[PinnyAerani]

Well, as it stands right now, that's how Snake Dancer works. So I still say before we completely change how one stance works (oops cobra no longer protects you from basic attacks, on hit effects, or DoTs and your autohit immunity is still removed by blind or knockdown), we focus on the obvious issue which is leaping lizard/winged serpent letting people have up to 8 tile movement for 0/1M. The obvious synergies with Thunderhooves aside, it pretty much allows you to remain with your back towards a zone boundary at all times if that's what you're looking to do. The problem isn't so much that Snake Dancer works on basic attacks and more on just how -easy- it is to force someone to attack you from the front using your other tricks.

[Trexmaster]

Removing Snake Dancer's ability to proc on basic attacks is hardly gutting it. It makes it make sense.

In a time long past Mad Chop used to make a hit check for every hit it made, then evasion became a thing. Then people had to make two hit checks for each instance of Mad Chop. It was clearly silly to force another hit roll when one already succeeded, so Evasion stopped working on Mad Chop. Back then, at least.

For the sake of consistency and fairness, Snake Dancer shouldn't work on attacks that already made a roll to hit you. It's meant to dodge things you can't already dodge, not force two hit checks on people. (...right?)

As for the other points made, all I can say is that I'm in favor of reducing the effectiveness of Reaver's autohits, mainly Chaser due to its bonus effects making it highly desirable regardless. Not to mention the already noted point of Reaver autohits being usable with literally any weapon in the game. Couple this with the highest scaling SWA autohits in the entire game bar invocations and you can see why so many people are flocking to beat you in the face with them.

The only Reaver autohit I'd not mind remaining as is is Elemental Rave. Maybe. It could take a small hit, but it suffers in having virtually nothing going for it beyond its big numbers. Synergy with Salamander Sword I guess. On second thought, nerf that shit into the ground (I support Kameron's changes entirely hahahahaha).

[Snake]

Pull my devil trigger piglet.

Anyway, I still support the changes to Snake Dancer in regards to ignoring basic hits, but as long as Blind no longer serves as means to shut it down.

As for Reaver, the problem seems to be it being able to be used with Tomes from what I'm reading. So just make Martial Lawbreaker not use Tomes, and there won't really be necessity to nerf the Reaver Stance as a whole, and accidentally hit the reasons why we asked it to be buffed.

Either way, that's all I got to say.

[Noxid]

Removing its ability to use tomes in reaver would be a mistake in my opinion. We should be making more inter class synergies not shutting them down. There are other ways to balance it rather than just removing it. Not that I think using tomes with reaver is even a problem. You can hit similar SWA with something like the kingslayer and get the bonus damage to people using 10*

[Snake]

Making it synergize with tomes is causing a lot of balance problems that could potentially ruin tomes and mages if we are to nerf those instead of changing Reaver, though.

Swords, Axes, Spears, Daggers, Guns and Bows don't get absurd SWA for investing in non-offensive status such as WIL, CEL, VIT, DEF, RES, SKI or LUC and that was the main reason Reaver needed an 'up' on its scaling, because through Combination Fighter's gimmick, the damage would lower, and FP vs Damage was quite pathetic. But, Tomes do, and they do for a very specific and necessary reason. Magic and spells often don't get scaling over 100% SWA, and heavily depend on Elemental ATK.

[Kameron8]

So, it seems the general consensus follows something along these lines:

• Increasing the cooldown on Winged Serpent is generally agreeable.
  
• Reducing any Reaver scalings beside Chaser is heavily disagreeable.
  
• Removing the ability to Cobra dodge attacks that already hit is a point of contention.

I wanted to address a few things that have come up with regard to Cobra.

Anyway, I still support the changes to Snake Dancer in regards to ignoring basic hits, but as long as Blind no longer serves as means to shut it down.

I really wouldn't have a problem with this, since it lowers the rather glaring benefit of being a Kael DH over anything else. Corbies benefit heavily off Airborne, Leporidae can start forcing people to hit them from the front, etc.

Blind, knockdown and rear attacks already seal the deal with that trait, and things like DoTs like poison tends to remove one stack at the beginning of the fight. That'll leave them with one 'invicibility' only and be vulnerable for the rest of the round, which, mind you, Snake Dancer's users tend to be really squishy.

'

As was previously stated further down the thread, damage over times shouldn't proc Cobra dodges after this update. I don't generally agree that Snake Dancers are all squishy. They have the innate bonuses of Soldier, and I believe anyone who is running an off-class like Evoker with it and no defensive stats is just relying on Snake Dancer as a crutch.

Demon Hunters are more than capable of dodging basic attacks up front, so long as their stats and subclass supplement them. I still do not agree that their 'evade' bonus should equate to forcing an attack reroll when it already provides mitigation that no other class can. Even in the event there are no Winged Serpent shenanigans, running behind a Demon Hunter costs half of your action economy to accomplish -- that alone is a massive reduction in net damage taken, and that's the worst case scenario for the DH (beside the enemy having overwhelmingly high hit, obviously).

[Noxid]

Making it synergize with tomes is causing a lot of balance problems that could potentially ruin tomes and mages if we are to nerf those instead of changing Reaver, though.

Swords, Axes, Spears, Daggers, Guns and Bows don't get absurd SWA for investing in non-offensive status such as WIL, CEL, VIT, DEF, RES, SKI or LUC and that was the main reason Reaver needed an 'up' on its scaling, because through Combination Fighter's gimmick, the damage would lower, and FP vs Damage was quite pathetic. But, Tomes do, and they do for a very specific and necessary reason. Magic and spells often don't get scaling over 100% SWA, and heavily depend on Elemental ATK.

Seems like the real problem you are talking about here is the ability to gain offensive power from defensive stats which has long been a problem. You can get similar strength hits using a two handed melee weapon and while the weapon might not scale off these desirable stats you are by no means gimped defensively. I have a DH that uses strength (commonly regarded as one of the weaker stats) who gets by just as well as my qing using DH if not better. Such a change would outright kill many builds as they wouldn't be able to combo this effectively with tome using classes. At that point people will have to just ditch one of the classes and for what? The fact that the tomes have slightly more SWA? It's not like tomes are so grossly overpowered its a guaranteed win, no they just have slightly better scaling than most melee weapons which is more down to the fact so many melee weapons just have garage scaling (An issue for another thread along with certain tomes that may have too much). You forget to consider the downsides of using a tome with reaver too. While using something like a sword you can still use reaver autohits in defensive stances like cobra and matador. With a tome you have to drop these defensive stances which restricts your options a lot. You either go all out and end in reaver, leaving yourself exposed as you are now without cobra or matador (Not so big a deal in matadors case) or halt your autohits part way through to switch back sacrificing damage in this case.

If tomes really are a big issue (which I don't think they are) you could say just have it so the reaver autohits do X% more damage with melee weapons or X% less with tomes whatever floats your boat. That way tomes aren't better and we don't shut down fun combinations for people.

[Snake]

Building solely STR doesn't allow you to use magic along with skills that can't be silenced, you see. The only exception was the Magical set of weapons that had the Spelledge passive, and even though, these only scale majorly from STR and WIL, and those can't go beyond 100 SWA if you're using one of those builds that overly invest in dodge or tankyness. Besides, wielding tomes also give the advantage of having more skill slots, defensive stats and FP to keep abusing Reaver's scaling, while the conventional weapons can't get such luxury.

Also no, it won't kill "many builds". It will just force you to stop abusing DH's Martial Lawbreaker exploit. Yes, exploit. Lonestar made a fine point and anybody can see how unfair it is to compare a tome with a sword/spear etc, when we're talking weapons for 'skill'-type ability usage, since the former was made specifically to be used with 'magic'-type abilities, which have their counterplay and such already set by Silence and other things.

[Lonestar]

After thinking for a while (And by while, I mean during my two hour train trips in the past days), I've decided to change my opinion about Snake Dancer. The whole thing about dodging the bullshit (and by that, the autohits that can get gigantic) will stay, and the whole thing about dodging skills that has hit chance changed does feel fair and sensible. I thought the whole 'dodging DoTs' still existed, but that's probably my mind being used to Cobra dodging everything known to mankind.

My opinion about Winged Serpent and Reaver are still the same. I agree with WS' nerf. I disagree with Reaver nerfs. I think the problem about those was, once again, different weapons outside of the class itself. The 150% Fan Tomes, Salamander Sword (which was already nerfed), etc. It's not as bad as it sounds, when Global Evasion and many other ways of dodging the skills entirely are set in the game. Combination Fighter is already it's 'own' nerf to Reaver in action.

[Autumn]

I know I already said my piece and that I won't be adding anything too relevant, I merely mentioned the fan tomes based on current abusive situations with Reaver, the real problems lies in the tomes themselves and should be brought up in their own thread (As they are also a problem for magic users, having majority defensive scaling while also attaining SWA amounts higher than 130-140, no other tomes do that) , or have Dev adjust them on his own.