The Tavern

duvessa wrote:In addition to the noise, you could forbid wall jumps that wouldn't attack any visible targets. Just like shadowstep only works if there's a monster there. That would get rid of most of the accidental ones, and have some other good effects (nerfing its use for escaping, not letting it replace 's' when waiting for approaching monsters).

That doesn't quite work because the main (legitimate) use of wall jump is gaining distance from an enemy for a lunge, if you turn it strictly into an approach move it loses a lot of its depth and clashes directly with lunge. You barely ever use wall jump to land into enemies from a distance.

As far as escaping goes, the most important wall jump is always the first one, the one that gives you that extra tile. After that, you're mostly fine just running away. I think a strong enough noise would be enough incentive not to chain wall jumps. One of the reasons why I find this idea good is that many people have actually wondered why wall jump is noiseless, since they "feel" it should be noisy.

I would say... Baby steps. I'm definitely intrigued by trying out noise on wall jump and noise + damage reduction/slow increase on whirlwind, but tweaking too many knobs at once could make it hard to know what constitutes an improvement.

Here's an addition to the idea: Martial arts make noise (all of them) and this noise increases with your encumbrance rating. Heavier armour makes more noise when wall jumping and whirlwinding, so we take care of the martial attacks balance and the armour problem with one stone.

Steel Neuron wrote:
duvessa wrote:In addition to the noise, you could forbid wall jumps that wouldn't attack any visible targets. Just like shadowstep only works if there's a monster there. That would get rid of most of the accidental ones, and have some other good effects (nerfing its use for escaping, not letting it replace 's' when waiting for approaching monsters).

That doesn't quite work because the main (legitimate) use of wall jump is gaining distance from an enemy for a lunge

I was actually under the impression that this was the most illegitimate use of it...you mentioned in the OP, correctly, that moving away from monsters to set up lunges is tedious and bad. It seems to me like wall jumping to set up lunges has the same problem.

duvessa wrote:I was actually under the impression that this was the most illegitimate use of it...you mentioned in the OP, correctly, that moving away from monsters to set up lunges is tedious and bad. It seems to me like wall jumping to set up lunges has the same problem.

What I mean is that running away from a monster normally in order to gain distance for a lunge is tedious, because you depend on energy randomisation and there's no telling how many steps you will need to take to make it work. This turns dealing any amount of damage into a lot of keypresses.

Wall jumping away from an enemy always gives you at least one tile of distance so there's nothing particularly tedious about it, one wall jump will always convert into one lunge. It is also difficult to find a terrain configuration that will allow you to enter a wall jump/lunge loop, and it's not that bad when you do.

More generally, we can't consider all set of abilities that allow you to gain distance with an enemy to be bad for the game. That would also include blink, cblink, hop, portal, teleport other, being a centaur, distortion weapons... I think that for this particular case, noise, god opportunity cost and position requirements seem like three acceptable costs for being able to gain a tile of distance almost at will.

Lunge/jump loop with a lot of noise encourages you to lure much farther than normally.

5 crossbow skill. i later got damnation

jian is a stealth god a ranged god a melee god. i don`t know how it can go in like this, and i don`t know how to change it. fun as can be too!

(watch the turncount)

To be clear, noise alone is definitely not enough of a nerf to wall jump movement. If I get to the stairs it doesn't matter much that I made a bunch of noise, especially since wall jumping means there were walls, and walls absorb noise.

Just finished an 8 rune game with MfFi^WJC and figured I'd give feedback. I couldn't bring my stats up yet, but it's player name Moni on CAO if you want to find the morgue/ttyrec later.

The three rune game was incredibly easy, even using a plain trident for a good chunk of it. I am convinced more and more that en-passant cleaving, certainly plus lunge, and quite likely alone, even without slow (although that point is hard to prove, since I can't turn slow off) is one of the most powerful tools in the game, and it's completely free at low piety. I'm not sure extra noise would be effective - it seems like it would either make using whirlwind too dangerous in the situations where it matters most, or not make much difference, since whirlwind is so damn powerful.

To expand on that - en passant cleaving allows the player to do a set of things to solve challenges that force other characters to retreat. Smiter behind melee opponents? Charge in, positioning allows you to take on no more than 1-2 at once, both closing the gap to your target and dealing normal damage to opponents, possibly more with opportunistic lunges. Monsters between player and stairs while retreating? You can likely kill it all the while continuing to move toward the stairs, taking away interesting choices like moving into unexplored territory. Monster with dangerous attack in a pack that you'd like to leave for last? Use the rest of the pack as a shield, without sacrificing attack power to move when the dangerous monster comes into LOS.

There are plenty more examples, but the gist of it is that combining movement and attack does not immediately seem powerful, but is in fact one of the most tactically strong plays possible. It appears to me to trivialize much of the basic game.

Steps to mitigate it that either reduce attack power or incentivize careful use seem to me to fall into a trap - either they reduce its utility to the point where the player resumes use of the issue WJC solves so well - luring, or they don't go far enough and it's still better play to use them. I remain convinced that the best way to retain use of them is to reduce the actual availability of the attack, most likely by piety, but perhaps other renewable methods like exhaustion or MP could work too.

With all that said, WJC 3-rune is FUN. I love the near identical mechanic in Sil and it's fun in crawl, too. It also "solves" (for one god option) the issue of luring brilliantly. Unfortunately, luring exists because of necessary checks on players' ability to run amok over monsters, while WJC seems to bypass - well, not truly bypass, but perhaps make trivial - those same checks.

Extended: I did all the Hells and started on Pan, but got sick of the endless hunting for Pan rune levels and since I was a little short of hitting the MfFi high score I just went ahead and got the orb. With necromutation online, the hells were mostly trivial. I don't think whirlwind helped quite as much here as raw killing power, but it's a little harder to say. Wall jump showed its strength, allowing me to lure pan lords, then ninja runes. No worse than LRD + Apportation in terms of ability to bypass extended challenges though. I'd have to play more extended WJC to form a better opinion, but currently it didn't feel overpowered here, although the constant tactical maneuvering was tiring at this point. If anything was OP, I'd say it was WJCs ability to focus your build so narrowly in the early game, leaving you in a strong position to branch out to the necessary skills for extended. But, then again, so does Trog (albeit at the price of wrath).

minstrel wrote:It also "solves" (for one god option) the issue of luring brilliantly.

What does "solve" mean in this context and how does WJC "solve" luring?

bel wrote:What does "solve" mean in this context and how does WJC "solve" luring?

Sorry, that was poorly worded and I was afraid that line might get singled out. I hope it doesn't detract from my main point about the overpowering nature of en passant cleaving.

FWIW, I meant that it makes luring not necessary in most circumstances, and brilliant was intended to mean something more like "clever". Keep in mind all the caveats, like the fact that it only does so for one god, for melee characters and that, without restriction on its use, it's OP.

(Not related to previous post)
Independently of whatever else is done, it might be a good idea to record (in the action table) the number of whirlwinds, wall jumps and lunges executed by the player.

I think whirlwind should consume mp, and wall jump should make noise

God still seems pretty overpowered. Even if you remove serpen'ts lash and the heaven thing it would still be really strong. One restriction that was mentioned at the beginning of this thread that I think makes sense is to have an armor restriction, where you can't equip anything heavier then leather. (should guys in heavy plate really be able to bounce off walls?) I love this god though. I think its genius.

What if whirlwind consumed hp?

Ok, since my post count has been roughly halved from 20% to about 10%, I can now talk again in detail.

I think we first have to figure out what the purpose of the god is supposed to be, and then design the various mechanics to achieve that.

To my mind, the purpose of the god is to be a "combo god": you use lots of martial attacks in quick succession (not necessarily on every turn) to fight. A related and important aim is to allow a lot of freedom to reposition, so you can set up different combos. That's basically it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Firstly, to achieve the primary objectives, you should be in a relatively open space. The martial attacks should be relatively powerful, because otherwise why would you fight in an open space?

Now, let's look at the mechanics. Whirlwind has the slow effect and wall jump has distraction to set up lunges (among other things). However, as noted above, the former two mechanics also allow for escape, instead of lunging. Is there some way to distinguish between an "setting up an escape" whirlwind/wall jump and a "setting up a combo" whirlwind/wall jump, for instance?

One way is the following.

Martial attacks are not "always on"; you press "aa" to activate martial attacks (cost: instant, piety). This gives you a status effect "concentration" lasting, say, 5 turns. If you hit a monster using a martial attack, the counter increases, otherwise it decreases (we could add some sort of decay function so that higher counters decay faster). As soon as the counter reaches zero, all monsters hunting you gain swiftness. So it's harder to escape. The higher the counter is, the higher the chances of whirlwind slow and/or wall jump distraction. Or we could allow invocations training and base the chances on invo level (why is invocations not used for the god, anyway?)

This is my preferred solution. Note that if we accept the description of purpose above, "always on" martial attacks are not an essential feature of the god.

But some people seem to be really attached to the "always on" feature. I think this basic idea could be made compatible with "always on" attacks as well.

Executing a martial attack hit causes you to glow with "concentration" status. You have five turns to hit a monster using a martial attack; if you fail to do this, all monsters hunting you are given swiftness. Executing a martial attack hit will increase the counter. We could again use invocations training to determine slow/distract chance, or make it a function of the counter. Same thing with counter decay etc.

I don't like this solution, because, in my opinion, powerful martial attacks shouldn't be free. And they should be relatively powerful, because, as I said above, otherwise why would you fight in an open space?

I think I would have the most fun with this god if whirlwind did the same damage as a normal attack but had no extra effects, so the only time you wanted to do it was if you wanted to attack+move, which is situational, not attack+inflict slow which is something you virtually always want to do. I'm aware you probably don't want to remove the debuffing aspect, but I think it's important.

Wall jump should also have the restriction of "can only do it if it puts you on the other end of an enemy", but that's less controversial I'm sure.

Shard1697 wrote:Wall jump should also have the restriction of "can only do it if it puts you on the other end of an enemy", but that's less controversial I'm sure.

What if it just caused exhaustion?

still makes gaps between you and enemy for free

if you need to land on the other side of an enemy to do it, it can't, because you'd still be next to at least that enemy(could move away from one enemy but still have to be next to another, which is alright imo). then it would be more about escaping corners or causing debuff(haven't done it enough offensively to know how exactly the distraction on it works, tbqh. maybe that ought to be dropped as well, I kinda feel that Lunge should be the only one which debuffs-or none unless you use the active powers)

I quite like the concentration idea. I'm leaning toward the no-piety-cost version because that seems like a major design goal for the god, but I think that the downsides of running away with the abilities counter the problem of abusing them, and the downsides of fighting in the open counter the problem of using them too much (especially with reduced whirlwind damage). One note: giving enemies swiftness seems roughly equivalent to slowing the player. I feel like that would be more intuitive (and easier to code?). However, slow seems a little close to berserk's aftermath. Would a very short confusion be okay? It seems like a thematic fit: coming out of a trance slightly muddled, it would be different from any existing abilities' effects (that I know of), and still serve the purpose of preventing escapes.

My initial thoughts: the changes are bad and make no sense.

The thought process seems to have been: "Let's nerf WJC somehow", without thinking about what the purpose of the god is and how the abilities interact. I made a post specifically detailing this above and won't repeat it here. This god is no longer a "combo god", which was the original aim of the god. It is now even more of a "use other keys than Tab to attack monsters, for no good reason at all", which was ironically one of the complaints made by many players.

Looking at the ##crawl-dev chat the god's supposed design now is: "hit multiple monsters at once, and hit monsters while also re-positioning for other stuff".

Hitting two or three monsters at once, while also getting hit two or three times, is bad in almost all cases. Recall that most people don't like wearing the amulet of harm (in the old version, and even in the new version); this is really a worse version of the amulet of harm since it only works in melee range, and you get exactly the same increase in offence as defence. Pretty much the only cases where it would be good is when you're trying to get at the orc priest in the back of the pack; you get a free attack on the other orcs while you're chasing the orc priest. There are other corner cases where you use the fact that the multiple martial attacks trigger at once at the start of the round when you move; these are degenerate cases which should be discouraged, not encouraged.

Since whirlwind is now almost useless, it would lead to even more luring as the player would walk to a place where they can wall jump repeatedly so as to get a chance to distract, or use energy randomization to lunge. Again, these cases are degenerate and should be discouraged, not encouraged. There's also a minor case where you get a hit or two you wouldn't get otherwise, while walking to a corridor to Tab monsters. This is boring and almost useless.

Lunge is basically useless except in degenerate cases (like repeatedly swapping with a summon, or energy randomization, or repeatedly wall jumping to distract). It also has virtually no synergy with the other abilities (neither do the others with each other, for that matter).

These infrequent or degenerate cases which have almost no relation to each other are too flimsy a foundation to base "always on" abilities of a god, these cases could have been reworked into a piety-costing ability (like Serpent's lash). Or to put it another way: if the aim of the change was to make martial attacks useful (almost always) only with Serpent's lash, then it makes little sense for the abilities to be "always on". Also, if the aim was to make the change work against "this is really good; do it a lot", as Lasty says in the chat, again the cleanest solution would have been to make the abilities not "always on".

I am not arguing for making the abilities "not always on" (ok, maybe I am a little bit), but simply demonstrating that the changes make very little sense, the cure is worse than the disease, and there's a better cure anyway if one wanted to go down that path. By the way, I also gave a solution which doesn't touch the "always on" aspect.

A minor point is that the changes also make using long blades even more of a no-brainer because: (a) you get ripostes while re-positioning (b) cross-training with short-blades for stabbing for distractions/lunges. This was true even before, but to a lesser extent.

A really fast fix for the current WJC would be to offer an incremental increase to EV based on your current EV, after using one of the three martial attacks (say 1ev for every 4 EV?) but that would make long blades even more of a no-brainer. I like no-brainers, though.

EDIT :: Think of how the protection brand works, but also how Merfolks get that passive EV boost in water. Make it have no limit, however, I want to have 127EV on a SpGl.

bel wrote:This god is no longer a "combo god", which was the original aim of the god.

Being the original aim doesn't make it a good aim. I have yet to see a compelling explanation of how "combos" are supposed to be anything other than fluff.

bel wrote:Looking at the ##crawl-dev chat the god's supposed design now is: "hit multiple monsters at once, and hit monsters while also re-positioning for other stuff".

That's the design for whirlwind specifically, yes. Is that out-of-context quote supposed to sound bad? Hitting multiple monsters at once has some overlap with cleaving, sure, but what's wrong with hitting monsters while repositioning? I like it far better than any of the prior designs for the god.

bel wrote:Hitting two or three monsters at once, while also getting hit two or three times, is bad in almost all cases. Recall that most people don't like wearing the amulet of harm (in the old version, and even in the new version); this is really a worse version of the amulet of harm since it only works in melee range, and you get exactly the same increase in offence as defence.

Cleave has a damage penalty for hitting multiple targets and inferior base weapon stats, yet axes are still pretty good. This was also even more of an issue with old whirlwind, so...

bel wrote:There are other corner cases where you use the fact that the multiple martial attacks trigger at once at the start of the round when you move; these are degenerate cases which should be discouraged, not encouraged.

Yeah, this still needs to be fixed.

bel wrote:Lunge is basically useless except in degenerate cases (like repeatedly swapping with a summon, or energy randomization, or repeatedly wall jumping to distract). It also has virtually no synergy with the other abilities (neither do the others with each other, for that matter).

Why is "synergy" between the abilities assumed to be desirable? Most god abilities have no synergy with each other, because it's more interesting if they can stand on their own, and this is especially true for free ones.
All you have to do to fix lunge is get rid of the damage bonus. Then repeatedly swapping etc. to get lunges is pointless.
Yes, repeated wall jumps are still encouraged - the change fixes some of the bad things about wall jump, but not all of them. Distraction needs to be removed from it.

bel wrote:By the way, I also gave a solution which doesn't touch the "always on" aspect.

Even you admitted that this "solution" was bad

bel wrote:A minor point is that the changes also make using long blades even more of a no-brainer because: (a) you get ripostes while re-positioning (b) cross-training with short-blades for stabbing for distractions/lunges. This was true even before, but to a lesser extent.

These points have basically no relation to the god and you could make the same argument that long blades are a no-brainer on pretty much anything else, since everyone repositions and there are tons of better ways to get distraction/confusion/etc.

bel wrote:This god is no longer a "combo god", which was the original aim of the god

The original aim of the god was the god of floating weapons and weapon swapping, with the "attacking while moving" mechanic being there to promote weapon swapping. Then it became just the god of attacking while moving because that part turned out to be the most interesting part, and that turned into "combo god" as a way to incentivise using the moves, and now the latest change turns it back into just the god of attacking while moving without the combo part.

I haven't played this god nearly enough to give an informed opinion on the latest changes, but for this god in particular it seems really silly to cite the "original aim" of the god considering basically everything about the god has been completely changed since it started. The goal here has always been to create a god that adds something cool to the game, not to conform to Steel Neuron's original concept, and I assume even Steel Neuron would agree with that since he/she is the one who scrapped the floating weapons, even if he/she disagrees with the most recent changes.

Replies inline:

duvessa wrote:
bel wrote:This god is no longer a "combo god", which was the original aim of the god.
Being the original aim doesn't make it a good aim. I have yet to see a compelling explanation of how "combos" are supposed to be anything other than fluff.

People play the game in different ways. You are free to consider the abilities "fluff", but not everyone feels that way. In particular, there is nothing wrong with being a "combo god", so I don't feel necessary to defend the aim. I will assert without argument that I consider the idea of martial attacks inflicting status effects, which one can then exploit, to be a totally legitimate concept. The change has completely destroyed the basic idea, for unclear advantages.

duvessa wrote:
bel wrote:Looking at the ##crawl-dev chat the god's supposed design now is: "hit multiple monsters at once, and hit monsters while also re-positioning for other stuff".
...Is that supposed to sound bad? Hitting multiple monsters at once has some overlap with cleaving, sure, but what's wrong with hitting monsters while repositioning? I like it far better than any of the prior designs for the god.

I did not say that it sounded bad. I just listed what it is, before I started to criticize it. If it was self-evidently bad, I wouldn't have written such a long post making arguing against it.

duvessa wrote:
bel wrote:Hitting two or three monsters at once, while also getting hit two or three times, is bad in almost all cases. Recall that most people don't like wearing the amulet of harm (in the old version, and even in the new version); this is really a worse version of the amulet of harm since it only works in melee range, and you get exactly the same increase in offence as defence.
Cleave has a damage penalty for hitting multiple targets and inferior base weapon stats, yet axes are still pretty good. This was also even more of an issue with old whirlwind, so...

There are crucial differences between cleaving and whirlwind. If you are using axes, you have already committed to the weapon type, and you cannot re-position easily without giving away free hits; so you have to decide whether to re-position or not. In this case, you can choose to whirlwind or not, with any weapon, and this god allows lots of re-positioning. Therefore, in most of the cases, the optimal way would be to move towards a corridor to Tab, which reduces decisions, not to mention being very boring.

In the old version, whirlwind was strictly better than Tab (chance of slow); so you had more of an incentive to fight in an open space. Now basically all the incentive is gone; you only fight in an open space if you're forced to. And you try to get out of this situation as quickly as possible, as described above.

duvessa wrote:
bel wrote:Lunge is basically useless except in degenerate cases (like repeatedly swapping with a summon, or energy randomization, or repeatedly wall jumping to distract). It also has virtually no synergy with the other abilities (neither do the others with each other, for that matter).
Why is "synergy" between the abilities assumed to be desirable? Most god abilities have no synergy with each other, because it's more interesting if they can stand on their own, and this is especially true for free ones.

I have already said above why I would like synergy; that was the aim of the god. It's ok if you don't consider it an important goal. Also, lunge is very boring now; it's almost like wielding a polearm.

duvessa wrote:
bel wrote:By the way, I also gave a solution which doesn't touch the "always on" aspect.
Even you admitted that this "solution" was bad

Yes, it was inferior to the other solution; I would have preferred it to the changes made though. People seem to have an attachment to the "always on" aspect, so I tried to accommodate it.

duvessa wrote:
bel wrote:A minor point is that the changes also make using long blades even more of a no-brainer because: (a) you get ripostes while re-positioning (b) cross-training with short-blades for stabbing for distractions/lunges. This was true even before, but to a lesser extent.
These points have basically no relation to the god and you could make the same argument that long blades are a no-brainer on pretty much anything else, since everyone repositions and there are tons of better ways to get distraction/confusion/etc.

Again, analogous to the axes argument I gave above, the same argument does not apply to long blades on any other character. With any other god, you either reposition (while taking free hits), or you fight from where you are. With this god, re-positioning is mostly free, so you'll almost always do so. This reduces the diversity of decisions. And since long blades are best while repositioning, it reduces diversity of weapon choice as well. As I said, this is a minor point and was a problem with the old version of the god as well.

Quazifuji wrote:
bel wrote:This god is no longer a "combo god", which was the original aim of the god

The original aim of the god was the god of floating weapons and weapon swapping, with the "attacking while moving" mechanic being there to promote weapon swapping. Then it became just the god of attacking while moving because that part turned out to be the most interesting part, and that turned into "combo god" as a way to incentivise using the moves, and now the latest change turns it back into just the god of attacking while moving without the combo part.

Yes, I'm aware that the god has changed a lot. However, whirlwind, pressure points, lunge, wall jump have been part of the god for many months, even when weapon swapping was a thing. See this, for instance. Now, I don't know exactly why many people seem to like this god (I'm pretty sure the brokenness of certain mechanics is a major part of it), but I don't like abandoning a core idea for unclear reasons. Maybe people will still like the current iteration, who knows.

bel wrote:
duvessa wrote:
bel wrote:A minor point is that the changes also make using long blades even more of a no-brainer because: (a) you get ripostes while re-positioning (b) cross-training with short-blades for stabbing for distractions/lunges. This was true even before, but to a lesser extent.
These points have basically no relation to the god and you could make the same argument that long blades are a no-brainer on pretty much anything else, since everyone repositions and there are tons of better ways to get distraction/confusion/etc.

Again, analogous to the axes argument I gave above, the same argument does not apply to long blades on any other character. With any other god, you either reposition (while taking free hits), or you fight from where you are. With this god, re-positioning is mostly free, so you'll almost always do so. This reduces the diversity of decisions. And since long blades are best while repositioning, it reduces diversity of weapon choice as well. As I said, this is a minor point and was a problem with the old version of the god as well.

Long blades are only best while repositioning because you don't normally attack while repositioning.
Scenario 1: No WJC, no long blade. You get 100% of your weapon's damage while attacking and 0% while moving
Scenario 2: No WJC, long blade. You get 100% of your weapon's damage while attacking (both attacks and ripostes) and between 0-100% while moving (because you only get ripostes).
Scenario 3: WJC, no long blade. You get 100% of your weapon's damage while attacking and 100% while moving.
Scenario 4: WJC, long blade. You get 100% of your weapon's damage while attacking and 100% while moving.
There is no special advantage to long blades with WJC. In fact, if you consider "can do damage while moving" to be the core advantage of riposte (I don't), then long blades are less appealing than normal under WJC, because all weapons do full damage while moving.

Edit:

Ok, I read it more carefully, in the last case, don't you get the 100% + ripostes while moving?

Whatever the truth of the matter, I will concede it for the sake of argument, since I already said twice that it's a minor point.

The 100% figure is including the damage from riposte. But I can replace it if that confuses you:
Scenario 1: No WJC, no long blade. You get 100% of your weapon's damage while attacking and 0% while moving
Scenario 2: No WJC, long blade. You get 100%+riposte of your weapon's damage while attacking and riposte while moving.
Scenario 3: WJC, no long blade. You get 100% of your weapon's damage while attacking and 100% while moving.
Scenario 4: WJC, long blade. You get 100%+riposte of your weapon's damage while attacking and 100%+riposte while moving.

bel wrote:
Quazifuji wrote:
bel wrote:This god is no longer a "combo god", which was the original aim of the god

The original aim of the god was the god of floating weapons and weapon swapping, with the "attacking while moving" mechanic being there to promote weapon swapping. Then it became just the god of attacking while moving because that part turned out to be the most interesting part, and that turned into "combo god" as a way to incentivise using the moves, and now the latest change turns it back into just the god of attacking while moving without the combo part.

Yes, I'm aware that the god has changed a lot. However, whirlwind, pressure points, lunge, wall jump have been part of the god for many months, even when weapon swapping was a thing. See this, for instance. Now, I don't know exactly why many people seem to like this god (I'm pretty sure the brokenness of certain mechanics is a major part of it), but I don't like abandoning a core idea for unclear reasons. Maybe people will still like the current iteration, who knows.

I'm aware that whirlwing, lunge, and walljump were around back when weapon swapping is a thing. Like I said, their original purpose was to promote weapon swapping, not combos. Back when weapon swapping was a thing, each of those moves could only be done with one weapon type, which made it had to do combos in the first place because you'd have to do a weapon swap between any two different move-attacks.

That's part of my point. This was the "attacking while moving" god before it was the combo god.

There are reasonable objections to the latest changes. But "combos were the original aim of this god" is both incorrect and would be a bad objection even if it were true.

I see the following sentence in the very first reply in the thread (late November, my emphasis):

PlatinumSpider wrote:Yes it's very fun.
I'd say it's pretty strong too. You can have strong battlefield control with pole vault combined with lunge.

I find it rather hard to believe that "combo god" was not a core idea from the very beginning, or at least since a very long time. To be sure, it was not the only part; but the other aspects were dropped while it remained. All the more reason to not abandon that goal without good reason.

As someone who played it early on, "combos" were basically not a part of it at all at first. And if losing combos means losing "slow on anything whenever you want while attacking and for free" and "making gaps between you and enemies for free", it's worth it, because those are not things that should be in the game

If I read the changelog right, the current changes are:

- No more slow from whirlwind.
- Wall jump needs a valid target.

While I still think it would have been more interesting to leave the mechanics intact and restrict their use (by piety, MP, etc), this should at least help confirm if unlimited en passant cleaving is an OP mechanic by itself, or if it was the slow effect that made it so.

I see in another thread that WJC was not envisioned to be a "combo god" specifically, though it was one feature. The aim was to give people mobility to fight in an open area, instead of a corridor. I have noted a couple of times that the current implementation of WJC encourages you to do the opposite; reposition to a corridor so you can Tab. I think this is one reason SN is not happy with the changes.

One way in which this goal could be achieved is to make whirlwind use the "armour of mutuality" mechanic in Brogue. Suppose you are adjacent to n monsters; all damage you take from monster A is distributed between you and the n - 1 monsters (all monsters except A). Fighting single monsters gives you no benefit at all. Thus, you effectively only take damage from one monster, even if you're surrounded.

Of course, this is a very powerful effect and should not be a free ability. But I repeat myself on this point. I would prefer piety costs and a restriction on body armour, at the minimum.

(xposted to where it belongs)

Yeah, I'm done beelining this god. The walljump changes absolutely ruined it for me. Make it exhaust, make it use MP, make every other ability nerfed into the floor, I don't care, but all of the fun is gone and replaced with constant 'you can't do that' messages every time I accidentally bump into a wall.

Most fun god in the game now just has zero flair and feels like yet another melee god. What a waste.

(I know that at higher level play, it plays much differently than something like Oka I'd imagine, but all the playfulness is just nonexistent now. )

TeshiAlair wrote:Most fun god in the game now just has zero flair and feels like yet another melee god. What a waste.

What version number was that? I was looking forward to playing the "status effect / combos" version of the god, but missed the boat.

The Tavern

Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God

Re: Balancing the Council God