Report 1146

Report #1146
Skillset: Skill: None
 Org: Symphonium Status: Completed Apr 2013
Furies' Decision:
Solution 1.
Problem: Some time ago, Celestialism/Nihilism angels and demons were rendered
impossible to hit with critical hits. This was to ensure that they could not be
killed in a single hit, compared to multiple hits being necessary to wipe out a
fae entourage. The landscape of the game has changed since then, however,
notably in the emergence of damage shift. Damage shift makes it very easy to
carry over extra damage from prior hits to continually take out entourage ents
in a single hit each, or to get multiple ent kills in the span of a few seconds
for warriors using one-handed weapons (or those using beast battle prudently).
Combat is balanced around these ents existing and being readily available to the
guilds that have access to them, so it shouldn't be so easy to wipe them out on
whim. This report seeks to bring greater ent durability and equity between the
various guardian/wiccan guilds.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Make all entourage fae and Illuminati entities immune
 to critical hits
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: In addition to solution 1, adjust the health pools of
 the full entourages such that a full entourage of
 fae, Illuminati entities, and an angel/demon are all
 relatively close to equal.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #3: Adjust champion ents in a similar fashion to solution
 1 and 2, though separately from the full entourages.
Player Comments:
---[Ollie on 4/13 @ 00:02 writes]:
This report was submitted on behalf of the Institute Envoy.
---[Veyrzhul on 4/13 @ 00:33 writes]:
The one thing that should be clarified aforehand is if killing ents is supposed
to be a feasible tactic in (1v1) combat or just something you do when they get
left behind. If it is the latter, then sure, make them uncrittable and give them
all healthpools large enough to survive a few hits. If, however, killing ents is
supposed to be a viable way to counter wiccan/guardian offense, then they
shouldn't take more to kill than an average demigod staff cast for a 1p ent, two
for a 2p ent, 5 for demons/angels. So one full attack (at least two swings for
one-handed warriors) per point of summoning powercost.
---[Shuyin on 4/13 @ 01:36 writes]:
They are supposed to be a viable tactic, but not too viable to the point that a
demigod with a crit rune can crit one ent, damageshift + crit another then keep
it going until there are few to no ents left. This has happened a lot, but I
would agree that the ents themselves probably don't need more hp if this change
goes through. So, all solutions are fine with me, but if I had to pick, 1 and 3
would be grand. 1 definitely.
---[Celina on 4/14 @ 01:21 writes]:
Supported. Veyrzhul's comment about "one power per attack" thing is a wholly
arbitrary assignment, and no idea where it's coming from. I don't get why
"counter" is being defined by "kill them faster than they can be summoned back."
Killing them resets their timer which can be really annoying and summoning them
back requires totally halting any momentum gained. There is no penalty for
killing ents, at least in the case of Wiccans, they won't be killing you without
them so you're just draining their power. That should not be happening.
---[Thoros on 4/14 @ 02:29 writes]:
Solution 1 supported.
---[Veyrzhul on 4/14 @ 04:10 writes]:
I am personally still inclined towards the premise that killing ents is not a
viable counter to the offense of ent users, for two reasons: 1. Repeatedly
killing/resummoning ents completely stalls a fight. None of the fighters will
get anywhere. 2. The burst nature of wiccan and guardian offense often allows
them to go without (at least some of) their ents entirely until the burst is
prepared, and then summon them in from a safe place (at no eq cost with open
channels) right before doing their first burst move (aeon, first of several
prepared hexes, final twist), and they can just move them to safety if the burst
fails. This is not equally possible for all ent users, though. My suggestion of
1 attack round per power for summoning was connected to point 1 above (retaining
combat momentum), but under the premise that killing ents should be a viable
counter.
---[Shuyin on 4/14 @ 04:17 writes]:
I disagree with the premise that killing ents is not a viable counter given that
no one will get anywhere simply because one side uses power to resummon them
most of the time (ent users) and the other does not (the basher). They will
eventually run out of power resummoning way before you run out of endurance
bashing them. So in the end, the basher will quickly get the upper hand
especially once crits start coming in.
---[Veyrzhul on 4/14 @ 04:48 writes]:
Still, killing ents is pretty much like turtling, your active offense stands
still while you do it. I'd rather we made them all uncrittable and fairly
durable, and removed the 'they are killable' argument when balancing them.
---[Vivet on 4/14 @ 21:20 writes]:
As an aside, kether knocks off 50 charges from a targetted gem at present, where
the maximum is generally 100 (150 for the one gem a researcher's crystal weapon
is fashioned from), so I feel like a minimum of two full eq/bal hits should be
the absolute floor for all ents.
---[Celina on 4/16 @ 02:39 writes]:
The whole strategy you just suggested is kind of ridiculous and a bit of a
circus.
---[Xenthos on 4/18 @ 01:38 writes]:
I'm honestly torn on this one. I've been pretty vocal in the past about not
buffing up fae ents, but things have changed pretty considerably since then (not
so much in terms of the wiccan guilds as much as the other guilds and the
playing field in general). So, making them less crittable is okay at this
point. If ents need 3+ attacks to kill, killing them is still viable but no
longer just a complete combat-ender (kill ent, resummon ent, kill ent, resummon,
repeat ad nauseum). If they're made completely immune to crits the health might
need to go down a bit so that they -can- be killed in a relatively decent number
of attacks, though- Fae are more like institute gems than angels / demons.
Angels / demons are just one object around which everything revolves, whereas
there are many fae and the effects are split up between them.
---[Rivius on 4/24 @ 13:28 writes]:
Solutions 1 and 2 are alright.