Actually. Thinking on Lerad's comments more, I definitely think that punches, kicks and grapples should come in a variety of at least three each. Playing Tahtetso before the overhaul, and, up until recently, was just one kick. When you are limited in that form you lose a LOT of versatility and your offensive tree becomes much more linear.
(I'm the mom of Hallifax btw, so if you are in Hallifax please call me mom.)
== Professional Girl Gamer == Yes I play games Yes I'm a girl get over it
Actually. Thinking on Lerad's comments more, I definitely think that punches, kicks and grapples should come in a variety of at least three each. Playing Tahtetso before the overhaul, and, up until recently, was just one kick. When you are limited in that form you lose a LOT of versatility and your offensive tree becomes much more linear.
The problem becomes giving people too much versatility. You want to keep most very strong affs off kicks, because they can't be parried and rebounding is going away. Grapples are getting some love across the board, but if the initial grapple isn't useful there's little reason to use it since you may not hit the ender. That leaves arm actions and there's only so much you can throw on there before you end up with too many choices, not enough space. Personally I think the balance of each kind of attack is decent, but we can prove that out in testing.
So this is probably too little too late, but I was out of cell/internet range most of the weekend.
One comment in addition to @Malarious about Ninombhi. Our kill condition requires dysentery but we can only afflict with it directly from centered stance? If the concern is Mutilatedarms lock, why can't we make it so that Mutilate limbs only works on Centered but the other effects work on any?
Or, like Tahtetso, make it so that mutilate only works on Surge stance?
* Shofangtree? Really? I mean sure it kind of lines up, but man. At least fit their naming style, they dont start skills with "shofangi", call it Bogtree?
* Do not like headbutt. Random chance of stun or something? Meh. Why give them a random free stun? This can even mess with other stuns. I'd just remove this as an unneeded skill unless we have something more tied to it.
* Logami would play in well with grapple changes. Grapples already stopped movement, making this one be a FULL stop while it lasts (still auto times out) would give it the niche.
* I don't like stomp having eq/bal loss, but at least this is an active attack with a pre-req. Does this require prone or sprawled though? Is this easy to trigger by using with paralysis?
* Bogami means it doubles current bleeding or does twice the normal bleed? Should probably not be the first.
* Tomati does a crapton of bleeding, keep in mind other boosts. Not sure this is healthy if you can do 900 bleeding in one form. Should likely change gut to something else.
* I like ram, "destroy a wall or person blocking an exit". Block them at your own peril eh?
Dust is not majorly stacked, all their dust affs are grapples and enders really.
Not a lot to say here right now.
Still issues with too much bleeding available, but then the insta is questionable. Either you can affrod to clot and laugh or you can't.
I personally like Shofangtree more than our grapple/ender names. Then again I'm a fan of the simpler names like buck/heelslam/bullkick/etc. Obv. it needs to be called ClimbingBull instead.
I'd like to go one of two directions with headbutt, either it should be removed or it should be something that interacts with stance bonuses. Since my fellow Shofangi @Bandeon is against that second idea I'm fine with just removing it. I am not worried about a stun ruining your own combo because that means that you have to actually think about when to use headbutt which is a-ok by me. The thing that bothers me about headbutt now is it's something that you just throw in there at random because it might do something for you.
I don't think stomp's eq/bal loss is a big deal at all. All non-sprawl effects of stomp require sprawl which would be frightening with current shofangi but overhaul shofangi don't have a lot of ways outside of stomp itself to sprawl someone. Basically this is a thing you could do reliably on center stance and that'd be about it. I personally am planning on using my stomp towards other things.
Can you explain the tomati form you're seeing that could cause 900 bleeding? The most I'm seeing is Tomati on killer causing 500 + 15% which is 575 bleeding. Bleeding enhancements might add more and we also don't know the actual damage amounts on these things but I'm not seeing a way to hit 900 from what the sheet says.
I think your comments about the insta apply to nearly all monks to varying degrees. Nekotai and Ninjakari have a way of fully bypassing the bleed requirement through afflictions. Shofangi and Tahtetso absolutely must stack a certain amount of bleed/bruising to kill.
Regarding the availability of bleeding 500 is a lot on paper but it really depends on the damage that we can do. 500 bleeding is ~1500 mana to cure but if our forms only do about 1k damage in the overhaul then that's almost entirely eaten up by a sparkleberry balance.
That being said I do think kumati has a potential to be busted if it works as I think it does. Two 20% boosts to bleeding amounts to a 44% boost if they calculate separately, but I like the idea of having different optimal paths based on how much bleeding the target has. We might want to consider either reducing the amount, or adding a 1p power cost. Because it's related to bleeding though I'd prefer to wait to change it until we figure out where monks are at with bleeding after the testing version is coded.
@Wobou: My mistake it was 700 bleeding. 500 + stance. Nekotai had the other 200.
@Lerad: My concern with vessels being a major portion of offense is the sames issues I had with them as a Nekotai. * Vessels cause bleeding that will not stay gone. This means health damage, and mana damage to try to contain it from building. * The cure requires sipping healing, so mana is not an option to offset clotting. * While the above could seem like "it works for my goals then", this means that without major setup someone could focus on spamming vessels and they take forever to cure off. We should expect power cost, but I am considering this happening in groups too, and how fast they happen. * The idea of "equilibrium" implies a person should always be bleeding for some hundreds of bleeding, and never expect to be cured. Forcing a focus on a stat that might not even be damaged. Basically, you have to sip health to save your mana. * Nekotai stand to do them faster (still) than actual TK, while doing more.
Yes, and vessels for Nekotai have been tweaked and balanced multiple times over the years before, as well. Nekotai bleed has always been dependent on it compounding into itself via double pressure on both health and mana, as well as wounds. A Nekotai would build bleed and wounds, and it will incrementally, and always, push the target toward more and more sipping health, cutting down on mana sips and health applications, which compounds damage and the inability to continue clotting, and therefore eventually leading to a kill.
If your concern is that you dislike the way this works, that's not really a balance concern. The way it compounds into itself is the way Nekotai builds bleeds, and I'm keeping the status quo on that. I will tweak the vessels upwards or downwards based on whether the number of vessels are too high or too low, but I will not be changing this mechanic, and the way the Nekotai use this interaction. My goal is to ensure that Nekotai will function off vessels bleed the same way they always have.As it is, the current suggested implementation, as I explained, ports over the status quo while compensating for the changes being slated. Further changes will be needed, probably, maybe, to tweak the numbers.
How high and how low the vessels should be adjusted to, will be dependent entirely on what it takes for Finalsting to be viable. Comparing with TK is irrelevant.
I'm not sure where your comment of "equilibrium" is coming from. It has cropped up once in this discussion when Shedrin raised that as a suggestion. I said I would keep it in mind. That's all. There's no "equilibrium" implementation of vessels at the moment. Even my discussion with Wobou, where my suggestions in response to his concerns, I put in a variation of Shedrin's solution, that was to create a diminishing returns interaction, and it wasn't aimed at establishing some kind of "equilibrium". I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. If it's an irrelevant point, it'd be great if you could stop confusing yourself, and me, with it.
How high and how low the vessels should be adjusted to, will be dependent entirely on what it takes for Finalsting to be viable. Comparing with TK is irrelevant.
I have to disagree. Now that FinalSting can function like heartburst, with the same cost and lower threshold, I think it's very relevant how Nekotai works in comparison to TK. In my opinion Nekotai should not be able to more easily/cheaply build bursts than TKs can, especially now that they can directly use bursts for the kill at a lower threshold than a TK needs. That being said I think with regress at 2p we've already satisfied that. You might be able to build bursts more rapidly than a TK in the current alignment of skills but you'll pay much more than a TK would and so I think that's reasonably balanced. I think just on principle that it's totally fair game to compare TK mechanics and Nekotai mechanics, especially in the overhaul.
Fine, my phrasing was a little off, and easily misconstructed.
Rather than saying that "Comparing with TK is irrelevant", I should have made it clear that what I was objecting to was the off-hand comment that we can build faster than TKs, so that's unbalanced. I reject the reasoning behind that statement - TK vessels rate is not relevant to balancing Nekotai vessels rate. How high, or how low, the Nekotai vessels rate should be, must be, adjusted to Finalsting viability, not tagged to a comparison of vessels rate.
The reason is quite simple. TK vessels rate, and its subsequent enabling of heartburst, is related to TK access to clots. It's related to TK access to choke. Both of which are designed to work alongside vessels, and to compound vessels. It is also related to other support abilities in TK, and also Phantasms, and also meld passives. A comparison of vessels rate alone is irrelevant, because a Nekotai has access to none of those things. I will balance Nekotai vessels rate to the Nekotai repertoire, to the Nekotai finalsting - not to the TK vessels rate just because they have vessels, and not to TK heartburst.
A Nekotai building vessels faster than a Telekinetic isn't necessarily balanced or unbalanced, but it certainly feels as though you're co-opting a well-established niche (vessels into instakill) and potentially making it more effective for monks than for mages, which is, like... slightly irksome, and stuff. To me, anyway.
The Norns' goal in overhauling monks was to not make "better, faster warriors"- I think making Nekotai better, faster Telekinetics is just as bad.
That said, there's obviously a lot of tinkering left to do, and it remains to be seen how these new designs will function in the real world, so maybe everything will end up a-okay and my concern is unfounded! But that's the first thought to come to my mind.
I have two primary concerns in abstract when it comes to Nekotai vessels, or vessels in general.
One, are they doing too much in addition to building vessels. Aka damage, bleed, poisons, etc. Two, is the buildup interesting and skillful vs just spam the vessel mod as much as possible. (Not that TK is very interesting either, but there is some elements of timing and manipulating the opponent with Trip, illusions, clot and primary synergy.)
The first point I think needs more watching than the second. But I don't think this is necessarily a fundamental problem vs something we can test and tweak.
The reason is quite simple. TK vessels rate, and its subsequent enabling of heartburst, is related to TK access to clots. It's related to TK access to choke. Both of which are designed to work alongside vessels, and to compound vessels. It is also related to other support abilities in TK, and also Phantasms, and also meld passives. A comparison of vessels rate alone is irrelevant, because a Nekotai has access to none of those things. I will balance Nekotai vessels rate to the Nekotai repertoire, to the Nekotai finalsting - not to the TK vessels rate just because they have vessels, and not to TK heartburst.
The comparison is valid because of your insta:
* 10 vessels is less than the 12 they need. * If your affliction rate is higher, when needing less, there is a problem. * The nature of vessels makes them an issue when handling curing. Their health sip and sparkle only cure means they have a hard capped cure rate.
The rest of the Nekotai kit becomes very important. Damagedthroat with ice knock (sprongk) or stuns and such can cause vessels to delay more (ala choke and throatlock used to).
This is very relevant to the school of thought here. I will apologize for not being clearer on issues.
On top of the above, if you can even burst a bunch quickly, you have done a metric ton of vitals damage. We are "low damage" to make us focus on burst, which is neat if done right, but if afflictions cause a lot of damage and are hard to manage, then it is sustained damage. Example here is clotting when you cannot actually cure the bleeding because of the aff (it comes back) or stacking (haemophilia sticking).
The above is the other concern I have. Vessels cure slow, but the stack is readily available to make their bleeding a considerable factor.
I am not saying you are untouchable, I just want all the cards on the table before we hear about this later.
The Norns' goal in overhauling monks was to not make "better, faster warriors"- I think making Nekotai better, faster Telekinetics is just as bad.
Interesting point. According to the documents monks are not supposed to be attrition builders, thats the warriors role. Monks from the concept documents are supposed to be quick burst afflicters.
The vessels route seems to be a more attrition build style than a burst style. I'm not saying its going to be weak or overpowered but it does seem a bit off if the goal is to make monks the bursty bursty class and not an attrition class.
To be honest, TK vessels needs to be tweaked up, or their synergy does. Making Nekotai a better version of TK could be balanced, because outside of utility, TK is underpowered.
I have two primary concerns in abstract when it comes to Nekotai vessels, or vessels in general.
One, are they doing too much in addition to building vessels. Aka damage, bleed, poisons, etc. Two, is the buildup interesting and skillful vs just spam the vessel mod as much as possible. (Not that TK is very interesting either, but there is some elements of timing and manipulating the opponent with Trip, illusions, clot and primary synergy.)
The first point I think needs more watching than the second. But I don't think this is necessarily a fundamental problem vs something we can test and tweak.
For your first question, I think it's important to take into consideration what extra things other than vessels Nekotai are giving. Extra damage on top of vessels is... not a particularly problematic combo. Damage is cured by health, and vessels is cured by health. Simultaneously. Naturally, they shouldn't do additional damage over other monks on top of vessels, but I don't think it's fair to be drawing a comparison that would say, "oh, they're doing vessels, so they should do less damage".
The question itself is valid, of course. We do need to consider what other things are in the Nekotai kit that synergizes with vessels. For example, what Malarious described in his post (damagedthroat + balance knock kick) is one such example. These supporting abilities are part of the Nekotai repertoire, just like the supporting TK abilities are part of the TK repertoire. I will balance Nekotai vessels to the Nekotai repertoire, not based on the TK being some kind of standard of vessels building and speed.
This discussion on the Nekotai repertoire leads into your second concern, obviously. Because whether or not the strategy is engaging and meaningful depends on the repertoire of supporting abilities the Nekotai has, and needs, to build up his vessels. I believe we do have a large amount of good choices, and meaningful restrictions and limits on them, that will force a Nekotai to do more than repeat the same form every time they get to the relevant stances. Of course, that is still possible, but as long as such repetitions will create sub-optimal progress for the user, that creates an incentive for the Nekotai to get creative. I certainly feel that there is this aspect to the Nekotai vessels building. Malarious' example is one that fits into this as well. Delaying the vessels curing, or going for a dust stack to prevent clotting via the haemophilia kick is already one such easily obvious decision forced on the Nekotai.
Of course, I want to add here that there aren't a million and one choices. At the most, maybe two or three variations (if that). The reason being the Nekotai abilities are geared to also support the other poisons route, which limits the variety of ways it can be applied to only bleeding/vessels. And I think that's fine. nekotai are faced with many strategical choices that they can use to define their individual style already. Poisons or bleed? If poisons, which poisons? If bleed, a haemophilia stack, or higher bleed to put more pressure on mana? etc. I'm not going to make them have to study for a Masters Degree and submit a thesis on what's the best style or best variation etc etc before they can start playing. There are two well defined routes, and the main way the routes lead to a kill are made clear from the start. The abilities can be tweaked and changed to personal preference, and there isn't just one single choice every time, but there's not so many choices you get dizzy with them.
* 10 vessels is less than the 12 they need. * If your affliction rate is higher, when needing less, there is a problem. * The nature of vessels makes them an issue when handling curing. Their health sip and sparkle only cure means they have a hard capped cure rate.
The rest of the Nekotai kit becomes very important. Damagedthroat with ice knock (sprongk) or stuns and such can cause vessels to delay more (ala choke and throatlock used to).
This is very relevant to the school of thought here. I will apologize for not being clearer on issues.
On top of the above, if you can even burst a bunch quickly, you have done a metric ton of vitals damage. We are "low damage" to make us focus on burst, which is neat if done right, but if afflictions cause a lot of damage and are hard to manage, then it is sustained damage. Example here is clotting when you cannot actually cure the bleeding because of the aff (it comes back) or stacking (haemophilia sticking).
The above is the other concern I have. Vessels cure slow, but the stack is readily available to make their bleeding a considerable factor.
I am not saying you are untouchable, I just want all the cards on the table before we hear about this later.
I mentioned this partly in the previous part in response to Shedrin. I will evaluate the Nekotai vessels rate, and adjust for appropriateness, based on the Nekotai repertoire, not based on the TK one. Just because they need 12, doesn't mean 10 is inappropriate for us, because of the differences in the rest of our skillset - this is even if our vessels rate is higher. We have no access to throatlock or clots. We have no meld passives. We have no Phantasms claws to build more bleed. Our abilities aren't entirely isolated from vessels, of course, and we have our own abilities that synergize with vessels, which the TK don't have either.
That certainly means we should balance the rate to the Nekotai abilities, not to the TK rate. So, no. TK vessels rate really isn't that relevant.
I mean, just to give you a concrete example. TKs can do PSI SUB BURST;PSI SUPER HEARTBURST. Burst gives at least 1 vessel, possibly more (it's a 1-3 range, see announce post 2073). This means the effective "requirement" of a TK heartburst is actually only 11 maximum, not 12, and can go down to 9. Nekotai can't do that, period. We can't give vessels in the same form as a Finalsting. In fact, because TK heartburst can go possibly BELOW the 10 requirement of Nekotai Finalsting, it therefore stands to reason, by doing a direct comparison, that Nekotai can build vessels faster. Reasonable? Sounds reasonable to me, if we're doing a direct comparison like that!
Unfortunately, much as I would love to push that through, direct comparisons like that simply don't work, because you can't look at the two instakills in isolation, and use that to justify some kind of "balanced" vessels rate. And I have no intention to. TKs are TKs, Nekotai are Nekotai. If the Nekotai vessels needs to be tweaked downwards to make it balanced with the Nekotai abilities, I'll do it without regard for what the TK rate is - and same if it is upwards.
Another example: for your specific point about damagedthroat with sprongk on ice cure, damagedthroat is a Surge only attack. If my suggestion that was generated from my discussion with Wobou (yes, I'm plugging this again and again, because I like my own ideas) is used, that will certainly not be a problem, because the bulk of Nekotai vessels will only be given via the 2nd stance. Nekotai also have no stun outside of a damagedleg requirement, which requires the same Surge stance to give.
And that's definitely a Nekotai ability, and it is a combo that can (and will) be used with vessels. And I think that's perfectly fair. As long as the combination, together, does not result in an imbalance, it's fine. But if it does, then vessels rate will need to be adjusted with this in mind - and This is regardless of what the TK vessels rate is - because they don't have access to this. Delaying vessels curing... is a perfectly reasonable supporting ability for a class that relies on vessels to kill. Assessing what the vessels rate should be in combination with this (and other) synergistic abilities, is what I definitely intend to do once the logs, the testing etc, starts rolling in. And I'll do this without regard for TK vessels rate.
A Nekotai building vessels faster than a Telekinetic isn't necessarily balanced or unbalanced, but it certainly feels as though you're co-opting a well-established niche (vessels into instakill) and potentially making it more effective for monks than for mages, which is, like... slightly irksome, and stuff. To me, anyway.
The Norns' goal in overhauling monks was to not make "better, faster warriors"- I think making Nekotai better, faster Telekinetics is just as bad.
That said, there's obviously a lot of tinkering left to do, and it remains to be seen how these new designs will function in the real world, so maybe everything will end up a-okay and my concern is unfounded! But that's the first thought to come to my mind.
Vessels have been a core part of Nekotai from as early as I can remember, so I don't think I'm "co-opting" into anything. It's been a Nekotai niche for the longest time, and that is why I certainly do intend on keeping it. Making it part of the instakill is part of the adjustments from removing Nekotai's repeated vessels forms into just two out of five stances, or power cost.
The statement that Nekotai are being made into "better, faster Telekinetics" that you used highlighted something to me. I've been spending the last page writing these posts, and it only just occured to me that some of you are simply not seeing how different the new Nekotai will be to TKs. I believe I touched on this in my previous post already, and Wobou has also mentioned it in passing. But Nekotai vessels and TK vessels are going to be very different.
Nekotai, in this overhaul, will no longer be able to repeatedly give vessels without spending power. This is a huge change, that has required increasing the reliability and incidence of vessels to compensate. This is important, because TKs (and old, current Nekotai) rely on vessels to be given every single balance, in order to function. TKs will always, continually, build vessels on you without power investment, but a Nekotai cannot do that. There is at least a 7s curing window between the 2nd stance and the 4th stance, the only stances that give vessels, after which the Nekotai has to spend 2p to repeat a weaker version of his vessels stance, or to then cycle past killer stance and get to the 2nd stance again... which is a 10.5s curing window.
TKs and current Nekotai don't have this limit - they can, and do, repeatedly give vessels every 3.5 to 4 seconds. They don't need to spend power to do this, and they won't have to deal with such long curing windows between vessel procs. You know, the assumption that Nekotai vessels rate is going to be higher than TKs that has been repeatedly brought up, is currently entirely unfounded. The math just doesn't bear it out. A TK will give 1 to 3 vessels every 4s. Period. A Nekotai going through his entire 5 stances, will give (assuming we stay with what's currently in the excel sheet) a total of 3 to 6 vessels over a period of 17.5 seconds.
Assuming maximum vessels for both parties, the TK will deal 12 vessels in 16s, and the Nekotai will deal 6 vessels in that same amount of time (plus some).
Let's say the Nekotai stays on his surge stance and expends all of his power (therefore being unable to Finalsting after), to get his maximum vessels rate. Assume max vessels every time. That's 10p (edited to add: 10p for only 5 repetitions, after which the Nekotai is out of juice), for 3 vessels every 3.5s - a TK at his max vessels rate is... still 3 vessels every 4s, for 0p, and still being able to Heartburst after.
"Better, faster Telekinetics"? Yeah, sorry. I'm more than just a little sceptical.
If Nekotai are able to achieve their vessels-based instakill faster than Telekinesis users can, I think that's a problem. I'm not necessarily saying that as an indication of Nekotai opness, either, as it could just elucidate that Telekinesis needs help... I don't think either of us will know for sure until it goes live, but I'm satisfied having voiced that concern. I also think your explanation is mostly reasonable, but I'm skeptical about how these things are implemented based on past experience, so I guess we'll see what happens.
If Nekotai are able to achieve their vessels-based instakill faster than Telekinesis users can, I think that's a problem. I'm not necessarily saying that as an indication of Nekotai opness, either, as it could just elucidate that Telekinesis needs help... I don't think either of us will know for sure until it goes live, but I'm satisfied having voiced that concern. I also think your explanation is mostly reasonable, but I'm skeptical about how these things are implemented based on past experience, so I guess we'll see what happens.
I'm watching nekotai closely because I think that monk outliers tend to show up there first. That said, you are leaving out that a tk user is also a melder or chemantic, and is doing other passive stuff on top of doing vessels. That's an important thing I think people are leaving out of this comparison. A nekotai building vessels is only building vessels. He isn't melding, or doing anything with chemantics
If Nekotai are able to achieve their vessels-based instakill faster than Telekinesis users can, I think that's a problem. I'm not necessarily saying that as an indication of Nekotai opness, either, as it could just elucidate that Telekinesis needs help... I don't think either of us will know for sure until it goes live, but I'm satisfied having voiced that concern. I also think your explanation is mostly reasonable, but I'm skeptical about how these things are implemented based on past experience, so I guess we'll see what happens.
I'm watching nekotai closely because I think that monk outliers tend to show up there first. That said, you are leaving out that a tk user is also a melder or chemantic, and is doing other passive stuff on top of doing vessels. That's an important thing I think people are leaving out of this comparison. A nekotai building vessels is only building vessels. He isn't melding, or doing anything with chemantics
Except, you know... the entire rest of the form? Stuns, dust stacks to make clotting unuseable, etc.
If Nekotai are able to achieve their vessels-based instakill faster than Telekinesis users can, I think that's a problem. I'm not necessarily saying that as an indication of Nekotai opness, either, as it could just elucidate that Telekinesis needs help... I don't think either of us will know for sure until it goes live, but I'm satisfied having voiced that concern. I also think your explanation is mostly reasonable, but I'm skeptical about how these things are implemented based on past experience, so I guess we'll see what happens.
I'm watching nekotai closely because I think that monk outliers tend to show up there first. That said, you are leaving out that a tk user is also a melder or chemantic, and is doing other passive stuff on top of doing vessels. That's an important thing I think people are leaving out of this comparison. A nekotai building vessels is only building vessels. He isn't melding, or doing anything with chemantics
Except, you know... the entire rest of the form? Stuns, dust stacks to make clotting unuseable, etc.
Except, you know, the stun requires a Surge form, and is one stun. Not stunssssss. We have one. Freaking. Stun. Ninjakari have four god forsaken stuns. Shofangi have three. And Nekotai, alongside Tahtetso, have one. That has an aff requirement locked behind a Surge form.
And also, really, how difficult is it to understand that it is perfectly fine for there to be supporting abilities to support vessels building?
I've engaged in your arguments, Malarious. I've entertained your repeated complaints about vessels being a mechanic that feeds on itself as a concern, even though that's the way they have always worked, and that will continue to be the way they'll work. I've done this without looking at the numbers even, to try my very best to look at it from your perspective. I've done it even in isolation of the rest of a mage's kit and in isolation from a Nekotai's kit, on theoretical grounds, and I've listed out quite clearly why I feel it is not an issue, and why it is unfair to be comparing this in isolation. I've also repeatedly put out my position, that I will adjust the Nekotai vessels rate if needed.
I've then crunched some numbers using those same logic, to try and see if your concerns are valid ones. Turns out that even a straight up comparison between the two instakills, no other considerations in place, I can make an argument based on numbers that my instakill is worse, not better, than the TK one. Turns out that even a straight up comparison of my vessels rate with TK vessels rate, in isolation of all other considerations, like other Nekotai abilities or TK abilities, my vessels rate is worse (numerically half), or marginally better with maximum power investment.
Shall we now start listing all the supporting TK abilities, number crunch them, see what the effective vessels rate is for TK? Shall we start comparing how some mages can also stun, put pressure, and pretty big pressure, on multiple vitals at once, shall we look at how some mages even will be stacking ice stacks better than Nekotai, how they may even be stacking bleed better than Nekotai, and all of these passively? Shall we start looking at how TK clots, which slow TK vessels rate when used, but is a dust stack of its own, can also be used to block clotting with beast poison and TK dagger too?
Shall we start looking at the combat meta, and the kind of role and effect a mage plays in group combat? Because you know, I can make an argument here too. I do sincerely believe that there is more than enough grounds to justify a Nekotai being literally faster than the TK at killing via vessels because a Nekotai has lower group presence. A mage has a bigger impact on group that a Nekotai cannot replicate, and therefore, the Nekotai needs to have a better 1v1 than a TK, all things considered. Alternatively, shall we start giving Nekotai, and other monks, passive effects, perhaps? So that we can balance vessels rate to TK rate?
I'm sorry, as I continue to engage you, to try to see things from your perspective, the more obvious it is to me that this is a phantom topic that is wasting more and more of my time. In fact, the more I look at the numbers, the more arguments I can actually make to justify increasing Nekotai vessels rate - though I do think that would be premature.
Vessel mechanics are not changing, and I'm not going to change them. Nekotai vessel number rates will be adjusted based on the Nekotai kit, and not the TK rate, and I remain fully convinced it would be a folly, and entirely unreasonable, to be comparing the two classes in order to make any arguments about Nekotai vessels rate. I think I've been open minded enough about this, and given enough time for myself to be convinced otherwise by your arguments and theories. And that I've put in enough effort to take both sides of the argument and evaluate the concern in its whole. And now, I think I've run out of patience to continue in that vein.
I thought the issue was Nekotai and TK synergy, not Nekotai being better than TK at building vessels (lol).
Well there is that too but I think all the monks have synergies with other classes. Monk/warrior is still going to be strong as it always has, especially for Ninjakari and maybe Tahtetso.
Not looking at synergy on monks presently, that is the definition of "not the goal".
@Lerad: Try to break things. If you expect lethal fairly easily, or the target is never able to attack back then something is broken. Vessels should be expected that they will stack up fairly well. I expressed my concerns, you are not obligated to back and forth it. The concerns remain, you think they will be fine. We can wait till testing, there's no issue with waiting on things! Specially as everything should still be GMCP affed, so curing wont even need major changes to test new monks in this case. We will see how it works out. This is actually true of every guild, naturally.
EDIT: Related. We can probably go to testing. We can record concerns and test for them, this will tell us more than theory! I look forward to testing all the everything! After ascension... yes, after. I can already hear the whining from stance effects.
So one of the problems I have with the design of monks from both mechanic and lore standpoints is that for the most part the monks don't really tie into their respective orgs very well. Nekotai (bleed stacking, scorpion) and Shofangi (bull theme) aren't so bad, but I look at the Tahtetso and Ninjakari skills and I just don't really see how either of fit with Celest or Magnagora on any level. The only skill names that would place Tahtetso in Celest are Aegis, Starkick and Tidesweep. Mechanically, only Tidesweep has even a superficial link to other Celestian skills as it gives chills. None of Ninjakari's skills look uniquely Magnagoran.
Compare that to every other archetype, where it is very clear which organisation a particular class belongs to just from the theme and mechanics of their skills.
I can speak for Tahtetso lore, and their guild has a pretty interesting explanation for itself. Just imo. Lumosis is a blending of kepheran principles and Celestian dogma, resulting in concepts such as Sila (the spark of Light within all beings), the Asava (the impurities of a being, be it physical, mental, or spiritual (i.e. you know, sinful stuff), and the Sati (the soul of the individual that sits between the two). Pretty textbook stuff; it's just your traditional monk from other IRE games but with bugs. They also center teachings around their three Tenets (Discipline, Humility, Sacrifice) and the kepheran elements of Harmony. Metal in particular is made to represent New Celest, and of course Water is featured pretty heavily too. Essentially, kepheran society and Celestian society are already very similar (be humble before the Light, many more princesses/Empresses than princes/Emperors, so on and so forth.)
As far as mechanics go, I'd actually have to peruse the new skillset being presented. Tahtetso, while being totally different from Celest's overall kit, pretty much are there as a safeguard imo (while also sharing the same niche as Paladins). If you can't reach your Absolve, or can't do Preserve, a Tahtetso can be there to finish off with a gahtirak'sho or even Harmony's Deathtouch.
So one of the problems I have with the design of monks from both mechanic and lore standpoints is that for the most part the monks don't really tie into their respective orgs very well. Nekotai (bleed stacking, scorpion) and Shofangi (bull theme) aren't so bad, but I look at the Tahtetso and Ninjakari skills and I just don't really see how either of fit with Celest or Magnagora on any level. The only skill names that would place Tahtetso in Celest are Aegis, Starkick and Tidesweep. Mechanically, only Tidesweep has even a superficial link to other Celestian skills as it gives chills. None of Ninjakari's skills look uniquely Magnagoran.
Compare that to every other archetype, where it is very clear which organisation a particular class belongs to just from the theme and mechanics of their skills.
Not sure about that when your talking about mechanics.
All monks are going to be able to support mana kills fairly well which is basically every org with monks right now. Albeit the forests and celest have a better one than mag.
All monks are going to stack fairly well with warriors some more so than others. Shofang/Tahetso are going to be the better ones to pair up with a warrior right now with their instant kills.
Shofang will stack pretty well with moondancers for the mana kill and woods with their passive ice afflictions. Plus warriors as said before.
For ninja they've got a few diseases based things for their instant kill which will stack pretty well with ur'guard/nilhists/caco. Ice to stack with ur'guard again.
Nekos a bunch of random afflictions. Vessels which no one in glom can give and bleed. So just bleed for nekos, which will stack well with harb/shadowdancer for mana drain.
Tahetso is going to stack super well with warrior for their kill and celestine for the absolve.
So like most monks have classes they'll work well with in their orgs.
Mechanically I don't think monks are going to have an issue stacking with their orgs. Although I think most orgs don't have a combat theme in the same way that glom has bleeding. So in that sense Nekotai fit their org better than the others.
I think what Falmiis is talking about is if you were to take most ninja/tahtetso skills and look at it in a vacuum you would not have an immediate way of knowing which org the skill belonged to. Where as if I look at most skills in Moon/Stag and even Shofangi I can see some of the ties to seren or in Shofangi's case to Old Man Bull. Nekotai have scorpion flavor in their skillset but Ninjakari and Tahtetso have relatively little going on in this arena.
I think in regard to warrior stacking I'll disagree with you slightly. I think Tahtetso with their ice delays and Ninjakari with their prevention of ice applications to a part are going to work better with warriors overall than shofangi/nekotai will.
Particularly as we go into factions, is it terribly necessary that monks have a mystical connection to the orgs they're part of? Does anyone take them less seriously because they study ways to break bodies with fist and feet rather than elements or fae? A tracker hunter doesn't really bear a mystical connection beyond getting a different dog from the city stables but they're accepted and valued as part of their guild and city without reservation.
I guess my point is that the connection to an org is made by the individual rather than the class. Personally, I would rather have the responsibility to make my own place rather than have an arbitrary connection be made on my behalf because we have this preconceived notion that every class has to directly tie to the org on a mystical/spiritual level. Maybe the teachers of those styles chose those orgs because they accepted the teachings first. I don't think that's so bad.
Historically, kung-fu developed in a similar manner according to my limited understanding of Chinese history which is based primarily on bad Kung-fu movies.
Just been talking with ane a bit about some forms.
Tahetso has a triple limb break move that they can spam from the start of the fight. Bomol'sho/Baito'ruku/Baito'ruku. It seems a bit too good for a move thats spam able and from base.
You shouldn't be able to spam a 3x limb break move. it should be locked behind something and limited in some way. A 3x limb break is ok but not if its spammable.
For example warriors dont have a delay on breaks being cured and warriors require light wounds to do a break, so a warrior can spam a
double limb break every 3.5 seconds but its gated behind wounds so it
wont hit a double limb break every hit.
I mean try it out as a warrior. Do a double limb break spam hit on someone and see how hindering it is
Its very very hindering and thats only two breaks plus you sort of miss a number due to having to reapply wounds
A 3x spammable limb break is going to mangle anyones offense.
A quick fix would be to take the limb break out of Bomol'sho or Baito'ruku.
@Veyils: I agree that 3 limb break a form is a bit much. Although it looks like that particular form focuses on damaged leg (2x damage leg and 1x damage arm) so for warriors for example I believe you could just cure the one arm and ignore the legs until you're prone, and if the tahtetso switches to prone they have to lower their afflicting output. So 1v1 I'm actually not too concerned about this. However in a group context when sprawl becomes relatively easy then constant double leg spam is bad times.
One thing I was thinking about that would fix this but may be too much of a nerf is to replace the damaged leg effect of Baito'ruku with something else and make it so Rakti'sho removes parry as it does now and if parry is already removed then it does damagedarm. So if you dedicate a form to it at center you can break 2 arms.
That would mean you couldn't start hindering this way until center stance but I don't know how good of a change that is for them since they can do 3 breaks/possible mangle at surge anyway.
0. double leg/arm break from base stance for a 2 secon balance disrupt into twist high stance.
2. cured
3.5 double limb break plus damaged skull or crushed chest. plus rakto stance for an extra limb so 4 limb breaks plus skull or chest.(5 ice in total atm) into center stance.( boost this to make it a 2.59 second attack)
4. 1 cured
6. 2 cured
6.09 center stance hit prones + 1 second off balance on hit. reapply the two cures plus add a ice affliction.(6 ice in total) Into surge high stance. (boost this)
8 1 cures, 5 ice afflictions stuck.
8.68 hit for double mutilated and a reapplication of what ever was cured.
If the target a single broken arm they are dead. If the target has you've put a double mutilate and reapplied the missing break.
So your targets got two mutilates and four limb breaks plus an extra. etc etc. At this stage the monk so far ahead in ice build they can pretty much repeat without the boosting and get the mutilate lock on the second pass and your basically not going to be fighting back against this what with having your limbs heavily broken.
----
Looking into it the combination of Bomol'sho giving damaged arms on a kick and Raktiah'sho giving a mutilated arm break if the arm is broken means that all a tahetso has to do to push an arm lock kill is for the target to have a single arm break on the target as they enter into surge stance.
1 arm break means the tahetso can break the other arm and double mutilate in the same hit. And with its current ice stack sticking a single arm break isn't going to be too much trouble.
Also as a note mutilated limbs and damaged limbs stack remember.
I'd be inclined to suggest taking damaged arms off of Bomol'sho after thinking about it and going through what can be done with it. It it just gives tahestso such an easy route for an arm lock. Its just too easy. In groups its going to be a near unavoidable arm lock in under 8 seconds potentially if you want to boost the earlier forms doable without boosting as well. Solo its a kill method you can build to while
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Playing Tahtetso before the overhaul, and, up until recently, was just one kick. When you are limited in that form you lose a LOT of versatility and your offensive tree becomes much more linear.
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One comment in addition to @Malarious about Ninombhi. Our kill condition requires dysentery but we can only afflict with it directly from centered stance? If the concern is Mutilatedarms lock, why can't we make it so that Mutilate limbs only works on Centered but the other effects work on any?
Or, like Tahtetso, make it so that mutilate only works on Surge stance?
I'd like to go one of two directions with headbutt, either it should be removed or it should be something that interacts with stance bonuses. Since my fellow Shofangi @Bandeon is against that second idea I'm fine with just removing it. I am not worried about a stun ruining your own combo because that means that you have to actually think about when to use headbutt which is a-ok by me. The thing that bothers me about headbutt now is it's something that you just throw in there at random because it might do something for you.
I don't think stomp's eq/bal loss is a big deal at all. All non-sprawl effects of stomp require sprawl which would be frightening with current shofangi but overhaul shofangi don't have a lot of ways outside of stomp itself to sprawl someone. Basically this is a thing you could do reliably on center stance and that'd be about it. I personally am planning on using my stomp towards other things.
Can you explain the tomati form you're seeing that could cause 900 bleeding? The most I'm seeing is Tomati on killer causing 500 + 15% which is 575 bleeding. Bleeding enhancements might add more and we also don't know the actual damage amounts on these things but I'm not seeing a way to hit 900 from what the sheet says.
I think your comments about the insta apply to nearly all monks to varying degrees. Nekotai and Ninjakari have a way of fully bypassing the bleed requirement through afflictions. Shofangi and Tahtetso absolutely must stack a certain amount of bleed/bruising to kill.
Regarding the availability of bleeding 500 is a lot on paper but it really depends on the damage that we can do. 500 bleeding is ~1500 mana to cure but if our forms only do about 1k damage in the overhaul then that's almost entirely eaten up by a sparkleberry balance.
That being said I do think kumati has a potential to be busted if it works as I think it does. Two 20% boosts to bleeding amounts to a 44% boost if they calculate separately, but I like the idea of having different optimal paths based on how much bleeding the target has. We might want to consider either reducing the amount, or adding a 1p power cost. Because it's related to bleeding though I'd prefer to wait to change it until we figure out where monks are at with bleeding after the testing version is coded.
@Lerad:
My concern with vessels being a major portion of offense is the sames issues I had with them as a Nekotai.
* Vessels cause bleeding that will not stay gone. This means health damage, and mana damage to try to contain it from building.
* The cure requires sipping healing, so mana is not an option to offset clotting.
* While the above could seem like "it works for my goals then", this means that without major setup someone could focus on spamming vessels and they take forever to cure off. We should expect power cost, but I am considering this happening in groups too, and how fast they happen.
* The idea of "equilibrium" implies a person should always be bleeding for some hundreds of bleeding, and never expect to be cured. Forcing a focus on a stat that might not even be damaged. Basically, you have to sip health to save your mana.
* Nekotai stand to do them faster (still) than actual TK, while doing more.
If your concern is that you dislike the way this works, that's not really a balance concern. The way it compounds into itself is the way Nekotai builds bleeds, and I'm keeping the status quo on that. I will tweak the vessels upwards or downwards based on whether the number of vessels are too high or too low, but I will not be changing this mechanic, and the way the Nekotai use this interaction. My goal is to ensure that Nekotai will function off vessels bleed the same way they always have. As it is, the current suggested implementation, as I explained, ports over the status quo while compensating for the changes being slated. Further changes will be needed, probably, maybe, to tweak the numbers.
How high and how low the vessels should be adjusted to, will be dependent entirely on what it takes for Finalsting to be viable. Comparing with TK is irrelevant.
I'm not sure where your comment of "equilibrium" is coming from. It has cropped up once in this discussion when Shedrin raised that as a suggestion. I said I would keep it in mind. That's all. There's no "equilibrium" implementation of vessels at the moment. Even my discussion with Wobou, where my suggestions in response to his concerns, I put in a variation of Shedrin's solution, that was to create a diminishing returns interaction, and it wasn't aimed at establishing some kind of "equilibrium". I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. If it's an irrelevant point, it'd be great if you could stop confusing yourself, and me, with it.
I have to disagree. Now that FinalSting can function like heartburst, with the same cost and lower threshold, I think it's very relevant how Nekotai works in comparison to TK. In my opinion Nekotai should not be able to more easily/cheaply build bursts than TKs can, especially now that they can directly use bursts for the kill at a lower threshold than a TK needs. That being said I think with regress at 2p we've already satisfied that. You might be able to build bursts more rapidly than a TK in the current alignment of skills but you'll pay much more than a TK would and so I think that's reasonably balanced. I think just on principle that it's totally fair game to compare TK mechanics and Nekotai mechanics, especially in the overhaul.
Rather than saying that "Comparing with TK is irrelevant", I should have made it clear that what I was objecting to was the off-hand comment that we can build faster than TKs, so that's unbalanced. I reject the reasoning behind that statement - TK vessels rate is not relevant to balancing Nekotai vessels rate. How high, or how low, the Nekotai vessels rate should be, must be, adjusted to Finalsting viability, not tagged to a comparison of vessels rate.
The reason is quite simple. TK vessels rate, and its subsequent enabling of heartburst, is related to TK access to clots. It's related to TK access to choke. Both of which are designed to work alongside vessels, and to compound vessels. It is also related to other support abilities in TK, and also Phantasms, and also meld passives. A comparison of vessels rate alone is irrelevant, because a Nekotai has access to none of those things. I will balance Nekotai vessels rate to the Nekotai repertoire, to the Nekotai finalsting - not to the TK vessels rate just because they have vessels, and not to TK heartburst.
The Norns' goal in overhauling monks was to not make "better, faster warriors"- I think making Nekotai better, faster Telekinetics is just as bad.
That said, there's obviously a lot of tinkering left to do, and it remains to be seen how these new designs will function in the real world, so maybe everything will end up a-okay and my concern is unfounded! But that's the first thought to come to my mind.
One, are they doing too much in addition to building vessels. Aka damage, bleed, poisons, etc.
Two, is the buildup interesting and skillful vs just spam the vessel mod as much as possible. (Not that TK is very interesting either, but there is some elements of timing and manipulating the opponent with Trip, illusions, clot and primary synergy.)
The first point I think needs more watching than the second. But I don't think this is necessarily a fundamental problem vs something we can test and tweak.
* 10 vessels is less than the 12 they need.
* If your affliction rate is higher, when needing less, there is a problem.
* The nature of vessels makes them an issue when handling curing. Their health sip and sparkle only cure means they have a hard capped cure rate.
The rest of the Nekotai kit becomes very important. Damagedthroat with ice knock (sprongk) or stuns and such can cause vessels to delay more (ala choke and throatlock used to).
This is very relevant to the school of thought here. I will apologize for not being clearer on issues.
On top of the above, if you can even burst a bunch quickly, you have done a metric ton of vitals damage. We are "low damage" to make us focus on burst, which is neat if done right, but if afflictions cause a lot of damage and are hard to manage, then it is sustained damage. Example here is clotting when you cannot actually cure the bleeding because of the aff (it comes back) or stacking (haemophilia sticking).
The above is the other concern I have. Vessels cure slow, but the stack is readily available to make their bleeding a considerable factor.
I am not saying you are untouchable, I just want all the cards on the table before we hear about this later.
The vessels route seems to be a more attrition build style than a burst style. I'm not saying its going to be weak or overpowered but it does seem a bit off if the goal is to make monks the bursty bursty class and not an attrition class.
The question itself is valid, of course. We do need to consider what other things are in the Nekotai kit that synergizes with vessels. For example, what Malarious described in his post (damagedthroat + balance knock kick) is one such example. These supporting abilities are part of the Nekotai repertoire, just like the supporting TK abilities are part of the TK repertoire. I will balance Nekotai vessels to the Nekotai repertoire, not based on the TK being some kind of standard of vessels building and speed.
This discussion on the Nekotai repertoire leads into your second concern, obviously. Because whether or not the strategy is engaging and meaningful depends on the repertoire of supporting abilities the Nekotai has, and needs, to build up his vessels. I believe we do have a large amount of good choices, and meaningful restrictions and limits on them, that will force a Nekotai to do more than repeat the same form every time they get to the relevant stances. Of course, that is still possible, but as long as such repetitions will create sub-optimal progress for the user, that creates an incentive for the Nekotai to get creative. I certainly feel that there is this aspect to the Nekotai vessels building. Malarious' example is one that fits into this as well. Delaying the vessels curing, or going for a dust stack to prevent clotting via the haemophilia kick is already one such easily obvious decision forced on the Nekotai.
Of course, I want to add here that there aren't a million and one choices. At the most, maybe two or three variations (if that). The reason being the Nekotai abilities are geared to also support the other poisons route, which limits the variety of ways it can be applied to only bleeding/vessels. And I think that's fine. nekotai are faced with many strategical choices that they can use to define their individual style already. Poisons or bleed? If poisons, which poisons? If bleed, a haemophilia stack, or higher bleed to put more pressure on mana? etc. I'm not going to make them have to study for a Masters Degree and submit a thesis on what's the best style or best variation etc etc before they can start playing. There are two well defined routes, and the main way the routes lead to a kill are made clear from the start. The abilities can be tweaked and changed to personal preference, and there isn't just one single choice every time, but there's not so many choices you get dizzy with them.
I mentioned this partly in the previous part in response to Shedrin. I will evaluate the Nekotai vessels rate, and adjust for appropriateness, based on the Nekotai repertoire, not based on the TK one. Just because they need 12, doesn't mean 10 is inappropriate for us, because of the differences in the rest of our skillset - this is even if our vessels rate is higher. We have no access to throatlock or clots. We have no meld passives. We have no Phantasms claws to build more bleed. Our abilities aren't entirely isolated from vessels, of course, and we have our own abilities that synergize with vessels, which the TK don't have either.
That certainly means we should balance the rate to the Nekotai abilities, not to the TK rate. So, no. TK vessels rate really isn't that relevant.
I mean, just to give you a concrete example. TKs can do PSI SUB BURST;PSI SUPER HEARTBURST. Burst gives at least 1 vessel, possibly more (it's a 1-3 range, see announce post 2073). This means the effective "requirement" of a TK heartburst is actually only 11 maximum, not 12, and can go down to 9. Nekotai can't do that, period. We can't give vessels in the same form as a Finalsting. In fact, because TK heartburst can go possibly BELOW the 10 requirement of Nekotai Finalsting, it therefore stands to reason, by doing a direct comparison, that Nekotai can build vessels faster. Reasonable? Sounds reasonable to me, if we're doing a direct comparison like that!
Unfortunately, much as I would love to push that through, direct comparisons like that simply don't work, because you can't look at the two instakills in isolation, and use that to justify some kind of "balanced" vessels rate. And I have no intention to. TKs are TKs, Nekotai are Nekotai. If the Nekotai vessels needs to be tweaked downwards to make it balanced with the Nekotai abilities, I'll do it without regard for what the TK rate is - and same if it is upwards.
Another example: for your specific point about damagedthroat with sprongk on ice cure, damagedthroat is a Surge only attack. If my suggestion that was generated from my discussion with Wobou (yes, I'm plugging this again and again, because I like my own ideas) is used, that will certainly not be a problem, because the bulk of Nekotai vessels will only be given via the 2nd stance. Nekotai also have no stun outside of a damagedleg requirement, which requires the same Surge stance to give.
And that's definitely a Nekotai ability, and it is a combo that can (and will) be used with vessels. And I think that's perfectly fair. As long as the combination, together, does not result in an imbalance, it's fine. But if it does, then vessels rate will need to be adjusted with this in mind - and This is regardless of what the TK vessels rate is - because they don't have access to this. Delaying vessels curing... is a perfectly reasonable supporting ability for a class that relies on vessels to kill. Assessing what the vessels rate should be in combination with this (and other) synergistic abilities, is what I definitely intend to do once the logs, the testing etc, starts rolling in. And I'll do this without regard for TK vessels rate.
Vessels have been a core part of Nekotai from as early as I can remember, so I don't think I'm "co-opting" into anything. It's been a Nekotai niche for the longest time, and that is why I certainly do intend on keeping it. Making it part of the instakill is part of the adjustments from removing Nekotai's repeated vessels forms into just two out of five stances, or power cost.
The statement that Nekotai are being made into "better, faster Telekinetics" that you used highlighted something to me. I've been spending the last page writing these posts, and it only just occured to me that some of you are simply not seeing how different the new Nekotai will be to TKs. I believe I touched on this in my previous post already, and Wobou has also mentioned it in passing. But Nekotai vessels and TK vessels are going to be very different.
Nekotai, in this overhaul, will no longer be able to repeatedly give vessels without spending power. This is a huge change, that has required increasing the reliability and incidence of vessels to compensate. This is important, because TKs (and old, current Nekotai) rely on vessels to be given every single balance, in order to function. TKs will always, continually, build vessels on you without power investment, but a Nekotai cannot do that. There is at least a 7s curing window between the 2nd stance and the 4th stance, the only stances that give vessels, after which the Nekotai has to spend 2p to repeat a weaker version of his vessels stance, or to then cycle past killer stance and get to the 2nd stance again... which is a 10.5s curing window.
TKs and current Nekotai don't have this limit - they can, and do, repeatedly give vessels every 3.5 to 4 seconds. They don't need to spend power to do this, and they won't have to deal with such long curing windows between vessel procs. You know, the assumption that Nekotai vessels rate is going to be higher than TKs that has been repeatedly brought up, is currently entirely unfounded. The math just doesn't bear it out. A TK will give 1 to 3 vessels every 4s. Period. A Nekotai going through his entire 5 stances, will give (assuming we stay with what's currently in the excel sheet) a total of 3 to 6 vessels over a period of 17.5 seconds.
Assuming maximum vessels for both parties, the TK will deal 12 vessels in 16s, and the Nekotai will deal 6 vessels in that same amount of time (plus some).
Let's say the Nekotai stays on his surge stance and expends all of his power (therefore being unable to Finalsting after), to get his maximum vessels rate. Assume max vessels every time. That's 10p (edited to add: 10p for only 5 repetitions, after which the Nekotai is out of juice), for 3 vessels every 3.5s - a TK at his max vessels rate is... still 3 vessels every 4s, for 0p, and still being able to Heartburst after.
"Better, faster Telekinetics"? Yeah, sorry. I'm more than just a little sceptical.
Enhancements I believe, yes.
And also, really, how difficult is it to understand that it is perfectly fine for there to be supporting abilities to support vessels building?
I've engaged in your arguments, Malarious. I've entertained your repeated complaints about vessels being a mechanic that feeds on itself as a concern, even though that's the way they have always worked, and that will continue to be the way they'll work. I've done this without looking at the numbers even, to try my very best to look at it from your perspective. I've done it even in isolation of the rest of a mage's kit and in isolation from a Nekotai's kit, on theoretical grounds, and I've listed out quite clearly why I feel it is not an issue, and why it is unfair to be comparing this in isolation. I've also repeatedly put out my position, that I will adjust the Nekotai vessels rate if needed.
I've then crunched some numbers using those same logic, to try and see if your concerns are valid ones. Turns out that even a straight up comparison between the two instakills, no other considerations in place, I can make an argument based on numbers that my instakill is worse, not better, than the TK one. Turns out that even a straight up comparison of my vessels rate with TK vessels rate, in isolation of all other considerations, like other Nekotai abilities or TK abilities, my vessels rate is worse (numerically half), or marginally better with maximum power investment.
Shall we now start listing all the supporting TK abilities, number crunch them, see what the effective vessels rate is for TK? Shall we start comparing how some mages can also stun, put pressure, and pretty big pressure, on multiple vitals at once, shall we look at how some mages even will be stacking ice stacks better than Nekotai, how they may even be stacking bleed better than Nekotai, and all of these passively? Shall we start looking at how TK clots, which slow TK vessels rate when used, but is a dust stack of its own, can also be used to block clotting with beast poison and TK dagger too?
Shall we start looking at the combat meta, and the kind of role and effect a mage plays in group combat? Because you know, I can make an argument here too. I do sincerely believe that there is more than enough grounds to justify a Nekotai being literally faster than the TK at killing via vessels because a Nekotai has lower group presence. A mage has a bigger impact on group that a Nekotai cannot replicate, and therefore, the Nekotai needs to have a better 1v1 than a TK, all things considered. Alternatively, shall we start giving Nekotai, and other monks, passive effects, perhaps? So that we can balance vessels rate to TK rate?
I'm sorry, as I continue to engage you, to try to see things from your perspective, the more obvious it is to me that this is a phantom topic that is wasting more and more of my time. In fact, the more I look at the numbers, the more arguments I can actually make to justify increasing Nekotai vessels rate - though I do think that would be premature.
Vessel mechanics are not changing, and I'm not going to change them. Nekotai vessel number rates will be adjusted based on the Nekotai kit, and not the TK rate, and I remain fully convinced it would be a folly, and entirely unreasonable, to be comparing the two classes in order to make any arguments about Nekotai vessels rate. I think I've been open minded enough about this, and given enough time for myself to be convinced otherwise by your arguments and theories. And that I've put in enough effort to take both sides of the argument and evaluate the concern in its whole. And now, I think I've run out of patience to continue in that vein.
Well there is that too but I think all the monks have synergies with other classes. Monk/warrior is still going to be strong as it always has, especially for Ninjakari and maybe Tahtetso.
@Lerad: Try to break things. If you expect lethal fairly easily, or the target is never able to attack back then something is broken. Vessels should be expected that they will stack up fairly well. I expressed my concerns, you are not obligated to back and forth it. The concerns remain, you think they will be fine. We can wait till testing, there's no issue with waiting on things! Specially as everything should still be GMCP affed, so curing wont even need major changes to test new monks in this case. We will see how it works out. This is actually true of every guild, naturally.
EDIT: Related. We can probably go to testing. We can record concerns and test for them, this will tell us more than theory! I look forward to testing all the everything! After ascension... yes, after. I can already hear the whining from stance effects.
Compare that to every other archetype, where it is very clear which organisation a particular class belongs to just from the theme and mechanics of their skills.
As far as mechanics go, I'd actually have to peruse the new skillset being presented. Tahtetso, while being totally different from Celest's overall kit, pretty much are there as a safeguard imo (while also sharing the same niche as Paladins). If you can't reach your Absolve, or can't do Preserve, a Tahtetso can be there to finish off with a gahtirak'sho or even Harmony's Deathtouch.
Not sure about that when your talking about mechanics.
All monks are going to be able to support mana kills fairly well which is basically every org with monks right now. Albeit the forests and celest have a better one than mag.
All monks are going to stack fairly well with warriors some more so than others. Shofang/Tahetso are going to be the better ones to pair up with a warrior right now with their instant kills.
Shofang will stack pretty well with moondancers for the mana kill and woods with their passive ice afflictions. Plus warriors as said before.
For ninja they've got a few diseases based things for their instant kill which will stack pretty well with ur'guard/nilhists/caco. Ice to stack with ur'guard again.
Nekos a bunch of random afflictions. Vessels which no one in glom can give and bleed. So just bleed for nekos, which will stack well with harb/shadowdancer for mana drain.
Tahetso is going to stack super well with warrior for their kill and celestine for the absolve.
So like most monks have classes they'll work well with in their orgs.
Mechanically I don't think monks are going to have an issue stacking with their orgs. Although I think most orgs don't have a combat theme in the same way that glom has bleeding. So in that sense Nekotai fit their org better than the others.
I think what Falmiis is talking about is if you were to take most ninja/tahtetso skills and look at it in a vacuum you would not have an immediate way of knowing which org the skill belonged to. Where as if I look at most skills in Moon/Stag and even Shofangi I can see some of the ties to seren or in Shofangi's case to Old Man Bull. Nekotai have scorpion flavor in their skillset but Ninjakari and Tahtetso have relatively little going on in this arena.
I think in regard to warrior stacking I'll disagree with you slightly. I think Tahtetso with their ice delays and Ninjakari with their prevention of ice applications to a part are going to work better with warriors overall than shofangi/nekotai will.
I guess my point is that the connection to an org is made by the individual rather than the class. Personally, I would rather have the responsibility to make my own place rather than have an arbitrary connection be made on my behalf because we have this preconceived notion that every class has to directly tie to the org on a mystical/spiritual level. Maybe the teachers of those styles chose those orgs because they accepted the teachings first. I don't think that's so bad.
Historically, kung-fu developed in a similar manner according to my limited understanding of Chinese history which is based primarily on bad Kung-fu movies.
Tahetso has a triple limb break move that they can spam from the start of the fight. Bomol'sho/Baito'ruku/Baito'ruku. It seems a bit too good for a move thats spam able and from base.
For example warriors dont have a delay on breaks being cured and warriors require light wounds to do a break, so a warrior can spam a double limb break every 3.5 seconds but its gated behind wounds so it wont hit a double limb break every hit.
Its very very hindering and thats only two breaks plus you sort of miss a number due to having to reapply wounds
A quick fix would be to take the limb break out of Bomol'sho or Baito'ruku.
One thing I was thinking about that would fix this but may be too much of a nerf is to replace the damaged leg effect of Baito'ruku with something else and make it so Rakti'sho removes parry as it does now and if parry is already removed then it does damagedarm. So if you dedicate a form to it at center you can break 2 arms.
That would mean you couldn't start hindering this way until center stance but I don't know how good of a change that is for them since they can do 3 breaks/possible mangle at surge anyway.
If the target a single broken arm they are dead. If the target has you've put a double mutilate and reapplied the missing break.
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Looking into it the combination of Bomol'sho giving damaged arms on a kick and Raktiah'sho giving a mutilated arm break if the arm is broken means that all a tahetso has to do to push an arm lock kill is for the target to have a single arm break on the target as they enter into surge stance.
1 arm break means the tahetso can break the other arm and double mutilate in the same hit. And with its current ice stack sticking a single arm break isn't going to be too much trouble.
Also as a note mutilated limbs and damaged limbs stack remember.
I'd be inclined to suggest taking damaged arms off of Bomol'sho after thinking about it and going through what can be done with it. It it just gives tahestso such an easy route for an arm lock. Its just too easy. In groups its going to be a near unavoidable arm lock in under 8 seconds potentially if you want to boost the earlier forms doable without boosting as well. Solo its a kill method you can build to while