[Autumn]

Currently one of the most ridiculous things you can do with Bonder is being able to massively benefit from Shared Pain on a single bonded youkai by having it run to the far reaches of the very corner of any fight, your opponent would need to waste so much time attempting to deal with it or face what is essentially a permanent 600 HP Buffer.

Due to Shared Pain being able to trigger anywhere it is often a much much more unfair and better strategy to have the youkai be as far away from the Bonder as possible and serve as nothing more than a moveable, more powerful wraithguard with the momentum to spare on an attack if it really must. While the Bonder does all the damage for it.

Considering this goes against the theme of Bonder (Fighting alongside your youkai in a joined effort) and is becoming a more common and common strategy, I decided to finally put up a thread on this hoping it would be changed to have a range limit on it so that at least you do have to stay somewhat nearby the youkai.

Having it be limited to a 10 range diamond, the same as Conduct skills would be a good start I believe, its not only a large balance issue when Drowned Woman still limits your momentum when being hit on the other side of the map, but it just goes against the very theme of the class to be quite honest.

[Noxid]

10 range sounds fair, the youkai has to remain close but not so close that any old tiny AoE can hit you.

[WaifuApple]

I'm personally all for this. I do think bonders should be encouraged to fight together with their youkai, rather than just using them to prolong themselves. And I think this is perfect for making sure they stay somewhat close, but aren't automatically forced into AoE range.

[Shujin]

How about a it 10 range skill, but to further encourage fighting side by side you and your bonded youkai get 10% dr, while standing next to each other, drecreasing by 1 for each tile they are seperated from each other:
1 tile= 10%
2 tile= 9%
3 tile= 8% etc.

maybe a tiny boost when you have a single bonded youkai of like half that.
Or the Dr being just for you youkai? Mostly saying this cause most youkai are pretty squishy with a few exception, and it might encourage summoning more than the typical culprits like Drowned woman.

[Snake]

Damage Reduction based on the distance between you and your Youkai sounds like a good first step.