[EenKogNeeto]

Eternal Servitude, the new weapon that people are paying over 200k murai for. Clearly there is a reason its a very demanded item. Some people even paying up to 2000 asagos (20$ IRL directly) for one.
So why is this?

Certainly 120% scaling on a non tome weapon is nice, but that's not why its being used.
It has good power, but garbage accuracy unlike most polearms, but again not why its being used.
It has a PVE skill that's nice, more mercs means easier grinding afterall. But nobody cares about that.

The sheer issue is the invocation it gives.

Grants Skill: Adon Graxis - This Skill requires a Rank D Invocation (see Invocation talent for more details). Cannot be used before Round 2.

Unleashes pure darkeness on the battlefield, tainting all enemies with curses and knocking them down.


To summarize the list of absurd value it gives. For the price of 9 momentum you get:

On all hostiles:
Knockdown
-5 Str -5 Will -5 Skill -5 Cel -5 Def -5 Res
Unable to evade up to !!five!! attacks. (!! Hexer version is only three !!)
Unable to hit anyone with a basic for up to !!five!! attacks* (!!Normally requires hexer to be main class to use and normally is only for three!!)

The final two are basically insurmountable for most teams, negating entire classes and builds.

A very powerful invocation to be certain, and a huge value for one item to give. What's the drawback?
Nothing. Infact - You don't even have to slot hexer to make use of this. You get half of hexers skills for free as any class and two of them are BETTER than a hexer can do.

Now for the actual balance part. There are two ideas I've bounced around with people who have used it or seen it in action.

1. The most obvious solution in my mind, is to make it based on the casters current ranks in the skills or level one whichever is higher. Meaning if you aren't a hexer it will only apply the minimum duration and power of the curses while making it a valuable tool for actual hexers to use without making it useless for everyone else (The global knockdown on its own would be good enough, nevertheless fumble and masochism - note that fumble usually requires hexer mainclass to use at all.) - This would also in theory buff all the stat reductions to 6 and shorten the others to 3 max instead of 5

2. A less is more kind of change: Return it to 12 total momentum cost so that knockdown and the like are a viable counter to its casting and you can't use soul rage/boxer/fleur/etc to instant cast it. This wouldn't address its huge strengths, but would at-least tone it down a bit.

And there's a third more extreme option: Return the curses to its release state, meaning that they will pass whenever damage is dealt. So that its not always a good idea to use it in a team-fight since you'll be indirectly harming team members if you aren't careful. This fits the original theme in my mind as a unholy cursed staff of dominating enemies and allies alike and solves any balance issues instantly: Anything you're subjecting your enemies to aside from the knockdown can also end up being applied to your allies. If this path was chosen I would suggest making it a special version that /keeps/ swapping on damage.


In short: There is a reason this staff is currently selling for 20 USD / 200k Murai. Its not because its a balanced and unique weapon people want to build for. It has dominated entire team-fights easily and made one on one battles a joke for most builds. It definitely needs changed, either nerfed or given some drawback.

Note: Your entire team using cleanse pots is not a viable weakness or option.

[Lolzytripd]

Make it rank c....

[EenKogNeeto]

Make it rank c....

A valid option, but I felt it'd be a bit too extreme on the nerf scale. Since rank C requires 6m, 6m, then 3m
Its a big change, since knockdown and stuff would cancel it not just silence.

[Dezark]

Rank S or riot

With the amount of grind alone needed it no surprise that someone would pay 200k or the asago equivalent of 200k ($20 indeed fits it)

That aside, if it was in any way a balanced weapon than things probably wouldn't follow unless we aimed for the past of the good o'l "Sorry Dark Bard"

All jokes actually aside, while the weapon could use balancing I don't imagine locking it into certain classes is the best as it suppose to be a kick in the balls for a literal sense, yes the effects suck to be smacked with, so a possible option is making the M cost either possibly higher, the effects that prevent you from hitting/dodging going down while the rest act as normal, or simply have a slightly lower CD in some regard.

If it a spell being cast for the staff than I imagine there a number of options to counteract it as there is any other build, or if in term of team fight and you know what your suffering, pack in negotiate as a ST (I'm sure many folk still run it on the side), confusion if you really want it to punish their allies in turn, or silence/KD of your own.

On a lesser note it best to consider the suggested changes and nerfs and how they'll work In term of coding; the more complex a suggestion the less likely it gonna code in how you want or at all depending on dev situation with such in that manner.

All that said and done, put enough focus on optional ways to counter the users since chances are it gonna be common for awhile. ?

[Maksimum_Fire]

I think it'd be pretty fine if Adon could just only be used if you were Hexer, and/or Fellel's only triggered if mainclass hexer. I've never had any issues with Adon users, personally, though, since I have a rushdown build.

[PantherPrincess]

I would change the last two effects into something else personally just for the sake of the rest of the players that are not quickdraw users. Things like automatic status infliction for 5 attacks and unable to remove all status ailments for 5 rounds. I think that's pretty fair for an invocation, fits aesthetically into its cursey vibe, and is fair more tolerable than negating attacks and evade.

[EenKogNeeto]

If it a spell being cast for the staff than I imagine there a number of options to counteract it as there is any other build, or if in term of team fight and you know what your suffering, pack in negotiate as a ST (I'm sure many folk still run it on the side), confusion if you really want it to punish their allies in turn, or silence/KD of your own.

Keep in mind there are a number of ways to prevent most counters, from gentle rebia to kip up or allies. Confusion is inflict based and assumes you are close enough and they aren't finishing the same turn they started on via Rage/Boxer/etc.
Not to mention if you decide to sprint across the arena and confusion the guy in the middle of his team...he'll just stop and all of them will kill you putting your team at another disadvantage.

Removing the debuffs still means you're spending 3m minimum or 6m total if you were also knocked down. Plenty of value for the investment especially if all four people on your team have to do it. Don't forget too, that there is no immunity to the non knockdown effects. So they can just recast or an ally can cast it.

I don't believe anything should be balanced around the idea of knowing your enemy has it ahead of time, but that wasn't really the point here so I didn't focus on it.

[Mewni]

I think it'd be pretty fine if Adon could just only be used if you were Hexer, and/or Fellel's only triggered if mainclass hexer. I've never had any issues with Adon users, personally, though, since I have a rushdown build.

Why would you want Plisfa's to be a main thing only if the classes that can use it the best are not main-mages?
(In fact, you won't even have much of a use to it at all if you are a Main Mage)

[Autumn]

If the curses are LV5 then its -10 to STR/WIL/CEL/SKI/DEF/RES not -5

Regardless of the skill it seems the LV is much too high for those curses, and assuming these curses are lv3 with the usual duration you can simply chug a cleanse potion to get rid of the important ones, and your MAs will basically not even give a hoot about it, I fail to see the issue other than the numbers being tweaked too high, especially given that its a boss 10 star.

There are more powerful invocations that still ruin 1v1s like Spirit Pain, and ruin team fights like Earthbound Vengeance and Enma's Summons, Adon Graxis doesn't even benefit from HSDW or deal any damage so you can prevent the Hexer using it by just silencing them.

It just sounds like the OP is judging the spell based on spar etiquette in the arena rather than actually judging it for how much reward its impact has for being allowed to cast it in the first place, in a real fight where silences/cleanse potions/priests all exist and there's equal momentum impacts in the form of Sonic Shell or Quaking Heaven Kick which don't even need Gentle Embers rebia to support it.

This as an argument shows me this fact honesty:

Note: Your entire team using cleanse pots is not a viable weakness or option.

No but having it be a spell is, invocations can be interrupted with silence, damage used to be a way to interrupt them as well and I'd like to see that return eventually with a change to invocation talent.

To note, I agree with lowering the levels of the curses, it should be your skill rank of the skill again and not LV5 if this is true, as Rank 5 is beyond the cap and it applies all of them without the need to actually rank them up, I usually answer curses with a cleanse potion, its usually worth, and if you're afraid of using it in the arena then I don't know what to say.

For Fellel's Fumble and Plisfa's it should be have a max LV of 2 possibly, as these both are infuriating and very hard to counter-play against, in-fact curses in general are hard to counter-play outside of cleanse potion, but it still exists to serve as a momentum trade (Trading 3m for their 9m? Really good.)

[Mewni]

I mean, spar etiquette doesn't even matter, last i checked you can just use any potions that isn't a healing one, so Cleanse/Crash/Anti-Tox all you want in a spar, its not part of any etiquette to avoid that...if someone complains you got'em with a cleanse, just shrug it off as salt, because it's definitely not something like popping a Pr-Hi

And yeah, only issue i really see on it is the level being too beefy, someone would need to spirit themselves only on curses to have it even be LVL 4. And that gives you a potential 2x damage risk.