Owned Part II

Illikaal

Daskalos said:

I can't be abducted...

Angwe

Ah, see? There's that latency thing. If you notice, I got balance back and didn't stand until two ticks of her garrotelock. Looks like I was trying to move and then tried to throw an eye before the next action tick made me kick.

Benedicto

Angwe said:

Ah, see? There's that latency thing. If you notice, I got balance back and didn't stand until two ticks of her garrotelock. Looks like I was trying to move and then tried to throw an eye before the next action tick made me kick.

I think he means lag on input commands. Just plain lag.

Alexina

Seir said:

Remember that Luminaries don't have to unwield/wield eye (which requires balance) and then throw eye. They can just perform truth and flush you out. All three of those folks are Luminaries so they have an easy time with Syssin trying to abduct and kill them.

If people are off balance when I abduct them, they can't kick anyway which sort of makes it a moot point. I'm not sure if you're arguing that it's impossible to be avoid getting killed in this way; plenty of people (even non-Luminaries) that were abducted not only survived, but managed to kill me as well. Still, the success rate is high enough for me to try it on people anyway, especially if I haven't killed them in this manner before. Although I have a suspicion that most people reading this thread will figure out a trigger or something that'll stop them from actually dying.

I'm all for having action in hypnosis being looked into because the more scrutinty a skillset receives, the more balanced it'll end up in the end. That's more important than me being able to kill unprepared, AFK, or non-combatant people.

Isto

Yeah, pretty sure I haven't killed Alexina in Luminary class. Not recently, anyways. A person's perfectly capable of defending in any other class.

Moirean

Oh Christian Bale, you so cheeky.

Daskalos

Lin

Posting Gary Busey pics is now a bannable offense.

Moirean

Oh god, halp

Illikaal

Here's a combat log of any class in the game trying to fight a Dexterous Indorani spamming hangedman. 

Stathan

So yeah, going at it with Haven since I keep breaking his system.

http://pastebin.com/DMKMZ0NV

Alexina

Re @Illidan:

Pit and hangedman are so annoying. I guess pit isn't as much of an issue these days since there aren't as much group combat, but these two skills should just be removed or changed.

Ezalor

Heh. Indorani love their crutch too much for it to get deleted. IMO while the class itself may be lacking in offensive power they shouldn't stand to get any buffs while they have the ability to completely reset every fight or keep someone writhing forever. Kind of like how all the old Teradrim reports got shot down because of sand coccoon, or Luminaries with angel care. I really think hangedman should be given a cooldown at the very least, but I was unable to submit reports on skillsets I didn't own this liaison round and the liaisons I did talk to about it didn't seem to agree with me.

The fact that a skill exists that allows you to turn any fight into "let's see if you run out of rations first or I run out of cards first" is absurd.

Xavin

Ezalor said:

Heh. Indorani love their crutch too much for it to get deleted. IMO while the class itself may be lacking in offensive power they shouldn't stand to get any buffs while they have the ability to completely reset every fight or keep someone writhing forever. Kind of like how all the old Teradrim reports got shot down because of sand coccoon, or Luminaries with angel care. I really think hangedman should be given a cooldown at the very least, but I was unable to submit reports on skillsets I didn't own this liaison round and the liaisons I did talk to about it didn't seem to agree with me.

The fact that a skill exists that allows you to turn any fight into "let's see if you run out of rations first or I run out of cards first" is absurd.

Amg I totally agreeeeeeeeee

Moirean

There are lots of ways to shut down an offense if you want. If you are dying because someone is just throwing hangedman, you have bigger issues beyond just the Indorani.

Rammus

Pretty sure the issue isn't dying to hangedman.

Moirean

Get Alterus behind with indifference and start pushing damage...

Laying your bone dagger flat upon your palm, you flick it sharply towards Alterus. The blade speeds through the air and shatters on impact, before suddenly reappearing in your hand.

You discern that a layer of venom has rubbed off your weapon.

A filthy bubonis entity swirls about Alterus, its actions confused in motion.

You glance over Alterus and see that his health is at 508/5200.

A jagged bolt of lightning shoots out of the chaos storm to strike Alterus!

The chimera's goat head rams into Alterus and knocks him off his feet.

A chaos worm burrows into Alterus's belly.

Demonic claws lash out from unseen holes, raking your flesh.

A sudden shadow strikes at Alterus's chest, causing him to gasp in agony.

Alterus turns pallid and drops to the ground.

Alterus has been slain by Ezalor.

>:P

Ezalor

Benedicto mutilates you with a vengeful blow from a blackened warhammer.

Health Lost: 1703, blunt.

As the warhammer strikes, you feel it draining your mental power.

Mana Lost: 333

With a fluid motion, Benedicto switches his grip on a blackened warhammer and brings it swinging around once more.

Benedicto steps in, gruesomely smashing you up with a blackened warhammer.

Health Lost: 1703, blunt.

You have been slain by Benedicto.

It grew.

Benedicto

Ezalor said:

Benedicto mutilates you with a vengeful blow from a blackened warhammer.

Health Lost: 1703, blunt.

As the warhammer strikes, you feel it draining your mental power.

Mana Lost: 333

With a fluid motion, Benedicto switches his grip on a blackened warhammer and brings it swinging around once more.

Benedicto steps in, gruesomely smashing you up with a blackened warhammer.

Health Lost: 1703, blunt.

You have been slain by Benedicto.

It grew.

+ Maelstrom's Avatar, Benedicto Silverain ---------------------------------------+

| Strength     : 21(+7)  Dexterity    : 19(+3)   Timeout   : 60 minutes    |

| Intelligence : 17(+2)  Constitution : 18(+5)  Statpack  : Dexterous     |

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Yea....

Ezalor

Moirean said:

There are lots of ways to shut down an offense if you want. If you are dying because someone is just throwing hangedman, you have bigger issues beyond just the Indorani.

As Rammus said, the issue isn't people dying to it. It's that the moment an Indorani gets behind, out come 10 hangedmans and the fight starts over again. This delay can also be used to whore out hunger/endurance/willpower/blood drain tactics, which will inevitably happen even if it's not the user's intent.

With Indorani having the ability to dictate a reset of the fight any time they want they don't really deserve an offense anywhere close to top tier.

Moirean

Hunger, I can maybe see, but I'd be happy seeing hunger tactics removed altogether. End/wp are drained and bleeding is stacked off...what, bloodleech? You guys are REALLY exaggerating the "potency" of this tactic. Someone actively flinging hangedman is simply not going to kill you unless you have some other serious issues going on with your curing/skills.

Yes, Indo can reset the fight by actively spamming hangedman. There are plenty of ways to reset a fight. Hangedman is ONE of them and it's hardly unstoppable. Note, it's a fling, so it strips rebound, is stopped by paralysis, broken arms, broken legs, proning, etc. Someone determined to reset a fight, who isn't heavily hindered, is going to, under our current system, and hangedman isn't even the best tactic for that - against a Carnifex, for example, getting soul back is more reliably achieved from shield spamming. Using hangedman strips your rebounding and the writhe out can be quicker than the fling balance even at dext (especially if you are using disperse).

Kaeus

I can SPAM Paralysis as a Templar with a 1.97 DSK and STILL get hangedman spammed by an Indorani. I don't think I'd even have the opportunity to even TRY to break arms to stop hangedman spamming reliably.

Illikaal

Nobody DIES to hangedman, at all. It's the fact that Indorani spam it so that their opponent CAN'T kill them, despite how talentless they may be.

Ezalor

Actually, no other class has a way (besides running and shield whoring) to completely reset a fight. Indorani are the only ones. Disperse takes eq to use and it has a decent cooldown. It hardly does anything. Kinda hard to stop a hangedman chain once it begins...even if you do writhe out before they regain balance, you have a couple milliseconds at most to get an action in, whereupon even if you do hit with a paralysis or a break they cure it instantly (because no other class can hinder someone for a few seconds with no buildup) and then throw some more hangedmans at you.

Rammus

Illidan said:

Nobody DIES to hangedman, at all. It's the fact that Indorani spam it so that their opponent CAN'T kill them, despite how talentless they may be.

This is the problem.  Also this is how I feel when I fight people that auto-fitness.  Sure they can't do anything because they are permanently off-balance, but I pretty much can't do much to beat it.  Obviously this applies to shield tattoo as well.

Moirean

You can disperse to break out of a writhe instantly. The CD is short enough that you can use it as an active skill to stop exactly the situation you guys are describing. 

And, yes, if a Sentinel, Carnifex, Teradrim, etc wants to, they can reset a fight, too, just with basic tripping, as those skills have balance knocks/stuns associated with them.

If anything, there may be a direct issue with how the dex fling works versus writhe speed. They stack up a bit too well, which leads to a stalemate, but simply removing the skill is silly. I can see an argument being made to adjust the writhe time based on afflictions and I would totally be behind that.

However, if someone wants to avoid being hit or wants to reset the fight, they will, under Aet's current combat system. We have very little area or movement control, escaping is way too easy, pursuit is futile if someone runs to a safe area, and the way momentum build-up currently works ENCOURAGES fights to be reset, instead of pushing fights into a late-stage game - at least hangedman has them sitting in the room doing active stuff, instead of evading you or spamming shield. 

The bigger issue is that we need ways to push momentum and build-up that aren't as linear and basic as "hit them x times and get y boost" with counters like "stop being hit" (and this is the more *complex* momentum, affliction combat is an even more basic momentum of "give them x, y and z afflictions, restart the chain until something sticks")  - making this sort of momentum more interesting and complex (on a tactical level, not complex on a system level) would shift combat to a far more engaging process and completely sidestep the huge issue we are seeing in high level PK right now of fatigue and victory through attrition. 

Carnifex and Teradrim need their momentum concept refined. Most classes don't even really have one. Templars might have it set ok with releases, but it's pretty hard to tell right now since artifact runes and high stats are playing havoc with their performance and make more refined combat not even needed.

Anyways. Sure, hangedman is annoying, but there's a MUCH bigger problem lurking and hangedman just kinda exploits that. It's not the source of it, and even flat out deleting it won't suddenly "fix" stuff. 

Also, I already put in a report to nerf it in team combat.

Kaeus

Fighting as a Templar with no combat runes, and exploring different kill methods (Belgarion had a pretty damn good grip on this class), I think they seem fine. Other classes (that rely on their momentum concept) seem to have that as a crutch in some sense. I've not seen a Carnifex do much, and personally a lot of their skills felt disjointed early on. Teradrim were a bit more cohesive when looking at writing an offense, however they struggle a lot with parry, rebounding, and dodges messing up their momentum mechanic as well and putting them back a bit.

Also, disperse is NOT on a short enough cooldown to do anything useful about hangedman. It will stop the first flick, but not the next 15 that follow. If I could lock a person down between the time it took you to regain balance off your first flick, sure, disperse would help a ton! The core issue is that while being able to constantly hinder someone is not necessarily broken itself (aka Paralysis every round that everyone hates), it is that the writhing effectively stops you from doing anything useful for the time it takes to writhe out. At least with other writhe affs there is a precondition before it can be applied (other than web tattoo), and with afflictions like paralysis you can cure out of it without a delay. Hangedman can just be repeated and fails to lose any effectiveness the more you throw it.

Alexina

Re Benedicto:

3,400 damage attacks is extremely over the top, even with that strength. I did way less with kai choke/crush back in the days, and it was still deemed too powerful. A number of damage skills have since been nerfed, but Templars still manage to outpace sip/moss by miles. Heck, I think artibows are too strong in some situations, and they deal way, way less damage.

Haven

Artifacts need looking at. Same song since forever.

Luna

Templars are actually able to get up to 21 strength even without artifacts.

Herculean statpack - 16 str
Blessing +1
Stars +1
Purity Aura +2
White amulet +1

It's nice and all to blame artifacts, but the high damage potential is primarily a class problem.