The staff has emails with all my stats/ranks, apps of my weapons and apps of what I hunt.

I know I've made a couple other posts about Ambushes, but I wanted to try to put everything in one spot, and give a little more detail.

Please do not take this as an angry rant. I know it can very easily be read like that, but it is really just feedback. I don't know why everything always has to be assumed to be hostile. I like the staff. I like the game. We are on the same side. We are a team. We are partners.

Against something at level every ambush is about 75% to hit and 75% to be a good or major success, and I think that's just fine.

Against something challenging every ambush is 0% to hit. Which is unfortunate because that is when you need debuffs and disablers. On top of that if you miss an ambush you lose two balance states and get a 5-9 second RT.

Ambushes in general are underwhelming right now, both in what they do, and in how they do it.

*Ignite- Good for PvE, if the creatures AI makes them decide to roll on the ground. No use for PvP or champion/boss critters.

*Slash- Does very little in both PvP and PvE, you do win some positioning from making something take a knee, but that's major success only so again isn't going to happen when it would actually be a benefit. The retreat debuff is only about 5-6 seconds long so not really enough time to do much of anything, and again only going to work against targets you would probably stun with a regular attack and kill before that stun ended.

*Clout- Great, but in PvE since ambushes are impossible to land against anything challenging so you'll never actually need it because anything it would land against, wouldn't be able to hit you with their spells anyway. In PvP it's great for shutting down casters that are a little bit under you but would still be able to disable/debuff you, but in that situation you'd be just better off attacking and again, it won't do anything to anyone challenging since it won't land.

*Screen- Works fine at level, but the RT is vicious, if you try it against something challenging you lose two balance states and get a 7-9 second RT.

*Choke- Honest question, why would I want a stamina debuff? I know that sounds harsh, I just seriously don't know what else to say about it. It just doesn't seem to do anything.

*Stun- Stun is just no good for several reasons, because it's a different SvS contest it's much harder to land a good/major success, we can't buff the SvS so we're just stuck. On top of all that, it's Major success is to sleep the victim... that seems great at first, but then you realize that sleep has a random duration. It could randomly break after 1 second, it could break after one missed attack. The good success, a stun, is only about 5 seconds long. But that's still better than the major success, which makes no sense. Keep in mind none of this matters since you'll never be able to use it against any target that actually poses a threat to you.

Everyone else (except maybe traders) has access to disablers that have much longer durations and have SvS contests that they can buff and increase with mana (except barbs, obviously), as well as having an "Attackers tilt" to the entire contest. All of this allows them to disable/debuff challenging targets to get some spells or attacks in.

We have 1 disabler that has an extremely short duration at good success and an even shorter average duration at major success, with an SvS contest that we can't buff or increase and from what I can tell we have zero tilt in our favor, so we can't ever disable challenging targets.

As it stands right now the only time I'd use an ambush is to train Debilitation for TDPs.

Thanks for your time and effort.

:)

>>*Ignite- Good for PvE, if the creatures AI makes them decide to roll on the ground. No use for PvP or champion/boss critters

Why isn't it good for boss mobs? Naptha should be hurting them quite effectively?


>>*Slash-

I would be ok with a 10-18 second retreat debuff. Would that make it more useful?

>>*Choke-

Stat debuffs probably need to be 5x larger. Losing 20 points of stamina would really hurt your fatigue, vitality and regen. Might make it more useful? Especially if it lasted for 30+ seconds?

>>*Stun- Stun

I think sleep should only break on a successful hit.. we probably need a minimum duration for that effect too. Would that make it more useful?


Still need to spend more time testing SvS contests when I'm able.

---

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

I haven't done an in-depth test of ambushes.

I haven't really seen why I would want to use them in my minute to minute combat hunting, since they're all single target debilitation attacks with short duration.

Which honestly was fine until they got linked to a skill. Now I need to use them, to keep the skill moving, so it would be nice if the applied effects comparable to a mage spell at similar stat/skill/level/etc.

It would also be nice if they taught more per-use, since they're a bit more complicated to land than a spell but take roughly the same amount of time to pull off.

I'd actually be fine with taking more substantial concentration hits for a longer lasting, higher teaching, effect.

Plus something like a cripple effect, that reduces damage the target can do, would be useful and fairly unique to DR right now.

<Obviously not for PvE, but maybe for PvP? I've never wanted a retreat debuff that much. I bet there are situations where it would be more useful though. Why not 20 seconds? arn't most other guilds disablers and debuffs at least 20 seconds long? Why does our stuff have to be so much shorter?

Just trying to put things into perspective here, but with instant type disablers if you effectively say ambush stun somebody for 20 seconds, you will most likely rack up some damage on them with normal attacks, backstab coupled with something like eliminate. If they are down that long it will most likely allow you to do a lot of damage with a combo like that, and when the effect ends you will be able to land another ambush like say clout in very short notice, effectively shutting a person down for a long time.

As a mage on the other hand, landing debilitation on a at level player requires casting most of the time at or near cap, which takes a bit of time to prepare and harness, and when you land it, requires you most likely to use TM, which takes a bit of time also to cast at high levels. You might get 1 spell off, and 2 if your lucky. Its just a lot more clunky to do a lot of damage in between there using magic. I think ambushes do obviously need to be tweaked to work reasonably well, but this is just my opinion on why they are not as long lived.

So basically instant disables if working correctly and have a fair chance to land allow a person to take full advantage of the time gained where other types do not, also they can be chained together without as much hassle. I've played a barbarian so I've taken full advantage of using disablers that can be used instantly and its without a doubt much less of a hassle then magical types. I know things have changed and that even thief ambushes work differently and have costs, but finding the sweet spot in there obviously remains the problem.

Minor second point regarding the length of stuns: a capped MB from me against an opponent of equal stats (MB being a 4 slot "cream of the crop" disabler) gives me 7-10 seconds-enough time for one fully targeted cast if I'm lucky.

I'd love to have a 20 second stun at level, but that's now how it's panning out for me. Below level? For sure.

>I think the issue with Naphtha is that storebought naphtha sucks as a reason to encourage you to get Alchemist-made naphtha which isn't out yet. Because the naphtha that's available is crappy, anything that uses naphtha feels lackluster.

I hope not, actually; anything that flat out requires/depends on finding a specific crafter to make an ability 'not suck' is a badly designed ability, in my mind. I don't need a forged sword to make HE or backstab work well. I somehow suspect alchemists are going to be somewhat more rare than blacksmiths, too.