[Fern]

It's a skill that's been weighing on my mind for a while when it comes to Hit vs. Evade. While they both still aren't completely balanced, Plisfa's Masochism throws the idea of balance completely out the window with little to no counter-play.

The best counter-play there is currently is to just simply run away, because even having a Hexer step on your cinders, or traps will cause the deadly curse to be passed onto you, and you'll have but no choice to stand and take 400+ damage. But even running away isn't too effective, because they can refresh the skill immediately when it runs out.

I'm aware Cleanse potions exist as a countermeasure. But those counter everything. I don't really think people should have to rely on an items just to not lose most their HP in three hits. Items should exist as a luxury - an additional good quality. Not a means for balance, or to keep a skill in check.

Alright, let's go over the available counter play to Plisfa's Masochism once more.

-Wash Away
-Cleanse Potion (I'm aware this one was already brought up.)
-Kiting
-Crowd controlling the other so they don't have a chance to basic attack you (I.E, builds with repeat knockdown.)
-Overriding the Plisfa's Masochism you received from someone else with your own (This is a fairly frequent thing.)
-Having a teammate in a group fight take the curse for you.
-Take guardian spirit, the trait, and have that youkai take it for you.
-Negotiate from Spellthief.
-Gentle Torrent from Priest.
-Enduring the hits until the curse runs out, this is very much possible in the majority of the cases specially when PR-Hi-Potions or heals in general are accounted for.

Curses in general are very easy to counter-play when one packs a Cleanse Potion. I disagree with the idea that the game should be balanced around the idea of counter-playing most things without items. If the game was in such state, then items would prove to be more powerful than they were originally intended to be, and then they would have to be addressed as well.

"I don't really think people should rely on Cleanse Potion to remove status effects (in this case, specifically Plisfa)" is akin to stating "I don't have a counter to silence" and not bringing a Throatopener or Cleanse Potion, which both remove the aforementioned status effect.

I do think curses are fine where they are. Bloody Karma builds in general have all their momentum spent in cursing wasted with the press of an item button. Example scenario:

--ROUND 0--
Olde Evoker John Doe's turn. (7m) (Charge Mind)
Basic attacker hexer's turn. (7m) (Plisfa's Masochism)
Basic attacker hexer's turn. (4m) (Crippling Muysig)
--ROUND 1--
Olde Evoker John Doe's turn. (7m) (Moves towards the other and sets up any other buff.)
Basic attacker hexer's turn. (7m) (Noshka's Famine)
Basic attacker hexer's turn. (4m) (Frailty of Credwa) "I can't really hit this guy without Plisfa, he has too much evade somehow, so..."
--ROUND 2--
Olde Evoker John Doe's turn. (7m) (Evoker Spell w/ Charge Mind)
Basic attacker hexer takes 500 magical damage.
Curses begin transferring.

"Now I can one-shot this Evoker with my Tarnada Ether Invitation!"

Olde Evoker John Doe's turn. (4m) (Cleanse Potion)
All curses are gone.

".................................."
"Well. Shucks."

Someone might think, "can't you just Strangling Etacof the Evoker before they do anything?"

Conveniently, Cleanse Potion also removes that, alongside the Silence. I personally found the change applied to Cleanse Potion a while ago to be very healthy for the balance of the game, as it allows counter-play for essentially 90% of the set-ups in SL2, without being too overbearing as it actually provides a drawback.

"What if the Evoker was slower in this scenario?"

They'd just have to make their enemy end turn in a position where the Evoker can spend 3M doing damage and 3M using Cleanse Potion.

"This is just an Evoker example, it doesn't speak for the other classes."

Fortunately, it does speak for the other classes, as the great majority can utilize the aforementioned strategies. Unless you're a very silly and weird build that happens to be unable to do just that, then that's unfortunately on the player.

"Plisfa's Masochism has no drawbacks. Sadistic Renewal just negates the FP cost drawback."

It does have a few. A relatively lengthy cooldown, Sadistic Renewal is very reliant on basic attacking someone else, and if they're putting up Plisfa's Masochism, it's likely they can't basic attack you in the first place. Imagine running around until they run out of FP by repeatedly spamming the curse to no avail? That's one of the more frequent counter-plays I've personally witnessed.

"You can have 300 FP, it'd take years though."

Most basic attacker hexer builds don't invest into WIL. They stack FP regen to alleviate for their 130-140 FP, such as Kensei's Unarmored Torso regen bonus or Warpaint - Grimalkin prayer. And even then that doesn't seem to help much when you hit 0 FP after spamming Plisfa's Masochism because the other person simply refused to take the curse for a good few minutes.

"But what about the basic attackers that DO invest into WIL?"

Those generally don't have much stats invested into damage, as it's more often than not, not possible. Unless you're a vampire stacking stats, in which case your drawback is essentially having one health bar due to the fact you can't heal most of your HP with a PR-Hi-Potion.

I think it's fine where it is.