Here's an updated version of rot. Imho it fills the same niche, while not being as "stupid" with regard to people with low natural constitution.

This could be an across the board change or possibly an edge similar to the wither one that replaces aging with dex reduction.

Changes are:

1. If you're rotted and your constitution is above minimum then it acts just like today's rot.

2. At the point when your constitution hits minimum, the "rot" effect is removed and is replaced by "putrefacted exhaustion" with a duration equal to whatever remained on rot.

3. "Putrefacted exhaustion" does the following:

a. Each tick you take moderate damage. Maybe 50 to 70 hp per tick. Health regen is totally nixed.

b. Each tick you lose twice the movement and mana you would lose if you were affected by a normal plague.

c. Large strength and dex reductions for the duration of the exhaustion. Maybe 20/20.

d. Slow-like effect (similar to kansetsuwaza) for the duration of the exhaustion.

e. Additional lag on commands, including movement, for the duration of the exhaustion. (Goal here is to make the guy pretty worthless in combat even if he doesn't depend on str/dex, e.g. an invoker).

Now here's why I think this is a good idea:

1. Neo-rot retains the same tactical utility as the current version. Namely, the ability to quickly make someone with low constitution a non-factor. With old-school rot this meant "turning him into a ghost". With neo-rot it means "making him run away and hide from you while he un-putrifies."

2. Neo-rot is more useful for shamans who have an aversion to being douchey. I know I intentionally refrained from rotting some people where I knew it would be a death sentence. With neo-rot I could have rotted them and not felt so bad about it.

3. Neo-rot retains the same "countermeasures" as old-school rot. Namely, if you don't want to suffer "putrefacted exhaustion" then you need to carry around a bunch of extra +con gear. The difference is that it isn't a death sentence for a guy with low constitution and no +con gear. Instead, he'll just be out of commission for a while and potentially need to spend some gold at a healer.

I have a play style that involve alot of death, either due to PK or mob deahts. Mostly mob deaths though, but that dont matter in this issue. What matters is that my constitution tend to be low once I pass 300 hours on a character. Late life acvilar had around 8-9 con left, and I had frequent fights with an empire shaman who was rot happy. I would consider me a fairly competent player, so I know the basics of dealing with rot.. like carrying a set of +con gear aswell as nailing first strike in a PK fight. Acvilar had the anti-rot edge, while the shaman had all the rot benefiting edges. Even though I carried around +15-20 con in gear I had huge issues surviving it. Another issue is my latency, being a european player who have a normal latency of around 130-170ms on good days, I cant rely on getting first strikes which leaves save vs spell or +con gear.

Even with well beyond divine saves, rot got a solid hit on me 75% of the time resulting in me having to withdraw from combat immediatly if I even want a chance of surviving it. I recall, run to a safe place, put on my gear and sit down to wait. Now, I would have perhaps around 50% chance of surviving it based on lucky tick-resists. Rot always lasted 24+ hours, which is boring as hell to wait out, and if I survived it would be with 4-5-6 con left max.

I never really had issues with rot before playing Acvilar, it may be because of the natural low constitution of elves or something else. Perhaps the fact I tend to play mages alot, and +health gear often got hefty constituion aswell. (Like longvities or rings of stamina) But it sure is annoying to spend 30% of the logged in time waiting and hoping to survive rot.. lets just say that when I did not have a specific reason to fight the shaman I avoided him like a black, rotting plague.

If you struggled to survive with 8-9 con, and I finished with max con when my natural was 11... also after the edge-helped rotting from Zerrla...

Did you put all all the +con gear from the start? i.e. as if you were boosting your con to 28ish?

Also, I found as Nererial that I seemed to land WAY more rots as High Priest than as anathema.

Yes, as I said I had to word out almost immediatly to even stand a chance. And yes, i had a macro to get all my con gear from the bag and put it on. Yes, I macroed it.. thats how bad it was :)

Maybe fortitude of the flesh did more than I thought then. I took that edge because scions were often volleying my rot back onto me, so I rotted myself a lot. That's why I didn't have a huge amount of sympathy for others when they got rotted.

I always thought the edge didn't help so much because when I didn't gear for con, I suffered as badly as ever. Maybe it boosts what you get from the +con gear or something like that then.

And to be clear, I don't think what Isildur suggests is a terrible idea or comes from terrible motives, I just don't think it's a good improvement for a number of reasons which hopefully are clear from discussion below.

I thought it might be instructive in a general sense to talk about the last change to rot (that I'm aware of) and why I think it was a good one. I believe it was purely a Valg idea.

My hope is, if I give you a better idea of why I think good changes are good changes, maybe we'll get more good suggestions.

'Old' rot:

You can keep trying rot until it works. You have to flee/reinitiate each time, and certainly there are lots of tactics to bring to bear against that, but as long as you can get that opening, you can try again. Rot doesn't do any damage.


'New' rot:

1) Rot deals some damage now.

2) When a shaman communes rot on you, you make a save as before, and if you fail, you're rotting as before. However, if you succeed, you're afflicted with wasting disease. A second save will determine whether this is for a medium or short duration.

While wasting disease is on you, recover no hit points or move at the tick. Also, it's easier to disease you and disease hits you a little harder. However, you can't be rotted while afflicted by the wasting disease.


Why do I think these are good changes?

Item (1) makes it so you can't try to rot a sleeping character without initiating combat. If you're trying to use that strategy, which we generally felt was too strong in a lot of cases, this change is a downgrade to rot. However, in nearly all other cases, this is an upgrade -- it's free damage.

(2) makes it so you can't rot/flee/rot/flee until rot lands. In that sense it's a downgrade. On the other hand, in the case where the victim saved against rot before, you got nothing. In this case, you now get wasting disease, which is pretty handy -- depending on what you're trying to accomplish, it might be every bit as good as landing the full rot.

In both cases, shamans lost something but they also gained something. Strategies that we didn't think were very interesting, or that made balancing rot for the other cases very hard, were discouraged or made impossible, but in other ways rot got more powerful. An ability that we thought, for the most part, was in a good place power-wise stayed around that place.

I still like the idea of forcing shaman to be more selective about when they use it though. Same with barrier.

An allowance of some kind, that gives the victim that much more incentive for the sitting around that surviving can involve. Basically they know that their enemy has used up some of their rot allowance without result.

Can you lay out why Wither needs to severely age the victim when the "rare" save fails?

I had an arial that age died in under 250 hours because of wither, and I know there's been worse experiences. Plus there is at least one item that brings wither into play in the low 30's, when spellsave is not as prevalent. I'd like to propose an alternative to Wither-aging so I can safely play an arial again (because I'm one of those odd people that likes playing a single character for 400 hours).

Since you're talking about rot, there's something I've always heard but wanted to see if it's myth or fact. I didn't feel like rummaging through old posts to find the one where you answer all those myth-y questions, so forgive me for asking here, but it's the right topic.

Without further ado: does it make a difference if you sleep or rest or stand while waiting out rot? I've heard that sleeping is actually the worst thing you can do, that each tick's chance for rot to nuke a con point is inreased by sleeping, as opposed to standing during the duration which would give you the best chance at each tick for not getting that con reduced.

Thanks, and have fun storming the castle!

As far as I know, this makes no difference.

asdf

What can I say, I have, and my characters generally don't have crappy constitution. Then again, I generally can't be bothered to carry around ludicrous amounts of +con gear.

Want to say I've died to it maybe twice.

.

I can't remember dying to rot, either.

I just think it far more likely that you've forgotten about ever dieing to rot, rather than it actually happening over a period of 14 years.

If it is true, all the better for you :)

(not that it's important)

I'm in the camp that thinks that once you understand how to handle rot, you'll probably never die to it again -- unless there are some powerful outside circumstances.

I mean, if I actually ran characters to con death, probably I would die to rot. I haven't had a character sink below let's say 12 natural con since 1995.

Then again, I've also only been hit by 'new' assassinate once, and that in a case where I knew the assassin was there and knew the chance I was taking, but decided to take it anyway.

1) You behaved in combat in such away that allowed them to get the 1st attack.

2) You were not wearing enough saves to overcome it initially, and on subsequent ticks.

3) Your character was at a low enough natural con for it to matter. (meaning you die a lot)

5) You were not wearing any +con gear, even by accident.

6) You failed to have any number of lightweight +con gear in your container upon realizing the possibility of fighting a shaman.

7) Upon being rotted, you failed to get to any of the easy to reach, not limited +con gear all over the mud.

8) You failed to elicit help from cabal mates, lowbies, allies, or people to owe favors to. (zizzle, for example) Or shoot, ask your random lowbie unempowered paladin if you are a goody.

Death can be avoided, but the time sink involved in avoiding death puts me in a bad mood. I'd liken it to being almost as much fun as giving other classes a 24 hour knockout skill or spell. Every shaman knows the annoyance factor that is rot, so I'd almost consider it a griefer move.

It particularly targets long-lived characters, who tend to have lower constitutions. For people who play characters like someone with ADHD and a television remote, low con shouldn't be a problem.

Outlanders and Villagers have it harder than most, for it seems (probably a perspective issue) that are 3 Imperial shaman for every goodie shaman, and nothing sets up a rot like centurions or a retrieval.

And let's face it. You will be rotted if a shaman wants to send your running.

So what I proposed on QHCF is to make rot less appealing for shaman.
- land a rot, lose the ability to use magical/supplications for transport.
- let mob healers and defenders have a chance to cure rot, along the difficulty of tougher diseases like crimsons scourge
- give rot greater lag than the typical supp, so the risk is greater for those who flee-rot-flee-rot until it lands
- give shaman a decent chance of catching rot whenever they commune it so they, too, must sit around being bored. This way, they can still use it as a way to drive off raiders, but their life can be sucky, too.

>- give rot greater lag than the typical supp, so the risk is
>greater for those who flee-rot-flee-rot until it lands

Have you tried to do this? The reason I'm asking is because you can't.

The design of shaman have never held much appeal to me, and hearing people playing shamans (even Lyr) complain that as a hero they felt they had were often little more than summon, dispel, and rot bitches, I figured I would wait until after the redesign came out.

In my combats with shaman, I usually try to preempt the rot with a dirt kick, but I am certain I've been rotted while the shaman has a combat timer.

Please address any of the other points I've raised, because I am not convinced one flawed understanding of the rot commune negates the arguments other, venerable and respected, players have posted here.

Yes, rot is harder on long-lived characters, especially those that die a lot. I don't think anyone's arguing that.

Other than that, did you have a point besides 'I don't like being rotted?' Because I'm honestly not seeing one.

Death can be avoided, but the time sink involved in avoiding death puts me in a bad mood. I'd liken it to being almost as much fun as giving other classes a 24 hour knockout skill or spell. Every shaman knows the annoyance factor that is rot, so I'd almost consider it a griefer move.

Point 1. Annoyance factor.

It particularly targets long-lived characters, who tend to have lower constitutions. For people who play characters like someone with ADHD and a television remote, low con shouldn't be a problem.

Point 2. You acknowledged.

Outlanders and Villagers have it harder than most, for it seems (probably a perspective issue) that are 3 Imperial shaman for every goodie shaman, and nothing sets up a rot like centurions or a retrieval.

Point 3. Perceived shaman attraction to Empire and related advantages


So what I proposed on QHCF is to make rot less appealing for shaman.
- land a rot, lose the ability to use magical/supplications for transport.
- let mob healers and defenders have a chance to cure rot, along the difficulty of tougher diseases like crimsons scourge
- give rot greater lag than the typical supp, so the risk is greater for those who flee-rot-flee-rot until it lands
- give shaman a decent chance of catching rot whenever they commune it so they, too, must sit around being bored. This way, they can still use it as a way to drive off raiders, but their life can be sucky, too.

Suggestions to which you did not respond, although you did discredit an apparently faulty assumption of one of the rot mechanics.

Even if Isildur and I are the only people who vocally dislike getting rotted, that doesn't mean the complaints are without merit. Thanks.

As Nererial, during bits of my life, I had to retrieve against up to 4 fort characters on my own. Typically I did this by rotting them to drive some away from the outer.

With your solution, I'd either have to fight all four straight up, give up on retrieving, or be unable to recall, whilst trying to flee next to the outer whilst eating parting blows (since you'd remove my ability to recall).

Just a thought.

.

But I don't suspect success against 4 who are defending is a reasonable expectation for all builds and most players.

>Death can be avoided, but the time sink involved in avoiding
>death puts me in a bad mood. I'd liken it to being almost as
>much fun as giving other classes a 24 hour knockout skill or
>spell. Every shaman knows the annoyance factor that is rot, so
>I'd almost consider it a griefer move.

You're free to consider rot those things, but I think you're wrong.

>So what I proposed on QHCF is to make rot less appealing for
>shaman.
>
>- land a rot, lose the ability to use magical/supplications
>for transport.
>- let mob healers and defenders have a chance to cure rot,
>along the difficulty of tougher diseases like crimsons
>scourge
>- give rot greater lag than the typical supp, so the risk is
>greater for those who flee-rot-flee-rot until it lands
>- give shaman a decent chance of catching rot whenever they
>commune it so they, too, must sit around being bored. This
>way, they can still use it as a way to drive off raiders, but
>their life can be sucky, too.
>
>Suggestions to which you did not respond, although you did
>discredit an apparently faulty assumption of one of the rot
>mechanics.

All right, I'll respond this time.

>Even if Isildur and I are the only people who vocally dislike
>getting rotted, that doesn't mean the complaints are without
>merit. Thanks.

Your complaints aren't necessarily without merit. Your solution, however, is largely without merit:

- You propose weakening one of the capstone abilities of a class without proposing how you'd balance that.

- You propose this without a reasonably complete understanding of how the ability works, which doesn't immediately disqualify the idea because, hey, blind pigs and mud and stopped watches and all that, but isn't a good sign.

- You propose a number of solutions that, relatively, empower ganging, again seemingly without considering this or offering some kind of counterweight. You know who doesn't care if he can't use rot? The guy who's spamming dispel on you while his two groupmates spam bash. You know who doesn't care if he can teleport after a rot? The guy who has a pile of cabalmates and doesn't need to flee. You know who doesn't care if rot lags longer or he might catch it he uses it? Yeah, same thing.

- You propose a solution (healers can cure rot) that takes one of the problems/weaknesses of the shaman class (NPC healers beat everything) and makes it worse, again seemingly without consideration or counterweight.

In short, I can't see any way in which your particular set of proposed changes could make the game better.

(re rot as almost a griefing ability)
>You're free to consider rot those things, but I think you're
>wrong.

You refer later in the post to rot being a capstone ability of the class. I would suggest that when the shaman revamp takes place, that it not be made a premier ability, for it is a combat deterrent in a game that should encourage conflict.

>Your complaints aren't necessarily without merit. Your
>solution, however, is largely without merit:

Cool. So now we can look for alternative solutions.

>- You propose weakening one of the capstone abilities of a
>class without proposing how you'd balance that.

True, although I did suggest that there needs to be something other than summon, dispel, rot. I recall Lyresteon even lamenting his hero-level ineffectiveness beyond these communes.

>- You propose this without a reasonably complete understanding
>of how the ability works, which doesn't immediately disqualify
>the idea because, hey, blind pigs and mud and stopped watches
>and all that, but isn't a good sign.

Thank you for bringing clarifying that "It doesn't work like that."

>- You propose a number of solutions that, relatively, empower
>ganging, again seemingly without considering this or offering
>some kind of counterweight. You know who doesn't care if he
>can't use rot? The guy who's spamming dispel on you while his
>two groupmates spam bash. You know who doesn't care if he can
>teleport after a rot? The guy who has a pile of cabalmates
>and doesn't need to flee. You know who doesn't care if
>rot lags longer or he might catch it he uses it? Yeah, same
>thing.

I trust you don't believe that the best thing about shamans is they deter gangs; if anything, I would posit that shamans who frequently rot encourage a gang to be brought against them in an attempt to keep them lagged.

>- You propose a solution (healers can cure rot) that takes one
>of the problems/weaknesses of the shaman class (NPC healers
>beat everything) and makes it worse, again seemingly without
>consideration or counterweight.

NPC healers and speckled pills give moneyed characters a large advantage in this game, and steps have been taken in the recent past to address that. I bring to question the commune rot. I do not suggest that they need nothing else, but quite the contrary.

>In short, I can't see any way in which your particular set of
>proposed changes could make the game better.
>

That's the beauty of brainstorming in forums, for although a single person's viewpoint might be myopic, ideas can feed off each other until something good is discovered.

I almost want to have a day where all the random overpowered stuff that's been adjusted over the years came back just so people see what it was like back in the day.

Transformed-fully geared-master demons?
Old-school Master tesseract gank-squads?
1st Gen assassins with assassinate
Counter. Counter was teh pwnzor.
Back when you COULD flee/spam rot/sleep/ambush?

Uh...those are all off the top of my head.

sadf

n/t

asf

Way way back in the day I had someone charm me, order me to remove all, drop all, then attack the warrior guild guard. Can't remember if the guild guard killed me, or if they just jumped on me and one-rounded me since I was naked.

You weren't allowed allowed to leave the room with the charmer, so no flee, if I remember things right...

Who Assassinated you ;)

-S

Unless for some reason you already knew what to expect, and thus were prepared for it. Otherwise, that first time, you're a sitting duck, unless you happened to be playing a high con character with enough natural con to survive it straightaway (give or take the coincidental + or - con gear you happened to be wearing.

We all start as newbs someday, unless you happen to be the IMP that implemented rot ofcourse :P

I don't like rot but it really just doesn't bother me because:

- On my "Most frequent causes of death" list, rot is very likely right at the bottom. (Assassinate slightly higher, but not much)

- Even on my "Most embarrassingly annoying causes of death" list, it's still likely to end up almost last.

- There really aren't all that many high-level Shamans about*. Sure, they have a tendency to end up being Imperials, but ... yeah.

- You CAN gear for it, somewhat easily. Downside is that depending on your class, you also should gear for anti-malediction, divine svs, preferably a HP total that's as high as possible and very high HIT and DAM. One set is never really going to solve all of that, and carrying extra gear will just take up place and weight that you need for other, more important, things (That doesn't even remotely bother me though).

* According to QHCF graveyard search, there have been (slightly) more healers than Shamans, ever. Warriors outnumber them 12 to 1.

Mmm...thread hijacking (n/t)

Whenever I heard people say stuff like this, I wish they'd tell me what character they're playing so I could go assassinate him/her.

Seriously. If someone "has it in" for your character, odds are you get popped sooner or later unless:

1. You detect hidden (or have piercing gaze).
2. You have built-in danger sense (still may not save you).
3. You hardly ever have to walk anywhere, e.g. healer or air shifter.
4. You have camouflage or chameleon.
5. You are so buff that for the assassin to miss likely means he dies, e.g. a Woldrun or Borkahd.

Most likely the reason you rarely get hit isn't because it's impossible, but because you don't make yourself the low-hanging fruit. An assassin who just wants to up his assassinate percentage won't go after the savvy guy, he'll go after the guy sitting in his guild in Galadon.

Heck, I'd be tempted to do the same, since chasing around the savvy guy (where you may never get a good attempt) comes at the opportunity cost of giving up a bunch of "easy" chances (and hence skill improvements) against less savvy targets.

>1. You detect hidden (or have piercing gaze).
>2. You have built-in danger sense (still may not save you).
>you don't make yourself the low-hanging fruit.

Though I think the last statement is the truest for all of my characters.

But, since if I remember right you've taken a run or three at assassinating assassin, I'm surprised your list of 'things that make it hard' or at least 'things that make it discouragingly hard' isn't longer.

Even having an ally with detect hidden is, I won't say proof against assassinate, but a bit help if both of you are moderately smart about it.

The other thing you may not be considering is that, especially closer to hero, your list plus a few more things cover most of your PK range.

Let's look at it by cabal:

Fortress: Okay, you're probably taking it in the pants.

Tribunal: You've got detect hidden at least some of the time via Vigilance. Sure, we've all stalked and assassinated Tribunal, but we've also started stalking Tribunal and then had them step back into town many more times than that.

Outlander: You've got chameleon.

Herald: Okay, you might take it in the pants too -- but not when you're in the Inn.

Nexus: Also a possible 'take it in the pants' group, but a good number of them fall into one of your categories. Lots of shifters with air or danger sense, stealth characters, etc.

Empire: Probably more detect hidden than any other cabal that doesn't give it as a power to all members, plus some super-buff characters. Assassinating Empire out leveling isn't hard, but try to pull it in a raid situation and you'll often find at least one token duergar making your life hard.

Scion: Some of the same commentary as Nexus; additionally, Beckon Druk'trar and Forsaken Portal tend to make assassinate prohibitively difficult.

>Even having an ally with detect hidden is, I won't say proof
>against assassinate, but a bit help if both of you are
>moderately smart about it.

Yeah, I was going to add "You only walk around when grouped with someone who falls into categories 1, 2 or 5 that I listed." In other words, someone who detects hidden, has dangersense, or is going to kill any assassin who tries to assassinate you and misses.

I mean, a person could certainly play that way, but most people aren't willing to be so limited that they *only* run around with an anti-assassin buddy.

>Tribunal: You've got detect hidden at least some of the time
>via Vigilance. Sure, we've all stalked and assassinated
>Tribunal, but we've also started stalking Tribunal and then
>had them step back into town many more times than that.

Good point. They're mostly out of the running since the smart ones word and sit in town every so often. Unless ranking. And I'm mostly talking about hero level.

>Empire: Probably more detect hidden than any other cabal that
>doesn't give it as a power to all members, plus some
>super-buff characters.

I got a few of them with Mizfara. Perhaps the most satisfying was Battlecharmd's healer. I stalked him for a while while (I think) there was raid going on. Soon as whoever was raiding took the codex, he gated out. Figuring he'd gate back in eventaully, I went and stood by the most likely gate mob. Sure enough he did, about 8-12 hours later, and I got him. According to him, at least, it was one of the few times he'd ever been assassinated. What's interesting about that is that it didn't require any spectacular skill on my part- just a little foresight and some patience. Meaning: "anybody could have done the same thing".

(But yeah- maybe it was an anomaly that there weren't any Imperials online at the time w/ detect hidden.)

Most people who boast about never having been assassinated, though, aren't doing it because they only play "tough to assassinate" combos. They feel like they haven't been assassinated because they've adapted a play style that insulates them from it. They move around a lot, etc. I just don't think that's as foolproof as people make it out to be. I mean, Igbah wasn't an idiot and was decked to high heaven, and he still got assassinated. (Though, maybe he just didn't give a crap.)

If I know someone can assassinate me, I just don't stand in one place where they can hide long enough for them to stalk, and I use more potions to move around instead of walking everywhere.

and I usually know it's coming, but feel obligated to defend anyway.

Also only recall one or two assassinates ever.

Re: the famous Djabree vs. Korrock 4 con rot incident.

This is a very abnormal situation because:

1) Korrock had a very relevant quest skill which helped him, but

2) Djabree had something very helpful for him that most rot-ees won't -- I can't remember whether this was a special award or part of his build.

As an addition to the above... On each tick when you're at 3 con you risk something like thie: An ear could fall off, making you hear badly. Then another ear, and you're deaf. Your tongue rots away, you can't speak... Could lose a finger, a hand, a foot, a todger, etc. Effects last until you die.

Definitely this would result in less rot kills. I'm just not sure whether or not that's a bad thing.

Rot as-is is kind of a double-edged sword. On one hand, as a shaman I can use it to really pick on people with terrible con. On the other hand, it gives me at least a chance to kill the kind of people who word (or teleport, as necessary) as soon as I land my first malediction. It also lets a solo shaman meaningfully threaten one member of a group. (Ganging shaman is still as good as ever either way.)

I'm not saying no, but I am saying it requires more thought.

Removing the ability to pick on low-con people seems like a wholly good thing.

As for people who run immediately...meh. Sure, you might get a cheap rot kill on such a person, but only because he was too lazy (or too newbie) to carry enough +con. So we're back to the scenario where everyone has to carry a ton of +con or risk cheap rot deaths.

Of course, the down side to what I proposed is that it sort of works the same way, except you can substitute "spending gold at the healer" in place of "carrying a ton of +con gear".

Not carrying all the gear just means 1) you'll be in the "vulnerable" state for a longer period of time and, 2) you may have to spend more money at a healer in order to not die from the hourly damage.

The guy who has 0 gold and 0 con gear (and no class-based healing) should probably still have a "moderate" chance of failing to survive it.

>Of course, the down side to what I proposed is that it sort of
>works the same way, except you can substitute "spending gold
>at the healer" in place of "carrying a ton of +con gear".

Yeah, that's part of what I struggle with. Gold + NPC healer is just such a strong answer to so much of what a shaman can do without ganging already that I'm hesitant to make that worse.

Well, the upshot is that the other negative effects make them completely worthless in combat even if they don't die from the rot. So that part, at least, is the same as today's rot.

In my experience watching people be rotted, aside from your occasional 6 con guy with no +con gear, whether rot is a kill or not is usually decided in the last 2 ticks or so.

If I can't really fight for 0-1 ticks, how often do I care?

The rot commune is 24 hours, so for my characters that are below 20 con, I tend to be out of commission for a lot longer than two ticks. Usually, if I'm going to save against rot during any of its ticks, it's going to early on during my decomposition, and pking while wearing non-limited con gear is probably not the wisest of choices.

How does any of that change with Isildur's version of rot, which is exactly the same up until the point where current-rot kills you?

Incidentally, have you considered my alternative suggestion?

No pk credit for cleave, pwk, rot. Includes edge points, and also no unholy blessing charges.

Another thing I quite like the idea of is starting rot at 100% (I'd also do this with aura, shield, barrier), and give it anti-improvements, where it has a chance of getting worse with each use. Thus incentivising sparing use of it. To prevent long-lived characters suffering, I'd possibly grant some time based improvements to offset this.