I would like to see a perception buff and a hiding buff that doesn't buff who you are fighting too.


RM is great for hunting but the last thing you want to do is make it easier for that ranger\barb\thief to kill you from the shadows.

Earth meld was weak compared to other perception boost spells but it was something. Now that's gone. How about a spell that helps us with perception. Even the field some in PVP.


~Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Earth Meld was never a perception boost.

And yeah, as Caraamon mentioned, basically it's intended design that WM's are terrible at stealth. RM was said to have been kept in as an anomaly/utility and that it shouldn't be taken as expression of WM's having any claims of being decent at stealth.

- Starlear -

Yeah, with the advent of cyclic spells basically I just drop fire rain and let it knock people out of stealth for me.

- Starlear -

Does Frostbite still have a chance to unhide people if they collapse from it?

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"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 remember testing this... But I don't remember what happened.

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>Forgive my snark, but welcome to the life of a warrior mage.

It was rumored for awhile that it boosted perception, but it was said to have not actually been the case ever, from what I recall - as far as I can tell, the lingering effect you got from it was assumed to be perception until it was told that it was MO instead and not perception.

- Starlear

Children, conflicts go to the OOC Conflicts folder. My patience with folks having to pull posts in the WM folders is growing strained.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

I rarely lose to thieves at level anymore. Being able to SEE them is not a big deal with FR...and it's going to be less of a problem now that we're getting rimefang back. At your level you guys are SO far on one side or the other that really...it's just a matter of who gets the drop on who.

My thief has almost twice the hiding that my warmie has perc. I just sit down in spars with thieves. Pop back up once FR knocks them out of hiding (there's a reduction to targeted efficacy if you're sitting) and thunderclap/whatever spell you have prepped. Thieves are a GREAT class and I hope they get better but right now they're two trick ponies. Either they get in the stun and stabby stab or they stay at ranged with thrown/snipe. If it's thrown, stealth isn't an issue, if it's snipe, they have to time it pretty good to get a full aimed shot off before FR hits them (and that's if you're not casting a TC between FR pulses). Either way, they're yours for a moment.

If you take away ambush slash, all that's left is ambush clout and that's going to be pretty nifty 3.1 but right now it's just another stun. A straight backstab is their best bet but unless they REALLY hammer you, it's going to hurt them a lot more than it is you if they come out of hiding. With diminishing returns on stealth and the WOW WHAT THE HECK?! buff that watch gives, I'm surprised that anyone is still complaining about thieves/survivals being a problem as a warmie.

I'm hoping that stealth gets some love or watch gets some hate soon but they said it wasn't going to be ready for 3.1.

>You are fighting terrible thieves then, and I highly doubt they are 'at level'.But you play a thief so i'm not surprised by your post.

Anyone who disagrees with me is biased, wrong, and stupid!

>>With shadowstep and 1-2 shots from backstab killing before the first pulse I'd say that option is off the table.

Could you explain this for me?

I believe that shadowstep allows someone to "jump to melee" in hiding. Then they BS you for 20-35% of your health. Any more and we'd have to look at how powerful it is. And that depends on your comparative skill, armor and stats a bit.

After the BS they need to re-hide before they can do it again. I'm guessing the stun from the BS makes that a trivial challenge? This also depends on the skills as hiding at melee is a perception-favored contest. If they can do it, you probably aren't Watching them? And the second BS is much less powerful. So you should still have 50% of your vitality after this combo.

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"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

>>After the BS they need to re-hide before they can do it again. I'm guessing the stun from the BS makes that a trivial challenge?

Skillsets make the contest a trivial challenge. Pulsing invisibility not withstanding skillsets and the new buff setup (20% caps) make it a runaway train. Additionally, rapid engagement and such only compound this. Speaking from the War Mage PoV (and lesser extent, the other casters), cyclics are setup to be more then slow enough a clever thief can slip between pulses to land an ambush and a stab. Once you've got a clout and a big eliminate bonused stab (oh, and if a thief fails a stab on a tert, they're so out of their league its comical, and might still win anyways), the casters in a bad enough position its just a few strikes from being over.

The ability of any guild to turn off another guilds entire skillset is frightening at best. Be it Khri Eliminate (plus BStab), cleric no-magic voodoo, or whatever. Thieves are the current hot button because of how FAST you can go from 100% to dead dealing with one.

Samsaren

when not sitting, concentration can take anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes to recover fully, leaning more to the latter if you need to try and keep casting spells, and the spell casting penalty for concentration is huge, so you wont be able to push enough mana into a spell for an at circle opponent until near the end of that.

I don't think clout is auto 0 though, unless the thief way outclasses the target?

Well if some of the people with concerns could post numbers it would be helpful. Is each clout 10%? 50%? Does the Clout do anything other than reduce concentration and perform a normal attack?

If someone wants to clout you instead of BS, you could be able to nail them with a 70% prep'd immobilizer (not 100%, or the concentration hit would get you). Then you have a few options while they recover.

It should be about as effective as casting frostbite on an enemy. And fatigue damage hurts melee AND casting, whereas concentration only hurts casting. Unless I'm missing something?

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"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

>There's no diminishing return for the "cancel spell prep" effect, so if it can be pulled off, it's a good way of keeping a spell caster from prepping. I think that's the point of the ability though. I personally think the concentration end of things is fine, but there should probably be a limit on how many times you can break a spell prep. I'd say around 3 times in a minute.

As someone who primarily plays a thief these days, I'd say as described (currently) clout is broken, stupidly, in PVP. There should be diminishing returns or a hard cap on concentration drain, since concentration directly effects spellcasting (i.e. 0 conc, 0 spellcasting ability regardless of ranks). Combined with the spell-prep-break it just sounds insane. Even with stealth being difficult/buggy and subject to penalties and diminishing returns and watch, that just sounds like a bad ability.

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

>>>I believe that shadowstep allows someone to "jump to melee" in hiding. Then they BS you for 20-35% of your health. Any more and we'd have to look at how powerful it is. And that depends on your comparative skill, armor and >>stats a bit.

A typical BS lands at almost 50% vitality hit on me for first strike at level, the sever stun usually last long enough to allow for the 1 or 2 more needed to drop me.

Do you have any idea on the skill gap from a survival prime vs a survival tert at 150+ circle? Watch does nothing. Every other magic guild has some way of combating stealth that doesn't force them to have to have impossible amounts of perception for their level. Especially now since the stealth users can buff stealth 20%. So a tert base perception vs that, watch has no effect.


- Erixx

>Do you have any idea on the skill gap from a survival prime vs a survival tert at 150+ circle? Watch does nothing. Every other magic guild has some way of combating stealth that doesn't force them to have to have impossible amounts of perception for their level. Especially now since the stealth users can buff stealth 20%. So a tert base perception vs that, watch has no effect.

Which is amusing because stealth players say the exact opposite.

Scissors: Rock is OP, nerf rock. Paper is fine.

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'

>>It should be about as effective as casting frostbite on an enemy. And fatigue damage hurts melee AND casting, whereas concentration only hurts casting. Unless I'm missing something?

What are the numbers on that? How much stamina must be lost before it becomes noticeable? I say this because the only real use I have gained from it is putting enemies on their back, after they stand back up there doesn't really seem to be much of a difference pre-cast.

- Erixx

Honestly, I think a lot of the issue really boils down to both the contest setup, and skillsets. Before I wax poetic, I'll go ahead and say that the efforts to bring a degree of balance ARE appreciated, as well as some honest dialog on the subject between the player-base and the GMs.

First off, skillsets. Because of the way things are laid out, all things being equal the survival tert are A L W A Y S going to suffer in a balanced contest. Without a deliberate handicapping of primary learning rates to keep terts up there will always be a gap and as one reaches higher and higher circles this problem rapidly compounds itself. I'll use my two biggest characters as an example:
My Paladin currently has 1030 shield. Despite my best efforts, including months of gaining no armor/shield exp in favor of evasion training, my evasion is only 800 ranks. And before anyone jumps on the 'But OMG perception can be trained out of combat lol111!111', I'm heavily combat focused, as thats the part of the game I enjoy.
My survival prime however is sitting on 555-560 Evasion, Stealth and Perception, but again despite months of no primary training to keep terts up, only 300s weapons and 450 armor/shield/defending.

Those gaps will only grow worse. SOIs, new buff caps, all those do is exasperate the issue.

Secondly, the contests involved.

Taking backstab, as its hot item #7 this week, there's a check of stealth vs perception. Assuming a contest remotely fair for the stealthy guy, and equal time spent training, the stealthy guy is going to win. Expecting otherwise is almost silly. Now, with this ability that success causes an immediate loss of two entire defences to Mr GotStabbed. 3.x has shown, painfully at times, -1- defense ends very very poorly. Leaving any other bonus or penalty structures aside, you've got amazing potential for headaches right there.

Everything after that is just window dressing. Talking about cyclic pulse times vs shadowstep vs whatever is completely tertiary to the two prior items. How to fix this, well, I'm just an armchair player, but honestly I think the skillset system of learning in the current world is likely causing more issues then it fixes. However turning all exp gain to a flat model wouldn't be an immediate fix either. Changing the Backstab ability also would only tackle this one instance, and in many ways almost do a disservice to a guild long established.

Personally, I think ANY ability that can skip large portions or completely nullify an entire skill set is BEGGING for balance issues (Shatter, Backstab, DFA), but that of course is only my opinion.

Samsaren

Samsaren wrote:

"Personally, I think ANY ability that can skip large portions or completely nullify an entire skill set is BEGGING for balance issues (Shatter, Backstab, DFA), but that of course is only my opinion"

Much like Ice Patch?

>"Personally, I think ANY ability that can skip large portions or completely nullify an entire skill set is BEGGING for balance issues (Shatter, Backstab, DFA), but that of course is only my opinion"

>Much like Ice Patch?

Since when does Ice Patch completely nullify shield/evasion/parry. It's a knock down and stun. That hardly sets a defense to 0 like Shatter, DFA or Backstab.