Any moment now, Sneaky's gonna pop in and start telling me to shut up, or how I don't know shit about shit, and so on.
Enmesh: It's good. Maybe a little too good, IMO. What I would do is maybe make it last about 60 seconds(less 5 per 100 Strength the target has?), or possibly the % gets reduced with every successful step/Strength check the target makes. In exchange, the footie gets 10(? Presumably at 300 Strength, to signify how many nets they can carry) charges per hour(or whatever), so they can pin the person down(with multiple nets if they really think it's worthwhile), but have to decide if they want longer duration(1 charge per initiation of fighting), or more guaranteed enmeshing(by stacking many nets on the opponent). In addition to the enmeshing effect(capped at 99%, so that you can actually somehow break free), add a !recall affect for half the duration, and 50% chance to fail spellcasting(because you can't quite make the motions). 3 minutes for enmesh(current duration for most that I've seen) is a little too long, especially when the Super-Koj Gladiator does it(I've seen as much as 117-121% confined movement for 3 minutes, which is a death sentence).
Nim is actually kind of a double-edged sword right now. In the old days, you had footies nimming entire areas far faster than one could clear it(barring the area attacks), which lead to a lot of grousing and attempted killing(barring SM). Now, you have footies RDying or getting raped by gankers because of the battle-lock. Personally, I'd leave the lag on nim as is, possibly drop it by 10-25%(small steps, people), but take off the battle-lock or halve the % of battle-lock.
Art of Imbalance was for tripping flyers. I don't know what it does these days. Improves the amount of agility reduced per % of Trip over 100?
I'd limit Hire to levle 99 Humanoids with mortal classes. This would give you everything except the topmost mortal ability of each class(ie, no double blindsiding or whatever). Come to think of it, I would go so far as to suggest that all charmies be unable to use any ability which requires a level higher than 99(no awakening of the guard, etc.) Followers are really all about gaining extra actions/options in combat, as long as you remember to give multiple orders before performing lag-heavy moves(eg, critical), or make them do high lag moves(stun, etc). As such, I would not buff them too much.
Quote:
singularity of focus - unbreakable concentration 82% (02:00)
singularity form (14:00)
singularity of fate - agility +38 (04:59)
- dexterity +38 (04:59)
- speed +38 (04:59)
- quickness +18 (04:59)
singularity form (09:52)
|
Looking at the two, I cannot help but compare it to Antei of Hakanai Shouten vs Whispering Wind Antei
AOHS - perfect stun 100% (00:20)(still blocked by stun/impair immunes. Boo!)
antei, basic form (1:00)
WWA - quickness +16 (18:00)
- hit +20 (18:00)
antei form, basic (20:00)
Perhaps if focus had about a 30-60 second duration, with say, a 3 minute prevention, would that address your concern, maybe make it a more difficult choice between the two?
Vanish/Ambush
As a Ninja, I feel your pain(although slightly less because I don't bleed myself to recover endurance). These 2 need minor revamping.
Vanish is great, EXCEPT WHEN YOU NEED IT. How so? Well, it takes 2k lag to begin(1 round more of combat), then when you actually step out of the room, it's another 1k lag. Except when you're under half life and really need to flee(but out of preventions), then it's a massive 1500 lag. This may not seem like much, since players are typically semi-slow to catch vanishes(around 3 seconds to scan/track and follow, typically), but with mobs, they typically seem capable of jumping you 0.05 seconds after you leave the room, leaving you no time to set up the ambush, unless they were lagging, or you somehow managed to vanish at the beginning of the combat round "tick"(ie, 0100 into the 2000 lag of the round). See below for more info.
Ambush is near GODLY at mortal, doing anywhere up to 2k damage at a stage where most have only 1500 HP maximum. However, it suffers from some weaknesses. Reading the help file:
"As this skill requires stealth to be performed effectively, the amount of damage inflicted will depend on how unsuspecting and unprepared the victim is when you ambush them."
Translation: If they're of equal or higher level, your odds of landing a solid blow are reduced greatly. In this case, the higher your level, the more paranoid and ready for ambushes you are, having already experienced a lot more than someone of lower level. Don't believe me? Try ambushing any mob over level 100, compared to say, Bayeshi mobs. The >100 mob is typically far better at dodging/missing/whatever, and not just because of stat differences.
My suggestion:
Ambush could do with becoming a racial at over 100% levels. Something like 1% per 20-40%(needs tweaking. That's either 7.5% or 4.25% racial at 250%) over 100% Ambush skill. People might argue that it's overpowered, but I don't think so. Of all the classes, only Hunters/Ninjas/Footpads have Ambush(and since Nojohrs cannot use a skill at higher than 100% level, they are not relevant to it). The damage is variable, going from about 500 on a shielded race to around 1500 if you're very high in Dex/Agi/Spd. On mobs, it's anywhere from 500 for resisted to 5k on semi large(but stupid) mobs. I'm not sure if racial ambushes(Drow, Faehr, Weretiger, Kobold) are any better or worse in combat. Perhaps if the damage on racial ambushes, like racial crits(former Hobbit, or the auto-crit from having a high critical attack %), was reduced compared to the active versions, we might have something. This would also help address one other weakness of ambush. When multiple people are ambushing the same target, the game seems to pick one of them at random(because I don't know if there's any specific criteria), and the rest don't kick in. This is great, when you have only one guy who ambushes, or has really high stats. Sucks if you're the poor sod who can also ambush, but because of race/class/eq you're a little bit less damaging. Not forgetting that some groups/people lack the coordination to throw/ambush, as well as it being a very group-unfriendly skill(everyone has to stay still for the ambusher to initiate. Any movement breaks it). Additionally, injury to the ambusher also breaks ambush far too easily. By making it into a passive attack-granting skill in addition to an active one(like crit), you ensure that everyone with Ambush can contribute to combat, even if the party is moving along at near breakneck pace through zones.
