Sorry I haven't done a more overall comment about the shofangi skills. And the skills in general. I'll start with my baby and hopefully tonight I'll have the time to go through the other skills again since it looks like there have been some ninja changes:
Crunch
I hadn't brought this up because I assumed things like bleeding numbers and requirement numbers can be changed fairly quickly once things are coded, but as written crunch is a bit OP as Veyils is pointing out. Here are my thoughts on it:
Being in the trees or successfully ending a grapple is worth too much bleeding. One way to think of this is how much of an advantage should an acrobat have as a victim vs. a non acrobat. Currently that difference is 750 or 50% (ignoring the tree bit for now since that's more situational). Which means that on a regular person a shofangi only needs to build 750 bleed equivalent but on an acrobat they need to build 1500. I would recommend either dropping that 750 number down significantly (maybe even half at 375) or alternatively increasing our bleed requirement (but I think it'd have to be really high, like 2250 for that approach to work). I prefer that first option.
I know from the initial planning stages that it was planned that you could do other actions in the same form as an insta. If that's the still the case and all monks can do it equally well then that's fine. I'm currently worried that shofangi can pull off some shenanigans that others can't. For example depending on how crunch and kumati are coded you could do something like buck for crushed chest -> kumati for a 20% bleed increase -> crunch for a finish. Someone with 1042 bleeding and no afflictions can be instantly killed with that combo. If other monks are also able to do things like this then it's mostly fine but it means that our kill goal is truly lower and different from what the actual skill says. I personally would be fine with crunch (and maybe all monk enders but I haven't reviewed them all recently) taking full body balance so you can't do things like this. It makes the skills easier to reason with if you know exactly what the goal is and if it is too much of a nerf you can always lower the actual requirements to compensate.
Stomp
Stomp being used as parry avoidance is bad but I love everything else about the skill. If possible I'd like to solve this by simply disallowing stomp to be the first action of a form (or mandating that it always be the last action) and not allowing its use out of form.
Locks
Now that asthma has been removed (which is fine by me). I think some of the supporting things we had for locks should probably be reworked although I don't have great ideas at the moment. With the sheet as it currently stands both butojo and surge low would be fairly niche choices.
True Lock on Mutilate Arms
Should probably go away. This doesn't relate to Shofangi but I believe both Ninjakari and Tahtetso can convert two damaged arms into two mutilated arms in one form. That might as well be an instakill where if you have two damaged arms at the beginning of a form you're dead.
Random Questions
This was pointed out to me by Bandeon: When would you ever use bogami gut? The only time I can see it being useful is after tomati but before shred in the skillset, unless there's somehow a time when 300% bleeding affs < 200 bleeding.
Err my super instant kill plan was assuming the kill form was an entire form to itself. If you can do other stuff in it then that makes these super easy group kills even easier.
You dont need the bonus effects to do what I was talking about. I didnt take the bonus effects into account at all when I was looking at it.
The Shofang one would require three moves Combo 1 Butojo/Boganj/Buck, Combo 2 Logami or Tomati grapple to reapply an ice aff or hit with 500 bleed + a kick to reapply another ice aff. Then Combo 3 is kill.
The Ninja one is a bit worse in that they can hit Ninombhi for dysentary, Ashlamkh for Damaged organs, Ninthugi for internal bleeding and hit a venom for vomiting plus one other dust aff in a single combo and then hit instant kill on combo two.
Only requirement is stance level. Which a monk could in theory def up to before the fight or if not its quick to get to from the sounds of the power and stance switching
Not really a problem one on one but in groups like I said crux + the ninja combo on a 3.5 balance would be unavoiable
The part your missing here Vey, is that the Butojo/Boganj/Buck combo you mention requires at least surge stance (stance 4a or b), so using that stance will put you in killer stance. Using a Logami or Tomati grapple is going to throw you back to stance 1, so the enemy has 4 more stances to rally and get back in the fight before you can get your kill attempt. Also, it looks like boost was changed to just give a 25% balance buff to the next form, so you can't just boost from say stance 1 to stance 5.
As for Ninja, Ashlamkh requires killer stance as well for damaged organs, so Ashlamkh/ninombhi/ninthugi can only be done at stance 5, bumping you back to stance 1, and out of kill range. So these combos wouldn't really be a one and done combo for the respective monks to achieve.
I have a bit of a general question. Can you use a base attack while in a twist, center or surge stance, or will it only work in base? This would go for attacks set to be done in twist, can you perform those attacks in the higher stances or only in the stance stated in the spreadsheet?
I have a bit of a general question. Can you use a base attack while in a twist, center or surge stance, or will it only work in base? This would go for attacks set to be done in twist, can you perform those attacks in the higher stances or only in the stance stated in the spreadsheet?
You can. The requirements are for minimum stance level.
Hi monks and fellow players concerned with this overhaul,
Firstly, we would like to thank everyone who has commented and given feedback so far. We greatly appreciate it and due to your concerns we’d like to elaborate on our how we arrived at the proposal in its current form.
When brainstorming for the overhaul our main focus were the mechanics of monks. We began by analyzing what monks were known as: damage-dealing, bleed-causing, affliction-spamming monsters. In remaking them, we did not want to fall into the trap of just making “better, faster warriors”, so we came up with the idea of stances to 1) limit mods in forms (one of the major problems), and 2) give them something that would allow them to become a burst, physical affliction class.
In this iteration, warriors would remain slow, unstoppable juggernauts while monks would start with a burst that winds down. That is the theme for stances.
We then went through each specialization and created a kill method based on what was available. 3 of the 4 specs relied a lot on bleeding so we decided to include that in all 4. We then adjusted the current skills to fall in line with overhaul afflictions and made other adjustments where we saw issues crop up. At that point we presented it to the monk clan for deliberation.
It was our hope that the combined effort of experienced monks could help us find glaring issues and allow us to make adjustments based on that. We asked for ideas and explained that anything could still be changed at this point based on their input. Unfortunately, only a few people made comments and those focused on the Nekotai and Shofangi specs. We included those where possible, choosing simple mechanics over complex ones, and presented the proposal to you.
We know that theory-crafting isn’t the same as real-world testing, so we are not relying on brainstorming as our only development tool. A skillset is made through many iterations of a proposal and we are moving through those steps right now. Presenting our ideas to you is one of those steps.
So far thanks to your collective input we have made changes to general slit-locks as an attack that cannot be parried or resisted. We are willing to make more changes but for that we need more people voicing concerns and for the discussion to continue. With that in mind, we would like to wrap things up by this Sunday. After Sunday, we will hopefully start coding this in and then test it much like the Warrior overhaul and Healing was done.
While we prefer to keep things as simple as possible for now, we will consider all ideas and options presented to us. Ultimately, we cannot simultaneously listen to everyone, as you are well-aware, but we will do our best.
TL:DR - We want your suggestions/idea/comments, Please post by Sunday.
Ninja as well they can Ninombhi for dysentary, Ashlamkh for Damaged organs, Ninthugi for internal bleeding and hit a venom for vomiting plus one other dust aff. Thats all four of the required instant kill build afflictions in one combo counts as 800 bleed 400 bruise. Then they could strike the enemy for an instant kill in the second combo if I understand this right. So Crux+ this combo for unavoidable death for example
Actually from what I see on our skills, you can't get this off in one form. Ninombhi and Ashlamkh are both Surge required attacks, and Ninthugi is center. If you boosted, you would either miss the surge forms or you would miss the center form. That is how the boosting works, its either 1 -> 3 or 2-> 4. If you went through the stances normally, even if you prepped 1 attack to get out of base, it would take you at least 2 form attacks to get all of the afflictions off and depending on if they can be used in higher forms or not, you would still have to go through at least two forms to get to it, and it wouldn't be guarenteed to stick. Also, you still have to have it stick to get to your killer form which can not be used with any other attack now (was changed to full recently on the spreadsheet).
I have a bit of a general question. Can you use a base attack while in a twist, center or surge stance, or will it only work in base? This would go for attacks set to be done in twist, can you perform those attacks in the higher stances or only in the stance stated in the spreadsheet?
You can. The requirements are for minimum stance level.
I have a bit of a general question. Can you use a base attack while in a twist, center or surge stance, or will it only work in base? This would go for attacks set to be done in twist, can you perform those attacks in the higher stances or only in the stance stated in the spreadsheet?
Stances on the spreadsheet are -minimum- stance to use unless otherwise noted (like tahtetso raktiah'sho can only do mutiliated arms in surge form) Some skills have a certain effect in one form (like Nekotai Angkhai) but have bonus afflictions if in another. But for the most part, the stance listed in the minimum form required to use it
I do have a question about Tahtetso. What was the reasoning behind forcing their mutilates to surge stance, when other other guilds like Shofangi have surge/killer.
Err my super instant kill plan was assuming the kill form was an entire form to itself. If you can do other stuff in it then that makes these super easy group kills even easier.
All the instas require full balance, so we won't be able to do anything else
I believe (I presented this to the Ninja envoy last night) that the active effects for surge high and low in Ninja are pretty off base in comparison to the other specs.
For Ninaali: My suggestion is for another dust aff like sickness or rigormortis. It seems that the active surge high is intended to either build towards kill affs or delay the cure. Epilepsy doesn't help build aff pressure towards the kill.
For Illgathoru: Suggest doing 100 bruising which, if I understand Barbs correctly, should end up being 50 bruising/100 bleed. If not, that would be the goal, to get a similar last bruise/bleed boost before the kill.
I'm going to side with Wobou in wanting something other than slickness at surge if we aren't going for locks anymore. An ice delay would be better, although that could be too strong with mutilates. Slickness will just get healed off, not really worth the time. Maybe internalbleeding or damagedorgans? Any ice aff would help stack ice on that balance, which seems to be the way that secondary route is going.
As far as I can tell, we've gone from 1)bleed/purity stack, 2)ice/grapple bleed, and 3)greenlock, to just the first two. That's alright, I don't really want to greenlock, it's much weaker now that it requires four affs. I would like some support in 4b though for the ice stack. Old shoflai's effect is way too strong for that, and I don't think we need 3/4s of the monk guilds doing ice delay around stance 4. I'll think about it some more and post an idea before Sunday if something comes to me.
I actually think the ice delay is fine if done right. Without an ice delay you might be in a situation where to make use of any ice aff, especially for the insta, you need either a large amount of ice aff spam to overwhelm their curing, or stun/lock potential along with the affliction. Both can easily get out of hand.
Cap any ice delays to what it would be at crit so you can't stack the delay beyond that with multiple monks or a warrior.
I actually think the ice delay is fine if done right. Without an ice delay you might be in a situation where to make use of any ice aff, especially for the insta, you need either a large amount of ice aff spam to overwhelm their curing, or stun/lock potential along with the affliction. Both can easily get out of hand.
Cap any ice delays to what it would be at crit so you can't stack the delay beyond that with multiple monks or a warrior.
Ice delay under blackout is not something I want anyone to have, though, and shofangi can blackout with buck at 4.
I believe (I presented this to the Ninja envoy last night) that the active effects for surge high and low in Ninja are pretty off base in comparison to the other specs.
For Ninaali: My suggestion is for another dust aff like sickness or rigormortis. It seems that the active surge high is intended to either build towards kill affs or delay the cure. Epilepsy doesn't help build aff pressure towards the kill.
For Illgathoru: Suggest doing 100 bruising which, if I understand Barbs correctly, should end up being 50 bruising/100 bleed. If not, that would be the goal, to get a similar last bruise/bleed boost before the kill.
Edit: Grammarly things and clarification.
That sounds like it will be alright. Epilepsy was one of the things I was looking at to replace for that reason. The extra bruise/bleed is definately a better option than extra damage considering damage kills are not what we're going for now.
Okay here's my wall of text post about all the rest of the skills.
Nekotai
Nekcree/Shocree
My concern with these stances is that vessels are so good that I can see it being pretty viable to spend power on Kaife (Regression stance) to hang out in twist low/surge low purely for the stance benefits for most of a fight.
Since you can cure one burst on sparkle and one on health balance, that means you can cure 10 bursts in a 24 second period (6 from health potion, 4 from sparkle). This works out to about 0.4166 bursts a second cured or 1.66 bursts per 4 seconds on average. In Shocree you are building an average of 2.5 bursts a form. If a form is exactly 4 seconds then you are gaining an average of .85 bursts a form. If our speed is a bit quicker and is actually something like 3.5 then you're gaining ~1.19 vessels on average per 4 seconds. If you account for stealth/acro/psymet buffs then a 3.5s base speed would go down to around 3.15s which would allow you to gain ~1.5 bursts per 4 seconds.
So, if someone is able to achieve a 3.15s balance as I listed above (which may be a big if) repeating the form 10 times, costing 10p would do the following:
Cost 31.5s of balance unhindered, cause ~11.87 net bursts (on average), regen almost 4p (31.5 / 8 = 3.93). This puts the victim in the kill zone of the spec (10 bursts), puts the monk right at killer stance (if they don't regress on the last form) and leaves the monk a little over 1p (on average) away from getting a kill. Note that this is all ignoring the bleeding that these vessels do and any additional bleeding this form that's being spammed over and over could do. It's possible that you could hit the 1500 bleeding requirement just in the process of building up to 10 vessels, it's been a while since I've had a long fight with a TK.
I'm not sure that this is the quickest or most effective way to pull off a kill but if it does end up being the most effective way it's going to mean that the optimal path for nekotai will be to spam one form over and over which seems unfun for both the monk and the target.
If spamming the same form over and over with kaife is problematic I have a suggestion: You could split the vessels to the next stance, which does break the usual pattern but I think it'd be worth it in this case. So for example Shocree could cause 1 vessel automatically and then cause the next killer stance you enter to cause 1-2 vessels as well. Nekcree could have a similar change where it causes 1 vessel in twisted and 0-2 in centered.
Questions
Is the bleed damage on sprongma the percentage of some constant or does having 6 poison affs and the corresponding aff from Angkhai double the target's bleeding?
Does Ootalangk only impact melee people like monks/warriors or does it impact all attacks from mages/bards/guardians/etc?
Ninjakari
Ninshi
Ninshi's active effect seems super strong but yet they don't have a lot of flexibility/afflicting for enders. This isn't necessarily a problem I'm just curious if that's the intentional balance of this. I suspect just with ninshi that Ninjas will be the best when teamed with warriors.
Bleeding/Bruise Balance
This may not be an issue but I'm wondering if ninjas will be overly countered by people focusing their clots towards bleeding over bruising or similar. We can see what happens but it may be interesting if they had tools to deal with that. For example you could have a kick that does additional bleeding based on how bruised the target is.
Tahtetso
Bruising Amounts
This picture is partially incomplete because we don't know exactly how much bruising the actual actions are going to cause but just looking at the stance bonuses I'm not sure if Tahtetso has an adequate balance in terms of building bruising. The two main things I see are the bonus from Rakti'ini which being a bonus isn't repeatable unless you do the wheel again and the 200 bruising buff from Bomir'rak stance. 200 bruising if I'm calculating this correctly is 500 mana which is sizable but if that's indicative of a large burst then I'm not sure how the overall build is going to work unless the tahtetso (and ninjakari actions for that matter) just cause a tremendous amount of bruising. Nekotai have bursts, shofangi have shred and kumati, Tahtetso and Ninjakari seem to have nothing outside of stance bonuses to play with bleeding/bruising amounts.
This might be one of those things where we wont' know if it's actually a thing until it's coded but I thought I should bring it up.
I see some Nekotai skills have been adjusted. The greenlock has been effectively removed. Unfortunately with the DamagedOrgans change, I think Ninjakari can do the guaranteed greenlock as well.
I like the cycle of weaker->stronger->repeat that stances encourage. I'm kinda wary of the bonus effects. I think there's already incentive to progress to higher stances in that you get more powerful attacks and effects. If anything, I might suggest changing it so you can't proc the active effect of a stance again if you regress stance. This would really encourage cycling through.
Ah, I hadn't noticed the changes. Thanks for considering my comments, admin. (Sorry I didn't reply for a week.)
A couple of things to reply to:
1) Leg darts
I'm disappointed in the decision, but if the admin are adamant that changing dart poisons must cost balance, I'll work with that. It does mean, though, that the poisons "route" is less optimal than I'd like. The inability to switch poisons on the fly becomes an important restriction on the ability - a Nekotai that stacks his poisons well can end up not being rewarded, but faced with a situation where the one single stance of his that allows him to use his leg poison comes around... and his target is already afflicted with that poison because he's already done a good job with sticking it previously.
The reason for keeping the balance cost is that the ability was designed like this in the past, which is fine, yes. But it should also be noted that in the past, the Nekotai could choose a form without the modifier, invest that freed space on something else, minimizing the loss in efficiency with compensation of a different effect. The mechanics made sense with each other. But with the new stances, when such a scenario happens, the effect is either wasted, or the user has to pay an additional balance cost, (giving his opponent a curing window) to get the stance to provide any benefit - all because he has stuck his affs properly.
I'll take this in stride, however, and maybe look at changing the stance effects a little more. No ideas at the moment - maybe I'll make an envoy report if I can't think of something concrete by Sunday. Ideas welcome!
2) Sprongma kick effect
In my post, I had envisioned the Sprongma kick as rewarding a Nekotai that strategically chooses his poisons across many different cure balances - which is a tactic that usually has very little value (faster cures). It would have also given a dimension of poison use to Nekotai that is not replicated in other classes. However, since the admin don't like that mechanic, it has now been changed to a kick that rewards a Nekotai for stacking afflictions - the same as any class. This is perfectly fine, of course, and I'm more than okay with it - it still gives value to poisons, and rewards smart afflicting.
However, I'm not sure if the limits now become too restrictive - poisons-only stacking means that the entire ice-stack is not applicable for a Nekotai going for burst with Sprongm. Also, the scale of the damage given might be too low now, given that to make good use of Sprongma, the Nekotai will need to build bleed, AND now also stack a poison stack - which are designed to be two different stance routes in the Nekotai repertoire.
Suggestion: Perhaps consider changing the scaling to include the four finalsting poisons as contributory to boosting the damage (counting as 250 per aff) - basically those four affs now give "double" the effect for sprongma, unlocking higher tiers (if the Nekotai can stack them) of the scaling, as well as being contributory to the scaling itself. All the other poison affs become less "valuable", giving the Nekotai a clear set of afflictions to aim to stick, and giving Nekotai opponents a clear list of afflictions that should be prioritized in focus curing. To Wobou: Regarding your questions below:
Is the bleed damage on sprongma the percentage of some constant or does having 6 poison affs and the corresponding aff from Angkhai double the target's bleeding?
I intended to have sprongma give BLUNT damage based on the target's current bleed, not add to the bleed itself.
[Edited to clarify: basically, if the target had 1000 bleed and was hit by a sprongma, he'd take 1000 blunt damage if the target has 6 poison affs (max tier), or 100 damage if he has only 1 poison aff. The 1000 bleed will not change, and will stay the same before and after the sprongma]
From my reading of the words in the current excel sheet, I believe the admin also understood that, and had incorporated that part of my suggestion in. Basically, sprongma is a DAMAGE ability, that will shine most when used in Killer (making it an alternative to finalsting, for the poisons route Nekotai).
Does Ootalangk only impact melee people like monks/warriors or does it impact all attacks from mages/bards/guardians/etc?
I suggested to change the Nekotai grapples in a page back or so, it looks like the admin are still either considering, or have elected not to take up my suggestions. I do hope they change it, the Nekotai grapples don't really mean much now. Granted, my ideas are convoluted and might be more than a weird, but I think they're still better than the current.
But if Ootalangk's current mechanics isn't changed from the status quo, it SHOULD impact all attacks from mages/bards/guardians
Nekcree/Shocree
I agree with your assessment of vessels. One of the earlier configurations I'd considered going with included giving vessels to every stance in the "bleed" line, by making use of the "boost your next stance with ... effect" thing. But I also felt the admin might not be very agreeable to make every stance in one line basically the same thing.
That said, maybe what we can do is to reconfigure the two stances to give each a clearer role in the bleed: 1) Nekcree gives high amount of vessels, and gives Shocree a boost to multiply the bleed accrued by the vessels. 2) Shocree gives low vessels, but can multiply target bleed if the Nekotai activates Nekcree before
This will make it so that Shocree will boost existing bleed, BUT not give high vessels, which means staying at Shocree again and again will mean the benefits keep getting lower and lower. That would therefore force the Nekotai to have to cycle down to the lower stance to get the snowball going, preventing the scenario you described.
Suggestion: Change Shocree effect to: Give 1 vessel and +10% bleeding. Change Nekcree effect to: Give 2-4 vessels (no extra passive effect). When activated, the next form attack in Shocree stance will also add bleeding equivalent to 30% of the target's current bleed. [Shocree's total effect if boosted by Nekcree = 1 vessel, +10% bleed and add +30% of target's current bleed as flat bleeding]
Numbers wise, if the target is at 1000 bleed when the Nekotai hits them with a Shocree form, that'd give the target +300 flat bleed. Meaning, the more they continue to cycle through Nekcree/Shocree, the more they will snowball. This percentage number can be tweaked if the output is too high or too low.
@Lerad the sprongma idea is interesting. I agree with your most of your suggested fix for Shocree but an issue remains where someone can now spam Nekcree for 1p a pop doing an average of 3 vessels a form which is quite a lot. So in terms of burst building via spamming the same form many times it actually makes it more effective for raw bursts (although it does fix the issue of the Nekotai being right next to kill dysnvr when they've built enough vessels).
Yes, shifting the vessels down to Nekcree won't change the ability to spend power to repeat vessels, but it does put this a number of forms away from Killer, making it unrealistic for a Nekotai who actually wants to use Finalsting. The clear message is, "Go proc the bleed multiplier in Shocree asap, and come back here again to activate another round." That will hopefully keep the repetition to a minimum.
Edit: To help further solve the problem with repeating Nekcree, maybe we can use a variation of Shedrin's idea here, in the form of diminishing returns. Not equilibrium, but basically an incentive to Nekotai to NOT stay at Nekcree forever and a day:
Suggestion: Further change Nekcree's burst vessels effect to: Give 0-4 vessels, where the number goes lower the more vessels are already on the target: 0 to 2 vessels on target = 3-4 vessels, 3 to 6 vessels on target = 1-2 vessels, 7 or more vessels on target = 0 vessels
I've just found out in the game via a discussion with Norns that they've decided on some changes from the original proposal they posted:
1) Change regression stance from 1p to 3p 2) Change boosting to NOT allow people to jump stances, but instead lower the balance cost for the next form (remains at 2p). Numbers generally spoken of by the Norns is:
The Norns say, "So base 3.5s, using boost can get it down to 2.5-2.6s."
The actual mechanics (from the new spreadsheet is):
Use Power to decrease the balance cost of the next form by 25% (13/13 balance bonus) (2p)
3) Instead of 10s window to activate the "Next ABC stance gives you ... effect" bonuses of the lower stances, lower that to 7s in order to encourage using boost.
At the request of the Norns, I'm posting these here to highlight them to everyone on the forums, and also to provide my thoughts:
1) 3p for regression is too high. It'll kill the one or two occasions when regression is useful for all monks. 2p is a better equilibrium. With 2p as a cost, it would limit Nekotai vessels as well. Of course, I think my ideas in the above exchange with Wobou should still go in. That'll cement Nekotai bleed stances into two specific roles, while keeping the cost of regression reasonable for other monks as well.
Solution: Change it to 2p instead of 3p.
2) I'm not opposed to changing Boost from a jump stance thing to a faster-next-attack thing. A couple of things popped into my head though:
-Monks are already currently complained about as being too-fast. I'm not sure if it's a concern still, with the new set up, and the fact that this will now cost power to activate, but 2.5s forms might still be a valid concern. -Ectoplasm's new effect of neutralising balance bonuses might interact with this in a not-so-good way, being that this is a power ability.
3) Lastly, dropping the 10s window to 7s is problematic in my opinion.
With 10s, a monk trying to activate his stance bonuses (eg. 2nd stance boosts 4th stance) will have a reasonable window (it takes a monk 7s assuming 3.5s per form to enter the 4th stance and attack, not accounting latency etc). Opponents have also a clear window to hinder: delay his ability to attack for that 3s, and he loses the chance to activate the lower stance bonus. This shaves off a huge amount of benefit.
Dropping that to 7s makes that window non-existent for the monk, basically. It no longer becomes "encouraging" the use of boost, but "requiring" the use of boost. Furthermore, if you make it so that boost doesn't jump stances on top of that, it means there's only a 1s window for monks to activate their bonuses, even after spending 2p. The power spent should lengthen the window to one that becomes harder to hinder. All these in mind, I don't think it's a good idea to lower the window from 10s to 7s.
Solution: Keep it at 10s. Whether boost jumps stance or speeds up the next form doesn't matter - what's important is that the window exists for the monk to activate his bonus without requiring the use of boost to even have a chance to see the bonus do something.
One thing I'm seeing is not a lot of choice. Having only one instant kill means or seems like the afflictions and bleed/bruising build will have one optimum path and all monks will have to simple repeat this path over and over with just minor shifts to hit left or right to avoid parry.
I'd like to see more arm and kick moves for the specs so that there is more of a judgement call on which form would be better than just one clear combo path.
One thing I'm seeing is not a lot of choice. Having only one instant kill means or seems like the afflictions and bleed/bruising build will have one optimum path and all monks will have to simple repeat this path over and over with just minor shifts to hit left or right to avoid parry.
I'd like to see more arm and kick moves for the specs so that there is more of a judgement call on which form would be better than just one clear combo path.
This may be more true in the shofangi than other specs but I think we have decent choices available. It's true that we only have one instakill per spec but everyone has alternative ways to reach it. Shofangi have a ton of modifiers, Ninjakari can entirely replace their bleed requirement with afflictions if need be, Nekotai can replace their requirement with vessels. Actually it's really only Tahtetso that feels limited to me because they must put on at least ~150 bruising and if they can't they can't kill someone regardless of affliction state.
So I see monks overall having two paths, there will be a line of forms that will do better afflicting (either going down dust or ice for the most part) and a line of forms that does better straight bleeding.
Another way to think about this is that warriors are a wound based class and monks are an affliction based class. If there's a way a monk can increase their output of afflictions they would be foolish not to, but the choice is what afflictions you use. Just like a warrior in general seeks greater wound output but their choices are what parts they hit.
Edit: All that being said, I'm always a fan of more choices. Norns.
Actually could we maybe get an idea of what bleed numbers your expecting from each hit/form style. That'd go a long way to helping with ideas and input. Just right now it's hard to say if some of these instant kills are going to be viable or too easy depending on what sort of bleed/bruise output the specs are doing?
One little thing I'm thinking on is affliction tracking as well. It's much easier to track ice afflictions than dust/slush/steam afflictions.
Vessels will be pretty hard for neko to track as well.
It'll not be hard to shift my curing to always focus off these instant kill based afflictions but the monk would not be able to track these maybe I cured vomiting maybe I cured relapse.
The instant kills for dust/steam/slush are kind of going to be luck based and on estimations then. Would it maybe help to give monks a way of tracking for example if a target has x vessels or afflictions? Maybe an alternative assess which confirms the number of vessels/afflictions for the kill.
You look over and fancy assess wobou. He bleeds for 1000 bleeding and his afflictions make it seem he bleeds for 750 through the pain of the affliction.
One little thing I'm thinking on is affliction tracking as well. It's much easier to track ice afflictions than dust/slush/steam afflictions.
Vessels will be pretty hard for neko to track as well.
It'll not be hard to shift my curing to always focus off these instant kill based afflictions but the monk would not be able to track these maybe I cured vomiting maybe I cured relapse.
The instant kills for dust/steam/slush are kind of going to be luck based and on estimations then. Would it maybe help to give monks a way of tracking for example if a target has x vessels or afflictions? Maybe an alternative assess which confirms the number of vessels/afflictions for the kill.
You look over and fancy assess wobou. He bleeds for 1000 bleeding and his afflictions make it seem he bleeds for 750 through the pain of the affliction.
I asked for this very thing in the preliminary rounds. A skill that would add to assess the ability to see only the affs that matter for your insta. I believe they rejected that idea before but said that it could be envoyed in after.
I kind of like the idea of having to pay some attention to what your target does but I also don't think it should be totally based on that. Even something that had a chance to give you that insight would be better than nothing.
The other route would be to have some configurable thing that would tell you at the end of a form you've already committed to what afflictions they have that work for your kill zone.
Something like:
You kick Veyils in the chest with your right foot. You sense that she is suffering from <aff list>.
So then you pay attention to their curing (and account for any passive curing) and try for your insta on the next form if you're close enough. If you wanted to reward people who pay perfect attention more you could make each aff have a percentage chance to not show even if they have it, or vice versa have an aff that they don't have at all show because your discerning magic isn't great enough. This would punish people who try to code an insta in automatically from this without actually paying attention to cures.
Comments
Crunch
I hadn't brought this up because I assumed things like bleeding numbers and requirement numbers can be changed fairly quickly once things are coded, but as written crunch is a bit OP as Veyils is pointing out. Here are my thoughts on it:Stomp
Stomp being used as parry avoidance is bad but I love everything else about the skill. If possible I'd like to solve this by simply disallowing stomp to be the first action of a form (or mandating that it always be the last action) and not allowing its use out of form.Locks
Now that asthma has been removed (which is fine by me). I think some of the supporting things we had for locks should probably be reworked although I don't have great ideas at the moment. With the sheet as it currently stands both butojo and surge low would be fairly niche choices.True Lock on Mutilate Arms
Should probably go away. This doesn't relate to Shofangi but I believe both Ninjakari and Tahtetso can convert two damaged arms into two mutilated arms in one form. That might as well be an instakill where if you have two damaged arms at the beginning of a form you're dead.Random Questions
I mean its just theory but thats the point of looking at the skills now and seeing how they can be put together.
We tend to want to avoid unavoidable instant kill set ups I thought.
Err my super instant kill plan was assuming the kill form was an entire form to itself. If you can do other stuff in it then that makes these super easy group kills even easier.
As for Ninja, Ashlamkh requires killer stance as well for damaged organs, so Ashlamkh/ninombhi/ninthugi can only be done at stance 5, bumping you back to stance 1, and out of kill range. So these combos wouldn't really be a one and done combo for the respective monks to achieve.
Norns
Ninja as well they can Ninombhi for dysentary, Ashlamkh for Damaged organs, Ninthugi for internal bleeding and hit a venom for vomiting plus one other dust aff. Thats all four of the required instant kill build afflictions in one combo counts as 800 bleed 400 bruise. Then they could strike the enemy for an instant kill in the second combo if I understand this right. So Crux+ this combo for unavoidable death for example
All the instas require full balance, so we won't be able to do anything else
For Ninaali: My suggestion is for another dust aff like sickness or rigormortis. It seems that the active surge high is intended to either build towards kill affs or delay the cure. Epilepsy doesn't help build aff pressure towards the kill.
For Illgathoru: Suggest doing 100 bruising which, if I understand Barbs correctly, should end up being 50 bruising/100 bleed. If not, that would be the goal, to get a similar last bruise/bleed boost before the kill.
Edit: Grammarly things and clarification.
As far as I can tell, we've gone from 1)bleed/purity stack, 2)ice/grapple bleed, and 3)greenlock, to just the first two. That's alright, I don't really want to greenlock, it's much weaker now that it requires four affs. I would like some support in 4b though for the ice stack. Old shoflai's effect is way too strong for that, and I don't think we need 3/4s of the monk guilds doing ice delay around stance 4. I'll think about it some more and post an idea before Sunday if something comes to me.
Cap any ice delays to what it would be at crit so you can't stack the delay beyond that with multiple monks or a warrior.
Nekotai
Nekcree/Shocree
My concern with these stances is that vessels are so good that I can see it being pretty viable to spend power on Kaife (Regression stance) to hang out in twist low/surge low purely for the stance benefits for most of a fight.Since you can cure one burst on sparkle and one on health balance, that means you can cure 10 bursts in a 24 second period (6 from health potion, 4 from sparkle). This works out to about 0.4166 bursts a second cured or 1.66 bursts per 4 seconds on average. In Shocree you are building an average of 2.5 bursts a form. If a form is exactly 4 seconds then you are gaining an average of .85 bursts a form. If our speed is a bit quicker and is actually something like 3.5 then you're gaining ~1.19 vessels on average per 4 seconds. If you account for stealth/acro/psymet buffs then a 3.5s base speed would go down to around 3.15s which would allow you to gain ~1.5 bursts per 4 seconds.
So, if someone is able to achieve a 3.15s balance as I listed above (which may be a big if) repeating the form 10 times, costing 10p would do the following:
Cost 31.5s of balance unhindered, cause ~11.87 net bursts (on average), regen almost 4p (31.5 / 8 = 3.93). This puts the victim in the kill zone of the spec (10 bursts), puts the monk right at killer stance (if they don't regress on the last form) and leaves the monk a little over 1p (on average) away from getting a kill. Note that this is all ignoring the bleeding that these vessels do and any additional bleeding this form that's being spammed over and over could do. It's possible that you could hit the 1500 bleeding requirement just in the process of building up to 10 vessels, it's been a while since I've had a long fight with a TK.
I'm not sure that this is the quickest or most effective way to pull off a kill but if it does end up being the most effective way it's going to mean that the optimal path for nekotai will be to spam one form over and over which seems unfun for both the monk and the target.
If spamming the same form over and over with kaife is problematic I have a suggestion: You could split the vessels to the next stance, which does break the usual pattern but I think it'd be worth it in this case. So for example Shocree could cause 1 vessel automatically and then cause the next killer stance you enter to cause 1-2 vessels as well. Nekcree could have a similar change where it causes 1 vessel in twisted and 0-2 in centered.
Questions
Ninjakari
Ninshi
Ninshi's active effect seems super strong but yet they don't have a lot of flexibility/afflicting for enders. This isn't necessarily a problem I'm just curious if that's the intentional balance of this. I suspect just with ninshi that Ninjas will be the best when teamed with warriors.Bleeding/Bruise Balance
This may not be an issue but I'm wondering if ninjas will be overly countered by people focusing their clots towards bleeding over bruising or similar. We can see what happens but it may be interesting if they had tools to deal with that. For example you could have a kick that does additional bleeding based on how bruised the target is.Tahtetso
Bruising Amounts
This picture is partially incomplete because we don't know exactly how much bruising the actual actions are going to cause but just looking at the stance bonuses I'm not sure if Tahtetso has an adequate balance in terms of building bruising. The two main things I see are the bonus from Rakti'ini which being a bonus isn't repeatable unless you do the wheel again and the 200 bruising buff from Bomir'rak stance. 200 bruising if I'm calculating this correctly is 500 mana which is sizable but if that's indicative of a large burst then I'm not sure how the overall build is going to work unless the tahtetso (and ninjakari actions for that matter) just cause a tremendous amount of bruising. Nekotai have bursts, shofangi have shred and kumati, Tahtetso and Ninjakari seem to have nothing outside of stance bonuses to play with bleeding/bruising amounts.
This might be one of those things where we wont' know if it's actually a thing until it's coded but I thought I should bring it up.
A couple of things to reply to:
1) Leg darts
I'm disappointed in the decision, but if the admin are adamant that changing dart poisons must cost balance, I'll work with that. It does mean, though, that the poisons "route" is less optimal than I'd like. The inability to switch poisons on the fly becomes an important restriction on the ability - a Nekotai that stacks his poisons well can end up not being rewarded, but faced with a situation where the one single stance of his that allows him to use his leg poison comes around... and his target is already afflicted with that poison because he's already done a good job with sticking it previously.
The reason for keeping the balance cost is that the ability was designed like this in the past, which is fine, yes. But it should also be noted that in the past, the Nekotai could choose a form without the modifier, invest that freed space on something else, minimizing the loss in efficiency with compensation of a different effect. The mechanics made sense with each other. But with the new stances, when such a scenario happens, the effect is either wasted, or the user has to pay an additional balance cost, (giving his opponent a curing window) to get the stance to provide any benefit - all because he has stuck his affs properly.
I'll take this in stride, however, and maybe look at changing the stance effects a little more. No ideas at the moment - maybe I'll make an envoy report if I can't think of something concrete by Sunday. Ideas welcome!
2) Sprongma kick effect
In my post, I had envisioned the Sprongma kick as rewarding a Nekotai that strategically chooses his poisons across many different cure balances - which is a tactic that usually has very little value (faster cures). It would have also given a dimension of poison use to Nekotai that is not replicated in other classes. However, since the admin don't like that mechanic, it has now been changed to a kick that rewards a Nekotai for stacking afflictions - the same as any class. This is perfectly fine, of course, and I'm more than okay with it - it still gives value to poisons, and rewards smart afflicting.
However, I'm not sure if the limits now become too restrictive - poisons-only stacking means that the entire ice-stack is not applicable for a Nekotai going for burst with Sprongm. Also, the scale of the damage given might be too low now, given that to make good use of Sprongma, the Nekotai will need to build bleed, AND now also stack a poison stack - which are designed to be two different stance routes in the Nekotai repertoire.
Suggestion: Perhaps consider changing the scaling to include the four finalsting poisons as contributory to boosting the damage (counting as 250 per aff) - basically those four affs now give "double" the effect for sprongma, unlocking higher tiers (if the Nekotai can stack them) of the scaling, as well as being contributory to the scaling itself. All the other poison affs become less "valuable", giving the Nekotai a clear set of afflictions to aim to stick, and giving Nekotai opponents a clear list of afflictions that should be prioritized in focus curing.
To Wobou: Regarding your questions below:
I intended to have sprongma give BLUNT damage based on the target's current bleed, not add to the bleed itself.
[Edited to clarify: basically, if the target had 1000 bleed and was hit by a sprongma, he'd take 1000 blunt damage if the target has 6 poison affs (max tier), or 100 damage if he has only 1 poison aff. The 1000 bleed will not change, and will stay the same before and after the sprongma]
From my reading of the words in the current excel sheet, I believe the admin also understood that, and had incorporated that part of my suggestion in. Basically, sprongma is a DAMAGE ability, that will shine most when used in Killer (making it an alternative to finalsting, for the poisons route Nekotai).
- Does Ootalangk only impact melee people like monks/warriors or does it impact all attacks from mages/bards/guardians/etc?
I suggested to change the Nekotai grapples in a page back or so, it looks like the admin are still either considering, or have elected not to take up my suggestions. I do hope they change it, the Nekotai grapples don't really mean much now. Granted, my ideas are convoluted and might be more than a weird, but I think they're still better than the current.But if Ootalangk's current mechanics isn't changed from the status quo, it SHOULD impact all attacks from mages/bards/guardians
Nekcree/Shocree
I agree with your assessment of vessels. One of the earlier configurations I'd considered going with included giving vessels to every stance in the "bleed" line, by making use of the "boost your next stance with ... effect" thing. But I also felt the admin might not be very agreeable to make every stance in one line basically the same thing.
That said, maybe what we can do is to reconfigure the two stances to give each a clearer role in the bleed:
1) Nekcree gives high amount of vessels, and gives Shocree a boost to multiply the bleed accrued by the vessels.
2) Shocree gives low vessels, but can multiply target bleed if the Nekotai activates Nekcree before
This will make it so that Shocree will boost existing bleed, BUT not give high vessels, which means staying at Shocree again and again will mean the benefits keep getting lower and lower. That would therefore force the Nekotai to have to cycle down to the lower stance to get the snowball going, preventing the scenario you described.
Suggestion: Change Shocree effect to: Give 1 vessel and +10% bleeding. Change Nekcree effect to: Give 2-4 vessels (no extra passive effect). When activated, the next form attack in Shocree stance will also add bleeding equivalent to 30% of the target's current bleed. [Shocree's total effect if boosted by Nekcree = 1 vessel, +10% bleed and add +30% of target's current bleed as flat bleeding]
Numbers wise, if the target is at 1000 bleed when the Nekotai hits them with a Shocree form, that'd give the target +300 flat bleed. Meaning, the more they continue to cycle through Nekcree/Shocree, the more they will snowball. This percentage number can be tweaked if the output is too high or too low.
Edit: To help further solve the problem with repeating Nekcree, maybe we can use a variation of Shedrin's idea here, in the form of diminishing returns. Not equilibrium, but basically an incentive to Nekotai to NOT stay at Nekcree forever and a day:
Suggestion: Further change Nekcree's burst vessels effect to: Give 0-4 vessels, where the number goes lower the more vessels are already on the target: 0 to 2 vessels on target = 3-4 vessels, 3 to 6 vessels on target = 1-2 vessels, 7 or more vessels on target = 0 vessels
1) Change regression stance from 1p to 3p
2) Change boosting to NOT allow people to jump stances, but instead lower the balance cost for the next form (remains at 2p). Numbers generally spoken of by the Norns is:
The actual mechanics (from the new spreadsheet is):
3) Instead of 10s window to activate the "Next ABC stance gives you ... effect" bonuses of the lower stances, lower that to 7s in order to encourage using boost.
At the request of the Norns, I'm posting these here to highlight them to everyone on the forums, and also to provide my thoughts:
1) 3p for regression is too high. It'll kill the one or two occasions when regression is useful for all monks. 2p is a better equilibrium. With 2p as a cost, it would limit Nekotai vessels as well. Of course, I think my ideas in the above exchange with Wobou should still go in. That'll cement Nekotai bleed stances into two specific roles, while keeping the cost of regression reasonable for other monks as well.
Solution: Change it to 2p instead of 3p.
2) I'm not opposed to changing Boost from a jump stance thing to a faster-next-attack thing. A couple of things popped into my head though:
-Monks are already currently complained about as being too-fast. I'm not sure if it's a concern still, with the new set up, and the fact that this will now cost power to activate, but 2.5s forms might still be a valid concern.
-Ectoplasm's new effect of neutralising balance bonuses might interact with this in a not-so-good way, being that this is a power ability.
3) Lastly, dropping the 10s window to 7s is problematic in my opinion.
With 10s, a monk trying to activate his stance bonuses (eg. 2nd stance boosts 4th stance) will have a reasonable window (it takes a monk 7s assuming 3.5s per form to enter the 4th stance and attack, not accounting latency etc). Opponents have also a clear window to hinder: delay his ability to attack for that 3s, and he loses the chance to activate the lower stance bonus. This shaves off a huge amount of benefit.
Dropping that to 7s makes that window non-existent for the monk, basically. It no longer becomes "encouraging" the use of boost, but "requiring" the use of boost. Furthermore, if you make it so that boost doesn't jump stances on top of that, it means there's only a 1s window for monks to activate their bonuses, even after spending 2p. The power spent should lengthen the window to one that becomes harder to hinder. All these in mind, I don't think it's a good idea to lower the window from 10s to 7s.
Solution: Keep it at 10s. Whether boost jumps stance or speeds up the next form doesn't matter - what's important is that the window exists for the monk to activate his bonus without requiring the use of boost to even have a chance to see the bonus do something.
Edit: Made some edits to correct typos above etc.
I'd like to see more arm and kick moves for the specs so that there is more of a judgement call on which form would be better than just one clear combo path.
So I see monks overall having two paths, there will be a line of forms that will do better afflicting (either going down dust or ice for the most part) and a line of forms that does better straight bleeding.
Another way to think about this is that warriors are a wound based class and monks are an affliction based class. If there's a way a monk can increase their output of afflictions they would be foolish not to, but the choice is what afflictions you use. Just like a warrior in general seeks greater wound output but their choices are what parts they hit.
Edit: All that being said, I'm always a fan of more choices.
Vessels will be pretty hard for neko to track as well.
It'll not be hard to shift my curing to always focus off these instant kill based afflictions but the monk would not be able to track these maybe I cured vomiting maybe I cured relapse.
The instant kills for dust/steam/slush are kind of going to be luck based and on estimations then. Would it maybe help to give monks a way of tracking for example if a target has x vessels or afflictions? Maybe an alternative assess which confirms the number of vessels/afflictions for the kill.
You look over and fancy assess wobou. He bleeds for 1000 bleeding and his afflictions make it seem he bleeds for 750 through the pain of the affliction.
I asked for this very thing in the preliminary rounds. A skill that would add to assess the ability to see only the affs that matter for your insta. I believe they rejected that idea before but said that it could be envoyed in after.
I kind of like the idea of having to pay some attention to what your target does but I also don't think it should be totally based on that. Even something that had a chance to give you that insight would be better than nothing.
The other route would be to have some configurable thing that would tell you at the end of a form you've already committed to what afflictions they have that work for your kill zone.
Something like:
You kick Veyils in the chest with your right foot.
You sense that she is suffering from <aff list>.
So then you pay attention to their curing (and account for any passive curing) and try for your insta on the next form if you're close enough. If you wanted to reward people who pay perfect attention more you could make each aff have a percentage chance to not show even if they have it, or vice versa have an aff that they don't have at all show because your discerning magic isn't great enough. This would punish people who try to code an insta in automatically from this without actually paying attention to cures.