Very excited to see the changes, thanks for moving forward on this. I wondered if we might ask some questions here and/or provide feedback?

1. Is it your intent that the paths be earned similar to virtues? I personally am not a big fan of how virtues are doled out right now, see my last paladin, 100+ hours at hero, no virtues, deletion thread Baer confirmed it was an oversight and not intentional.

2. You said spells removed were earthquake and tsunami. Tsunami I don't even bother to practice, very situational. However Earthquake is in my opinion a major utility spell. Both for PVE and PVP. Is there an intent to give any form of AOE damage spell to replace it?

3. Will there be an IC or OOC(help files) manner to determine which paths are available for which deity? Your announcement thread seemed to imply some deities would not grant some paths. Play and see on this would be a little rough, considering the ethos restrictions on the paths coupled with sphere restrictions for the deity.

4. If there is going to be a delay on help files going live could you possible track progress on the announcement thread of which abilities are documented? I just checked in game and most were not.

5. Should we expect to see edges related to the paths?


Thank you in advance for any replies, your efforts on the revamp(and CF in general) are greatly appreciated!

Tooth for a tooth - testing seems to indicate it inflicts only one affliction on the target. Doesn't appear to work for cabal powers, but will need to test this further. If this was an automatic ability of some sort or I cast tooth for a tooth out of combat, and it buffs me, then the first malediction that lands on me, also effects the caster, I could see it. However having to use an action in combat, to get a random debuff that has already been put on me is most times not going to be worth it for a shaman. It has never failed for me, so perhaps it does the malediction without considering saves?

Rally the fallen is EXTREMELY situational... The protection it affords would have to both last longer than the players ghost and be useful against their enemy after they've already died to them. The help file seems to indicate it only works for allies, not yourself. Kind of an odd Shaman ability all around.

Bulwark of Faith - is this intended to be PVE or PVP? The duration is out of synch with protective shield, and it costs 120 mana. So between the two of them for 180 mana you get 3 - 5 hours of use. Generally speaking players don't keep bashing when they find you have protective shield up. Am I missing something here? It seems like it's the same as the lower level Shield of Retributive Rage spell, but with an I'd assume 2 - 3 x mana cost? If attacks against the shield increased either buffs duration or if it does protect against more types of attacks perhaps it would have some value, but currently I'm not seeing it. In PVP I guess the only scenario it could get triggered if it's just bash is if you took on an orc with slaves?

Ethos Protection - As asked in the help file thread, could we please get clarification on the DR it provides, I suppose it's been around a while and more experienced players already know the exact value.

Havent had a chance to test eye for an eye as yet.

Bulwark of Faith is situational, but useful. It really shines when you're being hit with a large number of lagging moves in a short period.

>Bulwark of Faith is situational, but useful. It really shines
>when you're being hit with a large number of lagging moves in
>a short period.

I'm trying to see how that would happen as a shaman? I mean I know when I play a class with bash in PVP, I may bash once to see if they have protective shield up, but I don't keep bashing if they do. Or are you saying it works versus other lagging abilities? I've only ever seen it fire in PVE and it was a scratch returned to the mob for a bash. I'll have to test it more often against mobs I guess, but the 180 mana cost is prohibitively expensive for PVE use.

Just tested it in game, posted the full log to the bug forums, I followed the correct procedure i believe by casting protective shield, casting bulwark of faith and receiving the message that my shield was strengthened.... Below is a log of the spell having no special effect in combat, bash just slides off.

wilderness <prompt> aff
You are affected by:
Commune: 'detect invis' for 24 hours.
Commune: 'protection from good' for 8 hours.
Commune: 'protective shield' for 6 hours.
Commune: 'sanctuary' for 4 hours.
Commune: 'bulwark of faith' for 2 hours.
Commune: 'ethos protection' for 0 hours.
A frost giant has a few scratches.


wilderness <prompt>
A frost giant's smash wounds you.
You parry a frost giant's smash.
A frost giant's bash slides off your protective shield.
Your slash EVISCERATES a frost giant!
A frost giant dodges your slash.
A frost giant has some small but disgusting cuts.

Because protective shield protects you completely bash, it does not get through to the bulwark. Bulwark works on 'lagging' moves that bypass protective shield.

The damage is really niche and not very big. But maybe it would be a pain to code. The supplication is really niche anyway.

So if you're using lash on that shaman out of desperation, that's just one more way you're playing into his hands.

If you are lashing a shaman out of desperation, you are likely going to die anyway.
Remember, healers have this ability as well. It kinda goes along with their "don't die" theme. ^_^

Reasons it is Niche:
It only works on abilities you cannot protect against (doesn't proc on bash or trip attempts when protected against them).
Has a really short duration.
You still get lagged the normal amount for the first few attempts (from what I can tell).
Does only a small amount of damage (not sure about after the edge).
Fairly high mana cost.

Then again, protective shield does not last very long pre-edge either.
I am just a little underwhelmed by the ability, slightly.
Not that it isn't useful in a specific situation.
It can be easily dispelled by shaman, then you get bashed to death anyway. :P
If it gave limited dispell protection, that would make it awesome.

To me it feels like the entire retribution path is niche, I havent tested eye for an eye yet, but if it's a percentage of damage taken and not a flat out 1:1 ratio I have to say I'd feel terrible for someone who got this path as their first or only. The only other path that I see as being this borderline is Life's champion, but life's champion path does at least give the shaman an area attack which the class lost in the update.

Bulwark of faith specifically: 120 mana cost for 3 - 5 hours of effectiveness. Cannot recast it unless your protective shield has dropped, or your second cast will last even less time than the first. The "usefulness" of this spell I guess is the ability to avoid snares, that is essentially what healers use it for I take it.

Works only against certain melee lagging attacks, specifics undefined.
&
Requires that your opponent(s) use multiple lagging physical attacks against you inside the 3 - 5 hours it is effective.
& does less damage than casting 1 application of fatigue.

Tooth for a tooth - hits only one target, only works with spell maledictions, once every 6 hours, randomly selected malediction(s), uses an action in combat. Remember this is a shaman we're talking about, so they could just cast plague/poison/curse/blind/weaken/damnation/wither/rot/famish/(path malediction) instead of giving the enemy back a random affliction.

Rally the fallen - only on dead allies, only who still have a corpse on the ground, who are going to be ghosts anyways!

Ethos protection - only effective against chaotic opponents - this is essentially the only good ability to my mind in this path, and is the very definition of niche (pvp only, 1/3rd of players, diminishing returns with protection, sanctuary which are class abilities)

Eye for an eye - This path is ORDERLY only. Eye for an eye strikes at range, is striking into a protected city an orderly thing to do, if an enemy flees from you how do you know if they've fled into a protected city? Remember, ignorance of the law is no excuse...Hope you werent a Baerinika follower, following empire law or tribunal. Have to take the damage in to you personally to harm the person, I dont believe you can use this supplication if you are RP'ing orderly and believe breaking the law unwittingly is not an orderly act & do not know the location of your fleeing foe.


Don't get me wrong here. I am very appreciative of the work Daevryn has put into the paths, I dont view being given this/any path as anything other than a completely amazing reward. However to my mind we should be able to debate the merits of the different paths here in an OOC fashion. I believe the relative strengths/utility of the paths should be somewhat comparable, given that players are not being given the chance to select their own. Comparing retribution to nearly all of the other paths, I find it lacking.

My suggestions:

Tooth for a tooth: Let it effect cabal powers, physical afflictions, be a self buff w/10 hour duration that has a chance to fire on any affliction, or even an inherent ability.

Rally the fallen: Scrap this entirely, doesnt fit the feel of shaman, ghost udration makes this effectively useless.

Bulwark of faith - Since changes to this would effect healers, I don't know if it is necessary/possible especially if other abilities in the path are tweaked

Ethos protection - keep in mind how niche this is when designing other class abilities, when it's effective it's great.

Eye for an eye - needs to be some way to use this as an orderly person, a toggle that allows it to be ineffective in a protected area?

syntax c 'eye for an eye' Daevyrn <yes/no> (default yes)

Tooth for tooth - is it any affliction? Could you, for instance, "reflect" a healing curse if you took one from a warrior emperor?

If so, that's certainly niche but niche and amazing.

>Tooth for tooth - is it any affliction? Could you, for
>instance, "reflect" a healing curse if you took one from a
>warrior emperor?
>
>If so, that's certainly niche but niche and amazing.

My testing so far has shown that it only reflects spell maledictions. I'm not certain on this due to sample size as it could be random chance but it has not reflected any cabal powers or physical/skill effects.

My earlier statement that it worked on only one malediction was incorrect I've since had this transfer two such maledictions, out of the 5 on me at the time.

Edited:
Can transfer bleeds

It can copy any negative affect, and up to three of them (diminishing chances.)

NT

Thank you in advance.

And we go from "wow this sucks" to "that's almost overpowered versus some things."

:)

As I spec'd it, it had a chance to copy each negative affect on you (and I still might crack and rewrite it because it having been coded not the way I wrote it offends my CF OCD :) )

Am I the only one that "gets" that this is going to help protect you from getting permalagged for 20 rounds? That's not niche at hero, that's a common scenario in any raid that isn't unopposed.

>Am I the only one that "gets" that this is going to help
>protect you from getting permalagged for 20 rounds? That's
>not niche at hero, that's a common scenario in any raid that
>isn't unopposed.

How is getting a scratch/injures hit back to an opponent going to stop you from being permalagged? It does not mitigate the lag effect, at least not until it is fully energized, which is more than 4 lagging attacks. At that point you've done roughly scratch, hit, injures, decimates back in damage, this for 120 mana.

For 120 mana you become immune to lagging attempts after 4 of them.

I'd say that's ####ing amazing :P Who cares about the scratches damage.

So you MIGHT not die.

I'm saying in testing it for the 2 hours it stays up against mobs in pve, it has scratched/injured them the 4 times they used non bash but lagging attacks on me. I didnt notice that the lag duration was any less in any of those 4 hits.

If the duration of the lag is not decreased and it takes say 10+ hits to form a 'bulwark' which then lasts for the remainder of the 1 hour, it's a very niche spell. Will I use it when fighting warriors, sure I'll try but as compared with other path abilities it does not seem comparable in strength or utility to me.

I wouldn't put a lot of faith into testing stuff against NPCs.

Grab a buddy and ask them to trip you.

It makes you completely immune to lag after too many attempts. In a raid that might save your life. I don't think the main point is damage.

Bulwark of Faith works on ANY lagging skill. You get someone spamming cranial on you, it'll eventually stop working.

Bulwark of Faith is amazing - stop thinking about bash, it has zero use on the skill.

"As blow upon blow of stunning assaults strike the healer's
shield, her faith makes manifest a wall of retributive energy
that protects her and burns her assailant."

Clearly bash is a stunning assualt, clearly it is striking the shield. I don't believe there is a fault in this logic, however it is accurate that I did not understand the supplication.

Thanks Vilhazarog for clarifying that it does not work with bash.

n/t

>n/t

The helpfile for protection from good doesn't have the % in it.

Nor does the exact % really help you .. much at all. Considering you can't see the code and have not the foggiest idea what order things are applied in or even if things get skipped in some scenarios.

Its equivalent to protection from good/evil. 26%?

Ohhh...I can't wait to get back from vacation to try one of these.

Thanks guys!

>1. Is it your intent that the paths be earned similar to
>virtues? I personally am not a big fan of how virtues are
>doled out right now, see my last paladin, 100+ hours at hero,
>no virtues, deletion thread Baer confirmed it was an oversight
>and not intentional.

I can't control what everyone does with their shamans, but my direction is that especially the first path should be early, maybe even first empowerment talk.

>2. You said spells removed were earthquake and tsunami.
>Tsunami I don't even bother to practice, very situational.
>However Earthquake is in my opinion a major utility spell.
>Both for PVE and PVP. Is there an intent to give any form of
>AOE damage spell to replace it?

It definitely is a hit in utility to lose it, which is intentional -- overall the shaman class is seeing a solid boost here.

Some Paths will have AOE damage to replace it; others won't.

>3. Will there be an IC or OOC(help files) manner to determine
>which paths are available for which deity? Your announcement
>thread seemed to imply some deities would not grant some
>paths. Play and see on this would be a little rough,
>considering the ethos restrictions on the paths coupled with
>sphere restrictions for the deity.

I think we'll probably do something as it settles down.

>4. If there is going to be a delay on help files going live
>could you possible track progress on the announcement thread
>of which abilities are documented? I just checked in game and
>most were not.

I'm through I think 3 of 12 Paths worth of stuff as of this writing. I intend to get through a few more Paths each day until they're done, work/life permitting.

>5. Should we expect to see edges related to the paths?

Not soon. At this point I'm more interested in finishing the 13th or 14th path than edging the first 12. I picked the 12 I did partly to have a coherent alignment-spanning set (e.g., if I'm going to have archons and demons I want angels and devils too) and partly because of which paths already were mostly code complete -- but left out were some half-done paths I really really like.

http://diku.qhcf.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ShamanPaths

I'll update it once I notice the others are added.

Thinking it may be helpful to break it down by alignment/ethos as well:


Good / Any Ethos
-Life's Champion

Good & Orderly/Neutral
-Archon's Choir

Good & Neutral/Chaotic
-Seraph's Wing



Evil

Evil & Orderly/Neutral
-Hells Pact

Evil & Neutral/Chaotic
-Demonspawn


Either alignment
-The Breaker
-Divine Anger
-Pain
-Venom
-Revelation

Either alignment & Orderly
-Vengeance


Either alignment & Chaotic
-Path of Anarchy

It seems to relate to a trib type shaman, and is, according to the help file, most effective against the lawless and criminal. I think it might have been retributive justice.

However, it seems to be more effective against a law abiding evil than a repeatedly reoffending good align.

Is it therefore fair to say that it is most effective against criminals? Or am I missing something, like a non-damage effect?