Let the Qi Flow

I’m accelerating my specific suggestions to avoid receiving anymore suggestions on a system.  My analysis will be slightly out of order in that it will follow this post, instead of preceding it.

Specific Suggestions:

No Buff To Prevention Time: kick/magic arrow/mental blast/mental tempest all have low enough prevention times that they should probably remain unchanged (although kick is way worse than magic arrow and it evokes great tears of sadness from the author).

Should be Buffed Even Before Training/Constitution:  glancing pierce, bolted lightning, striking fist, unhallowed scathing.

Glancing Pierce should have a baseline 20 or 30 second prevention time if it’s to be used fairly often, according to the helpfile.  (3 or 2 times per minute is not bad.)

Bolted Lightning, Striking Fist and Unhallowed Scathing should have their 120 second preventions dropped to 60 seconds.

Improvement Contingent Upon Training:  psychic shock, ashi barai kick, yikwon hand form.

For various reasons (such as inscription incentive, already low prevention time), these abilities don't need to be improved immediately, but could stand to have reduced prevention times with training and/or high constitution.

Suggested baselines:  Constitution and training should probably have additive effects on the prevention reduction of kung fu moves.  That way everyone has access, although training remains highly desirable.  As a side effect, the maximum reduction should be reachable either by training or by constitution, the maximum benefit will need to be capped.  For example:

1500 constitution (800 over 300) can be neatly divided into 8, 10, or 16 parts.  Every 100 constitution could reduce prevention times for [standard] kung fu moves by 10% for a maximum possible reduction of 80%.  However, more readily achievable levels of constitution (500 constitution, for example) would result in a 20% reduction in prevention time.

605% training (505 over 100) is an incredibly awkward number, so let’s use 600%.  Every 50% training could reduce prevention times for standard kung fu moves by 5% for a maximum possible reduction of 50%.  At 250% training, this would be a 15% reduction:  not bad, but not game-changing, probably how it should be.  At 400% training, a 30% reduction is seen, which seems reasonable.

The prevention reduction could be additive, so that someone with 400 constitution and 250% training would see 25% reduction in prevention times on his or her kung fu moves.

Notes:

1. Obviously, balance is a very difficult; the author has no concrete way to judge the effect this has on total damage output.  Likely, only Nijlo has the ability to run exhaustive tests for balancing purposes--but does he have the time?  We can hope.
2. Endurance drains might be extreme in certain cases, although this is really only a problem for fighters (endurance bonus and fighters is a separate post--suffice it to say that one hopes fighters are NOT balanced around having a hit/dam bonus up continuously by not using their endurance).  Perhaps endurance costs for some of these abilities should be lowered, particularly for abilities that should have short prevention times, such as glancing pierce.
3. Certain abilities have added incentives, already.  For example, ashi barai kick, yikwon hand form, and banded smiting initiative have inscriptions that increase their utility.  These abilities will likely need to be “held back”; perhaps their prevention reducions be halved compared to “normal” kung fu moves.
4. Bash and Trip are the subject of a future post and/or suggestion.
5. Winged arc-bolt is not a trainable kung fu, and given it’s scaling, it probably doesn’t need to be.

A more detailed analysis of kung fu moves will be in the next post, and will include a class comparison---with the understanding that we are NOT looking for parity, and with the realization that each class benefits differently from kung fu moves.  For example, the harder someone hits, the more valuable using kung fu as a lead-in will be (valkyrie will benefit more than any pet class).  In the meantime, let me know the prevention times for breeze of hand and cyclone of the guild.

Bruce Lee Disapproves

“A unique aspect to glancing pierce is that its recovery time is nearly nonexistent. This makes glancing pierce a highly used skill.”  - helpfile for glancing pierce

“Unhallowed scathing has a very short prevention period. Basic mystical patterns can be used again after the skill's prevention has worn off.” - helpfile for unhallwed scathing

Has anyone here trained glancing pierce or unhallowed scathing?  The recovery times are 60 seconds and 120 seconds, respectively.

Introduction:

Kung fu moves go largely untrained, and this is because their prevention times are too long.  Kung fu moves are the attacks that every class has: these are the attacks that are limited by a prevention time and deal damage, but offer no side utility.  They have two uses:  (1) damage and (2) to allow lagless entry into combat (and therefore, lagless exit if no lag-inducing abilities are used.  Without exception, all kung fu moves are trainable.  But the players by and large eschew their training, and I believe the reasoning is due to the factors set forth below.

Discussion:

The lagless combat-entry portion of kung fu moves is powerful in very specific circumstances:  because an entire combat round is attached to kung fu moves when used to initiate combat, they become extremely powerful when combat ceases for that round.  Used this way, several rounds of attacks can be performed (against different targets) during 2 seconds (the normal combat round).  In this way, kung fu attacks are basically a weak version of “combat initiative ready”.

With respect to damage, kung fu moves represent a very modest portion of a player's total damage output, with the exception of two moves (kick and magic arrow).  If we say that a player is in combat with the same enemy for 1 minute, then that player has 30 rounds of normal attacks per minute.  Let's say this player has 15 attacks, which is a very conservative estimate (remembering we're not counting spammables such as fireball).  That's approximately 450 attacks.  An ability such as striking fist (60 second prevention), even if it does approximately 3x a normal attack in damage, is worth 0.66% of that player's total damage output.  In contract, even though kick (5 second prevention) is worth only approximately 2x a normal attack, it's used up to 12 times per minute, allowing it to be an impressive 5% of that player's damage output.

With both uses of kung fu moves (damage and lagless entry into combat), perhaps the clearest indication of usefulness is uses per minute.  Kick has 12 uses per minute.  Mental blast has 6 uses per minute.  Glancing pierce has only 1 use per minute.  So while improving damaging abilities is usually done by increasing the damage dealt, here, prevention time is key to improving their desirability.

In contrast, increasing the damage dealt by kung fu moves too much with training is not an ideal, because doing so would increase the burst damage potential (relevant to pk) without touching the utility of an attack.  Players already die very fast in pk, and having significantly more burst within the first 2 rounds of pk combat would only serve to shorten pk combat.

Additionally, there is the problem of certain kung fu moves which simply have too much prevention time, even as a baseline.  These include the two examples cited above, and a couple others as well.

Summary of Problems:

(1) kung fu move prevention time is too long in most cases

(2) kung fu move prevention time reduction based on constitution is capped at a low constitution.

Summary of Solutions: (more than one solution may be appropriate, depending on each move):

(1) kung fu move prevention times reduced outright

(2) kung fu move prevention times reduced by constitution

(3) kung fu move prevention times reduced by training %

Due to the size of this post, an overview of the current state of kung fu, and specific suggestions, will be separate posts. Suggestions attached to this post, especially those with numbers, are likely to be ignored.

Fallad Races Breakdown

Three years late, here's quick review of logical race candidates for Fallad.  I'll evaluate any races you request in the comments, and the next post will discuss the direction of posts for the near future.

Onillin Ti:
With no subclass to provide any augmented healing, and the main healing output of fallads unaffected by time-walk, this race is not nearly as powerful for the fallad as it is for the daja.  However, the attributes remain viable, so this race is medicore rather than alarming.

Sun Kedoeji:
The time-walking remains a less than ideal racial choice, but the increased personal attack bonuses for Kedoeji cause this race to pull ahead of Onillin.  Additionally, the sights, 48% 1/2 NR and extra dex/hit (due to more attacks) become more useful than for daja.  Sun kedoeji is a strong utility choice for fallad.

Storm Wielder:
While the physical resistance and massive size have limited use, the lightning dominance fits fairly strongly with fallad 4-second cooldown on falladian holy analgesic, unlike Sun Kedoeji's time-walking.  The constitution will help with preventions, although that is less relevant in today's Nodeka because the key prevention of holy hammer has been nerfed to the point where no amount of constitution will make it more than a novelty in most situations.  The extra damage and dodge/parry suppression aren't bad for regular attacks, but conversely this race does not have much by way of reliable additional attacks.  Nevertheless, +20 damage on the race may be worth almost an extra attack's worth of damage, depending on individual circumstance, so this race appears to be a fine choice, especially for running.

Silver Elf:
As with daja, a strong choice for fallad.  While fallads are not the best healers on Nodeka, they are a clear second place.  And with no subclass option for healing amplification, silver elf is one of the few ways that a fallad can boost his healing.  The combat bonuses are very similar to Sun Kedoeji; the utility bonuses, however, lend more towards emergency situations rather than quality-of-life.

Ryfe:
Omitted from my daja post, this race is included here for defensive potential.  The continuous physical regeneration from ryfe combined with a fallad's heals can make this a tough race.  Add in willpower, 15% anti-offensive, 60% magic and mental resist, you have a decent race.  Given the new ability of static charge to cause the caster to almost never run out of mana (and fallads can heal while regenerating mana thanks to lagless healing), this is one of the most durable fallad racial choices.  However, this race has only moderate offensive bonuses, so it's more relevant for fallads who want to run areas that are "too big" for their pools.

Lads Here

My overdue post on fallads necessarily follows my posts on healers (dajas), as they share the same fundamentals.  In fact, many years ago they were nearly identical classes.  These days, they are similar but distinct classes, with the following major differences concerning fallads:

1. Fallad's version of holy analgesic is a 4-second lag prevention, rather than a 2-second lag spammable.
2. 1-2 more attacks than dajas (depending on training).
3. An option to use spiritual attacks.
4. No invis/cloak sight.
5. Holy Hammer.
6. Fewer healing/defensive spells (rain, nova, palladium, prayer of mental restoration, unearthly rapture).

Therefore, while the attribute analysis remains largely the same, the emphasis is shifted slightly when making gear choices.  A fallad has the option of using using holy analgesic and lightning in the same round, allowing them to heal and dish damage at the same time.  Naturally, the healing output is suffers from this setup; a fallad can output perhaps 60% of the healing of a similarly situated daja.  Additionally, a daja can glean additional healing output from time-walk lag reduction, whereas a fallad's healing is unaffected by time-walking.

High constitutions levels will reduce holy hammer prevention times to ~10 seconds, and decrease proportional downtime on useful abilities such as creed of the gods volition, so constitution becomes more useful than time-walking (although the two may certainly be combined).  A fallad's personal offense is proportionally more important than a daja's (when considering the output provided by their pet).  Therefore, offensive bonuses such as hit/dam are more important when selecting a race for a fallad.

Daja Races Breakdown

Logical racial choices for the Daja class are presented here.  As usual, mention any other races you want considered in the comments.

Onillin Ti:

With very strong attributes including high wisdom and willpower, with high dexterity and speed with two 100% winged slash racials to boost the daja's physical attacks to acceptable levels, onillin ti is another obvious race.  22% difficult to hit isn't terrible, although the % isn't high enough to actually make a daja "difficult to hit".  But those aren't the reasons that onillin is a standout race:  The very high % time-walking and 15% time-bending are.

Dajas are the only class with a spammable, powerful heal.  Field aid and compelled rejuvenation have nothing on dajain holy analgesic.  A 20% reduction in lag results in a direct 25% increase in healing output and lightning output.  When combined with a subclass such as dajain healer, the healing output potential of this race is amazing.

Sun Kedoeji:

For the most part, sun kedoeji is a "light" version of onillin ti.  While some of the benefits offered by this race are useful (18 quick, 60 agility, 5 more NR, 12 hit, 48% 1/2 NR, 24% mental resistance), the attributes offered are much weaker.  The racial attacks are stronger as well, since 100% radiating sunbeam is bound to be very powerful on any wisdom-stacking character.  However, the dip in willpower/wisdom/speed/dex and loss of time-bend and some time-walking make sun kedoeji not quite as flashy.  It is, however, a more well-rounded choice.

Silver Elf:  An obvious choice for any healing class, silver elf comes with 28% augmented healing, which translates to 28% more healing output.  9% free movement will help protect against impairments, one of the primary sources of frustration for a daja in pk.  When combined with 11% lateral deterrence (the only race recommended that has lateral deterrence), and high quickness/agility, and decently powerful racial attacks, silver elf is a decent choice for dajas.  It's not particularly flashy, but it gets the job done.  The only caveat is that the augmenting healing provided by the race does not overlap with the augmented healing available to the Dajain Healer subclass, which is disappointing to say the least.

Storm Wielder:
This race offers decent wisdom, some willpower, high NR and damage and even a little bit of massive size, although massive size is less valuable to a daja or fallad than another class, since blessing of the meek's ability is flatly superior to massive size.  The main draw of this race is the 50% lightning dominance, which translates into +50% lightning output.  Combined with the damage (and extra damage from str), this is not a bad running race for a daja.  The added 66% !dodge can be a nice advantage as well, although the defenses of this race are not strong.

Svirfneblin:
This race, along with frost dragon, is an obvious choice for newer dajas.  High int/wis (along with good willpower, solid racials and some quickness), and "doesn't run out of mana" are very strong reasons to choose this race.  The counterattack racial is also a welcome addition to the strategy of "let them beat themselves to death on my face".

Medic!

Let's take a look at the Healer class.  We'll call this class Daja, since there are multiple classes with healing capabilities, and "healer" is so generic of a term as to invite confusion.  Dajas are the class with the highest healing output potential, both in terms of burst and long-term healing, although certain Fallad subclass preventions can rival Dajas abilities in raw healing.  (Fallads will be our next class.)  Over the long term, and certainly without the use of very long preventions, dajas have the greatest amount of raw healing.

In addition to their healing, dajas have several key defensive and utility-style abilities/buffs, and are a pet class, with one powerful same-stat pet (angel) and one very special pet, the gesko (willed protector before major remort).  They rely heavily on their pets for offense, with their only offensive spells being lightning and mini-lightning (static charge).  Let's take a look at the attributes:

Strength: 0 (ostensibly a part of lightning damage, but largely considered irrelevant)
Dexterity: 0
Agility: 0
Speed: 0
Intellect: psychic shock, white flames damage, casting damage, regale, sixth, buffs if cast, pet if cast, certain prevents
Wisdom: same as intellect plus all heals, ascension, meek, the shielding prayer, light shield
Constitution: moderate degree of reliance on preventions
Willpower: evasion, bestow vision, some spells in conjunction with int/wis

Primary Attribute: Wisdom
Secondary Attributes: Willpower, Constitution, Intellect
Trash Attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Speed


Of special note is that the angel (a daja's best pet for running purposes) uses the character's best stats.  Therefore, while it is never advisable to wear physical attributes, if you have the sun stones to spare, putting them into willpower followed by the physical attributes will boost your angel.  One might be tempted to suggest that int/wis/wil gear is the de facto best gear for dajas based on this list; however, that misses two characteristics of crafted gear that I will introduce here:

(1) All item bonuses have a set value, and the difference lies in cost.  Therefore, an int/wis/wil piece will necessarily have less int and wis than an int/wis piece.  And given the supreme importance of wisdom, it may be advisable to force wisdom higher.
(2) Crafted gear has many bonuses available, including hit, dam, nr, quick, and significant pools.  Because heal power is based on the size of the total health pool, wearing hp/wil gear can yield significant defensive bonuses to the daja.

A bit of hit and damage are helpful for a daja to wear, in addition to quick/nr.  A dajas has very little class-based damage, and time spent healing is time not spent spamming lightning.  While lightning has a limited influence on the daja's overall run speed, time spent outside of combat spamming heals earns close to 0 plat.  However, it is vital that the daja have an excellent amount of wisdom in order to fuel all her preventions and special attacks and to the power of her gesko (assuming she has enough int/wis to cast her gesko).

When we consider races, we give special consideration to races with special abilities.  Time-walk/bend has an exceptionally important influence on dajas, since all of their non-pet power lies in lag and prevention-based abilities.  A good amount of wisdom is considered vital when selecting a race, but special abilities such as sights, flight, physical resistance, and even massive size are not because dajas have those areas covered.

My top choices and explanations in the next post!

Who's There?

The skill "hunt" and its progeny recently gained a great deal of accuracy by allowing a second keyword.  This change brought much needed accuracy to single-target searching, and it's really a fantastic upgrade.

I think it's time for many of the area-wide scouting abilities to also include one or two keywords.  Currently, the majority of area-wide scouting abilities are subclass abilities, subclasses which are never chosen for a main character, because of their highly situational utility.  The problem is that these scouting abilities are limited to player characters.

Why would a warlock give up the strong defense of battle learning or the all-around utility and power of reduced lag/prevention times for only the ability to sense the players in an area?  Especially given that warlocks already have a silent, instant spy and sixth sense, there's a very narrow margin of usefulness for a scouting subclass spell, especially one with a significant prevention time.

What if NPC's were searchable with scouting abilities?  The use of a scouting ability with no modifier would return players as it does now, but adding a modifier should return any NPC matches with a short description of the rooms:

a tangle tree -- In the Mudhole
a tangle tree -- In the Mudhole
a tangle tree -- The Wetlands

This additional functionality would greatly increase the utility of scouting abilities.  For example, a hunter of the right subclass could much more easily find a lost pet or a single NPC within an area.  She could enter an area, scout for its room name, and turn on hunt when she arrived in the general location.

My understanding is that the following classes have scouting abilities in one or more subclasses:  hunter, warlock, druid.  Obviously, the strength of each ability could be adjusted according to the class.  The casters might have room exits returned next to the room titles because they are actually "seeing" their targets, whereas a hunter's ability might only return the room titles.  Perhaps druids would only have the strength to scout for NPC's from their havens, with remote owls retaining the current limitation.

If an NPC ability would be too cumbersome from a design perspective to tack onto the current abilities, perhaps these could be new skills; they could be used for expansion upon current classes/subclasses.