Report 902

Report #902
Skillset: Necroscream Skill: QueensLament/New
 Org: Cacophony Status: Rejected Jul 2012
Furies' Decision:
We do not like the solutions presented or agree with the problem as phrased. The
solutions feel overreaching. Also note: SickeningPlague is Gorgulu and
DespairWeb is Baalphegar.
Problem: Queenslament is currently lacking as our only targeted power costing
ability. Also, with systems nearing AI sophistication, random cure orders,
multiple cures for things affliction based classes can be at a disadvantage.
Adding in some versatility would go a long way to address this in Necroscream --
There are currently only has 3 songs regarding the 5 Demon Lords. Darkmaster is
Luciphage, WrathfulCanticle is Ashtorath and then QueensLament for Nifilhema. --
I propose changing QueensLament to a targeted song with 3 options, one for
Nifilhema, one for Gorgulu and one for Baalphegar. I suggest changing the name
to LordsofBlight, 3p where it would be a targeted song so perform <song> x
target. Where x would be one of suffer, devour and curse. (the power is on the
high end for the effects but Im factoring in the versatility into the cost.)
Solution #1: Suffer would be for Nifilhema with shackles, vapors and
 sensitivity (changing blackout to vapors means there is an
 additional aff to cure but it also means that it can be blocked
 by black tea and such. Sensitivity because its thematic and
 curing it and vapors would use herb and salve balances).
Solution #2: Devour would be for Gorgulu with gluttony, anorexia and would
 steal the cure balances for herbs, sip and focus mind.
 (Thematically for a hunger that can never be sated and consumes
 some cure balances. Would only stick anorexia for 1 second as
 that is how long herb balance is. Possible synergy with aeon but
 there are better and cheaper ways to do that in group combat and
 would not be viable 1 on 1 unless the eq is less than 1 second
 which it is not)
Solution #3: Curse would be for Baalphegar with a stun and two random mental
 affs from Hypochondria, paranoia, hallucinations, dementia
 stupidity (These are the most disease like mental affs out there
 to keep it thematic. They are all strong though with overlapping
 cures and would synergize with stun, so I went with two instead
 of three)
Player Comments:
---[Draylor on 6/23 @ 19:35 writes]:
Report not supported. Just because QL "comes up lacking" when compared with
similar abilities should in no way mean that it needs buffing in any way. One
needs to look at the bigger picture here and set its effect alongside the rest
of a Cacophonists offence.
---[Llandros on 6/23 @ 21:04 writes]:
Cacophony offences is based on hidden afflictions. Shackles and a reason for
people to diagnose themselves is not worth 2 power. Happy to make it worth 2p or
worth 3p. Can give a minor buff with 1 or add in a small measure of cure
hindering with 2 and 3.
---[Llandros on 6/29 @ 13:55 writes]:
Re-tooled the report some. The desired outcome would be solutions 1, 2, and 3. I
broke them up to make it easier to read and comment about. (for those worried
about this being a back door increase in the number of abilities, if hallibards
get a terrain based ability then Cacophony and Harbingers would be the only
specs with 23 instead of 24 abilities, so I dont think its a huge issue.)
---[Enyalida on 7/1 @ 01:45 writes]:
Solution 1 should probably either be vapors OR sensitivity. Changing the
entangles of queen's lament to shackles means that summer/tipheret no longer can
'nullify' it (though that was addressed already in another report), and either
of sensitivity or a short blackout via vapors would be okay. Solution 3 is a
near clone of crowcaw? Solution 2: In any situation where someone has many
hunger levels, you are already massively winning as hunger levels are very
deadly all on their own. This seems unnecessary. All together: This reads like a
report to make QueensLament a better copy of what it is already (Solution 1)
PLUS two other entire special targeted power song abilities, one that closely
mimics (sans bleeding) another power song. I don't think it's appropriate. I
APPROVE an altered Solution 1, OR Solution 3 (I guess), but NOT the mechanic
described by the Peoblem and all three solutions taken together.
---[Enyalida on 7/1 @ 02:00 writes]:
Anyways, what looks like the best Caco strategy is to get plague affs on an
enemy through SickeningPlague supported by the bedevil-like-effect of BlackDeath
so that CarillonKnell does h/m/e damage which you use with aurics to channel
large amounts of damage to the target. It looks to me like the entire purpose of
QueensLament is to hold your enemy down while you work on doing that. Your
entire repitoire focuses on punishing the target for escaping your entangles
quickly and on making you tanky enough to survive for your plague to build up,
through VileBlood and NecroBallad or for you to use active plague givers to
build it up yourself (like a curse scroll or the spike, if you have the
construct up). Everything you've got points to the idea that you are supposed to
play the waiting and hindering game while your enemy plagues to death, any
change to this skill should probably support that concept. So, Solution 1 is
okay, the others... not so much.
---[Llandros on 7/1 @ 17:22 writes]:
I think there may be some confusion here. QueensLament currently gives shackles
and blackout for 2p. Also, shackles, webbing enchant and hangedman tarot card
all give the -exact- same entanglement. They are different in name only so that
they can stack. Despair web adds about a second or so to a normal writhe, less
for contort/summer/tiphert.. Torture song adds minor bleeding based on number of
plague affs.
---[Llandros on 7/1 @ 17:47 writes]:
As for strategy. The the plagues are on different cure balances so that people
can instantly cure 4 of the 5. Three of them give messages on tics with a fourth
having a chance to. Blackdeath has a 66% chance to give a plague aff if one is
cured in the bard's presence while able to hear. Using just firstaid it's
possible to stay on top of them. Throw in the karmic blessing of death, passive
curing and there are those who simply won't be phased by this. This report is
meant to offer up a little variety in options when our main avenue is blocked
and fill out the theme some. Sol. 2 gives a little direct damage that the skill
set lacks and 3 gives a stun to hinder curing and affs to distract from curing
plagues (crowcaw gives bleeding and a different list of affs) -- TortureSong,
DespairWeb, Vileblood, and Necroballad are low stanza so we can't have them all
at once.
---[Asmodea on 7/1 @ 23:20 writes]:
Just a little note to add, but shackles is a different affliction to
web/hangedman, and they do stack, so someone can be webbed, shackled and
transfixed causing three separate writhes.
---[Llandros on 7/2 @ 01:31 writes]:
Shackles/web/hangedmand all give the exact same entanglement. They are different
in name only so that they can be stacked. You can be shackled webbed and roped
(hangedman) at the same time. You could writhe 3 times or use magic to clear all
3 at once. Any serious attempt to stack them is a ridonculous waste of time.
Summer/Tipheret can be cast in all kinds of conditions that normally prevent
spell casting. To even try doing so would take multiple people as they all have
longer eq/bal than the slowest of writhe times, even with despairweb. - Transfix
is an altogether different bag of tricks.
---[Asmodea on 7/3 @ 09:17 writes]:
Perhaps envoying summer/tipheret to only clear one of these entanglements at a
time would be a good idea. Would help with QL as well as other guilds that can
stack entanglements.
---[Shuyin on 7/3 @ 19:59 writes]:
I'm fine Asmodea's solution. I'd even be fine with attaching a power cost to
summer/tiph dpending on the number of entanglements removed as well
---[Draylor on 7/4 @ 08:34 writes]:
Yeah, that sounds fair. I would support this, also.
---[Llandros on 7/5 @ 14:34 writes]:
To even try stacking entanglements take multiple people and there are more
effective ways to pin someone down in groups since webbings dont hinder curing.
I am not sure adding perma entangle to group combat would be particularly
advantageous or enjoyable.
---[Hiriako on 7/10 @ 22:55 writes]:
Very much against making summer/tiph remove only one entangle. Yes, it's still
faster than writhe in most cases. But there are various things that already
cannot be broken out of with those, and when you fight someone that has normal
entangle as well as one of those (such as transfixion/webbing) it becomes very
hard to actually do a thing. Those skills help balance web spam.
---[Llandros on 7/12 @ 14:07 writes]:
After some feedback I changed Gorgulus Devour to move away from damage and no
longer being based on any status condition. Would change it to give two
afflictions, gluttony and anorexia, and steal a few cure balances herb, sip and
focus mind. If that is too much then the sip balance stealing could be dropped.
---[Silvanus on 7/14 @ 04:10 writes]:
To the discussion that started in the comments about summer/tipheret: I do not
think it is a good idea to fix one problem with a specific guild (QueensLament,
Cacophony) by creating new problems for new guilds (entanglement/ectoplasm
stacking). And yes, I(and Nihilists) would have the most to gain from that
change.
---[Xenthos on 7/17 @ 05:44 writes]:
I'm having a bit of difficulty with this report. The main idea is to turn one
ability into three, but I'm not seeing a compelling reason described here for
it-- in the comments you're talking about entangle being 'easy to cure' but it's
not like the ability is really bad as-is. Entangle and blackout on command for
2p is not exactly underpowered, and even if the entangle is 'easy to cure', it's
still something used often in combat to help pin an enemy down. Why does
Necroscream -need- these new abilities?
---[Llandros on 7/17 @ 13:02 writes]:
The main goal is to give cacos some strategic options for people who are not
fazed by plague affs. Also giving pretty minor cure hindering, suffer herb/salve
balances ~1 sec, devour herb/focus mind ~3 seconds, curse however long the stun
is and a couple distraction affs. I would like to see the Demon Lord theme
flushed out as well. I don't think entangle/blackout is worth 2p or that
entangle/2 unmasked affs is worth 3p but if it had other options then 3p would
be justified.
---[Llandros on 7/17 @ 15:27 writes]:
**Alternate option for solution 2. Devour would give a 50% to have Gorgulu
gobble up attempts to cure plague afflictions for 30 seconds. Cure balance would
be used and aff not cured if it fired. 3 power. Would not trigger on
passive/magical cures or allheale. (the cure balances that would be affected are
1 second each or 2 seconds for focus mind)
---[Shuyin on 7/19 @ 07:00 writes]:
I'm afraid I'm not seeing a need for the report as is, and it definitely suffers
from the very popular 'asking for too many complicated things' that certain
reports recently been guilty from. My suggestion is to redo this and try again
with...baby steps. Why not suggest a change for the afflictions of QL instead of
-entirely remaking the skill and adding 3 new effects for it-
---[Llandros on 7/25 @ 17:36 writes]:
Keeping everything the same with just the changes in solution 1 for 2p would be
fine if this is getting unwieldy. I dont think two unmasked affs and entangle
are worth 3p without the variety of the other ones. Or just changing the
blackout to vapors would be better than nothing.
---[Talan on 7/26 @ 19:28 writes]:
You're asking for too much in an already strong skillset, I'm sorry. OPPOSED.
---[Llandros on 7/30 @ 14:26 writes]:
Necroscream is pretty solid but it can also be pretty nullified with food and
aggressive curing. Was hoping to add in strategic options but if I got carried
away with it then oh well. Im open to having this evolve into a multi report
situation or just a minor buff to QueensLament or just going back to the drawing
board.