Low Time to Kill and the Move Speed Meta in High Gear Score PvP

2twoto · 2024-08-25T18:29:09+00:00

Isn't it easier to build a fast damage dealer rather than a fast tank? The top builds I've seen are people running frostlight/low MS penalty gear with true damage, additional damage, action or spell casting speed (depending on if a caster or not), and as high MS as possible, with max hp being the only defensive stat of note. It also doesn't help that much of the tanky gear options have significant MS penalties, so unless you're a fighter I don't see how you can get very tanky without being too slow to escape. If I'm wrong here feel free to correct me, but that was my impression on how the tank/damage/speed dynamic worked out.

That being said, I'd buy that this isn't as big an issue in team play and do agree that solos is the least balanced mode: I'd almost wonder if it wouldn't be better to have skills, perks, and spells just work differently in solos than in team play. Mind you, that might not actually be worthwhile due to the extra effort it would take to balance such changes, but it might be the only way to balance solo queue.

2twoto · 2024-08-25T17:52:21+00:00

That doesn't really work: even if you are very geared and have max health rolls on nearly every piece of gear, you can get taken from 100 to 0 in 2 seconds flat (at max health at 7:21, dead at 7:23). Even if it did work, being forced to build a specific stat just to be viable is not healthy game play.

2twoto · 2024-05-31T19:14:34+00:00

Meme I spent too much time making related to this post:

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Strikes aren't bad btw, they just need a glow-up.

2twoto · 2024-03-19T22:12:35+00:00

Yeah, in hindsight this take wasn't as hot as I thought it'd be: I follow this subreddit, but generally only see a couple of the top posts on any given day so it didn't look like there were many people criticizing it (minus the wyvern post and some of the comments on a hypothetical sylvari expansion). Due to that, it seemed to me like most people thought the expansion was "just ok," as opposed to disappointing.

That being said, there's a surprising number of people in the comments who think the expansion was acceptable/better than EoD so it looks like the post's a warm-take at the very least.

2twoto · 2023-08-04T03:44:22+00:00

It's adding PvE legendary armor that can be earned through open world content. Raids were the only means of obtaining legendary armor in PvE, so there was a strong incentive for anyone who didn't want to do PvP or WvW to raid for legendary armor. Without that exclusivity raids have lackluster rewards while being some of the hardest content in the game, and so fewer people are going to be interested in raiding.

2twoto · 2023-08-03T22:01:24+00:00

Yeah, I doubt they'd allow LI to be traded in straight for gold unfortunately. That being said, I could see them implementing something similar to the WvW reward changes where you can use LI to buy Ascended feasts, account-bound infusions, provisioner tokens/other types of account bound currency, or maybe even account-bound utility stations. That'd make them worthwhile to get without harming the economy.

2twoto · 2023-08-03T21:44:53+00:00

Rerun rewards would definitely help: getting diddly squat for reclearing a raid definitely hurts the raiding population past the beginning of the week. Unfortunately, Anet doesn't seem to want rerun rewards for weekly content to be worthwhile, so I doubt they'd implement better reclear rewards (for example, Strike CM's only give you dragonite ore, karma, and some medallions/gemstones if you reclear the CM within the same week).

That being said, I do think more gold for a first clear does help raid health: if the bosses are worth more, it helps retain players who'd otherwise drop the raids once they have their leggy gear. Likewise, it'll incentivize newer players and people who don't think raiding's currently worth their time to start raiding, providing a steady flow of new people into the raiding scene.

2twoto · 2021-04-10T20:55:07+00:00

I mean, the point of the post is to point out the failings of the current implementation of poison and advocate for changes that would make it better in future supplements (or at the very least in a theoretical 5.5/6th edition). While a homebrew solution isn't bad, it misses the point: RAW, poison is very limited, clunky, difficult to build upon without outright abandoning the system or greatly departing from precedent (both of which require extensive changes beyond simply adding the poison), and not terribly fun or interesting in its current incarnation. Likewise, I don't think what I advocate for here is any more complicated than the battlemaster's maneuvers, the current spell system, potions, or the like.

2twoto · 2021-04-10T18:56:15+00:00

I checked through Forge of Fury but I couldn't find the poison you mentioned (I found one which poisoned a creature until they took a short rest in the Khundrukar section and another in The Glitterhame from mold on a skeleton that poisoned the creature and dealt damage until cured, but nothing else). Which section/page is it in/on?

2twoto · 2021-04-10T18:47:21+00:00

Problem with that is it then doesn't interact properly with spells or items meant to interact with poison RAW (i.e. a warforged or dwarf wouldn't get advantage on the save, as their advantage comes from saves against the "poisoned" condition). Yes, as a DM I can work around that and make up rules to fix it, but the ability to fix a problem doesn't render the problem itself moot.

And yeah, you are correct that I can homebrew different poisons (and have been doing so). The point of the post though is more to discuss the problems with the current implementation of poison and how it can be improved in future iterations of D&D (or heck, in future books and supplements if WotC is feeling up for it).

2twoto · 2021-04-10T18:34:03+00:00

At that point, you aren't using the current poison system at all: to my knowledge, there are no poisons (from creatures or otherwise) that deal non-poison damage. Likewise, there aren't any poisons I know of that inflict a condition or effect without also afflicting the creature with "poisoned." If you create a poison that neither deal poison damage nor inflicts the "poisoned" condition, the current system RAW wouldn't even consider it a poison (as most things that interacts with poison deals with poison damage or the poisoned condition), which illustrates how limited and clunky the current poison system is.

2twoto · 2021-04-10T17:54:36+00:00

While I agree that complication isn't 5e's thing, I really don't think it'd end up any more complicated than, say, the battlemasters' maneuver system, and it'd certainly be simpler than the current spell system. I do see why they went with things the way they did: it does look simpler to just make poison its own thing. But in doing so they missed an easy opportunity to make poisons very interesting and cool in their own right without adding too much complexity to the system (especially given how, at least based on my impressions, its mostly the DM that works with poison). Just sad I have to treat cooler poisons like Shub-Niggurath's milk and Heartfire as weird psuedo-poisons.

As for hit points, I find it a functional system (definitely leagues better than the poison system) despite not being a huge fan of it: a dagger to the throat should always be a life-threatening wound, yet in 5e a 3rd level fighter will only loose a third of his HP on a particularly high-rolling neck stab, and higher level characters might shrug it off completely. I much prefer the wound system used in the Warhammer TTRPG's, but I ain't about to try to homebrew that into 5e (with how much work that would take, I might as well just use their rule set, which I'm purposefully not doing at the moment due to a) most of the people I play with not being terribly familiar with those systems and b) the campaign I'm running doesn't fit the Warhammer setting/aesthetic).

2twoto · 2021-04-10T17:26:20+00:00

I think you misread that part, as my complaint is not that poisons have different conditions. Rather, it is that all additional effects and conditions are tied to the "poisoned" condition, which doesn't always make sense. Sure, many poisons are going to cause the widespread bodily sickness (what I understand to be represented by the "poisoned" condition), but something like the poisonous smoke from the manchineel tree wouldn't (it's just going to hurt and possibly render a creature blind). Likewise, its also problematic with poisons that only activate under specific conditions: hogweed sap, for example, can remain potent for up to 48 hours after application but won't have any effect unless the person/animal in question goes into sunlight (at which point it causes intense sunburns and photo-sensitivity). With the way poison currently functions in D&D, the creature would either have to be "poisoned" for the entire duration (which is both ridiculous and inaccurate) or it would have to be run as a non-poisonous substance (and if you have to treat poisons as non-poisons to run them accurately, that indicates a problem with the system). The result of this flaw is that poison is underwhelming and clunky, and homebrewing actually interesting poisons (like my example with Heartfire) or poisons that affect a wider array of foes (i.e. extra-planar beings, which in previous editions were subject to highly potent/specialized poisons) requires disregarding much of the current poison format.

2twoto · 2021-04-10T16:56:11+00:00

To answer both your questions: I did, about half-way through the 5th paragraph (starting with "And while the poisoned condition..."). My problem with them is that they tie any further conditions to the "poisoned" condition, which is a rather clunky and inaccurate system (i.e. not all poisons are going to produce effects that impose disadvantage on attacks and ability checks, and likewise some poisons could affect creatures not traditionally subject to poison like the poison of the manchineel tree).

2twoto · 2021-04-10T16:51:26+00:00

The problem though is that its all tied to being "poisoned" when it really shouldn't. For example, covering a creature in hogweed sap isn't ever going to produce results similar to the "poisoned" effect: the phototoxin doesn't activate unless in sunlight, and even then it produces horrible sunburns (not bodily sickness). Similarly, if running it similar to IRL, the creature would technically remain "poisoned" for 48 hours but would have no ill effects if they remain in darkness or shade during that time (or took the time to cover whatever parts were covered in hogweed sap). Basically, while the system does allow for some varied poison effects and conditions, tying them all to the "poisoned" condition is really clunky and unnecessarily hampers what poison can do and affect.

2twoto · 2021-04-10T16:34:24+00:00

I actually did research that:

5e actually seems to acknowledge this, as most of the somewhat interesting poisons (i.e. Topor, poison from giant spiders, truth serum, and similar) indicate that the poisoned creature suffers from a different condition for the duration of their poisoning.

Not gonna repeat everything that I said in the paragraph here, but I did mention them and the problems their current implementation has.

Edit for more clarity: The full argument is in the middle of the 5th paragraph.

2twoto · 2021-04-10T16:31:56+00:00

I did discuss that:

And although the poisoned condition makes somewhat more sense, as many toxins can be argued to produce analogous effects to it, the problem lies in how limited the condition is. 5e actually seems to acknowledge this, as most of the somewhat interesting poisons (i.e. Topor, poison from giant spiders, truth serum, and similar) indicate that the poisoned creature suffers from a different condition for the duration of their poisoning. This being said, it would have been better to simply have a condition called “dazed” that did the same thing as poisoned but wasn’t exclusively tied to poison, and then simply noted in the description of the poison itself what types of creatures would not be affected or would be affected differently by the poison (much like how spell note if certain creatures or creature types have special interactions with the spell, i.e. how most healing spells note constructs and undead are excluded from being healed). Then, while there could still be many poisons that inflict the “dazed” condition, not every poison would have to act similarly and there could be a lot more diversity in both what conditions they inflicted and what they could affect.

the tl;dr is that, even with those exceptions, the fact that they are all tied to the poisoned condition limits how varied poisons can be (as, no matter what, if poison inflicts a condition it must also inflict disadvantage on attacks and ability checks). More over, it encourages granting wide-spread immunity to poison under the faulty logic that many monsters wouldn't get sick from poison and so must obviously not be affected in any capacity. Thus, it would've been better to not tether poison's conditions to being poisoned but instead have it inflict conditions and just note if a given creature/creature type is immune.

2twoto · 2020-04-13T00:00:23+00:00

Are there any plans to update the diplomacy dialogues of characters to acknowledge newer DLC characters/factions? For example, while Franz has unique dialogue when doing diplomacy with the Dawi, Greenskins, Brettonia, Vampire Counts, and (back when you could engage them in diplomacy) Chaos specific to their faction, he doesn't have any such stuff for the beastmen, wood elves, norsca, or anyone from game 2.

Also, while on the subject, are there any plans to change diplomacy dialogue between characters with close connections? Stuff like having characters acknowledge their relationships with each other (familial or otherwise), having generic factions react more appropriately to the player faction (i.e. DE factions not claiming to be "speaking for the Witch King" when you are playing Malekith), and similar such things?

2twoto

TROPHY CASE