Report 1061

Special Report #1061
Skillset: Wildewood Skill: Branches
 Org: Hartstone Status: Rejected Dec 2007
Furies' Decision:
We do not think any of this is necessary at the moment.
Problem: Backlash affliction skills have a few fundamental problems, unless
carefully balanced. As defensive abilities, they serve no purpose but to catch
out certain combo users a small percentage of the time, frustrating (but not
necessarily negating) their combat strategies. Against all other users, unless
the backlash is significant or difficult to cure, the affliction shall be
removed before another attack is prepared. As offensive abilities, they rely not
only on extreme luck, but on the enemy attacking. In a combat culture based
around locking down an opponent or hindering their combat, success in a fight
means removing these afflictions. The Branch afflictions in particular are of no
use in a fight, being weak and ineffectual. Administration has indicated that
the underlying (problematic) mechanics behind branches will not be changed, so
this report seeks to update the afflictions to be meaningful against more than
just 2 classes, and include a measure of defense in the abilities.
Solution #1: Change Gossamer branch to afflict with stupidity. Increase the
 limbs broken from knobbled to 2.
Solution #2: Make branches only fire at the end of a prompt, so that combos
 are not broken. Increase the firing chance on branches to 15%.
Solution #3: To move these attacks out of soley reactive territory, introduce
 a new syntax to TREEHUG to specify a limb. That limb will replace
 the attack's additional effect. If none is specified, default is
 knobbled.
Player Comments:
---[Llandros on 2/12 @ 15:58 writes]:
It seems like you are fighting the mechanics instead of working with them. You
have to stay on balance and wait until they trigger something. Work the
reflexive affs into your offense instead of relying on them for defense. For
example, they attack you and break a limb? Hit them with treehug right away.
Making knobbled two limbs could let a more nuanced player break all 4 limbs of
their target in one move.
---[Enyalida on 2/12 @ 19:10 writes]:
Remember that these have a 10% chance right now, and will become a 15% chance if
Solution 2 goes though. This means that a normal enemy striking every standard
balance (let's assume an average of 3.5 seconds) with an attack that does damage
to the Wildewood would trigger any one effect only every 21 seconds on average.
Keeping on balance for 21 seconds to chase a particular (still minor) effect
seems like a bit much to ask. Keep in mind that even a quadruple limb break is
cured within 4 seconds, and our balance on treehug is 4 seconds!