Report 1333

Report #1333
Skillset: Dreamweaving Skill: Various
 Org: Pyromancers Status: Rejected Mar 2015
Furies' Decision:
See report 1116.
Problem: The current Dreamweaving sleep attrition mechanic has long been an
issue when it comes to balancing this skillset out for combat. With Overhaul on
the horizon looking to simplify combat and the goal of addressing this crutch
from the skillset apparent, this report is written to streamline Dreamweaving as
a whole to better be able to achieve its kill condition. I must maintain that
sleep attrition *must* be addressed before the following solutions are
considered.
Solution #1: Remove tiredness from the SleepMist, Drowse, and DeepSleep
 abilities. Instead of tiredness affecting sleep and wake times,
 have a target's mana level affect how quickly they wake up.
 Higher mana means you wake up faster, while lower mana delays
 awake time more. Because mana drains are much more common, make
 the delay scale fairly through mana percentages.
Solution #2: With Drowse hopefully being combined together with Slumber per
 report 1195, I'd like to then address DeepSleep by one of two
 possible ways: A) dropping power cost to 1p and becoming a
 double-hit of sleep (much as a Hexen doublewhammy sleep is) or B)
 dropping power cost to 2p and becoming a triple-hit of sleep to
 pierce through kafe.
Solution #3: With SleepMist losing its attrition, introduce a passive tic of
 sleep to the effect to have it continue to support keeping
 victims asleep. Also, to bolster its manakill support, change its
 existing mana-drain-on-movement effect to a mana-drain-on-tic
 effect instead. Enable -chemancers and -woods to imbue SleepMist
 into their passives so they can likewise benefit from the skill
 as they currently can't.
Player Comments:
---[Synkarin on 3/15 @ 18:48 writes]:
Solution 1 would be limited to dreamweavers? I think manadrain determining wake
times would be a little much on other sleeplock classes. I'm ok with a 1p double
sleep power, because beastsleep is limited to once every 10 seconds, 2p for
triple sleep would be a bit too spammable. Maybe 4p? I'm behind solution 3, a
passive sleep tick is fine by me and eliminates the attrition
---[Viynain on 3/16 @ 00:18 writes]:
@Synkarin regarding Solution 1: It's something I definitely considered the
impact for on other sleeplock classes. I think that short of creating a
Resonance-type effect or code that recognizes who put a target to sleep to
determine the activation of a delay, this change would hinge on scaling it
fairly enough so that all classes would have to work at it to keep someone down.
Maybe base 1s delay + .5s per 10% lost? Ideas are welcome for this range since
its admittedly not my strong suit. If a Resonance-type skill is preferred, I
have a couple of ideas for that as well.
---[Viynain on 3/16 @ 00:20 writes]:
@Synkarin regarding Solution 2: I wouldn't go past 2p for an on-demand triple
sleep. It's already viable as most anything else with beast sleep, and it
doesn't make sense that DWs would actually have more hurdles to getting someone
directly asleep than other classes (power regen time vs beast balance time). And
as for how often it could be used, is this consideration too imbalancing for a
skillset whose entire premise is to keep someone asleep?
---[Viynain on 3/16 @ 03:18 writes]:
After a lengthy discussion over Envoys with Ieptix, I'd like to ammend Solution
1 to a potentially more viable task: taking the sleep timer and applying it
personally to a target rather than being on the global timer. Make forced sleep
prevent the victim from waking up immediately (x-seconds), and make mana levels
affect the probability of the WAKE command succeeding. Natural awakeners who
sleep to regen should remain unaffected, but awakeners who type WAKE (with its
25% chance to successfully wake per second) would be affected in such that this
chance could scale lower the lower mana the sleeper has. I wouldn't be opposed
to raising the initial wake chance to 33% per second because mana drains are
much more prevalent.
---[Viynain on 3/16 @ 03:51 writes]:
After another discussion on Envoys, I'd like to ammend Solution 2 to only
support solution 2A. 2B is deemed unbalancing when Druidry Sap is taken into
account. I'd like to also ammend Solution 3 to enable the 8p meld recast skills
(Conflagration, Regrowth, etc.) to also reset and time SleepMist in a meld to
get it in tune with all other effects.
---[Viynain on 3/17 @ 03:01 writes]:
And if SleepMist can tic last in any given list of demesne powers, that'd help
manage the passive sleep better, I think.
---[Siam on 3/20 @ 02:51 writes]:
Supporting all solutions. Also: fused runes/motes should be timed with the meld
tics if we used the 8p pop, imo. It makes things more straightforward(which is
the aim of the overhaul, yes?).
---[Enyalida on 3/20 @ 17:46 writes]:
It also allows for easy stacking of effects in a way that didn't occur before,
with a slightly-more-than-10-seconds-tick time. I don't think it's a good idea.
---[Enyalida on 3/20 @ 17:54 writes]:
Thinking over this report, I don't think this suite of solutions will create a
useful or viable sleeping technique for mages, and will represent a marginal
strategy for druids. Historically, the backbone of Dreamweaving combat (For
druids) has been the presence of several recurring effects, freeing the sapper
to use their balances towards pursing a kill. The sleep attrition portion
represented a strong part of that combo, which was bolstered heavily by the
eq/bal loss motes and narcolepsy. The removal of most of the offensive motes
really takes away from that element of druid dreamweaver combat, the removal of
passive sleep ticks in favor of active alternatives is a further strong nerf to
the skill's viability for sapping druids. Solution 2 does nothing functional to
solve this problem (triple sleep is already a possibility, and is unnecessary to
the strategy), though it allows a wider margin of error due to lower power cost.
This is probably okay, it's just something to keep in mind.
---[Enyalida on 3/20 @ 18:00 writes]:
I'm unsure how this will affect mages. Solution 3's passive sleep tick will
allow mages to potentially use sleeping combos without having to dampen effects
(as I and other druids using dreamweaving have long done), if it always hits
last. However, with no source of aeon effect, even with a triple sleep and
passive sleep tick, it will be very hard to keep it on long enough to mean much.
Those mages with a non-damage based instakill (like Geos) will clearly benefit
the most, and they may perhaps be the only ones who really profit from this kind
of change - Aeros as well, from report 1313. The other mages will have a very
hard time using dreamweaving's instakill (eternalsleep) with the special caveat
on max tiredness made obsolete. Even with a modest mana drain applied by
sleepmist, there isn't much in the skillset that truly pressures mana (without
an aeon-effect). In groups. I can't imagine this working well at all. In that
situation, as with dreamweaving prior, the main 'strength' will be spammed
blackouts and potential sprawl, which most mages are unable to support (again,
except for Geos and Aeros, and potentially Pyros with slickness/broken leg
stacks).
---[Enyalida on 3/20 @ 18:05 writes]:
All of that said: I support solution 1 and 3 tentatively. For solution 2, the
best alternative is to make deepsleep a -double- sleep attack instead of a
triple. Then, you would need to either use a beast attack (limited to one per 15
seconds) OR time it well with your demesne to achieve triple sleep, with the
additional (tiny) cost of needing to induce to drop metawake. This would prevent
mages from consistently spamming a near-free triplesleep at the drop of a hat. A
wider look at dreamweaving and the utility of sleep locks will eventually be
required.
---[Lerad on 3/21 @ 06:08 writes]:
Given the huge shutdown potential of sleeping (pretty much on par with crucify
or aeon, in that it denies pretty much all commands except one) I think a move
away from attrition is a GREAT idea. The premise of the report, which is to
remove the attrition aspect and make it an active mechanic that is manipulatable
by both the DW and the target, instead of random and/or incurable due to
tiredness, is one I support. I do echo Enyalida's concern about the wake chance
being dependent on mana, though, since it not only makes it harder for
mages/druids (who are the dreamweavers) to capitalize on, it also makes it
easier for wiccans, who pretty much already have all of the capabilities
detailed in this report (passive sleep tic, double sleep active, ability to
switch off metawake) AND a more potent mana draining kit, passive and active, in
their main skillsets. Perhaps making it dependent on ego, and then giving
(strong) ego passive and/or active draining to dreamweavers, might be an easier
way of doing this?
---[Viynain on 3/22 @ 22:24 writes]:
@Lerad I think that switching the focus from mana to ego would be very
interesting, actually. I was considering altering Void to address the issue (by
tying the effects from caster to victim via Void a la Harmonics Resonance) in
case this change did push wiccans over the edge. EternalSleep would have to be
switched to ego-based (and all other mana-drain effects in DW), but I think this
would be a possibility that keeps DW changes from affecting other manakillers.
@Ieptix, could this work instead?
---[Enyalida on 3/27 @ 21:59 writes]:
I'm still concerned that making it possible to drop triplesleep several times in
a row with minimal power restrictions will be really overwhelming with certain
mage kits for pure shutdown spam without really providing any useful/non-
gimmicky options.
---[Ieptix on 4/17 @ 17:42 writes]:
I'll make a decision on this report after having a chance to discuss the report
with Viynain and other envoys.