[Raigen.Convict]

On board for this idea let's go for it!

[Neus]

I have some balance adjustments in mind for Void Assassin but I guess it's a fair point that Throatopeners are limited now, so maybe a 2 round immunity to Silence would be okay.

[Trexmaster]

As stated before, 2 round silence immunity = CM > Throatopener > HSDW > death if you for some reason didn't kill the mage in 2 rounds flat.

This basically gives everyone a pocket Silent Prayer, which again I'm pretty sure this point has been raised already. (this is bad because Silent Prayer is extremely good, given it's one of two means of silence immunity in the game, removing any counterplay beyond running or killing the user if you can't survive the spells they'd be able to cast)

While limited, if used optimally you likely won't need to drop more than one or two of them in a fight, as you or your opposition will be dead.

I'm not entirely sure what a fair compromise would be here, but I think a silence immunity would be fine -if- as stated, a drawback were provided, such as reduced scaling (50-75%?) for spells temporarily for the duration of the silence immunity. This would prevent you getting nuked as hard, Evoker or not, and still let the mage do something unabated for that short time.

[Autumn]

You could always give it the silent prayer treatment, only make throatopener targetable on already silence'd targets, that way you can't just pop a throatopener before you get cutthroat, and the silence would serve as enough time to form a strategy vs said mage.

[Neus]

Right, the intention was to apply the silence immunity only if it cures a silence status.

[Nanovelich]

You do realize this doesn't stop the nuking factor, right? Charge Mind and HSDW are Skills. Charge Mind has a 4 round effect with Brainstorm; HSDW has a 3 round cooldown. So.

Round 0: Charge Mind
Round 1: HSDW...
Did your opponent preemptively Silence? Congratulations! Throatopener time, then you invoke next turn. Otherwise, you're free to use that 4m for whatever to help you stay alive longer.

Now, what if your opponent has slower turn order than you, waits until Round 2 to silence?
Well, don't you worry about that, One Punch Man. Popping the Throatopener now is even better, because now you have 4m this turn to start your invocation and on the next round, you get a full 6-7m to be able to do the one thing you were prevented from doing by a preemptive Silence: Blink. There's no escaping your nuke on Round 3 now!



Now let me get into the root of why this is a problem, starting with a question:

Can't the same be accomplished with Silent Prayer? I don't see what the problem is.

The problem is there's a reason no one simply plays Evoker/Priest. Because every other class they could pair with Evoker has the potential to give them way more versatility while they're Silenced, make them live longer, and/or raise their damage potential substantially.


Let a Verglas/Evoker pull off one Intensify Cold, and Silence is no longer a problem.

Exgalfa and Overload are both capable of ending a fight by themselves against the tankiest of characters. And if they're not the tankiest characters, it usually only takes one, and if it doesn't, you just need a way to throw out an extra 100-200 damage.


And let's not even get started on people running Evoker with Boxer for Geist Schritt alone, guys.

A damage reduction is probably the best way to balance this. At least then there's the potential for someone fighting an Evoker to not die because Silence is so easily bypassed.

[Autumn]

A damage reduction is only gonna serve the purpose to make throatopener not even used because Evoker's entire kit is based around burst damage, it is a very foolish thought to even think of how this is even remotely fair to those who already relied on throatopeners, I understand your concern but once someone is silenced they'll need to spend 3m to cure it, which prevents them from invoking on your ass, no CM'd regular spell can immediately merc your ass either.

Now when you get silenced and then instead decide to pop HSDW and have silence immunity, thats when your opponent, can simply put, just run outside of effective invoke range, most people can and do have ways to get away from the mage, I won't go into detail because that'd be a lot of detail.


As for the other classes, that sounds like mostly a problem with Geist Schritt, I don't see much issue here with anything else, save for Quaking heaven kick which is an issue all of itself now that heaven kick is good.

I'd rather Throatopener not get buffed at all than give it a damage reduction for simply using it.

[Trexmaster]

Throatopener would need something if it were to become Silent Prayer in your item belt. There are more classes than Evoker that would benefit from using a Throatopener that gave them a window of silence immunity (see: hexer, gs, bonder, ST). The damage reduction wouldn't mean they'd deal no damage at all, a CM'D invoc at 50-75% strength would probably still outright kill some people if not deal significant damage if you still wanted to go for it. Also it's been stated multiple times the issue is the fact they'll HSDW after the throatopener, thus giving them that window in the case of Invocations, other Invocations aren't an issue with this. Ryemei crits are totally capable of killing some people instantly, dealing upwards of 1,000 EHP damage to something with low lighting resist.

'Run or die' is never a good thing, sometimes it's necessary due to suboptimal positioning, but forcing the situation when you've all but Etacof'd an Evoker shouldn't be what will always be required. With the throatopener buff this is what would play out every time an Evoker isn't killed before round 2. Which is actually fairly possible, but I digress.

I don't think the prospect of adjusting throatopener should be entirely dismissed, it just needs something to make it not entirely superior to Silent Prayer. A minor damage reduction would prevent massive burst damage immediately following a silence. I'd suggest Potion Sickness but that wouldn't alleviate the issue at all. A Momentum increase would either be useless or overbearing. So I'm not entirely sure what else might bring it in line. Perhaps just blocking invocations? This would really only affect Evokers and faster mages, but it'd solve the issue of an Invocation-based nuke.

[Chaos]

A damage reduction is only gonna serve the purpose to make throatopener not even used because Evoker's entire kit is based around burst damage

A damage reduction is going to keep Evoker from being an unstoppable nuke machine. We are talking about a battle item that anyone can use becoming Silent Prayer 2.0.

It is entirely possible to make a build that focuses solely on spellcasting, and see yourself causing inhuman amounts of damage with invocations in the process. What keeps such a build from being an unstoppable force of nature is Silence, and the only way to sure-fire stop Silence and not have to worry about it is Silent Prayer-- a skill that forces you to go up the Curate tree, which doesn't compliment the 'magical railgun' archetype well.

If Throatopener were to give two rounds of Silence immunity, without any sort of drawback, this consequence will fly out the window. It will no longer bother the nuke caster if they got silenced, because they can pop an item to not only cure it, but block out any further attempts to slow their casting down. Silent Prayer becomes dead weight to anyone who can spare the item slot, considering that only one specific kind of PvE enemy can even stop item usage to begin with, and taking Throatopener means +1 free skill slot to anyone who's still tapping into the Curate tree.... and, of course, anyone who had to take a Curate promotion for Silent Prayer can drop it to go full ham without worry.


Of course, this is not to say that Throatopener can't give silence immunity, as at least one other poster has stated prior. It's that, if we just slap the immunity on and call it a day, all we're really doing is stabbing Silent Prayer in the face and empowering hyper-offensive casting builds to shrug off what should be smacking them for being hyper-offensive casters. That is not something I would call good design nor balance.

That being said, I do agree with the idea of applying a 25% damage reduction to any spells that the user casts while under Throatopener's (theoretical) silence immunity.


P.S. 'just run if you want to live' does not really help the opponent in this case. Enma's Summons can easily ensure a runner's demise, just to name one example.

[Kameron8]

Just given the potency at which Isenshi, Overload, and Exgalfa come out, I'm inclined to agree with the damage debuff. In theory there's plenty of options to space an Evoker who's advancing with CM/HSDW -- usually with Geist, high movement, or knockdowns -- but the people who can't will most likely die in one hit if they can't kill the mage first.

Most people who play Evokers can agree that being perma-silenced isn't a fight they'll have any fun with, so the brief respite of immunity will still be appreciated. Those who would rather drop dead than take a damage penalty to their spells have the option of investing highly in Celerity to go first, using a Heron feather, Silent Prayer, or status resistance.