Report 875

Report #875
Skillset: Psychometabolism Skill: Celladjustment
 Org: Nekotai Status: Completed Jul 2015
Furies' Decision:
Solution 3
Problem: Celladjustment has, historically, been one of the least used abilities
in psychometabolism, in both bashing and pvp, because of the way psymet is set
up to be very unfriendly to active psichannel usage. At the same time, with
everyone's resistance taking a hit across the board (capped at 30%), psymet has
also not escaped the changes. While psymet is now more versatile than acrobatics
in terms of resistance coverage, against certain damage types, psymet users are
no better in mitigation than acrobatic monks anymore. This report aims to carve
a niche for psymet users in pvp by appropriating an old and ineffective ability
to provide a different defensive benefit from acrobatics
dodging/somersault/contort, or alternatively to boost the user offensively.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Change celladjustment syntax to PSI <CHANNEL>
 CELLADJUSTMENT <15|30|45>. Usable channel should only
 be substratus (no change). Celladjustment is now a
 LOCKED defence that will block the next incoming
 affliction with a cooldown of what was indicated when
 it was locked in (15, 30 or 45 seconds). If 15s was
 chosen, each time celladjustment fires, it will use
 1500 ego. With 30s, it will use 1000 ego each time
 instead. With 45s, it will use 500 ego each time
 instead. Changing the number requires unlocking and
 relocking. This gives psymet users the choice to very
 effectively prevent afflictions, but at high ego cost
 with the danger of burnout, or to use less dangerous
 options but for noticeably slower affliction blocking.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: Change celladjustment syntax to PSI <CHANNEL>
 CELLADJUSTMENT <100|200|300>. Usable channel should
 be only substratus (no change). Celladjustment is now
 a LOCKED defense that will add the indicated amount
 of damage to EACH hit the user lands (therefore, a
 full 3-hit combo will do 300 extra damage for the
 first option, or 900 extra damage for the third
 option). This effect goes on cooldown upon dealing
 1500 damage in this manner. Upon going into cooldown,
 the user will take a large chunk of ego cost. 1500
 for the first option, 3000 for the second, 4500 for
 the third. The cooldown will be 60s for the first
 option, 30s for the second, 15s for the third. This
 will give psymet users the choice of very high burst
 damage at low cooldowns, but at levels of ego costs
 that will be all but unsustainable except for demigod
 users with large ego buffs - and even then, not for
 more than 2 or 3 cycles.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #3: Change celladjustment syntax to PSI <CHANNEL>
 CELLADJUSTMENT <1000|2000|3000>. Usable channel
 should only be substratus (no change). Celladjustment
 is now a LOCKED defence that will heal the user for
 the indicated amount after the user has received a
 total of that same indicated amount of damage, with a
 cooldown of 45s for the first option, 30s for the
 second option, 15s for the third option. While it is
 on cooldown, the damage received by the user won't
 count toward the next activation. Upon receiving the
 heal, there will also be a 1000 ego cost for the
 first option, 2500 ego cost for the second, 4000 ego
 cost for the third. Similarly to the above two
 solutions, this solution is designed to give the
 psymet user the option of very strong burst healing
 and damage mitigation with low cooldowns, but at very
 high ego costs.
Player Comments:
---[Marcella on 7/15 @ 15:30 writes]:
These look like fun mechanics/interesting to use. I'm not sure which to pick,
honestly, but I'd be down for making psymet the more offensive choice to
acrobatics - sol. 2
---[Siam on 7/16 @ 05:39 writes]:
I'd prefer solution 3, but solution 2 works as well
---[Synkarin on 7/17 @ 02:02 writes]:
I don't really like solution 2, but I like solution 1 or 3
---[Kaimanahi on 7/19 @ 15:58 writes]:
Solution 1 seems particularly strong with what is coming in warrior changes, and
also for current kits (bard aurics, monks), which have specific affliction-based
instakills or strategies. This is also strong against skills which incur a power
cost to achieve a specific affliction or combination of afflictions. Being able
to reliably prevent an affliction is pretty strong, and most classes cannot take
advantage of the ego tradeoff as posed (change to mana?). I would be OK if this
was limited to an affliction group or subset of afflictions which did not have
so wide an impact, maybe like mental affs. For Solution 2, I'm not sure I can
comment intelligently without knowing what's happening to overhaul monks, but
the numbers seem somewhat high and I'm not sure why monks need a damage boost on
top of great hindering and bleeding in their current iteration. Again, the ego
tradeoff is pretty negligible with sparkleberry. Solution 3 - are your numbers
backwards? It looks like you're asking for 3000 health every 15 seconds, or I'm
having a hard time wrapping my head around the proposed mechanic. Is it based on
your max - current health, or actual damage accrued over time? Does your damage
counter still accumulate during the cooldown? In general I question whether the
intent of this solution is to impact PvE as well; I'd be OK with that, just
wanted to clarify the scope.
---[Lerad on 7/21 @ 13:48 writes]:
Changing the ego costs to mana costs will make the costs irrelevant to anyone
without a mana kill. Whereas keeping it as an ego cost makes it relevant to
everyone fighting the psymet user, because at 0 ego, the psymet burns out and
loses his skillset. Given that, I think it will make the abilities too strong to
make the costs mana instead of ego. Solution 2 numbers are designed to be a very
significant boost. For some comparison, at 0 wounds, a monk can deal between
400-800 damage, depending on their weapon stats (whether they are artied etc).
At heavy-critical wounds and with the prone modifier, there have been logs of
monks doing 3000 to 4000 damage. A potential +900 is very, very strong with
those numbers. The ego tradeoff, incidentally, is very big for solution 2. 4500
ego is 45% ego for a demigod monk with the FULL 8/8 ego vitals. Not being at
8/8, or not being demigod, means that those numbers are an even higher
percentage of the max ego. At a 15 second cooldown, it is going to constitute a
large burst of ego cost that will make the ability theoretically unsustainable -
which is the point. The strongest option should only be usable strategically.
The same goes for solution 3: the lower cooldowns means that the ego costs will
be large enough, and often enough, that the user cannot just leave it on and
forget about it, or it will simply burn them out. Of course, these numbers are
simply based on my THEORY, and in action, may be too small (or too large even).
Naturally, adjustments should be made if there is an issue with the numbers.
---[Lerad on 7/21 @ 13:51 writes]:
Also, I forgot to answer your question about scope: Yes, both solution 1 and 3
will naturally have application in PvE as well (3 more so than 1), due to the
nature of "defensive" abilities. I didn't make them with the specific intent of
PvE application, and where the numbers are concerned, I intend to balance them
for PvP first and foremost.
---[Enyalida on 7/21 @ 14:46 writes]:
The cost numbers on solution 1 seem quite low.
---[Kierstin on 7/21 @ 21:43 writes]:
I like solution two, giving psymet a more useful offensive approach (which a lot
of people have been asking for). If I'm understanding the mechanic correctly,
capping the damage output at 1500 will make it so the second form you use will
only have the first two hits of a combo boosted. If you put it at 1800 max, that
makes it so at level 1 you get 6 forms fully boosted, level 2 has 3 forms fully
boosted, and at level 3, two forms fully boosted. Other than that, I think it's
a good idea to give psymet a more offensive edge to it.
---[Lerad on 7/22 @ 08:31 writes]:
Yes, making solution 2 "run out" at 1500 is intentional, so that the strongest
option also does not give +900 to 2 forms consecutively before it goes on
cooldown. For solution 1, I erred on the lower side of ego costs because it
doesn't directly lead to an offensive or heaing boost. That said, I think
another +500 ego cost for each of solution 1's options is reasonable as a
starting point before tweaking it up if/when needed. Of course, if you feel
that's still too low, feel free to comment so that the admin have a point of
reference of different opinions to work with when deciding what they want to go
with for implementation.
---[Synkarin on 7/23 @ 01:19 writes]:
Monk's damage potential is precisely why I don't really like solution 2. Monks
don't need any more damage help.