[MakeshiftWalrus]

Whispering Cant is a nice addition to Mage's line and gives it something to do in the events that the dreadful silence status effect. I think it was a healthy change for any casters out there, with the exception of one spell it also affects.

That spell is Blink.

At rank 5, the spell allows you to move 8 spaces from your current position, ignoring any and all movement-based debuff and root, including Frozen and Immobilize. This on its own was not an issue in the past, but with the addition of Whispering Cant, mages have become impossible to pin down without hard CC.

It becomes particularly oppressive when combined with Martial Artist or Duelist, which are very attractive choices to pair with Mage in the current meta. Not even the increased FP cost does anything to deter people from spamming it, increasing it to a whopping 6 FP at max rank, while silenced.

In short, it gives the mage too much mobility for no drawback, especially when combined with the more mobile classes of the game-- it becomes impossible to slow down under any circumstance.

So, here are some solutions I thought of:

1) Remove Blink from Whispering Cant's pool of spells: This is the one I want to suggest, myself. It removes the only real issue with the passive, which is Blink itself.

2) Make Whispering Cant main-class-only: This is an alternative to the above, and would force people to choose between increased mobility for damage reduction, or straight up damage. While I don't particularly want this option implemented, I do think it would be healthy to have more forced choices for the current situation of the PvP-scene.

3) Enforce a different penalty for the spell when silenced: This can be any number of added restrictions. Halved range, chance of failure, random chance to appear somewhere else in the blink-range instead of where you targeted. I've only so many ideas for what this could be, and others are more than welcome to think of some if they have the time.

At the end of the day, it's a very, very powerful mobility option. A little too powerful, in my opinion. Others are free to provide their own inputs as usual, but please keep it on-topic.

[Autumn]

I'd opt in to simply make Whispering Can't main class only, as it is already a powerful ability just on its own and there is an argument to be made about just getting CC Locked with a combination of immobilize AND silence.

[WaifuApple]

I do not agree with making Whispering Cant main class only. I think it healthy that hybrid class mages don't have to be completely shut down by silence locks coming their way and I think this would definitely change that for the worse. I'd much rather remove Blink from the pool of spells or make it cost even more FP as an outlier to the rule of the cant. But I do not want to return to seeing silence as a complete shut down of the entirety of what mages do.

[Akame]

I'd say either make Whispering Cant main-class only, or have it only make offensive type spells avoid the silence negative status effect.

Option 3 looks good, too.

[Trexmaster]

I'd go for the simplest solution to the problem: excluding Blink from the allowable spells. (option 1)

Being able to move regardless of statuses inflicted on you (bar hard CC like Stun) without any investment outside having Whispering Cant in your skill list is extremely powerful. The OP already illustrated the issues with this succinctly.

A good middle ground would be to just reduce its range under silence so soft CC isn't completely useless against someone with Whispering Cant. (option 3)

[Kameron8]

Making Whispering Cant main class only is the easiest solution, and the one I see Dev favoring for simplicity's sake if he agrees with the points made.

However, I personally support making the passive only apply to offensive mage skills, and not any of the 10 enchants, Blink, or Swap Position. Complete freedom regardless of Silence, Immobilize, Freeze, Restrain, etc, is too forgiving. It should be at least possible to pin down a mage, given enough resources are committed to the cause -- it is certainly possible to do so for every other class in the game.

[Lewdcifer]

Whispering Cant applying to Offensive Mage skills only is what I support.

Making it main class feels like too much for me, but Blink is certainly an issue in the passive's current state due to the points already covered in the original post.

[K Peculier]

With the absolute myriad of mobility offered to 'certain' class combinations it can be nigh impossible to play any 'real control type of character as you would have to inflict a good number of CC to even slightly slow down someone with all that mobility.

Blink in particular with whispering cant is downright disgusting as the range is excellent and chances are you can absolutely punish anyone that dares to lock you down.

I'll agree with having Whispering Cant only count for offensive spells as well.

[Raigen.Convict]

Give Blink a cooldown of 3 and a 3 range reduction under silence.

[iStabOreos]

I do not agree with making Whispering Cant main class only. I think it healthy that hybrid class mages don't have to be completely shut down by silence locks coming their way and I think this would definitely change that for the worse. I'd much rather remove Blink from the pool of spells or make it cost even more FP as an outlier to the rule of the cant. But I do not want to return to seeing silence as a complete shut down of the entirety of what mages do.

Let's be fair here, some people already want to make a lot of stupid shit main class only because "hurrdurr too powerful" to which I say it'll ruin the synergy. Here's how we balance it if it's not main class then Whispering cant will cost 25% more, and I think that's just as fair as anything as shit while you're silenced (the base spells) already cost a lot as it is.

And while I'm here, I'll be frank since it came up, but we really shouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion that certain shit should be main classed, that's the whole point of hybrid class mixing, to begin with, what we should do is think of better alternatives.

And I'll also agree with Kpec in making Whispering Cant only work on offensive spells only, that's the best alternatives I cana think of other than my own.