be tracking what effects are hitting you, what afflictions you're getting, and what defenses are being stripped.
However, the key idea is that you go into the fight with protection scroll - not that you're constantly upkeeping it in the middle of combat. This means that until you've engaged and melders have specifically stripped your protection, you've countered treelife! That's why it's a little confusing to me to argue that brume is okay becauseof treelife having no counters. That's not to say that brume isn't okay, it's just that this one particular argument makes no sense.
At the end of the day, I think that bonds and brume would be a lot more okay if there were reasonable and equivalently meta-useful abilities related to group movement on the 'other side of the game'. Part of the issue is that what the 'other side' is changes, and that other orgs don't necessarily have enough focus in their mechanical design to have coherent useful counterplay. That's not really Night's fault.
Upkeeping protection during a fight is generally a bad idea - it shouldn't be suggested as an option. I see the point and validity about upkeeping it if you are not the main target, but that's more situational awareness than anything else.
It costs you eq to put up protection. It costs the mage/druid nothing to strip it again. If you're in a fight, you're better off attacking and just climbing down when you get hit with treelife than you are keeping it up. The only time that'd be an issue is when you're trying a timed insta or something.
Right, especially don't toggle on fully automatic keepup of protection scroll if enemy melders clearly have a scripted handler for tacking a dissolve on the end of every equilibrium action. That'll screw you over badly.
I'm a bit late on this, and the last time I was even remotely a combatant was at least two years ago, but Brumetower seems a lot more harsh on BT than HS.
If nothing has changed, BT's primary kill condition was Swoop, which required perching in the trees and the target be below a certain percentage on mana.
HS's primary kill condition would appear to be damage, via Gore which is a health-based kill. (then again, I didn't do much in the way of combat since I've come back, just now got a system).
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Feel free to ignore or just say I'm a jackass for talking shit about something that I haven't messed with in a good while, but those kill conditions on their own would seem to imply that the BT are automatically at a disadvantage in a brumetowered room.
Eh, either way the actual kill condition is 'stick target in sap'. What you do after that point is largely a matter of taste. It's a silly point anyways, BT can just ask their Night using friends to cut it out with the brumetower at their leisure.
I think the main argument of bonds is pretty invalid. Every class has mechanics that- when used in a group, will help that group more successful. Staticfield, Aeon, Sap, Bonds, Aquamancer Bubble, even frickin' manabarbs is OP in a group.
No skills in this game are abused right now. There are some classes that obviously suck right now (IE Nihilists) but nothing is abused.
Why can't it just be okay that you don't like some skills that we have and I don't like some skills that you have? Last time I checked, good combatants didn't whine about how they didn't get their way or like the way their class mechanics were. They figured out a way to work with what they had to win at any costs.
This is a game. Why on earth would you get mad because you don't like how someone else's class plays? I personally picked Harbinger because I like the class independent of what it's like compared to the other guilds. I'm not going to carry on to nerf Tarot just because I don't get to use it.
These are my rules for gaming now.
1) Stop complaining.
2) Do what you want.
3) Have fun while you do it.
If I can't do these three things, I'm finding a new game. My life is too short for doing things that stress me out.
Just saying: give Celina, Sidd, Shuyin, and freaking VIYNAIN access to WildArrane and they'll show you how it's done.
Viravain, Lady of the Thorns shouts, "And You would seize Me? Fool! I am the Glomdoring! I am the Wyrd, and beneath the cloak of Night, the shadows of the Silent stir!"
Just saying: give Celina, Sidd, Shuyin, and freaking VIYNAIN access to WildArrane and they'll show you how it's done.
Genuinely curious. Why did Wildarrane show up?
Brume is bad for druids, I am not sure that anyone should really dispute that. Sure, people have a tendency to get heated (I won't name them), or break into bickering, but does anyone honestly disagree that brumetower is bad for druids? Stops being in trees. Not really a debate if that screws up the druid.
Brume in groups hurts, some. It effects both sides, but option of when to use something is the main problem from the other side. I will never use brume if it hurts me more than you, so it always works when I want it to. Most skills are like this. That said, brume still leaves room for changes.
Bonds is bad for the people outside the room. It is used almost purely to protect those inside. Clearly this makes it good, and there is no counter you really have to this. Your options are the same options that weren't magic. Balance it, do not allow magic movement into bonds (this stops it being one sided, but continues to allow breaking).
That said..........
Staticfield should be completely changed, not even remotely retain its current status. Too powerful for control, as it can literaly stop entire groups on its own, much less trying to kill the person with it. It needs either massive cooldowns/weakening or it just needs to go away. There is no counter (the same problem with most of the above that people are citing), and it influences whole events on its own.
Forcewall needs a counter, or to make the caster always able to be attacked so you can't shield them or such. Alternatively, changes in other ways to make this useful, without being unstoppable.
Bubble I am okay with, as no one can attack the person in bubble, though the movement thing sucks.
Aeon can go away, it is a crutch affliction that is mainly spammed in groups, but lacks any actual skill behind it generally. It COULD require skill, but it doesn't. I would also be happy if we could just make it not a borderline instant deathwish in groups.
Sap is meh. Going away though.
Since we are ranting on skills..... trueheal. Trueheal should have more penalties, like 15s eq, strips defenses, etc. Full Moon should also not give prismatic and stuff, or other nerfs like higher power cost.
Ok, done with the skill wash. Did I do it right? Many of these need changes, but I have yet to find any real faith in changes for most of it. You are better off asking for a buff to an existing skill to counter another. More likely to get a buff than wait on an envoy for a nerf to their own skills (with some exceptions).
Static field saves more enemies than condemns them, imho. You need quick enemying/unenemying skills to use it properly.
But I'm not surprised that the South has managed to turn this into a rant at the North about "grass is greener" and "obvious partisan ideas" about Bonds instead of looking at the glaring problems with it. I haven't seen one single viable and cost-effective way to counter Bonds yet. The only thing productive about this thread is that we ferreted out a supposed bug in beckon.
Wildarrane pales in comparison to CrowCaw spam. I've never known a more spammable bard option than CrowCaw outside of PFarewell (and even then, CrowCaw is cheaper).
StaticField is an amazing skill. It is a skill that is completely designed for group combat in a game that pretends to be viable 1v1, and it does not save enemies. Stop that shenanigans right now.
Bonds is an amazing skill that is designed for group combat in a poor attempt to represent 1v1 viability combat.
Aeon(ETA: +sap which is advanced aeon) is a crutch mechanic to compensate for lack of affliction building outside of spamming affliction blockers.
/Thread.
2014/04/19 01:38:01 - Leolamins drained 2000000 power to raise Silvanus as a Vernal Ascendant.
2014/07/23 05:01:29 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Munsia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:07 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Arimisia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:58 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Lavinya as a Vernal Ascendant.
Okay, since Yarith won't, I'll just say that I, as a former Aerochem and even now as I watch Falmiis, have seen Static field save radded or beckoned enemies many a time. It's not shenanigans.
Okay, since ALLY 1 won't, I'll just say that I, as a former CLASS HERE and even now as I watch ALLY 2, have seen SKILL (EX: FEARAURA/TREELIFE/REALITY/LITERALLY ANY GROUP SPLITTING ABILITY) save radded or beckoned enemies many a time. It's not shenanigans.
Comments
The big benefit of brume is forcing an enemy team to come in an expected manner, on your terms. Those terms can sometimes screw you too, but they're your terms and you get to decide when you use them with no opportunity cost to doing so. This means that if you hve a tracker on your side, you can force people to hit traps and so on. Yes, it shines in small group combat and killboxes.... so, small group combat and big group combat! Everything but 1v1, which doesn't happen anyways.
Or is Sap one of those mechanics that people are just tired of and they want gone no matter what, which is also a fair stance?
Fair enough. I wasn't sure if the meta around sap might change if you had to work harder to get them in the trees to begin with. Though, I don't totally agree with the statement about 2-3 people locking you down as something that is relevant only to Sap. 2-3 people can/should be able to lock you down with the right skill combinations, sap or not.
TBH I can't stand treelife. I seldom use Cavalier anymore because treelife makes my steed skills useless, which is the main reason I took Cavalier. I have found more often than not that Treelife saves my target from death more than it aids in killing them.
So yes. Druids are very powerful... sometimes, but when they're not they're incredibly underpowered - their secondaries and tertiaries are designed to give a modicum of fairness to a sapped target. To an unsapped target or group, they rank lowest on basically all metrics with some type of mage. While the different sorts of mages might be lowest of all melders on a few of the metrics, they aren't on ALL of them. Lowest/tied for lowest damage. Lowest/tied for lowest afflicting. Lowest/tied for lowest group buff. Lowest/tied for lowest hindering. Lowest/tied for lowest group disruption/scattering/map hiding/that-kind-of-thing. This is made up for the fact that to the single victim of sap at any given time, it's a deathtrap.
At the end of the day, I think that bonds and brume would be a lot more okay if there were reasonable and equivalently meta-useful abilities related to group movement on the 'other side of the game'. Part of the issue is that what the 'other side' is changes, and that other orgs don't necessarily have enough focus in their mechanical design to have coherent useful counterplay. That's not really Night's fault.
Staticfield, Aeon, Sap, Bonds, Aquamancer Bubble, even frickin' manabarbs is OP in a group.
No skills in this game are abused right now. There are some classes that obviously suck right now (IE Nihilists) but nothing is abused.
Why can't it just be okay that you don't like some skills that we have and I don't like some skills that you have? Last time I checked, good combatants didn't whine about how they didn't get their way or like the way their class mechanics were. They figured out a way to work with what they had to win at any costs.
This is a game. Why on earth would you get mad because you don't like how someone else's class plays? I personally picked Harbinger because I like the class independent of what it's like compared to the other guilds. I'm not going to carry on to nerf Tarot just because I don't get to use it.
These are my rules for gaming now.
But I'm not surprised that the South has managed to turn this into a rant at the North about "grass is greener" and "obvious partisan ideas" about Bonds instead of looking at the glaring problems with it. I haven't seen one single viable and cost-effective way to counter Bonds yet. The only thing productive about this thread is that we ferreted out a supposed bug in beckon.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it