Best Of

@Seurimas: In order:

Client side systems can handle it with a patch, but it's an ineffective one in my honest opinion that can be taken advantage of in ways that I can talk to you about privately, as I don't really want to propagate potential gimmicks. Additionally, the impact means that classes like Ascendril and Sciomancer have an advantage in terms of passive def stripping. These defenses are effectively "set-and-forget" with little chance of a re-raise during the course of a fight. As it stands, you should never prioritize aff elixirs above health against most classes that can strip defenses. It's asking to die against a few of them.

Regarding why firstaid doesn't handle them correctly, it's more so that firstaid lacks any sort of customization on the this front, leaving individuals susceptible to the gimmicks that I spoke of in the first response. It's an issue. Not to mention that Firstaid is going to compete with you regarding elixir balance if you have client side defense handling. Unfortunately, there's little you can do on this front.

Backstab not requiring hide made it weaker and less flexible as a hinder. This, combined with its absurdly long cooldown, means it will see usage maybe once or twice tops in your average fight. If I see Backstab, I'm just going to turtle up because I know that the Syssin isn't going to be able to re-hide easily. Basically, it just means that what you're doing is going to be telegraphed pretty heavily. If you burn Backstab in order to escape, this cooldown means that's all you're going to be able to use it for. Normally, the Syssin could re-hide afterwards. I didn't really have an issue with this because a Syssin's offense is pretty much entirely active save for Hypno firing, but if Hypnosis hasn't been sealed, then the suggestions are going to fall off and the Syssin is going to lose momentum. The in-depth theorycrafting for Syssin is better left to Fezzix, but I'm already able to tell that this is was a pretty hefty blow to them.

Regarding whether or not Shadowslip will be getting a re-work. Yeah, sure, but how long will that take? Nothing against the administration, but when I am told that something will be "reworked eventually", there is usually nothing definitive in terms of how long that will take and whether it will come at all. Additionally, if it doesn't happen, why should you have to burn a classlead report to fix something that should've been fixed by their own volition nor something you or another asked for to begin with? I've seen enough evidence in the decade that I've played Aetolia that I am immensely apprehensive to the idea of "wait and see" in terms of reworks. Subjective experience, but I've been burned on that one many times before, as have others.

If Tiur and company want to explain the thought process behind these long term changes and what they're aiming to fix, I'm absolutely all ears. However, the lack of communication and the "why" has been sorely lacking in terms of explanation save for Celerity/Recovery. I disagree with some of the few notions put forward already as justification for some of these changes with ample reasoning as to why they do not fix that the administration is aiming to do. What I'm asking for, and this is a common request, is detailed transparency on the design process as changes made by the administration outside of classlead rounds can, and often do, have very large ramifications with no promise of being fixed in a timely manner if the change heavily impacts the class for the worse. Finally, I am not saying that Tiur IS being spiteful, but that is the appearance that this gives off without any other logic provided. I don't know what these were supposed to fix save for Celerity/Recovery, and I've already provided seemingly popular alternatives for what they could've done for Heatsight, Hide, etc. so I don't think it's worth rehashing it again.

For the most part though, @Drystin also captures my talking points in an even more concise manner. We had a very large promotion where items such salvage goggles, coldblooded, camouflage, and others were directly impacted -- and heavily at that. The reception has been overwhelmingly negative and the consensus at large has been to ask for a revert. I cannot imagine what kind of potential future changes have been worth creating resentment, mistrust, and animosity between the Pools and the playerbase at large, but I do not think it has been worth Keroc's sanity or the collective disdain/headache that all parties have had to deal with.