Class Viability pt. 2

Ehtias

@Drystin It's always been insanely fast. MJ, Rij, Me, hell ephi when she was around could pull off stupidly quick ones because we all built off of each other and had a route for it. But also if you have a mix of people that are mostly manual or just have a damage route or whatever because can't code it's not going to be fast like that. It's not anything super new other than the class being new to the side so more people are playing it just like a bunch of us are tinkering with temp mirror(which has the better theme eat my bulging throat tentacle it tastes like candy). I need sleep, tl:dr pulvs always been good in groups with multiple people to pulv towards it.

Also a few people seem super burned out. I was but now I'm addicted to hunting monsters so less play due to that also.

Illikaal

I mean, I was literally in the web when Spirit players were complaining about getting pulverized when it was Mjoll, Almol, Rijetta, Ephi, and Bulrok doing it together. So really, it's not anything new. I think people have perfectly outlined why it's not happening right now.

Iesid

I think it's also going to yield different results based on the classes surrounding it. Warden is a complete mirror of Carnifex, but the environment around it is different - we have Sentinel, Templar, Zealot, Ascendril, easier access to Monk, etc.

Just on paper, I don't think Shadow has nearly the limb/salve support that Spirit brings for this strategy.

Haven

Shadow has many tools at its disposal that are currently underutilized. The main reason for that is because most of their veteran fighters don't participate anymore for one reason or another. This has left Shadow in a team rebuilding stage amidst the power vacuum where they're still working out the kinks and largely enduring the growing pains of building an efficient team again.

Spirit underwent this very thing about a year and a half or so ago where many people griped that Spirit didn't have many good tools. Classes like Sentinel and Shaman were being toted as not bringing much to the team environment. Which, as has been proven, patently false. It took almost tooth and nail for Spirit to cultivate their versatile team they have now. There's no doubt in my mind that Shadow will eventually get back on its feet once their dedicated people fill in the power vacuum and work out the good strategies again.

The locking/disabling/killing potential of Shadow is top tier stuff but it's going to require their new bloods to be dedicated in getting over that learning curve. There are -many- and -willing- coders in this community that can help. There are veterans all over to talk shop with.

Stine

Illidan said:

I think people have perfectly outlined why it's not happening right now.

Yeah, so far I've got:
They don't synchronize well enough
They don't have the right people
They don't have people in the right classes
They don't all know how to code
They don't know who is on what system
They don't know what others have prepared
They don't want to group PK
They don't want to play Aetolia
etc

Anyways, anyone talking about doing actual limb damage hasn't been paying attention to (or hasn't been present to see) what we've been doing in group fights since we got Warden - I don't want a Zealot/Ascendril/Monk with me because they will take too long to help set up a kill. Templar/Wayfarer and Lycan are most preferred since speedknights means more chances to prone from level 1 breaks and lycans can elevate on demand and not have to deal with rebounding to help keep someone prone and/or off salve balance, and these are available to everyone.

I've personally offered to multiple people on the Shadow side over the past howevermany years to code things for them, or include them in Sunder once they had things set up, and whenever someone has brought something to me I've done my best to incorporate it. I've also made this clear multiple times in the Sunder discord. Key note here: barely anyone took me up on that, and the one person who really did decided that I didn't update fast enough and made their own offshoot of Sunder (Darkside) that is supposed to be Shadow focused without even telling me, so I'm not really sure what more I could do other than go through and write team based offenses for every class myself.

Illikaal

Stine said:

Illidan said:

I think people have perfectly outlined why it's not happening right now.

Yeah, so far I've got:
They don't synchronize well enough
They don't have the right people
They don't have people in the right classes
They don't all know how to code
They don't know who is on what system
They don't know what others have prepared
They don't want to group PK
They don't want to play Aetolia
etc

Anyways, anyone talking about doing actual limb damage hasn't been paying attention to (or hasn't been present to see) what we've been doing in group fights since we got Warden - I don't want a Zealot/Ascendril/Monk with me because they will take too long to help set up a kill. Templar/Wayfarer and Lycan are most preferred since speedknights means more chances to prone from level 1 breaks and lycans can elevate on demand and not have to deal with rebounding to help keep someone prone and/or off salve balance, and these are available to everyone.

I've personally offered to multiple people on the Shadow side over the past howevermany years to code things for them, or include them in Sunder once they had things set up, and whenever someone has brought something to me I've done my best to incorporate it. I've also made this clear multiple times in the Sunder discord. Key note here: barely anyone took me up on that, and the one person who really did decided that I didn't update fast enough and made their own offshoot of Sunder (Darkside) that is supposed to be Shadow focused without even telling me, so I'm not really sure what more I could do other than go through and write team based offenses for every class myself.

If you want specifics, I was referring to Alela's 1st and 4th point which, in my view, are easily the biggest contributing factors, alongside her final comment. They have demonstrably shown that they do indeed get pulverize kills with relative frequency in groups when they have the 1. Numbers and 2. Competent people that actually do it instead of trying to do a limb route with a hammer when the rest of the group is pushing affs. There is an unsurprising spike/correlation of seeing it happen on Spirit side now due to the high volume of Spirit players picking up the Warden class. It's almost like when you have a ton of people capable of doing it, it gets done. I would daresay there are a lack of Carnifex that show up to fights at the present time, dating back to the release of Warden.


It isn't your fault that there isn't a streamlined version of Sunder that a high concentration of Shadow players use relative to how many Spirit players use it, but the above stated facts still remain. Also, some of those other points you listed are indeed pretty relevant towards answering the question as to why one side is presently doing it while the other is not.

Elene

I've seen the strategies Spirit uses, and have been the victim of it many times, and I can agree that you guys hardly use Zealot/Ascendril/Monk for kills, though I've also seen a slightly different tactic using Luminary/Shifter/Monk. That's at least been a legs route superseded with Warden now, and Wayfarer/Knight/Sentinel provides very good affliction speed. Add in Shaman overload boosted to the mix to mess with curing and it's a guaranteed less than 10 seconds death for almost anyone.

I'm sure we can replicate that in time, since Shadow in essence have access to some similar abilities (speedknights + Carnifex + plus blackout via Archivist Crescent though I'm not sure how long that lasts), but I think the largest problems right now for the people who do group PK is the inability of most to code for it (Eg. Wjoltyr used the stock Sunder alias for Sciomancer until Saidenn shared an updated alias of a basic damage one to him) and the lack of people in the right classes to guarantee faster kills.

Haven has been helpful with rewriting code with me, and Drystin has been kind enough to share some snippets of his code for better survivability. I've been messing around recently trying to see if I can write a simple support offense route that I can share for the classes I have, to varying degrees of success. It's not the best (lol), considered it's a ton of hacked up code put together to form a whole but, if it produces results during groups, it might be good enough to share. We will see!

Alela

I literally wasn't complaining or attacking anyone, but it feels like the (albeit somewhat indirect) response is very defensive. I also wasn't claiming anything about the use of Zealot or Monk - my point was more about what our classes tend to drive us toward, particularly in light of the other contributing factors. I admit that I overlooked shifter entirely, though. In my defense, I'd been up very early to drive my folks to the airport, so I wasn't firing on all cylinders... think what I said was largely valid, though, and definitely didn't warrant any kind of defensiveness.

In summary, to paraphrase Didi... me Alela be nice lalala

Saidenn

To reiterate @Alela a bit in talking about finishers on Shadow side:

Unravel is 6s eq, modified down to 5.61, even if it fails. Infect is 4s balance. Bio advance is 1.5ish bal and doesn't require eq to be used, but nexus requires the target to hit the Archivist, which if in a group setting happens, it likely means the Archivist is about to die or is the current target. Bio stimulant/adrenaline can be useful in both cases, but an Archivist is limited to 3 points (4 points if they use catabolism and nothing else like ameliorate/nexus, which if using both and catabolism, brings them back down to 2) on a 15 second (12 with recovery artifact) refill. This means that, at best, the Archivist could shave off .8s four times in a group battle, but realistically speaking, no Archivist is going to optomize to 4 energy due to how useful ameliorate is for groups.

Leech takes 5ish(?) seconds after its cast to steal life aura. Vivisect is instant after that, so there is a better window for its use as vivisect's eq is minimal in comparison to unravel, so realistically with speed knights/carnifex/shifters, vivisect could work as a good finisher. Deform sees far more use as it doesn't take long to get to 10-12 affs for it to really shine, but on the same token, it is proving not too hard to recall away on or around deform. Squelch incorporation incoming.

In both of these instances right now, sadly (and as mentioned) we are in team rebuilding mode so we see 1-2 of either class on the battlefield at a given time, and inevitably, Indorani and Archivists seem to be targeted first likely for the reasons listed above. Right behind Shifter, but they are targeted first on both sides for similar reasons.

Pulverize has been discussed at length.

Annihilate requires Rituos sect Praenoman to really shine or be useful. Without seize, there are not many viable ways to drain mana down to the 30% threshold. Revenant may change that.

Hammer was discussed. Teradrim and Revenant working together may see a use for that now due to its bruise requirements.

Sciomancer non-timed insta (voidtrapped collapse) require too much set up in most cases and collapse is dangerous to pull of in a group setting unless you know everyone on your side can tank it. Or unless you're wanting to be shadow's @Czcibor.

Syssin has no insta kills/finishers. At all. It is best used as an aff support or a bite bot.

Revenant has the same access to things that Templar does, although we could technically better capitalize upon hemoclysm/rupture in groups due to Teradrim, so the two classes can possibly harmonize to see either high damage or hammer strats.

Give us shadow Luminary please. Overwhelm is insanely amazing in groups due to not requiring anything specific from the Luminary to use. It requires prone+5 affs, which is doable in five seconds or less. Spinecut's only unique aff is heartflutter, but that can be applied by any Sentinel and is not tied to a specific Sentinel (unlike leeched_aura or mutagen).

This is not intended to be an us vs them post, but to present perspective in the finishers available specifically to shadow or to shadow-based neutral classes vs the finishers I have seen used at length in spirit exclusive classes. I think of Syssin was given a little love for group stuff we may see a bit more synergy. I would love to see it have more use than stab a few affs, the occasional backstab, or as bite bots.

Alela

Saidenn said:

Leech takes 5ish(?) seconds after its cast to steal life aura. Vivisect is instant after that, so there is a better window for its use as vivisect's eq is minimal in comparison to unravel, so realistically with speed knights/carnifex/shifters, vivisect could work as a good finisher. Deform sees far more use as it doesn't take long to get to 10-12 affs for it to really shine, but on the same token, it is proving not too hard to recall away on or around deform. Squelch incorporation incoming.

Point of clarification for accuracy's sake: Necromancy abilities that require leeched aura are agnostic with regard to who actually gave leeched aura. If I give it, any other Indorani can use it to Vivisect, Deform, etc. It's also less costly to use since it no longer consumes equilibrium - just tack it onto the front of your first Tarot fling (or whatever) and forget it. I want to say Vivisect's eq time is like... 5 seconds base? It's been a while, and since it's a finisher, remembering its time has never been a huge priority for me as a more 1v1-focused pker. Regardless, it's not, like, wildly faster than Unravel.