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If we're taking into account Riluo/Trager fight, the simple reaction there should have been hammer tat = dead Trager. Had he set me back on eq from shielding, he would have won, easily at that. Unfortunately his AI doesn't appear set up for that. With Sentinel I am waiting for a certain set of parameters to take effect, IE, limpveins, paresis and clumsiness, before I can move forward with the kill via throatcrush/slickness, while BB is pushing on all levels and simply has to choose which one they want to end it on.
Unfortunately, those with the most invested in any given thing are generally going to be statists when it comes to that thing. The classlead system was great when tri-trans was closer to the average but what I would call artifact-statism has been on the rise for a long time and looking for simple nerfs which don't add anything new to the thing being nerfed, that were considered fine for decades, like shield tattoo, is I think an example of this "artifact statism." You can buy more damage but anyone can get a shield tattoo, so don't think outside of the box, just nerf shield tattoo. Then nerf all other hindering and healing after that. Fights will be decided by the movement of offensive chess pieces and the more money you spend, the more pieces you have. I think there are less vocal players in IRE who don't want to play that game. But I've probably spent too much of my time as it is annoying people with these kinds of arguments.
Just goes back to my original point: A BB/Praenomen is pushing you on literally every level. Mana, health (with artifacts) and up to three affs per round if they're slashing/slicing/insertattackofchoicehere.
You're not even being PKed by something "overpowered," the fights with shields where both fighters are curing/turtling optimally means that no fight will end until someone runs out of something (or one person is playing one of the few classes in Aetolia that can solve shields). That's horrible PK design and horrible to play. Nobody's saying to remove shields completely - it's been said multiple times that it's a legit and needed strategy - but to make it so it's a decision that you have to make wisely rather than literally mashing your button 500 times. There's a legit reason why places where fights are forced/official (Sect arena, Hunting Grounds, admin-sanctioned arena events) have the bloodlust affliction which disables shielding after a certain period of time. Most classes simply cannot kill someone who decides to hold down a shield button no matter how much momentum they've gained.
And no, there is no managing a kelp stack with different strategy. You eat kelp, that's it. That's why it's a kelp stack; you stack kelp affs above asthma so that they can't conceivably cure it in time for your lock combination. With the perfect information available in Aetolia the combat paradigm is creating an offense that will beat -perfect- curing.
@Irruel that is indeed true and that is why this thread exists. The title says Bloodborn but it's really applicable to Aetolia combat in general. You can easily code in any if x then shield/fitness/aff cure/shed/shrug/whatever and keep yourself from ever dying. The idea is to make it so that even with that code, you can avoid it say 80% of the time, but the other 20% they will be able to power through it. That's the entire point of the thread, hate against infinite 100% effective turtling.
As far as the sameness of class designs, as someone who has nearly every lock class I find them interesting and different enough (obviously, or else I wouldn't keep spending 1200 credits to get each class). While the endgame is the same, the path/strategy to achieving that endgame is pretty different between Templars and Syssin and Indorani and Sentinels etc etc. Once you get into the finer intricacies of top tier fighting with each class you find the little timing attacks and extra mile things you can do vary vastly between each lock class. That is just my personal opinion, however, and at the core all of them still utilize the base concept of kelp stack -> asthma -> lock.
Here's why:
For Bloodborn, one venom (even at 3.48 seconds) will never be enough to lock someone. Bloodmeld is a thing here, but with the nerf, there still isn't enough consistent pressure to lock. Bloodborn's only reliable route to kill is damage, and I agree that the momentum of a Bloodborn with a weapon rune and eq_recovery is very strong, it's a one-front offense. There is hindering and affliction stacking available in Mentis, which support this as a secondary strategy, but Mentis alone will never offer Bloodborn a kill route. Against someone with static curing it's possible to disrupt lock them, but it's no longer possible to keep someone perma-disrupted.
And again, I'm not saying Bloodborn aren't solid, but I disagree with the point on them being an "all-front" offense. Syssin and Luminary, for example, have a far wider range of affliction combinations available to them, as well as some really really potent hindering tactics when they get ahead that simply aren't available to Bloodborn.
For Praenomen, they have the same issue of only one venom available per combo, but they lose the mana pressure available to Bloodborn. Again, the artifacts are worth noting here, because a fully-artifacted Praenomen can literally damage someone out with nothing more than weapon swings and Mentis going to hinder someone. A Praenomen without artifacts isn't capable of this kind of damage, and while it's still a somewhat solid class they're in a really, really hard place because they lack any kind of approach to a lock - it's basically spam asthma and hope you don't eat kelp before they land slickness/anorexia/indifference. And THEN they hope you don't use Fitness before they Disrupt you.
Again, Disrupt is possible, and probably more viable with Praenomen due to the faster combination speed, but again, unless someone has fully static curing where they'll always, for example, cure paresis or impatience before confusion, it isn't actually a viable tactic except to hinder a little bit.
My issue with the turtling versus Bloodborn in particular is the resource drain - you can turtle until a Bloodborn runs out of blood very easily.
@Trager: You and I should have a peek at your sipping sets. Mostly what I see people die to against Bloodborn is poor sipping, or poor mana management and clotting. Or @Ezalor trolls you with stilltongue and you die to hidden recklessness. That happens, too. <.<
the way she tells me I'm hers and she is mine
open hand or closed fist would be fine
blood as rare and sweet as cherry wine
Could we get some logs, please? There's only two tactics that I really know of that could actually kill someone, and since Feichin doesn't have Prae and I haven't PK'd in a bit I seriously don't believe anyone else uses them or even knows of them. Theory craft and talk and numbers are pretty but I'd like some concrete evidence, please.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
I think you're getting the wrong idea that people only shield against stuff that does too much damage. Shielding is rampant with or without artifacts, with or without damage. For example, fighting a Tekura class, they have to break both arms and then manage to break both legs before you cure a single arm in order to get a kill. That's straight up impossible. If you shield you cut their limb damage right in half which means your preresto will greatly outpace them. That has nothing to do with damage and nothing to do with artifacts. I've had fights with Valingar where he managed to break both my arms WITH damage already on my legs. It's a situation I should be 100% dead in, he has me massively behind to get to that point. However, he would only manage to break 1 leg before I managed to cure an arm and tape down my shield button until all my limbs were at 0% damage.
Aetolia HAS taken a stand against artifacts. For example, we introduced diminishing returns on stat scaling where the higher your stat gets the less actual impact you get from it, meaning no massive str people going around bashing people to death.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I think the comment about praenomen strength was specifically regarding people artifacted for damage.
Switch syssin, go to Rowena and slap her face with your gloves. Not so say you can't kill her, but let her hit you at least once and you'll see something fun.
And the comment about Praenomen (the comment was actually vampires as a whole) strength is that they have a full-frontal offense.
Also, I can't quote @Ezalor's last two posts enough.
the way she tells me I'm hers and she is mine
open hand or closed fist would be fine
blood as rare and sweet as cherry wine
the way she tells me I'm hers and she is mine
open hand or closed fist would be fine
blood as rare and sweet as cherry wine
the way she tells me I'm hers and she is mine
open hand or closed fist would be fine
blood as rare and sweet as cherry wine
the way she tells me I'm hers and she is mine
open hand or closed fist would be fine
blood as rare and sweet as cherry wine
Also tweaked thread name as it is a general concern about shields ONLY not just how Bloodborn function. Although I still wish sunder functioned better, but I will add it in the next round for review.
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
Look at the damage dished out against an average audit.
Defensive effects do need to remain effective, as unhinderable offenses lead to numerous major problems, but a 'standardization' of sorts seems both beneficial and inevitable, given the ongoing developments. I haven't played there in years, but I do look through their announces and such every now and then, and their defensive effects seem much stronger than ours, so I rather doubt that any population disparities are a result of the ability to turtle, or lack thereof.
@Moirean - 100% right. I'd go so far as to say over 90% of all interaction there is OOC. Our web analogue doesn't make you quit on log out, most people stay in the same major tether based rings constantly. It's built in IRC with added team combat utility at this point.
@Strung - No one will ever say that that knows what they're talking about, re: 'combat worse now in Imperian than ever before/glory days'. The glory days you are talking about weren't glorious at all. I was a deathknight back then, and we were insanely OP with such things as old metrazol, old calotropis, old possess/surprise demon, and old battlecry and old paralysis. But you didn't NEED any of that shit then because no 99.9999999% of the playerbase had linear curing or none at all. Dsl curare/aconite and cleave. Shit dude I distinctly remember arcing cyanide/voyria at the Springs back in the day just to see who died from no immunity.
Nowdays you have autocuring, which eliminates latency from the equation of defensive combat, which is a big deal. It's going to get you killed fast in 1v1 if you don't have clientside triggers and toggles to handle priority cure shifting for defending against different kill routes, but once you understand the small unit tactics and shit, you make those trigs and defense is pretty universally solid for all players in that game. Offense is where everything really comes in these days, how smart you can code/what tricks you know/situational awareness/ability to rapidly switch pace/tactics is what top tier pk is all about there. Ask Kryss, Septus, Azefel/Fazlee or anyone else that I worked with in the betas.
Combat there is apples to oranges with Aetolia, in -nearly- every sense, barring the one being discussed in this thread, that they both pretty well share.
tl;dr - As @Ezalor said, shield spamming/insert your turtle tactic here (I don't know if you guys have prismatic barrier or not), is a universal problem for all classes/professions, and Imperian combat is at a completely different tier than where you guys are at now, it's also more balanced than it has ever been, and more balanced than any IRE game I've ever played in the pk scene. You have limited exceptions (see: fast monk, fast priest, sabreknight), but for the most part any class can kill any class when utilized properly. I'm living proof.
This is a significantly weaker effect, but then each class could be given something in addition.
Classes with shield abilities could get a buffed version. Maybe the luminary shield blocks the next 3 attacks, while the shaman shield stays up for 3 seconds after the first time it is hit.
Classes without any shield skill currently, could get new abilities to supplement the significantly weaker shield tattoo. A lycan may activate a mode that gives them a health burst/aff cure the next time they're hit. A syssin might get a super-avoidance effect.
Note: the core idea of shield tatt still adhered to: any aggressive movement will cancel the effects.
Why go to the effort?
Because some classes turtle better than others. Some classes rely on shield more than others. Some classes would suffer more than others if shield tatt is nerfed. By addressing each class separately, each class can be balanced properly.
Example: syssin get awesome active curing? Their shield tatt supplement might block damage but not affs.
It wasn't a serious statement, though it would be fair to say that their lock breaking is second to none, and I personally would take shrug over bloodboil any day.
It was an example that was chosen because I thought it would not cause a derail, and for what it is worth I am against fitness being in survival. If a class is lacking a vlock breaker, then give them one. People complain about shamans having a 10% resistance to mental affs AND a passive cure AND a bloodboil clone BUT you get one locked and that is it. I'd happily trade the second two for a single breaker skill.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin