Report 581

Report #581
Skillset: Music Skill: DiscordantChord
 Org: Spiritsingers Status: Rejected Apr 2011
Furies' Decision:
We do not find this to be necessary.
Problem: DiscordantChord is an 'end-point' in the auric line of afflictions,
aiming to reward the sustaining of all four aurics and octave upon a target. It
deals damage that scales linearly based on the presence of these on the target,
plus a stun and mana/ego drain should all be present. However, in its current
form, the result in no way reflects the difficulty and cost (full=16p) of setup
and execution.
Solution #1: The mana/ego drain from DiscordantChord do not trigger damage via
 manabarbs or egovice (and is possibly the only decrease of these
 stats ingame that does not). Thus, allow the mana and ego drain
 from a fully powered Discordantchord to trigger damage via
 manabarbs and egovice.
Solution #2: Keeping in mind that there is no method by which a bard may track
 the presence of aurics upon a target, allow a fully powered
 DiscordantChord to instantly kill the target.
Player Comments:
---[Talan on 3/8 @ 17:56 writes]:
I would support either solution. I am assuming you're counting up the power as 3
for octave 3 for pfifth 2 for powerspikes and 8 for the actual chord. The
current effect is definitely lacking for all the build up and power required.
More often than not, when I do reach the point where I could do a full chord, I
don't have 8p, and by the time I do they've cured off. Pulling off a full
DiscordantChord is fairly rare. My concern is on groups - it becomes a lot
easier to pull off in the case of multiple bards. Granted, bards can already
support each other for deathsongs, but this would be faster than the timed insta
if well executed, especially taking into account vivace and eq bonuses. I think
that the pfifth and the octave should be mechanically required conditions for
either solution (as now, they're practical requirements, but with groups that
becomes less true).
---[Iasmos on 3/8 @ 18:10 writes]:
I'm going to have to disagree with solution 1. The DiscordantChord does
considerable damage to a person with all the auric afflictions in addition to
the ego and mana loss. If it were made to be affected by manabarbs and egovice,
a person would be dead quite easily, probably without even the full set of auric
afflictions. Testing to obtain actual numbers might be good, too.
---[Talan on 3/8 @ 21:06 writes]:
To give you numbers here is my prompt directly following a full chord
(magicproof on splendours, tome): 4534h, 4554m, 5727e, 10p, 21880en, 30835w
xkp<>- <15:45:41.232> -2130h -4554m -5451e. It reduces mana and ego by 1/2 of
your max in addition to the punch to health and a brief stun. Unfortunately,
unless ego and mana drain are effected by barbs, these drains are useless to a
bard - in fact, they can hurt us, since if someone runs out of mana or ego, our
minorsixths will do no damage. The first solution is a not a guaranteed
instakill. It would kill me, but it probably wouldn't kill a surged warrior, nor
races with lower int/con. It also won't kill someone with mana/ego already
reduced below half, the mana/ego won't be their to drain.
---[Talan on 3/8 @ 21:10 writes]:
There* to drain. The point is, that 'considerable damage' is a matter of
perspective. 2k is a lot I'll grant you, but for 10p? (+3 octave +3 pfifth) it's
kind of pathetic.
---[Raeri on 3/9 @ 05:08 writes]:
Iasmos, without a full set of auric afflictions, the mana and ego drains do not
take effect, so there's no need to worry about that. These solutions would
*only* affect a target that has been fully loaded up with aurics and hit by an
8p Chord. When pretty much any other class expends this much effort in setup and
uses an 8p skill, their target dies (it's like killing via mana-instas without
contemplation). Not to mention that people can just gust the bard out and
require the bard to have to reafflict all over again. Currently, a lot of people
can just tank the damage. And as for groups - the effectiveness of essentially
every class scales synergystically as allies join (deepwounds, mana/ego instas,
etc).
---[Destridas on 3/9 @ 20:12 writes]:
Either solution would work really as allowing the manabarbs and egovice to count
as damage would essentially one shot anyone but the tankiest surged warrior
based on current numbers. Preference would be on solution #2.
---[Veyrzhul on 3/10 @ 08:21 writes]:
I really don't think that discordantchord needs an upgrade. The stun is far from
'brief', it usually allows for 1-2 more minorsixths before the target can start
curing again. And considering the speed of the music skills that cause auric
afflictions, things could get quickly out of hand if dischordantchord was an
instant kill in almost all cases. Also, 16 power are a fairly moderate power
expense to kill someone.
---[Raeri on 3/10 @ 09:17 writes]:
That power and time costs rise rapidly when you consider that you basically have
to reapply everything every time the opponent: 1. moves you from the room, 2.
moves out of the room, 3. delays you long enough to eat a single horehound, 4.
uses an active power cure, and 5. each time a passive curing/allheale-like
ability potentially cures an auric (That's right, success is reliant on pure
luck and guesswork). Then consider that the mana/ego drain hurts the bard for
any followup minorsixths. It's an unwieldy skill that currently doesn't kill
people (agreed by all of the people against the upgrades, above) and functions
as a glorified stun even when it does work.
---[Senna on 3/10 @ 19:28 writes]:
A glorified stun for 16 power, too. Octave doesn't prevent curing via allheale
and all other non-horehound cures, except for the Healing skillset. Celest RUB
PHIAL and Aquamancy Sweetfount, Aeromancy Westwind, Pyromancy RAISE STAFF,
Cacophony Vileblood, Night Drink... the list goes on and on. All of these reset
the bard's offense, many of them passively. If someone shields when they eat
earwort, they have time to recover herb balance and eat horehound before the
bard can blanknote once to strip the shield and then again to strip earwort,
which, again, means you have to start over. That's right, a skill at Inept in a
Common Skill stops a bard's offense right in its tracks. If a person escapes the
room, you lose three power from perfectfifth, and unless they willingly re-
enter, you lose another three power from using Octave again. Eating earwort and
initiating a tumble attempt at the same time means no matter how quickly the
bard blanknotes, you'll still leave the room when the tumble goes through, even
if you're not deaf anymore, not to mention Gust as an escape method... and even
if you work your way through this, DiscordantChord doesn't even deal enough
damage to kill anyone with over about 4000 health. Discordantchord is far from
"not needing an upgrade"...
---[Senna on 3/10 @ 21:50 writes]:
Also, I'd support solution 1, with a slight change to have non-full
discordantchords drain mana and ego based on percentage and give stun, the stun
length and amount of mana and ego drained scaling with the number of aurics and
the powercost. Right now, only full discordantchord is ever used, and the rest
are kinda useless, and I'd like the whole "scaling-with-aurics" mechanic to
actually get some use.
---[Iasmos on 3/16 @ 17:05 writes]:
Please note that scaling the drains with aurics is completely separate from
dealing health damage via manabarbs and egovice. The former is much more
acceptable to me than the latter.
---[Raeri on 3/17 @ 02:39 writes]:
Well, of course it would. A drain that does not trigger manabarbs or egovice is
helpful to the target, not the bard, since it lowers the potential drain pool
(even more so when people opt to not use bromides). We're trying to say here
that it's a bit silly to have the only drain ingame that is detrimental (no
manabarb/egovice trigger) to bardic offense be from our theoretically strongest
skill. I should mention that only the Octave holder would be able to cause
manabarb/egovice to trigger in this fashion, as for some bizarre reason if any
other bard DiscordantChords the target in this situation, all aurics would be
consumed.
---[Iasmos on 3/17 @ 11:23 writes]:
Yes, but you're asking for the order of things to be changed so that the aurics
are consumed only after they've dealt damage, and that's the part with which I
disagree.
---[Raeri on 3/18 @ 07:30 writes]:
No, it seems that's where the misunderstanding is then. If the caster holds
Octave, the aurics *are still present on the target* after the Discordantchord
is complete, allowing followup minorsixth drains without any reafflicting
needed. This implies that the aurics are present on the target for the drain
from the DChord, but simply do not trigger for some reason.
---[Nydekion on 4/30 @ 08:52 writes]:
Why not just cause partial discordants to fail with no power cost or aurics
consumed? That would alleviate the problem of wasting power for a half-effective
discordantchord.