Group Tactics/Skills - What's too much?

Illikaal · June 2013

If when or they fix it, an airbeast will appear on the forums.

Iosyne · June 2013

Illidan said:

If when or they fix it, an airbeast will appear on the forums.

So help me, I will add "airbeast" to the censored words filter! /shakefist

Arbre · June 2013

Like when we had blackwind as one?

Ezrax · June 2013

I hope everyone sees the common denominator here in what the problem everyone's complaining about is.

Benedicto · June 2013

Calipso said:
Examples:

Vivisect-Kai cripple.
Absolve-Kai enfeeble.

This has been impossible to do for at least two or three years IRL. Also if you were with a syssin and an Indo you wouldn't do epseth/epteth for vivi. It'd be hangedman spam from the Indo which would be done in concert with double delph for the prone and garrotelock. You'd maybe get lucky with disperse firing if you had it up but then it'd be downhill from there.

Ilyon · June 2013

Mm, we're talking about group-vs-group, not group-vs-1. The target can't stop that glock or what have you, but his friends can. That's why I view retribution and insert-proning-skill/BBT as problematic - unless the other team has a very specific class composition (a monk or someone with hangedman or a similar perma-hindering attack), these will usually guarantee a win for a competent team, or at least enforce a stalemate if you manage to shieldspam - unlike the other listed combinations.

Honestly, what really needs to happen is that team combat needs to stop being viewed as an outlier. Too often have I heard arguments to the effect of "yes, it's way too powerful in teams, but it's fine in 1v1, so nyah", or "yes, that change would balance the skill in teams, but also weaken it in 1v1, hence I don't like it". Until this attitude changes, these problems won't be fixed.

Benedicto · June 2013

It's all well and good saying that but some of the proposed solutions towards fixing the problem are always ridiculously drastic and end up nerfing a skill into the ground. One example of this was Mind Crush. It was suffering the same issue as a number of stat scaling skills do currently (see anything that Conner uses/Dask lightning/my hammer attacks) and it was nerfed so absolutely that it is now unusable. There never seems to be a "balancing" solution. It's either one extreme or the other.

Also I know everybody moans about the prone/bbt thing. In any kind of group combat this tactic is completely negated by targeting the person doing the proning. If you shut them down you suddenly have a bunch of people standing around not doing anything because they're afraid to go off-balance in case a prone goes through.

The retribution thing I agree is a problem and I've never claimed otherwise but, again, any proposed solutions towards fixing the problem would result in the skill being made twice as hard to achieve in a 1v1 setting. People need to step back and view any potential changes to a skill neutrally and without the blinkers of "Omg I don't know how to deal with something so nerf!"

People would be just as justified asking for a deletion of Hangedman due to it's ridiculous ability to perma-hinder someone. It's only a fortunate happenstance that only one person currently uses the skillset with any regularity. Mostly because the class has a unicorns offense. Otherwise we'd see that being abused with astonishing regularity.

Haven · June 2013

Ilyon said:

Mm, we're talking about group-vs-group, not group-vs-1. The target can't stop that glock or what have you, but his friends can. That's why I view retribution and insert-proning-skill/BBT as problematic - unless the other team has a very specific class composition (a monk or someone with hangedman or a similar perma-hindering attack), these will usually guarantee a win for a competent team, or at least enforce a stalemate if you manage to shieldspam - unlike the other listed combinations.

Honestly, what really needs to happen is that team combat needs to stop being viewed as an outlier. Too often have I heard arguments to the effect of "yes, it's way too powerful in teams, but it's fine in 1v1, so nyah", or "yes, that change would balance the skill in teams, but also weaken it in 1v1, hence I don't like it". Until this attitude changes, these problems won't be fixed.

First off, I'd like to agree and say retribution is over-powered in team fights, particularly when there is more than one Templar. (I personally feel Templars are a bit too good as a whole but that's an entirely different debate.) But how does the high-lighted part of your post not apply to prone+BBT tactics?

envenom weapon with curare + oculus (or any complimentary venom) / dstab/dsk/dsl/ssl proner or monk

Partner then proceeds to transfix or impale the proner/monk. (Syssin, Templar, Carnifex, Teradrim, Ascendril, Sciomancer, Luminary, Sentinel, Praenomen) That's more than half the available classes and an equal number of classes for both sides of the tether to do this tactic.

touch web proner or monk (lol spider boots)

That's a skill available to everyone but not really reliable due to the artifact and disperse or whatever but still an option. I'd say shield tattoo too but that's so easy to shred in team fights if people are coordinating properly.

Use hinder skill @ proner or monk

This would be things like leapslash, fling hangedman, summoning entities, laying down retardation vibe, etc which would cover the other half of the available classes. (Zealot/Monk, Indorani, Lycanthrope, Shaman, and Cabalists.)

And these are just a start of what a team can do to combat it. (Basically just target the proner or the monk.)

In all honesty, I wish Team Combat and Solo Combat had separate mechanics. It'd make balancing so much cleaner and engaging, not to mention make Team Combat more challenging, as a whole in my opinion. Unfortunately, that'd require a major overhaul of our game so unlikely to happen.

Anyway, my point is that prone+BBT tactics alone are a joke in a group versus group setting unless you've got superior numbers and the other team is doing nothing to break you guys up. I think some of you guys are making a big deal out of nothing in regards to BBT in team combat. Hinder / zerg or go home.

Benedicto · June 2013

It's actually quite funny I've been in group combat when my team was Kaeus/Illidan in Shaman, myself in monk or zealot and Dato in Luminary. The other group rolled in and knowing that slam/bbt was going to occur targeted Dato first. This wasn't an isolated event. It happened on several occasions. Eventually you guys learned to target the Shaman and the jig was up.

Kaeus · June 2013

I've seen people get bashed down just as fast against the raw damage people put out even with their regular combos. I'm not really sure making these instas less viable in team combat will make team combat any more complex, if anything it'll just be a competition to see who has the most powerful bash artis or numbers, instead of who can coordinate their instas the best.

Ezalor · June 2013

Yeah there will always be some combos that become way better in team combat. It does make it more fun/complex to have coordinated tactics beat pure damage, for sure, but even then I think Retribution is a bit too much. Having Retri only possible through your own affs is not a bad solution IMO, even if the partner is stopping you from curing it with curare darkshade at least it's still only 1 person delivering the actual instakill affs.

Moirean · June 2013

Benedicto said:

It's actually quite funny I've been in group combat when my team was Kaeus/Illidan in Shaman, myself in monk or zealot and Dato in Luminary. The other group rolled in and knowing that slam/bbt was going to occur targeted Dato first. This wasn't an isolated event. It happened on several occasions. Eventually you guys learned to target the Shaman and the jig was up.

Dato is the only one of that group without a hood. Not every major fighter has a hood. If Ilyon or Ellenia aren't online, I just have to make guesses. Also, I don't know why you'd target the person proning, as there are many ways to prone, but only one way to BBT. I always switched to hindering someone BBTing if I see a monk using it.

Regarding team combat in general, I'd love to see some sort of way to either encourage fights to be broken up into smaller battles or for attacks to be mitigated/reduced/dodge increased based on number of people hitting one person. For me, the fun of team combat comes from the coordination based around the movement and the back and forth "they're doing x, so we should do y" tactics. The actual bashing people down tends to be either: 1) dull and 1-sided, 2) me getting focused so all I can focus on is shield spamming/movement/healing or 3) if the team is big enough, so spamtastic that we're all just basically triggerbots mashing attacks and hoping stuff works.

In this regard, I really do like the ranged options/moving people/picking people off and would love to see more of this (though I know that's not a popular thing). In my view, this aspect of team combat is a great practice in coordination and a high-level, top-down look at combat. Instead of focusing on the nitty gritty of what makes a kill, you're basically playing general in a battle - how can you block certain enemy moves with your own actions? What skills can you use to to erode down their entrenched setup? I'd love if we slashed down the *damage* potential from range but instead got more options for overall team management, area control and forced movement.

Right now, team combat is where you see the most options for tactics and really the only place where there are any sort of rock-paper-scissors involved in combat - for 1v1, nearly every defence is a hit it and forget it, and the only skills which really have costs/risks involved in their use are the channeled ones. In team combat, we see (admittedly weak and underdeveloped) situations where defences can both help and hinder and where using one defence opens up the door to another attack (eg if we flood a room to stop a beckon, we open the door for an ascendril to run in and quickly tsunami). For me, that sort of combat is the most fun - so much of PK is based around beating systems these days that it's become dull, but team combat still offers a way to fight more tactically. I think we should enhance that, as well as bring those concepts into 1v1.

Benedicto · June 2013

Moirean said:
Stuff.

I think the issue with this is that the only teamcombat that takes place is around lessers which ties the engagement to one room. This results in the situations named above. Unfortunately there isn't really any other form of team combat that takes place outside of lessers. I have to admit that I also enjoy the ranged movement abilities and the trick of getting people moved and split up.

Calipso · June 2013

Benedicto said:

Calipso said:
Examples:

Vivisect-Kai cripple.
Absolve-Kai enfeeble.

This has been impossible to do for at least two or three years IRL. Also if you were with a syssin and an Indo you wouldn't do epseth/epteth for vivi. It'd be hangedman spam from the Indo which would be done in concert with double delph for the prone and garrotelock. You'd maybe get lucky with disperse firing if you had it up but then it'd be downhill from there.

Benedicto said:

Also I know everybody moans about the prone/bbt thing. In any kind of group combat this tactic is completely negated by targeting the person doing the proning. If you shut them down you suddenly have a bunch of people standing around not doing anything because they're afraid to go off-balance in case a prone goes through.

Okay but you see there is a big difference here. The combo tactic for attempting this glock would require:

Indorani: Hangedman (2.5(?) sec balance recovery)
Syssin 1: Dst (2.5-3 sec balance recovery)
Syssin 2: Dst (2.5-3 sec balance recovery)

-Recovered-

Syssin: Glock (6(?) seconds to kill)
Syssin 2: Dst again
Indorani: Hangedman again

Can you see what I mean? It is a long term setup that takes time to get the kill needed. Also there are several components that can come into play that can counter this easily.

Examples:
What if the victim had rebounding up? 1 Syssin has to flay costing them the a successful combo until recovery
What if the victim had shield up? Also flay
What if the victim had metawake? Failed
What if an ally saw enemies entered the room? They could whisk their ally away.

Now let's take the JPK and BBT combo that we saw earlier. As it goes.

Monk1: JPK target, followed by group. Target is stunned and pushed down. (balance recovery)
Monk 2: BBT (balance recovery)
Monk 3: BBT (balance recovery)

Target has died.

You see in that situation there is almost -nothing- that can be done to thwart the combo. The only things are if the victim had shield up or if they had a special ability that doesnt allow them to become prone, like the golems in Animations. A combo like this could -easily- take out a potential threat in a group without the group being able to do anything but blink and see a comrade dead. In the version of the Syssin, it is much different.

Now as for Syssin epteth/epseth and vivisect, that can also be countered. Someone could easily have their system use RESTORE when it sees 4 broken limbs, or as said before, rebounding could thwart it from firing correctly.

Benedicto · June 2013

Ok, so you throw up all the ways to stop the group insta-kills that are relative to your class and yet fail to balance that by looking at the ways in which other tactics might be stopped? Bias perhaps? You mention shield, well in that case Syssin have the advantage with flay. Monks have no choice but to use hammer tattoo, which is a lengthy balance in itself. Not to mention you have to have more than 2 Tekura users together with decent strength/artifacts with which for this to be an insta-kill. Moirean was unlucky enough to be attempting the kill the GM of the Sentaari Guild, whilst she was in a room full of Sentaari to earn a squad of 3 coming after her.

In the extraction of a lesser, if you're on the extracting team, this tactic isn't going to be used because you're embedded in the foci room. If you're defending against monks at the lesser, there are numerous ways to stop this.

Ways to stop JPK/BBT;

1. Pick your room (in the case of a non-foci based team fight)/Flood the room. Even mounted JPK's can't be done into or out of a water based room.

2. Shield.

3. Icewall

4. Barricade in Refining (if at a lesser)

If you're stood with none of these, especially shield, during a group fight then I'm sorry, but, more fool you. In any lesser fight I've ever been in, when you know the enemy team is incoming everybody shields in case they're first named target. Not to mention any potential ranged attacks that might be incoming.

Illikaal · June 2013

Leddem know daddy.

Rennoc · June 2013

The issue I have seen with group fighting (granted I have not been back for that long) , is that everyone is hoping to get that final shot in and claim the kill and they forget to look at the team as a whole. I understand that if you are 6 people and you have 7 oponents incoming, you want to deliver as much damage to one person so that you can kill them quickly and reduce the number of opponents. Yesterday I watched Bloodloch decimate a team of twice their number and could not understand why the two luminaries on the other side, did not ANGEL AURA their team members.

Calipso · June 2013

Benedicto said:

Ways to stop JPK/BBT;

1. Pick your room (in the case of a non-foci based team fight)/Flood the room. Even mounted JPK's can't be done into or out of a water based room.
2. Shield.
3. Icewall
4. Barricade in Refining (if at a lesser)

If you're stood with none of these, especially shield, during a group fight then I'm sorry, but, more fool you. In any lesser fight I've ever been in, when you know the enemy team is incoming everybody shields in case they're first named target. Not to mention any potential ranged attacks that might be incoming.

Wait, hold up a second, a JPK can be done while mounted? How does that work..

Daskalos · June 2013

You can also stance immediately after a jpk! (it was put in when horsemanship was added)

Benedicto · June 2013

Calipso said:
Wait, hold up a second, a JPK can be done while mounted? How does that work..

The skill of JPK can be done from atop your mount from an adjacent room so that you can then immediately land in a stance of your choosing without it taking additional balance. If you do it without being mounted then you have to stance -after- the JPK and it takes balance.

Be nice.

Edit: Dask ninja

Illikaal · June 2013

Hnnnnngh don't troll people.

Xiuhcoatl · June 2013

7 mage would dominate all. just sayin'.

Ezrax · June 2013

If I had sixteen Cabalists I could unravel someone in one round. I think Numerology should be nerfed.

Toz · June 2013

If you had 5 or 6 you could vivisect someone in 1 round.

Macavity · June 2013

Toz said:

If you had 5 or 6 you could vivisect someone in 1 round.

you really missed the punch line on that one! lol

Calipso · June 2013

I think just removing the stun from JPK should fix the problem with instant BBTs. Seems fair. Prone would remain but at least someone can retaliate in some fashion

Benedicto · June 2013

Calipso said:

I think just removing the stun from JPK should fix the problem with instant BBTs. Seems fair. Prone would remain but at least someone can retaliate in some fashion

This not necessary. My reasoning behind this will become apparent in an up-coming batch of liaison changes

Ezalor · June 2013

I don't even think Jumpkick BBT is a big issue tbh, you have to leave the room to do it and there are plenty of ways to keep someone from doing that.

Sure you can get instagibbed by 4 Monks doing Jumpkick BBT BBT BBT but 4 people can instagib anyone just with their bashing attacks anyway.

Vharen · June 2013

Tweaking things like jpk/bbtx3 is treating the symptoms, not the problem. You need something like a GCD on the number of attacks you can take from different people in IRE style games slated to 1v1 combat. Then you can begin to address things that still bend towards zomg.

IE, Bob attacks Tom. Goes through. Sets off a GCD at Arbitrary_Time with data saying Bob is the one who procced it.

Jim tries to attack Tom. If he does so within Arbitrary_Time, he gets "You can't make your way through the field of combat to attack Tom."

If Bob's first attack just happens to be less than Arbitrary_Time in balance cost or if it is a multiple part attack (like slash/dwhisper), he could attack again before Arbitray_Time, but he would refresh the timer.

Then it's a matter of picking how much groupiness you want to allow. A 1.5s Arbitrary_Time would allow for 2 people to attack fairly freely, from the attack times I've seen here so far. A 3s Arbitrary_Time would limit things further. A non-static time such as setting it to the balance cost of the attack used would push it to enforced 1v1.

Of course, care would have to be taken to prevent "kick friend for immunity." Since Aet seems to be going the way of removing gray allegiances like Imp did, that shouldn't be *too* hard, and people rolling alts to abuse it can be punished easily enough from my experience with a similar system.

Ranged attacks could also be done differently, but that's a whole nother can of gagh.

Daskalos · June 2013

I... really like that idea, Vharen.

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