Report 159

Report #159
Skillset: Necroscream Skill: Sickeningplague
 Org: Cacophony Status: Rejected Mar 2009
Furies' Decision:
We do not think this is necessary at this time.
Problem: Over the last 2 months I've been trying to get the Cacophony up to par
with the other Bard Guilds (not considering Cantors as their review is coming).
We have fixed some issues and tried to make the plague theme work useable with
the WrathfulCanticle change. The issue is we are still experiencing the same
problem from before, we cannot, even now, stick plague afflictions any better
than before. After a few weeks of testing, we still see no increase in
affliction rate among our victims and even htough BlackDeath was increased 10%,
it still isn't having an impact great enough to even allow our WrathfulCanticle
to take effect. The problem lies in the fact the plague afflictions we have are
just not applicable for what we are going for and need to be changed out for new
afflictions.
Solution #1: To get away from the quickly healed salve afflictions, we would
 ask to replace Pox, Scabies, and Worms with Gluttony, Narcolepsy,
 and Slickness. So, with keeping Epilepsy and Rigormortis, the new
 list of plagues from sickeningplague would be: gluttony,
 narcolepsy, epilepsi, rigormortis, and slickness.
Player Comments:
---[Nydekion on 3/18 @ 18:22 writes]:
There has already been a significant upgrade to wrathful canticle that helps to
address the issue of sticking afflictions. At the least, you have passive
stupidity being given which hinders the curing of these plague afflictions. In
addition, the list of affs given by wrathful canticle is sufficiently powerful
enough that having plague affs be easily stackable would be an overkill.
---[Ethelon on 3/18 @ 22:06 writes]:
In combat and in testing with just hidden affliction curing, our victims rarely
get beyond 2 plague afflictions. In between the tick of SickeningPlague and
WrathfulCanticle, you have up to 4 chances of curing the one plague affliction
you receive. By changing over the salve cues to herb cues with the new
afflictions this will allow us more to work with.
---[Viynain on 3/19 @ 17:05 writes]:
Even with the rather significant changes to make it so that a Cacophonist has
three (SickeningPlague, BlackDeath, and WrathfulCanticle) passive means of
initial affliction and subsequent re-affliction dealing from their song
specialization alone without even including the possible additives of Maelstorm
and RainbowPattern passively as well as actively afflicting with ColourBurst and
QueensLament, afflictions are still being found to be hard to stick? I question
what changing the afflictions being dealt would provide the specialization
besides being more powerful instead of giving what seems to be remaining
unaccomplished which is the ability to propagate and take advantage of these
seven abilities currently in existence. In short, I don't see what changing
these afflictions would do not only for the flavour but the mechanic of the
skillset if power is being introduced to make up for a lack of fluid ability
instead of a complementary mechanic to propagate current means into the
specialization.
---[Shuyin on 3/19 @ 19:09 writes]:
For those who can't understand longwindedunnecessarybigwordsenese, he's asking
how could you guys have trouble sticking affs with a bunch of passive affs and a
couple more active ones. He's also asking why change the plague affs into more
powerful affs when it still won't solve your initial problem. I think. P.S. I
agree
---[Ethelon on 3/19 @ 22:12 writes]:
I welcome ALL OF YOU to come test this song, please. I tested with Nydekion, and
he is more than welcome to report what he saw. It literally takes 2 triggers to
shut us down. I would love to see people actually test this, as I'm always
around these days, instead of assuming what looks good on paper is actually good
in use.
---[Ethelon on 3/19 @ 22:24 writes]:
To make this clear, nothing at all in anything we do has to do with Salve Cures,
hindering or stacking of them. We have nothing that slows Herb curing or balance
in some way, nor anyway to effect the balances for Herb curing aside from
Octave. The plague afflictions seem to have been picked to match the theme and
without thought to any actual use they may have as a whole to our skillset. The
change we are asking for gets us away from the Salve side of it, which does help
us. If you make a hidden trigger check against SickeningPlague, which you get a
message for, you will never be effected by anything other than shivering every
10 seconds from WrathfulCanticle. You also have about 3-4 seconds between the
two ticks to cure this also.
---[Nejii on 3/20 @ 02:33 writes]:
This is really not needed in concert with the other large upgrades you already
got. If you wanted to revert it to its previous state, and THEN talk about
passive recurring slickness with a recessional effect, that would be another
matter, but...
---[Ceren on 3/20 @ 02:41 writes]:
That's about right. Half the problem is that most of the afflictions from
glamours and tarot (what few there are) are cured with the herb and focus
balances. The plague afflictions on the other hand, are mostly salve and purg.
That means active afflicting with say, colourburst or moon tarot does not lead
to passive afflictions sticking for any length of time, because you can cure
them simultaneously. That's why the list presented by Ethelon is entirely herb
or herb/focus cures. The other half the problem is that plague affs are for
necromancy and do little offensively for other classes. The new list is tailored
to cacophony: gluttony to clear platters, narcolepsy for aeon tarot,
epilepsy/rigormortis as solid herb and herb/focus cures (but on their own, they
contribute little and are meant to act as the 'unlucky' afflictions), and
slickness as another solid herb cure as well as helping to stick broken limbs
from rigormortis as well as salve plagues (the original plagues) if you choose
to use breathe contagion. Hope that makes things clear.
---[Ceren on 3/20 @ 02:44 writes]:
Er, meant that's about right to Ethelon but Nejii snuck in