HIPS Nerf

[Ninjimmy]

Kindof OK with it, Truesight got nerfed FIERCE, Knockdown got gutted, it was only a matter of time before HIPS took a hit for the sake of balance.

Though I suppose giving people a relevel so they can swap the SD levels for skill focus feats on Hide and MS would be reasonable? Could even make a mini DM event where Shar suddenly takes away tons of people's connection to her plane.

[Eters]

Personally I play a stealther that isn't an SD. Hearing people say that stealth is "irrelevant" because they can't vanish every 12 seconds makes me question the way they approach stealth.

If you consider stealth a blanket sanctuary you can access with a 12 secs cooldown. Then yes you will feel gimped. But ask any stealther if they would like the ability to not have to find a wall to hide behind to break LoS, even once a minute and they will gladly take it.

People complain about true seeing but it lasts a single round, it lasts just as long as say... true strike. If you can avoid that one until it runs out, in my opinion you can avoid true seeing until it runs out.

Walls, obstacles, and the usage of the environement are crucial skills a stealther ought to know. Having the ability once every 30 secs to /not/ need them to break LoS is an amazing boon. But it is understandable that, despite it being a bad idea, people built characters with HiPS as their sole line of defense. Rendering them useless without constantly relying on it. Which is probably why I would suggest bringing a degree of balance to your builds if you were one of those that overly relied on HiPS.

Stealth is a tool in your toolbox. If your toolbox has only one tool then the issue lies there, and not in the rebalancing of a feat that was used to cause flatfooting every 12 secs for cheap shots at people.

[Nitro]

Can I ask why this differs from using spellcraft to identify that your foe is casting protection from elements, or passing the spot check to notice a pick pocket stealing from you even if your inventory isn't open?

It seems to me that if someone scatters caltrops in front of the entrance to their quarter, in an attempt to not be followed, rather than on the transition inside where someone will load in with no chance to react, that this should not only be allowed, but is sensible.

Someone implied it was god-emoting, but if you're already paranoid and looking for someone who follows you, and they take damage on the caltrops you scattered, it seems reasonable to me that the inflicted damage would either draw blood (leaving an IC means to determine a follower) OR their skin is impossibly tough because RP reasons, and the caltrop would break, still giving an IC reason to know. (While we're at it, can we open a side-thread to discuss the fact that 95% of quarter entrances are in wide-open areas or hallways with lighting and no concealment, but it's not 'god-emoting' against the person you're following that they don't see you coming into their house behind them, even as they hurry to slam the door shut?)

Can we get clarification on this? I understand the spirit of not wanting players to go through a transition and leave traps on the transition that people can't avoid. Leaving traps outside of a transition into a locked quarter, however, seems like it handily solves the exploit factor of baiting people into traps they can't see. You don't load into the trap, you choose to go through it before you transition. You would of course still be responsible for cleaning up after yourself to ensure you don't harm innocent passerby, but it seems like the obligation should end there.

1: Caltrops last until they have dealt 25 points of damage, or until server reset.
2: You will see the combat log popup that your caltrops deal damage to someone no matter how far away you are, even in different areas.
3: There is no way to remove or avoid caltrops put in a narrow corridor.
4: The visual model of caltrops doesn't load in for people entering an area after some time has passed.

So here we have a simple item that both realistically and in P&P you should be able to just move slower to avoid, that reveals a stealther to the person who dropped the caltrops with no counterplay and cannot be removed by a stealther by any other means than triggering all 25 points of damage.

You tell me how it isn't an exploit to be inside a quarter, getting to know for free that there's a stealther outside, or heck even standing and chatting in the market two blocks away when you suddenly know there's someone fiddling with your door?

[Jack Oat]

TLDR: You broke SD and made it useless as well as SM. An 18 second nerf would have been reasonable. This makes no sense. Just get rid of HIPS if you don't like it and give us all re-levels.

lol

[Orian_666]

I currently play a SD and the nerf sucks, frankly i'm not a huge fan of such heavy handed changes instead of gradually testing smaller ones until a nice point is settled on. Nerfing a core ability by more than a 100% in a single go is HUGE and does greatly affect the players that focus their style around that specific ability (it's one of the classes main features, that's undeniable).

Now, that being said even though I think the nerf sucks and it could have been done a bit more gracefully, I do not however think that the class, the ability, or the playstyle is now broken and pointless. Stealth even without HiPS is still extremely viable and easy to manage, LoS stealthing has been a method of gameplay for a very long time (anyone remember when we didn't even have HiPS at all back in the day and people had better access to things that broke stealth?) and will continue to be one. Now instead of being able to hide in LoS every 12 seconds it's only changed to 30, we can still LoS during that cooldown like we had to previously and use the ability in clutch situations when it's off CD.

Some things will be a little harder, there'll be a requirement for a more tactical style of gameplay more often, but ultimately things will be fine. What this fixes is HiPS cheesing every 12 seconds to get a flurry of Flat Footed attacks on opponents in PvP which frankly (even as someone that could do it) is an extremely annoying and toxic style of play.

PS. anyone claiming SD's suck in PvP and require HiPS to be viable as it's their special form of AC, you need to go back to the drawing board. I've built Dex based SD heavy builds in the PGCC that can pull 70+ AC with EDodge and still get their sneak attack damage on account of the Shadow being beside them and the flat foot from stealth benefits.
My current character is a Str based SD in cloth armor that can manage AC of around 50 if I really push it, and that's without IE.

(Edit)PPS. I would however, for the sake of posterity and maybe to alleviate the burn some players are feeling, like to see some beneficial change in place of this nerf. Just a simple couple things;

1. Boost the Shadows Hide and MS to at least be in line with the characters. It's bad, and having a top quality stealther that easily gets revealed due to their shadow being terrible at hiding is not a fun thing to experience.

2. Grant a MS bonus alongside the Hide bonus. You do lose a lot of utility from other classes by taking a deep dive into SD and it's ability to quite literally blend into the shadows as one of their main features should be reflected in that. Sure Hide makes more sense being the only bonus realistically, but we've balanced out the Hide/MS requirement for stealth in a lot of other ways like granting both feats on a single feat selection for example. I see no reason why this can't be done for the SD too to show that they're masters of stealth. Even if both were increased by 1 per 2 SD levels, the same amount of skill point bonus overall technically, instead of it being just +1 Hide every level.

[Biolab00]

I currently play a SD and the nerf sucks, frankly i'm not a huge fan of such heavy handed changes instead of gradually testing smaller ones until a nice point is settled on. Nerfing a core ability by more than a 100% in a single go is HUGE and does greatly affect the players that focus their style around that specific ability (it's one of the classes main features, that's undeniable).

Now, that being said even though I think the nerf sucks and it could have been done a bit more gracefully, I do not however think that the class, the ability, or the playstyle is now broken and pointless. Stealth even without HiPS is still extremely viable and easy to manage, LoS stealthing has been a method of gameplay for a very long time (anyone remember when we didn't even have HiPS at all back in the day and people had better access to things that broke stealth?) and will continue to be one. Now instead of being able to hide in LoS every 12 seconds it's only changed to 30, we can still LoS during that cooldown like we had to previously and use the ability in clutch situations when it's off CD.

Some things will be a little harder, there'll be a requirement for a more tactical style of gameplay more often, but ultimately things will be fine. What this fixes is HiPS cheesing every 12 seconds to get a flurry of Flat Footed attacks on opponents in PvP which frankly (even as someone that could do it) is an extremely annoying and toxic style of play.

PS. anyone claiming SD's suck in PvP and require HiPS to be viable as it's their special form of AC, you need to go back to the drawing board. I've built Dex based SD heavy builds in the PGCC that can pull 70+ AC with EDodge and still get their sneak attack damage on account of the Shadow being beside them and the flat foot from stealth benefits.
My current character is a Str based SD in cloth armor that can manage AC of around 50 if I really push it, and that's without IE.

(Edit)PPS. I would however, for the sake of posterity and maybe to alleviate the burn some players are feeling, like to see some beneficial change in place of this nerf. Just a simple couple things;

1. Boost the Shadows Hide and MS to at least be in line with the characters. It's bad, and having a top quality stealther that easily gets revealed due to their shadow being terrible at hiding is not a fun thing to experience.

2. Grant a MS bonus alongside the Hide bonus. You do lose a lot of utility from other classes by taking a deep dive into SD and it's ability to quite literally blend into the shadows as one of their main features should be reflected in that. Sure Hide makes more sense being the only bonus realistically, but we've balanced out the Hide/MS requirement for stealth in a lot of other ways like granting both feats on a single feat selection for example. I see no reason why this can't be done for the SD too to show that they're masters of stealth. Even if both were increased by 1 per 2 SD levels, the same amount of skill point bonus overall technically, instead of it being just +1 Hide every level.

I actually only agree with the 1st paragraph only. Since, 12 second CD to 30 second is increasing the CD by 150% and that's rather heavy-handed. The rest, i'm not very sure since i don't play SD.
Then again, this perhaps, only affect in PVP? This is because i don't see any link that this has to do with PVE since, your shadow will tank for you and gives you sneak attack bonus. If you are using HIP in PVE regularly, feels weird since monsters are generally stupid.

I'm really curious if there's really so much PVP going on in Arelith at all because this topic seems to be heading towards the end of the world route.

[Orian_666]

I actually only agree with the 1st paragraph only. Since, 12 second CD to 30 second is increasing the CD by 150% and that's rather heavy-handed. The rest, i'm not very sure since i don't play SD.
Then again, this perhaps, only affect in PVP? This is because i don't see any link that this has to do with PVE since, your shadow will tank for you and gives you sneak attack bonus. If you are using HIP in PVE regularly, feels weird since monsters are generally stupid.

I'm really curious if there's really so much PVP going on in Arelith at all because this topic seems to be heading towards the end of the world route.

It's very much only going to affect PvP for SD heavy characters, yes. Any SD PC that was using stealth every 12 seconds (or feel they need to use it even every 30) in PvE aren't using their shadow properly because it can tank pretty much anything.

As for a 5 level dips it's a bit more in the air, but still barely impactful in PvE because you have other tools, abilities, and utility, from the class you did build heavy into, whatever that may have been, and so HiPS shouldn't be your core ability for survival or playstyle.

It's definitely not the end of the world in PvP, for SD heavy builds or just dip builds, that's for sure.

[Jagel]

Overall solid change but RIP kobold commando shape.

[-XXX-]

Is having "only" 2 alpha strikes per PvP encounter really that aggravating? Other builds get like 0.5...

[Gazfrost]

Makes it more interesting for the class if you strive for better stealth with HIPS by decreasing the timer the more levels you take in SD.... so from lvl 5 SD its 30 sec.. by SD lvl 15 its 20 sec ... SD 20 is 15 sec cooldown.

[-XXX-]

Anything lower than 30 sec is hardly a cooldown at all as you can simply have them chase your character until the ability is available again (and that's using the least favourable option as an example)

[Imperatrix]

Nice change, though I would have made it 1 minute. Deeper analysis already provided by Hex and Scurvy.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

Every time I PVP'd Shadowdancers before this change I won by killing them in one or two flurries before they had time to HIPS. I've always felt sorry for people with characters who don't dish out 300 DPS who had to fight SD's though because of the HiPS spam. Honestly I'd like to see the cooldown pushed to a whole minute or more. Even with a 30 second cooldown you'd have to be an idiot or seriously distracted to die as a Shadowdancer. It's basically a "Get out of the Fugue Free" card.

[Normolomue]

I would just like to voice my opinion here as well.

I am playing a 21 Ranger/9 AA build archer path, definitely a glass cannon. I get absolutely shredded by just about anything. HiPS is my only real defense. I am not even considering PvP since I've never done it, but PvE wise, it is an unreasonable nerf in my opinion.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

HiPS is basically the equivalent of a Greater Sanctuary with unlimited uses and infinite duration. For a 5 level dip you get the equivalent of an 8th level spell, with unlimited uses, and infinite duration. Greater Sanctuary has a timer of 240 seconds or FOUR MINUTES! I don't see many squishy wizards dying in PVE, they can even solo the Abyss completely naked. If your Ranger is dying you have bigger problems with your build than a 30 second cooldown on HiPS.

Edit: Oh and HiPS is instant, can't be interrupted or dispelled, and works in anti-magic areas. Plus it doesn't cost piety or spell components.

[the grim yeeter]

Overall solid change but RIP kobold commando shape.

As if that was even a thing to begin with.

Anyway, now that we've finally started nerfing this broken ability (surprise: a 30 second cooldown isn't enough), can we also have the cooldown exploit/abuse fixed? For those who are unfamiliar with it, see the previous thread shared earlier for details.

[NPC Logger Number 2]

I've been saying for a while Shadowdancer should require a token. Nobody RP's their Shadowdancer abilities they just take it so they can spam HIPS and try to gank flat-footed people plus there's way too many of them. One time I joined a party of 5 people and I was the only person without a summoned Shadow.

[Arigard]

I've been saying for a while Shadowdancer should require a token. Nobody RP's their Shadowdancer abilities they just take it so they can spam HIPS and try to gank flat-footed people plus there's way too many of them. One time I joined a party of 5 people and I was the only person without a summoned Shadow.

If RPing your class sheet was actually enforced, 90% of characters on Arelith would get flagged for not doing it. I've lost count of the "Stunningly beautiful" descriptions only to see "Charisma: Low".

[Orian_666]

I've been saying for a while Shadowdancer should require a token. Nobody RP's their Shadowdancer abilities they just take it so they can spam HIPS and try to gank flat-footed people plus there's way too many of them. One time I joined a party of 5 people and I was the only person without a summoned Shadow.

If RPing your class sheet was actually enforced, 90% of characters on Arelith would get flagged for not doing it. I've lost count of the "Stunningly beautiful" descriptions only to see "Charisma: Low".

Agreed. The guidelines for Arelith clearly state that a class can be RP'd any way you want so long as it's reasonable anyway.

"Players can call profession of their character in any way they like. Fighter can be brawler, duelist, swordsman, guard, and so on. Other characters will react on those claims in character, so if a character claims to be duelist and wizard of level 5 can win over him without spells and weapons, then others will laugh at the "duelist" character "in character".

It is even possible to roleplay a fighter without having a single level of fighter, for example Rogue/Ranger. Or Harper Scout without having the class levels."

So basically just because someone has some SD levels doesn't mean they have to RP that to the letter.

[Arigard]

I think with this cool-down, adding move silently that scales with the Shadowdancer level alongside hide would really give a bit more back to the class. Rogues get their little tools and tricks and Shadowdancers would get the real investment in being able to be unseen, which is really what they are built to be, but there's still true seeing scrolls and the spam won't be as crazy to counter.

[magistrasa]

Overall I think the change is... probably going to be alright. Bit miffed since I sacrificed CON for stealthing capabilities on my latest character, but I'm used to playing meme builds so the trash doesn't bother me anyway.

The thing about the people saying stealth is a wasted investment is that the PvP rules require RP before engagement. You can't get the drop on someone without HiPS, and if you don't get the drop on someone, you don't get sneak attack, and if you don't get sneak attack, you deal a pitiful amount of damage as a DEXer. Now that HiPS is likely only going to be used as a tool to initiate combat, rather than an ability used throughout, one can see why it'd be a lot less attractive. Stealth isn't a waste of time by any means, but for the people who used it for its combat capabilities and weren't particularly interested in the treacherous world of spy roleplay, I can see why it'd feel that way. SA characters are back to needing a buddy to operate alongside, whereas HiPS made their combat options a lot more viable one-on-one.

(I won't talk about Shadow Mage because Shadow Mage makes me sad, but that's nothing new lol.)

I'm thinking it's time to finally make HiPS its own ability, rather than firing off every time you enter stealth. The CD increase means you have to be more tactical about when you use it, and even when it was a 12 second cooldown it was a bit irritating and unintuitive to work around. I felt like I was double stealthing more often than I was actually HiPSing, and in a clutch situation, that inability to make a distinction has gotten me killed in really dumb stupid idiot ways.

[Ninjimmy]

Agreed. The guidelines for Arelith clearly state that a class can be RP'd any way you want so long as it's reasonable anyway.

"Players can call profession of their character in any way they like. Fighter can be brawler, duelist, swordsman, guard, and so on. Other characters will react on those claims in character, so if a character claims to be duelist and wizard of level 5 can win over him without spells and weapons, then others will laugh at the "duelist" character "in character".

It is even possible to roleplay a fighter without having a single level of fighter, for example Rogue/Ranger. Or Harper Scout without having the class levels."

So basically just because someone has some SD levels doesn't mean they have to RP that to the letter.

I generally agree, but feel like you're maybe mis-attributing some elements of that ruling.

I mean, you can't for example RP a Necromancer as a Druid who's summoning animals with the Animate Dead spell, some of the mechanics are just locked into certain elements and Shadow Dancers do summon a Shadow which is often a feature nobody RPs about, it's just there as an "Oh, I just have this," thing.

You can RP your relationship with Shar/the Shadowplane how you like it, like I know at least one Shadow Dancer who's anti-Shar but has a connection there anyway and does RP the shadow connection being something forced upon them. But it IS actually RPed it isn't like "I click a button and get a free shield for sneak attack". I mean... you don't tend to see the same dynamic an SD has with their shadow as a mage has with a familiar, for example, I think THAT is what NPC Logger 2 is talking about.

Plus, a fair few PrC's are locked behind RP walls where you need to display you know how to play that class right, i.e. Shifters, Assassins, it's not unreasonable to say Shadow Dancer oughta have something in place for it since the Shadow and HiPS are both pretty powerful and enforcing some RP for it could be beneficial to getting players to engage with it a bit more.

(Not advocating that stance exactly but is an option)

[NPC Logger Number 2]

Agreed. The guidelines for Arelith clearly state that a class can be RP'd any way you want so long as it's reasonable anyway.

"Players can call profession of their character in any way they like. Fighter can be brawler, duelist, swordsman, guard, and so on. Other characters will react on those claims in character, so if a character claims to be duelist and wizard of level 5 can win over him without spells and weapons, then others will laugh at the "duelist" character "in character".

It is even possible to roleplay a fighter without having a single level of fighter, for example Rogue/Ranger. Or Harper Scout without having the class levels."

So basically just because someone has some SD levels doesn't mean they have to RP that to the letter.

I generally agree, but feel like you're maybe mis-attributing some elements of that ruling.

I mean, you can't for example RP a Necromancer as a Druid who's summoning animals with the Animate Dead spell, some of the mechanics are just locked into certain elements and Shadow Dancers do summon a Shadow which is often a feature nobody RPs about, it's just there as an "Oh, I just have this," thing.

You can RP your relationship with Shar/the Shadowplane how you like it, like I know at least one Shadow Dancer who's anti-Shar but has a connection there anyway and does RP the shadow connection being something forced upon them. But it IS actually RPed it isn't like "I click a button and get a free shield for sneak attack". I mean... you don't tend to see the same dynamic an SD has with their shadow as a mage has with a familiar, for example, I think THAT is what NPC Logger 2 is talking about.

Plus, a fair few PrC's are locked behind RP walls where you need to display you know how to play that class right, i.e. Shifters, Assassins, it's not unreasonable to say Shadow Dancer oughta have something in place for it since the Shadow and HiPS are both pretty powerful and enforcing some RP for it could be beneficial to getting players to engage with it a bit more.

(Not advocating that stance exactly but is an option)

Yeah this pretty much sums up my feelings on it. I don't care if you RP getting your powers from the shadow plane, worshipping Shar, or whatever, long as you are RPing it. Problem is there's WAY too many Shadow Dancers and almost none of them do any kind of RP or have any kind of backstory to justify it, like Ninjimmy said it is just kind of there and it is so common no one even bats an eye at it anymore.

[Orian_666]

I generally agree, but feel like you're maybe mis-attributing some elements of that ruling.

I mean, you can't for example RP a Necromancer as a Druid who's summoning animals with the Animate Dead spell, some of the mechanics are just locked into certain elements and Shadow Dancers do summon a Shadow which is often a feature nobody RPs about, it's just there as an "Oh, I just have this," thing.

You can RP your relationship with Shar/the Shadowplane how you like it, like I know at least one Shadow Dancer who's anti-Shar but has a connection there anyway and does RP the shadow connection being something forced upon them. But it IS actually RPed it isn't like "I click a button and get a free shield for sneak attack". I mean... you don't tend to see the same dynamic an SD has with their shadow as a mage has with a familiar, for example, I think THAT is what NPC Logger 2 is talking about.

Plus, a fair few PrC's are locked behind RP walls where you need to display you know how to play that class right, i.e. Shifters, Assassins, it's not unreasonable to say Shadow Dancer oughta have something in place for it since the Shadow and HiPS are both pretty powerful and enforcing some RP for it could be beneficial to getting players to engage with it a bit more.

(Not advocating that stance exactly but is an option)

To be fair I did specifically say "so long as it's reasonable anyway.", lol.
I do agree that someone who "just has a shadow with no explanation" isn't really doing a good job of it and should explain that a bit better, it's very much tied to the shadowplane and there's not a /lot/ of leeway in that regard. But in my experience it's very rarely the case that people don't at the very least have some vague RP explanation for that.
How many people do you come across with shadows and you ask them IC about it and they have nothing? How many do you come across and you ask IC at all?

I definitely do agree that certain things should be RP'd, to an extent, a certain way like you said you can't exactly be a necromancer creating a bunch of undead and then claim to be a druid otherwise you'll very certainly be called out and laughed at for your BS IC, lol.
But I also do think that a lot of people, not you or NPC Logger specifically, come across things that aren't explained to them by the PC in question (like just popping a shadow out of nowhere) and just jump to the conclusion that they don't have an explanation, yet no effort to question or ask them about it was made too, you know =p

Either way though I think that this specifically is a topic for another thread, RPing character traits and abilities, and SD being token locked. Best to stick to the HiPS thing in this thread

[Ninjimmy]

To be fair I did specifically say "so long as it's reasonable anyway.", lol.
I do agree that someone who "just has a shadow with no explanation" isn't really doing a good job of it and should explain that a bit better, it's very much tied to the shadowplane and there's not a /lot/ of leeway in that regard. But in my experience it's very rarely the case that people don't at the very least have some vague RP explanation for that.
How many people do you come across with shadows and you ask them IC about it and they have nothing? How many do you come across and you ask IC at all?

I definitely do agree that certain things should be RP'd, to an extent, a certain way like you said you can't exactly be a necromancer creating a bunch of undead and then claim to be a druid otherwise you'll very certainly be called out and laughed at for your BS IC, lol.
But I also do think that a lot of people, not you or NPC Logger specifically, come across things that aren't explained to them by the PC in question (like just popping a shadow out of nowhere) and just jump to the conclusion that they don't have an explanation, yet no effort to question or ask them about it was made too, you know =p

Either way though I think that this specifically is a topic for another thread, RPing character traits and abilities, and SD being token locked. Best to stick to the HiPS thing in this thread

(( Just replying to say you made some good counter-points but like you said, getting way off topic so won't counter-argue, just acknowledging you have a point as well ))