-Deaf

[Dean]

So I recently picked up a bard to give it a try and one of the 'crazy tips and tricks' to pvp is the -deaf command. One of the essential tools for a bard is their ability to curse song, a pretty great debuff... Yet an experienced PVPer can type -deaf (Or more accurately use a macro) to make their character deaf.

There is one penalty to deafness and that is a 20% spell failure chance due to the fact that your character cannot hear the verbal components that he is speaking.

But hey there is one great bonus to using -deaf. You're immune to curse song and other effects reliant on being able to hear. Under normal circumstances this ruling rarely comes into effect, most targets can hear and require a reason to be deaf, like having Blindness/Deafness cast on them. But with this handy emote you don't need it.

You can just emote putting in some earplugs or not even emoting at all. This tool used to simulate your character being actually deaf is instead being used to gimp a class and certain spells.
There is no downside to using -deaf either.

I suggest either its removal or rework. Perhaps make it so you remain -deaf upon using the command as long as the character exists (Or until a DM removes the status from a character.), or perhaps until the server resets... Even then it is very cheesy that it gets used in this way.

Earplugs don't stop sound, they merely dampen it, and with arcane magic it should be able to bypass earplugs. At least with silence you have to spend time in PVP to use it on yourself.

Just as a quick recap, benefits of -deaf:
Immune to Curse Song
Immune to Taunt
Immune to Sonic Damage
Immune to certain spells
Toggleable

Downsides to -deaf:
20% spell failure
Unable to benefit from Bard Song

It is effectively an unlimited self-silence that can be turned off whenever its convenient. It's an RP tool that gives an amazing bonus against bards, and high AC characters that don't cast spells are untouchable by anything other than truestrike potions and magic damage.


tl;dr
I rant about -deaf