Report 1082

Report #1082
Skillset: Moon Skill: Waxing
 Org: Moondancers Status: Completed Mar 2013
Furies' Decision:
Solution 3.
Problem: Waxing, the active heal in the Moon skillset, provides the user (at
trans) with approximately 12-25% health (averaging the same as an unmodified sip
of health, give or take), for 3s EQ. The variables that affect this are a random
factor and the current phase of the Moon (greatest being in waxing). The problem
is that this is not actually useful to us and as such is barely used. It has
niche use in bashing (for hit and runs, or when nymph ticks whilst the user is
critically low on health), and while in theory it can be used to free up health
for dealing with such things as deepwounds I have found that this is more
fanciful than anything as everything that it does, can be undone in the time
taken to regain EQ. Coupled with this, while the Moon skillset is admittedly
quite nice for Knights as a tertiary, for Moondancers it is more lacking in
strength, and can be described both as aged and relatively underpowered. In a
comparison with Night (while I make no move to equate the two skillsets, it is I
believe acceptable to use one as a benchmark for the other), it has a small
amount more defense, a little more health generation, and a lot less offensive
utility, and so with this report as well as others I seek to improve the
strength of Moon to a point where it is at a more comparable level, making it
more appealing to use as well as boosting the power of it.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Make it a toggleable defense that provides an average
 of 15% boost (variable with moon phase) to sipping
 health/mana/bromide. Cost changed to a constant WP
 drain. This would increase an average, unmodified sip
 to approx 17% from 15%.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: Make it a prepared defense, so that you ready it and
 then it is either triggered automatically dependent
 on conditions or at the choice of the user (requiring
 but not using bal/eq). Heal amount and initial cost
 when prepared should be the same as the current
 values for healing and bal/eq time.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #3: Make it a short term regeneration - recovering a base
 amount plus a variable amount defined by moon phase
 every 4s or so, for a minute or so. This is my least
 preferred solution.
Player Comments:
---[Celina on 3/2 @ 15:27 writes]:
Solution 3. Solution 1 is painfully overpowered. 2 would be alright, but it's
kind of a copy of vitality. PS Night is solid and all, but overplaying Night and
downplaying Moon comes acros more partisan than a legitimate comparison. Let's
just say I disagree with the "moon sucks" analysis.
---[Laysus on 3/2 @ 18:14 writes]:
To clarify, not saying Moon sucks. Just saying it's not as good as it should be.
Also, would solution 1 be acceptable with different numbers?
---[Rivius on 3/2 @ 23:46 writes]:
I don't think solution 3 sounds very useful at all, and in my head I'm not
weighing it to be preferable to what we have now. Solution 2 sounds fairly
strong on paper, but if you estimate that the average healing method heals you
around 10%, 15% extra to that just knocks it up to around 11% or so.
It's...probably not painfully overpowered and, instead, questionable if it's
worth it at all. Solution 2 sounds interesting to me. A prepared defense,
perhaps requiring all full vitals or some sort of limitation to raise and you
can "release" it for free under many conditions.
---[Celina on 3/3 @ 02:00 writes]:
I think Rivius is being a little silly saying a 15% increase to a sip is somehow
not extremely powerful. You could make it work like healing heal, and usable
while prone and hindered. That's an option.
---[Laysus on 3/3 @ 08:33 writes]:
Actually, I agree with rivius. The numbers sound large, but looking at them on
paper it would only add 1-2% to the amount you were healed by. For example, if
someone with 5k health sips for say, 15% of their health (750 health) this would
increase it to a sip of approximately 17% which I believe is 850 health (doing
the maths in my head but I think that's right). furthermore, duplicating healing
heal would be undesirable for Moondancers who already have the option of taking
the healing skillset.
---[Celina on 3/3 @ 08:49 writes]:
5k health is on the extreme low side, and nowhere near endgame. I usually hover
around 7k and I'm the lowest con race in the game. I'm not sure why both of you
are trying to argue that a 15% increase in healing across the board is anything
but really, really powerful (and entirely unique, there isn't even an artie that
does that, yet there is one that does just that for other IRE games for a whole
lot of credits) but it's just so obviously beneficial to such a dramatic degree
that engaging in an argument that attempts to prove otherwise make me
uncomfortable. I will say that such a debate feels purposefully dishonest. 15%
to personal healing is huge. I maintain my support for 3.
---[Celina on 3/3 @ 08:55 writes]:
I would also like to point out that healer MDs aren't using the skill anyways,
so my suggested change doesn't impact them in a negative way. So the claim that
it's "undesirable" is kind of silly.
---[Celina on 3/3 @ 09:01 writes]:
I'll note that when the racial review came up, one of the large oppositions to
faeling receiving anything is that they had a sip bonus, and that, in large,
negated their low con. As far as I know the sip bonus is 14%.
---[Rivius on 3/3 @ 11:20 writes]:
If you read at least my comment, you'd know I'm far more interested in another
solution over the first, so it's a bit unfair to say that I'm attempting to
mislead anyone into considering solution 1. I made an error in my comment when I
said 10% -- 15% is more correct for the average sip. Either way, we can perform
and replicate the math, and on average you'll probably heal roughly 100 health
give or take depending on your max health. 15% sip bonus is really not that game
breaking. Consider too that Stag medicinebag is a healing method available to
people from my guild as well, which provides an approximate *50%* bonus to
healing over the potion. What you're suggesting in a Healing heal clone is
actually a lot stronger (and more useful) than what I proposed for a solution. A
Serenguard would possibly find it to be an amazing and powerful alternative to
transmute when prone. Laysus is correct though that a healing Moondancer may
find this fairly redundant, especially when one considers that currently,
Healing's heal cures for some more health than waxing does. Either way, it would
definitely be nice if waxing gets changed to something with some more utility,
since right now it's not something we elect to use and honestly, Moon probably
does need some more utility.
---[Laysus on 3/3 @ 13:47 writes]:
For 7k, as Celina compared (I went for 5k as I went and peered at a few other
moondancers) - an average sip would be what, around 1050? Then modified by
solution 1, it would be 1207ish? So an extra 157 every 4s (approx) - not really
that broken, and you also cannot compare skill balancing to racial abilities
because they're very different things.
---[Laysus on 3/3 @ 14:04 writes]:
Right, amended my first solution to specifically be -just sipping- that it
modifies, as I agree that asking for it to affect all healing is a bit much.
---[Celina on 3/3 @ 16:46 writes]:
Just sipping would be fine!
---[Thoros on 3/4 @ 00:27 writes]:
Waxing is a glorified Gedulah/Green. At its strongest, I think it heals up to 4
or 5 afflictions I was once told (this should be tested, I was told this years
ago from Moondancer Narsrim) This skill can be useful/powerful, and like the
name implies, it is strong or weak, depending on the phase of the moon, so you
cannot balance the entirety of this single skill while it's at its weakest
phase. I honestly think the ability is pretty nifty at the moment, and none of
the proposed solutions seem to fix the problem of the skill which was stated. I
strongly oppose solutions 1, 2 and 3.
---[Rivius on 3/4 @ 00:48 writes]:
That's Moondance full. Waxing is currently an active heal for, very roughly, 25%
health (depending on the moon phase) on a 3 second balance.
---[Vivet on 3/4 @ 15:09 writes]:
Waxing seems to mirror Puella under Cosmic in many ways. The biggest difference
is that Puella can be controlled specifically to direct at someone else, while
Waxing does not share this functionality. It just has the chance to proc for
other coven members when a coven is of a given size. I am willing to bet that is
also heals more per use than Puella, but we might need to run some tests for
that. For these reasons, I would suggest changing solution 3 to roughly what
Celina recommended - allow waxing to be used while prone and hindered - as well
as increase the % chance of healing other coven members as the coven size gets
notably larger. Solution 1 is exceedingly powerful and solution 2 sounds rather
immense for a moon warrior, effectively becoming two layers of vitality to rely
on before possibly falling back on Full. I think this re-envisioned solution 3
would be more effective in keeping with the spirit of the original skill while
keeping it distinct and relatively unique.
---[Laysus on 3/4 @ 17:42 writes]:
I'm loathe to change suggestion 3 to Celina's suggestion as it would make yet
another skill in Moon that is better accomplished by one of our tertiaries. Also
I maintain that solution one is not overly powerful. It is nice, but not
brokenly so.
---[Vivet on 3/4 @ 19:43 writes]:
Healing's heal requires ego, and uses up significantly more ego if you are
healing more health for yourself all at once. How much mana does waxing cost? Is
the eq loss significantly longer on Healing's heal than on waxing? I'm not sure
I'm convinced it is necessarily inferior under all situations with the proposed
changes. If the coven member healing proc is notably increased (as I understand
it is very low right now), this would also give it a lot more use in area damage
situations, which are liable to be more common these days with the many -mantics
effects. I think you are discounting the value of what is being proposed
otherwise. Are you more concerned about the active nature of the skill? I feel
like that might be more of a stickling point, given the direction of solutions 1
and 2.
---[Vivet on 3/4 @ 22:30 writes]:
I'd just like to note for Laysus that up until this point in the report, the wp
drain had not been included in solution 1. It came up through the course of
discussing the cost of upkeep in private, and then over Envoys.
---[Morbo on 3/8 @ 16:04 writes]:
I'd rather see the moon element removed, and have the different phases of the
moon provide different benefits (short term damage protection, affliction
healing)
---[Laysus on 3/10 @ 18:23 writes]:
I'm entirely against Morbo's last point - we already have one ability (shine)
with effects that vary with moon phase (one side being defensive, the other
offensive), and it's not as nice as it sounds. I'd rather keep the fundamental
effect of being a healing skill, and the flavour of the moon phase bit.
---[Shuyin on 3/12 @ 06:44 writes]:
Solution 3 is okay. But eh, I think you guys undervalue active heals, but
whatever, not my skillset.
---[Celina on 3/16 @ 00:59 writes]:
Agreed with the above. I suggested an active heal because it's extremely useful.
Especially one you can do prone. (I don't think healers will care they can do it
better). But oh well.
---[Rivius on 3/16 @ 23:41 writes]:
I think an active heal that worked under some hindering conditions would be
better than what we have now, sure.
---[Celina on 3/17 @ 19:28 writes]:
That's what I suggested!
---[Tulemrah on 3/22 @ 19:39 writes]:
Solution three seems fine to me.
---[Tacita on 3/23 @ 11:36 writes]:
Going to have to agree with Shuyin here, though I like the idea of making it
work whilst prone/hindered.