[Trexmaster]

A complaint I've had ever since Shine Knights and consequently Shine Knighting got buffed:

Dark/Light immunity has no counterplay beyond nullifying the status itself. For how accessible Shine Knighting is (have a shine sword and unlock its potential) walling out two damage types entirely seems a bit much.

Altering it to something like 25% Dark/Light resist would be more reasonable. You're already having to roll through forced Blind (if you aren't a Kael) to even damage them anyways, if you aren't just tossing evasion ignores at them.

To curtail any weird 'all your eggs in one basket' arguments: it's not healthy to have hard counters to specific builds that require minimal investment on the part of the person enacting said counter compared to who they're countering.

Which is to say, yes, a Kensei effectively countering anyone with a gun isn't game breaking since odds are that Kensei is committed to their class combo and can't just swap away from it and be equally as effective doing something else. Compared to say, anyone being able to equip a shine sword with a 3 Talent Point investment and proceed to be completely immune to damage from a few niche builds.

TL;DR

Getting Dark/Light immunity for a rank D invocation that comes out of a weapon for 5 rounds with zero drawbacks is inherently unbalanced. (even summoners eat some kind of weakness for installing their immunity youkai, aside from sazae-oni for some reason, guess water has to pay the river sword tax forever.)

[Shujin]

I do not think "Its easily" accesible, so that argument is a bit weird to make.

Shine sword has a lot of problems with itself, mainly not being a casting tool for Mercala domain, meaning you automaically start investing alot more when you go down that rabbit hole. Of course you could just say you do not have to use magic, which is technically correct...But why bother with it then if NOT for the immunity? The blind thing? I do think there are easier ways for this.


Either way I do not mind it changing, I find myself winning more fights not actually shine knighting than I do with it, in same set ups. Spending one whole turn invoking for only 5 turns is more than it sounds.

[Trexmaster]

I do not think "Its easily" accesible, so that argument is a bit weird to make.

Shine sword has a lot of problems with itself, mainly not being a casting tool for Mercala domain, meaning you automaically start investing alot more when you go down that rabbit hole. Of course you could just say you do not have to use magic, which is technically correct...But why bother with it then if NOT for the immunity? The blind thing? I do think there are easier ways for this.


Either way I do not mind it changing, I find myself winning more fights not actually shine knighting than I do with it, in same set ups. Spending one whole turn invoking for only 5 turns is more than it sounds.

It's accessible in the sense that unless you rely on a specific hand-slot item or weapon potential for your build, main-handing a shine sword and off-handing your usual weapon won't break your build. A very small price to pay for being able to wall out entire builds.

If nothing else shine sword is a +2 WIL/FAI stat stick hand-slot item. If you're only using it as a stat-stick/means of using shine knighting it not being a spell-edge weapon for Mercalan domain spells isn't much of a downside, as most people are going to be casting with their main weapon (in their off hand) instead, if they're even a caster using it. You bother with shine knighting if you have time to setup before engaging the enemy or you know your opponent makes use of Dark and or Light damage predominately.

It's an amazing defensive buff when it can be used without getting punished such as in cases where you start at extreme distances from your opponent, and acts as a complete shutdown against anyone who relied on either Dark or Light damage. It's worth mentioning nothing else acts as a pseudo-forced blind effect against anything attacking you.

Shine Knighting isn't something that will win you fights more often in general, just as wearing a red letter or circle ring won't cause you to win more fights against people. Its best use is as a hard counter to Dark/Light. Worst case scenario your opponent is having to deal with that for 4 rounds, and if it's so debilitating to them that they cannot damage you because of it you've effectively already won as you can simply refresh the buff before it expires.

That's my main problem with it, being able to have such an easily accessible win condition against two different elements. Forcing everyone to wear a magical comet in case they get pocket shine-sworded if they do majority dark/light damage seems less than ideal.

[Moku203]

I wouldn't mind seeing it changed from full immunity because yeah being immune to two damage types, +5 to all stats, a pseudo blind, and if I recall a small stat buff to allies within some range for an evoke is something, but it does come out to it is a full turn and a half, and isn't really useful for any mage unless like you said, you main hand it and off hand like a tome etc. 

but we all know that, I think if it was to lose it's immunity 25 is quite low for it's investment, I'd say at least 50% Light/Dark resist would fit better, and part of me thinks it should be made into a casting tool for Mercalan magic at that point as well, mostly because as Shujin said, most of the point of using it is to lock out those elements, so losing that would make it very pointless for it's M investment.

[InsainArcaneBirdbrain]

I think as it currently is, the immunity is fine based on the cost/reward ratio. To explain this, let me lay out all of these plainly (under the assumption of shine knighting, as shine knights is so horribly inefficient in any realistic scenario).

Opportunity costs:

-Shine knighting is a D rank invocation, meaning that it needs 9m for a 5 turn transformation. This taxes both momentum in a fight to a rather substantial degree given it lacks direct damage. This also taxes 7 talent points you wouldn't use otherwise if this is your only invocation from invo cast protection. This also opens up the vulnerability to silence, as you can't self cleanse silence without breaking the invo, a rather large drawback considering one of the "countered" damage types, dark, has one of the most spammable silences in the game in black bubble.

-The skill mandates you to mainhand a very subpar weapon in shine sword. This means you lose out of 20 swa from 2h, you lose a glove slot (meaning you lose valuable items like palms, ghosthands, idol, shields, etc), and the ability to use any other weapon's potential skill since they require mainland.

-Status is a transformation. This means it can't be used with death knighting, or more importantly, install. This also means you can null the status via requinite, null shell, etc. 

Benefits:

-Light/Dark immunity. This largely affects opposing priests, hexers, and the very rare mage VA. Priests probably lack the most answers to SK out of the three, but it's not unfeasible for them to outlast in FP/healing. Hexers use hybrid scalings + statuses, so they aren't stonewalled as much as you think. 

-Blind aura. Huge or meaningless depending on if you're fighting a Kael or not. As far as balance is concerned, this is more impactful than the immunities as it affects all non-kael setups, though I don't believe the skill is overpowered moreso than blind being too good in certain cases.

-Bonus stats (+5). Not really impactful in the grand scheme of things due to stat scaling. Most of the impact this will have generally is in your crit evade by between 6-10. 



Overall, shine sword not being a cast tool and being a poor weapon for a situationally powerful transformation makes me believe it is fine as is. If shine sword WERE to become a cast tool in the future though, perhaps some justification could be made there. As is, the transformation at best serves as a divine shower/enmas spam detterent which is actually a good thing imo.

[renowner]

I have no real issues with it, really. It can be annoying, sure. But it takes awhile to activate. And you can always dispel the buffs, I think?

[Autumn]

The sister skill to Shine Knighting is Death Knighting, Shine Knighting is defined by it's defensive qualities, and Death Knighting is defined by it's offensive qualities.

Death Knighting, however, has a downside to using it that most don't tend to pay attention to, and that is the possession tag it marks you with upon transforming. Shine Knighting doesn't have any such downside to it, you are getting Light and Dark immunity for no downside at all, two components that are uncounterable to those specific archetypes, as not even Nihilist will stop immunities. (And at this point I'm almost not against proposing that it would.)

But yes, Shine Knighting should have a downside of some kind if its going to retain Dark and Light immunity at all, otherwise just making them hefty resistances like 25-30% is good too.

[Shujin]

I also think that Nihilist gloves should negate immunities same as Kraken sigh does.

Also not sure if Divine Judgement removes it, if it doesn't it SHOULD.

And I do see having the shinesword in your mainhand as a downside, but I know what you mean.

[HaTeD]

i believe nihilist used to negate immunity and was changed to just stop absorb to prevent being a best in slot in a majority of builds hence the nerf and as it is now. deserves a seperate thread in any case, but disagree there shujin

[Snake]

Shine Knighting could make you be Possessed too, maybe.