New Shaman Concept

Illikaal · July 2016

@Keroc @Razmael

I know you two have a lot on your plate concerning Aetolia devlopment, content releases and a slew of everything else, which is kinda why I made this thread.

I had an idea for Shamans that would take a lot of work to implement and couldn't possibly be done through classleads. I'd appreciate it either of you just took a glance at my proposal, and pending your approval, tenative as it may or may not be if any, I could go to work trying to flesh it out. I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

Problem: Vinethorn route is just unhealthy in every aspect. If you stay and try to fight, you're either going to have to constantly get balance knocked pulling the thorns out. If you don't pull the thorns out you'll get wrecked by strangle, provided you don't hold your breath which is its own issue. If you're not tanky enough you just get rolled in a really unfun way, which means you're left with two options. Run away, or stand there and not fight while diagnosing the loki away and pulling the thorns out until your opponent gets bored.

I feel like this alternate route has incredible potential and can open up an alternative playstyle for Shamans. For starters, the following abilities will need adjustments: Claw fetish, boosted leafstorm, boosted vinelash, maybe the bear familiar, strangle, and Vinethorns (from boosted vinelash).

Concept: Shamans split their staff in half, dual wielding vine whips. Their primary attack would be a loki DSL (obviously speed/damage would need tweaking). Vinethorns sticking to the target would somehow be dependent upon loki delivery, and sticking them would come through whatever new mechanic the claw fetish would implement. The endgame is to stick X amount of vinethorns in them, and strangle them to death, as it presently is. However, the Vinethorns would act as lighting rods and you can electrocute your target to death with usage of Boosted Stormbolt while you're strangling. Omen wouldn't be usable while the staff is split, and other penalties/restrictions may occur as well.

Things that need to go: Balance knock when removing vinethorns from the body, however it may be. The run or die if you can't tank it gameplay. Finally, the "I'll just stand here and do nothing until they get bored." gameplay.

Thank you for your time and feedback.

Aishia · July 2016

I mean I agree that some things need tweaking but I feel like "wat" about these particular words.

Illikaal · July 2016

Aishia said:
I mean I agree that some things need tweaking but I feel like "wat" about these particular words.

It'd be helpful if you specified your critique.

Aishia · July 2016

Really not as huge of a problem in any regard as it seems, mostly the problem people ahve with thorns is they just want to automate their response to it, whereas it lends best to tactically pulling them moreso, a similar mechanic to adder or whatever. If you just instantly pull them all when they apply you end up with bal knocks, if you just ignore them you end up with too much pressure, obviously these things are best done in windows. of opportunity.Tons of classes can just outrush it, six hits with no real effective hinder or specific goals tend to flop against most hard affing classes and whatever.. The problem more lies in the fact that thorns are just not sticky enough to meet claw conditions, but like, idk how recent your info even is but as it exists now strangle is pretty much an instakill so idk lots of words. Plus the whip thing sounds kinda dumb.

Aishia · July 2016

Part of me thinks it's a bit dangerous to really plunge into the alternate route thing too hard in any of the specific ways that might work simply because there's too much cross synergy with the omen route. Already have a good 3-4 ways of killing people it seems more than most other classes even have so I sort of pick at this problem slowly personally.

Aishia · July 2016

Like despite some problems Shaman is still one of the least broken classes all around even if playing it a bit wonky since it's not just FOLLOW AFF TREES like some of the easier ones. IT really balances its strengths with pretty evident weaknesses unlike many.

Illikaal · July 2016

Aishia said:
Really not as huge of a problem in any regard as it seems, mostly the problem people ahve with thorns is they just want to automate their response to it, whereas it lends best to tactically pulling them moreso, a similar mechanic to adder or whatever. If you just instantly pull them all when they apply you end up with bal knocks, if you just ignore them you end up with too much pressure, obviously these things are best done in windows. of opportunity.Tons of classes can just outrush it, six hits with no real effective hinder or specific goals tend to flop against most hard affing classes and whatever.. The problem more lies in the fact that thorns are just not sticky enough to meet claw conditions, but like, idk how recent your info even is but as it exists now strangle is pretty much an instakill so idk lots of words. Plus the whip thing sounds kinda dumb.

Thank you, that's a lot clearer.

You can simply hold your breath if you're being strangled. You can shield or walk away from the boosted incoming slam so you don't end up getting strangled in the first place. Also, in what situation or window would it be viable to pull the thorns out? I don't see any reason why you shouldn't pull them all out immediately, or just leave them all in. Also, the fact that some classes can outrush just further adds to unhealthiness of the entire method. You also brought up another problem, being that it's incredibly hard to stick the thorns in the first place. The whole strangle+thorns mechanic has suffered from circular issues since it's inception. Also, you can't compare adder to vinethorns. Adder has no balance knock when you rip it, and it only takes effect anywhere between 1 throw and 5 seconds. Vinethorns can be applied instantly on just about every vinelash under the proper circumstances. As for your last remark, that's a personal opinion, but I respek it. I'm not sure why it sounds so silly though, considering Vinelash is basically a whip attack...with a vine.

Zsadist · July 2016

Honestly, I think there a few issues with Shamans, but I won't put in classleads for it, because I feel they'd just get blasted with negative comments about how Shaman is fine and doesn't need nerfing.

Anyway, Illidan is right. Most times, if I'm going to fight a shaman, I will just sit there and pull thorns out and diagnose your loki hits until you either a. get bored, or b. run out of willpower and start going unconscious. I never even really fight back because there's no point to. You'll kill yourself. In the chance I dont pull out thorns, you'll start bleeding me to death. With 3 thorns, the bleed damage is so high that clot cant keep up with it.

Yes, shamans have umpteen million ways to kill a person, but vinethorns is a small problem, among a few others. Either way, I think his proposal is interesting.

Illikaal · July 2016

Aishia said:
Part of me thinks it's a bit dangerous to really plunge into the alternate route thing too hard in any of the specific ways that might work simply because there's too much cross synergy with the omen route. Already have a good 3-4 ways of killing people it seems more than most other classes even have so I sort of pick at this problem slowly personally.

That's why I don't want to create a bunch of new abilities to cater to it specifically. I'd rather modify unused abilities, or pre-existing ones that were intended for the route in the first place to make things more cohesive. Vinethorns interaction with loki delivery or something along those lines is already great, because they're a loki based class. I'm not trying to create new class entirely, just retuning what's already there. Also everybody in their right mind knows that you can realistically just walk away from, or outright tank Omen, and Reclamation is a huge crapshoot. The only real way Shamans could kill somebody is they choose to stand there and get Omened, get off a lucky Reclaim, or abuse Stormtouched and autobash them to death. The last of the options nobody likes to deal with on either end.

Edit: If I sound defensive or if you feel like I'm attacking you, I'm not. I'm just trying figure out all the angles and aspects of this discussion.

Aishia · July 2016

I mean I agree some changes are probably needed in the long term but most of the problems people claim to have with escaping and tanking and stuff I usually don't encounter at a nonstandard rate. Like those things happen sometimes but not all the time, not even all the time with the same person, it's harder to get away now than it used to be, I think there is maybe only 1-2 problem classes with the tankiness thing.

Aishia · July 2016

I think teradrim audit boost applies to unblockable damage, and daru discharge just eats too much of the omen prep to get the finisher usually.

Toz · July 2016

I eat 1.3k per vinelash from @Aishia before thorns damage/bleed or ent. Boosted vinelash (or recklessness because I suck) is pretty much the only way I can remember dying to a shaman, the damage is insane and nobody's offense can really stomach a 1s bal knock that often. It's like gremlin on crack, or bleeding to death - should be noted that adder pulling is *free* of bal cost.

Aishia · July 2016

I meant in the sense that it's a timebomb to pull not the cost, the cost is in bal instead of bleeding.

Illikaal · July 2016

Aishia said:
I meant in the sense that it's a timebomb to pull not the cost, the cost is in bal instead of bleeding.

Please don't take this the wrong way but I think you're missing the entire point. It's super unhealthy because your opponent gets screwed no matter what they do, or if your opponent is smart, the Shaman gets screwed no matter what they do.

Trager · July 2016

I agree with many of the things that Illidan's mentioned, especially shoving so much time into fighting Shaman these past two weeks. On the flip side, I've historically had infinite more success against Aishia than any other Shaman, especially Kheoss, Yero, etc.

To put it bluntly, it seems they had an outright disgusting understanding of the class and what particular route they were pushing to secure wins, while you, @Aishia, just had a habit of bouncing around for the inevitable stormtouched bash. I don't think a lack of coding, or imagination, on some people's behalf is an argument for balance.

edit: grammar nublet.

Aishia · July 2016

I mean I've literally never had a route where I tried to stormtouch bash anyone unless you count "doing damage after omen that is lightning" as stormtouched bash.

Valingar · July 2016

I haven't had too much problems surviving the vinelash route, but it's def much hindery, especially against balance-based classes. Strangle is fairly easy to deal with, though, never died to it.

That said, the ideas sound interesting! But I don't have shaman and it's one of the two classes in the game I've never built an offense for, so my views aren't really fully thought of here.

Some thoughts:

* Shaman does lack in hinder if it does not have the ability to force the vinethorn pulls, however, if your system can deal with loki without diagnosing every round (this isn't as hard as is sounds - a lot of the more dangerous affs are fairly easily detectable). So if the mechanic is removed, something else that has some hindering potential should be added to their toolkit.

* Omen does not kill all classes atm even with perfect aff stacks, even if they don't use mobility properly. Aishia's right in that at least Zealot and Teradrim are near-immune to it, and likely a moderately artifacted monk too, and vampire with proper use. Reclamation is something of a newbcheck, so there needs to exist a viable third route, so careful balancing is needed.

* @Trager, you sound salty as hell, man, tone it down. Omen isn't stormtouched bashing - I've definitely seen you mix the two before more than once.

Toz · July 2016

I think that Shaman's lack of hinder is made up for by their ungodly defense, though. 10% chance to resist mental affs, passive aff healing, active aff healing, passive hidden clumsiness from cougar, health/mana regen in forest rooms, immunity to peace/berserk/pacifism, thorncoat, spider. I know not all of these can be active at once, but Shaman HAS to have one of the best defensive setups in the game. You can run a regular omen offense just fine with all that (and there's 0 hinder from vinelash thorns during that), so I'm curious why there needs to be built-in hinder in the form of damage+1s bal knocks every round. Indorani don't need to hit me in the face with their gremlin to win, after all.

Aishia · July 2016

I don't even really disagree with you like, ICE, CLAW, both huge random issues, it seems hard to fix without shaking things up crazy times. The main problem is kinda that the only real thing shaman is super good at is mental aff stacks and not SPECIFIC mental aff stacks so there's not really anything you can tie thorns into as a mechanic to STICK them. Like the piling on loki affs thing is kinda possible but proper hidden checks make that sort of hard, I can kinda do a thing where I just go backwards from a huge mental aff stack but if that builds up enough reclamation actually gets tempting haha. The huge pull cost, you would think would make it less enticing to pul them instantly but you def need a secondary factor. Like I don't even know if you can reach a point where people would just choose to leave them in cause of nerfs in threat people just lov e to do PROBLEM : REACT SEE THORN PULL IT maybe it should take longer for the bleeding to spike instead of applying with the vinelash spam idk.

Aishia · July 2016

I guess what that distills down to is "I think cost is supposed to be high enough that you don't want to pull them out instantly" so maybe the problem is just the threat they add in an attrition sense moreso than the hinder from the bal knock. Maybe they just need to exist in a sense where you're dumb to pull them before the threat to build to the instakill is fully realized.

Illikaal · July 2016

Toz said:
I think that Shaman's lack of hinder is made up for by their ungodly defense, though. 10% chance to resist mental affs, passive aff healing, active aff healing, passive hidden clumsiness from cougar, health/mana regen in forest rooms, immunity to peace/berserk/pacifism, thorncoat, spider. I know not all of these can be active at once, but Shaman HAS to have one of the best defensive setups in the game. You can run a regular omen offense just fine with all that (and there's 0 hinder from vinelash thorns during that), so I'm curious why there needs to be built-in hinder in the form of damage+1s bal knocks every round. Indorani don't need to hit me in the face with their gremlin to win, after all.

Pretty sure that's because their offense is largely RNG based and somewhat unreliable because of this, contrary to popular belief. The more people fight Shamans and get used to them, the more they realize their offense isn't all that oppressive. Now compared to someone like a Templar, Indorani, or Vampire who has clean cut reliable aff delivery on demand, then Shamans would basically die instantly to them because their traditional offense is slow and requires buildup.

Aishia said:
I don't even really disagree with you like, ICE, CLAW, both huge random issues, it seems hard to fix without shaking things up crazy times. The main problem is kinda that the only real thing shaman is super good at is mental aff stacks and not SPECIFIC mental aff stacks so there's not really anything you can tie thorns into as a mechanic to STICK them. Like the piling on loki affs thing is kinda possible but proper hidden checks make that sort of hard, I can kinda do a thing where I just go backwards from a huge mental aff stack but if that builds up enough reclamation actually gets tempting haha. The huge pull cost, you would think would make it less enticing to pul them instantly but you def need a secondary factor. Like I don't even know if you can reach a point where people would just choose to leave them in cause of nerfs in threat people just lov e to do PROBLEM : REACT SEE THORN PULL IT maybe it should take longer for the bleeding to spike instead of applying with the vinelash spam idk.

It's all concept right now. As was stated in the original post, it's a different route to take. It could benefit from mental affs and loki depending on how we can swing it. Also, you can make it work without the need to stick specific affs, as Shamans already largely work this way. The thorns sticking, again, could be solved by implementing an entirely new mechanic on the claw fetish, or even the potential new bear familiar, or both working together.

Aishia said:
I guess what that distills down to is "I think cost is supposed to be high enough that you don't want to pull them out instantly" so maybe the problem is just the threat they add in an attrition sense moreso than the hinder from the bal knock. Maybe they just need to exist in a sense where you're dumb to pull them before the threat to build to the instakill is fully realized.

You can still outright hold your breath. It's not guranteed to kill you.

Toz · July 2016

PULL THORNS -> rip them all out, small balance knock and small bleeding spike, can be done off bal/eq so it slows your next round down. Have the bleeding cost be static - pull thorns rips you for 200 bleeding so if they do it dumb they still get screwed, they need to instead find a sweet spot. Have claw up the mana cost for clotting, or tag a mental aff for every x bleeding clotted.

Aishia · July 2016

@Toz That's the first idea in this thread that really chimes with me personally. It kind of still leaves the totality of a full route involving it in question like maybe you could make the bleeding scale more based off affs in total or something so if you pull a thorn with more affs up you get boned idk.

Illikaal · July 2016

Toz said:
PULL THORNS -> rip them all out, small balance knock and small bleeding spike, can be done off bal/eq so it slows your next round down. Have the bleeding cost be static - pull thorns rips you for 200 bleeding so if they do it dumb they still get screwed, they need to instead find a sweet spot. Have claw up the mana cost for clotting, or tag a mental aff for every x bleeding clotted.

Fetishes work on an activation/deactivation system. What would activate it and deactivate it? Secondly, the claw fetish itself is what causes the thorns to be unremovable from the body. This being the case, all you'd have to do is wait for 3 stacks of thorns and then rip them out. 200 Bleeding? Tree will take care of that. Mental affs, at present, don't benefit the strangle route whatsoever. Even if it were to up the mana cost on clotting, you'd have the same problem that you do now - stand there and just pull the thorns out when it's convenient and diagnose the loki away.

The problem with this route is much deeper than one or two abilities. It's every single ability that's tied to that is intended to make it work.

Aishia said:
@Toz That's the first idea in this thread that really chimes with me personally. It kind of still leaves the totality of a full route involving it in question like maybe you could make the bleeding scale more based off affs in total or something so if you pull a thorn with more affs up you get boned idk.

If you're sticking that many affs, you might as well go for Omen.

Aishia · July 2016

Yeah I know it's kinda rough in general. I THINK THATS WHY WE'VE ALL BEEN WORKING ON THIS PROBLEM FOR YEARS.

Aishia · July 2016

My thought always was around somehow making the thorns more inclined to be left on or propegate but it's sort of hard to juggle that vs having them have a direct effect or a more subtle one I guess. I really only started screwing around with it more specifically after like 2-3 liaison rounds ago with the strangle change.

Illikaal · July 2016

Aishia said:
Yeah I know it's kinda rough in general. I THINK THATS WHY WE'VE ALL BEEN WORKING ON THIS PROBLEM FOR YEARS.

Which is exactly why I feel the whole thing just needs to be redone from the ground up. In fact, I recall @Macian and myself submitting report after report, even ones similar to the idea @Toz wrote. We came up with a LOT of ideas that all got shot down for one reason or another. But at the end of the day they all related to the same circular issue that the abilities present to themselves.

Aishia · July 2016

I think the problem is it just FEELS like it's already so close to being something like, a puzzle missing a piece or two.

Toz · July 2016

...I also feel like strangle route is sort of braindead. Lash lash lash lash lash, counted to 5, strangle? Ehhh. Maybe as a thing to threaten so they HAVE to pull, but not something you work towards. Make it a noobcheck instead of an end-game?

Illikaal · July 2016

Toz said:
...I also feel like strangle route is sort of braindead. Lash lash lash lash lash, counted to 5, strangle? Ehhh. Maybe as a thing to threaten so they HAVE to pull, but not something you work towards. Make it a noobcheck instead of an end-game?

I'd rather not add more noobchecks to the class that is the textbook definition of a noobcheck class. Omen is presently the most reliable way to kill someone, and as i've stated before, people really don't have to die to it if they don't want to.

Toz · July 2016

Illidan said:

Toz said:
...I also feel like strangle route is sort of braindead. Lash lash lash lash lash, counted to 5, strangle? Ehhh. Maybe as a thing to threaten so they HAVE to pull, but not something you work towards. Make it a noobcheck instead of an end-game?
I'd rather not add more noobchecks to the class that is the textbook definition of a noobcheck class. Omen is presently the most reliable way to kill someone, and as i've stated before, people really don't have to die to it if they don't want to.

My issue with it currently is that it's not a noobcheck, it's an arti check. And those are gross.

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