Weaves and weaving

[Szean]

Having fought some channelers recently, I have noticed a bit of an issue with weave timers: specifically, there doesn't appear to be one. For example:

407H 35V > y says the level 51 to the level 38
*CHANNELER* has arrived from the north riding a gray warhorse.

408H 38V > y says the level 51 to the level 38
You yell 'says the level 51 to the level 38 '

408H 38V >
Your vision becomes clouded.

The above took place in about a second - for as devastating a weave as blind is, I think it needs to have a significant timer. Particularly given that we are unable to spam k (name) due to the lag after each time you hit the kill alias, this leaves us with no counter to the weave.

Another example from the same fight:

387H 38V Someone: wounded>
Someone slashes you hard.
You attempt to shred Someone's throat with a short handled double-bladed ebony
battleaxe but fail miserably!

378H 38V Someone: wounded>
Someone throws a glowing fireball at you burning you severely!

355H 39V Someone: wounded>
You are enveloped in flames from a fireball sent by Someone -- OUCH!!

332H 39V Someone: wounded>
Someone throws a glowing fireball at you burning you severely!

309H 39V Someone: wounded>
Someone throws a glowing fireball at you burning you severely!

283H 39V Someone: wounded>
You are enveloped in flames from a fireball sent by Someone -- OUCH!!

264H 39V Someone: wounded> f

Someone throws a glowing fireball at you burning you severely!

242H 39V Someone: wounded> You see nothing but infinite darkness...
You flee head over heels.

While each fireball appears to do only an average 25 damage, six+ over the course of one round adds up quickly. Bash and kick have significant timers to prevent spamming - should weaves have the same? My suggestion would be yes, and consider if the damage should be tweaked upwards somewhat to compensate.

Lastly, a question: do status weaves (such as blind, above) have an opposed check or just a check against the caster's practice %? In an admittedly small and insigificant sample size, it appeared that blind did not fail in 4/4 attempts against trollocs (one level 51, one in 40s, one in 30s). If not, I would suggest one be added or that fact be included in calculating a timer.

Szean

[Velis]

Channeling has 5 states, if the above person can channel blind and fireball on quick.......

Plus the reason it does so little damage is because you can spam it, problem with that is it chews SP like crazy and leaves the channeler without any other other option but to run or try to fight off a trolloc with full armor.....

The person may have gotten off 6 fireballs in a round, but whos to say they had any SP left afterward

Again something that will need to be REVISITED after changes to equipment and combat are imp'd.

The addition of a timer AND the ability for a TROLLOC to stop weaves via a skill check.....

I think maybe it should have lag, but not a timer.
Walk into room, weave blind, die before it goes off.
Not fun.

[Zorgsplat]

I would like to know more about the 5 states of channeling. Is it like search command, where you can set wich state you're at? or is each weave set on a certain speed?

And I would have to say the exact opposite Velis (sorry!!). I think you should have timers, and no lag. If someone is casting a weave, it should take time, like for instance tying a certain type of knot, an eight knot takes a whole heck of a lot less time than a bow line knot, but does a completely different thing. As should weaves. Obviously weave casting times should be gauged on how effective they are in pk. I would rather see you try for 5 seconds trying to cast balefire on me than you insta casting on me and then taking 5 seconds to recover. Two reasons. It sucks for me cause i'm dead, instantly and now it sucks for you because you have 2 more trollocs beating on you because you're stuck on a lag timer. If you want to cast big, that's fine do it. but make sure you're safe enough to cast it. Now this brings up some questions on my part. does bash or kick always stop a cast? is brace effective enough to help with these? I would rather try to spend 5 seconds casting, have you miss bashes and nail you. Or another example is, i'm planning a big hit, 3 more trollocs come into the room, i flee cancelling my attack (abandoning what i was weaving in the process).

Basically, if your concern is not being able to hit with attacks, that just needs to be tweaked. Timers are a great way of slowing a channeler down and making the fight a little more fair. From what i have seen so far, some weaves can trap and damage people without the Aes Sedai to even be in the room.

Lastly, if you're weaving blind, and it doesn't go off before you're dead, the timer is too long. judging by my pk, you have plenty of time to die. I think i've been chased/killed by every high level person out there, i know how long it takes to die. Trick is seeing how long you can drag it out. *wink*

Zorgsplat the sexy....

I mean mighty

[Arleve]

I think Lag is a bad idea. I simply won't use the weaves if they fail and I am lagged as well.

Yes, the states of channeling are very similar to search. The simplicity of the weave determines how fast it is woven generally. You set your channeling rate. Weaves have a higher percentage chance to fail the faster you are weaving. Sleep failed for instance when I was fighting in the Tower on one of the Trollocs I was fighting. It was too late for me to try again.

The more powerful you are in elements also determines how strong a particular weave is when you hit.

Bash and Kick do not interrupt and since Bash and Kick land almost every time, I don't think they should.

The only weaves that will go off on someone and I'm not in the room are area effect weaves that don't have a target such as quake or something. You could walk into that if I knew you were coming and timed it just right.

As for being killed by everyone - my encounters haven't been all that successful and I'm the strongest or the second strongest channeler in the Tower. Granted, I tried to get fancy so who knows what would have happened had I done it another way.

Also what you see as instant I think might be a misperception that things are going off uber quickly and therefore taking no time to weave. What you may not realize is that the stronger the channeler is, the more they can split their weaving. I can weave xx amount at once, so 3 blinds, while taking time to weave from when I began, will go off almost at once and seem instant. Same with fireballs, etc.

[Zorgsplat]

Ok, so from what i'm understanding, the channeler was multiweaving fireball? And I would like to see bash or kick have a chance to stop your casting. Maybe a low percentage so i at least have a chance to stop you from destroying me with 3 weaves at once. Obviously it would not waste your sp as you have not used the weaves you were making.

Sorry you haven't been one of my 45 deaths, i hope You'll get your chance sooner rather than later.

[Arleve]

Well, the creators came from the mud where channelers weren't like the books and they didn't want it like that here.

Channelers are meant to be very powerful with weaving, similar to the books, and without the coded insta-death because of coded low hps or strength or whatever. The balance of that is that it's difficult to get a channeler, takes ages to gain the weaves to play one and then advance out of the Accepted to use her once you have her to say nothing of the fact that even if you rolled a channie, she may be of middling or moderate strength. Still a bonus to be sure but with those factors, there's the balance to it.

When the northern borderlands are in, I suspect that's where the most PK will take place which means there will be a lot more borderguards, to say nothing of the Dreadlords that are bound to be brought in at some point, with Fades, etc.

Right now, it's what...me and another channie or two that are active to fight against most often, and there's nowhere to fight unless you come to my house or I come to yours - no middle ground putting the raider at an already tough disadvantage.

So I'm kind of thinking that nothing needs adjusting right now because I don't think a lot of the factors that would add balance to the whole thing are really there yet and they are coming.

[Szean]

The problem with your logic is, difficulty in getting a channeler is not any form of pk balance. Yes, I realize it's a low percent chance to get one. And that it takes a lot of drudgery to get weaves up and get ranked to full Sedai. But that has nothing to do with pk. We don't pk against the novices with no weaves, or the accepteds with bad weaves. We pk against only the full Sedai with the full complement of weaves that destroy us in about 1.5 seconds. And that is what we have to be balanced against.

Right now, yes there are only a few channelers actively pking (although I believe you're not including MCs in your count, of which there are a few). Most times I'm on, there's at least one full Sedai on. And there is absolutely no way for us to fight you right now. All you have to do is enter and spam blind, and it's game over. No counter, no way to spam or flee out to prevent it, absolutely nothing we can do. So from my perspective, something needs to be changed if there's going to be any hope of pk. Otherwise what is the incentive for us to even try to play when we have absolutely no chance whatsoever to win?

Frankly I don't think just imping fades and dreadlords is a good idea as a balance solution either. If everyone around me is super powerful but I still suck, why do I play? And trollocs should be the backbone of the side, not fades/DLs. Yes, that does conflict with the book vision of the Aes Sedai killing dozens of trollocs at a time. But that is contrary to any idea of pk balance, and is a completely unsustainable position if pk is to be encouraged.

Szean

[Zorgsplat]

I think the problem we're seeing is trollocs trying to be trollocs and kill people. But the only problem, is all we see to fight against are channelers. Anyone who's playing, has played for a long time, has made a channeler and has them at a very high level. I have to agree with Arleve and Belgar that channelers should be stronger than us, be able to kill us. However, shouldn't there be something that a trolloc can do to make himself more of a match? I could get 51, play for 3 years on my trolloc, and be just that. a lvl 51 that gets stomped by Aes Sedai. Perhaps trollocs should have something to help them with pk? I mean, Are trollocs always going to be screwed in pk until dreadlords come out? And then there's the point where Szean decides (screw it, i'm gonna roll characters till i can be a dreadlord) Next thing you know, there are no trollocs, no regular folk, just channelers and dreadlords. So, again, i agree with you two about channelers should be stronger, but maybe trollocs should be able to lead mobs to even the playing field.

[Szean]

Not at all, Belgar. I think there should be some chance for a trolloc to win in a 1v1, yes. But I'd still expect the channeler to have a significant edge.

I do see channelers as something of a glass cannon. Heavy damage output, but won't take terribly much on their own. So when they can sit back and unload, they should rightly be devastating. It's just a bit over the top right now imo.

My ideal solution would be a timer on weaves casting, and a percent chance for a landed kick or bash to interrupt a weave. Maybe some damage and sp cost adjustments would need to be made to compensate for the changes, but that would at least give us a fighting chance imo. Anything to avoid the insta-blind

Szean

[Darak]

Rediculousness:

2[11:00] 99/511 117/117 > l
Camber in Earth Lane
The wondrous edifices of Tar Valon dominate the scenery every direction you
look. Each of the buildings are beautifully sculpted, each one made to either
resemble sheer cliff faces, breaking waves, or some other element of Nature.
It is obvious that Ogier masons were the builders, as their love of groves is
vividly etched in stone- each stone structure is riddled with vine, leaf and
flower patterns. There are innumerable towers and sky-bridges about the island
city, but one stands out above all others, the tallest and widest, the White
Tower which is clearly visible to the east.
[ Exits: e s w ]
A pair of arching lampposts illuminate the street during the hours of darkness. (LIT)

2[11:00] 102/511 117/117 >
Dirt and pebbles pelt you and you cry out from the stinging sensation!
You wish that your wounds would stop BLEEDING so much!

2[11:00] 88/511 117/117 Darak: bloody Arleve: healthy rear>
You massacre Arleve to small fragments with your stab.
Arleve barely slashes you.
You wish that your wounds would stop BLEEDING so much!

2[11:00] 84/511 117/117 Darak: bloody Arleve: bruised rear>
Dirt and pebbles pelt you and you cry out from the stinging sensation!
You wish that your wounds would stop BLEEDING so much!

2[11:00] 64/511 117/117 Darak: critical Arleve: bruised rear>
Dirt and pebbles pelt you and you cry out from the stinging sensation!
You wish that your wounds would stop BLEEDING so much!

2[11:00] 43/511 117/117 Darak: critical Arleve: bruised rear>
Dirt and pebbles pelt you and you cry out from the stinging sensation!
You wish that your wounds would stop BLEEDING so much!

2[11:00] 25/511 117/117 Darak: dying Arleve: bruised rear>
Dirt and pebbles pelt you and you cry out from the stinging sensation!
You wish that your wounds would stop BLEEDING so much!

2[11:00] 3/511 117/117 Darak: dying Arleve: bruised rear>
Dirt and pebbles pelt you and you feel an odd slicing sensation then nothing more..
You are dead! Sorry...
You feel yourself being pulled into a bright light...

I didn't even have time to hit a single key. This all went down in about 2 seconds.