Just a few personal comments on water shifters and Orca in specific,
rather than posting on the goodbye thread. I understand the time and
effort that went into these forms and shapeshifters as a whole and as
such, I'd like to be respectful and constructive because I do enjoy
shifters as a whole and many of the water forms too.

1) I think Orca is likely at the bottom of water forms, maybe squid
could give it competition but it's likely Orca. Here's why:

-a) First and foremost, neither of them has any natural damage
-reduction. This causes enemies with redux/defenses to break them
-down quickly and warriors/orcs with riposte/concealed/swiftstrike
-/flow/masochism, eat them due to large volume of returned attacks
-combined with low dodge ability. This wasn't as bad prior to dex
-changes where more attacks landed.

-b) I've both had the form and faced it and I think Orca just doesn't
-add up. When I had it, I also had a top tier Offense form and the
-difference in damage output was very minimal and in my opinion, a
-form that is bound to water should cause more damage with the same
-tanking ability as offense or defend better and cause more damage
-than a defense form and the difference shouldn't be tiny.

-c) Very few water major forms have evasion or deflection. Manta,
-Lobster, Walrus are the exceptions and each has high damage and
-defense. So, the majority of water forms can't block or evade any
-spells or spec skills except for very rare occasions, this
-includes Orca. This also leads to taking a single malediction and
-losing fast "swimto", for sealing pks, aside from damage and
-maledictions.

-d) The skill set that it has doesn't offset the above drawbacks
-when considering it's limited completely to water. Butt, batter,
-charge, bite, feed, propel, and swimto sound awesome and would
-make for an outstanding land or amphibious form but it was Bruce
-Lee who said "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks
-once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000
-times." What I mean by that is that due to the small size of
-water, you don't get to use your weapons effectively. So, even if
-you do prep and can last long enough to fight, the enemy gets away
-because your 10,000 kicks, aren't as good as 1 really good one.

Possible Solution:
-- {i} These four areas could be fixed by lowering the total # of
-- attacks thrown but making them land more/strike with more force.
-- This would address part of the beating they take from other
-- enemies with good redux/defenses and/or possibly give them a mild
-- damage reduction to go with the poor dodge ability and/or evade.

-- {ii} Giving "flyto" like quickness and/or ability to "swimto" and
-- letting it work inside for the top tier forms and/or increasing
-- the duration of their lag moves to offset their limited area to
-- chase could increase the successfulness/likability of these forms.

2) Walrus has Gore, correct me if I'm wrong but I think that it lags
like rake, so, that leaves only shark/dolphin as top water forms
without lag but dolphin can pounce. Meaning only shark but I
don't think it's a must for shark. So, I think that's suitable.

3) I do agree that most water major forms should be able to sense
people near by, to avoid spam when hunting. Water majors with eel
on average, have higher pk counts partly because this addition, in
my observation.

Possible Solutions:
-{i} There is the twitchy edge to take to counter this but it's not
-cheap nor as effective as alert/danger sense, I think.

-{ii} Adding a skill to sense blood in the water or hear enemies
-shouldn't be too far out of the realm of possibilities and could
-cure the large "where" spam that water shifters endure.

Again, I don't want to be rude or set off a chain of events, I just
want to be helpful and descriptive rather than start a rant. So, I'll
end with this quote from the shapefocus help file "Water: Aquatic
forms, unable to function on land. The strongest of these are the
undisputed lords of the water." I think Orca and some others should
also fit into this fear inducing description but currently don't.

P.S. I lied about that quote being the last, Thanks Immortals for
this game that we get so much frustration and enjoyment out of. Your
time and dedication is never noted enough.

My impression of the form was it had less crazy damage than some other shifter forms, but has an active attack which caused lag. Felt like a good trade off being on the receiving end. Top tier offense and you can cause lag. I dont know about the effectiveness of other abilities as I think you were spamming butt on me when we fought and we didnt get a lot of fights in one on one on the water that I remember, but with a lagging move that is not your strength, being a dwarf I'd be stupid to try to fight you on water due to hydrophobia when you flee.

I'm not sure how you are justifying the need for defensive additions to a non quest form with top tier offense and a lagging move. Unless you are saying, hey! it was hard to PVP without A/B/S against people who had more than their class skills up for defense & highly limited gear. If this is the point I've got to disagree. It's a niche set of abilities, but if you had more opportunities to fight in/on water (in groups especially with other types who can lag/cutoff opponents) I think it would work out fine, it honestly sounds like a set of problems caused by playerbase woes. More high end items in circulation among fewer players means more power to classes other than shifters, then you factor in that you have a set of abilities that are limited geographically. Your enemies know this, if they fight you on water it is going to be a battle of their choosing = full protection they can gather. If it isnt, they will run from you or try to draw you out of water.

Have you ever played a water major? To put it mildly; they are painfully underpowered given their restrictions. I agree 100% with the OP.

>My impression of the form was it had less crazy damage than
>some other shifter forms, but has an active attack which
>caused lag. Felt like a good trade off being on the receiving
>end. Top tier offense and you can cause lag. I dont know about
>the effectiveness of other abilities as I think you were
>spamming butt on me when we fought and we didnt get a lot of
>fights in one on one on the water that I remember, but with a
>lagging move that is not your strength, being a dwarf I'd be
>stupid to try to fight you on water due to hydrophobia when
>you flee.

I don't want to be mean but this paragraph sounds like you believe
that having any offense form other than Jaguar/Tiger, and being
confined to water, is "a good trade off" because those two are the
only ones with "top tier offense" without lag.

>
>I'm not sure how you are justifying the need for defensive
>additions to a non quest form with top tier offense and a
>lagging move. Unless you are saying, hey! it was hard to PVP
>without A/B/S against people who had more than their class
>skills up for defense & highly limited gear. If this is the
>point I've got to disagree. It's a niche set of abilities, but
>if you had more opportunities to fight in/on water (in groups
>especially with other types who can lag/cutoff opponents) I
>think it would work out fine, it honestly sounds like a set of
>problems caused by playerbase woes. More high end items in
>circulation among fewer players means more power to classes
>other than shifters, then you factor in that you have a set of
>abilities that are limited geographically. Your enemies know
>this, if they fight you on water it is going to be a battle of
>their choosing = full protection they can gather. If it isnt,
>they will run from you or try to draw you out of water.
>
>

Here, you say it yourself. "niche set of abilities", "fight in/on
water", "limited geographically" which all sound like you understand
but you still believe that having a form that you see as "top tier
offense" without the ability to chase off water is good, as is, only
for the player not "on the receiving end".

Again, I did not play Beulobub. I did play a shifter with this form
and I played a gnome villager without a tanking spec that beat Orca.
I don't have the logs of when I was an Orca but can post the log of
non-thirsting, hand spec, gnome, killing an ABS Orca in strait combat,
not having to flee. I said what I did based on my experiences and
observations and they were triggered by Beulobub's statements from the
goodbye.

Again, I do not wish to sound mean but I do want to get the point
across and offer what I thought were suitable, not over powered,
solutions that could bring Orca and possibly other forms in line with
other top tier water forms not only for pvp but for pve too.

I'm not trying to be mean either, hopefully my post was respectful and we can continue a civil discourse. Thank you for clarifying you were not Beolubub, my mistake. My experience against an Orca was with his character and my current thus I posted under my character name. I do not have experience playing water form foci my only shifter hero was offense/utility.

Your post included the line below which was the basis for the subject of my response

>When I had it, I also had a top tier Offense form and the difference >in damage output was very minimal

This was the basis for my response being framed as the orca is a top tier offensive form for damage output. Then throw in the offensive utility including a lagging move, plus the other combat utility skills!I'm sorry I dont understand how that is not a significant advantage over a land form and calls for the need to add defensive abilities as well? Sealing kills on your own is tough for anyone, doing it in water is tougher yet. This form it seems has tools that help that task, combined with as you've said top tier offense.

To your example of a gnome villager with the head killing an a/b/s orca...I think any combat which includes a villager as an example of the opponent being underpowered is very much open to RNG determining the outcome. I doubt anyone is going to be surprised that a villager wins any one individual combat.

I gave my rationale why CF today with the playerbase size would not lend itself to favoring shifters powerwise(SHF is a less gear dependant class in a world relatively rich with high end/unique gear) and it would appear you do not dispute this? Tweaking shifter power upwards in general because other players have more access to gear _right now_ doesnt seem to be supported to me.

Leading to my conclusion of: If more players you'd see more combats in water, if more players you'd likely have an ally to trade off lagging attacks, allowing the lagging ability to seal kills, if more opponents you'd have more use for those other offensive utility skills, if more players you'd be less likely to run into opponents who are fully prepped/geared out and confident enought to say, I can take on a water form IN WATER, etc. etc. This seems like exactly what water foci are supposed to be to me. Niche forms that shine in the right circumstances, but not unstoppable machines of death if you walk across an ocean.

Your question: I'm sorry I don't understand how that is not a
significant advantage over a land form and calls for the need to add
defensive abilities as well? In response I also said that every
offense form other than Jaguar and Tiger have a lag move but aren't
tied to water and essentially have the same damage output and I'm
saying that a water shifter should have an advantage over a land form
because they are tied to the water.

I'll also use your experience as a possible example, if your offense/
utility shifter gained ram but could only use it on water while every
other offense form travels land and/or is amphibious, you'd be happy?


My example of Gnome vs Orca. I should give some background. I died
about a dozen times to a lion which for all intensive purposes has the
same skill set except 2 things, minimal damage redux and movement on
land. Yes, I understand that the skills aren't 100% but the same type
of skills are there. An Orca which can only be used on a very small
portion of Thera and other "Water" forms like it, should be on par
with Walrus, Lobster, Shark, etc. So, I'm advocating for a little
boost to it, like Gorilla received once upon a time, supposedly.

Seriously, with Air/Offense/Defense/Utility, I would literally take any of the forms available depending on my class/race/cabal/etc (well, maybe not Howler Monkey...though it could be really useful on an Outlander that fights a lot of mages).

On the other hand, water forms kinda suck. It's frustrating to lose a 1 v 1 on the water when you are ABS'd up with all preps and the other dude just has cabal powers + stoneskin or ragers powers. Of all the water forms I've seen in action, most of them are relatively terrible....now, at the same time, most of the time perhaps these people didn't have the form at confident.

Electric Eel was absolutely terrible until it got beefed significantly.

Dolphin was awesome to me...though I was shocked by how poorly it tanked versus Mobs. Tanked better against PK than mobs for some reason.

Lobster seems awesome. Hide deflection, Pincer, water + land.

Walrus is Walrus.

Shark seems like Shark always was. Either a landslide win or a landslide loss...and I'm cool with that.

Manta used to be buff. Heard it sucked now. One of the few forms I haven't really seen in action since the revamp.

Octopus/Squid I heard was brutal. Basically, you're going to need to ABS for every fight.

Orca I was told was the worst form for all Water forms.

So, basically, through my own experience or hearsay from the community, only 4 or 5 of the 8 forms are worth taking.

At the same time...these are water forms. A super niche style of play. Is it that terrible that some of these forms aren't that great?

"At the same time...these are water forms. A super niche style of play. Is it that terrible that some of these forms aren't that great?"

If they are so niche, shouldn't the forms be really good in that niche situation.
For me the answer is yes. It is hard to tell where the OP line is though.
It could be that I'm missing something with water forms though.
I do not think they look appealing enough for me to really try it.

Just want to throw in my two cents here, for what it's worth.

I started a thread on suggestions to allow shifters to choose their forms for a cost, but it was pretty much shot down. So, if that is never going to be an option, I think *balancing* the top-tier forms would be extremely helpful. As it is, some forms are great and others are just garbage.

So now for my own personal water story. I rolled a shifter as Water/Defense for the express purpose of PvE not PvP. I wanted to explore all the underwater areas and (in theory) Water/Defense was the right shifter combo to get it done. I ended up getting SQUID and then LEMUR for defense. In essence two of the worst (if not THE worst) forms of each focus.

From talking to other players IC, the general impression I got was that Orca was better than Squid. And indeed, Squid was absolutely useless to me. I couldn't even kill ONE sahuagin hunter without having to flee out at 20% with basic shield/stone skin up. And although I didn't try it (nor really desire to try it), my failure in PvP would likely have been similar. In the end, I spent a lot of time on a character that became completely worthless to me and will never achieve my original goals.

I had enough edge points to spin the wheel for defense and found that even with a regenerative form (rattlesnake), I couldn't survive basic underwater exploration without extreme tedium. I had some cabal plans but, let's face it, with a water form that couldn't take any hits and a defense form that couldn't put out any damage, I wasn't going to go far.

I feel that water forms should at the very least be superior to their Offense/Defense "counterforms" since you're giving up a LOT to go Water. A form like Squid would have been usable if it had the same offense but the defense of a utility form, for example.

Having played several shifters and ranked with shifters I've felt and witnessed firsthand those ARGH! moments where you realize you're completely shafted. If not more choice, than more balance would help.

If so...yikes.

Yup, fully. Octopus (3rd tier) is awful as well and squid is just more of the same.

You can't pk with it either, for as many hits as it puts out it dodges even less.