Report 912

Report #912
Skillset: Paradigmatics Skill: Badluck
 Org: Illuminati Status: Completed Nov 2012
Furies' Decision:
Solution 1.
Problem: After extensively fighting as an Illuminati for a good while, it has
become apparent that the class is imbalanced, broadly speaking, in 2 main ways:
1) While its individual effects are arguably more or less fine, when put
together, it becomes far too hindering especially regarding badluck's balance
loss - it hinders curing, running, AND fighting while the other effects only
hinders 1 or 2 facets. The class isn't really meant to synergize as well with
balance loss, that's Nihilist territory (The change to hekoskeri reflects this
as well). 2) The main kill method for the class, Illuminate, is nearly
impossible to pull off against middle to top tier opponents. This report hopes
to address both issues by: 1. Removing badluck's balance-stealing effect, which
overly hinders the victim (badluck functions off any balance-taking action and
focus mind). 2. Replacing said effect with a buildup mechanic to aid the
Illuminati in getting an Illuminate without rendering the first suggestion moot.
Ideally, the net result will be that the class gets a bit toned down in its
balance-taking capabilities while at the same time improving its chances to land
an illuminate on the victim a bit more.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Replace badluck's current effect with one that
 increases the amount of temporary insanity given by
 Transmology/Paradigmatics attacks (list - chaosaura,
 madfly, homunculus bite, initial hit of badluck,
 greywhispers, visionflux, revelations), scaling up
 according to the amount of mental afflictions
 currently plaguing the victim. The suggested rate is
 1 extra hit of insanity per 2 mental afflictions.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: In addition to solution 1, replace Paradigmatics
 Snafu's current effect to add a 50% chance for an
 additional hit of insanity to all insanity-giving
 attacks (same list as in solution 1) that hit enemies
 in the room.
Player Comments:
---[Shuyin on 10/11 @ 00:58 writes]:
Fourth rewrite. The prime difference between this version and the last version
is that this version does not fudge with cure balances and does not give any
form of cure denial. I'm feeling good about this one. Constructive comments
would be great
---[Asmodea on 10/11 @ 03:24 writes]:
APPROVE. Solution 2. I like the sound of this one, will definitely help you in
regards to pulling off an illuminate.
---[Thoros on 10/11 @ 13:10 writes]:
Approve solution 1.
---[Enyalida on 10/11 @ 16:55 writes]:
How many hits of insanity do you need for an illuminate, in revelations?
---[Shuyin on 10/11 @ 22:14 writes]:
7 straight revelations
---[Enyalida on 10/12 @ 00:06 writes]:
The only thing that concerns me here is scaling. If both solutions are
implemented, a target with two mental affs (fairly reasonably) will be hit with
2 insanity levels, with a 50% chance to take three from a revelations attack.
You're already (very slightly) outpacing curing, without including any of the
passives. The numbers can be adjusted later, though.
---[Shuyin on 10/12 @ 05:16 writes]:
I'm fine with Snafu not stacking with singular badluck if that's a concern. I'll
leave it up to the admin
---[Kaikazu on 10/14 @ 15:10 writes]:
Approve solution 1.
---[Ushaara on 10/14 @ 19:30 writes]:
I'm with Asmodea, if the effect of bad luck is being changed, it should also be
changed for Snafu too. Solution #2 supported.
---[Rivius on 10/25 @ 14:55 writes]:
I'm really worried, quite frankly, about anything that proposes to increase the
current output of temporaryinsanity. Right now, it has multiple potent sources
and despite what's claimed here, can definitely be built to some degree by all
tertiaries, regardless of if they can really hit massive levels or not. Both
temporaryinsanity and timewarp are the first things cured on focus mind (as they
should be) which has an effect similar to impatience in that one cannot utilize
their focus minds in order to cure mental afflictions. This is actually far more
powerful than I think most people realize. I've brought this report to an old
illuminati who was quite successful as a hexen and he stated that badluck was of
no use for him in achieving an illuminate, and that replacing it with something
that increases this output would actually tip him into overpowered. With
greywhispers, jinx and good use of hexes, receiving the mental afflictions
necessary to get the maximum boost proposed here is nearly trivial. When you
compound the fact that one becomes slowly limited to utilizing only herbs to
cure the rapidly building mental afflictions, it becomes very overwhelming very
quickly. Also consider the high levels of command denial achievable with jinx
and a high number of mental afflictions, which is actually the large reason for
this combination's success. I definitely sympathize with not being able to
achieve an illuminate as other tertiaries, but so long as hexen is able to get
it as surely as it can, I'm not sure increasing insanity output is really a good
idea at all. An astrologer Nihilist and Celestine both go primarily for meteor
kills for example, and both tarot variants also go primarily for soulless. I
really don't think illuminati as a class really and truly requires this to be
different, and while I agree with you from a -design- standpoint that these kill
methods should be achievable across all tertiaries, I'm not sure this is going
to end up being balanced. I apologize for having to admit that a
---[Rivius on 10/25 @ 14:56 writes]:
At the time of this comment, I really don't have much better ideas of how to
approach the problem of badluck's hindering.
---[Shuyin on 10/28 @ 18:41 writes]:
I'd like to hear who this old illuminati who was successful as a hexen was. If
he really was old, then it's not applicable given the current situation since
many things have changed - both regarding illuminati offense and other related
aspects at large. Furthermore, curing, as always, has substantially improved
compared to the past. Again, if you want to illuminate, you either have to deny
curing temporary insanity (you did not approve of this), you increase the curing
balance (you also did not approve of this), or you increase the output of
temporary insanity (you now also did not approve of this) - that's frankly
ridiculous. I will just state that I do not agree with your crazy POV that a
class' main instakill should be unusable between all specs, that is bad balance
and not interesting. I've taken a lot of time in approaching this situation and
I've written draft after draft after receiving precious feedback in order to
receive approval from a wide spectrum of envoys and at the of the day, this is
the most agreeable solution to most of the parties involved at this moment in
time.
---[Jaamil on 11/7 @ 19:03 writes]:
Solution 1 seems to be the best approach in any case.
---[Rivius on 11/8 @ 22:08 writes]:
I've sat down and thought hard once again on illuminati and this report, and
though I'm still worried about the effects of increasing the output of temporary
insanity, I think that if this allows for illuminati hindering to be far more
manageable to fight through, it could at least balance allowing solution 1 ONLY.
However, I want to clarify how much you suggest with "an extra hit of
temporaryinsanity". Would it be one pennyroyal's worth as in most skills, or as
in revelations where it will require at least a focus mind? I think if we could
keep it to greywhisper-tic levels, I would tentatively approve that. Also you
fail to mention a cap on effectiveness per mental affliction. Is there one?
ALSO, Would it be unfair to request secondary varied lines for transparency,
allowing you to have a good clue how much extra insanity you're taking? This
report would complicate curing quite a fair bit, for a class that already
requires that to be at top-notch, and I think you'd lose nothing offensively if
this suggestion goes through as well.
---[Shuyin on 11/9 @ 22:41 writes]:
An extra hit is one pennyroyal's worth, -not- one revelations' worth. There's no
cap right now because I feel that if you build up a significant amount of mental
afflictions on the victim given Illuminati's unreliable affliction methods, then
you deserve to die. This can be adjusted in the future though if needed.
Regarding lines, while I don't mind from a personal or philosophical POV, the
bitter human person in me is still touchy about how many envoys rejected the
same request for transparency regarding focusing.
---[Llandros on 11/21 @ 15:16 writes]:
Solution 1 or solution 2 if it doesn't stack with 1.