Why no one plays Wiccans: a perspective

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  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.
    Gah, I am trying really really hard to be positive and change my attitude about all of this.

    But getting OOC and IC messages about this snoefaasia thing. Let me clarify for everyone that this has been a classified bug by me since August 2012. So it's not like they are nerfing quest fae out of spite.

    However, the timing is a really insensitive. It's been a known bug for 7 months, and I'm not sure I buy that the first opportunity to fix is the 3 day window where Wiccans getting the shaft has been a public topic of conversation. It probably should have been planned or presented a bit differently.
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  • ElanorwenElanorwen The White Falconess
    edited March 2013

    Celina said:
    Gah, I am trying really really hard to be positive and change my attitude about all of this.

    But getting OOC and IC messages about this snoefaasia thing. Let me clarify for everyone that this has been a classified bug by me since August 2012. So it's not like they are nerfing quest fae out of spite.

    However, the timing is a really insensitive. It's been a known bug for 7 months, and I'm not sure I buy that the first opportunity to fix is the 3 day window where Wiccans getting the shaft has been a public topic of conversation. It probably should have been planned or presented a bit differently.
    Yeah, that was really my point in making the post about it in the first place.

    EDIT: Although I still disagree that the benefit of a quest that long needs to vanish so quickly. Yes, technically, quest benefits tend to poof often... but a single skill for a single person that is all but required for combat needing 4 hours every two weeks, on top of the power cost to summon? Uhhhhhhh... something definitely needs changing there.
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    Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
  • NihtaNihta
    One idea I was thinking about (without consulting anyone, so don't take this as the will of the wiccans) is a new mechanic for Night/Moon instakills called dimming for Night and something to do with brightening for Moon.

    Really no idea on the balance for this or anything so please take it as a brainstorming idea and with a grain of salt:
    (also I am aware at the moment neither skillset has anything usable to sustain these abilities, but maybe someone can think of something fair? I intend on these to be curable with either a herb or salve)
    For dimming:
    Being one of the chosen of Mother Night, you can draw your enemies deeper and deeper into her darkness, though they may not be able to thrive within it as you do.

    dimming is an actively cast spell with a 3 or 4s eq cost (at no eq bonus or malus) which causes every nth combat related line to be hidden. So if we say it would be every 10th line, then every 10th attack line someone uses on you (not just the caster), or a fae uses on you or a pet or whatever would be replaced with "your senses fade momentarily as the coldness of Mother Night seeps through you.". In addition, your prompt would display as if you were reckless (for just that one prompt though)

    stacking the afflictions will make a chain of lines affecting you invisible, so if you stacked it twice, you would have the 9th and 10th lines affecting you hidden, and if you stacked it 5 times, half of the lines affecting you would be invisible.

    Now the instakill method would be another skill called Darkness:

    Darkness 5p: When Mother Night's presence is strong within an enemy, you can call upon her wrath one final time to suck all light and warmth from them forever.

    Darkness will kill the target if they have 5 or more stacks of dimming on them.


    The moon skill would be similar but blinding and burning them in Mother Moon's moonfire

    So that is my idea for a thematic kill for our secondary! I thought it up more for flavour than with much thought towards combat, but I think maybe it might help the discussion?
  • ElanorwenElanorwen The White Falconess
    If dimming is easily curable, then the insta becomes non-viable. Keep in mind that an illuminati needs to dump 7 full revelations without the enemy curing, then take the enemy's true name (something that slows down the build up of insanity and is definitely a big warning bell, ringing to the tune of... "You're about to be illuminated soon") before using illumination to kill (at 8p cost, power that is lost if the illumination doesn't go through). On its own, unless it's uncurable... i.e. something that a fair amount of people will staunchly oppose, dimming/brightening would be useless, you'd need several other abilities to supplement the build up of your dimming, and I think that the effect granted is a bit too strong... completely ignoring affliction lines/attacks? Otherwise, sure... I can see it happening, although it's too much a clone of illumination/timequake.
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    Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
  • LlandrosLlandros
    No new incurable affs plz and really no new affs at all. Lusternian combat is complex but we don't need to push it to insane.

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  • SiamSiam Whispered Voice
    edited March 2013
    Moonie RP is pretty cool potentialwise, but it doesn't really get explored that much nowadays. Most seem to go for the happy cheery sparkles approach. If there were more people playing wiccans, I'd think to guildhop back over and give it another go methinks.

    A long, long time ago, @Aramel and I were plotting to be evil Moonies. And I had a vague discussion with @Astraea regarding a plan involving a false change of heart, going to the Moonies, eventually becoming the High Priestess of the Moon and then declaring @Nocht as the Patron. BOOM. RP-explosion.

    Viravain, Lady of the Thorns shouts, "And You would seize Me? Fool! I am the Glomdoring! I am the Wyrd, and beneath the cloak of Night, the shadows of the Silent stir!"

    #bringShikariback 

  • LaysusLaysus
    Just fought Elanorwen, a demigod druid with wyrdenwood. She could kill my fae in general in one hit thanks to the critical rate of demigods, and in general my fae caused me more trouble than they did her, because they trigger the passive afflictions (masochism, worms, disloyalty). Apparently my best chance against such an opponent is to find ways to kill them that do not use my primary, because it's just useless.
    Please note: I deliberately play a very flawed character. Just because he says or does something, does not mean I agree with it. He's a bit of a <censored> really
  • LlandrosLlandros
    They have a racial penalty to sleep tactics.

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  • LaysusLaysus
    1) astrologer,wrong tertiary for sleeplocks
    2) Doesn't matter much when my pixie is killed in one hit.
    Please note: I deliberately play a very flawed character. Just because he says or does something, does not mean I agree with it. He's a bit of a <censored> really
  • ElanorwenElanorwen The White Falconess
    Fae have never been more than a nuisance to me, really. And once you take the fae out of the equation, things get easy. Bit weirded out by the fact Patchou seems to be immune to crits too (I'd hit an annihilating on a fae, then switch to Patchou for DamageShift, but it never went through, was just a regular hit. Pretty sure other champion pets I've tried hitting aren't immune to it. Omnihedron comes to mind, for one. But yeah, definitely agree that wiccans need a lot of love... but then again, so do Ickytrees... as there really isn't any kind of viable strategy to kill anyone. Even with creeping doom with 3 afflicts, at most I'd drop someone down under 50%
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    Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.

    Bug the fae triggering the reactive skills. That's weird.

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  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    They changed the reactive skills to work on all attacks, including passives. As long as you are in the same room as the woodchemancer.
  • EritheylEritheyl ** Trigger Warning **
    That is...sort of dumb.
    Crumkane, Lord of Epicurean Delights says, "WAS IT INDEED ON FIRE, ERITHEYL."

    -

    With a deep reverb, Contemptible Sutekh says, "CEASE YOUR INFERNAL ENERGY, ERITHEYL."
  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.
    Any passive or just damage?
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  • SilvanusSilvanus The Sparrowhawk
    Any passive.

    So yes, your demon/angel/fae can trigger Aerochem's StaticField, or anything else for that matter.


    2014/04/19 01:38:01 - Leolamins drained 2000000 power to raise Silvanus as a Vernal Ascendant.
    2014/07/23 05:01:29 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Munsia as a Vernal Ascendant.
    2015/05/24 06:03:07 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Arimisia as a Vernal Ascendant.
    2015/05/24 06:03:58 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Lavinya as a Vernal Ascendant.
  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.
    All fae? Jesus WTF. I have 9 of them .
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  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    There is a cooldown on them firing as well, as part of that change.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Isn't it a rather short cooldown?  So if you do not have your fae all timed to hit at the same time and they are staggered out at 4s intervals, each fae-tick is going to get you a high chance of getting proc'ed upon.
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  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    edited April 2013
    That's about right, yes.  Each given backlash has a 15% chance to fire on attack, so if you do enough attacks all at once, you're likely to be hit with some backlash effect or another. Most of them are pretty pathetic/non-hindering, each spec has perhaps one that would cause problems, of varying degrees. The worst a wildewood will hit with is entangle, aerochems will aeon/stun, wyrdenwoods will entangle, aquas might... peace?
  • CyndarinCyndarin used Flamethrower! It was super effective.
    That's a terrible design.
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  • LaysusLaysus
    It's a kick in the teeth for wiccan :/ Especially given that timing fae is a) a nuisance, and b) doesn't really make your situation any better.
    Please note: I deliberately play a very flawed character. Just because he says or does something, does not mean I agree with it. He's a bit of a <censored> really
  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    edited April 2013
    I agree that these backlash skills are poorly designed. You forget that wiccans are hardly hit the worst by them, though - Mages and druids have a much harder time against woodchemantics because their passives hit more often, and more widely. If there are multiple woodchemantics users in the room,  the melder has to check against the backlash effects of all.

    Backlash as a core part of a skillset is a problem. It primarily serves as harassment, without substantially helping the offense or defense of the woodchemantics user, with a rare few outliers (the aerochemantics stun/aeon combo). Because of the way that the "killer" bomb skills work as far as stacking affs and how the affs were chosen, the woodchemantics user is actually punished for hindering their opponent, as a third of their skillset instantly becomes inactive.

    In an offensive capacity, which administration has said these backlash effects are intended to occupy, the backlashes are not dependable and do not work when your offense is otherwise going well: when the opponent is hindered or focusing on defense/curing. In a defensive capacity, they do nothing to stop incoming attacks and their effects almost all resolve instantly or far before balance on the majority of attacks returns. That is, they only hinder the opponent when they are unable to act anyways. Only a very few of the backlash effects defy this categorization, notably the aeon of aerochems and possibly the entangle from wyrdenwoods.

    Because of that last point, making these backlashes only work on active attacks is liable to remove what small use these backlashes have, for most woodchemantics users. That's okay, they're iffy  and unfun anyways.  I hope that threads like this, where the problematic nature of the skillsets are explored and talked about, will eventually lead to a new/revised mechanic that is more useable and fun for the woodchemantics while being more fair (and fun) for everyone else.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Isn't it much easier to time demesne ticks so that your passives would then be much less likely to trigger periodically? It'd be a much higher chance of the retaliation hitting on the demense tick, but no chance of it happening every four seconds.

    Not firing off on passives would seem a decent first step, though, and more likely than "trash the mechanics" which seem to be an integral part of the skillsets' structure.
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  • CiaranCiaran
    Agree on disabling them from ticking on passives, but Enyalida makes a good point that reactives are very challenging to integrate into an effective offense. They're simply very unpredictable.

    Just an idea:

    Change reactives from instantly firing at the attacker to enabling the wood/chem to actively apply the affliction at no balance cost. The reactive gets charged up by the attack, and you can discharge it at whomever you wish within, say, 30s of it being charged.

    For balance sake, I think the bomb skills would deplete all of your charged reactives, otherwise that could be abused.

    Of course I like my own idea, but the more I think about it, the more it strikes me as an awesome mechanic. This could make the classes interesting, maintaining their flavour, as well as maintaining the defensive style.
    Take great care of yourselves and each other.
  • DiamanteDiamante
    For 100,000 USD I will come back and be active.


    PS: Hello everybody :D
  • DiamanteDiamante
    Addendum: Jeeze the forums have changed up.
  • HiriakoHiriako
    No thanks Diamante. Also, a thought for Sylph. Maybe give it the ability to strip levitation? Then you could take advantage of it to knock people from trees/sky. Even then, you'd still have to get them there.
  • AsmodeaAsmodea
    Perhaps you could make sylph act like geyser/highjump where its an active takedown, ORDER SYLPH WHIRLWIND for example and she would suck your target down from above when commanded, rather than making her disappear from your entourage.
  • HiriakoHiriako
    Only potential issue I see with using the sylph to strip levitation would be the potential for concussion/aeon being really easy.
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