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This is kind of dumb as it is now.

Its a move every character in the game can use and it renders channelers useless. So I was fighting Nyoga and he was spam choking me every round basically. Now not only does it make me useless, it actually deals damage as well and they can spam it every round.

Please consider balancing this by removing the damage, perhaps making the timer longer and interruptable because currently is a fast timer and can't be interrupted. Could we also make it so that you can't use it for 2 ticks after you've used it once successful or not? Then people might think of some strategic times to use it instead of just spamming it every round so you can't even weave them once.

Was it always like this? Because that's just stupid...

PDW!!!

lol



try using it for a change before you bitch because you die

How can you even say that? All you had to do was spam it and there was nothing I could do in defense. Whether I died or not it still needs to be changed.

You're so totally right. Anything that hurts channies needs to be erased. Even if it has an even chance to fail, they shouldn't have to take that risk. They have so little hps and no offensive power otherwise.

Gosh, why allow a skill that could kill them?

You can just continuously spam it though, there needs to be some balance. ANYONE can use choke and when you spam it like that it is impossible to get even a single weave off. Channeler's already had their bash downed so they are limited to only playing one type of setup and this move enables EVERY character in the game to render a channeler useless. It doesn't have an even chance to fail or anything because if it fails you just spam it anyway and you get weaved once lol.

Choke needs some work, but I haven't decided on the best way of going about it. Feel free to make some suggestions on what you'd like to see happen to it.

I thought choke was one of those rank 6 skills? If that's the case, not everyone can use it. I don't find it to be balanced currently though.

I have never used choke so I dont know if any of my suggestions would be valid, but here it goes.
First of all I would say rename it because of RP purposes choking would *not* hamper the ability to channel. Maybe calling it Daze would be better and make it effect non-channelers as well. It would be a skill only usable by shield users. Have the timer of roughly a bash. at the end of the timer it would do something like - You slam (a crystal trimmed shield) into XXX's head, effectively dazing them. Prevents channeling, bashing, charging,stabbing,daze for 1 tic however has an ok landing rate, but is drastically reduced by the abs % of the targets head gear. Due to the possible OPness this would have, upon failing it would have 2 outcomes -1. Your shield rebounds off from XXX's armor and hit you in the face, OOF you are dazed.( you daze yourself instead, this outcome would be based on abs of target)-
2. XXX successfully dodges your attempt to daze them, but you over swing your shield and fall to the ground. (Takes you out of combat and puts you into a sitting position this outcome would be based on the dodge bonus of a target).

I doubt this is balanced to either side or even a good suggestion but I figured id throw out an idea, even if it sucks :P.

http://www.kinslayermud.org/forums/view ... f=2&t=5430

Let's try this out for a bit and see if it's less frustrating.

frustrating for who?

the channies who get a 16 second shield?

or the thief who used choke as a way to pk against a channie.

lets see, the channies gained 44 seconds so that is a plus for them...
the thief who is successful gets a 16 second break from all kinds of pain. (better than nothing i spose)
or the thief who if he doesn't land the choke, not only takes additional damage but gets a time penalty as well.

this change was totally one sided. and i am fine with a change, but i think you went too far. and i for one am tired of pkn channies as a thief. other than stabbing them which is not even easy if the player is competent. at least we could choke them and gain some time. but now we barely get that.

/end rant


(I know i put thief as my example but it could be any other character type - but be honest other types have other valid weapons against channies such as bash pr weaves)

I think 4 combat rounds is a bit low, Maybe upping it to twice its current length would help. Choke did need downing but i agree maybe this was a bit much.

I like choking ** ***** when ** do that *** thing.

Makes me **** ********.
****** likes ** ** the ***.\
\
\

1) not everyone can learn choke, it's a rank 6 skill. meaning that you have to play for a fair amount of time before you have the privilege of using it. previously it had the effect of balancing channie vs. thief PK, but now, it's negligible. me in full dodge vs. a channie in full dodge, the channie is going to EAT me every time, and my choke means little to nothing because it's only four rounds. AND i might lag if i fail? i'm likely still not doing them much damage if any because they've got good def.
conclusion: choke DID have the effect of balancing thief vs. channie; now, it's tipped over to the channie every time, unless said channie is dumb enough to stop spamming for ten seconds so thief can run a stab. which is the thief's only asset now that projectiles are worthless too. which is a rant for another day because projectiles had a nice balancing effect against warriors.

2) dual bash is SICK. choke's emasculated, switch targets is just dumb, now dual bash is the only rank 6 ability with any bite to it, as if warriors should have an additional edge over thieves that isn't reciprocated by thieves being at least balanced vs. channies. it's like rock, paper, and scissors, except rock and scissors beat the fuck out of paper because of course paper can't do shit to a rock or a pair of scissors, versus the way rock paper scissors works, which is in a balanced fashion, right? i mean come on. if we can't have projectiles, and we can't have choke, what are we supposed to do, emote kick them to death? practically speaking this further unbalances thieves vs. the two other discrete playing styles of bashing and channeling. yes thieves have stab but come on, if the person knows how to spam, it's not reasonable to suggest that stab makes up for these imbalances.

3) i propose: a) lengthen the amount of time choke is good for OR b) increase projectile damage OR c) figure out an alternative way to make thieves more balanced vs. channies, such as raising thief dmg. vs. channies, raising OB, raising precise strike dmg vs. channies, making thieves take less damage from weaves... cause as it is, one channie will beat two thieves if the channie's got full sps. that's ridiculous. balance, please, and stab doesn't make up for it, because we all know how to hit "k human" or "k dark" quickly if there's a stabber around.

what asylum said, i couldn't agree with more - with choke the way it was, we were balanced, but this change does NOTHING to give thieves any kind of edge, it just takes away from the one they had and makes it so weak as to be useless. and tyson i don't know what you're talking about man, you can't spam choke, it's a timer, and even if you're trying to do it back to back it fails, i've had it fail three times in a row.

Choke as it was did not balance channies and rogues, It took away channies only way of doing damage. Maybe making choke so that a choked target cant weave for 8 combat rounds, but also weave damage is lowered by 10 percent and cast time is increased by 10% for the rest of the tic. It is better then being shielded for an entire tic, yet isnt a skill not worth practicing. and projectiles are fine imo as they eat dodge.

So firstly I'd like to say thank you to Fogel for actually doing something about this!

Can we all just give it a go though before we start bitching about it? Fogel has obviously put some thought into it before doing this. It wasn't quite what I had in mind and after all you can still use it as often as you want, it will just mean you have to use it more tactfully like if you are low and retreat to a patty they walk in and you choke them and then proceed to own them at mobs!

the lag might be overkill. Possible buff if it sucks too much: remove the damage and leave the lag in OR up the damage and remove the lag.

you should try playing a DS thief on a regular basis, it might lend you some understanding as to how difficult it is to PK against anyone but a LS stabber. DS thieves regularly PK against LS bashers and channies and get torn to shreds, no contest, no mitigating factors, and choke was only a partial balance. so i can't really see how you'd have a reason to tell DS thieves to stop "bitching" about how shitty it is for them to try and PK anyone other than another stabber, unless you really just didn't understand the ins and outs of playing a DS dodge stabber

Ciarra wrote:Choke as it was did not balance channies and rogues, It took away channies only way of doing damage. Maybe making choke so that a choked target cant weave for 8 combat rounds, but also weave damage is lowered by 10 percent and cast time is increased by 10% for the rest of the tic. It is better then being shielded for an entire tic, yet isn't a skill not worth practicing. and projectiles are fine imo as they eat dodge.

this is kind of what phantasm and I are talking about. Thief's have no other valid way to deal ANY serious damage to channies (or other dodgers for that matter) all channies are dodge. thief's are dodge. Choke was not 100% success, it failed at least half the time. So while we are trying to choke our HP are steadily going down. Fail two in a row, guess what you are prolly beat or batt.

So lets look at actual thief skills.

Projectiles have been downed to where the damage is so small you have to have a ton of them to do any serious damage. Since Aiel raids are no longer around you literally have to spend so much time mining that it isn't feasible unless you have a couple hours of day to spend making them. Bring back aiel raids and I have no problem with projectiles because at least they can be gotten easily enough.

Kick, well whats the point to kick? Has anyone ever had enough success with this that it has become relevant.

Precise Strike ahh the once great skill that bashers figured out how to abuse and now the thief class pays for it. This once great thief skill has been reduced to be a shell of what it once was. And if you do actually hit, the damage is less and low and behold you get lag.... Thanks bashers!!!


Now Choke, which as Phantasm pointed out is not a thief skill but a RANK 6 skill. Choke is only good against a channie obviously (but should it? could it be used to Stun bashers? maybe not since there is shield block...) So lets say for a minute that a channie has been choked for one tic. The melee is basically a constant stream of misses. The channie has 16str. a rogue most likely has 18 or 19 str. My OB (with 18str) wimpy is 189 i think. I still miss her just as much as she misses me. but my OB should be alot higher than hers. So even if I choke her and never fail another choke there is still no chance of me meleeing her down. Case in point, I pk'd ciarra the other day and kept her choked for a loooong time. atleast 5 tics in a row? something like that but still I only got her to hurt. I was down to wounded when i failed a choke and ate a few weaves, got to batt than ran.

Choke is really only good in group pk or if a channie hits you on a patty and then her defense gets split up and the mobs help give out damage.

But either way this is the last I will talk about choke, if the imms feel this is the best thing then so be it. I just wanted to attempt one more time to take a hard look at thief skills. and choke. I know thiefs have upside but most of it is in group pk where a thief can get a stab off and change the flow of PK from one side to the other.

The problem with projectiles before they were downed was if they land channie dead in three throws. Yeah that was a problem.

As it is now choke is a risk vs reward scenario you miss u get a lil lag and eat dmg. You land you have a channie who cant do anything and as it was last night when i was choked u guys landed melee on me easily. I went from healthy to wounded. And you can just choke me again. I say lets try this way out for a while before demanding it be made overpowered again.

I was going to post something, but decided it wouldn't be worth it as it seems there are enough channies now to make any pleas that I make ignored. As of now though, I will no longer have anything to do with channie pk, be it in a group or 1v1.

Solare you take issue with how projectiles fucked channies up, but I don't see you screaming for immolate to be downed in the name of fair play, a weave that does the exact same kind of insane damage as did projectiles months ago before they were downed to the point of near-uselessness. it's funny, they even have timers of rather the same length.

as for your characterization of choke as a "risk versus reward scenario", I agree! it's a huge risk for a small reward. if I miss a choke on you, I'm eating an immolate, unless you're not paying attention. or three of those short-timer weaves, or whatever other devilry you want to throw. whereas if I land the choke, oh, wonderful, you can't immolate me for four rounds, so I'll melee you, maybe land half or a third of my attacks, do 30 or 40 damage to you. yes. risk versus reward.

so here's my proposal: if we keep choke as it is, let's bring back some decent projectile damage. as Asylum said, they're hard as hell to get now that raids are out, so thieves won't be buying raids daily and stocking up with 10 obsidian spears in an hour as were they in the past. this is the big difference between projectiles now and projectiles last fall/summer - the top projectiles were very easy to get, so thieves had lots of them, and were willing to use them at the drop of a hat. they're very difficult to get now - one smob that i know of loads spears and one loads knives.

bringing projectile damage back would go a long way toward balancing thieves, which are by and large a useless class, unless you're afk, narrating, lazy, or an idiot.

I wholeheartedly agree with Asylum's assessment of other options available to thieves, they're all more or less worthless. I think in general modifications to PK skills should be geared toward balancing the classes, because that in turn encourages people to come out and PK. as it is now, if I know that there's a channie or two on, there is no way I'm heading out for some PK, because I know that I'll get my ass handed to me rapidly in no uncertain terms. so take that as you will, friends, I guess it depends on your opinion of how classes should relate to each other

maybe leaving choke to a 4 round usage but during those 4 rounds a channie is also subject to effects equal to being chilled,weakened, and dazed. Which would give the rogue a higher chance of hitting with melee combat. I have lately been playing on my other chars and have noticed how much rogues are lacking in group pk.

I wrote out this whole big thing but dont even feel like getting into. Will just say two things.

1: the day i can Kill ANY PLAYER with 3 immolates Ill be asking for it to be downed. Comparing my immolate (which i have to use from full sps to tapped to even get someone crit) cannot be compared to a skill that was killing people in three throws with items you found on the goddamn ground.

2: Choke WAS overpowered. it landed on me 9/10 times in rogue pk, with several people having it that means my char is destroyed completely. Unable to do anything. But your all ok with that because you play one type of char and are completely happy with things being unbalanced. As in example: Regen needed to be nerfed cuz oh god someone could catch you. Now its gone and nobody can chase a troll rogue down because they can run 7 zones faster then a human that is horse hopping/eating vials like they are candy. Play some diff goddamn chars before you all demand stupid changes/overpowered bs brought back. If you get throw back to where it can kill me in 3 throws then I want a spell that can kill you in three.

ok... I was being hyperbolic with "three immolates" as I think you were with "three projectiles". I'm not really sure why you're taking these comparisons personally but let's try and reach mutual understanding.

we aren't saying that you're over-powered. you can keep your immolate, I don't want it downed, nor did I ask for that. we're saying that troll thieves have very little in the way of useful PK abilities and that choke being downed to its present state renders us even more useless vs. channies and warriors. our point of view is that thieves are underpowered, not that channies are overpowered. when I'm remarking on how much damage you can do with your weaves I'm using that as a basis for comparison to skills that I do or do not have, not as a basis for suggesting that you're OP. you are obviously of the opinion that we have absolutely no understanding of the word "balance" - I guess we feel the same way about you. to me, "balance" suggests a more or less equal tradeoff between skills, allowing people of different classes to PK on a comparable level. when I PK vs. a channie I get absolutely destroyed, very rapidly. maybe it is a simplistic way of looking at it, but that right there says to me that thieves need a way to even things out a little.

right. so. you say there's no comparison between your immolate and projectiles. I disagree - used correctly immolate destroys hps very quickly, as would projectiles if their damage was upped. here's my point of view, and I'd like to hear your opinion of it.
1) projectiles + critical strike are two skills that need to be put together, first off, so that's already using a lot of pracs that would otherwise go to track or something else practical and useful.
2) projectiles don't always land, there's a % chance that they'll miss you, and if you want, you can grab them so that I can't pick them up and re-throw them.
3)projectiles are difficult to get now, so I reject your saying they can just be picked up off the ground. that was the case in the past with the aiel raids, but obviously we don't have that option any more. whereas, if you've got sps, you've got immolate.
4) projectiles are relatively heavy, so they take a pretty decent toll on our defense. the more we want to carry, etc., etc... it's a tradeoff.

we want something that will make thieves viable in PK, that's it. we don't want channies downed. we want something that'll give us an edge of some kind, so that channies don't run over thieves like a god damned freight train every single fuckin time we try to PK. now please explain to me how I am so terribly misguided in asking for what I think of as balance in PK, because obviously you feel pretty strongly about it too

edit: bro, no way choke landed 9/10. I was missing it three and four times in a row at times

[quote]troll thieves have very little in the way of useful PK abilities[/quote]

You have a move that instantly kiss channelers, id say that is pretty useful.