What can I do against this

Ciaran · June 2016

@Lerad

I was talking about stun in its state pre-nerf (pre immunity), trying to differentiate between a situation that warranted a change, and aeon. TLDR: when you could spam stun and lock the other person out completely, that warranted a change. However, you cannot spam aeon and lock someone out completely, therefore I don't think aeon needs to be made like stun.

Sorry if it wasn't clear there.

Also, your point about wanting to remove aeon entirely is something that I was never even trying to address, because it would require entire rewrites of many guilds. While I can't say whether that would be better or worse for the game as a whole (personally I like the mechanic), I know that the admin have enough work on their plate as it is.

This entire thread was me trying to point out that aeon doesn't require a cooldown after curing. Perhaps that's why you thought your arguments were being dismissed. Sorry.

Yarith · June 2016

So I grabbed a bunch of data from the logs I posted with the domoth fights and crunched them in R for an hour or so. The change proposed doesn't address the problem at all based on the sample of those 9 or so logs of proper fighting. It does turn out, however, that some people take a really, really long time to cure out of aeon compared to everyone else.

Deleting aeon is way better.

Edit: If people posted logs there'd be a way better sample size.

Edit2: For clarity, and I guess I'll post my data in another thread or link it in a googledoc if anyone is interested in what 9 logs suggest about average cure times/times between meaningful applications, adding a 3s immunity to aeon doesn't exactly solve anything in terms of group fighting. It saves you if you get caught. The true population mean for the difference in time between meaningful applications is at least above 5 for those conditions and the greatest reason for that is aeonfield. Even at 3 seconds in proper fighting you eliminate no really significant instances of aeon being applied. Does this hurt the meta? Not really. Does it achieve anything? No. It seems like just throwing out a nerf for no reason aside from 'I want to live longer and you can't hinder me with this affliction'. Basically all you're doing is accounting for the discernable impact of aeon field and saving yourself if you get caught out.

Yarith · June 2016

Just in case I didn't get my point across: Go for it, whatever. It doesn't look like it changes much to me anymore but your reasoning for the change doesn't add up with what it actually will do.
That is, the reason for the change doesn't reflect the impact of the change.

Lerad · June 2016

I don't think Celina's report misses the problem it is trying to solve. The problem of being aeoned over and over again in groups is a very real one. Aeon's way of compounding into itself - the longer you spend in aeon, trying to get out of it, the more afflictions you have, makes it, by its nature, an affliction that should be balanced by appropriate windows of response. It's all fine and good that you can get out of aeon as compared to the lack of such a possibility in stun, but it's pointless if right after that you can get put into aeon again with zero power cost, zero opportunity cost, nada.

As a group-combat orientated report, it, in fact, fails to address multiple people coordinating to aeon/asthma and keep the target in aeon forever. In short, it is a good step in the right direction, but is limited in how much it can alleviate the situation.

If, as you say, Celina's aeon curing is horrendous, then you won't suddenly find that she becomes immune to your aeon tactics. She'll still stay in aeon as long as she always has, and continue to die horribly as a result. The change will not make it easier for mediocre combatants, or combatants with less than optimized aeon curing to suddenly get a "ignore aeon" card. In fact, with how strong aeon is, even combatants with perfect aeon curing will still find it a frustrating affliction, because it still shuts down their class actives as a response. It still is, at the end of the day, a triggers battle.

It will, however, prevent all combat from devolving into 100% aeon all the time. It will reduce how much utility a random midbie who just spams aeon can bring to a fight - with the possibility of it even being counter productive if it's done mindlessly. I hesitate to say it will return a measure of strategy to the affliction, because I am opposed to the kind of "strategy" it brings (as described by Enyalida's post in this thread) but it will at least make it less of a mindless spam in group combat.

And that is better than the status quo.

Yarith · June 2016

Then we need people to post full logs more because there's not much evidence of that occurring apart from people saying it always happens and isolated logs of where it occurs. In fact, in the entirety of the logs I posted there is only 2 instances of aeon which would have been prevented by a 3-second immunity and both of them were from Synkarin onto me. I don't think combat is 100% aeon all the time. If it was then there wouldn't be any kills. Maintaining aeon still takes one-two people their full balances to lock down one person. I think it certainly requires coordination to softlock someone outside of hexenpalm asthma and I wouldn't consider that any less strategy than, say, shield stunning to enable deathsong.

I cast aeon probably more than the next person and I certainly use malefactgem more than the average researcher and it's not even an enjoyable thing to keep someone under. It's frustrating as an aeoner because the process of upkeeping aeon is so finicky and comes down to very narrow windows. Do I personally enjoy using it? No. I much more preferred amissioing for absolve or using judge as a celestine. Will I continue using it because it's the most effective part of my kit? Yeah. Of course. What else am I supposed to do? Will this change make a difference to how well I'm going to keep someone under aeon? I'm pretty sure it won't do much to that end at all, which is why I am uncertain as to what it's supposed to do.

In case it didn't come across in my second post, I'm not against it now that I've done the thing where you crunch numbers, just as I'm not convinced that it achieves exactly what it is supposed to by virtue of a lack of hard evidence suggesting that this is a common and present problem. There's absolutely no onus on you to convince me of that case.

Xenthos · June 2016

What? Why would combat being aeon all the time mean that there would not be any kills? Nobody has their entire team do it, like you said it only takes one/two people aeoning to lock it down. Everyone else does the killing, which is much easier with aeon. Aeon all the time does the opposite of "no kills"...

Enyalida · June 2016

For the sake of clarity, the -wood related nerf to stuns had nothing to do with stun immunity, it was that shieldstun scaled too strongly to strength and that a single stun was lasting too long. There hadn't previously been high strength players who were given good incentives to shieldstun frequently instead of using other class skills on their balance. The other high strength classes were the dual-wielding physical classes and the illuminati, who generally wanted to be using other things on their balances.

More topically: it's not up to anyone to convince you, @Yarith, of anything. Personally, I think that an aeon immunity is ok, if potentially problematic in some extreme edge cases. I also think that 3s is too long by half a second to a second. A good compromise might be exempting some class-based (that is, primary or secondary skill) aeons from immunities or introducing ways for those classes to sidestep the immunity in the short term while further changes are looked at.

Yarith · June 2016

That's entirely dependant on the number of people fighting and the combinations of the kill methods available to you then, isn't it?

One-two people locking isn't the same as aeon all the time. You took two isolated parameters and put them together even though they weren't in the same sentence.

Xenthos · June 2016

They are not two isolated parameters. You specifically said that "maintaining aeon still takes one-two people their full balances to lock down one person". Further, while you are right that they are not the same sentence, one comes right after the other in the same paragraph. If it takes one-two people aeoning to lock someone down, per your own statement, then that is full aeon all the time. And it leaves everyone else to do their murder thing.

Yarith · June 2016

I'm not quite sure I'm seeing where 'aeon all the time' collides with supplementing aeon with asthma or shield stun or whatever else. Are you merely arguing for the sake of arguing? I already ceded my point and was making a distinction between just spamming aeon and keeping the affliction stuck on someone. Keeping someone aeoned with 100% aeon, that is, aeon every balance, requires more than two people.

Xenthos · June 2016

The difference is that I consider aeon locking to be "aeon all the time" because... that is exactly what it is. It does not particularly matter how you achieve it (whether it is by supplementing with additonal aeon casts or other command denial abilities), it is still keeping the target aeoned. You are now trying to make a distinction that does not, to me, exist. Either way you have one-two people who are focused on keeping someone aeoned so their buddies can do the kill. It has the outcome of increasing the kill likelihood, not reducing it to zero, which is the assertion I am challenging (and which I do not see you having ceded?).

Yarith · June 2016

Like, I don't know. When I see 'combat being 100% aeon' I read that as 'everyone is working to apply aeon' which would mean that no one is progressing a kill method. The following sentence regards the act of maintaining aeon on one individual vs everyone working to maintain aeon. I don't see how it's that hard to understand. I feel like you're intentionally trying to bait me into a further argument.

Either way, there's no point arguing with you. There's no point trying to post on this forum. In fact, there's no point trying to make a statement at all because the moment you make any statement people rush to the gate with pitchforks. I should have done what Falmiis did and just left. No wonder people don't post logs.

Synkarin · June 2016

Celina posted a log on the actual report where she was aeoned less than a second after curing it because two people were just spamming aeon on her. When you have someone perpetually aeoned, they -are- locked down and can only cure or run (if they can run, try tumbling out of pfifth in aeon). The immunity prevents someone from being perpetually locked down by aeon while having zero effect on 1v1 combat. It rewards locking strategies rather than spamming strategies. I don't see how it's that hard to understand.

And you're right, there is no point trying to discuss it with you. The arguments against aeon immunity have gone from bad to worse. If you can't handle disagreement amidst a discussion, you have no business being in the discussion. At least we didn't resort to throwing out insults and ad hominems because the facts were flying in our faces.

Xenthos · June 2016

Yarith said:

Like, I don't know. When I see 'combat being 100% aeon' I read that as 'everyone is working to apply aeon' which would mean that no one is progressing a kill method. The following sentence regards the act of maintaining aeon on one individual vs everyone working to maintain aeon. I don't see how it's that hard to understand. I feel like you're intentionally trying to bait me into a further argument.

Either way, there's no point arguing with you. There's no point trying to post on this forum. In fact, there's no point trying to make a statement at all because the moment you make any statement people rush to the gate with pitchforks. I should have done what Falmiis did and just left. No wonder people don't post logs.

No. You are misinterpreting (intentionally? I can't see how anyone would reasonably interpret it the way you are stating...). When someone says combat is 100% aeon, they are saying that everything is based entirely around aeon's existence, in perpetuating it, and exploiting its application. It is actually close to what you said (everyone is indeed working to apply aeon... or keep it applied... or take advantage of the fact that it is applied). That last part is what progresses the kill, and it is far more effective when the target cannot react due to aeon.

It is more than a little silly for you to take a statement, twist it into a pretzel, and then post a tirade saying that it's not worth having a discussion with us when the problem appears to be with how you decided to read that statement. Followed by a series of very confusing posts that make no sense to anyone else who read it the way it was intended (including, as is becoming unfortunately standard, a series of personal attacks, put-downs, and attempts to dismiss entire arguments based on nothing but dislike for the argument).

CyndarinAscends · June 2016

Yarith said:

Either way, there's no point arguing with you. There's no point trying to post on this forum. In fact, there's no point trying to make a statement at all because the moment you make any statement people rush to the gate with pitchforks. I should have done what Falmiis did and just left. No wonder people don't post logs.

Falmiis should have left because he was rude, petty, and hateful towards another player for absolutely no reason. A player that repeatedly prompted him for input on the aeon report so that the report could address both sides, and a request he repeatedly outright refused up until very recently.

It's inappropriate to make comments about our supposed pitchforks and unreasonableness because we are discussing the mechanics and the substance of the argument while your buddies have repeatedly devolved this argument into personal attacks.

We disagree on mechanics and application, for whatever reason. Fine. That's not a pitchfork, that's an opinion. A pitchfork is dismissing an entire body of reasoning and rational because it came from your opposition in a game.

CyndarinAscends · June 2016

P.S. There's literally a log in the report of immediate aeon reapplication that you are asserting does not exist. I posted it for this very reason.

If you want to delete Aeon, great! I'll support it. Make a report. However, others don't, like your buddies Ciaran and Falmiis aren't going to. Obviously, I'm not going to convince them. Maybe you or Shedrin can. Ultimately, I will make a practical report that tries to meet in the middle. As is painfully apparent in this thread, I can't appease everyone with a single report.

Twytch · June 2016

The thing is, I don't see any of the people who are supporting the deletion of Aeon even acknowledging the fact that it will require a Researcher (and maybe Moondancer, depending on the route they're taking) rework. The most we've gotten is "That's you're problem," but any of our suggestions (adding more spirit affs to stack with timewarp, changing the effect of timewarp because aeon will be gone, etc..) have, at most, received a half-hearted "Meh." So you see the hesitation with supporting a full Aeon deletion, when none of the Envoys outside Hallifax have even voiced an opinion regarding its bigger effect on Researchers/Moondancers than other classes with access to Aeon.

Synkarin · June 2016

Only Lerad is proposing deleting aeon (until others did it later) and he's said add more spiritual affs etc. I'm sure he's fully aware that removing aeon completely would require a bit of work on researchers and MD's etc.

Deleting aeon isn't on the table though, only an aeon immunity period is. That's what Silvanus, Celina, Xenthos and myself have been defending. An aeon immunity after curing aeon. That's it, we're not defending aeon deletion, we're not saying you can't get buffs if aeon is deleted. If aeon immunity somehow bones researchers in unexpected and unforeseen ways (which is entirely possible) then yes, you can then turn around and say 'hey, this boned us, here's what I suggest to fix it' and we'll discuss the report then.

And even in this thread I've stated that yes, if aeon is deleted, Researchers and MD's and anyone else that needs aeon will be able to buff themselves up as needed. This isn't some partisan grandstand to make sure the North is neutered while we run rampant. This goes for anyone. If a change demonstratably results in a big nerf for a class that makes it unable to function, then it's entirely reasonable to submit reports to bring that class back up to par. That's how the system works and has always worked.

CyndarinAscends · June 2016

If you delete aeon, yes researchers will need some adjustments."Rework," might be over dramatic. Small adjustments and possibly a new skill or two.

However, deletion isn't the report. Lerad, even with his thought out opinion, hasn't actually done anything report wise to delete aeon. I doubt he's emailed Ieptix as proposal either.

Enyalida · June 2016

The aeon immunity report has fairly broad support, with concerns brought (by myself and others) forwards about the impact on aeon-dependent classes and how it may affect them in a variety of contexts. The form of the immunity being presented, as a static timer and not based on the duration of the aeon effect, is something that I suggested as an adddendum to the ideas in the report, so that we're not punishing aeon classes who are successfully holding a target in long term aeon for being able to do so without requiring even more of a reset with a long immunity. It may be that additionally adding some way for those classes to mitigate the immunity or bypass it in a limited way is warranted, and I think we should consider that for those classes and abilities only.

For instance, if it's going to be an issue that aeonfield ticks might screw up legitimate strategies, aeonfield ticking aeon might have a shorter immunity period than standard attached, so that it's easier to manage those immunities. Perhaps the aeon dependant classes (Researcher, Moondancer) could have some discern add-on that allows them to preemptively check immunity status before blowing their setup on an immune target. There are things that can be done to broadly nerf (or even totally change) aeon effects that can be tailored to not unduly impact aeon dependent classes on a temporary or long term basis while other solutions are worked out.

I'll comment on the report, but as I mentioned before, I do think that a 3s immunity starting after a successful aeon cure is too long by ~1s. Lowering it to 2-2.5s means that from the successful aeon to the next possible window for successful aeon is 3-3.5s (1s minimum to cure, 2-2.5s of immunity), which more closely tracks the ability of a single person to apply aeon, thereby not touching single person active aeon attacks at all.

EDIT: To be clear, not trying to take responsibility for the ideas in the report or attribute that work to myself with my first paragraph. It's just not one sided loony toon town or anything, there has been input and have been adjustments made.

CyndarinAscends · June 2016

Enyalida and I agreed on something (mostly) for the first time possibly ever so I reject the notion that my report is partisan on that notion alone.

So suck it.

Ciaran · June 2016

Reducing the timer to 1.5s or so would do a lot more to appease me. 3s is a gaping window, but 1.5s or even 2s could be spanned with a shield stun. I still don't think it's necessary at all though.

Twytch · June 2016

Okay, long overdue. Ran some numbers.

Timechant Aeon: ~2.7s EQ

Timechant Aeon (Quickening): ~1.6s EQ

Astrocast Aeon Ray: ~2.2s EQ

Astrocast Aeon Ray (Quickening): ~1.3s EQ

Quickening lasts approximately 12s, has a casting cost of 3p and ~4s. Thus, you get around 8s of quickened EQ (on average, around 4-5 EQ moves).

Malefactgem (Asthma): ~1.6s BAL

Shatterplex: ~1.8s BAL

For reference, Researchers can passively* afflict with the following abilities: (*costs EQ to cast initially, approximately 4s each)

Onyx Gem: every ~10s

paralysis, vomiting, reckless, healthleech

One aff

Sapphire Gem: every ~7s

mental afflictions

One aff

*Timechant Oracle (3p, duration of ~20s): every ~16.5s

confusion, paranoia, hallucination

Usually one of the above + 1 hit of timewarp

*Timechant TimeEchoes (3p, duration of ~20s): every ~16.5s

confusion, epilepsy, stupidity, hallucination, clumsy

Usually two of the above + 1 hit of timewarp

*Timechant Aeonfield (5p): every ~10s

Smoke steam is on a 1.6s balance. Aeon adds to that depending on the presence of truetime (1-2s). Steam can cure 2 hits of timewarp or aeon + 1 hit of timewarp.

There also exists Temporalbonds, which has a chance to block movement out of the room and give timewarp when it does.

So, now that hard numbers are seen, let's clear some things out.

Researcher-flavour Aeon actually costs less than 3s of EQ. As such, a 3s immunity will, in fact, affect even 1v1 combat. Note that the ~2.7s EQ is with 0 buffs to EQ agility; with easy-to-access EQ buffs (such as Knowledge Karma Blessing, or even Astrology Dolphin Sphere), that can be bumped down to ~2.6s or even ~2.5s.

As has been reiterated before, the kill condition of a Researcher is Timequake, and that condition is mainly reached by beating steam curing. At the moment, a Researcher is able to deal only 3 steam-cured afflictions: timewarp, aeon, and healthleech, the first two reliably, and the last one via RNG from the onyx gem. Other afflictions (such as pacifism) can be accessed via tertiaries.

The lack of reliable steam afflicting is supported by a number of means, though:

One, asthma. It prevents smoking steam altogether, and with access to paralysis (MalefactGem can also afflict with paralysis) and vomiting (via gem, again), it is possible to delay its curing.

Two, command failure afflictions (stupidity and hallucinations, primarily). Under aeon, these become even more pronounced, as a command fail can mean 1-2s more. There are also other mental affs to stack in lucidityslush balance (ie, paranoia, reckless).

Overall, the thing with Researcher (1v1, at least), is that it is a bit highly reliant on RNG passives (from gems, oracle, timeechoes, etc) in order to confidently stick aeon. Active methods (malefactgem asthma in particular, as it is not affected by Quickening) take too long a balance to reliably stick under aeon without the supporting afflictions from these RNG sources. However, the mere strength of aeon as an affliction somewhat justifies this unreliability, because the affliction is so effective in many things (as has been pointed out).

I'm not quite sure how to 'fix' the class without divorcing it from aeon altogether, but maybe the forum brigade can hash it out (or sling more mud, whatever).

Synkarin · June 2016

No, even at '2.7s eq' a 3 second immunity will not effect 1v1.

It's a matter of simply using your head. If you aeon, and I cure out of it to the point you need to re-apply aeon, it means I just cure out of it again. I mean, if you just want to spam aeon for whatever reason 1v1, then yeah, sure you'll be effected, but you won't kill anyone that way. It's been pretty pointedly explained why it won't affect 1v1, the eq time on it literally doesn't matter (I was always assuming a 3 sec eq, so my bad for not accounting for the 0.3 seconds difference).

Twytch · June 2016

Note that the above is mainly from the perspective of Astrology as a tertiary. I'm not familiar enough with Lusternia-version Tarot to know its balance times or the pool of afflictions it has access to.

EDIT: I don't know why this second part disappeared!

Aeon is 'spammed' (rather, it only needs to be spammed in a 1v1 setting) during the finisher, when you do the Shatterplex and need to buy enough time before the target cures off timewarp/have passives build up timewarp again in order to pull off the Timequake.

Enyalida · June 2016

A three second immunity would start after aeon is cured, so a 3s immunity means a minimum of 4s before re-afflicting, barring strange circumstances. A 2s immunity means that from cast to first possible vulnerability is 3s.

Lerad · June 2016

As a note, I don't think hallucinations denies commands, unless I'm remembering wrongly. So it won't help prevent aeon curing.

Secondly, it looks like there are spiritual afflictions in the researcher kit. It just that none of them serve any purpose right now simply because aeon is the "synergizing" ability for timewarp and timequake.

And given the numbers, it's only become apparent that aeon needs the immunity at the very least. Sub 3s aeon is ridiculous. I'm not sure why we have base aeon balance costs at less than 3s flat, and with quickening affecting it on top of that, given how ridiculously powerful it is. Making an argument for astrology, which heavily fluctuates in effectiveness based off uncontrollable variables like when the target was born or the current star signs, is maaaybe possible. But for a standard, no power cost, no nothing aeon? Ugh.

On top of that. Even taking aeon out of the picture, the researcher aff rate is nothing to scoff at. Power heavy if you want to maintain timeechoes and oracle the target, but that's 4 afflictions in roughly the average of 8-10s passively, not counting that 1.6s multi-purpose afflicting ability of malefactgem. That's a pretty standard set up as with all other passive based classes - if not amongst the better ones. That's on top of, and including, all the various defensive options, like that whatever cleanse stone, and group based options (other than aeon) like balestone etc.

It's not like the researchers are going to be useless flops even if we go with my extremist view and just cut out aeon. They're still going to be pretty potent on numbers alone. It won't lead to a coherent strategy or provide proper kill potential, and that's what needs to be worked on - to make them viable without aeon. But the cries of "we're going to be nerfed to uselessness" is pretty damn far off the mark - much less with aeon still around and an immunity tacked on.

Yarith · June 2016

There is a single spiritual affliction, healthleech, which is a 1/4 chance on onyx tic (each 10 seconds). I don't think there are any others.

The quicksilver delaying part of timewarps becomes a little removed as the person will be immune from aeon during the delayed period unless they become whammied by aeon, the only sources of that being skysforzando with sapphire and twists as soon as the Pfarewell report is pushed. (Though I might just be under the impression you can't strip silver in the window)

Lerad · June 2016

Right, paralysis and vomiting are internal, not spiritual. Got that mixed up. So it's just healthleech. The lack of general aff synergy and a goal for that hefty amount of aff potential are problems that need to be solved if we want to remove aeon as a crutch. But it's not like the skillset has no afflicting power or is somehow lacking good abilities outside of aeon. From my perspective, the only thing holding the class back is that reliance on a frustrating affliction that really doesn't need to be that prevalent, if it even needs to exist, in the game.

Enyalida · June 2016

Hallucinations can stun.

What can I do against this

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