I think shifters are awesome. I think most forms are pretty damn close to balanced and the thrill of the gamble and the adapting to the different forms as a player has me coming back to them throughout the years.

I remember a few years back they got hit pretty hard with the stats having a big impact on them, etc, etc. I thought this was a fine change-- it makes sense.

What REALLY bothered me about this change, however, is that it added lag to shifting with maledictions. This completely nullifies any kind of strategic diversity that a shifter player can have.

Shifters are already stuck having only 1-2 combat options. Bite or tendonslash, bite or pinch, bite or rake, etc. But now I can't try and pull off cool stuff like shift to my defensive shape to negate a predicted flurry or damage spike.

When it comes to PK, the best part about CF is that with all things being equal, you can usually adjust your strategy and overcome against most other characters with different tactics... With shapeshifters, this is sorely missed.

Please, I beg you... Get rid of this horrendous lag! Hell, I think it would make it infinitely more interesting if shifting had a half-round of lag or close to nothing at all. It would make it waaaay more interesting without upsetting any crazy balance issues.

Why was this implemented in the first place? Was there a problem with shifters having too large an advantage pre-nerf? Why not just give them more options in combat (especially against more seasoned foes that better know how to deal with the form)? I don't know much about shifters by the way. I'm just curious.

It was added because there was a noob Scion chancellor* running around roflstomping people as off/air with no real way of stopping him. Risk/reward of being able to swoop in, fly out when in trouble, and just eat through anything w/ despoil + a/b/s was overly skewed against any opponent and really not fair to new players.

* I played that noob Scion chancellor.

NT

n/t

I've had three tattoos. And I'm only playing since Friday.

Nt

Did you rolfstomp people worse than the Air/Util Vindicator with bloody shackles? That...sucked. Think he might have had a form that could see camo as well, but might be mis-remembering.

The Wasp/Offense guy a while back was also worrisome: hold + lion. Low %, but a death sentence if it landed.

From the perspective of the non-shifter, how does this change make the game better?

Right now, it sounds like you're arguing to give your preferred class an opportunity to win a fight against most (if not all) opponents.

The same argument could be used against you from someone who likes warriors ("Shifters don't need to practice and don't need gear.. why are they stronger than me?" "Why do my maledicting skills do almost nothing to a class with spells/abilities that counters them so easily?")

Anytime you're arguing something that gives yourself power at the expense of others, you need to look at the other side to determine if it really makes the game better.

Hell, I think the game would be infinitely more fun for me if they gave Paladins reliable lag. But just because it makes the game more fun for me, and gives me more options in PK, doesn't mean it's a change that makes the game better overall.

Once they added the edge to shield jab where it can potentially lag an opponent, paladins can lag broseph. Really well too, if you throw on that uber lagging belt + Defiance.

Not sure if you noticed.

Shield jab could always lag. There is even a different echo when it does. It is definitely some combination of size and/or strength based, as is shield bash. Enlarged storm giant has a pretty decent shot at permalag. I actually killed Venara with an unempowered storm shield pally this way (I think pre-hero).

Storm shield pally is one of 2* viable hero paladin builds, even with zero edges (and they aren't able to take most or all of them). It's possible striking shield might *add* to the chance of lagging jab, which probably looks decent on a non-giant. But you can only jab once per round, so go storm giant.

* The other is monk, but both are tactical wastelands.

Yeeeeah... You're REALLY missing the point on this one.

First of all, it's not my "preferred class." I play them every now and then and after running into this I remember why I've been playing other classes.

Shifters are the only ones that are penalized 3 times for a malediction. Form lag + damage on shift + the actual malediction itself (bleed, stat loss, etc).

I'm simply asking to make the lag go away so that form swapping is made a viable tactic instead of the bland redundancy of spamming bite all day.

... And for those that say shifters don't need gear: Try playing a naked shifter and lemme know how that goes for you. Have fun being two-rounded. And hell, if you get impaled and flee;revert the first round-- even that is a death-sentence.

So maybe ask YOURself: are shifters being free frags good for the game overall?

No one is saying a shifter doesn't need *any* gear. What people are saying is that one of the perks of being a shifter is that you are stronger in sub-par gear than other classes are in a similar sub-par set of gear.

And lets be real: shifters are not a free frag unless they are caught in an epic level pants-down situation, and most classes are a "free frag" at that point.

At the end of the day shifters are what they are. If you don't like the way that they play then no one is making you play one. Most people seem to enjoy them and all of their quirks.

Eh... I'm just here voicing an opinion and trying to enrich the class.

Everyone is going to have an opinion, which is fine. There's no "wrong" opinion, only differing ones.

Personally, I think it would be cool to use lesser (and all) forms strategically to some degree in PK as well-- not just rank past them and then sit in one form for every fight.

Shape camel, spit, shape ram, weaponbreak etc.

I feel like that was the vision Zulgh had, but it has been pushed back into staying in one form for an entire fight due to maledictions completely changing the fight in that direction.

There are plenty of people who still do the exact thing you are referencing if they have forms that do neat things, such as camel spit blinding, even with the possibility of malediction lag.

Something else to consider is that like most things, malediction builds come and go as the favorite of the moment. If there aren't any malediction heavy opponents for you, shifter is leaps and bounds ahead of the curve. If you are facing malediction heavy opponents shifters come out slightly behind everyone else. That is something that I don't see as a problem so much as a balance.

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,931178,931178#msg-931178

N/T

Nt

If maledicted, that's 4 rounds of lag and a bunch of shift damage you're eating to shift from one shape and then back (all self-inflicted, not counting for any lag your opponent inflicts). I'm sure its been done, but I'm also sure it didn't end well for said shapeshifter.

I'll give you the fact that you're not ALWAYS facing maledictions and it comes in waves, etc. etc.

My pointing this out isn't to give shapeshifters some huge leg-up on everyone and make them a powerhouse, it's to give them some strategic options aside from spamming 1-2 combat moves.

I can't pretend to know if you've played any shapeshifters in the past or for how long, but anyone who has played one or multiple over a few hundred hours can definitely attest to that tedium.

You're right. Using multiple forms (especially the utility ones) is a solid tactic that can really surprise your opponent and give you an advantage.

So what is your opponent supposed to do to counter that tactic? Well, most of them can't do anything at all. Others might try to lag you. Others might try to maledict you.

The ones who can't do that, who don't do it effectively, or who just don't think of that are going to get beaten by your "creative" usage of forms. The ones who plan around it won't.

That type of back and forth gameplanning and adapting is what's good for the game. Giving you a tactic that can't be beaten is not.


Oh.. and naked shapeshifters are weak. True. But not as weak as pretty much everyone else in the same situation. Put them against a naked opponent of almost any other class and tell me who wins 9 times out of 10. Better yet, put them in a basic regear set against another class in similar gear and tell me who wins. Shapeshifters are easy-mode when it comes to gear, prepping and (to a large extent) tactics. That's the appeal of the class to many who play them.

"That type of back and forth gameplanning and adapting is what's good for the game. Giving you a tactic that can't be beaten is not." ...

Are you serious? You can't think of a way to beat a shapeshifter that can shape into more than one form?

That's like saying I can't think of a way to fight a warrior if he has more than just "kick" as a combat command. Now replace "kick" with "bite" and you've just countered your own argument. How strategic can a shapeshifter be?

People seem to forget that shapeshifters didn't always have this lag/damage tacked on to these maledictions and they were far from game breaking. QHCF is down right now, but I bet you'd be pretty pressed to find one on the top killer list, even before those changes.

Know what doesn't require very good gear?

ASSASSINATE.

NT

That actually does. I mentioned assassinate because its one-shot. You could maybe argue it's gear dependent in that you need weapons to exploit vulns.

Was also going to mention necros and anti-paladins. If you have wands, then you can survive a sleep attempt. And if you get the guy slept you're in good shape regardless of gear.

In fact, odds are if you had "NO GEAR", it would work slightly better because your weight would be super low (yay dodging!) and no weapons means backfist ownage

I don't think you've realized how powerful the ground fighter and nage waza edges make throw. It WILL hit for a DEVA/DEVA on unprotected folks.

>Know what doesn't require very good gear?
>
>ASSASSINATE.
>
>

Playing an "assassinate monkey" certainly doesn't require good gear or any gear at all, but interestingly enough it's a route that hardly anyone ever takes. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw someone "abuse" assassinate by investing hardly anything in their character and simply rolling the dice over and over until they meet success.

Other angles aside, I guess my point is that while one can correctly assert that assassinate doesn't require gear to kill people, that kind of cheesing doesn't tend to occur in reality, at least not nearly (by a couple orders of magnitude) with the frequency we see "throwaway" shapeshifters killing people, for example.

And arguably neither the throwaway shifter or the assassinate monkey is likely to kill an experienced player who is choosing to play conservatively.

It's also worth noting that the rationale of "... because they don't need to rely on gear" doesn't work as well for assassins as it does for shifters because shifters are in many ways easy mode, or at least simple mode, where as killing with assassinate isn't as trivial as some people make it look, or at least it's certainly not for new(er) players. Plus it only applies to assassinate. Most people still need decent or better equipment to win fights with an assassin or any other melee class.

The whole purpose of my post is to make shifters less "simple mode" and more multi-dimensional.

Less bite-spam, more thinking. Make fights into chess-matches like all other classes can by varying technique to adapt and overcome instead of "I can either beat him by spamming bite or rake or I have no chance at all."

Ideas on how to achieve this are more than welcome, but everyone seems to be stuck on how to dismantle my opinion rather than being open to suggestion and offering anything constructive.

Its less that they are dismantling your opinion and more that pretty much no one else agrees its something that is even worth a discussion. That doesn't make your opinion wrong, it does however mean that you are "the odd man out" so to speak.

Why again is it that -age items don't work in form?
Annoying.

I was mostly joking, given all the angst about the assassin class lately.

Regen forms used to be insane and OP.
I think they were over-nerfed.

When I had a top-tier regen form, it would not stand up to a PvP without A/B/S.

If I had A/B/S it didn't regen enough to make a difference.

But, they are great for ranking. But then what?

Won't take defense focus again.

Not everything is going to have the same power for PK.

You know what sucks for solo PK? Armadillo.

But it still has it's use. You just have to adjust for it. Regen forms are the same. By themselves, they might not be great for most PK situations. But #1, PK isn't the only part of the game. And #2, it isn't your ownly form.

When you have a regen form...

Scenario A: no regen with even an armor spell

Scenario B: Full regen with A/B/S

I'm just suggesting the current reality could be reasonably adjusted toward the B extreme. Nothing massive.

You heal 100 hp a tic with nothing up and 50 hp with 50% additional redux. Scales, sanc, and stoneskin don't drop the rate. Regen forms were wildly too good when you could heal so much stacked with DR. I think the croc is a little tough now because the amphibious trait is a bit over valued but the rest are fine and all still fill the function of dramatically reducing time to heal.

Never had a croc. Does it regen less than the others? When you say tough, you mean less powerful?

Thanks

Komodo has rake (no real lag, but relatively decent damage for a defense form), plague bite (OWNS).

Croc doesn't have either of those. Just is amphibious. It's relatively immune to dirt kick, but meh, that's not enough.

To be more simple, Komodo is like a crocodile that can plague and do more damage, but can't go underwater.

Spending 30 minutes killing a simple mob wasn't my idea of overpowered.

...with my last komodo

That was pre-nerf of course (recent nerf, that is).

NT

I said 20 minutes Murph

The forum caps message titles.

I think you're greatly undervaluing amphibious. Croc bite also has a high chance of causing bleeding. Drowning roll from a croc is also a super fun ability that most people probably don't even take into consideration, but it is still a lagging ability that does fairly good dmg (I can't remember if its gator or croc that has the high dmg version of this).

>I think you're greatly undervaluing amphibious. Croc bite
>also has a high chance of causing bleeding. Drowning roll
>from a croc is also a super fun ability that most people
>probably don't even take into consideration, but it is still a
>lagging ability that does fairly good dmg (I can't remember if
>its gator or croc that has the high dmg version of this).

This.

Much blood has been shed in the river rooms of Galadon and Hamsah alone, and way too many people end up taking the bait and losing their bread for underestimating roll.

I've killed Tribunals this way before and I'd be chipper as a rollie pwnie to have a form with roll on a Tribunal shifter some day because I know people would happily chase me to a watery sumo death on the river on a regular basis even if it didn't work on some of my stronger foes very often.

My last two alligators tried using roll (on dwarves too!) and honestly, it got me killed more often than killing the person I was fighting.

Alligator/Croc is weird...all their attacking moves lag you so much I was always a fan of just using murder;flee;murder.

Edited to add: It's a ####ing dope ganging skill though

Not sure if that's uber? Since they normally hit OBLITs. It's a nice skill though, no doubt, but it's like using bash on a character you're already out-melee'ing. The only times roll really shines are when you're kicking someone's ass and you need them to stay in place, and even then, croc ain't going to do enough damage to seal a kill by lagging them via roll (gator on the other hand might). I've haven't had Crocodile since before Zulg added greater enlivens + new forms, to be honest, so I'm not sure how powerful their roll is (if it hits for more than a DEMO, perhaps I was discounting it).

That being said, if I have a choice between crocodile bite, or komodo bite/rake, I'm taking Komodo every single time. Crocodile bite is 3 rounds of lag (maybe even 4, I just remember it's ####ing forever lol) and often that much lag in a battle will get you killed, especially since all the various nerfs shifters have taken since Zulg added the new forms (malediction adding lag, maledicted weight ####ing movement speed, regen nerf).

Amphibious itself opens up a huge amount of tactical strategies in a lot of situations. Yes you can just pop water breathing and get a similar affect as a shifter who has no water or amphibious form, but you run the risk of getting yourself smoked as an out of form shifter.

If your base argument for croc vs komodo is that komodo can do more dmg as a defensive form, then yes komodo *is* better. In terms of pure utility and additional boons that are harder to come across in other forms/foci then amphibious is way better unless your other focus is water.

Even a non water shifter in form that has somehow got water breath (spell doesn't transfer between forms) cannot go underwater without the water greater enliven "gills of the axlotl."

They can be on top of the water, but that's something literally any PC can do with a boat or waterbreathing.

Croc and other amphibious forms can go underwater, not just on the surface. I assume that is a point you were not aware of based on your comment?

Personally, I think amphibious is pretty dope, and I disagree mostly with people who discount it.

Especially since you guys put some sleeks underwater, you ####s.

nt

If you got tearing jaws you can get them bleeding and plagued and completely nerf mob regen.

It had great damage reduction and insane regen. Thick hide and 25 con, add ricochet skin on that and I was easily deflecting fifty percent of all melee and skills. Three round DEVASTATE bleeding bite, one demo-devas hit a round that was hard to block. And, yeah, roll and amphibious. Literally any PC in the game that didn't possess energy drain or forget had no chance of killing me unless I deliberately suicided. I didn't even bother gathering ABS with it; stone skin and scales was more then enough.

Am I sad I'll never have old croc again? Yes. Can I say with a straight face that it wasn't a bit too good at what it did? No.

Village scouts and necromancers were my problem when I played a shifter. I ate malediction warriors for breakfast (unless they were village scouts).

To play devil's advocate and flip your argument around...

You have probably scored a lot of frags using those "1-2 combat options", but if not you then certainly hundreds of other characters. And while I don't want to dismiss rake spam as second class PK chops, it's probably fair to say that the average shapeshifter who is winning probably isn't putting in nearly the wrench time as say, the warrior.

So maybe it's fair that the warrior has that one thing he can do that really messes with one aspect of your offensive. I mean, he can't dispel your preps or disarm your weapons or (arguably) be nearly as successful with mediocre equipment, amongst other things. Is it really so unfair he can whack you with a little bit of predictable lag that may not even impact your fight(s) at all?

I don't think removing the "major trauma" lag would make anything more interesting. Rather, I think it would do the opposite: make things more simple, specifically for you, and further in a way that helps you win more.

I'll buy that off/air chase becomes problematic when you're impaled, or playing the porcupine spear/not-spear fake out game doesn't work as well, etc., but I've just never (as the shifter or the opponent) felt like that really set the world off its axis.

YMMV, of course.

The lag is a minimal issue (especially if you wand up and have DR from forms/enlivens).

I think the biggest challenge is the nerfing of dam/defenses from stat loss. But you can cover that with gear and some form bonus plus greater enlivens, giant str and haste make it a null issue. If anything I think those make it too easy to avoid maldiction.

>The lag is a minimal issue (especially if you wand up and
>have DR from forms/enlivens).
>
>I think the biggest challenge is the nerfing of dam/defenses
>from stat loss. But you can cover that with gear and some
>form bonus plus greater enlivens, giant str and haste make it
>a null issue. If anything I think those make it too easy to
>avoid maldiction.

FWIW, my experience was that gearing for some str/dex was what made the difference in fights against dagger/mace/spear specs. Without some stat gear I couldn't completely shrug off malediction builds, and at the same time I think it's a good thing that shapeshifters might be forced (or at least encouraged) to gear for something besides HP and, if they're smart, saves across the board. Doubly so in an era where a suit of equipment that gets you to 1k+ HP is almost trivial to assemble given the amount of top shelf gear available.

And like you said, between affects and enlivens it's almost trivial still unless you're fighting a very specific build and the fight is one where they can/should be stacking maledictions in the first place (e.g., you aren't ganging them down, massively out-damaging them while simultaneously lagging the, etc.).

Too long, don't read!

I don't play offensive/anything. And it's especially frustrating when you don't have a go to "smash you in the face" form. For air/offense, I can see your reasoning Umiron. But when you play utility/air/defense/water etc. it may take a bit of finesse to kill a warrior. Especially since you have to work with the forms you're given.

It's so easy to get away from a shifter. They cannot curse you. Word, run. Their lag moves are not on par with any melee classes and they don't all have lag moves.

Kycue used to go porcupine/polar bear when a warrior would wield a spear. Made for some good fights, but once I had shift lag, it was done and I had to flee and everyone learned pretty quick to do that.

My vulture wasn't going to kill the people I went after, so I had to flyto, peck, shape porc, and hope I caught them by surprise. But even if I did, wield spear/impale or boneshatter/wield staff pretty much ended my offensive and made chasing pointless.

If you can't shape during a fight reliably, it's Rake/Rake or Bite/Bite and if you cannot beat them in melee, there's no point.

My most fun fight I used a vulture, porcupine, polar bear and hippo going after a rager near Nexus. He got away, but it was awesome and made me feel like I had more than 2 forms at 51.

Did alright despite no powers and in practical terms no edges. Shifters are fine, they require no effort for pk, probably only have waza beats that. 😀

Its by design that your non-Offense focused shifter is having a harder time killing someone than an Offense shifter.

nt

nt