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The Future of Combat
The various 'chemantic skills introduce a feature that Lusternia hasn't seen before: mass area nuking. A sufficiently large group of linked mages or druids can conceivably affect a whole zone with damage effects. Mulling over what future battles will look like, I came up with this scenario:
1) Team A is sitting ready in the zone. They have 7 linked mages, a bard, and a warrior, all shielded.
2) Team B enters. They have 9 linked druids and a monk. The monk shields as fast as he possibly can, because that's all he can do.
3) Team A senses Team B entering, and immediately starts unleashing effects. The effects hit Team B's room because of the extended range, and immediately kill three of the weaker members.
4) Team B is hurt, but they know from their dead teammates that Team A's casters are vulnerable. They promptly return fire.
5) Team A is hurt, but they know from their dead teammates that Team B's casters are vulnerable. They promptly return fire.
6) Steps 4 and 5 repeat until all of either Team A's casters or Team B's casters are all dead.
7) Whoever is still alive (ie, anyone who remained shielded during the exchange) now engages, but the battle from here is largely already decided, since the side with casters left is the one that doesn't have to deal with periodic bursts of massive damage plus afflictions.
I imagine that once everyone has gotten their respective 'chemantic skillsets and developed their tactics, that many battles will end up going like this. I'm... not enthused.
The environment is clearly favorable towards the side with the most linked casters. More casters means more bursts of damage. It also means a wider radius of effect, which means that your casters have a better chance of attacking without being in the range of retaliatory strikes. Once a caster group whittles down another to the point where they can no longer hit with their area of effect, the battle is decided. If the current mechanics persist, I foresee a heavy, heavy shift in the population towards mage and druid guilds, since every active mage or druid on the team means it's that much harder for the enemy to get close.
Non-mage/druid classes are largely relegated to support, as doing anything which would drop a shield in an enemy blast radius is invitation to death. This includes movement. Essentially, you're stuck until the fireworks stop, at which point you're just mopping up anyway. One tactic I can see is sending a melee class in to take down a particularly important target's shield before the explosions start, which is almost certainly a suicide mission: the melee will probably be the first victim of AoE blast. Hardly glorious, but likely the most effective a melee fighter can be in the environment.
The current 'chemantic mechanics are going to lead to an age of artillery vs artillery, in a game which the archetypes have been designed around being up close and personal. This long-range, wide-area mechanic is a new addition to the game, and ultimately, I feel, a bad one. It severely limits the effectiveness of existing archetypes without these sort of abilities, encourages a dull, stationary combat style, and prevents new entrants from even getting close to the battlefield without getting blown apart.
Please remove the range and area components from all 'chemantic type abilities. They're not good for the game.
P.S.: Glomdoring wins hands down in an artillery battle. Spam Gloomtide, passive shield from Harbinger, and a group of Ickytree bombers? Good luck fighting that.
6
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Ranged aoe bombs have been around for a while in the form of the demesne trans skills ala pollution etc. So this isn't the first time. It is true, however, that this is the first time they have been enabled to be used multiplicatively and outside of a meld.
Next, if you have enough chemantics to cover an entire area, let's use faethorn, you'll likely be in an almost unassailably strong position by pure numbers alone. Even standing in the middle of faethorn, It'd take 7 chemantics to cover the entire area. If you stand at one end, the number required effectively doubles. With this kind of numbers, chemantics or not, the fight is almost already guarantee'd in your favour.
Thirdly, in an artillery standoff, the first standard operating procedure is to shield, anyway. Second is to block to prevent beckoning. Given that chemantic bombs take 10secs to explode, and (now, at least) come with warning messages, it's doubtful a stand-off would catch any prepared team off-guard to the point where they will die to bombs. Even if they are actively casting bombs themselves, they should have enough time to shield after casting.
Fourthly, these bombs are limited by their mist/flowers/whatevers. It's likely only one or at the most two bombs per caster is available before they need to reload their "artillery". Which takes a decent amount of time, (16s, if we assume 4s per cast of of their 4 mists).
All the above factors combined make your projected scenario unlikely to happen. The entering team would not bother casting bombs - they know the enemy is likely shielded. When the incumbent sees the enemy entering, they will also not be likely to cast, since there's at least 10 secs for them to shield.
Also, if you're feeling frustrated on the assumption that current aerochem or more specifically, current morbo-level damage is going to be the norm, you should take heart. As a matter of fact, that will not be something many combatants will stand for. Take a look at Enyalida or Neos' logs for their versions. The current numbers may or may not still need adjusting up or down, but generally speaking, the most powerful bomb should do no more than 2k damage or thereabouts to a fully deffed, entirely unaff'd target. When the target has increasing levels of boosting affs, only and only then should the damage go to 4k, 6k, instakill levels. The lesser bombs should definitely do less than that, and they will not be boostable via affs.
Simply put, the situation you've been facing against Aerochemancers are a temporary problem that many are waiting to be adjusted by the admin.
Now, I've said all of the above, but notice that my first line is that your projections are only slightly inaccurate. I corrected most of what I saw was slightly erroneous in your theory, and I mentioned that the scenario you predict will not be likely to come true. However, I fully agree that chemantics are going to change the nature of group combat almost entirely. Taking a more likely set of conditions: Team A has 5 combatants. 2 are chemantics. The other 3 are of the other classes. Team B has also 5 combatants. Only 1 is a chemantic user.
1) Team B is entrenched in position, defending, say, a domoth, or is raiding and dug into their fortified room. Team A rushes their position.
2) Chemantic users on both sides cast their bombs upon combat being started. The rest do their usual shtick.
Here, Team B is forced to entirely abandon their position and regroup, because they cannot upkeep shields while combat is going on, and staying to tank the 2 bombs compared to their own 1 is decidedly foolish. Furthermore, they are forced to regroup at least 2 rooms away, because otherwise they'd still get hit.
On the other hand, Team A can choose to try and tank the 1 bomb, because they know they are at an advantage. At the same time, they just need to tie down one or maybe two of Team B's combatants within the radius when the bomb goes, and they'll become instantly squishier (even assuming the more reasonable 2k damage per bomb, that's 4k damage), if not dead.
In effect, just by having an extra chemantic, all other factors remaining equal, a team gains the ability to displace and force a regroup, as well as the high probability of killing at least one of the opponent team.
When more chemantics users are involved, this more-chemantics-win mechanic becomes more pronounced. If both teams have 2+ chemantics, then it becomes inefficient to try and run, because needing to regroup 3 rooms or more away exponentially increases the likelihood of losing a member due to lagging behind, or being lost, or not making it back into the team in time before the opponents catch up and restart the fight. (Slight tangent: This is a variation of the argument about reality being better than scissor/fearaura simply because it moves more rooms) If both teams are in a position where they cannot run, then they must stay and tank the chemantic bombs, then the winner becomes whichever team can survive the bombs.
Warrior tactics? Monk instas? Bard synergy? Druid support? Guardian aeon? None of that matters in group combat anymore. Chemantics becomes the end-all and be-all of group combat. Not because of artillery scenarios, but because when a fight starts, and everyone is forced to stay to get hit by multiple bombs, their own offenses become entirely eclipsed and tankability beats all. The only important skills in group combat will be chemantics and serpent.
The more chemantics you have in your team, the bigger the advantage you have. And past a certain point, nothing else matters but the number of chemantics users. Effectively, group combat will become what Thul described: a gravitation toward these skillsets for their absolute value in group combat, and everyone else becoming sidelined outside of the arena.
Can I trade the bombs for more tools or maybe like a magical girl theme to the skills.
On a more serious note, I'm definitely disappointed by the chemantics skills so far. This trend definitely needs some major bout of reevaluation/rebalancing to be put in line, because otherwise... I personally don't see much of a point in fighting until this situation is resolved. When a single person can turn the tide of battle from a complete rout to a complete victory, there is a definite problem that needs addressing. I would love to get our *wood as soon as possible, but I'm personally willing to wait until the abilities have been reevaluated and brought in line with the rest of Lusternia, even if it means I don't get to play with my own I.W.I.N button.
Here's a suggestion that's been jumping around in my head... convert chemancer links to a form of coven, giving increased range only to the 'coven leader' so to speak rather than each link boosting each and every chemancer involved in it. After all, it does make sense to only boost the range of one because extra range comes from the other mages adding their power to the primary caster, rather than a case of... "We're holding hands, so we're all stronger!" It is not a case of a morale boost, making each and every one of them the 'little chemancer that could', the power has to come from somewhere, forcing every other mage within the link to lend their magical power to support the primary caster.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Sorry, but whilst I may agree with most of what has been said, the methods outlined in the OP are hardly new.
Like group destruction spam then?
Since when did destruction hit every enemy in a radius at once?
If you are noticing bugs with new skills, please BUG them! Not every admin reads the forums and the ones who do don't read every thread. BUG is the best way to bring bugs to our attention, not the forums. Doing a really quick search of bugs looking for "damage" or "aerochemantics", I only found one bug report that was filed last night (this is a quick search, don't yell at me if my scanning missed one).
Of course, my post, and Thul's to a certain extent are probably exaggerations. At the very least, they are theory based, and we've yet to actually see such scenarios play out. It is a matter of fact, however, that this IS the first time aoe damage skills has been given both range and stackability. Previous versions are ALL either restricted to a single room (boulderblast, balestone) or restricted by meld requirement (pollution style meld trans abilities). There has been no precedent for both these mechanics being enabled in an aoe ability at once.
And TP doesn't do that either, as far as I know.
This isn't a matter of tactics that become deadly against a single target when stacked. This isn't even about tactics that become deadly against groups when stacked. This is about a new mechanic that has the potential to greatly affect meta-strategies in group combat, and change the way skills, targets, and procedures are prioritized in a large scale fight. Change of strategies and the way the game is played is in itself is not always a bad thing. And I have no doubt these skillsets are here to stay. I didn't even contemplate or suggest removing or changing the skills drastically in my post. Their effect, however, is clearly a concern to Thul, and I agree with him. I'm not sure these are changes that will be beneficial to the game in general.
Well, actually, this general set up has existed in the past. Remember group boulderblasting with pollute? Wiped whole groups, and at least had some degree of risk because the boulderblasters had to be in the same room as the group that they wanted to murder, though with the impending pollute bomb, the risk was rather small.
Well, boulderblast was nerfed because that kind of thing was insane. In many ways, this new scenario, or opportunity for new scenarios is worse. It's ranged, does not scale with multiple targets, and does a crap ton more damage with no demesne limitation that pollute had. Oh, and they boost one another simply by existing and logging on at the same time. We've tried to move away from the coordinated insta deaths in the past. Tramplesac and telepathy bombs are the obvious ones (though group inquisition has magically avoided this trend, weird), so I'm not sure why we need to actively relearn this lesson all over again.
Considering chems and woods can link to non-chems/woods (i.e. aerochems can link with aeromancers, wildewoods can link with stag druids), it is not a matter of how many have the skill. I still have yet to see a guild with the new skills field five people at the same time in a live combat situation. That is what I meant by my comment, nothing else.
EDIT: I still say a good, and possibly sensible solution to the issue is to treat the linking like a coven where only the leader gets to benefit from increased range and where the range is lost if the linkers are separated (Though that second part is optional, I guess) - You can still stack them, but there's the element of danger for the non-lead chems in that they don't get increased range and have to engage the enemy directly.
EDIT2: Add-on to the coven idea. Can be linked over distance, but have to be in the same area. That way you don't end up grabbing every newbie in the guild to link up with chems and then simply hop up on a bubble, leaving your links behind and out of danger while benefiting from the links they provide you with.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
As an aside, if Glom or Mag had these skills first, this would be a no brainer change. There would be no discussion or obtuse objections with obscure references to ascendant only 1 target skills. I would wager that the admin would have hotfixed it rather than wait for envoys.
Not because of partisan lines, but because those two orgs are historically the better coordinated and push the most meta game tactics further. Right now all I've seen is Morbo abuse it, so it's been flying under the radar. Had the releases not stalled, this conversation would not exist. It would have been fixed.
But guys, chill. Let us wait a year or perhaps two to fully examine the ins and outs of these chems and then present a logical argument and not so soon after a loss in game. Oh wait.
Edit: If your post wasn't trolling, Celina, you could have fooled me. I don't know how anyone can honestly take you seriously.
<P>It's not partisan, though you seem to be playing that card. Look at the past, with tramplesac and pollute bombs and boulderblast squads and telebombs and chokefifth and chokemenses and their subsequent changes and nerfs, etc. You could even go as far to say it's a IRE or just a gaming community thing, that the "evil" side tends to exploit things to a greater degree than the "good" side. They tend to (though it's not a universal rule) have more end game meta style PKers. And exclusively to Lusternia, Glom specifically has demonstrated a greater appitude to coordinate than Celest or Seren. Want to dispute it as partisan? Sure go ahead, but why hasn't the group bomb squads been exploited before now, despite both Seren and Celest having the skills for months? Good grief, how long has Celest had team inquisition and it's still not all that prevalent. </P>
<P>The simple reality based on years of past experience means these skills that are just now coming to public forum would have been much more visible than they are now, not because of any partisan favoritism or bias, but solely because the skill would have been visible long before now. When people start mass dying at the push of a button, things tend to get changed, which is what we are seeing now....4 months after the original release. I'm just saying Glom or Mag would have abused it sooner. take that how you will.</P>
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<P>You could try to not be so sour all the time. And that's coming from me, of all people. If you had a non partisan bone in your body, and I think you do, you'd be able to recognize that Morbo one off rants about reality 3 minutes after a domoth really isn't the same as a discussion that has existed since <EM>the original skills release in aquachemancy. </EM>Feel free to browse Enyalida's thread about wildewood. I believe there was discussion about the bomb skill there, before Hallifax ever had it, and Seren sure as heck never abused with any degree of success. Can go back to Neos's posts before the Aquachemancy report, there was plenty of discussion there about them, and Celest wasn't really using them. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the damage formula was already altered long before the skill ever saw any noticable cooridated usage in group fights. We'll wait so you can investigate.. :)</P>
<P> </P>
<P>You don't actually have to go look, and this was a little off topic. I just felt like burying your partisan post with facts and reality.</P>
<P> </P>
<P>edit: You don't have to see how people take me seriously. I lost count after my 10th envoy report in a row passed. Looks like the onus is on you to figure out why you can't look past your bias towards me and in game alliances, rather than on me to prove I actually can make logical arguments that aren't dicated by my character. Evidence speaks for itself.</P>
Edit: What about my tiny little post was 'partisan'? I was reminding you of how you guys responded to the reality argument. That's it. I still have great friends on the other side of the aisle. You're the one misbehaving and raging since any alliance split- I have logs of you carrying on. Anyways! Rage on. This is great entertainment for me. Oh and, yes, chems are op.
My particular envoy has been out with computer issues as of late, but I've talked with some of the others I have access to.
To clarify, since there's... some confusion. Somehow. I am complaining about the ability to hit all enemies from several rooms away. I've seen from several rooms away (group zap) and I've seen all enemies in a room, but I don't think extended range and all enemies and afflictions has happened before.
As for partisanship... if all I wanted was for Glomdoring to win, we could just let the next round of chemantics stuff come around as is. As I noted, we have the tools to utterly dominate this sort of environment. I don't think it'll be a fun environment. I think it'll devalue non-bombers. I think one good weekend on the receiving end of Ickytrees is going to have a lot of people in agreement.
<DIV class=QuoteAuthor><A href="/profile/Malicia">Malicia</A> said:</DIV>
<DIV class=QuoteText>Wow, wall-o-text. I was simply giving as good as I've seen it given on these new shiny forums! Of course the chem stuff is op but all that drivel about which org is more coordinated when obviously some orgs are suffering from inactive fighters/melders/etc is just that, drivel and biased. I'll leave you to your admin-bashing as if you're the only one trying to make the game better and that everything is biased against you. The good that'll do!<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><BR>I feel like any time some one presents actual logic and reason, you just respond with tl;dr and calling people bad envoys or otherwise untrue statements. If you want to read, it's on you. Reading is fun, you should try it.</P>
<P> </P>
<P>edit: Or abuse flags. That works too. Let's just get back on topic away from all that silly stuff.</P>
Bring on the /popcorn.