Time to change Necromancer and Neko Bleed Eating (Full Version)

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Sapphire -> Time to change Necromancer and Neko Bleed Eating (2/24/2024 12:18:27)

Alright,
Necromancer and Neko armors have bleed eating skills. They were made in a time before eat-caps were introduced.

This was a relatively minor thing for these armors for 2 reasons:

A. Strong bleed options were relegated to other armors/options.
B. Not a whole lot of bleed gear throughout AQ


But the lovestruck set of items now means that Necromancer can wield the wand, cast a light spell, and with it's bleed toggle on it can actually do 1.5+ power bleed in 1 single spell. Then, on turn 2, it can eat all of this and the result, is 8-10k damage that heals = Mp = to that.

While some may argue the entirety of grasp essence may need a review, who knows if/when that will ever occur.

Also, the Neko armors have a bleed and burn eat in the same skill. The bleed eat is broken and doesn't work at all.

Since the lovestruck armor is the first capped bleed eat, and since Necromancer's is uncapped, and Neko armors' bleed eat are broken, and because the lovestruck items are inflicting bleeds in excess of 100% melee (3+ hits), I think it's time to go back in since the code for capped bleed eating is fresh and to fix Neko bleed eating and cap Necromancer's since the synergy with these new items creates insanity.


Also, while reviewing this, and in an attempt to try and be consistent and to avoid another revisit, I think it would be fair to question the power of the eater skills when the same thing also inflicts the thing it's eating. In other words, it's the new standard where you get half heal resist on something that also heals (wingweaver misc, wishweaver shield, potence items, etc)

Since Necromancer and Neko have bleed inflict toggles, should these "eater" skills get halved to cap at +200% instead of +400% since they also inflict the thing they're trying to eat?


Ultimately, please cap Necromancer and fix Neko. Thanks





CH4OT1C! -> RE: Time to change Necromancer and Neko Bleed Eating (2/24/2024 13:02:22)

In an effort to make this a little more objective:

As Power 1 bleed = 100% Melee, a bleed eating effect should be dealing:
quote:

+100*[Power]*[Save]% Melee


This should be capped at a maximum of +400% Melee, as compared to recent precedent on status eaters (though @Sapphire is right to raise the possibility of further restriction given the other recent precedent applied to status potency. This isn't a 1:1 comparison but some sort of restriction feels warranted).

Necromancer's Grasp essence has further complications on top of normal eater skills because:
1). It's attached to an armour, and thus receives elecomp
2). It's efficient which, as I've described in detail elsewhere, causes issues since any additive boosters are applied as if this were an full spell that costs 125% Melee in MP to use. To briefly recite here, here's the difference when we apply a elecomp to a 'standard' efficient spell of 125% melee vs one that starts at 200% Melee and takes a -37.5% damage penalty.

quote:

Efficient (Correct): 1.25 * (1 + 0.225) * 1.69716 * 1.375 = 3.573x standard melee attack
Efficient (Current): 2 * (1 – 0.375 + 0.225) * 1.69716 * 1.375 = 3.967x standard melee attack


This is even more severe for Grasp Essence, which takes a -62.5 additive penalty instead. I raise this because it's directly relevant to the bonus power provided by bleed, which can completely remove the additive penalty. By contrast, Neko is clearly bugged so that the bleed function of its status eater hardly functions at all, in that each 100% Melee of value translates to approximately 0.625% power bonus. This skill would also require the modern caps.

To fix these problems, I propose:
  • Necromancer's Grasp essence to be switched from -0.375 damage to a regular attack that's treated as spell-type so to not create bugged boost interactions
  • Necromancer's bleed eater be capped at +150% Melee as this is double the base damage of the base mechanic, fitting with the precedent of other eater mechanics
  • As I have mentioned elsewhere, damage-based healing be restricted based on expected heal. Given this skill trades half, I propose there be a harsh soft cap above 150% Melee HP in outgoing HP costs (this is 349*1.5 = 524 HP at level 150).
  • Neko's bleed eater be fixed. I suspect this is due to a /100 where it doesn't belong...
  • Neko's status eater be capped at +200% Melee for bleed and burn combined, those mix and match as preference allows. This follows and extends the Wingweaver precedent.
  • A full review is conducted of efficient and overcharged skills to extent the fix for Grasp essence, though I appreciate that this isn't a quick fix.
  • A full review is also conducted for all damage-scaled healing items. As these healers are affected by armour lean, and we've just had healing removed by spellcaster lean, it's extremely questionable why these effects should be allowed. This applies for the remainder of spellcaster options on this like Siphon and Grasp essence, as well as FO options such as Algern's carapace (which is also in need of an update).



    • Sapphire -> RE: Time to change Necromancer and Neko Bleed Eating (2/26/2024 10:25:04)

    While I did include that some players will think that grasp essence as a whole might need a revision, I think unless staff have discussed at length what they want to do with it, and they do not have plans to revisit these T3 classes as a whole, then a quick interim capping of Necromancer and a a fix/cap of Neko would be a good measure for now.

    This wasn't really an open invitation to re-write the skills as a whole as I know time is of the essence, and I thought that since bleed-eating code was more or less fresh that maybe these "fixes" wouldn't take up a ton of time like it would if we saw a complete overhaul.

    So my GBI post was thinking more about staff's limited time and attempting to fix 1 OP issue while fixing a non-working issue as well.

    I also don't think Neko's bleed and burn need a further halving if it were to be decided that eating something that you also inflict needs to be halved...because it's eating 2 things at once. I don't think this quest to find ways to further nerf Beast builds is a great look. But I do understand if each status eaten needs to be halved..as explained. But both get essentially a 75% nerf after fixing sort of departs from the entire intention.


    I would say revisit these other GBI aspects outside of the specific eater caps and the bug fix for Neko if/when these get a revisit as a whole. Or, if plans exist to revisit them soonish, then I guess it all can be looked at then



    CH4OT1C! -> RE: Time to change Necromancer and Neko Bleed Eating (2/26/2024 12:31:22)

    Although it would be possible to ignore certain problems associated with these items for the time being e.g., the efficiency problem since this applies to all modern efficient and overcharged options, others are directly relevant. For example, capping Neko's bleed/burn skill is absolutely essential given the desire to make the bleed portion of the eater not completely useless. It would further make sense to do this since, as you point out, the bleed cap would be fresh in the mind. Speaking of which...

    quote:

    I also don't think Neko's bleed and burn need a further halving if it were to be decided that eating something that you also inflict needs to be halved...because it's eating 2 things at once. I don't think this quest to find ways to further nerf Beast builds is a great look. But I do understand if each status eaten needs to be halved..as explained. But both get essentially a 75% nerf after fixing sort of departs from the entire intention.

    Please note that I made a slight mistake with my prior estimate, as it seems I wasn't harsh enough to the Magic attack. Given it's precedent that 'Eater' bonuses are capped at 2* the base attack damage, and Nekoverlord functions as a base weapon attack (100/75% Melee) with extra steps (converting to spell-type), this attack should actually be capped at +200% Melee for Melee/Ranged and +150% Melee for Magic. This would be a combined cap of burn + bleed, though I think there should probably be some further penalty given you can achieve it with either status (why should a dual status eater have the same cap as a single status eater?).



    Grace Xisthrith -> RE: Time to change Necromancer and Neko Bleed Eating (2/26/2024 15:41:01)

    I'd say given the GBI is about bleed eating, it doesn't make any sense to widen its scope to the issues of efficient versus overcharged skills. Adjusting those skills would involve adjusting (as a lowball) dozens of items / spells / effects, whereas adjusting two bleed eaters would require adjusting two items (or three, since Luna Neko's seems to be slightly different from Sol Neko's). While it's an important topic, it would take what could presumably be a quick fix, copying Lovestruck eater code to Necro / neko and adjusting, to an extremely lengthy fix. It should happen eventually though (in another GBI, maybe some generous players could dedicate time to tracking down all additive overcharged skill / spells and all additive efficient skills / spells to speed up staff work), so that there's less reason to randomly value additive over multiplicative boosting depending on the situation, and so that efficient isn't nuts and overcharged isn't dogwater.

    Bleed %melee valuation for eating is complicated because it doesn't just take the save roll built into the bleed into account, but also the statline of the player and monster at time of bleed infliction. Probably worth putting that out there. Also, bleed stacks funny, so you might get different eater valuation than you expect. Just also putting that out there.

    Luna and Sol Neko perform their eater abilities differently. Sol scales with CHA, and would always have a max eat of 150% melee. Luna (allegedly) scales with weapon type, so yes melee and ranged would have 200 while magic has 150. Important to note it's not the same for both variants though.

    Staff should decide if they want a double eater to eat double the max power, or eat the same amount differently. Double the eat would be 150% melee of burn and bleed, the same amount differently would probably be 75% melee of burn and bleed (you could have it fill in whichever there is more of if there isn't enough, but I'd say it would make sense to implement it in such a way it doesn't sometimes eat all burn and no bleed or all bleed and no burn if both are present. There are a variety of ways (in theory) to do that)



    Sapphire -> RE: Time to change Necromancer and Neko Bleed Eating (2/26/2024 18:43:03)

    I agree. This is a GBI that is taking advantage of the fresh code and trying to cap one and fix the other in light of the very strong bleed from these new items. A rather minuscule GBI is more than minuscule now. This isn't an attempt to add some time-consuming fix when there is the likelihood that a discussion on a wholesale fix may not have even taken place.

    It's a temp measure in the event there are no plans very soon (not AQ soon, but normal people soon) to revisit subraces and T3 classes as a whole. I would imagine any total fix (if anything) to grasp essence would take place when the entirety of the class/subrace get a touch-up.

    So yes, what Gibby said is taking the opportunity with fresh code to cap/fix. That's all.



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