Report 806

Report #806
Skillset: Shamanism Skill: New
 Org: Hartstone Status: Completed Mar 2012
Furies' Decision:
Solution 1.
Problem: Though weather manipulation is a core part of the Shamanism skillset,
the shaman is ill-equipped to make use of the meager effects generated via
weather. Assuming that all of the unlocked skills are buffed to appropriate
levels (as they all need some 'tweaking') so that hot and cold climates are on
an equal field, cold is the more desirable climate extreme, with neutral
climates being the least desirable. Cold weather can do periodic damage, freeze
people, slow people, and hide the map. Hot temperatures can only slow people,
though it sometimes can actually speed everyone up them up by the heat. The
freezing ticks on cold damage appear to come once every 20 seconds, assuming
that you do not have the proper level of warmth. This is very hard to capitalize
on as there is no third person message. With the high power costs associated
with changing the weather on any scale, these benefits are not adequate to carry
a skillset. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FIRST THREE COMMENTS WERE PRE-CHANGE.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Introduce a new passive skill, FierceWeather. The
 controlled weather in a Shaman's demesne becomes
 stronger. Cold ticks are sped up on enemies and have
 a third person message for the Shaman. Blizzards
 (when appropriate) become opaque to weathersight (but
 not the artifact version) for enemies, Hailstones
 (when appropriate) do more damage to enemies. Hot
 climate hunger attrition expands to effect enemies
 who are over level 80. Hot climate also does periodic
 hits of slickness to enemies, at the same rate as the
 freeze ticks. Clothing should have a greatly reduced
 ability to mitigate these effects.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: In an expansion of possible attrition, have cold
 temperatures do slow sleep attrition. This should be
 on par with sleepmist, taking 3 minutes to bring
 someone from max alertness to falling asleep.
 Clothing would mitigate this.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #3: Have Weatherguard protect against or mitigate these
 enhanced effects. Consider having a Shaman's dissolve
 dissolve away Weatherguard.
Player Comments:
---[Enyalida on 3/6 @ 01:30 writes]:
Solutions 2 and 3 aim to be a start to balancing hot climates against cold
climates in terms of use to the druid. Removing lightning from hot climate only,
giving hot climates a goal for the sapping druid, and revewing the abilities
unlocked by both hot and cold climes (freeze, mudslick, snowman, frogs), I can
see that we could make a viable choice of climate to use, that will dovetail
nicely with the skill I suggested in report 764.
---[Raeri on 3/12 @ 00:26 writes]:
I support this report. Power cost is strangely high - are you hoping to have all
three put in together? And is there any advantage to using Lightning, over just
cudgelling?
---[Enyalida on 3/12 @ 09:00 writes]:
I am hoping to have all three solutions approved. I may table this report,
however, in favor of a 'fierceweather' report. In any event, I will probably
change the third solution (in addition to explaining the problem more
concicely). Lightning can be used from anywhere in the demesne to hit a target
(for a small power cost). It is essentially a limited version of zap.
---[Enyalida on 3/12 @ 21:36 writes]:
I have changed this report, but will not delete the comments for form's sake.
This report has much the same goal as my original report in this slot, trying to
make it so that cold and hot climates take effect and are meaningful in Shaman
combat.
---[Shuyin on 3/13 @ 20:43 writes]:
All solutions together are fine
---[Enyalida on 3/13 @ 21:27 writes]:
Also, I'd like to point out that as is, any weather setup is just as likely to
hurt the shaman as help, as it enables enemy shaman's and all effects hit
everyone (Even the shaman, to a lesser extent).
---[Raeri on 3/14 @ 02:08 writes]:
Agree with Shuyin, I think all three are fine, though would honestly prefer
spontaneous afflictions (more freeze, etc) as opposed to more attrition combat.
Weather is non-discriminating. Perhaps would also be useful to introduce an
ability for a Shaman to assess how bundled up a person is?
---[Enyalida on 3/14 @ 19:32 writes]:
Those are going to come later, but the idea is that because weather enables the
Shaman's enemies just as much as it enables their allies in the Shaman's own
demesne, the Shaman holding the demesne should have some additional edge. Buffs
to active abilities will come later.
---[Viynain on 3/22 @ 18:24 writes]:
I like the idea of making weather a larger part of Shaman Druid combat as
opposed to just trances, but disagree, like Raeri, with adding sleep/hunger
attrition to the melds. Passive chills or slickness as more afflictions is good.
---[Enyalida on 3/22 @ 22:20 writes]:
The problem is that these would have to come pretty quickly (at least every 10
seconds) and be timeable to be particularly useful, especially as they don't
give a thirdperson message to alert the druid to the affliction being given. I
was kind of uneasy about the sleep attrition myself, and would be okay without
that as long as the other effects of cold are empowered as described. However,
hunger attrition is ALREADY nominally part of hot climates, the only reason it
dosn't come into play during combat is the quirky way it works. Because of this,
and because (unlike sleep attrition, hunger attrition is completly avoidable
with a little forethought) I think it's only reasonable to make the hunger
attrition actually work in a limited fashion, in addition to some effect that
makes hot climates more useful in general. Chills is somewhat useful for sap
(assuming that you can hold them in sap long enough for it to progress to
freezing and for the freezing to hit) and slickness somewhat more useful (though
broken limbs do not hinder curing sap, and shamans have a limited ability to
prone people, really requiring an active ability that takes longer than it does
to recover from the stun and stand up, even in sap, which makes it much harder
to captilize on a broken limb/slickness combo. With no way to activly command
the slickness (besides beast spit), I think that adding heat hunger attrition
and slickness as cold does freezing and slight damage and slowing to be a fair
change, which is all in Solution 1.
---[Raeri on 3/28 @ 06:45 writes]:
I don't see an issue with just adding extra tics on timer for
chills/slickness/whateveraff inside the shaman's demesne on top of normal
weather tics. It'd be their version of embedded runes/motes, the way I see it.
---[Enyalida on 3/28 @ 17:30 writes]:
Right, except that unlike runes and motes, there would be no element of choice
or variety. I do think that increased normal tics of standard weather should be
a part of a Shaman demesne, but disagree with the sentiment that increased (but
still very slow, unwieldy, and hard to captilize on effectivly) natural weather
tics should be the ONLY effect weather has. Weather is supposed to be potent,
evidenced in all the flavour text and the (still) hefty costs to make the
weather extreme. As weather stands now, it's at worst a very minor annoyance.
That's fine for a passive world wide effect, not fine for the focus of a player
skillset.
---[Mirami on 3/29 @ 20:45 writes]:
Support Solution 1.