User:Raine Valen/Musings/Positioning Strategy

On AoE
The problem is, someone can mindlessly coat a map in AoE with no drawback at all, doing hundreds of damage in the process. So, in order to make AoE take some thought to use, I've considered making it deal damage to allies, as well. No, not full damage; just half. Just enough so that an ele has to think, "Hmm, will this really be to the benefit of our team if I did this RIGHT NOW?" Balance aside, it just makes sense. I mean, sins standing in 4 AoE spells unharmed while the other teams burn? Come on. My second issue with AoE is that the damage is constant throughout. As a player moves to the edges of the AoE, the damage should decrease by a factor. To compensate, make AoE stronger in the center; I believe having current values "nearby" with higher numbers "adjacent" and lower numbers "in the area" would work. I'm not suggesting shockwave functionality; I just mean higher numbers, not multiple hits. By making casters think before setting entire maps on fire, and by making people balance where exactly it's worthwhile to stand in AoE (it may be worth tanking a bit of damage around the edges to get a spell or attack off, but not as much in the center), game mechanics can once again encourage stronger positioning strategy. The second thing that irks me about AoE implementation is that it has to be centered on a person. Not only does that not make sense, but it also severely limits AoE as far as improving with player skill. For an extreme example, consider 3 opposing players standing at the corners of an equilateral triangle with sides slightly longer than "nearby" radius. An ele casting Rodgort's on any character would only be able to hit that player under the current system. However, with more control over their skills, they'd easily be able to hit all three. Better players would be able to benefit more; promoting skilled play is a good thing. While you might be thinking, "that's buffing fire magic more!", please consider that AoE skills will do less damage around the edges. So while they may be able to hit three people, they wouldn't be doing as much damage to each, which promotes further thought in applying AoE skills: do you want the pressure on three people, or do you want spike damage on one person? Furthermore, this adds risk to play because this creates the possibility of missing completely, which punishes thoughtlessness (I know, something that fire magic has never done).

On Shadow Steps
The problem is, someone can appear in front of you at any given time, again with no drawback. They may ignore all obstructions, and it happens instantly. There's no real way to prepare for it, and that's what causes problems. Let me further this by saying that the issue is not the "poofing about" itself, but rather the implementation. Firstly, there's the instantaneous nature of the shadow steps. The only reliable way to interrupt them is through quartering (qshock, qknock, qchop, qshot, qcry, etc). And once the spell goes off, there's nothing you can do about it. They cast it instantly and they appear instantly. The logical first step would be to add a casting time. At 1 second cast, shadow stepping becomes interruptable, and, more importantly, predictable. It's the difference between "Sin is using Dark Prison!" and "Sin used Dark Prison!". On top of that, it gives some chance for differentiation between shadow steps; an elite shadow step with a quicker cast time would be much better. The second issue is the instantaneous movement. For this, I suggest that shadow step skills render the user invisible while granting them a very strong IMS, between 50% and 100%, depending on the shadow step. How long would the effect last? Well, that ties into... The third issue was that shadow steps have no practical drawback. Sins don't care about Energy, there's no adrenaline loss, and many of them don't even put the sin in danger from bad positioning; Shadow Fang is very forgiving. The only thing that they lose is the ability to use the skill for half a minute. I propose that while the sin is under the effect of the shadow step (invisible, IMS), they lose health at a consistent rate. A heavy consistent amount, on the order of max degen or higher. The exceptions to this would be skills like Heart of Shadow and Death's Retreat, which would do the opposite (but, obviously, have a limited duration). Lastly, there's the debilitating recharge of shadow steps that "balance" their otherwise brokenness. Well, I hate to break it to you, but uncounterably instagibbing someone with Shadow Prison was not balanced, regardless of if it could be done every 30 seconds, every 60 seconds, or once every morale boost. I've always appreciated Ride the Lightning for the limiting mecanism; you can use it if you need to, but there's a cost associated. With the above restriction, there's nothing wrong with Shadow Stepping frequently; if you do it too much, you die, just like a Warrior spamming Frenzy. It's the reason people don't run Tiger Stance or some such: Frenzy is available when needed, Flail is available when needed. With other restrictions, we can balance away form recharge. With all things considered... While Shadow Stepping, you can still take AoE damage, you can still be body blocked, and any spells that were being cast on you as you activated the skill will still activate as normal (unlike Shadow Form, Spell Breaker or Vow of Silence), but anything that was targeting you will lose focus. I'd also considered, as an added effect, making other creatures that were not under the effects of Shadow Steps invisible to creatures that were Shadow Stepping, making it possible to "miss" with shadow steps ("Damnit, there was a monk here when I started the skill..."), which would allow better players (who would be better able to predict the locations of others upon cancellation of the skill) to better utilize the skills. Promoting skilled play is never bad. Also, it would be really awesome if things were rendered differently while under the effects of shadow steps, with... y'know... shadowy textures. Classic sin red/purple, like the Mursaat stone around Hell's Precipice.
 * .  Spell.  Lose 100 Health.  While you maintain this spell, you cannot be seen and move 50% faster.  When you stop maintaining this spell, you gain  Health if you are adjacent to a foe with more Health than you.  Death's Charge ends if you attack or use a skill.  You suffer -20 Health Degeneration and cannot gain Health. 
 * .  Hex Spell.  Lose 100 Health.  While you maintain this spell, you cannot be seen and move 100% faster.  When you stop maintaining this spell, target foe moves 66% slower for  seconds if you are adjacent to them.  Shadow Prison ends if you attack or use a skill.  You suffer -20 Health Degeneration and cannot gain Health. 
 * .  Spell.  All adjacent foes are Crippled for  seconds and you lose 100 Health.  While you maintain this spell, you cannot be seen and move 50% faster.  Return ends if you use attack or use a skill.  You suffer -20 Health Degeneration and cannot gain Health. 

On Caster Damage
Let's look at balanced adrenaline spikes. Usually, two warrior run up to a target, one of them Frenzies, there's a hugeass Dev Hammer animation, and the midline throws some damage in. These spikes are possible to preprot for skillful monks, because there's an onset that can be seen before the spike hits. Let's look at something lame, like rspike. With a good Punishing Shot rspike team, the only way to prevent deaths is to prot any potential target (SoA or Guardian stops the spike from being lethal in most cases), because there's (1) no indication of which target is going to be spiked and (2) almost no time to catch the spike after it's initiated (Forked Arrow and Punishing Shot means three packets of ~60 damage hitting within half a second, per ranger). Then there's caster spikes. While some of them have Shell Shock or Augury of Death as a pre-spike, which gives some warning, many of them don't (read: Ele Ball, Searing Flames), which leaves reactive catches as the only real way to stop the spikes. However, against good spike teams, there simply isn't time to react; the target takes Searing Flames x6 in one instant and they're dead before you can do anything. To prevent that sort of lameness, there needs to be some way to effectively pre-prot caster spikes, like there's a way to effectively pre-prot balanced spikes. For example, if there were a subtle animation on the target of the spell (or area, as the effect may be) during the casting time, like a cloud of frost before a Shatterstone or bits of flame before Searing Flames hits, it would allow a second for prots to be applied. Sure, a second isn't a lot, but it's better than nothing. For something like Rodgort's or Shatterstone on a spike, it would give even longer. Also keep in mind that spell animations stack, so as more and more people cast a spell on a target, it would become more and more obvious. Sure, it wouldn't solve spikes like Mystic Sandstorm or Shockwave (since there's no spell actually cast on a target; it's all PBAoE), but fixing shadow steps would. The addition of a subtle warning before spells hit would go a long way toward balancing caster damage. Then there's the issue of protection prayers. They've grown weaker and weaker, stopping less and less damage. Casting slower. Having shorter durations. Sure, Shielding Hands stops some balanced pressure damage, but what does 17 less damage do against 90-damage Searing Flames? What does SoA do against Rodgort's Invocation? Ride the Lightning? Not a damn thing. There are three viable ways to mitigate damage like that: Spirit Bond, Protective Spirit, and Shield of Deflection (armor bonus is good against most caster spikes). However, all of those spells are ten energy, and caster spikes happen frequently enough that they'll quickly drain a monk of energy at that rate. To remedy this, one of two things need to happen: If, for example, Shield of Absorption read: it would be effective against larger damage sources, too, while still doing more or less the same thing against smaller damage sources. 6x 100-damage Searing flames would reduce the damage by 10 each time, so the last one would hit for all of 40 damage, for a grand total of 210 damage reduction (which leaves a non-lethal 390 damage on the spike). 8x 60-damage Forked Arrow would reduce the damage by 6 each time, so the last one would hit for 12 (which is about the same as what it currently does). Other small prots would also need to be reworked. The other option is to make large prots less expensive. For example, The former incorporates energy management directly into the prots (when used effectively), while the latter gives skillful monks a means to manage energy against spikes (a typical Forked Arrow/Punishing Shot rspike would net a good monk 7 Energy to offset the costs of stopping the spikes). Any of the above would go a long way toward balancing caster damage, but something needs to be done.
 * Small prots need to be reworked to handle large damage packets or
 * Big prots need to cost less.
 * Shield of Absorption Enchantment Spell. For  seconds, damage received by target ally is reduced by 10% of the damage they would receive each time that ally takes damage while under the effects of this Enchantment.
 * Spirit Bond For 8 seconds, whenever target ally takes more than 60 damage from the next 10 attacks or Spells, that ally is healed for  Health and you gain 1 Energy.
 * Essence Bond For 5 seconds, you gain 1 Energy whenever target ally takes damage.