Twist is a whole different story. That is nuts, almost entirely because of the effects of the final. I'd be curious to hear your suggestions for improving it while keeping it viable. I also do think that both hexes - due to the inability to prepare more than 6 for rapid firing - and astrology - just too variable to be reliable, though deadly when it is. Uh, not counting meteor - are in decent places right now.
The biggest thing regarding Twist is a viable way to reset the Shadowdancer's offence. Right now, the only ways to get your shadow back and untwisted is to wait for IG dawn, kill the SD, or dominate them to drop it if at all possible. There is a report in place to address this already, submitted (not accepted). Report 1817 will hopefully introduce counterplay to the inexorable build to Final Twist.
The effect of final twist is fine when viewed in the lens of other guardian and wiccan offences: bursty and deadly. But the catch is that the other classes can miss their small windows and have to start all over again, usually with insufficient amounts of active power. Final twist can be held onto for an inordinate amount of time and popped for 1p at a key moment. They can miss their window, yes, but their window is potentially gigantic.
Angknek's ability to do what it does is strong. The fact that it doesn't prone anymore was already a nerf. I think that the ice stack is Nekotai's best at the moment for actually being productive. I've not got a lot of experience with modern monk though. I do think that any change there has to be careful. Maybe move the parry break into centre stance, keeping it on angknek? Or would moving it weaken the ability too much?
I think that swapping Angknek and Angkai's limb afflictions (shamelessly stolen from solution 3 in report 1721) could be an elegant and not-too-nerfy solution, but it probably doesn't go far enough. I really think Nekotai doesn't need essentially free parry drop though, and should have to work through parrying like any other class. Warriors can spend power to bypass parry. I'm not sure if there are other monks that have parry droppers, but I'd say those should go too. Maybe I'm sore about Tessenchi (and Nunchaku) vulnerability to parry though.
There's a report -somewhere- buffing parrying, I haven't been able to find it in a while. It will hopefully make it so when you parry a bodypart 100, it actually has a 100% chance of parrying weapons to that bodypart, barring power moves to bypass. That could also be of great help.
I'm planning to ask for a Noose nerf when the Mage/Chemwood Special report comes around. Entangle + runes/motes + damage + bleed is obviously bonkers.
Angknek not dropping parry wouldn't change much, now that clumsiness drops parry. More generally, I think that every monk should get clumsiness as a base arm action targeting either arm; its a very core competency for monks and standardizing that will go a long way to levelling the playing field. Add it to HemorrhagicStrike Arms (currently bleeding), Kumati Arms (currently bleeding), Xianchuk (currently cannot target limbs) and Umubah (currently cannot target limbs). Maybe not Xianchuk, since clumsiness is a mental affliction. But on the other hand, maybe it would be better to just make clumsiness not count for the Nunchaku insta.
Sticking clumsiness is the hard part. Moi, expect me to be annoyingly involved when that special report comes up. I keep finding myself circling back to Druid/Wood.
Maligorn, that change to parrying would go a long way towards changing things. Could be very frustrating for warriors and monks, but if you can stick clumsiness first it make things a bit more balanced. Not even stick, but things like beast spit.
So, the issue you have with Twist is that final twist, once reached, can be held for up to an hour for an opportune moment. Well, how about making the shadow slowly untwist over time? That would bring a potentially different set of issues, mind!
Also, belated note, but I'd really love to hear the things that you all feel are very strong about Hallifax skills in particular, though I am biased in wanting to hear about them more than anything. What do you feel is strong or difficult to deal with? What would you change in balancing up or down?
It feels like we always talk about Glomdoring but there are five other orgs out there to discuss and talk about.
Hmm you know this thread made me take a look at all the orgs as a whole as opposed to individual classes. And after doing that I'm thinking Celest as a whole tops glom for sure.
Just looking at the org alone and not thinking about comboing with allies.
Aquamelds are so much stronger than any other
meld. Preserve is exceptionally powerful, All bards have good damage but Cantors make other bards damage look weak, a Cantor can do an opening combo of 8-9k
damage solo(stacks as well with other cantors) and then they can repeat it due to its low power cost, their monks are the only monks have the who have a perma
prone(ninja come close but not quite), their chems have the strongest vital drain
as dreamweavers and their guardians come with a good beckon, tarots
lust/aeon utility and a very strong group mechanic with inquisition
and a back up mana kill. Ammiso is the strongest on cast mana drain outside of succumb and if they don't want aeon they can drop tarot and go healing for sacrafice which is overpowered atm but does have a report in to nerf it a bit. Add in trueheal so you have to build your kill twice to kill them in group combat.
If we are talking just looking at one org by themselves then Celest has it all. Gloms got some good classes I agree but its also got some weak stuff like their melds and weak access to aeon. Now some of these strengths and weaknesses can be reinforced with allies. Like comboing succumb and the aeomeld for insane passive mana drain or Glom bringing along a Gaudi bard/institue for the all important aeon etc.
There is a report to remove all parry removal from all monks. Monks will be countered by stancing not parry and will have no mechanic that removes parry/stancing.
EDIT: Its been accepted and approved just waiting for it to go in.
As far as internal Halli Synergy goes, Dramatist Symphonium + Acrobatic Tessenchi seems like it could go interesting places. The Symphonist has passive slush/steam affs, octave and active steam affs. The Tessenchi can thwart attempts to tumble out of octave with Airbending and Jumpkick->WirlwindGust. Both have a damage spike that scales with (select) steam afflictions.
My personal view on synergy is it is a great thing and all orgs should aim to have it. I know some people hate this stance because it means classes naturally stack well in teams. My opinion is that this is a far better state of affairs than the meta being lockdown/everyone damage, but I acknowledge this is one of those devisive topics. I think its pretty fair to say Magnagora and Hallifax struggle most in the synergy regard currently, though fingers crossed the aeonics update can make timewarp a credible team threat.
To go back to the op a little, personally I hold no ill will for any north players. I might disagree with some stances, but I don't think that reflects on me or the people whose stances I don't agree with. I get along with most players pretty well (when we're not fighting*), which is why you will find I will not engage on an ooc level with you while we are currently fighting. One of us is going to walk away feeling angrier, which helps noone.
Highmagic hod has a pretty large impact on Glom's synergy actually. So they're not as scary as they were even a month or two back, if you have access to highmagic. I still think that bleed/mana synergy is the strongest org* synergy at this point.
I do think that Tarken and Veyils, from my experience in discussions on envoys, generally recognize issues that come up and are willing to offer concessions. I appreciate that.
On the note of twist: There is a well supported pending report which would offer some solutions and options to reset twist buildup.
I think its pretty fair to say Magnagora and Hallifax struggle most in the synergy regard currently, though fingers crossed the aeonics update can make timewarp a credible team threat.
I'm sure Magnagora has some ridiculous combo somewhere if we looked into it.
I am pushing for a wiccan special report, their skill sets are pretty dated and the two of them lean super heavily on a single crutch skill. I've been scribbling down concepts and stuff for a while now.
Veyils, I'm all for a Wiccan special report too. We should chat about your thoughts.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited January 2018
There’s an old oooold thread I made For a Wiccan special report you can dig up that was generally rejected. That’s how dated wiccans are though. I had recognized it’s age back when eventru was a thing. I think the thread is event titled wiccans are dated or something similar.
Im reasonably sure a lot of my complaints back then are still valid. Like covens and Wiccan base speed.
Ah, memories! Though wiccans are certainly functional still, they could use an update. Aside from one or two super-skills at the moment for each (Twist, Succumb) they're fairly lackluster.
"Rock is OP. Nerf Rock. Paper is ok. Sincerely, Scissors."
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
11
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Ah, memories! Though wiccans are certainly functional still, they could use an update. Aside from one or two super-skills at the moment for each (Twist, Succumb) they're fairly lackluster.
Yeah that one. Never broken or bad, just really old and uninteresting when you get into the meat and potatoes of the skillsets. #justiceforcovens
Reading back over it, it is nice to see some changes having gone through from the original complaints! Fae are faster, toad was made an actual insta instead of free kills for our allies (YES I CAMPAIGNED FOR THIS SINCE 2013). Probably see more wiccans now thanks to the guilds being abolished too. Some of that info is dated, like needing a mana drain buff. I updated barghest and redcap so I don't think that's necessary anymore.
Also, I enjoyed that brief amazing moment snoefaasia were permanent and amazing. Then it was ruled a "bug."
Ah, memories! Though wiccans are certainly functional still, they could use an update. Aside from one or two super-skills at the moment for each (Twist, Succumb) they're fairly lackluster.
Yeah that one. Never broken or bad, just really old and uninteresting when you get into the meat and potatoes of the skillsets. #justiceforcovens
Reading back over it, it is nice to see some changes having gone through from the original complaints! Fae are faster, toad was made an actual insta instead of free kills for our allies (YES I CAMPAIGNED FOR THIS SINCE 2013). Probably see more wiccans now thanks to the guilds being abolished too. Some of that info is dated, like needing a mana drain buff. I updated barghest and redcap so I don't think that's necessary anymore.
Also, I enjoyed that brief amazing moment snoefaasia were permanent and amazing. Then it was ruled a "bug."
I forgot about that bug! It was amazing for the short time it happened. But the mana drain buff isn't as important now. Succumb is a timed heal now which makes it a lot stronger for MDs. Barghest is pretty useless, both feeding with redcap and on it's own due to paralysis nerf, but Twist is strong enough that SDs can definitely toad with a little work. But wiccans are still just...dull, yes. More flavor and some utility. I think all in all Wicca itself needs some major edits. If that demands a special report due to concurrent changes with Night/Moon, so be it. If they think special skills from the terts due to class is helpful, there is precedent for that. But that whole argument is something else. I went SD for a short while upon returning. It just was dull.
I'm not sure i understand the point of this evaluation on whether or not Glomdoring is or isn't "too strong" as an org. Most fights devolve into "alliance" brawls it seems anyways and is a mixup of various orgs. So maybe it's better to look at which alliance has more strenght and synergy. Glom+Gaudi vs Celest+Seren+Halli+Mag.
On twist though.. Twist is dumb.. real dumb. No offence to anyone here, but SD has seen better days and is kind of in an awkward position where it's actually OP in group and lackluster in 1v1 and it largly comes down to Twist. Being so powerful in group likely is a show stopper for SD getting any tweaks that would actually improve upon the overall experience playing the class and sucks just enough for 1v1 to make it frustrating to even bother with it. Sorry if I'm being negative here regarding that skill, but I really think it's just reached it's life expectancy and now is a hindrance to progress. It had it's time and served it's purpose really well, but pvp has changed drastically since and SD revolving so heavily around it is real boring.
Twist is fairly modern, as far as any wiccan design goes.
Also, @Azele, the point of the evaluation has already been questioned and iterated. It is your prerogative to not read the thread as much as it is to openly display that you have not read the thread and contribute some information which does not further the discussion.
(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
-1
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited February 2018
Not entirely sure that response was warranted or necessary.
The big thing with twist isn't neccisarily its age, but that its basically an entire "rework" rolled into one skill. Shadowdancers almost certainly were overleveraged on one skill before (choke) and the replacement mechanic centralized them more.
All of a Shadowdancers threat hangs on the one skill, with everything else being auxillary and working mostly to harrass or shut down specific other mechanics [see: brume] without really impacting their own strats. The things that aren't setitandforgetit with no choices/downsides see... zero use, because they detract from time spent twisting. A lot of the older skillsets have this problem because its a good method to give them a compact way to be relevant without totally rewriting the class from the Ground up
. Its hard to justify buffs to alternate strategies unless they are exclusive from use with twist... in which case they won't see use until twist is changed... which won't happen until twist isn't all of their kill potential... which won't... and so on. See this problem also with the other samey shared forest class, druids... or woodchems. One really terrific group application... but otherwise a lackluster archetype locked into a very specific niche by a viscious cycle of dependence on a super skill, the nature of gradual rolling updates, and the limited resources availible for an out of the box rework.
This is present to some degree for other classes for similar reasons but generally bards/monks/guardians avoid it.
There are patches conceivable but the true solution is reworking. Imo for wiccans, change the model of wicca being ten different slight variations on "summon x mob who ticks periodically to do y affliction" is the best thing for the archetype. For droods, dramatically de-emphasize the demense overall.
Doing these things should cut down on how tightly optimized and caveat'd Glom is, but would make things more interesting and varied overall by making more space for mechanics. More orgs should have strong mechanical themes like the bleeding focus - diversify glom some, focus almost everyone else up to that level.
Sorry, that's merely how I speak. Thank you for understanding.
That did come off as kind of hostile, I suppose, but to be fair, I already did address this point. I'm sorry for upsetting you and being brash in that instance.
Edit: I realise this may come off as an in-genuine response: I honestly am sorry. I happen to be human and capable of errors, of which this is one. I apologise for the intensity of my response.
(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
That did come off as kind of hostile, I suppose, but to be fair, I already did address this point. I'm sorry for upsetting you and being brash in that instance.
Comments
The effect of final twist is fine when viewed in the lens of other guardian and wiccan offences: bursty and deadly. But the catch is that the other classes can miss their small windows and have to start all over again, usually with insufficient amounts of active power. Final twist can be held onto for an inordinate amount of time and popped for 1p at a key moment. They can miss their window, yes, but their window is potentially gigantic.
I think that swapping Angknek and Angkai's limb afflictions (shamelessly stolen from solution 3 in report 1721) could be an elegant and not-too-nerfy solution, but it probably doesn't go far enough. I really think Nekotai doesn't need essentially free parry drop though, and should have to work through parrying like any other class. Warriors can spend power to bypass parry. I'm not sure if there are other monks that have parry droppers, but I'd say those should go too. Maybe I'm sore about Tessenchi (and Nunchaku) vulnerability to parry though.
There's a report -somewhere- buffing parrying, I haven't been able to find it in a while. It will hopefully make it so when you parry a bodypart 100, it actually has a 100% chance of parrying weapons to that bodypart, barring power moves to bypass. That could also be of great help.
Angknek not dropping parry wouldn't change much, now that clumsiness drops parry. More generally, I think that every monk should get clumsiness as a base arm action targeting either arm; its a very core competency for monks and standardizing that will go a long way to levelling the playing field. Add it to HemorrhagicStrike Arms (currently bleeding), Kumati Arms (currently bleeding), Xianchuk (currently cannot target limbs) and Umubah (currently cannot target limbs). Maybe not Xianchuk, since clumsiness is a mental affliction. But on the other hand, maybe it would be better to just make clumsiness not count for the Nunchaku insta.
Maligorn, that change to parrying would go a long way towards changing things. Could be very frustrating for warriors and monks, but if you can stick clumsiness first it make things a bit more balanced. Not even stick, but things like beast spit.
So, the issue you have with Twist is that final twist, once reached, can be held for up to an hour for an opportune moment. Well, how about making the shadow slowly untwist over time? That would bring a potentially different set of issues, mind!
Hmm you know this thread made me take a look at all the orgs as a whole as opposed to individual classes. And after doing that I'm thinking Celest as a whole tops glom for sure.
Just looking at the org alone and not thinking about comboing with allies.
Aquamelds are so much stronger than any other meld. Preserve is exceptionally powerful, All bards have good damage but Cantors make other bards damage look weak, a Cantor can do an opening combo of 8-9k damage solo(stacks as well with other cantors) and then they can repeat it due to its low power cost, their monks are the only monks have the who have a perma prone(ninja come close but not quite), their chems have the strongest vital drain as dreamweavers and their guardians come with a good beckon, tarots lust/aeon utility and a very strong group mechanic with inquisition and a back up mana kill. Ammiso is the strongest on cast mana drain outside of succumb and if they don't want aeon they can drop tarot and go healing for sacrafice which is overpowered atm but does have a report in to nerf it a bit. Add in trueheal so you have to build your kill twice to kill them in group combat.
If we are talking just looking at one org by themselves then Celest has it all. Gloms got some good classes I agree but its also got some weak stuff like their melds and weak access to aeon. Now some of these strengths and weaknesses can be reinforced with allies. Like comboing succumb and the aeomeld for insane passive mana drain or Glom bringing along a Gaudi bard/institue for the all important aeon etc.EDIT: Its been accepted and approved just waiting for it to go in.
(That is a joke). Should be a solution in the report I mentioned, I think.
To go back to the op a little, personally I hold no ill will for any north players. I might disagree with some stances, but I don't think that reflects on me or the people whose stances I don't agree with. I get along with most players pretty well (when we're not fighting*), which is why you will find I will not engage on an ooc level with you while we are currently fighting. One of us is going to walk away feeling angrier, which helps noone.
I think Celest is a not tooooo distant #2.
Highmagic hod has a pretty large impact on Glom's synergy actually. So they're not as scary as they were even a month or two back, if you have access to highmagic. I still think that bleed/mana synergy is the strongest org* synergy at this point.
I do think that Tarken and Veyils, from my experience in discussions on envoys, generally recognize issues that come up and are willing to offer concessions. I appreciate that.
On the note of twist: There is a well supported pending report which would offer some solutions and options to reset twist buildup.
*edit typo
Im reasonably sure a lot of my complaints back then are still valid. Like covens and Wiccan base speed.
?
"Rock is OP. Nerf Rock. Paper is ok. Sincerely, Scissors."
Reading back over it, it is nice to see some changes having gone through from the original complaints! Fae are faster, toad was made an actual insta instead of free kills for our allies (YES I CAMPAIGNED FOR THIS SINCE 2013). Probably see more wiccans now thanks to the guilds being abolished too. Some of that info is dated, like needing a mana drain buff. I updated barghest and redcap so I don't think that's necessary anymore.
Also, I enjoyed that brief amazing moment snoefaasia were permanent and amazing. Then it was ruled a "bug."
On twist though.. Twist is dumb.. real dumb. No offence to anyone here, but SD has seen better days and is kind of in an awkward position where it's actually OP in group and lackluster in 1v1 and it largly comes down to Twist. Being so powerful in group likely is a show stopper for SD getting any tweaks that would actually improve upon the overall experience playing the class and sucks just enough for 1v1 to make it frustrating to even bother with it. Sorry if I'm being negative here regarding that skill, but I really think it's just reached it's life expectancy and now is a hindrance to progress. It had it's time and served it's purpose really well, but pvp has changed drastically since and SD revolving so heavily around it is real boring.
Also, @Azele, the point of the evaluation has already been questioned and iterated. It is your prerogative to not read the thread as much as it is to openly display that you have not read the thread and contribute some information which does not further the discussion.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it
Twist is about as old as old comes with skills.
All of a Shadowdancers threat hangs on the one skill, with everything else being auxillary and working mostly to harrass or shut down specific other mechanics [see: brume] without really impacting their own strats. The things that aren't setitandforgetit with no choices/downsides see... zero use, because they detract from time spent twisting. A lot of the older skillsets have this problem because its a good method to give them a compact way to be relevant without totally rewriting the class from the Ground up
. Its hard to justify buffs to alternate strategies unless they are exclusive from use with twist... in which case they won't see use until twist is changed... which won't happen until twist isn't all of their kill potential... which won't... and so on. See this problem also with the other samey shared forest class, druids... or woodchems. One really terrific group application... but otherwise a lackluster archetype locked into a very specific niche by a viscious cycle of dependence on a super skill, the nature of gradual rolling updates, and the limited resources availible for an out of the box rework.
This is present to some degree for other classes for similar reasons but generally bards/monks/guardians avoid it.
There are patches conceivable but the true solution is reworking. Imo for wiccans, change the model of wicca being ten different slight variations on "summon x mob who ticks periodically to do y affliction" is the best thing for the archetype. For droods, dramatically de-emphasize the demense overall.
Doing these things should cut down on how tightly optimized and caveat'd Glom is, but would make things more interesting and varied overall by making more space for mechanics. More orgs should have strong mechanical themes like the bleeding focus - diversify glom some, focus almost everyone else up to that level.
@Enya Yes, I think you put it well.
That did come off as kind of hostile, I suppose, but to be fair, I already did address this point. I'm sorry for upsetting you and being brash in that instance.
Edit: I realise this may come off as an in-genuine response: I honestly am sorry. I happen to be human and capable of errors, of which this is one. I apologise for the intensity of my response.
== Professional Girl Gamer ==
Yes I play games
Yes I'm a girl
get over it