[Autumn]

This called for a new thread, honestly, to discuss how absolutely gross this skill is in terms of balance, lets go over the skill in a 1v1 scenario.

The target of the spell in question basically has no chance of not hitting themself, dealing an assload of damage, to their backside.
The target of the spell also takes an additional 50 UNRESISTABLE dark damage, which is further boosted by the hexer passive "Dark Invasion"
The caster of this spell will also heal 50HP when the target hits themself, Which they assuringly will.

This can create an astronomical power gap between anyone wanting to basic attack and the hexer.

But thats not all, even if the target is a class with a healthy form of doing damage via Autohits, the Hexer in question can silent spirit the target to force them into attacking themselves, taking well over 100+ damage and the hexer healing for 50HP, and still remain able to status inflict.

"But no, you can counter spirit pain by breaking the invocation first"

This doesn't happen when HSDW is taken into question, which by the way since destiny, Evoker/Hexer has grown ever popular.

The Hexer in question can move away at round 1 as far away as possible, use HSDW, and the next round you cant even stop spirit pain from getting out, without being an Arbalest or Martial Artist MAYBE, depending on your luck when the fight starts.

[Rendar]

Yeahh..

This is pretty good. Hell, if you even remotely think the person is a hexer, you pretty much have to rush them down if you're a basic attacker.

Which, if you're also a melee basic attacker, turns into a grief field because guess what? You probably just got perma-poisoned for the fight and lose 20% of your HP every turn... and then they can still HSDW spirit pain because fuck you, that's why.

Please nerf this.

[Neus]

You forgot to list suggestions about how to balance it out, which is rather important/makes it seem less like whiny/more constructive.

My ideas would be making the attack deal reduced damage% or only take effect if there are 2 or more enemies.

[Kameron8]

It's balanced in larger fights since it serves as a low key form of Russian roulette. Something just needs to change that only effects scenarios with one enemy. Adding a %chance to activate is feasible but painfully luck reliant, but something like a buff that prevents spirit pain from possessing you the turn after you brutalize yourself the first time is more consistent. Think pseudo stun/knockdown immunity.

[Autumn]

I was mostly waiting on suggestions and a discussion, like Kameron posted above.

Kameron8 » Wed Mar 30, 2016 3:57 pm[/url]"]It's balanced in larger fights since it serves as a low key form of Russian roulette. Something just needs to change that only effects scenarios with one enemy. Adding a %chance to activate is feasible but painfully luck reliant, but something like a buff that prevents spirit pain from possessing you the turn after you brutalize yourself the first time is more consistent. Think pseudo stun/knockdown immunity.

I'd prefer that option to not gimp the skill completely, but still not be treated as an "I win" button, sorry if I seemed whiny about it.

[iDarkCara]

I would keep it like it is and instead change it to a C Invocation. Given it's power in a one versus one, I feel this is justified.

Given it's now C invocation and chance in team fights, I would argue it effect two targets and those targets are immune to selection the following round. -- As opposed to gimping the skill or changing the way it's used.

[Ranylyn]

tldr version: A lot of people have bitched me out on Skype lately about my "walls of text" so let me summarize my post. Remember when Wraithguard was being nerfed, and the suggested options were an activation rate cap or a lowered damage reduction? Luck vs power. I'm arguing in favor of a power reduction instead of luck based activation, like what happened with Wraithguard.


I'm sure everyone knows how much I whine about trash RNG on growths and such, often leading to a character who struggles against enemies at a lower level than them. As such, it shouldn't come as any surprise that I'm against making it luck based. Not everyone wants to pester someone else to help them grind, and Spirit Pain is a good option for trying to swing PVE back in your favor if you're strugging to hit 60 for another chance. (Especially on a strength based character, the vast majority of races, with their 20% Str, cannot hit 100% str in the same way that any 20% Will class, and 20% will is more common than 25% Str, can after a single LE.) So I'm going to provide other alternatives.

While I do still firmly believe that "just don't rely entirely on normals and carry other alternatives, you can multiclass for a reason" is still counter enough to Spirit Pain, I'm also willing to discuss some nerfs to it that I feel make the most sense from a practical standpoint, largely since Archer Destiny (which Arb and MG needed, definitely) doesn't get nearly as many options as others for dealing with this. Ones I hope we can all find an acceptable compromise. I mean, it does at least limit your options, and in PVE, enemies will still try to attack regardless, and only have 6m anyways, so it can be silly there.


I'm proposing both of these changes be combined together into a single rework. These are not individual ideas.

1) Remove the self-attack and only keep the darkness damage. The combination of the two can be comically intense; I've seen a group fight with someone trying to do the single highest physical damage possible in one hit (numerous buffs, perfect poise for a crit, etc), and Spirit Pain was on them in the round they attacked on. Suicide for over 500 damage. That was, of course, absolutely hilarious, but really highlights how absurd it can get.

And... how would you manage to get the leverage to swing a weapon at yourself with the same power you'd use against someone else, anyways? Or draw a bow at yourself with any degree of power? It just doesn't make sense. At most, you could stab yourself with a sword/spear/dagger, or try to bludgeon yourself with a - you get the idea, it's not impossible but seems just a bit sily. Instead, the spirit TRIES to make the character attack themselves, and they spend their action resisting it. But they still take the darkness damage at the very least.

This will also enable you to save consumed effects, like Charged weapons/Bullets/Attack Order/Narcus/etc, for your second action of the turn, making it an issue of "Do I want to take this damage to dish this damage?" as opposed to "I can't do this ever or I will die." This seems to be an incredibly fair change, in my opinion, as you have more options in how to approach the situation.

2) Recuce the power of the darkness damage/ heal. A BIT. Considering it's losing the entirety of the self-attack, making it too weak would truly make Spirit Pain not worth the FP cost/ invocation. Sure, it CAN prevent ONE basic attack action from ONE random opponent, but look at the FP cost. It would 100% not be worth it to lower it to like 10 total.

So for now, since it has 5 ranks, why not 7 per rank to a maximum of 35 at rank 5? Down from 50. Maybe 8/rank for 40, but I'd suggest 35 for starters and we can re-adjust it later if needed.


I tried to be as fair as possible, keeping the skill functional while less overbearing in 1v1s. Thoughts?

[Sarinpa1]

Spirit pain, as it is, is your dodge-mages main means of survival. It affects basic attacks. The only thing it effectively fucks over is a Gunner. Everything else can have and will have skills that deal damage.
It's the only counter againts excel weapon bastards, aside from balance (null) shell, it helps them survive ridiculous shanking shenanigans for 300+ damage in a single round (Usualy combined with a critical cutthroat, ie knockdown and silence.)
With the shitton of movement skills that are around, Earthbound fog is much less useful in this aspect.
It still lands the on-hit effects. So your buster cannons, your pulling shots etcetera will still be useful.
So no, spirit pain had its duration reduced from the past and now it would appear to be in the right spot.

If people are somehow really seeing this as incredibly strong, the good way to go about this would be to remove the healing aspect of the spell.

[Autumn]

Sarinpa1 » Thu Mar 31, 2016 12:42 am[/url]"]Spirit pain, as it is, is your dodge-mages main means of survival. It affects basic attacks. The only thing it effectively fucks over is a Gunner. Everything else can have and will have skills that deal damage.
It's the only counter againts excel weapon bastards, aside from balance (null) shell, it helps them survive ridiculous shanking shenanigans for 300+ damage in a single round (Usualy combined with a critical cutthroat, ie knockdown and silence.)
With the shitton of movement skills that are around, Earthbound fog is much less useful in this aspect.
It still lands the on-hit effects. So your buster cannons, your pulling shots etcetera will still be useful.
So no, spirit pain had its duration reduced from the past and now it would appear to be in the right spot.

If people are somehow really seeing this as incredibly strong, the good way to go about this would be to remove the healing aspect of the spell.

Which is why the skill is so damn strong, it will completely fuck over anybody trying to do any semblance of basic attacking, and for some class setups, such as Duelist, VA, MG, all 3 of these can be locked into a class that has no feasible autohits.

It saves a dodge Hexer, you're right, but at the same time, a tank hexer gives no shits about this, and will throw it out just to dick around with you anyway, however, Kameron's suggestion from earlier would help at least alleviate against all this, it'd still make Excel weapon users quiver a fair bit, and like I Had said before, just because you have a bunch of autohits, does not mean you're completely immune when the Hexer decides to use Silent Spirit.

When you activate Spirit Pain through basic attacking, you'd basically just gain a status that prevents you from getting possessed the next round, a grace period for people who still heavily rely on basic attacking.

[Sarinpa1]

I completely missed that post.
Yeah, I agree, that's not bad of a solution to this.