Shattered Kingdoms

From my own experience/discoveries, all cabal inner guardians 'front load' their blast of gas with highest damage possible whilst it has the most hitpoints, then its damage gradually decrease as its hitpoints lessen (to the point it barely hurts any more).

For the attackers, the very first blast or two usually immediately take out one or two player characters right away, especially for the races particularly weak against poison. Therefore mass healing can barely keep up, everyone spams their healing vials hoping to do as much damage as possible before they hit the ground.

That leads to the mentality of 'zerging', that is, finding as many willing/able raiders as possible so they all pit themselves against this guardian and as long as a few stay alive, they can pickup the corpses/loot within corpses (as well as relic).


Suggestions to allow these guardians to either:

1. Gradually increase their gas blast damage as its hitpoints are being reduced, but appropriately increase the amount of hitpoints it has (this obviously goes against a recent change but please consider), so there is tactics involved as the guardian marvels at defenses -- it is a guardian after all, and allows defenders more time, or

2. Scale the gas blast damage attack appropriately so that it does moderate or averaged damage every strike, with no regard to its hitpoints over the course of its life span, this would in turn allow more relic raids to be possible without calling everyone on the lighty/darkie side to zerg the oppositions' headquarters...

...at which point attackers usually win regardless of defenders, when quantity far outweighs quality, it partially takes the fun away for purpose of the CRS.

m2c

What fun in crs do you speak of?

I enjoy the idea of 'ganking' a relic being something difficult and needing a relatively large group of people in order to undertake such a task. That being said, I like your first idea more than the second. In terms of the magnitude in which the gas-blast would hurt, I would prefer (if I was a defender) to see the blast hurt more as the fight went on then the opposite way because 1. healing potions running out, mana's getting spent, more people get a chance to fight before they die, etc.

And I think I must be the only one who likes CRS.

Granted, I know that most skers say that things were just 'so super cool' pre-CRS, but I started very soon after it was implemented and have played this game with CRS and never without.

While I understand what you are saying, Minette, I'm not entirely sure your solution would be better. I think we both agree that the Guardian's gas blast is really it's dominant defense mechanism. If you were to average the damage from gas blast over the course of a battle, you have to pick a number that is higher than the average heal rate of the members involved. This number, I think, would be roughly equal to the second gas blast. If it's much lower, then the ratio of damage received to damaged healed will be less than one, making the attack negligible.

Secondly, I've been in groups of where no one died from the inner guardian. It just takes a lot more preparation and a light tighter of a group. Armor has to be better enchanted, scouts have to have plenty of herbs, etc etc.

Third, remember that a multi-relic guardian will be significantly more powerful. People should die in the raid attempt. (This comment assumes we're talking about the same raid.) If people don't die, than, IMO, the system is broken.

sleeper

Guardians gain strength when they hold more relics?

Neato

like necros who get the relic in 20 seconds solo

I'd like to see some kind of maximum amount of time you can "hold" an enemy cabal's relic. After that time (e.g., 2 months IRL, but make it somewhat randomized) it would revert back to the "owner" guardian and if you wanted it you'd have to gank it again. We could make up some kind of RP reason for this - the energy slowly leaking out while separated or something.

Too often cabals with weak membership cannot regain their relics and this creates an inactivity/disinterest cycle.

Really I'd rather just not have relic ganking remove cabal powers, instead giving some kind of bonus to the victors, but that's a whole other conversation.

Why wouldn't the cabal admit defeat, and RP a truce to regain use of their cabal powers?

sleeper

PS Jennbo, the instance I have in mind occurred without any assistance from necros.

You're assuming the cabal holding the relic is willing to accept that. One instance that comes to mind is the Fist and the old Adept relic.

QFT

Major agree.

D