[Autumn]

The problem is, is that now that DEF and RES are a percentile number, the bigger the numbers are, the larger decreases they get, a 500 cap EI against somebody with 40 defense would essentially be 300 damage, and that's not counting when people are running other DRs into the equation, 300 -30%(wraithguard) -10%(ogata waraji) -10%(one vs one) for example would bring that down to..170.1 damage, and while not many damage instances get higher than that, it ends up being a real significant chunk of what it could be.

I guess the real problem here is that big damage numbers don't feel like big damage numbers, stuff like Excel Weaponry, Charge mind and EI, very notorious burst tools, all just seem lack luster now.

However I can see a cap increase "fixing" one of the problems raised in the OP, where it just doesn't do as much damage as other weapons atm, so yes, that'd solve one of the problems with the skill itself, if you'd like I'll raise a separate thread on the burst skills mentioned above.

[Ranylyn]

It goes beyond simply not doing enough damage; it's not worth using at all because of the combination of making targets unmarkable in conjunction with the fundamentally broken way individual skill damage caps are always calculated; Every other use of Claret Call is better for it.

Even if the damage cap was raised to, say, 500, all that would change is it does the actual cap now, since the cap is applied BEFORE defenses. To use a pre-GR example, R1 board shaker was supposed to CAP at "25 damage," yet testing it against Jammers with 22 res led to doing 3 damage, since the cap is apoplied first before all reductions. This means that the damage "cap" is nothing more than a broken lie since it's physically impossible to get anywhere near it unless you're testing against a Jammer Cave Jammer.

How it SHOULD work is that the damage cannot exceed the cap, but defenses are applied from the pre-capped base (So, keeping with this pre-reckoning R1 Board Shaker example, if 41 damage would have been done, the end result is 19 damage instead of being 100% literally useless at 3.) In other words, make it so the DAMAGE CAP is the ACTUAL cap on damage it can ACTUALLY do. To put this into Ether Invitation context, if you're missing 500 HP and your opponent has 50 scaled defense, you should be able to do the actual cap of 250 instead of hitting a brick wall at 125 because the cap was applied before their defense.

Start by fixing the mechanics for damage caps in general, then we can come back and discuss tweaks to this. Because it does need them; even the suggestions listed barely put it above Mad Chop, which is quite frankly much simpler to use without locking you out of other things you can do for several turns. Simply jacking the cap up is not a good idea due to the fact that some characters can and do break 1000 HP with gigantic genes and high Vit/San.

[Kameron8]

How it SHOULD work is that the damage cannot exceed the cap, but defenses are applied from the pre-capped base (So, keeping with this pre-reckoning R1 Board Shaker example, if 41 damage would have been done, the end result is 19 damage instead of being 100% literally useless at 3.) In other words, make it so the DAMAGE CAP is the ACTUAL cap on damage it can ACTUALLY do. To put this into Ether Invitation context, if you're missing 500 HP and your opponent has 50 scaled defense, you should be able to do the actual cap of 250 instead of hitting a brick wall at 125 because the cap was applied before their defense.

Again, this. If you raise the cap to 500 or 600 damage, all that will be accomplished is polarizing the skill even further. Tanks and DR-heavy builds will say 'Ow' and move on with their life, whereas I have a character who would literally not survive one EI at full health.

[Autumn]

I hate to bump threads, but this skill is still weaker than most basic attacks, after looking over it a bit, I think the best course of action for this skill is to just make it up to 250(rank*5) damage (based on missing HP), that is unresistable(ignores DEF/RES), but is still effected by Stalemate/Eviter/etc. like a normal basic attack would, it would serve it's purpose then.

[Snake]

Ether Invitation at red HP doesn't do enough damage for the restrictions, mostly because how Defense and Armor works right now. It's pretty laughable imo, and nobody uses it anymore.
You lose HP, hoping to deal tons of damage, but then do less than a normal hit.

Just make it unresistable like Spooks said.

(But, if you're more daring, make it two separate procs like Narcus. One for the basic hit, then another for the unresistable Ether Invitation damage. And if the attack gets Stalemated/Eviter'd, the damage is halved or nullified.
And then, of course, longer Unmarkable cooldowns (like 4-5 rounds) in exchange.)

[Lolzytripd]

either
A) make ether invitation ignore defense entirely, only mitigated by armor.

B)Remove the cap from it entirely

[Esther]

Or change its focus entirely from a reverse-execute, to a tank-buster. For example:

"A basic attack which beckons even the hardiest targets to an early grave, ignoring a percentage of the target's Defense equal to the percentage of HP you're missing."

That would mean that using it at 250 / 500 HP, against a 50-DEF target, would ignore 50% of that DEF, causing the attack to resolve against a functional 25 DEF, while using it at 10 / 500 HP would ignore 98% of the target's DEF, making the attack 'almost unresistable.' It keeps it in theme with the Ghost class, where it becomes more powerful the closer the Ghost is to death's door, while avoiding silly, balance-ruining things like damage caps and alternate calculations.

[Autumn]

Let's not delve into anything complicated, if making it unresistable is too much, it can be unresistable but only use 1/2 your missing HP (500 missing HP required for full 250)

[Neus]

I don't like making it ignore defenses as the first solution, so rather than that, I doubled the damage cap per rank (100*Rank).

[Kameron8]

I don't like making it ignore defenses as the first solution, so rather than that, I doubled the damage cap per rank (100*Rank).

I still think this is a bad idea. All this will accomplish is make any ghost with decent health impossible to fight unless you're a tank who has the % reduction to handle that number. 500 damage (600 if spirited) is enough to one shot kill people for 3 momentum. This change will make EI hurt tanks, but it will also make EI outright kill everyone else.

I'll bring up one final time what I think would be better than this. Move the damage cap check to the tail end of all calculations, letting 100% of someone's missing health get factored into defense + armor reductions, and then capping it off if it exceeds 250. You have pseudo armor-piercing the lower your health gets, and you aren't going to turn and one shot a guy at full health who dared to not play Black Knight.